CHAPTER TWO-2
2280 Words
Golightly’s cool gray eyes appraised her as she entered his office. He was a small, wiry man in his late fifties, although he looked older, with deep wrinkles splitting his leathery cheeks. He waved Sadie into a seat.
“O’Hara,” he barked, “fetch Agent Price a hot drink, would you?”
“I’m fine, thank you, I had plenty to drink on the drive here,” Sadie said. At each services stop she had ordered the strongest coffee they served, and she doubted if she would get any sleep that night with the level of caffeine in her system.
O’Hara left the room, shutting the door behind him, and Golightly steepled his hands under his chin and looked at Sadie until she started to feel awkward.
“Welcome to Anchorage,” he said eventually. “You come highly recommended.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“So, what I’m wondering,” he went on, “is why a BAU hotshot like yourself is being transferred to a bumfuck place like Alaska?”
Sadie swallowed, feeling the tension rise in her throat. She had expected the question and already knew what her answer would be. It was giving away more of her background than she was entirely comfortable with, but it would deflect from the full story about Jessica and, besides, it would come out sooner or later.
“I am Alaskan,” she said simply. “I moved away years ago. I saw the opening for the post, and decided it was time to come home.”
The last word sounded odd to her own ears. Alaska hadn’t been home for a long time, during most of which she had sworn that she would never come back.
“Fair enough,” Golightly said, and Sadie was relieved when he didn’t seem inclined to press any further.
“That’s a relief, Agent, because it means you will be used to the way things are here. To me, Alaska is the best place in the world to be, but there’s many who can’t cope with the cold and the ice. The job can be quiet for months. We’ve had five agents in your post in the last four years.”
Sadie wasn’t too surprised, and she doubted that the reason was solely about the climate, although it no doubt played a big enough part. Less big cases to solve meant less chance for promotion.
Golightly picked up a piece of paper from the desk in front of him, and Sadie spotted her name. It was her resumé, no doubt sent through from DC. The ASAC skimmed through it, nodding and grunting in approval here and there. Then he looked up, his eyebrows raised in admiration.
“You were on that Boston serial killer case? The one that used power tools on his victims? That was in the news for months. Heck, even up here, folks were talking about it.”
“Yes,” Sadie nodded. “I was the BAU agent assigned to that case.”
Golightly looked impressed. “I heard it was the behavioral analysis expert that cracked it. You did good.”
Sadie, never easy with compliments, tried not to squirm in her seat. She knew that her resume was good, better than good in fact. It cast her in a glowing light. There was nothing on the neatly typed page that revealed the intricacies of Sadie’s last big case, the one that had nearly broken her. The one that had driven her all the way up here, to what could easily be a career dead end.
When he had finished, Golightly fixed her with that searching look again, peering at her over the desk.
“You must be pretty darn fond of the place to come back,” he said. Sadie swallowed, hoping that he wasn’t going to ask too many questions, even though she knew that he must have plenty of them.
“Folks work hard for years to get in the Behavioral Analysis Unit,” he continued, and Sadie’s stomach sank as she heard the note of suspicion in his voice. “Seems pretty odd to me that anyone would leave it to come back here. Can’t say as we’ve ever had a BAU agent here before.”
“I guess it was just time to come home,” Sadie said quietly. She looked down, feeling Golightly’s eyes still boring into her, and the tension in the small office was suddenly palpable, as though all the words that she was speaking were vibrating in the air around them.
“I suppose everyone goes home, eventually,” Golightly added, barely disguising the curiosity in his voice. Sadie didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure that the ASAC would welcome her primary motive for returning to Alaska, the thing that had driven her whole career, if she dared to be honest with herself.
Sadie had gotten good at catching killers, but there was one that she still had left to apprehend.
Her sister’s.
“Well, we don’t get too many psycho killers up here either,” Golightly said, oblivious to the dark turn in Sadie’s thoughts. “Not too many lunatics running around with power tools.”
“I’ve had my fill of them,” Sadie said lightly, attempting a smile. There was a silence, then Golightly sat back in his seat and the tension in the air between them softened.
“You’re staying in town?” he asked, clearly deciding to drop the subject for the time being. Sadie nodded, relief washing over her.
“I’ve got a motel room booked less than half a mile away. I figured the closer the better with the travel conditions in the winter. I have a few rental places to view over the next few weeks, all local.”
“Good. Will you be calling in on any old friends while you’re here? It can be a lonely place when you don’t know anyone. You’ve been outside Alaska a long time.”
“I’m from up in the hinterlands, just up from the Nancy Lakes area,” Sadie said, her mouth dry. Coming across familiar faces from her past was not something that she was looking forward to. “A lot of my school friends moved away; I think.”
Golightly shrugged. “A lot of folks do. Okay, Price, go and get yourself settled in. I’ll see you here at eight am sharp tomorrow morning.”
Sadie was standing up to leave when O’Hara came in, his previously eager face now grim. Sadie felt a familiar stirring in her stomach; something had happened and, judging by the look on O’Hara’s face, it was going to involve a body bag or two.
But nothing could have prepared her for the young agent’s next words.
“There’s been a body found up in the lakes, Sir,” he said. Golightly raised bushy, gray eyebrows.
“Not a lot of information you’re giving me there, O’Hara. Male, female? I’m assuming there’s suspicion of foul play if we’ve been notified.”
O’Hara blushed as he replied. “Sorry Sir. Female, early twenties, as yet unidentified. The Medical Examiner is with the body now at the site. All I know is there are possible indications of forced drowning. I don’t have any more information than that. She was found in the early hours of the morning by an ice-fisherman named Tom Willoughby. He reeled her in.” O’Hara grimaced at the image.
“Which lakes?” Golightly asked.
“Up at Nancy,” O’Hara said. “Part of the Lynx Lake Loop.”
The Lynx lakes consisted of at least fourteen lakes, which spent a large part of the year completely frozen and so were popular with both ice skaters and ice fishermen. They were all connected, a large body of water fed by a gorge a few miles north of the area.
Jessica had been found in those same lakes.
Sadie stared at O’Hara, trying to hide the sudden surge of adrenaline, but Golightly must have noticed her reaction, as he looked at Sadie with a challenge in his eyes.
“Well, what do you know? This is an omen if ever I saw one. A potential murder on your first day. Want to take a look?”
Sadie nodded, trying not to betray her shock. A potential murder case on her first day could be just what she needed to establish herself here and put the last case in DC behind her. But that wasn’t the reason that her heart was thumping so loudly that she was amazed Golightly couldn’t hear it.
A young woman, dumped in the frozen lakes on her first day back? Just like Jessica had been? Sadie wasn’t given to superstition and knew as a BAU expert the importance of not seeing patterns that may not be there, but the eeriness of the coincidence wasn’t lost on her.
Assuming it was a coincidence.
Sadie carefully arranged her face into a neutral but faintly eager expression, trying to strike the right balance between being ready to get stuck into her new job without betraying the fact that this case had already touched a very personal nerve.
“Although as you said, Sir, it is my first day. I wouldn’t want to tread on anyone’s toes,” she said, although her whole body was itching to get out of her chair and investigate.
Golightly shrugged, clearly not too concerned with the digits of other officers. “You’re the hotshot, Agent Price. Looks like you can start proving those credentials of yours straight away. You can start by getting yourself acquainted with the local Sheriff, although I’ll warn you, he ain’t usually too keen on our involvement.”
“That’s not uncommon; I can handle it,” Sadie assured him. The ongoing antipathy between federal and state law enforcement bored her. As far as she was concerned, they were on the same side, and whoever the poor girl in the lake was, she deserved better than to have petty resentments stand in the way of justice. She wondered who the unidentified victim was.
“Good,” Golightly said approvingly. “May as well get stuck in straight away. Not what you expected though, ay?”
“No, Sir.” Sadie had been expecting to spend at least a few months dealing with nothing more harrowing than some mild d**g dealing and firearms charges. Cases that were way below her level of experience, not to mention her pay grade, but that would have bought her time to reinvestigate her sister’s death. There would be plenty of time for that, though. Right now, another young woman had her life cut short, and her body dumped in the lakes like so much rubbish. Sadie felt a surge of anger. Her exhaustion from the long drive and appetite for breakfast were forgotten. Getting settled into Anchorage could wait.
She leaned forward, feeling her detective instincts come to the fore.
“Any recent missing girls Sir? Or similar cases?”
Sadie felt a sudden sense of déjà vu. She fought against the memories that were fighting to resurface. Of another body, and another lake. Her sister’s face surfaced in her mind, and she pushed the image away quickly.
She couldn’t think about Jessica now. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself back into the present moment to listen to what the ASAC was telling her, letting her professional mindset take over. The rest could wait.
“Not that we’re aware of Agent Price,” Golightly said. “But given the time of year I bet the ME will find it almost impossible to tell when she was drowned, and there might not even be enough evidence to prove it a murder one way or the other. Ice preserves, but it destroys too. But you don’t need me to tell me that, do you?”
Sadie flinched at his words, even though she knew he could only be referring to the fact that she was originally Alaskan. Golightly wasn’t a local…he couldn’t know about Jessica. Her death in the end had been written off as unexplained, and no one was ever questioned or charged. Sadie had never bought it.
She wasn’t going to let the same thing happen again.
“Yes,” Sadie agreed. “Which makes it the perfect medium for a murder.” The hairs stood up on the back of her neck at her words and she knew that something was very off about this whole scenario.
“Let’s not go jumping to any conclusions here Agent,” Golightly said firmly, although the way he was drumming his fingers on his desk suggested that he was thinking along much the same lines. “Go and check it out and report back. Try not to tread on too many of those toes. Take O’Hara if you’re not comfortable on your own…although it might be a bit much for the Sheriff.”
“No, Sir, you’re right, it will be better if I go alone,” Sadie said, trying not to notice the disappointed look on O’Hara’s face. “Best not to ruffle any local feathers on my first day.”
“You’re a local too,” Golightly reminded her, “and if it does turn out to be something more sinister than an accident or domestic, then we’re going to need you.”
Sadie nodded and stood up, ready to go.
“Agent Price,” Golightly said, calling her back.
“Yes, Sir?”
“Do not,” he told her, looking grim, “let that damn Sheriff try and keep you away from the action.”
- Writer
