In that second a million things went through my mind. The observation room I knew by heart, down to the stain on the carpet where I’d dropped a coffee cup two years back, and where I had become a visitor. My Detective Barbie clothes hanging in my wardrobe, Maher’s juicy morning throat-clearing routine. The others, waiting for me in the library. The cool lily-of-the-valley smell of my room in Whitethorn House, wrapping around me soft as gauze.
“You could be,” I said, “yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Sam, who in fairness had had a long day already, finally lost it. “Jesus, Cassie! What the hell? You can’t seriously believe in that mad crap. What side are you on?”
“Let’s try not to think in those terms,” Frank put in, virtuously. He had arranged himself comfortably against a wall, hands in his pockets, to watch the action. “We’re all on the same side here.”
“Back off, Frank,” I said sharply, before Sam could punch his lights out. “And Sam, I’m on Lexie’s side. Not Frank’s, not yours, just hers. OK?”
“That right there is exactly what I was afraid of.” Sam caught the startled look on my face. “What, you thought it was just this tosspot”-Frank, who pointed to his chest and tried to look wounded-“that had me worried? He’s bad enough, God knows, but at least I can keep an eye on him. But this girl-On her side is a bad, bad place to be. Her housemates were on her side all the way, and if Mackey’s right, she was selling the lot of them down the river, not a bother on her. Her fella over in America was on her side, he loved her, and look what she did to him. The poor bastard’s a wreck. Have you seen that letter?”
“Letter?” I said, to Frank. “What letter?”
He shrugged. “Chad sent her a letter, care of my FBI friend. Very moving and all, but I’ve been through it with a fine-tooth comb and there’s nothing useful there. You don’t need distractions.”
“Jesus, Frank! If you’ve got something that tells me anything about her, anything at all-”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“Read it,” Sam said. His voice sounded raw at the edges and his face was white, white as it had been that first day at the crime scene. “You read that letter-I’ll give you a copy, if Mackey won’t. That fella Chad is bloody devastated. Four and a half years, it’s been, and he hasn’t gone out with another girl. He’ll probably never trust a woman again. How could he? He woke up one morning with his whole life in bits around him. Everything he dreamed about, gone up in smoke.”
“Unless you want that super of yours in here,” Frank said silkily, “I’d keep it down.”
Sam didn’t even hear him. “And don’t forget, she didn’t fall into North Carolina out of the sky. She was somewhere else before that, and for all we know somewhere else before that. Somewhere out there, there’s more people-God only knows how many-who’ll never be able to stop wondering where she is, whether she’s in a shallow grave in a dozen pieces, whether she went off the rails and ended up on the streets, whether she just never gave a damn about them to start with, what the hell happened to blow up their lives. All of them were on this girl’s side, and look what it did to them. Everyone who’s been on her side has ended up fucked, Cassie, everyone, and you’re going the same way.”
“I’m fine, Sam,” I said. His voice rolled over me like the fine edge of dawn haze, barely there, barely real.
“Let me ask you this. Your last serious boyfriend was just before you first went undercover, am I right? Aidan something?”
"Yeah,” I said. “Aidan O’Donovan.” He was good news, Aidan: smart, high octane, going places, an offbeat sense of humor that could make me laugh no matter how crap my day had been. I hadn’t thought about him in a long time.
“What happened to him?”
“We broke up,” I said. “While I was under.” For a second I saw Aidan’s eyes, the evening he dumped me. I was in a hurry, had to get back to my flat in time for a late-night meeting with the speed-bunny who ended up stabbing me a few months later. Aidan waited with me at my bus stop and when I looked down at him from the top deck of the bus, I think he might have been crying.
“Because you were under. Because that’s what happens.” Sam spun round to Frank: “What about you, Mackey? Have you got a wife? A girlfriend? Anything?”
“Are you asking me out?” Frank inquired. His voice sounded amused, but his eyes had narrowed. “Because I should warn you, I’m not a cheap date.”
“That’s a no. And that’s what I figured.” Sam whipped round to me again: “Just three weeks, Cassie, and look what’s happening to us. Is this what you want? What do you think happens to us if you head off for a year to do this fucked-up joke of an idea?”
“Let’s try this,” Frank said softly, very still against the wall. “You decide if there’s a problem on your side of the investigation, and I’ll decide if there’s a problem on mine. Is that OK with you?”
