Washington, D.C.
Snow began to fall, and Maggie pulled her ball cap down tighter. Her eyes tracked along the buildings as she walked, searching for surveillance cameras.
The collar on her FBI jacket was already turned up, but wet flakes still slid down her neck. It was only December, and she was tired of the cold. It felt like she couldn’t warm up ever since getting caught in an early October snowstorm back in the middle of Nebraska.
Other than instilling a bone-deep chill, that blizzard had revealed a lot of things for her personally. Her friend, Gwen Patterson, often said a crisis pushed people to show their true selves. It churned up and sifted out what was trivial, then brought to the top all that was real—what mattered most. A sort of push-come-to-shove analogy.
For Maggie, that storm and what was lost in it, forced her to admit some things to herself. It wasn’t until she’d almost lost Ryder Creed that she realized how very much she needed him. That was a hard pill to swallow considering she’d spent the last ten years convincing herself she didn’t need anyone else.
Two months later, she still wasn’t comfortable with that admission.
“You FBI?” a woman’s voice called out from behind Maggie.
When she turned around, it took her a minute to find the woman. She had tucked herself alongside the concrete stairs to a small coffee shop. An awning over the entrance protected her from the snow. It looked like she was wearing every piece of clothing she owned. Her small face scrunched between a pink scarf and a knit cap.
“Yes, I am,” Maggie told her.
“You don’t look FBI.”
“Sometimes that helps.”
The woman didn’t smile at Maggie’s attempt at humor, but she nodded like she understood exactly what Maggie meant.
Since she made no effort to move, Maggie backtracked until she was a few feet in front of her.
“You working with those other cops? Cause all they wanna do is move us out. They don’t care where we go as long as we’re not in their way. They don’t even care about Danny. They just dragged him out of here in that bag like he was nothing.”
“Did you know Danny?”
The woman’s eyes flicked to the side, and she pursed her lips together. Mentioning his name may have been a slip of the tongue. If Maggie remembered correctly, Racine’s team didn’t even have a name connected to the victim, yet.
“I don’t know anything about nothing,” she said, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her bundled chest.
Despite the slip, she’d called out to Maggie. Maybe she just needed prompting.
“It’s really cold out here. You want to get a cup of coffee?” Maggie gestured to the door on the left and three stairs up from them. Morning rush was over. From what Maggie could see, there were plenty of empty tables.
“They don’t allow us in there.”
“I doubt they’ll say anything if you’re with an FBI agent.”
The woman looked up and held Maggie’s eyes, studying her as if searching for a trap.
“I can’t leave my things.” She pointed to a battered canvas tote and a plastic garbage bag tied up in a way to leave a handle at the top.
“Bring them along.” Maggie moved to the front of the stairs, leaving the railing side for the woman to join her. She was tempted to help carry her things, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to look pushy or worse—anxious about whatever information she had.
When the woman stood, she was barely five-foot tall, but she knew how to leverage the bags over her slumped shoulder and under her arm. She followed, one step then two, stopping to look up and examine Maggie again. Her head swiveled back to the street, checking if she’d missed a setup. Even as Maggie held the door open for her, she came through slowly, eyes now darting to the employees, expecting someone to shout and tell her to leave.
The man behind the counter simply nodded when he realized the two were together. Maggie chose a table in the corner where no one was in earshot. And there was extra space for the woman to deposit her bags and keep them close.
Maggie shrugged out of her jacket and sat down. The woman didn’t remove a single piece of clothing, but she pulled down the scarf beneath her chin.
“I’m Maggie, by the way. What’s your name?”
“Years ago, they called me Vanessa. Now I go by Nessie.”
“I’ll get us a couple cups of coffee. How do you like yours?”
“Hot would be nice.”
Maggie smiled and waited. Then she realized she was serious. That was her only request. All Nessie cared about was that the coffee be hot.