Page 24 of Go Under

“You weren’t wrong,” Kate told him. “Gerald Mace was punished for his part in the Avery case. It just so happens that Donna Frick was punished for a different reason.”

“Very well. What do you two plan to do in the meantime?”

Kate looked at Marcus. Marcus tilted his head and said, “I think I’m going to track down some of Gerald’s old coworkers and see what they have to say about him.”

“Those memories would be thirty years old, Marcus,” Darnell reminded him.

“Then let’s hope they’re noteworthy.”

Darnell didn’t seem too convinced. “All right. And you, Kate?”

“I’m going to look into Donna Frick.”

“So, we’ll be duplicating efforts?”

Kate frowned. “Well, I was hoping you would look specifically for a connection between Donna and Gerald. I’m going to look at her specifically to see if there’s another transgression she may have committed to earn punishment.”

“Ah. Very well. Good luck to you both.”

“And to you.”

He hung up, and Marcus turned to Kate. “That was odd.”

“What was odd?”

“Just now between you and Darnell. I sensed tension there.”

Kate’s shoulders tightened a little. “He’s just a tough personality type for me.”

“Quiet, serious, and dedicated to his job? Respectful to both of us and willing to defer leadership to us despite his comparable experience and success?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “He’s a good agent. We just have personality types that butt heads.”

Marcus kept his eyes on her. “I think it’s something more than that.”

Kate sighed heavily and turned to him. “You want to focus on me right now, or do you want to focus on the case?”

Marcus watched her for a long moment. Kate held his gaze, and eventually, he sighed. “All right. Just remember that I’m on your side, Kate. No matter what.”

“And I’m grateful for that,” Kate said, “but I don’t want to deal with my personal issues right now, none of which have anything to do with Darnell anyway. I just want to find the person who killed Gerald Mace and Donna Frick and bring them to justice.”

Marcus nodded. “So do I.”

They continued in awkward silence for a moment, standing in front of the car and wondering how to close this brief scuffle. Marcus eventually took the initiative, handing her the car keys. “Take the car. I’ll walk.”

“I’m just going to the hotel,” Kate said. “You might need to drive. You take the car. I’ll call an Uber.”

Marcus didn’t look happy about that. Kate knew he liked to walk to clear his head when he was frustrated. “Just walk around until you have a reason to drive,” she said, “But I’ll be sitting on my tail doing nothing in the hotel. Just digging into old records.”

Marcus tilted his head. His jaw worked again, and he looked past Kate’s shoulder as though searching for answers on the façade of the medical examiner’s office. “Better idea. We stay together. I call about Gerald’s old coworkers—and let’s face it; they are thirty years old. I probably won’t get anything. Meanwhile, instead of digging through records, we drive back to Wilmington and talk to Donna Frick’s former coworkers at the school. Their memories will be far more recent.”

Kate’s lips thinned. Marcus was reaching for a legitimate investigatory reason, but the real reason was that he didn’t want to leave Kate alone. Kate’s evasiveness about Darnell confronting her about Cox had set off alarm bells. Now he didn’t want Kate out of his sight.

It annoyed her a little that the reason he’d reached for was sound. She didn’t have a good reason to refuse. “Fine. Then you can call Darnell and tell him the change of plans.”

“I’ll text him,” Marcus said. “He’s a big boy. If he has a reason to protest, he’ll call us back.”

“Works for me.”