by Dana Nussio
Tony stepped closer to Kelly and spoke in a low voice. “I’ll head out now. Follow me in ten. We’ll meet up in the lot by Mill Pond Park and then go together to pack our bags.”
Don gestured toward them. “Have either of you left the office yet?”
“I was on my way out,” Tony said. “Going to get a few hours of sleep.”
“I need to finish up a few things, and I’ll go, too,” Kelly said.
She waved and then retreated into her cubicle, where the note was still on the desk. She tucked it back in her purse. How was she supposed to act as if everything was normal? How was she supposed to pretend that she wasn’t suspicious of everyone around her?
We have met the enemy, and they are us. As a version of an old quote repeated in her thoughts, she shook, and the face that reappeared on her screen deepened the shiver. Yes, they had to find Harper before it was too late, but they could only do that if they managed to stay alive.
A few minutes later, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Once in the hall, she could finally breathe again. After all this was over, there would probably be hell to pay over her and Tony’s choices for going rogue in the investigation, but there was no turning back. Their careers, and possibly their lives, were in each other’s hands.
Chapter 17
Tony pulled his too-hot hoodie tighter around his head as he stepped in the side-entry door Kelly held open for him. She’d checked into the economy hotel at least a half hour earlier and waited in her room for his text that he’d arrived. No need for them ever to be seen together in the lobby.
Neither spoke as they took the staircase instead of the elevator to the fourth floor. Only after they were inside, and she’d bolted the door behind them, did she turn back to him.
“Sure you weren’t followed?”
“Positive. I even left my car at the park and ride off Interstate 96 and took a shared ride over here like a dude having an affair.”
She blinked as if his words had struck a nerve. Well, served her right. They might have spent the past two hours trying to relocate from their homes without being noticed, but that didn’t mean her rejection hurt any less. He’d said they would deal with her relationship issues later. Now he had to figure out how to ignore his.
“We were sneaking around like the prey in a bad cat-and-mouse movie,” he said.
“I hope we have better luck than those mice. How are you supposed to get back to work, anyway?”
“Aren’t you going to drive me?” At her wide-eyed expression, he shook his head. “You’ll drop me off at the park and ride, and I’ll go pick up the rental. We’ll worry about that tomorrow. I told the others I would get some sleep.”
Her carry-on and garment bag were already on the bed nearest the door, so he dumped his single duffle on the other bed by the bathroom. She pulled out a few things that had to be underwear from the way she wadded them up to keep him from seeing them. He didn’t have to remind her of the intimate items he’d already viewed. They both remembered.
“I couldn’t sleep now if I tried.” She tucked the first items in one of the bureau drawers.
“Ditto.”
Her gaze flicked to him, but she quickly returned to her work, pulling a stack of T-shirts and shorts from the bag.
“Just how long were you planning to stay here?” he asked.
“Not long if you keep picking on me. I’ll take my chances at home.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll knock it off.”
“Good. Anyway, I can’t show up at work looking like I’m living out of a suitcase. So, truce?”
“Truce.”
This time she pulled a notebook and two file folders out of that massive purse of hers. “I thought we could try to come up with some theories while we’re here.”
“You don’t happen to have a cheeseburger or two in your Mary Poppins bag, do you? We were rushing around so much we forgot to get food, and I can’t think until I’ve eaten something.”
“Sorry.” She zipped her purse. “The hotel information guide listed several pizza-delivery places.”
“Perfect.”
Soon they were eating slices of pepperoni pizza on paper plates while sitting on their respective beds. Plastic pop bottles chilled in the ice bucket Kelly had filled from the machine down the hall.
“Better?” she asked.
“Almost,” he said, as he polished off his second slice.
At least with one of his needs met, he might be able to bear being so close to her and sharing the same recirculated hotel air without being able to touch her.
She wiped her fingers on one of the flimsy napkins the pizza-delivery lady had provided and then opened a file folder.
“First, let’s look at the two investigations. Are they really indicating a common suspect, or are we forcing the connection?”
Tony accepted the file she handed across the chasm between the beds. He opened it and spread grisly crime-scene photos in a line across the overstuffed pillows.
“Those rhinestones are a pretty unusual clue.”
“Yeah, that’s a different one.” She held out her hand, and he passed a photo back to her. “But in the first case, in the autopsy, a few stones were found inside one of the girls’ stab wounds. In Harper’s case, no blood stains were found anywhere near the crime scene.”
“Maybe she was just lucky...at least at first.”
“Let’s hope she still is.”
“We have at least a cursory connection between the two crime scenes,” he began. “Now, what do we have, if anything, that connects those crimes with the letters we received? Because I don’t see it.”
“We’re just missing something.”
He grabbed the brown bag from his briefcase, donned gloves and withdrew his note again. After returning to the bed, he held the note near the line of photos but didn’t set it with them.
“There’s either no connection, or it’s not an obvious one.”
Kelly opened her purse again, this time pulling out the wadded piece of paper he recognized. She spread it out on the folded maroon coverlet that stretched over the end of her bed. Then she pulled her hands back as if she didn’t want to touch it. She sat straighter, seeming more uncomfortable with this note than even the ugly photos they’d been studying.
“He can’t get you here,” he said automatically and then regretted it.
Her shoulders curled forward again. “I know. It’s just...”
Tony waited as long as he could for her to fill in the blank before he demanded, “It’s just what?”
She shook her head.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re still not telling me even after...”
He didn’t say the rest, wasn’t confident he could without his voice breaking. Hadn’t he been humiliated enough today?
She scooted to the edge of the bed and rested her bare feet on the floor. For a long time, she said nothing as she stared at her folded hands.
“It’s probably nothing. It’s ridiculous, I know. It makes me sound like I can’t tell the difference between real and imagined anymore.”
He couldn’t bear another moment of not touching her when she appeared so distressed. He sat on the edge of the bed across from her and reached to cover her gripped hands with his.
“Why don’t you tell me? I’ll help you figure out if it’s ridiculous.”
Still, she didn’t answer. His grip tightened slightly on her hands.
“It was BIG DADDY.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Because...because he’s the same guy who took Emily.”
She lowered her head onto the pile of their hands then. For a few seconds, he sat frozen as so many earlier details lined up like a bulleted presentation. Who had she been chatting with that first day when she�
�d lost it? BIG DADDY. Who was among those she’d been communicating with yesterday, when she’d been so upset that he’d had to drive her home? Someone using that same screen name.
Carefully, he extracted his hands from beneath her head and gently lifted her shoulders. In her wary eyes, he could almost see that child who’d been too terrified to scream and had never forgiven herself for it.
“What did that man do to you, Kelly?”
At that, she jerked her head up, as if she’d awakened from another bad dream.“That’s not... I already told you...it wasn’t me.”
“And the guy you’ve been talking to wasn’t him.”
She drew her brows together, not buying his words.
“You don’t know that. You weren’t there.” She shook her head. “You can’t possibly know who Emily’s abductor was or where he is now. He’s still out there. He’s always been out there.”
“What makes you think that the suspect you’ve been talking to now could be him?”
He lightly rubbed his hands up and down from her forearms to her wrists, but she shifted back as if she didn’t want to be touched.
“You don’t believe me?”
He kept his hands to himself this time, though his fingers ached to reach out again, to somehow make it better for her.
“I believe that you are convinced what you’re saying is true.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. You don’t know. You didn’t hear him...”
Her words fell away as she shoved her hand back through her hair, messing up that ponytail she’d tied it in when she’d changed out of her work clothes. But she’d started, and he couldn’t let her stop now, not until she’d shared the whole story.
“What did he say to you?”
She shook her head but then she spoke, anyway.
“He said, ‘She’s mine. Stay quiet, or I’ll be back for you.’”
“That son of a bitch.”
Though it sounded more like a growl than words, she didn’t seem to hear him.
“But I didn’t stay quiet. I went for help...as soon as I could move.”
“You did the right thing. You were a child, and yet you were brave. Because of you, your friend found her way home.”
Again, she shook her head, refusing to accept the free pass he offered.
“She escaped. That was the only way Emily ever made it home. He got away and never paid for his crimes.”
“You haven’t told me why you think BIG DADDY is the guy.”
“It’s his...voice.”
“His voice? It wasn’t something he said?”
She shook her head, frowning at him as if he was daft.
“I always told myself I would never forget it, and the moment I heard it again, I just knew.”
It all made sense now. She’d fallen apart the moment the guy had spoken in the voice chat. She’d thought she’d heard a ghost. Now she was convinced she had. “You know, it was a long time ago when you heard that man speak.”
“I know what I heard.”
“And you were probably in shock when he threatened you. From your training, you have to know that even eyewitness accounts from multiple witnesses will be glaringly different.”
“It was him. I’m sure it was him. And then the note. He said he’d come and...”
“I know you want BIG DADDY to be him. You want to be able to stop him. But it’s been how many years? Eighteen? There are nearly 900,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S. alone, and that number includes only those who’ve been convicted. The odds of you being able to pick a suspect that many years later, just by the sound of his voice...”
“It was him.”
Her words were as strong as they’d been earlier, but her tone held questions it hadn’t moments before.
“And, remember, Emily escaped. He could have targeted others, maybe even have been caught. This whole time he could have been in prison. Maybe even dead.”
Though he hoped it was the last, he’d been in criminal justice long enough to know how rare it was for even convicted felons to receive the justice they deserved.
“I’m sorry, but it’s unlikely that the man we spoke to and the predator who hurt your friend are the same person. BIG DADDY could be our suspect in the current case, but chances are, he wasn’t the one in yours.”
“You’re probably right,” she whispered and then buried her face in her hands.
If he was right, then why was she crying?
“Sweetheart, it’s okay.” This time he couldn’t hold back. He stood and took her hand, pulling her into his arms.
“It’s not okay. It’ll never be okay.”
“Why?” he whispered, though he suspected he already knew.
“Now I’ll never...make it right.”
Her sobs against his chest tore right through him, surely touching his core. He ached for the way she’d been hurt, mourned the answer she’d thought she’d found and the fact that the reparation she’d longed for was still out of reach. The ghost from her past would continue to haunt her.
In time, her chest stopped shaking enough for him to loosen his arms. When he pulled away, still loosely gripping her elbows, she stared back at him. Her skin was blotchy, and gray rivulets of mascara trailed down her cheeks.
She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said, though he would have given anything he owned for her never to have to cry like that again.
Without asking for permission, he shuffled over to her bed, moved the files and her purse that remained on it and pulled back the comforter.
“Here, why don’t you get inside?”
He expected an argument. She was a strong woman. She didn’t need someone to put her to bed. So he blinked back his surprise when she stepped past him and slid between the sheets. As he reached to shut off the side of the lamp directed toward her bed, her hand snaked up and rested on his forearm.
“Would you mind holding me? Just until I fall asleep?”
Good thing she didn’t seem to expect him to speak. He wouldn’t have gotten a word past the lump in his throat. He started to climb on top of the covers, but she turned them back.
He settled in the bed behind her, slid one arm beneath her and draped the other over her.
“Thank you,” she said in a sleepy voice. Earlier today, he’d been convinced he would never have her in his arms again, but here she was, so close he could feel her heartbeat against his forearm. It wasn’t the way he’d hoped to hold her, but at least she’d trusted him enough to let him comfort her.
The situation was far from perfect. They still had many questions. The answers might be enough to rip apart the task force he’d chosen to leave but whose mission still meant so much to him. For now, though, they were relying on each other, and it was enough.
“Tony,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He traced his fingers through the silky strands of her hair and waited.
“If not him, then who else could have left those warnings for you and for me?”
“We’ll figure that out. Tomorrow. Rest now.”
She either accepted his words, or she was too tired to argue, as her breathing evened in sleep. He could have returned to his own bed, if he’d been able to remove his arm without awakening her, but he needed that connection as much as she’d needed him.
Tomorrow. He’d promised to find the answers so that she would sleep, but he’d meant it more than she could have known. Yes, someone was coming after them, but he would only be able to reach Kelly over Tony’s dead body.
Chapter 18
A circle of aromatic cigar smoke drifted around him in his office, the flavors of honey, coffee and cedar providing fine complements to his general feeling of satisfaction.
He wouldn’t even let the MIA status of one Cory Fox bother him. Sure, the guy had
n’t been at his crappy apartment either time he’d checked in on him, but it wasn’t difficult to find a sniveling momma’s boy.
“Hope you like her new condo in Boca,” he muttered.
At least that would get him out of his hair for a short while. He’d even keep the creep’s secret about sneaking out of town until his probation officer caught on.
No, he wouldn’t think about Fox now. Not when the proof of his own genius was right there on the laptop screen. He had them on the run this time. The proof came in the two vibrant circles from the tracking devices he’d placed on their personal cars. The digital map showed that both vehicles were stationary now, parked for the night two miles apart.
If Lazzaro thought he’d outsmarted anyone by leaving his car at the park and ride, he’d underestimated his adversary this time. He and his trooper girlfriend probably thought they were taking every precaution to ensure they weren’t followed while moving to the no-tell motel. He didn’t have proof that they were together there, but it wasn’t difficult to guess.
“Nighty night, civil servants. Enjoy your tiny cocoon while you can.”
He grinned as the circles of light held steady. Roberts and Lazzaro were now a team of two. They didn’t know who their enemy was, nor from where the attack would come. He’d effectively divided the task force since they couldn’t report the threats, particularly the slashed tires, without revealing their taboo relationship.
This was a perfect solution. Why had it taken him so long to come up with it? It was like the polar bear hunters, who suddenly found themselves the predator’s prey.
Now he only had to sit back, monitor their movements through the tracking device and through the chat rooms and wait for them to make more mistakes. Their first one had been letting him capitalize on their weakness, which turned out to be each other.
He would strike when they were most vulnerable. With one tragic auto accident, he could eliminate them both and bring to light an uncomfortable affair within the task force ranks, as well. Any work the two completed together would be tainted, and any progress on the murder investigation would be lost in a cloud of suspicion.
