A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera)

by Isabella Maldonado

  Wade finally spoke. “Then you coming back into their lives is a blessing for them. You can give them something that was taken from them.”

  She gave voice to the worry that had been eating at her. “How will they feel about me when they know I lied to them? They wanted to know what happened to their missing granddaughter, and I stood right there in front of them and twisted the knife in deeper. Reminding them of everything they’d lost and offering no hope at all.”

  “We talked about this when we agreed to keep your relationship quiet for the time being,” Wade said. “Sharing that information with them wasn’t an option.”

  “I’m not sure if they’ll accept that explanation.” Her throat began to tighten. “If they’ll accept me.”

  “Families overcome a lot of challenges.” Wade spoke with a certainty she didn’t share. “You’re not accustomed to that because you’ve never had a family of your own.” He hesitated. “You’ve never experienced unconditional love, have you?”

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

  “You’re their blood, Nina,” Wade said quietly. “I know it’s not something you can easily understand, but trust me, it means one hell of a lot.”

  She swallowed the emotion clogging her throat and moved on to another concern. “Perez is getting suspicious.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s a detective,” she said. “He sensed something when I was at the Vegas’ house. He asked me about it, but I blew him off.”

  “You can tell him about it when the time is right. When the investigation is over.”

  “He’ll be angry with me.”

  Wade eyed her. “And this matters because you . . . care for him?”

  “Stop psychoanalyzing me, Wade.”

  “It’s fairly obvious to me that he has feelings for you, but I can’t get a read on what you think about him.”

  “I’m not interested in romance right now.”

  “That’s not an answer, but I’ll take it,” he said. “Now wouldn’t be the right time to start a cross-country relationship . . . or any other relationship, for that matter.” When she flicked a glance at him, he continued. “You’ve got a full load in the wash . . . no room to cram in more stuff.”

  They lapsed into a silence again as Nina surveyed the office complexes and shopping centers with their tall arches and stone facades. She spotted their exit and took the ramp off the freeway. “This is a nice city.”

  “From what I’ve found online, Mesa is a combination of new and old. It’s in a state of transition. This area is one of the newer neighborhoods.”

  “The addresses go up,” Nina said a few minutes later as she turned onto Forge’s street. “Odd numbers on the right and even on the left.”

  “We should be getting close to Forge’s house. Do a slow roll.”

  Nina gave him a look. “You do realize that in an upscale neighborhood like this, someone will probably call Mesa PD to report a suspicious vehicle if we hang around too long.”

  “Look.” Wade pointed. “That’s his next-door neighbor.”

  They watched a heavyset, balding man wheeling a large blue bin from the side of his house toward the street.

  Nina had noticed most of the other houses had similar receptacles standing upright at the ends of their respective driveways. She squinted at the three arrows configured into a triangle on the side of the bin.

  “Must be collection day for recycling tomorrow.” She watched the neighbor awkwardly make his way toward the street, the cumbersome load bumping along on the cobblestone walkway. He struggled to keep it from tipping as it swayed side to side.

  The neighbor yanked the bin out onto the street, rolling it beside an identical blue receptacle next to Forge’s driveway, then trudged back into his house and shut the door.

  Nina recalled how Breck had pilfered her soda can at the Boardroom back in Quantico. “Forge lives alone, right?”

  “According to Breck’s research, yes.” Wade’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

  “That it’s time for a good old-fashioned trash run.” She held up a hand to forestall his objections as soon as he opened his mouth. “Legally, we can’t go onto his property,” she said. “But his trash can is on a public street.” She paused for emphasis. “He’s relinquished control of the contents, which means he has no expectation of privacy for anything inside.”

  “Technically, that’s true, but—”

  “Buxton will be more than happy when we turn up with a sample of Forge’s DNA to match to the one collected in the Llorona case,” she said. “Forge has ghosted. There’s no better way to get what we need for a warrant than a solid DNA match. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait to get a subpoena to search his office? And even if we got evidence techs in there today, there’s a lot of cross contamination to deal with.”

  “And what happens when that neighbor of his sees us rooting through the trash like a couple of wayward raccoons and calls the police?”

  “We make sure we’re gone before they get here,” she said. “Hand me the evidence kit. I need a couple of bags and some latex gloves.”

  Wade heaved a resigned sigh and opened his door. “It’s been a while since I’ve been proned out at gunpoint while a uniform yells at me to show my creds.” He made a mock wistful expression. “I kind of miss it.”

  He lifted a duffel from the floor of the back seat and handed it to her. She pulled out the supplies she needed, and they sauntered toward Forge’s driveway.

  Nina nudged Wade’s elbow and pointed at the mini camera system aimed straight at them. “So much for stealth mode,” she said, snapping on the gloves. “He’s probably watching us from his cell phone right now.”

  Wade didn’t appear concerned. “Given what happened at Jexton today, I’d say we lost the element of surprise as soon as we made that phone call.”

  She noticed he said we and appreciated the gesture, though she still felt personally responsible.

  Ten minutes later, they climbed back into the SUV with four evidence bags to show for their effort.

  Nina stripped off her gloves and tucked them in a small plastic baggie before sanitizing her hands and starting the car. “Why don’t we call and see if Perez can meet us at the lab to put a rush on this?”

  Wade pushed the speed dial button and put his cell to his ear. “We’ve either just made the entire case . . . or screwed it up beyond repair with this little stunt.”

  Chapter 44

  Despite her earlier comments to Wade, Nina had prepared herself for an angry rebuke from Buxton. After their explanation of the circumstances, however, he had agreed that their dumpster-diving episode had been both legal and efficient.

  Perez had called the Phoenix crime lab and spoken to Dr. Ledford, who accepted the specimens Nina handed her and agreed to rush the comparison with the unknown sample from the Llorona case.

  Throughout the drive from the lab back to the Phoenix field office, Nina had contemplated the trail of devastation Clay Forge had left in his wake as he traveled through life. Everyone who came near him suffered—his baby sister, his parents, the man who had befriended him, and his ex-wife.

  After arriving at the command center, she listened as Wade briefed the rest of the team on the interview with Gail. When he finished, Nina summed up her observations. “Personally, I think Forge is a black hole that sucks in everything and everyone that gets too close,” she said, then gestured toward Wade and Kent. “But I’ll defer to the forensic psychologists.”

  “A black hole is an accurate description of an untreated psychopathic narcissist,” Kent said. “Emotionally, he’s a void, and yet he has a powerful ability to attract victims who are ultimately destroyed if they cannot escape his orbit.”

  “I thought narcissists were self-centered people who think they’re better than everyone else,” Perez said.

  “That’s a common misconception because they appear to exhibit arrogance,” Kent said. “Truth is, they’re so deeply insecu
re that they overcompensate.”

  “Narcissism is a disorder of self-esteem,” Wade added. “They live in constant fear that people will see through their act. They can’t stand it when someone else gets attention or is recognized for achievement, because they fear it diminishes their own accomplishments. They cannot stop talking about themselves because they want to be sure they are viewed as the best at everything. They gaslight other people because they cannot ever—under any circumstances—admit they are wrong or that they made a mistake. Not even about the tiniest thing. They are scared to show weakness of any kind.”

  “So you’re saying that underneath all the bragging and the lying is a frightened individual who is terrified of rejection?” Perez asked.

  “Bingo,” Wade said. “But you couple that with antisocial personality disorder, and you’ve got a real recipe for disaster. Take the traits we just described and infuse them into a highly intelligent person who is incapable of remorse, does not have the slightest sympathy for others, and has no compunction about eliminating anyone who gets in his way.”

  “Don’t forget to add the ability to charm and manipulate others,” Kent said. “It’s their superpower.”

  “How does this apply to Clay Forge?” Buxton asked.

  While Nina and Wade interviewed Gail, Buxton had directed the team, along with Perez, to flesh out the disparate facts from the sprawling investigation that incorporated components from around the country and spanned close to three decades.

  “With those personality traits in mind, we can postulate about some of the things that made him go off the rails.” Wade steepled his fingers. “First, the initial stressor, which we now know occurred when he was twelve years old. His parents brought home a baby sister he did not want. He saw her as a threat and eliminated her.”

  “Damn,” Breck said. “This guy puts the antisocial in antisocial personality disorder.”

  “After he’s sentenced to juvie until his eighteenth birthday, it’s not surprising to learn that he continues his selfish and abusive behavior in that setting,” Kent continued. “In fact, he might see it as more of an imperative to act in a way that promotes his own well-being above everyone else’s.”

  “He wins over the staff and bullies the other kids,” Wade said. “According to Cahill, he gets away with it, managing to fool most of the adults, until the second stressor occurs, which causes a crack in the facade.”

  “The second stressor being that he is told both of his parents are now dead at the hands of his mother,” Nina said, then added, “on his sixteenth birthday, which is the next leap day.”

  “I suspect leap day was also a trigger for his mother,” Kent said. “The anniversary of her son’s birth and her daughter’s death must have been overwhelming for her. She had essentially lost both of her children on that day and couldn’t cope.”

  “The mother whose affection he was so jealous of when his sister was born had turned against him, but she’s dead, so he cannot retaliate against her directly,” Wade said. “Instead, he uses a proxy, staging his crimes to portray the mother as the villain of the piece. He ensures everyone in the community will blame her, and her own family will turn against her. She will be hated and reviled by all, just like he was after what he did.”

  Nina could see the parallel nature of the revenge Forge’s warped mind had concocted. She listened with a growing sense of outrage as Wade continued.

  “At the same time, while he is at the scene, he torments the women, who stand in for his own mother. He makes sure that before each one dies, she knows that everyone she loves, everyone she holds dear, is dead.”

  Nina thought about how Maria Vega had suffered, emotionally and physically, before Forge killed her. As she pictured Maria’s face, she thought of Teresa’s identical features. Teresa had suffered, too, along with the entire community when word of La Llorona spread. Forge must have been ecstatic when his plan worked so well. Nina stiffened as she realized Wade had been talking about her family. Her mother.

  She noticed Wade regarding her. “The kind of revenge he takes is beyond cruel—it’s sadistic,” he said.

  Understanding passed between them. Everyone in the room was listening to Wade’s observations, but she felt as if he were talking to her alone.

  “As the saying goes,” Wade said, “the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy. Forge is about as far from apathetic about his mother as you can get.”

  Kent drew his own conclusions. “What Forge felt for his mother in the first place wasn’t love but the fear of losing her or sharing her. From what you two learned from his ex-wife, Gail, he was quite controlling and did not want to share her affection with any potential children, even his own.”

  Wade turned to Buxton. “When we do catch this guy, we can’t focus on what he has done to the families, because they do not matter to him. They are stand-ins. He has as much feeling for them as he would mannequins he was staging for a show.”

  “So what do we focus on?” Nina asked.

  “The only thing that matters to him,” Wade said. “Himself.”

  Kent inclined his head in agreement. “We ask how this affected him. We want to hear what he has to say. It’s all about him.”

  “Well, we’re not going to get a chance to interview someone we can’t find,” Buxton said. “Let’s focus on locating Mr. Forge.”

  Nina appreciated the change of subject. She valued the insight into Forge’s mind, but she preferred action to analysis. “We can assume he’s actively evading us now,” she said.

  “There’s no point in wasting manpower and resources by maintaining surveillance on his house,” Buxton said. “I’m calling off the undercover detail and replacing them with a few strategically placed cameras. Doubtless, he’s seen us at the door with his monitoring system, and he knows we’re looking for him.” Buxton paused. “We have a lot of resources at our disposal, but only if we have a warrant for his arrest.” He glanced at Perez. “Any news from Dr. Ledford at the lab?”

  “She just texted me.” Perez’s straight white teeth contrasted with his tan skin as he grinned. “The samples you two got from his trash are a match for the DNA sample collected at the Llorona case twenty-eight years ago.”

  “We’ve got him,” Nina said. “Now we can write that affidavit.”

  “I should do it,” Perez said. “My department has jurisdiction over both Phoenix cases.” His grin widened. “I can take the paperwork to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office. They know me there. Once I get their buy-in, I’ll go before a county judge to get an arrest warrant as well as search warrants for his property and devices. Again, they’ve worked with me for years, and they know I’m solid.”

  Buxton looked hopeful. “How long do you think that would take?”

  Perez lifted a shoulder. “If we all work together to get the writing done quickly, I could probably turn it around in a day.”

  Buxton gave a rare smile. “That’s one hell of a lot faster than we could do it going through the US Attorney’s office and a federal judge.” He pointed at Perez. “Do it.” He turned to Breck. “While Detective Perez works on that, could you put together an APB with a couple of photographs of Forge with different appearances? Be sure to include his previous name as an alias. That should get us some media attention when the time comes to put it out.”

  Kent snorted. “Once word gets out, this guy won’t be able to take a dump without us getting a phone call.”

  Nina caught Wade’s sidelong glance and guessed what he was thinking. Without knowing it, Perez’s assertion of his department’s precedence in the case had made it so her name would not appear on any of the arrest documents.

  The team’s plan to keep her secret was working. If their luck held, Forge would be in custody soon, and she could orchestrate the discovery of her connection to the Vega family at the appropriate time.

  “Get busy, people,” Buxton said, interrupting their silent communication. “It’s going to be a long day.” />
  Chapter 45

  After an exhausting but productive afternoon with the team at the PFO command center, Nina had been ready to head to the hotel. Driving back together in the SUV, the FBI team had agreed to change into casual clothes and check out a local Mexican restaurant Perez had recommended.

  The conversation had veered onto the topic of which beverages went best with spicy food as they pulled into the parking lot. Nina was sharing what Perez had told her about how prickly pear margaritas were made from the fruit of a cactus when Kent interrupted her.

  “What’s going on?” He was looking out the vehicle’s side window.

  Nina followed his gaze to see a familiar figure rushing toward their vehicle.

  “It’s that reporter,” she said. “James Snead.”

  Snead bore down on them with long strides, cameraman in tow.

  “This looks like an ambush,” Buxton said, opening the driver’s door. “I’ll handle it.”

  Buxton got out and stood his ground as the others followed suit, flanking their supervisor.

  “James Snead with Channel Six News,” the reporter said to Buxton. “I’m here to get your comment on a story we’re putting together for this evening at six.”

  Nina glanced at her watch—five o’clock.

  “What story is that?” Buxton asked.

  Snead directed his gaze at Nina. “I received information about Special Agent Guerrera. Apparently, she has a personal connection to the Llorona case.”

  Nina’s pulse ratcheted up. What had Snead found out?

  Buxton flicked a glance at her before returning his attention to the reporter. “What connection?”

  She forced her expression into what she hoped appeared politely inquisitive, as if she had no idea Snead’s finger hovered over a nuclear detonator.

  “Our news team double-checked my source’s information,” Snead said. “We’re confident in its accuracy, and we’re going forward with the story. I’m only giving you an opportunity to comment.” He signaled to the man behind him, who hoisted the camera to his shoulder and aimed it in their direction.