A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

  The doors dinged open and Mia led them to the spacious lobby where they’d checked in. Troy leaned in to kiss her, and she offered him a cheek. To Elaina, she held out a hand. “Special Agent McCord, it was nice meeting you.”

  “You, too.” They shook hands, and then Elaina dug out a business card. “Thank you for your help today. If you don’t mind sending me that e-mail address for Dr. Lawson?”

  “No problem.” Mia tucked the business card into the pocket of her lab coat. She looked from Elaina to Troy and back to Elaina. “And I should stress again my concerns about your case. That sample’s probably much too degraded to tell us anything useful.” Her eyes grew somber. “But I’ll do what I can. I read about those women in the paper, and what happens to them…” She shook her head. “Anyway, if you are working on the Paradise Killer thing, you should call Detective Santos. He might be a better lead for you than that bullet.”

  The afternoon sun blazed down on the highway, turning the endless yellow stripes into wavy lines. Troy blinked and tried to shake off the daze. He turned up the air-conditioning. When he spotted a gleaming silver truck parked up ahead on the shoulder, he pulled over.

  Elaina glanced up from her file. “What are we doing?”

  “I’m hungry.” He shoved open the door. “Time for a break.”

  She got out and followed him to the truck, picking her way across the uneven gravel in those ridiculous shoes.

  “What do they have here?” She squinted at the menu board, which was in Spanish.

  “Pork tamales. And any kind of taco you could want—meat, cheese, peppers, whatever.”

  “What are you having?”

  “All of it.”

  Elaina ordered a veggie taco and then wandered to a nearby fruit stand. Troy joined her back at the car.

  “Are you finicky about your upholstery?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You sure? Because this orange—”

  “Get in, Elaina.”

  She lowered herself into the seat, and he shook his head as he started the car. He drove about a quarter-mile up the road and pulled over beneath a live oak where they’d have some decent shade.

  She checked her watch, then glanced around. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Halfway through the Rio Grande Valley. Passed the King Ranch about an hour ago.”

  She gazed out at the citrus groves. The trees were lined up in neat rows. He’d always thought they looked like leafy green soldiers.

  “It’s pretty,” she said.

  “You’ve never been here?”

  “I don’t get out of the office much. If I do, it’s generally to help serve a warrant somewhere in Brownsville.”

  Troy chomped into his taco and watched her. He could tell from the little crease in her forehead that something was bothering her. Given her priorities, he figured it had to do with her job.

  “Trouble at work?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. Hesitated. Probably debating whether to open up again.

  “You really want to hear about it?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  She pulled an orange out of the paper sack, obviously stalling.

  “Totally off the record, Elaina. This is just you and me.”

  “Okay. I think Scarborough’s just biding his time.”

  “Until what?”

  “Until he can get rid of me,” she said. “New agents are on a twenty-four-month probationary period. I think at the end of mine, I’m going to be out of a job.”

  “Why would he want to get rid of you?”

  “I’m not sure, really. It’s just a feeling I get.” She dug a fingernail into the orange and stripped back the peel.

  “You’re probably right, then.”

  She glanced up, looking surprised by his answer. “You think so?”

  “Well, you’re pretty intuitive. If that’s your read on the guy, it’s probably dead-on.”

  She didn’t say anything as she peeled the orange, making a little pile of rind on the napkin in her lap. She separated a section, and a bead of juice slid down her arm.

  “You really think I’m intuitive?”

  “From what I’ve seen, yeah. And your hunch about Diggins was right, even though most people thought you were way out on a limb there.”

  “It wasn’t a hunch, really.” She licked a drop of juice from her wrist, and Troy’s pulse picked up. “It was a theory, based on careful study of all the facts in the case.”

  “And what made you take a look at the case? It had been closed for years. They had a confession. The entire legal system bought his story. I bought his story. Everyone except you.”

  She shrugged. “It just didn’t fit, that’s all.”

  “What didn’t fit?”

  “The victimology.”

  “You mean because Mary Beth was Caucasian? Serial killers don’t always stick with one ethnic group.”

  “I know.” She glanced up at him as she peeled another section. “I’m talking about who these women were. And the circumstances of their abductions.”

  He watched her, curious to hear what she had to say. He’d met few people who knew as much about the Diggins case as he did.

  “Diggins picked low-risk targets,” she said. “Prostitutes and strippers who worked the bars and truck stops along the interstate. Because he was a long-haul truck driver, he knew the area well.” She glanced up from her orange. “Are you aware he has a near-genius IQ?”

  “One thirty-five,” Troy said. It was one of the most interesting aspects that Troy had discovered during his research. The man had had a chance to go to college on an academic scholarship, but he dropped out his first semester and eventually became a truck driver for a farming supply company. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is, Diggins was underemployed. He could have done a lot of things, but what he chose to do was a job that gave him a chance to troll for vulnerable women within his comfort zone. By all accounts, his victims willingly got into his car. Mary Beth Cooper was a veterinary assistant last seen setting out on a nature hike. Even though her remains were found near some of the others, it still didn’t add up for me.”

  “So it was a hunch.”

  She carefully removed another section of orange and popped it in her mouth. “I guess, yeah, it started that way. I believe we’re dealing with a similar sort of unsub now. Whatever job he has is just a job, but the murders are what he considers his true occupation.”

  “When I interviewed Diggins,” Troy said, “he referred to the murders as ‘his work,’ almost like he was creating art or something. It was twisted.”

  “This guy’s just as twisted. If you study the crime-scene photos, you’ll see what I mean. He’s making some sort of point to us. Law enforcement, the public, whoever. Or at least in my opinion that’s what he’s doing. We won’t know until we find him.”

  Troy looked at her with admiration. “You have your dad’s knack for seeing patterns. Maybe it runs in the family.”

  She shot him a look that he couldn’t read.

  “Your dad encourage you to go into profiling?”

  “No.”

  “He encourage you to apply to the Academy?”

  “No.” The orange had her full attention now. Clearly, there was some sort of tension between her and her father, but she didn’t want to talk about it. And she never talked about her mother at all. Maybe she’d had a rocky upbringing. Hell, who hadn’t? Troy was way more interested in who she was now.

  He watched her, realizing how much he liked talking to her. He wasn’t used to being able to discuss his work with anyone, much less a woman.

  She took another bite of fruit. She had juice on her bottom lip, and he battled the urge to lean over and lick it off.

  “Don’t let this guy Scarborough smack you down,” he said. “You’ve got good instincts. You’re going to be a top-notch agent someday.”

  She glanced up, clearly startled. “Thank you.”

  And she didn�
�t even give him crap for the “someday” part. She knew she wasn’t there yet. But she had potential. She had a promising career ahead of her.

  Too bad she was going to spend it in some windowless basement office at Quantico. With a little experience under her belt, she could be a good field agent.

  Troy finished his taco and crunched the tinfoil into a ball. “So did you always want to join the FBI, or did you just kind of fall into it because of your dad?”

  That got her hackles up. “No one just falls into becoming an FBI agent. The acceptance rate at the Academy is—” She stopped and looked at him. “You’re baiting me, aren’t you?”

  “Got me.” He smiled. “I like watching you get all riled up. Like that day at the marina.”

  “I knew you weren’t just some casual bystander,” she said. “You were watching me like a hawk from the moment I stepped onto that dock.”

  “See what I mean? Good instincts.”

  “You’re lucky I’ve eliminated you from my suspect list. You fit the profile to a T, right down to your abnormally high level of interest in this case.”

  “Honey, I’ve got an abnormally high level of interest in a lot of things. Including bossy federal agents with sexy toes.”

  She cast him a wary glance. “I don’t get you. How can you think about sex all the time when there’s a murder investigation going on around you?”

  He unwrapped another taco. “I’ve spent my whole career knee-deep in murder investigations. I had to learn to compartmentalize, or I’d never relax. You should try it. Work-life balance and all that crap.”

  “Well, you’re ahead of me career-wise,” she said. “Right now I’m just trying not to get fired. Work-life balance is down the road.”

  She got quiet then and nibbled another bite of orange. “What about you?” She glanced at him. “Did you always want to be an investigative journalist?”

  She probably didn’t realize she’d just given him a compliment. When he’d first met her, she’d accused him of writing pulp fiction.

  “When I was a kid,” he told her, “all I could think about was leaving home. Never occurred to me to write anything besides my name on the job application at TexOil.”

  She didn’t comment. He was pretty sure she knew all about his background, but she didn’t have the guts to admit she’d checked him out.

  “How’d you go from working on oil rigs to the Lito Country Register?”

  Okay, so she was gutsier that he’d thought. And he was tempted to tell her the truth—that the editor at the Register had given him a chance he didn’t deserve by offering him a job on the sports desk, and that the man had been both a mentor and a father figure to Troy until he died last year of a heart attack. But that sounded sentimental as hell, and Troy wasn’t about to tell her any of it.

  “Well, let’s see, I got arrested for stabbing some drunk in a bar. Had a big mess on my hands, could have gone to jail. But the D.A. cut me a deal, and I knew I’d been given a second chance. I promised myself I’d take advantage of it, stop pissing my life away between rigs and bars like my old man.”

  “Guess you made good on your promise,” she said.

  “Guess so.”

  She nibbled another bite, and he gave up. He leaned over and kissed her. She started to pull back, but he combed his fingers into her hair and held her in place, taking advantage of the fact that her hands were full of orange. She tasted sweet and tart and even better than last night when she’d been so nervous. He felt her give in. She kissed him back, tangling her tongue with his, the sweet with the spicy, and her mouth got hot.

  She jerked back and stared at him. Her breathing was uneven.

  “It’s yours,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your phone.” She nodded at the console.

  Troy cursed and snapped up his cell phone. “What?”

  “Yo, man, you anywhere near a TV?” Cinco’s voice yanked him back to reality.

  “No, why?” He glanced at Elaina, who avoided eye contact with him as she collected bits of orange peel that had fallen on the floor.

  “There’s a news conference in ten minutes. Breck’s leading it.”

  “What’s the news?” Troy asked, sensing it was going to be bad.

  “They IDed the victim from yesterday, and it’s not who we thought.”

  “It’s not Valerie?”

  Elaina’s gaze shot up.

  “Who the hell is it, then?”

  “This is a Houston girl,” Cinco said. “Dropped out of college about two months ago. Been kickin’ it down here ever since. Her parents didn’t even know she was missing until they got the call from Breck.”

  “Shit,” Troy muttered as another ringtone filled the car. Elaina’s this time—maybe that Santos guy calling her back.

  “Hey, you two getting back here anytime soon?” Cinco asked. “I don’t know what Elaina told Breck, but she’s been gone all day, and people are starting to notice.”

  Troy glanced at her in the seat beside him. Her face had gone pale.

  “Who is this?” she asked the caller.

  “We’re on our way,” Troy said.

  “Pen. I need a pen.” Elaina jerked her purse into her lap and pawed through it.

  He reached over and pulled one of the pencils out of her hair. She snatched it from him, then dragged the file folder into her lap and started scribbling.

  “What is that? What does that mean?” Her fingers whitened as she clutched the phone. “Hello? Hello?” She pulled it away from her ear and scowled at the screen. “Shit,” she hissed. “He did it again!”

  “Did what? Who was that?”

  She gazed down at the note she’d written and shook her head. “I can’t believe this. I don’t know what this means.”

  “Who was it?”

  She glanced up. “The man who called me. I think it’s him.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Him as in the killer?”

  “I can’t be sure,” she said. “He talks about the case, but he’s so vague.”

  “You mean he’s called you before?” Troy gripped the steering wheel and leaned across the seat. “Elaina?”

  She glanced up. “What?” Then back at her notes. “Yes, he’s called before. But I’m not sure who he is. Do these numbers mean anything to you?”

  Troy clenched his teeth and looked at her. She’d cut him out. Why hadn’t he expected it? He wasn’t a cop. She didn’t owe him information. But he’d thought she trusted him.

  Not enough to tell him some freak was calling her, apparently.

  “Do they?” She shoved the file folder under his nose, and he forced himself to pay attention.

  “What is this?”

  “He rattled off these numbers. And said, ‘Valerie’s still waiting.’ Maybe he’s full of bull.”

  “Could be.” Troy shook his head. “But he could be legit. Cinco just called. The woman they autopsied yesterday was IDed as a college student from Houston. Valerie Monroe’s still missing.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “When did you last hear from this guy, Elaina?”

  “He called my room earlier.” She looked down at her notes again.

  “Which room?”

  “My hotel room,” she said absently. “What are these numbers?”

  “Elaina.” Troy’s patience was unraveling. “Which room?”

  She finally met his gaze. “The first one.”

  “He hasn’t called you since you moved?”

  “No.”

  “But he got your cell number somehow. That can’t be an easy thing to get. It’s not like you’re listed in the phone book.”

  “No, but I’ve given my number to a lot of people,” she said. “Practically everyone I’ve interviewed here. I told them to call me if they thought of anything that might help the case. But that doesn’t matter nearly as much as what this man said. He told me Valerie’s waiting.”

  Her gaze locked with his, and he could practically read what she was think
ing. How would the caller know Valerie was still missing if he wasn’t the killer?

  “Maybe he’s just some jerk who likes toying with a federal agent.” Troy tried to sound hopeful, but it wasn’t very convincing. “Cinco said there’s a press conference about to happen. Maybe word leaked out that the most recent Jane Doe isn’t who they’d expected, and this guy’s using that info, trying to pull your chain.”

  Elaina looked at her notes again. “I think it’s him. And I think he’s playing games with me. Taunting me. He used that phrase again. ‘She’s my best hide.’”

  Troy cursed and stared out the windshield.

  “Wait a second,” she said, and he heard the note of dread in her voice. “I think I know what this means. These are coordinates.”

  “Coordinates?”

  She glanced up. Her eyes were intense, alert. But not nearly frightened enough for someone who’d just received a call from a serial killer.

  “Longitude and latitude,” she said. “GPS coordinates. It’s like we thought—he’s playing games here. And he just handed me a big clue.”

  Mia leaned over her worktable, careful to position the tape precisely along the elastic waistband of the running shorts. When the clothes came from a perpetrator, she took samples from the inside of the collar, the armpits, the inside of a hat—any area that rubbed against skin and was likely to absorb sweat. When the clothes came from a victim, her best bet was the waistband.

  “Another rape kit?”

  Startled, she glanced up to see Kelsey Quinn standing in the door of her laboratory. The forensic anthropologist was in her typical uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. The brown patches on her knees told Mia she’d been toiling in the dirt this morning, probably at one of the older excavation sites on the grounds. Besides being a world-renowned forensics laboratory, the Delphi Center also had the macabre distinction of being one of the world’s top decomposition research facilities.

  “Not exactly a rape kit,” Mia said, “although it’s possible she was raped.” She resumed her task, pressing the adhesive side of the tape to the waistband, then carefully lifting it away. “These clothes were recovered from Devil’s Gorge. I’m trying to get skin cells of the perpetrator.”