Cut and Run

by Mary Burton

  “He had unfilled prescriptions?” Faith asked.

  “Yeah. He said bourbon would do the trick. We stopped at the liquor store and got a six-pack and two half gallons of premium bourbon. He also had me stop at the drugstore and get a couple of burner phones and tobacco. He loved his dip.”

  “Two prepaid phones?” Hayden asked. “What did he want them for?”

  “He didn’t say. Only cared that they had a GPS map and a video recorder.”

  “Was he planning to go somewhere?” Hayden asked.

  “He said not to worry when I asked.”

  “We didn’t find any phones in his trailer,” Hayden said.

  “I don’t know what he did with them.” Ledbetter sniffed and shifted his gaze to Faith. “Can I see Crow?”

  Faith nodded. “If you will follow me, I can take you to Mr. Crow.”

  Tension rippled through the young man. “Sure.”

  The three walked down the hallway to the viewing room, where Nancy waited with the draped body of Mr. Crow. When Ledbetter stepped closer, Nancy drew back the sheet just far enough to show his face. At first, Ledbetter hovered back; then, finding the courage, he approached the gurney. His face crumbled with a mixture of sadness and pity. “I didn’t want to believe it was really Crow, but it is.” Ledbetter patted Crow on the shoulder, turned, and left the room.

  Faith covered the face, and with Hayden, followed the young man as Nancy remained with the body.

  Ledbetter shook his head. “Everyone liked Crow. He kept to himself. Drank a little too much from time to time, but he never hurt anyone. Lord, he was beat so bad. He didn’t deserve an end like this.”

  Hayden asked several more questions, got the man’s contact information, and Ledbetter said his goodbyes before Nancy arrived and escorted him out of the building.

  “I’ll run tests for narcotics, and will let you know if anything is positive.”

  “Thanks, Dr. McIntyre.”

  “Here to serve, Captain Hayden.”

  Hat in hand he headed toward the elevator, passing Nancy as she headed back toward Faith.

  As the elevator doors closed on Hayden, Nancy asked, “Dr. McIntyre, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  Faith checked her watch. Damn. She was late.

  There was now a ballroom full of people waiting for her. Tonight she was the lady of the hour and being honored by the Youth Emergency Board as their volunteer of the year. Awards didn’t interest her, but she understood these events made the donors feel good and that much more inclined to open their wallets.

  There would be no time to go home and change, so fresh red lipstick, a spritz of perfume, and another quick brush of her hair would have to do. Minutes later, she dashed out of the medical examiner’s office with memories of Jack Crow close on her heels.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Monday, June 25, 5:15 p.m.

  Faith left a voicemail message for Macy Crow on the drive to the Driskill Hotel. They’d yet to speak directly, but Ms. Crow had promised to catch up with Faith while she was in town.

  As Faith crossed the marble lobby, she found herself playing back her late father’s favorite saying. “Keep your eye on the prize.”

  And, for her tonight, the prize was the new youth shelter set to break ground the first of the year. The last hundred grand needed to be raised to ensure the opening.

  As a string quartet played “Clair de lune,” she moved past the white columns toward round tables decorated with crystal vases stuffed with fragrant white roses and place mats made from laminated drawings done by the shelter kids.

  She headed straight to the bar, ordered a stiff martini, and took several sips, hoping it would blur Jack Crow’s broken body and enable her to fake a smile and face the former peers of her parents.

  Over the next few minutes she accepted the greetings of long-absent friends and regaled them with polite stories from the medical examiner’s crypt. “Yes, Princess now cuts up dead people for a living.” Reminisced about old adventures. “Nairobi was fabulous, but Paris was wicked fun.” And accepted lunch dates from women she’d not seen in years.

  “Faith, you’re charming everyone, as usual.”

  Smiling, she turned toward the familiar deep voice of Peter Slater, PJ to his friends. She’d known PJ since they both had played hide-and-seek in the law office their fathers, Russell McIntyre and Peter Slater Sr., had maintained for over forty years.

  Their fathers had met in college, attended the same law school, and hung out their shingles when they were in their late twenties. The families were intertwined to the core. PJ had mourned with her when her mother died a decade ago and her father five years later. In April, when Peter Sr. had died, she’d grieved as deeply as PJ and his mother, Margaret, who’d been a second mother to Faith.

  Faith kissed PJ on the cheek, savoring the familiar brand of aftershave his father had also worn. “I’m sorry I’m late. Work. Where’s Margaret? She’s done a spectacular job of arranging all this.” Margaret was a small woman in her sixties who was always immaculately dressed and had more energy than women half her age.

  “My lovely mother is drifting around the room, deciding if she’ll hold her stroke awareness fundraiser here next year. You know Mom, never satisfied unless she has twenty things going on at once.”

  “How is Margaret holding up? This is her first event since your father died.”

  “She has her low moments, but all and all she’s doing well. And be warned, she’s talking about inviting you onto one of her event-planning boards.”

  “I love your mother, but I don’t think so.”

  PJ laughed. “Good luck refusing her. My father never could.”

  She surveyed the room and the bounty of flower arrangements, food, and drink. “For the cost of these kinds of events, it would be far easier for the board members to simply write a check to the shelter and call it a day.”

  “That will never happen. Not only do these folks like their parties, but also it would rob Mom of the chance to arrange an event. You know she loves this kind of thing.”

  “Don’t tell her I said so, but I can barely stand them,” Faith said. “I’m a fish out of water.”

  “You do a good job of hiding it. And your father and mother would be proud of your accomplishments.”

  Mother, yes, but father, maybe, maybe not. Her mother had supported her at every turn, whereas Russell McIntyre had been a man of few words and even fewer after her mother died. He had spoiled his little girl with every material item money could buy, believing stuff compensated for all the missed dinners, recitals, and vacations. Bottom line was he’d wanted sons and had had to settle for an adopted daughter.

  Tina Walden, director of the youth emergency shelter, waved her hand to both Faith and PJ as she moved toward the stage. Tina wore a boxy navy blue dress that didn’t quite suit her sturdy frame, new flats that, judging by her gait, were already rubbing blisters, and little makeup. However, for Tina, any apparel that wasn’t faded jeans covered with magic markers, paint, or dirt was a step up.

  “It’s showtime,” Tina said.

  Faith sipped the last of her martini, knowing as much as she wanted a second drink, tonight was a work night and she had an early call in the morning. “Let’s do this.”

  PJ escorted Faith up to the stage, and as she stood on the dais, he approached the microphone at the podium. He signaled for the quartet to stop and winked at his mother, Margaret, who broke off a conversation with a state senator to smile and wave at them.

  Turning to the microphone, PJ said, “Good evening. I’ve finally corralled our very busy guest of honor, but she’s not one to be penned long and won’t stay long. As she likes to say, ‘Death never takes a holiday.’”

  Laughter rumbled over the room as the fifty or so guests took their seats. She searched among the faces but didn’t see the one face she’d hoped for tonight.

  “Dr. Faith McIntyre is a little shy about awards,” PJ said. “I had to talk her into this. As far
as she’s concerned, if you never knew about her volunteer efforts, she’d be fine.”

  As Faith scanned the crowd a second time, PJ listed her professional and academic accomplishments and the list of high profile cases her work had helped solve.

  It made sense Hayden wouldn’t be here, Faith decided. The award she was receiving had been named after his late wife, and that was a wound that would never heal.

  Clapping from the audience brought her back to the moment and to when PJ said, “It is with great pleasure that I present to Dr. Faith McIntyre the fourth annual Sierra Hayden Service Award.”

  Faith and Sierra had been good friends, and it had been Sierra who’d brought her onto the board five years ago. When Sierra had been stricken with ovarian cancer, everyone had been optimistic at first. But the universe had turned a deaf ear to everyone’s prayers, and days before Sierra reached her thirty-sixth birthday, cancer claimed one of the planet’s best people.

  Faith accepted the crystal vase, etched with Sierra’s name and her own. The award felt heavy in her hands, and its weight trod all over philosophical arguments about death being a part of life. It took a moment before she could speak.

  She thanked the board, the shelter’s director, Tina, and reminded everyone to “give until it hurts just a little, or better, a lot.” She exited the stage, suddenly able to justify that second martini.

  “Dr. McIntyre, want a snack?” The question came from Kat Jones, one of the kids who currently resided at the shelter. Kat had been in and out of foster homes until two months ago, when her pregnancy was discovered and she was branded as “difficult.” For now, the shelter was all that stood between her and the streets.

  Faith thanked the bartender and faced the young girl holding a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “Thanks, Kat. I’m not that hungry.”

  Kat wrinkled her nose. “I don’t blame you. This fishy stuff smells like shark bait.”

  “It’s wild salmon from Iceland and very expensive.”

  “I guess you need bait to catch big fish, right?” The girl’s small, delicate face didn’t quite jive with the dark-brown hair streaked with purple and green or the multiple piercings in each ear.

  Faith laughed. “That’s exactly what it is.”

  The kid was smart. If someone gave her a textbook, she would balk. However, when Faith gifted her with a reconditioned laptop, the kid had spent hours reading and working online. Despite her keen intelligence, Kat had been on a long and rocky road to a better life since the day she was born. And this pregnancy had heaped another huge obstacle onto her path. Happy endings for girls like Kat were few and far between.

  “So that’s your second drink,” Kat said. “Craving liquid courage?”

  Not courage, but maybe a brief respite from memories of today’s autopsy. “I’m going to be calling it a night soon and will hire a car.”

  “But it’s only nine.”

  “I’ve been up since five.”

  “I guess you could leave now,” Kat said, leaning toward Faith a fraction. “But if you do, you’ll miss the Texas Ranger standing at five o’clock. He’s staring at you.”

  Faith didn’t need to turn to know the Texas Ranger was Mitchell Hayden.

  “Tell me you aren’t in trouble,” Kat said. “He looks like he wants to arrest someone.”

  “I’m not in trouble. But how about you? Are you still maintaining our noncybercrime pact? No hacking into systems to snoop around.”

  Kat shrugged a thin shoulder, as if they were talking about simply surfing the net. “I haven’t broken any laws.”

  Faith didn’t press. The kid was trying, and that was good enough for her. “Good. Would you offer that gentleman by the bar more food?”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “That guy has eaten almost two trays on his own.”

  “He and his wife donated the land for the shelter. It would be nice to keep him happy.”

  Kat didn’t move. “The Ranger doesn’t look happy.”

  He never did. “I’ll handle him.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” Shrugging, Kat strode over to the judge.

  Faith waited until the girl was out of earshot before she approached Hayden. “Good evening, Captain Hayden. I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  The times she’d seen Hayden and his late wife together made her believe soul mates did in fact exist. After Sierra’s death, he’d left Austin to work near the border, but now after four years, he was back with a new promotion that he was still trying on for size.

  “Nice award,” Hayden said.

  She held it up so he could see Sierra’s name. “It’s an honor.”

  He studied the etched words with a silent, deliberate presence that made her skin tingle and her soul tinge with guilt.

  Three weeks ago, she’d attended the site visit for this event. The committee had toured the hotel for almost an hour. After the group had dispersed, she’d been in no rush to go home, so she’d wandered into the hotel bar. She’d been sipping a martini when he’d tossed his Cattleman felt hat on the bar beside her. She’d waved away his apology for having missed the meeting, ordered him a bourbon, and made small talk. He’d never mentioned his Kevlar vest, which had caught a slug that morning, but after a long pause had said he was staying at the hotel. And, well, one thing led to another.

  The sex had been purely physical. No kissing. No talk of affection. No one was looking for a soul mate. And it suited them both. Since then, they’d met at this hotel six times. Both had seemed to accept it wouldn’t last, so each had taken care to keep the affair secret.

  His dark gaze swept quickly over her white blouse and slacks. “Did you raise a lot of money tonight?”

  “Yep, and then some.”

  “Sorry I was late.”

  “No apologies.”

  “Any word from Jack Crow’s daughter?”

  “I left her a voicemail message,” she said.

  Death was a constant factor in her line of work, but she never wanted to dwell on it.

  “Room 701,” he offered.

  A tingle shot up her spine. “I hope you got a room with a view.”

  “It has a bed.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Mitchell Hayden wasn’t pretty boy handsome. His eyes were too deep set and his jaw too broad to resemble anything classical. Toss in a nose that looked as if it had been broken once or twice, and you ended up with a face that resembled a street brawler’s. There was a sharp intelligence in those gray eyes that missed little. When Faith was in his sights, just for a little while, she forgot about the youth center, Kat’s precarious future, and Jack Crow.

  “I’ll need another half hour here,” she said.

  “No rush.”

  Kat approached the two of them with a tray holding a fresh martini and bourbon. “Last call.”

  Faith drew in a breath as she swapped her partly drunk martini for the new. She didn’t hide her irritation that this underage girl was thumbing her nose at state and federal law by serving alcohol.

  Hayden took the bourbon. “How old are you, kid?”

  “Twenty-six,” Kat said without pausing.

  He shook his head as he sipped. “What year were you born in?”

  “1992.”

  He grinned. “You’re quick. I’ll give you that. But pick up another tray with booze on it, and I’ll call your caseworker.”

  Kat rolled her eyes as if she hated the attention, but Faith knew the stunt was designed specifically to elicit a response. Negative attention was better than none.

  “Roger that, Captain.” Kat made a show of saluting. “The bus is leaving for the shelter. Thanks for the gig, Faith.”

  “Glad you could make it. Don’t forget I’m taking you to your prenatal visit on Wednesday.”

  “Can’t wait.” A bit of Kat’s attitude faded as it always did when the baby was mentioned. She left the two, sauntering across the room as if daring the bus to leave her.

  “What’s that kid’s story?” Hayden asked.

&nbs
p; He’d always paid close attention when Faith had made presentations at the board meetings, but he rarely asked questions about the kids at the shelter. Both he and his sister had made generous donations in Sierra’s name, but they always remained on the periphery.

  “She’s smart as a whip. Knows computers inside and out. Mother used drugs, and father laundered money for a drug cartel. Both are now dead. The last foster family kicked her out after they found out about the baby, so the shelter is her best bet now. She’ll turn eighteen in December, and then I’m not sure what’s next for her.”

  “Who’s the baby’s father?”

  “She won’t say. And for the record, she didn’t serve any booze tonight. That tray was her way of trying to provoke a reaction.”

  “Out of me or you?”

  “Me. She’s been needling me for a few weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s looking for a lifeline. She knows she’s drowning but doesn’t know how to save herself.”

  “And you’re going to save her?”

  “If she’ll let me.”

  The shelter director and Margaret motioned Faith forward as the local television station crew arrived to film her and a few donors. “I’ve a couple of details to wrap up. No need for you to stick around.”

  “I’ve nowhere to be.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said. She crossed the ballroom to the reporter, spoke on camera for several minutes, visited with the guests, and kissed Margaret on the cheek. When she was finished speaking to the hotel staff, it was past ten.

  She looked around the room, but she didn’t see Hayden. His patience for the tedious side of her life had its limits. She left the ballroom and headed toward the lobby. Her heels clicked across the marble floor as she made her way to the elevator.

  “Dr. McIntyre?”

  She turned and saw a tall, lean man with a neatly shaved face and warm brown eyes. Midforties, smartly dressed in a gray suit and a shirt of a similar but lighter shade.

  “Have we met?” she asked.

  He held out his hand. “Kevin. I saw the event sign with your picture and thought you were someone else for a moment. Then I recognized the McIntyre name. I knew your father.”