Cut and Run

by Mary Burton

  “Of course.”

  “Have you called Mom lately?” He didn’t get Kate on the phone often, but had promised never to let her go without trying to connect.

  He could hear the gears in her very linear brain shifting from professional to personal. “She’s on a cruise with three of her girlfriends from church.”

  “She’s actually back. I saw her two days ago. She says she’s left you messages.”

  “I’m working a case.”

  Kate was obsessive when she was working. “Call Mom, Kate. She worries.”

  “Understood.”

  “When are you going to do it?”

  She sighed.

  When they had been kids, he had teased her a lot, and he always knew he had gotten under her skin when she sighed.

  “I’ll wake her up if I do it now.”

  “She won’t care, Kate. Call now.”

  “Will do.”

  “Perfect.” He dropped his voice a notch. “Be careful.”

  “Back at you.”

  The line went dead, and he returned to Brogan. “Any sign of anything else she might have dropped?”

  “Nothing other than the backpack. The paramedics did say she was wearing her service weapon.”

  “I’ll check at the hospital and find out what was in her pockets. How long will Agent Crow be in surgery?”

  “She won’t be out for a while, and that’s assuming she makes it that long,” Brogan said.

  “I want a look at her hotel room. And let’s see if we can track down her brother. Maybe she made contact with him, and he can shed light on what the hell his sister was up to.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tuesday, June 26, 4:30 a.m.

  Faith hadn’t been asleep when Hayden had called. She’d been fully awake, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows play overhead, wishing away the night.

  But after his call, she immediately got out of bed, worried and sure something terrible had happened. Hayden was not the type of man to just call to hear the sound of her voice. That wasn’t him. Or them.

  Unable to shake the growing sense of worry, she called Tina at the shelter.

  Tina picked up on the third ring. “Faith?”

  “I’m sorry to wake you. Call it a bad feeling, but can you do a quick bed check for me. Is Kat where she’s supposed to be?”

  Tina cleared her throat. “Give me a second.”

  Faith paced her room as she waited for Tina’s return. What was it that had torqued her up so much? Why did everything just feel so wrong?

  “Faith,” Tina said, sounding more alert. “All present and accounted for, including Kat.”

  The information didn’t ease the tension banding the muscles in her stomach. “Thank you for checking. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “You okay?” Tina asked.

  “My brain is working overtime.” She threaded her fingers through her hair. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “No worries.”

  Even after she hung up, the sense of dread would not leave her, so she simply made tea and sat on the couch. Her feet curled up under her, and with a warm cup in hand, she watched a Home Shopping Network show advertising some new line of dipping bowls created by two Virginia-based designers.

  For reasons she didn’t understand, her mind kept drifting to Hayden’s odd question about Jack Crow’s daughter. He had actually sounded worried and a little unsure. She feared that hit-and-run victim would be in her office soon.

  Finally, at five, she laced up her running shoes and went to the community gym, where she logged four miles on the treadmill. Work and life had gotten in the way of her runs lately, and it felt good to break a sweat and stretch. By seven a.m. she was showered, dressed, and walking through the front door of the medical examiner’s office.

  She spent the morning responding to phone messages regarding recent autopsies. She often received calls from family members who needed medical terms translated into plain English so they could better cope with their loved one’s death. These people were vulnerable and emotionally distraught, and they relied on her professionalism and kindness to survive the grief.

  The last message was from Kevin, the man who’d bumped into her at the hotel last night. He’d tracked her down. “I wondered if you’d like to meet for coffee.” Amused, she hit delete.

  She imagined Hayden kissing her, his hand to her breast and her heart beating a lot faster. “Sorry, Kevin, I have enough complications right now.”

  As tempted as she was to call Hayden, she left it to him. He’d said he’d call, and that was good enough for her.

  She spent the next hour writing up her final reports on two autopsies she had performed two days earlier. The first patient had been a seventy-year-old woman who’d been on the golf course with her friends when she’d suffered a massive stroke. She was dead before the ambulance had arrived, and her children wanted to know if she had suffered. The subject of her next report was a fifty-three-year-old male, successful by all accounts, who’d died of an overdose of painkillers and alcohol.

  She filed both reports and met Nancy in the autopsy suite.

  It was close to noon when she checked her office voicemail and discovered another phone message. It was from the principal at Kat’s school.

  “This is Principal Boswell at the high school. Kat Jones hacked into the school computer system today. She didn’t disturb anything, but she proved she could do a lot of damage if she chose to. According to our school records, you’re her emergency contact.” Kat hadn’t mentioned this tidbit about assigning her as the emergency contact. “We’re sending her to the shelter. She has a three-day suspension.”

  Faith closed her eyes as the principal rattled off her name and number. “Damn it, Kat.”

  “Did I hear my name?”

  Faith looked up and found the girl standing in her doorway, backpack slung over her shoulder and two cappuccinos in her hands. She set one on Faith’s desk. “A token.”

  Faith sipped the coffee, glad it was hot and strong. “Computer hacking? Really?”

  Kat sat, tapping her finger against the side of her cup. “I didn’t screw with anything. I was just nosing around.”

  “And showing others how to do it?”

  “Teach the children, as they say.” She sipped her coffee. “Besides, the next three days will give us bonding time.”

  “I have work to do. You have class assignments to turn in. You are going back to the shelter.”

  Kat’s brow furrowed with frustration that went deeper than any worry over a school suspension. “I’m ahead of the teachers. I show them how to solve problems. Makes them feel threatened and challenged. And I get bored. And the kids at the shelter are fucking morons.”

  “Enough with the swearing.”

  “So now we’re in 1900? Do you want me to wear a hoop skirt, too?”

  “Wrong historical reference and we’re in my office, so don’t swear.”

  “So what do we do?” Kat asked.

  “I take you back to the shelter. And then I return at 5:30 p.m. and take you to your ob-gyn appointment.”

  “I hate it at the shelter.”

  Faith reached for her purse. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re still wearing scrubs,” Kat persisted.

  “I’m coming right back.”

  They made their way through the building, and when they were seated inside Faith’s car, her phone rang. It was PJ. “Buckle up.”

  More eye rolling as Kat clicked her seat belt.

  Faith accepted the call. “PJ.”

  “So a little bird, meaning my mother, tells me you broke a few records with your fundraising last night,” he said.

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Tina or Margaret yet, but I’m headed to the shelter now.”

  “You will be pleased. You did an amazing job.”

  “It wasn’t me. You mother needs to take all the credit. No one organizes an event like that better than her.” She put the car in gear and
drove to the parking lot exit.

  Kat turned on the radio and chose a rap station.

  Faith turned it down, shooting her a badass glare that made the girl chuckle. “What else is up, PJ?”

  “I also wanted to update you on something else. Remember when you asked me to look into your adoption?”

  “Sure. Right after your dad died.” As Kat reached for the radio dial, Faith tossed her a warning look that dared her to try. It did the trick.

  She turned right onto the street and made her way to the first stoplight.

  “Well, I found a name for you. I’ve been digging through your father’s files for the last few months, and I found nothing. Then it occurred to me to check his old datebooks. I retrieved them from archives a few days ago. Your father was a stickler for keeping meticulous details of his appointments. The book I’m looking at now dates back to 1987.”

  The year before she was born. “Okay.”

  “Your father had a series of meetings with a woman by the name of Josie Jones. The first meetings were in July of 1987 to discuss a shoplifting charge she was facing. You remember he did a lot of pro bono work then?”

  “I remember hearing Mom talk about it.”

  “Russell defended Josie and got all the shoplifting charges dropped.”

  A horn honked behind her, and she realized the light had turned green. She started driving. “Okay.”

  “She appears in his datebook ten more times after her case was cleared. The last entry was May 2, 1988.”

  “That was a month before I was born.”

  “I had a buddy in robbery pull her picture.” PJ dropped his voice a fraction. “I’ll text it to you. You might be a little stunned.”

  “Why?”

  “Just have a look at it. I might have found your birth mother.”

  She glanced to Kat, wishing she were alone. “I’ll have to call you back later. I’m on my way to the shelter with one of the kids.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  She hung up, the phone still gripped in her hand. PJ was efficient and didn’t delay. If he was sending a text, it would be coming soon. Within fifteen seconds the text arrived, and despite her lack of privacy, she glanced at her phone long enough to open the attachment and then back up at the road as the image loaded. When she looked back down, she drew in a sharp breath. She was staring at a black-and-white mug shot of a young girl who looked like her. Blond hair. Light-colored eyes. The face. The lips.

  Too stunned and not quite able to process, she dropped the phone in her lap and focused on the road ahead.

  “Texting and driving?” Kat quipped.

  “I know. It’s a bad combination.”

  As if sensing Faith’s unease, Kat held in whatever comeback she had at the ready. “What’s going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I might have.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Josie Jones. She could be my birth mother.”

  “Can I see?”

  Normally far more guarded, Faith handed over the phone.

  “Wow. You do look like her. I didn’t know you were adopted,” Kat stammered.

  “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s good or bad,” Kat said.

  “It can be a very good thing if handled properly.”

  Kat sat in silence for a moment and then handed back the phone. “You’ve never heard anything about your mom before?”

  “No. My parents didn’t like to talk about it. And when I was older, I tried to find her. Hit nothing but brick walls.”

  A frown settled on Kat’s face, and some of her natural vibrancy faded. “So this Josie Jones just got erased like she never existed.”

  The girl’s tone cut through Faith’s own confusion and reminded Faith that Kat was completely dialed in to every word coming out of her mouth. “It doesn’t have to be like that with you and your baby if you choose adoption. Adoptions can be open now. You can have contact with the child, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s not what Mrs. Myers said.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Myers?”

  “She’s with social services. She came to talk to me a few weeks ago. She told me it would be better for me to close this chapter and get on with my life because I’m so young.”

  Faith gripped the wheel, speaking with as much calm as she could muster. “You never told me about the visit.”

  Kat shrugged, as if to say, “Whatever.”

  “Going forward, don’t speak to anyone about adoption unless I’m there. This is huge. You won’t be doing this alone.”

  Kat flipped the sun visor up and down a few times, then reached for the radio and turned it up again. “Why’re you being so nice to me?”

  This time, Faith turned the radio completely off from the control on her steering wheel. “I like you, Kat. I can help you with placing or keeping the baby. I can also help with your college, if you’ll let me.”

  “College. Might as well land on the moon.”

  “No. It’s not that kind of a long shot.”

  “What if I don’t want help with school or the baby?”

  Faith turned a corner and then shot the girl a grin. “Then you’re shit out of luck, kid, because I’m probably going to continue to butt my nose into your life until I know you’re on solid ground.”

  A ghost of a smile tugged at Kat’s lips as she turned the radio on again. They listened to a rap song that had Kat sitting a little taller and finally tapping her hand on her knee. Faith’s mind drifted back to the image of Josie Jones. Could all this be as simple as a note in a datebook?

  “Are you going to track down this Josie Jones woman, or what?” Kat asked.

  “I just need a little time to digest it all. It’s fairly overwhelming, but yeah, eventually, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tuesday, June 26, 12:45 p.m.

  Hayden and Brogan arrived back at headquarters to view Officer Holcombe’s dashcam as well as the security footage videos that had been forwarded to Hayden’s computer. The uniforms had tracked down three cameras that had captured a dark truck driving in the direction of Comal Pocket Park and Macy Crow’s crash site.

  Hayden shrugged off his jacket and brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

  He handed Brogan a cup, and the two sat in front of the computer screen. The first block of dashcam footage showed the path of Holcombe’s vehicle charging forward, lights flashing on the buildings of East Austin as her headlights caught the park’s west side seconds before she came to an abrupt stop. The audio recorded the squeal of her tires as the visual captured Sammy Kent screaming by Agent Crow’s contorted body lying on the ground.

  Officer Holcombe sounded breathless, amped, the slight edge of panic contained when she called in the incident, requesting backup and an ambulance, and then offered a description of the situation. As she ran forward, the jostling image of her camera was hard to follow until she stopped and leaned over Macy Crow. Her hand was trembling as she felt the injured woman’s neck for a pulse.

  “She’s alive, barely. Head trauma. Broken bones.” A split second passed and then more calmly, “Ma’am, the police are here. Just lie still. Help is on the way.”

  “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!” Sammy shouted. “That truck came out of nowhere and just mowed her down.”

  “What truck, Sammy?” Holcombe asked.

  “A dark-blue, maybe black truck.”

  “Did you see the plates?”

  “ATX something. Oh, sweet Jesus, is she dead? There’s so much blood! Sweet Jesus.”

  Blood oozed from the woman’s scalp as the wail of sirens grew closer. Sounds gurgled in the woman’s throat. Hayden could see Macy’s lips moving.

  “Ma’am, I need you to stay still,” Holcombe said. “The ambulance is almost here. You’re going to be all right. Help is here.”

  “Jesus, look at her arm,” Brogan said, mostly to himself.

  All Hayden saw
was Faith. Intellectually, he knew it wasn’t her, but that’s all his mind registered. Beautiful Faith, broken and battered. He resisted the urge to call her a second time, even though he needed to hear the sound of her voice.

  “Don’t try to move,” Holcombe said. Agent Crow tried to raise her head. She was trying to talk. Officer Holcombe lowered her head closer to the injured woman. “Do you know who did this to you?”

  “Jack?” The woman went still for a moment, but the officer remained crouched close. Sirens grew ever louder. And then the woman moved again. “Paige.”

  The paramedic crew arrived, and the officer reported what she’d seen as they went to work on Agent Crow.

  The audio captured Holcombe’s desperate whispering. “Holy shit. Holy shit.” The officer who’d been so steady when he’d spoken to her was struggling to get control of her own emotions.

  “Jack is her father,” Brogan said. “Who is Paige?”

  “A teenager who went missing recently.” Hayden rubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “Let me put in another tape.”

  Security footage from the store across the street from the park captured a truck driving into the park at 2:01 a.m. Its lights were off, and it moved slowly toward a darkened corner and waited. Five minutes later Crow came into the camera’s view as she passed. He saw her pause and talk to Sammy, move to the ATM, and then hand something to Sammy. Just as she left Sammy, the vehicle came out of the shadows and barreled directly toward her.

  “You see that?” Hayden said. “That was no accident.”

  “I got a partial on the plate along with the make and model,” Brogan responded. “Running it now.”

  Ten minutes later, they had the name of the owner of the vehicle, a 2008 Ford truck that had been reported stolen several hours before.

  “The truck belongs to Randy Kelly. He lives in North Austin. He’s been arrested for selling narcotics and is currently on probation.”

  “Let’s have a talk with him,” Hayden said, reaching for his jacket.

  Hayden and Brogan drove to the North Austin neighborhood and to Randy Kelly’s apartment building. They climbed to the second floor and banged on his door. Inside they heard footsteps, muttered oaths, and a lock turn. “Who is it?”