by Pamela Clare
Tell al-Sharruken
Liquid ice slid into her veins.
Could this be about Tell al-Sharruken?
Andy had been part of that, but she and Jason hadn’t. Though Mia hadn’t gone to the ruins, she’d refused to help cover up what the others had done. But Jason had tried to help Andy and the others, doing everything he could to alleviate their pain.
“Mia?” Joaquin’s voice startled her, made her jump. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Her heart was still racing. “I’m fine.”
“This is my buddy, Julian Darcangelo. He’s giving us a ride back to my truck.”
Mia stood, held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ms. Starr.” Julian Darcangelo looked familiar. Then she remembered she’d seen him yesterday. He didn’t look much like a cop. Tall with dark blue eyes that seemed to look through her, he wore jeans and a black T-shirt, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. “You’ve had a rough time of it lately.”
She walked with the two men back through the building to a rear stairway that led down to a frigid parking garage full of squad cars, then climbed into the back of Darcangelo’s SUV, the men’s conversation drifting over her—until Darcangelo spoke to her directly.
“I’m sorry. I was caught up in my own thoughts.”
Darcangelo repeated himself. “I hear you served through two deployments. Thanks for your service.”
Mia never knew how to respond to this. She wasn’t a hero. She hadn’t done anything particularly courageous. She’d spent two years hauling ammo, food, and toilet paper around the desert. Others had fought and died. Yes, she had given up eight years of her life, but she’d gotten a college degree out of it.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then she remembered what Joaquin had told her about this man. “Thank you for yours. Joaquin said you saved a lot of lives at the Palace Hotel last month.”
“Just doing my job.” Darcangelo shifted the conversation back to her. “What did you do in the Army? Ramirez says you were his cousin’s CO.”
“Elena joined us during my last year. We were part of a forward supply company. I did mostly clerical work.” Mia didn’t really feel like talking about this, but the conversation did at least take her mind off Jason. “We were close to the fighting but not part of combat operations. One of our convoys was hit by an IED, and we lost some people. LeBron Walker almost died. Powell, my CO, got a shrapnel wound that left him with a slight limp. Apart from that, we came under mortar fire a few times.”
Joaquin looked back at her from the front seat. “That must have been rough.”
“The IED was terrible, but the mortars—they never came close to hitting us. We would take cover and crack jokes, waiting for the radar guys to triangulate the position of the idiots firing at us and take them out.”
“Jokes?” Joaquin looked surprised. “Like what?”
“Oh, dark stuff. ‘If they can’t do better than that, I’m never going to get out of those truck payments.’” The memory made her smile. “Or, ‘Whoever survives, remember to throw out my porn stash before they ship my shit home to my wife.’ Or, ‘Next time you book us a vacation, Starr, take us somewhere with a damned beach.’”
Darcangelo chuckled. “Dark humor. LEOs do that, too.”
Joaquin’s expression had gone serious. “So do journalists. Journalism isn’t as dangerous as being a cop or a soldier, but you see a lot of shit.”
“Hell, yeah, you do.” Darcangelo shared a glance with Joaquin.
Mia felt the weight of that glance. She had worked in a mostly male environment long enough to recognize deep friendship. Joaquin and Darcangelo were close.
There were still cops at Jason’s house when they arrived. Darcangelo parked, wished Mia well, told Joaquin to get lost, and walked over to talk with Petersen, the cop who had detained them.
Mia found herself staring at the open front door, the finality of the situation hitting her full force. Jason was dead. He was gone. He had survived Iraq only to be murdered in his home.
Son of a bitch!
Joaquin came up beside her, his hand closing around hers. “I’m so sorry, Mia.”
“Elena knew him. She would want to hear about this.” Mia glanced around, wondering if the killer was still nearby, watching.
“I’ll stop by her place on my way home and give her the news.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Joaquin drove her back to her car, then followed her home. He got out of his vehicle and walked with her to her front steps. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come inside and check the place?”
“Why do you care? You barely know me.” The words came out cold. She hadn’t intended that. “I’m grateful for what you did today. I really am. I don’t know what would have happened tonight without you. But I don’t understand.”
He ducked down and kissed her forehead. It was a fleeting kiss, and it wasn’t even on her mouth, but it made her breath catch and left her pulse racing.
He stepped back. “You did a lot for Elena. I couldn’t let you face all of this alone. More than that, I feel a connection to you, Mia. I can’t explain it. I just know it’s there. Call if you need anything.”
“Goodnight.” Mia hurried inside her condo, where it was warm, then watched through her front window while Joaquin drove away.
Then, without stopping to take off her parka, she went to her bedroom closet, opened her biometric safe, and took out her pistol.
Joaquin woke up to snow the next morning—and the realization that he was fucked. He showered and drove to work early, hoping to catch Cate before the I-Team meeting. He was at his desk cleaning the inner barrel of his zoom lens when she walked in. Her expression when she saw him told him she knew.
Shit.
“Hey, Cate, can we talk?”
“You know Mia Starr.” She dropped her stuff on her desk, her expression hard.
“In private.” He motioned with a jerk of his head toward the hallway that led to the conference room.
She followed, heels clicking on the tile floor.
Joaquin shut the door behind them. “Mia Starr was my cousin’s commanding officer her first year of active duty. I met her Friday when I photographed her outside Andrew Meyer’s place. I had no idea who she was then. She ripped my head off. I ran into her again Saturday night at my cousin Elena’s welcome home party.”
“You sat through the I-Team meeting yesterday and said nothing.”
“What did you want me to say? ‘Hey, my cousin served with her. I saw her at a party.’” Okay, so he’d also danced with her, talked with her, walked her to her car.
“You could have offered to connect me with her or tried to convince her to let me interview her.”
“She can’t stand media. If she’d wanted to do an interview, she wouldn’t have hung up on you. Nothing I could have said would have changed her mind.” Of that, Joaquin was certain. “I’m trying to stay out of this—for my cousin’s sake.”
“So, you take her to dinner and drive her to the scene of a murder? How is that staying out of it?”
She has a point, amigo.
“I ran into her at the police station when I went to get that mug shot of the bastard who tried to kill his wife. She looked upset. I offered to drive her back to her car—”
“And ended up at a restaurant instead. Hmm. Wrong turn?”
“I owe her a debt of gratitude for what she did for Elena.”
Cate pinned him with her gaze. “Did you sleep with her?”
“That’s nobody’s business—but, no, I didn’t.”
Not that he hadn’t thought about it. A lot.
“You need to stay away from her. It looks bad for her, Joaquin. Even if she had nothing to do with last night’s homicide, they found bloody towels and Andrew Meyer’s driver’s license in a wood chipper at the Botanic Gardens where she works.”
Old news. “I think someone’s trying to set her up.”
Cate rolled her
eyes at this. “Really?”
Joaquin told her most of what he knew, leaving out any mention of the woman across the street and her videos. Darcangelo had sworn him to secrecy on that score. “If you want to be a top-notch investigative reporter, you’ve got to keep an open mind.”
Cate balked at this, her gaze dropping slowly to her feet. When she looked up at him again, there was curiosity in her eyes instead of anger. “They didn’t say anything about the strange text message at the press conference.”
Mierda.
“Yeah? Well, don’t print that.” Joaquin didn’t want to give away info that could ruin the cops’ investigation. “They keep certain details to themselves, things they think might help them prove a suspect’s guilt.”
“How did they manage to clear the two of you so quickly?”
“My cousin has video surveillance outside his restaurant.”
“Lucky for you.” Cate frowned, crossed her arms over her chest. “I still think you should have told me that you knew her.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Maybe not, but at least I wouldn’t have to wonder if a co-worker is keeping secrets about one of my stories. Are you going to see her again?”
“I don’t know.” He had decided last night after that impulsive kiss that he would leave that up to Mia. It had only been a kiss on the forehead, the kind of kiss he’d give Elena or his abuelita. But she wasn’t family, and he hadn’t asked her first.
“Oh, Joaquin, help me out here.” There was a pleading tone to Cate’s voice. “What can I do to get ahead of the other papers on this story?”
“You could interview people who knew the two men. You could request their military files, though I don’t know what the government will release to the general public. You might not get more than—”
Tom stepped into the hallway, a scowl on his face. “Ramirez. My office. Now.”
“He was just bringing me up to speed on what he knows about last night’s homicide. I’ve got a couple of new angles to go on.”
Joaquin didn’t need Cate to protect him. Tom intimidated a lot of people, but he didn’t scare Joaquin. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
This was going to be a long damned day.
7
Mia found a table at the crowded coffee shop, sat, and took a sip of her coffee, the strong taste of dark roast bringing some life back to her brain and body.
She’d barely slept last night, her mind unable to let go, her thoughts jumping from Andy’s disappearance to Jason’s murder to Tell al-Sharrukin to Joaquin and back again. She’d given up trying to sleep at five, packed her backpack full of everything she’d need for the day, and hopped the light rail, which had lots of surveillance cameras. First, she’d gone to the gym and done her workout. Then she’d showered and taken the light rail downtown. She’d been careful to choose a coffee shop that had video surveillance and made sure to look directly into the camera.
Twice now it seemed that someone had tried to make her look guilty of a serious crime. She wouldn’t stay at home alone where she could become a target like Andy and Jason—or find herself without an alibi.
She took another sip of coffee then slipped her tablet out of her handbag and logged onto the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi. She wrote a quick email to Wu, asking him how the investigation of Andy’s disappearance was progressing and reminding him that she wasn’t able to work until he exonerated her. Then she wrote to Kevin, her boss, to let him know how disappointed she was that he hadn’t stood by her.
She deleted that second one.
You’ll just get yourself fired.
Damn it!
She hated this feeling of helplessness. She hated to have to wait, not knowing what was going on with the investigation or when it would be over. She hated having this cloud of suspicion hanging over her head, following her everywhere she went.
At least Joaquin believed her.
He was the one thing about this past weekend that didn’t suck.
I feel a connection to you, Mia. I can’t explain it. I just know it’s there.
She knew what he meant because she felt it, too. It hardly seemed possible that she’d met him only last Friday.
He had kissed her. No, it hadn’t been a kiss on the mouth. It had been more like a kiss you’d give your sister. But if that’s what it felt like when Joaquin gave her a little peck, what would a full-on kiss with lips and teeth and tongues do to her?
Warmth that had nothing to do with caffeine zinged through her.
She probably shouldn’t think about that.
Is there a man in your life? You’re too smart and beautiful to be single.
He probably hadn’t meant that. He’d seemed serious, a warmth in his brown eyes that had made it hard to breathe. But Mia knew she wasn’t any man’s idea of beautiful, not really. Her hair was more orange than red. Her mouth was too broad. She was too thin with small breasts that barely filled a B cup.
You shouldn’t be thinking about Joaquin anyway, not when Andy is still missing and Jason is in the morgue.
She set her coffee down, pulled her smartphone out of her handbag, and called the one person in the world she’d hoped never to speak to again.
He answered on the second ring. “If it isn’t the Iron Maiden. What do you want, Starr? Is your ice cave getting lonely?”
Bennett Powell was an asshole. He was also her former commanding officer.
“Knock it off, Powell.” She refused to take the bait and got to the point. “Garcia is dead. Someone killed him last night, shot him to death in his home. Andy Meyer is missing. He disappeared from his home Friday evening. There were bullet holes in his shower stall.”
For a moment, he said nothing. “So?”
“You were their commanding officer. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Am I supposed to send flowers?”
And he thought she was cold?
“You don’t care?”
“Meyer was a fuck-up. The planet is better off without him. Garcia—that’s a bummer. He was okay.”
“Someone is trying to make it look like I’m responsible.”
Powell burst into laughter. “That’s the best damned thing I’ve heard all day. Hey, did the cops bring you in, maybe strip search you and make you bend over? Please tell me they did.”
She fought to control her anger, reminding herself that he no longer had any power over her life. “The two of them gone in four days—it made me wonder whether this might have something to do with Tell al-Sharruken.”
Powell gave a snort. “You think ancient Assyrians came after them?”
“Of course not. Maybe someone is angry—”
“Lots of people are angry—at you. No one was upset with Andy or Jason. Besides, Jason wasn’t part of it. He just tried to help. But you turned in the rest of us to advance your own career. You knew you’d never move up otherwise.”
“All I did was tell the truth.” Mia fought to keep her voice down. She was in public. She didn’t want to make a scene. “You were our leader. You lied to command. You led those guys into breaking the law. It’s your fault that—”
“You know what your problem is? No man wants you. You never get laid, so all of your natural womanly goodness has dried up, died. Your cunt is probably full of cobwebs. You’re a cold—”
“Go to hell, you limp-dick loser.” Mia ended the call, hands shaking, to find people at nearby tables staring at her. “Sorry.”
“I feel what I feel, man. Am I loco?” Joaquin took another drink of his Knockers’ Glacier Stout, his stocking feet on Matt’s coffee table.
He and Matt had gone out for Thai food after work and ended up here, waiting with the TV on mute for the Big 12 basketball game to start on ESPN.
“I’m fifty and divorced and look like Howdy Doody, and you’re thirty-four, good-looking, and hip, and you’re asking me for relationship advice? You must be desperate.” Matt shook his head, laughed. “But I gotta say—it does sound a little
strange. You two meet at a crime scene. She knows Elena. She gets you dragged in for questioning. She could be real trouble. Couldn’t you feel connected to a woman with fewer problems, maybe someone with millions in the bank and an older sister who’s single?”
Joaquin gave Matt a look of feigned disgust. “And end up with you as my brother-in-law or some shit?”
“The chicas love you. They love your physique. They love your dancing. They love your Pulitzer. Hell, I love your Pulitzer, but not enough to sleep with you.”
“No woman has slept with me because of my Pulitzer.” Not as far as he knew.
“The point is that you could be getting laid twice every night of the week if that’s what you wanted. Why get involved with this Mia person?”
“I’m not involved with her—not really. Besides, hookups feel so empty, man. It’s like jacking off using another person’s body instead of your hand.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Matt took a drink of his beer. “Right now, I’d be happy to—”
Joaquin’s cell phone buzzed somewhere. He got to his feet, found the damned thing in his coat pocket. “It’s her. It’s Mia.”
Matt frowned. “Why am I not surprised?”
Joaquin answered. “Hey, Mia.”
“Joaquin? I can barely hear you.” The sound of loud music and voices came from the background. “I’m going to step outside.”
“Where are you?”
“A nightclub on Pearl Street.” The music and voices faded. “Sorry about that.”
“Are you okay?”
She seemed to hesitate. “Yes, I’m fine. I’ve spent the whole day in coffee shops, restaurants, and bars where they have surveillance cameras. I’m afraid to be alone. I’m afraid to go home.”
There was genuine fear in her voice.
“Has something happened?”
Matt looked pointedly at Joaquin. “No, you’re not involved with her at all.”
Joaquin ignored him.
