Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9)

by Laura Griffin

  “Take Martinez with you. She’s got the location and she’s on her way to your house, ETA ten minutes.”

  Tara checked her sports watch.

  “Stay off your phone,” he added. “You understand? I need complete discretion on this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And one more thing, Rushing.”

  She waited.

  “Don’t let the yokels jerk you around.”

  TARA DROVE NORTH on the highway hemmed in by towering trees. Barely an hour out of the city, she could already feel the change as they passed through the Pine Curtain. The night seemed thicker here, darker. She leaned forward, peering through the windshield at the moonless sky.

  “Next exit,” M.J. said, consulting the map on her phone. “We’re looking for Dunn’s Road.”

  Tara glanced at the agent beside her. M. J. Martinez was a rookie, not even a year on the job.

  “You know, it’s after one,” M.J. said, looking at Tara. “I can’t believe I’m even awake right now. I’ve had about three hours’ sleep in the past three days.”

  Tara took the exit ramp. “At least you got a shower. I smell like gym socks.”

  M.J. didn’t deny it. She’d been involved in the raid, too, but from a planning perspective. In her former life, Martinez had been a tax attorney. She was smart and organized but green when it came to fieldwork. Tara had her HPD experience plus SWAT training under her belt, so she tended to be more hands-on.

  “This is it,” M.J. said. “Dunn’s Road. Hang a right.”

  Tara slowed, squinting at a sign marking a narrow road. Her headlights swept across tree trunks. The thicket gave way to jagged stumps, and Tara switched to brights. She thought the stumps looked ominous until the houses came into view, ramshackle wooden structures with sagging porches. Rusted septic tanks and dismantled cars littered the yards. Some of the homes were strangled by kudzu and had plywood covering the windows. None had seen a coat of paint in decades, unless you counted graffiti.

  They passed the charred carcass of a house, and M.J. looked at her. “Meth lab?”

  “Good bet.”

  The houses petered out, and so did the pavement. M.J. consulted her phone again because Tara’s ancient Ford didn’t have a GPS. The Blue Beast barely had a working heater. But the tires were new, and the four-wheel drive could handle anything. Tara changed the oil religiously so it wouldn’t crap out on her.

  “Looks like we’re getting close,” M.J. said, studying her screen. Instead of an address, Jacobs had provided her with GPS coordinates, along with the interesting factoid that FBI participation in this matter—whatever it was—had come at the request of the Honorable Wyatt H. Mooring, a federal judge.

  “Veer left,” M.J. instructed.

  Tara buzzed down the windows, filling the SUV with cold, damp air that smelled faintly of rotten eggs. It was cloudy out but no rain in the forecast, although that was yet another aspect of tonight that might not turn out as planned.

  “We should be veering left again,” M.J. said, “after what looks like maybe a creek?”

  They dipped down over a low-water bridge and heard the rush of water.

  “Logging route,” Tara said, noting the clear-cuts on either side. They pitched and bumped over the rutted road, passing a rickety cistern and another rusted septic tank. They rattled over a cattle guard and passed through a gap in a barbed-wire fence. Tara glanced around but didn’t see any livestock, or any other creature for that matter. Clear-cuts gave way to trees again, and a sense of foreboding settled in her stomach as they moved deeper into the woods. The road narrowed until the tree trunks felt like they were closing in.

  She looked at M.J., wide-eyed and tense in the seat beside her.

  “What the hell are we doing here?” M.J. asked, voicing the question in Tara’s mind.

  “I think Judge Mooring’s from around here. Grew up in Dunn’s Landing.”

  As if that explained why their boss had sent them scrambling into the forest in the dead of the night.

  M.J. looked at her. “What’s the difference between God and a federal judge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “God doesn’t think he’s a federal judge.”

  Tara smiled, for what seemed like the first time in days.

  A flicker of light caught her eye, a flash of white through the tree trunks. Her smile dropped.

  “Whatever this is, I think we found it.”

  EMERGENCY VEHICLES LINED the side of the road—sheriff’s units, an ambulance, a red pickup truck with the emblem of a local fire department on the door. A khaki-clad deputy in a ten-gallon hat waved them down.

  Tara handed her ID through the window. “Special Agent Tara Rushing, FBI.”

  He examined her creds, then ducked his head down and peered into the window as M.J. held up her badge.

  He hesitated and then passed Tara’s ID back. “Pull around to the right there. Watch the barricades.”

  Tara pulled around as instructed and parked beside a white crime-scene van.

  M.J. got out first, attracting immediate notice from the huddle of lawmen milling beside the red pickup. They looked her up and down, taking in her tailored gray slacks and crisp white button-down. Then again, maybe it was her curves they were noticing or the lush dark hair that cascaded down her back.

  Tara pushed open her door. Tall and willowy, she attracted stares, too, but for a different reason. She was still geared up from the raid in tactical pants and Oakley assault boots, with handcuffs tucked into her waistband and her Glock snug against her hip. Her curly brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. She grabbed her FBI windbreaker from the backseat, and the men eyed her coolly as she zipped into it.

  Another deputy hustled over.

  “Who’s in charge of this crime scene?” Tara asked, flashing her creds.

  He glanced at her ID, then her face. The man was short and stocky and smelled like vomit.

  “That’d be Sheriff Ingram.” He cast a glance behind him, where the light show continued deep in the woods.

  “I’d like a word with him.”

  He looked at her.

  “Please.”

  He darted a glance at M.J., then traipsed off down a narrow trail marked with yellow scene tape.

  The men continued to stare, but Tara ignored them and surveyed her surroundings. Someone had hooked a camping lantern to a nail on a nearby tree, illuminating a round clearing with a crude fire pit at the center. Old tires and tree stumps surrounded the pit, along with beer cans and cigarette butts. Someone had cordoned off the area with yellow tape and placed evidence markers near the cans and butts.

  Tara studied the ground outside the tape, where an alarming number of tire tracks crisscrossed the loamy soil.

  Another khaki uniform approached her, no hat this time. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Sheriff Ingram?”

  A brisk nod.

  “Special Agent Tara Rushing.” She showed her ID again, but he didn’t look. “And Special Agent Maria Jose Martinez.”

  If he was surprised the FBI had shown up at his crime scene, he didn’t show it.

  “We’re here at the request of Judge Wyatt Mooring,” M.J. added.

  He glanced at her, then back at Tara.

  With his brawny build and high-and-tight haircut, Sheriff Ingram looked like a Texas good old boy. But Tara didn’t want to underestimate him. His eyes telegraphed intelligence, and he seemed to be carefully weighing his options. He stepped closer and rested his hands on his gun belt.

  “I got a homicide.” He nodded toward the woods. “Female victim. No ID, no clothes, no vehicle. Long story short, I don’t have a lot.”

  His gaze settled on Tara, and her shoulders tensed. She could feel something coming.

  “What I do have is an abandoned Lexus down at Silver Springs Park,” he said. “Registered to Catalina Reyes.”

  “Catalina Reyes,” Tara repeated.

  “That’s right. She was last seen th
ere yesterday evening. Didn’t show up for work today.”

  Tara glanced at M.J., communicating silently. Holy crap. She looked back at the sheriff. “How far’s this park?” she asked.

  “Twenty miles due southa here.”

  A deputy strode up to them. “Sheriff, you need to come see this.”

  Ingram trudged off, leaving Tara and M.J. staring at each other in the glare of the lantern.

  Catalina Reyes was a north Houston businesswoman who’d made a run for U.S. Congress in the last election. She’d been a lightning rod for controversy since the moment she announced her candidacy.

  “She was getting death threats, wasn’t she?” M.J. said.

  “I think so.”

  Tara turned to look at the forest, where police had set up klieg lights around the inner crime scene. Workers in white Tyvek suits moved around, probably CSIs or ME’s assistants. Tara saw the strobe of a camera flash. She noted more deputies with flashlights combing a path deep within the woods. They must have assumed that the killer accessed the site from the east, and Tara hoped to hell they were right, because whatever evidence might have been recovered from the route Tara had used had been obliterated by boots and tires.

  The Cypress County Sheriff’s Department didn’t see many homicides and probably had little to no experience handling anything this big.

  If, in fact, the victim was Catalina Reyes.

  Tara bit the inside of her lip, a habit she caved into when she was nervous. Why had Jacobs sent them? Not just agents but specifically her and M.J.? As experience went, Tara came up short and Martinez was green as grass.

  M.J. muttered something beside her.

  “What?” Tara asked.

  She started to answer, but Ingram approached. Tara looked at him, and she knew—she knew—that how she handled the next few moments would affect everything.

  “Sheriff, the Bureau would like to help here,” Tara said. “We can have an evidence response team on-site within an hour.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “I think we got a handle on it.”

  Just what she’d thought he’d say. “I’d like to see the crime scene,” she told him.

  He gave her a hard look that said, No you wouldn’t, little lady. But Tara stubbornly held his gaze. “Suit yourself,” he said, setting off.

  She followed him, with M.J. close behind. They moved through the trees along a path marked by LED traffic flares. The air smelled of damp pine, but as they neared the bright hive of activity, the sickly smell of death overtook everything. Ingram stepped aside, and Tara nearly tripped over a forensic photographer crouched on the ground aiming her camera at the body sprawled in the dirt.

  Pale face, slack jaw. She looked almost peaceful . . . except for the horrific violence below her neck.

  Tara’s throat burned.

  M.J. lurched back, bumping into a tree. She turned and threw up.

  Think, Tara ordered herself. She forced herself to step closer and study the scene.

  A five-foot radius around the body had been marked off with metal stakes connected by orange twine. Only an ME’s assistant in white coveralls operated within the inner perimeter. He knelt beside the victim, jotting notes on a clipboard.

  Tara’s heart pounded. Her mind whirled. She drew air into her lungs and forced herself to slow down. She felt Ingram’s gaze on her and tried to block it out.

  Think.

  Rigor mortis had passed. Even with the cool weather, she’d been dead at least twelve hours. No obvious bruising on her arms or legs. Her feet were spread apart. Damp leaves clung to her calves. Toenail polish—dark pink. Tara looked at her arms. No visible abrasions, but the left hand was bent at a strange angle.

  And her body . . . Tara forced herself to look without flinching. The woman had been sliced open from her sternum to her navel and eviscerated. Her organs glistened in the klieg lights.

  Tara walked around, careful not to get in the photographer’s way as she studied the victim’s face again. The right side was partly covered by a curtain of dark hair.

  “Who called it in?” She glanced at Ingram.

  “Couple of teenagers.” He nodded back toward the fire pit. “This whole area’s a hangout. Kids come out to smoke pot, have sex, whatever they want. They’re at the station house,” he added, answering her next question. “I got one of my deputies interviewing them.”

  “He’s finished up.”

  Tara glanced to her left, where the deputy she’d met earlier was slouched against a tree. He looked queasy, and she understood now why his breath smelled rancid.

  “He got ’em on videotape,” the deputy said. “Interviewed both of them side by side.”

  Tara looked at Ingram. “I’d like to talk to them.”

  “Who, the kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, then stalked off.

  Tara turned to M.J., who was standing off to the side looking shell-shocked. Tara arched her brows in a silent question, and M.J. answered with a nod.

  The deputy turned and shot tobacco juice at the ground.

  “Don’t spit on the crime scene,” Tara said, stepping around the photographer.

  The deputy’s face flushed, and his nostrils flared.

  “We’ll interview them separately,” Tara told M.J. “Although it may be too late to get a straight story.”

  The photographer scrolled through her camera. “I have what I need here,” she told the ME’s people. “You guys are good to go.”

  The one holding the stretcher stepped carefully over the orange twine and crouched down beside the corpse. His partner unfurled a body bag.

  Tara watched uneasily. They were taking away the body now, processing the scene, for better or for worse. Whatever chance Tara had had to involve the Bureau at this critical point in the investigation was gone. If that had been her boss’s purpose in sending her here, then she’d already failed.

  But she sensed there was more to it.

  A knot of tension formed in her chest as she cast her gaze around the scene. The fire pit had been surrounded by evidence markers, but here near the body there were precious few.

  Tara glanced at the deputy watching her sullenly from against the tree. She forced her attention back to the victim. An ME’s assistant tucked the hands into paper bags, and Tara felt a twinge of relief watching his skilled movements.

  Tara checked her watch. Almost two. She turned her gaze toward the dense thicket and shivered, suddenly cold to her bones.

  How the hell had she ended up at this backwoods horror show? She felt unwelcome. Unsure of herself. She was even less sure of the politics in play, only that they involved a right-leaning judge and a left-leaning politician, plus a territorial sheriff backed by hostile troops.

  She glanced at M.J. and wondered if she was having similar thoughts. This case was a disaster, and they’d barely started. The circumstances could hardly be worse.

  A flash of light above the treetops, followed by a low rumble. Tara tipped her gaze up to the sky.

  It started to rain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tara didn’t dream of woods and gore but of a squalid apartment and a sunken-eyed child. She woke up with wet cheeks and stared, disoriented, at a crack in the wall.

  The raid was over. The hollow feeling in her chest was her reminder that she’d been too late.

  Now she was at the Big Pines Motel in Dunn’s Landing.

  Tara swung her legs out of bed, rubbing the crick in her neck as she glanced at the clock. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept past 6:00, but it was 7:40. Her phone chimed across the room, and she lunged to answer it, cursing herself because she knew who it was even before she saw the screen, and she should have been prepared.

  “Rushing,” she said hoarsely.

  “Jacobs here. Just read your e-mail. You’re still up there?”

  She cleared her throat. “
The autopsy’s at ten, sir. I thought—”

  “Good idea. In the meantime, we’re sending those reports you wanted. No confirmation yet?”

  “Hopefully later this morning. The county coroner here is about eighty years old and decided to take a pass on this one. They’re bringing a pathologist up from Houston.”

  “All right, keep me posted.”

  He hung up, and Tara blinked down at her phone. Her brain kicked into gear, and she texted M.J. on the other side of the motel.

  They’d rolled in after four A.M. and roused the manager from his apartment behind the office. He’d been surly about it but less so when he learned they wanted two rooms for at least three nights. Better safe than sorry, Tara figured. The town had one motel, and depending on how the autopsy played out, they could have reporters converging by the afternoon.

  Tara showered and rummaged through her hastily packed duffel. She was in Bureau casual today, a unisex outfit of navy golf shirt, desert-brown tactical pants, and boots. She holstered her weapon and sent another text to M.J. before walking across the street.

  The Waffle Stop parking lot was crammed with pickups and SUVs. Long-haul rigs occupied the back third of the lot, making Tara optimistic about the coffee.

  The aroma of bacon had her stomach growling as she stepped into the diner. The place was busy, but she found a corner booth, where she scrolled through e-mail as a scarlet-haired waitress filled her mug.

  Tara was right about the coffee. As she sipped it, she scanned the customers, trying to get a feel for the town. Blue-collar, definitely. Mostly white. The breakfast crowd was a mix of locals who seemed to know one another, plus some loners at the counter—probably the truckers. The entire place was covered by two servers, Tara’s and a peroxide blonde who looked at least sixty. In addition to handling the counter patrons, the blonde rang up checks at the register beside a case displaying the day’s pies.

  A cowbell clanged, and Tara glanced at the door as M.J. walked in. Her long hair was damp, and she attracted curious looks in her tailored gray suit.

  “I feel like a city slicker,” she said, scooting into the booth.

  “You are.”

  The waitress stopped by to take her order. As she left, M.J. unzipped her computer bag.