Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9)

by Laura Griffin

  “You need to be in the moment, every moment.”

  “That’s right.”

  He leaned back in the booth, resting his arm on the back of his seat. At first glance, he seemed relaxed, but Tara knew better. There was an intensity to him, always. She studied the lines around his eyes and thought of how unjust it was that men actually looked good with crow’s feet.

  “You ever get tired of it?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Looking for assassins all the time.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “What’s an assassin look like?”

  “Don’t be glib.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You know what I mean. I’d think it would get tedious looking for bad guys everywhere you go.”

  “I don’t look for bad guys. Or assassins. Fact, I try not to look for anything.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Looking for something—some specific thing, like an ‘assassin’—that clutters your mind. It keeps you from seeing what’s there right in front of you.” He eased forward, seeming to warm up to the topic. “We train our people to be alert and observant without making judgments. If you spend your time making judgments, you’ll get sidetracked and miss something.”

  She frowned. “So when you’re watching a crowd, how do you figure out who’s a suspect?”

  “A suspect is anyone who draws your attention. That’s it. You don’t need to analyze it. Don’t overthink it, just go with your instincts. You want an unfiltered observation.”

  The server dropped off their drinks. Tara took a sip, watching him.

  “So if it’s all instinct,” she said, “why do your guys need so much training?”

  “A lot of the training is about responding to a threat. Most people duck for cover if they hear a gunshot. We train our people to have the opposite response, to move toward danger, not away. That’s why we hire so many combat veterans.”

  Tara’s pulse picked up. At last they were getting to what she really wanted to talk about. “What portion of your people are from military backgrounds?” she asked.

  “Around seventy percent.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “One reason we do so much screening is that the people coming back from overseas, a lot of them have the training, the discipline, and the maturity we’re looking for. But some are messed up, and that’s the cold, hard truth.” He paused. “So, yeah, I screen people. I’d be irresponsible not to. My business is about people, so I spend a lot of effort making sure I have the right ones for the job.”

  “But you never know what you don’t know about someone,” she said.

  “True. Sometimes it boils down to a judgment call.” He glanced out across the bar. “War changes people. You’re never quite the same when you come home.” He looked at her. “Everyone comes back with at least some adjustment problems. Unless they were a fobbit, and even then.”

  “What’s a fobbit?”

  “A guy who stays on the forward operating base, never leaves the wire. Our unit saw a lot of combat, so we were in the thick of it.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “It can be,” he said. “Guys who’ve been in combat, they’re used to bullets and explosions and other kinds of chaos. They know how to react in that environment without freezing up.”

  She thought of her reaction last night. Freezing up was an understatement. And she’d had SWAT training. Theoretically, she should be immune to the sound of gunfire, but having live ammunition aimed right at her changed things. Somehow her brain had known instantly that it wasn’t a training simulation.

  “You’re thinking about yesterday,” he said. “I can see it in your face.”

  “Actually, I’m thinking how I don’t have combat experience. So if I applied for a job with Wolfe Security, I’m guessing I wouldn’t make the cut.”

  “It’s doubtful.”

  That annoyed her. “Do you hire any women? Even veterans?”

  “It’s not that you’re a woman. If anything, that’s a selling point.”

  “Right.”

  “It is. Women are more in touch with their instincts,” he said. “It’s a survival thing. What women lack in physical strength they have to make up for by paying attention. How many times have you been in an elevator and some guy steps on and your guard goes up?”

  “I don’t know. It happens.”

  “That’s because you’re paying attention, listening to that faint voice in the back of your head that tells you whether someone poses a threat. Women are hard-wired to listen to that, but men aren’t and so a lot of times they don’t.”

  The waitress was back with his food. Tara eyed the mountain of fries, and her stomach rumbled.

  “Want some?” Liam asked.

  “No.”

  He chomped into his burger with an energy that appealed to her. He was obviously starving. So much for being craving-free on the job. He was human after all.

  “How come you don’t have more women working for you?” she asked.

  “There are a few. Like I said, being a woman isn’t your problem.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “What is my problem?”

  “Being a cop.”

  Her eyebrows shot up.

  “Cops tend to make crappy bodyguards,” he said. “They get bogged down thinking about probable cause and analyzing evidence. That’s a huge distraction, takes you out of the moment, makes you miss important details that signal an impending attack.” He gave her an appraising look. “Are you seriously considering security work?”

  “I don’t know.” She stole a French fry. “Maybe.” It was a lie. She wasn’t considering it at all, but she wanted him on this topic.

  “Hate to break it to you, but another problem is your age,” he said.

  “I’m only twenty-nine!”

  “I know. I look for early thirties. Experience counts for a lot. Tackling a public figure to the ground, that’s a risk. Me, I’ve got experience under my belt and I’m ready to weather the shitstorm if I’m wrong.”

  “So two strikes against me: my job and my age. Do I have anything going for me besides being a woman, which supposedly makes me an expert on body language?”

  “There’s sex.” He smiled. “You’ve got an edge there.”

  The warm tingle in her stomach was back. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” He leaned closer. “You don’t think about it as much, so you’re less prone to distractions.”

  “How the hell would you know what I think about?”

  “It’s a proven fact, Tara. Men think about sex more than women.”

  She looked into his eyes, remembering the way his kiss felt. His knee brushed hers under the table, and a jolt of heat went through her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere but those green eyes. He was challenging her, and she refused to show weakness.

  She thought of what he’d said about being in the moment, every moment. Including this one. She liked that intensity, that mind-body connection that was part of everything he did. He drew her in, and no matter how hard she tried to ignore that, she had a feeling he knew.

  “Why are you really here, Tara?” His voice was low and tinged with warning.

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “You want my files.”

  She held his gaze, trying hard not to bite her lip.

  “You bring a warrant?”

  “No.”

  “Then how’d you expect to get them?”

  She leaned back, trying to break the spell of his gaze. “I was hoping you might do the right thing here. For Catalina’s sake, if nothing else.” She regretted it the instant she said it. Not because it was a cheap shot but because it would make him dig in his heels.

  “Tara.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  She took another sip of her drink, hoping to cool her throat. He was really the master of the
stare-down. “I met your brother today,” she said.

  “I heard.”

  “He’s got some interesting ideas about our UNSUB. I assume he’s shared them with you?”

  “No, but I can guess. You’re looking for an ex-soldier or cop who has problems with authority figures.”

  “He has problems with women,” she said.

  “Okay, female authority figures.”

  “Well?” She arched her brows. “Doesn’t that concern you?”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. “Yeah.” He listened a moment, then squeezed his eyes shut and muttered a curse. “Okay, send Lopez and Chapman over to check it out.” He ended the call and slid from the booth.

  “Hey, we’re not finished.”

  “Duty calls.” He took out his wallet. “You staying here tonight?”

  “No.” She stood up, irritated that her interview was ending just as she’d been getting to the point. “I’m going back to Dunn’s Landing.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow. The candidate’s headed to Aspen.”

  “You’re not going?”

  “I’ve got a team there.” He left a few bills on the table. “We’ll talk later.”

  “But—”

  “And if you want my help, Tara, you’d better come up with something more compelling than a guilt trip.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tara had never led a task force, but she’d been on a few and knew the importance of projecting confidence to the team. So she didn’t mention to anyone, not even M.J., that she’d started her day with ten minutes of retching in the shower.

  It was nerves. Probably. She wasn’t sure why she felt so anxious, besides the obvious fact that the responsibility of getting justice for four murdered women weighed heavily on her shoulders.

  After Tara recovered from the bout of nausea, she did some PT in her room and then sat at a table with a spiral notebook, jotting down every bullet point she could remember from a seminar she’d taken at Quantico: “Leading with Integrity.” She came up with a pretty good list, and when she was finished she crumpled it up and pitched it into the trash.

  Forget seminars. She’d rely on what she’d learned during her cop days. She did some quick online research, made a brief detour, and showed up for the task force meeting with an armload of doughnuts.

  Red velvet, apple crumble, chocolate honey-glazed—she had every flavor she could dream of, plus a few she’d never imagined, along with a travel caddy of steaming coffee.

  Now, standing in the conference room of the Cypress County Sheriff’s Office, Tara knew she’d made the right call. Even Ingram, who had the home-field advantage, was too busy stuffing his face to challenge her agenda.

  “That about covers the physical evidence,” Tara said. “We have the tire tracks, the anthropologist’s report, and the two padlocks, which unfortunately didn’t yield prints or DNA.” She glanced at the clock. She’d been talking for twenty minutes without interruption. “Any questions so far?”

  “What about the glass?” M.J. asked. “Didn’t you say a sliver of glass was recovered from Catalina’s body?”

  “The DNA lab is still working on it,” Tara said.

  She was hoping the delay might mean they’d found something they wanted to confirm, but Tara kept that hope to herself. Until they knew something solid, the glass was secondary to the other leads they had going.

  “Anything else?” She glanced around the room. No questions, not even from the normally vocal Mike Brannon, who’d been silent the whole meeting. Tara figured he was either ticked off that she’d gotten the job he wanted or unhappy about being sent to backwoods East Texas where the chances of getting called in on a SWAT raid were pretty much nil.

  “Okay, let’s move on to the profile.” Tara flipped open a folder. “This came in late last night, and it’s based on all our current information.”

  Ingram and his deputy exchanged a look, as if she’d just announced she was about to read tarot cards.

  “Our UNSUB, or unidentified subject, is most likely a white male between twenty-five and forty—”

  Jason sneered. “Where’d they get his age from?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said briskly. “He’s thought to be strong, possibly tall, and drives a pickup truck with oversized tires. He most likely has a background in the military, law enforcement, emergency services, or some combination thereof.”

  She glanced up, and both Ingram and his deputy were watching skeptically, their arms folded over their chests. With their matching buzz cuts, they looked a lot alike, and she wondered if they might actually be related.

  She looked back down at her file. “Given the locations of the crime scenes, it’s probable that he lives in the area—”

  “What area?” Chief Becker cut in.

  “Good question.” She thumbed back a page. “Looks like a fifty-mile radius of Dunn’s Landing, which includes Cypress to the north and Silver Springs to the south.” She glanced up again. “As I was saying, the UNSUB likely either lives in the area or once did, based on the various back roads used to access the crime scenes. This is his comfort zone, in other words.”

  She skimmed the final page of Mark Wolfe’s report. “And . . . that’s about all we have so far, but the profiler said he’d have more once he analyzes the victimology.”

  “The who?”

  She glanced at Jason. “The victimology. There could be a pattern that emerges about the four victims. We’re still working on that.”

  She scanned the faces around the room. The sugar-induced alertness seemed to be fading. Time to cut to the chase.

  “Let’s talk about our current list of suspects,” she said. Her goal was to stop wasting time on long shots so they could develop a new list based on the profile, a list they might eventually cross-reference with something from Liam.

  Assuming she could get him to cooperate.

  She turned to Jason. “You were going to follow up with Donny Price, the short-order cook. How’d that go?”

  He shrugged. “Looks like he has an alibi.”

  “Does it check out?”

  “He was on shift at the diner that night. Crystal and Jeannie both vouch for him. Anyway, the aggravated assault charge? It wasn’t a woman or anything. He got in a bar fight in Houston, went after some guy with a beer bottle, put him in the hospital.”

  Tara made a note on her list. “Okay, what about the other one you were looking at, Ross McThune?”

  “Still working on him,” Jason answered.

  “You were right about the plea bargain,” Ingram said.

  Tara stared at him in shock. Was he actually giving her credit in front of a room full of people? Hooray for chocolate-glazed doughnuts.

  “Turns out, he was arrested for aggravated sexual assault,” the sheriff continued. “But the girl was his date and it was one of those ‘he said, she said’ cases. Long and short of it was, prosecutor got him to cop to a lesser charge, kind of a slap on the wrist, it being his first offense.”

  Tara made another note on her list. “Okay. So what’s his alibi?”

  “Still checking it out,” Jason said. “He claims he was doing a run up to Tulsa.”

  “A run?”

  “He used to be a long-haul truck driver.”

  That got Tara’s attention.

  “This was back before his disability,” Jason said. “Now he runs a load every once in a while, favor for a friend kind of thing. We’re checking it out.”

  “Sounds like a good lead,” she said. “Especially since one of our victims was last seen at a truck stop.”

  Jason nodded. “I’ll keep on it.”

  Tara glanced around the room. “Okay, let’s assign tasks. M.J., I’d like you to follow up on that anonymous call from Monday about the bones in the woods. We’re assuming it was from poachers, but we need to nail it down.”

  “Got it.”

  “Jason, you handle the surveillance footage from the truck stop where Alys
on Hutchison disappeared. Interview the staff, see if you get any hits on Ross McThune. Maybe he’s been through there.” She looked at Becker. “Chief, where are we on the interviews with people from Silver Springs Park?”

  “All wrapped up,” he said. “We’re still waiting for more forensics on the Lexus, case someone touched anything. Houston PD is giving us a hand with that.”

  She glanced at Brannon. “And what about our Houston office? You all have been handling David Reyes. Are we ready to cross him off the list?”

  “That’s affirmative,” Brannon said, in typical military-speak. “Our forensic accounting team went over his financials, nothing suspicious. And his alibi checks out about ten different ways. I say we table him for now, focus on other leads.”

  She looked down at her notes.

  “Like Liam Wolfe,” Jason said.

  “He has an alibi,” M.J. put in. “And it’s confirmed by the airline.”

  “He might be able to help us, though,” Tara said. “I’m hoping to get more info about the men working for him.”

  Jason scoffed. “Good luck on that.”

  Tara ignored the comment, scheduled a follow-up meeting, and sent everyone on their way. When the conference room was empty, she blew out a sigh and stared down at her notes.

  Her heart was pounding, and her skin felt clammy. But she’d made it through her first task force meeting without any major battles, and everyone had more or less taken orders.

  Or so it seemed.

  Whatever resentment was festering beneath the surface would have to be dealt with later. For now, she had her own list to tackle, and it was much too long because she’d never been good at delegating.

  Tara gathered up her files. As she left the building, she was smacked by a gust of cold air. Shivering under her blazer, she made her way to her Explorer and was surprised to find Ingram leaning against the door.

  A little alarm sounded in her head. He tipped his hat politely, and the alarm got louder. She stopped on the sidewalk and waited.

  “Couldn’t help but notice something,” he drawled.

  “What’s that?”

  “You didn’t mention Alligator Joe.”

  Well, damn. The sheriff was sharper than she’d thought. She’d kept the interview of Joe Giroux for herself because he could very well be a key witness, and she didn’t want anyone botching the job.