Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9)

by Laura Griffin

  Tara bolted upright in bed.

  “What is it?” Liam sat up, blinking at her in the darkness. “Tara?”

  “Nothing.”

  He listened. The rain outside had ceased. The motel room was dead quiet.

  “It’s just a nightmare. Sorry.” She swung her legs out of bed. “Go back to sleep.”

  She grabbed a T-shirt off the chair as she walked to the bathroom. He glanced at the clock. Already 0500.

  He got up and snagged his jeans off the floor. They were cold and damp like the rest of the room. The heater had crapped out sometime during the night.

  Liam watched her in the bathroom mirror as he zipped up. Her hair was wild. Her eyes looked swollen and pink from crying—either last night or in her sleep or both.

  He walked over and propped his shoulder against the doorframe as she rummaged through a makeup bag.

  “Sorry.” She met his gaze in the mirror. “I’m coming off something at work. It’s been a hard time, even before this.”

  “The child sex ring?”

  She looked surprised. “You know about it?”

  “Saw something on the news. That must have been bad.”

  “It was.”

  Liam looked her over. Standing there in her T-shirt and bare feet, she didn’t look the part of a SWAT jock. She shook an aspirin from a bottle and swallowed it down with a handful of water. “They have someone you can talk to about that, don’t they?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Tara?”

  “Is that what Marines do?” She took out her toothbrush. “Go running to a shrink whenever it gets bad?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “You know, you’re not alone in this. You don’t have to be tough all the time.”

  “Actually, I do.” She ran her toothbrush under the faucet. “I’m head of a task force. If I burst into tears at the drop of a hat, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

  The faucet started coughing and spurting, and the water ran brown.

  “Ew!” She jerked her toothbrush away. “Jesus Christ!”

  Liam huffed out a sigh. “How much longer you plan to stay in this dump?”

  She turned off the faucet. “As long as I need.”

  “Why don’t you stay with me?”

  She stared at him in the mirror.

  “You want me to—”

  “Come stay at my house. Yes.”

  She turned to look at him. “I can’t just shack up with you.”

  “Why not? This place is a rathole. And the security sucks.”

  “You’re just being protective.”

  “Right. I’m protective of people who matter to me.”

  That got her attention. Her jaw dropped slightly, and she had the same deer-in-the-headlights look he’d seen when he tried to give her his gate key. Again she looked scared, but there was something else there, too, and damned if he didn’t need to make her admit it.

  He stepped closer. “Is this how it’s going to be again? I reach out to you and you stare at me?”

  Panic flickered in her eyes. “I’m not good at this stuff, Liam.”

  “What stuff?”

  “This. Relationships.”

  He knew the instant she realized what she’d said because her cheeks flushed. He smiled, which only made her look more upset.

  “What are you grinning at?”

  He cupped her face. “Progress.” He kissed her, tangling his fingers in her hair, and he could feel her frustration as she kissed him back. She didn’t want to, but she was doing it anyway, and he knew he’d found her Achilles’ heel. Sex. Never in his life had he met a woman so physical, and he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He forced himself to step back before he got carried away. He checked his watch and retrieved his shirt from the floor.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as he buttoned up.

  “Meeting Jeremy.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Why? It’s five A.M.”

  He pulled on his boots. Then he grabbed his Sig from the dresser and tucked it into the back of his jeans. “I’ll call you later, after you’re done with the autopsy.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He shrugged into his jacket, then walked over and kissed her one last time. “Be careful today.”

  “Liam—”

  “And don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answers to.”

  FIRST LIGHT CAME slowly because of the cloud cover, and when Liam arrived at the designated location it was barely gray. He parked beside the F-250. Jeremy had the tailgate down and was bent over a map.

  “What do you got?” Liam asked.

  He glanced up. “I did some tracking. Covered about four square miles due east.” He tapped the map, and Liam leaned in to look.

  It was a detailed topographical rendering of the area with extensive detail about trees. Liam figured the map had come from the timber company that owned the land they were standing on, which abutted Silver Springs Park.

  “When was this?” Liam asked.

  “I started before dusk, just after we got word of the body. Packed it in about 2200 because of the rain.”

  That was about the time he’d sent the text asking Liam to meet him here at dawn.

  “I figure he likes to watch,” Jeremy said.

  “He does.”

  “Found something else. Took me a while to get there last night, but looks like we can cut through.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Jeremy checked his handheld GPS, and they set out for a nearby dirt road. A NO TRESPASSING sign was hooked to the gate. They ducked through the barbed-wire fence and headed into the forest.

  The air was cold and misty, but the rain had let up. Jeremy had on a lightweight jacket in woodland camo, and he carried his .300 on a leather strap slung over his shoulder. Liam wore a brown canvas jacket and was armed with his Sig plus a Ka-Bar knife. Out of habit, they took care to leave no trace as they moved through the foliage.

  Liam scanned the ground for evidence—footprints, food wrappers, signs of recent traffic. The sky was brightening by the minute, and the gray shadows around them were turning to browns and greens.

  “Check it out.” Liam veered into a stand of trees to examine a small fire pit.

  “Think it’s him?”

  “Don’t know. Looks recent, though.”

  Liam looked but found nothing useful in the charred debris. They resumed their course. As they moved from oaks and hackberries into loblolly pines and long-leafs, the ground underfoot became a carpet of pine needles. Liam felt the grade increase until they reached the top of a ridge.

  Then Liam saw it.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. The weathered old wood blended perfectly with the forest.

  Except for the right angles.

  “Nature doesn’t like straight lines,” Jeremy said. Liam looked at him and saw the faintest trace of a smile.

  “Good find,” Liam said, stepping closer to examine the hunting blind. It was a simple platform made of wide slats, accessed by a narrow wooden ladder.

  Liam studied the rungs. Any trace of mud or other evidence had washed away in the rain. He climbed the ladder and looked west over the treetops in the direction of Silver Springs Park.

  Jeremy handed up a spotting scope. Liam crouched on the platform and checked the view.

  “See anything?”

  “Yes.”

  Through the lens, Liam had a clear view of the sign marking the park entrance.

  And of a blond newswoman holding a microphone.

  Liam skimmed his gaze over the crowd. Several police units had been stationed at the scene to shoo away onlookers, creating the perfect dramatic backdrop for at least six different camera crews.

  The UNSUB had been up here, Liam could feel it. He’d watched from this exact vantage point, enjoying the spectacle he’d created. He’d watched the police come and go, the ME’s van, the news crews.

  Tara.

  The UNSUB hat
ed women. He’d killed at least five already, including a prominent politician. Who was next, a female cop? The head of the task force?

  Liam’s gut clenched. His brother had warned him that this man was escalating, that he’d developed a taste for killing and was feeding off not just the act itself but also the surrounding attention. His first few kills had gone unnoticed by the media. But now, with Catie and then a waitress who had been serving up pancakes to news crews all week, the killer had definitely captured the media’s attention. Every reporter who’d set foot in the diner now felt a personal connection to the story.

  “He’s one sick son of a bitch,” Jeremy said.

  “Smart, though.” Liam lowered the scope.

  “And trained.”

  Liam took a last look around and climbed down off the platform. They trekked back in silence, still combing the ground for any tracks or clues. He was the worst kind of enemy. Armed and agile and operating in his comfort zone.

  “Kind of surprised to find a deer blind so close to the park,” Jeremy said.

  “It wasn’t always a park. Some lumber heiress donated the land about ten years ago. Turns out she’s a tree hugger, didn’t want to log it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s still around. Sold me some of my acreage a few years back.”

  They trudged in silence for a while, with Jeremy checking the GPS every few minutes and Liam deep in thought.

  Tara was at the autopsy now. But it would be over soon and she’d be out again, working the case right there in broad daylight, tromping around the crime scenes in plain view of anyone with a scope.

  And she wouldn’t transfer off the case.

  Or steer clear of the woods.

  Or do a single damn thing he’d asked her to, including come to stay at his house.

  He’d seen the resistance in her eyes this morning, the distrust, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it because it was a part of her, every bit as much as her cool blue eyes. And right then Liam wanted her again. He wanted her lithe body and her strong legs. He wanted her lush mouth that could just as easily tell him off as set him on fire. He wanted her totally, fiercely, and with a possessiveness that shocked him.

  For years he’d prided himself on being disciplined and immune to cravings. But Tara had blown all that out of the water. She’d taken over his thoughts, his dreams. She was in his head, and he couldn’t get her out. She’d shattered his focus. No woman had ever done that to him before.

  Keeping Tara safe had become his core mission. And she wasn’t even his client. She wasn’t anything at all, except the woman who’d upended his life.

  Liam trekked through the forest trying to figure out when it had happened, when fifteen years’ worth of training and mental discipline had ceased to matter. He didn’t give a shit about his job right now. He didn’t give a shit about his obligations or his clients or even his men. Tara was it.

  Problem was, she was wary. Skeptical. And she had a chip on her shoulder for reasons he could only guess. Liam understood having a chip—he’d had one, too, but the Marines had mostly beaten it out of him. So her distrust was an obstacle, but it wasn’t insurmountable. Over time she’d see that she could trust him, that he didn’t break commitments. Eventually, maybe she’d open the door to him—just a crack, just enough for him to get a foothold.

  They were alike. Even without knowing everything about her, Liam could sense it. They both had experiences that had hardened them. But there were moments, like last night, when she’d softened around him. She’d let down her guard, and he was clinging to that because it meant he had a chance.

  The terrain leveled out as they neared the road.

  “You want a camera set up again?” Jeremy asked.

  “He’s onto it.” Liam wasn’t sure why he felt sure of that, but he did. “He won’t be back here.” He stopped and glanced around at the woods, discouraged. “I feel like we know this guy, like this is his backyard.”

  Jeremy looked at him. “Ours, too.”

  They moved soundlessly through the trees as Liam refined his plan.

  “I want a tight group,” Liam said. “You, me, Lopez.”

  “You want a manhunt.”

  “We need three men, four maximum. Total radio silence.”

  A flash of movement through the trees caught Liam’s eye.

  “You have a tail out here?” He looked at Jeremy.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “One of us did.”

  Liam ducked through the barbed-wire fence and stepped over to the road, where a light brown cruiser was parked beside his pickup. Ingram and two of his deputies leaned against the grille of the sheriff’s SUV.

  “Liam Wolfe.” Ingram stepped forward and tipped his hat. “Just the man I wanted to see.” He smiled slyly. “You’re under arrest.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  M.J. looked around anxiously as she approached the little brick house. She counted three separate BEWARE OF DOG signs hooked to the chain-link fence, but the only barks she heard were coming from the neighbors’.

  She knocked on the door, and it was answered by a woman with greasy blond hair and pink, watery eyes.

  “Amy Leahy? I’m Special Agent Martinez. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Come on in. Sorry about the mess.”

  Her voice was low and nasal, and she pinched a tissue over her nose as she ushered M.J. inside. She wore a gray sweatshirt over pajamas, and her house smelled like Lipton Cup-a-Soup. She led M.J. to the living room, where a tissue box sat on the coffee table beside a purple yearbook. Still no sign of a dog.

  “Feeling any better?” M.J. asked.

  “No. I was going to go in anyway, but . . .” Her face crumpled, and she looked down at her bare feet. “Sorry.” She sank onto the end of the sofa beside a bunched-up nap blanket. She picked up the TV remote and muted the sound on a news broadcast.

  M.J. took a seat on a worn armchair. “Did you know Crystal Marshall?”

  She nodded and blew a honk into her tissue. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a wreck today. Crystal and me went to school together. She was a year behind, in my brother’s grade.”

  M.J. gave her a sympathetic look, but she couldn’t bring herself to say any canned words of condolence. Not with that yearbook sitting there. Instead, she took a notepad from her purse and let Amy have a moment to compose herself.

  “I realize this is a bad time,” she said, “so I’ll try to keep it quick—”

  “I don’t mind. Really. I want to help.”

  “You took the call last Monday morning. Let’s see . . . five fifty A.M.?”

  “That’s right.” She squared her shoulders and seemed to settle in for the interview. “He didn’t give his name.”

  “He gave his location, though?”

  “Yeah, he was very specific. Said he was at Corrine Timber, northwest quadrant, near the capped gas well. Said he’d been walking through the woods with his dog and came across a skull.”

  “Did you think it was strange to get a call like that? So early, I mean, from someone walking his dog?”

  “Not really. We get all kinda calls all the time, day and night.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the sheriff said it was probably a poacher, so in that case it makes sense he’d be out early.”

  M.J. consulted her notes. That assumption was the reason she was here. What if it wasn’t a poacher? The profiler who’d briefed the task force said he believed the UNSUB was interested in the investigation, interested enough to insert himself in some way.

  Such as calling in an anonymous tip to investigators. Maybe he felt overlooked and wanted to make sure he got credit for every one of his kills.

  “I asked did he live in town, but he wouldn’t answer,” Amy said. “Just repeated the location of the skull and hung up.”

  M.J. nodded. She’d listened to the tape.

  “We traced the call, though,” Amy added. “It bounced off the cell tower right there near the Corrine Timber field
office. The address popped up there on my screen. There’s nothing much out that way, you know. Nothing at all, really, but a bunch of woods. So either he was standing right near the timber office with his cell phone or he was right there in it.”

  “That’s what we thought, too. We had some of our tech people take a look at the call.” M.J. didn’t mention that they’d traced not only the call but the number itself. The call had come from a no-contract phone, a throwaway.

  And that was another red flag. What was a hunter doing walking around with a burner phone? Sure, it was possible, but M.J. thought it seemed odd.

  “Have you thought about asking their landsman there in the timber office?” Amy said. “Maybe he saw something. He might not have been there that early, but you could ask.”

  “Good idea.” M.J. jotted some notes. She already had plans to talk to him.

  Amy cast a glance at the TV, where they were running camera footage of Silver Springs Park on an endless loop.

  M.J. cleared her throat to pull Amy’s attention back. “You probably get hundreds of calls a day, so this may sound like a strange question, but . . . any chance you recognized the voice?”

  She brightened. “Actually, I do sometimes. We’re not that big a county. And Dunn’s Landing is so small, so . . . yeah, sometimes I know people.” Her brow furrowed. “You want to know if I recognized him?”

  “That’s what I was wondering, yeah.”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I would have told the sheriff that.” The crease in her brow deepened. “You don’t think it’s him, do you? The killer?” She twisted the tissue in her hands. “Oh, Lord. You do, don’t you? You think he was the one who called in those bones?”

  “We’re just tying up loose ends, really. The sheriff’s probably right about it being a poacher, but I just thought I’d ask.”

  Amy darted a look at the door, as if someone might come bursting in, and M.J. regretted coming. Clearly, she was freaking this girl out.

  But if there was even a chance she knew something, it was worth the visit. M.J. couldn’t stop thinking about the profiler, about how certain he’d been that their UNSUB would at some point find a way to involve himself because it would give him some sort of thrill.

  “Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the call? Maybe a background noise or any kind of detail about his voice?”