by Rachel Caine
“Slow down, Stefan. Here.” Something cold pressed into his hand—a bottle of water, beaded with sweat. He twisted off the cap and chugged down several gulps before nodding.
He was sitting on the curb next to the police cruiser—he remembered getting in, remembered discussing things—that was the polite term—with the two cops Katie had assigned to take him away from her, but then…then…
Then Teal had connected again, and blown his mind like a circuit trying to channel too much current. She was getting stronger each time. And much better.
“You said something about a car?” Katie asked in that low, soothing voice he was sure she used for dealing with victims, and sometimes—maybe—suspects. “Can you describe it?”
He struggled to put impressions into words. Nothing felt right, inside or out. Definitely one of the more disconcerting experiences of his life…“Maroon, some kind of sedan. I didn’t get a better look. There was a woman behind the wheel, like I said. I think she might have been hurt in the crash.”
“Do you know where?”
He struggled to find anything in the vision to tell him where they’d been traveling, and finally shook his head.
Katie made a low, frustrated sound. “What kind of road? Highway? Freeway? Separated? Two-lane blacktop?”
“Two-lane blacktop,” he said. “Not in very good repair, I—Teal was feeling the roughness of the road.” He held up a finger as something flashed across his mind, just a glimpse out of the corner of Teal’s eye. She’d been focused on the wreck, the woman behind the wheel, but at the edge of her vision there had been a road sign. Green and white. “There was a sign that said it was sixty-two miles to Blythe—does that help?”
“Yeah,” said one of the cops who had been listening. “Narrows it down. We can send cars to every road within that radius, see what we come up with.”
“Do it,” Katie said. She hadn’t, and didn’t, look away from Stefan. “You all right?” Her voice had dropped lower, almost a caress.
“Never better,” he said, and she held out a hand to him. He looked at it, at her, and then took it. She hauled him to his feet. “Just another beautiful day on Planet Psychic.”
“I mean it. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Their eyes met, and Stefan felt something shift inside, shift and lock. I finally found you, some part of him said—the hopeless romantic part. Until I lose you, the cynic in him added. Which he always was, in the end, not from any bitterness or anger or frustration, but just because he wasn’t really capable of deep and abiding commitment.
He knew, to his marrow, that this was not a woman he could have a pleasant, superficial love affair with. It wasn’t that she was a cop, or that she was so capable. There was something inside her that just went deeper than that.
Not, he reminded himself as she pulled her hand free of his, that she’d really let him get close enough to find out.
Whatever she’d felt in that moment, she was turning away now, facing the cops standing nearby. “I’m taking him with me,” she said. “Get those units rolling on the roads toward Blythe.”
“Where are we going?” he asked. It occurred to him, wryly, that this was getting to be a standard question with her.
“We’re heading the same direction,” she said. “Whenever that crash happened, that’s our next crime scene.” A tick of silence, and then she said, “If there is one.” But it was a pro forma afterthought. She’d given up her skepticism; he could feel it.
It should have been a victory, but it felt hollow. He kept feeling the all-too-real pain Teal was experiencing, and seeing the dead gas station attendant, the woman slumped behind the wheel of the maroon car.
It might be a victory, but they weren’t exactly winning.
Katie hadn’t paused for long before leading Stefan to her new FBI-supplied transportation; she’d only stopped to grab Alex and Justin for a huddle, to update them on the information Stefan had provided. What Justin thought, she couldn’t tell; he was carefully neutral. Alex accepted it, though Katie thought she detected a slightly wry twist to her lips.
“Katie,” Alex said as she turned away. “I’m following up on our lovely Sheila. I’ll get the info to you as soon as I can. You be careful.” She meant that in a number of ways, not the least of which, Katie suspected, was be careful of that gypsy prince, he’s got you wrapped around his little finger.
And Katie also suspected Alex might be right. It pissed her off, and it made her tone cooler than it should have been when she rejoined Stefan and headed for the car. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t comment. In fact, he didn’t comment as he got in the sedan, closed the door and strapped in. Nor as she backed up from the parking spot and headed for the apartment complex exit.
Eventually, she felt compelled to offer a conversational olive branch. “Blythe’s only about two hours away on the freeway,” she said and turned onto the street. It was late, verging on early morning, and traffic was light. She surprised herself by yawning. She hadn’t realized she was that tired.
“But they’d only gotten halfway there,” Stefan said. “If the sixty-two-mile sign was right. Why?”
“They’re working hard to stay off our radar. We’ve got cops fanned out all over the state. Eventually they’re bound to run into the net. It slows them down.”
“Not that much. Where have they been since the gas station?”
It was a pretty decent question. She didn’t have an answer. Stefan was concentrating on it, frowning, and then answered it himself. “The van.”
“What about it?”
“You’re looking for the wrong one.”
Katie shook her head. “We have a good visual of it on the surveillance tape from the gas station.”
“They’ve changed vans,” he said. “I’m sure. It was different on the inside. And there were more windows on the sides. They ditched the first van and stole one, or had one waiting. It has to be.”
It would make sense, especially as professional as these assholes seemed to be. They’d have a means to ditch the first compromised ride and get something clean, and they’d take their time doing it, knowing that the search was likely to widen outward, leaving them in relative safety.
Damn.
She hated smart criminals. It was a good thing they were so rare.
“Can you describe the new van at all?” she asked. “Color? Make? Anything?”
She’d known what the answer would be, but she still felt a surge of frustration when Stefan shook his head. What the hell use was having your own pet psychic if he couldn’t describe the color of the getaway van?
“But at least you know where they are,” he pointed out.
She reached for the radio and got a patch to Arizona Highway Patrol, where they put her through to Captain Menchaca. “FBI Special Agent Katie Rush,” she identified herself.
“Go ahead.” Menchaca sounded gruff, tired and distracted. She understood that. It hadn’t been an easy day for anybody.
“Check in the Smurr area for any vans that have gone missing in the past couple of hours,” she said. “Passenger or cargo, with windows in the back and on the sides.” She raised her eyebrows at Stefan for confirmation, and he nodded. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“You think they switched?”
“We think so.”
“I’ll put my people on it,” he promised. “Anything else?”
“I’d ask for coffee, but I don’t think you guys deliver,” she said, and got a chuckle. “Rush, out.”
Menchaca signed off. She put the handset back in its cradle and settled back, foot pressing past the legal speed limit, as the car headed for Blythe, California.
“This is wrong,” Stefan said after a few minutes. “They weren’t on a major freeway like this. It was a smaller road.”
“We’re making up time. When we hit just outside the radius, I’ll circle us around and see what we can pick up,” she said. “Don’t get your hopes up. The chances of us finding anything
are one in a hundred, maybe. The Highway Patrol will find the wreck first, if there is one.”
A muscle fluttered in his jaw. “You say that like you still have doubts.”
“I’d be a fool if I didn’t. Look, I’m acting on your information. I’m committing resources to it, which is career suicide if this doesn’t work out, not to mention potentially costing people their lives. I’m trusting you the best I can. So back off.”
He didn’t answer directly. In fact, he was silent for two or three miles before he said, “When did you stop being a believer?”
“In what?”
“In anything.”
He’d slipped under her guard, and that was a cold, strange surprise. Painfully intense. “I don’t know what you mean.” She did, though. And from the look he threw her, he knew that, too.
“You used to be a believer, Katie. You had faith, once upon a time. Something made you lose it, devote your life to what you can see and hear and prove in a forensic lab. I’m just curious about what that was.”
A dozen responses ripped through her mind, starting with It’s none of your damn business, and ending with Curiosity killed the psychic, but instead of choosing any of those she heard herself say, “I lost my mother.”
“I’m sorry. When did she die?”
“She didn’t. Or at least, if she did, I don’t know when, where or how. When I say lost, I mean exactly that—misplaced. She left home one day when I was five, and she never came back.”
Stefan thought about that for a long second, then asked, “Do you think she wanted to leave? Or did someone take her?”
It was exactly the question that had tormented Katie throughout her childhood, adolescence, angst-ridden teen years and into adulthood. Had her mother just gotten fed up with a life burdened by four children, a life that might have been too difficult for her to bear? Had she vanished deliberately, covered her tracks, changed her name, forgotten all about the husband and children she’d left broken behind her? It happened.
Or had it been different: a stranger—or someone she knew—forcing her into a car or van or truck, dragging her away to horror and degradation, death and burial in an unmarked grave? Katie had seen the scenario many times, and it never failed to raise that sick specter of familiarity. She always pictured her mother’s face, eternally frozen at the age of thirty-two, when she unearthed those terribly betrayed women. She couldn’t stop herself.
Stefan was still waiting for the answer. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “My father always thought she just…left. So do my brothers. But I don’t know. It might not have been her choice.”
“Is that why you got into this work? Finding people who go missing?”
“I’m good at it,” she said. It was a deflection, mostly reflexive, and he accepted the signal without probing deeper. She checked the speedometer and decided to press a little faster. Not legal, but her reflexes were better than most people’s; she knew that without ego or guilt. It didn’t excuse the violation, and she wouldn’t have done it for convenience, but this was turning into a special case on every possible front.
“Katie.” Stefan turned toward her. It was breaking some law of physics, that black eyes should look so warm. “We may not find these girls. You know that.”
“We will.”
“It’s just that I’m sensing—” He stopped and shrugged, helpless to articulate it. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
She knew what he meant. The day was catching up to her, in a big and ugly way, from the aching bruises she’d collected in the morning’s shootout to the accumulated exhaustion trembling in her muscles. A bed would have been a miracle. She found herself fantasizing about it the way starving people fantasized about food…in a tactile way. She could almost feel the crisp, cool sheets on her bare skin, the soft pillow under her head, the warmth of…
She blinked. The car swerved a bit, but it hadn’t been that she was on the edge of sleep—far from it. It was just that the image of Stefan’s naked body curled next to hers in her fantasy had taken her utterly by surprise.
“Not happening,” she muttered aloud. Stefan frowned.
“What isn’t?”
“Never mind.” She kept her eyes on the road because she was afraid that if she looked at him too long she’d start doing it again. Exhaustion didn’t usually make her libido go nuts, but there was something about him, something about this day…
“If you’re about to offer to drive, don’t bother,” she snapped, bitchy precisely because she was acutely aware of him, of his presence, his warmth, his leather-and-incense smell. In her peripheral vision she saw him open his mouth, then shut it without speaking. “I’m fine.”
“Just field-testing the side of the road, making sure it’s stable.” He nodded. “Absolutely. It’s commendable, how you federal agents keep track of things like that.”
She refused to let him lighten her mood. “We are going to find these people, Stefan. By we, I don’t mean you and me. I mean the team. The whole reason law enforcement works is that we’re a team, we act in concert while the criminals operate as individuals.”
“Don’t knock individuals,” he said. “They’re the ones who have the original thoughts. Not teams. By the way, if you want to pull off the freeway for coffee—”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not.” He made an elegant, embarrassed motion, spreading his hands wide. “Sorry. Pit stop. You did mention I drank too much of the stuff. Gotta off-load it sometime.”
She controlled the impulse to growl—everybody had bladders, after all—and checked the road sign. The next exit had one of those gas-food-lodging truck stops. She couldn’t have missed it, unless she’d been dead asleep; the lights looked either as if they’d arrived in LosAngeles hours ahead of time, or an alien mothership had landed.
The truck stop was pretty much the kind of place she’d expected, well used but still clean, catering to the long-haul crowd as well as passing tourists. Scrupulously fresh bathrooms, which was a relief. She emerged to find Stefan already browsing the coffee selections.
She leaned against the wall, waiting, and studied him. In fact, she was observing the women in the truck stop, too; several of them were checking him out, head to toe. It was a bit charming, how oblivious he was to it. Or at least, she assumed he was oblivious. Maybe he was just practiced at ignoring it until he wanted to take advantage of it.
He looked up, as if he’d suddenly felt her stare on him, and smiled.
The sweetest, most naive smile she’d ever seen. Heartbreaking.
Paired with the look in his eyes, which was as far from naive as it was possible to get…devastating.
Katie cleared her throat and went in search of something cold.
They were at the checkout counter when her cell phone rang, its no-nonsense, no-frills tone cutting through the noise of the music, the diner patrons’ chatter and the big rigs rumbling out in the parking lot.
She was no psychic, but Katie felt a premonition as she reached in her pocket and touched the warm plastic. She hesitated for a bare second, then pulled it out and flipped it open. “Rush,” she said.
“Captain Menchaca,” came the response. He sounded flat and discouraged. “Found your maroon sedan on a farm-to-market road near Aguila, just outside of Wickenburg. One occupant, a female driver, off-duty cop. Looks like she spotted the van and was trying to call it in when they sideswiped her.”
“Is she alive?”
“Wouldn’t have been by morning, if we hadn’t been looking for her. She had some head injuries, couple of broken bones. She’s being airlifted to Prescott now.” Menchaca paused, then asked, “How’d you know?”
“I told you, Captain. Tips.”
He was silent. She heard the distant, agitated click of a pen.
“Any sign of the van?” she asked.
“You’re not going to tell me.”
“Need to know, Captain.”
“Then no. No sign of the van. We’re restarting the hub search u
sing the wreck as a spoke point. Good news is, we can’t be far behind them now, no more than a couple of hours at most. The bad news…”
“The bad news,” Katie said for him, “is that they could have caught one of the interstates by now, and if so, they’re over the border into California.”
“Probably so, ma’am. Which means the amount of help I can offer you is pretty limited. I’m sorry.”
She pulled in a deep breath, held it and let it out. Suddenly, all of her weariness came flooding back, and she almost staggered under the weight of it. “Nothing to apologize for, Captain, I know you did your best. At least we have a live cop to show for it. Do me a favor, will you? Keep somebody with her in case she comes to long enough to give us information. And copy me on any forensic information you get from the wreck.”
“Can do. Oh, one fast fact I can tell you—the van’s white.”
“White? You’re sure?”
“Standard white, nothing special about the paint, except that it was on the front bumper and door panels of the Saturn our cop was driving.”
White. Well, that didn’t exactly narrow it down, but of course that was the intention: they’d picked the best statistical choice of blending in, the bastards. On a busy freeway like I-10 or I-8, both of which headed west into California , it would be like a raindrop in a thunderstorm.
Unless it had visible damage.
She said that aloud, and Menchaca agreed. “We already thought of it,” he said. “Got the California Highway Patrol as much detail as possible, so we’re working it from both borders. Cross your fingers, Agent Rush.”
She thanked him again and hung up, then walked away to look out the windows of the Quik Stop onto the vast parking lot, lit by orange sodium bulbs. Out on the freeway, traffic continued to move in a sea of lights.
A warm hand fell on her shoulder and squeezed with surprising strength. She turned her head. Stefan, unsmiling, held out a cardboard coffee cup. She took it, gulped without tasting anything but heat, and said, “I’m going to lose them. I promised Jazz, and now I’m going to lose these girls.”
He could have lied to her, told her she wouldn’t, that she was going to win despite the odds.
