Dylan did his best to not look surprised. “What did he say about that meeting?”
“Not much.” She gripped the medical chart with both arms, hugging it to her. “He told me he had a postcard to give you that an old friend sent him. The friend that committed suicide.”
“You two were close.” A sharp pain tore his gut at the mention of Nate. “Did anyone else know about your relationship?”
She shook her head. “We made sure that no one did.”
“Did you go out in public together?”
“No.” She looked at him curiously. “Why?”
“Your home or his?” Dylan asked.
She looked as though she was starting to get perturbed. “Why does that matter?”
“It will help.” He spoke in a low voice as a nurse passed by. “Trust me.”
“I went to his house.” She looked like she was forcing herself to relax and she shifted the chart to one arm. “I have a fifteen-year-old daughter and I never know if she might come home at a time I expect her to be gone.”
“Why don’t you take the day off?” Dylan said gently. “Is there anyone on call who can cover for you?”
“I am the on call physician.” The beautiful doctor looked as if she was hanging on to her emotions by a thread. “I’m replacing one of our staff members who came down ill with strep.”
The last thing Dylan wanted to do at that moment was contribute to the doctor losing her cool when she needed to maintain calm professionalism for her patients.
He dug his card out of the pocket of his overshirt and extended it. “This has my office number and my cell. Contact me if you think of anything that might have seemed odd or out of place. Perhaps a person you didn’t know that you saw around more than once.”
She took the card with an amazingly steady hand. A doctor’s hand. “You think someone might have been following him?”
“Just looking at all angles, Dr. Miller.” He stepped back.
“Thank you, Agent Curtis.” She tucked the card into a pocket of her white coat and turned away.
Dylan headed for the waiting room. Before he reached it, his phone vibrated in its holster. When he withdrew it, he saw that it was his RAC.
When he answered, Sofia didn’t waste time. “Everything has been arranged. Trace will be in contact with you.”
“Thank you,” Dylan said.
“You have some explaining to do.” Her tone was hard. “Why the hell didn’t you bring those postcards in?”
Dylan stayed outside the waiting room where he couldn’t be heard. “This was personal. The cards were addressed to members of the Circle.”
“Personal, my ass.” She maintained an even tone but it had a harsh edge to it. “If it’s so damned personal, you should be taken off the case.”
“No.” Dylan spoke sharper than he’d intended to. “These cards have very individualized messages to them, and I believe they have clues that only we can decipher.”
He could picture Sofia pacing her home. “I don’t give one shit about what you think. Get those cards to the office. You can make copies but the originals are to be on my desk when I get in. I’ll be there at eight-thirty.”
“I’ll get them to you.” He wanted to keep the originals, but he did need to allow them to be examined. Not to mention they could be evidence to more than one murder case. He glanced out a nearby window and saw that the sun was rising. It had been one hell of a long night. “I’m keeping Belle with me. We’ll get her to the safe house later.”
A couple of seconds passed, as if Sofia was deciding whether or not to tell him otherwise. “Once the agents arrive for Salvatore and Christie Reyes, and take them into protective custody, get your ass to the office.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Dylan holstered his phone as soon as Sofia disconnected the call.
He walked into the waiting room, where he saw Salvatore staring out a window. Christie had her head against Belle’s shoulder and both women appeared rumpled and exhausted. They had discarded the jackets on one chair.
Christie’s bathrobe had slipped off one shoulder, and beneath it she wore a silky nightgown in a peach shade. Her dark red hair was tumbled around her face and she looked younger than she was.
Belle’s cream-colored sweater was smudged with a black streak, probably from the scene of the fire when she’d left the truck. Despite her exhausted appearance, she was even more beautiful to him than ever.
Salvatore whirled from the window to face Dylan. “How is Marta?” It felt as though a touch of insincerity was in Salvatore’s tone, and Dylan had to work to keep from frowning at the man.
Both Belle and Christie glanced up, apparently not having noticed Dylan in the room until Salvatore had spoken.
“She’s still in a coma.” Dylan cut his gaze from Salvatore to the women. “The doctor won’t state whether or not Marta will make a full recovery.”
Tears rolled down Christie’s cheeks as she looked at Dylan.
Belle appeared even paler than she had a moment before. “Why would someone do that to her?”
Salvatore cursed under his breath. “Marta was a good woman.”
“She is a good woman.” Belle’s voice rose and she glared at Salvatore. “She is not going to die. She is going to come out of this.”
“Of course she is going to survive.” Salvatore put his hands on his hips. “I am sorry. I am very angry at whoever is responsible.”
“We all are upset.” Christie sat up and wrapped her bathrobe more tightly around her. Her blue eyes pleaded with Dylan. “Find them. Make them pay.”
He nodded slowly and gave them the same promise he’d given Nancy. “Trust me. I will.”
Salvatore looked as if a thought had just occurred to him. “What about Leon Petroski and his family? Where are they?”
“Somewhere safe.” Dylan wasn’t sure where Leon and his wife and children were, but he would find out and get them to a safe house. But he wasn’t about to discuss it with anyone.
“Where will we be going?” Salvatore went to his wife’s side and rested his hand on her shoulder. “You and Belle will be going with us, of course.”
Dylan dragged his hand down his face, feeling so damned tired. “You and Christie will be going to a different safe house than Belle will be at.”
“I’m going to a safe house alone?” Belle frowned.
“It’s safer keeping you all separated.” Dylan met her eyes. “It’s not good for you all to be at the same location.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Belle was still frowning. “What about you?”
“I have work to do to get this solved.” Dylan looked from Belle to Christie. “I’m going to need to talk with everyone separately to determine what Nate was trying to tell us.”
Belle said quietly, “With Tom dead, that’s going to be a lot harder.”
“Yes, it is.” Dylan clenched his jaw before forcing himself to relax. “But I will figure this out, one way or another.”
“We will figure this out.” Belle’s eyes had the same determined look in them that he remembered from when they were younger. “We’re all in this together.”
CHAPTER 12
Belle stood in the hospital lobby and worried the inside of her lower lip with her teeth. Her insides hurt, a gut wrenching pain that felt as if it might tear her apart.
She watched Salvatore and Christie being swept away by two agents in a black SUV. They were on their way to the safe house they’d be staying in, wherever that might be. Dylan had told her it could be anywhere in the county—Sierra Vista, Wilcox, Benson, or right here in Bisbee. No one would know but the agents.
When they were gone, Dylan walked with Belle out to his truck. He’d given the keys to two other agents who had pulled the truck up to the hospital doors so they wouldn’t have to walk across the parking lot, leaving them wide open. The agents stayed with them until they were safely inside.
The agents had swept the vehicle for tracking devices and explosives, just in case someo
ne had gotten to the truck while Dylan was in the hospital. When they left the parking lot, the two agents followed them in another black SUV.
Instead of taking Belle immediately to a safe house, he brought her with him to his office just outside of Douglas. A tall chain-link fence with barbed wire surrounded the buildings. He mentioned the office had been remodeled a year ago, and the fence added after an incident, but he didn’t go into detail. She didn’t press him because it didn’t seem to be something he wanted to talk about, or maybe it was because he couldn’t.
When they arrived at the DHS office, Dylan unlocked the glove compartment and pulled out the familiar postcards.
Once they were out of the truck, the agents accompanied them inside the office. It was just before eight AM and Belle was dead on her feet. She hadn’t felt this tired since the old days when she’d worked two jobs at a time, each one a busy diner, just to get by.
Dylan took her into a large conference room. A big rectangular table was at the center of the room with padded office chairs surrounding it, slate gray industrial carpet, and a bank of monitors on the wall. He had her sit in one of the chairs.
After she was seated, he brought out the postcards. He spread the five out on the conference table, side-by-side, print side up.
They remained silent for a long moment as they studied the cards.
Belle broke the silence. “Why did Nate mail them on different days?” She looked at Dylan. “Maybe we’re meant to read them in the order they’re postmarked.”
“Good idea.” He arranged them by postmarked date.
They studied the cards a little longer.
Belle gestured to her own card from Nate. “What is he trying to say when he wrote ‘I’ll never forget when your big brown dog bit me on the ass’?’” She looked at Dylan. “I didn’t have Flipper for long, but Nate would have remembered he was white.”
Dylan’s brow furrowed as he looked at her. “That’s right. After Flipper bit Nate, your stepfather made you get rid of him.”
Belle’s expression clouded. “That was just an excuse because Flipper didn’t even hurt Nate. It was a play bite. Harvey just never wanted me to have a dog and Mom was too wrapped up in getting his approval for everything that she caved in to him on that.”
“Maybe that’s it.” Dylan ran his gaze over her postcard. “There are clues in the wrong details.”
Belle thought about it. “You could be right. Everyone said his or her card had something wrong on it, but we didn’t talk about what that was.” She looked from the cards to Dylan. “We never had a chance to discuss them.”
“On my card, he refers to his Army days.” Dylan looked away, like his mind was searching through option after option. “He served in Afghanistan and received a purple heart and an honorable discharge when he was injured. But he referred to it on the card as Iraq. He didn’t serve in Iraq. It didn’t make sense to me why he would do that, but there’s got to be something to this.”
Belle shook her head. “What in the world was Nate up to?”
After Dylan had copied the fronts and backs of the postcards, he left the originals on Sofia’s desk in individual evidence bags. He knew that it would take the CoS to figure out the meaning of the cards, but his RAC wouldn’t understand that until she had a chance to look at them herself.
His cell phone rang and he pulled it out of its holster. He didn’t recognize the number on the screen.
He connected the call and brought the phone to his ear. “Curtis here.”
“It’s Leon.” He had a roughness to his voice that indicated a lack of sleep. “We are probably in the crappiest motel in Sierra Vista.” A dog barked in the background. “G.I. Joe likes it here about as much as we do.”
“The Oasis?” Dylan gave the name of what he knew was the crappiest motel in Sierra Vista.
“Yes, that’s the one. Room twelve.” Leon sounded disgusted. “We should have brought a black light to check for bodily fluids. Or maybe it was better not to know. None of us slept. We didn’t want to touch anything.”
“A team and I will meet you there, and we’ll get you to someplace decent to stay.” Dylan looked out the window at the chain-link fence that had been added after a bomb attack from the Jimenez cartel over a year ago. “I’ll pick up Joe and we can board him at the vet’s until this is over with.”
“Good idea,” Leon said. “Safer for him and easier for us to get around.”
Dylan arranged for DHS agents to accompany him and Belle to Sierra Vista. The drive was longer this time as they were traveling from the Douglas area, near the Mexico border. As they drove, Dylan made sure they weren’t being followed, and he knew the agents in the SUV behind him were doing the same.
Belle fell asleep on the way, her head resting on the window her chest rising and falling, her breathing slow and even. They’d been running on close to thirty hours with no sleep and he was going to have to get them both someplace safe. He needed sleep, too, if he was going to be worth a shit.
When they reached the motel, Dylan found a parking space near room twelve. Belle blinked, looking disoriented for a moment before straightening in her seat. She shoved her hair out of her face, her cheek red from having been pressed against the window.
“Lock the doors.” He gestured to the black SUV that had pulled up beside them. “They’ll stay on watch.”
She nodded.
He left the truck running and heard the locks click as he ran to the door and knocked at the door with the brass 12 on the door. The curtains at the window beside the door moved slightly, as if someone was peering out. A chain rattled and then the bolt lock shot back before the door was opened.
Leon stood in the doorway looking as haggard as Dylan felt. G.I. Joe moved to Leon’s side, looked at Dylan, and wagged his tail. He looked warily at the two agents near the SUV.
“Agents Johnson and Ortega will accompany you to a safe house.” He gestured to the agents. “Let’s get you and your family out of here.”
The two sons and one daughter went first, and then his wife, Jane, followed. Dylan stopped Leon before he climbed in. “I’ll be by to go over your card with you.”
Leon nodded. “I’ll see you then.”
The agents in the SUV waited for Belle to unlock the truck’s doors and for Joe to jump in. Dylan followed and slammed the driver’s side door closed before he signaled to the agents and both vehicles left the motel.
Dylan took circuitous routes to ensure they weren’t being followed as he made his way to a nearby veterinary clinic they’d looked up on Belle’s phone. She called ahead and made sure the clinic also boarded dogs.
When they arrived, Dylan made sure all was clear around them and together he and Belle took Joe into the clinic. Thankfully the clinic was empty of furry patients and their owners when they arrived.
After Dylan checked in with the receptionist, a male tech with a nametag that read Rod Cornwell came out and greeted Joe as well as Dylan and Belle.
Rod crouched in front of Joe and let the dog get to know him before petting him. “Joe will have to be examined by the vet before we can take him back with the other animals we’re boarding. But first we’ll need some information from you.”
Dylan told Rod what he could and explained that Joe had belonged to a war veteran who had recently passed away. They also did not know his shot records, but he did have a current rabies tag. According to the tech, Dylan would have to stay with Joe while the veterinarian performed the examination.
Joe was weighed on a large scale and then they were all shown to a small room before the door was closed behind them. The room had a long examination table along with two blue plastic chairs with wisps of white cat hair clinging to the backs and seat.
Belle sat but Dylan remained standing as they waited. The tech returned and used an anal thermometer to check Joe’s temperature. The well-trained German shepherd did not move as the tech performed his duty.
When the vet came into the room, she introduced herself as
Dr. Nicholson. The vet’s focus went immediately to Joe and she greeted him. “Such a beautiful boy.”
Joe jumped onto the table when instructed to, and the vet started her examination.
Halfway through, she hesitated. She frowned and went over a spot on Joe’s thigh with her fingers. She parted the hair at the location she was touching.
She looked at Dylan. “A small rectangular object, about an inch long, has been inserted beneath Joe’s skin.”
Dylan’s heart picked up a beat and he walked up to the vet and Joe.
She showed him the part in the hair where there was a small scar that had not yet healed. She met Dylan’s gaze. “The incision is recent and you can see there’s something beneath it.”
“I need that X-rayed, Dr. Nicholson.” Dylan studied the location and saw the slight bulge beneath the skin. “I need to know what it is as soon as possible.”
She tilted her head. “Can you explain what is going on?”
Dylan hadn’t planned on showing his credentials, just needing to get Joe examined and boarded. But things had changed.
He pulled out his creds and showed them to the vet. “I’m Special Agent Dylan Curtis with DHS, and this dog just became part of an investigation.”
Dr. Nicholson didn’t press him. “We’ll take care of it right away.”
“I can’t let Joe out of my sight.” His jaw tightened. “I need to see for myself.” The vet hesitated and looked at Belle. “She stays with me.” Dylan added, “And everything will have to be performed by you and Rod. No one else is to be involved.”
The vet clearly grasped the gravity of the situation. “Right this way.” Joe went with the vet and the tech through a door in the back of the room, Dylan and Belle following.
Belle looked a little more alert now. “What was that all about?” She spoke in a low whisper. “Do you think there’s some kind of information inside whatever was inserted beneath the skin on Joe’s thigh?”
“It’s a possibility.” Dylan didn’t elaborate as they came to a stop in front of an X-ray machine.
The machine was large enough to get a full side view of Joe. Rod was thorough, making sure all angles were covered.
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