Smoke Screen (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 7)

by Linsey Lanier

  Night was the time she missed Parker the most.

  Oh, yes. She missed him. She could admit that. She missed his wry smile, his low sexy voice, the way he’d look at her with admiration when she least expected it. Why did he have to change? Why couldn’t they have gone on as they were? She had no idea. But she wasn’t the one who’d caused the problem.

  The punks outside moved down the street.

  Just in case they had spawns, Miranda took the Berretta out of her purse and laid it on her nightstand. She undressed, opened a drawer for a T-shirt to sleep in. As she pulled it over her head, something fell to the floor.

  She bent down and picked it up. She gazed at its dull sheen.

  The dingy ankle bracelet from her last case. The fifteen-year-old cold case of poor Lydia Sutherland. She watched the tiny gold heart with the engraved initials twirl in the lamplight.

  A.T.

  The cop she’d worked with in Chicago had used a search dog to dig up this trinket on Adam Tannenburg’s old property. Like Marty Jenkins, he had been a brilliant, talented young man in love with a young blond twenty-year-old.

  The two had been deeply in love. At least that was what one witness had told her. During most of the investigation Miranda thought it had been Tannenburg who’d killed Lydia and started the house fire that had burned his lover’s body to an unrecognizable char.

  But she’d been wrong. Tannenburg had been innocent.

  And a year later, Tannenburg’s mother had died in another fire at his family estate, heaping tragedy upon tragedy for the young man. And after that Tannenburg had completely disappeared.

  Miranda believed it was because he thought he’d eventually be accused of killing Lydia. The cops had brought Tannenburg in for questioning. He’d said he wasn’t there that night, but a neighbor had seen him leaving the scene.

  He must have been living with incredible grief all these years.

  She and her police detective partner on the case had been unable to locate Tannenburg. He seemed to be literally in the wind.

  Maybe she should start looking for him on her own. She might find him eventually. And if she did, she could tell him it was over. The case was solved and he could stop running now.

  Bending down again she clasped the bracelet around her own ankle. She’d keep it as a reminder of the case. Maybe it would bring her luck with this one.

  She finished changing her clothes, hung up the pink blouse and glittery jeans. And with thoughts of giving somebody in the world some relief, she climbed into the empty bed, turned off the light and went to sleep.

  The heat and humidity in this town was oppressive this time of year, he thought as he stood in the shadows gazing up at the second story window where the light had just gone off.

  And so now they were back here in Atlanta. The two of them. Back from the hunt in Chicago.

  Except that now the pair had separated.

  He chuckled to himself softly under his breath. How amusing. This one always kept him on his toes. He’d had to change his plans again because of her actions. It enraged and fascinated him at the same time.

  Oh, she was going to be a delight under his hands.

  He was already experiencing similar delights, though he was sure they would prove to be inferior. He hoped his current project wouldn’t dilute the experience he planned with Miranda Steele, but he’d had to act. It had been too long since he’d killed. Much longer than usual since his last victim. In a way, Ms. Steele was playing him just the way he was playing her.

  No, there was no need to fear. Nothing could dilute what he had in mind for that project. He’d been looking forward to it for nearly a year.

  And just now all the pieces were fitting together so nicely. Better than he had expected. He was terribly pleased. But he was anxious, as well. No need to fret, he told himself, the way Mother used to after she’d given him another episode of unbearable pain and humiliation.

  It would all come to fruition soon.

  As soon as he finished with the current project, he could zero in. At last he would have her. The one he’d been waiting for.

  At last the drama would all play out, spinning and weaving its exquisite pain until it ended in a musical scream. Such beauty. Such delight. Such terror.

  He could hardly wait.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Parker walked through the doors of the Agency the next morning he was amazed he’d made it into the office two days in a row.

  For some reason he was feeling better, though his head still ached from a two-day hangover and his heart was still as raw as freshly ground steak tartare. Yet this state was an improvement. Didn’t they say time healed all wounds?

  Or perhaps it was the new quest he was on.

  Without stopping at his office first, he headed for the lab. Once inside he scanned the cubicles. He found the man he was looking for in the one in the corner.

  Dave Becker.

  He watched him a moment as he busily ran queries and bounced back and forth between two screens, analyzing data. He was proud of his employee. But this man had become more than an employee to him.

  He was a friend. And so was his wife, Joan.

  This morning Dave had on well worn jeans and a baggy orange T-shirt with the logo of a candy store on the back. No doubt somewhere he’d taken the three children that he’d inherited when he’d married Joan Fanuzzi.

  Parker knew from personal experience Dave treated each of them as if they were his own. He was an excellent father.

  His thick dark hair curled around his ears at the base of his neck, and though he wasn’t facing him, Parker could still see the end of his rather large nose.

  It was necessary to relax the dress code for his technical workers and though Parker would have preferred everyone in suits, he refused to be tyrannical about it.

  His chair was elevated a bit to accommodate his short statue. But what Dave Becker lacked in height he made up for in grit and determination, when it was called for.

  Suddenly Dave’s back went upright and he swung around. “Sorry, Mr. Parker. I—I didn’t see you there.”

  “It’s all right.” Parker smiled at the man’s perpetually nervous ways. “I want to discuss something with you.”

  “Sure. Let me get you a chair.”

  Parker raised a hand. “I’ll get it.” He pulled one from the next cube and sat down. Then he took Miranda’s old cell phone from his pocket and laid it on Dave’s desk.

  Dave picked it up and studied it, looking uncomfortable. “This again, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  Dave was one of Miranda’s closest friends at the Agency and Parker knew he hadn’t taken the breakup lightly. What he was about to ask would be awkward for him.

  Glancing down Parker couldn’t help but notice the missing tip of Dave’s little finger and remember their time in Paris. Once again Miranda had put her life on the line. But it had been for their friends, and he had done so as well. As dreadful as Dave’s ordeal had been, right now Parker would trade a missing fingertip for the wound he carried in his heart.

  Dave set the phone on his desk. “You never told me how it went in Chicago.”

  Parker grimaced. “Badly.”

  “You didn’t find anything? Not even a clue?”

  “No.”

  One cold night in February fifteen years ago in a neighborhood on the west side of Chicago Miranda had been attacked by an unknown rapist. Mackenzie Chatham, Miranda’s daughter from that unfortunate union, had recently been looking for her birth father on the sly. When he’d discovered that fact and when he and Dave had learned the first text on Miranda’s phone had come from Chicago, Parker had realized Mackenzie’s search might have triggered the rapist to attempt to get in touch with Miranda.

  He’d had a hunch the anonymous texter had been that attacker from fifteen years ago. The rapist.

  And so he’d hunted down several men guilty of that crime who lived near the area where Miranda had been assaulted. But he saw now that
had been the wrong tactic. He should have known better than to play such a wild hunch.

  Parker sat back in his seat and put his fingertips together. “I feel a different approach is in order. An inverse methodology, if you will.”

  He watched his employee consider the problem a moment. “You mean instead of trying to find out where the call came from…find out how the culprit got the number in the first place?”

  “Excellent deduction.” Just the one he’d decided on yesterday.

  Dave blushed a little at the compliment. “So how do we do that?”

  “Figure out any and all possibilities.” A phrase Parker had made sure was drummed into the head of all his trainees.

  “Okay,” Dave studied the phone some more, scratched at his head. “The first text came in on a Sunday in mid-June.”

  Parker nodded. It had arrived on Miranda’s phone while they were in flight returning home from their case in Las Vegas. He bristled at the thought that she had deleted it without telling him about it. She had later undeleted it before giving it to Dave for analysis—behind his back.

  “We know the first text came from Chicago…and you two had just come back from that case in Las Vegas.” Dave pursed his lips back and forth in deep thought. “Wasn’t Steele on TV there?”

  Again Parker nodded. “She did a press conference for the sergeant at the Metro police station.”

  A conference he’d told her not to do, but she’d jumped in anyway and exposed herself.

  Dave lifted his shoulders. “So maybe the guy saw her on the tube?”

  Exactly what Parker had wondered. “Another outstanding conclusion.”

  His cheeks flushing crimson, Dave raised a brow. He’d been working with him long enough to know his boss was two steps ahead of him. “So what do we do? Call the television station and find out if they’ve got a record of anyone who called asking for the number of the Parker Agency?”

  “That would be a start.”

  “They wouldn’t have given it to him.”

  “They may have. We are a business.”

  “If they didn’t get the number from the station, they could have looked up our website.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Or they might have skipped calling the station and gone straight to the website. Did Steele mention the Agency in her press conference?”

  “She mentioned her name, my name, and the name of the Agency. The story went national. There were reporters from every major station there.”

  Dave turned a little pale. “So this guy could have called any of them.”

  “Or none of them.” Parker smiled grimly. “I’ve already made a list. Would you mind looking into about half of them? I’ll take the other half.”

  Dave glanced at his screen with a worried look. “Well, I’ve got this Peregrin case…”

  “Ah, yes.” A local car dealer believed his computer system had been hacked and had hired the Agency to determine what data had been compromised and to set up stronger security measures. “As you have time, then.”

  He was truly in no hurry. But he knew Dave would find the spare minutes to please him. He got to his feet. “I’ll send the list to your email. I appreciate it, Dave.”

  “No problem. I can look at the hits on our website around that time and see what I can find, too.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Dave was still staring at the phone.

  Parker decided to leave it with him. “In the meantime, I’ll give the sergeant in Las Vegas a call and see if anyone contacted the station.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Dave muttered.

  But Parker could see he was already lost in thought over his new challenge and how he would juggle it with the Peregrin case.

  Parker stepped out quietly and went back to his office feeling satisfied. He intended to get started on his set of calls right away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Miranda didn’t hear her alarm the next morning and woke up half an hour later than she intended.

  Cursing the stupid thing, the traffic she was about to face, and life in general, she hurried down the steps of her apartment with a travel mug of hot black coffee in one hand, briefcase in the other, and half a bagel in her mouth.

  She was negotiating the stairs pretty well, she decided, given she was in her dress pumps. She’d had to wear them today because they went with the outfit.

  She’d gone for a power look, opting for her slate gray suit with a silky white top. As she bundled herself into the car, she hoped it would be intimidating. And that she didn’t spill coffee down her blouse before her faceoff with Marty Jenkins.

  She buckled up, started her Acura and took off for the Tech campus, but she soon discovered she could have slept another ten minutes.

  Traffic was at a standstill.

  She adjusted the radio and learned there was a water main break and cars on I-85 were backed up all the way to the connector. Sheesh. It was two miles to the school, but she’d be lucky if she got there by the time Marty Jenkins’ Digital Whatever class ended.

  Lucky break for him.

  After she’d gotten through with him, he wouldn’t have done well on his exam. If he was still around to take it, and not in jail.

  Trying to wake herself up she swallowed a bite of her bagel and took a big gulp of coffee. She hadn’t slept well. Some bad dreams had had her tossing and turning half the night. At least she didn’t remember them.

  She’d been having more nightmares lately. Since Chicago they’d been mostly of Leon, her wonderful ex, trying to kill her. That was the biggest impression the psychopath had imprinted on her subconscious, she supposed—the fact that he wanted to kill her.

  She’d gotten to him first, but psychologically maybe he was having the last laugh, the sick bastard.

  When they were in the hotel in Chicago, she remembered Parker telling her she’d kicked him all night. It was something about being in that city. The place where she’d grown up, where she’d lived with Leon, where all those horrible things had happened to her, that brought out the nightmares. She never should have gone there. Wouldn’t have if she’d known it was a cold case. But Parker had been trying to “protect” her by giving her something “safe” to do.

  A vision of him with his strong muscular legs—the ones she had kicked—popped into her mind.

  “Shut up!” she shouted at her own brain.

  She was about to scream at the traffic next when her cell rang.

  “Steele Investigations,” she answered after a huff.

  “Miranda.” The roll of the r told her it was Santiago.

  “Good morning,” she said, forcing herself to sound nice.

  “Have you found her yet? My dancer?”

  Miranda stifled a grunt of annoyance. “I’m working on it.”

  “What sort of progress have you made? Do you have any leads?”

  She scowled at the phone. That was all she needed. A gangster client micromanaging her. “I have some ideas but I have to follow them up.”

  “What are you following up?”

  Things a client doesn’t need to know about. She closed her eyes and thought of the bankroll from Santiago under her mattress. “Not sure yet. I’m checking out the boyfriend.”

  “Nitro had a boyfriend?”

  Santiago didn’t know about it? Well, yesterday he didn’t even know her last name.

  “Seems she did,” she told him, regretting she’d let that detail slip. “Like I said, I’m checking him out. I’ll get back to you when I know something definite.”

  “When will that be?”

  Miranda drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “I can’t say, Carlos. These things take time.”

  “How much time?”

  Give it a rest, she wanted to tell him. This guy was used to getting his way. But what worked in the drug dealing business didn’t work in a missing persons case. Somehow she had to make that clear.

  She let out a breezy laugh. “If I knew that, Carlo
s, I wouldn’t have to work for a living.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  She was just about to hang up when Santiago said, “Just make sure you keep me posted.” His low, icy voice sent a shiver through her.

  “I’ll let you know when I get a break.”

  He disconnected.

  Jeez, she thought. If someone had hurt Nitro, Santiago sounded like he wanted to take care of the dude himself. Didn’t bode well for Marty Jenkins.

  Wondering what she’d gotten herself into, she concentrated on the drive.

  At last she reached the Tech campus.

  She wended her way through the narrow streets and another collection of boxy red brick buildings. These had flat roofs and were arranged in a straight row. One after another, and another, and another—until she finally reached the white concrete structure where the Digital Whatever class was held.

  Kids were streaming out of the doors, backpacks slung over their shoulders. She glanced at the clock on the dash. Just as she’d thought, the class was over.

  Damn.

  She peered out the window at the crowd of students roaming every which way like a swarm of ants. She couldn’t hope to find Marty Jenkins in this throng but maybe she could beat him to his next class.

  She slowed for a stop sign and looked down at her cell where she’d downloaded the kid’s schedule. She scrolled up then down. Seemed he didn’t have another class until after lunch. Nice hours. But the afternoon was filled.

  There was a honk behind her. The vehicle behind that one gave three short honks. Another car joined in the honking.

  She was ready to stick her hand out the window and give whoever was back there the finger when a white Civic turned in front of her. She squinted at the license plate.

  Marty Jenkins’ car. It was him!

  At last her luck was turning.

  Before the vehicle behind her could honk again, she cruised through the intersection and followed the boyfriend.

  He drove straight for a couple blocks north of the campus then he made a right onto May Street. Down another block, another turn and up a street until he pulled over in front of a tiny single story house with a screened-in front porch. She searched for the number on the mailbox.