The Girl and the Hunt (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 6)

by A J Rivers

  No one would know, as they were tucking him away behind bars, that they couldn't hold him if he didn't want them to. A new name on his identification. A new backstory memorized in his mind. He could reclaim all he was when they set him free.

  It was only five years.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Now

  The Sleepaway Hotel looks exactly like I remember it. Not that I really expected it to look any different. Places like this never change much, and that's part of what I like about them. It's nice to pull into the parking lot and get exactly what I was expecting, exactly what's in my mind. Right down to the skid of white paint out of the parking space where I hid behind my car a year ago.

  “That's where I got shot at,” I point out to Sam as we get out of the car.

  He looks at me over the top of the car and raises an eyebrow.

  “Where you got shot at?” he asks.

  “Yes. The first time I came out here, actually.”

  “That's a lovely welcome,” he mutters, shutting the door.

  “Well, it was as I was leaving. And it wasn't the owner of the hotel,” I explain.

  “Who was it?” he asks.

  “I still don't know,” I say. “The official word from the Feathered Nest P.D. is a wayward shot from a hunter. Of course, that's the same thing they said about Ron Murdock when he toppled over onto my cabin porch dead. Apparently, there are just rogue hunters running wild out here?”

  A gust of warmth and a friendly voice greet me when I step through the glass door into the hotel lobby.

  "Hi, Mirna," I call in. "It's Emma."

  "Agent Griffin, as I live and breathe," Mirna gasps, coming around the front counter toward me. She slows down as she gets closer, and the expression on her face drops slightly. "That's probably not a saying I should use when I'm talking about you."

  I chuckle. “Don’t worry about it.”

  "It's so good to see you, Emma," she says, finding her energy again and coming over to hug me. "I'm so sorry it's under these circumstances. I heard about that poor woman."

  I listened to the same newscast and know for a fact it didn't give anywhere near close to the full story of what happened to Marren. It's for the best.

  "It's good to see you, too." I gesture to Sam. "This is Sheriff Sam Johnson. Sam, this is Mirna."

  "Nice to meet you, ma'am," Sam nods.

  "Nice to meet you, too," Mirna says. She eyes him up and down. "Sheriff? You aren't here on any official business, are you?"

  “Unofficial official business,” I tell her. “There are two things I just want to ask you about.”

  “Go ahead,” she says. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or anything?”

  “No, thank you. I know it's been a while, and you’re probably doing everything you can to block out what happened the last time I was here. But I need you to think back as carefully as you can. Do you remember when that man Ron Murdock came in here? The one who was shot at my cabin?”

  She shudders. “Of course I remember.”

  “Alright. There's something I didn't think of before now. In all the upheaval of those few weeks, I missed a detail that could be extremely important, and I need you to try to remember for me. When he came in, did he tell you where he was from?”

  “He filled out that card,” Mirna says. “I remember it mysteriously went missing.”

  She looks at me with a slight smirk.

  “I know he filled out the card. But did he tell you where he was from first? Before he filled it out?” I ask.

  Mirna thinks for a few seconds, then shakes her head.

  "No. I can't say that he did," she says.

  "Are you sure? Think really hard about it. Remember when he came in and came up to the desk. Maybe you asked him his name and then where he was traveling from? Trying to strike up a conversation?" I lead, wanting to be completely positive in her memory.

  She thinks again but shakes her head a few seconds later.

  “No, I didn't. He was very quiet and standoffish. You remember the footage. He wanted as little to do with me as he possibly could have. It was all I could do to get him to fill out the guest registration card. I'm sorry if I'm not being helpful.”

  “Actually, that's very helpful. The next thing is more recent. It should be easier. And probably a little familiar,” I continue.

  “Are you going to ask me to look at my guest books again?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I tell her.

  She stares at me, and I start wondering how long it would take to get the nearest court to issue a search warrant, but finally, she turns back to her desk and gestures for me to follow her.

  “Just this once,” she says.

  “Hopefully, I'm never going to have reason to ask you again,” I tell her. “Next time I come here, I would like it to be just as a guest.”

  “Any time,” Mirna smiles.

  Sam and I stand by the counter while she gets the book full of guest registration cards. She sets it down in front of us and waves her hands over it like Vanna White.

  “Still using paper, I see,” I observe.

  “It's what I'm used to. Funny things happen with computers. Paper stays paper. Nothing beats it,” she says.

  “Scissors do,” Sam comments.

  We both turn to glare at him, and he shrugs. "Just an observation."

  "Well, I've got a few things I need to do in the office. The scissors are planning an uprising, and I'm hoping to call in a few rocks to defend the paper. You call me if you need anything else."

  Sam grins as she disappears into the office. “See? She gets it.”

  "Alright, here we go," I say, opening the book to the most recent check-ins and scanning through them. "It's not exactly a hopping tourist season around here. Not that there really is a hopping tourist season around here. Looks like we have some business travelers, though."

  I let out a disbelieving scoff.

  "What?" Sam asks.

  I point to a name in the book.

  "Andrea," I say, "is a waitress and bartender who works in the next town over. Checks in here a few times a month to screw LaRoche. I really thought she would have gotten that out of her system by now."

  "Apparently not."

  I continue to flip through the pages, not seeing anything familiar, until my hand stops. I can't believe what I'm seeing.

  "Dean Steele," I say.

  "The man from the train?" he asks, sounding as shocked as I am.

  "The man sitting behind me who kept showing up where I didn't want him to be, then managed to slip out of existence before anyone could question him? He said he's a private investigator but wanted nothing to do with the investigation. Looks like we know where he went."

  Mirna comes out of the office and looks between us.

  "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asks.

  “I think so,” I nod. “Thank you for letting me look. I really appreciate it.”

  “Absolutely. And I meant it. Anytime you want a place to stay, or just want to come by and visit, you're welcome here.”

  “Thank you. I might be back by in the next couple of days,” I tell her.

  She smiles and nods as we head out of the lobby and back to the car. This time I get behind the wheel. Sam looks at me with expectation as I hook my seat belt and turn over the engine.

  “What was that all about?” he asks. “Why did you ask her about Ron Murdock?”

  “When it first happened, LaRoche was, let's just say, uncertain about me. He called me in to question me even though it was fairly obvious I had nothing to do with it. One of the first things he asked me was if I knew anybody in Florida.”

  “Why would he ask you that?” Sam asks.

  “According to LaRoche, Murdock’s driver’s license has a Florida address,” I tell him.

  “But the address on the registration card was for Iowa,” Sam points out. “You already told me that.”

  “It was,” I confirm. “The Field of Dreams. That's how I ended up fi
nding out everything about my father and the house there. When I left Feathered Nest, I had a vacation planned. I never really took any vacation time, so I built it up and decided I was just going to go. I went to Maine because of a tip about Greg, but the tip didn’t pan out. So then I ended up in Iowa for a few days but had to be back in time for Jake’s trail. I planned to go back to Iowa after giving my testimony.”

  “Is that the same trip you were trying to take again when I called you?” he asks.

  “Yep,” I say. “Notice I still haven't taken that trip. But the point is, why would LaRoche ask if I knew anybody in Florida when the address card said Iowa?”

  “It is an interesting question,” Sam muses.

  “That it is,” I agree.

  We drive out of the parking lot and head down the road in silence for a few seconds before Sam turns to me again.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “No,” I say. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him open and close his mouth, not sure where to go from there. I grin. “Go ahead. I just hate when people ask that.”

  "I'm sorry. Let me rephrase. I'm going to ask you a question," he says.

  "Fire away," I tell him, glancing over my shoulder through the back window as I change lanes and take a turn.

  "You told Nicolas the first sign of any engagement with the guy behind Catch Me was the video clip sent from Mary Preston's cloud," he says.

  "And that would be a statement. Care to attach the question to the end, or should I just insert my own question mark at will?" I ask.

  "As much as I'd enjoy seeing what you could do to an innocent sentence with a carte blanche question mark, I'll add it. Why didn't you tell him about everything that happened in Sherwood or in Quantico? About the necklaces, your mail, or the birth certificate being stolen?"

  "Because it's not him," I say simply. "Catch Me is playing a game. It's all showy and dramatic. If he had the necklaces, he would have mentioned them again. He wouldn't just sneak into my house and not leave one of his notes. Besides, I saw the person's face."

  "The man you thought was your father."

  "The man I now know isn't."

  "And you're sure he couldn't be doing both? Just to mess with you?" Sam asks.

  "I'm sure. Catch Me has never mentioned Greg showing back up. He had the video clip of him, but that's it. He wouldn’t have let someone else find him. Greg ending up like that on my front yard was a message to me. That means Catch Me didn't know it was going to happen, and the person who did it didn't know I wasn't going to be there. They aren't the same person. Which means I have to deal with both."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Where are we going?” Sam asks a few minutes later, as we're still driving down the road and haven't gotten anywhere near going back to Feathered Nest.

  “I thought we'd stop by a local bar for a drink,” I offer.

  “It's not even ten A.M. It's five-o’clock-nowhere,” he says.

  “Then I thought we'd stop by a local bar for a chat with a bartender,” I tell him.

  “Are you seriously that interested in the questionable morals of the chief of police?” he raises an eyebrow.

  “At this point, I'm interested in just about everything,” I answer.

  We get to Lacy’s, and I pull up in a spot I'm fairly certain is the same one I parked in when I was here the last time. Only then I was in a car that felt like I was holding it together by sheer will, and I walked out of the bar to discover my back seat covered with the broken glass of the destroyed outside light from the cabin.

  Andrea looks up from the bar as we walk in. I can't say she looks exactly happy to see me. More confused and hesitant.

  “Emma?” she asks.

  “Hey, Andrea,” I say. “How have you been?”

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, then shakes her head, her eyes closing. “I'm sorry. That was really rude.”

  “It's fine,” I tell her. “I'm back in Feathered Nest for a few days dealing with a situation.”

  “That woman's murder,” she says. “It's horrible.”

  “Do you say that because you heard it on the news, or because Chief LaRoche is feeding you details?”

  Her face drops, and she turns around to snatch a rag off the counter. The bar isn’t even open yet; there’s nothing for her to clean up, but she scrubs at the top of the bar aggressively anyway.

  “Did you come all the way out here just to judge me?” she asks. “If so, I don't have anything to say to you.”

  I walk up to the bar and lean against it so I can get closer to her.

  “I'm not judging you, Andrea. That's not why I'm here.”

  “Is he spreading rumors about me? Telling people I broke up with him?”

  “You broke up with him?” I ask.

  She pauses and looks at me.

  "Yes. Last week. How did you find out we were seeing each other if he didn't tell you?" she asks.

  "I saw your name on the guest registration cards at the Sleepaway Hotel. It seems you were meeting up with him quite a bit again," I tell her.

  She goes back to angrily scrubbing at the bar, and I wonder which specific memories she's trying to obliterate from her mind.

  "And that's what I told him. After everything happened with Jake Logan, I was so scared and confused and upset; I didn't know what to do. Adam said everything was going to be different. He apologized for the other girls and said he wanted to really try with me. But we were going to have to keep it quiet for a little while.”

  “Of course he did,” I say.

  Andrea makes a sound somewhere between a mirthless laugh and a sob. She throws the rag into the sink and leans her back against the bar, so she's facing me from the opposite angle, her arms crossed over her chest.

  "And I believed him. I was stupid enough, and what I thought was in love enough to believe him. I really thought it was going to be different. It hurt so much to find out about him seeing those other girls, especially Cristela. But all I could think about was how buddy-buddy he had been with Jake. This person I thought I knew, who I thought was a dear friend, had butchered fifteen people. He stitched them together like throw pillows, then came to my bar and drank my bourbon with me. The more I thought about it, the more twisted it sounded, and I felt so guilty. I should have known something was wrong with Jake. He was here all the time, and I never picked up on it. And that got to me. It got to me a lot, and eventually, I just fell into what was familiar and comfortable.”

  “What happened? It's been a year,” I point out.

  “Exactly,” she says. “It's been a year, and I'm still checking into a hotel three towns away from where he lives. At first, it made sense. With everything going on and all the heat on Feathered Nest and Adam, he didn't want to drag me into it. Didn't want the sensationalism of people knowing one of the victims was his ex-girlfriend, and he had another one. It was all too much. Staying under the radar felt safe. Like we could hide away from everything with each other. Then it just never changed, never got to normal.”

  “What would you need to hide away from?” I frowned. “You weren't involved in any of the murders.”

  “No, but my name was mentioned, and people figured out Jake came here. For months after he got arrested, some nights there were more reporters here than actual customers. That's actually what finally broke us up,” she tells me.

  "The reporters? I thought you said they were only coming for a few months."

  "They were, then they stopped, and it felt like I could breathe. But then a week or two ago one of them came back. He'd come by a few weeks after everything like a lot of the others, but he was different."

  "How?" I ask.

  "Just the stuff he wanted to talk about," she says, absently pulling her blonde hair down from its ponytail and ruffling it before sweeping it up again. "Most of the other reporters wanted to talk about Jake and the crimes. Some of them wanted to play up how involved I was, and others wanted to focus on Adam. ‘Corrupt Chief of Police Too B
usy Bonking Bartender to Notice Serial Killer in His Town.’ Those were fun ones. But this guy wanted to talk about you specifically."

  "I'd think I'd be a part of it," I note. "I was a little bit involved in that case."

  "Not you and the case. I mean, he asked about your involvement in the case, and if I knew anything about how you investigated if I knew you were undercover, did you tell me any trade secrets, those kinds of things. But then the questions started being more about you as a person and your life than about the case."

  "Like what?" I frown.

  Sam slides up beside me. The warmth of him is reassuring.

  "About your parents. If I'd heard about them, and how I thought that affected you. About your boyfriend. Obviously, I didn't really have anything to tell him. I told Adam about it, and he was really angry. He said I needed to back off and just leave it alone. That he was tired of hearing about you. Then the guy came back last week and started asking questions again. He wasn't able to get the last article he wrote published, but he said he was working on something big for the one-year anniversary. He was getting a jump on it and wanted me involved. That so many people were trying to tell my story and put me in their version of what happened. I deserved to have my voice be heard. Adam was furious when he heard, and it turned into a huge argument. I eventually told him I couldn't stand him wanting to control me without wanting a real relationship with me, and we broke up," Andrea concludes with a sigh.

  "What was the reporter's name?" I ask.

  "Um," she thinks about it for a second. "Fisher."

  "Is that his last name?"

  "It's his only name. That's all he told me."

  "What did he look like?" Sam asks.

  Andrea shrugs.

  "Tall. Dark hair. Kind of the classic description, I guess."

  "Did he write anything down? A phone number or email address or anything?" I ask.

  "No," she tells me.

  I nod and reach in my pocket to give her my card.

  "Thank you. I really appreciate your help. If you can think of anything else, call me."

  We walk out of Lacy's and climb into the car. My head drops back against the headrest, and I roll it to the side to look at Sam.