by Kylie Brant
He took her hand in his, hating that he’d put that look on her face. Knowing she’d hate him more if he’d tried to keep the news from her. He’d learned that particular fact about her the hard way. She didn’t like to be coddled from the truth. Even when it was brutal. “We’re getting an injunction to get the ad taken off Craigslist.” He didn’t tell her how lengthy a process that might be. “Maria talked about going public with the story. Not with names,” he added hastily when her gaze flew to his in alarm. “Just a general local warning for people to watch out for.”
“Reporters would never be satisfied with that.”
The lady saw too much. Which was why honesty was always best with her. “No,” he admitted. His thumb brushed the top of her hand. “And I don’t want them digging. So I convinced her it’d be best to place another ad with a title linking to the original, cautioning people that the first one is a scam.”
She drew in a deep breath. Released it slowly. “All right. I’ll have to be hyper vigilant. I get that. Oh.” Her blue eyes widened. “Have you ever noticed a tan Crown Victoria in the neighborhood? I’ve seen it twice now, both times parked close to your place. It was there again this morning.”
He knew exactly what car she was talking about, and the fact that Sophie had noticed it, too, meant someone wasn’t doing their job very damn well. He dutifully wrote down the license number, promised to check it out. Then saw the concern on her face, and couldn’t prevent a mental sigh. Like the lady needed even more dumped on her plate.
“I’ll check to make sure, but it’s probably the feds.”
From her expression he could tell she’d completely forgotten the old multi-agency task force that wouldn’t stay closed. It had risen from his past, determined to suck him back in. “They’ve been watching your place? Because of the threat from the cartel?”
Pablo Moreno, head of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel wanted whoever had orchestrated the raid that had crippled his operation a couple years ago. But Cam knew the federal interest in him likely had more to do with his recent contact from Matthew Baldwin.
Matt. The man who should have been scooped up with the rest of Moreno’s people in the raid. The man who had slipped away because Cam had made sure he wasn’t there when the doors were kicked in.
Every action had a consequence. And Matt finding him was Cam’s.
“Like I say, I’ll double check.” And chew someone’s ass for being obvious enough in their surveillance that Sophie had picked up on it. “But it offers an extra layer of protection, which is why it’s safer for you to live at my place.”
“I can’t figure out why you’re not writing romantic ballads. Seriously. Come live with me. In my home. It’s safer there,” she crooned with a passable country twang.
He was grateful to see humor chase away her worry, even if it was at his expense. “I have it on good authority that I excel at sweet nothings. Maybe when I retire I’ll go to work for Hallmark.” With that he stood, drew her to her feet. “So in that vein…you can ride with me and I’ll send someone for your rental. I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”
* * * *
The boy was obediently silent as he accompanied the woman into the motel. He kept his head down, just the way she’d told him. But when she stopped and opened a door, waved him inside, his shoes turned to concrete.
He looked through the door. Didn’t move. “I want to go back to the basement.”
With a quick look both ways down the hallway, the woman grabbed him by his shirt and shoved him inside. Then she shut the door. Locked it.
She aimed a kick at him, but he dodged out of the way. “One thing you gotta learn, kid, is to keep your fucking mouth shut. You’re not going back there. This is better. What’s your fucking problem, anyway?”
When she stared at him like that with mean scrunched into her face it was hard to answer. He backed up slowly until he could feel the wall at his back. “That lady down there. She needs food. And something to drink, too. You have to go back there. When you do, you can take me, too.” It had been dark there. Damp. Spiders had crawled on him. Just the memory of it had him shivering. But he still would rather be there with the other lady who had been taken just like him, than here in this motel room alone with the monster.
She stared hard at him, and he felt his bladder grow tight. Then, giving a bark of laughter, she passed him to go to the TV. “You know for a minute there you reminded me of my son when he was your age. Never knew when to shut up, either. But he learned.” She lifted the remote and turned on the flat screen TV, went to menu. “You like cartoons? I’ll set it to cartoon network or something. Sonny always liked that.”
A new Tom and Jerry cartoon came on and he craned his neck to see the screen better. She stripped one of the bedspreads of the mattress. “Get on the bed. Not that one, dumbass,” she snapped, when he would have gone to the one that was still made. “This one.”
Slowly, he crawled up on the bed. Scooted up to the pillows.
Her heavy purse hit the mattress beside him, and she started digging in it. When she came up with a roll of duct tape, he shrank against the pillows. She grabbed his hand. Wrapped one end of the tape around his wrist.
“Hope you got enough to eat and drink in the car, ’cuz I’ve got stuff to do and I’m not dragging you around. You can sleep and watch TV the whole time I’m gone. Most kids would die to be in your place right now.”
“When can I go home? You said if I helped you…”
The stinging slap brought tears to his eyes. They trickled down his cheeks. His shoulders shook with the effort it took not to cry out loud.
“Forgot what a pain in the ass kids were,” she muttered furiously, and stuck a piece of tape over his mouth before tying his ankles together. By the time she was done he was sitting up against the pillows, with lengths of tape securing his legs and one wrist secured to the bed frame. One wrist was tethered to the other, but left loose enough for him to move it.
She dropped the tape in her bag, bringing out a cell phone and the newspaper she’d bought. She propped the paper on his lap, then aimed the phone at him. “Say cheese.” She snapped several pictures. The way she had yesterday. And the day before. He knew enough now not to ask what she was going to do with them.
“Okay, I’m gonna leave the wastebasket by the bed in case you gotta pee. I’ll be back later.” She dragged the table with the lamp well away from the bed and looked around, her hands on her hips. “Well, what the hell.” Going to the door she peered outside through the peephole before cracking the door an inch to look up and down the hallway. Then she hung a sign on the doorknob, shut it, and secured the safety latch.
A jolt of fear shot through the boy when he thought she meant to stay here with him. But she didn’t look at him as she crossed the room to the window. A minute later she was gone.
Tom and Jerry took turns chasing each other in circles on the TV. The monster was like that. But she caught the people she chased. And they were afraid to run again, even when they weren’t tied up.
He hoped the monster was going to go feed the lady in the basement. But maybe that lady was like him. Maybe she didn’t care about eating or drinking.
As long as the monster didn’t come back.
* * * *
Agent Jenna Turner walked briskly down the hallways of Polk County jail, sending a jaundiced glance toward the man who fell in step with her. “Maxwell. What are you doing here?”
“Caught a ride with one of my deputies. He’s got court today.” Although she made no effort to slow down, he kept up with her easily, a fact she found irritating. Of course, nearly everything about Boone County Sheriff Beckett Maxwell irritated her.
He was too…sure of himself, she decided, as he opened the door for her and she walked into the brutal bright sun. Too attractive, too easy-going with that aw-shucks manner that she strongly suspected was a façade. The man was well respected by his law enforcement peers, which meant he was more than competent at his job.
“Cam said you were heading over to do the sketch for that witness in the Ellen Webster case.” He took her elbow, eased her back as a driver shot out of his parking space without sparing a glance for pedestrians. “I’d like to go along. Talk to the woman myself.”
Jenna stared at him shrewdly. “You’ve got the report from the DMPD officers who did the canvass. What else do you think you’ll learn from her?”
“It’s what I think you might learn from her.” He cast her a sideways glance. “The dental records confirm that my crispy critter was Ellen Webster. Hillary Carlson has been pretty vague about what she saw the day the woman took her car out the morning she was murdered. If you manage to jog her memory during the sketch, I want to be there to follow up.”
She opened her mouth. Shut it again. Jenna was perfectly capable of conducting an interview, but that skill functioned separately from her role as forensic artist. Not to mention that the Webster murder was his case. It might turn out to be entwined in the one the task force was working on, but he was still the principal investigator on it.
“Questioning has to wait until after the sketch is finished,” she finally replied, leading the way to the agency vehicle and unlocking it, leaving him to get in the passenger seat. “And you can’t be in the room. The environment needs to be completely nonthreatening in order to get the best results.”
“Did I ever tell you I have a thing for bossy women?” he said conversationally, drawing his seatbelt together. “Especially redheads. They’re my Kryptonite.”
The engine roared to life, and she backed out carefully. “Lucky they’re in such short supply then.” And lucky for her that she had no such weaknesses. Especially in the form of Mr. Tall Dark and Pretty sitting beside her.
She was going to do her damnedest to keep it that way.
* * * *
“Yes, that’s her. That’s the woman I saw.” Hillary Carlson peered closely at the sketch. “You’ve drawn her exactly. That’s so interesting…I wasn’t even sure I remembered that much about her.”
Jenna flashed the woman a smile and began piling the photo reference books in her briefcase. “Our mind stores information that our conscious isn’t even aware of. The details were all there. You just needed help recalling them.” With time and proper technique, a good forensic artist could extract those details from witnesses. Perfect them.
And after over two hours, the product was eerily similar to other photos and sketches they had of Vickie Baxter. “There’s a sheriff outside who would like to ask you a couple more questions, if you can spare another minute or two.”
The older woman looked at her watch. “Goodness, we worked clear through the afternoon. I’m supposed to meet my daughter for an early dinner in a half hour.”
“I’m sure he’ll be quick,” Jenna pressed when she sensed the other woman wavering. “Five minutes, I promise.”
“Well…” She took the lack of another protest as agreement and texted Beckett. She’d make sure he was as swift as she’d promised. Although if Jenna was any judge of character, the fiftyish plump perfectly coifed woman’s objections were going to melt away once she caught sight of the sheriff.
Her prediction was verified when he gave a light knock, then entered the apartment. Hillary’s eyes widened and Jenna gave a mental shrug. At least, she rationalized as she settled in to wait, Jenna wasn’t the only female Beckett Maxwell affected.
Fifteen minutes later the sheriff was still asking questions, which Hillary was happily answering. “I couldn’t be sure before. I mean, I barely could recall what the woman looked like, so how could I remember if I’d seen her prior to that morning? But the sketch helped jog my memory. That’s the lady I saw getting in the car with Ellen Webster that morning in the parking garage at our apartment building. I thought it was odd at the time, because she got in the backseat instead of sitting right next to Ellen.”
“But you were distracted, you said.”
She aimed a smile at Beckett. “That’s right. I was having an argument with my daughter on the phone. Not that we fight, but the girl can be so stubborn! So my mind wasn’t really on Ellen. I just waved and continued to my car. Oh.” Hillary stopped as if a though had just hit. “That woman might have been the last one to see Ellen alive.”
Of that, Jenna thought, they could be pretty sure.
“And you saw the stranger before that day.” Smoothly Beckett steered Hillary back to the point at hand.
The woman gave a vigorous nod, sipped from her bottled water. She’d insisted on providing each of them with one, a burst of belated graciousness. “At least once before. Two weeks ago. Maybe one and a half.” Her furrowed brow didn’t seem to help improve her memory so she smoothed it. Shrugged. “She was sitting in a car in the visitor section of the parking garage when I went to get my car. I noticed her because it was the only car in the section. And I remember thinking, oh, I wonder who has a guest? Most of us know each other in the building. At least to wave at. And that’s all I remember. I’m not sure how it could be helpful.”
Jenna wasn’t sure either. But it was clear from Beckett’s thoughtful expression that he was hearing more in the words than she was. So she stemmed her impatience until they were back in the car. Turned the car toward the Iowa State Patrol post where zone one DCI agents were stationed before saying, “So Vickie Baxter stalked Ellen Webster. That’s hardly surprising in face of what we know about her. She’d need to learn the woman’s routine to best figure out how to accost her.”
“We got a positive ID from Carlson so we can be pretty sure it was Baxter who last saw Webster alive.” He’d adjusted the lever on his seat on the trip over, and now had his long legs stretched as much as the space allowed, with the back slightly inclined. It added to his overall manner of indolence, but she wasn’t fooled. There had been strategy guiding his questions. She just didn’t know where it was heading. “So we know more than we did this morning.”
“I got that much from the sketch.” Her voice was droll. “What’d you get, Maxwell?”
“You mean other than the pleasure of your company? A timeline.”
“A timeline.”
She pulled to a stop at a red light, and tapped her fingers lightly on the wheel. “Of when Baxter focused on Webster?”
“You’re sharp, Red.” He adjusted his glasses and put his arms behind his head. “I’ve always said it.”
“It was after Vance’s arrest. Or maybe not. All we can be sure of is when she was sighted. We can’t tell how many times Baxter trailed Webster that we don’t know about.”
His teeth gleamed. “God, you sounded just like Prescott there. We work differently. He likes to wait until he can click every proven piece of evidence into place to get the bigger picture. Me, I look at an investigation like soup. Drop this detail in, then that, stir it up, what do you have? Take something out, replace it with something else…” He shrugged. “Just the way I process things.”
“A food analogy. Of course.” Jenna accelerated as the light changed, amused in spite of herself. “So what kind of soup were you making back there?”
But there was no answering humor in his voice. “Mason Vance was apprehended exactly three weeks ago, at which time Vickie Baxter, the woman known to us up until then as Rhonda Klaussen disappeared. In the last week she’s committed two murders. Now we know she set her sights on Sophia two and a half weeks ago, and Webster at least ten days ago.”
Jenna’s head swiveled to look at him for an instant. “What?” His shoulder jerked. “I’m in the loop.”
Apparently. She’d just heard the bare bones of the Dennis Leslie incident before going downtown to do the sketch with him this morning. It had taken supreme self-control not to beat the little weasel wit
h her briefcase.
