by Susan Stoker
The detective was very perceptive, noticing her every nuance. Would he be able to tell that she was withholding a key piece of information from him when she told her story? She set her dishes in the sink and took a couple of bags, tucking them into her pocket before answering his question. “I called the precinct with a tip on a missing person. Me.”
Rex stood in the kitchen doorway, tall and too good-looking. With his phone in one hand, notebook and pen in the other, he looked like he was ready to force the truth out of her. “That’s how you got my name?”
“Yes, and your partner’s. Then I looked you up online. Victor Sontag has been with the unit for years, and you’re new. You have less chance of being part of the corruption.”
“Corruption? You mentioned killers. They were cops?”
She nodded. “Honestly, I will tell you everything.” She laced her fingers together at the small lie. “But we have to go someplace safe.”
“There’s a safe house about five miles—”
“Uh uh. No. If this corruption goes as high as I think it does, that’s the first place they’d look for me.”
“They. The cops who killed…who?”
A banging sound came from the back of the house.
She jumped, and the food in her stomach churned like a carnival ride. “Detective. Please.” She began to breathe too fast, started feeling a little dizzy.
His eyes narrowed as he looked toward the back door. The neighbor’s voice called to his dog. “Okay, that’s just Jeb.” He scratched his jaw. “I can see you’re serious, so I’m going to go along with this. For now.” He shoved his phone and notepad into his pocket. “Get your wig on. Let me throw some clothes into a bag.” He gestured to a door in the back room. “Grab a coat and hat out of there, just to change your looks some.”
He disappeared into the room off the hall where she’d seen a bed.
In the closet, Mina found a camo baseball cap and a dark jacket that looked three sizes too big for her. When he came back out, his holstered gun hung from his belt, and he was setting a box of bullets and a smaller pistol in the bag.
She forced her breathing to slow and relaxed her shoulders. He would keep her safe. She’d have to lie to him, but that was the only way to be sure she was taken seriously.
“Ready?” He walked to the back door, glanced out the window, then opened the door and stepped out. “Let’s go.”
She followed him outside, the yard dark, only lit by a pole light in the alley. She reached behind a bush next to the steps. Pulling out her backpack, she turned to find him frowning at her.
“Ma’am, you are either paranoid as hell, or seriously in trouble.”
“Both.” A chill ran through her. “And in case you didn’t realize it, now you’re involved, too.”
Chapter Two
‡
“Yeah, thanks for involving me in your getaway, Doctor.” Rex walked to a building at the back of the lot, his head swiveling, as if watching for movement.
Mina followed.
Inside the garage, a government-issue sedan sat next to a black pickup truck and a big, shiny red American-made motorcycle.
He looked at the dark blue sedan. “You’re probably gonna say we should leave the cop car here, right?” With a sideways glance at her, he opened the truck’s passenger door, then walked around the hood and got in the driver’s side.
Did he finally believe they were in danger, or was he placating her, planning to drive around in circles while she told her story, only to end up at a police station—or a psych ward? “The less chance of being spotted, the better.”
He drove out of the alley and slowly down his street, checking the sides of his house and every car parked along the street. He circled around the area, then pulled into a parking spot in another alley and cut the lights. No cars came down the alley, and none passed by on the street. “Pretty sure we’re not being followed.” He set his phone on the console between them and pressed record, but then hit the stop button. “You have a phone?”
She shook her head. “I broke it open in Austin, cracked the SIM card, and threw it all in the river.” Her way of disappearing completely, and possibly forever. The thought of never seeing her father again nearly turned her into a crying mess.
“You know, dumping in the river is illegal.” He got them moving again. “I’m going to have to issue a citation.”
Through her sorrow, she laughed, just a little. “You’re funny for a cop.”
He shrugged his eyebrows but didn’t smile. Rex pulled into a strip mall where only three stores looked to be open. “I’m going in to get you a burner.”
“Berner? Isn’t that an illegal substance?”
He shifted into Park and gave her a look. “Not marijuana, although I know you college professors enjoy a smoke now and again.”
She had to smile. “Guilty.” Mina liked his teasing. “But only when we’re out scouting the skies for alien spacecraft.”
This time, one side of his mouth quirked up into an almost-smirk. “Yeah.” He released his seatbelt. “This burner is a prepaid phone not attached to any name.” He reached into the backseat, his face coming close to hers.
She inhaled slowly. The scent of sandalwood hit her low in her belly, manly and enticing.
He paused a moment and looked at her, his dark eyes moving to take in her features. Settling back into his seat, he looked at the stack of twenty-dollar bills in his hand.
With a low whistle, her eyes popped wide. “You rob a bank or something?”
He shook his head. “Lady…” Rex took a breath. “I’m going into the store, you stay here. You need anything while I’m in there?”
She shook her head, but pulled the camo cap from under the coat on her lap. “Wear this, keep your head down.”
He frowned, but put on the cap. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled a long jacket from the back seat and slipped into it, covering his gun.
Mina heard his sarcasm. “I’ve been running for five days, and have seen my picture on the TV, Internet, and local newspapers. Trust me, I had to learn fast how to become invisible.”
With a nod, he slid out of the truck and locked the doors with his fob.
Mina watched him walk into a big, brightly lit, 24-hour drug store. Interesting guy. Very serious, but he liked to joke around, too. What had made him become a cop? Usually something in a person’s past steered them into a life trying to save the world. In a good way.
A car pulled into a spot close to them.
She pulled the jacket up to her neck and eased her seat back a ways, watching as a mother and two kids took forever to get out of their vehicle.
Rex left the store with a bag in his hand and walked to another lit store a few doors down.
Mina kept watch, noting every car that drove by, watching for anyone who came by more than once, or eyed the truck with more than passing interest. Nothing stood out.
Rex strode across the parking lot toward her, purposeful, but not running or doing anything to catch attention. He was a smart man, and knew his trade.
He slid in holding two bags and a beverage carrier with a couple of big water bottles and two giant paper cups, one with three teabag tags on strings swinging from the side of it.
“Oh, Rex, you’re absolutely my hero.” She took the carrier, setting her tea in one cup holder, his extra-jumbo coffee in the other, and the water next to her on the seat.
“We’ll see.” He mumbled the words as he opened the package with the phone in it. “I’m putting my number in here.” Turning to face her, he lasered his gaze onto her. “Do not call anyone else. You understand?”
She swallowed, then nodded. “Yes sir, Detective.” She’d love to call her father, let him know she was okay.
“Listen up, Doctor.” He moved in closer, his jaw tightening. “I know you have people you’d like to reassure. Family, friends, boyfriend. But this is serious shit. If you really believe the cops are involved in this, they’ll have taps on those people’s phones,
and will pick up this number and locate it in seconds.”
How the hell had he read her thoughts? “Got it.” She would follow his rules.
He eased back and finished setting up the phone, then handed it to her. “Call me so you know how to use it.”
“I’ve used a phone before.” Mina looked at the little flip phone.
“I need you to call me…” He said the words slowly, as if talking to a child. “So I can have your number, too.”
“I’m working on it, just relax.” She mumbled the words so he definitely wouldn’t hear. She pressed call. His phone rang once, twice, three times. “You’re not going to answer?” It was meant to be a joke, but he just let out a groan.
She hung up and Rex started the truck and drove out of the lot. He set his phone on the console between them and pressed record. “Doctor Mina Cooper. Start talking about what has been happening. We’ve got about a three-hour drive. I’ll jump in with questions.”
As they drove, she gave him most of the details. “I’m an astronomer. Well, you know that.” A stupid, silly woman who has led a too-sheltered life, and recently made a series of very dangerous mistakes because she was bored and needed a little excitement in her life. She’d gotten the excitement, and a good dose of life-altering fear, along with it. A sharp laugh escaped her.
He glanced at her, a lock of hair falling onto his forehead.
“Sorry. Just a little manic panic there.” She settled back, closing her eyes. “Okay, here it is. I was on the roof of one of the buildings on the far edge of the campus. Not much light to interfere with my…” She glanced at him. “Alien spacecraft spotting.”
He gave a huff of breath. Was that as close as he got to a laugh?
“I heard voices from the street.”
“How tall was the building?”
“Three…no, four stories, I think.”
Rex pulled onto the freeway, heading south toward Austin.
“Where are we going?” She didn’t like the direction he’d chosen.
“My ex-wife’s stepfather’s ranch outside of Wild Oak.”
The ex-wife part hit her like buckshot. “That’s a lot of degrees of separation.” He’d chosen a place in a tiny town, and a ranch that would most likely never be associated with Rex. She let out a long sigh. Ex-wife? She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. How old was he?
His hands tightened on the wheel, then he stopped the phone recording. “I was orphaned at eight, went into the service at eighteen, Marines, and served one tour of duty. I came back and married the wrong woman, we divorced a year later. Been divorced for seven years. You can figure out my age from there.”
How did he do that? Psychic, or just really good at reading people? “Thirty?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Oh. You’re young to be a detective.”
He knew how old she was from her profile. “You’re thirty-three. Isn’t that young to be a tenured professor?”
“Not tenured. My father is, maybe you’re mixing us up. His name is Milo.”
“Huh.” He drove for a full minute. “Okay, we done with the introductions, now?”
She pressed the record button on his phone. “Yes, continuing.” This was the difficult part. “I pointed my telescope down to where a group of people stood. I couldn’t see much because they weren’t near the streetlamp.” The horror of those moments came back to her, and she took a few sips of her tea, holding the hot cup in her cold hands.
“How many people?”
“Maybe ten, I don’t know for sure. At least two women, that I could tell, and the rest were men.” She’d been looking for one particular face, and had been saddened to see it in the group. “Some of them wore suits, but some of them were cops. Badges flashed, and their belts held lots of…um…gewgaws.”
“Gew…gaws.”
She almost laughed at his treatment of the word. “Yeah, you know. Cop paraphernalia.” Her thoughts went back to that night. “I tried to make out the patches on their sleeves, but with the bad lighting, I could only see that there were at least two different patches, maybe three.”
He grunted. “That’s why you’re thinking there may have been more than one police force involved.”
“Yes.” She sipped tea for a few moments. “Their voices grew loud, shouting, then one man pulled out a pistol and everything went silent.”
Rex glanced at her, his eyes looking anxious.
“They shot one of the men.” She revisited the panic that had slammed into her that night.
“Shot with the pistol? One shot?”
“Yes. Silencer, I guess, because it wasn’t loud. To the…head.” Another dose of nausea swirled in her stomach. The sight of the man’s head shoved backward by the bullet, his slow fall to the ground, and the sickening thud as his head landed on the concrete.
“Damn.” He checked to be sure his phone was still recording, then squeezed her shoulder for a quick second. “What made you run?”
She appreciated his show of concern for her. A hug would have been nicer, but she didn’t expect that, by any means. “I’m afraid I went a little horror-movie heroine, and screamed.”
His brows went up. “I’m assuming it wasn’t a silent scream?”
“No.” She’d wanted to slap herself after she’d done it. She’d immediately looked through her telescope to see if they’d heard. Every eye in the group was trained on her, and a man pointed right at her. “Three of the officers ran toward my building, and I knew I had only seconds to get away. I’d been recording everything on a camera attached to the telescope, and grabbed that. I left my telescope and ran down the back stairwell, the one furthest from the front door and the cops.”
“You have the camera? You were on foot?”
He seemed to be very interested now. “Yes to the camera. No to walking. I’d parked my bike in the stairwell. I grabbed it and ran a block before I had the clarity to jump on it and ride.”
“I’m guessing by ‘bike’ you’re not referring to a motorcycle.”
“No, just a pedal bike with three speeds, for getting around the campus.” It had probably saved her life. The men chasing her had to have been watching and listening for a car.
“You left your telescope?” He slowed and took the next exit.
“I did. It’s college equipment, and had my department name on the case.”
“And you believed they would track you down using that information?” He didn’t sound convinced about that, but he didn’t know the whole story. He took a right on the highway, then a quick left behind a closed restaurant where he parked. They waited, watching for cars following, and after a few minutes, Rex shifted in his seat. “Let me take a look at the footage. And tell me why you think they could identify you from just that? Couldn’t you have been another teacher, or a student?”
She liked how thorough he was about their safety, and especially how he appeared to believe her now. She pulled out the camera, a little digital thing with a two-inch display, and started the video playing. “It’s dark.” Handing the camera to him, she watched as he squinted at the screen.
“And small.” He watched the video, shaking his head at the part where she’d jerked the telescope when the shooter had lifted his gun. As her gasp and scream came from the speaker, Rex opened his eyes wide.
The video ended and she knew, from the dozen times she’d watched it, the telescope wasn’t focused in the right place to show the shot or the man falling dead. She’d messed that up damn well perfectly. Would he still believe she’d witnessed a murder?
“We’ve got to get this video to someone who can analyze it.” Rex handed the camera back to her. “I didn’t see the gun or the aftermath, but maybe a sound tech could pick up the shot.”
“I’ve taken care of that.”
His head turned so fast to look at her, she heard a snap in his neck.
She’d respond to the easy question first. “About the telescope, we’re a small department with few women professors,
and my photo is online. I don’t look like any of the other female teachers.” She closed her eyes. Now would be the time for her to admit she knew one of the men, but if Rex knew why she’d been there that night, he would not be going to these extremes to save her. She needed to be safe first, then honest.
“What about students? There have to be a lot of students who—”
“I thought of that too, on my way home that night.” She’d thrown her bike in the back of her pickup and had raced to her apartment just off campus, knowing he would have recognized her immediately. “I grabbed a few things and left, just in case, hid out at a friend’s place. The next morning, my landlord called, saying my apartment had been broken into, then the head of my department called and requested a meeting with me in his office.”
“And that was unusual?” He gave her a level look. “The meeting, not the break-in.”
Mina couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny, or was just intent on clarifying his question. Either way, he was kind of funny. “My department head sounded strange, so I asked if it was about the telescope. He stammered for a few seconds, muted the phone, then came back and said it was about scheduling.”
“And that was unusual?”
“Yes, very. I knew they were there.” That cold dread that had made her heart stutter back then washed through her again. “I knew I had to run.”
He handed her the camera. “So you sank your phone, took cash from an ATM, and grabbed a taxi to the bus station. You took a bus to Fort Worth, and jumped on a shuttle headed for the Bing River Ranch, signed up for a turkey hunt, then disappeared that night.” He drank half his coffee in one shot.
“You knew all that?” Impressed and frightened at the same time, she felt justified in her paranoid belief that hiding on the remote ranch was not enough to keep her safe. What he didn’t know was the part where she’d taken rusty scissors and chopped off her long, thick red hair, cutting it into little pieces and flushing it down the toilet.
And where she’d snuck into the ranch’s kitchen and taken bread and cheese and a few bottles of water to keep her alive until she figured out where she was going next.
