by Jordan Dane
“Fine.” She held out her coffee mug. “Top me off, will ya? And keep it coming.”
“You got it.”
After the waitress called out her order, Jessie saw her own face in the mirror behind the counter. Under the fluorescent lights, she looked tired. Dark circles under her eyes made the scar across her eyebrow more pronounced and ugly.
The words “sullen” and “unfriendly” came to mind, which was fine by her. Not everyone was a frickin’ ray of sunshine in the morning. When she gulped down more coffee, she noticed another pair of eyes staring back.
A uniformed cop with a newspaper under his arm was throwing bills on a booth table. She guessed that local law-enforcement officers kept an eye out for strangers sporting an attitude.
LEOs in small towns were like that. That was why she preferred the anonymity of getting lost in the masses of Chicago or New York City. She didn’t appreciate getting rousted by the local law, especially before she had finished her coffee.
“You Jessica Beckett?” the cop asked as he walked toward her.
Before she said anything, Jessie looked down at the name badge on the man’s uniform. Chief Cook, the man she’d come to see. She crooked her lips into a lazy grin, knowing from experience that the gesture would come off looking more like a sneer than hospitable. Even though she and the law seldom saw eye to eye, she reined back her usual cynicism to greet the man proper.
“Yes, that’d be me. How’s it goin’, Chief?”
The man ignored her attempt at small talk. With a stern face, he eyeballed her like the cops in Chicago usually did. And he got down to his agenda, the real reason he’d struck up a conversation in the first place.
“You have a permit to carry that concealed weapon under your sweatshirt?”
“Yeah, I do, but I guess you won’t take my word for it.” Jessie reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a wallet. “I’m a licensed fugitive recovery agent out of Chicago. Carrying a gun is part of the job.”
“So you’re a . . . bounty hunter.”
“That’s not what I said,” she corrected.
For the police chief, her carrying a concealed weapon in his town had been like waving a red flag in front of a bull. And cops usually saw her former occupation the same way. The chief was no different. His disdain showed on his face and in the way he said, “bounty hunter.” No, Chief Cook didn’t bother to hide how he felt as he looked over her permit, but him seeing her as a bounty hunter was easier than concocting a lie to explain her current employer.
“Have a nice breakfast, Ms. Beckett. When you’re ready, you know where to find me.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“And when we’re done”—he leaned closer and lowered his voice—“I think it’s best that you leave town. Am I making myself clear?”
“Abundantly. Guess you’ve got your welcome wagon in the shop, out of commission.” Jessie raised her mug of coffee in mock salute.
Chief Cook gave her the stink eye and turned on his heels without saying another word. He left the diner, with Jessie watching him go. Even though her first encounter with the local police chief had been brief, she could tell already. Chief Cook had made a snap judgment about her. She saw it in his eyes because she’d seen it plenty before from other cops. He’d have no tolerance for any woman who would encroach on his territory and take up bounty hunting for a living. And a woman carrying a gun, legal or otherwise, got his testosterone all riled up.
“Great . . . just great.”
“You know the chief, honey?” the waitress asked as she set down Jessie’s breakfast and freshened up her coffee.
“Not yet, but that’s about to change, unfortunately.”
Before she’d finished her first cup of java, Jessie had been kicked out of town. That had to be a new record.
Forty-five minutes later
Chief Cook made Jessie wait while he pretended to take an important phone call. Like most cops she’d known, the man liked being in charge and made sure she got that point. Jessie was on her second cup of the swill he called coffee when the chief finally gestured her into his office, shutting the door behind her.
“So how do you know Detective Samantha Cooper in Chicago?” he asked.
The chief sat behind his desk and invited her to sit in one of his visitor chairs while he made small talk and pried.
“In my line of work, I meet a lot of cops.”
“It’s just that she seemed to know you . . . beyond the job.”
She could have offered him more, but the fact that she and Sam Cooper had been friends since childhood was none of his business, and her gal pal had nothing to do with why she’d come. Jessie had her secrets and had gotten really good at being evasive.
“Don’t know what to tell ya.” She shrugged. “Chicago PD told me you scored a hit on my DNA from an old murder case. I just came to check it out, see if I could help.”
“What makes you think I need your help? From what I can see, your attitude could use an overhaul.”
Something in his smug expression flipped a switch in her. And even though it would have been better for Jessie to keep her mouth shut and stifle her cynicism, she just wasn’t good at that. Diplomacy was a skill set she didn’t have.
“I’m a recovering smart-ass. Guess I’ve fallen off the wagon.” After she realized how she sounded, Jessie heaved a sigh and tried to reel it back a notch. “Look, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’d appreciate seeing what you’ve got.”
“That’s not how it works around here.” The chief leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Real defensive. “This is my case. I ask the questions.”
Jessie held up both hands, and said, “I didn’t mean to step on your toes, Chief. It’s just that I’m an investigator. And I thought that having another set of eyeballs on the murder book might help.”
Jessie had never called herself an investigator—until now—but if her argument swayed the stubborn man behind the desk, then she’d beef up her résumé to include anything that would get her a foot in the door of his case.
“No offense, but that murder book is off-limits to civilians. Now I know you were only a kid at the time, so I won’t be needin’ your help. All I need is your cooperation. Big difference.” He narrowed his eyes. “Now what can you tell me about your blood evidence being found here in La Pointe?”
Jessie didn’t know squat about how her blood had wound up in Wisconsin. She knew less about her past than most people since she’d blocked out the trauma of her childhood. And forget about old family albums. She didn’t have relatives or the usual trappings that could help trigger a memory.
“When we got that hit on your DNA, I looked at your missing-persons file.” The chief pursed his lips, letting what he’d said sink in. “Terrible thing happened to you.”
Jessie saw the look of pity in his eyes, and she hated it. That look was the reason she never talked about what had happened to her.
“That Danny Ray Millstone case hit national news. I didn’t need to read your file to remember that sorry excuse for a human being. He got what was coming to him.”
Guess the chief thought that commiserating over the serial pedophile who had tortured her and so many other kids was a way of breaking the ice. Well, she didn’t need that. Ever.
What she did need was a look at the chief’s investigation. Seeing what the local law had accumulated would give her a glimpse into a past she knew nothing about. And maybe, for the first time, she’d get a lead on the woman who might be her mother.
The way she figured it, she had a fifty-fifty chance of discovering that her mother had been involved with Danny Ray Millstone and given her up or had loved her the way a mother should and hadn’t been given the choice to keep her child.
But to get a look at the cold-case file—or gain the trust of the man behind the desk—would require her to do the one thing that didn’t come naturally. She had to open up to a stranger, or her business in La Pointe would be done�
��over, out, finito.
“All that took place after your murder, Chief, but I don’t know how your case would be connected to what happened to me.”
“To find that out, you may have to talk about things you don’t care to. You okay with that?” He furrowed his brow.
When the chief leaned forward in his chair, she knew she had his attention, making what she was about to ask him more difficult.
“Since you did DNA tests, was the woman who was killed . . . was she related to me?” Jessie cleared her throat, unable to look him in the eye. “Was she . . . my mother?”
“You don’t remember anything about your mother?” His voice softened.
“Bottom line is that I don’t know how my blood got here in La Pointe because I’ve blocked out a big chunk of my past. Either I was too young to remember stuff, or I didn’t want to know what had happened. I don’t know which, but I came here to see what you had, hoping I might learn something about my family . . . my mother, actually. That’s why I want to see what you’ve got on this case. Do you think you can help me, Chief?”
At first, the man stared at her as if she had two heads. Like the boy who cried wolf, she was about to find out if the guy believed her when she finally told him the truth. When his expression softened, he leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh. He kept up his silent stare as if the truth would appear on her forehead.
Eventually, he broke the stalemate. “You have time to take a ride with me?”
The Pérez Compound
Outside Guadalajara, Mexico
Ramon and his men had left them alone, for hours now. Estella Calderone listened to every sound coming from the corridor outside, waiting for the footsteps that would signal that her nightmare wasn’t over.
And in the stillness of the cell, she also heard the labored breathing of the man next to her. They’d given him loose-fitting clothes to wear, pants that tied at his waist and a shirt that had not been buttoned. Since they’d taken his shoes, his feet were bare. Suspended by chains, he looked more like a ghost in the darkness of their cell. That was why Estella was shocked to hear the American speak to her for the first time.
“I’m s-sorry.”
His voice had been so soft, she almost missed what he said.
“For what, señor?” Estella found it hard to breathe. Hanging by ropes made it hard for her to fill her lungs. And when she tried to relieve the pain by moving, her body ached with every exertion.
“What they’ve done to you, it wasn’t s-supposed to go d-down like this.”
Estella didn’t know what he was talking about, but she heard the sincerity in his words. The man looked at her with his face half-swollen and saw the knife wounds Ramon had cut into her arms. The sight looked as if it truly pained him.
His reaction made her more aware of what Ramon had done to her. She would never be pretty to another man. Ramon had ruined her in more ways than one.
The smell of her own blood filled her nostrils in the small cell. And whenever she moved, she opened the wounds and more warm blood oozed down her skin. Estella felt the sting of new tears and fought them off by talking to the man she shared the cell with.
“I was born under an eclipsed moon. No good can come from that, my mother used to say.” If her hands hadn’t been tied, she would have made the sign of the cross. “Besides, Ramon owns me. He can do whatever he wants. My mother sold me to him.”
It had embarrassed her to admit what she was to this stranger, but since they were both about to die, she did not see the point in hiding the truth.
“That bastard might’ve given m-money to your mother,” he mumbled, trying hard to catch his breath. “ . . . but he can’t own you.”
The American was weak. She strained to listen to him, barely hearing his words when the sound of his voice echoed off the stone walls.
“He’s got n-no right to do w-what he did to you.” He grimaced with the pain of speaking. “What’s your name?”
“Estella Calderone. And you are Garrett Wheeler, is that right?” She’d heard his name when he was being tortured, before Guerrero had come looking for her.
The American barely nodded.
“If we are to die today, then it is good we know who we are.” She felt a single tear roll down her cheek. “But in God’s eyes, no names are necessary.”
He knew the girl was scared even though she was trying to sound brave. It was one thing for him to withstand torture, but seeing what they had done to Estella had ripped him up. Any plans he had for revenge had been challenged the minute Ramon Guerrero touched that girl with his knife. It left him with a burning question that he had not yet found an answer for.
How badly did he want to kill the man who had taken everything from him?
La Pointe, Wisconsin
“So this is where it happened?”
Sitting outside in the passenger seat of Chief Cook’s patrol car, Jessie stared through the windshield at a dilapidated old clapboard house that was set back into the woods, off an unpaved road. The yard was overgrown, with vines and weeds making an effort to reclaim the property.
Massive old trees dwarfed the abandoned house, casting the place in shadows. And old crime-scene tape fluttered in the wind, a sad reminder of what had happened. A strong feeling of déjà vu hit Jessie, even though a day ago, she would’ve sworn she’d never been to La Pointe.
“Yeah,” the chief said. “It’s been on the market a few times, but they haven’t had much luck in selling it. In a small town, rumors get more exaggerated as time passes. And it’s damned hard to whitewash a murder.”
“Well, that’s true enough.” Jessie got out of the squad car, keeping her eyes on the old house. “What was her name? The woman who was murdered here.”
“Angela DeSalvo. She was twenty-eight years old.” When the chief got out of his car, he had a file with him. After Jessie got caught staring at the manila folder he had under his arm, Chief Cook added, “I was a rookie at the time. Didn’t know her, but she was a pretty little thing by all accounts.”
After an awkward silence, he said, “Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you where it happened. And you can ask your questions.”
She nodded and walked in silence to the front steps. When she got closer, she stared up at the second-floor windows. One in particular caught her eye. Something about it was familiar, but it also stirred a tight knot in her belly.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the chief said. “You okay?”
Without taking her eyes off the window, she replied, “Yeah, guess so.”
When they got inside, the chief didn’t say a word at first. He let her walk through the musty old rooms by herself, with her boots echoing in the emptiness. And every time a flash of memory hit her, she shut her eyes and clung to it as if she’d lose it forever if she let go.
Too much was familiar. As she walked through the rooms, too many recollections bombarded her for the unsettling feeling to be purely coincidental.
“I think I’ve been here . . . before,” she whispered, hardly realizing that she had spoken at all. “Where did it happen?”
“Up here,” the chief called to her from another room. When she joined him, he pointed up a set of stairs.
As Jessie followed him, her stomach tightened, especially when she got to the second floor and made the turn she knew would come. If Chief Cook hadn’t been leading the way, she still would have known where to go. That window she had seen outside had been important to her for a reason.
She’d been there before.
“She was found in her bedroom. Right there.” He didn’t need to point to where Angela DeSalvo had died. Bloodstains marred the old floorboards. The pooling wasn’t red anymore. It had turned dark brown with age.
When Jessie knelt by the stain and put her hand to the floor, she felt an overwhelming sense of loss. And flashes of violent images came from nowhere, bombarding her with a past she didn’t realize she had buried. The darkness of it gripped her hard. And she fought a
lump in her throat. She didn’t want to break down in front of the chief, but a part of her didn’t care.
“You ready to see a photo?”
Jessie looked up in shock, unsure what to say. After she took a deep breath, she stood and waited for him to fish out a photo from his file. When he handed it to her, she looked into the face of Angela DeSalvo.
“Oh, my God.” Jessie couldn’t help it. She gasped with a hand to her lips, her fingers trembling.
“You recognize her?”
“I don’t know. I’m not . . . sure.”
The woman in the crime-scene photo stared back at her, forever immortalized in black and white, a look of shock frozen on her face. The photo was a close-up, and a dark pool of blood was congealed under her head. Despite the image being graphic, Jessie had lied to the chief.
She’d recognized the woman from the many times she’d come to Jessie while she slept.
A flash of her smile and the sound of laughter jarred Jessie from her stupor, memories of the only happy moments she had when she was a child. The woman in her dreams had played with her in a park, on a swing.
When Jessie heard a steady squeaking sound coming from outside the bedroom window, she turned her head, trying to listen for the noise, and her breath caught in her throat.
“What’s that?”
It took the chief a minute to realize what she was asking.
“That squeaking sound is from an old swing out back. You want to go see . . .”
Jessie didn’t wait for him to finish. She ran down the stairs and headed for the backyard until she stood next to an old rusted swing, blowing in the breeze. The play set stood under a large tree, squeaking every time the wind blew. An eerie trigger for her memory.
Jessie knew right then that she had been there before. This had been where Angela DeSalvo had pushed her on the swing. That memory hadn’t been from a park. It had come from right there, within steps of where Angela would later be murdered.
“Was she my mother? Can you tell me that?”
Avoiding the chief’s eyes, Jessie looked down at the swing as she wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. He’d never answered her before when she questioned him on the DNA found at the scene, but now she had to know.
