Pursued

by Lisa Harris

  “Erika came to us a couple of weeks ago,” Wells continued. “She told us she had evidence we could use against Russell and then agreed to testify against him.”

  “So she had the evidence?”

  “That was the reason she was on her way to Nashville. She was supposed to hand it over to us today, then we were going to finish prepping her to testify in front of a grand jury. We were hoping Russell would be indicted.”

  Nikki opened up the file, where they’d added the photo of the thirtysomething mogul dressed in a designer suit and tie. “What made her turn on Russell?”

  “Like Crowley …” Brinkley hesitated a moment. “I suppose she found out that her knight in shining armor wasn’t quite the man she thought he was.”

  “Does Russell know she was planning to testify?” Nikki asked.

  “We don’t know, but if he does, I have no doubt both he and Petran want her to disappear. If he does realize what she’s planning to do, and he finds her before we do—”

  “He’ll kill her,” Nikki said.

  Brinkley nodded. “Since you first talked to us about Erika, we double-checked with the doctor who saw you. He gave you a clean bill of health. And your boss has already okayed the assignment.”

  Nikki glanced out the window at the line of runways. “How much time do we have?”

  “She’s scheduled to testify in forty-eight hours, and after two continuances, I don’t see the judge allowing a third. We need this to happen. Without Erika, we don’t have any solid evidence that can put Russell where we want him … and get us closer to Petran.”

  “So forty-eight hours,” Nikki repeated.

  “Or less. Because if she doesn’t show up, then like I said, our case is going to crumble.”

  She wanted to find Erika, but she also wanted a bit of normal. A long nap this afternoon, Chinese takeout and a movie tonight … And most importantly, time to reconnect with Tyler.

  “I’d need my team in on this with me,” she said, knowing there was no way she was simply going to walk away.

  Brinkley glanced at Wells. “We figured you’d ask for that. I suppose we could use the extra manpower. But you’ll work together and report directly to me. No one else needs to know what you’re doing. We want this kept under the radar.”

  “Where would you want us to work?” she asked.

  “You can treat this like any other missing persons case at your precinct,” Brinkley said.

  “And what about airport video surveillance from the time of the crash?” she asked. “We’d need access to that along with Erika’s file.”

  “That’s not a problem. There is surveillance in place that allows us to monitor the video feed over the internet from both on-site and off-site locations, including your precinct. And we’ll get you a copy of Erika’s file as well.”

  So they had it all worked out.

  “What do you say?” Brinkley asked.

  She’d have to put off Tyler again. Why was it that after three months another couple of days seemed like an eternity?

  “I know we’ve got a short window of time. I’ll need a phone to call and brief my team while you get set up to transfer the information we’ll need.” Nikki glanced toward the door. “But first, I need to tell someone goodbye.”

  She found Tyler waiting outside the string of offices in the concourse. “Hey. I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”

  “That’s okay. What’s going on?”

  She looked up at him, still not completely able to soak up the reality that he was back. “I’m going to need you to take me straight to the station. They want me to work with them on a case. That’s all I can say right now.”

  “The FBI? Is it related to the missing woman?”

  “Yes.”

  He grabbed her hands and shot her a smile. “I just get you back and you have to leave? Can’t say I’m too thrilled about that.”

  “The timing sucks, but I’m hoping no more than twenty-four hours. Forty-eight, tops.”

  “And you can guarantee that?” he asked.

  She let out a soft chuckle. There were no guarantees in her work. That was one of the easy things about being single. She didn’t have to report to anyone, could make her own hours, and no one except her cat missed her when she didn’t come home for dinner. But that was also the reason she wanted this relationship. She wanted someone to come home to. Which meant they were just going to have to find a way to balance things.

  “No guarantees,” she said, barely noticing the crowds of people walking past them. “But I’ve got some pretty strong motivation to solve the case. I’ve got you waiting for me.”

  “I know it sounds selfish, but there are so many things I want to talk to you about, and as grateful as I’ve been for Skype and texting, it’s not the same. I’ve missed you, Nikki.”

  Her breath caught at his nearness. And at the unexpected depth of her own feelings. “Me too.”

  “When I asked you to wait for me, I had no idea what that meant. Just that I knew I didn’t want to go back to how things were. I was so afraid that you still saw me as Katie’s husband. A good friend. I knew I couldn’t walk away without telling you how I felt.”

  “And now?”

  “Nothing has changed. I’m in love with you, Nikki Boyd. Three months away has made that even clearer.”

  “You’re making this very hard.”

  “It was my plan to make this hard.” He laughed. “Because I can guarantee that the FBI doesn’t need you near as much as I do.”

  He pulled her into his arms. She nuzzled her face in his chest. Breathed in the smell of his cologne. She’d waited so long for this moment. But this job was just temporary. A couple days at the most, and then she was going to take some of her unused vacation time.

  “I know I’m being selfish.” He ran his thumb across the back of her hand. “There are just so many things I’ve been looking forward to in person. I’ve been offered a job. A full-time job, but I … I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

  “Forty-eight hours, tops,” she said.

  He nodded before pulling away. “I’ll let your parents know what’s going on, and I’ll be waiting.”

  6

  2:26 p.m.

  Precinct

  Nikki stood in front of the sketchy timeline she’d put together at the precinct with photos of Russell and Erika from the FBI’s file. She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It had already been two and a half hours since the crash. In a missing persons case, every minute—every second—counted, and this one was no exception. She’d spent the past thirty minutes going over the file the FBI had given her, convinced Erika’s life was in danger. And if Brian Russell had already found her—

  “Couple things. I just got off the phone with our FBI liaison,” Jack said, stepping up beside her. “Brinkley said they still haven’t been able to locate Russell for questioning, though they believe he’s still in Texas. They’ve got a BOLO out on him with local and state police in the hope they’ll find him. I also managed to pull up Erika’s phone records and have been going through her calls.”

  “Can you trace the actual phone?” Nikki asked. “Get us a location?”

  “There is no GPS signal, so it looks as if she might have taken out the battery and ditched the phone.”

  “Which would mean she’s scared.” Nikki frowned. “And running from something.”

  “What about the case file the FBI gave us?” he asked. “Anything that might help there?”

  “It’s pretty bare bones,” Nikki said, dropping the file she’d been going through onto the desk. “Erika met Brian Russell five years ago at a fundraiser when she was working for his wife. They ended up having an on-again, off-again affair. He kept promising Erika he was going to marry her, but never has, though divorce proceedings with his wife have been recently finalized.”

  “So maybe he finally decided he was going to marry her?” Jack asked.

  “Maybe, but it looks like she changed her mind about wanti
ng to marry him. According to the transcript of her conversation with the FBI, she recently stumbled across some information that made her believe there was a possibility Russell was involved with more than just a string of nonprofits, and she began to question their relationship and wonder if he was involved in something illegal. By this time, the divorce proceedings with his wife were going ahead, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him to follow through with marrying her.”

  “And she was being escorted here to give that evidence to the grand jury,” Jack said.

  “The preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday. According to the transcripts I have between Erika and the FBI, she’s been working with them for a couple weeks now and had agreed to testify against him if they could guarantee her safety.”

  “Except the plane crashed,” Jack said. “Something spooks her, and she runs. Convinced, for whatever reason, she can’t trust the FBI anymore.”

  “Maybe because someone broke into the safe house,” Gwen said, glancing up from the computer where she’d been searching through the airport surveillance system. “That would cause me to think twice about putting my life into their hands.”

  “What about you, Gwen? We need to know how she left the airport.”

  “I’ve got her walking across the tarmac after the crash, but that was the easy part.”

  “And after that?” Nikki asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to find out when—and if—she left the airport,” Gwen said, still glued to the screen. “I have to say, though, I’ve worked with some pretty sophisticated software, but this system’s amazing. Not only will it stream the live video, but I can connect to all archived footage. On top of that it’s got facial recognition to help identify terrorist threats and individuals on watch lists, and there’s even software that will aid in detecting specific activities.”

  “Like?” Nikki asked, stepping up behind her.

  “Objects left behind, congestion, passengers or cars loitering for too much time …”

  Jack faked a yawn. “Sounds like a bunch of geek talk if you ask me.”

  Gwen looked up for a second and caught Jack’s eye. “Says the guy who just got back from a Star Trek convention.”

  “A Star Trek convention?” Nikki’s brow rose. “So that’s where you took Holly this past weekend. Things must be getting serious.”

  Jack sat back down at his desk with Erika’s telephone records and frowned.

  “Should I ask if you dressed up?” Nikki asked, grateful for the brief comic relief that image conjured up.

  “Now, I’d pay to see that.” Gwen laughed, back to searching the video feed. “I heard they have a costume parade.”

  “And how would you know that?” Jack asked, bracing his arms against his desk.

  “Hold that thought—or rather don’t. You might mock my geek skills, but I just found our girl leaving the airport.” Gwen rolled her chair back from the computer screen a few inches so Nikki and Jack could see over her shoulder. “First, if we look at the time stamp a couple minutes after the plane crashed, airport security video caught Erika running across the tarmac toward the main terminal. In the aftermath of the crash, apparently no one tried to stop her.”

  Gwen froze the video, let it pause long enough for them to recognize Erika.

  Nikki studied the image. There was no doubt it was Erika, but where was she going?

  “Give me another second.” Gwen fast-forwarded the tape. “Okay … here we go. About sixteen minutes after that, footage picks her up again in front of the airport, picking up a cab.”

  “Okay. Do we know where she was going?” Nikki asked.

  “I’ll put in a call to the cab service right now,” Gwen said, freezing the tape again as Erika slid into the backseat.

  Nikki studied the image on the screen while Gwen made the call. Another passenger, a twentysomething woman, was getting into a cab in front of her. Behind them, an older man was walking toward Erika’s cab. White shirt, dark ball cap, talking on a cell phone.

  She’d seen him before.

  “The cab company’s going to call me right back,” Gwen said, setting down her phone.

  “Can you run the tape back to where she was on the tarmac?” Nikki asked.

  “Sure.”

  Nikki leaned forward as Gwen queued up the video to just after Erika got off the plane. She kept looking back toward the plane as she ran. Even with the graininess of the footage, it was clear from her expression she was scared. And Nikki was convinced her fear hadn’t come solely from the crash. The air marshal’s death in the seat beside her had clearly spooked her, but that wasn’t surprising. What did surprise her was why Erika hadn’t headed straight toward the authorities who were working the scene.

  She had to have seen something else that unnerved her.

  “Stop,” she said.

  Gwen froze the video again.

  “Right there.” Nikki pointed to the screen. “There’s a man in a white shirt and ball cap. The same man who was behind her when she got into the taxi.”

  “You’re right.” Jack folded his arms across his chest and turned to Nikki. “Which means she was being followed.”

  “Are you able to track her movements inside the airport?” Nikki asked Gwen.

  “Given some time, I think so.”

  “What about her phone records, Jack? Did she talk to anyone after the crash?”

  “Yeah.” Jack grabbed his notes off the desk. “She made four calls. Three to an unregistered 931 area code and one to a … Kim Parks.”

  “Do we know who she is?” Nikki asked.

  “I’ve got her number and address,” Jack said. “The call lasted a minute and fifteen seconds.”

  “That was the taxi service,” Gwen said, holding up the note she’d just scribbled on a pad of paper. “I’ve got the address where the driver dropped Erika.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said, taking the pad of paper from Gwen. “That’s Kim Parks’s address.”

  “Let me have her number,” Nikki said.

  She pulled her cell phone off the charger, punched in the number Jack gave her, then let it ring a half-dozen times before hanging up. “There’s no answer.”

  Nikki looked at Gwen. “Keep searching the footage and see if you can find out more about her. In the meantime, Jack and I need to pay her friend a visit.”

  Nikki hurried out to the precinct parking lot with Jack, wishing she had time to change clothes. The weatherman she’d watched the night before had predicted the temperatures would rise to at least eighty-five after the morning storms dissipated. She’d shed Tyler’s jacket at the airport after feeling sticky from the humidity.

  Her phone rang a couple cars down from where Jack’s red Impala was parked. She checked the caller ID, debating for a moment whether she should take the call from her doctor’s office or let it go directly to voice mail. Then she figured that putting off the inevitable wasn’t going to change the facts and would more than likely make her worry.

  “I’ll just be a second, but I need to take this call,” she said, making her decision.

  “Nikki? This is Debbie from Dr. Mallard’s office.”

  “Debbie … hi. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” Nikki said, fiddling with her necklace. Debbie worked as a nurse at her doctor’s office but was also a friend from church.

  “I know your schedule’s busy, but Dr. Mallard would like you to make an appointment to come in as soon as you can to discuss your test results.”

  To discuss your test results?

  Nikki felt the familiar knot in her stomach return. Why was it that everything always tended to hit all at once? She took in a deep breath and sent up a short prayer. She hadn’t told anyone about the symptoms she’d been experiencing over the past few months. Figured they would eventually just go away. When they hadn’t, she’d finally convinced herself that knowing what was wrong was better than worrying about what might be wrong. But now she wasn’t so sure.

  �
��So there is a problem?” she asked, turning away from Jack so he wouldn’t hear what she was saying.

  There was a pause before her friend continued. “Dr. Mallard will go over everything with you, but the blood work we did all points to ovarian failure.”

  Nikki needed answers, but she didn’t have time to talk right now. Not that there was ever going to be a good time for this kind of news. “The doctor mentioned infertility during my last appointment.”

  “Nikki, I can’t give you a bottom line at this point, and I know this initially seems overwhelming, but the doctor will be able to explain in more detail both the treatment and a number of options.”

  She blew out a sharp breath. Her brother and his wife had struggled with infertility, but she’d never imagined herself having to look at life without the possibility of having her own children one day.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m in the middle of a case right now, but I’ll call back in a day or two and make another appointment.”

  Nikki hung up the phone, then slipped into Jack’s car, her head pounding again. The chance that she might not be able to have children was something she hadn’t mentioned to anyone, let alone Tyler. He’d talked about wanting more children. What if their life together didn’t include more than Liam?

  God, I know you’ve got this, but from where I’m looking at things, it’s a bit overwhelming.

  “Is everything okay?” Jack asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Yeah,” she said, shoving aside any concerns from the doctor’s call to deal with later. “Did you get ahold of Kim yet?”

  “Still no answer.”

  Which had her worried. If Erika had gone to Kim’s house and someone had followed her …

  Twenty minutes later, Jack parked outside Kim Parks’s one-story house in one of Nashville’s older neighborhoods. A couple of towering trees stood in the front, shading the lawn that was still damp from the morning’s rain.

  Nikki walked next to Jack up the empty driveway beside a row of colorful flowers and shrubs. Either Kim had a green thumb, or she paid a local business to keep up her yard.