by Mary Burton
“I don’t worry about what most people think.” She bit into the roll, finishing the first half.
“What about your parents? They couldn’t have liked your change in direction.”
She sat back, carefully dusting the crumbs from her hands as if they were old memories. “The decision was mine.”
“Why not go to college and be the sorority girl?”
“How interesting would that have been?” She dabbed her lips with her napkin, a remnant from that old lost life of genteelness that he knew masked something dark. She hesitated before she spoke again. “I thought you checked me out. Are you coming up short?”
He considered telling her about his visit with her stepfather but decided against it. The news would add unnecessary fuel to the fire he suspected was burning behind her calm. “The details of your life before Virginia have been buried. It’s as if someone didn’t want anyone to know about your early years.”
“I think you’re being dramatic, Bowman. I was understandably upset after my mother’s passing, so I moved and switched schools. Very cut-and-dried.” A grin, which didn’t reach her eyes, curled her lips. “I enjoy being independent.”
“I’ll give you that.” Absently, he picked up the knife in the place setting and turned it over a couple of times. “At the police academy your scores were tops in academics, physical fitness, and marksmanship. You made dean’s list in college.”
“I’m a late bloomer. Get to the good stuff.”
Riley pushed the bread plate aside as the salad arrived. They ate in silence for a moment and he was glad for the interlude. If he thought he’d rattled her by showing up and telling her what he knew about her past, he was wrong.
Finally, when the steaks arrived, she said, “Make your point.”
He cut into his rare steak but then set his fork and knife down. “After I was transferred out of the New Orleans office, Shield received an envelope. No return address. Inside were five pictures of young girls. Four matched the Shark’s victims, but Shield never found a match for the fifth.”
Riley focused on eating her tenderloin, seemingly more worried about her food than him. “Okay.”
“I had my IT guy pull your high school photo for confirmation.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around her utensils.
Bowman reached in his pocket and pulled out her old picture. In that image, she wore her hair loose around her shoulders. Her smile was wide, her eyes bright. Showing no emotion, he removed a second picture, holding it up like a gambler did a winning card. “This is the picture of the girl we could never find.” He placed it beside her high school picture.
Riley’s silverware clanged against the plate. “It’s not a match.”
“Don’t lie to me or yourself.”
“Do you know how many people have brown hair and brown eyes, Mr. Bowman? Billions. I might have the same hair color as the victim’s, but I’m nobody’s victim and I’ve nothing to hide from you or anyone else.”
“I don’t buy it, Riley. I don’t. I think you were the one that escaped. I think the fact that Vicky Gilbert was killed and dumped in your area isn’t coincidence. The Shark is back, and he’s in Virginia for a reason.” Taking a breath, he softened the edges of his tone. “He’s coming for you.”
Very deliberately, she set her napkin to the side of her plate. “Thank you for the early dinner, but this fantasy story you’ve concocted is now boring me. I’ve work to do. Good luck with your case.”
He placed his hand on hers, stopping her from sliding out of the booth. Tension radiated from under her skin. “We can help each other, Riley.”
She glanced at his hand, as if she expected him to remove it. When he didn’t, she pulled it free. “I can solve this case by myself.”
“You won’t. Not because you aren’t smart but because this guy has been at it a long time and he’s stayed a few steps ahead of everyone.”
“You underestimate me.”
“I might,” he said, pulling his hand back. “I thought you were a police officer willing to do whatever it took to find her killer.”
“I am.”
“You’ll play ball as long as you can keep your secrets.”
“I don’t have secrets, Mr. Bowman.” Her clenched teeth practically ground the words to pulp.
“I’m not your enemy, Riley. I’m trying to save your life. If you can forget our history—”
“Mr. Bowman, I barely remember our history, so that’s not a factor. I don’t really know you or your agenda. You insinuate yourself into the search for Carter and now this case. I didn’t ask for your help last time, and I’m not asking now.”
“What more do you want to know about me?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t want to know anything more about you.”
“Feel free to check up on me, but do it quickly.”
“I suspect if I bothered to check, I’d find a few facts that don’t amount to much. For all I know, the Shark could be your client and this is one of the messes you’ve been hired to clean up.”
“We don’t take those kind of clients at Shield.”
“So you say.”
He was trying to help her. Instead, she was cool as a cucumber and he was getting annoyed. He didn’t appreciate the knock on his integrity. “There’re going to be more bodies, Trooper. In his killing year there were four bodies.” He balled up his napkin and placed it on the table. “It’s too bad that another girl will have to die before you see the light and tell me what you know.” He reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you change your mind, please call me.”
Her chest rose and fell. She glared at him while sliding out of the booth and grabbed her purse. She left his card behind. She moved with a steady precision that had him watching the sway of her hips. “I know you’re the one, Riley. I know it.”
When Riley slid into her SUV, the seat’s warmth seeped into her skin but didn’t quite chase the chill from her body. She didn’t have any real memory of what had happened to her in New Orleans, but Bowman was right, she needed to tell.
With a trembling hand, she checked her messages and realized Dr. Kincaid had called. En route home to walk Cooper and check in on Hanna, she called the medical examiner and was sent to voice mail. “Dr. Kincaid, this is Trooper Tatum calling you back.”
As she hung up the phone, it rang, displaying Dakota Sharp’s name. “Agent Sharp.”
“Where are you?”
“About home. What’s up?”
“I’ve a body that might be of interest to you.”
Her breath stilled. “Why’s that?”
“He has poker chips in his pockets, and his suit reminds me of a fancy gambler.”
“Give me the address.”
When he shared the location, she didn’t need to plug it into her GPS. It was five miles from her home and close to where they’d found Vicky. She drove fifteen miles north and took the exit she took every night to go home. She wound along the back road until she spotted the flash of cop car lights in the distance. Parking behind Dakota’s vehicle, Riley stepped out and moved toward the tape where Agent Sharp and Sheriff Barrett stood.
“Had an interesting visitor. From Shield Security,” she said.
“I’ve heard of them,” Barrett said. “Firm near Quantico.”
“What’re they doing here?” Sharp asked.
She held his gaze. She knew Sharp was a straight shooter, and at this point she had to trust someone. “The Gilbert case landed on Shield’s radar.”
“Okay.”
“Joshua Shield, the firm’s CEO, used to be FBI. When he was with the bureau, he investigated a string of cases similar to our murder. They called the killer the Shark.”
Sharp didn’t speak for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. “Shield sends a guy. Why go to you?”
“Lucky, I guess. The guy who paid me a visit is Clay Bowman. He was picking my brain on the case.” She held up her hand as he readied to arg
ue. “And I didn’t give him anything on Vicky Gilbert. This is your active investigation, and I’m not that green.”
Sharp looked dubious. “Did he offer up any help?”
“He did. I refused it.”
“Why’d you say no?”
“Nothing’s free.” She shielded her eyes against the setting sun as she stared over the billowing yellow crime scene tape toward the technicians photographing the body next to a dumpster. “This killer, the Shark, is apparently a ghost. Blew into New Orleans, killed four girls, and was gone within a couple of weeks.”
“They call him the Shark? As in a high-stakes card player?” Sharp confirmed.
“Yep.”
“What the hell is he doing here?” Sharp asked. “We aren’t exactly a hotbed of gambling.”
“Private games aren’t just in Las Vegas and Atlantic City,” Riley said.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Her chest tightened. “I’m from New Orleans. When I was a teenager, it wasn’t good in my home. I ran away.”
Silent at first, he stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“Bowman said we’d see more bodies in the next few weeks if we don’t catch this guy,” she said. Bowman’s words weighed heavily on her shoulders. She had been glib with him, but to think she was the reason that young girl had died made her sick.
“Keep talking.”
It was confession time, so better to spit it all out. “I have a gap of several missing days while I was in New Orleans. When I woke up I was in Virginia, and shoved in my back pocket was a set of cards like the one we found on Vicky. My hand was a royal flush and nothing was written on them.”
Sharp sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I didn’t want to be associated with the victim. I’m days away from finalizing Hanna’s adoption.”
“Where are the cards?”
“At my house.”
“I want them.”
“Right. Of course.” She looked at him. “If I could recall any detail I thought would really help, I’d have told you sooner.”
“Get me the cards by tomorrow morning.”
“Please, don’t pull me off the case.”
A muscle pulsed in Sharp’s jaw. Without giving her an answer, he nodded toward the yellow tape. “According to this victim’s driver’s license, his name is Kevin Lewis.”
“Kevin?”
“He has a couple of hundred dollars shoved in his wallet and a diamond ring on his hand.”
“So not a robbery.”
Sharp pulled his sunglasses off and bit on the end of an earpiece that looked half-eaten with worry. “If it were, the killer was after something entirely different. The ring and cash might have been small change in comparison.”
“Can I have a look?” She half expected him to say no.
“Suit yourself.”
Riley accepted latex gloves from Sharp, and tugging them on, ducked under the tape to move closer as he trailed behind her. Martin, the forensic investigator, was sketching out the scene on a large white pad of paper. “Martin, what do you have?”
Martin labeled something on his sketch before he looked up. “Kevin Lewis. Fifty-one years old and from Las Vegas. I count at least a half-dozen bullet wounds.”
She knelt by the body. Lifting his hand, she noted it was just stiffening with rigor mortis. The nails were buffed, but the tips on his right hand were stained with nicotine. The diamond in the ring was at least a carat. “He’s not been dead all that long.”
“Less than six hours.”
His face was ghost white under three or four days’ worth of beard. Streaks of silver hair feathered around his temples. Hints of an expensive aftershave still lingered on his clothes. An old scar etched his left cheek. A gold earring winked from his left earlobe.
His black pants were tailored and made to fit the guy’s toned frame. The belt with a stylish silver buckle looked expensive, as did the white shirt now stained with multiple blooms of blood in the center of his chest. She could imagine him sitting at a poker table, a cigar or cigarette hanging from his mouth as he fanned his cards.
“Martin, can I move the victim?” Riley asked.
“He’s clear, have at it.”
She rolled him on his side and noted the bullets didn’t exit his back. Likely a .22 caliber using hollow-point bullets. Nasty bullets create maximum damage.
Pulling up his shirt from his waistband, she studied the skin on his back. Clean. She rolled him back and looked at his belly. Clean. She lifted his pants leg. His ankle and foot were blue, like they were bruised.
“He wasn’t killed here.”
She ran her hands through his hair and found no blood or signs of trauma. Garden-variety shooting. This kind of thing happened to gamblers when they ended up on the wrong side of a bet they couldn’t pay back.
Agent Sharp watched as she began checking his pockets. But other than a half-chewed pack of gum and a rubber band, his back pockets were clean.
“You have his wallet, you said?”
Sharp handed the now-bagged wallet to her. “Nothing remarkable.”
She accepted the bag and held it up. The wallet was fine leather, likely Italian. This guy knew how to dress the part of success. “I can run a background check.”
“Isn’t this your day off?”
“I want this case solved.”
“Thanks, but I got it from here. Your job is to get me those cards.”
“Right.”
“By the way, I received a call from Carter’s attorney today. He has a bail hearing tomorrow, and there’s a good chance he’ll post it.”
“What about Jo-Jo, the girl Jax beat up? She’s still in bad shape. She can’t defend herself if he decides to make trouble.”
“She’s in a lockdown ward at the hospital with a no-visitor mandate.”
“But no armed guard.”
“No.”
“Damn it.”
Riley now reached in the victim’s front left pocket and pulled out a rabbit’s foot. “Gamblers do like their good-luck charms.”
“Even the best ones have their quirks.”
Martin handed Riley an evidence bag. “Put it in there and I’ll mark it.”
Riley dropped the rabbit’s foot in the bag and handed it over. She searched the front right pocket and found a gold money clip holding several twenty-dollar bills and a pack of matches that read Casino.
“These pants set him back at least a grand.” She ran a gloved finger along the stitching. “This is some nice work. Hand tailored.”
“You’re the first trooper I met who knows hand tailoring,” Sharp said.
“I do have my talents.”
“Don’t tell me you grew up with a silver spoon?”
“I had a stepfather who liked to dress well.”
“Today is the first time you’ve mentioned family.”
“We aren’t family.” She’d seen Lewis’s kind in New Orleans coming in and out of the casinos. “Kevin here thought of himself as a high roller.”
“Lady Luck didn’t agree.”
“We find a victim with playing cards on her body and a guy who looks like a high-stakes gambler. Not a coincidence,” she said.
“Shield’s theory of the Shark fits a little too well into this scenario,” Sharp said.
“Yeah.” Tension knotted her chest. She did not want Bowman or Shield to be right. She did not want to be connected to this case.
Sharp pulled a stick of gum from his pocket. “A down-on-his-luck gambler will do whatever it takes to get back on top. He has his lucky rabbit’s foot and believes he can beat a high roller like the Shark, win big, and then what? Release the girl and scoop up the cash? Or just another creep playing with someone’s life for his own ego?”
The theory struck too close to home for Riley. “Both are viable theories.”
Sharp stared at the body, a faint look of disgust darkening his eyes. “If Bowman offers any more words of wisdom, b
e sure to share. I’m territorial, but I’ll take whatever information I can get if it means no more dead girls in my jurisdiction.”
“I’ll keep looking for Darla.”
“Bring me those cards in the morning.”
CHAPTER TEN
Friday, September 16, 7:00 a.m.
If anyone ever made it past the first checkpoint of Shield Security or the second guard station positioned at the end of the long access road, they’d find a three-story nondescript building. Its rectangular shape was nothing remarkable and could have been the headquarters of Any Company USA. Glass reflective windows allowed no one to see inside and there were no shrubs or trees around the building, negating possible hiding places. An entrance in the front required the swipe of a security card.
Bowman entered the offices, showing his identification to the guard at the front desk and riding the sleek elevators to the top floor. He made his way to his office, glancing toward the unpacked boxes and pictures yet to be hung.
He’d officially been here five days, signed a two-year contract—but he still hesitated to make any permanent claim on the office space. In the bureau, he’d moved around a lot, assigned to a new field office every couple of years. And for most of that time, he was working a case, sometimes weeks at a time while living out of a suitcase.
His wife, Karen, had been the anchor in his life. She took it all in stride. An artist, she always found a way to make their newest apartment a home. Since her death, he’d not been able to attach permanence to any subsequent place in which he stayed.
As he walked into his office and switched on the light, he glanced at the box of photos to his left. He’d moved the box from office to office over the last six years but never unpacked it.
Now, for some unknown reason, he reached into the box and pulled out two pictures. One was of Karen taken on the beach at sunset right after they met. The other was of him and his roommates at the Virginia Military Institute nearly two decades ago. The image captured the four young graduates standing in front of Jackson Arch. Their arms were linked and all were grinning, knowing they had bright futures. Bowman was headed to the FBI training facility in Quantico. The tall, thin guy on the right, Jacob Taggart, was a commissioned army officer. The guy on his immediate left, a sturdy Texan named Rafe Murdock, was slated to take his marine commission. And the last guy, Gavin Loch, chose medical school.
