“I didn’t say I needed help, just some place safe to stay. And what happened to the twenty-four hours you were going to give me?”
“The twenty-four hours was for notifying the family you were in trouble, not a time limit for me to come check things out. Decided you might be in over your head, what with a female witness.”
“She’s not a witness.”
“Your female partner.”
“Didn’t say that either.” For some reason Castello’s presence made him feel like he was back in high school defending his actions to his older brothers and parents when he’d came home with a busted lip and the beginnings of a black eye. He’d done nothing wrong. Hadn’t started the fight. Simply stepped in when two bullies were picking on a friend known as the school geek.
“Oh, that’s right, a fellow agent.” A smile lifted the corners of Castello’s lips a mere millimeter. “A very sexy fellow agent.”
Luke looked over his shoulder.
Shit. There stood Abby in the doorway to the bedroom. All she wore was his sweatshirt from the night before, her long, bare legs visible beneath. Hair tousled, looking very much like a woman who’d been thoroughly made love to, except for the gun in her hand, pointed at the floor. Fighting the urge to groan, Luke turned back to face his friend. The light in the other man’s face triggered the need to protect his woman and Luke moved to stand in between them.
“Yes. A fellow agent.”
“You must be Abby,” Frank called out.
“Abigail. And you’re Marshal Castello?” Abby walked over, stepped around Luke and extended her hand. “Thanks for letting us use your safe house. It was very kind of you.”
Luke wanted to roll his eyes. Kind wasn’t exactly a word he’d ever use for the taciturn Marshal. He sort of grew on you—like black mold.
“Please, call me Frank,” Castello said, his face crinkling with a smile as he shook her hand. “Anything to keep a lovely lady like yourself safe.”
Abby actually blushed.
Luke wanted to cold-cock Castello and tell him to let go of his woman. Which was stupid, as she wasn’t his in any form or fashion, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to go all caveman over her.
She stepped back, looking down at the gun in her hand. “I’ll just go put this away,” she said then turned and headed back to the bedroom.
“Abby,” Luke said, stopping her. He handed her his gun. “Give us a minute, okay?”
She turned her head to the side as if trying to understand what he was saying, then glanced from him to Castello and back again. Finally, she nodded, her blush spreading. “Sure. I’ll put on something a little more appropriate.”
Any other time he’d love seeing her padding around the place in only his shirt, but not now and not with Castello eyeing her long legs. Luke watched her go until the door closed behind her. When he turned back around, Castello stood leaning back against the island counter, arms crossed over his chest, his face back to its usual granite look, except for the one eyebrow he’d lifted in Mr. Spock fashion.
“Don’t say anything,” Luke muttered as he stalked past him to the coffeemaker. For a few minutes the only sound was him scooping coffee from the container he’d found in the cupboard, pouring in water and hitting the on button. He stood watching the hot liquid drip into the pot, his shoulders burning from the tension building in them. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, you do?”
The quiet comment irritated Luke more than if his friend had yelled at him like either of his older brothers would’ve. It also took some of the anger out of him. Slowly, he turned, leaning his hips back against the counter and folded his arms in the same manner as Frank’s and returned the stony look.
“Yes. You’d tell me it was a mistake,” he said, finally breaking the silence.
Castello just stared at him.
“You’d tell me I need to be focused on the case and not Abby.”
Nothing.
“That she’s untried in the field and that it’s my job to keep her safe, even from me.”
Nada.
“That it’s unprofessional to sleep with my partner, another agent, and possibly a potential target.”
Still nothing.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he growled.
“You finished?”
Luke surged off the counter behind him and moved to grip the island counter across from Castello. “Yes.”
“While those are all valid points, it wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“It wasn’t?” Luke said, then narrowed his eyes. “What were you going to say?”
“That’s one fine woman and your mama’s going to love her, so you’d best be prepared to protect her ass at all cost.”
Luke’s jaw dropped a moment, denial frozen on his lips. Then he closed his mouth and gave a nod, reading in the other man’s words and face what he already knew. No matter what happened in this case, protecting Abby had just become his lifelong mission.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Abigail secured her weapon before giving into her curiosity and pressing her ear to the door to try and hear whatever might be going on in the other room. Low male voices sounded on the other side of the bedroom door. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, or rather, what Luke, who seemed to be doing all the talking, was saying.
She quickly dressed in her jeans, bra and Luke’s sweatshirt once more, then pulled her hair into a serviceable ponytail. Taking Luke’s holster off the bedpost with her, she pressed her ear to the door and listened again.
No more words sounded from the main room. Abigail wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. The way Luke and Castello had been staring at each other—like they meant to jump into a ring and go forty rounds of face pummeling—she’d expected at least yelling, if not bloodshed. But they’d simply talked. Now there seemed to be a lull and the tempting aroma of coffee drifted into the room.
With a deep breath, she eased the door open. “Is it safe to come out now?”
Both men eased their stances.
“We’re done.” Luke waved her to come over.
“For now,” Castello said, giving Luke another pointed look, then pulling out a barstool for her. “Have a seat, Abigail.”
Luke put a mug of hot, black coffee in front of her then took the holster from her. He slipped it on and slid his gun in its place. “No cream and I haven’t found sugar.”
“I’m sure I’ll live.” She smiled, taking the warm cup in her hands.
Castello pulled out another barstool and sat next to her. Taking the coffee mug Luke offered him, he turned to study her. Abigail tried not to flinch under his hard stare as she sipped her coffee.
“So, tell me what mess Edgars dragged you into.”
“Luke didn’t drag me into anything. I’m afraid it’s the other way around. I dragged him into this.”
The Marshal arched on eyebrow at her. “How?”
“I requested the local Treasury field agent meet me at my friend’s house and Luke just happened to be the nearest one.” She took another fortifying sip, knowing he was going to ask her to go back to the scene at Brianna’s condo.
“Why?”
“Her friend had some mysterious information she wanted Abby to look into,” Luke said, his voice tinged with anger. “Only, we didn’t get to talk to her. Instead, Abby walked into a bloody crime scene—no friend, no information, and quite possibly a target on her back.”
She set her mug down with a thud. Brianna was her only friend and she’d be damned if she’d listen to him disparage her, even if there was a chance he was right. “You don’t know that.”
“The tail on Jeffers says I’m pretty damn close.”
“That tail could’ve been from some other case.” She rose from her seat and pointed a finger at him.
Luke gripped the other side of the island counter and leaned in across from her. “Last night’s crime scene pretty much says I’m right.”
She ope
ned her mouth to argue when his cell phone rang.
He snatched it up. “Jeffers?” he asked as he stalked off to the bedroom.
The man was infuriating.
Abigail inhaled and exhaled slowly, willing her heart to slow to a more moderate pace.
“He has a way of getting under your skin.”
She turned to look at the Marshal. “Sometimes I just want to punch him.”
“So do I, but it won’t help things.” Castello took another drink of coffee and patted her barstool again. “How about you bring me up to speed on the situation and your friend’s disappearance?”
Taking her seat again, she forcefully blocked the images of Brianna’s home from invading her mind and looked at the situation clinically—like a trained agent should. “Luke was right. When we got to Brianna’s townhouse it was a mess. Nearly everything torn, broken or overturned. A huge bloodstain on the living room floor and a bloody path to the door. All indications she’d been tortured and taken against her will. Whoever took Brie was looking for something. Quite possibly whatever it was she wanted to see me about.”
Castello nodded. “And Luke thinks she probably told them about you or they were watching her place to see if anyone showed up.”
Abigail inhaled and exhaled on a heavy sigh. “Yes. But despite what he thinks of my friend, she wouldn’t put me in danger. Not intentionally.”
“That’s the point. It might not have been her intention to put you in danger, but she has. If these people aren’t afraid to torture and kidnap her for whatever information she might have on them, they will have no qualms about coming after anyone they think she’s passed it to.”
“Like me.”
“Like you.” Luke’s hand settled on her shoulders and he gave them a squeeze before moving back around the counter. He’d thrown on a sweater and shoes. “That was Jeffers. He’s two blocks away.”
“And Jeffers is…?” Castello asked.
“Police detective assigned to Britany’s missing persons case.”
“Brianna,” Abigail corrected automatically, then looked at Castello. “He can’t get her name right ever. Detective Jeffers wanted to talk to us after he checked out the crime scene from last night.”
“Last night?”
They took a few minutes to fill him on the horrific things they’d found at the warehouse and how they’d connected it to Brianna’s disappearance. The Marshal didn’t say much, just listened and nodded, even when Luke skimmed briefly over the charred bodies he’d found. At least this time Luke hadn’t gone pale when talking about them. Abigail smiled inwardly. Maybe she’d helped a little with that.
When they finished their story, Castello pulled out his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Luke asked.
“Kirk Patrick, we’re going to need some supplies. I’ll be staying until this is cleared up.”
* * * * *
A hard knock sounded on the front door.
Drawing his gun once more, Luke went to answer it. His peripheral vision caught Castello moving between Abby and the line of sight to the door, his gun in hand. Maybe having the big Marshal stay would be a good thing. Two people protecting Abby had to be better than one, even if he wanted to be the one at her side, not Frank.
One quick look through the peephole showed the police detective standing on the front stoop, looking none too happy. In his hand he held a folder.
“Jeffers,” he said, opening the door and stepping aside.
“Edgars, I’ve been up all night and not in the mood for your bullshit. I want some answers,” Jeffers said as he stalked past, then froze. “And who the hell is this?”
Luke closed the door and holstered his gun once more. He slapped the policeman on the shoulder as he headed back into the kitchen. “U.S. Marshal Frank Castello. Come have some coffee, detective, and you’ll get all the answers we have.”
Jeffers and Castello shook hands, then the detective pulled out another barstool on the other side of Abby, setting the file folder in front of him on the counter. “Ma’am. I hope you got some sleep last night.”
“I imagine we got a little more than you did,” she said, giving him a brief smile.
Luke resisted the urge to reach across the counter and jerk the detective out of his chair. Abby smiling at other men really shouldn’t irritate him, but it did. Instead he served the cop a hot mug of coffee. “Sorry, no sugar or cream.”
“Black’s fine.” He took a long drink. “We just finished processing the whole scene. Probably won’t get much sleep when I do get a chance. Got to tell you that’s the first time I’d seen bodies in that condition. Gonna take a while to get out of my head.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
Jeffers cocked his head sideways. “I thought you saw them.”
“Not me. Only Luke did.”
Jeffers gave him a speculative glance.
“She didn’t need to have that memory in her head.” That was all the explanation he intended to give on that one. “What questions do you want us to answer?”
The detective took a long drink of his coffee then nodded. “So, why don’t we start with what you two were doing at the warehouse last night? I imagine it has something to do with tracing Ms. Mathews’ cell phone like we discussed?”
“We’d gotten her cell to ping off three towers, but just as we triangulated the phone’s general direction the signal went dead.”
“And you didn’t think to let me know?”
Luke shrugged. “I made a judgment call.”
“You said none of those bodies we found were Ms. Mathews?”
“Brianna is only a few inches shorter than me,” Abby added. “Luke said the…women…were all petite, so no, they couldn’t have been her.” She shot up out of her chair and headed to the bedroom, coming back with a baggie containing a cotton swab covered in dark red. She handed it to the detective. “I swabbed the blood around the overturned chair in the main room.”
He handed it back to her. “Our crime scene people did the same thing. They’re already running it against the samples taken at Ms. Mathews’ place.”
“Oh. That’s good. I swabbed it before I knew Luke intended to call you.” she said, her face turning pink as she slipped the baggie into her jeans pocket.
Luke fought the desire to pull her in his arms and order the others out.
Dammit. He didn’t like anyone making her feel incompetent. “Did your people find anything useful?”
Jeffers lifted a brow in response to the sarcasm Luke hadn’t been hiding in his voice. “We’re running DNA on the bodies found in the back, but you know as well as I do that’s going to take weeks if not months and only if they’re in a database somewhere.”
“So, you have no more clue than we do who they might be,” Luke said.
“Actually, I may.” Jeffers opened the file on the counter and pulled out five pictures, all women all in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. “I’ve been working a cold case on the side. All these women are local. All have gone missing in the past five years or so.”
“Shit. Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Luke demanded.
“Except for the fact they’re women and missing, nothing about Ms. Mathews’ case and these are similar. These women have no family, no friends, no one looking for them.”
Abby sat staring at the pictures, one at a time. Luke knew what she was doing. She was taking her own mental snapshots so they’d forever be locked in her mind.
“Don’t,” he said, covering them with his hands.
“I have to.” She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to understand. Then she laid her hand on top of his. “Someone should remember them.”
Staring at her, knowing this meant something to her, tore at his heart. He clenched his jaw, breathing heavily, then moved his hand.
“What’s going on?” Jeffers asked. “Do you know them?”
“No. She’s never seen them before,” Luke answered for her.
“Luke?” Castell
o looked from him to Abby then back again.
“She’s like Nicky, Frank. Remembers everything she sees. Like a photograph. The images are with her forever.”
“Shit.” The Marshal muttered.
“That’s why she didn’t see the bodies last night.” Jeffers sat back in his barstool. Both men looked a little stunned.
“Is that why she came to see her friend?” Jeffers asked after a moment. “Did Ms. Mathews have something for Abigail to see?”
“We don’t know,” Abby answered, closing the file of pictures. “She said she wanted to talk to me about some oddities she’d found at Hollister-Klein. When I asked what, she said she’d tell me when I got to her place. Only when I got there, it was exactly as you saw the other night.”
“She gave you no clue?” Jeffers pushed.
“That’s what she said.” Luke bit out the words. Abby might be a novice agent, but she wouldn’t lie.
Laying her hand on his, Abby got him to look at her, understanding in her eyes. Then she turned back to Jeffers. “No, she didn’t say any more than she wanted to talk. I assumed that since I work for the Treasury department and she is an accountant, whatever oddities she might’ve found were financial in nature.”
“Did you see anything in her townhouse that might’ve been what she wanted to discuss?” Castello asked.
Abby closed her eyes. Luke held up his hand when Jeffers started to ask what she was doing. He knew she was pulling out each image, even the ones around the bloody stains in the carpeting. Analyzing each one. When she opened her eyes again, she shook her head.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Her datebook, which I’ve already recreated, bills, old newspapers, a book of Sudoku puzzles. No files of any kind. No ledgers or spreadsheets.”
“Computer?” Castello always used as few words as possible.
Again Abby shook her head. “Nothing was on the immediate screen but a dating website. I haven’t recreated her search history, but I did take a look at it.”
Luke searched the drawers, coming up with a piece of paper and a pen. “Take a minute and write down what you saw. We’ll look it up and see if it gives us any clues.”
VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel) Page 14
