by Cassie Miles
Even now, twenty-five years later, the sorrow was a fresh, still bleeding wound.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me, too.” She continued, “Tina was grabbed from the front yard of our house. I’ve always felt that if I’d been home, I could have prevented the abduction. I should have been there.”
“You were only nine.”
“On a sane rational level, I know Tina’s abduction wasn’t my fault, but I can’t help wishing that I could have been there, could have saved her precious life.”
Agonizing memories assaulted her. Every muscle in her body tensed. If she sat there for one more minute, she’d turn to granite. A stone memorial to her sister’s death.
Marisa stood. She paced, wanting to run away from the pain. She circled the fire pit inside the cave, trying to settle the downpour of gray sadness that drenched her. “A search got underway within two hours. In the photograph of Tina, she wore that tiny heart necklace. The FBI was called in. That was my first exposure to federal agents. One was a woman, and that was the moment when I decided what I would do with the rest of my life. I would join the FBI and do everything I could to make sure other innocent children were safe.”
Too often, her investigative efforts failed. Each time she thought of Tina, and wept lonely tears. “Her body was found two days later. Strangled.”
“And the perpetrator?”
“He was arrested, tried and found guilty. Life in prison without parole. I wish he was dead.”
Flynn stood and took a step toward her.
She turned away, too caught up in her own bitterness to accept solace. “All those things people tell you about closure aren’t true. The sadness never goes away. It’s as much a part of me as my arm or leg.”
After the murder, her family had fallen apart. Technically, her parents had stayed together, but their lives were never the same. There was an empty space at the table. A silence where there should have been Tina’s chatter and giggles.
Marisa had retreated into her own private world, hiding inside her academic studies. She hadn’t wanted friends, hadn’t wanted anyone but Tina. The only way she’d been able to manage her grief was to seal it up inside.
But every time she took on another case, especially involving a child, the wound reopened. She used to think that her work was making a difference. Putting away the deviants and the murderers was a worthy goal. But she was tired. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay in the FBI, Flynn. Might be time for me to find a safe corporate job.”
“I understand.”
As she studied him, she realized that he truly did comprehend some of what she was going through.
After the Judge investigation two years ago, Flynn had backed off and asked for the less active assignment at the safe house. Instead of applauding him, she’d been angry and accused him of cowardice. What the hell had she been thinking?
“Back in San Francisco,” she said, “I wasn’t very understanding.”
“You believed I was making a mistake, and I don’t blame you for that. I was obsessed.”
“Rightly so.” His gut feeling had been accurate. “You knew the Judge would kill again.”
She returned her attention to the map. When she leaned down to look at it, she was light-headed. Reaching out, she grasped his arm. He gathered her into his arms.
All her life, she had turned away from those who would comfort her. She believed her pain was inconsolable. But she allowed him to hold her. Her head pressed against his shoulder. Her breath came more easily. She shared her pain—not with tears but with simple acceptance of her sorrow. And her rage.
She clung fiercely to him. Her fingers clawed the back of his jacket. He responded with the perfect amount of pressure. Just enough to reassure her, to protect her. Gradually, her tension subsided and she rested in his embrace.
Emotional exhaustion sapped her strength. “Hell, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the rest of the night.”
“You will because you have to.”
There was another victim to find. She had to summon up the energy to go forward. To follow the arrow.
She lowered herself to the floor of the cave and stared at the map. “The heart necklace means this clue is for me to figure out.”
He picked up the plastic flower. “And a daisy. Mean anything to you?”
“I’m not really a flower person.”
“Cactus,” he said. “And a Boston fern.”
“So maybe this is about a name. Like Cortez was your football coach.”
He picked up the map with the listing of towns on the back side. “A town named Tina?”
“Or Whitely. That was the name of my hometown.” She tried to free-associate, but her memories were so tightly locked that it was like scraping layers of paint off woodwork. “The killer’s name was John LeMarche.”
Using the flashlight, he scanned down the list with his finger. He stopped and looked up at her. “Here’s something obvious. Your last name. A town called Kelso.”
“My last name?” She looked up in surprise. “If I’d known it was that simple, I never would have told you about Tina.”
“I’m glad you did.” He reached over and caressed her cheek. “I want to know everything about you. The sorrow and the joy.”
She felt herself begin to smile. Though she would never completely heal, there was now a way to share the pain. An understanding that went both ways.
“The problem,” she said, “is what should we look for in this town? Something to do with a daisy. Could be a street name. Like the Fit ’n’ Fab in Cortez.”
“Or something to do with death,” he said. “He’s sent us to a ghost town and out here to the ruins at Hovenweep where Graff died.”
“A cemetery?”
When Flynn found the small town of Kelso on the map, he groaned. “Back up to the mountains. It’s got to be a three-hour drive from here.”
“It’s after two in the morning. We’re running out of time.”
He wasn’t anxious to get back on the road, back to another chase after a nebulous clue. There had to be an easier way to figure this out. “The map is cut in a circle. Why?”
“You said something about a sacred meaning,” she said. “If I had access to the Internet, I could check out the symbology.”
“But the Judge knows we don’t have a computer. No electronics. That was one of his conditions.” He tried another direction. “What would a circle mean to Eric Crowe?”
“He’s into all that witchcraft stuff. Pentagrams, not circles.”
“How about Dr. Sterling?”
The Native American interpretation fit with Sterling’s profession as a forensic anthropologist. He could probably tell them dozens of different folk tales about circles.
“A kiva,” she said. “Isn’t that a circle?”
“Usually.”
Though Flynn had lived in this archeologically rich area for two years, he wasn’t an anthropologist and wasn’t sure exactly what happened in a kiva. A sacred dance or ritual, he thought. He’d seen kivas that were dug deep in the ground, six feet or more, and the shape was circular. If the kiva was intact, the top was covered over with boards or branches with a hole in the middle to ventilate the smoke from a fire. Most kivas weren’t in current use. The roofs had rotted away, leaving a deep pit. A good place to hide a body.
Marisa twirled the yellow daisy between her fingers. “I knew a woman named Daisy, but there was nothing significant about her.”
“What about a fragrance? Does a daisy smell?”
“Not much.” She held the plastic flower close to her nose. “This one, not at all.”
She picked up her flashlight and examined the daisy more closely. “There’s something written on the petals. The number twelve. Then a dot or a period. The number five. And the letters S and W.”
“Twelve-point-five miles. Southwest.” He pointed. “That way. Let’s check it out.”
Finding the next clue so close would be a h
uge relief. They’d been running all night. He was tired, not as sharp as he ought to be.
Before leaving the cave, he turned and addressed the mini-cam he supposed was hidden somewhere in the rocks. “We’re coming for you, Judge. This will all be over soon.”
Chapter Fourteen
Using the directional compass in the jeep, Flynn drove exactly twelve-point-five miles southwest across wide-open land pocked with sagebrush. If he was off by even one degree, they were in the wrong place. “There has to be a clue. Something unique.”
But when they got out of the car, there was nothing remarkable. No landmark. No rocks. Nothing but the wind.
“We should spread out?” Marisa suggested. “We can cover more territory.”
He wasn’t so sure. “I want you close so I can protect your back.”
“But there’s nothing for miles.” She made a wide, sweeping gesture. “I don’t see any threat.”
He’d learned not to underestimate the Judge. He had lured them to this location for a reason. “Stay close, Marisa.”
“So now you’re the boss?”
“I’m glad to see you’ve got your spirit back, but don’t be a pain in the ass.”
They prowled the rugged terrain in ever-widening circles around the jeep. Far too many minutes had passed before Flynn said, “We’re on the wrong track.”
“Maybe the directions mean something about the town of Kelso.” Her gun hand hung loosely at her side. “I don’t know. I can’t think anymore.”
He took the map out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it. “Directions ought to pertain to a map. Maybe it’s south by southwest. This is too big an area. We can’t cover it all.”
He held the circle-cut piece of paper up to the moon. Then he saw it. Pinpricks of light shone through the paper. Four tiny holes had been made in the map. One for each location. Jackrabbit Gulch. Cortez. Hovenweep. Kelso.
“Marisa, do you see this?”
“Four dots. If we connect them, it forms a trapezium quadrilateral.”
“A what?”
“A trapezoid. A four-sided figure with unequal sides.” She grinned. “Some of us nerds actually paid attention in geometry class.”
He held out the map. “Can you tell me what it means?”
“I can analyze this. I’m good at spatial relationships.”
Back in the jeep, she turned on the overhead light and studied the dots on the map. She copied them onto a piece of paper from the glove compartment. Then she folded the paper, giving it dimension.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“This is a code. A spatial puzzle. It means something. Maybe we’re supposed to look at the center where these angles intersect. Or use some form of Euclidean triangulation to determine our next location.”
Though he nodded encouragement, he didn’t know what she was talking about; she might as well have been speaking Chinese. Her slender hands deftly curved the paper and twisted, then unfolded and started anew.
Euclidean triangulation? Math had never been his thing, except as it applied to running patterns on the football field. “Follow the arrow?” he suggested.
A huge grin spread across her heart-shaped face. “Flynn, you’re a genius.”
“I try.”
She spread the map before her. Using a pencil, she connected the dots to form an arrow. The point ended in Cortez. A straight road stretched southeast from there, leading toward Mesa Verde. With any luck, it would be a county road with mile markers. Twelve-point-five miles. He hoped it was their last stop, the place where they’d find Grace, as the Judge had promised.
He started up the jeep, glad to leave Hovenweep behind. He’d choose mountains over desert every time. They were soon back on regular roads, retracing their route toward Cortez. By the time they got there, it would be almost dawn, and he’d be glad for the sunlight.
He gazed at Marisa. Once again, she held her cell phone as if she was considering the possibility of making a call to Mackenzie.
“Don’t,” he said. “We’ve got this far without backup,” he said. “We’ve followed the Judge’s instructions. He has no reason to harm Grace if we continue to do so.”
“What makes you think he’ll keep his word? The man is a serial killer.” Her voice was tinged with anger. “He’s a sociopath, doesn’t know right from wrong.”
“But he thinks he does. That’s why he calls himself the Judge.” Flynn hoped he was right. “I’ve got to believe he has a sense of honor. In his own mind.”
She closed the cell phone and put it away. “He won’t be happy about the way this turned out. All these clues were supposed to open our past wounds and destroy us.
“Instead, we came out stronger.”
An unexpected result. Both he and Marisa had kept their pasts hidden, fearful that their failures and dark tragedies would always separate them from others. Instead, they’d each opened their memories and found an intimacy deeper than sex.
Now he was ready for the physical. Though she was tired and disheveled, she’d never looked more beautiful to him. He wanted to kiss her with his eyes wide open, to see into her soul.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Making love to you.”
Though her lips drew into a prim little bow, her chuckle was pure sex. “That thought has crossed my mind. I’ve imagined it.”
“Which part?”
“The naked part.” Her tone was husky and sensual. “I like the way you move when your clothes are gone. You’re so comfortable in your body.”
The image that rose in his mind had nothing to do with his own nakedness. He remembered how she looked just before they made love, lying on tangled sheets with her arms gracefully stretched above her head. Her pale skin glistened. The curve from her breasts to her hips was sheer poetry. He remembered how her back arched, how her firm thighs spread. Waiting for him.
She continued, “I like the way your skin tastes. Kind of salty. I can’t wait to nibble on your earlobe, to lick you all over.”
Listening to her sultry voice, his groin tightened. “Me, neither. Can’t wait.”
She leaned back against her seat. “How long before we get to Mesa Verde?”
Not soon enough. He longed to pull over to the side of the road and make love right here and now. But every minute was important. They had to find Grace Lennox and end this chase. “Cortez is a couple of hours away. You should try to get some sleep.”
“I am really tired,” she said. “Aren’t you? Do you want me to drive?”
Sleep wasn’t the number one thing on his mind. “I can handle it.”
Her eyelids drooped. “I’ll dream of you. Of us.”
As she rested, he listened to the hum of the powerful engine and watched the broken center line on the road leading them toward their final destination. Even after they found Grace, it didn’t necessarily mean they would catch the Judge.
Their opponent had set up this elaborate chase to prove one thing: his superiority. He wanted them to know that he was cleverer than they could ever be.
He’d never turn himself in, even if they got Grace back. Which meant, inevitably, there would be more victims. The Judge would never stop killing. Not until he was dead.
DESPITE HER BEST EFFORTS, Marisa caught only a few minutes of sleep. As soon as her dreams brushed on memories of Tina, she jerked awake.
Also, she was concerned about Flynn staying awake behind the wheel. Though he hadn’t complained once, he had to be as exhausted as she was. At 4:00 a.m., they pulled into an all-night convenience store for gas and coffee that tasted like sludge, though she doctored it with several packets of fake cream and sugar.
Finally, she saw the lights of Cortez. When they reached the center of town, she pointed to the marker for the southwestern route. When Flynn made the turn, she checked the odometer. “Twelve-point-five miles.”
“Almost there,” he said. “We need to approach this destination with extreme caution.”
She c
hecked her ankle holster, touched her regular service weapon at her waist and smoothed the line of her jacket over the switchblade she always carried in a hidden pocket. Though inserting the GPS tracking device in both their arms had seemed excessive when they’d first started this scavenger hunt, she was glad that the device was still there. If they were separated, they could find each other. Not that she planned to be separated from him.
“You’re the boss on this operation,” she said. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Even though you’re technically the senior agent?”
“I’m not even sure I want to be any kind of FBI agent anymore. Think of me as a short-timer.”
“You’ll never quit,” he said. “You’re too good at what you do.”
Her job performance had little to do with her thoughts of changing career. She was burned out, tired of seeing murderers and degenerates get away. “I want more from life than the FBI can offer.”
“Such as?”
She wanted a personal life. The kind of things that other people took for granted. A loving relationship. A home. Children.
She halted that train of thought. Now wasn’t the time to be building her dream home in her mind or trying to decide if she’d name her first daughter after Tina. All her focus needed to be on the task at hand: the final showdown with the Judge. “We’ll talk later.”
“Believe me, Marisa. We’ll do a lot more than talk.”
She leaned over to check the odometer. “That’s the twelve-mile mark. Slow down.”
At a little more than twelve-point-five miles, a narrow road branched off to the left. Flynn made the turn.
Compared to the relatively flat and arid terrain at the cave, this area near Mesa Verde was a veritable arboretum, with rolling hills and rocky ridges. Thick shrubs clumped at the roadside. Cottonwoods and pines surrounded them. She almost wished they were back in the desert where visibility was better.
Less than a mile from the turn was a dirt road leading to a tumbled-down hovel, obviously deserted. It was typical of the sort of place used by the Judge to hold his victims. “Do you think Grace is in there?”
