“Says what?”
“I don’t know. But there’s something weird here. I shouldn’t have this much trouble getting basic info. I’ll keep digging.”
“Thanks, Ben. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“Don’t mention it. Go back to sleep.”
She ended the call and glanced at her reflection in the fluorescent light. A few hours of sleep had done nothing for her appearance. Her skin looked sallow and her eyes were puffy. She turned on the shower and set the water to molten hot, then stripped off the T-shirt she’d slept in and stepped under the spray, hoping it would rejuvenate her. Her freshly washed socks and panties were drying on the towel rack, but she could really use a new shirt today. Maybe she could convince Gage to stop by a Walmart.
What are you doing, Kelsey?
She was getting too close again. She could feel it. And she knew Gage well enough to know he wasn’t going to be content with a platonic relationship for very much longer. It was completely counter to his nature.
She thought about him as the water sluiced over her. Instead of feeling relaxed, she felt edgy. And not just because of the mess she was in. She hadn’t spent any significant time around Gage in months, and her instincts told her it wasn’t going to go well. They’d either end up fighting or ripping each other’s clothes off, and either way, she was sure to get her heart crushed. She needed to come up with a plan that didn’t involve him.
The motel didn’t have luxury amenities such as shampoo, so she settled for rinsing her hair. She wrapped a too-small towel around herself and stepped out of the tub just as a knock sounded at the door. It swung open.
“Hey.” He leaned against the door frame.
“Yes?”
His mouth curled up at her curt tone. “Thought you might want some coffee.”
“Thank you.”
He handed over a cardboard cup, and she took a sip as he watched her, smirking.
“What?”
“Nothing, just . . . nothing.” He handed her a small paper sack. “Few things I grabbed at the convenience store across the way.”
“Thanks. I’ll pay you back.” She peeked inside the bag. Shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush. She glanced up, and he was eyeing her cleavage. “I’m almost finished in here.” She moved to close the door, but he stuck his foot in the way.
“Hey, what happened to your arm?” He squeezed into the bathroom and lifted her elbow to examine the scab. “Did I do that?”
“It’s from the other night. From when I jumped off the balcony and rolled.”
Something sparked in his eyes. She’d activated his protective streak. She tugged her arm down, and all at once the room seemed steamy and much too small.
Kelsey hitched up her towel. “Could you give me a minute, please?”
He glanced over her shoulder. Then he seized her wrist and yanked her out of the bathroom.
“What—”
“Get down.” He shoved her to the floor. “Someone’s out there.”
“Where?”
“Other side of the window. I saw a shadow.”
Her pulse jumped. She envisioned the frosted-glass window above the toilet.
Gage crouched beside her and pulled out his gun. “Stay here. Keep away from the windows.”
“But what are you doing?”
He held his finger to his mouth to shush her and eased out the door.
Kelsey waited, holding her breath, listening for any hint of trouble. The fear spread through her system like novocaine and her skin started to feel clammy. For the third time in just a handful of days she was cowering on the floor, afraid for her life.
Correction: She was cowering on the floor in a towel. This was ridiculous. She stood up and yanked her clothes on. Then she grabbed the Mace from her purse and stalked over to the door just as it swung open.
“Maintenance guy.” Gage looked her over and frowned. “I told you to stay put.”
“Don’t do that.” She stomped her foot. “Stop leaving me behind while you rush off to fight bad guys! You’re driving me crazy!”
He watched her warily as he took the Mace from her hand. “Whoa, relax. It was a false alarm.”
A tear leaked out and she swiped it away.
“Hey.” He tried to wrap an arm around her, but she ducked out of reach.
“You can’t keep doing that.”
He smiled. “What, hugging you or trying to keep you from catching a bullet?”
“Gage, this isn’t going to work. Don’t you have to get back to base?”
“I’m on leave.”
“Well, then don’t you have plans? Don’t you need to go visit your family or something?”
He shoved the pistol in the back of his jeans and folded his arms over his chest. “Nope.”
“I really think it would be best if you drive me to a place where I can rent a car. Then I’ll lay low for a few days until I figure this out.”
“Oh, yeah? And then what?”
“Then . . . when I have some idea what’s going on and who I can trust, I’ll reach out to the police. Or maybe the FBI.”
He stepped closer and gazed down at her. “I’m not leaving you on your own with this, Kelsey. Get that through your head. Next plan.”
She stared up at him.
“Why can’t you just admit that you need me right now?”
A lump of frustration formed in her throat as she gazed up at him. Some of the frustration was from fear and lack of sleep. But some of it was because she knew he was right. She did need him. Her nerves were frayed, and she was only four days into this.
“I know a thing or two about personal security. You don’t.” His gaze dropped to her damp T-shirt. “Fact, I’m surprised you made it this far in one piece.”
She was surprised, too. She wasn’t accustomed to dodging bullets and people who wanted to kill her. That was his department.
“What’s on the agenda today?” he asked. “And do I have time to shower first, or you want me to stink up the car? ’Cause I’m good either way.”
She let out a sigh. She glanced at her watch, essentially conceding the battle.
“Make it quick,” she said.
“Want to join me?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Want to tell me where we’re going?”
“We’re taking a road trip.”
• • •
Elizabeth made the three-hour drive to Piney Creek with little help from Gordon and even less from his vehicle’s navigation system. The software was outdated and didn’t include all the narrow, winding roads in this backwoods part of the state. So Elizabeth relied on road signs and instinct, ignoring the curious looks Gordon kept sliding her from the passenger’s seat as he conducted the investigation over the phone. He wrapped up a call just as they were nearing the sign for Piney Creek Cabins.
“Looks like the crime-scene techs beat us,” Elizabeth said as she squeezed the sedan into a space between a pair of white vans.
They got out of the car. The air smelled like damp pine needles—probably the result of the patch of showers they’d passed through on the way up here. The area was strangely quiet, except for the tapping of a woodpecker high above them. Kelsey Quinn’s cabin was swarming with men in white Tyvek jumpsuits. They looked out of place in the tranquil forest setting, like storm troopers in the land of the Ewoks.
“Find the caretaker,” Gordon said. “Find out everything she knows. I want descriptions, cars, clothing—whatever she saw. We need to know who Kelsey’s with and if she’s changed her appearance.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
They turned around to see Coffman and Kimball striding toward them. How had they beaten them here? They must have left at five in the morning—no doubt eager to redeem themselves after yesterday’s biker bar fiasco.
“We’ve been through the cabin,” Coffman reported. “Looks like someone left in a hurry.”
A woman stepped out onto the porch of the building near the road. She
cast a worried look in Elizabeth’s direction. This would likely be Joyce.
“I’ll talk to the caretaker,” Elizabeth said, but Gordon caught her arm.
“Wait. I want your take on the cabin first.”
“My take?”
“You’re the only female investigator we’ve got here. See if anything strikes you as important.”
Elizabeth glanced at Coffman and Kimball and felt their annoyed gazes following her as she mounted the steps to the cabin. The window to the left of the door had been shot out. A technician crouched just inside the door picking up shards of glass with a pair of tweezers and depositing them into a cardboard box.
Elizabeth surveyed the door frame as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Dark smudges of fingerprint powder marred the woodwork. She guessed the prints had already been photographed and lifted because the photographer was on his knees now in the kitchen, which consisted of little more than a propane-fueled stove and 1960s-era refrigerator. The cabin’s mismatched furniture looked to be about the same vintage. She stepped farther into the dwelling and noticed the unmistakable scent of Pine-Sol. The place had been cleaned recently.
Elizabeth crossed the living room in a few footsteps and poked her head into the bedroom. A neatly made double bed filled the space. She stepped into the bathroom, where she expected to find the most telling evidence. Careful not to touch anything, she spent a few moments looking around. Then she joined Gordon beside the stove.
“Where’d Kimball and Coffman go?” she asked.
“Up the hill to check out the sniper hide. Someone found flattened grass where it looks like the shooter camped out and waited.”
Elizabeth peered through the kitchen window at the wooded hillside across the street.
“That’s only about what, about fifty yards?”
“Sixty,” Gordon said. “And you’re right—doesn’t look like our mystery gunman’s much of a shot.”
“Lieutenant Brewer—”
“I know, I know. Expert marksman. I don’t think he did this.” Gordon turned to the photographer kneeling on the floor. “You finished with that?”
The man nodded and handed up the spiral notepad he’d been photographing. Elizabeth saw a vertical list of words and numbers and a few more scrawled diagonally in the margin.
“You have your phone on you? Take a picture of this.” He handed her the notepad. “I want you to run down these phone numbers, see what you get. The name Weber mean anything to you?”
“No.”
Gordon pulled his phone from his pocket to check a text message as Elizabeth used her cell-phone cam to snap a picture of the notebook page. Kelsey Quinn’s handwriting—assuming it was hers—was barely legible.
“What’s your take on the bedroom?”
She glanced up, and Gordon was watching her intently.
“I agree with Coffman and Kimball,” she said, trying to be diplomatic as the two agents stepped into the cabin. “Looks like she left in a rush. There’s at least forty dollars’ worth of cosmetics and toiletry items still sitting in the bathroom—everything brand new. I doubt she’d leave all that behind if she’d had time to pack.”
“They’re photographing a tire impression from the cabin two doors down,” Coffman said. “Looks like someone was there, but the caretaker didn’t see anyone.”
“Whoever it was, she could have left with them in that vehicle,” Kimball added.
“Have we checked the windows for latents?” Elizabeth turned to the CSI who was at the back door developing prints. He was using a Styrofoam cup to trap Superglue vapor around the doorknob. “Anything on the windowpanes?” she asked him.
“I got fingerprints on the doorknobs and throughout the kitchen,” he said. “Also got a few in the bathroom.”
“Goddamn it,” Gordon muttered, scowling down at a message on his phone. He stepped out of the cabin, and Elizabeth returned her attention to the CSI.
“What about palm prints?” she asked him.
He stopped what he was doing and gave her an icy look—clearly not happy with her suggestion. Only the most thorough police departments took prints from the side of the hand, known as the “karate chop.” But the Bureau was building an ever-growing database of those prints because research showed that many criminals cased a house by leaning the side of their palm up against a window and peering through.
“The palm database is growing,” she said. “It’s at least worth a try.”
“I’ll get to it,” he said, and Elizabeth could tell he didn’t appreciate being told how to do his job.
Gordon poked his head in. “LeBlanc, get out here.”
She hustled onto the porch.
“That SEAL buddy of Brewer’s,” Gordon said. “Where is he?”
“Derek Vaughn? Uh, I’m not sure.”
“Find him. Right now. Get him to tell you where Brewer is. Pay him a personal visit if you have to, but get the information.”
“Actually, I already asked him and he wouldn’t—”
“Make him talk.” Gordon checked his watch. “And do it ASAP. I’m on the phone with the lab. They just ID’ed Gage Brewer’s fingerprints at the homicide scene.”
CHAPTER 9
“There’s supposed to be a town here,” Kelsey said.
“Think you’re looking at it.” Gage tapped the brakes as they approached the first of only two traffic lights on Main Street. The town of Briggs seemed to consist of little more than a dusty gas station and a few storefronts.
Kelsey glanced at her watch. Already seven-thirty. After leaving Gage’s truck at the Bakersfield airport and driving across three states in a rented Explorer, they’d visited the address of every Weber in the Provo phone book. Three separate stops had netted them zero hits. No one had heard of Charles Weber.
They were down to their last possibility—a “Chuck” Weber living in Briggs, Utah, about thirty miles west of Provo. The neighbor at one of the addresses they’d visited had said Chuck moved away a couple years ago. She didn’t have his new address, so the first order of business was to track down a local phone book and see if they could find him.
It was a long shot, but at the moment it was the only lead they had.
“What a wasted day,” Kelsey muttered.
“Depends on how you look at it.”
She glanced at Gage. “How else is there to look at it?”
“Well, you haven’t been followed or shot at, so I’d say that’s a win.”
She tipped her head back against the seat and sighed. “Thanks for all the driving.”
“No problem.”
“Maybe we should look for a motel.”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the disappearing intersection. “There’s not much here, though.”
“I saw a sign a while back. There should be an Econolodge down the road.”
“Fabulous.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that sarcasm? What happened to the fearless anthropologist who liked to spend her summers living in tents?”
“Campers,” she corrected. “And I never said I liked living in them.”
“Then why did you?”
“Part of the job. Same reason you jump out of airplanes and eat MREs.”
He smiled. “You’ve never jumped out of an airplane, have you?”
“No. So?”
“So, you should.”
“Why would I want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?”
Gage turned into the parking lot of a cheap-looking motel and whipped into a space. “Because it’s like sex, only better.”
Kelsey bit her tongue. He was getting to her, and he knew it. It was the way he looked at her with those warm blue eyes. It was his low voice, his two-day beard. Just the sight of his muscled forearm propped on the steering wheel right now was giving her a bone-deep craving for something she knew she shouldn’t have. She should insist on separate rooms tonight. But instead of insisting on anything, she turned and lo
oked out the window.
“This isn’t an Econolodge.”
“Local alternative.” He pushed open the door. “SIG’s in the glove compartment. I’ll be right back.”
Kelsey watched him saunter into the office of the Desert Rose Inn. The seventies-era building had white stucco walls and a Mexican tile roof. A courtyard beside the office had a lone yellow umbrella table. About a hundred yards up the highway was a diner. No bars, no nightclubs. With four cars in the parking lot, the grocery store looked to be the town hotspot.
Which meant there wasn’t going to be much to do tonight except hang out in the room.
Her stomach fluttered. What was she doing? This was emotional suicide.
Gage reappeared with his cell phone pressed to his ear. She couldn’t read his expression. He slid behind the wheel and steered the Explorer to a room at the very end of the row.
“Keep me posted on Hallenback,” Gage said into the phone.
Kelsey collected her purse from the backseat, along with the shopping bag filled with items she’d picked up at the gas station where they’d stopped for lunch.
“Okay, man. Be good.” He ended the call and reached across her to retrieve his pistol from the glove compartment.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Vaughn.”
“Did you tell him where we are?”
“What do you think?”
She didn’t know what to think. According to him, there were “no secrets in the teams.” And yet he seemed to be taking every precaution to hide their tracks, from using a supposedly untraceable cell phone to renting the Explorer under a fake ID.
They got out of the SUV and Gage led her to a garish yellow door.
“Any news from Derek?” she asked his back.
“Not really.”
Another non-answer answer. She should be used to it by now, but it irked her to be kept in the dark.
Kelsey followed him inside and surveyed the room. In contrast to the exterior, the interior had been updated with eighties-era mauve and turquoise. The evening sunlight slanted through the blinds, making stripes across the purple bedspread.
She looked at Gage.
“They didn’t have a double.”
She searched his face, almost certain he was lying.
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