Untraceable

by Laura Griffin

  She stared at him and waited.

  “I’m looking for Melanie Coghan,” he said. “That wasn’t a lie.”

  “Why don’t you ask her husband what happened to her?”

  “We’re not real eager to tip him off that he’s under investigation.”

  “Who’s investigating him?” she persisted. “Besides the Texas Rangers?”

  “That’s not something you need to worry about. Let’s just call it a task force and leave it at that.”

  “So this is a corruption thing? Or are you simply investigating him for murder?”

  His steady gaze was her answer. Alex rolled her eyes and looked away. Of course not. Why put together a task force over the menial matter of a woman’s death? This was probably about money. Probably Coghan was on the take from the drug dealers his narco squad was supposed to be busting.

  Alex pushed off from the wall. “I can’t help you. I don’t know where Melanie is. My best guess is, you should try dragging Lake Austin.”

  “We did.”

  She blinked at him. They’d dragged the lake? Even Nathan didn’t know about that.

  Unless, as she’d begun to suspect, he was holding out on her.

  A little knife twisted in her chest.

  “Why don’t we back up a bit here, all right?” Holt said. “I want to know why that man tried to kidnap you. You have any ideas?”

  “He wasn’t terribly chatty.”

  “Did he ask you any questions?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think he wanted?”

  “It seemed pretty clear he wanted me dead.” She suppressed a shudder.

  He watched her a long moment. “Where did Melanie go after you helped her leave town?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  He shook his head.

  “I helped her get settled in the Southeast,” she said vaguely. “That was back in the fall. I haven’t heard from her lately, though.”

  “Does she know you’re looking for her?”

  “If she’s alive, she does. She know you’re looking for her?”

  “Yes. But we haven’t seen or heard from her in six months.”

  Alex shook her head. This case just kept getting more and more complicated. He hadn’t seen Melanie since Alex helped her leave town, supposedly because her husband was beating her. Alex could have kicked herself. Melanie had misled her about almost everything since the day she’d walked into Lovell Solutions.

  “I think I’m getting the picture here,” she said, and watched Holt’s reaction carefully. “I’m guessing you approached Melanie back in the fall. Maybe you wanted her testimony?”

  “She can’t testify against her husband in court. Not about this, anyway.”

  Alex pursed her lips. She could testify about domestic abuse. Spousal privilege didn’t apply to that. But this task force wasn’t interested in Melanie’s home life, evidently. “So, what’d you want from her?”

  “We wanted her to wear a wire around Coghan and some of his associates. We thought she might be able to get us some good intelligence about their operation.”

  “And risk her life doing it.”

  He paused. “Her life was already at risk.”

  Unbelievable.

  “You scared her off,” Alex stated. “Hence, she came to me so she could disappear.”

  Holt nodded.

  “Well, I think she has disappeared,” Alex said. “I suggest you and your task force find another inside source. Oh, and maybe open a murder investigation while you’re at it. I believe Coghan killed her, along with her boyfriend.”

  “Joe Turner,” he said. “The one we found in Lake Austin.”

  “I didn’t realize he’d been identified.”

  “Melanie ever tell you about him?”

  “No.”

  “You seem hostile, Alex.”

  “I don’t appreciate being lied to and manipulated, Bill.”

  The side of his mouth twitched up. “Ah, come on now. Don’t tell me you’ve never had to lie to get a job done.”

  Alex’s phone chimed again, and she fished it out of her purse. Nathan.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi there.”

  Just the sound of his voice made the tremors start again. Alex turned away from Holt. “I can’t talk right now.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s peachy,” she said, borrowing one of his phrases as she tried to keep her voice even. “Listen, can we talk later? I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Call me.”

  She shoved the phone into her purse and checked her watch. Almost seven. She could feel her composure slipping, and she needed to get home. She was getting that acidy feeling in her stomach, and the walls of this little room were starting to close in.

  “I need to go.”

  Holt didn’t say anything, and she moved for the door.

  He stood up and reached around for the knob, effectively blocking her. “I need you to stay in touch.”

  She glared up at him. “Why don’t you and your task force stay in touch with me? You can start by giving me a call when you find out the name of the asshole who just attacked me.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Like you’re working on finding out who killed Melanie?”

  He didn’t say anything as she gazed up at him. Finally, he turned the knob and pulled open the door.

  “Stay in touch, Alex,” he told her.

  “You bet.”

  Alex parked illegally in an alley two blocks from her building. She ignored the gestures and horn blasts as she darted across Lavaca Street and jogged to her office. She would spend five minutes, ten tops. She’d send Sophie home, collect her laptop, and then close up shop. Then she’d go home and fall to pieces in private.

  She rapped impatiently on the glass. Sophie buzzed her in.

  Her assistant took one look at her and jumped to her feet. “Oh my God!” She came out from behind the desk. “What happened?”

  “Long story.” She tossed her purse on the sofa and went straight for her file cabinet. She yanked open the top drawer.

  “Alex, what—”

  “What happened to my files?” she demanded.

  Sophie stepped back, visibly rattled by her tone. And probably her appearance, too, by the appalled look on her face.

  “What’d you do to these files?”

  “I, uh… alphabetized them.”

  “Where’s Scoffield?” Alex pawed through the folders. What was this crap?

  “He’s under ‘B’ for Bess. The Melanie Bess case. You said—”

  “Don’t screw with my stuff.” She spotted the neat little tab within the Bess file: SCOFFIELD, WILLIAM. Alex muttered a curse and jerked the folder from the drawer. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it. She should have hunted down a photograph. Sure, there was an attorney named William Scoffield practicing law in Midland. Just like there was some guy Bess who’d died recently in Midland County. But neither of those people had anything to do with Melanie Coghan. Bess was a common name. Holt had probably searched the death records, then built his story from there.

  “Alex, I think you need some ice.” Sophie’s worried gaze shifted to her cheek.

  Alex took a deep breath. She reminded herself that her assistant was only trying to assist her. “I’ll get some at home.”

  “But, Alex—”

  “I just need to grab my laptop.” She shoved the file under her arm and strode toward her office. “You can head out now,” she said over her shoulder.

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry about the rented car. We’ll return it in the morning.”

  “But you have a client—”

  Alex pushed open her office door.

  “—waiting for you.”

  She stopped cold.

  The file slipped to the floor. Her jaw dropped open. She stared at the pale, black-haired woman slumped over her desk, snoring.

  Melani
e.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I’ve been trying to tell you, you have a client waiting.” Alex dragged her gaze away from her desk and looked down at Sophie, who was crouched on the floor now, scooping up papers. She stood up, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and thrust the folder at Alex.

  “Here,” she said.

  “When did she get here?”

  “An hour ago. She insisted on waiting in there with the door shut. I think she was worried about somebody walking in.”

  Alex took the file and gazed down at it dumbly. Melanie was alive.

  “I couldn’t leave until you got here,” Sophie said. “But I’m late for a gig now. So if you don’t mind…”

  “Go. Please. Sorry to make you late.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Alex repeated, staring at Melanie. Melanie. Right there in her office.

  She heard the door open and whirled around. “Sophie, wait!”

  Her assistant paused in the doorway.

  “Don’t tell anyone about her, not a soul.”

  Sophie looked insulted. “Give me some credit,” she said, and walked out.

  Alex turned back to Melanie. Her spiky black hair stuck up from her head. Her cheek rested on her folded arms, and she looked completely and totally out. If it hadn’t been for the snoring, Alex would have thought she was dead.

  She had thought that. For weeks now.

  She pulled her office door shut behind her and locked it.

  Melanie was alive.

  A lump lodged in Alex’s throat as she adjusted to this new reality. She stepped over to her desk and stared down at Melanie.

  As if sensing her presence, Melanie stirred. The snoring stopped. Her eyes fluttered open. She sat up abruptly and shot back in Alex’s rolling desk chair.

  “Long time no see,” Alex said.

  Her hands gripped the chair arms. “Oh my God, you scared me!” she gasped. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I work here.” Alex tossed the file onto the desk and sank into a plastic chair. She gazed at her client. Melanie’s complexion was sallow, and she had dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes.

  “Not looking so good, Melanie.”

  This observation seemed to shock her. She stared across the desk, incredulous. Then she let out a bark of laughter.

  “I’m serious,” Alex said. “You look like crap.”

  She sat motionless for a moment. And then she crumpled. She buried her face in her hands and let out a muffled sob.

  Alex crossed her arms and watched the floodgates open. Behind her hands, Melanie cried and sniffled. The scene was much like the one back in October, only then it had been Melanie in the plastic chair and Alex behind the desk.

  “I’ve been so terrified, Alex.” She glanced up tearfully. “You wouldn’t believe everything that’s happened!”

  “Try me.”

  “My whole life’s been crazy, every minute.” She tugged at the sleeve of her baggy gray sweatshirt and dabbed her nose with it. “I’ve been so scared.”

  “Guess you forgot my advice about black,” Alex said.

  “Huh?”

  “You blondes. You always want to go black. Or red. I told you, it’s too noticeable. You want to blend in, stick with brown.”

  Melanie’s brow furrowed.

  Not only did her hair look awful, she’d put on weight. And her skin hadn’t seen the sun in months, from the looks of it. Alex wondered how long ago she’d ditched her identity in sunny Florida. The utilities had been disconnected for weeks, but she could have left long before that.

  Alex stood up and walked around the desk to her computer. She felt Melanie’s baffled gaze on her as she booted it up.

  “Don’t you… don’t you want to hear what’s going on?”

  Alex clicked open her accounting software. “Sure, fill me in.”

  “Well… I came back to town a couple months back. I guess you knew that.”

  “Figured that out, yeah.”

  “I was staying at this place on the lake.”

  “Got that part, too.” Alex clicked into the screen she wanted. “You owe me twenty-eight hundred dollars. Just FYI.”

  “What?”

  Alex propped a hip on her desk. “That would be eight hundred dollars’ worth of my time. At the bargain-basement rate I gave you. Plus deposits on your utilities in Orlando. Plus the security deposit on your apartment. Any chance I can expect to see that money sometime soon?”

  Melanie sat back in the swivel chair. “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Alex clicked out of her accounting program and turned to face Melanie, arms folded. “Why didn’t you return my calls?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “We had a system, remember? I send an urgent message, you answer. You send an urgent message, I answer. That was nonnegotiable.”

  “I lost my phone.”

  “You could have found a pay phone. An Internet café. Something. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Do you have any idea how much time I’ve spent looking for you?”

  Melanie stared up at her, wide-eyed.

  Alex clamped her mouth shut and swallowed all the bitchy things she wanted to say. Melanie really looked bad. Whatever she’d been doing lately, it hadn’t been good for her health.

  Alex eyed her suspiciously. “Are you on drugs?”

  “Me?” Melanie splayed a hand against her chest, and her nails were bitten down to the quick. “I don’t touch drugs. I don’t even drink.”

  “You look terrible.”

  Melanie’s gaze fell to her lap. “I know.” She squeezed her hands together until her knuckles whitened. A tear dripped onto her thigh, making a dark gray dot on her sweatpants.

  Alex closed her eyes and tipped her head back. She would not be pulled in again. She had to turn off the sympathy for this girl. She took a deep breath.

  “You lied to me back in October.”

  “I know.” Melanie’s voice was small, almost a whisper.

  “Why did you do that? I was trying to help you.”

  “I didn’t think you would. Not if you knew what was really going on.”

  “What’s really going on, Melanie?”

  Her shoulders tensed. She hunched over. She sniffled.

  “I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth, Mel. We tried that already. It didn’t work.”

  She nodded, her head bowed.

  “You need to tell me everything. Starting at the beginning.”

  Melanie looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “Craig killed him. I know it.”

  “Who?”

  “Joe.” She choked out a sob. “He killed Joe.”

  Alex watched Melanie gaze at her lap as she struggled with her emotions. When she looked up again, she had a question in her watery eyes.

  “Joe Turner?” Alex asked.

  Melanie nodded.

  “Joe Turner is dead. I don’t know who killed him.”

  Alex expected another flood of tears, but instead, Melanie closed her eyes and nodded. She took a deep breath and met Alex’s gaze. Maybe she’d known it all along. Maybe the confirmation came as a relief.

  “What’s going on, Melanie?”

  “I’ll tell you,” she said somberly. “And then I need your help.”

  Help. As in money.

  “What happened to your Honda?” Alex asked.

  “What Honda?”

  “The one your neighbors saw at the lake house while you were living there.”

  She glanced down. “That was Joe’s. I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “And the Blazer?”

  Melanie looked up and wiped her nose again with her shirt sleeve. “That’s mine. Was. I don’t know where it is now. I guess Craig did something with it.”

  “How’d you afford the car?” she asked.

  “Joe got it for me. He wanted
me to have freedom to come and go. He didn’t want me to feel trapped all the time, like I did with Craig.”

  Alex shook her head with frustration. She leaned forward across the desk. “Did you listen to anything I told you? Coming back here was the last thing you should have done. What were you thinking?”

  Melanie looked down and shook her head slightly. Alex wondered if she’d caught the underlying meaning: By coming here, you probably got your boyfriend killed.

  Melanie glanced up suddenly. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Alex sat back. “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” She gave her an apologetic look. “No offense, but you can’t understand.”

  “What can’t I understand?”

  “What it’s like. What I’m feeling. I needed to be with him.” She sighed. “You’ll understand someday.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. What a bunch of bullshit. She wanted to toss Joe’s death in Melanie’s face and ask her if their little honeymoon by the lake had been worth it.

  “Joe and I… we had plans. We were going to start a new life together. He’d been saving money for us.”

  “How?”

  Melanie glanced up. “He’s a real estate agent. Was. He’d been putting money away so we could start over somewhere. As far away from Craig as we could get.”

  Alex watched her, trying to gauge whether she was telling the truth. She’d expected to learn that Joe Turner was mixed up in Coghan’s operation somehow. She hadn’t expected him to be a real estate agent. But maybe that was a front.

  “Tell me about Craig,” Alex said. “What’s he doing to attract the attention of so many investigators?”

  Melanie snorted. “What’s he not doing? He’s into drugs. Prostitutes. You name it. Everything he’s supposed to be policing.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t say any more than that, though. It’s dangerous for you to know too much.”

  Alex let her drop the subject temporarily. She wanted to keep her talking.

  “And how did your Blazer end up in a ditch?”

  Melanie took a deep breath, and Alex got the impression she was finally going to learn what happened at the cabin.

  “I went for carryout,” she said quietly. “Joe said he’d be watching the basketball game when I came home. But the TV wasn’t on.” She looked over Alex’s shoulder, as if envisioning the events. “I guess that’s what tipped me off. Everything was too dark. I knew something was wrong.” Her gaze fastened on Alex’s. “I remembered what you said. About trusting my instincts. So I just took off. But the roads were wet. I lost control of the car and crashed and next thing I knew, I was racing through the woods, and Craig was behind me.”