by Kylie Brant
There was a slight noise then, and she froze, panic racing up her spine. Slowly, she turned her head, expecting to see him standing there. Watching her. The knife’s blade glistening in his hand.
But he was still on his cot. And as hard as she strained her ears, the only sounds she could hear was the hiss and crackle of the wood burning in the stove.
A feeling of urgency filled her. She’d put the snowshoes on outside where he wouldn’t see her. They could always be gotten rid of if they slowed her down. She grabbed the coat and jammed her arms into it, encountering a pair of gloves in one sleeve, a face mask in the other. Ellie put those on, too. The too-big clothes would slow her down, but she couldn’t leave in only pajamas and a blanket. She’d freeze before she got a mile.
Unless he’d brought more winter clothes with him, taking his things would make it more difficult for him to follow. And she’d planned that, too.
Not daring to zip the oversized coat for fear of the noise, she turned her attention to the door. There was no way to turn the dead bolt silently. The sound it would make opening would be a small one, but she had to figure that it might wake him.
Which meant once she got out on the porch, she was going to have to run like the wind, for as long as she could stand it. And then longer.
She picked up the snowshoes and tucked them under one arm. Then reached out a hand, found the lock. Her fingers were still numb from the binds and didn’t want to work right. Ellie pressed the bunched-up fabric of the coat sleeve against the lock, hoping it would muffle the sound a bit as she worked it.
The slight sound it made when she turned it had her heart pounding like Lucky’s after a hard gallop. Turning the knob, she eased open the door.
The frigid air kissed her face as she slipped outside and closed the door behind her, as quietly as possible. Clouds blocked out the moon and stars, leaving her shrouded in absolute darkness. She dropped the snowshoes. Guided her feet into them by touch alone and secured the straps before rising again.
For a moment there was a rush to her head, a weakness to her knees. The sense of freedom was dizzying. Something inside her screamed for her to run, fast, straight down in front of the small house where surely there was a driveway buried beneath the snow. But instead she turned to the left. Toward the trees that crowded together, a dense unwelcoming wall of shadows. And toward whatever might lurk within them.
She ran clumsily in the oversized boots and snowshoes, getting only a few yards before hitting a drift nearly to her chest. Ellie imagined the man coming awake. Going to her cot, finding only the wadded-up blanket. Chasing to the door and discovering his clothes missing.
Fear fueled her escape as she fought through the snow, the icy air like blades in her lungs.
Even the unknown ahead was better than certain death behind.
It had been after three when she went to bed, so Macy hadn’t set her alarm. She figured she’d hear Kell and the CBI agents coming back in. But in the end, it was Raiker who woke her.
The insistent ring of her cell had her rolling over, searching for the phone while struggling to drag open her eyelids. “H’lo?”
There was a moment’s silence, then her boss’s familiar impatient tone. “What the hell’s going on out there? Neither Burke nor Whitman are answering their phones. You sound like you’re still in bed. Is anyone actually working the damn case?”
With effort, she sat up and peered at the clock. “Adam, it’s six A.M.”
“And your point is?”
Mentally, she conceded. Sleep was a luxury where her boss was concerned. “I was running data analysis until three. Kell joined the tactical response team Whitman put together. They narrowed down the location the ransom note was e-mailed from and the warrant came through. They left just after midnight.”
“The ransom demand came in nearly seven hours earlier.”
“Things don’t exactly progress at a lightning pace here,” she said around a yawn. “Maybe you should come back and work your magic. I thought Kell and Whitman were going to come to blows when he insisted on being part of the raid.”
Raiker grunted. “Good for him. Whitman’s mood isn’t going to improve any time soon. I’ve got a lab arriving sometime today, and all the trace evidence gathered so far is being transferred from the state crime lab as we speak.”
Despite herself, Macy was impressed. Superseding the CBI was a feat, even for Adam. “You had to pull a few strings to accomplish that.”
“I had to extend markers it’ll take me two lifetimes to repay. But the backlog at the state crime labs there did most of the work for me. What have you come up with on those samples you analyzed?”
The reminder of her night’s work quickly deflated her. “None of them matched authorship of the note. I double-checked them twice to be sure.”
“Who’d you have samples from?”
“Stephen and Althea Mulder, the lawyer and accountant, Mulder’s executive secretary, and Nick Hubbard.”
There was silence while Raiker mulled that information over. Then, “Get more. Make sure you check out Cramer, head of Mulder’s security. And then start working on getting samples from every employee with access to Mulder’s estate.”
Although he couldn’t see her, she nodded unenthusiastically. She’d already planned on getting each of the employees in for another interview, and this time have them give her a writing sample. It would be time consuming, and she knew intuitively that she wouldn’t be actively working the case with Travis and Kell for a while.
“What about the threat assessment?”
Her gaze went to her computer, where it sat on the desk in the corner of the room. “The threat is real,” she responded quietly. “The kidnapper means harm to Ellie Mulder.” She left the rest of her thoughts unspoken, but they were there between them.
If she hadn’t been harmed already.
“All the more reason to get moving on that lab work,” Raiker said after a moment. “I expect CBI Director Lanscombe will kick up a fuss, but I also expect the samples to be there by the end of the day. We’ve got to send this thing into high gear. Let me know what turns up on the raid.”
“Okay.”
Macy fully expected one of Raiker’s signature abrupt disconnects. So she was surprised to hear him say, “There’s something else. I met with Castillo yesterday. He was asking about you.”
The oxygen leeched from her lungs. For a moment, she fought to breathe. The primitive response had anger flaring. Deliberately, she drew in air, released it. “Not surprising. I assume he was more interested in game playing than in offering anything helpful.”
“Oh, he offered. But I’m certain he’s blowing smoke. Claimed to have information we’d find interesting but would give it only to you.”
Her gaze dropped to her free hand, where the fingers were creasing and smoothing the sheet rhythmically. One, two, three. One, two, three. Deliberately, she stilled them. “It wouldn’t hurt to find out.”
“No.” The word had her going limp with relief. “He’s just trying to manipulate us. We aren’t going to give him the satisfaction with another face-to-face. Paulie is as sure as he can be that Castillo doesn’t have the connections in the States to pull off something of this magnitude. Leave it alone, Macy. That’s an order.”
The heaviness in her chest lightened a bit. “Well, you know how I feel about orders.”
“I do.” The silence that stretched then was unusual for Raiker, who was more accomplished at giving directives and then hanging up. “If I thought there was even a chance that he had something useful to offer, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask you. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d ask.”
“I know.”
“He wants to hurt you. We aren’t going to give him the chance.”
It took everything she had to force the word past the boulder that had formed in her throat. “Okay.”
“Now go to work and solve this thing.”
The words, the tone, were so familiar, so at odds with the unfa
miliar compassionate one of a moment earlier that she gave a short laugh. And disconnected, because, of course, Raiker had already hung up.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she paused to turn on the bedside lamp before standing. She caught a look at her reflection in the mirror. Pale. Deathly pale but for the two flags of color in her cheeks and eyes that were much too bright. She wasn’t going to try to lie to herself that his order was unwelcome. There was little she wouldn’t do to avoid ever having to see Enrique Castillo again.
She headed toward the bathroom. Raiker was right. It was past time to get started on the day. Whitman’s absence was a perfect opportunity to quiz Althea and Stephen Mulder about any communication samples they might already have from any of the estate employees. That would save her some interviews. It would take her mind off what was transpiring with the raid. And the ire that still burned from being cut out of it.
The fact that Whitman had been right when he’d said they needed the data analysis as soon as possible was only slightly mollifying. Witnessing the near brawl that had met Kell’s insistence on joining them was enough to convince her of the truth: if he’d had the power, the assistant director would have kept them both out of the action.
So she was petty enough to relish the man’s reaction when he was presented with a fait accompli regarding Raiker’s mobile lab.
Hopefully he would soon learn a hard lesson in cooperation.
Kell stood in the corner of Nancy Elliott’s tidy family room, content for the moment to watch the swarm of activity around him. An agent was sitting a few feet away at the computer— the only computer they’d found on the premises—doing something that hopefully would verify that the e-mail originated from that particular machine. The family members had been rousted from their beds then taken to separate rooms of the house with a couple CBI agents to get their statements. He’d chosen to stick here, where Whitman was questioning the single mom.
Nancy Elliott was thin and mousy and looked ten hard years older than the age she’d given the agent. Her gaze kept darting toward the back of the house, where her mother’s voice could be heard, growing increasingly strident.
“I should be with my mom,” she said nervously, drawing the tie of her robe tighter around her waist. “She has dementia, and she’s going to find this all very disorienting.”
“You can go to her soon.” Whitman displayed more skill than Kell ever would have credited him with as he calmed the woman.
But Elliott twisted around from her perch on the edge of the plaid couch to look in back of her. “And my son. What have you done with David?”
“He’s fine. He’s talking with another agent. I want you to look at some pictures.” Whitman took a big manila envelope from inside the overcoat he still wore and shook some photos out. Kell shifted position so he could get a better view. The pictures were of Nick Hubbard.
Elliott glanced at them. “Who is this? I don’t know him.”
“Take some time.” Whitman managed to make the command sound like a suggestion. “Think back. Maybe he came here to fix the cable. Asking for directions. Maybe he’s someone you talked to on the street. At a mall.”
The woman shook her head more emphatically, even as she picked up the photos to peer more closely at them. “No. I’d remember if a strange guy stopped to talk to me, for any reason.” Then she sent a quick glance in Kell’s direction and hastened to add, “Not that I don’t get my share of attention.”
He gave her a slow smile from his stance against the wall. “I don’t doubt it.” Nodding toward the pictures she still held, he added, “But maybe he’s a friend or acquaintance of your boyfriend or ex.” She’d already informed them that she’d been divorced for over ten years. “Or could be you met him through one of your coworkers.”
She gave him a coy look and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not seeing anyone right now.” Then casting a quick glance back at Whitman, she added, “I’ve never seen him before. Sorry.”
“Have you gotten any phone calls lately? Someone asking you to do a favor for him, perhaps?”
Elliott drew in her bottom lip. “What kind of favor?”
Kell was actually impressed when Whitman didn’t seem to lose his patience. Who would have figured it? The assistant director was actually good at this.
“You tell me. Someone wanted to use your computer. Maybe borrowed it for a while.” She was already shaking her head in response. “Or asked you to leave your house unlocked overnight.”
She looked at him askance. “In this neighborhood? In Denver? Are you kidding? As soon as I can afford it, I’m getting myself one of those home alarm systems. Why, my neighbor down the street got her house broken into just last Tuesday, in broad daylight. It’s getting to where a woman isn’t safe in her own home, anymore. Not that they care. The streetlight out front has been burned out for a week. I’ve called the city twice about it, and it hasn’t been fixed yet.”
The cell in his pocket vibrated. Kell had shut the ringer off when he’d waited with Travis prior to the raid. Checking it surreptitiously, he recognized the number and felt an answering leap of adrenaline. He strode across the room, ignoring Whitman’s glower, and let himself out the door before answering it. “What do you have for me?”
“Nothing of interest, I’m sure.” Denise Temple’s voice was sour. “I told you before, I’m not going to be able to give you any information that CBI isn’t getting.”
“Humor me,” he suggested, pulling on his gloves. Temperatures in this godforsaken city seemed to swing between frigid and cold as hell. But at least it had stopped snowing.
There looked to be well over a foot of the stuff all around.
“Okay, I looked at the district crime blotter for the last few days. And then what I could find on Coplink.”
“Coplink.” He stamped his feet in an effort to get warm. “What’s that?”
“It’s a commercially developed software that many of the law enforcement agencies in the area use. We input data about crimes or stops we make, the information links seamlessly to the rest of the data in the system, spits out any commonalities.”
Kell’s brows raised, impressed. “Nice. What’d it spit out?”
“You got a pen and paper? It’s quite a list.”
“Give me a rundown.”
Temple gave a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, police blotter first. Going back a week ago, we had an armed robbery of a gas station over on Ninetieth Street West. Twelve rapes. Suspected arson on Colfax. Thirty-four B and Es. Fifty-seven stolen vehicle reports . . .”
As Kell listened, he observed the surrounding area. Despite the temperatures, there was a small group of people gathered beyond the barriers some of the officers had put up in the street, all gawking at the house, wondering, no doubt, what the hell was going on here. Apparently they didn’t have jobs to go to.
He listened for several more minutes until Temple ran down before speaking again. “I appreciate this, Sergeant. Really. I’d appreciate it more if you e-mailed me that list.”
“No.” The word was emphatic. “No paper trail. I’m putting nothing in writing.”
He sighed, wondering if it was in every woman’s makeup to make his life difficult. “Well, don’t do it from a work computer. If you don’t want to do it from home, go to an Internet café and send it to me.” He rattled off his e-mail address. As he did, he watched one of Temple’s counterparts direct a particularly curious onlooker back behind the barricade. Crowd control in this weather couldn’t be regarded as pleasant. “And keep them coming.”
There was a long silence. Then, “I did a little digging on your outfit.” She hadn’t been satisfied back at Hubbard’s house until Kell had shown her his ID, he recalled, after Macy had waylaid Travis. “With Raiker’s rep, how is it that you’re not getting this information from CBI? Because I can guarantee you someone from DPD is updating them daily.”
“I don’t think they know how to play well with others.”
She gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I’ve heard. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to send you the blotter reports, seeing as how it’s info that is being fed to CBI anyway.”
“And the Coplink information. You said surrounding area law enforcement agencies used it, too, right? Is that including the county sheriff’s departments?”
The door behind him opened, and he was joined on the small porch by Agent Travis. When the man just stood there, Kell realized he’d been dispatched for the sole purpose of checking up on him. Lost between amusement and irritation, he had to give Whitman credit. Even in the midst of an investigation, he managed to keep his mind on the truly dangerous element of the case, Kell himself.
“A few of them. Jefferson, Adams, Summit . . .”
“Yep, I’d be interested in hearing stories from there.” Mindful of Travis’s unabashed eavesdropping, he was choosing his words carefully.
She was silent for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“A threesome. I know you’re interested.”
“Listen, you son of a bitch . . .”
“Listening. Yep.” He sent a broad smile to Travis, who hunched his shoulders and looked away, hands shoved in his pockets. “I like the way your mind works.”
“Three . . . There’s someone there? Listening?”
“That’s right.”
“Damn lucky for you that’s what you meant,” she muttered. “Okay, I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got. But you better hold up your end of this deal, Burke. My name stays out of it, are we clear on that?”
