Flight

by Laura Griffin

  “Just a quick question.”

  “I already talked to your partner.”

  “It’s something she forgot to ask. About your organization.”

  “My organization?”

  “Alpha Omega Now.”

  She popped the car’s locks and opened the back door, then stashed her purchases in the back seat. She closed the door and looked at him.

  “What about us?” she asked, and her tone was more curious than wary.

  “How long have you been involved with them?”

  “About a year now.” She tipped her head to the side. “You know, I know what you’re investigating, and you’ve got us all wrong.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah. We’re not violent. We’re basically just a bunch of socially conscious people committed to stewardship of the planet.”

  “It’s an important cause.”

  Surprise flickered in her blue eyes. But then it turned to suspicion.

  “I’d like to see a list of your members,” Joel said.

  “A list?” She brushed her long hair over her shoulder and rested her hand on her hip. “We don’t have a list. It’s not like we’re a rotary club.”

  “Was that your laptop I saw in the hotel room?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She frowned. “Why?”

  “How do you communicate with other members?”

  “Social media, mostly.”

  “I’d like a list of social media names, then. Twitter handles. Emails. Whatever you have.”

  She eased closer, and Joel caught the scent of marijuana. So, Trevor had sent his girlfriend out for beer and smokes while he sat in the motel room getting high. Very egalitarian of him.

  “Why should I help you? All you do is hassle us. And now you’re trying to pin something on Trevor that he didn’t do. I told your partner, we left here on Sunday. Trevor told you that, too. Check our cell phone records if you don’t believe us.”

  Joel planned to do that.

  “Listen, Gillian. I’m investigating three homicides. Three. All the victims were about your age, and all of them were murdered in the week since your group held a protest here. Okay? Now we’re exploring every lead we can think of, and that includes tourists visiting the island.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Look, if no one in your group is involved, there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll cross them off the list and move on.”

  “I’m telling you, our group isn’t violent.”

  “Your group, maybe not. But how well do you know every single person?”

  She sighed and looked away.

  Joel pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to her. “I need your help, Gillian. If you really have a social conscience, then do the right thing.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Gillian Copeland, twenty-three.” Nicole taped the mug shot to the whiteboard. “Unlawful possession of a controlled substance. Possession with intent to distribute. She copped a plea in exchange for testimony against someone higher up the chain.”

  “If she’s still in business, might explain how they’re financing their road trip,” Emmet said from his seat at the conference table.

  “It might.” Nicole took the empty chair beside him and set down her file. She’d been up late pulling together everything she could about Trevor Keen, his girlfriend, and the organization that they were maybe, maybe-not leading.

  “Where’d she meet Keen?” Chief Brady looked at Nicole over his reading glasses. He had a legal pad in front of him and was jotting down updates from the team—which now included a pair of sheriff’s deputies.

  “I’m not sure,” Nicole said. And she hadn’t thought to ask. “This drug bust was in Provo, Utah, but her driver’s license shows a Denver address, so maybe they met there, at some point.”

  The conference room door opened, and Joel walked in with a file under his arm and a can of Dr Pepper in his hand. When Nicole had arrived at work this morning, he’d been on the phone in an interview room, furiously taking notes.

  Brady leaned back in his chair. “What’s the word?”

  “Just got off the phone with Brian Romero.” Joel took a seat beside his brother.

  “Who’s that?” Owen asked.

  “An FBI agent in Houston. Counterterrorism team.” Joel popped open his drink and took a swill. “He works on domestic terror organizations.”

  “This group’s a terror organization?” Emmet asked.

  “Not officially, but the feds have had their eye on it ever since the pipe-bomb incident a while back.” Joel flipped his file open. “And listen to this.”

  “Wait. Pipe-bomb incident? You’re talking about the logging company?” Emmet asked.

  “Yeah. They’re based in Beaumont. Anyway, get this. About six months after the bomb thing, their CEO was murdered.”

  “Holy shit.” Owen leaned forward. “Let me guess. A .38 pistol?”

  “Nope. Conium maculatum.”

  Brady frowned. “Say again?”

  “Poison hemlock.”

  “He was poisoned?” Nicole asked.

  “That’s right. Case is still open. The feds took a look, given the previous incident targeting the company. They did some poking around with Alpha Omega Now but didn’t turn up anything. The local police ended up zeroing in on the guy’s wife. Evidently, they were having marital problems and she inherited about a million in life insurance.”

  “So, they think his wife poisoned him?” Nicole asked.

  “That’s one theory. Someone put something in his coffee, and he died at his desk at work.”

  Nicole shook her head. Another bizarre twist to this thing.

  “Do the feds think it might be connected to the murders here?” Brady asked.

  “They’re now looking into it. This agent, Romero, told me he never liked the wife for it. He always thought it had something to do with the protest organization, but he could never prove it. He’s reinterviewed several Alpha Omega members a few times, trying to shake something new loose, but they’ve stuck to their stories. No one was in Beaumont at the time of the murder, at least no one they turned up.”

  “So, now we’ve got a sixth murder, possibly connected, possibly not,” Owen said.

  Brady took off his reading glasses and tossed them atop his legal pad. “Let’s get back to what we know.”

  The chief sounded frustrated, and Nicole didn’t blame him. He’d been burning the candle at both ends for a week—as all of them had—plus fielding relentless questions from the media. He was also under pressure from local business owners to make an arrest soon because summer season was about to start, and everyone was freaking out over all the negative publicity.

  “Okay, let me run through it,” Joel said. “We’ve got five people, all killed with the same pistol. That’s now confirmed. We don’t know if it’s the same shooter—”

  “Let’s assume.” Brady crossed his arms.

  “All right, assume it is. In four of those five cases a feather was recovered on or near the victim.” Joel glanced at the two new guys from the sheriff’s office. “We know at least two of the feathers are from endangered South American birds, so we’re working the theory that the feathers may be some sort of message from the killer. Also, in the case of the three homicides here on the island, all of them happened within a few days of a protest at a new hotel here. The protest was staged by Alpha Omega Now, and our first two victims were members of the group.”

  “What about Alexander Kendrick?” The chief looked at Emmet. “Was he a member?”

  “According to his girlfriend, no. She’d never even heard of them before.”

  “How is that possible?” Brady asked. “A big mob of them was just here protesting.”

  “She doesn’t pay attention to the news.”

>   “Okay, what else?” The chief looked at Joel.

  “I checked out the story that Trevor Keen and his girlfriend gave us in separate interviews. Sounds like they did leave Lost Beach on Sunday and drove down to Padre Island, like they claimed. The motel where they stayed has a record of them, and they were there all week.”

  “They spent the night there, maybe. It’s only an hour away, so they could have driven back,” Owen pointed out.

  “True,” Joel said. “It’s not airtight, but it’s something. Other thing is, I didn’t get the sense that they were lying.”

  “You thought they were straight with you?” Brady said.

  Joel tipped his head to the side. “I wouldn’t go that far. They might be hiding something. Maybe drug possession or something like that.”

  “I agree,” Nicole said. “I interviewed Gillian. She wasn’t too happy about talking to cops, but she didn’t seem nearly nervous enough to be hiding three murders.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know,” Emmet suggested. “Maybe this is the boyfriend’s deal, and he left her out of the loop.”

  “Let’s go back to logistics,” Brady said. “How’d someone get to and from the first Lost Beach crime scene? I thought we were looking for a boat.”

  “We are,” Joel said.

  “Tell us about the boat,” one of the sheriff’s deputies said, chiming in for the first time. His name was Garza, and he looked to Nicole to be the younger of the two.

  “The real estate developer was shot while fishing off his boat dock,” Joel said. “I’ve checked out the property, and the easiest way to approach him there would have been from the water.”

  “So, someone shot him and took off?” Garza asked.

  “It’s possible. Same for the two victims in the canoe. They were in the marshes, about a hundred yards from the marina. We think they were approached by someone in a boat.”

  “Don’t forget our witness,” Nicole said. “We have a woman who was fishing off her boat dock around the estimated time of the murders, and she saw someone race past in a skiff. Said it was too dark to get much of a description, but someone definitely went by in a hurry, no running lights.”

  “The boat could have come from the island or the mainland. We don’t know,” Joel said. “Maybe someone owns it, or it could have been rented, stolen, or borrowed. There’s no shortage of boats around here.”

  “Why don’t we take the boat lead,” Garza said, looking at the other deputy. “We’ve got contacts on both sides of the bay. Maybe someone saw a suspicious person coming or going on Monday morning. A lot of the marinas have security cams facing their docks, so we might be able to turn something up.”

  “Sounds good,” Brady said. He looked at Nicole. “Keep checking out Trevor Keen and his girlfriend and vetting their story. You and Owen see what else you can find on that.” He turned to Emmet. “How’s it coming with Alexander’s friends?”

  “Still interviewing people, trying to pin down who he saw and what he did in the days before his murder.”

  The chief looked at Joel. “And where are we on the suspect list?”

  “It’s coming together,” Joel said. “I’m working on cross-referencing persons of interest from all five of these open investigations. I’m hoping to find some overlap.”

  “Six open investigations, if you include the poisoned logging-company executive,” Nicole said.

  “Let’s put that aside for now,” Brady said. “We’ve got enough on our hands with the other cases, and we know the same weapon was used.”

  Joel nodded.

  “Okay, as of today,” the chief said, “the state crime lab is fast-tracking all forensic evidence related to our three cases. That’s fingerprints, shoe prints, shell casings, whatever. Anything we recover goes straight to them. Drive it up there if you have to, but make sure they get their hands on it, ASAP.”

  “What about the stuff we already submitted?” Nicole asked.

  “We recovered prints from the victims’ trailer,” Joel said. “Looked like someone had been snooping around the place, peeking in the windows. Miranda lifted a bunch of stuff and sent it in on Wednesday, but still no word.”

  “We also sent the backpack from the canoe,” Nicole said. “Someone stole cell phones and IDs, so we’re hoping to get a print off the zipper.”

  “The state has everything,” Brady said. “And they’ve promised us a quick turnaround.”

  Emmet scoffed. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Nicole agreed. Even with a task force in place, she doubted they were going to leapfrog priority cases coming from Houston and Dallas. But at least Brady was trying.

  “Okay, I want everyone back here at”—the chief checked his watch—“four o’clock. I want progress and updates. Time’s ticking, people.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The coffee shop was busy for a Sunday afternoon. Miranda had intended to get in and out quickly, but given the cluster of people waiting at the pickup bar, this was going to take longer than she’d thought. Peeling off her sunglasses, she scanned the shop and was surprised to see Joel at a table by the window, deep in conversation with a beautiful woman.

  The pang of jealousy was sharp and quick. Miranda turned to face the menu board, not really reading it as she tried to process what she’d seen. Was she his ex, maybe? No. His ex was probably on her honeymoon right now. Anyway, it didn’t matter who she was. Miranda and Joel weren’t a couple, and he could have coffee with whomever he wanted.

  The line moved, and the barista smiled up at her.

  “What can I get you today?” she asked.

  Miranda had been craving a frothy blender drink, but now she just wanted something fast.

  “Um . . . a large house blend. To go, please.”

  Dread filled her stomach as she paid for her coffee and waited. She wanted to slip out before Joel spotted her. But why should she avoid him? Maybe she should make eye contact and wave, as though seeing him with someone was no big deal. Which it wasn’t. Acid filled her stomach as she debated what to do.

  The barista handed over her drink, and Miranda turned around, darting a look at the window.

  Joel was staring right at her.

  Crap.

  Miranda forced a smile and made her way over. “Hi,” she said brightly, trying not to stare at the woman beside him as he stood up.

  “Hey.” He touched Miranda’s waist, and her heart skittered. “I want you to meet my sister, Leyla.”

  Relief flooded her. And then she felt ridiculous for getting all worked up.

  “This is Miranda Rhoads, our new CSI,” Joel said.

  Joel’s sister shot him a look and then smiled at Miranda. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  She had?

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  Leyla had vivid blue eyes, like her brother’s, and her thick dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a black apron with the Island Beanery logo.

  “Well, break’s over.” She sent Joel another look as she scooted her chair back. “You can have my spot, Miranda.”

  “Oh, don’t get up.”

  “No, sit, please.”

  “I don’t mean to run you off.”

  “You’re not at all.” Leyla stood and smiled. “Enjoy your coffee.” She nodded at the table. “And make him share those croissants with you. They’re our last ones.”

  She walked off, leaving Miranda alone with Joel. He was watching her with amusement, as though maybe he knew she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “We’ve got the best table here.”

  Miranda set her tote bag on the floor and lowered herself into the chair as she glanced out the window. He was right. The bay-window table had a clear view over the dunes to the beach.

  She looked at J
oel and picked up her coffee.

  “So. That’s Leyla.”

  “Yep.”

  “The one who took the balloon photo.”

  “Balloon photo?”

  “The hot-air balloons on your refrigerator.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “I didn’t know she worked here. I’ve been in here a million times.”

  “She’s the manager. And the chef.”

  Miranda watched as Leyla walked behind the counter and into the kitchen. “Wow, that’s amazing. They do a ton of business. I’ve never seen them not busy.”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned to Joel, and he was watching her with a look she couldn’t read.

  “So. What’s up with you?” she asked.

  “I was giving Leyla an update. She’s been worried a lot.”

  “About safety?”

  “About everything.” His expression clouded. “We’re not used to this kind of thing around here. She’s freaked-out.”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  Joel watched her for a long moment, and she felt a flutter of warmth in her stomach.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  Miranda sighed. She glanced at the folder sticking out of her tote bag.

  “Actually, I was on my way to the police station. I just stopped in for a caffeine fix. Maybe I’m stalling. I’ve been dreading talking to you.”

  Joel’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

  She pulled out her file and set it on the table. “I’ve been going over the photos from the other night.” She opened the file and pulled out a picture. “In particular, I’ve been looking at the photographs of the shoe print from the flower bed.”

  Joel slid the picture over and studied it. Based on the shoe print and the shell casing recovered nearby, it looked as though the perpetrator had been standing in the flower bed when he shot Alexander Kendrick through the wire mesh of the storage locker as he was putting away his bike.

  “You know, we got the results back on the ballistics,” Joel said.