A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

His expression softened. Maybe he’d just realized that she’d known where he lived, that she’d had an interest in him long before tonight’s catastrophe.

  Well, so be it. She’d never been good at coy.

  “I need to go back to that house,” she told him. “I think Melanie might have died there, and I need you to come see. I want your take on it.”

  He sighed heavily, as though he sensed this was going to be much more complicated than she’d led him to believe.

  He was right. And he didn’t even know the half of it.

  “You’d better stop,” Alex said, glancing through the windshield. A foot of water streamed over the bridge, according to the metal depth marker, but Nathan didn’t slow.

  She glanced at him across the front seat. “Look, the last thing I need is your flooded-out car on my conscience.”

  But he looked totally unconcerned as he sailed right over the bridge, spraying water on both sides. Then he pulled over to let a boxy red fire engine rumble by. Its sirens were silent, and it was the second rig they’d passed since they’d left the highway.

  Alex didn’t need to navigate farther. A crowd of people milled around in the center of the road. They turned and squinted at Nathan’s headlights, but didn’t step aside. Nathan pulled onto a relatively high patch of grass across from Shady Shores RV Park.

  “You wait here.”

  “But—”

  “We can poke around later. I need to see who’s here.”

  He got out and slammed the door before she could object. Alex crossed her arms and heaved a sigh as he disappeared past the reach of the headlights. More waiting. Just what she needed.

  Patience had never been her strong suit, and she found it ironic that such a big chunk of her professional life was spent waiting around for things to happen.

  Her personal life was the opposite, and she liked it that way. When she saw something she wanted, she steeled herself for possible rejection and then just went for it. None of this moping around and wishing some guy would call.

  So why hadn’t she called Nathan? She’d run into him here and there since they’d met last fall. They had some mutual friends, and their paths tended to cross. But they’d kept it light, professional. Maybe it was the shock of everything that had happened today, but Alex wasn’t feeling very professional toward him right now.

  She caught a glimpse of him, talking to a firefighter beside a red Suburban. He was probably using his cop status to get all kinds of info not available to lowly citizens like herself. Law enforcement was a fraternity, and Alex was well aware that she’d never gain access to the club. She operated on the fringes, but she liked it that way. More flexibility. More room to bend the rules.

  Alex squirmed in her damp jeans. Nathan’s car was like a sauna. She decided to do some investigating of her own and popped open his glove box: proof of insurance, Maglite, bullets, lighter. Hmm… Closet smoker? Doubtful. Probably more of a Boy Scout, always prepared.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she jerked it out, hoping it was Melanie. But she didn’t recognize the number.

  “This is Alex.” She waited a few beats. “Hello?”

  The call ended, and she stared down at the screen, her heart racing now. Was it her? Was she reaching out, finally, after a dozen urgent messages?

  Alex clicked over to the Web browser and keyed the phone number into a search engine. No matches. She redialed the number and sat through about twenty rings before hanging up.

  The crowd had dispersed now, and Alex didn’t see Nathan. She watched the red Suburban containing the last firefighter roll away. Then she grabbed the flashlight out of the glove box and trekked across the road, sweeping the ray of light back and forth over the soggy grass until she found a strip of yellow crime scene tape. Beyond the barrier, the house had been reduced to a pile of charred debris. Steam curled up from the cinders and danced in front of the flashlight beam.

  “Hey.”

  She gasped and whirled around. “Dammit, you scared me!”

  “I told you to stay in the car.”

  “What did you find out?” she asked.

  He took the light out of her hand and turned it off. Right. Better not to broadcast their activities.

  “I talked to the captain.”

  “And?”

  In the darkness, her senses were sharpened. The air smelled like summer camp. Nathan smelled like damp leather from the jacket he wore to conceal his gun.

  “They got here pretty quick,” he said in that low, southern-tinged voice. “No casualties.”

  “Okay. And they’re sure about that?”

  “They brought in a couple of canines. No bodies under the bed, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  That was exactly what she’d been thinking. She felt relieved. But then she recalled the bloody shoe print, facing out, as if someone were leaving.

  “One of the dogs picked up an accelerant. Also, there was a propane tank somewhere in the kitchen. It exploded in the fire, pretty early on, based on witness accounts. Couple people at the RV park heard the boom before they even noticed the fire.” He paused. “They reported a white Saturn racing down the road soon after that.”

  The last part was loaded with disapproval.

  “I think there was a gas stove,” Alex said, redirecting the conversation. “I didn’t smell anything funny inside the house, though. No gas, nothing… decaying. I was standing right behind the house when the explosion happened.”

  Nathan didn’t say anything to this news, but Alex sensed he wasn’t thrilled by it.

  “Could a stove just blow up like that?” she asked.

  “I doubt it,” he said tightly. “Not unless it’d been tampered with.”

  Alex swallowed hard and glanced around in the dimness. It seemed like they were alone, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

  If the neighbors had seen her here, had someone else? And had anyone gotten her license plate?

  “Show me where you saw the blood,” Nathan said.

  She took back the flashlight and led him around to the back of the property. She aimed the light beam beyond the crime scene tape.

  “There was a porch,” she said, but it was gone now, reduced to a pile of burned wood. A blackened beam lay in the middle of it all, its surface all cracked and scaly, like alligator skin. “So much for the shoe print.”

  “You remember anything about it?” he asked. “Did it look like a man’s or a woman’s size?”

  “I don’t know. It was only the front part.” She walked toward the lake. “What if we got some Luminol out here? Maybe someone trailed blood away from the house.”

  “That’d be a huge long shot with all this rain,” he said. “Not to mention the fire hoses.”

  Alex’s temper flared. “Well, we have to do something! This is a homicide scene. Don’t you want to look for evidence?”

  He stepped closer, until he was a big shadow beside her.

  “You’re worried about your client. I get that. But for all you know, she’s hanging out at some bar right now, living it up with her friends.”

  “She doesn’t have any friends. That’s one of her problems.”

  He sighed, and Alex tried to tamp down her annoyance. “Look, something’s wrong,” she insisted. “I was here. I saw blood. And then someone, for some reason, burned this house down. I’m no homicide detective, but that tells me we might be standing on top of a murder scene.”

  “You want to know the first rule of murder investigation? It’s real simple. Have a body.”

  “I told you, she’s—”

  “Yeah, I know, she’s missing. If you really think something happened to this girl, you need to go down to the police station and fill out a missing-person report. Get it on record, along with your suspicions about her husband.”

  “I can’t do that,” Alex said quietly.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because her husband’s a cop.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nathan stared
at her, hoping he’d heard wrong but knowing he hadn’t. “You want to say that again?”

  She turned her back on him and trudged over to the car, the flashlight a glowing pendulum beside her. Nathan followed. Whatever she had to tell him, she didn’t want to say it out in the open. He slid into the driver’s seat and waited for her to explain, but she just sat there picking at the rip in her jeans.

  “Who is he?” Nathan demanded.

  “Craig Coghan.”

  Craig Coghan. Nathan almost laughed, it was so absurd. “You think Craig Coghan murdered his wife?”

  “I know he did.”

  “Alex… I know the guy.”

  “What, you think you couldn’t know a man who beats his wife? Wake up, Nathan.”

  “I’m not saying that, I just… Shit, he’s a friend of mine, okay? He’s a good cop. I find it pretty hard to believe he’d—”

  “He’s a terrible cop,” she said. “And a terrible husband, too. And don’t talk to me like I don’t know what I saw. My client was a mess. I have photos of it. And I checked out her story.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s credible, so just forget about explaining this away. Melanie was scared enough—despite her husband’s threats—to move halfway across the country to get away from him. Craig Coghan is dangerous. And I don’t care who he’s friends with.”

  Nathan’s mind reeled. Coghan. Nathan knew the man. They’d played in a basketball league together a couple years ago. Nathan had been out for beers with him countless times.

  “This is why I need your help.”

  He turned to face Alex, who sat in the dimness on the other side of the Mustang, her back pressed against the door. He could feel the tension radiating off of her.

  “I can’t just show up at APD and start asking questions,” she said firmly. “I want to gather evidence first. Discreetly, without tipping anyone off. And when I’ve got something solid, I want to take it somewhere else. Maybe the FBI. Or the D.A. Someone outside the police department.”

  Nathan shook his head. She was in for an uphill battle. And it wasn’t just because the guy was a cop. They didn’t have a body. Coghan worked narcotics, but any cop worth his salt would know plenty of ways to hide a corpse. And get rid of evidence. And craft an alibi.

  “When did you last hear from Melanie?” he asked.

  “It’s been months. But the airlines have a record of her flying here from Florida five weeks ago. And she didn’t fly back. So that’s the window I’m looking at.”

  A depressingly big window.

  Nathan tore his gaze away from Alex’s shadowy silhouette and stared through the windshield at the gloom.

  “Will you help me?” she pleaded. “Quietly? Without tipping anyone off?”

  “That’s going to be tough,” he said. Try impossible. How could he work a homicide without anyone in the department knowing? She was talking about an investigation that was the purview of Internal Affairs. Nathan hated IA rats. And he wasn’t about to become one.

  “It’s important,” Alex pressed. “Melanie came to me for help. I feel responsible for her now, and I won’t screw this up. Not again. So if you can’t do this discreetly, I’d rather you not do anything at all.”

  The tone of her voice pulled at him.

  “Will you do it?”

  “Yes,” he said, knowing he’d just made a promise that was going to be nearly impossible to keep.

  Alex’s eyelids grew heavy as Nathan wended through Austin back to his house in Northwest Hills. She rested her head against the window and gazed out at the glowing porch lights moving past. Melanie had lived in a neighborhood much like this, but on the other side of town. She’d had a job and a marriage and a seasonal wreath on the door. Anyone looking at her life from the outside probably figured she was happy.

  “Tired?” Nathan asked.

  “I guess.” She closed her eyes and sighed. She wished she could just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow knowing Melanie was safe in Florida, where she should have been, and this day had all been a dream.

  “The adrenaline’s wearing off,” Nathan said. “You’re about to crash.”

  Alex opened her eyes and sat up straighter. She couldn’t crash. Not yet, anyway. She still had work to do tonight. She had a timeline to build—Melanie’s timeline—and she needed her brain alert and functioning. Maybe she’d go home and make a pot of coffee.

  Alex looked across the car at Nathan. He hadn’t seemed to mind being dragged away from home to go check out a hypothetical crime scene.

  “You probably work pretty crazy hours, huh?” she asked.

  “I’m used to it. Hardly think about it anymore.”

  He had a good profile. Strong, masculine lines. And from this angle, she couldn’t see his bad eye. She liked the way his hair brushed the top of his jacket. It made her want to run her fingers through it.

  “What?” he asked, glancing at her.

  “Nothing.”

  She looked into the side mirror. Three cars back, she saw the same pair of headlights that had been behind them ten minutes ago. The lights were low, square, and set wide apart. An American-made sedan, if she had to guess.

  “So how’d you find her?”

  “Huh?”

  “Melanie Coghan,” he said. “You said it took you ten minutes, once you knew she was in town. How’d you do it?”

  The sedan behind them hung a left, and Alex turned her attention to Nathan. “I had her phone number, so it was easy,” she told him.

  “I thought you said she wasn’t answering.”

  “She wasn’t.” Alex smoothed her T-shirt. She really was a mess. She hoped she didn’t smell bad, too, after slogging around in the mud tonight. Nathan smelled like leather and freshly showered man, and it was getting to her. She’d been having a hard time keeping her distance since he’d cleaned up back at his house.

  “Okay, I give up,” he said. “What am I missing?”

  “I called Domino’s. Actually, I called Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s, but Domino’s was the one that had her.”

  “So she ordered a pizza…?”

  Alex shifted in her seat to face him. “They track customers by phone number in the computer. It was a simple pretext. I gave them Melanie’s number, placed an order, and they confirmed an address on Moccasin Road. Then I canceled the order and went looking for Melanie.”

  Nathan turned onto his street, where Alex’s car sat in front of his house. She was almost too tired to drive home. She needed to rally.

  “That’s good,” Nathan said. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  She shrugged. “People give out information all the time. You just have to know who to ask.” Nathan parked in the driveway, and Alex shoved open her door. “Thing is, with Melanie, it shouldn’t have been so easy.” She got out and slammed the door. “That’s what pisses me off.”

  Nathan came around to her side of the car. He glanced over her shoulder, at the Saturn parked in front of his house, and then met her gaze.

  “So you told her to keep a low profile when you sent her off to Florida,” he said. “And you’re upset because she didn’t follow your advice.”

  “Bingo.” Alex sighed. She tucked her hands in her back pockets and looked at her feet. “I guess I didn’t drill it home hard enough. She never should have come back here. And then after she did, she got sloppy, blew off everything I taught her.”

  “Her fault, not yours. You need to let it go.”

  She glanced up at him. It was too dark to see his expression well, but his warm southern voice surrounded her. He was from Louisiana, and his voice in the dark made her think of the bayou.

  He was staring down at her now, and a shiver moved through her. He lifted his hand to her chin, and she held her breath as he brushed his thumb over the scar above her lip.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, “how you’ve been doing all this time.”

  Since last fall, he meant. All this time since a professional
hit man had busted into her office and tried to beat information out of her. She’d called Nathan afterward and kind of lost it.

  She looked away. “I’ve been okay,” she said.

  His hand dropped away. “I should have called you.”

  “No big deal.” Why did she have this knot in her stomach? She stepped away from him and fished her car keys out of her pocket. “Well… thanks for your help tonight.”

  He stood there, watching her.

  “I’ll touch base tomorrow,” she said, “see what you found out.”

  She took another step back, then turned and started toward her car. His street was quiet. No cars, no pedestrians, not even a barking dog.

  “Be careful,” he said after her.

  She glanced over her shoulder and waved. “I will.”

  Sophie Barrett didn’t always believe in horoscopes, but some days she had to admit they were pretty damn accurate.

  Good fortune will befall you when you least expect it. Sophie drove down Lavaca Street and confirmed that, no, her baby blues were not deceiving her. There was an empty parking space right in front of her destination. Meaning that although it was rush hour, and downtown, and congested, she wouldn’t have to hike it three blocks from the nearest parking garage in the drizzle. Her hair and her silver sling backs stood a chance of making it to the interview unscathed.

  Sophie rolled past the space, then reversed into it with perfect ease. She’d always been a good driver, and she handled her SUV like it was a coupe.

  Lovell Solutions. She read the lettering etched on the glass and glanced at the rearview mirror. Her lipstick was flawless. No need to risk sitting here primping within plain sight of that glass door. Alex Lovell was probably inside, and Sophie was determined not to let him think she was a bubblehead. Being blond had its advantages, but there were disadvantages, too. Sophie adjusted her push-up bra, smoothed her satin blouse, and slid out. After quickly dropping a few quarters into the meter, she hurried to the entrance.

  This must work out, Sophie told herself, and put her hand on the door. It buzzed, startling her, and she pulled it open.

  The office was cool after the humidity outside. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she took in everything at once: the mismatched chairs, the worn sofa, the black metal desk. A woman stood behind it, staring at her.