A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

  “Come home with me,” he said against her mouth.

  She kissed him. She didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to talk. She just wanted those long, deep kisses making her light-headed. He gripped her hips, pulling her up on tiptoes, and she could feel the hard heat of him through her jeans.

  “Alex.” His voice was lower, more urgent now. “Come home with me.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him, tried to catch her breath. Those blue eyes flared again as he stared down at her. She wanted to go home with him. Something told her that she shouldn’t, that she should be wary. But she wanted to go anyway.

  “I—”

  A loud growl cut her off. She turned to watch a pair of bikes roar past.

  Then the warmth of his body disappeared, and he stepped back from her, scowling. Her heels sank back to the ground as he jerked a phone from his pocket.

  “Devereaux,” he snapped.

  He shot her a heated look. She turned to reach for her door handle, but he caught her arm.

  Wait, he mouthed.

  She waited, patiently, tucking her hands into her pockets so he wouldn’t see that they were trembling. One kiss, and he had her trembling. What would happen if she spent the night with him? He talked quietly into the phone, but continued to pin her with that hot, penetrating look.

  She glanced away. Slowly, reality came back as she stared out over the Roadhouse parking lot. It was crowded with pickups and motorcycles and SUVs. The smell of exhaust mixed with garbage from a nearby Dumpster, and the combination snapped her out of her lustful daze.

  Which was a good thing, because she could tell by Nathan’s half of the phone conversation that he had to go in.

  Finally, he clicked off and stuffed the phone in his pocket.

  “Work?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She turned and pulled open her door. He didn’t move to stop her this time. She slid behind the wheel and glanced up at him, but his face was difficult to read. Would he come over later? The thought made her nerves flutter. But he wouldn’t. Probably not. They didn’t know each other well enough for him to come knocking on her door in the middle of the night expecting sex.

  Sex. With Nathan Devereaux. She fumbled with her keys.

  He leaned a forearm on her car and dipped his head down. “Sorry about the timing,” he said.

  “Not a problem.”

  “I could call you later…,” his warm southern voice trailed off, and the suggestion was delivered with a meaningful look.

  She gazed up at him, and she knew. This was a bad idea. For many reasons, starting with the fact that he was on his way to a death scene. And more important, she was still angry at him. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t respect her judgment in the most important case of her career.

  “Don’t call,” she said.

  He looked surprised. Then cautious. “Okay. You still want breakfast tomorrow?”

  She glanced at her watch. “It already is tomorrow.” She fixed a smile on her face. “You’re going to be out late. Let’s forget the breakfast. Just give me a call if you have something new for me.”

  “Something new?” He frowned.

  “About the case.”

  The twenty-four-hour convenience store closest to the crime scene sold coffee that smelled halfway decent but tasted like sludge. Nathan had downed way more than his share of it over the years, but it was 4:50 in the morning, and he couldn’t stomach the thought. He snagged a Red Bull from the refrigerator case. As the door slid shut, he glanced up into the convex mirror and spotted Britney.

  She wore a red jacket with a fake fur collar that matched her blond ponytail. Nathan watched in the mirror as she bought a pack of Camels. He went to the register and when he stepped out of the store a minute later, she was already halfway down the block, sucking on a smoke.

  Nathan put in a brief call to Hodges before circling his Taurus around to intercept her at an alley several blocks north. He rolled down the window, and she stopped short.

  “How’s it going, Britney?”

  Her expression went from alarmed to guarded, and she kept walking.

  Nathan pushed open the door and got out. “Don’t do this the hard way,” he called after her.

  Her tall black boots stopped just shy of the sidewalk. She turned.

  “I got nothing to say to you.” Her gaze darted around, but the street was nearly deserted.

  “Guess I’ll do all the talking then.”

  “I’m not going to the fucking station.”

  “Have I ever asked you to? Let’s go for a drive.” He pulled the back door open for her and waited. After another uneasy glance around, she walked behind the car and slid in.

  Nathan backed out of the alley. He watched her in the rearview mirror as he navigated side streets all the way to Interstate 35, which ran like a dividing line through the city.

  “How you been?”

  Instead of answering, she bent over and snuffed out her cigarette on his floorboard. Then she jerked the pack out of her pocket and lit a new one.

  Nathan crossed under the freeway and turned south. She flashed him a hateful look until he passed the turn-off to APD headquarters. Then he cut through some middle-class neighborhoods and pulled into an all-night fast-food restaurant.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I am.” There was no line at the drive-through, and Nathan picked up a sack of food before heading a few blocks south to a park.

  He opened Britney’s door for her. She took a last drag of her cigarette and crushed it under her boot as she got out. The night was damp and chilly. She hugged her coat around herself in a gesture that struck him as oddly childlike. Nathan led her to a picnic table, then sat down and pulled out a pair of warm, foil-wrapped tacos.

  “Eat.” He placed one at the spot across from him, and Deanna Perry, aka Britney, twenty-two, originally of San Antonio, reluctantly sat down.

  “I’m sorry about Tammy,” he said.

  “You didn’t kill her.”

  Nathan popped open his Red Bull and glanced at her. The lights from the nearby parking lot allowed him to read her expressions as they talked. “Any idea who did?”

  She looked away.

  He unwrapped his taco and took a bite. Britney, so named probably because of her long blond extensions, tapped another cigarette out of her pack and lit up.

  “You guys both work for Little J, don’t you?”

  She glanced at him and shrugged.

  “He and Tammy getting along lately?”

  She squinted at him as she took a drag. Twenty-two, and already she had the beginnings of crow’s-feet. But fading looks were the least of her problems if she stayed in her current profession.

  “J doesn’t get along with anybody,” she said. “He’s an asshole.”

  She turned to blow her smoke away, and Nathan’s gaze slid down to the pink scars that dotted the back of her neck. The woman whose body he’d watched get loaded into a meat wagon earlier tonight had had similar scars. Nathan figured Little J liked to brand his girls with his cigarette during oral sex.

  “He the kind of asshole who’d shoot a woman at close range, then put her in a trash can?”

  She tossed her smoke away and swung her legs over the bench as she turned to face him. “Probably.” She glanced at his half-finished taco and started unwrapping the one in front of her. “But not Tammy. She was worth too much.”

  Nathan noticed the tremor in her hands as she lifted the taco to her mouth and took a bite. She chewed slowly, staring down at the table, and he wondered if she was thinking about her ever-waning life expectancy.

  “You girls knew each other how long?”

  She shrugged.

  “She was from San Antonio, right? You knew her from home?”

  Another shrug, which Nathan took for a yes. She peeled off a strip of tortilla and nibbled on it. Nathan watched her, waiting.

  “She wanted to be a singer,” Britney muttered
. “That’s why she came here. Told me how great it was.” She picked the sausage out of the taco and ate it. “We shared an apartment for a while.”

  “Where was she living lately?”

  “Wherever.”

  A pair of headlights swept over her face as a car pulled into the lot behind them. A guy got out with a pair of black Labs, and Britney looked around warily.

  “I need to get back,” she said.

  “I’ll take you back.” Or at least, as close as she’d let him. He’d interviewed her before, and she always wanted him to drop her off somewhere no one would notice her getting out of an unmarked police vehicle.

  Nathan watched her shred the tortilla. Finally, she lifted her gaze to his.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  She looked away again.

  “A name? A car? A reason? Even if it’s just a rumor you heard.”

  “I haven’t heard shit.”

  “She was your friend, Britney. And now she’s dead.”

  “Yeah, that’s because she’s stupid, all right?”

  “How was she stupid?”

  She wiped her nose with her cuff, and Nathan could tell she was near the breaking point.

  “How was she stupid?”

  Maybe Britney knew her friend had been an informant for APD. Most likely she did, but Nathan sensed she wasn’t talking about that. If it was just about that, Britney herself wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.

  “Britney?”

  She stood up and stepped over the bench. “You’re the big detective.” She turned her back on him. “I don’t want shit to do with this. You figure it out.”

  Nathan woke up and winced at the glare. He squeezed his eyes shut again, but the obnoxious dinging continued.

  Fuck it. He got out of bed, yanked on some jeans, and stalked across the house. Hodges was a dead man.

  But it wasn’t his partner standing on his doorstep.

  “Hi.” Alex shoved a paper cup into his hands and breezed past him. “How was your night?”

  “Long.”

  “When did you get in?”

  “Two hours ago.”

  She turned to face him. “I took a guess you’d be off this morning because you were out all night. Am I right?”

  Nathan set the coffee down on the hall table. He took in her freshly showered hair, her snug-fitting jeans and T-shirt. He walked across the foyer and leaned a hand against the door frame behind her. “You smell like coconuts.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” He gazed down at that lush pink mouth he remembered from last night. He wanted to pull her into bed with him and finish what they’d started. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “A field trip.”

  He picked up a lock of hair and curled it around his finger. She held his gaze, and he liked the way she pretended not to notice his chest.

  She cleared her throat. “I have to go get my lab results. I thought you might come along. If you’re off, that is.”

  “I’m off.”

  “Would you like to come?”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  She ducked under his arm and picked up the coffee cup. “Here.” She thrust it at him. “It’s a venti. I figured you’d be tired. You want to join me or not?”

  Nathan watched her a moment. She didn’t seem pissed off anymore, which was good. Still, there was a big gap between not pissed off and ready to get naked. He had his work cut out for him.

  “I could rally,” he said. “I have to be in court by two, though.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “And I have to shower.”

  “I’ll wait in the car.”

  Alex pulled off the interstate and checked her mirrors.

  “What do you keep looking for?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  He gazed at her over the top of his aviator sunglasses. How did he always know when she was lying?

  “Someone’s been following me.”

  His glanced at the side mirror.

  “Not right now.”

  “When?”

  “Last night,” she said. “A few times before.”

  “He followed you home from Eli’s?”

  “No way. I ditched him.”

  Nathan shook his head, clearly unhappy at her little revelation. “You get a plate?”

  “No,” she admitted. “It’s usually an American-made sedan. A Taurus, I think. Once it was an Explorer.”

  “Sounds like a police tail. You think it’s Coghan?”

  “Not last night.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “He was at the Smokin’ Pig. Or at least his truck was.”

  Another look over the tops of his shades. She could almost feel the tension filling up the car.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You put a snitch on Coghan’s truck?”

  Actually, she’d put the device in his truck, but she didn’t feel the need to mention that.

  “Are you trying to incite this guy?”

  “I’m trying to protect myself. This way, I can track his moves from a safe distance using my cell phone.”

  He shook his head again. “I told you before, you’re underestimating him, Alex. He’s not stupid. And if he’s not on to you now, he soon will be. And then you’ve got more to worry about than Melanie’s whereabouts.”

  Alex sighed, annoyed by the paternal tone. And the fact that he was probably right.

  The turnoff came into view, and she was glad for the distraction. She pulled up to the cast-iron gates, gave her name, and had a moment of panic as the guard flipped the pages on his clipboard. He checked her vehicle tags, then her driver’s license. Finally, he gave her a nod, and the gate slid open.

  Alex followed the curving road through the sloping limestone hills. They had about a mile and a half to go, if she remembered correctly.

  “You familiar with the story behind Delphi Center?” She was searching for more neutral ground.

  “The Jones family,” he said. “Some oil heiress funded the place.”

  Alex’s gaze flicked to the mesquite bushes and prickly pear cacti dotting the landscape. A group of buzzards circled in the distance, and she remembered what Mia had said about a body farm.

  “She lost a kid, wasn’t it?”

  “Her daughter,” Alex said, following the curve around a twisted oak tree with an enormous green canopy. “Vanessa Hayley Jones. Student at UT. She was spending the summer at her mom’s house in Houston. Got up one morning, went out for a run, and never came home. Two weeks later, her body was discovered in Buffalo Bayou.”

  “Strangled, right?”

  “And raped.” Alex’s gaze followed the buzzards. “The mother’s a widow. Loaded. She brings all kinds of hell down on HPD until they get an arrest. They collar this guy Wayne Korbin. Turns out, he’s a convicted sex offender.”

  “I remember the trial,” Nathan said. “It was a media circus. They didn’t get the death penalty.”

  “Life, no parole,” Alex said. “There were a couple holdouts on the jury. Anyway, about five years later, a technician at the state crime lab was running a decade-old rape kit. He got a cold hit.”

  “Lemme guess. Korbin.”

  “Six months later, there’s another hit. Korbin again. To date, they’ve linked six separate rape kits to this scumbag. If even one of those kits had been tested earlier, he could have been locked up before he killed Vanessa.”

  Nathan didn’t comment. She supposed he’d left his outrage behind years ago. Or maybe it had morphed into that cool determination with which he approached his murder cases.

  “Anyway, by the time they got to like the third case, Vanessa’s mom was over the edge,” Alex said. “She took the entire Hayley family oil fortune and gave it away. Ninety-two million dollars. That’s the endowment behind the Delphi Center. Most of it, anyway. They’ve processed an incredible number of rape kits since they opened. Part of their mission
is to help clear the backlog.”

  She pulled around a bend, and the complex came into view.

  “Whoa,” Nathan said. “Looks like the Parthenon. On top of a golf course.”

  Alex steered up the curved driveway, impressed yet again by the gleaming white structure atop a lush carpet of Bermuda grass. The manicured lawn looked all the more out of place because it was surrounded by the untamed flora of the Texas Hill Country.

  Alex pulled into the visitors’ lot and found a space. They got out, and Nathan glanced up.

  “Awesome, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Beats the hell out of our crime lab. We’re rigged together with duct tape and chewing gum.”

  Alex gazed up and couldn’t believe someone wanted her to work here. She couldn’t imagine it. She turned to Nathan. “You ready?”

  “Lead the way.”

  They ascended the wide marble steps. Nathan pulled open the glass door for her, and they were assaulted by a blast of cool air. He peeled off his shades.

  “Fair warning, this place is frigid,” she told him, as they walked past the security guard and presented their IDs at the reception desk. The attendant checked his computer, made a call on his phone, and then handed them a pair of visitor badges. Alex had notified Mia on the way down here that Nathan was coming.

  “Oh, and another thing? Mia’s pretty young,” she said, “so don’t be surprised when you see her.”

  “How young?” Nathan asked, clipping his badge to the pocket of his blue Oxford shirt, which matched his eyes.

  “I don’t know. Early thirties? Pretty young for all the degrees she’s got.”

  She heard the distant ding of an elevator, and turned to see Mia striding across the lobby.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Nathan murmured. As she approached them, Alex saw Nathan taking in the pony-tail, the freckles. If not for the lab coat with the Delphi logo, the woman could have passed for a grad student.

  “Alex. Detective Devereaux.” Mia smiled. “Right this way, please.”

  Alex had expected to head for the elevators, but instead Mia led them through a pair of exterior glass doors. They ended up on the lawn again, only this side of the complex faced a rocky gorge.

  “It’s so nice to get a break from the rain,” Mia said cheerfully. “Thought we could talk outdoors.”