A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

  “Rumor has it you’re the best DNA tracer they have working here. I’ve got a cold case.” He tapped a long brown finger on the newspaper in front of her. “I think it might be related to what’s happening on Lito Island.”

  “Why don’t you talk to the investigators down there about it? I saw on the news that they’ve got a task force put together. Even the FBI’s involved.”

  “I called them already. Man in charge—police chief by the name of Breck—he’s not interested in my theory.”

  Mia tipped her head to the side and watched him. “It’s pretty shaky, I’m guessing?”

  “Not shaky, just unsubstantiated,” he said. “That’s why I need you.”

  “How cold is your cold case?”

  “Five years.”

  Mia sighed. “And I assume you’ve got DNA evidence?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  She waited for him to elaborate. So far, this was sounding shaky to her, too.

  He leaned forward now on his elbows. “You ever been out to Devil’s Gorge?” he asked. “Rugged country. About ten miles west of here. Some of the best views in central Texas.”

  “I’m not much of a hiker.”

  He nodded. “’Bout five years ago we had two college girls go missing from there. Separate incidents. They went out hiking and were never seen again.”

  “Never seen at all? Not even their remains?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So where’s your DNA evidence? Do you have the suspect’s clothes or something?”

  “We don’t have a suspect,” he said. “At least nothing solid. Just some flimsy leads that never went anywhere.”

  “And what is it you want me to analyze?”

  “In both cases, the victim’s clothing was found in a trash bin not far from the trailhead. I don’t believe those girls undressed themselves.”

  Mia watched him. Her talk months ago in front of an audience of police officers had alluded to the JonBenet Ramsey case and how DNA from the girl’s tights was used to eliminate her father from the suspect list.

  “Touch DNA,” Mia stated. “That’s what you’re looking for, right?”

  Ric’s gaze locked with hers, and she recalled why she’d been so taken with him back at the bar.

  “Mia, I’ve got two missing college girls, and not a lead in five years. I’ve got no bodies, no suspects, and no budget. If you want to know the truth, what I’m looking for is a miracle.”

  Elaina pulled into the driveway and double-checked the address. This couldn’t be it. She’d expected a beachfront fortress, some sort of architectural wonder built to withstand hurricanes and make a statement about its owner’s wealth.

  This place made a statement all right, just not the one she’d expected.

  She stepped out of the car and onto the cracked driveway. She slammed the door and gazed up, marveling at the spindly-looking stilts. The modest wooden bungalow perched atop them looked as if it would blow away in the next tropical storm.

  The black pickup was parked under the house, beside a closed garage. She eyed the line of dusty windows. If she wiped the grime away and squinted through them, would she see a Ferrari 360 Modena housed inside?

  Her gaze was drawn to the sand dunes just beyond the house. She heard the crash of waves and the distant screech of seagulls, and over all of it, the faint sound of country music.

  “Troy?” she called out, walking past the pickup.

  No answer.

  She followed the music and was halfway up a flight of wooden steps when her breath caught.

  “Wow.”

  Emerald-green water. Sugary white sand. The coast stretched out before her, and she stood there a moment, letting the wind tangle her hair and wondering what it would be like to wake up to that view every day.

  “You lost?”

  She glanced around but didn’t see him. “Where are you?”

  “Down here.”

  She descended the creaky steps and spotted him beneath the shadow of a tall palm tree. He stood beside a primitive wooden fish sink with a green hose rigged to it.

  “I didn’t see you,” she said, approaching him.

  But she saw him now. Shirtless and sun-browned and slick-skinned, he looked like an ad for cologne.

  Until he took a handful of fish guts and tossed them in a bucket. His fingers were bloody. Sun glinted off the blade of his knife.

  “You’ve been fishing,” she said—another brilliant conversation starter.

  His gaze settled on her a moment. Then he went to work on the fish again, peeling the spine away with a skillful flick of the wrist.

  “What did you catch?”

  “Snapper. Couple of specks.” He dropped the fillets into a cooler near his feet. She stepped closer and glanced down at the translucent strips of meat lined up on a bed of ice.

  “Nice haul.”

  He rinsed blood off the knife, then his hands, before drying the blade on his cargo shorts and tucking it into a leather sheath. Then he tossed it on the work surface, right beside a half-finished beer.

  She remembered how he’d tasted last night, and her cheeks heated. Her gaze drifted to his chest.

  He sipped his beer and watched her. She could tell from that smug look in his eyes that he knew the direction her thoughts had taken. And yet he just stood there, taunting her with everything she’d turned her back on last night when she’d told him no.

  She shifted her attention to the cooler and cleared her throat. “So… that’s a lot of fish. What do you use for bait?”

  He rested his bottle on the table and stepped forward. “You here for a fishing lesson, McCord?”

  “No.”

  “What are you here for?”

  She swallowed. “You said you know someone at the Delphi Center.”

  If he was surprised by her answer, he didn’t look it. “Your boss thinks you’re wasting your time,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going around him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want me to help you.” He was taunting her again, and her temper bubbled.

  “Look, do you know someone or not?”

  He crossed his arms, which made it almost painful to keep her attention focused on his face. “I know someone. She’s a DNA tracer.”

  “Will she talk to us? Soon? Time’s of the essence here, and—”

  “She’ll talk to me.”

  “Good.”

  They stood there, looking at each other, and she realized now what an amazingly bad idea this was. She shouldn’t be going around her boss. She shouldn’t be pursuing dead-end leads. And she definitely shouldn’t be spending any more time around this jaw-droppingly sexy writer, who in all likelihood was going to sink her career by putting her in his book.

  And yet here she was, begging him for help.

  He stepped closer again, and her breath stopped.

  “Where’s the slug?” he asked.

  “In my car. I went over there this morning and got the whole piece of wood, so it’s still embedded.”

  “It’s barely ten. You’ve been busy.”

  “Cinco helped me.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, then disappeared. Jealousy? She wasn’t really sure.

  “I’ll take you,” he said, and then she was sure.

  “Good,” she said. “But this time I’m driving.”

  Elaina was ticked off at him again, and Troy remembered his mother’s advice about the wisdom of letting someone else win an argument every now and again.

  “You know, we saved a couple hours this way.”

  She glanced up from the file she’d had her nose buried in for the last two hundred miles. “What’s that?”

  “My car,” he said. “It’s a lot more efficient than that wreck you drive.”

  “That has less to do with the car than the fact that you’ve been doing ninety since we left the island.”

  “No use wasting a good engine.”

  She rolled
her eyes.

  “What’re you reading, anyway?” he asked.

  “Stuff for work.”

  He shot her an expectant look.

  “Trust me,” she said. “You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “I’m very interested. It’s had your undivided attention all morning.” Between that file and her BlackBerry, she’d hardly given him a second glance.

  Not the reaction he was accustomed to getting from a woman. Particularly one he’d tried to seduce just a few hours ago.

  She sighed and shoved a pencil into her hair. There was already one up there, holding all those silky dark strands in a sloppy knot. Very naughty librarian.

  “It’s a study on recidivism,” she said. “The tendency for certain types of offenders to repeat their crimes after release.”

  “No shit? They’ve really got a word for that? And here I thought some people were just lifelong fuckups.”

  She looked at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “You’re not the only one who’s read a few books, McCord.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be patronizing.” She gave him a tentative glance. “I hate it when people do that to me.”

  “Forget it. I’m just trying to get a rise out of you. When I insisted on driving, I was thinking you’d be better company.”

  She closed the file and put it on the floor by her feet. She was in that ugly suit again today, but she’d removed her jacket and kicked her shoes off after the first hour, and the sight of her bare toes was driving him crazy. Cherry-red polish. Who would have expected Elaina McCord to have cherry-red toenails?

  “So,” she said. “Tell me about the Delphi Center.”

  He could tell she was just making a stab at conversation, but he appreciated the effort. “You know the background?”

  “Something about a wealthy oil heiress whose daughter was murdered?”

  Troy nodded. “Sarah Hayley Jones. The lab was founded by an endowment from Jones after her daughter was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender. He was in the system already and had been on an eight-year crime spree before the murder happened, but the rape kits were sitting around collecting dust.” Troy veered around an eighteen-wheeler, and Elaina clutched the door. “If any of them had been tested sooner, the guy could have been picked up before he killed Vanessa Jones. When the old cases started to come to light, her mom gave her entire fortune to start the Delphi Center. Ninety-two million dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of rape kits,” Elaina said.

  “One of the lab’s missions is to help clear the backlog of untested DNA samples. The whole idea behind the place is that the best predictor of future violent behavior is past violent behavior. These offenders keep offending. Think you’d call it recidivism.”

  She ignored the jab. “I guess that explains the name, then? Wasn’t the Oracle at Delphi a Greek prophet?”

  “Not bad. Sounds like you been to college.”

  “So what’s your connection to the place? How do you know this Mia Voss?”

  “I’ve known her a couple years now,” he said, “ever since she started working there.”

  Elaina eyed him across the car, and he could tell she sensed she wasn’t getting the full story. But the super-condensed version was all she was getting, at least from him.

  “What?” he asked as she continued to stare.

  “It’s really amazing,” she said. “It’s not so much what you say but what you don’t say that I find myself wondering about.”

  “You’re talking in riddles, McCord.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, don’t worry. I’m not interested in your torrid past.”

  “Not even a little?” He pretended to look hurt, and she rolled her eyes.

  Then she picked up the file from the floor, tucked those pretty feet up next to her on the seat, and resumed her reading.

  Mia Voss had strawberry-blond hair and freckles to match, and she in no way resembled Elaina’s preconceived notion of a DNA specialist.

  “It’s how old?” she asked, gaping at Elaina from across her office. The room was small and cramped, and about as well-lit as a broom closet. When Mia had shown them in here, she’d called it “cozy.”

  “About nine and a half years,” Elaina told her.

  Mia leaned back against the counter and turned her dismayed expression to Troy. “And we’re talking about an outdoor storage shed? This thing’s been exposed to the weather?”

  “Actually, we got pretty lucky there,” Troy said. “The bullet’s embedded deep in the two-by-four. Elaina had the entire piece removed, checked it in with your evidence clerk. It’s waiting for you downstairs.”

  Mia shoved her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and took a deep breath. “Well, at least you didn’t dig it out with a pocketknife.” She shot a look at Troy, and Elaina remembered seeing a pocketknife in his hand as he’d stood in Ronnie’s yard. He must have thought better of the idea.

  “Gimme some credit,” he said now. “And yeah, we know it’s a long shot, but we at least need you to try.”

  “This case is important,” Elaina added, and Mia looked at her.

  “It’s the Paradise Killer thing, isn’t it?”

  Elaina started to spout a variation of her typical “No comment” when Mia held up a hand.

  “No, wait. Forget I asked,” she said. “You can’t tell me the details, and I don’t want to know, anyway.” She turned and grabbed a sticky note from a pad sitting beside a formidable-looking microscope. She jotted something on the paper and passed it to Elaina. “But in case that is what you’re investigating, I should give you this name.”

  Elaina glanced down at the paper. “Ric Santos, San Marcos PD?”

  “He’s investigating several cold cases he thinks might be related. He tried to talk to the police chief down there, but apparently the guy wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

  Elaina’s temper simmered as she slid the note into her pocket. Chief Breck wouldn’t know a lead if it conked him on the head. And she was supposed to be the one in need of field experience.

  “How long until we can expect a result?” Troy asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Given my current caseload, I’d say I’ll definitely have something for you by next Christmas.”

  Troy gave her a baleful look that for some reason set Elaina’s teeth on edge.

  “Aw, come on now,” he said. “You’re not gonna make me beg, are you?”

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Mia promised. “But I should warn you not to get your hopes up. A nine-year-old DNA sample—especially one that’s been exposed to the elements—isn’t exactly the ideal specimen for testing.”

  “Just do the best you can,” Troy said. “We don’t expect you to work miracles.”

  Mia raised an eyebrow skeptically as she showed them to the door.

  “You have time to give Elaina a quick tour?” Troy asked. “She’s never been here before.”

  Mia smiled apologetically. “I have two hundred and twenty-three unread e-mails in my in-box. Sorry, but I hardly have time to breathe today.”

  “We’ll show ourselves out,” Elaina said, but Mia continued to retrace their steps back toward the elevator. Visitor’s badge or not, Elaina got the impression she wasn’t allowed to just wander around this place unaccompanied.

  But oh, how she would have liked to. She’d noticed the list of departments in the lobby: Trace Evidence; Ident—that is, fingerprints; Questioned Documents. Osteology was in the basement. Elaina had always had a fascination with bones, and the Delphi Center had one of the top forensic anthropology departments in the world. One of their staffers, Kelsey Quinn, had given a lecture at the FBI Academy while Elaina was there. The men in the audience had been so busy drooling over the woman’s looks, they’d probably missed most of her presentation. But Elaina hadn’t, and she’d come away highly impressed with Dr. Quinn’s expertise.

  Elaina followed Troy and Mia down the corridor. They passed a long window with a double he
lix engraved on it. Beyond the glass, a handful of lab-coated workers stood at tables, peering into microscopes.

  “How many DNA specialists do you have working here?” Elaina asked.

  “There are six on my team,” Mia said. “Then there’s my supervisor, who’s in charge of divvying up the cases. He’s on vacation right now, though, so I should be able to sneak you onto the schedule.”

  They passed another series of windows, and Elaina saw a room filled with computers.

  “That’s Digital Imaging and Cyber Crimes,” Mia said. “It’s a growing department. We’ve had a lot of Internet fraud come in lately. We’re also seeing a spike in online child predators.”

  They neared the elevator bank and passed a row of doors. Elaina stopped short. A picture tacked to a bulletin board caught her eye. She stepped closer and saw that it wasn’t a picture, after all, but a square yellow sticker, like someone might put on a car. The image on it was a stylized purple dragonfly, exactly like the pendant that had been recovered from their latest victim at autopsy. Elaina had thought the dragonfly pendant was just an unusual piece of jewelry, but maybe there was some significance to it.

  Beside the dragonfly picture was a Far Side comic and a clipped-out review of a sci-fi movie. Elaina read the placard on the door beside the bulletin board. BEN LAWSON, PH.D.

  “What is it?” Troy asked.

  She glanced over at Mia. “This Dr. Lawson. Is he an entomologist?”

  “That’s downstairs with botany,” Mia said. “We call it our Plants and Ants section. Why?”

  “I was just wondering—” She nodded at the picture. “This dragonfly design. I think I’ve seen it before.”

  “You’d have to ask Ben about it,” Mia said. “He works Cyber Crimes. I can give you his e-mail if you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  They stepped inside the elevator and Mia pressed her palm to a panel before selecting the ground floor. Elaina couldn’t believe the security here. It was tighter than Quantico, or at least it seemed to be.

  “So it’s back to the coast, then?” Mia asked. “Or will you guys be in town for a while?”

  “We’ve got to get back,” Troy said, dodging the thinly veiled inquiry as to whether he and Elaina were a couple. He definitely had a past with this woman; Elaina could tell just from her body language.