A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

  Her hair was messy, her cheeks sunburned. Her snug-fitting sports bra revealed her muscular arms and—good God, was it really? Yes, it really was—a hickey Troy had given her last night when they’d gone skinny-dipping together. She remembered him nibbling on her shoulder and then her neck and then her mouth as both he and the waves had rocked her into oblivion.

  Who had she become over these last couple weeks? She looked nothing like the crisply dressed, determined agent who’d arrived at the Brownsville office so many months ago. Her father was right—she’d changed.

  The phone rang. She retrieved the BlackBerry from her purse and checked the number. Weaver.

  “Did you see the list?” he asked, and she heard the excitement in his voice.

  “No, where is it?”

  “Ric’s brother faxed it to the office. He got every applicant who’s applied to the Bureau through the San Antonio field office over the last five years.”

  “I asked for ten years. Is there any way—”

  “Two applicants were highlighted,” Weaver cut in. “First one’s Joel Etheridge, originally from Bay Port. He was thirty-one when he last applied, which was five years ago. He was living in San Marcos back then.”

  Joel Etheridge. She’d heard that name before, but she couldn’t pinpoint where.

  “You ready for the other one?”

  Her stomach tensed. “Who?”

  “Greg Maynard.”

  “As in Officer Maynard? Of the LIPD?”

  “You got it. This guy’s got a bug to join the Bureau, apparently. He’s applied twice, been rejected both times.”

  Elaina’s doorbell rang, and she went to answer it as a motive started to take shape in her mind. Some types of psychopaths would lash out when confronted with rejection.

  “When did he first apply?” she asked.

  “May, two years ago. Then again last fall.”

  “And Joel Etheridge?”

  “January, five years ago.”

  “That’s right before the hikers went missing.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “Hold on a sec.” She peered through the peephole at the pizza delivery man. Actually, “boy” was more accurate. He looked as though he might have ridden over on his bike.

  She swung the door open and accepted the warm, aromatic box from him. It nearly burned her hands. “Thanks,” she said, setting it on the coffee table.

  “I need to see your credit card,” the boy said, “to verify the number.”

  Elaina went to get the card from her wallet and turned her attention back to Weaver. “Why do I recognize the name Joel Etheridge?” she asked.

  “LIPD interviewed him way back in March. He’s the bartender at Coconuts. He gave a statement about seeing Gina Calvert with her friends at the bar on the night she disappeared.”

  “He doesn’t have a criminal record,” she said.

  “Neither does Maynard.”

  “Any particular reason Etheridge’s application was rejected?” She showed the pizza guy her credit card, then wrote in a tip and signed the receipt.

  “Hmm, probably because, according to this, he had no college degree, no military service, and no particular language skills. Take your pick of reasons.”

  Elaina locked her door behind the delivery kid. “He shouldn’t even have bothered applying.”

  “No joke. Anyway, I called LIPD. Maynard’s on duty tonight. We need to track him down, pronto. He was supposed to be staking out Coconuts with some of the other locals from the task force, which sounds just a little too convenient for me.”

  She checked her watch. “How soon can you meet me over there?”

  Pause. “I thought Scarborough pulled you off.”

  “How soon?” She shoved her credit card back inside her wallet.

  Her stomach dropped out.

  “Elaina, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  She stared at the card.

  “Elaina? You there?”

  “I’m here,” she said. “And I know what he’s doing.”

  Troy spotted Elaina’s clunker the instant she turned into Coconuts’s parking lot, which was emptying rapidly. She pulled into a space near the entrance, and he strode over to meet her.

  “Your theory’s right on,” he said as she climbed out of the car.

  “What are you doing here?” She glanced around the parking lot as she slammed the door. “And where is everyone? I thought they closed at two.”

  “Sundays, they close at midnight. And you were right about the credit-card swap. He keeps a stash behind the cash register. A rainbow of colors, from practically every bank you can imagine. Each one of them’s under the name Jenny Etheridge.”

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Could be his mom. His sister. His cat. How the hell do I know? Point is, Weaver told me your theory, and I think you’re right: He snags the victim’s card, then gives her back one that looks identical except for the name and number. Most of these women are half-tipsy, probably don’t even notice, just slip the card into their wallets and go on their way.”

  “I saw it happen to Mia last night,” Elaina said, clearly alarmed. “She’s not here, is she?”

  “She went back to San Marcos.”

  “And where’s Joel Etheridge?” She moved for the entrance, but Troy grabbed her arm.

  “He’s gone already. The waitress I talked to said he lit out of here not long after closing.”

  “You don’t think—”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Troy?”

  He turned around to see Kim, the waitress, hurrying toward him from the main entrance of the building. She glanced nervously over her shoulder and then handed him a stack of receipts.

  “Thanks, I owe you big.” Troy immediately started sifting through them.

  “I could lose my job for this. What’s all this about, anyway?”

  “Do you remember any female customers talking with Joel tonight?” Elaina asked.

  “No one in particular. Why?”

  Troy weeded out the female names and handed the rest back to Kim. “Sixteen women paid by credit card tonight. You sure that’s it?”

  “It was slow. And anyway, it’s usually the men who pay.” She cast a nervous look at Elaina. “What’s going on?”

  He handed Elaina the women’s credit-card slips and turned back to the waitress. “You sure you don’t remember anyone talking with Joel tonight? Someone he might have been interested in?”

  “Joel’s married.” She looked confused. “And it was just a regular night, until you showed up.”

  “Oh my God, Jamie’s in here.” Elaina looked up at him, eyes wide.

  “I know.” He turned back to Kim. “Did he seem interested in Jamie Ingram at all? Or anyone else at the bar?”

  “He was talking to that volleyball player a little. The one whose friend got killed?” The waitress looked at Elaina. “She was at the bar with her boyfriend and some other people, but she seemed down. Not really into it. I think Joel was trying to cheer her up.”

  Elaina’s gaze locked with Troy’s. “We need to find her. Now.”

  Jamie sat in her beanbag chair and gazed up at the ceiling. She’d finally done it. After five months. She’d known she needed to do it for almost that long, but she’d never managed to find the courage. Until tonight.

  What the fuck’s your problem tonight, James? You’re being a real bitch.

  She’d put up with month after month of half-truths and laziness and outright mooching, but it was that one oblivious comment that had sent her over the edge. She was done. He was history. And instead of feeling sad or lonely or even angry, she felt absolutely nothing at all.

  What was wrong with her? She hadn’t cried a single tear since she’d found out about Angela. She’d picked up the phone that day. She’d heard the words. But it was like none of them had any meaning. The words were just separate little letter combinations, rattling around in her brain, with nowhere to g
o.

  A knock sounded at her door, and she turned to look at it.

  Noah? Not likely. Fighting for something he wanted wasn’t his style. And, really, he’d only sort of wanted her. She’d known that all along, she just hadn’t let herself admit it. She closed her eyes and felt ashamed. Where was her self-respect?

  Another knock, harder this time. Jamie got up and went to the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked as she looked through the peephole.

  “Hey, Jamie, it’s Joel. You left your credit card at the bar.”

  He held her card up between two fingers and gazed straight at the peephole. His eyebrow lifted in that sexy way he had when he flirted with women around the bar. Jamie’s pulse sped up. Tonight he’d been flirting with her. And for the first time in days, she actually felt something that wasn’t nothing.

  She undid the latch and swung open the door.

  “We need a police unit at all sixteen of their locations, ASAP,” Elaina told Weaver over the phone.

  “That’s going to be a tall order. LIPD consists of six officers, one of whom we don’t trust. And I just spoke with Loomis. The four agents we have on island tonight are only in two vehicles.”

  Elaina squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. Troy’s Ferrari rocketed down the highway, en route to Bay Port, where Troy thought Jamie lived, even though she had a job on the island. In the driver’s seat beside her, Troy juggled his phone and the gearshift as he talked to Cinco, who was running down Jamie’s home address.

  “Call Ric,” she said, on a burst of inspiration. “He’s up to speed. And what about the Lito County sheriff? Maybe he can send—”

  “Ric is in San Marcos,” Weaver said. “His chief called him back to organize a search for those hikers’ remains near the cache sites.”

  “I hadn’t heard.”

  “The other problem is where to send people,” Weaver continued. “We have names, but some of these women are likely to be out-of-towners here on vacation.”

  “We need to check hotels,” Elaina said. “We’ll start with the ones closest to Coconuts. We can get someone over there to look at guest registers.”

  “We don’t have the manpower,” Weaver said practically. “We need to prioritize this list.”

  “Jamie Ingram is at the top. We’re getting her address right now. After that, any woman traveling alone.”

  “I got it,” Troy told her. “It’s 561 Lowland Road, Apartment C. That should be just over the causeway, second exit heading north.”

  Elaina repeated the directions for Weaver.

  “I just saw a sign for that exit,” he said.

  “Then you’re ahead of us. Call me after you get there.”

  They hung up, and Elaina glanced out the window as restaurants and motels and surf shops raced by. Troy gunned it through a yellow light, but then had to slam on the brakes as a group of teenagers darted in front of the car. Elaina jerked forward, and Troy’s arm shot out to catch her as she bumped her chin on the dash.

  “Sorry.”

  “Just go,” she said after the kids had passed. Troy floored it, and she counted the stoplights until the road leading off the island. Three more to go.

  “You get any notes today?” he demanded. “Voice mails? Text messages?”

  She glanced down at her phone, which she’d already checked twice. “Nothing.”

  “Call Ben. If this guy’s planning something tonight, he might have hinted about it on the Web site. Or in one of the chat rooms.”

  Elaina scrolled through her call history until she found Ben’s number. She pressed Redial, and closed her eyes to pray.

  CHAPTER 26

  Troy blew past the speed trap on the other side of the causeway, wishing for once to get pulled over so he could pick up a sheriff’s deputy. No such luck. It was 1:13. Plenty of time for Joel Etheridge to knock off work and get his ass over to the home of his newest target. Troy only hoped Weaver or Cinco had somehow managed to beat him there.

  Elaina’s phone rang, and she answered it instantly. A white-knuckled pause, and then she glanced at him, and he knew it was bad by the look in her eyes.

  “She’s gone,” she told him.

  “You mean not home or… ?”

  “Her purse is there. So is her Jeep. But her front door’s unlocked, and she’s nowhere.”

  “We need a vehicle description. What’s this guy driving? He’s on his way to a boat dock somewhere, and we need to find him before he gets there.”

  But Elaina wasn’t paying attention. She was consumed with her phone. “No credit card at all? We have her receipt from the bar.” She glanced over at him. “Our theory’s panning out. All the victims had credit-card charges at Coconuts, but credit cards weren’t found with their personal belongings. I think he takes the dummy card, along with the real one, just to cover his tracks. And Jamie’s Jeep is there, which means he probably leaves their cars at a public boat dock after the fact, to mislead police.”

  Troy clenched the wheel. If he was planting the victims’ cars, that made it all the more likely he was using his own car to transport the women and using a private dock.

  “What’s Joel Etheridge’s address?” he demanded. “We need to get over there.”

  Elaina nodded at him. “You heard that?” Pause. “Okay. Damn it.” She glanced at Troy and shook her head. “All right, call me back.”

  “What is it?”

  “Turns out Etheridge lives not far from the police station, and Cinco just went by. No one’s home,” she said gravely. “He’s got a boat slip right on the bay, but the boat is gone.”

  Jamie heard bees. She gazed up at the inky blackness and heard them buzzing all around her.

  Where am I?

  She squinted up at the darkness and tried to make sense of it. The bees. The buzzing. The bumping and bouncing against something hard and cool beneath her back. Where am I?

  She sensed someone beside her. The shadow moved, hunched over her, and she tried to focus on the face.

  “You’re awake.” It was a low, male voice, and the buzzing nearly drowned it out.

  He turned away, then back again. Something closed around her upper arm. One of the bees stung her. And then everything faded out.

  Elaina gripped the door as Troy whipped into the marina parking lot and screeched to a halt. Her phone tumbled to the floor, and she snatched it up, checking desperately for a message she might somehow have missed.

  “Anything from Ben?”

  “Not yet,” she said. The tracer was on his computer right now, trying to decipher the latest posting by Grim-Reefer. Late this afternoon, he’d announced a new cache within the zip code that encompassed Lito Island. The GPS coordinates were encrypted, of course—all part of his game.

  “We should take two boats,” Elaina said as Troy reached across her and popped open the glove compartment. “That doubles our chance of intercepting him.”

  Troy glanced at her, and for a second she thought he was going to refuse to let her drive one of his toys.

  “Good idea,” he said instead. “You take the fishing boat.” He handed her a key with a little foam bobber on it, and Elaina eyed it suspiciously.

  “You want me in the slow boat,” she said as he collected a second boat key, along with his pistol. “The Supra’s faster. You said so. You’re trying to beat me to him.”

  They got out of the car, and Troy looked at her over the top of the Ferrari. “Elaina, gimme a break. The Supra’s harder to drive. And dangerous if you don’t know the bay.”

  “I know exactly what you’re doing. Let me remind you that I’m trained to apprehend criminals.”

  “Not this kind, you’re not,” he said, and as soon as the words were out, she could tell he wanted to take them back. He turned away from her and cursed vividly.

  “Don’t try to sideline me on this, Troy. I’ll never forgive you.”

  He spun back around to face her. “He eviscerates women, Elaina! He makes a sport of it! I don’t care h
ow much goddamn training you’ve had. Your father’s right—you don’t belong anywhere near this asshole.”

  “And what are you planning to do? Walk up to him and make a citizen’s arrest?”

  He shoved his pistol into the back waistband of his jeans, and she knew exactly what he was planning. He intended to end this whole thing tonight, if he got the chance.

  “I’m taking that speedboat,” she said firmly. “I’m going after Jamie, I’m going after this subject. And if you get in my way, I’ll arrest you myself.”

  The seconds ticked by as she held his gaze.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “We’ll take the speedboat, but I’m driving.”

  N 26° 14.895 W 097° 12.055

  Troy scanned the horizon, looking for any indication of another boat. He saw no sign of life, not even the wild kind, as he neared the northernmost boundary of the 9,600-acre preserve.

  He glanced at Elaina, who stood beside him, gripping the windshield in one hand and her phone in the other. She wore some kind of military pants and hiking boots, and her Glock was holstered securely at her side.

  “Anything from Ben?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “He promised to call as soon as he cracked the code. Got a text from Weaver, though. Loomis has requested a hostage rescue team from San Antonio.”

  “Good move,” Troy said. A team like that would probably come with a chopper and searchlights, which would enable them to comb the entire coastline in a matter of minutes. But how soon could they get here?

  Troy stared out over the horizon. Even with a nearly-full moon, it was difficult to see much. Shiny ribbons of water wove their way into the marshlands. Troy searched for the widest channel, which led into the heart of the wildlife park.

  “Pretty high tide,” he commented.

  “Is that good?”

  “Just means it’s easier to get in and out of here by boat.”

  The channel came into view, a silvery roadway, cutting through the reeds.

  “Decision time,” he said. “We either go in or not. If he’s in there already, this is our best shot of catching up to him. If he’s not here yet, we’re stuck in a maze and he could zoom right past us on his way to Windy Point or someplace.”