A Tracers Trilogy

by Laura Griffin

  “You having any trouble I should know about?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ex-boyfriends, coworkers, new neighbors who don’t like you?”

  She laughed. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at him. He wasn’t kidding.

  “You owe anyone money?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, the mortgage company, but—”

  “Anyone owe you money?”

  “No.” Jeez. He was interrogating her as though she’d done something wrong. “Let’s backtrack a minute. You think the man Sam talked to in the reptile house—” She frowned. “Are you saying he could be the man who shot me?”

  “I think we should consider the possibility.”

  “Why?”

  “Sam’s description, for one thing.”

  “All he could tell us was that the guy was white and had a fluorescent green SpongeBob Band-Aid on his nose. And a ball cap.”

  “That was a disguise, like the hood and the bandanna from the other night. When a kid talks to someone with a bright green Band-Aid on his nose, all he notices is the Band-Aid. The cartoon character. He notices that detail because his attention’s been directed there. Bank robbers have been known to do the same thing. Distract someone with a phony feature like that, people focus on it at the expense of everything else.”

  Mia shook her head, trying to make the idea fit. “But why would someone want to hurt me through Sam?”

  “That’s why I’m asking. Have you had any trouble lately? Anything at work? In your personal life? Anyone following you? Any hang-up calls?”

  The only trouble she’d had near the time of the shooting was that run-in with her boss. But she didn’t see how Snyder could possibly be involved in this.

  “There’s been nothing,” she said. “Nothing like that at all.”

  His look was intense now, and she could tell he took his theory seriously. He didn’t believe these were random events.

  Fear churned her stomach. What if he was right?

  Ric stepped closer. He reached up and rubbed the pad of his thumb over the bruise on her cheek. Her heart started to pound, but it wasn’t from fear anymore. He was going to kiss her.

  Mia’s throat went dry. His hand cupped her face. His heated gaze caught hers before she closed her eyes and felt his mouth press against hers. Finally, she thought as she went up on tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  The doorbell rang, and she jerked away.

  Ric glanced at the hallway, then looked at her sharply. “You expecting someone?”

  “No.”

  She hurried for the door, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t ring again and wake up Sam.

  “Check who it is,” Ric said behind her.

  Mia gazed through the peephole at the blond bombshell standing on her front porch. This was going to be interesting.

  She pulled open the door, and Sophie stepped right in. She was dressed to kill in a black miniskirt, knee-high black boots, and a green satin shirt that dipped low in front. Her hair fell around her shoulders in a just-outof-bed style.

  “Hello.” She looked Ric up and down and then looked at Mia. “I was wondering whose truck that was.”

  “Ric, you know Sophie from the lab?”

  “Nice seeing you.” He nodded at Sophie and turned to Mia. “I should go.” He held her gaze for a moment, and she felt her cheeks heat. He’d finally kissed her. And he looked as if he wanted to do it again.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said, and then slipped out.

  Mia watched him walk to his truck and get behind the wheel before closing the front door and locking up again.

  “I sure hope he’ll be in touch,” Sophie said. “And I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You didn’t. What are you doing here, though? I thought you had a gig tonight.”

  “I go on at eleven, but I’m having a wardrobe malfunction. Any chance you could lend me that gauzy thing you wore to Alex and Nathan’s Christmas party?”

  “The black blouse?”

  “Yeah, the see-through one. I snagged my bracelet on this shirt, and I’ve got nothing else to wear tonight.”

  “You can borrow whatever you want. Just don’t wake Sam.”

  Mia led her into her bedroom and straight to the minuscule 1930s-era closet. It was the least charming of the house’s old-fashioned features.

  “So, what’s up with you and Ric Santos?” Sophie asked as Mia handed her the blouse.

  “Nothing.”

  A perfectly shaped eyebrow lifted. “Then why were you blushing like a tomato when I showed up?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Sophie let it go as she stood before Mia’s mirror and shrugged into the shirt. Mia usually wore it over a camisole, along with black pants. Over Sophie’s black lace demibra, it looked infinitely sexier.

  “Kind of slutty, I know,” Sophie said. “But onstage, you have to push the envelope a little, or you blend in with the crowd.”

  Sophie could wear a burnt-orange shirt to a UT game and still not blend in with the crowd.

  “You need to make a play for that man, Mia.” Sophie glanced at her in the mirror. “That dark and dangerous thing he’s got going on is very hot.”

  “Why don’t you make a play for him?”

  Sophie tucked in the shirt and gave Mia a get-real look. “First off? I’m not a bitch. And second, he’s, what, five-eleven? I like to wear heels. You, on the other hand, would be perfect for him.”

  Mia tried to look uninterested. “I try not to get involved with guys I know from work. It gets complicated.”

  Yeah, she’d tried really hard tonight, hadn’t she?

  “Problem with that attitude is you’re a workaholic. Where are you ever going to meet anyone?” Sophie fluffed her hair. “Anyway, what was he doing here? Is there a break in your case?”

  Mia gave her the nutshell version of the zoo fiasco. By the end of the story, Sophie’s mouth was hanging open.

  “Unbelievable. You’ve really had a shit week, haven’t you? You get reamed out by Snyder, carjacked, shot, and then you win the worst-babysitter award, all in the space of three days.”

  Sophie sounded like Ric, and the gnawing fear was back again, along with the throbbing in Mia’s arm.

  “But you know what they say,” Sophie said cheerfully. “Bad luck comes in batches. So does good. You should probably buy a Lotto ticket. Next week will be better.”

  “I don’t see how it could be worse.”

  After borrowing some slutty earrings to go with the shirt, Sophie took off for her gig, and Mia checked on Sam again. He was curled up on the twin bed in her guest room, one leg out, one leg under the covers—the same way Vivian always slept. Mia’s heart squeezed as she watched him. And she forgave her sister for all of the hurtful things she’d said earlier. Vivian was a mom first and foremost, and she had every right to be fiercely protective of her son.

  Mia returned to the kitchen, which was usually her favorite room in the house. But it was too quiet now, with only the faint whisper of the gas stove. She turned off the burner and cleared the beer bottles from the table. She glanced at the window above the sink. There was a gap between the curtains, allowing a clear view of her to anyone lurking outside. She reached over and tugged the panels together. She needed some real window treatments, not this decorative doily crap the previous owner had put up. The house was old-fashioned, yes, but Mia wanted it to function like a modern home, complete with modern security features. Maybe she was paranoid, but she had seen far too much violence in her career to leave her safety to chance.

  What you need is a man, not a house. Her mother’s words elbowed their way into her head with their usual tact. What do you need with all that house when you’re not even married?

  Mia washed the soup bowls and arranged them on the drying rack. She needed the house for herself. That was enough. At the end of the summer—right after her thirty-second birthday, actua
lly—she’d come to the realization that she was tired of living in beige apartments that smelled like other people’s pets. She was tired of storing her books in the milk crates she’d been dragging around since college. She was tired of driving to public parks so she could spread out a beach towel and enjoy the sun. She was ready to own something, paint something, plant something, and she didn’t need a man in her life to do any of those things, no matter what her mother thought.

  So she’d plopped down her savings on a two-bedroom bungalow that she could live in all by herself, and she was glad. Usually. On nights like tonight, though, nights when she was restless and anxious and unnerved, she would have welcomed a man in her home. Or better yet, her bed. She would have welcomed a strong arm draped over her waist to make her feel safe as she drifted off to sleep. It would have been nice to have the arm—just as long as it didn’t belong to Ric Santos.

  Mia put away the soup and washed the ladle. Thank God Sophie had come when she did. What if she hadn’t? Mia knew exactly what. She’d seen the predatory glint in Ric’s eyes the second before he kissed her—like a wolf sizing up his prey. It made her blood tingle. One little kiss, and her no-men-from-work rule had gone straight out the window.

  Mia felt a knot of frustration as she wiped down the counter. She should feel relieved, really. An emotional entanglement with a cop was a bad idea. An emotional entanglement with a cop who sent her his cases was beyond stupid. It could jeopardize her objectivity, the hard-earned trait that was the cornerstone of her reputation as a scientist. And in a field where juries could be swayed by a facial expression, a tone of voice, a fumbled answer under cross-examination, reputation was important. Mia’s colleagues trusted her. Juries trusted her. So did lawyers on both sides of the courtroom. They trusted her because she had a sterling reputation, one that thus far had been beyond reproach, and she intended to keep it that way.

  So police detectives were out. As were prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. What she needed was a nice doctor. Any kind would do. An orthopedist. A podiatrist. Even a dentist. People always told her she had a pretty smile.

  Mia gazed at her reflection in the window above the sink and lifted her hand to her bruised cheek. What had Ric seen in her tonight that had prompted him to kiss her? His face flashed into her mind, the corner of his mouth lifting in that cocky half-smile she’d seen only a few times. And she knew that the nice doctor she needed would bore her to tears—because she really wanted a jaded homicide detective who was attracted to her for all the wrong reasons.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ric capped off a shit week watching the Cowboys play a shit game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

  “Christ, I could have made that tackle,” Jonah said, staring at the TV mounted behind the bar. “Fucking cowgirls.”

  Jonah was in a black mood, like Ric. Maybe it was Frank’s upcoming funeral. Maybe it was the stalled investigation into who killed one of their own. Maybe it was the fact that they’d spent the better part of their Sunday trying unsuccessfully to figure out who had raped and murdered two women barely out of their teens. Ric wasn’t sure what it was, but he should have known that letting himself get talked into a round of beers tonight wasn’t going to help.

  “Heads up,” Jonah said, looking over Ric’s shoulder.

  He turned around to see Mia step through the door and fold a coat over her arm. She wore jeans and Ugg boots and a thick white sweater that in no way accentuated her amazing body. And yet she looked hot. How was that possible?

  Her gaze scanned the line of bar stools and came to rest on him.

  “Shit,” Ric muttered as she crossed the bar. She had that look in her eye, a look he recognized. Dr. Voss was on a mission.

  She stopped beside their stools. “Detective Macon, Ric.”

  “It’s Jonah.” He sent Ric a look, then started to offer Mia his seat.

  “No, don’t get up.” She turned to Ric. “I saw your truck outside. Could we talk for a minute?” She glanced around the crowded bar, which, as usual, was packed with off-duty cops and emergency workers. El Patio was one of the few watering holes in town that didn’t cater to the college crowd. That plus the fact that it was located near the police station made it a hangout.

  The bar erupted as the Eagles threw an interception. Mia watched Ric patiently, oblivious to the excitement. Not a football fan, evidently. And he could tell she wanted to talk to him in private.

  “Let’s go outside,” he said. “They’ve got heaters.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Jonah gave him a look. Are you crazy? The ball’s on the five-yard line. Ric ignored him as he picked up his beer and led Mia to the patio. It was mostly smokers tonight because of the cold. He stopped at the outdoor bar to order a Bud Light while Mia claimed a picnic table that had just been vacated.

  Ric slid the beer in front of her, then straddled the bench and sat down facing her. She was frowning at her phone.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “You know Vince Moore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s called twice tonight. Maybe it’s something about the case.”

  “It’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m the lead investigator. He’s calling to ask you out. Do yourself a favor, and say no.”

  She watched him warily as she tucked the phone back inside her purse.

  Ric sipped his beer. He needed a change of subject. “How’s Sam?”

  “Vivian picked him up this afternoon,” she said, not really answering. Ric figured the kid was fine—it was Mia he wasn’t sure of.

  “Anything more on the man from the zoo?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She bit her lip and looked away. Ric set his beer on the table and waited. A breeze kicked up, and he smelled something sweet and feminine underneath the cigarette smoke wafting over from the next table. Mia’s perfume. He recognized it from months ago, although he hadn’t even realized she wore perfume until just that moment.

  “I want to ask you something,” she said, “even though it might sound weird.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you ever dream about your cases?”

  He took a second to answer. “It’s happened before, I guess. Why?” He watched her, hoping she wasn’t going to launch into some discussion about psychic detective work. She’d never struck him as the type to believe in all that crap, but maybe she did. He couldn’t picture it, though. Mia was a scientist.

  “The case you brought me—”

  “From Friday,” he confirmed.

  “Yes, the Ashley Meyer homicide. I went into work today and looked at the evidence again.”

  Ric wasn’t surprised she’d been at work on a Sunday. She worked the same kind of hours he did—endless. He waited for her to get to the point as she peeled the label off her beer bottle and made a little pile of scraps on the table. She started to say something, then stopped herself.

  “What’s on your mind, Mia?”

  She looked up at him. “Did I ever tell you I got my start in Fort Worth? I spent a year at the crime lab up there right after grad school.”

  “I think you mentioned it once.” And if she hadn’t, he’d known anyway. He’d checked out her background when they’d worked together on a cold case last summer. She’d gone from Fort Worth to the state crime lab before landing her job at the Delphi Center.

  “There was this case about six years ago,” she said. “One of the first ones I worked all by myself. It was a sexual homicide. The victim, Laura Thorne, was nineteen. She disappeared from a party one night and was found in some nearby woods a few days later. The duct tape used to bind her hands came through our laboratory. Her clothes, too. I tested everything. Couldn’t recover anything from the perpetrator, only the victim.”

  “Was she stabbed?” Ric asked, now seeing where this was going.

  “Fifty-three times. There were slashes all over her dress.”

  “Piquerism,” he sai
d.

  “Exactly.” Mia shook her head. “Anyway, the case made an impression on me. I still think about it a lot. Sometimes I even dream about her, and she’s wearing those putrid clothes.” Mia shivered, and he didn’t think it was because of the weather.

  “Some cases stick with you.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. Sometimes he’d wake up in a cold sweat thinking about a crime scene. Only there was usually some sick twist to it, such as the victim wasn’t the victim but Ava. Or his mom. Or even his ex-wife. The worst part wasn’t the scene but the suffocating feeling of getting there just a few minutes too late.

  “I think the cases might be connected.”

  Ric raised his eyebrows.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” she hurried to add. “There are a lot of stabbing victims. Duct tape is common. I know all that. But I think you should check into it.”

  Ric took his time answering, choosing his words carefully. Mia was the most talented DNA expert he’d ever worked with, both in the lab and on the witness stand. With a little finesse, he could get her to turn his lab work around in record time. Besides the district attorney, who liked him, Mia was probably his best contact. No, she was definitely his best contact, because she couldn’t get booted out of office the way the DA could, which meant that she was with him for the long haul. And he couldn’t afford to jeopardize her help by balking at her theory.

  He also couldn’t afford to sleep with her, no matter how much he wanted to. It would be a disaster on every front—professionally, personally. Maybe not sexually, but that didn’t make up for the other two.

  He thought of that kiss last night. It had been over before it started, before he’d even gotten a good taste.

  “Will you check into it?” Her blue eyes looked hopeful now.

  “I can take a look. Like you said, though, stabbing and duct tape are pretty common. Is there something else you noticed … ?” Ric let the question dangle, not wanting to ask if there was anything else that would make a rational person think these two cases might be connected.

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Honestly? No. If it was an unusual kind of tape, maybe. But it looked like plain silver duct tape to me. You guys should be able to run it down, find out if that’s true.”