“Lots of ifs,” Jake pointed out. “Let’s let them finish here and head back to Denver. That’s where the action will be. If you think your tip on TelTech is a good one?”
“Who knows? So far the owner, Peter Harding, looks squeaky clean and yet he smells to high heaven. Of course, that could be because he pissed me off. Obviously has woman-in-power issues.”
Jake held the door of the truck for her, then got into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the motor. He realized he was facing the street that Phoebe had run down just yesterday and felt regret take a big bite out of his concentration.
“If we can find out who Phoebe Mentel really is, it might help. Maybe Harding is lurking in her past somewhere,” Bryn said.
“She told me she married Mentel when she was sixteen,” Jake said, “and that her mother was a drunk. She’s one of Phagan’s runaways.”
“That could just be her cover story—”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t think so. It had the ring of truth about it. She also mentioned a sister who died.”
Bryn frowned. “According to our info, Phoebe doesn’t have siblings. Interesting she’d make a mistake like that. She doesn’t strike me as someone who makes mistakes.”
Jake frowned, remembering that day in her office. There’d been something in the way she’d said it, as if she couldn’t not say it. “I could be wrong, but I think the sister is the key to her involvement with Phagan.”
“My guy is still digging. Hopefully he’ll find what’s rotten if Harding is Phagan’s next target. On paper, he appears to be an upstanding guy. He’s making a run for governor. Be a stupid move if he’s got a big old skeleton in his closet.”
“You’d think. Wouldn’t be the first politician to think he could outrun his past though. Or Harding could be a smoke screen Phagan’s putting up.” Jake turned the key and put the truck in gear. “If we’re watching TelTech, he and his gang could happily make their move on someone else. No way we could cover all possible targets in the area. No way we could even identify them.”
The one consistency in the Phagan profile was that there was no consistency, except the evil his targets had done in the past.
Bryn bit back a denial that Phagan would deceive her. The truth was, she didn’t know what Phagan would do. Perhaps his careful lead feeding had been meant only to build trust so that she would blindly follow his lead. Except she’d never blindly go anywhere. Phagan had to know that about her. The guy knew she liked to read romance novels. Even her mother didn’t know that. “He didn’t have to tell us anything. And” —she cleared the defensiveness from her voice, before finishing evenly— “it tracks with his profile to lead law enforcement to clean up after him. He seems to have a remarkable grasp of the law and just what we need to nail his targets, once he’s done with them. It’s one of his more…annoying characteristics.”
“One?” Jake’s innocuous question invited confidences that she found she wanted to give. But would Jake respect her in the morning?
“If there’s something going on with this guy…” Jake added, gently.
She watched Jake point the truck toward Denver, then flick on the speed control. He looked so relaxed, so in control of his life and his feelings, her defensive feelings came back up in a rush.
“There’s nothing going on that I can’t handle.”
“No one said you couldn’t handle anything.”
She made herself relax, but the words still wanted to stick in her throat. “His behavior has been…unorthodox.” She rubbed her face, so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “This is so embarrassing! He…seems to have…a kind of…crush on me.”
The relief of sharing her secret was immediate and overwhelming, followed by horror that it was out. She stole a look at Jake and found him looking thoughtful, not amused. Smart guy.
“He’s obviously a man of taste and good sense.”
“And?” she prompted.
“Has he been stalking you?”
“Stalking isn’t exactly what I’d call it.”
“Would courting be more accurate?”
She nodded without looking at him. “He’s given me gifts. Small things.”
“The rose in your room and at the house?”
She nodded. “Gift certificates to things he knows I like. Nothing big. I don’t use them, of course. Except…he built me a VR headset so we could meet. I did use that. He’s good. Very good. And very careful.”
“If he’s leaving you roses, then he’s in the area.” That was interesting. Jake had gotten the impression that Phagan pulled his strings from a safe, or a maybe a lofty distance was more accurate. “Phagan must be someone you’ve met at some point…”
“I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out who it could be. I meet so many people in my work.” Bryn rubbed her head as if it hurt. “He could be someone I’ve questioned, or the guy who washes my car or cuts my hair. No way to know without cracking his network.”
“No wonder you’re frustrated. Every time you leave home, you’d be wondering,” Jake said. It was a wonder she hadn’t crashed like a hard drive under that kind of pressure. Of course, he’d always known she was a tough cookie, and yet Phagan seemed to have made some headway in his courtship. Kind of funny, when he thought about it. He and Bryn were caught on the horns of the same dilemma.
So why wasn’t he smiling?
ELEVEN
From the doorway Dewey watched Phoebe sorting through their equipment for tonight. She hadn’t heard him come in and the shutters that usually masked the expression in her eyes were not in place. He stepped back outside, feeling like an intruder. Her sadness could have been because the game was bringing back memories of Kerry Anne, but Dewey had a feeling the past was just the icing on her misery cake. Her past was old, and the wounding in her eyes was new, the bleeding fresh and painful to see.
He leaned against the wall, feeling the weight of the responsibility Kerry Anne left him when she entrusted her little sister to his care. Feeling a sense of failure. Though Phoebe hadn’t known it, her need had saved him, given his grief a channel. Her need had kept him from giving in to his own grief at losing Kerry Anne, his own sense of helplessness at the time.
“I’ve been a poor guardian, Kerry,” he whispered. “I saved her life, but at what cost? She’s not happy. I thought…”
What had he thought? That committing them both to avenging Kerry’s death would make them happy? The truth was, he hadn’t thought. He’d felt. They’d both been lost in their feelings of rage and horror. Not a good place to be making life decisions from. He hadn’t been much more than a kid himself—expert at computers, not life—and still reeling from the things Kerry had just told him about what her stepfather had been making her do.
He rubbed his face, feeling the horror of that moment sweep through him again. He’d known that sorrow had a permanent home inside Kerry Anne, but not why. He’d hoped that his love was the key to driving it out. That whatever her burden was, he could remove it.
If he hadn’t placed that anonymous call to the authorities, would Kerry Anne still be alive? In his innocence, he hadn’t realized how connected Montgomery Justice was. Now Dewey knew just how good Justice was at finding who could help him and who could hurt him. And how effectively he neutralized opposition. Dewey’s report had disappeared or been buried deep in the system and Kerry Anne’s death had been ruled a suicide before her body was in the ground. A few weeks later, their mama had taken a drunken tumble down the stairs and a “grief stricken” Justice had left the area.
In the end, all Dewey did for Kerry Anne was save to Nadine from Justice’s intentions. He’d gotten her a brand new life, then deluded himself into believing that vengeance was the road to healing for them both. He’d healed nothing and cost her a life with her marshal. Way to go, Dewey. What are you going to do for your next trick?
He’d made a royal mess of things, but the game was running. They had to deal with that right now. Maybe after…
He opened and closed the door, noisily this time. When Phoebe looked up, the shutters were firmly in place in her now baby blues.
“Kevin okay?” she asked.
Dewey nodded. “He’s on his way to Idaho. Seems he likes potatoes.”
He knelt down beside her and started stowing the equipment she’d finished checking. They worked without talking, then headed for the kitchen. Phoebe sat at the table with a diet soda while Dewey heated up some soup and made sandwiches. When he was seated across from her, she picked up a sandwich half, then set it down again.
“You okay?” he asked, crumbling crackers into the steaming soup.
“Do you remember when we met?” She looked at him, but he could tell she was seeing the past. That night when he’d found her huddled in a corner of the park where she’d spent the time trying to screw up the courage to slash her wrists with a rusty razor she’d found under a bench. Kerry’s blood was still splattered on her clothes, though there were signs she’d taken the time to wash her hands and face before boarding the bus to the next town. Her eyes were wide and filled with the horror of it. She’d looked up at him, her face and eyes swollen from crying.
“Are you Phagan?” she’d asked, her voice hoarse with unrestrained grief.
The four years he had on her had shrunk to nothing with his own grief and horror and near paralyzing guilt. He’d wanted to sit down beside her and cry with her. Wanted to take the razor and end his own pain of losing Kerry. Her need of him was terrifying, but too insistent to walk away from.
To this day, he wasn’t sure why he’d shaken his head and offered his real name, not his internet handle. “I’m Dewey. Dewey Hyatt. A friend of Phagan’s.”
“I remember,” he said now.
“Stupid question. Sorry.” She picked up some crackers and crumbled them into her soup, letting them trickle through her fingers in a tiny yellow shower.
“You having second thoughts?”
“I can’t seem to stop remembering. I spent all these years not letting myself remember any of it. Being Phoebe, who didn’t have that past. Living Phoebe’s life completely, the way Phagan said to. But now, I can’t…” She picked up a spoon, stirred the crackers into the broth, then set it down. “If she hadn’t come back for me—”
“Don’t go there, honey.”
“She was free.”
“Not as long as you were still there with him.” Did she know? Did she know the full horror of what Kerry had endured? He saw her lashes lift and knew she did.
“That’s why she came back. Because I was there and he…made her…”
“Don’t do this to yourself. What Kerry did was because she loved you. She’d have done anything for you.” He pretended to look out the dirty window. “She didn’t die so you could live your life drowning in guilt. She did it so you could be free of him.”
Phoebe’s smile was wry and sad. “I let her down again. I’m not free of him.”
Phoebe hadn’t let Kerry down. He had. He’d promised to take care of her and her little sister. He’d taken care of them all right. Kerry Anne was dead and Nadine was condemned her to a shadow life without love or joy or—
“Let’s just go. Cut our losses and get out of here—”
Phoebe shook her head. “Don’t you see? It’s not just about me or Kerry Anne anymore. Those two little girls. They’re us all over again. It has to stop. I won’t be free of him until he can’t hurt them or anyone. We can’t just right the wrongs that are easy. We have to right the wrongs we find. We’ve lost our lives. We can’t go back or pretend this never happened. We’ll know. We’ll always know. And if we don’t finish it, all we’ve lost will be for nothing. He’ll have won the past and the future.”
He pulled some pistachios out of his pocket and cracked them. Instead of eating the meat, he said, “Do you…like that marshal?”
“Does it matter?” She shoved back her chair.
“Yeah, it matters.” He stood up and leaned on the table, holding her gaze with his. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.” Her smile was resigned. “You, Phagan, me—we made a choice seven years ago. Choices have consequences. Good and bad consequences. You make the choice, but you don’t get to decide the outcome. That’s the deal. No reason to whine about it now. Let’s just make sure it was worth it.” She stood up. “What say we go kick some butt?” She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it hadn’t been much of a day.
Dewey grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”
* * * *
The after-hours office was somewhat quieter than the eight-to-five office, but bad guys punched their fellow man, not the clock, so the office never completely stood down. The lighting had gone from wide area to localized, putting pockets of shadow between the door Jake and Bryn entered and the desk where Matt waited for them.
As Jake followed Bryn in an indirect beeline around desks and other obstacles, he couldn’t help thinking the lighting was like their case. A few spots of light, a lot of dark, with nothing to tell them what mattered and what didn’t but an imprecise blend of experience and instinct.
Matt was looking out the window at the night city but turned at their approach. Tiredness cut deep tracks around his eyes, but he still gave off enough energy to light the city and most of the suburbs. Just looking at him made Jake feel tired. He ought to send Matt’s wife, Dani, some flowers or something for living with his big brother.
When they were in range, Matt gestured for them to follow him. “Got my people waiting in the conference room. Time to bang our heads and ideas together and see what falls out.”
Jake exchanged a look with Bryn but followed her and Matt to a room short on people and long on food debris. Matt’s people were Alice, Riggs and his computer expert, Sebastian.
Alice Kerne was an attractive black woman in designer jeans and silk blouse. Her crisp intelligence, common sense and ability to see the humor in any situation made her a good foil for Matt. Toby Riggs, on the other hand, was anything but crisp. They guy was always rumpled and always eating. His strength lay in filtering through minutia to find small, significant leads. Sebastian was the comic relief on the team with his stand-up shock of bright red hair and perpetually surprised expression. Like Hyatt, he’d been a hacker in his younger days. He’d been caught, then recruited by the Feds.
If Bryn felt intimidated by being the only representative of the FBI, it didn’t show. She took a seat next to Alice and helped herself to a doughnut.
Jake got them both coffee, then took a position at one end of the table and sipped the bitter brew, his gaze following Matt as he strode to the other end and looked down his nose at Jake. His look said in no uncertain terms that Jake was on Matt’s turf, even if this was Jake’s case.
Jake considered taking on Matt, then decided he didn’t have the energy for it and sat down. He wasn’t too tired to assume a provocative slouch though. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bryn and Alice exchange looks, their respective lips twitching. Riggs had his eyes closed, so he missed the testosterone byplay. Sebastian was hunched over the computer next to a printer spitting out pages.
“Had a good day?” Matt asked, crossing his arms and propping a shoulder against the wall behind him.
Bryn said her piece, minus Phagan’s stalking/courtship, then handed off to Jake. He rubbed the back of his neck, then took his turn. His information didn’t seem enough for how many miles he’d traveled and how tired he was.
Matt dropped into a chair about halfway through their report, shoving fast food containers out of the way, so he could beat a tempo on the tabletop that didn’t stop until they did. He nudged Riggs with his foot. “Let’s put an APB out, get people watching the airport, trains and buses. Though if they’re as good as you say, it’ll be about as useful as pissing in the wind.”
Riggs yawned and stretched, then shuffled out the door. There was something laid-back about Riggs in motion, something hypnotic.
Jake’s eyes started to close.
�
�So, what now?” Matt’s barked question brought him back with a jerk.
Judging by the weight of his eyelids, it was going to be a long night. His thoughts spun in a sleep spiral, until…
“Runaways.” Jake wasn’t sure he’d said it a loud, until he saw everyone looking at him. The word hung in the silence while he took a drink of coffee. The caffeine partly peeled back the fog inhabiting his head. “Need to look at reported runaways about seven to ten years back.”
Bryn frowned. Alice looked thoughtful. Matt looked…blank.
“Runaway reports?”
Jake nodded.
“From where?” Matt asked.
Where? He frowned, then, like a gift, heard in his mind Phoebe’s voice saying, “Mama hailed from Georgia…” He straightened. “Georgia. Let’s focus on Georgia. If that doesn’t work, well, we’ll figure something out.”
“You want a two to three year’s worth of runaway reports for the state of Georgia?”
“Just the ones for females in the fourteen to sixteen age range,” Jake clarified as his thoughts began to sharpen. “We need a why before we can be sure who their target is. If Teltech is in the bulls-eye, we need to find out what they’re after.”
“I have a feeling you don’t have enough time before this case goes hot to go through that many files. I’m not sure you’ve got that much life left.” Matt looked at Jake like he’d lost it.
Jake didn’t blame him. He agreed with him, but since he’d said it, he’d stick with it for now. This whole case was a peeling back of layer after layer to find…what? Was it an artichoke with something substantial at its heart? Or an onion with a lot of layers, and nothing at the center but a bad smell?
“We’d need to narrow the search more than by gender and age,” Alice said, giving Jake an apologetic look for coming on Matt’s side. “Can you isolate a year? A city? A town?”
“I wonder if we could find the record of Phoebe’s marriage to Jesse Mentel? That might helps us narrow down the time frame. She said she was sixteen when she married him. And cross match with deaths? See if we can turn up the dead sister?”
The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy Page 48