It created quite the precious picture, the broken-down man with the sweet, innocent life nestled down for comfort. But Sariah couldn’t help but think this one forward a little way.
What the hell were they going to do with a puppy?
As the former agent clambered into the car, the first words out of his mouth were, “What’s up with Mr. Talkative here?” He pointed at Had, looking at his strange positioning in the backseat. “Did he get cursed by some Gypsy witch he wouldn’t stop yammering at?”
“Long story,” Sariah answered.
From up in the driver’s seat, Micha grumbled at Joshua’s reflection, “You be watching that doggie. Making sure he will not be making the piss in my cab.”
“Yeah, yeah, no making the piss. Got it.” Joshua stroked the pup, who’d gotten a little jostled from the movement of her new owner getting into the car.
“So, any tags or anything?” Had asked, pointing at the dog.
“No. Nothing. Looks like she was abandoned at the side of the road. Found some tire tracks that went off the road a ways and then just stopped. They were close to where we found her.”
“Okay, that’s all well and good, but we can’t keep her,” Sariah stepped in.
“Why not?” Joshua responded, his tone sharp. “I’ll take care of her. She can ride with me on the plane.”
“They won’t let her ride with you.”
“They will if I say she’s a service dog.”
“But she’s not a service dog,” Sariah shot back.
“Why the hell not? She’s providing a service to me. She’ll keep me walking in a straight line when I’m drunk.”
“That’s all the time.”
He looked at her like she was stupid. “Which is why I need a service dog.”
The circular logic of this argument had not escaped Sariah, but this tack wasn’t working. And she had to find something that would. They couldn’t end up with an animal that they had to watch out for at every turn. It just wasn’t feasible.
“What about a no-kill shelter?” she urged.
“Not a chance.”
“What’s wrong with a no-kill shelter? They’ll take good care of her.”
Joshua shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m the one that has to watch out for her. The Chinese believe that if you save a life, you’re responsible for it.”
Sariah blew a sharp breath out in frustration. “Oh, come on. That’s like a cultural marriage of convenience. My guess is that you hate the Chinese.”
He shrugged. “Sure, but I hate everyone. I’m an equal opportunity hater.”
Their driver looked into the rear-view mirror and shook his head. The guy barely spoke English, and even he thought this argument was ridiculous.
“She’s awfully cute,” Had interjected, reaching over to scratch the puppy’s head. He then caught sight of Sariah’s face and backed away. “Well, she is.”
Sariah looked for one last-ditch argument. “Why do you even care? You’re not religious. You hate philosophy. What’s the deal here?”
Joshua looked straight at her. “I’m keeping the puppy.”
And once more, Had reached over to play with her ears. He caught her eye, pointed at the puppy and shrugged, his expression communicating something like, How can you say no to a face like this?
Great. Both the boys were on board with this dog thing. Did neither of them realize the hassle this was going to be?
The tiny animal squirmed in Joshua’s lap, nuzzling at his fingers. She had to admit, the little tyke was adorable. She mentally reprimanded herself. There was no way she could allow herself to get sucked into this insanity.
“What’s her name?” Had asked Joshua. He appeared to be ignoring Sariah’s intent glares in his direction.
“Not sure yet. I was thinking maybe Bella.”
“Oooo. That’s a great name. Hey little Bella. Hey there.” Had reached across once more, and Sariah smacked his fingers away. “Ouch.”
Seeing the hurt look on Had’s face, she tried to keep her stance firm on this. She wasn’t being overly harsh, was she? Of course not. Having a dog around was going to be a logistical pain in the ass.
Bella turned her little head and licked Sariah’s hand.
Oh, for the love of…
She pulled her hand away, trying to smother the smile that was creeping onto her face of its own accord. They could not have a dog, and that was final.
Could. Not.
* * *
They had stopped at a Flying J about a half an hour to the north of Richmond for Micha to refuel. Joshua had managed to buy some food and a leash for Bella, a pink one with spikes. It seemed to suit her.
She was scampering around, nipping at his heels, barking at all of the trucks rumbling past. The fear and exhaustion of getting abandoned at the side of the road seemed to have left her for the most part. Joshua envied the resilience of the young. Sometimes it seemed like he still felt the scar tissue from each individual wound, emotional and physical, he’d received in his entire life.
It was a typical truck stop, with an area specifically for the road warriors stopping by. A lounge area with an old television set, a game room, some showers—all of the comforts of non-home waiting here for them. Joshua knew the kind of place well. Many of the showers he’d taken over the last 13 years had been at stops similar to these.
Had was talking in his ear, not that this was an unusual occurrence. It was getting to the point that Joshua was able to tune out a good portion of what the young cop was saying, but the sheer quantity of verbiage was starting to get to him. The first three buttons on Had’s jeans had been popped open, and he was walking like he had stilts that had been shoved down each of his pant legs. Joshua had a brief image of having to cut Had out of his jeans and shuddered.
“What?” Joshua said, after there was a pause in the steady flow of words coming out of Had’s mouth lasting longer than a second or two.
“I said, my program spit out some names that we’re going to use as suspects. Coop seemed pretty impressed by it.”
“That’s great,” he responded without thinking. Then it registered what Had was saying. “Wait. How many names did it give you?”
“About twelve.”
“About twelve? Or twelve?”
Had scratched at his neck. “Okay, exactly twelve.”
Joshua thought for a moment. “And you pulled all of these stats from sources online?”
“Yeah.”
“Has Coop already started the process of rounding them up for questioning?” he asked, thinking ahead to getting them in the box, what he would ask them, how he could break them down.
“I’m not sure. She was talking about a few of the best of those leads. There were four or five that have pretty hefty rap sheets already. B and E, domestic violence, drunk and disorderlies.”
Joshua nodded his head, but his thoughts were a hundred miles away. “It’s a weird way to look at it, but the breaking and entering charges are more significant than the violence. We’re looking for someone that thinks ahead, thinks things through.”
“Right,” Had answered, getting down on a knee to play with Bella. The puppy leapt about, barking, as Had wrestled with her. She pounced up, licking at his face.
Something about that physical interfacing sparked an idea in Joshua’s head. “Our guy is used to interacting in person,” he muttered to himself.
“What?”
Realizing he’d spoken loud enough for Had to hear, Joshua rephrased his idea so that the young cop could understand. “We’re looking for a guy who’s old-school. None of this transponder stuff.”
“What do you mean? What’s a transponder?”
“A lot of truckers are moving over to wireless transponders—they connect to the weigh stations and transmit all the important info. Lets them go past without stopping.”
Had’s eyes lit up. “And you think this guy won’t use them?”
“Humpty’s been around for a long ti
me. And up until just a bit ago, he didn’t seem to like change much. We’re going to end up at a place just like this, showing pictures to people, doing old fashioned police work.” There was something about that idea that made Joshua’s blood sing. This was what he did. And he could tell that Had was excited about it, too.
“I’ll look through the routes and see if there’s a big truck stop or weigh station that’s common to all of them.”
“Great,” Joshua answered. “That might winnow it down further.”
Joshua pulled the leash in, dragging the enthusiastic Bella back to where he could gather her into his arms. She licked at his face, filling his nostrils with her puppy breath. They still had another hour or so to go until they got back to Quantico.
Gritting his teeth, Joshua tried to keep his heart rate at normal levels. They were on this killer’s six. And there was no way Joshua was going to let him go this time.
CHAPTER 11
By the time they got back to D.C. and the hotel where they were staying, Had was noticing some drastic changes in Joshua. The guy was sweating and shaking, and not even the dog seemed to be able to cheer him up. And if that cute little ball of energy with the wagging tail couldn’t help, you knew that was one big old mess.
As they moved past the front desk, Had watched as Joshua shoved the puppy underneath his shirt. The hotel more than likely had a policy about pets in the room, but if Joshua was looking to be subtle about sneaking Bella in, he’d missed by a mile. The poor little pup squirmed and yelped inside his clothes, eliciting some puzzled stares from the other guests. It appeared Joshua had been lucky, however, seeing as how the concierge had been busy helping someone and hadn’t looked up.
On the elevator up, Agent Cooper turned to face the two men. “Okay, Joshua. You need to get that puppy somewhere I can’t see her. And if you get dinged for having her here in the hotel, it’s coming out of your pay.”
“Whatever,” he grunted.
“Oh, and please go grab yourself a drink before you start hallucinating or something, okay?”
Joshua grunted in what might have been a positive response. It was hard to tell with him, Had was finding. The former agent played most of the emotions that weren’t irritation or out-and-out anger so close to the vest.
She ran her hand over her buzzed scalp and looked at Had. “And you. I want to talk over what we found using that program of yours.”
“Sounds good.” Any time spent working with Coop was good time, as far as Had was concerned.
The elevator dinged and the doors swung wide, revealing an out-of-shape couple in swimsuits, white hotel towels draped about shoulders and wrapped around hips. After a brief shuffle from side to side to see who was going to go first, those exiting or entering, Agent Cooper led the charge and got the three of them out. The only repercussions were the blistering stares from the couple that followed them until the doors slid shut, blocking out their vitriol.
Moving down the hallway toward their rooms, Coop pulled out a key card and swiped it through the magnetic reader installed next to one of the entrances to the suites. After a click and a green light from the indicator, she shoved the door open with her shoulder and motioned for Joshua to head on in.
“No more nocturnal activities, Joshua. You want more than what’s in the minibar, you talk to me, got it?”
Another grunt, and the former agent and his hidden pet were on the other side of the now-closed door. Had could have sworn he heard the clink and clack of the chain lock being slid into place.
Agent Cooper pulled out a roll of tape and placed several strips across the door and its adjacent doorjamb, two on the long side, and one on the top. Had watched, his curiosity raging until he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Where’d you get the tape?”
“I picked it up on the way to get Joshua out of the drunk tank this morning,” she murmured as she completed the task.
“And what is it that you’re trying to do?”
Coop turned to face him. “Making sure that if he leaves his room, I know about it.”
“You think he’s going to take off on you again, after you let him go to prison?”
“I’m not making the mistake of thinking that I know what Joshua’s capable of,” she answered.
“But if you come out tomorrow morning and the tape’s broken, he’ll be long gone,” he observed.
“I’ll be checking on him every hour or so. He won’t go far.”
“Wow. That’s gonna tank your sleep cycle.” Had thought for a minute. “Why don’t we trade off with each other?”
“Had, you don’t have to do that. I’m—”
“Busy trying to lead this team,” he interrupted. “Come on. You know it’s a good idea.”
Coop made an expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile. What would that be? A grille? A smimace? Whatever it was, Agent Cooper had it plastered all over her face.
“Actually, you’re right,” she assented after a moment. “I was falling on my sword, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah, you kinda were. Knock it off.” Had gave her a grin. “I’ll take the odd hours, you take the even. If there’s anything out of whack, I’ll come get you.”
“Perfect.”
At this point they were now down the hall to where Had’s room lay. He swiped the card, the click sounded and the light stayed red. He tried it again. Same results. He grumbled to himself, breathed on the magnetic strip, wiped it off on his shirt and… nothing, once more.
After asking with her expression and holding out her hand, Coop went through the same process. Green light on the first try.
Figured.
Laughing, Agent Cooper preceded him into the room. She flopped down on one of the beds, leaving space for Had to set up on the other. He pulled out his laptop and fired it up, loosening his tie and top button while waiting for the program to launch.
The tightness of his pants kept him from adopting his partner’s pose, and he flopped around on the bed for a while, trying to find a position that worked. He ignored the stifled laughter that drifted his way from the other bed. Opening up the program, Had started up the conversation to try to distract Agent Cooper out of her mirth.
“I was talking with Joshua earlier about the case—”
“Hold on,” Coop interjected. “Joshua was talking about the case? Willingly?”
“Yeah… Guess I hadn’t thought about how that might be a little weird.” Had plugged in the data from before, cross-referencing trucking routes, employees and criminal records. “Anyway, he mentioned focusing on the crimes that required planning. Breaking and entering, fraud, stuff like that.”
“Makes sense. Can your program handle that?”
Had snorted. “Ha!” He depressed a key and turned the screen to face her. There were eight names that remained highlighted. “At this point, do you really need to ask?”
“My apologies, oh mighty computer nerd,” Coop intoned.
“Um. We prefer ‘computer geek’.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Is there…?” Had made a point of clearing his throat. “Is there a difference? I can’t believe you just asked that question.”
“From your response, I’m going to guess that there is.” Coop swung her legs over the edge of the bed and scooted closer to the screen, leaning closer to the screen as she navigated through the features of the program. She tapped her fingers against her legs, peering at the information Had was pulling up for her.
“Huge. Geeks know how to talk to women without gagging on their tongues.”
“Ah, I see.”
Had’s phone lit up, the music from Psycho echoing through the small hotel room. Agent Cooper looked up at him.
“Your mom. You better answer it.”
Wrinkling up his nose, Had pushed the “accept” button on his touchscreen. “Mama, I’m in a meeting with my boss right now. Can I call you back?”
“Uh huh,” she answered through the receiver, her voice tinny. “A
nd where, exactly, is this supposed meetin’?” she asked.
Had hemmed and hawed for a second. “It’s… um… well… In my hotel room,” he finished.
“Right. You give me a call back once you get yer britches back on, sweetcakes.”
“Mama!” he cried, outraged, but she had already hung up. He tossed the phone on the bed, where it bounced twice and then came to a stop right before going over the edge.
“Still doesn’t believe you, does she?” Coop asked.
“Nope.”
“Well,” she sat back up and pushed herself to her feet, rubbing her hand over her face. “Do whatever you can to get those numbers narrowed down. I’m going to go check on Joshua and then to bed.”
“You okay?” he asked before she could get out the door.
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“You seem stressed out.”
“No, I’m—” she began.
“You’ve rubbed your face, you’re tapping on your leg with your finger,” Had cut her off. “Those’re both things you do when you get anxious.”
She stopped tapping her leg and made the combination smile and grimace expression again. “You may be right.” Coop sighed as she leaned against the wall. For the first time that evening, it seemed that she wasn’t hiding all of her mounting tension. “We’re almost finished with the body, Had. We’re only lacking the head and torso at this point. That’s not much,” she confided.
Had thought back to the files he’d read on Humpty Dumpty. “And right about now is when he’s going to be looking for his next victim.” All of the sudden, Joshua’s attitude as they were headed into the hotel started feeling like it was more than just a physical response to a lack of alcohol.
“Yes. In fact, while you’re working on getting us a prime suspect or two or four, can you plug in recent kidnappings along the primary routes? Maybe set up an alert?”
“Got it,” he answered.
As Agent Cooper moved toward the door of the hotel room, he could see the tension in her shoulders and neck. Talking about the next victim took this from being a cool puzzle that Had was trying to sort out to what it actually was.
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