Before Sunrise

by Diana Palmer

  “You’re a wonder,” he said gently.

  She managed a smile. “Not really. I just have a fairly decent memory.” She searched his eyes intently. “You be careful. This is getting dangerous.”

  “You’re the one I’m worried about,” he countered. “Wait here until I pick you up. If I can’t make it, I’ll ask Drake to take you to the motel. The local police are going to step up patrols through the area as well. We’ve got a would-be murderer on the loose. I don’t believe he’ll quit.”

  “Neither do I,” she replied. She wanted to say more; she wanted to ask how he really felt about what they’d done. But in the end, she was too shy. She smiled and got out of the car. “See you around, FBI,” she teased.

  “You, too, ‘Indiannetta Jones,’” he murmured with a forced smile.

  She laughed all the way into the museum.

  BUT WHEN SHE WAS BY HERSELF, it felt like the end of the world. Cortez acted as if nothing had happened. Were all men like that? Were they truly unconcerned once they’d fed a physical hunger? Or did Cortez just have a guilty conscience, because he knew now that she’d been innocent?

  Worrying about it, she decided, was only going to increase her gray hairs, without solving anything. She turned on her computer and printed out the telephone numbers of the museum’s board of directors. She was going to get everything she could about the mysterious man who’d sold them the effigy figure. If there was anything that she hadn’t already given Cortez. Perhaps he was only asking to keep her busy, so she wouldn’t worry. It did the job.

  Cortez, meanwhile, was in Jeb Bennett’s office.

  “I can’t believe Walks Far is in the hospital,” Bennett said wearily, when he was informed about the events of the night before. “He’s a good worker, honest and loyal. Who would want to hurt him? And why?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” Cortez said quietly. He was wearing a suit and his hair was in a neat ponytail. He looked the part of an FBI agent.

  Bennett leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about him,” he said tersely, and didn’t meet the other man’s eyes. “He’s worked for me for several years. I’ve never had a complaint.”

  Cortez was noticing something he vaguely remembered from his last visit to Bennett’s office. There was a picture in a frame, a pretty blue-eyed, blond woman in an expensive dress. She had a mole on her cheek. What was it Phoebe had said about the mystery woman’s appearance?

  “Is that your wife?” Cortez asked, nodding toward the frame.

  “What? Oh. No. I’m not married,” Bennett said with a grimace. “At least, not now. That’s my sister, Claudia.”

  He had to fight not to let show how interested he was in this new possible connection. “Is she in construction, too?” he asked.

  Bennett laughed. “Claudia doesn’t like getting her hands dirty. She’s an art dealer.”

  An interesting answer, and Bennett looked as if he’d said too much and was regretting it. Cortez noted that Bennett hadn’t owned up to the fact that Walks Far had spent time in prison or that he was married to Claudia. “How is Walks Far?” he asked quickly, as if to divert his guest.

  “He’s still unconscious,” Cortez told him. “Head injuries are tricky. If he dies, we’ll be looking for a murder suspect.”

  Bennett sat up straight, looking uneasy.

  Cortez’s dark eyes narrowed. This man was involved in the case. He leaned forward. “If you know anything, and you don’t tell me, you could end up charged as an accessory. It carries a stiff penalty.”

  Bennett’s dark eyes met his and he hesitated.

  Before he could speak, Cortez’s cell phone began to vibrate insistently in his pocket. He pulled it up and flipped it open. “Cortez.”

  It was Alice Jones. “I’ve got a preliminary report on that stuff I got from the victim’s shirt. It’s definitely brain matter. There was some dirt as well. It’s from another cave, not the one we were in last night. I got a biologist out of bed and in front of a microscope to analyze it for me. The dirt is from a living cave, a wet one—and a cave with bats.”

  Cortez’s heart jumped. Yardley’s cave. He was certain of it. “Jones, you’re worth your weight in pizzas! Get your team together and meet me in the parking lot at the corner of Harper and Lennox streets. Got that?” he added, directing them to a neutral point so that he didn’t have to speak in front of Bennett. He didn’t trust the man.

  “Got it, boss,” Alice said, and hung up.

  “I’ve got to go,” Cortez said, rising and shaking hands. “It looks as if we’ve got a break in the case.”

  Bennett seemed to hesitate. “What is it?” he asked suddenly.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Cortez said without answering the question. He left the office deep in thought.

  Once he was out of sight, Bennett picked up the phone.

  AT THE MUSEUM, Phoebe was dodging curious looks from Marie. She was certain that nobody knew she’d been alone with Cortez that morning, but it seemed as if Marie had some idea of it. Finally she decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to meet it head-on.

  She called Marie into her office and closed the door. “You’ve been giving me strange looks all morning,” she told the woman. “What’s wrong?”

  “I wasn’t sure how to mention this,” Marie confessed, sinking onto a chair with something like relief.

  Phoebe felt uncomfortable. She was old-fashioned, in her way, even though she’d given in to a three-year starvation diet of unfulfilled desire for Cortez. But she didn’t want to share that with the community at large.

  Marie grimaced and averted her eyes. “You know that Drake’s my cousin.”

  “Yes, of course I do,” Phoebe replied, sidetracked by the statement.

  “Well, it’s just…” She grimaced again. “He was kissing Cortez’s cousin Tina last night. Really kissing her, you know?” She looked at Phoebe with compassion and regret.

  Phoebe’s eyebrows arched and she almost slumped in relief. “Was that what you didn’t want to tell me?”

  “Yes. I’m very sorry. I know that Drake paid you a lot of attention, and I know that he was really attracted to you…!”

  Phoebe held up a slender hand and smiled with pure relief. “I like Drake a lot,” she said. “He’s a wonderful man. But I’m not in love with him, Marie.”

  “Thank goodness!” Marie said, pressing a hand to her ample bosom. She laughed breathlessly. “I hated having to tell you, but I didn’t want you to find it out by accident. I think he’s got a case on Cortez’s cousin.”

  “I think he has, too,” Phoebe replied. “She’s nice. You should see her with Cortez’s nephew,” she added softly. “She loves kids.”

  “Is she involved with anybody, do you know?” Marie persisted.

  “She was dating a policeman in Asheville,” she replied, “but just between you and me, I think he’s out of the running. Drake is special.”

  Marie beamed. “I think so, too, even if he is my cousin.” She cocked her head. “I heard something about a man getting hurt and sent to the hospital last night.”

  Phoebe wasn’t certain how much Cortez would want her to say to an outsider. She only smiled. “Did you?” she asked.

  Marie cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not talking, right? I tried to pump Drake for information, and he said just about the same thing. But another one of my cousins said you and Cortez drove out of town in the early morning hours, and that there was a whole group of police and sheriffs’ cars at a cave on a building site close to here.”

  “You have too many cousins, Marie,” Phoebe said firmly. “And I need to get to work, or we’ll both be out of jobs.”

  Marie chuckled. “Fair enough.” She got up, waved, and went to work.

  Phoebe let out a sigh of relief. At least nobody was speculating about her and Cortez. Not yet, at least. It was a secret she didn’t want to share just yet.

  THE NEXT DAY CORTEZ DROVE to the Yardley buildi
ng site ahead of his crime scene unit’s big van, Drake’s squad car, and a local police officer in his own vehicle. It was going to attract attention, but that couldn’t be helped. He had a cold feeling in his gut that this was going to be a second crime scene.

  They crossed the small bridge and drove down the rutted path into the woods that led to the small rock ledge overhang. The stream could be heard gurgling in the distance.

  Cortez waved the team back as he bent to look at a fresh tire track. It was missing a vertical stripe, just like the suspect vehicle he’d tracked before. He indicated it to Alice Jones and her team before they walked carefully around it and toward the entrance of the cave.

  The sun was high and it was warm for a late November day in the mountainous region. He didn’t see anything suspicious, but as they moved closer to the cave, his stomach clenched. He ground his teeth together as a faint, unmistakable odor hit his nostrils. He knew what it was.

  So did Alice Jones. She exchanged a grim look with him. He stood aside to let her go first, indicating for the other officers to follow in his footsteps.

  Only a few feet inside the overhang, in the damp cold of the wide cave, a pair of shoes came into view. They were attached to a man who was lying in the dirt.

  The man was dead.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE VICTIM WAS LYING facedown; half of his face was disfigured, the rest was bloody. His own mother wouldn’t have known him. There was blood around his head in a pool on the dusty ground. Splatters of blood and specks of gray tissue were visible on rocks to one side of the victim, far above the dead man. There was one visible shoe print, and brush marks where several others had been erased. The tall, thin man was dressed in an expensive suit and leather shoes that looked equally expensive. His arms were bent on either side of his head. He was stiff. Alice Jones was working deftly to arrive at an approximate time of death. Nobody paid a lot of attention to what she was doing. Death was disturbing, even to experienced investigators.

  The medical examiner hadn’t yet arrived. Tanner, one of Cortez’s FBI crime unit guys, was walking around taking photographs of the body and the immediate surroundings. He had a camcorder in a case sitting on his car hood, which would be used as a backup to document the crime scene. Alice had already put out several colorful evidence cards near trace evidence for him to photograph. One uniformed officer from the local police department was already hard at work under Alice Jones’s direction, putting down wooden stakes around the crime scene, with a ball of twine standing by to attach to them. Another officer was stationed a few yards away to preserve the integrity of the primary crime scene. Alice herself approached with a flat-mouthed shovel and a bag of other smaller tools, such as trowels, brushes, and tweezers. She looked wan and half out of humor.

  “Where’s the rest of the team?” Cortez asked, stunned. “I only see one other FBI agent.”

  “It’s Thanksgiving Day, didn’t you notice?” she muttered, putting down her shovel. “Everybody has families except me and Tanner. But his specialty is photography, not forensic medicine. So here I am, all alone, except for Officer Dane over there keeping potential visitors away, and Officer Parker here, who isn’t even the homicide detective. He’s robbery.”

  “He’s all they gave you?” Cortez asked, aghast.

  “His department celebrates Thanksgiving, too, Cortez, so he and Officer Dane were all they could spare,” she drawled. “Lucky you, that I don’t have a husband or a lover or somebody I could claim to get me a day off!”

  “Point taken,” he said on a sigh.

  Jones relented. “Sorry,” she murmured sheepishly. “I’m just overwhelmed, that’s all. I’m used to having at least one trained criminologist to work with me. This is going to take time and expertise.”

  “Pity we don’t have a forensic anthropologist,” Cortez murmured.

  Alice Jones gave him a smug grin. “I’m taking Internet courses in forensic dentition,” she said helpfully.

  “Jones!” he exclaimed, brightening. “You’re a wonder!”

  She chuckled. “Nice to be appreciated, boss. Tanner and Parker and I will get busy.” She hesitated. “But, you know, if you could get that anthropologist friend of yours back out here, it would be a help,” she said seriously. “She said she’d done forensics, and she probably knows more about excavating than I’ll have time to learn. This is a big job for just one technician.” She glanced at him. “Is she squeamish?”

  “I’ll go ask her,” Cortez said.

  “I’ll recommend you for a raise,” she promised.

  “It won’t do any good,” he said with a heartfelt sigh. “Our budget’s already showing bone.”

  “It was just a hopeful thought,” she said. “Pay no mind to the fact that I’m wearing four-year-old shoes and I can’t afford to replace my glasses.”

  “Tell the SAC,” he advised, meaning the special agent in charge of their unit. “But don’t expect much. He just said that his son was applying for a second scholarship because their college fund had to be spent to make mortgage payments.”

  Jones stood up straight. “We don’t need to know if monkeys sweat!” she announced belligerently.

  He and Tanner, Parker and Officer Dane turned and stared at her.

  She scowled. “Well, that’s where our bureau budget’s going, along with lots of other departments’ budgets, on grants like that for studies that nobody cares about except a few researchers,” she muttered. “Congress has no sense of proportion.”

  “I nominate you to do collective bargaining for our unit,” Cortez said after a minute. “Hands?” he called loudly.

  Tanner raised his. But so did the local police officers.

  “Hey, you’re not FBI,” he called to the nonunit personnel.

  “Are you sure?” Officer Parker asked wistfully. “I could check with my chief and see if he’d lie for me. I haven’t had a raise for two years!”

  Cortez shook his head. He gave the victim one last glance, scowling, as his mind returned to the gravity of the situation. You had to have a sense of humor in forensic work, he thought absently, or you’d go mad at the things you had to see. “I wonder who he is?” he asked aloud.

  “He’s victim number two in case file 45728,” Jones offered helpfully.

  He gave her a speaking glance and went to get Phoebe.

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS Thanksgiving, Phoebe had taken pity on foreign tourists who wanted to tour the museum. Phoebe was gathering her things and Marie was just finishing their tour when Cortez walked into the office.

  The shock of seeing him after what had happened, after the way they’d parted, was like a body-blow. She couldn’t quite get her breath. Little ripples of pleasure worked along her nerve endings just at the sight of him.

  He was having similar problems, but he was able to hide his reaction. He’d spent a lifetime learning to conceal his deeper feelings. It helped in situations like this.

  He rammed his hands into his pockets. “Are you squeamish?” he asked without preamble.

  “Define squeamish,” she invited.

  “Can you look at a man who’s missing the front of his face and a small area behind the cerebellum and help Alice Jones excavate around the body to procure trace evidence?”

  “You want me to look at a dead body?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Well…yes,” he began hesitantly.

  She was out of her desk, with her purse on her shoulder, headed out the door while he was catching his breath.

  “Come on!” she called to him. “The trail will get cold!”

  He followed her out to her car, past a curious Marie.

  “Marie, you’ll have to take care of business,” Phoebe told her, grinning. “I’m going to be a consultant for the FBI!”

  “Can’t I come along and consult, too?” Marie asked, glancing miserably toward a special group of tourists who were muttering about the labeling of one of the exhibits.

  “Sorry, only one escape per staff member per day,” Phoeb
e murmured, grinning. “Close up as soon as our guests leave. I’ll call you later.”

  She got in on the passenger side of Cortez’s car and fastened her seat belt.

  He slid in under the wheel and did the same, with a wry glance at her. “And I thought I’d have to coax you.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve always been fascinated by forensics,” she replied. “I did several courses of it in college and I’ve been an occasional consultant for local law enforcement when they found skeletal remains. I’ve even watched an autopsy.”

  He ground his teeth together. “I have, too, but not with much enthusiasm.”

  “Do you know who the dead man is?” she asked.

  “No, but if you ask Jones anything about him, she’ll tell you that he’s male and dead.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “That’s our Alice.”

  “He’s not pretty, Phoebe,” he told her.

  She glanced at him. “Death never is,” she said. “A GBI senior agent from Georgia told me once that how he gets through the grisly parts is remembering that he’s the last advocate for the deceased. It’s up to him to make sure the perpetrator is caught and punished for his crime. I like to think of it like that.”

  “So do I,” he replied gently.

  THEY DIDN’T TALK MUCH on the way to the crime scene. Phoebe was remarkably shy with him. He was feeling guilty about the way things had happened between them. He’d never meant to rush her into a physical relationship with him.

  He pulled up near the crime scene and got out first, motioning for Phoebe to follow in his footsteps. He didn’t want to contaminate evidence.

  Leaving her purse in the car, Phoebe moved behind Cortez into the cave where the murder victim was lying. She hesitated, just for a second, at her first sight of the dead man. But just as quickly, she forced herself to move forward.