The Kill Wire

by Nichole Christoff

  “I need it. Though I can’t swear I’ll drop off as quickly as Cody…”

  “Well, if you have a hard time falling asleep, babe, tap on my door. I’ll come out and you can put your head on my shoulder. We’ll see what happens next.”

  “Dream on,” I warned.

  “I will,” Marc replied.

  And with a wink, he was gone.

  Once the door shut between us and the sound of running water kicked on in the bath, I turned off the lights. And I did try to sleep. But buried deep in my backpack, my cellphone began to chirp.

  Not wanting to disturb Marc and Cody in the next room, I pounced on the bag, dug my mobile from the depths of it. A familiar name lit up my caller ID. And he’d activated the face-to-face chat.

  With a deep foreboding, I snapped on the lamp, plastered an artificial smile on my face, and accepted the call.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to pump all kinds of sunshine into my voice.

  “Hey, yourself. Did I wake you? It’s awfully early on the East Coast. Or awfully late, depending on how you look at it.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “Except I’m in Colorado.”

  Adam Barrett’s brows arched in surprise and his chocolate-brown eyes went wide. Despite the early hour in his time zone, he was clearly up and at ’em with shower-fresh blond hair, finger-combed just so. And at the edge of his image on my phone’s screen, I could make out the collar of his gray-and-green patterned uniform civilians often call fatigues.

  “I took on a new investigation,” I explained. “It’s already required a little bit of travel.”

  He chuckled. “That sounds like an understatement.”

  It felt good to hear Barrett laugh. It had been a long while since he’d done so. Because, on top of everything else that had happened in Mississippi, Barrett had admitted he intended to propose to me in the not-too-distant future—and I’d shut him down.

  As a result, our late-night phone conversations had changed from whispered words of love and longing to awkward pauses and prolonged silences. I didn’t know how to fix the situation—or if I should even try. But I was certain of one thing. Whatever relationship Barrett and I had had, I’d broken it with the choices I’d made three weeks ago. And that nearly broke my heart.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be out West,” I admitted.

  “Let me guess. Difficult client?”

  “What? No. I…He…”

  But I stopped short; I couldn’t tell Barrett I’d agreed to work for Marc. For one thing, leaking the specifics of my client list was a good way to end up without one. And secondly, Barrett wouldn’t be too happy to hear I’d holed up in a hotel with the DEA agent who kept finding ways to insert himself between us.

  “I’m…I’m looking for a missing mom,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, honey. Those rarely end well.”

  “I know.”

  And with that, silence hummed between us.

  “Well…” Barrett said at last. “I should probably let you go.”

  “I suppose you should.”

  “We’ve got a hike this morning. Through swampland.”

  “Pack your gator repellent.”

  “You’re not kidding. Good luck hunting for that missing mom.”

  “Thanks.” And some feeling I couldn’t explain made me add, “Hold on to a good thought for me, would you?”

  “I always do,” Barrett murmured.

  It was a lovely sentiment. And one that meant he still cared for me. But even knowing that, sleep was still a long time coming after we’d said good night.

  Chapter 3

  Way too soon and much too early, I awoke to find a little face nose-to-nose with mine.

  Cody, in knit pajamas sporting colorful planes, trains, and automobiles the likes of which no mechanical engineer had ever designed, blinked at me with his black puppy-dog eyes. His hair stood on end, thanks to his pillow and a world-class case of bed head. And if his bare feet were cold from scampering across the room’s beige carpet, he gave no sign of it.

  I shoved myself onto my elbows, scrubbed a hand across my face, and raked my fingers through my own shoulder-length locks. But apparently Cody didn’t care that I wasn’t exactly a morning glory. He clutched the television’s remote control in his hands as if it were some precious artifact crafted by an ancient civilization and offered it to me.

  “The TV won’t work,” he lisped in a stage whisper that echoed loudly between my ears. Sleep had been so elusive. And if the outline against the drawn drapes was anything to go by, the parking-lot lights still glowed, meaning it was still well before dawn.

  Despite all that, I took the remote from the boy’s hands, pointed it at the screen, and clicked. The TV flashed on and I flipped through the hotel’s initial menu, bypassed options for rental movies and pay-per-view. When I settled on a channel featuring that awesome monkey Curious George, Cody bounced on his toes.

  Then, to my horror, he clambered onto the bed bedside me.

  Without asking, Cody settled against my side, nestled in the crook of my arm. His face shone at George’s antics as a wash of blue light from the television swept over us. Cody’s little body was still warm from his own blankets, but it wouldn’t be for long, so I flipped the edge of the comforter over him so he wouldn’t get cold.

  Cody’s total acceptance moved me. It didn’t matter to him that I was less than beautiful first thing at dawn, rather bleary-eyed, and a relative stranger. His father had said I was A-okay. Therefore, in his eyes, I was good and kind and completely reliable in a pinch. But there was maybe another reason that Cody trusted me. He likely watched cartoons snuggled against his mother—and maybe he missed her.

  The thought was humbling. And renewed my desire to do my best for him. So, while I didn’t want to traumatize the lad, I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to learn more about Elena.

  “Do you and Mommy watch TV together?” I asked softly.

  Cody nodded, eyes on the screen.

  “Do any of Mommy’s friends watch with you?”

  Cody shook his head.

  “Does Mommy have any friends?”

  Cody nodded. “Mrs. Vespy lives next door. She’s nice.”

  “Does Mommy have any men friends?”

  Cody nodded again. “Mr. Franks fixed our sink.”

  “Mr. Franks?”

  “He’s old.”

  “Really?”

  “Mr. Franks has whiskers,” Cody informed me. “They’re white.”

  Well, in that case, I doubted Elena had scampered off with the elderly Mr. Franks. But that didn’t mean Elena hadn’t run off with a man. Or that she hadn’t intentionally abandoned Cody exclusively to Marc’s care for another self-indulgent reason.

  I opened my mouth, ready to frame another question.

  But I never got the chance to ask it.

  “Cody?” Marc’s panic-stricken voice boomed through the bedroom. “Cody!”

  Marc burst into the sitting room, all hard lines and action. In black track pants and a red T-shirt, he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His hair stood in disarray and a morning beard darkened his firm jawline. But the most notable thing about him was the gun. Gripped in his fists, he carried his service weapon up and at the ready.

  “Marc,” I said calmly. “Cody and I are watching cartoons.”

  Marc’s eyes jumped from me, to his son, to the television. He sagged against the doorjamb in relief, lowered the firearm. He hid it behind his thigh.

  “George gots a map!” Cody exclaimed.

  “I see that,” Marc replied.

  “Can we get a map, Daddy?”

  “Maybe later. Right now, it’s time to get ready for school, little man.”

  Oblivious to his father’s near panic, Cody began to drum his heels in protest.

  “Come on, now.” I slipped my hands beneath Cody’s arms, hoisted him to the floor, and riffled his messy hair. “You don’t want to be late, do you? You’d better get going so you can get to
school.”

  “Are you coming, too?” Cody demanded, eyes bright, the cartoons and his tantrum forgotten.

  “Yep. But we’ve got to get dressed and eat breakfast first.”

  This course of action must’ve been acceptable because Cody raced toward the bedroom.

  Marc watched him fly past. But before following him, he crossed the room to me. Without a word, Marc leaned over me—and crowned my head with the most tender of kisses.

  Then he was gone, retreating to the bedroom to get his son ready for school.

  And I was left all alone, hoping against all odds that Elena Preble hadn’t done something to hurt those two even more deeply than she already had.

  —

  Cody’s school, as it turned out, was a newly built, long-ranging brick affair with glass doors and red-roofed gables, underwritten by the good taxpayers of Colorado Springs. A complicated system of concrete curbs and specific signage directed the flow of traffic around the building. BUSES ONLY. NO WAITING. DROP-OFF ZONE, they read.

  Instead of joining the long queue behind a cavalcade of respectable Volvos and Subarus, however, Marc swung into the visitors’ lot and parked. He unbuckled Cody from his car seat and received no complaints whatsoever. The boy fairly bounded from our SUV, eager to get back to his classmates and the beloved teacher he’d told me about during the ride from Hearth’n’Home.

  Cody looked impossibly small as he crossed the school’s courtyard, hand-in-hand with his father. The two disappeared into the massive glass-and-steel atrium, and I settled in to wait. Because, at my insistence, Marc was about to have a word with the principal.

  At first, Marc had resisted my advice. And I could understand that. To tell an outsider about his ex-girlfriend’s disappearance would look a lot like airing dirty laundry in public to a capable DEA agent such as Marc.

  But while Cody, in the backseat, had happily chattered about his class’s pet bunny rabbit, I’d quietly said, “What if Elena shows up at the school? What if she pulls Cody out of class and takes off with him for wherever she’s been? No one would stop her, because no one would be the wiser. And you might never see him again.”

  Marc saw the sense of this in a heartbeat. Without a word to the principal, not even the security guard strolling curbside along the unloading zone would raise a hand to help Cody. And the boy’s safety was certainly worth a little bit of embarrassment.

  While Marc took care of business inside the school, I got out of the SUV. Springtime hadn’t found Colorado Springs any more quickly than Washington, DC. The mountain peaks rising behind the school were white and black with winter still—and they were breathtaking.

  Down the street, toward a cluster of tony shopfronts, people made the most of the crystalline morning. Men in cargo pants and overstuffed vests emerged from a coffee joint bearing steaming cups of the stuff in recycled paper containers. Trim mommies in spandex speed-walked past them with designer dogs on retractable leashes.

  With no one’s eyes on me, I reached for the clear blue Colorado sky. I inhaled greedily, let my lungs latch on to all the oxygen they could at this elevation. A touch of altitude sickness was a real possibility since I’d just flown in from a sea-level town. And I didn’t want anything to slow me down. Especially when I noticed the car wedged into a space in front of a bookshop.

  It certainly wasn’t a fancy car. On the contrary, it was just a silver sedan. But the Crown Victoria was occupied, and unlike everyone else up and down the sidewalk, the guy in the driver’s seat and his passenger didn’t seem to have any place to be.

  The driver wore a dark suit, white shirt, and no tie. His sunglasses were the darkest shade of black. His hair, thinning on top, had been trimmed to within an inch of its life. He might’ve been observing the coffee-drinkers or the speed-walkers, but I didn’t think so. Especially when I got a look at his partner.

  She and I might’ve been of the same mind because she’d exited her car, too, except instead of stretching, she stood between the open door and the rest of the vehicle, one arm hooked over the door’s frame and the other on the car’s roof. The swing of her dark hair grazed her shoulders. Like her male counterpart, she wore a suit and shades as if they were a uniform—and despite the glasses’ smoky tint, I could feel her staring straight at me.

  I returned her gaze. And when her attention shifted toward the school, I glanced that way as well. Marc had emerged from the visitors’ entrance—without Cody. The school bell rang as he cut through the courtyard toward our SUV.

  If he’d spotted our observers, he didn’t let it show. I turned my head to look at them again. The woman had slid into the car to rejoin her partner.

  They pulled away from the sidewalk to speed up the street. Thanks to the distance, I couldn’t make out their license plate. I only knew they had one.

  “We’re picking up Cody at three fifteen,” Marc announced. “They won’t release him to anyone but me or my mother. Or you, babe. You’ll have to show ID.”

  “Did the administration give you a hard time before they agreed to that?”

  Technically, Elena had custody of Cody. The school would’ve been within its purview to put up a fuss when Marc put in his request. But Marc leveled a dark look at me, shrugged out of his jean jacket, and threw it in the backseat. Plain as day, his service weapon rode his hip and his DEA shield sheened where he’d clipped it to his belt. Together, they made a very persuasive argument—and I wasn’t surprised the principal had listened to it.

  “I see you won them over with your charm,” I said. “Who else is approved to pick up Cody?”

  “There isn’t anyone else.”

  “No friends in the area?”

  “Not anymore.” Marc frowned as he slipped behind the wheel of the Santa Fe. “Why?”

  I got in and buckled up. I told him about the suspicious pair who’d kept an eye on the school. And how they’d disappeared as soon as Marc emerged from the building without his boy.

  “They drove off in a pretty good imitation of a fleet sedan,” I told him. “Any chance they’re former colleagues of yours from the local DEA office?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “But there’s a chance, right?”

  Marc sighed. “If Elena’s using again, anything’s possible.”

  “Maybe you should give one of your old buddies a call.”

  “Really? Is that your professional opinion as a security specialist?”

  “No. It’s my professional opinion as a PI.”

  Marc said nothing.

  I said, “If a client starts ignoring my advice, it doubles my price. If that client keeps ignoring it, they won’t be a client for long.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Marc replied.

  And he fired up the engine of the SUV.

  Chapter 4

  Colorado Springs is a beautiful town. Nestled in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains and a mere stone’s throw from Pikes Peak, the little burg is an outdoorsman’s paradise and boasts a thriving economy. No doubt Mother Nature had helped the city’s bottom line by providing attractions like the Garden of the Gods, a park with amazing red sandstone structures shaped by wind and time. But the U.S. government had played a part in the city’s success, too. Colorado Springs is home to the United States Olympic Training Center as well as the United States Air Force Academy—and Uncle Sam had thrown in several more military installations for good measure. As a result, hotels, motels, restaurants, rental properties, and residential real estate flourished in town and throughout the surrounding county. I got a good look at a lot of these hotspots as Marc pointed our SUV south, then turned onto a state highway that carried us west—but the farther we went, the farther from prosperity we found ourselves.

  We drove into a gorge and out again, and cut between hillsides ready for the breath of spring. And when the blacktop twisted along a rushing river, Marc slowed. He selected a dirt road that had seen better days before the winter snows. Our tires rumbled over ridges carved by heavy plows and weat
her—and where a long cinder-block carryout dominated a gravel lot in the shadow of a water tower, we turned one more time. Red and blue beer lights sputtered in the building’s dark windows as we cruised by. And in the carryout’s backyard, the mobile homes of a trailer park fanned out from north to south.

  Some of the mobile homes were cute and well kept. Striped awnings, rolled tight against the season, would shade tidy patios where tubs of tended earth stood ready to accept tomato plants and begonias as soon as temperatures were warm enough. Terra-cotta garden gnomes smiled happily from shrubs and limestone walkways. But the deeper we drove into the complex, the shabbier the trailers became. And Marc’s discomfort grew.

  Near the back of the park, we coasted to a stop on the bare roadway. Across from us sat a mud-brown trailer. A dark green Toyota Tercel sat on the gravel patch alongside it. If this was Elena’s place, she hadn’t driven off anywhere. And if she was inside—

  “Bet you never imagined I’d bring you to a place like this,” Marc said.

  His knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel. And that’s when it hit me. Marc was embarrassed to have me see how his ex-girlfriend lived—but he didn’t need to be.

  True, I made my home in a beautiful 1803 townhouse in a posh part of Virginia’s Old Town Alexandria, where the likes of George Washington and Robert E. Lee once trod. But no one had handed that house to me. I’d worked for it. And I’d worked hard. Just as the men and women in this trailer park worked hard.

  Of course, I had no idea what Marc’s childhood home had been like—or what he and his parents had had to do to put food on the table. He’d never come close to telling me. And that, in itself, said plenty.

  Marc growled, “I shouldn’t let my son live in a place like this.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a mobile home, Marc.”

  And I meant it.

  Growing up with a father in the army, I’d been no stranger to trailer parks. To this day, many a military post has one inside the gates. Plenty more crowd against the fence outside. For young soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines whose pay amounts to peanuts, they’re affordable family housing. And for spouses and children holding down the home front during the dark days of deployment, trailer park neighbors are a support system, a shoulder to cry on, and at times, a true lifeline.