by Diana Palmer
“That piece of red ribbon?” Garon murmured, sipping coffee, “must have something to do with a fantasy he’s acting out.”
“That’s what I thought,” the younger man said. “The detective who told me about the Del Rio case also remembered hearing of a similar cold case, from twelve or more years back, but he couldn’t recall where it happened. He thinks it happened in south Texas.”
“Did you look in the database for that case?”
“Yes, but the Del Rio case wasn’t there. God knows how many others aren’t, either, especially if they happened in small, rural towns.” He smiled. “I told my lieutenant about that Del Rio cold case, and about the other two children in Oklahoma who were taken from their homes and found dead. I said we needed to get the FBI involved so you guys could do a profile of the killer for us, and he laughed. He said the deaths had no connection. So I went to the captain, and he called your ASAC. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Garon mused. “Most veteran cops hate paperwork and complications. Nobody wants to be looking for a serial killer. But we might catch this one, if we’re stubborn enough.”
Marquez pursed his lips. “I asked one of your squad members about you,” he said. “He says that you’ll chase people to the gates of hell.”
Garon shrugged. “I don’t like letting criminals get away.”
“Neither do I. This guy’s a serial killer. I need you to help me prove it.”
Garon paused while their steaks were served. “What sort of similarities are we talking about, with that cold case in Del Rio?”
“All I have is sketchy information,” came the reply, “but the manner of abduction was the same, and they narrowed the suspects down to a stranger. The victim was assaulted and stabbed. I don’t know about red ribbons. I filled out our case on the form for VICAP and I did turn up several child murders in other states. But none of the children were strangled and stabbed, which may signify some other perp.”
“Or he might have changed his habits. Maybe a gun gave him more power in an abduction.” As they both knew, a murderer might change the way he killed, but if the crime had a signature, it usually wouldn’t vary from crime scene to crime scene.
“Any red ribbons in those other cold cases?” he asked, because the ribbon did seem to serve as a signature in at least one case.
“No. At least,” he added, “there were none in the information I accessed. As I said earlier, we always hold back one or two details that we don’t feed to the media. Maybe those detectives did, too.”
“Did you try calling the detectives who worked the Oklahoma cases?”
“I did. The first Oklahoma one was sure I was actually a reporter trying to dig out unknown facts in the case. I gave him my captain’s phone number, and he hung up on me. He said anybody could look that information up online. Nobody at the second police department knew anything about a cold case.”
“How about the other Texas case?”
“That’s a doozy of a story,” Marquez told him with pure disgust in his tone. “It’s in Palo Verde, a little town up near Austin. I couldn’t get their single policeman on the phone at all. I tried e-mailing him, along with my phone number. That was week before last, and I’m still waiting for an answer.”
“We get a lot of kooks e-mailing us for various reasons,” Garon told him. “And we get about two hundred spam messages a day. The captions are so misleading that you occasionally open one without meaning to. It’s always a scam or a link to a porno Web site. Even with filters, they get through. Maybe your message ended up in the deleted files.”
“I hate spammers,” the younger man muttered.
“We have a cyber crime division that spends hours a day looking for scams and shutting them down.”
“Good for you, but that still doesn’t solve my problem.”
“You can fly to Oklahoma and show your credentials in person, can’t you?”
“I can barely pay my rent,” Marquez said miserably as he finished his steak. “I can’t afford the airfare.”
“Your department would pay for the tickets,” Garon said.
Marquez’s eyebrows met his hairline. “Like hell it would,” he shot back. “Didn’t I tell you that I had to buy my own damned digital camera because my lieutenant wouldn’t authorize the expenditure? He likes his job and the city manager goes over departmental budgets with a microscope.”
“I know how that feels.”
“No, you don’t,” the younger man assured him. “Unless you’ve had to bring in a receipt for a cup of ice water you bought from a convenience store to back up claiming it on your expense account!”
“You have got to be kidding!” Garon exclaimed.
“I wish I were,” the other man said sadly, shaking his head. “I guess they’d lock me up for a whole giant Coke.”
Garon chuckled helplessly. “You need to come and work for us,” he told Marquez. “You could even have a Bucar.”
“A what?”
“A bureau car,” Garon told him. “I get to drive mine home at night. It’s like moving storage for all my equipment, including my guns.”
“Guns, plural?” the detective exclaimed. “You have more than one?”
He gave the detective a wry look. “Surely you have access to body armor and stop sticks and a riot gun…?”
“Of course I do,” he muttered, “but it’s not my own. As for stop sticks, I pull my service weapon and try to blow out tires as long as the suspect isn’t near anything I might conceivably hit by mistake. As for a riot gun…” He pushed back his jacket to display his shoulder holster. “This is it. I hate shotguns.”
“They let you wear a shoulder holster?” Grier asked. “We aren’t allowed to.”
“I don’t know if I want to apply to the Bureau if I can’t wear a shoulder holster. Besides, they move you guys around too much. I like being near home.”
“To each his own.”
“Who else is going to be on this task force you’re setting up?” Marquez asked.
“We’ve got the sheriff’s department, because the murder took place out of town in the county, along with a K-9 unit, a Texas Ranger…”
“A Ranger? Wow,” the other man said with a wistful sigh. “I tried to get in, five years ago. I passed everything except the marksmanship test, but two other guys had higher scores than I did. That’s quite an outfit.”
“Yes, it is. My brother was a Ranger, before he came down to work in San Antonio. He was with the D.A.’s office as a cyber crime expert, then he moved to Jacobsville.”
“He’s chief of police there,” Marquez nodded.
“Quite a guy, your brother. He’s making some major drug busts.”
Garon felt a ripple of pride. He was proud of his brother.
“Who else?” Marquez persisted.
“We have an investigator from the D.A.’s office who specializes in crimes against children. We’ve volunteered our crime lab at Quantico for trace evidence.”
“We have one of the best forensic units in the country.”
Garon smiled. “I know. I don’t have a problem with letting them process data.”
“When do we meet?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, at El Chico’s. About one o’clock. I found one policeman who knows the family of the victim and used to live in the neighborhood. He’ll meet us there.”
“I’ll have the Texas Ranger on hand and the D.A.’s investigator,” Garon told him. “I hope we can get this guy.”
“No argument there.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a couple of hours off after this, but I should be back in my office before quitting time, if you need to contact me. I forgot to give my numbers. If you can’t reach me at the office,” he added, pulling out a business card, “my cell phone number is on this.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
Marquez reached for his wallet when they were finished and the waitress had produced the bill, but Garon waved him away and passed his credit card to the woman.
&nbs
p; “My treat,” he told Marquez with a smile. “It was a business lunch.”
“Thanks. I wish I could reciprocate, but my lieutenant would send me out to solve stolen gas station drive-off cases if I presented him with a lunch bill.”
Garon just laughed.
THE LAUGHTER FADED when he got home. Miss Turner was looking worried and standing by the telephone.
“What’s going on?” Garon asked her.
“Nothing, I hope,” she replied. “It’s just that I can’t get Grace on the telephone. I’m sure she’s all right. Maybe she’s just not answering her phone.”
“I’ll drive over and see,” he replied, and was out the door before Miss Turner could ask to go with him.
He pulled up in the front yard of the old Victorian house, noting again how little maintenance had been done on it. He took the steps two at a time and rapped hard on the door. He did it three times, but there was no answer.
He started around the side of the house. And there she was. In the rose garden, with pruning shears, cutting back her rosebushes. She was talking to them, as well. Obviously she hadn’t heard him drive up.
“I know she never liked you,” she was telling the roses. “But I love you. I’ll make sure you get all the fertilizer and fungicides you need to make you beautiful again, the way you were when Grandaddy was still alive.” She sniffed and wiped her wet eyes on the sleeve of the flannel shirt she was wearing. “I don’t know why I’m crying for her,” she went on after a minute. “She hated me. No matter what I did for her, she never wanted me in her life. But now she’s gone and it’s just you and me and this enormous house…”
“Are the roses going to live in it with you, then?” he asked curiously.
She turned so fast that she almost fell over. Her hand went to her chest. She was almost gasping for breath. “You move like the wind,” she choked. “What are you doing here?”
“Miss Turner couldn’t raise you on the phone. She was worried.”
“Oh.” She went back to trimming the rosebushes.
“That was kind of her.”
He glanced around at the bare landscape. There was a garden spot behind the house that looked as if it had just been plowed. He wondered if she kept the garden, or if her grandmother had grown vegetables.
“Did you find the man who killed that little child?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple to solve a murder. This is one of several similar crimes, some from years ago. It takes time. We’re forming a task force to investigate it.”
“My father used to work for the sheriff’s department here as a deputy, just like Grandaddy did. That was a long time ago,” she added. “He quit when he married my mother because she didn’t like him taking risks.”
“What did he do afterward?”
“He got a job as a limousine driver in San Antonio,” she replied. “He made good money at it, too. Then he met a pretty, rich woman that he’d been hired to drive around, and he went head over heels for her. He left my mother and filed for divorce. She never got over it. The other woman was ten years older than she was, and she owned a boutique.”
“Is your father still living?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He and his new wife were driving to Las Vegas when a drunk driver ran into them head-on. They both died.”
“You said your mother disliked you?”
She nodded. “I look like my father. She hated me for that.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She…died about twelve years ago,” she said. “Just two years after Daddy did.”
“What did she do for a living?”
“She was a nurse,” Grace said quietly.
“You’re going to kill those bushes if you keep snipping,” he pointed out. “And the temperature’s dropping.”
She shivered a little as she stood up. “I suppose so. I just wanted something to do. I can’t bear to sit in that house alone.”
“You don’t need to. Pack a small bag. I’ll take you home with me. You and Miss Turner can watch movies on the pay per view channel.”
She looked up at him, frowning. “That’s not necessary…”
“Yes, it is,” he said gently, studying her face. It was wet with tears. “You need a little time to get adjusted to life without your grandmother. No strings. Just company.”
She gnawed on her lower lip. She didn’t understand his motives, and it showed.
“I’d do it for anybody,” he continued. “Think of it as one neighbor helping another out.”
She shifted in place. “If I wouldn’t be in the way…” she began.
“I work in the study all hours trying to get herd records up-to-date,” he said simply. “You won’t bother me. I’ll give you the guest room next to Miss Turner’s. If you get scared in the night, she’ll be around.”
She still hesitated. It was hard for her, trusting a man. Any man.
“If you stay over here talking to rosebushes, somebody’s going to notice,” he pointed out. “Think of the scandal.”
She smiled despite herself. “All right, then. Thank you,” she added a little awkwardly.
“You’d do it for me, I’m sure.”
And she would have.
Miss Turner was surprised and delighted at the unexpected company. “He hates having people here,” she told Grace as she poured her some tea in the kitchen of the long, single level house.
“It’s only because I was talking to the roses,” Grace faltered.
Miss Turner stared at her.
Grace flushed. “Well, I’m not exactly overcome with visitors these days.”
“You can talk to me,” she told her. “At least, I can answer you back.”
LATER, MISS TURNER showed her to the guest room and pointed out the quilt at the foot of the bed in case Grace got too cool.
“He says he can’t sleep in a warm house, so he keeps it like a deep freeze,” Miss Turner muttered. “Likely you’ll get frostbite, but at least you won’t be lonely. Got your medications?”
Grace nodded.
“Good. There’s water in the carafe by the bed. Sleep well.”
“You, too.”
The door closed and Grace sat down on the bed. It was a pretty room, done in cool blues and beiges. She was amazed at her host for the invitation, and grateful as well. She’d dreaded spending the night alone.
For a man with no social skills to speak of, she thought, he was surprisingly kindhearted.
SHE SETTLED UNDER the comforter and closed her eyes. But the events of the day had damaged her, and not only her grandmother’s death. She kept seeing little girls lying in beds of roses, wearing red ribbons around their necks…
When the screams started, she didn’t even realize that they were coming from her own lips.
5
“GOD ALMIGHTY!” CAME A deep voice from somewhere nearby. “Grace. Grace!”
She was dying. Blood was seeping out all around her, and it was red, as red as her grandmother’s roses. She was lying in a patch of sunflowers, looking up at the sky. There was pain. So much pain! She could almost feel merciless hands on her shoulders, shaking her, shaking her…!
She gasped and her eyes flew open. Garon Grier was sitting on the side of her bed in a bathrobe, his blond-streaked brown hair mussed, his dark eyes narrow and concerned. Behind him stood Miss Turner with her hair down, gray and thin, wrapped in a thick bathrobe, chewing her lower lip nervously.
Grace took a long breath and another one. She was shaking. “S…sorry,” she stammered. “I’m sorry!”
The big hands holding her shoulders relented, pulling her into a sitting position. Her long blond hair had come undone from its cloth tie and draped around her shoulders like a fall of silk. She was wearing a thick cotton gown that covered her from throat to heels. Only her face and hands peered out from its whiteness.
“What happened?” Garon asked.
She swallowed hard, looking around her in relief. She wasn’t
lying in a field. She was in a bed, in a house. Safe. She swallowed again, aware that her eyes and cheeks were wet.
“What was it?” he persisted. “A nightmare?”
She only nodded, still shaken. It had seemed very real.
“How about some warm milk, Grace?” Miss Turner asked. “It might help you sleep.”
“Milk, hell,” Garon said curtly. “Bring her a tot of Crown Royal.”
“I hate spirits,” Grace began.
“Now,” he added, fixing Miss Turner with a level stare that didn’t invite defiance.
“Back in a jiffy,” Miss Turner said.
Garon let go of Grace’s shoulders. His eyes were like lasers, probing, inquiring. “This isn’t a new thing, is it?” he asked suddenly.
“The nightmare? No.” She leaned forward, drawing her knees up under the cover to rest her forehead on. Her heart was skipping madly. She could barely get her breath at all. “I’ve had them for a long time.”
He wanted to ask questions, demand answers. But she was a guest in his house. He didn’t want to invade her privacy. He didn’t want to know intimate things about her, either. He only felt sorry for her. This was just a brief interlude in his life, and hers. She needed help that he could give. But he didn’t want to let her too close.
She took one last deep breath and grimaced when she saw the look on his face. He was hating this. She didn’t even have to ask.
She pushed back her unruly hair. “I’ll be all right now,” she said without meeting his eyes. “Thanks for checking on me. It’s just an old bad dream. I have them once in a while when I’m really stressed. Losing granny has been…difficult.”
He couldn’t imagine why. The old lady had been constantly critical of Grace. But if the old woman was all she had left, it was understandable that she was grieving for her. He knew grief intimately. It was still too fresh in his mind. He’d never shared it, with anyone. Not even with his father and brothers.
Grace was painfully aware that he was only wearing pajama bottoms under the black robe. It was open in front, and his broad, muscular, hair-roughened chest was too close for comfort. She glanced at it nervously, her body tensing with nervous discomfort. Her hands tightened around her knees.