by Alex Kava
“There were bodies tonight,” he said in a casual tone that sounded odd considering the context. “Just what Big Mac ordered up.”
She felt his eyes bore into her but she didn’t flinch or look away from them.
“Do you have any idea what you cost us, Sam? I hope your little chop suey dinner out was worth it. Don’t you dare turn your back on me again.”
The SUV’s window hummed back up as Sam’s stomach crashed down.
How had he known where they had gone for dinner? Had he followed?
Then she remembered that her mother had carried in the leftovers. Of course, the bag must have the restaurant’s logo stamped on it. But when Sam walked into the kitchen she saw the plain white paper bags still on the counter. There was no logo, no indication of a Chinese restaurant.
CHAPTER 64
Maggie reeked of smoke but at least she didn’t look as bad as Tully.
“What happened to you?”
He came into the conference room and dropped into the leather chair across the table from her.
“I finally got that backpack bastard.”
“Is he our guy?”
Tully shrugged, looking defeated, tired.
“I think he’s some homeless drunk who’s paranoid and maybe a bit schizo. What do you have going on?”
He pointed to the file folders and maps she had scattered on the large tabletop. Instead of going home, she’d come back to Quantico to pull some files and access some databases. She was screening her calls, still avoiding her mother’s voice messages, when Assistant Director Kunze called, insisting she and Tully meet him in the conference room in an hour. Never mind that it was late on a Saturday night.
“There was a construction site across the street from the shops that burned down tonight.”
“Okay.”
“And there was a construction site just down the street from the warehouse fires.”
“Same contractor?”
“That was my first thought. Unfortunately no. Two separate companies. But here’s something interesting—both projects are federally funded. The one across from the shops is going to be a food pantry. The one in the warehouse district is something called the D.C. Outreach House. It’s going to be a community and sleep shelter for the homeless. Both are HUD projects.”
“Can we access employee lists to see if there’s anybody working on both sites?”
“I’m trying. There’s more red tape than even my clearance can cut through.”
Tully laughed.
“There’s more,” Maggie said. “I talked to the owner of the construction company working in the warehouse district.”
“I bet he was pleased to get a phone call on a Saturday night.”
“Actually he didn’t seem surprised.” Irritated was more what Maggie had detected, but Mr. Lyle Post had treated her phone call as if it were only one in a long run of federal interruptions into his business.
“Can he get you a list of his employees?”
“Said it would be tough.”
“Because of privacy issues?”
“No, that wasn’t the problem. He doesn’t keep track of the names of all his crew members.”
Tully blinked and sat up like he hadn’t heard her correctly and needed to get a closer listen.
“Said he’s had to hire a lot of private contractors because the project got fast-tracked. Someone at HUD told him they needed the job done sooner than they needed to know every single person who was working on it.”
“He told you this knowing you’re an FBI agent?”
“I didn’t exactly tell him who I was.” It wouldn’t be the first time she or Tully had withheld information in order to get information.
“So someone could be working on both projects.”
“Or someone could think the fires would get more attention because they were close to federally funded projects.”
“Could be why Kunze has his panties in a twist.”
“It’s taken you both this long to figure that out.”
Assistant Director Raymond Kunze stood in the doorway of the conference room. Tully sat up in his chair, a flush of red running up his neck. Maggie dropped her hands into her lap and restrained a smile. Kunze looked like a linebacker but dressed like a nightclub bouncer. The blazer he wore was probably a rust color, but under the fluorescent lights it looked orange.
“I’ve got one senator and the director of HUD kicking my ass until you two catch this frickin’ firefly.” He started into the room but stopped halfway. “Tully, you look like crap. And O’Dell”—he sniffed the air—“you stink.”
If Maggie didn’t know better she’d guess Kunze was finally joking with them like they were part of a team. It certainly was the first time he’d admitted to the politics of his actions.
He threw what looked like a faxed document on the table. The pages were the old flimsy paper of antiquated fax machines that curled.
“I just received the ATF’s report on the church fires.” He sat at the head of the table, tapping the top of the papers he’d thrown down. “Gasoline was poured at the threshold of the door to the basement. Not only did this bastard know there was a meeting being held down there, he was hell-bent on killing someone. Tonight he finally did. He murdered an entire family by setting fire to—of all things—the fire escape and the back door, their only other way out.”
Maggie hadn’t known about the back door. She watched Kunze. She was used to seeing him angry, but there was something different tonight, emotion she didn’t recognize. He appeared shaken by these latest deaths.
“There was an eighteen-month-old child,” Kunze said quietly. “My ass is so going to get kicked when this hits the news.” He looked up at the two of them. “And so are both of yours if you don’t catch this bastard.”
CHAPTER 65
In the security camera outside her front door Maggie watched the woman fidgeting on the portico. Her first reaction was that at least this time Samantha Ramirez had decided to come to the front of the house instead of the back.
“I know I should have called first, but I didn’t think you’d agree to see me.” Ramirez blurted it so quickly a slight Spanish accent slipped out.
“What makes you think I will now?” Maggie blocked the open doorway while Ramirez continued to shift from one foot to the other.
“Because I have something I think you’ll want to see.” She opened the flap of her shoulder bag to show Maggie the camera inside. “I need to run the footage for you to take a look. It’s from the warehouse fires.”
“What’s going on?” Patrick asked from behind Maggie.
At the sound of his voice she noticed Ramirez’s demeanor changed. At first Maggie thought the woman was disappointed she didn’t catch Maggie alone. But at second glance she saw that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t disappointment that had suddenly struck Ramirez and dismantled her composure, but rather what plainly looked like a physical attraction to Patrick—an attraction that caught Ramirez off guard so much she hadn’t been able to control her reaction.
Maggie glanced back at Patrick. His hair was dripping. He must have jumped out of the shower to come to her defense. All he had on was a towel around his waist. She tamped down the urge to roll her eyes, but couldn’t stop a smile. No wonder Ramirez was blushing.
“Everything’s fine,” Maggie told him. “Ms. Ramirez has something she needs to show me at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.”
“Actually Patrick may want to see this, too.”
Maggie stepped aside and waved Ramirez inside, enjoying her obvious discomfort as she passed by Patrick.
“Let me grab some clothes.” And he disappeared down the hallway.
“I thought Agent Tully already went over the footage from the warehouse fires?”
“We stopped when he found the man with the red backpack.”
Without waiting for permission, Ramirez started unloading the camera, adapter, cords, and cables.
“Agent Tully didn’t ask to s
ee any more after that. But I noticed something.”
She stopped herself. Looked up at Maggie. Her eyes flicked to Patrick, who had returned, now wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. She quickly looked back to Maggie.
“Actually I noticed someone in the crowd. He wasn’t there until after the second blast.”
She pointed at Maggie’s television. “If I can plug it into your TV we’ll have a much better and bigger view.”
“Here, I can help you with that.” Patrick slipped past Maggie and held out a hand for the cable.
Maggie stood back and watched the two of them. She admitted electronic gadgets baffled her, but these two knew exactly what they were doing. And now she saw that the attraction went both ways—a graze of a hand, eyes trying to avoid but stealing quick glances.
Without warning she thought about Ben. She certainly understood that uncontrollable physical reaction. Her body wanted what her mind told her she couldn’t have. Telling herself that she couldn’t have Ben only made her want him more. Would she ever get it right? Would she ever fall for a man who was emotionally available at the same time that she was emotionally available?
Patrick turned on the TV. Ramirez pressed some buttons on the camera and suddenly the blaze from the other night filled the big screen.
“This is right after the second blast.”
Ramirez had swept the shaky camera across the grounds in front of her. She must have just been getting up off the ground. Maggie recognized Tully on his hands and knees, Racine beside him. And to his left she realized she was looking at herself. She hardly recognized the woman lying facedown, flat on the ground, pulling herself up onto her elbows. Back behind them was the perfect shot of the second building engulfed in flames. Ramirez couldn’t have positioned herself better without planning it.
“Watch carefully. He’ll be up on the far left of the screen.”
The image jerked around again. Ground then sky, like an airplane nose-diving before pulling up.
“I was a bit unsteady on my feet,” Ramirez apologized. “It gets better.”
The camera moved off Maggie, following Racine, who was on her feet and rushing to help a group of people beyond the crime scene tape. Several were still sprawled on the ground.
The camera paused on them, then continued tracking. In the background Maggie could hear a low voice—Jeffery Cole narrating the scene, frame by frame. Ramirez had turned down the sound.
The camera’s view swung back a little farther, taking in the crowd gathering on the sidewalk across the street. It panned the length of them, and halfway through Ramirez punched a button and froze the image. She put the camera down and walked to the left side of the television.
“Right here.” She pointed at a man standing in the middle of the crowd, hands in his pockets, face expressionless. On the screen the image was big enough and focused enough to recognize, and although Maggie thought he looked familiar she couldn’t place him.
Ramirez, however, wasn’t interested in Maggie’s reaction. Instead she was looking at Patrick.
“Who is he?” she finally asked.
“Wes Harper,” Patrick told her. “My partner.”
And suddenly Maggie became interested. She walked across the living room to stand in front of the television, taking in as much of Wes Harper as she could.
“It’s probably no big deal,” Patrick said. “He told me he likes to go watch other fires.”
“Watch them?” Sam said. “Isn’t that a little weird?”
“Tell me about him,” Maggie asked Patrick without taking her eyes from the big screen.
“I really don’t know him that well.”
“But you spend a lot of time together. Is he married?”
“No.”
There was something about the delivery of his “no” that made Maggie glance at her brother. He was staring at the screen, too, but to avoid her eyes.
“What is it?”
“He asked about you. It felt a little weird.”
“About my being an FBI agent?”
“No. About whether or not you were married. He’s a player. He likes women.”
She could see he was uncomfortable talking about this with her. “What exactly does that mean?”
It was Ramirez who answered. “It means every woman he meets he thinks about screwing her.”
“Did he hit on you?” Patrick wanted to know.
“I can take care of myself.”
Maggie studied the man. Ramirez had left the film frozen on an excellent view of Wes Harper. While others around him displayed that wide-eyed look of shock and awe—one with a furrowed brow, another held a hand over her mouth, still another bent over with hands on his knees—Harper stood straight, hands in his pockets and a placid, almost content look on his face.
He looked to be in his thirties, square jaw, medium height, thick-chested, and muscular. He wore trousers, not jeans, and a nice jacket. Maggie stepped closer to examine the logo on the pocket.
“Is that a Members Only jacket?”
“Yeah, he loves that jacket.” Patrick came up beside her. “I don’t know how many times he’s told me that the company’s tagline was stolen by a condom manufacturer. Laughs every time he tells me. Thinks it’s pretty cool.”
“What’s the tagline?”
Patrick hesitated, uncomfortable again. “ ‘When you put it on something happens.’ ”
“Does he have a degree in fire science?”
“He started a program but said it was lame. Quit after a year.”
“The other night he was telling Jeffery and me what fire does to a body,” Ramirez said, and Maggie could see the woman was uncomfortable even with the memory of this. “He seemed to take great pleasure in describing it. It was almost like he had seen it himself and …”
“And what?” Maggie asked.
“And that he enjoyed watching a body burn.”
Maggie pulled out her cell phone as she told Patrick, “I need you to tell me everything you can think of about Wes Harper.” Then she punched in Racine’s number.
“Hey, I was just getting ready to call you,” Racine answered. “Virginia State Patrol just located Gloria Dobson’s SUV.”
CHAPTER 66
VIRGINIA
Maggie was surprised to find the rest area backed to woods. No meadow or pasture with the funky yellow weed that Ganza had found. But it did look like a place deer would frequent.
She and Tully had made the hour-and-a-half drive while Racine put out another alert on Dobson’s travel partner, Zach Lester. She also had started a background check on Wes Harper. Maggie had to stop Racine from bringing Harper in for questioning, telling the detective, “We don’t have enough and you don’t want to tip him off.”
They parked at the far end of the rest area and got out to walk.
“The State Patrol already towed the car to their crime lab,” Tully told her. “I’m not sure what else we’ll find.”
“He had to have taken her from here. It’s a crime scene.”
“The car may have been the only crime scene.”
Maggie stood on the edge of the sidewalk and took a good look around. Down here she could barely hear the interstate traffic. The exit divided cars from trucks right before they drove down into the rest area surrounded by beautiful and remote woods. Even the brick building with the restrooms was nestled in the trees. Well-kept sidewalks meandered all around, leading separate paths from up above where the trucks parked. She could hear the faint hum of their engines running. Through the trees she could see only five semitrailers occupied the area that, by Maggie’s estimate, could accommodate at least a dozen big rigs comfortably. She also noted that there were mulched trails leading into the woods.
“If it was her coworker, Zach Lester, why leave her car behind?” Maggie asked. “And how did he take her to the District?”
“Maybe he has an accomplice.”
“So they meet out here?”
“Or he called him. It’s possible. Might e
xplain why the car doesn’t show any sign of a struggle inside. The State Patrol will be able to tell us if her car had been tampered with. He could have done something to it. Made her believe they were stranded.”
“So where did he take her to bash her face in? He couldn’t have done all that in a vehicle. Ganza found deer hair and weeds attached to her clothing. Dr. Ling made it sound like the killer used a large, heavy weapon.”
“If he had another vehicle or an accomplice, he could have taken her anywhere.” Tully was watching Maggie instead of studying the surroundings. “But you’re thinking it was here.”
“Just a gut instinct. I expected it to be secluded like this, but with an open field somewhere close by.”
“Because of Ganza’s weed?”
She nodded and started walking. Tully followed.
“Depending on what time of day or night they stopped here there may have been no one else.”
“He could have easily taken her into the woods,” Tully said. “Maybe convinced her to go stretch her legs with him.”
“I have to tell you I’ve looked over the file Racine has on Lester and he sounds squeaky clean. He doesn’t sound like a killer.”
“How many times have we heard that? It’s always the ones nobody suspects,” Tully said. “That quiet neighbor. The helpful janitor. Remember what people said about Ted Bundy. Such a nice guy. How about the BTK killer? Wasn’t he on the church council or something?”
“I’ve also read all the information on Gloria Dobson and she certainly doesn’t sound like the type of woman who would walk into the woods with someone suspicious. And she would have fought for her life. She has three kids. She’s a recent breast cancer survivor.”
Maggie continued to walk all the way up to where the trucks were parked. It was high enough to see over some of the trees that surrounded the lower half of the rest area. She studied the parked trucks.
“Ganza told me there’s a whole subculture to truck stops and rest areas. A whole world no one sees unless they know where to look. Prostitutes come knocking on the doors of the big rigs while they sleep. Drug dealers, too. Where do they go in between tricks and deals? Do they have their own vehicles? Why doesn’t anyone else see them?”