by Janie Crouch
The next morning she’d told her aunt, who’d looked the other way again during all the commotion, that she was going to school.
Andrea hadn’t gone to school. And she hadn’t gone back home. Ever again.
She hadn’t gone far, just to the other side of the town she’d only ever known as home, but they hadn’t come looking for her. Had probably been relieved that she’d left.
So yeah, no joyous homecoming in Buckeye.
Andrea withdrew into herself as they landed at Sky Harbor Airport. She let Brandon take the lead as they rented a car and headed west on I-10 out of Phoenix, stopping to get something to eat on the way. The stark, flat lands of Arizona were a huge contrast to the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs, where she’d spent the past four years.
Coming here was a mistake. Andrea was convinced of it. If she’d been alone, she might have turned around and gone back home.
Home, Colorado Springs. That was her home now.
“Hey, you doing okay?”
Andrea struggled to hide her shock at Brandon’s hand on her arm. She didn’t think he was going to engage with her for the rest of the trip.
“Yeah. I just... This is hard. I don’t think I want to do this.”
She could feel his annoyance or coolness, or whatever it was he felt toward her, ease.
“Going back to the place where you grew up can be hard. Is there anyone you’d like to see while you’re there? Friends? Family?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone here will remember me.”
He didn’t push it and she was thankful. They drove on in silence from the airport west on I-10 before turning south on smaller Highway 85. A couple of miles down they passed her old high school, Buckeye Union. Before thinking it through, she pointed it out to Brandon.
“What year did you graduate?”
She didn’t want to tell him that she hadn’t graduated, so she told him the year she’d stopped going. Then she realized it might make it sound as if she’d graduated early or something, so she changed it to the next year.
Brandon looked at her with one eyebrow raised, but fortunately, he didn’t say anything else about it.
Before she knew it, before she could stop it, they were in Buckeye. The town hadn’t changed much. They passed the dollar store, one of the town’s grocery stores and Buckeye Auto Repair.
She actually remembered Buckeye Auto Repair pretty fondly. They had quite politely not mentioned that it looked as though everything she’d owned was in her car when she’d had to take it in for repairs when she was seventeen.
That was because everything she’d owned had been in the car. She’d been living in it at the time. Before she got the job at Jaguar’s and made enough money to move into a sparsely furnished, run-down studio apartment.
She was pretty sure the owner of Buckeye Auto Repair hadn’t charged her the full price for the repair.
She and Brandon pulled up to the town’s one decent hotel. There were a couple of others on the rougher side of town—ones that were rented out by the hour, or the opposite, used to house multiple illegal immigrants in one room. This was a much better choice for law enforcement.
Brandon checked them in, getting rooms right next to each other on the first floor. They grabbed their bags and headed through the lobby and down the hall.
“I’m going to call it a night,” Andrea said, slipping the key card into her door. She needed to be alone, away from all her thoughts and feelings about this town. She also needed to begin the painful process of studying the case files before tomorrow’s meeting.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll leave at eight o’clock.” Brandon turned to his door. “Are you okay?”
Andrea nodded. “Good night.” She shut the door behind her without another word, away from Brandon and his brown eyes that saw too much.
Because she wasn’t all right. Being back here was worse than she’d thought it would be.
This whole thing was a terrible idea.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department office, Brandon and Andrea waited in the conference room for the local officers who would serve as their liaisons. The sheriff’s department was just a mile or so on the outskirts of Buckeye.
When Andrea had seen what building they were arriving at, her eyes had nearly bugged out of her head. Her skin had turned a concerning shade of gray. Brandon had reached for her hand, and she had clutched his, almost automatically. Her skin was cold, clammy.
A sure nonverbal tell of fright. This building frightened Andrea.
She’d taken a couple of deep breaths and gotten herself under control, releasing his hand. She’d smiled over at him, an expression nowhere near touching her eyes, so nowhere near real. Something about that fake smile nearly broke his heart.
Maybe the whole idea of bringing her back to Buckeye had been a mistake. Her input would be valuable, sure, but Brandon had solved a lot of cases without having an inside person.
Maybe the price of doing this was too high for Andrea.
Whatever judgments Brandon had made about her began to dissipate a little. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to deal with this.
“Andrea.” He’d turned to her from where they sat in the parking lot. “Perhaps this isn’t a good idea. It’s okay if I need to go in alone.”
“No, I’m fine. I just didn’t realize we’d be coming here, to this building, that’s all.”
What was here that made her so upset? “You have some history here?”
She took a deep breath. “Not really. This whole town just sets me on edge.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He didn’t want her to get inside then panic.
“Yes, I’m fine. I promise.” The smile she gave him was at least a little stronger than the shadow of one she’d given him a few moments ago. He touched her hand. It was closer to normal temperature again.
But she looked tired, despite makeup that carefully covered it, as if she had been up most of the night. Maybe she had if the town had this sort of effect on her.
But except for the telltale signs that he was sure only he would notice, looking at her from across the conference table now, she looked like the consummate professional. Andrea wore sharp trousers and a matching blazer, managing to be attractively feminine and coolly businesslike at the same time. The high heels she wore everywhere were the perfect complement to the outfit. Not a hair was out of place in her chic bob.
She may have been scared out in the parking lot, but she was determined not to show it in here. Brandon’s respect for her ratcheted a notch. If only she was as prepared for the case as she looked, which he knew she wasn’t. Maybe he could help her out if she got stuck, save her any embarrassment.
Two men entered the room, one in his midfifties in a sheriff’s office uniform, one in his early thirties in a suit. Both looked a little tired, frazzled. The older man took the lead. “I’m Lance Kendrick from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. Since all three murders took place—or at least the bodies were found—in Maricopa, I’m taking the lead.”
“I’m Gerardo Jennison with the City of Phoenix Homicide Unit. We’re providing investigative resources for anything which the sheriff’s department may not have.”
“I’m agent Brandon Han from Omega Sector, as you know. This is Ms. Andrea Gordon, one of our behavioral analysts. She’ll be consulting as needed.”
As Jennison shook Andrea’s hand, Brandon could see his appreciation of her as a woman. Lance Kendrick, on the other hand, studied her pretty intently. Andrea had looked at him when they shook hands, but then glanced away.
Andrea recognized Kendrick.
That wasn’t impossible or even improbable. Andrea had lived here her whole life. She probably would’ve run into membe
rs of the sheriff’s office from time to time. “Have we met before?” Kendrick asked Andrea.
Her expression remained smooth although she shifted just slightly in her chair. “Maybe.” She smiled at him. “Omega works a lot of cases.”
A very nice side step. She wasn’t offering up that she used to live here or that she recognized Kendrick, so Brandon didn’t, either. Her comment seemed to pacify the sheriff’s deputy, although Brandon knew that wasn’t where they knew each other.
“We have three victims so far,” Kendrick said, tone bordering on bored. “All Caucasian females between the ages of twenty to twenty-five. Cause of death was strangulation with a thin rope. The ligature marks were quite clear. All had been restrained—marks on their wrists were obvious, but there was no sign of any other assault, sexual or otherwise. And they all were found outside a church. Different one each time.”
Putting the victims outside a church corresponded well with the purity theme he and Andrea had batted around yesterday.
“Any known connection between the victims?” he asked.
“They didn’t seem to know each other, as far as we can tell. All lived in Maricopa County, but different parts.”
“But two had been arrested for something in the last year or two,” Andrea interjected.
Brandon glanced at her discreetly. So she had studied the files.
Kendrick nodded. “Different charges, but yes. Brought here for holding, actually. One was arrested for solicitation, one for underage drinking. Neither of them were ever booked or went to trial.”
If Brandon hadn’t been looking over at Andrea, he would’ve missed her slight flinch. Had there been some trouble with the law in her past? Was that what made her nervous about this building?
“Occupations were not exactly upstanding, either. Two of them worked at exotic dance clubs somewhere in Phoenix or the surrounding areas. One worked at a diner that is known to be a hot area for solicitation.” Jennison grinned slyly at Kendrick.
Kendrick chuckled. “Yeah, I offered to do some undercover work at the clubs, but somehow couldn’t clear it with my boss, much less my wife.”
Brandon ignored the jokes. He wasn’t surprised about the women’s occupations. Quite often an arrest record accompanied such jobs.
“What exactly have you done concerning the investigation?” Brandon could hear the tightness in Andrea’s tone.
“We’ve done our due diligence.” Kendrick sat up a little straighter in his chair. “We interviewed employers, canvassed the area for witnesses, ran DNA and searched for any prints.”
Jennison interjected. “Look, we appreciate Omega sending you down here, and if you come up with any insight we’d love to hear it. We don’t want a killer wandering around loose. But the fact is, none of these women seem to have anyone who cares about them, two have an arrest record and all have employment that is a bit questionable.”
Kendrick shrugged. “So basically, we’ll do all we can—like Jennison said, nobody wants to let a killer go free—but we’re not getting any pressure from the higher-ups to put major resources into this investigation. Unfortunately, these women were pretty much nobodies.”
Chapter Four
These women were pretty much nobodies.
No family who cared. Arrest records. Questionable employment.
If the killer had been around four years ago, Andrea might have been one of the victims. Every part of that account described her when she was nineteen, before changing her life at Omega.
She wanted to, but she could hardly blame the cops. Law-enforcement funding was limited. Unfortunately, without family demanding justice, these murders, if not easily solved, would just get pushed to the side.
The only reason Omega had been called at all was because it was obvious the three kills had been performed by the same person. Otherwise Andrea didn’t know if the locals would’ve put any true effort into finding the killer.
They were on their way now to The Boar’s Nest, one of three bars here in Buckeye, where the latest victim—Noelle Brumby—had been known to frequent. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, but evidently Noelle had hung out here in the afternoons since she worked nights.
Andrea’s weariness pressed against her—reviewing the case files had taken her most of the night—but she pushed it aside. She had made it through talking to Lance Kendrick, who had thankfully not remembered her from her brief run-in with the sheriff’s office for underage drinking years ago. She could make it through this.
Walking inside, she thought The Boar’s Nest looked just the way someone would expect a small-town bar to look in the middle of the afternoon: dingy, run-down, pathetic. Night hid a lot of sins of this place that sunlight brought out.
The Tuesday afternoon crowd wasn’t the most upstanding. Anybody who had a white-collar job, and even most of the blue-collar ones, would not be in this place at this time. The people patronizing The Boar’s Nest now worked nights or didn’t work at all.
Andrea heard a low whistle as they walked in, but didn’t know if it was for her looks or because they were obviously law enforcement. Nobody ran for the exit or stopped any activities suddenly, so at least it didn’t appear that anything illegal was happening.
She felt Brandon step closer to her and could see him looking around, obviously checking for any danger. Cops were sometimes not welcome in places like this, although that would not stop her and Brandon from their questioning. Brandon had a weapon, but Andrea didn’t. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to use it.
Two pool tables lined the far end of the room, with three guys playing on one. A bartender unpacked boxes and put glasses away behind the bar, and a couple sat at a table sipping beers in the corner.
All of them were looking at Brandon and Andrea.
Brandon touched her gently on the back—she knew it was an unconscious habit more than anything else but it still sent a slight shiver through her—and they headed toward the bar.
The bartender looked at them without halting his motions. “Lost or cops?”
Brandon chuckled. “Can’t be thirsty?”
“Yeah, you can. And I’ll gladly get you something, but I’m still pretty sure you’re one of the other two, also.”
“You’re right—the latter. We’re investigating the death of Noelle Brumby.”
The bartender stopped putting away the glasses. “Yeah, that was a damn shame. She was a nice girl. Friendly. I’m Phil. I own this bar.”
Andrea studied Phil while he talked. He seemed very sincere about liking Noelle.
“Can you tell us anything else about her?” Brandon asked.
“She worked at a...er, gentleman’s club closer in to Phoenix.”
Allure. They already knew that and would be interviewing people there soon, even though Kendrick and Jennison had also spoken with them.
“Why didn’t she work at Jaguar’s, do you know?” Andrea was hesitant to bring up her former place of employment in front of Brandon, but understanding why Noelle would drive farther to work at a club rather than work at the strip club here in town might have some bearing.
Both the bartender and Brandon looked a little surprised at her question.
“You from around here?” Phil asked. “You’ve never been in this bar before. I’m pretty sure I’d remember you.”
“I’ve driven through town a few times.” Better to just keep her past out of it.
“Noelle didn’t like the owner over at Jaguar’s. Had heard some bad things about him. Harry Minkley’s his name.”
Yeah, Andrea already knew Harry’s name. And she was glad Noelle had the good sense not to work for him. Although in the long run, it hadn’t helped her.
“Noelle came in here a lot?” Brandon leaned one arm against the bar so he had a better view of the whole place.
“Most
ly during the week in the afternoons. Weekends were pretty busy for her, as were a lot of evenings. She hung out with those guys over there. The tall, skinny one’s named Corey. Big one next to him is Luke and the other is Jarrod.” He pointed back to where the three guys were playing pool. “They knew her better than me.”
Brandon and Andrea both turned toward the men. “Thanks for your help,” she said over her shoulder.
“Thank you for trying to find the killer.” Phil turned back to his unpacking. “I wondered if anyone would bother.”
The three younger men—all in their early to midtwenties—continued to play pool as she and Brandon made their way over. But she could tell they were quite aware of her and Brandon as law enforcement and of her as a woman.
“Hey, guys.” Brandon’s tone was friendly but firm. “We’d like to talk to you about Noelle Brumby.”
Andrea tried to watch all three as closely as she could. Two, Luke and Corey, immediately tensed, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of their relationship with Noelle or because they just didn’t like cops. The other one, Jarrod, definitely expressed some guilt at Noelle’s name, but mostly couldn’t seem to get his attention off Andrea.
Andrea tried to classify in her mind the reactions of each man. She wished she could record them and study them multiple times later, but she didn’t have that luxury in this situation.
“What makes you think we even knew her?” Luke asked, now holding the pool cue with white knuckles.
“Phil said she hung out with you three a lot.”
“Yeah, well, maybe Phil should keep his mouth shut,” defensive guy number two—Corey—muttered, not looking up from the shot he was making.
Brandon walked around the pool table so he was standing against the far wall. Andrea understood why he did it, to get a different angle and perspective for reading these guys, but she felt more exposed without him next to her.
“We’re trying to find the killer of someone who was your friend. I’d think you’d want to help with that.” Brandon was watching Luke and Corey as he made the statement—one meant to cause a reaction. Andrea turned her attention to Jarrod, only to find him overtly studying her, so she looked back at the other two men.