Incisions

by Barbara Winkes

  Incisions

  (Carpenter/Harding #3)

  Barbara Winkes

  Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Winkes

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For D.

  Always.

  Chapter One

  He couldn’t believe what happened. This was impossible. He wasn’t supposed to work tonight. He couldn’t. There was something so much more important he had to do…but his dad said he needed him. Today of all days. He wouldn’t ever let his father down again, even if he considered the task mundane and irrelevant, like everything else regarding the business that made up the old man’s livelihood.

  Dad had been proud once. He was supposed to carry the torch next, but somehow, they both went off the right path.

  He cast an anxious glance at the big clock on the wall, the hands of time moving, unstoppable. He couldn’t stop disaster from happening either, the plan he’d set in motion already unfolding.

  He had imagined the moment a million times, and in his mind, it went something like this: The sound of high heels on the pavement—she always wore them after work. She would be unaware at first, then, maybe instinct would kick in as she realized she wasn’t alone on the street, that someone was following her. She’d turn around and try to identify the source of that vague, but bad feeling. She’d doubt herself.

  That was the moment when a dark figure would step out of the shadows and grab her. She would fight like she’d been trained to, but her attacker would be stronger, wrestling her to the ground, making her fear for the worst…

  This was where he came in, the knight in shining armor who had been humiliated, denied the uniform he craved. He would show them. Not only would he rescue the woman, but stop the perpetrator, with his gun if necessary. Of course, the junkie he’d paid a few bucks to scare the woman, didn’t know about the gun.

  Danny took another look at the clock, starting to sweat when the hand moved to twelve. It was happening right now, only there was no knight coming to the rescue. His chance had come and gone, and he was still sitting over the damn books, trying to make sense of the numbers and the fact that life had denied him another chance.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that he learned about the policewoman who was in the hospital after having been badly beaten by an unidentified perp.

  He was livid. How could anyone confuse “scare her a little” into “badly beaten”? Now he was back to square one. The junkie was long gone, and, with him, the money.

  He had to be more careful the next time.

  The atmosphere was somber the days after the attack. He even accompanied his father to the hospital once, hoping he could see her, but there were too many cops around. They were watching her like hawks—he couldn’t afford to raise anyone’s suspicions, not now. He saw them talking in hushed tones, fresh-faced rookies in shiny uniforms. The incident had rattled them, but it also forged an even stronger camaraderie, something he wanted to be part of so badly. They didn’t know how lucky they all were.

  He was lucky too, considering, because over time, the attack was attributed to a serial killer who for some reason was happy to claim responsibility. The officer returned to her routine, hooking up with a detective, undoubtedly to further her career. She didn’t look scared. If anything, she acted defiant.

  He’d been sorry at first, angry with himself and the man who had taken his money and done a lousy job carrying out the plan. He often saw her, though she never seemed to notice him. With time, his anger changed, and he began to transfer it onto the only person actually in his reach.

  The funeral of another young officer shocked the community, and once more, they banded together in grief. He was there, but he could have been invisible just as well, not part of any of it.

  He saw her, arms around her friend who had been engaged to the fallen officer.

  He knew about this kind of gossip, always picked up on it. Information could be valuable later on. Information would help him do better the next time.

  The next time had to be bigger, more impressive, and his timing had to be flawless.

  He wouldn’t be invisible any longer.

  * * * *

  By now, Ellie should have been in a luxury resort hotel room, with Jordan next to her. She wasn’t. Jolted awake out of a deep dark sleep, her heart racing, she was brought up short by the cuff around her wrist. Even with her mind still fuzzy—probably not just from sleep, she reasoned— Ellie knew this was wrong. She struggled to put the pieces together in her memory, fragments of images and sensations. The more she did, the more the scenery felt like something out of a nightmare, the kind where a person tried to scream, but no sound would come out until the abrupt awakening…

  “Hello? Is there anybody?”

  She was already awake, and her voice worked just fine. Ellie used her free hand to explore her surroundings carefully. As her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, she could make out the edge of the cot, the wall to her left, a small window high above behind her.

  Not a chance.

  She went back to examining the cuff around her wrist which seemed to be standard, the other end fastened to the cot. Not much she could do without the key other than trying to take apart the frame, and with what?

  Whoever had taken her here might come back first and put a dent to that plan.

  Maybe they were already here.

  Maybe they had left her here to die.

  No.

  She had to focus, palm trees, luxury resort—Jordan. Jordan would come looking for her, as would all her colleagues. Ellie had once talked down an armed man who had kidnapped his own children—she could do it again. Not every person who committed a crime was a creepy serial killer torturing women in his basement…That wasn’t helpful, Ellie realized when her heart rate went into overdrive again, her body’s stress reaction to the imagery nearly making her pass out.

  She shook her head, to clear her mind of the disastrous ideas, to refuse. Whoever put that road block in her path, she wouldn’t have it. She was stronger than that.

  Jordan had been worried that Jonathan Darby could be behind the mysterious text messages, but they had ruled out the theory early on. This was just another distraction, a predicament she’d get out of soon. Ellie believed this because she knew with certainty that it couldn’t be any other way—because they deserved their happy ending, and they would have it.

  The warm wetness on her face was the only thing indicating that it might not be that easy after all. Her left hand hurt, Ellie realized all of a sudden, and she flexed her fingers only to become aware that they were slightly sticky.

  When and how had she hurt herself, or was the question rather, who had?

  “Oh God,” she whispered in the darkness as the image came to her in a flash, eyes behind a mask, like that other time. A nightmare? Reality? Ellie wasn’t much of a believer. She had to rely on herself until help arrived.

  * * * *

  Jordan Carpenter was no stranger to an out-of-body experience. For most people, it was a metaphor when they said they were beside themselves. They had no idea what it really felt like when all you could do was watch yourself, disconnected from your body in a disturbing way.

  At twelve years old, she had watched a young girl walk out of a trailer, afraid to look back, afraid of what lay ahead. The voices around her, some angry, some trying to placate, were muted like under water.

  A woman, strung up by chains dangling from the ceiling, likely to die if
not for any form of intervention. I deserve to die. She remembered nearly choking on her words.

  This wasn’t about her though, it was about Ellie. Ellie was missing.

  There was blood on the carpet in the hallway.

  “Jordan. I came here as soon as I could. Are you okay?”

  The scene was becoming more surreal by the minute, yet she had to jolt herself out of her protective haze. A crime scene unit was looking for clues in Ellie’s apartment. Jordan’s partner, Derek Henderson, had just arrived. How did he know?

  All of a sudden, her stomach lurched as if she was in a falling elevator.

  “Why are you here? This is a Missing Persons case. Not Homicide.” Oh God.

  “Officer McCarthy called me,” he said. “She thought…never mind. Easy, I don’t know any more than you do.”

  She caught McCarthy’s long thoughtful glance and couldn’t help wondering what demons she was battling at this moment. Her fiancé, another rookie cop, had been killed during a violent ambush. Ellie was her friend.

  “I had somebody call the hospitals,” Kate said. “Maybe…”

  “No.” Jordan shook her head, only now realizing that most of what she’d found wasn’t more than a thought, a horrible vision, at this point. “Someone took her. There’s blood. Not much, but…what are the odds?”

  “We’ll see what the CSU guys have to say, and look into the cases she worked on. Someone she arrested who might have gotten out.”

  “Yeah, sure.” How could he be so calm when she was about to come out of her skin? Jordan wanted to punch her partner, even though she knew that his calm attitude was mostly for her sake. After what happened to Officer Baker only a few weeks ago, no one wanted to take any chances. Everyone was on edge. “I’m coming with you. There’s nothing we can do here at the moment. Hey,” she addressed one of the techs. “The moment you’re done with your report, straight to my desk.”

  The man simply nodded, but Derek’s look told her she could have been a tad more polite. Jordan didn’t care. There would be enough time for an apology once Ellie was home safe.

  “We need to check on Darby—again,” she said when they sat in the car. “What if he was playing us all along, working with someone on the outside? Somebody like him?”

  “No,” was Derek’s quick answer. “I’ll check with him, no problem, because you are not going anywhere near him again. I mean it, Jordan. The last time it did more harm than good.”

  It was hard to deny that, so Jordan stayed silent, staring straight ahead into the early morning mist.

  “Thank you. Now even if that was true, remember what we learned. The people he associated with were nowhere near as clever as him. He wouldn’t do that, because he’s vain. If they get caught, not his problem. That’s how he works, but at this point, we don’t even know it’s him.”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence. Those stupid texts…We should have never let that go.”

  “We didn’t. We just had a couple of more urgent cases on our plate,” Derek reminded her.

  “Well, this is urgent now. We were supposed to be on a plane to Costa Rica.” There was the tiniest crack to her voice. If she paid attention, allowed it to widen, Jordan knew she’d be losing it. She couldn’t. She had to believe that whoever had taken Ellie from her apartment was not a smart mastermind like Darby who had orchestrated kidnappings and killings in at least two states.

  This situation was nothing like the one Jordan had walked into at Darby’s house, and damn it, she had to stop thinking about it. Ellie, eager to prove herself to the detectives’ squad, had worked on Darby’s case. She’d also assisted in the search for Phil Hobbs, a felon whose escape had unleashed a crime spree and for Jordan, family secrets she preferred to pretend didn’t exist. Hobbs was back behind bars, and so were all his cohorts. While his former cell mate TJ Pratt, Jordan’s biological father, had reason to hate her, he didn’t even know about Ellie.

  The connection had to be somewhere else.

  She took a deep breath. It would be fine. Ellie would be okay, and they’d go on their delayed trip sometime soon.

  In their job, they looked out for each other. Sergeant Bristol would put every available cop on the case…but sometimes, that wasn’t enough. She turned away, pressing her hand against her mouth, only for a split second, as she remembered Jensen Baker’s funeral.

  Not again. She would see to that.

  Chapter Two

  Officer Libby Marshall was at the front desk this morning, her sad sympathetic gaze indicating that she knew. She belonged to the group of friends Ellie liked to hang out with at the Code 7. She’d been injured the day Jensen Baker was killed during an ambush on a safe house. Jordan struggled to force those memories out of her mind as she greeted her co-worker.

  “We’ll find her,” Libby said. “I hear they already narrowed it down to…”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

  Jordan headed for the elevator, barely waiting for Derek to catch up with her, hitting the button for their floor harder than necessary.

  “It won’t go faster that way,” he muttered.

  “Whatever you say.”

  In the hallway, they ran into Detective Doss who was on her way out. “We found a possible suspect,” she said. “Waters will tell you all about it.”

  “No. Wait. I’m coming with you. You can tell me all about it on the way.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Derek said. “I’ll let you know if anything else comes up.”

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  Jordan noticed that he and Doss barely looked at each other. Either they wanted to pretend that there was nothing going on between them—she knew, but she didn’t have an opportunity to talk to Derek yet—or there was trouble brewing. Neither alternative was of any interest to her at this moment. She turned around to follow her co-worker out. Doss hadn’t said anything to her yet.

  “Okay, spill it. What did you find?”

  Doss straightened her shoulders. “Tucker Branson, got out of jail four months ago. He’s checking in with his parole officer and his mom on a regular basis. He was one of Harding’s first arrests.”

  “What makes you think he’s coming for her now?”

  “He said some pretty nasty things in court, if not specifically against her. Takes some planning. He has to get a gun, someplace to take her.”

  Jordan shuddered. If this was plain revenge against a police officer, it was unlikely that there would be a ransom or any contact. They had to be quick.

  “What was he in for?”

  “Drugs, assault. He got out early because he turned on one of his buddies.”

  “That’s the most recent one who got out?”

  “There were a few more in recent months, a woman who served for credit card fraud, moved back with her folks in Virginia after she got out. Not very likely, but there was another one that sounded more interesting—as I said, there’s usually some planning involved in kidnapping a person…and I’m sorry.”

  “No problem.” If anything, Jordan was grateful that her colleagues had mostly stopped walking on eggshells around her. Life went on. Bad things happened all the time.

  “All right.” Doss seemed relieved she didn’t want to prolong the subject. “Waters will be checking in with them. Two brothers, often found in bar brawls, once kidnapped the girlfriend of some other guy they had a beef with.”

  Jordan wanted to ask, and she didn’t.

  “She was found alive, a little worse for wear, but not harmed. They locked her up, but brought her beer and fast food.”

  On this morning of all days, Jordan couldn’t spare a smile to make her co-worker feel better. “Anything else? Derek could go—”

  “Yeah. I’m sure he could.”

  “Are you guys okay?” It was none of Jordan’s business, but if anything had happened that would make either Doss or Derek focus any less, she needed to know. Ellie deserved all of them at their best, regardless of whatever else was going on.


  “Why wouldn’t we be?” There was still a slight edge to Doss’s tone. “Don’t worry about it. If you want my advice though, dating at work is always a bad idea. Now look at me, I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut. Let’s just focus on finding Harding, okay?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  There would be time for everything else later—even chastising her partner.

  Tucker Branson opened the door to them, groaning before they even identified themselves. “Yeah, save it, ladies. You’re with the police.”

  “We just have a few questions,” Doss said. “Can we come in?”

  “You’re making me late for work, and I really don’t want to be. You know, work, a pay check, roof over the head? Those are good things.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Jordan agreed. “You’ve been out for four months, got a job, an apartment and everything. Good for you.”

  “Well, thanks. You came by to say ‘well done, Tucker’? Nice touch. I really need to go now.”

  “You remember Officer Harding. Seen her lately?”

  Jordan forced herself not to show any reaction, but she couldn’t help flinching a bit when Maria Doss showed Ellie’s picture to Branson.

  “No, should I? Wait, that’s the chick who arrested me. Nah. Frankly, I don’t want to see her again. Ever.”

  “Would you mind if we took a look around?”

  In answer to Doss’s question, he ran straight into her, taking her down as he headed for the stairs. Doss clutched her shoulder, but her expression was more pissed than hurt.

  “Go,” she shouted. “I’m okay.”

  So Jordan did.

  Branson didn’t seem to be thinking clearly. It didn’t make sense to go upstairs if he thought he had any chance of getting away. His irrational reaction made her think he had something to hide, related to Ellie’s disappearance or not, and she was determined to find out what it was.

  His apartment was on the sixth floor, at least five more to the roof. Jordan could hear his frantic footsteps above her, over the blood rushing in her ears. There was nowhere to go for Branson. He had to know that. The only question left was how desperate was he, and did he have access to a weapon?