Into Thin Air

by Karen Leabo

  He ignored her ineffectual protest, and part of her—the crazy part, she supposed—was glad. She didn’t want to say good-night to him just yet.

  The Jag was a sexy car, she had to admit. The engine roared powerfully beneath the hood, and she could feel the road under her. By watching Austin steer, she could tell that the Jag handled the curves beautifully. The heater, however, left something to be desired. It continued to blast cold air at her even after a couple of minutes, and she folded her arms tightly across her breasts.

  “Where are we going?” she finally asked, fearful of his answer.

  “My house.”

  She stifled a groan. Oh, Lord, what was she doing? If she had even an ounce of willpower, she would order him to turn around right now and take her back to the party, where she could get her own car and hightail it home.

  “You don’t like that idea?”

  “Uh, well...”

  “I thought I might rustle up some breakfast, and we could do some more brainstorming.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t sure she believed him.

  “We can do it another time if you’re too tired—”

  “No, I’m fine.” And she’d be damned if she would fizzle out before him. If this was some kind of endurance showdown, she didn’t intend to be outshone. She knew it was juvenile to feel so competitive toward Austin, but she supposed if a spirit of competition spurred them both to go the extra mile on this case, that made it acceptable.

  Austin lived in east Dallas, not all that far from Caro’s neighborhood, in a compact white frame house that stuck out among its brick neighbors.

  “It used to be a farmhouse, and the city grew up around it,” he explained as he unlocked the front door. The moment the door was open, a mammoth black dog was all over Austin, its front paws braced against his chest as he tried to dodge its wide pink tongue. “Hello, Shadow, yes, hello.” As soon as Austin greeted the dog properly, it calmed down.

  “You’re a big guy, aren’t you?” Caro said as she gingerly patted the beast’s head. His sheer size was daunting, but he appeared harmless enough.

  “That’s Shadow,” Austin said. “C’mon, boy, let’s go outside.”

  Those were the magic words. The dog bounded after its master as Austin led the way presumably to a back door.

  Caro peeked into the living and dining rooms, then wandered into the kitchen. The whole house had a sparse country look—not some decorator’s idea of country, but the real thing. It was obvious Austin didn’t rank housework among his top priorities, but then, neither did she.

  “What kind of omelet do you like?” he asked as he strode into the kitchen. “Your choices are cheese, cheese and—” he rummaged through the refrigerator “—cheese.”

  He was really going to cook for her? She found the idea disturbingly intimate—almost as bad as dragging her straight to the bedroom. “I’ll have cheese, thank you.” One omelet wouldn’t kill her.

  “You want to make some orange juice?”

  “Sure.” She felt better keeping busy in the old-fashioned kitchen while Austin cooked—mixing the juice, setting the table, brewing coffee for him and tea for herself. With her hands safely occupied, she could resist touching him as he moved easily between the stove and refrigerator. She could only hope he really didn’t have seduction on the agenda. Her body was vibrating in so many different places, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

  And going to bed with Austin would be madness.

  Within a few short minutes they were sitting down at the kitchen table to a modest feast. Caro hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She devoured her omelet and two pieces of toast. Austin matched her bite for bite.

  When they were finished he set the dishes in the sink and refilled his coffee cup. Caro, too lazy to brew more tea, opted for coffee instead. She didn’t really like the taste, but she figured the caffeine wouldn’t hurt.

  “You really want to work?” he asked, and she thought she detected a note of wistfulness in his voice.

  Actually, she could think of several attractive alternatives, all of them involving the removal of key items of clothing and contact between various body parts. She forced a bright smile. “Sure, let’s get after it.”

  He led her into a small den that he’d set up as an office, with an old rolltop desk—just as messy as his desk at work, with two aging cups of cold coffee. There was a short sofa pushed into one corner, a curtainless window, and a whole wall of bookshelves. Caro plopped down on the sofa, pulled off her boots and tucked her feet under her.

  Austin handed her a legal pad and pen. He sat down at the old-fashioned rolling desk chair with his own pad, his ankle crossed over the other knee, glasses on. Caro had noticed that Austin wore his glasses only when he had to—due to vanity, perhaps?—so he was probably serious about this working thing.

  “Brainstorm,” he said. “Write down every idea, no matter how ridiculous or stupid you think it is. Turn off your inner critic.”

  “Okay.” She’d been to a seminar once—probably Austin had, too—where this method was suggested, but she’d never actually used it to try and solve a case. It took a few moments to get started, but once she heard Austin’s pen scratching frantically against his paper, her competitive instincts took over and her list of ideas began to take shape.

  Some of the ideas were realistic. Caro suggested they save the next envelope Odell sent to either Virginia or Wanda and have it analyzed at the lab for paper content as well as fingerprints. Perhaps, if it wasn’t a common brand, they could track down where Odell bought it. Austin thought of consulting with a mental health professional to get a psychological profile of Odell.

  But as the night wore on, the ideas got sillier. It became impossible not to laugh at some of Austin’s suggestions.

  “Let’s just set bear traps all over Texas for her,” Caro said with a giggle, feeling punchy. It was close to three in the morning.

  Austin didn’t laugh. In fact, he wasn’t smiling at all. “A trap, huh?”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  He didn’t respond. His expression was pensive, and it was almost as if Caro was no longer in the room.

  Not wanting to disturb his thinking process—if indeed that was what was going on—she made herself more comfortable on the couch, stretching her legs out and leaning her head against the armrest. Within thirty seconds she was asleep.

  * * *

  Austin went to let Shadow in for the night. A trap. Set a trap. The words echoed over and over in his head. But what kind of trap?

  When he returned to the office, an idea was beginning to germinate in his imagination. He started to tell Caro about it, but he realized she’d fallen asleep. Transfixed, he simply stared at her for uncounted minutes, moved by the quiet beauty reflected in her face.

  He’d never seen her so relaxed, without that constant wariness she carried around with her. With her brown hair gilded by the lamplight and the serenity lent by sleep, she reminded him of a painting he’d once seen of the Madonna—young, innocent.

  Young. Without that tough maturity reflected in her eyes, she really did look amazingly youthful for a woman well past thirty. And that’s when it hit him. The elusive idea he’d been searching for all night suddenly clicked into place.

  Chapter 14

  Caro awoke to the questionable benefit of having a wide, pink tongue washing her face. “Oh—Oh! Get away. Yuck.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “Shadow! Come here!” Austin skidded into the den, and Caro immediately forgot the dog. Her host had obviously just gotten out of the shower, and he wore only a snug pair of jeans—not quite fastened all the way—and no shirt. “Sorry, he got away from me.”

  She quietly groaned as he left the room, dog in tow. If she didn’t know better, she would think he’d flaunted himself in front of her that way on purpose, just to torture her. She had another reason for groaning. It was daylight outside. She’d spent the night at Austin’s house, and Tony would know it b
ecause her car was still in front of the Villaverdes’ house. No matter how she tried to explain, he wouldn’t believe her. And he’d never let her hear the end of it.

  She’d like nothing better than to blame this on Austin, but it was her own fault. She’d left the party with him, and she’d allowed herself to fall asleep. But it could be worse. At least she hadn’t awakened in Austin’s bed.

  As Caro was finger-combing her hair and trying to get her bearings, Austin reappeared—slightly more dressed. He had on a half-buttoned shirt. But he was carrying two steaming mugs, so she would probably forgive him anything.

  He handed her one of the mugs. “Tea.” And he sat on the couch next to her, much too close. She felt stale and grungy next to his abounding cleanness.

  “Th-thank you. What time is it?”

  “Almost ten.”

  “Ten! I have to get home!” She started to rise, but he grabbed the back of her sweater and held her in place.

  “Stop panicking. If I were going to pounce on you, I’d have done it last night. And the Villaverdes have already seen your car, so there’s no reason to hurry on that account.”

  “They have?”

  Austin grinned. “Tony called me this morning, doing the protective-older-brother routine.”

  Now Caro did groan. “What did you tell him?”

  “What do you think I told him? That we were working and you fell asleep on my couch.” He flashed that lazy, crooked grin, the one that did funny things to her insides. “I was tempted to make up something better, but I sort of like my face the way it is.”

  So did she. “I’ll have to thank Tony for defending my virtue.”

  “Yeah, but tell him it’s not necessary. You do a pretty good job defending your own virtue.” As he spoke, he buried his hand beneath the mass of her hair, found the sensitive nape of her neck, and began a slow massage.

  She let him.

  “Do you know how bad I wanted to make love to you last night?”

  “Austin, don’t even—”

  “I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother. I agree completely. As long as we’re working on this case, we’d be nuts to get involved.”

  She jumped off the couch like she’d been spring-loaded. “Not just while we’re on this case,” she argued, pacing the small room, clutching her mug close to her body as if it could defend her against Austin’s charm, his appeal, his touch. “I can’t get involved with you, period.”

  “Why not?” he asked, all innocence. He had no idea how close he was to making her abandon her good sense.

  “Because we work together—even though normally we won’t see each other on a day-to-day basis,” she added quickly, forestalling his argument. “If we were to...you know, it would be difficult to keep it confidential, and it wouldn’t look good, professionally speaking. It might even damage our careers. Besides, you know as well as I do that cops don’t have the best track record when it comes to relationships, and two cops in the same relationship...I think we’d just be asking for trouble.”

  “Are you about finished?”

  She racked her brain for more convincing arguments. Admittedly, what she’d said so far sounded disjointed and superficial. But it was more than just a vague worry about professionalism. Deep inside—for reasons unknown—she believed that to open up her heart to Austin Lomax would be dangerous. She simply couldn’t risk it. But neither could she put that fear into words. The words didn’t exist to describe it.

  “I guess I’m done,” she said forlornly. “Will you take me back to my car now?”

  “Not yet.” He appeared thoughtful for a moment, then abruptly shook his head, as if to clear it of cobwebs. “We still have business to take care of. I came up with a great idea last night after you fell asleep, but it’s kind of wild, and I’ll need your cooperation and support before I bring it up to Chief Raines.”

  Oh, we’re back to talking about work. He’d certainly dismissed her rejection with no trouble. No moaning or teeth-gnashing. Ridiculously, she felt a little disappointed that he hadn’t tried harder. “Okay, what’s the idea?”

  Obviously agitated, he stood up and moved around the room distractedly. Since there wasn’t room for both of them to pace, she sat back down.

  “Have you ever worked undercover?” he asked.

  “Once,” she answered warily, unsure she liked the direction this conversation was taking. “No, a couple of times. Remember I told you about posing as bait for the serial rapist? And once I played the part of a hooker. We were trying to catch this guy who was beating up prostitutes down on Cedar Springs.”

  “Great. Okay, this is the idea. You said we needed to set a bear trap for Odell, and that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll get Virginia Dreyfus’s cooperation—I don’t think we’ll have any trouble there. She’s feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing. We’ll have Virginia leave a message for Odell at the answering service. And when Odell calls back—assuming we still can’t trace the call—Virginia will tell her about a new patient at the clinic whom she feels is a perfect candidate for Odell’s maternity home.”

  “Meaning me?” Dear God, he’d gone off the deep end this time. “Austin, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m thirty-three years old.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t look it.” She started to object, but he cut her off. “C’mon, Caro, admit it. You could pass for twenty. Besides, by the time Odell gets close enough to question your age, we’ll have her.”

  Caro accepted that logic for the moment. “Okay, go on.”

  “When Virginia talks to Odell, she really lays it on thick—how this poor little girl is in such a quandary about her pregnancy, how shy and retiring she is. Remember, Virginia said Odell had specifically requested girls with a certain temperament—malleable, suggestible, nonaggressive types.”

  “But Odell doesn’t take all the girls whose names Virginia has given her. For whatever reason, she ignores some of them. How do we know she’ll want this girl?”

  “Maybe Odell checks out all the names, only kidnapping the ones she can get to easily, without witnesses. We’ll just make certain that the girl Virginia describes is perfect. We’ll also make sure Virginia mentions the fact that the girl’s parents are out of town, so Odell will know she’s vulnerable. The temptation will be irresistible.”

  “So you want me to make myself available for kidnapping?”

  “My brother has an empty rental house you can use,” he said, ignoring her trepidation. “It’s perfect. We’ll have two detectives in the house with you at all times. And my dad has an old panel van you can drive. Your escorts can go with you anywhere undetected. Of course, you’ll be wearing a body mike. You’ll be safe as a babe in arms.”

  Caro took a few moments to mull over the scenario. It really wasn’t so bad, she had to admit. “Have you pondered how much this operation will cost?”

  “That’s the big drawback. But the house and the van are free, so the only thing we’ll have to pay for is some overtime. As paranoid as Chief Raines is about this case, I think he just might go for it. It’s a mystery to me why the media haven’t latched on to Amanda Arkin’s kidnapping and run with it. Eventually they will, and then it might just blow up in our faces. I think Raines would like to get it solved before that happens.”

  Caro said nothing as she tried to find holes in the plan. But she couldn’t. It was simple and straightforward. Either Odell would take the bait and they’d have her, or she wouldn’t and they’d have wasted a lot of time and money. But what other options did they have?

  “Can I count on you to back me up?” Austin asked.

  After a slight hesitation, she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  “Great. I’m going to call a meeting for tomorrow afternoon with Chief Raines, your superiors and my superiors. The sooner we get this thing underway, the sooner we’ll find those girls.” He held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll take you back to your car. I have a lot of details to work out between now and tomorrow.”

&nb
sp; She placed her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet, but he didn’t release her. Instead he pulled her right up against his chest, and before she could even think of objecting he kissed her, fast and hard.

  “There’s such a thing as taking a calculated risk, you know.”

  Caro wondered if he was talking about the undercover operation, their nonexistent relationship, or both.

  * * *

  Amanda was finishing the last of her orange juice after breakfast when Henry sidled up behind her, ostensibly to clear the table. “I need to talk to you,” he whispered.

  She glanced worriedly in Odell’s direction, but Odell was busy reprimanding poor Terri for her table manners. Terri habitually drew the old woman’s wrath like sugar drew ants, but at least Amanda’s friend was looking better today. She had some color in her cheeks.

  It wasn’t Amanda’s turn for kitchen duty, it was Terri’s. But Amanda stood, anyway, and began stacking dishes. If Odell questioned her, she would simply claim that she’d gotten mixed up about the schedule.

  The moment she and Henry were alone in the kitchen, she turned to him. “What is it?”

  “The bars on one of the basement windows are loose,” he said, his gaze darting frequently to the door. “I think I can get them off. And I can dig the hole under the fence behind the toolshed, like you said.”

  “That’s wonderful, Henry!” she said, hardly able to believe that she’d actually convinced him to conspire against Odell. She wondered briefly if he were setting some other kind of trap for her. “Oh, but how will I get into the basement?”

  “That’s the hard part. You have to do something really bad. The basement is where Aunt Odell puts bad girls.”

  Amanda remembered that Terri had mentioned something about the “Dungeon,” misspelled, of course, during one of their dialogues on the pipes. The message had been a bit garbled, but doubtless she’d been talking about the basement. No one had been sent there since Amanda’s arrival, making her wonder just how bad she had to be to earn that punishment.

  “What can I do that’s really bad?” she asked as she began running sudsy water in the sink.