Chrome. Damned if there wasn’t a car without running lights parked in his lane. He’d worked too many drug busts to shrug off the significance of a car traveling without lights after dark. And this one was moving. Mitch could hear the sound of the other car’s engine, too. It was plain the driver didn’t have a hankering to stick around.
Mitch’s headlights barely pierced the swirl of dust kicked up by the fast-departing car. Mitch tried to make out its type, but as he peered out his windshield, he plunged into a curve in the lane.
Pressing on his gas pedal, Mitch was determined to read the license plate before the car reached his turnaround and came back at him with lights on bright. Only reactions long-honed by his police training saved him from plowing into something sitting in the road—a small suitcase. He braked and swerved.
Once he’d squealed to a stop, Mitch sat there a moment, sweat beading on his brow, his teeth clamped tight to stave off the pain he’d brought to his bad leg. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he backed the hell up fast and scrambled to locate his cell phone.
Cursing, he watched the other car disappear and decided to relinquish the chase. Instead, he punched in the number of the precinct’s bomb squad. Why else would someone drop a suitcase on a private rural road at night? Especially as the drop coincided with an ex-cop’s arrival… If Mitch didn’t know for certain that the crazy who’d shot him was locked up tight, he might think Tony DeSalvo had come back to finish the job.
DeSalvo wasn’t the only creep he’d ticked off in his career, though. Just the latest. Tony was still safely put away—Mitch verified that first. He had no clue who’d left him a hot calling card, but he would damn sure find out as soon as the sucker discovered this road dead-ended.
“What the hell?” Mitch saw headlights bobbing across his west pasture. He slid out of the Vette, wincing at the stabbing pain in his left leg. Hands on hips, he watched the fleeing car slow midway in its run to intercept the 181 cutoff. Probably waiting to see him blown to smithereens.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered darkly as the distant vehicle sped up again. He ought to notify the county sheriff, whose territory was intersected by Highway 181, but Mitch knew they couldn’t respond in time. The perpetrator could turn north and lose himself in Tucson’s winter-visitor traffic, or turn south and cross the border into Mexico at Agua Prieta. Either way, they’d shake a tail. So rather than give futile chase, he’d be better off seeing if his old department’s bomb squad could lift any prints from the suitcase. It shouldn’t be hard with the new computer system to cross-match prints to any of the bad guys he’d helped put away during his six years on the force.
It took fifteen minutes for his former co-workers to show up. Mack Rich and Pete Haslett wore gear that made them look as if they were headed to the moon. They seemed particularly eerie in the hazy spotlights they trained on the item in the lane.
“Wow, cowboy,” quipped a third member of the team. “You really know how to throw a homecoming. Since it could get hotter than your standard college bon-fire around here, I suggest you move that classic car before it gets torched, ruining your day and mine.”
Mitch, long used to being tagged “the Italian cowboy” by his comrades at the station, complied without taking issue with their friendly taunts.
“No audible ticking,” shouted the dough boy closest to the suitcase. “Could be she’s set to explode the minute anyone lifts her. Let’s give the case a shot with the X-ray camera to see the setup inside.” He turned to Mitch. “You said you saw a car drop the suitcase and leave the scene? Did you get a plate and a make?”
Mitch stood well back from the others while they readied a boom attached to a portable X-ray unit in the bomb van. “I saw a car,” he said with a grimace. “It was already in motion. I swerved to avoid the bag and missed getting details. I figured something was fishy. The car ran without lights and didn’t turn around at my ranch where the road ends. The driver took out across the field. Had to have torn out a section of my fence.”
“Doesn’t sound good, buddy. On the other hand, the X ray doesn’t show any wiring in the case. One metal object, and it’s not in the center as I’d expect to see with a bomb device. See, it’s off to the right. Looks like some kind of…vase.”
“A vase?” Mitch’s breath whooshed out in disgust. “Damn, who would’ve believed that? Sorry I called you out on a wild-goose chase. Shall I go ahead and open it?”
“Not yet.” Pete dragged him away. “Mack will pick it up with a grapple, drop it in a padded container and I’ll douse it with cryogenic foam. A layer of supercold compound will freeze any components if they’re assembled in that pretty little bottle just to throw us off,” he added by way of explanation. “The vase could be made of lead.”
Mitch nodded. He leaned against his car to ease the pain radiating from his left hip while he watched the process unfold.
“Now!” one of the squad members called. “Pop the lock and see what we have. You want the honor, Valetti?”
“Sure.” Mitch limped forward and accepted the tool they handed him to pick the lock. The suitcase lid sprang open, revealing a stiff quilt. The officers’ flashlights glinted off ice crystals beaded on appliqués of yellow ducks, pink cats, green elephants and blue dogs. A frilly, tiny pink dress and bonnet lay folded neatly next to the quilt. Tucked in one corner was a silver bottle with an ornate stopper.
“It’s an urn,” murmured Lori Peck, the only female member of team.
“What?” Mitch raised his eyes and squinted at her through the ring of bright floodlights.
“Ashes,” she said more clearly, as if the men were dense. “What we’ve attacked and put through the wringer is nothing more than a suitcase filled with somebody’s memories.”
Mitch knelt, ignoring what it cost him in added pain. “Sad memories,” he said, hesitantly using the tongs he’d been handed to lift the urn.
Light from Pete’s torch reflected off a raised teddy bear on one side of the vessel.
Mitch felt his heart lurch. “It says Our Beloved Katie,” he whispered, his voice unsteady. “Below that is a single date, 11-18-00.” He set the silver vase almost reverently back on the quilt. Rising awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “A baby girl. She must have died at birth.” Mitch fought against his heart turning inside out over a kid he’d never even known.
“Odd thing to leave sitting in the middle of a country road,” Mack said. Turning away, he began to stow their gear.
The female cop retrieved an evidence bag from the front of the truck. After donning plastic gloves, she started to close the suitcase and slide it into the bag.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Mitch demanded.
“Bagging the evidence,” she returned shortly. “It’s creepy. A crime that goes beyond malicious mischief.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head vigorously. “What crime has been committed? Whoever packed that case cared about these things. I’m not going to let you toss them into the evidence room like so much garbage.”
Mack shot out a hand and gripped Mitch’s arm. “You said the car took off like a bat out of hell, no lights. Granted, that’s not a criminal act in itself. But you’ve got to admit it’s suspicious.”
“Did you ever think the owner meant for someone to find this stuff? What if baby Katie’s mother is being dragged around in that car against her will?”
“You mean, like kidnapped?” Lori asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll grant you it sounds off the wall.” Mitch brushed a thumb back and forth over his lower lip. “All I know is these are…they aren’t… Hell, it’s clear Katie is somebody’s baby.”
“Well, duh!” was Pete’s helpful response.
Ignoring him, Mitch didn’t budge. “Leave the case, please. I’ve got time to look into this. I’ll do my level best to find out who left it here and why.”
His friends from the force glanced from one to the other until at last all had shrugged. Lori shoved a clipboard with an evidence rel
ease form into Mitch’s hands. “Sign for it here. If the chief has a problem with this after we file our report, he’ll let you know.”
Pete tried again to dissuade Mitch. “If it was me, Valetti, I’d forget the whole deal. What kind of person carries stuff like this around in a suitcase?”
“Somebody off their rocker,” Mack supplied.
“Or someone in big trouble.” Mitch scrawled his name on the form. “I’ll place an ad in tomorrow’s paper. I had my phone turned off, but I’ve got my cellular. That’s probably the most I’ll have to do to solve this mystery.”
The others just shook their heads. After telling Mitch not to be a stranger around the station, they said goodbye and backed out to the perimeter highway.
Mitch stowed the suitcase in his trunk. When he arrived home, he saw he’d been right about the section of fence being knocked down. Clearly someone had seen his car coming down the road, panicked and hightailed it off his property.
As he unlocked the front door, juggling his odd collection of objects, he worried that maybe Pete was right. Maybe he should hand the suitcase over as evidence and forget the whole thing.
But when he set the small valise on his coffee table and examined its heart-stopping contents, the haunting connection he’d felt earlier only grew stronger. Placing the urn on his mantel, he gazed at it for a long time. In the end, he renewed his vow to find its owner.
Before retiring, Mitch sat and chewed on the end of a pencil while he composed an ad to run in the local paper. Tomorrow was Thursday. He’d run it through Sunday, he decided, and when he shed his clothing and climbed into bed, his life again seemed to have purpose.
GILLIAN DROVE onto the asphalt highway with a bump and thump. She turned south without hesitation. An hour later, faced with showing false ID to cross the border, or hunting up a passable motel in the dusty border town on U.S. soil, she chose to stop short of Mexico. She had to hold on to some scruples.
Seeking the least accessible motel, she rented an end unit, the one farthest from the cobbled motel entry. It was a relief to find the room clean. Hidden parking in the rear was a big plus. The rent, cheaper by the week, fit her budget, too. It occurred to Gillian as she went out to get her bags that she’d already begun to think like a fugitive.
In a week she ought to be able to alter her appearance enough to fool the men chasing her. She’d have to dump this car. With luck, she might be able to sell it to a private party and buy another in a different town. That’s what crooks in movies did.
Tonight she was too exhausted to plan beyond that. The money Daryl had left in the glove box along with her phony ID wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d have to find a job. She’d face that ordeal later—if she made it through the week she’d paid for in advance.
Gillian refused to dwell on the fact she was probably a wanted person in New Orleans and Flagstaff. Before she ditched this car, she’d go over it inch by inch, searching every nook and cranny again. Daryl had e-mailed Patrick Malone, saying that when Gillian arrived she’d have in her possession a key. To open what, Daryl hadn’t said. He hinted that he’d hidden a notebook with enough lethal information to expose a huge money-laundering operation. He also indicated to Malone that he suspected they were on to him. Daryl had promised to contact Patrick later via a different source. He’d never had the opportunity.
She and Malone had failed to turn up a key. Now Daryl was dead, and probably Patrick, too. She would be next if she didn’t unearth what Daryl had put in safekeeping. Gillian knew him too well to think he’d forgotten to put the key in her belongings. But where? Could it be so small it’d fallen out in the police parking lot and they’d missed it?
Her brain numb, Gillian pawed through the car’s trunk looking for the smaller of her two cases. Had it slipped behind the tire? “It’s not here!” she cried. “Where is it?” In spite of the late hour, and her questionable surroundings, Gillian removed everything from the trunk. The small case wasn’t there.
Her stomach heaved. Tears coursed down her cheeks. That case contained all she had left in the world that was dear to her.
Last Monday, she’d been nothing but confused when Daryl awakened her, babbling. She’d watched as, in a frenzy, he packed the small case and a larger one. The night was still blurred in her mind. For too long, she’d been an emotional wreck—a decline that had begun when she’d first broached the idea of starting a family. Daryl resisted. Said he wanted to wait. Until his CPA firm was more secure. Until they had more money in the bank. Until she could sell her flower shop and stay home full-time. Silly reasons, she’d thought.
So she had defied Daryl, stopped her birth control pills and gotten pregnant almost overnight. That definitely strained an already strained relationship. In hindsight, she wished she could go back and change everything.
Especially the part where something went horribly wrong in the last month of her pregnancy, resulting in the stillbirth of her long-awaited daughter. The rift widened between her and Daryl because after the autopsy, while she was heavily sedated in the hospital, he’d unilaterally arranged for baby Katie’s cremation. Oh, he attempted to explain. Families who’d lived in New Orleans for generations had access to above-ground burial vaults. Others, like them, had limited choices. He’d done what he believed was best, he’d told her.
For weeks, Gillian had wept. Weeks turned into months during which she couldn’t eat, sleep or work. Daryl did the opposite. He rarely came home from the office. And so after six months of that, they’d split, bound only by their joint partnership in Daryl’s firm. Maybe if she’d been a more active partner…if she hadn’t sunk into emotional oblivion, perhaps she wouldn’t be here four months after their separation, with both Daryl and Katie gone. Gone!
Suddenly she knew exactly what had happened—where she’d lost the suitcase. The place where she’d changed the tire. She entertained the idea of going back. What if the thugs were, even now, waiting in the trees? As desperately as she longed to retrieve the case, self-preservation dictated she wait.
Exhausted, Gillian dragged herself inside, stripped off her dirty clothes and fell into bed. Her agenda had just taken a new turn. She wouldn’t rest until the thugs who’d killed Daryl were brought to justice. And they’d better know she would go to any lengths to rescue Katie’s ashes.
CHAPTER TWO
GILLIAN STOOD in the cramped office off the kitchen of Flo’s Café. She’d come to speak with the café’s owner, Florence Carter, about a waitress position listed in a current edition of the Desert City News. It was the first newspaper Gillian had bought since departing New Orleans, although she’d followed the TV news and was relieved there’d been no mention of Daryl’s or Officer Malone’s murders. Her objective in buying this paper had been for the employment ads. Desert City was the closest town of any size to the back road where she’d lost her suitcase.
This morning, when she dressed to go on interviews, Gillian had barely recognized herself in the mirror. Little by little over an extra week spent in her border hideout, she’d pulled together a disguise of sorts. The most dramatic change in her appearance came about after she’d ruthlessly cropped and colored her shoulder-length blond hair, leaving a bob of coppery red curls.
As well, she’d transacted a satisfactory car exchange, buying another used car. However, because the new car had taken most of her cash reserves, she was now almost broke.
Flo Carter, a cheery, round woman, studied Gillian with curious hazel eyes. “Why did you answer my ad? There were at least two other waitress jobs posted yesterday for yuppie-style restaurants where you’d earn higher tips.”
Gillian didn’t want to say those places all had bars where creeps from New Orleans might go to drink and eat. She’d checked them first. It would be self-defeating to admit Flo’s Café was last on her list. Or that the one other place she’d applied had demanded references she couldn’t produce.
“According to your ad, you provide uniforms and you pay weekly. Did I mention I was div
orced? The truth is—” she hesitated marginally while deliberating how much to reveal “—I left home and this is where my money ran out.” Best to stick as close to her real story as possible, Gillian decided.
“I’m sorry, honey. Enough said.” Flo patted Gillian’s arm. “Frankly, you look like you could use a few good meals, too. The job’s yours. Minimum wage plus tips, a uniform and two meals a day if you work two shifts. Tracy, my brother’s niece, left me high and dry. Kid up and moved to San Diego with her boyfriend. I nearly killed myself over the weekend. I’m flat getting too old to wait tables from opening to closing. When can you start?”
“Anytime. Today, if you’d like.” A weight lifted from Gillian’s shoulders. “I have a small apartment three blocks east of here.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the furnished place she’d moved into yesterday. It wasn’t much.
“Saguaro Arms, right? A brick building behind the police station?”
“That describes it.” Gillian didn’t know if she’d made a wise choice or not. On one hand, she figured the men who were after her wouldn’t want to be noticed by the local police. On the other, she didn’t know how vigorously the police in Flagstaff and New Orleans were trying to find her. Surely she was wanted for questioning, at least.
“I hope you’re comfortable around cops,” Flo said. “They make up half our clientele. A great bunch, but demanding customers. They want coffee on the table the minute they sit down. They need their orders quick in case they get a call.”
Flo opened a cupboard and took out a pink uniform still in its plastic laundry bag. “You’re skinnier than Tracy, but this has an adjustable belt. The bathroom’s down the hall. How fast can you change? First crew from the precinct breaks at ten.” She glanced down at Gillian’s feet. “I’m glad to see you’re wearing sensible shoes. Next time we catch our breath is nigh on 2:00 p.m.”
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