She rolled to a stop at the entrance and tapped the access code. As the gate slid open, her phone buzzed in the cup holder. Tara eyed the screen: US GOV. She’d forgotten to fill out some paperwork, or turn in a piece of gear, or maybe they needed her to view another video.
She felt the urge to throw her phone out the window. Instead she answered it.
“Rushing.”
If she put enough hostility in her voice, maybe they wouldn’t have the balls to call her back in.
“It’s Dean Jacobs.”
She didn’t respond. Because of shock and because she couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say.
“You make it home yet?” he asked.
“Almost. Sir.”
Jacobs was her SAC. She’d had maybe four conversations with him in the three years since she’d joined the Houston field office.
“They were just filling me in on the raid,” he said. “Good work tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The gate slid shut again as she stared through the windshield.
“I understand you live north,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“There’s a matter I could use your help on.”
Something stirred inside her. Curiosity. Or maybe ambition. Whatever it was, she’d take it. Anything was better than feeling numb.
“I need you to drive up to Cypress County. They’ve got a ten-fifty off of Fifty-nine.”
His words surprised her even more than the midnight phone call. Tara knew all the ten-codes from her cop days, but dispatch had switched to plain language and nobody used them anymore. A 10-50 was a deceased person.
She cleared her throat. “Okay. Any particular reason—”
“Take Martinez with you. She’s got the location and she’s on her way to your house, ETA ten minutes.”
Tara checked her sports watch.
“Stay off your phone,” he added. “You understand? I need discretion on this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And one more thing, Rushing.”
She waited.
“Don’t let the yokels jerk you around.”
* * *
Emergency vehicles lined the side of the road—sheriff’s units, an ambulance, a red pickup truck with CCFD painted on the door. A khaki-clad deputy in a ten-gallon hat waved them down.
Tara handed her ID through the window. “Special Agent Tara Rushing, FBI.”
He examined her creds, then ducked his head down and peered into the window as M.J. held up her badge.
He hesitated before passing Tara’s ID back. “Pull around to the right there. Watch the barricades.”
Tara pulled around as instructed and parked beside a white crime scene van.
M.J. got out first, attracting immediate notice from the huddle of lawmen milling beside the red pickup. They looked her up and down, taking in her tailored gray slacks and crisp white button-down. Then again, maybe it was her curves they were noticing, or the lush dark hair that cascaded down her back.
Tara pushed open her door. Tall and willowy, she attracted stares, too, but for a different reason. She was still jocked up from the raid in tactical pants and Oakley assault boots, with handcuffs tucked into her waistband and her Glock snugged against her hip. Her curly brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. She grabbed her FBI windbreaker from the backseat, and the men eyed her coolly as she zipped into it.
Another deputy hustled over.
“Who’s in charge of this crime scene?” she asked, flashing her creds.
He looked her ID over. The man was short and stocky and smelled like vomit.
“That’d be Sheriff Ingram.” He cast a glance behind him, where the light show continued deep in the woods.
“I’d like a word with him.”
He looked at her.
“Please.”
He darted a glance at M.J., then traipsed off down a narrow trail marked with yellow scene tape. The men continued to stare, but Tara ignored them and surveyed her surroundings. Someone had hooked a camping lantern to a nail on a nearby tree, illuminating a round clearing with a crude fire pit at the center. Old tires and tree stumps surrounded the pit, along with beer cans and cigarette butts. Someone had cordoned off the area with more yellow tape and placed evidence markers near the cans and butts.
Another khaki uniform approached her, no hat this time. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Sheriff Ingram?”
A brisk nod.
“Special Agent Tara Rushing.” She showed her ID again, but he didn’t look. “And Special Agent Maria Jose Martinez.”
If he was surprised the FBI had shown up at his crime scene, he didn’t show it.
“We’re here at the request of Judge Wyatt Mooring,” M.J. added.
He glanced at her, then back at Tara.
With his brawny build and high-and-tight haircut, Sheriff Ingram looked like a Texas good old boy. But Tara didn’t want to underestimate him. His eyes telegraphed intelligence, and he seemed to be carefully weighing his options. He stepped closer and rested his hands on his gun belt.
“I got a homicide.” He nodded toward the woods. “Female victim. No ID, no clothes, no vehicle. Long story short, I don’t have a lot.”
His gaze settled on Tara, and her shoulders tensed. She could feel something coming.
“What I do have is an abandoned Lexus down at Silver Springs Park,” he said. “Registered to Catalina Reyes.”
“Catalina Reyes,” Tara repeated.
“That’s right. She was last seen there yesterday evening. Didn’t show up for work today.”
Tara glanced at M.J., communicating silently. Holy crap.
Catalina Reyes was a north Houston businesswoman who’d made a run for U.S. Congress in the last election. She’d been a lightning rod for controversy since the moment she announced her candidacy.
“She was getting death threats, wasn’t she?” M.J. said.
“I think so.”
Tara turned to look at the forest, where police had set up klieg lights around the inner crime scene. Workers in white Tyvek suits moved around, probably CSIs or ME assistants. Tara saw the strobe of a camera flash. She noted more deputies with flashlights combing a path deep within the woods. They must have assumed the killer accessed the site from the east, and Tara hoped to hell they were right, because whatever evidence might have been recovered from the route Tara had used had been obliterated by boots and tires.
The Cypress County Sheriff’s Department didn’t see many homicides and probably had little to no experience handling anything this big.
“Sheriff, the Bureau would like to help here,” Tara said. “We can have an evidence response team on-site within an hour.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I think we got a handle on it.”
Just what she’d thought he’d say.
“I’d like to see the crime scene,” she told him.
He gave her a hard look that said, No you wouldn’t, little lady. But Tara stubbornly held his gaze.
“Suit yourself,” he said, setting off.
She followed him, with M.J. close behind. They moved through the trees along a path marked by LED traffic flares. The air smelled of damp pine, but as they neared the bright hive of activity everything was overtaken by the sickly smell of death. Ingram stepped aside, and Tara nearly tripped into a forensic photographer crouched on the ground aiming her camera at the body sprawled in the dirt.
Pale face, slack jaw. She looked almost peaceful . . . except for the horrific violence below her neck.
Tara’s throat burned.
M.J. lurched back, bumping into a tree. She turned and threw up.
Think, Tara ordered herself. She forced herself to step closer and study the scene.
A five-foot radius around the body had been marked off with metal stakes connected by orange twine. Only an ME assistant in white coveralls operated within the inner perimeter. He knelt beside the victim, jotting notes
on a clipboard.
Tara’s heart pounded. Her mind whirled. She drew air into her lungs and forced herself to slow down. She felt Ingram’s gaze on her and tried to block it out.
Think.
Rigor mortis had passed. Even with the cool weather, she’d been dead at least twelve hours. No obvious bruising on her arms or legs. Her feet were spread apart. Damp leaves clung to her calves. Toenail polish—dark pink. Tara looked at her arms. No visible abrasions, but the left hand was bent at a strange angle.
Tara walked around, careful not to get in the photographer’s way as she looked at her face again. The right side was partly covered by a curtain of dark hair.
The photographer scrolled through her camera. “I have what I need here,” she told the ME’s people. “You guys are good to go.”
The one holding the stretcher stepped carefully over the orange twine and crouched down beside the corpse. His partner unfurled a body bag.
Tara watched uneasily. They were taking away the body now, processing the scene, for better or for worse. Whatever chance Tara had had to involve the Bureau at this critical point in the investigation was gone. If that had been her boss’s purpose in sending her here, then she’d already failed.
But she sensed there was more to it.
A knot of tension formed in her chest as she cast her gaze around the scene. The fire pit had been surrounded by evidence markers, but here, near the body, there were precious few.
Tara glanced at the deputy watching her sullenly from against the tree. She forced her attention back to the victim. An ME assistant tucked the hands into paper bags, and Tara felt a twinge of relief watching his skilled movements.
Tara checked her watch. Almost two. She turned her gaze toward the dense thicket and shivered, suddenly cold to her bones.
This case was a disaster, and they’d barely started. The circumstances could hardly be worse.
A flash of light above the treetops, followed by a low grumble. Tara tipped her gaze up to the sky.
It started to rain.
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New York Times bestselling author LAURA GRIFFIN started her career in journalism before venturing into the world of romantic suspense. The author of thirteen novels, she has won numerous awards, including a 2010 RITA Award for Whisper of Warning and a 2013 RITA Award for Scorched. Laura lives in Austin, Texas. Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LauraGriffinAuthor or visit www.lauragriffin.com.
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Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Laura Griffin
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First Pocket Books paperback edition February 2015
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Cover design by Jae Song
Cover image by Maarten Wouters/Getty Images
ISBN 978-1-4516-8935-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-8938-9 (ebook)
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Laura Griffin’s Tracers Excerpt
About Laura Griffin
Beyond Limits Page 30