Closer Than You Think

by Karen Rose

  For a moment, Deacon could only stare at him, stunned that Adam had even gone there. Then a blast of fury and hurt burned away his shock and he realized his hands had become fists. He was grateful they were still in his pockets where no one could see.

  Bishop intervened with a low whistle and brisk words. ‘Gentlemen, I’m about to choke on all this testosterone, so tone it down so we can discuss on our next steps.’

  ‘The priority is finding the person who tortured Arianna,’ Deacon said, ‘who may have killed two men, and may still have Corinne, and who somehow got them out of here without anyone noticing. Adam, your next step is to find out how he did that.’

  Adam jerked a nod. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ With a shake of his head, Deacon turned to Bishop. ‘Go back to King’s College and find out everything you can about the two women. Search their dorm rooms, talk to their friends. Isenberg said she’d get the security footage from the college. Find out where they disappeared from and secure the scene. Call me if you need backup.’

  ‘And Corcoran?’ Bishop asked. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s a key to this, I just don’t know how. She went to a lot of trouble to hide from an ex-con sex offender who was stalking her in Miami. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that Arianna was held in her house just as Corcoran was relocating.’

  Bishop’s brows went up. ‘You think our perp is her stalker?’

  ‘It’s a possibility we can’t ignore. She’s either lying about knowing Arianna, or she’s a victim too. I’ll take her to the ER, try to get her to talk to me again while we wait for a doctor to see her. While she’s being tended to, I’ll contact Miami PD and check out her stalker story. I’ll also contact the two uncles and invite them in for a chat.’ He turned back to Adam. ‘While you’re searching for the other way out, talk to the local cops. Find out if there are any gangs or weird kids in the high school who hung out here. Give Tanaka any help he needs in the basement. I will be back as soon as I can. Are we square?’

  The muscles in Adam’s cheek tightened as he clenched his teeth. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll call you from King’s College campus,’ Bishop said. She’d been assessing Faith as Deacon gave Adam his orders. ‘I’m not sure about her, Novak. Be careful.’

  ‘I will, thanks.’

  Deacon waited until Bishop was gone before turning back to Adam. ‘Don’t,’ he snapped when Adam opened his mouth to speak. ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say right now. All I want is for you to do your goddamn job. Can you manage that, Detective?’

  Adam swallowed hard. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. One more thing. If you ever throw my past back in my face again, you’ll find yourself regretting teaching me to fight. Got it?’

  Anger roiled in Adam’s eyes, but he nodded again. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did. Not in front of Bishop, at least.’

  ‘Not in front of Bishop? Hell, you shouldn’t have said it at all! What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Deacon held up his hand when Adam started to answer. ‘No. I don’t really want to know. Just keep your shit together or—’ He stopped himself before he went too far.

  ‘Or?’ Adam asked, far too calmly.

  ‘Or I’ll request that you be reassigned. Again. I don’t have time for drama queens.’

  Adam’s lips curved, but it was not a friendly smile. ‘This from the king of drama queens himself. You with your hair and your coat. You’re a walking freak show, Deacon.’

  Deacon flinched. That was the thing about family, he thought. They knew exactly where to stab for maximum damage. He just never would have expected Adam to be doing the stabbing.

  ‘Low blow, Adam,’ he said quietly. ‘Effective, though.’

  Adam closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You know I don’t think it.’

  Deacon swallowed hard. It had been a long time since anyone had really gotten under his skin, but it had happened twice tonight. Too bad that Faith’s ‘beautiful’ didn’t even begin to cancel out Adam’s ‘freak show’. He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

  ‘I may be a walking freak show, but I do my job. That’s all I want from you. Just do your damn job.’ He walked away, unable to look at his cousin’s face for another second.

  But the face waiting for him in the SUV was no more welcoming than Adam’s had been. Faith Corcoran might know lots of things, but at the top of the list – at least for the moment – was that she despised him. Deacon couldn’t really blame her.

  He got into the SUV and cranked the engine. ‘Buckle up, Dr Corcoran.’

  She didn’t move. ‘I thought you were going to find someone to take me to the ER.’

  ‘I did. Me. Buckle up.’

  She pivoted in her seat, holding her bandaged hands out to him, her dark red brows arched in sarcastic challenge. ‘Aren’t you going to cuff me?’

  Deacon exhaled wearily, closing his eyes as he sagged back into his seat. ‘Hell.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose to quell his rising headache. ‘No, I am not going to cuff you. I just want to do my job, Faith. Now please buckle up.’

  He heard the sound of her seat belt fastening. When he opened his eyes, her hands were folded in her lap and she was watching him uncertainly, her anger appearing to have subsided.

  ‘What?’ he asked, not caring that she heard the exhaustion in his voice.

  ‘Look, I know you have a job to do. I appreciate the urgency in finding the missing girl. You’re busy. So busy that you don’t have to waste your time babysitting me. Any uniform can take me to the ER. I . . .’ She glanced down at her hands, then looked up, her jaw set resolutely. ‘I promise not to run. So you don’t have to drive me.’

  While her side of the SUV was illuminated by CSU’s spotlights, his was not, allowing him to study her from the shadows. He wondered if Adam wasn’t right in accusing him of allowing himself to be influenced by a pretty face and a twitching ass. Because, although she hadn’t twitched her ass once, Deacon would have had to be a dead man not to notice that it was round and . . . very nice. Especially since it was all he’d been able to see in the moment when she’d stumbled while walking away from the cemetery.

  Although he’d studied her face enough too. It was a face that, even bandaged and streaked with grime, was lovely. But now, in this moment, it was her eyes that captured his full attention. Deep green, like a forest in the summer, they held none of the forest’s tranquility. Her gaze was unflinching but turbulent. The hands folded in her lap trembled.

  ‘Are you afraid of me, Dr Corcoran?’

  He didn’t want her to be, and that bothered him. If Adam was right and she was complicit in any of this, then she was a terrible person and any fear that Deacon could engender would only push her to talk to him sooner. If she was completely innocent, her emotional well-being was not his problem.

  But he wanted it to be, and that bothered him even more. He’d known agents who’d gotten involved with women during an investigation. With a few notable exceptions, it rarely ended well. He needed to stay focused. Objective. He needed to stop worrying about Faith Corcoran’s feelings. But he found himself holding his breath for her answer.

  A slight frown wrinkled her forehead. ‘I don’t know. I don’t trust you, but I don’t think I’m afraid of you. Should I be?’

  It wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear, but it was a step in the right direction. He cocked his eyebrows as if he didn’t care what she’d answered. ‘If you don’t trust me, then it’s pointless for me to answer that question.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Am I a suspect, Agent Novak?’

  The little quiver in her voice was like a punch in his gut. If Adam was right and she was faking this, then she was scary good. ‘I don’t want to think so,’ he said honestly.

  ‘Then . . . what am I?’

  He considered his answer carefully. ‘I think you’re connected, which could be different than involved. I think you’re telling the tr
uth, but I don’t think you’ve told me all of the truth.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She sounded as exhausted as he had. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’

  He hid his surprise behind a slow blink. ‘I’m not sure. I wasn’t expecting you to offer.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting Arianna Escobar to know my name. I think I am connected, if by nothing more than my ownership of this damn house.’ She practically spat the last two words. ‘I’ll help you as much as I can, but I’d like your promise on one thing.’

  ‘Depends on what that one thing is.’

  ‘If I do become a suspect, you’ll tell me, so that I can get an attorney and protect myself.’

  He shook his head, surprised at the intensity of his regret. ‘I can’t make that promise. If you become a suspect, my responsibility is to the victims. Not to you.’

  She dropped her gaze to her hands, letting out a quiet breath. ‘Fair enough,’ she said again, very quietly. ‘Can you at least recommend a decent defense attorney?’

  He gritted his teeth in disappointment. She was lawyering up. Finding out what she knew was going to take hours longer, hours Corinne Longstreet might not have. But Deacon found he couldn’t blame her. She’d been viciously attacked by a client who’d later vilified her during his trial, accusing her of sleeping with him. And if she was telling the truth, that same client had stalked her and thirty complaints to the local PD hadn’t kept her safe.

  In her place, Deacon thought, I’d lawyer up too. He’d certainly urge his own sister to do so.

  ‘I’m new to the task force here so I don’t know many defense attorneys in this area yet. But I know a good one back in Baltimore. I can ask him if he can recommend anyone here.’

  ‘Thank you. Well then, let’s go. The quicker I get stitched up, the quicker I can answer your questions and then get back to my hotel for a shower and some clean clothes and a decent night’s sleep. I only hope that whatever I know is something you can use.’

  He frowned, unsure that he’d heard her correctly, his mind having tripped over the unexpected image of her in the shower. Unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. He scrambled to regain his focus. ‘I don’t think you’ll find a local attorney all that quickly.’

  ‘I know. I’ll talk to you without one.’

  This time he was unable to hide his surprise. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Arianna didn’t ask to be assaulted. I can’t erase her trauma, any more than I could for any of the girls who came through my office over the years. But if I can help you find her friend, I want to do that. I’m not involved. I know that. I’m going to have to trust the system, even if I can’t trust you.’

  Deacon’s chest tightened as a host of emotions slammed into him. Respect. Pride. And an overwhelming need to protect her from the very system she trusted more than him.

  Adam might be right. She might be using him, lying to him to save her own skin. But Deacon didn’t think so. He also was pretty sure he shouldn’t say what he was about to say, but if she wasn’t lying, she deserved what little he could guarantee. ‘I can’t promise to protect you if I believe you’re a suspect,’ he said, ‘but I do promise that I’ll listen to what you have to say and make no assumptions based simply on your background.’

  One side of her mouth lifted. ‘Pretty words, Agent Novak, but we all make assumptions. It’s part of being human. I’ll just have to hope that I’m not making a big mistake.’

  He hoped that she wasn’t either. ‘And if you are?’

  Unexpectedly she unbuckled her seat belt and leaned forward, wincing as she reached up to turn on the dome light. Then she leaned over the center console, tilting her face up toward his. ‘Look at me, please,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, Adam’s cruel barb still ringing in his ears.

  ‘Because I like to see the eyes of people who’ve made me a promise.’

  Deacon forced himself to hold his expression rigid while he waited for her flinch. But there was no flinch. Instead she searched his face with a strange mix of keen discernment and vulnerability. Finally she sat back, still watching him, saying nothing.

  She was using her silence to create a vacuum intended to make him uncomfortable enough that he spoke first. He knew this because he routinely used the same ploy. But damned if it didn’t work. He cocked his brows, forcing the nonchalance that he normally faked so easily. ‘So what’s the verdict, Doc?’

  Her gaze didn’t falter, but sharpened, as if detecting the mask he’d assumed. ‘I’m willing to try not to make assumptions simply based on your background either.’

  ‘Which means what, exactly?’

  ‘It means I still don’t trust you, but am willing to entertain the notion that just because you play the good cop so well doesn’t mean you aren’t one.’

  ‘And if I’m not?’

  She shrugged self-consciously. ‘Then it won’t be the first time I took a risk and had it bite me in the ass. Take me to the ER, Agent Novak, and on the way you can ask me what you will.’

  He pulled away from the line of cars in front of her house, suddenly annoyed with himself. He prided himself on reading people, but she was a shrink and he couldn’t let himself forget that fact. In matters of reading and manipulation, they were on an equal footing.

  ‘Not on the way. I’ll wait until we get there before I ask you anything.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, her confusion sounding genuine. ‘I thought you’d be in a hurry. The clock is ticking and Arianna’s friend is still out there.’

  ‘That’s true, but I like to see the eyes of the people I’m interviewing,’ he said, intentionally rephrasing her earlier words. He glanced at her in time to see her slight flinch, but wouldn’t allow himself to feel any pity. If she was involved, he needed to know. She needed to pay. If not, her hurt feelings would have to be acceptable collateral damage.

  ‘Fair enough,’ she murmured, sucking in a sharp pained breath when he hit a pothole in the driveway, reminding him that, involved or not, she had been injured and she had to be hurting.

  He flicked a switch on his dashboard. ‘I turned on your seat warmer,’ he said. ‘It might provide some relief from the bumpy roads. I’ll get you there as painlessly as I can.’

  Her eyes slid shut. ‘Thank you, Agent Novak.’

  Eastern Kentucky, Monday 3 November, 9.15 P.M.

  Yes! Corinne’s face was raw and bleeding, but she didn’t care. She’d finally succeeded in working a corner of the damn duct tape free.

  But she was tired. And her back hurt. And her hands and shoulders. She’d wondered how long she could go without her meds before the symptoms started to flare. About this long, however long this has been. She still had no idea how long she’d been gone.

  She scooted down a few inches, caterpillar style, then turned her head to press that one little corner of loosened duct tape against the boot. She couldn’t think of the person wearing it. Who was probably dead.

  Focus, Corinne. Do this thing now. She tested the bond between the tape and the boot, felt her skin burn as the tape tugged. Too hard and she might lose the grip. Too fast and she might draw the attention of the driver.

  Although she now thought they were closed off from the driver. She’d heard no breathing, or coughing. No radio. Just the hum of the road and the occasional clatter when they hit a bump. But she couldn’t take a chance that he might see her in his rear-view mirror, so she rolled gently, pulling the tape off of her face a little bit at a time. Slow and steady, girl.

  She freed one eye enough for her to open it and see. She blinked rapidly, her eyes dry. It was dark. She could vaguely see the man who lay beside her, the man who wore the boots. But just his legs and his stomach. She couldn’t see his face yet. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  Pull . . . slowly. Yes. Finally both eyes were free. She gave one last hard jerking pull, the tape peeling off the man’s boot and hanging limply from her hairline.

  She’d done it. She could see. But now that she could see, she had t
o look. She didn’t want to. But she had to know. If Arianna was still alive, she had to get her out of here.

  Yeah, right. You can’t even help yourself. Fat lot of help you’ll be to Ari.

  Stop it. Just stop it. She’d been strong once. She’d be strong again. Or she’d die.

  She lifted her chin, sliding the back of her skull along the floor, looking directly behind her, and felt a surge of intense relief. She’d been right. They were in a cargo van with no window to the driver. The relief was short-lived, though, because there was no window to the outside world either, so there would be no signaling for help.

  Drawing a breath, she pulled her upper body off the floor, supporting herself on one very sore elbow. Her joints were starting to swell. To lock up.

  Damn Wegener’s disease. The army doctors thought it had always been lurking within her but had been triggered by an infection. Within months she’d gone from a healthy soldier to an ex-soldier with a medical discharge who couldn’t get out of bed without help. But after three years of treatment, she’d finally gotten it under control. Friday had been a good day. No headache. Low pain. Good movement.

  And then some asshole went and grabbed me. Without her meds, she’d be in pain within hours. Within a day or two she wouldn’t be able to function. So hurry up. Get out of here.

  It was dark inside the van, the only light coming in through a gap at the door’s hinge. It was white light and it strobed with an almost hypnotic frequency.

  Street lights, she thought. The sliver of light flashed on the face of the man with the boots.

  Corinne squinted, then the breath she was holding came out in a horrified rush. There was a bullet hole in his head and his face was battered. But she forced herself to look at the rest of him, if for no other reason than to find some tool to cut the ropes that bound her hands.

  He wore a heavy jacket with ‘Earl P&L’ stitched in the fabric above his heart. Earl was the power company. He must have come to the house. Poor guy. Wrong place, wrong time. Even in this light she could see that the fabric covering his torso was darker than the rest. As were his knees. He’d bled profusely from what looked like multiple gunshot wounds.