The tightness in Katie’s middle eased. “Martinez has been teaching me Five Card Stud and Texas Draw. I ran out of pennies after my first lesson.” She’d never been fond of cards, but by the second day she’d been ready to try anything to distract herself. She suspected Martinez had felt pretty much the same way.
“Are you any good?” Alec asked.
“At cards? Sure.” She pushed her hair off her forehead. “Good enough to know when my opponent is palming aces.” Having reached the bed, she sat.
“Martinez cheats for toothpicks?”
“I think it has more to do with the male ego than toothpicks. And right now, given the situation, I like the idea that he hates to fail at anything.” Another slight pause. But the lulls in conversation no longer felt uncomfortable.
“How are you and Martinez making out?”
“Better. But he needs a night off.” I need a night off.
“He’s supposed to be on sick leave. If he’s seen out on the town, his cover is blown.”
“At least he’s got some company tonight. A couple of cop buddies came by to watch the game.”
The aroma of popcorn leaked through the walls, along with more male shouts.
“Maybe you should try painting or something. I could get some art supplies sent over, a few canvases, that type of thing. Or if you were already working on something, I could probably find some way to get it to you.”
“I don’t want anything from that house.”
“What about photo albums? Personal items? Knickknacks?”
She rubbed her forehead. He was right. There were some things—those with a history that was unrelated to what had happened—that she’d want. Her fingers tightened on the phone. “I prefer not to think about it right now.”
There was a long pause in the conversation where only the sound of jazz came through the phone before Alec turned down or flicked off the radio. “Did you call and talk to your parents?”
“Yes, I phoned them and gave them this number to reach me. But I didn’t tell them, and I don’t plan to. Not yet.”
Another pause as if he weighed words. “Do you want me to contact them?”
“No. Given the circumstances, that wouldn’t be such a good idea.”
Silence stretched. She knew what Alec was thinking because her own mind had traveled the same roads. Numerous times she had tried to blame him for what had happened, but had always come back to the fact that he was even more a victim than she was. She had simply been unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“Look, Alec. I just don’t want to worry them. If I tell them, they’ll be on the next plane back here, and there’s absolutely nothing they can do.”
“How do you think they’ll feel when they find out that you didn’t tell them?”
“I’d rather deal with their anger later than their fear right now. I’ve got enough of my own to deal with.”
The pitch of his voice dropped lower with his next words. “How are you doing?”
Had Martinez passed along that she was having nightmares where she woke up screaming? Glancing at the door Martinez kicked in that first night and spent most of the second day repairing, she massaged her forehead and tried to think of a suitable reply.
“Katie?”
“Not so fine,” she answered finally. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What was wrong with her? It wouldn’t do either of them any good for her to be honest. “But I’ll be okay.”
“You will be,” he agreed. “When this is over.”
She’d used those same words the night of the attack. She’d believed them then, but now she didn’t.
Katie shifted the small phone to a more comfortable position. “Any news?”
“They’ve been able to match up most of the fingerprints to people who had a legitimate reason to be in the house. There weren’t any prints on the candles. The utility—” A long silence followed.
He was choosing his words carefully just as Martinez did. Afraid that she would fall apart on him otherwise. “Damn it, Alec, don’t you treat me like I can’t handle anything. I get enough of that around here. You were about to say that there were no prints on the utility knife?”
“Yes. And they’re still waiting on DNA results from the nail clippings.”
“But even if they’re successful,” Katie said, “even if some of the blood or skin cells belong to him, unless he’s committed a crime and his profile’s in CODIS…”
God. Listen to her. She was speaking in acronyms. CODIS was the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, a national database capable of matching offenders to crimes. Up until a few days ago, if someone had asked her what CODIS stood for, she would have had a better chance of guessing winning lottery numbers.
The phone silence stretched long enough this time that she’d thought they’d been cut off. “Alec?”
“Martinez should keep his damn mouth shut.” There was an edge to his tone.
“He has.” She glanced down at the red carpeting. “Your brother lent me a computer. I’ve been looking around on the Internet.”
After several seconds, she stopped pacing and, leaning against the door, closed her eyes. Maybe ignorance was bliss. Maybe if she hadn’t discovered what she had about murder investigations and how they worked, about the percentages of murders that were actually solved, she could buy into the idea that her attacker would be apprehended.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Alec said.
“What should I be doing? It isn’t as if I have anything else to do with my time.” Katie pushed away from the door. “I need to know, Alec. I ask your brother, and he gives me vague answers. I ask Martinez and he changes the subject. I ask you…”
“And I avoid telling you the truth because I don’t want you to worry.”
“Well, it’s not working. I know you’re trying to be…what?” She fumbled for the right word. “Gallant? But it’s my life. I need to know. I need to make plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“What I’ll do if he isn’t apprehended.”
“It won’t come to that. I promise.”
She took a deep, steadying breath, and then let it out slowly. “You can’t make that promise, Alec. No one can.”
Chapter Five
Alec closed the cell phone, ending the call to Katie. He’d known it was going to be hard on her. What he hadn’t known was how he would react to the fear in her voice. He shoved a hand through his hair in frustration that he was no closer to getting her attacker. Jill’s killer.
Fingerprinting analysis had been completed, those prints not eliminated as belonging to people who had been in the house for legitimate reasons run through the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System. There had been no matches. He hadn’t really expected any.
Which meant what they had left was a cast of a shoe print—size ten and hard-soled—some fibers that had been found during the casting, and the fingernail clippings. The shoe cast was of little value until they had a suspect, and the lab had yet to process the other two. Even with Jack pushing, it could take upwards of a month to get DNA results.
Alec pulled into the crowded parking lot of Crabby Joe’s. Because of its location near the interstate, the sports bar drew both a local crowd and those heading across state. He wasn’t a big football fan and usually steered clear on Monday nights. But tonight he didn’t want to go home to a silent house where he’d be alone with his thoughts.
Alec turned off the key and just sat there, no longer trying to hide from the pain. Why was it that, even with Jill’s constant dropping of hints, he’d never been able to remember their wedding anniversary—the day they’d become one? But he couldn’t seem to forget the day he’d lost her. The anniversary of her death. There was something wrong with that, wasn’t there?
Rain speckled the windshield in slow drops. A truck pulled into the lot as he stepped from the black sport utility, the vehicle’s headlights slashing across the f
ront of the building, then bouncing as a tire dropped into a washout. Alec waited until a man and a woman climbed out and headed inside before he locked up and followed them in.
At the last moment, with his hand already reaching for the bar’s front door, he glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t see anyone, but for the past two days he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he was being stalked. Maybe Jill’s killer thought he’d be stupid enough, careless enough, to lead him to Katie.
It was exactly what Alec hoped for. That eventually the killer’s level of frustration when he couldn’t locate Katie would build to the point he would make a mistake.
He scanned the parked cars. It took everything in him not to search each and every one of them—the foolish behavior of those first weeks and months following the murder that had earned him a medical leave. The same crazy behavior that made him walk away from the only thing he was truly good at. Tracking monsters.
With one final look over his shoulder, he went inside.
The dark bar was crowded with nine-to-fivers who had stripped off their suit coats, tourists wearing either shorts or brightly patterned shirts and workers from local ranches and citrus groves. The noise level ebbed and flowed in unison with the televised football game.
Florida had banned smoking in public places, but the scent of stale cigarettes lingered like a seasoned panhandler on a promising corner.
Finding a table at the back, where a small enclave of diehards watched a television tuned to around-the-clock news, he pretended to scan a menu while he checked out the other diners. The couple at the next table discussed their day at a local theme park and their coming trip home. From the woman’s accent, he placed them as tourists from New Hampshire, now headed back north. Two well-dressed men sat at the table next to them. He eavesdropped for several seconds on their discussion of the recent stock market climb, the lazy flow of their consonants and vowels suggesting coastal Georgia.
Every time the front door opened, Alec managed to get a look at whoever entered. So far, no one appeared to be looking for someone in the crowd. But there was no reason for the killer to come inside. He could sit out there and wait for Alec to leave.
He’d already placed his food order and taken his first taste of the double bourbon when he spotted his brother, still in uniform, just inside the door. In turn, having located him, Jack made his way through the crowded tables.
Dropping into the chair across from Alec, he glanced at the tall drink. “Never seen you drink the hard stuff.”
“You should have been around three years ago.” Alec saluted his brother before taking a deep sip. “I was a real pro.”
Jack placed his cell phone on the table. “What happened?”
“To make me start?”
Jack leaned back. “No. What made you stop?”
Alec put the drink down, ran a finger up the cool, smooth surface of the glass. “Jill made me see what I was doing.” He’d been working an especially horrific case at the time, a series of child abductions, and had convinced himself that he needed the anesthetic of alcohol to cope.
Jack studied him with sharp gray eyes. “So what are you doing now?”
“Unwinding.”
“Are you sure that’s all?”
“Yeah.” Alec pushed the drink away, suddenly realizing that the drink in front of him was all the evidence he needed that he wasn’t quite as detached as he should be. That just maybe he’d allowed Katie Carroll to get a bit too close.
He needed to stay sharp and focused. It wasn’t just about justice anymore, or even about the revenge of those first few months. A woman’s life was at stake now. And because he didn’t like the idea that his brother was seeing a little too deeply into his psyche, he asked, “Are you ordering?”
“No.”
Alec wondered why he hadn’t picked up on Jack’s body language sooner. The stiff shoulders, the hands resting clasped on the tabletop. Only they weren’t resting, were they? Jack suddenly tapped the table with his right hand three or four times in a nervous gesture, then shifted in his chair.
Something was up, and from what Alec was seeing, he figured it was bad news. “Did some of the lab results come back?”
“No. State lab is still working with a backlog. I put some more oil on the fire, but it’ll probably be another few days before we hear anything.”
“Missing Atlanta and all those resources you had at your disposal?” Alec asked. “Three days for ballistic results? Only a few more to get DNA?”
“You only need the facilities if you have the crime load to warrant it. And Deep Water doesn’t.” Several times, Alec had suggested Jack come work with him. There was enough business, and the money was a helluva lot better than police work, but Jack wasn’t interested. Initially, Alec had believed it was because his brother didn’t want to work with him, but Alec had finally come to realize that wasn’t it at all. Jack liked police work. So Alec had quit asking.
“So what’s on your mind?”
“Besides having a killer on the loose in my town?” Jack pointed to the closest television. He motioned the bartender to ease up the volume. “And senate hopeful Paul Darby?”
Turning around more fully so he could see the screen, Alec recognized Jolie Kennedy, WKMG’s attractive brunette reporter. She stood in front of the Orange County Police Department, all five foot three inches of her.
“…Hate mail isn’t anything new for senate candidate Paul Darby.” The politician’s familiar face flashed on the screen. “But even Mr. Darby was shocked by what one of his campaign assistants found in a package addressed to the politician. The nine-foot rattlesnake, indigenous to Florida, had been mutilated. There was also a typewritten threat included in the package, but law enforcement is withholding the contents of that note.” In the background, two deputies held up the snake, obviously not for the benefit of the onlookers, but in the course of their investigation.
The reporter continued, “But those in Paul Darby’s camp are suggesting that this latest special delivery may be another effort by pro-development groups afraid that Darby’s tough environmental stance could slow Florida’s growth, and their ability to make a living.”
Again, the reporter glanced over her shoulder as the officers boxed up the dead reptile. “Rallies in both Fort Myers and Clewiston have ended in arrests. Only this week, Darby’s manager suggested that the recent incidents may lead the politician to bypass several stops on his campaign trail.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed as he considered not just the a story, but the man it was about.
“Do you know Darby?” Jack asked.
“Only as the man who put Benito Binelli behind bars.” Alec pushed the unfinished bourbon away. Stuff tasted like waterlogged cigarettes. He glanced around the dim interior. Or maybe it was just the atmosphere. Or his mood. Home was starting to look more appealing than the crowded sports bar.
Jack refocused his attention on Alec. “If Darby has any sense, he’ll bypass Deep Water.”
“Any chance of that happening?”
“Sure.” Jack gave a weak grin. “About the same as my finding a blonde in my bed when I get home tonight. A town like Deep Water has more environmentalists than wealthy builders, so he’ll show. Unfortunately, it appears as if some of the large developers in the state have banded together and are paying people to disrupt his rallies. If Darby shows up here, there’s a good possibility that there will be trouble.”
“But then,” Alec said, “as Dade County’s toughest prosecutor, Darby’s used to trouble, isn’t he? And so are you.”
“But this town isn’t.” Leaning back, Jack scrubbed his face.
Alec saw the fatigue in his brother’s eyes and felt badly. His moving here wasn’t supposed to have caused Jack problems, but it had.
“So why were you looking for me?” Alec asked his brother.
“Since you’re footing the bill for Katie’s protection, I thought I should talk to you first.”
“What about?”
“Some changes need to be made.”
He’d been expecting this since Katie mentioned Martinez’s cabin fever. Alec blew out a breath of frustration. “He wants out, doesn’t he?”
Jack shook his head. “Not even close. I checked the personnel files. He’s used up his personal days and paid vacation. I have one man going out this week and another just busted a leg this morning. Which means I have to have him back on shift by the day after tomorrow or risk losing my job.”
“That doesn’t give me much time to find a replacement and make arrangements for moving her.”
“Martinez isn’t any happier about this.” Jack reached across and took a sip of Alec’s abandoned bourbon. “I hear from some of the guys who have been hanging out with him that he’s fallen for her.”
Alec felt a small jab of irritation. “He should know better than to allow that to happen.”
Jack lowered the glass, but his gaze remained speculative.
“Most men can’t just turn it on and off like a faucet.”
Actually, it was just a matter of training. Observe, but don’t get involved. Jill had claimed he had the technique down pat, and until tonight, he’d thought so, too.
Reclaiming the bourbon, Alec finished it in two large gulps. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Still determined to keep her in town?”
“In a big city, he’d have no problem blending in. In Deep Water, it won’t be so easy. He’ll make a wrong move, and someone will see it.”
“Maybe he isn’t even here anymore. Maybe he decided it was too dangerous. At least for the moment.”
“He’s here.” Alec glanced at the occupants of the tables before allowing his gaze to wander in a casual manner to the bar where football fans sat elbow to elbow with one another. Even in the dimness, he could see the reflections of their faces in the mirror. They’d all been sitting there when he’d walked in.
And then, just as Alec was about to look away, he saw a movement in the mirror, a face, caught briefly, a gaze locked with his for the most transitory of moments—there and then gone. Not someone at the bar, though. Someone moving through the dining room.
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