Detective on the Hunt

by Marilyn Pappano

  Where is she from?

  Why would you introduce her to Lia before your favorite sister?

  He loved Diane, and their sister Emily, and their brother Dean, and especially his parents, but he had no intention of making a big production out of this. With JJ’s time in town so limited, he didn’t want to share any of it with anyone else.

  Rather than ignore her—an impossible task, he’d learned when they were kids—he took the coward’s way out. Busy. Will talk to you later. Rhonda and Lia right place, right time. I thought Emily was my favorite.

  He’d just sent the message when the agent came on the phone. He’d met Chrissie at a bank robbery a few years earlier, and they’d traded information a few times since. Her British accent lent the agency some class, Morwenna, also British, said with pride, and she was unfazed by his request.

  “You’ve heard of the needle in the haystack?” she asked, her keyboard clicking quietly in the background.

  “I have, but my next option is to search the entire city of Memphis for a woman named Mel who was there for an unknown period of time six months ago.”

  “I see your point. Besides, how many Mels could there be?” she asked optimistically.

  The door opened, and JJ slipped inside. She wore a gray-and-purple-plaid shirt underneath the purple boyfriend sweater. A delicate gray stone, polished to a high sheen, rested at the base of her throat on a silver chain, and snug-fitting gray trousers and boots finished the outfit. She looked incredible. Sensual. Womanly. Blissful.

  The coming-home warmth eased through him again. Last night had been about as close to perfect as real life ever came, but with that one look, he knew it would never be enough. He would always want more.

  She smiled at him as she set her bag in a chair. He found it harder than he expected to smile back. Some things were easier in a moonlit room, without clothing and distance and defenses to hide behind. He managed, though. Just an uptick at the corners of his mouth that faded the instant Chrissie began speaking in his ear.

  Eleven was the answer to her earlier question. Eleven female versions of Mel had traveled from Tulsa to New Orleans during that time period. Six of them were over the age of forty and one was nine, which left four in the right age range. Though Chrissie said she would email the information to him, she gave him the names over the phone, and he scrawled them onto a notepad.

  While he thanked her, JJ came around the table and leaned over his shoulder, bringing her fresh, sweet, unforgettable scent with her. She didn’t kiss him—he wished she would, even if they were in the station, even if someone might walk in the door any moment—but she laid her hand on his shoulder, and her hair, worn loose now, gently brushed his cheek.

  Intimacy.

  “‘Melinda Andrews, Melanie Britton, Melanie Jackson, Melody Smithfield,’” she read. In his peripheral vision, her nose wrinkled. “Morwenna said her last name was common, like Smith or Jones. Can you call up DMV photos?”

  Quint traded the ink pen for the laptop. The first three searches yielded photographs of women who bore not the slightest resemblance to Maura. There was no hit on Melody Smithfield, reasonable considering—if she was the one—she’d lived in Oklahoma only three months. If she was as transient as Maura had been the last five years, odds were good that she didn’t have a license anywhere, especially as disadvantaged as people thought she’d been.

  That done, he slid the computer to JJ while he made arrangements to get airport surveillance footage. She Googled and Facebooked and Instagrammed and found nothing. Along with her personality and, apparently, her emotional stability, Maura’s social media presence had suffered during her time in Cedar Creek.

  Just how emotionally unstable might she be?

  And how was he going to hide how much he hated the idea of JJ going off alone with her?

  * * *

  Nearly an hour passed before the emailed airport footage arrived. This particular video was from the security gates. A steady line of people streamed through—personal belongings, belts and shoes in tubs, passing through the metal detector, some directed to the side for wanding, others reclaiming their property from the conveyor belt.

  JJ spotted a blonde in line, but as the woman slowly moved forward, placing a leather bag and a pair of heels in a tub, her face was obscured by the shifting people and the equipment around her. If someone moved this way, she went that; if a structure hid her from the camera, she stood squarely behind it. Almost as if she was avoiding it.

  Then, abruptly, she looked straight at it.

  Quint stopped the video, and they both stared at it for a long time. Finally, JJ sank back in her chair. “Wow.”

  Brown hair and brown eyes, Georgie Madison had said of Mel, but both hair and eye color were easy to change. Blond and blue, both Morwenna and Lois had said. Strong resemblance, all three of them had said. That was an understatement. The woman frozen on the video looked enough like Maura Evans to be her twin.

  “Zoey said Maura dressed Mel up like a doll.” JJ’s voice was quiet. She managed to keep it level, but distaste for the situation still darkened it. “She said she was turning her into a clone of herself.”

  She must have liked the idea of taking someone she considered less than herself and creating her own mini me. The notion was egotistical and arrogant, even for someone like Maura. Worse, it was flat-out creepy. JJ couldn’t imagine thinking herself so perfect that anyone else should aspire to be like her, or anyone thinking she was so perfect that they wanted to be like her. It was just icky.

  “Miss Georgie said Mel had a hunger about her, as if she’d never had anything. She must have been desperate, thinking she was just so much nothing.” Quint’s solemn features were marked with sympathy for a woman he’d never met. He was a good guy that way. He was a good guy in all ways. “She must have thought she’d landed in the middle of a fairy tale when she met Maura. The beautiful princess taking in the poor peasant, feeding and clothing her, giving her everything her heart desires, and all the peasant has to do is stop being. Become nothing but the princess’s mirror image.”

  JJ’s hand was a little shaky when she gestured to the screen. “By this time, there was no Mel. It was just Maura and Maura 2.0. Maybe that’s why she left. Maybe she realized she couldn’t be Maura 2.0 for the rest of her life.”

  “Or not,” he quietly disagreed.

  JJ studied the image again, backed the video up to the point where Mel first came into view, then let it run all the way through, to where she walked out of the camera’s range. She wore a royal purple dress that looked as if it had been designed and sewn with her in mind, along with a pair of incredible heels. Sizable diamonds studded her earlobes, with others sparkling in two necklaces, two bracelets and a watch. JJ didn’t know brands once the price exceeded not-even-in-her-dreams, but she recognized the signature fabric of the purse as Burberry, only because Elle’s husband had given her one to celebrate the tenth anniversary of her contracting business.

  The woman in the video didn’t look as if she’d lost herself, as if she was escaping a bizarre situation in order to reclaim her identity. She looked, simply, like a pretty, wealthy young woman. The clothes were expensive, the haircut obscenely so, the color job so skillfully done that it looked natural. She walked, even stood, with grace and elegance, and her air of boredom was over-the-top perfect. Everyone around was beneath her notice: the man in front of her who held up the line to retrieve personal belongings, the kids behind her who were bouncing with excitement, the screening employee who handed her bag to her. They weren’t people. They were obstructions keeping her from her destination, and they were way too close for the princess’s comfort.

  No, this definitely was not a young woman running away from something.

  “Tell me I’m a cynic,” JJ said, propping her left hand under her cheek. “But the first thing I think, looking at her, on her way to New Orleans, is that there a
re a lot of rich men in New Orleans. That Mel is probably thinking she’s learned all she needs from Maura, so she’s heading off to a warmer climate to find another rich person to support her in the style she’s become accustomed to. She’s probably thinking a man this time. The odds of Maura losing patience with or interest in Mel and kicking her out are pretty good, but a man who likes a pretty face and a pretty body is so much easier to manipulate. To hold on to.”

  “If you’re a cynic, so am I.” Quint shifted in his chair, giving her a better view of his sinfully handsome face. “When a friend drops you, it’s hard to make a claim for money. When a rich man drops you, it’s pretty much a given that he’s going to have to pay.”

  Judging by Mel’s demeanor on the video, something they confirmed by speeding ahead to the camera at the gate and watching her while she waited to board, there was no great drama in her leaving, at least not on her part. It seemed safe to assume that Maura had happily waved goodbye to her with Zander at her side, that there had been no hearts broken on either part. Mel had simply gone off to find her own fairy tale to star in.

  JJ wasn’t aware she was twisting the ring on her finger until Quint stilled the motion, then drew her hand close to study the stone. “What is this?”

  “Mexican fire opal.” She gazed fondly at it. “It’s supposed to be a symbol of hope and innocence. My mother gave it to me when I graduated from the police academy. She wanted it to keep me in the light.”

  “It must be working.”

  It was, because last night he’d called her bright. The memory sent warm whispers curling through her, easing tension here, tightening it there, stirring the butterflies in her stomach from their nap into lazy swoops and twirls of pleasure.

  He clasped her hand in his, and it fit. Though his hand was larger and her fingers were shorter, they matched perfectly. There was something totally reassuring about looking at them. No wonder wedding photographers came up with a standard shot of brides and grooms holding hands. The symbolism was powerful.

  But a glance at the time swirled a different kind of tension. “We’d better be going. I assume you’re picking up your personal vehicle or borrowing one?”

  “I’m taking mine. I’m not sure Maura recognizes something that old as a vehicle. I’ll park at the fast-food place at the end of the street. You’ll have to pass me to get out.”

  “And you’re only a short run away if things go south at the house.” JJ stood but didn’t move out of the way as he also stood. “Not that I have any intention of letting things go south.”

  “We never do. The problem is bad guys don’t ask our permission before they throw the first punch or fire the first shot or make a run for it.” He took one step forward, all the space she’d allowed him, and smiled down at her. The smile still wasn’t smooth; it was as if instinct started it, brain interrupted, then let it finish. “That’s what you’ve got me for.”

  The warmth of his body, though they weren’t actually touching, was palpable, intense. A glance at his eyes, a glance lower, and she knew it wouldn’t take any effort at all to fan the heat into a blaze fueling one impressive hard-on. If only they could go to her hotel instead of Maura’s house...

  Sighing regretfully, she backed away and wove around chairs and cast-off furniture to the doorway. As they walked down the hallway, a scuffle of noise came from the bullpen. Not a struggle but people jumping and rushing out. They turned the corner by the counter in time to see Ben Little Bear and Lois disappearing in the back, where stairs led to the sally port below and the exit there. The thundering sound of footsteps suggested that other officers were ahead of them.

  “What’s up, Morwenna?” Quint asked the dispatcher, standing in the doorway of the shack.

  “Hey, JJ. I didn’t see you come in.” She shifted her attention to Quint. “You know Mr. Latham, lives out by Two-Mile Park? His dog Angel was out exploring, and she brought him home a present. Part of a human leg, apparently. Most of the tissue’s gone. Simpson got the call, and he is totally grossed out. This isn’t even his first dead body, though it may be his first body part. That boy’s got to develop a stronger stomach or stick to writing speeding tickets.”

  They called goodbye to her and continued to the main entrance, where JJ pushed the heavy door open. “I hate body parts. Chica had better never bring home anything that used to be attached to a person. I don’t think there’s enough doggy mouthwash in the world to make me okay with that.”

  As they stepped outside, the temperature was in the low seventies, and the sun was shining brightly. This was the kind of weather she’d been expecting when she’d packed for the trip. She fished shades out of her bag and slid them on. “You wish you were out with them instead of babysitting me?”

  He slid on his own dark glasses, looking—just like the first time she’d seen him—like a golden god in khaki. “I hate body parts, too, and...”

  When she would have started toward the hotel the next street over, he steered her toward his truck. Facing each other over the bed, he said, “I saw my share of them when I was a detective. I don’t care to see any more.”

  He got into the truck, and JJ stood there, her brows arched to meet her hairline. Hastily, she climbed inside. “You were a detective?”

  He started the engine and fastened his seat belt with more care than needed, then sat motionless a moment. Clearly, he’d decided to confide something in her. Just as clearly, he was having second thoughts.

  So, clearly, her response had to be just right. Not too much surprise, no censure, no disappointment.

  Finally he fixed a rueful look on her. “Did you think I stayed in patrol twenty years because I wasn’t good enough to promote or bad enough to fire?”

  She’d run into that attitude, both with cops and civilians. As a brand-new cop, she’d kept an eye on the calendar, eager for that first chance to move up the food chain. It had always been her intent to do minimal time on the street, then advance, advance, advance. But that was her, not everyone, and she knew it. “I thought you stayed in patrol because you liked it there. A lot of people do.”

  “I made detective when I was twenty-seven. Five years ago, I became assistant chief. Four months ago, I was drowning my sorrow in a bottle. I showed up at a domestic violence case, and I—” He drew a deep breath and forced the rest out on his exhale. “I punched the handcuffed suspect.”

  He looked at her, awaiting judgment, and she steadily looked back, her brain working furiously. The flippant part of her wanted to ask, Did he deserve it? The protect-and-serve part of her was stunned. The cop part of her wanted to say, Good job, and the woman part of her who had comforted far too many victims of abuse wanted to applaud. Justice in domestic violence cases could be swift, it could be fleeting or it could be nonexistent. She figured this was one suspect who would never forget the time he’d received swift justice.

  Grimly, he looked away. “We’re supposed to be better than the people we arrest.”

  “We are. But God knows, we’re not perfect. The Quint before Linny passed never would have showed up drunk or laid an unnecessary hand on a suspect. You were grieving. You’d had your emotional footing kicked out from under you.”

  He started to speak, but she raised her hand. “I’m not making excuses for you. I’m just stating the facts. You made a mistake. You accepted the consequences of that mistake, and you’re coping with them.” She laid her hand over his, knotted on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry you’re not God, but that position’s been unavailable for a long time.”

  For a long moment, he stared ahead, a tiny muscle in his jaw working. JJ watched him, catching sight peripherally of three department vehicles passing on the street behind him. No lights, no siren. After all, unless Mr. Latham’s dog got hold of it again, that leg wasn’t going anywhere.

  Inside, she winced at the thought. It sounded callous, and she wasn’t that way at all. Well, no more than w
as necessary to do the job. People expected cops to be good and nice and always polite, to never make a mistake, to be all compassionate, all wise and all knowing at all times. But good cops saw things a civilian never did, witnessed pain and suffering on an unimaginable scale, faced danger and sorrow and grief and cruelty and despair and disgust and disrespect, and sometimes, yeah, they were human. They made mistakes. They paid for them.

  Finally, she gave in to her flippant side. “Did the guy deserve it?”

  He tilted his head to slant his gaze her way. “He hit his pregnant wife in the stomach.” Another few somber moments passed before he went on. “Hell, yeah, he deserved it.”

  * * *

  At the Prairie Sun, JJ ran upstairs to her room to get a jacket and make one last check of her appearance. Her outfit was dressy for her, though not for most high-end restaurants. Being with Maura would stop anyone from questioning her, though they might lift eyebrows behind Maura’s back.

  That was okay. JJ had raised eyebrows before.

  She sprayed on perfume and touched up her lipstick. With a jacket folded over her arm, she went to the back parking lot, climbed in the Challenger and pulled out of the alley. It was six minutes to twelve when she left, one minute till when she turned onto Maura’s street. Quint was sitting in the back corner of the fast-food place there. He lifted his fingers in a wave when she drove by, and she grinned broadly, waving back.

  A minute later, her smile was gone. She shut off the engine in Maura’s driveway, scanned the house and blew out a breath. The place looked as dreary as before—even more so now, with the addition of a piece of beat-up plywood over the second-floor window Maura had pitched her phone through.

  JJ hadn’t been looking forward to this meal in the first place, but watching the video of Mel had dampened her enthusiasm even more. Had Maura lulled Mel into the scheme, seducing her with the money she’d never had? Had Mel’s previous life been deprived enough that she’d welcomed being made into someone else? Had she even been given a choice in the matter?