Thin Ice

by Irene Hannon

“I’m sorry I had to deliver it at all.”

  With a nod, she slid out before she broke down again, hurrying inside as he drove away.

  Sarah was waiting in one of the chairs in the lobby, and she rose as Christy pushed through the door in a gust of cold air. After a quick scan of her face, she took her arm and propelled her down the hall.

  “While you were outside, I cased the offices. Matt’s out of town on a ski trip with his family. We can talk there.”

  Once they were inside the rec center manager’s office, Sarah closed the door and faced her. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but you look like you’re about to fold. I just want you to know I’m here if you need me.”

  Her vision blurred. She might not have any family left, but she had Sarah—and Lance. Both valued friends she’d be relying on heavily in the weeks to come.

  “They found Ginny’s body.” She managed to choke out the words.

  Sarah’s face went slack. “Where?”

  “Memphis. In the r-river.”

  Some of the color drained from Sarah’s face. “Are they certain?”

  “Yeah. They got a DNA match.”

  “So . . . what’s going on? None of this makes sense.”

  “Tell me about it.” Christy dropped onto the edge of Matt’s desk and rubbed her arms as a chill swept over her. “They’re trying to sort it out. And until they do, this has to stay between us.”

  “My lips are sealed.” Sarah squeezed her hand. “You want me to drive you home?”

  “Lance made the same offer.”

  “Good man.”

  Yeah, he was.

  “No. I’ll end up brooding if I’m by myself. I’d rather let work distract me.”

  “Will you at least come to dinner tonight?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but let me see how I’m feeling by this afternoon. You know I love your family, but I might not be up for a . . . lively . . . meal.”

  “You mean noisy and rowdy. Yeah, I see your point. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I call you later and you can decide then if you’re in the mood for a meal in the Marshall household? In the meantime, keep hanging in.”

  She pushed off from the desk, the simple movement requiring more effort than she expected. “I don’t have much choice.”

  “Yes, you do. You could fall apart. After all you’ve been through these past few months, I’m surprised you haven’t. But Olympic athletes must be made of tougher stuff than the rest of us. You need me, you call. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  They parted in the hall, and as Christy walked back to her cube, Sarah’s comment echoed in her head.

  It was possible Olympic athletes were made of tougher stuff—but if that was true, she’d lost her edge.

  Because she was a heartbeat away from caving.

  “This guy’s got an agenda that has nothing to do with Ginny Reed. We need to switch gears and look closer at the sister.”

  As Steve Preston echoed the conclusion he’d already reached, Lance glanced over at Mark. Based on his expression, his fellow agent appeared to be on the same page.

  “The question is, what is it?” Mark crossed an ankle over his knee.

  “It’s more than harassment or psychological torture.” Lance tightened his grip on the arm of his chair. “No one goes to all the trouble this guy did just to play a sick joke. He has bigger plans for Christy Reed. Are we in a position to offer any protection?”

  “No. Not our purview.” Steve’s response confirmed what Lance already knew: the FBI only provided security for the attorney general and FBI director. “I reviewed the background file you gave me. What’s the story on her parents?”

  “They were killed in a car accident about nine months ago. Her mother died in the crash. Her father lingered for a couple of months in a coma but never regained consciousness.”

  “The whole family wiped out in the space of six months.” Steve fixed him with an intent look. “Seem a little suspicious to you?”

  “Yes.” Lance leaned forward. He’d had the exact same thought after the locket arrived with the two Xed out pictures of her parents. “But I reviewed the accident report, and it was straightforward. They were returning home on a rural road from a potluck church supper they’d attended with Ginny in Chandler. The skid marks suggested her father tried to avoid something on the road and slid out of control. The sheriff concluded it was an animal, probably a deer. They have a significant number of deer-related accidents on that road each year.”

  “Was it raining that night?”

  “No.”

  “You talk to the deputy who filed the report or the tech who analyzed the skid marks?”

  Lance shifted his weight, once more feeling as if the word rookie was stamped across his forehead. “No.”

  “Do it. That whole scenario smells, given all that’s happened since.” Steve rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. “Let’s keep the discovery of the body under wraps for now. No need to let the kidnapper know we’re on to his scam.”

  At least he’d taken care of that piece of business. “I already passed that on to Memphis.”

  “You need any more help with this besides Mark?”

  “Not yet.” Truth be told, he didn’t even need Mark at the moment. It wasn’t as if they were scrambling to investigate dozens of leads.

  “When this does start to heat up, let me know.” Steve picked up his phone. “And keep me apprised of any developments.”

  End of meeting.

  Lance followed Mark out and down the hall, where his colleague ducked into an empty conference room and motioned him in. “Don’t beat yourself up about the parents. I wouldn’t have done more than review the sheriff’s report, either, unless I spotted a red flag.”

  Weird how Mark could read him so well. He was usually better at keeping his thoughts—and emotions—to himself.

  His colleague grinned. “HRT, Delta Force. We’re both cut from the same cloth. I’d be second-guessing myself if I was in your shoes too. I do agree the timing is suspicious, but I bet the sheriff’s report is clean. If, by chance, our guy was involved in that accident, he didn’t leave a trace—which seems to be his MO.”

  “Steve’s right, though. Talking to the deputy won’t hurt. If I decide to take a run out to the accident site, you want to go along?”

  “Sure, if nothing else is hopping. Keep me in the loop.” With a lift of his hand, Mark strolled down the hall.

  Once back at his desk, Lance pulled the accident report out of the case file and reread it. One-car accident, speed about forty-five mph. The car had tumbled into a ravine after skidding out of control in a rural area around nine thirty—well after sundown. No alcohol had been involved, based on BAC tests done on Christy’s father. In fact, no drugs of any kind had been found in his system.

  Nothing jumped out at him on a second pass, either.

  He found the responding deputy’s phone number at the bottom of the report, tapped it in his phone, and leaned back. The man answered on the second ring.

  “Deputy Meyer, this is Special Agent Lance McGregor with the St. Louis FBI office. Do you have a minute?”

  A moment of silence ticked by. In all likelihood, a rural Missouri sheriff’s department didn’t get a lot of calls from the FBI.

  “Uh, sure. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m interested in an accident that occurred on May 14.” He gave the man the location and the particulars. “You filed the report.”

  “Yes, I remember that one. Sad case.”

  “The report appears to be fairly straightforward, but I’m wondering if there’s anything you might have noticed that didn’t get into the official document.”

  “Such as?” There was a wary edge to the question. As if the guy thought he was impugning his competence.

  Not the best way to build rapport—and get information.

  He switched to a conversational tone. “Well, I’ve filed my share of reports, and I k
now they don’t allow room for interpretation or conjecture. How long have you been in law enforcement?”

  “Eighteen years.”

  “That’s a lot of experience. I expect your seasoned eye might notice details that aren’t appropriate for a facts-only official report but could offer some insight into a case. That’s the kind of input I’m looking for. Was there anything that struck you as odd or gave you pause that night?”

  “Are you thinking this wasn’t an accident?”

  That question called for a combination of diplomacy and evasion.

  “We’re investigating it in conjunction with another case. This particular situation isn’t our main interest.”

  Despite his sidestep, the answer seemed to satisfy the deputy.

  “I can’t say there was anything in particular about the accident itself that raised an eyebrow. It had all the markings of a deer dodge—and we see a lot of those around here. All the facts are in the report.” He stopped, and Lance waited him out. “I do remember thinking what a shame it was the deer picked that spot to cross.”

  Lance’s antennas went up. “Why?”

  “Well, they were coming from the monthly potluck church supper they always attended with their daughter, headed back to St. Louis.”

  An event they always attended? That nuance hadn’t shown up in the report. If their guy had been watching them, he would have picked up that pattern—and could have used it to suit his purposes.

  “I can figure the route they were taking,” the deputy continued. “Been over it plenty of times myself. Just two lanes, but a nice, easy drive. If you ran off the road in most places, you’d end up in a cornfield or wedged up against a tree. About the only stretch that’s dangerous is the very spot the accident occurred. There’s a limestone bluff on one side and a sharp drop on the other. Fifty, sixty feet I’d estimate. Plus a nasty curve. No guardrail, either. Not enough traffic to warrant one—though it would have helped that night. I remember thinking it was bad luck they lost control at that very spot.”

  Bad luck—or a well-orchestrated accident?

  Given their guy’s attention to detail and his demonstrated ability to carry out a complicated operation, Lance was beginning to suspect the reactive squad supervisor’s instincts were correct and it was the latter.

  But how did you send a car careening out of control without leaving any trace?

  Or was there a trace no one had noticed because they’d too quickly nailed a deer as the culprit?

  If so, was it still there?

  “Anything else, Agent McGregor?”

  “No. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Glad to be of service. You need anything else, give me a call.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  After ending the call, Lance leaned back in his chair. There wasn’t any rush to investigate the so-called accident. It had happened in the middle of nowhere, so there were no witnesses except the ubiquitous deer that populated rural Missouri. And even if he stumbled upon an indication of foul play, it wasn’t likely to help them identify Ginny’s kidnapper.

  He’d rather spend his day hanging around Christy. Waiting for the guy’s next move. Watching her back. Could he think of an excuse his boss would buy to pay her another visit . . .

  “You have anything hot to do on the kidnapping in the next couple of hours?” Mark stopped outside his office, Special Agent Nick Bradley on his heels. Both their demeanors were serious.

  “Nothing that can’t wait if you’ve got an urgent issue.”

  “Steve wants every free agent in the conference room. Stat. A tip came in on the most-wanted line at Headquarters. Sounds like one of our top ten could be lurking in this area.” He called the final sentence over his shoulder as he picked up his pace again.

  So much for staying close to Christy.

  But if nothing else, in his off hours he intended to play the boyfriend part as much as possible.

  18

  Somewhere far away, a bell was ringing.

  Pulling herself back from the exhausted slumber that had felled her after a night of pillow punching, followed by frenzied cleaning, followed by more pillow punching, Christy groped for the alarm clock and jabbed the shutoff button.

  Five more minutes. That’s all she needed. Just five more—

  The ringing started again.

  What the . . . ?

  She pried her eyelids open and peered at the clock. Six forty-five? Her alarm wasn’t scheduled to go off until seven.

  Another ring—followed by a rush of adrenaline—brought her fully awake.

  Someone was calling on her landline.

  She threw back the covers, scrambled out of bed, and dashed for the kitchen. Maybe there was news, and Lance had tried to call her on the cell she’d left beside her bed. If she’d slept through the alarm yesterday, she could very well have slept through the chirp of her cell. He could be trying to reach her on her home phone.

  By the time she grabbed it out of the charger, her answering machine had already kicked in.

  “Hello?” She stopped the recorded message as she issued the breathless greeting.

  “Christy Reed?” An unfamiliar woman’s voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to disturb you so early, but I wanted to catch you before you left for work. This is Regina Devereaux with the Post-Dispatch. I’m following up on a story that came over the wire about the discovery of your sister’s body in Memphis. I hoped you might answer a few questions.”

  Christy stared at her spotless kitchen—one of the few positive results of her restless night—and scrambled to process the unwelcome turn of events.

  A reporter was calling about Ginny. The news was on the wire service. This woman wanted to write an article about it for the Post . . . where the kidnapper could see it.

  Her stomach twisted.

  This was bad.

  Very bad.

  Lance wanted to keep the news about Ginny under wraps. And during his brief call last night in the middle of a manhunt that had required all FBI hands on deck, he’d assured her the Memphis police were on board with that plan.

  So how had the story leaked?

  “Ms. Reed?”

  Heart banging against her ribs, she pushed her tangled hair back from her face. She needed to talk to Lance. Now. Before she said a word to any reporter.

  “This isn’t a convenient time.”

  “I only need a quote or two.” The woman’s tone was pleasant but determined. “I’m sure the discovery was quite a shock. Did you have any idea the woman who died in the house fire wasn’t your sister?”

  “I’m sorry. I have no comment. Good-bye.” She punched the end button.

  The instant she got the dial tone, she called Lance’s cell number.

  Two rings in, he answered, sounding as groggy as she’d felt after her own phone had jolted her awake. The man had probably been up half the night too, chasing the high-profile criminal he’d alluded to during their quick conversation.

  “Lance, it’s Christy. Sorry if I woke you, but I just had a call from a reporter at the Post. She said there’s a story about Ginny on the wire service.” Despite her attempt to remain calm, her voice hitched on the last word.

  A few seconds ticked by. When he responded, he sounded 100 percent alert—and angry. “The leak wasn’t on our end. I’ll call Memphis, but the damage is done. What did you tell her?”

  “No comment.”

  “Good—although that may not stop the story from running. Who was the reporter?”

  She gave him the woman’s name.

  “I’ll see what I can find out about her. If we’re lucky, she’s not the go-getter type, and if a story does run, it will be a single paragraph buried somewhere in a back section.”

  “She sounded very determined.”

  “That figures.” Lance sighed. “Give me an hour. If she calls back, stick with no comment. Go about your normal activities, and if she shows up in person, don’t let her badger you into tal
king, no matter how persistent she is.”

  The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified. “This is a disaster, isn’t it? If the kidnapper knows we’re on to him, he could disappear. We’ll never catch him.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Our guy has an agenda. After all the effort he’s put into this, I’m not certain he’ll give up so close to the last act. He may alter his plans, though. Let me call you back after I have more facts. We’ll get this guy no matter what, Christy.”

  The steel in his voice bolstered her spirits. “I’m counting on that. Talk to you soon.”

  Long after the line went dead, her fingers remained clenched around the phone. Perhaps fate would be kind, as Lance had suggested. The reporter might not pursue the story or, if she did, it might run as a small paragraph in some obscure part of the paper where the kidnapper would never notice it.

  Yet as she dropped the phone back into the charger, her hopes dimmed.

  So far, all the luck had been on the kidnapper’s side.

  And she had an ominous feeling that pattern wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

  Lance slammed down his desk phone, banged a drawer shut, and blew out a breath.

  “That doesn’t sound positive.”

  He turned to find Mark eying him from the doorway of his cube.

  “It’s not.” He filled him in as he paced, watching the man’s countenance change from curious to concerned to seriously worried. “According to Officer Drury in Memphis, a reporter from the local paper got the scoop from a newbie in the media relations group before the instruction to keep this quiet was passed along. The media guy assumed once next-of-kin had been notified, he was free to talk to the press. A brief article ran in the Memphis paper this morning and was picked up by the wire.”

  “Does the PR guy still have a job?” Mark’s eyes thinned.

  “He wouldn’t under my watch. But the real question at this point is what’s our guy going to do if he finds out we’re on to him?”

  “You could try convincing the Post reporter to hold off on the story.”

  “I could—but if she finds out the FBI is involved, that might make her more eager to get a scoop. I ran some intel. She’s an up-and-coming investigative reporter who’s starting to win some prestigious awards. Her bio describes her as tenacious and fearless.”