by Angela Foxxe
“I keep forgetting that I don’t have my purse here. Even a few weeks later, I feel like I should have it with me.”
“You’re not the first person to say that,” Senora assured her, then her eyes lit up. “But, we did find your cell phone, and since there’s nothing on it that we need, you can have it back.”
Jessica perked up a little bit.
“It seems weird to care about something so small, but all my pictures of my daughter are on that phone. I’m glad you have it.”
“Hold on a second, and I’ll grab it. I put it aside when I found out you were rescued, and I meant to bring it with me. It’s on my desk. Will you be alright for a moment while I run and get it?”
“Sure,” Jessica said, though Senora didn’t think that she was as positive as she was pretending to be.
Senora hurried, jogging down the hall, unlocking her bottom drawer and grabbing the small padded envelope that the phone had been stored in.
She presented it to Jessica, who smiled softly and held her breath until the light came on and the phone powered up.
“It works,” she said, tears streaming down her face as she scrolled through the pictures with her finger. “My little Evie. I can’t wait to hold her again.”
“I understand,” Senora said, even though she knew she couldn’t.
With no children and no real family, Senora had no idea the depth of the pain Jessica Baker had experienced at being separated from her child for so long. But she could imagine, and that was as close as she wanted to get.
Jessica held the phone close, then smiled at Senora again.
“I can’t thank you enough. I know your job is probably hard, but you’re good at what you do. This means so much to me, and it’s not surprising that you knew I would want to have it right away. You seem to really care about people who’ve been hurt. Do you get to meet a lot of survivors?” Jessica asked.
“Not nearly enough,” Senora said. “Not nearly enough.”
She led Jessica out of the room and down a narrow corridor. The surgical style booties they’d given her to wear when they’d picked her up made a swishing noise on the floor. Coupled with the scent of industrial cleaner in the hall, it reminded Senora of a hospital (more specifically, the hallway leading to the morgue).
She shook herself, forcing the image away from the forefront. Jessica was fine, and there was a good chance that the information that she’d given them was going to save countless lives. Now was not the time for morbid thoughts. They weren’t helping anyone, and they were way off base. This was a good day, and this case was about to blow wide-open. Senora could feel it.
They stopped at a plain, unmarked door, and Senora used her ID to open the door. There was the sound of a seal breaking and the door suctioning against the frame for an instant before it opened soundlessly and revealed a plain, windowless and mirror-free room with a low hospital bed in the middle.
Jessica stopped mid-step and stared at the room.
“You can do this,” Senora said. “Anyone who can escape the hell that you did can do this. It’s almost over, and you can shower, change, and walk out of here and go back to your old life.”
“Is it?” Jessica asked.
“Is it, what?”
“Is it ever going to truly be over?”
Senora’s heart ached for the woman. She was right; her life would never be the same. She would have nightmares, she’d suffer PTSD, and she would probably never walk out of her house alone again. And that wasn’t the worst of it. There would be people who didn’t believe her, and there would be old “friends” that came out of the woodwork because they were soulless animals who loved to prey on people who were hurting. They would descend upon Jessica under the guise of helping her through a tough time. But they were really looking for gory details left out of the news, and their curiosity made them incapable of realizing or at least caring that they were victimizing someone who’d already been victimized.
Today was a hard day, but this was nowhere near the end. Senora could tell by the look on her face that Jessica already suspected that. She was just waiting for Senora to confirm it. But Senora only shook her head and extended her hand.
“It’s almost over,” she said again, not talking about what would come after the evidence collection and the shower. “Once you leave this room, you never have to come back.”
Jessica took Senora’s hand and let herself be led to the bed. The door closed behind them on its own as Jessica made herself comfortable.
“You are incredibly brave,” Senora commented, trying to build Jessica up as the woman lay trembling on the hospital bed, readying herself for the crime scene tech that would be coming in the other door any minute now.
“No, I’m not brave,” Jessica said flatly. “If someone hadn’t screwed up, I would be dead. I hope that bitch pays for this with her life.”
You’re not the only one, Senora thought.
CHAPTER TWO
Pictures flashed onto the screen and disappeared just as quickly as Senora willed the facial recognition program to find a match. She’d been watching the faces of everyone who’d ever had a mugshot or been photographed by the FBI click across the screen in rapid succession for almost two hours. Every once in a while, the program would stop and kick out a woman that looked similar. Senora would print the file page and a plain five-by-seven-inch photograph for the lineup, then push Enter and set the pictures in motion again.
So far, she had four possibilities, but none of them looked very close to the sketch. It was late, and there was a chance that this tedious process could continue for hours, but Senora had nowhere else to go, and she had no plans to show these to Jessica until the following day. That was if the program finished in time. Matching mugshots, person of interest files, and other, more clandestine files that were above her pay-grade took a lot of time. And that was only known possible matches. There was a chance the woman was in here somewhere, but Senora didn’t think so. The woman Jessica described was good, and people like that rarely got caught. They kept their nose clean otherwise and never brought attention to themselves.
One serial kidnapper Senora had brought in had never had so much as a parking ticket. If he hadn’t refused to let the internet company into his backyard to dig up and replace wire for the internet that served the rest of his small town, he would have never gotten caught. But the man’s nervousness had set off alarm bells with the contractor, and he’d returned with a Sheriff’s officer after walking away. They’d caught him loading three women into his van, which was backed up to the gate that led to his backyard.
It turned out that he’d kept them prisoner in an innocent looking garden shed in the back yard. Three women had been saved by chance, and Senora knew that things like that didn’t happen as often as they did in the movies.
Senora rubbed her eyes, bowing her head and listening to the soft noise that signaled that the pictures were still moving at lightning speed. She closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for the little ding that would let her know that it had stopped on another picture.
The office chatter around her started to melt together and had almost faded completely when Senora felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, looking around, then groaning.
“Senora,” a gruff, feminine voice said.
Senora turned to see Beverly Patterson, her direct supervisor and the newest addition to the team. Ever since she’d been brought back in from the field, Senora had worked almost exclusively with Agent Patterson, only hearing from J once or twice a month over the past six months. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t heard from J at all in almost three months, and her orders had come exclusively from Agent Patterson, even though Patterson wasn’t technically her direct superior. Agent Patterson wasn’t hard to work with, but Senora had become accustomed to setting her own hours and working cases in her own way. She had a feeling that was the reason she’d been placed in Agent Patterson’s fold of agents.
It was the only way to ensure that Se
nora was doing everything by the book, and it was annoying as hell.
“Sorry, I must have-”
“No need for excuses, Senora,” Agent Patterson said. “You’re exhausted; it’s obvious.”
“I’m fine. It’s been a long day.”
“I heard. And I heard how you got a reluctant housewife with the money for the finest lawyers in D.C. to let us collect evidence and sent her home in sweats.” Agent Patterson smiled. “You did good work, and good work needs a break. You’ve been working nonstop for six months. It’s time for you to take a vacation.”
“I can’t take a vacation; I’m in the middle of a case.”
“We’re always in the middle of a case or on the way to another crime scene. You can’t wait to take care of yourself until it’s convenient. Our line of work never works out that way. There’s room in the case for you to take a vacation. You saved us the hassle of getting a warrant and risking the loss of precious evidence that our victim couldn’t wait to wash off. Your solid work has made it so the lower-levels and evidence techs can run with this. But it’s going to take time. We’re looking at a week or two, maybe even a month before we find these people.”
“They may take someone else before then.”
“True, but now that we know what Mrs. Baker shared, we can protect potential victims.”
“How are we going to go to the press without spooking them and risking them moving to another city?”
Agent Patterson pursed her lips, then smiled softly.
“Senora, you can’t do everything alone. This is a team, and it’s time for you to practice some self-care while the rest of the team steps in.”
Senora cringed at the words. “Self-care” had never been one of her strong suits, and she wished Agent Patterson would call it anything else.
“I need to talk to J about this. I have cold cases I’m supposed to be doing, and-”
“The order came down from J,” Agent Patterson said with finality. “There is no room for negotiation on this, Senora.”
“When did J give the order? I haven’t heard from him in-”
“J is on another task force right now. He gave the order months ago, but the order was based on some specific behavioral patterns from you. You’re exhibiting those behaviors now, which means that you are in need of some rest so that you can recharge and come back to the unit fresh and ready to do your job. It’s not up for discussion, and if you continue to argue, I’ll relieve you of duty with pay and you won’t be able to come in until I decide that you’re rested and ready. If you take a vacation, then you’re the one making that decision. Two weeks minimum, but I would prefer that you take a month. Otherwise, I’m going to force you to take all the vacation time you’ve accrued and the sick leave.”
“But I would be gone for almost a year,” Senora said, shocked at the threat.
“I know,” Patterson said, arching an eyebrow and daring Senora to press her luck.
When Senora didn’t respond, Agent Patterson took it as a sign she was giving in and continued.
“Starting tomorrow, you’re taking at least two weeks’ vacation. You have months saved up, and I would like you to take a month or even two and knock out half of your accrued vacation. But I know you, and I know that’s asking for too much. So I’m ordering that you take two weeks, and I’m asking that you consider extending it to at least a month so that you can come back refreshed and ready to hit this caseload with your usual enthusiasm.”
“But what about Mrs. Baker?”
“There isn’t much to do with her right now. She’s been referred to victim services, and she’ll go through therapy. Once we have the perps rounded up and we’re ready to build our case, I’ll need you to help prepare her. But you know as well as I do that it could be months before we’re ready to even think about a trial. You can’t put your life on hold until then. You’ve done more than enough. Let the other agents handle the rest.”
“I’d like to take the lineup photos to Jessica tomorrow. I have a rapport with her, and I think having another agent invade her home so soon would be a mistake. It could set us back.”
“That’s fine. I agree with you that she’s in too fragile a state to risk having someone else walk her through the lineup. But that’s the only thing I want you to do tomorrow. You’re off-duty the second you leave her house, understood?”
Senora didn’t like it, but behind that sweet smile was a woman who didn’t take no for an answer. Senora was backed into a corner, and she knew it. She had to take the time off, and there was no way around it. She might as well go out on her own terms and without getting suspended without pay for insubordination.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I run a different ship than most, so there are a few ground rules for vacation. I don’t want you to have your phone available. And no emails. Don’t check in. I won’t call you, and if anyone does call your private cell phone or house number, give them my number and hang up. I don’t want you doing anything that could be considered work while you’re gone. I need you fresh when you return. Don’t call, don’t write, don’t send smoke signals. For the next two weeks, I don’t want to hear your name uttered.”
Senora couldn’t help but smile. Despite her gruff exterior, Agent Patterson was a warm and kind woman. She knew that Senora wouldn’t make a full break from work without her insistence, and the woman’s only intention was to give Senora a true break.
The computer made a noise, and Agent Patterson looked over Senora’s shoulder at the screen.
“It looks like you don’t have any more suspects. Throw a couple of extras in there to give her more options and go home.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can leave straight from your house whenever you get a chance; there’s no need for it to be first thing in the morning. Go ahead and lock your phone and your laptop in your desk.”
“But what if-”
“We’re not going to need you. You gave us more than enough to work with while you’re gone. And don’t try to convince me that you need to call ahead to the Baker house. You know as well as I do that showing up unannounced gets better results, even from victims.”
Senora shook her head, laughing at the last statement. Agent Patterson was right; people didn’t have time to get their stories straight when they didn’t know you were coming. Not that Mrs. Baker fell into that category, but she would be less likely to work herself into an anxious mess before Senora got there. Mrs. Baker had already worked herself into a frenzy being interviewed in the office, so Senora couldn’t imagine how tense the poor woman would be waiting for the doorbell to ring.
“Fine,” Senora said. “But I need to wrap up a few things and upload a couple of my active files to the server so other agents can access them and-”
“You have twenty minutes and then I want you out of here.”
Senora opened her mouth to object, then closed it and smiled. Agent Patterson smiled back, and Senora knew she’d been had. Patterson wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and Senora didn’t have a choice. She was going on vacation whether she liked it or not.
Agent Patterson left her to finish up, walking out of the room with the crisp echo of low, chunky heels clicking on the tile floors. Senora inhaled the sterile scent of the office and suddenly longed for fresh air. Agent Patterson was right. She’d been working with her nose to the grindstone every day since she’d been called back to the office six months ago. She hadn’t even stopped long enough to look around and notice that half the people in the office were strangers to her. She’d been in her own little world and trying to bury herself in work to forget everything that had happened since she’d first stepped foot in Glen Rose. But most of all, she’d been trying to forget Ty.
No one had come right out and said it, but she had a feeling that her relationship with Ty was the reason that she’d been called back into the office so abruptly. After being forced to work with him in the first place, she really couldn’t think of any other explanation
. Ever since she was pulled out of field work, J had been all but silent and had rarely contacted her. And every time she’d had a little downtime on her hands to start looking at cold cases and to delve deeper into her parents’ case, Agent Patterson dumped another stack of urgent cases on her desk. Over the past six months, Senora had spent so much time interviewing suspects, persons of interest, and victims that she hadn’t even had time to breathe. She went home late Friday night each week and fell into bed. On Saturdays, she hit the gym and the gun range, then spent Sunday recuperating so that she could do it all again on Monday morning. It was enough to break anyone, and Senora had no idea how she’d managed this long without a break.
Then, there was Ty.
He’d called her several times the first few weeks, but she’d let the calls go to voicemail. She didn’t know what to say to him, and after listening to his voicemail messages, she knew that there wasn’t anything that she could say that would make things better. And then there was the feeling that speaking to him would put her job on the line. No one had said as much, but she found it suspicious that the minute they started to really make headway, they were separated with no warning and no explanation. Someone was nervous about them working together, and J’s absence in the months since was really weighing on her. Could there be a connection? Or had J truly witnessed some sort of obsession in her that made him worry about her burning out? That was the reason that she’d been fed when she’d pushed for answers, but for more than one reason, it just didn’t ring true.
She didn’t feel burned out, and while she could admit some obsession with finding victims alive and well, she didn’t think she was any more obsessed than anyone in her field normally was. She preferred to call it passion, and it didn’t feel like anything more than that.
Rubbing her eyes and willing herself to stay awake long enough to get home, she shut down her laptop and locked it up. The files were uploaded to the secured server and labeled so they could be found easily. There was nothing left for her to do now.