Snapped: An Agent Jade Monroe FBI Thriller Book 1

by Sutter, C. M.

  “Then find something that does.” Kent unscrewed the top of the whiskey bottle that had a permanent home on the kitchen counter. He tipped it over the rocks glass and poured the amber liquid until the glass was half full. He cursed under his breath as he turned his back toward her and walked away.

  Jordan sank the tip of the knife into the cutting board. “What did you just say?”

  “I said I’m going to change clothes and wash up.”

  She heard his shoes clack on the hardwood hallway floor until he reached the carpeted bedroom.

  I did find something that helps quite a bit, thank you. At least I’m not drowning my sorrows in a bottle of whiskey.

  Later, at bedtime, Kent mentioned he was leaving again first thing in the morning. Stopping back at home between routes was a common occurrence. Being a national sales rep for a drug company kept him on the road more often than he was home.

  Jordan lay in bed and thought about the next name on her list.

  Chapter 6

  I had been out with the group most of the week, working local cases with the downtown headquarters. I was learning the ropes and becoming comfortable with my colleagues. I felt J.T. and I would become great partners, just as Jack and I had been.

  I entered the building at seven forty-five Thursday morning with my travel mug in hand. We began each day in the situation room. Either we’d have local cases to help out on or there would be news of some other branch of law enforcement that requested our assistance. We took our seats, had our notepads and pens ready, and waited for SSA Spelling to begin.

  “Good morning, guys.”

  We responded with a round of good mornings back to him.

  “I’ve just received word that the Houston field office would like our assistance. They don’t have a serial homicides unit in house, and they’re in our district. Here’s the information that was passed on to me an hour ago.” He took a sip of water and proceeded with the notes he had in front of him. “Apparently over the last week, several murders have taken place throughout the greater Houston area, which in itself isn’t unusual. The police department thought there were enough similarities to consult with the Houston field office once the count had reached three. With the FBI’s help, they’ve concluded the murders could be the work of one killer. Of course, until they compared notes from every scene, the city boys were treating the homicides as typical and individual. Now, with more eyes reviewing the police reports, they’ve realized there is a common connection between all of them.”

  “What is that connection, boss?” I asked.

  “As strange as it sounds, and believe me, I’ve heard almost everything, these murders have some form of cement in common. Two of the three also had body parts removed.”

  “Odd,” Val said. “Normally the removal of a body part has a significant meaning. I wonder why all three weren’t treated the same way.”

  Cam scratched his head. “Cement is a unique one. Did they expand on the details?”

  Spelling looked at his notes again. “Yep, as a matter of fact they did. This unsub is quite creative. Apparently, the first victim was found by his wife a few days ago after coming home from a short trip to Florida with their daughter. Her whereabouts were already confirmed, and she isn’t considered a suspect at the moment. Her husband was found entombed in a bathtub of cement. According to the autopsy report, his esophagus, stomach, and intestines had been filled with the product and were blown out.”

  “He was forced to ingest it?” I asked.

  “It appears so. The man was a surveyor by trade, and his eyes had been speared with his work tripod. Pretty gruesome stuff for a wife and child to come home to.”

  J.T. spoke up. “What about the others?”

  “The second man was single and a bricklayer. He was also found in his home. His head was crushed by a cinder block, and his hands were mangled beyond recognition by the garbage disposal.”

  “Wow, that’s vicious. Who found him?” Cam asked.

  “Apparently the company he worked for tried to reach him numerous times over the last few days. They finally checked his employee file and found the phone number of his aunt. She had a key to his house and discovered his body.”

  “If anything is an encumbrance, wouldn’t a cinder block be? Why carry something like that around as a murder weapon? Aren’t they pretty heavy?” I asked.

  “Good question, Jade,” Spelling said. “I actually wondered that myself and looked up the answer. Actually, if they’re all similar in size, they’d weigh in at close to thirty pounds. A cinder block definitely wouldn’t be a convenient murder weapon to lug around.”

  Maria raised her head after writing down that bit of information. “And the third victim?”

  “A 9-1-1 dispatch operator. Wife, mother, regular gal by the interviews conducted with the husband and coworkers. Her vehicle was found abandoned along a road only a few miles from her home early last night. Just this morning, once daylight broke, her body was located hidden among scrub bushes in the same area. Her head had been bashed in with a cinder block, and her tongue had been cut out.”

  “Wow, that’s sending somebody a message,” Cam said.

  “What about victim connections?” J.T. asked.

  “Nothing they’ve come up with yet. They have a surveyor, a brick layer, and a 9-1-1 operator.”

  “Tradespeople?” Val took a sip of coffee.

  “Only the men were. I’ve printed out the police reports Houston Metro PD faxed over.” Spelling slid a folder to me and one to J.T. “The FBI field office is expecting you and will assist with anything you need. Jade, you and J.T. are heading out now. Review the reports on the plane so you can hit the ground running. You’ll check in with SSA Michelle Tam when you get to the field office. She’ll update you if anything new came in after these reports.” Spelling glanced at the wall clock. “Let’s move. Wheels up in forty-five minutes.”

  J.T. pushed back his chair and stood along with the rest of the team. “You do have a go bag here, right?”

  “Yeah, in the ladies’ room locker.”

  “Okay, there should be a car waiting for us out back. I’ll meet you there in five.” J.T. headed down the hall at a quickened pace.

  I stared in disbelief for a second then took off for the ladies’ room, almost giddy with anticipation. In the restroom, I used the facilities, grabbed my go bag, and slid the folder containing the Houston police reports into the side pocket. I headed to the exit door and met J.T. in the parking lot. We climbed into the backseat of the waiting black sedan, and the driver pulled out into traffic. We’d be at Mitchell International Airport in under a half hour.

  “How can we get through the airport that quickly?” I asked as I situated myself and fastened my seat belt.

  “We can’t. We’re going to a private hangar. The government actually has a large fleet of vehicles and airplanes for federal employees to use. There’s always one or two jets available for the serial crimes unit, and as taxpayers, we’re paying for that convenience, anyway.”

  “Wow, I had no idea.” I grinned from ear to ear.

  Twenty minutes later, we climbed the steps of the fourteen-passenger Gulfstream and within minutes were taxiing out to the runway.

  “Let’s sit over here,” J.T. said and pointed at two comfortable looking chairs with a glossy wooden table situated between them.

  I slid the go bag under my seat and fastened the seat belt.

  “Make sure your electronics are powered down temporarily. We can roam around the aircraft once we reach cruising altitude. I’ll make coffee, then we’ll go over the case. There’s usually snacks stashed on board too.”

  “That sounds great. Do I have time to type out a quick text to my sister?”

  “Sure, you still have about five minutes. The pilot will let us know when we need to switch over to airplane mode.”

  I watched as J.T. focused on his phone too. He was probably letting his sister know he wouldn’t be home for dinner, just as I was. />
  “Never married?”

  J.T. glanced up from his phone. “Are you talking to me?”

  I laughed then looked around the cabin. “I don’t see anyone here except you and me. The pilot can’t hear us.”

  “That’s one thing I like about you, Jade, you don’t mince words.”

  “No need to. So?”

  “Nah, never found the right gal. But then I’d have to be looking, right? I guess I’m just comfortable with the status quo.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “And you?”

  “I was married for five minutes.” I chuckled. “Actually, I was married to someone I thought would be my one and only husband.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then he replaced me.”

  “Ouch!”

  “That was a couple of years ago, and I’m over it. I really do enjoy sharing my house with my little sister, Amber.”

  “The one who wants to be a profiler?”

  “Yeah, she’s a force, that’s for sure, and my only sibling. She has a cat, Spaz, and I have two lovebirds, Polly and Porky.” I grinned when I realized J.T. seemed to be enjoying our conversation.

  Ten minutes later, at thirty thousand feet, a coffee in front of me, and my folder opened on the table, I looked out the window at the fluffy clouds to my left and the vast landscape beneath me.

  “What’s on your mind, Jade?” J.T. asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess nothing in particular.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “We’re good at rooting out lies. Spotting a lie comes second nature to us and was part of our training. Yours too, I imagine.”

  I shrugged and let out a sigh. “It’s peaceful up here, looking out.”

  “It is. And?”

  “And I had a memory, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

  “Is it too personal to share? We’re partners, you know. You may as well spill the beans so I have a chance to plead my case to Spelling. He can reassign you to someone else.”

  I grinned. “I’m happy with an unencumbered partner, thanks.” I paused briefly. “It’s a memory of my dad. I pictured him looking out a window like this. He always enjoyed flying, and he’d peer out the windows for hours and take in the beautiful sunrays and cloud formations. He’d always mention how much he loved flying over the Rockies. Over time, he even got good at recognizing the different ski resorts. He loved the Midwest farm country too. He said the fields always reminded him of patchwork quilts.”

  J.T.’s eyes twinkled as he nodded. “Memories of Tom Monroe have to be good ones.”

  His words surprised me. “How did you know?”

  “I’m a news junkie. I read a lot. Actually, I followed everything the press put out about your dad’s murder and how Max Sims is still at large. You guys sure tried hard with all the press coverage, yet he was never apprehended.”

  “I’ll find him in time.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Jade. If you ever feel like talking—”

  “Thanks. Maybe we should go over these files.”

  “Sure, no problem.” He opened his folder and began reading the police reports.

  I appreciated J.T.’s offer, but I didn’t know the man well enough to share my heart and soul with him. He wasn’t Jack or the lieutenant, or even Billings and Clayton, and he didn’t know my dad. That part of my life and those raw feelings would stay close to my heart for now.

  J.T. summarized the reports out loud again. “So two of the three murders involved a missing body part and a bloody cinder block. The reports say the guy whose hands were chopped up worked at a cement company. We definitely need to find out if there’s any connection to his job.”

  I wrote that down. “According to the forensics lab at the PD, no prints have come up at any of the crime scenes. Something rough and porous like a cement block is nearly impossible to pull prints off of, but even with the guy in the tub, they said there weren’t any unidentified prints.”

  “I’ve been told the same about porous surfaces, although I’ve never been involved in a scenario where we had to try to get them.”

  “The killer would be someone strong too, right?”

  J.T. nodded. “I’d say so, but the crime scenes should tell us more. We can’t rule out an accomplice, either. Even though we have the reports, we have to go over everything again ourselves, and we need to see every photograph the forensic team has too.”

  “True enough. I had a strange case nearly a year ago that involved a psychic. She was the targeted victim, so we brought her in on the case after she pleaded for us to take her seriously.”

  J.T. smirked. “Really?”

  “Hold that smirk, mister. That’s exactly what I did for two years while she begged for someone to believe in her.”

  “So what happened?”

  “There was a man that swore he’d kill her as soon as he got out of prison. She began dreaming about murders once he was released. She kept detailed notes of her dreams down to the tiniest detail. In hindsight, everything she saw in her dreams was scary accurate.”

  “What was the outcome?”

  “The bad guy was real and came after her, so I killed him.”

  “I think I read about that in the paper. That was you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  J.T. turned his head and stared out the window. “I’ll be damned.”

  Chapter 7

  We landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport without incident. I watched out the window as the jet came to a stop and the pressurized door was released. We gathered our belongings and exited the jet down the seven steps built into the door. A black extended van waited on the tarmac to whisk us off to the Houston field office.

  I was told the drive would take a half hour. We sat quietly and made small talk with the driver about the comfortable Texas weather.

  I noted the street signs as we turned off of Federal Plaza Drive, onto Retton Drive, and around the final curve that turned into Justice Park Drive. I knew we had to be close. As we rounded the curve, I saw one large building that definitely stood out among the other few. The building looked to have seven or eight stories and stood alone within a well-manicured lawn surrounded by young trees. The entire perimeter was wrapped with wrought-iron fencing. Our van approached the guard shack nestled between a large gate for entering and another for exiting.

  “Pull out your credentials, Jade. The guard needs to see all of them.”

  “Okay, here you go.”

  J.T. passed our badges to the driver, who handed them to the guard. The guard stuck his head in the driver’s window, looked at our faces to makes sure they matched the image on the badge, told us to have a nice day, and handed our badges back to the driver. He returned to the guard shack and pressed the button that released the gate.

  The van pulled up to the main entrance, and the driver got out. He came around the van, released the sliding side door, and helped us out. A large covered entrance lay ahead of us, and the double doors to the main lobby wore the FBI logo.

  I chuckled. “Apparently this is the right place.”

  J.T. smiled and pulled the handle on the glass door. The reception area was brightly lit with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a beautiful atrium filled a good area to my right. We approached a large marble counter and showed our credentials then asked where we’d find SSA Michelle Tam.

  “Agent Tam is on the fourth floor, office number sixteen. You can leave your bags behind the counter for now.”

  J.T. nodded and thanked the receptionist. “Looks like the elevators are this way,” he said as he pointed to our right.

  We followed the wide hallway to a bank of six elevators that lined two walls. J.T. hit the button for the up elevator. I remained quiet. If I let on how impressed I was, I’d appear to be nothing more than a small-town country girl. I stared at the floor and smiled inside. We waited as people exited the elevator, then we boarded. I pressed the button for the fourth floor, and we rode up in silence. Once the doors opene
d, we walked the long corridor to office sixteen and entered. A receptionist greeted us, and we signed in. She asked us to take a seat and picked up the phone. I assumed she was calling SSA Tam.

  Within minutes, a nice looking woman, likely in her early forties, came through a side door and into the reception area where we waited. Her glossy black hair was pulled back in a classic knot, and she was dressed in business casual attire. She greeted us with a warm handshake and introduced herself as Michelle Tam.

  “Please, follow me,” she said as we passed through a set of doors that took us to a conference room.

  We sat with our folders on the table in front of us. Several on-site agents joined us and introduced themselves as Dave Miller and Bruce Starks. They were the go-to agents for any help we needed during our stay. A pitcher of water and a tray of glasses sat on the table. I poured myself a glass and passed the pitcher around.

  Michelle Tam began by telling us that formalities weren’t necessary. She joked by saying her title was far too long to be used every time someone addressed her. Calling her by Agent Tam, or boss, was fine.

  She cleared her throat and began. “The information you have is what local law enforcement gave us. As of this morning, nothing has changed. Three murders in the last week in the metro Houston area isn’t something that’s completely unheard of, but the methodology and the likely murder weapon, cement in one form or another, connects them. There’s also the mutilation that concerns me. All of the similarities combined led the police department to believe a serial killer may be roaming the streets of Houston. Early this morning, Beverly Grant was located with a cement block next to her head, and her tongue had been removed. Her mutilation, along with the block, was enough for the police department to consider her a third victim. We haven’t had any alerts since. If you notice in the police reports, the victims don’t seem to be targeted by race, age, religion, or gender, so I’d rule out a hate crime in its normal sense.” Agent Tam paused to take a sip of water.

  “Ma’am, may I?” I said.

  “Certainly, Agent Monroe, you have the floor.”