For Love or Vengeance

by Caridad Piñeiro

  Once they were outside the apartment, Helene stared at him. “You left your card.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “That means one of two things.”

  “I think they can be helpful.”

  “Or you feel sorry for them,” Helene said.

  Miguel rested his hand at the small of her back as they walked to the elevator. “I know it’s probably difficult for you to understand, but she’s going to feel guilty for some time.”

  “I get that. She contributed to her friend’s death, albeit in an indirect way. But her friend could just as easily have thrown away that piece of paper.”

  “But Lanie didn’t, and now she’s dead,” Miguel said as they got on the elevator and the doors closed.

  “Feeling guilty doesn’t accomplish a thing. But talking to us did.” She held up the business card. “We finally have a break. One that may help us save others.”

  “That’s true. Even if it’s kind of a black and white view of the world.”

  “By which you mean cold and callous,” she said, but without rancor.

  He smiled. “And yet you showed sympathy and compassion with those women. Why the change?”

  She met his gaze. “You.”

  He snorted. “Right.” The elevator doors whooshed open and he turned. “Let’s call Brewster’s manager for that list, then map out where we’ll be headed.”

  She stopped him from getting off with a hand on his arm. “You don’t believe me?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “What matters is you tried, Helene. I know it was difficult for you.”

  She searched his face. “Why is this so important to you?”

  “Because you’re my partner and I care about you. And I know you feel for people like Lanie and her roommates. Not the fake compassion you used in there. But the real thing.”

  She let go of his arm, disconcerted by his certainty. He was wrong. She couldn’t afford to have those kind of emotions. She needed to stay guarded. Controlled. Focused.

  She strode off the elevator. “We need to move on this quickly.”

  His footsteps sounded behind her. “Helene, wait.”

  “No time for this. The Butcher is already stalking his next victim.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The community website was a three-man operation run out of a small office on the second floor of a walkup off 42nd Street. The advertising manager made some noise, but finally relented when Miguel calmly explained that they could obtain a warrant with little effort. That, and Helene’s warning that the FBI would announce to the media that their investigation was being hampered because their little website refused to cooperate.

  The manager not only gave them the list, but also a map delineating the Midtown area that Lanie’s roommate was supposed to cover on her sales route.

  Back in the war room at Federal Plaza, Miguel peered over Helene’s shoulder as she traced the route onto their map. Just as he’d hoped, the sales area was inside the two-square mile corridor they had narrowed down with the cell phone purchase data. Which added further support to their theory about the killer’s hunting grounds.

  Although knowing the sales territory helped cut down their search area, it was still a large section of real estate. To walk it and check out not only the businesses on the list, but any others they might want to rule out, would take some serious time. That would leave very little for following up on any other leads or information they might discover.

  “We need help,” Miguel said as he calculated the area they would have to cover. He waited for Helene to argue, but she surprised him by agreeing.

  “At least one other person,” she said with a nod.

  “Do you want to call the ADIC or should I?”

  Helene shot him a frown. “You don’t have to ask me every little thing.”

  “I’m just trying to be—”

  “Understanding? Considerate? It’s not necessary, Miguel. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

  She went to the bulletin board and darkened the line on the map around the Midtown sales area with a marker. Helene was being prickly. He figured it was because he’d dared to point out her softer emotions. Heaven forbid she was accused of harboring warmth under that cool princess façade. And yet he knew it was true. He’d felt it. He’d seen it in the rare flashes of vulnerability that managed to slip through her mask of detachment.

  Wanting to smooth things over between them, he stepped up behind her and laid his hands on her waist.

  She slid away.

  He sighed. “What is it now?”

  “At work we’re partners. We act like partners.”

  Fine. He was done. If she wanted to shut him out, let her. Her loss.

  Executing a sharp about-face, he walked back to the table, grabbed the phone, and dialed the ADIC’s office. When the ADIC’s assistant answered, he said, “This is Special Agent Sanchez. Please let the Assistant Director know we need to speak with him on the Butcher case.”

  He hung up and looked at the boards again, avoiding eye contact. “We should mark where Brewster made sales that day.”

  “Why?” Helene asked, but reached for a new set of colored pins.

  “Did you see the heels she had on this morning?” He picked up the list of her sales the ad manager had given them.

  With a shrug, Helene replied, “Nice, but knockoff Christian Lacroix.”

  “I don’t know Lacroix, but I do know that, present company excluded, very few women could walk this entire area in heels that high.” He circled his area on the map with a finger.

  She glanced down at her heels, then back to the map. “Observant. Do you want to pin or should I?”

  He gave her a withering look. “You don’t have to ask me every little thing.”

  Helene wrinkled her nose as she waited for Miguel to finish his lunch. “How can you eat that?” she said as he shoved the last bit into his mouth.

  Miguel chewed and swallowed. “Dirty-water hot dogs are a delicacy.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, still avoiding looking at her. Or touching her. Or anything else with her.

  “You must have a cast-iron stomach,” she observed with a sigh, and glanced at his lean midsection.

  He rubbed a hand across his abs. “They hit the spot for a quick lunch. Aren’t you hungry?”

  The barest rumble of hunger danced through Helene’s stomach, but she was too wired to eat. She was anxious about possibly getting a break in the case. “I can hold off until dinner,” she said, and they resumed their canvass of Brewster’s sales area.

  Luckily, Miguel’s hunch had been right, and after determining where the ad sales had been made, they’d been able to narrow down the area by half. But to thoroughly canvass even that much would take a day or more. Thankfully, ADIC Hernandez had agreed to give them another agent to review any evidence that came in during their absence. They had also spoken to Detective Daly, and he had put his area beat cops on alert for any casting call papers similar to the one picked up by Brewster Williams.

  Helene clipped along with Miguel, hoping for a break. They stopped in to speak to each of the businesses that had placed ads, as well as all the other stores along the route, carefully observing both owners and patrons. At each stop she opened herself up to the energies, searching for something that would resonate with the impressions she had gotten with her second sight.

  That awful hot dog must have mellowed him, because she finally managed to get him talking to her in between stops. Or maybe it was the apology she’d offered about freezing him out earlier—possibly a dangerous move, but she couldn’t stand it when he was angry with her. Which was even riskier.

  With each step they took, they learned more about each other. Or rather, she learned more about him. He asked her questions, too, but she was an artist at deflecting.

  “So you’ve never thought about getting married?” she asked after Miguel had gone on and on about his sister and how happy she was with her husband and kids.

  “I’ve thought
about it,” he admitted with a shrug, making her wonder about the woman who had prompted such thoughts.

  “What was she like?” she asked as they turned onto 45th Street and headed westbound, all the while particularly keeping an eye out for any locations where actors and actresses might congregate and the killer might leave his deadly casting call papers.

  “She was a teacher. Bright. Beautiful,” he finally said after a moment of hesitation.

  “So what happened?” she pressed, ignoring the little knot of jealousy she felt toward the unknown woman.

  As he shot her a guarded look, she knew. “She couldn’t handle your job.”

  “After the incident, it was a rough few months for me. For us. I guess she realized she couldn’t deal with my hours and the demands on my time anymore, let alone the constant danger to my life.” They stopped at the entrance of a small coffee shop.

  She reached for the door, but paused with her hand on the handle. “Seems to me she should have tried harder if she really cared for you.”

  He tilted his head and considered her. “And what would you have done? What would you sacrifice for someone you love?”

  An impossible question to answer, since she had never let that troublesome emotion into her life. She answered the only way she could. “I don’t know.”

  Honest at least, Miguel thought. He held out his hand, letting Helene go first into the coffee shop. They split up and checked out the patrons, owners, and common areas, but nothing about the place or people sent up a red flag with him.

  He glanced at her when they joined up again. “Anything?”

  She shook her head. “Nope.”

  They walked back out and continued their canvass, picking up their conversation. Or rather, monologue. He had been the one answering most of the questions. Helene had volunteered little, but he’d figured it was unwise to bring up her past family history. But he really wanted to know more about her. About what made her tick.

  “Why did you become an FBI agent?” he asked.

  She answered without any hesitation. “Justice. I want to make sure people pay for the crimes they commit.”

  “So you’ve said. But why not be a lawyer or a judge?”

  She chortled with disdain. “The last thing the current legal system accomplishes is justice.”

  He knew about her record in Philadelphia. She’d closed most of her cases with convictions, but there’d also been quite a few where the perpetrator had been killed. Usually by her. It worried him that she might think it was okay for her to dispense justice instead of the system.

  “Our legal system is the only thing that makes us different from the criminals,” he said.

  She tilted up her chin defensively. “I understand the limits of our duties.”

  So she said, but did she really? The evidence told a different story. He flipped his thumb at the door to a Broadway memorabilia shop. “Next?”

  She whirled on her heels and strode in before him. And stopped so suddenly he almost bowled her over.

  “What’s up?” He glanced around.

  Upright displays on one side of the moderately sized shop held Broadway mementos and theater-related souvenirs. Another section had racks where patrons could flip through binders filled with posters and photographs. Beyond that was a small café where a group of young people sat having coffee while texting or reading. On the far wall of the café was a collection of framed posters and theater programs.

  “I don’t know. Just a gut feeling,” she said, and went over to the racks of binders.

  But it was the wall of posters and bills that captured his interest. He ambled between the café tables, unobtrusively studied the customers, and stopped in front of the wall to study the neatly arranged display.

  “May I help you with something?” a man said, his voice cultured, with the tones of an actor.

  Miguel turned to find a man, probably in his mid-forties, sitting in a wheelchair. He was powerfully built through the shoulders and torso, but his legs were thin.

  “Just admiring your collection,” he said just as Helene approached, her brows furrowed in what he’d dubbed her “concerned look.” His partner’s ability to read people and situations was uncanny, so he followed her lead. He moved to her side, wrapped his arm around her waist, and said, “Are you finished looking, sweetheart?”

  Helene’s radar had gone off the moment they stepped into the shop. There was a disturbance in the energy all around her. The man in the wheelchair was one of the sources. His physical state might account for it, since people who’d suffered serious injury often had major unresolved issues and radiated a jumble of confused emotions. But the turbulence in this man’s energy was huge. Unfortunately, she couldn’t pinpoint the cause. She’d have to touch him. Which would be tricky.

  She came to stand close to Miguel, impressed yet again with his quick instincts. “This is such an interesting shop, darling. I’d like to keep looking.” She turned to the other man. “Are you the owner?”

  The man smiled and held out his hand. “Tim Gold. Proprietor.”

  That was easy. She shook his hand, and his intense energy vibrated against her psyche. “You’ve got an amazing collection of memorabilia here. It must have taken years to gather.”

  He looked around the shop with pride, and his smile broadened. “My family has been involved in theater for nearly three generations.”

  “Impressive. You were in the theater, too?” Miguel asked.

  Helene nudged him and admonished, “Sweetie.”

  Gold waved it off. “Your husband is right. I used to be on the stage until I had an accident. I loved performing, which is why I opened the shop. So I could stay close,” he said with a wistful note in his voice, his smile dimming briefly.

  Very convincing. But she sensed something else behind those tones. Something that rang false. Clearly, Mr. Gold was still quite the actor. “Please, don’t let us keep you,” she said. “But do you have a card? We’d love to come back and pick up some things before we fly home.”

  “Of course,” he said, and with practiced ease turned his wheelchair in the narrow space and headed for the counter, where another man was busy behind the register.

  The man at the counter had a wiry build beneath his black T-shirt and black jeans. His muscular arms were covered by colorful sleeves of tattoos, mainly consisting of death symbols.

  The disturbance in the energy intensified as they approached the cash register and the tattooed man. The slimy feel of evil slicked across the short distance separating them. She could almost see it engulfing Gold as he wheeled into its force field.

  She stopped short of the malevolent energy and grabbed Miguel’s arm as he was about to step into it. “I’m not feeling so great, sweetie. Do you mind if we head back to the hotel?”

  He gave her a caring spousal smile, after a brief flash of curiosity. “Sure thing.”

  Tim Gold, no doubt fearing the loss of a sale, whipped back around the counter and handed her a card. “Please come back when you feel better.”

  “Thanks. We definitely will,” she said, and they quickly left the shop. Outside, she walked briskly up the street, Miguel at her side.

  “Mind telling me what that was all about?” he asked when she finally slowed down.

  “The place gave me major creeps,” she said, making a face and wishing she could tell him what she’d sensed in there.

  “Could be the hangout we’ve been looking for.”

  “But there were no casting calls posted. No fliers. No trade papers,” she said. She’d done a careful search, but had spotted nothing that might connect the shop to the Butcher’s crimes.

  “Still. If it’s got you feeling that uneasy, might be worth having NYPD keep an eye on it,” he suggested.

  “Definitely.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Miguel looked dead tired by the time he and Helene finished beating the pavement in the theater district, and returned to Federal Plaza.

  “I can�
��t believe your feet haven’t fallen off in those heels,” he muttered, slipping off his shoes.

  She chuckled. Her voice mail light was blinking, so she checked her messages.

  “It’s from ADIC Hernandez,” she said. “He wants a report ASAP.”

  His brows lifted. “This late?”

  “Seems so.”

  He slid his shoes back on with a curse and a sigh.

  “Poor baby,” she cooed, and he made a face at her, but gave her a kiss in the elevator.

  The ADIC’s assistant was long gone and as they walked up to his open door, voices floated out from the office—the ADIC’s, and a woman’s. A young voice with the slightest hint of—Miami?

  Helene knocked on the doorframe, and ADIC Hernandez rose from his chair and waved them in. “I was hoping you’d get back before Special Agent Reyes left for the night.”

  As they entered, a petite woman slowly eased up from a chair and turned to them. Helene put her in her early thirties, though her eyes had a tired, almost haunted look of someone much older. Her face was pale and her body thin. Too thin.

  Hernandez introduced them, then said, “This is Special Agent Reyes. You asked for help, so I’m assigning her to help you on the Butcher case.”

  Helene eyed her coolly. Reyes eyed her right back.

  “Uh-oh,” she heard Miguel whisper under his breath behind her. “Major cat fight brewing.”

  Helene barely contained the urge to turn around and show him her claws.

  He stepped forward with a covert wink at her, and extended his hand to the other woman. “Special Agent Reyes. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

  So had Helene. An excellent agent, but a loose cannon.

  “Thank you, Special Agent Sanchez,” Reyes replied with a quick smile and a shake, then returned her attention to Helene. “Not to worry, Special Agent Alexander. I know I’m only doing the grunt work.” She held out her hand.

  Tortured energy buffeted Helene the moment she grasped it. Shocked, she met Reyes’s gaze, and realized she’d also felt the exchange.