Compromised Security

by Cassie Miles

  “Then you should be pleased by Mackenzie’s decision.”

  “Why?”

  “You and I are the most familiar with the Judge. And we’re on the case.” His voice warmed. “It’s you and me, Marisa.”

  With a jolt, she realized he was right. You and me. Two years ago, those words would have elated her. The two of them, working together. Two years ago, she’d been foolish enough to believe that Flynn was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. When he’d left the San Francisco bureau to come here, she had longed to come with him. If he’d asked her to join him, if he’d offered one lousy word of encouragement, her bags would have been packed.

  Instead, he’d chosen this self-imposed exile at the Mesa Verde safe house, leaving her with nothing but her career. She’d made the best of it, worked hard and gradually moved up the ladder. No way would she allow him to distract her with his you-and-me warmth now. The only relationship she wanted was purely professional. “We’re doing this investigation my way, Flynn.”

  “Fine. Where do we start?”

  She knew he hated technology. He’d always been one of those guys who went with his instincts. Too bad for him. “We start with the computer. Reviewing the files.”

  He led her through the safe house to an office with a sofa, overstuffed chairs and an oak desk that had seen better days. The built-in shelves held neat rows of books that appeared to be unread. Like the rest of the safe house, the room was tidy but bland. No souvenirs tucked away on the shelves. No pictures or photographs decorated the eggshell walls.

  “This place could use a decorator’s touch.” She went to the window that opened onto the front porch and closed the blinds. “Your decor has less character than a discount furniture showroom.”

  “It’s clean,” he said.

  “But it doesn’t look like anybody really lives here.”

  “I like it.” He sank onto the sofa and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I used to dream about a place like this when I was growing up in L.A., moving from one dump to the next. My fantasy was a farmhouse with a barn and horses. Somewhere peaceful.”

  Flynn shrugged his shoulders, trying to release the tension that knotted the muscles at the back of his neck. He continued. “This is the kind of home where you’d expect to find a sweet-faced mom in the kitchen. Baking apple pies from scratch.”

  “Good grief! Do women like that really exist?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” His own mother had never spent much time in the kitchen. Bunny O’Conner’s idea of home-cooking was to grab a handful of peanuts from the tavern.

  He watched as Marisa settled behind the oak desk and turned on the computer. Her eyebrows pulled into an adorable scowl. As she concentrated, her slender fingers danced across the keyboard and she mumbled to herself. Damn, she was cute.

  If he told her so, she’d probably vault over the desk and rip out his throat. When did she get to be so career-oriented? The Marisa he remembered enjoyed kicking back, taking in a movie, watching Sunday afternoon football on the tube.

  After fifteen minutes, she leaned back in the desk chair and pointed to the computer screen. “I’ve accessed our files on the prior Judge investigation. Did you know that Treadwell was called in as a consultant in San Francisco?”

  “Treadwell and every other shrink on the West Coast. The Judge was a psychoanalyst’s dream case—a ritualistic, highly intelligent psychopath.”

  He hauled himself off the sofa and rounded the desk to stand behind her as she scrolled through the files. She stopped on a list of the victims’ names and addresses.

  Flynn knew every detail about those seven women in San Francisco. Names. Birth dates. Zip codes. Time and place of death. He’d read them a million times, trying to deduce a pattern and find a clue that might prevent the next death.

  She scrolled to the next page. A medical examiner’s report. Another memory. Another nightmare. He tumbled backward in time. For a moment, he was overwhelmed—drowning in guilt and the abject frustration of past failures. “I won’t let Grace Lennox be added to that list.”

  “She doesn’t fit the profile. These victims all had long, dark hair. Only one was over thirty, and they were small women. Easily overpowered.”

  He yanked his gaze away from the computer screen. “In the Graff investigation, Cara Messinger—the witness—said that he’d used a stun gun and kept her drugged in a hallucinogenic stupor.”

  “Unfortunately, Russell Graff isn’t the man we’re looking for.”

  “But there is a connection.” He leaned over her shoulder and stared at the computer screen. “Pull up the list of our former suspects and see if we can trace any of them to this area. Maybe we can link them to Graff, find the connection that way.”

  She swiveled around in the chair and faced him. “We interviewed over a hundred people during our investigation.”

  “And never made an arrest that stuck.” He didn’t need reminding. “Start with the top ten.”

  She folded her arms below her breasts. “And what are you going to do?”

  “You tell me, boss lady.”

  “I’d like a sandwich. And more coffee.”

  “You want me to serve you?”

  “Unless you want to do the research,” she offered. “As I recall, you’re not big on computers.”

  He pivoted and went to the kitchen. She knew him too well. High-tech electronics were a useful tool, but computers were no substitute for instinct—the gut feeling that came when he knew he was on the right track.

  In the kitchen, he slapped together cold cuts for a couple of sandwiches and checked the food inventory in the pantry. Since the safe house was command central for this search, they were going to need more food. He talked to the two agents who worked here with him and passed on that responsibility to them.

  Zack grumbled, “I didn’t join the FBI to be a cook and chambermaid.”

  “But you’d look damn cute in a frilly apron,” Flynn teased, then got serious. “I want this place to run efficiently, to show these other agents that this safe house shouldn’t be closed down.”

  “It’s no good for protected witnesses,” Zack said glumly. “Everybody in the area knows we’re FBI now. We’ve got choppers coming and going, an armed guard on the porch.”

  “I’m thinking training facility,” Flynn said. Twelve hours ago keeping the safe house open had seemed like the most important thing in the world. “This house could be used for top-level meetings. Planning sessions. Simulations.”

  “Doesn’t seem cost-effective,” Zack said. “I’ve liked being here, and you’ve taught me more than I could ever learn in a textbook. But I think the Mesa Verde safe house is going to be closed down.”

  “Not yet.”

  Flynn took a tray of food back into the den, where Marisa was hunched over the computer. She immediately started tossing out names from their investigation.

  With every suspect, he recalled far more detail than had been included in the report. “Any one of these people could have met Graff when he lived in San Francisco. We need ties to this area.”

  “Graff was an archaeology student,” she said. “In Santa Fe, New Mexico.”

  “And he worked at a dig site not too far from here. We’ve already interviewed all the other students working there.”

  “What about the professors supervising the dig?” she asked. “An older man who might be a mentor to Graff?”

  “The man in charge of the dig site is George Petty. He’s closer to sixty than thirty. And there’s the forensic anthropologist, Alex Sterling.”

  “The guy who autopsied the remains you found near the safe house.”

  She went silent as she searched through files and pulled up a page on Alex Sterling. “Impressive credentials. He’s a Ph.D. and a medical doctor. He’s consulted on FBI cases before. What’s he doing at this dig site?”

  “Excavating bones from Anasazi burial mounds. Trying to determine if there was some kind of plague that killed off th
e ancient tribes.”

  “Here’s an interesting fact,” she said. “He had a fellowship at Berkeley two years ago when the Judge was active. Did he mention being in San Francisco when the murders were happening?”

  “He’s a genius type. Not big on chitchat.”

  Flynn leaned across the desk and studied the FBI photo-identification for Dr. Alex Sterling. His hair was thinning on top, making his forehead appear overlarge. A total egghead.

  “We need to interview him,” Marisa said. “To find out if he has an alibi for the time when Grace was abducted.”

  “You suspect Dr. Sterling?”

  “I’m covering all bases,” she said. “Sterling was Russell Graff’s mentor in his academic studies. Maybe he uncovered a similar pathology.”

  He knew better than to discount anyone, not even a world-renowned forensic anthropologist. Sterling knew better than anyone else how to dispose of a body. He had the intellect and the supercharged ego that fit the Judge’s profile. It wouldn’t hurt to check out his alibi.

  On the computer, she returned to their former suspects. The next ID photo that appeared showed a smiling face. Black hair. Goatee. Prominent nose.

  “Eric Crowe,” Flynn said.

  An antiques dealer in San Francisco, he was tied to the former crimes when a unique necklace from his shop was found with the remains of one of the victims. Crowe had never been able to adequately explain how the heart-shaped locket decorated with intertwined serpents got to the crime scene. He had no record of selling that piece of jewelry and claimed it was stolen.

  Marisa flipped through other files, searching out current information on Crowe. “He moved two years ago. Eric Crowe has a shop in Taos.”

  Not too far from Santa Fe, where Graff was in college. “What kind of shop?”

  “He still deals in antiquities. Seems like a place that might appeal to an archaeology student.”

  “Graff used Native American ceremonial objects in his rituals. A carved peace pipe. A special bowl for maise. Cara Messinger talked about drumming.”

  “Were these objects traced?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Crowe’s Antiquities in Taos was the place their investigation would start.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, after catching a few hours of restless sleep, Flynn checked in with Mackenzie and the other agents. Still no word from the kidnappers.

  Though Mackenzie remained convinced that the abduction of Grace Lennox was the work of a hired professional, he offered no further resistance to Flynn and Marisa’s investigation into the Judge. It was the opposite, in fact. He made every resource available to them.

  Being involved in a high-priority FBI investigation had certain perks. Earlier that morning, following up on Marisa’s request, local police had ascertained that Eric Crowe was at his home.

  Marisa arranged for a chopper flight to Taos, where a car was waiting for them. By ten o’clock on Friday morning, they stood outside the shop owned by Eric Crowe.

  “Nice location,” Flynn said. At the end of a row of adobe storefronts, Crowe’s Antiquities was only two blocks away from the historic plaza and town square. On the sidewalk outside the shop stood an ornate wrought-iron bench. The shop’s carved door was painted magenta with bright orange and blue crosses.

  “I’m surprised to see crosses on the door,” Marisa said. “I always figured Crowe was a pentagram kind of guy.”

  In their former investigation, Crowe’s admitted association with witchcraft and Satanism raised the level of suspicion toward him; the Judge murders had many ritualistic aspects. Flynn remembered Crowe’s San Francisco shop as a dank lair, smelling of incense and filled with amulets, vases, keys and weirdly erotic statues.

  From the display in the window, the Taos version of Crowe’s Antiquities seemed to be more of the same, although here, the occult objects mingled with Native American artifacts. Drums. Ceremonial pipes. Totems. Exactly the stuff that would have appealed to Russell Graff. “First, we establish the link to Graff. We want Crowe to admit he was acting as some kind of mentor. With his ego, he’ll probably brag about it.”

  “He’s not going to confess that he’s the Judge,” she said. “We interrogated him in San Francisco. Several times.”

  “This time it’s different. He wants us to know. He purposely left that message with Bud when he abducted Grace.” Flynn couldn’t stop thinking about her, imagining what she was going through. “We’ve got to find her. And Crowe is our best suspect.”

  “The logistics of the abduction bother me,” she said. “If Crowe was at the safe house yesterday afternoon, he had a four-hour drive to get back here. Why would he return to Taos?”

  “The distance might be a ploy to throw us off,” he suggested. “Or this might be his safe haven.”

  “True. He might have a special place nearby where he’s hiding the victim.”

  “Grace,” he said. “Her name is Grace Lennox.”

  He knew the psychological danger of identifying too closely with the victim. As agents, they were supposed to be dispassionate and logical, not allowing emotions to cloud their judgment, but he refused to lump Grace into an anonymous category. She was a real person.

  When Marisa looked up at him, her blue eyes were troubled. “Will you be able to handle this interrogation without jumping down Crowe’s throat?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” He might be rusty after being away from field operations for two years, but he hadn’t forgotten how to make a subject talk. “If we make a connection with Graff, do we take Eric Crowe into custody?”

  “Much as I’d like to lock him up and throw away the key, our priority is to locate the victim,” she said. “Here’s what I want you to do. While you’re questioning Crowe, try to shake him up. Intimidate him.”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Keep it within boundaries,” she reminded him sharply. “Then we step aside. I’ve already arranged for other agents to keep tight surveillance on Crowe. If you make him nervous, he might feel the need to go to the place where he has the victim hidden.”

  Her plan was almost exactly what he would have done, which didn’t come as a surprise. Their reasoning followed the same paths; they’d partnered together for years. When they were on their game, it almost seemed like he and Marisa thought with one mind. If only she’d lighten up, they could have that again. That simpatico relationship.

  He held the door for her, allowing Marisa to lead the way into the shop. The scarred wood floor creaked beneath their feet as they strode toward the counter, where a willowy young woman with a pale complexion and straight black hair stood with her hands splayed on the glass-topped display case. Every finger wore a ring. Her studded black leather wristbands matched a choker at her throat. On her bared upper arm was a tattoo of some kind of robed goddess with flowing hair and horns on her head. Unsmiling, she asked, “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Eric Crowe,” Marisa said.

  The clerk’s pale eyes contrasted with the dark liner around them. She arched an eyebrow. “Who are you?”

  Marisa flashed her badge. “FBI.”

  The beaded curtain at the rear of the store rattled as Eric Crowe stepped through. He recognized them immediately. “Special Agent Kelso.”

  Eric Crowe was average height, average weight and in his mid-thirties. His long black hair swept back from his forehead and was tied in a ponytail at his nape. A Satanic goatee circled his full lips, but his most prominent feature was his hooked nose.

  He stalked up to the counter, stood beside his assistant and draped his arm casually around her thin shoulders. “And Agent O’Conner, too. I hardly recognized you in the jeans and cowboy shirt.”

  “Times change,” Flynn said.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  Marisa posed the first question. “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”

  “This is about the Judge,” Crowe said with a sneer. “But he’s dead. Again. Don’
t you people ever give up?”

  “Answer my question,” Marisa demanded.

  “Yesterday, I was unwell. I was home all day. Alone.”

  “Any witness for your alibi?”

  “Not a soul.” He touched the silver pentagram necklace he wore at his throat. “I do hope you’ll drop by and search my house. It’s a lovely adobe. Seven bedrooms.”

  “No housekeeper?” Marisa asked.

  “Yesterday was her day off.”

  Flynn wanted to grab Crowe by his necklace and squeeze the smug arrogance out of him, but he held back. Soon enough he’d have his chance for intimidation.

  For now, Marisa was handling the questions. She asked, “What kind of vehicle do you drive?”

  “I have three. I’m sure you remember my vintage Excaliber sports coupe from San Francisco. I also have a Lexus and a truck.”

  The tire tracks at the scene of the abduction were from a truck. Even if they matched the tread to Crowe’s truck, it didn’t prove much. Too many people in this part of the country drove trucks, and Crowe was smart enough to change tires.

  Marisa took a different direction in her interrogation. “What do you know about Russell Graff?”

  “I read all about him on the Internet. Certain chat rooms are full of speculations about this young man from San Francisco who came to Santa Fe for college. A precocious twenty-four-year-old. A serial killer.”

  Flynn noticed that Crowe’s assistant had lowered her gaze. Her thin lips pinched together. Was she hiding something?

  Marisa must have noticed her tension, too. She addressed the young woman. “I need your name, Miss.”

  “Becky.”

  “Full name.”

  “Why?” Her lower lip trembled. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Your full name,” Marisa repeated.

  “Becky Delaney.”

  When Crowe tightened his grasp on her shoulder and pulled her closer to him, she leaned away from him, tilting her head so her cheek wouldn’t make contact with his shoulder. Though Becky might once have been obedient to her employer, she showed signs of rebellion. If separated from Crowe, she might open up and reveal useful information.