The Trap (Agent Dallas 3)

by Sellers, L. J.

  Luke pressed his mouth into hers. The heat was overwhelming, and Dallas almost changed her mind. She hadn’t had sex since she visited Cameron three weeks ago. And if not for Cameron, she would’ve indulged in a few stranger romps by now. Being faithful was new to her, and she didn’t know how she felt about it yet.

  Luke reached behind her to unhook her bra. Dallas broke off the kiss long enough to say, “Abby will know, and it could ruin things for the mission.”

  He stopped and groaned. “You’re right. I have to break it off with her first. Then give her some time.”

  “It’s the right thing to do.” Dallas pulled away. “Why don’t you put the refrigerator food into a sack to take with us, and I’ll grab a few more things. Then we’ll be out of here.”

  He grabbed her hands. “I like you even more now for respecting Abby. We’ll be together soon.”

  “It’ll be worth waiting for.” If she could hold out. Dallas grabbed her laptop and stuffed it into her shoulder bag, fingers itching to send Drager an email. But she had to be careful. Aaron had said he would monitor her communication, but she didn’t know how or what distance away was secure.

  As soon as Luke was out of the room, she dropped to her knees and reached under the bed for her small safe.

  “What are you doing?” He called from the doorway.

  “Looking for my favorite shirt.” Dallas sprang back up. “I thought I left it on the floor.” Fuck the case phone. She probably wouldn’t be able to use it anyway. Luke and Aaron were both a bit paranoid, and she would be lucky to send any communication at all from the farmhouse. She would ask to stop on the way back, then call Agent Drager on her Tara phone from a bathroom.

  Luke gave a small smile. “I thought maybe you were getting out a gun. We don’t allow them in the house.”

  “Good policy.” She hated leaving her Kel-Tec too, but the assignment called for it.

  A few minutes later, Dallas locked up the apartment, wondering when she’d see it again.

  Chapter 9

  Sunday, Oct. 5, 2:35 p.m.

  Detective Jocelyn Larson thumbed through a stack of Judge Bidwell’s court files, looking for violent offenders. The rest of her team was out in the field, interviewing witnesses and tracking down leads, so she was alone in the division, staring at paperwork and going a little stir-crazy. But someone had to stay in the department and take calls, in case another death was reported. She’d had too much alone time lately, and this wasn’t helping. Working the late shift on weekends was always a challenge. It threw her whole body rhythm off, no matter how many times she’d cycled through it. Her desk phone rang, startling her.

  “Homicide Unit, Detective Larson.”

  “This is Officer Romero. We have a dead woman at a construction site. It looks like she was shot and dumped.”

  Jocelyn’s nerves jangled, and she was on her feet. “Give me the location.” The officer recited an address off Central Avenue at the edge of the city boundary near Capitol Heights. “I’ll be there shortly.”

  Jocelyn stuffed her laptop into her shoulder bag, grabbed a Mountain Dew from the mini-fridge at the end of the cubicles, and hurried out the back door of the District One building. Off to look at a dead person. Even after thirteen years, it still seemed odd. Outside, a blue-gray haze filled the sky, and the air was moist, as always. But she loved the fall when the temperature was perfect. In the parking lot, she passed rows of white patrol cars before reaching her dark sedan in the corner. The park-like area beyond the fence reminded her that the building used to be a grade school. The brick row-houses across the street reminded her that this was one of the capital’s less affluent neighborhoods. Why the homicide unit for the whole city was stuck in this location was a mystery none of the detectives could solve.

  She headed for the passenger’s side of the car out of habit, then stopped midway. Her partner had called in sick, so she would have to drive for once. Typically, three or four members of a homicide team would go out to a crime scene, but this had been a busy weekend for murders, and for the moment, she was on her own.

  The address was in a mostly residential area that still had a few patches of woods. Jocelyn pulled down the dead-end street at the edge of a neighborhood and groaned. A commercial construction site with a massive dumpster near the access. Law enforcement vehicles blocked the end, so she parked and climbed out. She passed two patrol cars, an unmarked sedan, an ambulance, and the forensic team’s white van. Most of the responders were standing around, while the technicians gathered evidence. The techs were all civilians now, because the city council had recently decided they would be more objective than law enforcement employees and wouldn’t try to manipulate the evidence—a problem she hadn’t known existed. She was just glad someone else collected the blood, bullets, and bones. At the small-town PD where she’d worked early in her career, she’d had to do damn-near everything herself, including dumpster diving.

  She spotted Officer Romero talking to a civilian in front of the nearby recreation center and decided to start there. She knew the officer from a department self-defense class they’d taken together. The woman was a no-nonsense perfectionist, which was probably why she liked her. “What have we got?” she asked, walking up. The center was closed and the parking lot empty. Too bad. It would have been nice to find a few witnesses.

  “Detective Larson.” Romero, thirty-something and stocky, excused the passerby and turned to her. “The victim was shot twice in the face, wrapped in plastic, then dumped in that gray bin.” She pointed as she talked. “The project manager stopped by the site earlier to check something and noticed the smell.”

  Plastic might keep blood from dripping in the trunk of a car, but it didn’t contain the stink of a decomposing body. “Did you talk to the project manager personally?”

  “Yes. Mike Haywood. I took his statement.”

  “I assume he wasn’t covered in blood?” She had to ask.

  Romero gave her a tight smile. “Haywood was well dressed and seemed genuinely disturbed by his encounter with the corpse.”

  “Have the techs found anything?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “Thanks.” Jocelyn strode toward the metal construction bin, a ten-foot-long box with an open top. Wood scraps and chunks of sheetrock didn’t decay and stink, so it didn’t need to be covered the way garbage did. But if the project manager had smelled the body, it had been here a few days. Two coverall-wearing technicians worked inside the bin, and a third kneeled next to the corpse, which was now on the ground. The white plastic the victim had been wrapped in was still with her body, and the top half was smeared with blood. The technician had cut open the plastic to scrape the fingernails. The victim’s face had been decimated by two bullets, and her blond hair was matted with blood. The black cocktail dress she’d been wearing at the time of her death was still intact. Jocelyn glanced at the victim’s feet. No shoes.

  She squatted next to the young male technician and introduced herself. “What can you tell me?”

  “She’s been through rigor mortis and is now soft and rotting, so she’s probably been dead at least four days. But the ME will give you a more-accurate time of death.” The tech bagged his scrapings, then reached into a carryall. He handed her a driver’s license inside a zip-lock bag. “Sherry Jones, age thirty-one.”

  Jocelyn glanced at the license. In the photo, Jones wore heavy makeup and her white-blond hair had dark roots. She would run the name through the database as soon as she got back in her car.

  “Where is her purse? And cell phone?”

  He shook his head. “We haven’t found them yet, but they may turn up in the dumpster.”

  Damn. Not having a cell phone was like investigating with one hand tied behind her back. “Any trace evidence on her clothes? Or signs of sexual assault?”

  The technician picked up the woman’s arm. “There’s a bruise on her wrist, as if someone restrained her, but I haven’t looked under her clothes.”

  “It�
�s a classy dress.” That bothered her. It didn’t match the heavy makeup and over-blond dye job in the woman’s ID. An upscale call girl? Jocelyn stood and called out to the techs working in the construction bin. “Find anything? Some black pumps? Or bullet casings?” The casings were wishful thinking. The woman had been shot somewhere else and dumped. But where were her shoes?

  “Not yet.”

  A dead-end case if there ever was one. Jocelyn caught herself grinding her teeth and put in a piece of gum instead. She hurried back to the car, opened her department-issued laptop, and keyed the victim’s name into the criminal database. Victims were rarely saints. Jones’ record popped up, showing she’d been arrested for drugs and prostitution. So she was in the sex trade. Still a victim though. Two shots to the face seemed personal. A pimp, a john, or a boyfriend she’d pissed off. Jocelyn made notes of the woman’s known associates and contact information. While the other members of her team were working to solve the high-profile murder of a retired judge, she would be chatting with prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers. The luck of the draw, she told herself. Not everything was about skin color.

  But it was right on course with the twists her life had taken lately. Her son, Kyle—the true love of her life—had left for college shortly before her twenty-five-year marriage had fallen apart. The sudden aloneness was challenging, but she’d finally found an activity to focus on a few nights a week, so she was feeling a little less lost. A rap on her car window startled her, and she looked up. Sergeant Murphy, her supervisor. Surprised to see him, Jocelyn climbed out to get on equal footing.

  “Sergeant, thanks for stopping by.” Damn, he was tall. She buttoned her jacket and straightened her spine.

  “What have we got?”

  “Sherry Jones, thirty-one, with a record of prostitution and drugs. She was shot twice in the face and dumped here.”

  The corner of his eye twitched. “Give it your best shot but don’t get invested.”

  Good advice, which she planned to take. Right up until she met the victim’s mother. Then it would get personal. “How’s Judge Bidwell’s investigation going?”

  “It’s challenging. There are too damn many ex-cons to track down and establish timelines for.” The sergeant gestured at the construction bin. “Do you need help with this one? Snyder said he had the flu and may not come in tomorrow either.”

  “Not yet. I’m heading out to locate her residence and hopefully a family member. They may know who did it, especially if domestic violence was involved.”

  “The team is meeting tomorrow at three.”

  They would be on second shift for a few more days. “I’ll be there.”

  “Carry on.” Murphy nodded and walked back to his car.

  A medical examiner’s van rolled down the street. Jocelyn waited for the assistant ME to climb out, then introduced herself. “Will you let me know when the autopsy is scheduled? I’d like to be there if I can.”

  “Sure, but it could be a few days. We’re still processing the Franklin family murder-suicide, and we had a couple from a nursing home come in this morning. Likely suicide, but we don’t know.”

  How sad. It reminded her to visit her mother soon. That had been the first blow in her string of negative changes—moving her mom to a nursing home. “Just let me know, or get me the report as soon as you can.” But at least no one she loved had died. That had become the measure by which she evaluated everything. Jocelyn climbed back in her sedan, glanced at the address she’d noted, and headed across town to tell a family they had not been as fortunate.

  Chapter 10

  Sunday, Oct. 5, 2:40 p.m.

  Luke cycled toward home, the afternoon air warm on his skin. After so much time locked up, being outside and free to ride was such a pleasure. Feeling pumped, he slowed and coasted down the gravel lane. They’d been lucky to land this place and rent it for the cost of the mortgage payment. The owner was the mother of a mentally ill man he’d befriended in prison. She had reached out to him after Charlie died, and they’d stayed in touch. When Hana heard he needed a place for an activist group to lay low, she’d offered the house because she was moving back to Japan—and because she’d lost her son to prison-guard brutality and wanted the inner circle to succeed.

  Charlie’s death lay heavy on his heart and made him think about another friend he’d lost recently. Robert, an ex-con who’d made a comeback and eventually run his own restaurant, was one of the only people Luke had loved after losing his mother. Robert had given Luke a job and a place to stay when he was at his lowest point and struggling just to survive. Being released from prison wasn’t the same as being free. He’d had to report to a parole officer regularly for the first year and pay the monthly bill for his incarceration—while working for minimum wage. If not for the generosity of people like Charlie’s mother and their anonymous donor, that debt would have hung over him for life, maybe even sent him back to prison if he’d failed to pay.

  Luke climbed off his bike and tried to shake off the sudden blues. Feeling sad about the people he’d lost tended to derail his focus and drive. He’d long ago stopped feeling sorry for himself when he’d dedicated his life to changing the system that ruined so many lives—many of them decent people who just liked to get high. He parked his bike in the large toolshed and walked back to the house, his thoughts turning to Tara. Her energy and humor were just what the inner circle needed. Abby seemed a little burnt-out and edgy, and Cree was a rich kid who’d never been incarcerated and could go back to his old life at any moment. And Aaron only had a few more months to live. They needed someone solid, with fresh ideas and staying power.

  He opened the door, saw Tara standing in the kitchen, and smiled. She was sweet to look at too. Classic beauty, with perfectly spaced pool-blue eyes, high defined cheekbones, and generous lips that begged to be kissed. He’d been mesmerized the first time he met her at the synchronized skydive and had been thrilled when she’d asked to join their after-adventure celebration. Cree and Abby had been charmed by her too, especially when Tara sympathized with their cause. Now she was here, in the inner circle, and Luke felt like all the shit that had happened to him had led to this point, to bring this incredible woman into his life.

  “Hey, Tara. I hope you’re cooking, because I’m hungry.”

  “You’re in luck. Breakfast is the one meal I never screw up.”

  Luke kicked off his biking shoes and downed a glass of water. He could feel Tara watching him. They had to be careful to hide their sexual chemistry until Abby had adjusted—or left the group, which he almost expected her to do. That would be too bad. Luke grabbed a kitchen towel and playfully snapped it toward Tara. “I’ll be back after I shower.”

  Abby walked into the kitchen. “Has anyone seen Treck? I think he’s been missing since last night.”

  Luke realized the dog hadn’t been underfoot in the kitchen as usual. “I haven’t. I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

  Abby gave him a blistering look as he passed her on the way out. Luke made up his mind. He would break off with her today. The inner circle’s goals were too important to compromise with in-fighting. Their next few missions were riskier than anything they’d done so far, and they needed to be a cohesive team. After those outings, they would probably back off for a while. They might eventually move to another part of the country to start up again. There were politicians everywhere to target, but those with the worst views on justice were concentrated in the south.

  Still, even from their current home base, they had conducted email campaigns with governors in several states, bombarding them with case histories of ruined lives and hacking into state websites to upload their own messages. They’d also uploaded and published lists of people who’d been declared innocent and released after years of incarceration. By scattering their efforts, they’d hoped to stay off the radar of the feds. But after the fundraiser sabotage they’d just conducted, the bureau was probably looking for them. The FBI had likely been monitoring JRN all along, and was now tak
ing a closer look. Luke had stepped back from his role in the larger group years ago, frustrated by their lack of progress. He’d planned, recruited, and waited for a year after disappearing off their website, so he wouldn’t be a suspect when the inner circle launched its direct assaults. The main goal was to ignite so much national discussion that voters would start to care about the issue, which meant politicians had to be responsive. JRN was making progress—such as finally getting marijuana reclassification to come up for a vote—but no one expected it to pass. And people quickly forgot news stories about legislation, because they had no faith in it anymore. It was time for another direct assault.

  After breakfast, Luke took his laptop and some lined paper out to the porch. Being outside stimulated his thoughts and the words flowed better. But this post was easy, just a call to action in major cities across the country. Bringing out protestors was more than just a media-grabbing ploy. It also distracted police forces and kept the FBI focused on the people in the street. Meanwhile, they would hijack another fundraiser, then target Senator Pearlman later in the week. Luke wrapped up his blog quickly and uploaded it to their shared files. He messaged Aaron to have him route the blog through various proxy computers until it reached Jason DeSpain, the director of JRN. Luke never contacted Jason directly. They were friends, but he would never compromise the legal political movement by bringing law enforcement attention to Jason.

  He reached for a piece of paper. The next letter was harder to write: Dear Son. I hope you had a wonderful summer. I wish we could have gone camping together or just hung out at the public pool.

  Things he’d never done with his father.

  I know you’re back in school now, and I want you to study hard. Do the math, even if you hate it. Please say hello to your Mom for me. I think about both of you every day. Someday, I hope you’ll make the choice to see me and we’ll make up for lost time. Love, Dad