The White Iris

by Susanne Matthews

  “I thought you and Trevor were made for each other.”

  “So did I.” She paused, briefly recalling how happy she’d been when he’d proposed. She’d imagined fair-haired, blue-eyed babies. She shook her head. “Nana did a great job raising me, but she dedicated herself to my care twenty-four hours a day. With my job, I can’t do it, and without a partner, it means day care and nannies. Not the way I want to raise my child. Ellie had planned to take a leave of absence once she got pregnant.” She felt her cheeks heat at the implied insult to Cassie. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’d want to take care of my own baby.”

  “No offense taken,” Cassie said, leading her into the locker room, where they could change and clean up. “When Ariel was born, I cut my hours at the hospital back so either Miles or I could be home with her. I’m looking forward to taking care of this baby almost as much as she is. I wasn’t sure she’d be happy here, but she keeps in touch with her friends online. Honestly, while she likes Alaska, I think she’s really looking forward to the six months in Hawaii so she can learn to surf. She had a blast when we were there looking for a house in August. That’s why we missed the funeral. I liked Ellie, Julie. I’m really sorry.”

  “So am I. I miss her, but I’ve got her cat and two kittens to keep me company, although I think my friend Lenore may be planning to take Minion Two back to England with her.”

  “Minion Two? Tell me he’s yellow.”

  “He is, but he’s not big on bananas. Minion One is a washout version of number two.”

  “Ariel wants to get a pet, but I don’t think it’ll work until we settle down. We might stay in Alaska and winter in Hawaii. There’s enough work between the two places to keep Miles busy for years.”

  “I can just imagine. Aren’t most of the volcanoes in Alaska active?”

  “They are, but they’re not erupting or anything like the Hawaiian ones.”

  “I can’t believe it’s still so light outside. I thought it would be dark by now,” Julie said, staring out the window at the small courtyard the medical staff could use when they needed a break.

  Cassie chuckled. “We’ve got a couple of hours of daylight yet, but don’t forget, the sun didn’t come up until almost 8:30 this morning, and it’ll be a few minutes later tomorrow. Getting up before eight is tough when it’s still dark out.”

  She removed her gown and gloves and placed them in the decontamination box along with her booties. The helmet she set aside for tomorrow. Julie did the same, stretched once more trying to unkink her shoulder muscles, and moved to the sink to wash up.

  After scrubbing up, Cassie smiled. “Come on. Let’s stop by the office and get your credentials, and then we have to pick up fresh greens on the way back to the house. Miles’s helicopter usually returns around seven, so we tend to eat later than most. Fresh fruit and veggies came in on the same plane as you did today, and I have a craving for spinach.”

  Together they left the base hospital for the commissary.

  As Julie and Cassie walked along the sidewalk, Julie noted the temperature was slightly cooler than it had been, but it wasn’t the cold air that took her breath away. It was the magnificent mountains in the distance, rugged, snow-covered peaks that reminded her of Colorado and home.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cassie said. “I never tire of the view. While I’m happy we’ll be in Hawaii when the baby is born, I’m glad we’re coming back here. The air is so pure and clean. I know some of the wives find it hard to adjust to the isolation, but honestly, I’m in heaven.”

  “I envy you. After I get this figured out, it’s back to the smog-filled, congested streets of Atlanta for me. I think I’d be happy to stay here even if I did see only six hours of light a day.”

  “Well, there are a number of handsome, young single Coasties in town. Maybe you could find that baby daddy.”

  Julie burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious. Some of those guys”—she indicated the men across the street—“look young enough to be my children.”

  “Maybe, but there’s no harm in looking. No one should spend life alone. Things might not have worked out with Trevor, but there are plenty of fish in the sea. You just have to cast out a line.”

  “I don’t know. My job takes up so much time…”

  “Your job doesn’t keep you warm at night. Enough of that. Minding my own business—for now. I’ll have to get Miles to take you up in the chopper and fly you over some of the volcanoes before you leave. I finally understand what it is about them that fascinates him so much. Maybe we can make a trip up to Anchorage and do some shopping. I’ll need stuff for the baby. You really can’t go back to Atlanta without an official Alaskan ulu knife, or a truly spectacular anorak even if you won’t get much use for it in Georgia.”

  “It sounds like fun, and once we figure out what killed our friend…”

  The idea of seeing more of the country appealed, but she doubted it would be enough to get her out of the doldrums she’d been in these past two years. There was an ache inside her she’d been able to ignore and fill with work, but now she couldn’t dismiss it anymore. Seeing Cassie happy and pregnant made the pain sharper. Julie wanted a husband and a family. She was alone in the world, and she hated it.

  And what happens if the madman unleashes his super virus? Will Cassie and her baby survive? Will Ariel? Will any of them?

  She needed to find out what had killed John Doe, and if it wasn’t the virus, then that would be a good thing. Regardless, she had to tell someone what she knew, and arrange for protection before whoever was following her tried to silence her forever.

  Chapter Nine

  Trevor yawned and stretched his tight shoulders. What time was it? The time stamp on his computer showed well past eleven. He should’ve left hours ago, but the snow was still coming down, and while he’d managed to walk over to the pub and grab supper with Tom, no way could he face going home to his empty apartment in this weather. He had to stay busy, and having people around helped.

  After answering the additional questions Lilith had had about Dr. James’s report, the use of sarin, and the rest of the details about the second plague, he’d spent the day going over everything they knew about the Prophet and the way he operated. Since the plagues were still striking the Boston area, the chances were his latest Harvester had set up nearby. He, Tom, and Declan had been going through real estate sales, looking for the Prophet’s signature: a property that had changed hands within the last five years but didn’t seem to be in use. Assuming he was planning to unleash the Great Burning, he’d need a big enough place to manufacture a biological weapon. They’d found a couple of warehouses that might work.

  Standing, Trevor stretched to unkink his back and moved over to the window. The snow was still coming down. Hell, this was as bad as any Colorado blizzard he remembered. By now, all but the skeleton staff on duty at night would’ve gone home or to bed in one of the three dorms the police department maintained in the building. While he wasn’t alone in here by any means, he felt isolated.

  He jumped when his cell phone rang.

  What the hell?

  A personal call this late at night was never good. His mother had refused to answer late-night calls. Who had answered when the housekeeper called her about Dad and Nolan?

  He shook his head. The only people who’d use this number were Julie, his brother Nick, members of his team, or Central Dispatch. The phone rang for the third time, and Trevor reached for it, disappointed when he saw it wasn’t Julie. Unknown number. Not Nick either, which was good, but who then? He let out the breath he’d been holding. Curiosity getting the better of him, he tamped down his discomfort and swiped the screen to take the call.

  “Hello?” he answered, pacing to the window, drawn like a moth to a flame. The glass reflected his image. His shirt was wrinkled, his five o’clock shadow dark, and he needed a haircut. If he stayed like this much longer, he’d either resemble a young Grizzly Adams or Columbo, the messy, fumbling det
ective Pierce had used to fool them all.

  “Trevor, it’s Keith Grant from Atlanta. I got your number from Quantico. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Keith. My God, it’s been ages. I’m good. I wasn’t sleeping. I’ve got a difficult case that keeps me awake at night.”

  Keith was an Atlanta police detective. They’d worked a couple of joint cases and had become good friends while Trevor had been with the bureau there. The two had shared an affinity for golf, but Keith was much better at it than he was. The detective had dragged him to a couple of Atlanta Gladiators’ games, and Trevor saw a few Phoenix Coyote players skate with the team before returning to the big leagues after they’d recovered from injuries. While he’d never been a big NHL fan, he’d been impressed with what he’d seen in the East Coast Hockey League. He’d gone to see a Boston Bruins exhibition game with Tom and Declan last week. Keith would’ve loved that.

  Another memory surfaced, one that was bittersweet. He and Julie had spent a lot of time with Keith and his wife, Colleen. They’d even gone camping together. Not that he wasn’t glad to reconnect with his old friend, but it was kind of late for social calls.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Keith said. “I guess that’s just part of the job. I’ve had a few sleepless nights, too—like tonight. I won’t be getting much shut-eye on this one. I need your help. I don’t know what the weather’s like where you are, but it sucks here. Hell of a night to leave the house, I’ll tell you, but crime doesn’t take a day off. I got a call a couple of hours ago, and the address sounded familiar. There’s no easy way to put this. I’m in Julie Swift’s apartment. There’s been a murder.”

  Trevor grabbed the windowsill. He knew something was wrong, that she’d been afraid, but he wouldn’t have guessed it was something like this. Keith hadn’t said Julie herself was murdered, but who else could it be? Ellie was already dead. Lenore was living there…

  “Is it … Is it Julie?” he stammered, fighting to breathe. Please God, not her—not Julie—not the woman he’d loved and lost.

  “No, but we can’t find her.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t find her? Is she a suspect?” he asked, relieved and confused at the same time. Someone had murdered Lenore. Why?

  “A suspect? Good Lord, no. We think whoever killed this woman, Lenore Singer, a visiting professor from Oxford, may have been looking for Julie and killed this woman thinking it was her. On the other hand, they might have killed the woman and taken Julie. The place was trashed. They’re looking for something, but I don’t know if they found it. If Julie hasn’t been kidnapped, I thought you might know where she was.”

  Kidnapped? Why the hell hadn’t he pushed her for the truth on Saturday? Maybe if he had, Julie would be safe and Lenore alive. Another death on him. At the rate he was going he’d never make amends—not that he ever really thought he could.

  “I’d have expected her to be there. I actually spoke to her last night. She was agitated, in a hurry to get off the phone...”

  “What about her family?”

  “There was only Ellie, and you know she died in that traffic accident in August.”

  “Yeah. Colleen and I went to the memorial service here. I thought we’d see you there.”

  There was no accusation in Keith’s voice, just surprise.

  “Any friends you can think of that she might be with? Her car’s still parked downstairs, but we haven’t found her purse,” Keith continued, dragging him back to the here and now. “Until we have proof she was taken, we’re simply looking at her as missing.”

  Trevor swallowed his pain. Kidnapping was a common practice for the cult, but would the Prophet know about him and Julie? It had been two years ago … That bastard seemed to know far more about each member of the team than he should.

  “No,” he said, forcing himself to answer Keith’s question. “Like I said, other than recently, and that involved work, we haven’t spoken in two years. Maybe she has a new boyfriend.” Jealousy lashed his heart. Just because there hadn’t been a man with her on Saturday morning didn’t mean there wasn’t someone in her life.

  “I’ll talk to her colleagues in the morning. If you do hear from her, please have her call us. Like I said, whoever did this was looking for something, and I hope to hell it isn’t her.”

  Trevor swallowed and fisted his free hand so hard his nails bit into the skin of his palm. “How was Professor Singer killed?”

  “Her throat was slashed. She was asleep, probably never felt a thing. Whoever did it knew what he was doing. That cut was made with military precision.”

  Images of the coeds Sunday night and Lucy Green and Eloise Colchester last year flashed through his mind. Amos had used almost the same words to describe the way the latter women and several others had been killed. But that had been Pierce’s work, and that bastard was dead. Hell, they even had the son of a bitch’s knife now. Maybe Pierce’s replacement was a military man, too. A second thought gripped Trevor. The Prophet had given him five days to return his children, but what if killing Lenore was motivation to get him to move faster? He couldn’t be sure the bastard didn’t know about him and Julie.

  Breathe, Trevor, breathe. You have nothing to substantiate that possibility. This could’ve simply been a robbery.

  “Was there any kind of note found at the scene?”

  “No, nothing. Why would you ask?”

  “Sometimes the perp might leave a note for the intended victim, or a kidnapper might leave a ransom demand…” That was a lame excuse, but no note meant it wasn’t the Prophet. He’d have left a message.

  “I see what you mean,” Keith said, “but if Julie wasn’t here and he didn’t know about Dr. Singer, who looks a hell of a lot like her—enough that I thought it was her when I first looked—he may think he got his target.”

  “Maybe. Who called it in?” If the woman had been asleep when she was murdered, she wouldn’t have cried out to alert the neighbors, and her killer might well have believed he’d killed Julie. His gut burned.

  “The neighbor across the way. Sandy Wyatt. She’s a nurse and came home to find Julie’s cats crying outside the door. She knocked, and the door opened, so she grabbed the cats, put them in her own apartment, and called it in.”

  “How long had Lenore been dead?”

  “The coroner thinks it happened early this morning. When the neighbor left for work at half-past five, Julie’s door was closed. She finished her twelve-hour shift at seven, stopped off for a bite to eat with friends, and got home about nine. Listen, if you think of anyone who might know where Julie is, call me.” Trevor scrawled the number on the paper he’d been using to make notes.

  “I will.” He ended the call.

  With trembling fingers, he pressed the speed-dial number for Julie’s cell phone, the one he’d keyed in on Saturday. It answered on the first ring. Either the battery was dead or the phone was off.

  “Hi. You know the drill. I’ll call back when I can.”

  “Julie, it’s Trevor. I need you to call me right away.”

  Staring out at the snow, he felt the moisture on his cheeks.

  “Where are you, Julie?” he whispered aloud, praying that wherever she was, she was safe.

  If only the damn snow would stop, he could think clearly. Instead it pulled him into the past, where he didn’t want to go. His stomach ached and the antacid tablets he’d taken weren’t helping at all. Maybe the damn ulcer would rupture and put him out of his misery, but did he deserve any kind of reprieve? He’d gone into law enforcement hoping to give back, to make amends somehow—not that he ever could. Some things couldn’t be fixed.

  After graduating from university in Phoenix, he’d joined the FBI, struggled through training in an inhospitable climate, and gotten himself stationed back in the desert he’d come to love. He’d been content there, entertaining his brother Nick and his family when the holidays arose, but he’d avoided Colorado. Nothing could get him to go back there.

  He’d hesitated about
moving to Atlanta, but the promotion had been too good to give up. He had a chance to make a real difference in the BAU, and that was what he wanted more than anything else. When he’d run into Julie working on a case where they’d called in the CDC, he’d been thrown for a loop and had fallen hard.

  From the onset, he’d known he’d have to deal with his past sooner or later, but then Nana had fallen and Julie had returned to Carson Creek. He kept in touch with phone calls that had almost always turned into arguments. He’d tried to get her to meet him in Phoenix that Christmas, saying he had to be there for a case, but Julie had refused to leave her grandmother’s side, begging him to take a few days and come to see her instead. He’d sent flowers.

  When Nana had died two months later, and he’d been unable to bring himself to go there, especially in February. Julie had been hurt and furious, accusing him of not loving her, and had broken off their engagement.

  He’d tried to tell her the truth—God knew, he’d made an attempt—he’d gotten to the airport, bought the ticket, but nothing could get him to board the plane. He loved her more than anything, but not even that love was enough to overcome the panic that filled him at the prospect of being back in Carson Creek in February. The unused ticket sat in his drawer.

  He knew he’d hurt her badly, but he’d been powerless to undo the damage. Nana had been her life, the one who’d cared for her when her parents had been killed in an avalanche when she was three. Julie had asked about the day he’d lost his toes only once, and he’d been unable to tell her what had really happened. Instead, he’d told her the same lie he’d told his mother, Nick, and anyone else who’d questioned him back then, the lie that would damn him to hell when his life was over.

  Hard to believe he and the Prophet might be roomies someday.

  A cougar attacked a heifer and dragged it away. Dad, Nolan, and I all went out looking for it. We didn’t expect the storm. It came out of nowhere. We were turning around to come back, and we didn’t see the animal crouched in the tree. He dropped down on Empress and Dad. I couldn’t get a clear shot. Nolan did, but Dad was hurt bad. He couldn’t ride, so Nolan sent me for help. I took Dad’s horse because it was the most surefooted, but the snow got worse, and it was slow going. When I made it back to the ranch, I was frozen, hanging on the horse unconscious. The men went looking for them, but since I couldn’t tell them where to look, by the time they found them, it was too late.