Untraceable

by Laura Griffin

  Captain’s Point was a luxury subdivision carved out of a hillside overlooking Lake Travis. During the dot-com heyday, hordes of thirtysomethings had built huge custom houses and thrown lavish parties there. Times had settled down, though, and now many of the houses were owned by retired couples or banks that had foreclosed after some Dellionaire couldn’t make his payment.

  Alex wended her way through the neighborhood, too distracted to be dazzled by the pseudo-Tuscan architecture or sweeping sunset views. Nathan was wrong. That’s all there was to it. Alex didn’t care how many commendations Coghan had under his belt, the man was a wife beater, and probably a murderer, too. And just because Nathan couldn’t find a record of something didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

  Of all the things he’d discovered during the course of his nano-second-long investigation, one thing stood out. It was the parking lot scene, when Melanie allegedly showed up at Coghan’s workplace, drunk and verbally abusive. It didn’t sit well with Alex. For one thing, Melanie had told Alex once that she didn’t drink. And for another, the meek, mousy woman who’d walked into Lovell Solutions all those months ago had seemed completely incapable of staging a scene like that. Alex couldn’t imagine Melanie threatening her husband at all, much less in public and in front of his coworkers. Was it possible Coghan had planted a witness to some imaginary fight?

  Or was it possible there was another side to Melanie, a side Alex knew nothing about? In addition to the trembling, terrified victim who’d gone through a box of Kleenex in Alex’s office, maybe Melanie also happened to be a loudmouth drunk who didn’t mind humiliating her husband at his workplace.

  But if she truly was afraid of him, why spark his temper in such a dramatic way?

  It didn’t make sense. And it put the first nugget of doubt in Alex’s mind. Maybe she didn’t know Melanie quite as well as she thought she did.

  Melanie’s return to Austin had been stupid. And her actions once she’d come back had been sloppy. But Alex’s background investigation had been sloppy, too.

  Of course, none of that accounted for why Coghan was spending his workdays in Captain’s Point, stopping in at various houses. Alex passed the first of three homes that had been on Coghan’s agenda. She turned a corner and drove past the other two. Yesterday, each of the three houses had had cars in the driveway. Now, as dusk fell over the hillside, those driveways were empty.

  Alex parked her Saturn down the street at a utility easement. After her run-in with Nathan, she’d dropped by the office to give Sophie back her Tahoe. Alex had been curt to the point of rudeness, and her new assistant was probably wondering what had put her in such a bitchy mood. But Alex hadn’t explained. Instead, she’d sent Sophie home, closed up shop for the night, and come here.

  Expensive gas lamps flickered along Treasure Trail as Alex hiked up the hill to the first house on her list. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of nosy neighbors out and about. But Alex liked to be prepared for contingencies, so she’d tucked a clipboard under her arm. On it was a petition for improving water quality, which gave her a reason to be wandering around the neighborhood gleaning information from people.

  A breeze cooled her bare arms as she neared the house. The two-story entrance was lit by an outdoor chandelier. No interior lights on, though. No cars, no dogs barking, no flutter of movement behind the closed curtains. It looked like no one was home, but she made her way up the cobblestone sidewalk and rang the bell anyway. After several minutes of waiting, she walked around to the wooden gate leading to the backyard.

  She hesitated a moment, listening for the slightest growl or rustle of plants that would mean she wasn’t alone. Then she stepped into the yard and quietly closed the gate behind her. In the dimness, she could barely make out the shape of a spacious swimming pool surrounded by rocks. The water looked murky. Dark shapes hovered at the bottom, and it took her a moment to realize they were leaves. And branches. From the looks of it, the pool hadn’t been cleaned in months.

  Alex stepped closer to the house, beneath a covered patio where the visibility was even worse. She pulled a penlight from her bag and shone it around.

  An empty terra-cotta planter stood beside the column closest to Alex. The plant in it was shriveled and dead. Other than that, the patio was empty—no chairs or chaise lounges or stainless-steel barbecue pits.

  And then she got it. Duh. This was a vacant house. She aimed her light inside the windows to confirm it. Not a stick of furniture anywhere, not even a rug—just bare tile floors.

  What the hell? Alex checked the other two houses on her list and found them vacant, too. She drove out of Captain’s Point more puzzled than ever. What had Coghan been doing here?

  Alex pondered the question all the way across town until her grumbling stomach broke her concentration. She hadn’t eaten all day, so she pulled into a Dairy Queen and ordered a Hunger Buster with cheese, a chocolate milk shake, and fries. While she waited at the window, she took out her phone and logged onto Google.

  The first two addresses netted nothing, but she got a hit with the third. It came up as part of the online directory for the Austin Camera Club. The club’s president, evidently, had lived there in the not-so-distant past.

  “Ma’am? Your order?”

  Alex glanced up at the impatient teenager trying to hand her her dinner.

  “Thanks.” She took the sack from him and pulled away. A warm, oniony smell filled her car, and she dug french fries from the bag as she made her way home.

  What was Coghan up to? And did it have anything to do with Melanie? Even if the man was in the market for a house, Alex hadn’t seen any FOR SALE signs. Plus, Captain’s Point was well above a police officer’s pay grade.

  Alex pulled into the driveway of her garage apartment and glanced at the main house. The glow of the television in the living room told Alex that Thelma was home tonight instead of out playing bunco with her girlfriends. She climbed the metal stairs leading to her door, stepping over the gray tabby curled up on her welcome mat. Sugarpotamus stood up, arched, and stretched as Alex unlocked the door. He sniffed the bottom of the takeout bag and mewed plaintively. Thelma fed him table scraps all the time. No wonder the poor thing weighed eighteen pounds.

  “Not for you,” she told him. “You’re on a diet.”

  Alex pushed open the door, and the cat darted inside. She stepped in behind him.

  And saw the man-size cowboy boots parked right beside her sofa.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  How’d you get in here?” she yelped.

  Troy Stockton watched her from his sprawled-out position on her couch. The side of his mouth curled into a smile. “I never forget a hide-a-key.”

  “My alarm was on!”

  “I never forget an alarm code, either.”

  Alex glanced at the keypad beside her door and saw that he had indeed entered her code. She slammed the door and dumped her purse and takeout bag on the table.

  She didn’t care for the fact that he’d let himself in here. She cared even less for the fact that he was stretched out on her sofa, all relaxed and gorgeous, while she stood there all tired and disheveled. She’d envisioned her next meeting with him countless times, and every vision was the same: Alex would be somewhere—preferably at a bar surrounded by men—looking sexy, but uninterested. Troy would be there, too, looking tortured and desperate to win her back.

  “I told you to call me. Not show up here.” She strode into her kitchen, catching her reflection in the microwave as she went. Yikes. It was worse than she’d thought.

  Troy sauntered into the room with the athletic gait she remembered so well. She never should have called him. But she’d only wanted him on the phone, not in her apartment.

  He propped his shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “Three voice mails,” he said. “All urgent. You didn’t think that’d get my attention?”

  She turned her back on him and busied herself at the sink, filling a bowl with water. The fact that she still had the power to g
et his attention made her feel funny. Good, yes, but also a little uncomfortable.

  “I needed to talk to you about something.” She shooed Thelma’s cat back outside and put the bowl down for him beside the welcome mat. “It’s about a case.”

  Troy smiled slightly and heaved a big sigh. “I figured that when you mentioned the Delphi Center.”

  His disappointment was feigned. He must know he had a lot of groveling to do if he wanted back in her life. She planned to make him do it, too, because she’d missed him. But as a friend only. She wasn’t about to get burned twice.

  “So let’s hear it,” he said. “You said you needed a favor.”

  “I do.” Alex got two plates down from a cabinet and carried them to the table. She took out her burger and fries. “Bring me a knife, would you?”

  He retrieved one from the drawer beside her oven, but she refused to be impressed that he’d remembered her kitchen even though he’d been in it only a few times.

  She cut the burger in half and divided the food. Troy sank into a chair, and she winced as it creaked under his weight. She told herself not to feel self-conscious about her consignment-store furniture and her cheap Target dishes. Troy had more money than God, but he wasn’t a snob about it. It was one of the things she’d always liked about him.

  “Here,” she said, and slid a plate in front of him. “You’ll be more likely to say yes on a full stomach.”

  He chomped into the burger as she sat down at the table and poked a straw into her shake.

  “I’ve got this client,” she started. “I helped her disappear about six months ago.”

  Troy’s expression hardened. He knew all about her work with runaway wives and girlfriends. Alex was pretty sure his mother had been in a similar predicament once upon a time, but Troy didn’t talk about his childhood much, and Alex had never asked.

  “Here’s the problem,” Alex told him. “She came back to Austin, and I think her husband found her. Now she really has disappeared.”

  Troy ate silently as she explained the events of the past three days. When she’d finished, she took the clear plastic bag from her purse and placed it in front of him.

  She went to the refrigerator for some water. A six-pack of Dos Equis sat on the top shelf. He’d remembered her aversion to beer, evidently, and brought his own. She grabbed one of the bottles for him, annoyed that her grudge was weakening. And he hadn’t even begun to grovel.

  “You want this blood analyzed, is that right?” he asked.

  She popped off the cap and handed him the beer. “You guessed it.”

  Troy raked a hand through his longish brown hair. He’d always reminded her of Brad Pitt, and it wasn’t just because of the name.

  “You still have that contact at the Delphi Center?” she asked. “The forensic scientist?”

  “Mia Voss,” he said. “She’s a tracer. Works in their DNA lab.”

  “You guys still in touch?”

  “Just talked to her a week ago. She’s helping me out with some research.”

  Alex slurped up milk shake. “New book?”

  “Same one,” he said, then frowned at his empty plate. “It’s really dragging this time. I keep running into walls.”

  She felt a twinge of sympathy. Troy was a bestselling true-crime writer, and he constantly dealt with police departments as he researched homicide cases for his books. Sometimes he had to go outside regular channels to get information, which meant he had a mind-boggling list of contacts in all areas of law enforcement. One of those contacts had referred him to Alex several years ago. Troy had needed to track down someone in the federal witness protection program for an interview, and he’d hired Alex to do it.

  It was, without a doubt, the toughest assignment she’d ever been given. And she’d succeeded.

  As had Troy’s book, which had been picked up by Hollywood and made into a movie.

  Less successful was the affair they’d started last December. Troy had a wandering eye, and Alex had a zero-tolerance policy.

  “So do you think Mia could run this for me?” Alex nodded at the earbud.

  “For a fee,” he said. “The Delphi Center’s a private lab, so it won’t be cheap. Especially not if you want it soon. When do you need it?”

  “Immediately.”

  “That might take some persuasion.”

  “That’s your department,” Alex said, getting up from the table. “I was hoping you could call your friend and put in a good word for me.”

  He came up behind her as she rinsed the plates.

  “I’ll do you one better,” he said when she turned around. “I’ll take you there myself. They’re about an hour south of here, near San Marcos. We can go tomorrow.”

  She folded her arms over her chest and watched him. Troy lived on the lower Texas coast, which meant he’d come a long way to do her this favor. And he probably expected her to let him spend the night. Which she’d be happy to do.

  “You have a hotel room somewhere?” she asked.

  He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Thought I’d stay here.”

  It was that warm, seductive look that had haunted her for weeks after the party they’d attended on New Year’s Eve. She’d also been haunted by the image of him in a lip-lock with another woman at 12:01. And 12:02. And 12:03.

  Alex smiled, savoring the moment, if not the memory.

  “You’re more than welcome to stay here,” she told him. “You can have the couch.”

  Mia Voss peered through the eyepiece and sighed, then made a notation on her report: Odocoileus virgianus. Her detective was going to be disappointed.

  “Great news.”

  She looked up from the microscope to see Darrell standing in her doorway. He had a Starbucks bag in his hand and a grin on his face.

  “You brought scones?” she asked.

  “Muffins.” He pulled out a chocolate cupcake and started peeling away the paper. “But I’m willing to share. Want some?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” Mia ignored the shower of black crumbs as she slid the file aside and gave Darrell her full attention. “Okay, let’s have it. I could use some great news this morning.”

  “Remember that case that came in last week? The one from Dallas?”

  “The blue jeans,” she said. How could she forget? The jeans had been saturated with so much dried blood, they could have practically stood on their own. The crime scene must have been horrendous.

  “That’s the one,” Darrell said. “We got a forensic hit.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “The perp’s profile matched one from a murder scene up in Oklahoma City. Crime’s five years old.” He popped another chunk of cake into his mouth. “I just talked to the cold case squad up there, and they’re reopening the file. Dallas PD’s got some fresh leads for them.”

  Mia snapped off her latex gloves and tossed them in the biohazard bin. Now she was smiling, too.

  Hits were a reason to celebrate. In Mia’s line of work, the only thing better than a forensic hit—which linked crime scenes together and generated new leads for the police—was an offender hit, as in, not only was this DNA profile already in the database, but they knew whose it was. Offender hits were the reason Mia got up in the morning.

  She tucked her hands into her lab coat and watched Darrell polish off his breakfast. As a computer tech at the Delphi Center, Darrell’s job included entering DNA profiles into the national database on behalf of the lab. Letting the scientists who worked those cases know that their efforts had made a difference went above and beyond his job description.

  “Thanks for telling me,” Mia said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “No problemo. Hey, catch you later, okay?” He lobbed his trash into a wastebasket and sidestepped the visitor approaching her door.

  Mia’s smile widened. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite Texas Ranger. What brings you here?”

  “Hadn’t seen your pretty face in a while.”

  She walked o
ver and gazed up at those gray eyes she remembered well. “Still full of bull,” she said.

  “You got a minute?”

  “For you, I’ve got hours. What’s up?”

  John Holt stepped into her cramped, windowless laboratory and glanced around. “Nice digs.”

  “It’s not much to look at, but everything’s top of the line.”

  “I believe it.” His gaze landed on an electron microscope that probably cost more than he made in a year. “Looks pretty high tech. And the building’s nice, too. Never been here before. Thought I was walking into the Parthenon, all slicked up.”

  She dragged a stool from the corner of the room and nodded at it. “Have a seat.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He sat down and crossed his feet at the ankles, displaying a familiar pair of cowboy boots. Mia hadn’t seen Holt since she’d worked at the state crime lab in Austin. Two years had gone by, but it looked as though he hadn’t changed a bit.

  “Just dropped off a tissue sample with your evidence clerk,” he said.

  “Something wrong with the facilities in Austin?”

  The twinkle in his eyes faded. “This is a special case.”

  “Okay.” She stepped closer. “How can I help?”

  “Sample’s from a floater recovered in Travis County. Body’s a mess, no prints. We’re having a hell of a time getting an ID. I need a DNA profile so I can see if he’s in the system somewhere.”

  “Okay.” So far, everything sounded standard. “When do you need it?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Standard again. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “What’s this about?”

  “That, I can’t say. Only that it’s highly sensitive. After you generate the profile, send it straight back to me.”

  “Our database tech can enter it—”

  “Not this time.” His gaze locked with hers.

  Mia folded her arms over her chest, trying not to get defensive. “Background checks on the tracers are very thorough. I trust every one of my colleagues, so—”

  “I’m sure you do.” Holt stood up and rested his hands on his hips. His silver star gleamed at her, reminding her of the early days of her career when she’d paid her dues at the state crime lab. “I’d tell you more about it if I could, but you’re gonna have to take my word for it. It’s a sensitive case. You’re the only person I trust.”