by Sandra Brown
“They exited together. They could have parted ways in the parking lot.”
“Or not,” Shaw said.
“Or not. Because there were partial footprints outside the passenger door. But first responders found the pickup empty except for Royce. ME estimated time of death between midnight and two a.m.”
“Who called it in?” Wiley asked.
“The side road is a private drive that leads to a house way back in the woods. The property owner is retired. He and his wife were leaving for an early lunch. Royce’s pickup had them blocked in. The missus got out to check, so it could be her footprints outside the truck. They’re making casts.”
“The retirees know Royce?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Wiley said. “Leaving Morrow, where? All he has so far are the current two women in Royce’s life.”
“They’re trying to track down the newbie,” Hickam said. “But Morrow didn’t have a positive on her name, much less where to find her. He has a lot on his plate. Pulling off that act to spring you,” he said to Shaw in the mirror. “Now this. He asked us to give him a heads-up when we’re five minutes out.”
Again, Shaw laid his head back and closed his eyes while the two of them lapsed into a conversation about an asshole of a coroner and the brisk trade he was doing this week.
Shaw tuned them out and thought about Jordie—more specifically how rancid her thoughts about him must be. Why did you do the rest of it? she’d asked, referring to all the awful things he’d subjected her to. Fear, deprivation, humiliation, browbeating.
A kiss.
What really sucked? She would forever think that the kiss had been just another maneuver to try to get information from her, and not a matter of life or death. His life, not hers. He’d had to kiss her. Simple as that.
Although it wasn’t simple at all. He was a federal agent. She was a material witness in a criminal investigation. Which, by the rule book, placed her off-limits in capital letters. But he bent rules all the time, and he had no control over his dirty dreams.
A half hour later, Wiley roused him from a light sleep. “Kinnard? We’re almost there.”
Wiley placed the heads-up call to Morrow. Shaw put on the hoodie, wincing as he pushed his arms through the sleeves, which caused a strain on his incision and all the internal stitches. The blue lenses of the sunglasses probably made his complexion look sickly. At least it felt sickly. He was clammy all over. His limbs were weak and shaky. His side hurt like the very devil.
He wished he could lie down, close his eyes, and stretch out along the backseat the way he’d stretched Jordie out, adjusting her inert arms and legs, lifting her hair off her cheek.
Swearing under his breath because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, he flipped the hood over his head, opened the backseat door, and got out. Instantly he was enveloped by the swampy heat, made worse by the fleece hoodie. Goddamn Hickam had chosen it on purpose.
The sheriff’s department annex was an old and ugly building. At the back corner of it was an unmarked employee entrance where Morrow was waiting for them. He frowned at Shaw. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“We tried telling him,” Hickam said.
“You look worse off than Royce Sherman,” the deputy said.
“I’m okay.”
“Listen.” Morrow held up his hand in front of Shaw’s chest. “Nobody in this department knows what we pulled this morning except the dispatcher and the two deputies who posed as the ambulance drivers. All friends of mine. Not even the sheriff himself knows. It gets out, I’ll probably get canned.”
“Nobody’ll hear it from me. I know you stuck your neck out. Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome. But it’s not just that. This building is full of officers who were in on the manhunt for you. They wouldn’t take kindly to you being here.”
“They should thank me for the overtime.”
“What I’m saying is, I don’t think this cool getup is going to fool anybody.”
“You’d be surprised. What people aren’t looking for, they rarely see.”
Still concerned, Morrow said, “If an officer does spot you, he might shoot first and ask questions later.”
“If it comes to that, feel free to blow my cover.”
“At least you shaved.”
“Part of the hospital’s grooming and personal hygiene service.” His identifying scar didn’t show up as well without a scruff, so he hadn’t objected when the guy who’d given him the bed bath started lathering his face.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Morrow ushered them into the building and led them down a short hallway to a doorway with a wired window. “Take a look.”
Wiley and Hickam looked first, then it was Shaw’s turn. He tipped down the sunglasses in order to see better. Inside the interrogation room, two officers were unsuccessfully trying to calm down a young woman whose head was bent low over her chest as she sobbed into her hands.
“Linda Meeker,” Morrow said. “The girl who left the bar with Royce Sherman last night.”
At that moment, she lowered her hands and raised her head to accept a tissue from a female deputy.
Shaw’s first sight of her face came as a surprise. He had expected an entirely different sort. “She’s just a kid.”
“Sixteen. Barely. Turned last month.”
Shaw watched Linda Meeker’s apparent distress for another few seconds, then said, “Friday night while I was at it, I should’ve killed Royce Sherman, too.”
The other three turned to him, but he didn’t take back what he’d said.
Morrow covered an awkward silence by clearing his throat. “In here.” He led them to the neighboring door and entered a small office. “I share it with another detective. He’s off today.”
They crowded into the already crowded space. Morrow closed the door and began his explanation without preamble. “Linda Meeker came in about half an hour ago under her own volition but at the urging of a friend, who drove her here when they learned about the murder.”
“Who told her?” Shaw asked.
“They overheard people talking about it at the Dairy Queen.”
Nobody said anything, but Shaw, Wiley, and Hickam exchanged glances.
Reading their dubiety correctly, Morrow chuffed. “It gets better. All of what I’m about to tell you came from the friend, because Linda isn’t talking. According to the friend, Linda owns up to underage drinking, intoxication, getting chummy with Royce, and walking out of the bar with him. But she couldn’t very well lie about that because there are three dozen witnesses to it.
“From there, the story goes murky. The friend contends that she was waiting for Linda outside. Linda and Royce exchanged fond farewells and parted ways. He took off in his pickup. The friend drove Linda to her—the friend’s—house where they were supposed to have been all along. Linda upchucked a couple of times. The friend put her to bed. They slept until after ten o’clock this morning.”
Wiley said, “Then picked up news of the murder at the Dairy Queen.”
“Right.”
“Wrong.” Shaw, who’d propped himself against the doorjamb when they came into the room, left it for the corner of Morrow’s desk and planted his butt on it before he fell down. “That girl’s hysterical.”
Hickam said, “Understandable. The guy she was mugging with twelve hours ago has since been shot in the head.”
“I get that, but still.” Shaw conjured an image of Linda Meeker. “Her teeth were chattering. She’s out of her mind scared.”
“Of her daddy,” Morrow said. “He’s a preacher. Hellfire and brimstone. Live snakes. Like that. Linda and her friend attended last night’s Sunday evening services at the tabernacle, but I guess Daddy’s sermon didn’t take. Rather than going straight to the friend’s house to watch TV, they sneaked off to the bar. She says her daddy will kill her for drinking, much less for—”
“—tangling tongues with Royce,” Wiley said.
“Words to
that effect. The friend says the reverend isn’t the forgiving type, that his punishment will be harsh. Even though Linda knew that coming to us was the right thing to do, the friend said she practically had to hogtie her to get her here.”
Morrow raised his chin toward the interrogation room next door. “Those two officers have been at her, singly and together, since she walked into our lobby and identified herself. All she’s done is cry. Sob. Hasn’t told us squat. Refuses to talk about it.”
Wiley thoughtfully pulled on his lower lip. “She’s a minor. Have her parents been notified that she’s here?”
Morrow nodded. “Immediately after she came in. Which didn’t help with her hysterics.”
Nobody spoke for several moments, then Shaw asked, “What’s the preacher’s ETA?”
Hickam looked at him with suspicion and frowned. “Why?”
Shaw ignored him and repeated his question to Morrow.
The deputy consulted the wall-mounted clock. “They live out in the country, ten miles from town. Plus, the preacher subsidizes the offering plate by pouring concrete during the week. Mrs. Meeker wasn’t sure which project he was on today and was going to have to locate him through the contractor.” He glanced at the clock again and raised a shoulder. “Taking all that into account, ETA is twenty, thirty minutes maybe.”
Shaw pushed himself off the desk. “Get some handcuffs.”
Chapter 29
You’re not eating anything.”
Jordie looked up from the room service club sandwich Gwen Saunders had foisted on her. “I’m not hungry.”
“You didn’t eat breakfast, either.”
She realized the U.S. marshal was only trying to be kind, but Jordie resented being spoken to as though she were a child. Apparently her resentment showed. Gwen refrained from insisting.
She ate the last of her own sandwich and folded her napkin beside her plate. “Should I call them to remove the table then?”
“Yes, I’m done,” Jordie said.
“I’ll ask the waiter to wrap up the sandwich. Maybe you’ll want it later.”
She gave the marshal a weak smile, but her appetite wasn’t going to improve until circumstances changed, and she feared that they would change only for the worse, not the better. When every projected outcome was bad, what was she to hope for?
After the room service waiter left, Gwen made sure the door to the suite was bolted, then sat down at a desk and booted up her laptop. Agitated and restless, Jordie moved to the window, pushed back the drapes, and gazed out over the downtown skyline.
Looking to her left across Canal Street, she was afforded a bird’s-eye view of the French Quarter’s narrow lanes. On the river, a paddle-wheeler full of tourists chugged along. The sidewalks were congested with pedestrians.
Other people were actually having a good day. They were going about their business, eating, drinking, sightseeing, enjoying the company of friends and family, untouched by tragedy, unscathed by calamities of their own making.
She envied them their sense of freedom, even if it lasted only for today. Not since that December day in her childhood had she felt entirely free. The life-altering event of that day followed her everywhere. Even on occasions calling for celebration, it was a tenacious companion that spoiled her enjoyment. Nothing she did was free of its influence. It had dictated every major decision. Much had been sacrificed to it.
Now, because of those few fateful moments, she was sequestered and under the guard of federal law enforcement officers. Her future was uncertain, her life in jeopardy.
She wasn’t even free to go to work and do the job she loved. As they’d left the FBI building, she’d asked Gwen if they could stop at her office, just long enough for her to check the status of certain upcoming events that were sizable jobs and would greatly contribute to her company’s annual revenue.
Gwen had denied the request pleasantly but in a nonnegotiable manner. “I’m sorry, Jordie. Agent Wiley wants you to be…protected.”
“Watched.”
“Same thing.”
“No it isn’t. Not at all.”
Gwen hadn’t countered because the distinction was unarguable. However, she had interceded on Jordie’s behalf and gotten Joe Wiley’s permission to let one of Extravaganza’s employees deliver to the hotel mail and paperwork that was time sensitive, such as work orders that required Jordie’s approval before projects could move forward.
It was a small victory, though. Because, once delivered, Gwen had opened each envelope and package, inspecting the contents before handing it over to Jordie.
She suffered no illusions. She was under guard. True, Joe Wiley didn’t wish any harm to come to her, but he was also mistrustful of her, as well he should be. She should have told him about that trip to Costa Rica.
She hadn’t wanted to go, but Panella had given her no other choice. She’d hated every minute spent in his company, had willed away the memory of those three days, and had almost succeeded in pretending that she’d never allowed herself to compromise as she had.
But by telling Joe Wiley about the trip, Josh had resurrected it and all its residual ugliness, and merely lamenting it wasn’t going to wash with the authorities. In the context of their case against Panella, the consequences of her being in Central America with him could be much more severe.
The sun shone in warmly through the window glass, but she hugged her elbows as though chilled at the prospect of testifying in court about that trip. Ruefully she thought back on ordinary days when catastrophes had amounted to a late floral delivery, a shortage of tablecloths, a misprint on a program, a grease fire in a hotel kitchen. Put into perspective, those had been mild mishaps. She wished now for problems that easily solvable.
The ones confronting her now seemed insurmountable. Not the least of them was Shaw Kinnard, more specifically the emotional tumult his very name engendered.
When she saw him not bloodied and dying but alive, learned that he wasn’t a notorious murderer but an FBI agent, her relief had been profound. But it was instantly squelched. When she grasped the scope of his duplicity and its impact on her, she’d barely restrained herself from lunging at him, clawing at his eyes, hurting him.
In addition to being infuriated, she’d also been sick with humiliation over her gullibility. She would never forgive herself for being taken in, for thrilling to his sexual innuendos, even a little. She’d actually begun to believe that they were more than light teases meant to provoke her. She’d begun to think that the feelings underlying them were deeper and more meaningful, to think…
Things that now seemed incredibly naïve.
Suddenly the sunlight was too bright. It was making her eyes water. She jerked the drapes closed and said to Gwen, “I’m going to lie down for a while.”
“A nap will do you good. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“Jordie?”
She turned.
“What happened between you and Kinnard while you were in that garage?”
“You know what happened.”
Speaking more softly, the marshal said, “Off the record. Woman to woman.”
“Nothing,” she said huskily. “Nothing happened.”
Gwen knew she was lying and looked at her with something akin to pity. “He was only doing his job.”
“I know.” She went into the room and shut the door, leaning back against it and whispering, “And he’s very good at it.” Tears that had threatened earlier now spilled over her lower lids.
Angrily, she wiped them away. She would not cry over him.
Pushing herself away from the door, she headed for the bathroom only to be brought up short by a familiar sound—the distinctive buzz of a vibrating cell phone.
A cell phone? Hers was still in the FBI’s possession. Hickam had last used it to call Shaw’s burner when he staged his big reveal.
The sound persisted. She followed it over to the bureau where she’d stacked the items her office personnel ha
d sent. Swiftly she checked the contents of padded envelopes and pushed lids off boxes until she found a box of printed invitations. She noticed now that the shipping label bore a company name she didn’t recognize. She dumped out shrink-wrapped parcels of invitations, envelopes, and reply cards.
The box continued to vibrate.
She dug into a corner of it and lifted out the false bottom. There lay the phone, shimmying against the white pasteboard. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get this phone to her.
Instinctually, she snatched it up and answered. “Hello?”
“Jordie?”
Her heart clutched.
They already had Linda Meeker seated in a chair in the hallway outside the interrogation room when Morrow stalked through the door of his office, pushing Shaw along in front of him.
The young woman was hunched over, crying softly, her shoulders shaking, but she looked up, startled, when Morrow shoved Shaw into a chair diagonally across from the one in which she sat. He produced a pair of metal handcuffs and clicked one around Shaw’s right wrist and the other around the leg of the chair, rattling them menacingly against the chrome to make certain they were secure.
“Your lawyer had better show up soon or I’m putting you in lock-up. And get that stupid hood off your head.” He pushed back the hood of Shaw’s sweatshirt, then turned away and headed toward his office, pausing when he drew even with the girl. In a much gentler voice, he asked, “Anything I can get you, miss?”
She shook her head.
“Your folks should be here soon.” He started to move away, then glanced back at Shaw. “You. Don’t bother her.”
Shaw flipped him off with his free hand and pulled the hood back up to cover his head. Morrow scowled but said nothing else before returning to his office and pushing the door closed.
Shaw muttered several cuss words, then let his gaze drift from Morrow’s office door to the girl, who was regarding him warily. He stared back for several moments, then said in a low voice, “Lighten up, kid. No matter what they brought you in for, you’ll probably get off doing community service. Maybe some time in juvie, and it ain’t that bad.”