Whisper of Warning

by Laura Griffin

  Will blamed the sex. Just a few hours in bed with her had cooked his brain.

  “What did Fiona say?”

  “I told you,” Devereaux said. “She has no idea.”

  “Maybe she’s lying.”

  “Maybe she’s not.”

  “But how could she just take off like that? How far does she expect to get on a few thousand dollars?”

  “She could sell your truck.”

  Will gritted his teeth, infuriated by the thought. “She doesn’t have the title,” he said. “And she won’t get shit for it anyway. It’s got close to two hundred thousand miles on it.”

  “You sure she didn’t snake the title?”

  “I’m sure.” Practically shaking with fury, Will had checked his file box before calling a goddamn taxi to take him to work.

  “Let’s head back to the station,” Devereaux said. “I’ve got to show all this to Cernak. You and Webb need to check out the plaintiff who collected all that money, see if anything sends up a red flag. And then there’re the lawyers. I don’t like a one of ’em. We need to take a closer look at their finances.”

  “I’m sure they’re all squeaky clean,” Will grumbled.

  “Well, we know Alvin was bent. The question is, was he a lone operator, or was someone else in on it?”

  Will wended his way back to headquarters, trying to come up with a plan of action for the afternoon. No way he intended to spend it interviewing a bunch of attorneys. He needed Courtney, and he needed her now. Amy Harris had told him she hadn’t seen Courtney in a week, but she had seen a black Escalade parked on their street the other day.

  Someone was gunning for Courtney, and if she did a poor job of hiding, he had every chance of finding her before Will did.

  Will whipped the car into a parking space and jumped out. Maybe he’d take the afternoon off and strike out on his own. Not the most impressive move from a rookie detective, but Will wasn’t feeling all that concerned with Cernak’s opinion of him at the moment. The guy was still calling Courtney a “person of interest” in Alvin’s murder, even though anyone with half a brain could see she was a target, not the shooter, for fuck’s sake.

  “Calm down,” Devereaux told him as they entered the back door.

  “I’m calm.”

  “You look like you’re about to throttle someone. Just relax, okay? We’ll find her. And I won’t tell anyone you’re boning her, so you can quit worrying about that, too.”

  Will shot him a glare. It was no accident Devereaux had used the term Will had used when they’d first started working this case and Will had thought his partner had a thing for Fiona.

  “Hey, when’s that wedding?” Will asked.

  “What, Jack and Fiona’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “About a month from now. Why?”

  They rode the elevator up to their floor, and an idea took root in Will’s head. “Courtney’s her only family, right? Besides the grandfather? There’s no way she’ll miss that wedding.”

  Devereaux grunted something as they made their way through the maze of cubicles. They both were thinking the same thing, probably—a month was a long time for someone on the run. If they didn’t locate Courtney before then, they might never locate her at all.

  Will got to his desk and loosened his tie. He opened his drawer and grabbed a handful of aspirin from the bottle he’d started keeping there, then jumped on his phone to check messages. Six calls, but none from Courtney.

  “Long time no see.”

  He looked up to see a bulldog-like mug peering over the wall to his cube.

  “Thought you guys went for lunch,” Webb said. “Where you been all afternoon?”

  “Working.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, while you guys was jacking around, we got a break in the Alvin case.” Webb stepped into Will’s cube and tossed a fax on his desk.

  “What’s this?” Will asked.

  “Walter Greene.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A minister in Los Angeles. Died in a house fire ’bout five years ago.”

  Will jerked his tie free from his collar and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Devereaux walked up behind him, saving him from having to deal with Webb’s crap. The man was a blowhard.

  “What’s he got to do with anything?” Devereaux picked up the fax, and Will clicked open his e-mail on the off chance Courtney had sent him a message.

  “Looked like a kitchen fire at first, but the guys over there figured it for arson. Then the ME pulled a couple slugs from the victim’s skull, whole thing became a homicide investigation.”

  Will’s in-box was full, but nothing from Courtney. He clicked out before Webb could get nosy reading over his shoulder. “What’s it got to do with us?”

  Webb smiled. “Homicide dick out there heard about our background check, called me up with this lead.”

  “What lead?” Will watched Webb’s smile widen and got a sick, greasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “It’s our girl Courtney again. They never could prove it, but the cops out there swear she offed the guy.”

  Courtney stared at her reflection in the smudged bathroom mirror. Her next bus left in twenty-five minutes, and there was no more putting this off.

  A strange calm settled over her, and she studied her image with a critical eye.

  She wasn’t beautiful, by any stretch. She had faint freckles dusting her nose, and her chin was too pointy to suit her face. She had good lips, though. And a clear complexion. She combed her fingers through her hair and let it fan out over her shoulders. Will liked her hair. He hadn’t said so, but she could tell from the way he’d played with it all last night, like a kid suddenly given a toy he’d always wanted. They’d made love three times, and after each time he’d lain there, stroking his hand through her hair, until she’d practically purred from the pleasure of it.

  She pushed the thought away and picked up one of her claret-colored locks. She’d never gone blond before. It was the one color she’d never tried, mainly because it was clichéd, but also because to pull it off she’d have to color her brows, too, which would be an ongoing pain in the butt. But with hazel eyes and fair skin, she knew she could make it work.

  The door burst open, and Courtney jumped back, startled. It was a woman and two kids. Courtney took a deep breath and told herself to calm down; she’d been a bundle of nerves all day.

  She watched in the mirror as the mom checked the cleanliness of the stalls and shepherded each girl into one. The children looked about four and seven, and the mother looked almost as young as Courtney.

  “Don’t touch the potty,” she told them. “It flushes by itself.”

  Courtney watched the girls finish up and dutifully cross the bathroom to wash their hands. The mother stood at the sink, dispensing soap and towels, then pulling a Wet Wipe from her purse to clean something red and gooey off the younger girl’s face.

  “No more sweets.” She straightened her daughter’s hair bows. “You’ll be bouncing off the walls by the time we get to Gram’s house.”

  Courtney’s chest tightened as they left the bathroom. How strange would it have been to have had a mother like that? And if she and Fiona had had a mom like that, how would things be different?

  Would Fiona be a carefree painter today, instead of a forensic artist who drew rapists and murderers? Would she be a friend to Courtney, instead of the pseudo-mom she’d been most of her life? Would she be married already, with kids of her own?

  Would Courtney?

  She almost laughed at the thought. But the urge came with a twinge of pain because she knew, deep down, she’d never written off the idea completely. So what if she’d had a crappy childhood? Who hadn’t? She could still have a family. She could be happy someday.

  Just maybe not today.

  The door swung open again, and a trio of women bustled in. Courtney ducked into a stall and unzipped her duffel. She took out her square cosmetics case and hung it on the door so that the top for
med a flat surface. She got out her large folding mirror and positioned it on the case. She doused her hair with Evian and used a wide-tooth comb to work it through. With well-practiced movements, she scooped a layer of hair on top of her head, then dug a clip from her pocket and secured it in place. She waited for the restroom to go silent again, and then she took out her scissors.

  Wisps of hair fell on the floor as she broke the cardinal rule of haircutting. Shh-shh. Shh-shh. Her beautiful hair rained down. Shh-shh. The floor was a carpet of wine-colored locks. Shh-shh. And with every snip, she thought of Will’s hands.

  Will gave in to the urge to stop by Courtney’s house one more time on his way home from work. He’d been by twice already today, and each time he’d stood on her porch as her neighbor’s dog went nutso and her door went unanswered.

  He pulled the Taurus into the driveway behind Amy Harris’s car. He wondered if the violence-prone boyfriend had been around since his run-in with the police. Will thought of Amy’s little boy, Devon, and he thought of the pitiful remains sitting unidentified in the morgue tonight. Will knew, after catching that case, he’d never look at a domestic in quite the same way.

  He went up to the door and rang the bell. A television could be heard from the Harris side of the duplex, but Courtney’s side was silent. Will looked in the front window, but the blinds were closed tightly. He walked around the house and checked the back door. Locked. He tromped through some weeds to the side yard. He pulled out a penlight and checked the bathroom window.

  It was open.

  His pulse spiked as his flashlight illuminated shards of glass all over the ground. Someone had busted out the pane, then undone the lock and gone in, it looked like.

  Careful not to crunch the glass in case there might be fingerprints, Will picked his way back to the front porch and rang Amy’s bell. She answered the door in a bathrobe.

  “Ma’am. Looks like there’s been a break-in next door.”

  Her eyes widened, and she leaned her head out to look at Courtney’s front door.

  “Bathroom window’s busted,” he explained. “I need to check it out. You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?”

  “Yes, I do, but—you’re saying we had a burglar? I’ve been here all evening. I never heard a thing.”

  Will filed that away as she hurried off to get the key. Maybe the break-in had occurred last night, while Courtney was at his place.

  Or maybe it had happened today, and Courtney had been inside.

  Amy reappeared, and Will grabbed the key from her. He jammed it into the lock. He shoved the door open and stumbled over something as he entered the apartment.

  CHAPTER 17

  A sofa cushion?

  Will flipped on the light and scanned the room.

  “Oh my gosh!” Amy yelped.

  The place had been tossed. Thoroughly.

  “Get back inside,” Will ordered. “Lock the door and call APD.”

  Will unholstered his weapon and moved briskly down the hallway. He came to the closed door of the bedroom and hesitated a moment, dread clogging his throat. He pushed it open. He turned on the light.

  They’d spent time in here—drawers overturned, closet ransacked, clothes strewn everywhere.

  “Courtney?” The word was a croak as he forced himself to step into the room, to peer over the bed, to check the closet…

  He rushed into the bathroom, where the shower curtain had been pulled back. A brown shoeprint marred the porcelain tub. The contents of Courtney’s medicine cabinet littered the floor, jars of cosmetics smashed and spilled across the linoleum.

  He hustled back into the kitchen and did a thorough sweep. The pantry stood open. The refrigerator, too. Will jerked open the door to the utility room to find only a heap of household cleaners pulled from a cabinet.

  She wasn’t here.

  But had she been? Had she been rolled up in a rug, like Pembry, and dragged off someplace to be dumped?

  She didn’t have any rugs.

  He went room to room, checking for anything missing—a bedspread, a shower curtain, a blanket, even. Nothing missing, as far as he could tell.

  He holstered his weapon and called Devereaux.

  “I’m at Courtney’s.”

  “You bringing her in?” Devereaux asked, and Will remembered the arrest warrant. Cernak had pressured the D.A. to have a judge issue it this evening. It was so absurd, Will could hardly get his mind around it.

  “She’s not here,” Will said, surveying the mess with a pain in his chest. “But someone’s been here. The place has been ransacked. Drawers, closets, everything. I’m talking empty cereal boxes.”

  The phone in his hand was silent as Devereaux absorbed this.

  “Someone’s looking for something.”

  “No shit,” Will said.

  “Something besides Courtney. Any idea what it is?”

  “Hell if I know. But by the looks of this place, I don’t think they found it. Whoever did this was frustrated.” Will eyed the painting of a desert landscape that had been pulled down from the wall and slashed with a blade. “And pissed.”

  “Maybe we’ll get some prints,” Devereaux said hopefully.

  But Will wasn’t optimistic. He noticed the air vent that had been unscrewed, the filter that had been pulled out and taken apart. Whoever had been here knew what he was doing and would have worn gloves.

  “Hodges? You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Keep an eye on those crime-scene techs, when they show up. We need a lead.”

  “I hear you.”

  “We need IDs. And we need to catch up with these guys before they catch up to Courtney.”

  Alex pulled into a parking space in front of her office and tugged her cell phone free from her purse. She composed a brief text message to a client and pressed Send.

  A tap on the window made her jump. A barrel-chested man stood beside the door. He flashed a gold detective’s shield.

  She cracked the door an inch. “Yes?”

  “Will Hodges, APD. I need a word.”

  Goddamn it.

  She got out of the car, leaned back against the door, and crossed her arms. “I’m running late.” She glanced at her watch. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a client of yours. Courtney Glass.”

  Alex kept her face neutral, but she was kicking herself mentally for opening up to Nathan Devereaux. What was it about that man? Half a drink and half an hour of that sexy drawl, and she’d spilled her guts to him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t discuss—”

  “I have an arrest warrant for her.” He eased closer, until he invaded her space with his huge chest. “She’s wanted for murder,” he added, as if this would scare her.

  Although, actually, it did. Alex made a habit of avoiding dirty cases. If some woman showed up and claimed that her husband was after her, that she needed to disappear, Alex demanded police reports or hospital records. If a guy called up and asked her to track down some woman who’d made off with his bank account, Alex ran a background check to see what she was dealing with. She didn’t take on criminals, and she sure as heck didn’t take on murderers.

  “Show me the warrant,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You say you have a warrant? Produce it.”

  “I don’t have it in hand—”

  “Then I’ve got no information for you.” She started to walk away, but he blocked her path and leaned his hand against the side of her car.

  “Aiding and abetting is serious. You could lose your license, you know.”

  Alex bit her tongue, using all her restraint not to tell off the big man with the badge and the gun.

  She gazed up at him. His eyes were dark and dangerous-looking. This cop wanted his man. Or his woman, in this case. There was a certain desperation in his eyes that made Alex look more closely.

  Was it possible…? No, it couldn’t be…. But was it even remotely possible this man was the “fr
iend” Courtney had stayed with last night? Was this the guy whose apartment Alex had taken her to with a duffel and a bag of Chinese food?

  No way.

  Courtney Glass was ballsy, but not enough to sleep with a cop who was investigating her for murder.

  Unless maybe—

  “Where is she?” His hand balled into a fist against the car, and Alex realized she wasn’t imagining things. This man was desperate to find her, and it was personal.

  But that didn’t make it okay. Lots of guys were desperate to track down the women who’d walked out on them. Sometimes they did it with shotguns.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I have no way to reach her. But I might be able to pass a message along, if she happens to contact me.”

  He stepped back and raked his hands through his short hair. “Just tell her—damn it, just tell her to call me.” He pulled a card from his pocket and thrust it at Alex. “Day or night. I have to talk to her. And same goes for you. If you hear anything, I need you to call me. That’s my cell number.”

  Alex shrugged and slipped the card into her pocket. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Tell me one thing.”

  She looked up at him, and there it was again—that urgency.

  “Is she okay? Do you know? Someone trashed her house yesterday, and no one’s seen her.”

  Alex’s eyebrows tipped up, and the detective seemed to hold his breath.

  “I spoke with her yesterday around midmorning. She sounded fine.” Alex could tell from his face that she hadn’t answered his question.

  He blew out a sigh. Nodded. “Thanks. And I mean it about that number. Anytime, day or night.”

  Will’s XO presented Fiona’s drawings to an alert press corp. The meeting room was packed as reporters from news outlets across the state recorded every detail of the story. Will scanned the eager faces, not bothering to conceal his disgust. Their young John Doe had slipped through the cracks all his life, only to capture the attention of a sympathetic public now that his body had been destroyed beyond recognition.