“I followed up on that lead.”
“The ViCAP thing.” He stopped and looked at her.
“Yeah.” She sat on the end of the table. “I submitted the details of our case to the FBI violent crimes database, and they got a hit.”
“You told me that part this morning. You’re saying it panned out?”
“Yes. Listen to this.” She pulled off her LBPD baseball cap and dropped it on the table. “There’s a cold case in Houston. Three years old. I drove all the way up there and interviewed the lead detective about it, and I think it’s our guy.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You think?”
“No, I know. I’m almost positive.” She glanced through the door to the bullpen. “I brought back copies of the reports—”
“Just tell me what you found.”
Joel sounded impatient, and she didn’t blame him. Brady hadn’t wanted to read the reports either. He’d wanted the bottom line.
“Okay, the upshot is that I found striking similarities between the Houston case and ours, and I think we could be dealing with the same perpetrator.”
Joel leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge. He was skeptical. Or maybe he was just waiting to be convinced. Nicole could never tell with him.
“The victim up there is a forty-seven-year-old man,” she said. “This guy’s leaving for work one morning when he goes out to his driveway and gets shot in the chest, point-blank range.”
“They know the caliber?” Joel asked.
“A .38,” she said. “There are no eyewitnesses. No one heard anything either. No robbery. The assailant left behind this guy’s wallet, his Rolex, and his Mercedes. Just shot him in the chest and left.”
“So, same kind of weapon.”
“But there’s more,” she said. “Investigators found a long red feather in the pocket of his suit jacket. No idea where it came from. His wife didn’t know either. Nobody could figure out what to make of it.”
Joel stared at her, and she tried to figure out what he was thinking. She’d expected him to be more excited.
“Any suspects?” he asked.
“Suspects, yes. Arrests, no. They zeroed in on a few people but could never make it stick. I got the details down for us to go through.”
“What did this guy do for a living?” he asked.
“Chief financial officer for some company. EastTex Petroleum, I think it’s called.”
Interested flared in his eyes. “No shit. An oil company?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We found a link today between our victims here and the environmental group that was protesting on the island last Friday.”
“The flash mob thing.”
“Yeah. The group’s called Alpha Omega Now. We think Lark and Stovak were both members.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Nicole asked.
“Miranda and I. She’s helping me follow up on this. We talked to one of her professor friends in San Antonio who works with the FBI gang unit, and he identified the tattoos on the two victims. It’s a symbol of this group.”
“Is this group on the FBI’s radar?”
“I’m looking into it.”
“Are they violent?”
“I’m looking into that, too. But listen to this.” Joel leaned forward. “Alpha Omega also protested the company owned by that real estate developer in Corpus Christi—”
“Mark Randall.”
“Yeah. They protested his company a year before his murder. We need to find out if this Houston case has a connection like that.”
Emmet leaned his head into the room. “Yo, you guys hear the radio?”
Nicole turned to face him. “No. What?”
“There’s a fire down at Lighthouse Point.”
“When?” Joel asked.
“Right now. Calvin just called me. The fire department’s not even there yet. They’ve got two trucks en route.”
“Like, a brush fire or—”
“I don’t know.”
Owen stopped and leaned his head in. “Hey, the chief called. There’s a fire at the lighthouse.” He looked at Joel. “He said Miranda’s there.”
* * *
* * *
Miranda sat on the tailgate of the red pickup, trying hard not to puke. For the last twenty minutes she’d felt queasy. Nauseous. Like everything she’d eaten in the past twenty-four hours was about to come up.
She looked across the parking lot to the lighthouse. Firefighters had set up klieg lights to illuminate the scene as they combed the grounds, searching for evidence. Miranda watched them, feeling strangely disconnected from everything, as though she were watching a movie.
She hadn’t jumped.
Two men had rushed over from the campground and yelled at her to wait while they dragged the scaffolding over. One of them had scaled the bars like a gymnast and helped her climb down, all before the first fire truck made the scene.
Miranda looked around the parking lot now. She wanted to thank the man—she’d been practically incoherent earlier—but she didn’t know where he’d gone.
She bent over and rested her hands on her knees, acutely aware of Joel only a few feet away, watching her every move. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her since he’d arrived, even when he was interviewing witnesses.
Miranda examined the long cut in her forearm from when she’d punched her fist through the glass. The bleeding had stopped, and Emmet’s brother Calvin had given her a bandage for it. Both he and Joel had offered to take Miranda to the clinic to get it checked out, but she’d refused.
She peeled the gauze back to look at it. The blood was like glue and she pulled up a layer of skin. The pain hit, and she felt queasy all over again.
Miranda pushed off the tailgate and walked to the water’s edge, turning away from the chaotic scene behind her. The last bit of sunlight had faded over the marsh, and the sand now felt cool under her feet. She focused on gripping the sand with her toes to take her mind off how badly she wanted to puke.
“You okay?” Joel’s voice was low and gruff behind her, and she didn’t turn around.
“A little dizzy.”
“You sure you don’t want to get your arm checked out?”
“It’s fine. Just needs a butterfly bandage, and I’ve got some at home.”
She turned to face him. His brow was furrowed, and his blue eyes were filled with worry.
“I’d like to go home now,” she said.
“I still have to interview a couple more witnesses.”
“I’m not asking for a ride. I’ve got my car here.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Hang on.”
He walked off, and she turned back to face the water. She didn’t want to be here. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold it together. She’d gone through her story three separate times, with three separate people, including Joel, and each time she’d done it she’d felt her stomach churning.
“Screw it,” she hissed.
She hiked across the beach to the fire department pickup truck and collected her shoes and camera from the tailgate.
Joel walked over. “McDeere’s going to follow you home.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked him to.”
“That’s totally unnecessary.”
“I’ll come by as soon as I wrap up here.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Miranda.” His sharp tone cut her off.
“Fine,” she said. She didn’t want an argument. Not now, and definitely not here, in front of half the police department. She just wanted to leave.
“It shouldn’t be too long,” he said.
She returned to her Jeep and stashed her stuff in the front seat. The parking lot was jammed, and she maneuvered around all t
he emergency vehicles.
The lighthouse was a stark tower in the glare of the lights, and she noted the blackened streak where smoke had billowed from the broken window. As she pulled onto the highway, she caught McDeere’s patrol car in her rearview mirror.
Miranda focused on the road in an attempt to steady her nerves. She felt shell-shocked, and the shriek of the fire engines still echoed through her brain.
She tried to get her head around what had happened, but it still felt unreal. She’d been trapped in a burning building. She’d been seconds away from making a twenty-foot jump. If those men hadn’t helped her, she could easily be in a hospital right now with a slew of broken bones. Or worse.
And what if that window had been hurricane glass?
Just the thought made her queasy again. She bit the side of her mouth and prayed she wouldn’t have to pull over and get sick in front of McDeere.
The drive whisked by in a blur of yellow stripes. When Miranda made the turn into her driveway, the headlights followed. She pulled up to her little house and cut the engine, and the rookie cop slid from his car.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll walk you up.”
She forced a smile. “That’s not necessary.”
“It’s no problem,” he said, and his steady look told her that he had orders he intended to follow.
Miranda walked up the stairs. The muffled sound of Benji’s barks brought tears to her eyes, and she felt a rush of relief to see his nose pressed against the glass.
McDeere waited patiently as she unlocked the door.
“Thank you,” she told him again.
“Yes, ma’am. Be sure to lock up.”
Inside, Miranda secured the latch and sank to her knees beside Benji. She gave him a fierce hug, relishing the familiar scent of his fur as he licked her face. He smelled like home.
She, on the other hand, smelled like a bonfire.
Miranda dropped her phone and camera on the table. Crossing the living room, she yanked off her T-shirt. It had slivers of glass in it, and she planned to throw it away. Her clothes reeked; her hair reeked; her skin reeked. She went into the bathroom and turned the shower on, then stripped everything off and stepped under the warm stream. She squirted a ridiculous amount of shampoo into her hands and lathered up her hair.
Pain tore up her arm, taking her breath away.
Cursing, she stepped out of the spray. Somehow she’d forgotten her cut. With a trembling hand, she unwound the gauze and braced for more pain as she rinsed out the soap. Then she quickly finished her hair and stepped out.
Miranda grabbed a towel and dried off. She retrieved the shoebox of first-aid supplies from under the sink and carefully dabbed disinfectant on her wound. The cut was about three inches long, and fairly deep. She was lucky she hadn’t nicked a vein.
Whimpers in the next room told her Benji wanted out. She applied a row of butterfly bandages, popped an ibuprofen, and went into the bedroom to throw on some clothes and comb her hair. When she came out, Benji was scratching at the front door. As she opened it for him, she spotted her zipper pouch on the counter.
“Crap. Benji, wait!”
But he was already down the stairs.
She grabbed the pouch and checked to make sure she had her pepper spray. Then she grabbed her phone and followed Benji outside.
At the top of the staircase, she paused. The beach looked deserted beneath the rising moon. She glanced south and then north toward the campground but didn’t see the flicker of even a single campfire.
A chill crept down her spine. She didn’t want to be on the beach alone. Not tonight, not even with pepper spray. Benji could poke around in the yard.
“Benji?” She walked down the stairs, scanning the salt grass around the house. “Benji, here, boy.” She glanced at the nearby dunes, which were covered with a thick carpet of vines.
She gave a sharp whistle and waited. No answer but the distant crash of waves and the hum of crickets.
She looked around, annoyed. Usually Benji’s fluorescent yellow collar made him easy to spot. She switched on her phone flashlight and walked down the driveway to one of his favorite clumps of bushes.
“Benji? Here, boy!”
She turned and walked toward the sand dunes. If he’d run across the bridge, she would have heard him.
A sharp yelp had her whirling around.
“Ben?”
She aimed her light at the weeds surrounding the bridge. She jogged toward the sound she’d heard, but she didn’t see him. Dread filled her stomach.
A flash of yellow caught her eye. And then her heart lurched.
“Benji!”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Joel stood at the top of the stairs and cursed. Where the hell was she? Her Jeep wasn’t here. Her dog wasn’t here.
Joel’s phone buzzed and he recognized McDeere’s number.
“Sorry, I had a traffic stop,” McDeere said. “What’s up?”
“Where’s Miranda?”
“At home. Why?”
“She’s not here.”
No response.
“McDeere? Didn’t you say you walked her to the door?”
“Yeah. And I waited until I heard the lock before I—”
“Did she say she was going anywhere?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m at her house and she’s not here. Neither is her car or her dog.”
Joel walked down the steps, feeling a sense of panic that he didn’t know what to do with. She’d been rattled earlier—that was obvious. So, where would she have gone? It suddenly hit him that he didn’t know much about Miranda’s personal life. In fact, he knew crap about it. Would she go to visit a friend? A boyfriend? Was it possible she’d gone back to San Antonio? Joel felt completely clueless and he fucking hated that.
This was his fault. He’d realized she was in shock back at the fire scene. She’d told him she was fine, but he’d known that was bullshit, and he should have called her out on it right there and forced her to talk to him. Now she’d gone off somewhere, and he couldn’t even get her to pick up the phone.
“Are you there?” McDeere asked.
“Yeah.”
“You want me to drive over there or—”
Joel’s phone beeped.
“She’s calling me now. Forget it.” Joel grabbed the call. “Hey, where are you?”
“Almost home.”
Relief flooded him at the sound of her voice. And then he saw her Jeep’s headlights, high and close together, coming up the drive.
“I’m here,” he said.
He slid the phone into his pocket and walked over, trying to calm down. Since the moment he’d jumped into his truck and raced to Lighthouse Point, his heart had been going a mile a minute. And it had practically stopped when he caught sight of the black plume of smoke billowing from the lighthouse.
That fire was arson. They had nothing official yet, but Joel knew it with every fiber of his being.
Miranda pulled to a stop beside his truck, and he took a deep breath. Calm the fuck down.
She pushed open her door and got out.
“Hi,” she said, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“What’s wrong? Where were you?”
“I took Benji to the emergency animal clinic.” She walked around the front of the Jeep to the passenger side. As she opened the door, he saw Benji curled into a ball on the seat.
“What happened to him?”
She reached for the dog.
“Here, let me get him.” Joel stepped over, and she moved aside so he could slide his hands under him. His body was completely limp, but his eyelids fluttered open as Joel picked him up. His snout was swollen up the size of a grapefruit.
“A snake bit him,” Miranda said.
“Oh no.”
“I think it was a cottonmouth. I found him in the ditch over there.”
The dog felt like deadweight as Joel carried him to the stairs, with Miranda trailing close behind.
“The vet gave him some antivenom and said there’s nothing to do now but wait it out. She gave him something for the pain and said it would make him sleepy.”
On the deck, she sidestepped Joel and reached over to open the door.
“You left it unlocked?” he asked.
“I didn’t think about it. I was in a hurry.”
Joel bit back his criticism as he stepped into the house. “Where should I put him?”
“On his bed by the sofa. It’s the softest one in the house.”
Joel wasn’t surprised her dog had multiple beds. Miranda doted on him, and it must have scared the hell out of her when he’d been bitten by a venomous snake—especially after everything that had already happened tonight.
Joel sank to one knee and placed Benji on the big plaid pillow by the sofa. The dog opened his eyes briefly and then settled his head on his paws.
Miranda knelt beside him and stroked his ears. He didn’t move. Joel looked at Miranda, and the pained expression in her eyes made his chest tighten.
“Is he going to be all right?” Joel asked.
“He should. That’s what the vet said, anyway.”
She stood and walked into the kitchen. Joel followed. She picked up one of the two silver bowls on the floor by the pantry.
Joel raked his hand through his hair. “You scared me,” he said, leaning against the counter. “I thought maybe you were hurt.”
I thought maybe someone hurt you. Maybe the same someone who started that fire.
“Sorry.” She rinsed the bowl and filled it with water.
Joel watched her with a knot in his stomach. She seemed calm and controlled, but he wasn’t buying it. He’d seen this before, at the marina the morning she’d discovered the bodies.
She washed her hands and dried them on a towel.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“I know.” She grabbed the bowl and took it into the living room. She placed it beside Benji’s bed and sat on the edge of the couch, looking down at him.
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