“Build what?” she asked, intrigued.
“A career, a life.”
“And you started this plan when you were, what? Twenty-three?”
He looked at her. “Twenty-two. Why?”
“You set your goals young.”
“So?”
“So, that’s good.” She shook her head. “My career path’s been a lot more zigzag, I guess you’d say. I trained in forensics. Then I took a teaching job. Then I did humanitarian work, and now I’m working with law enforcement again. I’m kind of all over the map.”
“Nothing wrong with exploring,” he said. “There’s a saying, ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’ ”
She smiled.
“What?”
“That’s Tolkien,” she said. “I wouldn’t have guessed you for a fan.”
“Some cops can read, you know.”
“If you say so.”
He shot her a glare, and she realized she liked teasing him.
They neared the Morningstar Motor Lodge. The VACANCY sign still flickered, even though the parking lot looked crowded. Nolan drove through downtown and turned into the police station, which was busier than when they’d left. He slid into a space beside Sara’s Explorer.
“I’m going to check out that wall tomorrow,” she told him. “Sangria.”
He turned to face her. The air between them felt charged suddenly. “You’re staying overnight?”
“No reason to leave and come back.” Plus, she had some things left to do tonight. But she kept that to herself.
“Are you going alone?” he asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
Nolan gave her a long look. “Let me know your plan.”
Sara stared into his deep brown eyes, overcome with an odd sensation of being pulled into him again. The silence stretched out, and her pulse started to thrum. She couldn’t be around him and not get distracted. His deep voice. His hands. His eyes when he looked at her intently, as he was doing now.
The phone buzzed from the cupholder. He checked the screen.
“It’s Crowley. Sorry, I need to—”
“Take it.” She pushed open the door and hopped out. “I’ll be in touch.”
• • •
Talia got a call as she neared the police station and was surprised to see the department phone number on the caller ID.
“Vazquez,” she said.
“Hey, it’s Joanne. You’ve got a visitor.”
“Who?” Talia swung into the staff parking lot and found an empty space.
“You know that detective who called yesterday?”
Talia stared through the windshield, completely at a loss.
“The one from Austin?” Joanne prompted. “Detective Harper?”
“Crap, Harper. I meant to call him back. Are you saying he’s here?”
“Standing right across the lobby.” Joanne’s voice lowered. “I tried to get him to wait in the break room, but he wouldn’t budge.”
Talia checked her watch. “Well, what does he want? It’s a holiday, for crying out loud.”
“He said he needs to talk to you or Detective Hess, and it’s important.”
Talia scanned the parking lot but didn’t see any APD police units, marked or unmarked. Was he here on his personal time? She remembered what Nolan had told her about people ignoring phone calls and showing up in person when they wanted something. Talia hadn’t ignored this detective—she’d fully intended to call him back—but she’d bumped it to the bottom of her list because she had so many other things demanding her attention.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” she told Joanne. “I’m on my way in.”
She scooped up her radio and the laptop she’d been using to file reports from the road. Approaching the entrance, she saw through the glass that the lobby was full—mostly mothers and girlfriends waiting to bail someone out, from the looks of it. She spotted the Austin detective immediately, and not just because he towered over everyone in the room. He had a sharp gaze, and it was fixed on her as she walked through the door. She didn’t pretend not to know who he was.
“Detective Harper?”
“That’s me.”
She stuck out her hand, and he gave it a shake, swallowing her fingers in his big grip. He wore jeans and a golf shirt, but the badge and the gun on his hip told her he was on duty.
“I’m Natalia Vazquez, CAP Squad.” She didn’t mention that she’d been promoted to Crimes Against Persons only a few months ago. “Come this way.”
Joanne buzzed the door open, and Talia led the detective through the bull pen, ignoring the curious glances from several uniforms. She started to take him to the break room, then changed her mind and veered toward the conference room, where they’d have fewer interruptions.
“Have a seat,” she said.
Harper kept his gaze on her as he pulled out a chair. He wasn’t just big but huge. Six-four, two-twenty at least, all muscle. His short-cropped dark hair made her think he had a military background.
Talia took the chair at the head of the table, trying to level the playing field a bit.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Harper?”
“It’s Dax.”
“Okay, call me Talia.”
“I’m here about a case.”
“Your message said something about a missing person? I meant to call you, but we’ve had our hands full around here.”
He nodded. “I heard about the bodies.”
“Bodies?”
“Another one today, right?”
She leaned back in her chair, watching him. They’d gone to great lengths to keep the latest recovery quiet for as long as possible. Maybe he had an in with the sheriff’s office.
“Tell me about your MP,” Talia said. “It’s recent, isn’t it?”
“Friday night,” he told her. “Or early Saturday morning. We haven’t pinned it down exactly. This girl was last seen at Blue Brew. That’s a bar on Sixth Street.”
“Girl?” she asked, because men tended to use the term loosely.
“Grace Murray, nineteen,” he said. “She was at her cousin’s bachelorette party when she disappeared.”
“So, barhopping, it sounds like. She have a fake ID?”
“They started the night at a Mexican restaurant, then went from there. The party split into two groups around eleven. From what I hear, Grace got carded outside Blue Brew, and that’s when she was separated from the pack.”
“Okay. And what does this have to do with us? You realize the recoveries we’re dealing with are bones, right? They’ve been there a while.”
“Alicia Merino.”
Talia tipped her head to the side. “Who’s that?”
“The body from Sunday. She’s been identified as Alicia Merino, twenty years old, went missing from a bar in San Antonio last October second.”
Talia bit back a curse. “Where did you get that?” And why didn’t she have it?
“San Antonio PD,” he said. “We’ve been swapping info on our missing-persons cases. The identification just came in, and they gave me a call.”
Talia resisted the urge to check her phone. With the bones recovered here, Springville PD should have been contacted first. Maybe they had, and Nolan hadn’t told her.
“So . . . you’re thinking what?” she asked. “Same MO? Same perp?”
“Could be.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little early for that? I mean, just because both of them went missing from bars doesn’t mean the crimes are connected.”
He leaned forward on his elbows. “Here’s what I think, Talia. I’ve got a missing teenager. And frantic parents. I’ve got no witnesses and no good leads whatsoever. I’m thinking if there’s even the slightest chance these cases are connected, I need to pursue it, because there’s a chance my missing person is still alive. That’s what I’m thinking.”
Talia watched him, struck by the fire in his eyes. He wasn’t just checking a box here.
“All right, I hear you,”
she said. “How can we help?”
• • •
The hot water felt good on Sara’s tired muscles. But the shower quickly turned lukewarm, and she jumped out after only a few minutes. She crossed her tiny motel room and let her towel drop as she rummaged through her duffel bag. After moisturizing her skin, she dressed in dark clothing—a black tank top and jeans—and pulled on her dusty hiking boots. The boots were chunky but well broken in, and the blisters they’d given her when she first wore them in Guatemala were a distant memory. Now they fit her like a comfy pair of socks.
Sara surveyed the evidence boxes on the dresser. She had doubted anyone would have the audacity to break into her SUV while it was parked at the police station, but the motel was another story, so she’d hauled everything inside for safekeeping. She grabbed her camera and checked the memory card. Then she zipped some equipment into her backpack, tucked her room key into her pocket, and headed out.
It was almost dusk, which meant police and firefighters would be preoccupied with fireworks displays across the county. Sara drove with the windows down, eyeing the horizon. So far, the night sky was empty.
She turned onto the familiar road. Reaching the west gate of White Falls Park, she saw no sign of a patrol officer. She’d planned to sweet-talk her way in if necessary, but instead, she simply got out and unhooked the rusted chain.
Once inside the park, she followed a back route to the picnic spot where she’d parked her Explorer for most of the day. The lot was empty now, and she pulled into the shadows under an oak tree. No reason to attract attention. She got out, gathered her equipment, and started down the trail, using only a small penlight to illuminate her path.
The air smelled of dust and juniper. She took a deep breath, expanding her lungs, which seemed to be stubbornly holding on to the day’s tension. Murder cases got to her. Always. The effect was amplified this time by her emotional connection to the missing young woman, who—as Maisy had wisely noted—was most likely dead.
Sara wasn’t a pessimist, but she knew the odds.
And then there was Nolan. Sara felt an emotional connection to him, too, and she didn’t fully understand it. Two years ago, she’d broken her engagement and moved halfway around the world, shocking both herself and her family. Since then, she hadn’t looked back, at least not with regret. She also hadn’t given serious thought to dating again—hadn’t even been tempted—until she met Nolan.
Not that she wanted to date Nolan. She didn’t want to date anyone. But she was drawn to him. Unable to resist the magnetic pull she felt whenever she was alone with him.
Did he feel it, too? She was so out of practice she couldn’t tell. Sometimes it seemed like he did. Other times his interest seemed like an illusion, the result of her overtaxed brain and her vivid imagination conspiring to make her life complicated. She had a new job, a new home, a new life, and the very last thing she needed was to be distracted by a small-town cop who lived two hours away from her.
But what if they had a fling? Nothing serious—just a night or two together. The mere thought of it put a flutter in her stomach, which told her it was a bad idea. Unprofessional. How could she focus on doing her best work if she was distracted by sex with the lead investigator? It could get complicated, fast. She definitely shouldn’t go there. She was supposed to be working with him, not lusting after him, and it didn’t matter how well he filled out a pair of Levi’s.
Focus, Sara told herself as she reached the end of the trail. She dug through her backpack and traded her penlight for a larger flashlight. The creek bed stretched out before her, a weirdly lunar landscape under her bright beam. Once she felt oriented, she trekked across the rocks to the area where many of today’s bones had been discovered—the pelvis, the femur, the ulna. Sara pulled on some orange-tinted glasses and switched the flashlight to ultraviolet. Slowly, carefully, she scanned the creek bed, tracing her beam over the rocks. Something caught her eye near a mesquite tree. Sara walked to it and knelt down for a closer look.
“Find anything?”
She jumped and turned around.
CHAPTER 11
“God, don’t do that.” She stood up as Nolan walked over. “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here?”
He stopped and gazed down at her, hands on hips. Even in the dimness, she could see he wasn’t happy. “Thought I’d ask you the same thing.”
“Searching for evidence.”
“In the dark?”
“Some things fluoresce under alternative light sources—clothing dyes, footwear, sometimes even human teeth. You’d be surprised what you can find at night.”
Nolan stared down at her, and she tried to regain her composure. She didn’t like feeling rattled.
“What?” She turned and swept her flashlight beam around.
“It ever occur to you to avoid skulking around alone at night in a place where someone’s been dumping bodies?”
She stopped and looked at him. “You want to help, or did you come down here to impede my investigation?”
“Our investigation. Give me a job.”
She combed through her backpack and found another pair of tinted glasses. “Put these on. I don’t have another UV light, but you can follow my lead.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His fingers brushed hers as he took the glasses, and she felt a warm tingle. Ignoring it, she turned and swept her flashlight over some large rocks at the side of the creek bed. Returning to what had caught her eye, she realized it was only a candy wrapper.
“How’d you know I was out here?” she asked.
“I was making a loop through the park and saw your car.”
“You guys patrol the park?”
“Lately we do.”
“Good.”
Sara took slow, careful steps along the side of the creek bed. Peaches had alerted on several bones right in this spot, so she was hopeful.
Nolan’s boots crunched on the rocks beside her. She caught a faint trace of his scent—male sweat with a hint of shaving cream or maybe cologne. She wanted to ease closer, but she resisted the urge.
“Look,” Nolan said.
She turned around. His gaze was trained on a distant cliff. Above it, Sara caught the glow of fireworks.
“Where is that?” she asked.
“Belmont Hills Golf Club. You drove by it on your way into town.”
They watched a series of red, blue, and green starbursts. After a few minutes, Sara resumed her flashlight sweeps.
“So,” she said, searching for small talk. “What’s your family doing on this nice Fourth of July evening?”
He smiled, seeming amused by the question. “Well, let’s see. My sister and her kids are camping on Padre Island. My brother is hosting his annual chili cook-off, which I’m not invited to.”
“What, you don’t cook?”
“No, I win every year. So this year, he suggested I take a shift.”
“Your brother uninvited you to his annual party?”
“He was kidding. Sort of. But then all this came up, and I ended up having to work anyway.” Nolan steadied her arm as she stepped over a deep rut. “Let’s see . . . and then there’s my parents. They’re at a picnic with some friends.”
Picnics and chili cook-offs. It sounded like the sort of settled suburban lifestyle that might have been hers if she’d gone through with her wedding, and she felt a strange combination of wistfulness and relief.
“Sara?”
Damn, he’d asked a question.
“Sorry. What?”
“I said what about your family? Are they in Maryland?”
“Yeah. My parents and my brother’s family. He’s got twin girls, Ellie and Erin.”
“You see them much?”
“No.”
It had been since Christmas. She’d intended to fly up for a weekend, but she’d been busy with work, and all she’d managed to do was send birthday presents for the girls.
“I keep inviting them to visit, but I d
oubt they will,” she said. “My parents are hoping this is temporary.”
“What is?”
“My living here. This job with Delphi. They’re hoping it’s a phase, like when I moved to Guatemala.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
The word jumped out before she could think. But it was true. This wasn’t a phase. She loved her job at Delphi and fully intended to stay.
“Anyway, I’ll probably go visit them for Thanksgiving. My mom’s already hounding me.”
Nolan drew closer, keeping step with her. “Tell me about Guatemala,” he said.
“What about it?”
“What was it like there?”
It was the second time she’d been asked that in less than a week. She swept the flashlight over the ground.
“It was hard,” she said. “Stressful. There were so many lives lost, or else broken beyond fixing. I learned a lot from it.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . what my limits are. And that I could never go back to my cozy job at the university, where the most dire question was whether or not I’d make tenure. I realized I wanted to make more of an impact. Anyone can teach human osteology to undergrads.”
“Not anyone.”
“Well. Many people can. Not everyone’s good at the forensic side of things. It’s dirty. Smelly. The cases can be depressing. And there’re the midnight callouts, the long hours, the distraught families.” She looked at him. “You know.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“But I’m okay with all that. I guess that’s why I feel obligated.”
He stopped. She stopped, too, and looked up at him, studying the contours of his face in the dimness. Her pulse started to pound as he gazed down at her.
“What?” she asked.
He reached down and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes, and her heart flip-flopped. He turned away, and they resumed the search.
What had just happened? She shouldn’t have gotten personal. But he sounded genuinely interested, and she didn’t know why that surprised her.
“We have something in common,” he said, and his low voice seemed to wrap around her in the dark. “We’re both trying to prove ourselves.”
“You?” She scoffed. “The hometown hero? Everyone loves you.”
Stone Cold Heart Page 11