Deadly Forecast

by Victoria Laurie

  “Anything?” Candice’s voice asked from the foyer.

  I turned and held up the picture frame. “She’s deceased.”

  Candice didn’t say a word, but the look on her face said it all. Moving past me to the kitchen, she took up a paper towel and tried the handle on the back door. It was locked.

  “Hey, guys!” we heard faintly. Rodriguez was calling to us from outside.

  We moved quickly back out to the front porch and found Rodriguez pulling something out from under a white Honda. It was dirty and covered with leaves, but I was able to make out that it was one of those reusable cloth grocery bags, and it looked partially full.

  Candice and I made our way over to Rodriguez and I bent low to look under the car. There was a smunched-looking loaf of bread there, and several unopened packages of Lean Cuisine.

  “She was nabbed here,” I said, immediately turning on my radar and picking up the scent of a struggle.

  “Probably right after I talked to her Saturday afternoon,” Candice said. “She mentioned to me that she had to get going because she wanted to hit the grocery store on the way home.”

  I pointed to the white Honda. “This her car?”

  Rodriguez nodded and held up his phone showing a text from Agent Cox with the description of a vehicle registered to Debbie Nunez.

  “Dammit,” I swore. “We’ve got to find this son of a bitch.”

  “Let’s knock on a few doors and see if anyone saw anything,” Candice suggested.

  Rodriguez pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from the bottom of the grocery bag. “Store receipt says that Nunez checked out at three seventeen p.m. October twenty-fourth.”

  “Saturday,” Candice confirmed.

  “Which means this Buzz guy was either stalking her by following her around town and looking for an opportunity, or was camped somewhere on this street, waiting for her to come home.”

  “It also means that he had her hidden away somewhere until this morning.”

  “Come on,” Rodriguez said, putting the bag in his car. “We better talk to the neighbors.”

  We spent two hours walking up and down the street and talking to anybody who would answer the door. No one had seen anything unusual. Looking at the rows of townhomes, I suspected that was because the windows on nearly every home had the shutters drawn. Nobody looked outside anymore—they were too afraid of someone looking in.

  We drove back to the bureau feeling pretty defeated. When we got there, we briefed Brice, Gaston, and the Homeland agent on what we’d found at Debbie Nunez’s town house, and Rodriguez presented them with the receipt before he headed off to call the grocery store and find out if they had any security footage of Debbie purchasing her items. With any luck, there would be a suspicious-looking character in the background keeping an eye on her and we’d at least get an image we could put out to the press.

  “What about phone records for Mimi?” I asked, so frustrated that at every turn we were meeting a dead end. “She had to have had a cell phone with texts and phone calls from this Buzz guy.”

  “We sent over the warrant late last night,” Brice said. “It’ll take those guys at least a week to get back to us with her records, and that’s with an expedited request.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to put some pressure on them,” Gaston offered, making a note to himself.

  Brice turned to me and Candice. “Tomorrow I want you two to canvass Mimi’s old neighborhood and see if anyone remembers her and this guy she was seeing.”

  And then Brice seemed to catch himself, and he pointed to me. “Scratch that. Cooper, you’re on wedding detail. Fusco and Rodriguez can handle it from here.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “Sir,” I said, “I’m not walking down the aisle until Saturday. Plenty of time to work through a few more leads until then.”

  Brice and Gaston both eyed me with unmasked surprise. “You sure?” Brice asked.

  “Positive,” I told hm. I wasn’t going to be able to relax until that awful foreboding feeling I had for Dutch’s safety left me, and so far, nothing in the ether had suggested that it was lessening.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, then pointed behind me. “But you can be the one to explain it to that guy. If he asks, I’m going to tell him I already tried to order you off this case.”

  I turned and saw Dutch standing just outside Brice’s office, his expression impossible to read. I got up quickly and headed out to greet him. “Hey!” I said as brightly as I could muster. “You heard, huh?”

  He nodded. “It’s all over the news. Do they know who the victim is?”

  “Debbie Nunez. She was the manager of the Jamba Juice where Mimi Greene worked.”

  Dutch sighed and ran a hand through his golden hair. “Damn,” he said. “Candice just talked to her, right?”

  “Saturday,” I said. There was a pause; then I decided to jump in with both feet. “I think I’m going to work this case another few days.”

  Dutch’s eyes locked with mine. “You’re not even supposed to be working it now, Edgar.”

  I put a hand on the collar of his coat and tugged a little. “We’re close to nabbing him, cowboy. And I can’t leave it alone until he’s caught.”

  “What if he’s still at large by Saturday?”

  I sighed and leaned in to put my forehead against his chest. “Can you give me until Friday?”

  Dutch didn’t say anything for several seconds and I waited him out. What could he say, after all? Finally I felt his arms wrap around me, and he kissed the top of my head. “Stay safe, okay?”

  I hugged him, but that familiar awful feeling crept in between us, and I shut my eyes against it. “I will. I promise.”

  With one last squeeze Dutch backed up and said, “We’re all moved in and Mom and Aunt Viv are unpacking the kitchen as we speak. You coming home?”

  I swallowed hard. “Candice’s place is closer, and with your family at the house, I worry that I’ll feel too distracted.”

  Dutch’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t protest. “Okay,” he said. “Then I guess I’ll see you at the rehearsal dinner.”

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  And then he was gone, and I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut.

  T-Minus 00:14:51

  The news that Abby was running down a highway in her wedding dress with a bomb strapped to her chest hit M.J. like a punch in the gut. It was one thing to sense her friend in danger; it was a whole other thing to have it confirmed by a police report, and the visual gave new perspective to the terror Abby must be experiencing with no one around to help her and the love of her life too far away to get to her in time. At that moment, however, the spirit of Rita came rushing back into M.J.’s energy, insisting—actually shouting—that she go to Margo immediately. The moment M.J. had a clear look at Margo, she understood why—the woman was pushing at a paramedic and trying to pull off the oxygen mask strapped to her face.

  “Ma’am!” one of the medics said sternly. “Leave the mask in place! Your heart is showing signs of strain and we need to get you to the hospital.”

  Margo shoved at him again, but then her gaze fell on M.J. and she waved her over urgently.

  Behind her, M.J. could hear the helicopter circling low, looking for a place to land. She imagined Dutch and Candice would be whisked off to try to save Abby at any moment, but she couldn’t worry about that now. For the moment all she cared about was getting to Margo so that Rita would stop filling her head with shouts and demands to go to her friend.

  “You!” Margo called, pointing to M.J. “Come here!”

  M.J. was just a few feet away when she heard Candice yell, “Holliday! We need you!” But M.J. didn’t turn around. Rita was being far too insistent.

  At last she stood next to the gurney, which was half in the ambulance, half out. “What is it?” she asked Margo, and the moment she said that, Rita’s voice subsided and her mind was once again free of noise.

  “I…remembered…his…name…,
” Margo wheezed.

  “M.J.!” Candice yelled from behind her. “Get over here now! We need you!”

  “Ma’am!” the paramedic snapped. “Please stand aside! We need to take this woman to the hospital!”

  M.J. didn’t even look at him. Instead she gripped Margo’s hand and said, “Tell me, Margo. Tell me who came to the shop that day and scared Rita.”

  “Holliday!” Candice yelled one final time.

  “His…name…was…,” Margo gasped.

  M.J. nodded. “Yes? What was it, Margo?”

  “Hey!” Candice snapped, at the same time that M.J. felt a cold hand clamp down hard on her shoulder. “Come on, M.J.! The chopper’s waiting and we’ll need you!”

  M.J. tightened her grip on Margo’s hand. Every second counted now, but she couldn’t lose her cool. “Tell me his name, Margo!” she pleaded desperately.

  “Buslawski…with a B. I remember…’cause it was Polish…like my mom’s family.”

  Behind her, M.J. heard Candice gasp. “Oh…my…God!” M.J. turned to face her and Candice’s mouth was a round oval of shock. “I know him!”

  Before M.J. could ask her how, Candice had gripped her free hand and was pulling on her so she had no choice but to let go of Margo. Then they were both weaving and darting through the crowd and then onto the street, weaving and darting again around all the cars until they were in the clear and heading toward the end of the street at a mad dash. There M.J. could see Dutch, Gaston, Brice, and the chief being whipped by the wind created by the helicopter, which had just landed in the baseball field of the school across the street. Candice let go of M.J.’s hand then so that they could both run faster, and when they got to the men who were waiting on them anxiously, Candice grabbed hold of Brice’s lapels, sucked in a few breaths, and said, “Buslawski! He’s the unsub!”

  Dutch’s face had drained of color at the mention of the name and he looked anxiously to the chopper. “He’ll have a detonator,” he said, his voice so choked with pain it was hard to listen to. “We have to get to her, and we have to get to him!”

  Gaston waved at the chopper. “You four go! We’ll work on getting him!”

  In the next instant M.J. was in motion again, running toward the chopper, ducking low to avoid the blades—but she had a terrible sinking feeling that all their efforts wouldn’t be in time to save Abby.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Candice and I stayed late the night of the third bombing, working any lead we could think of, and all the while I couldn’t shake the terrible sinking feeling that no matter what we did, it still wouldn’t be enough. I felt so strongly that time was running out, and the danger that’d been swimming around my fiancé like a cunning shark was almost ready to move in for the kill.

  In desperation I suggested to Candice that we hunt down classmates of Mimi’s at the community college, just to see if she had ever mentioned her boyfriend to any of them. But after several calls, it was obvious that hardly anyone remembered Mimi let alone knew that she’d had a boyfriend.

  The next day yielded no additional clues. We headed to Mimi’s apartment complex and had a talk with the apartment manager, but again, the only thing she remembered about Mimi was that she’d dropped off her rent checks on time, and she’d been a quiet tenant up until she’d blown herself up. I doubted that the woman remembered Mimi at all, and had only looked in her records to see if Mimi Greene had paid her rent before turning on the gas and lighting the match.

  The thing that Candice and I had both registered from the visit with the woman, though, was that she knew that Mimi had committed suicide. We wondered about that enough to track down the fire marshal who’d issued the arson report and have a chat with him. He remembered having a talk over the phone with some guy claiming to have been Mimi’s fiancé. He said that the man had called him to inquire about the fire in her apartment, but he couldn’t remember if the guy had even given his full name. We asked him to check through his calendar in the hope that he might’ve written it down, and he promised to get back to us if he either remembered it or found it on his calendar. We never heard from him.

  At the end of another long day I headed back to the bureau with Candice and we took our carryout dinners into the conference room in search of a little peace and quiet, because the office was teeming with our agents, those from Homeland, and the police. The conference room, while empty of personnel, was littered with boxes and files, all involving the bombings. You couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about the case, and most of Austin was petrified to go out because locals were convinced that the bombings were a terrorist cell at work.

  With a weary sigh I sat down at the table and lifted the lid of my grilled shrimp dinner. Candice was making me eat light so that I’d fit easily into my wedding dress…if there was a wedding. Cat was so mad at me she was practically spitting fire, and she’d now tasked Jenny Makeanote to pin me down on the remaining last-minute details. There were half a dozen voice mails from the poor assistant, and at some point I knew I’d need to put her out of her misery and call her back.

  We ate in moody silence for a bit. Candice and I were both frustrated with the lack of progress and not up for casual conversation. My gaze kept drifting to the clutter on the table. Nearby was a photo of someone who looked familiar to me. It was paper-clipped to a thin file. Curious, I pulled it closer and saw that the picture was the driver’s license photo of the photographer I’d ratted on at the FedEx bombing scene. The photog’s name was Simon Salisbury, and lifting the lid on the folder, I discovered he had a criminal record. Busted for drugs five years previously, he spent about six months in the county lockup. “What’cha got there?” Candice asked me.

  I looked up. “This is the file on that photographer we caught snapping pictures yesterday at the crime scene.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “He has a record. Drugs. Spent a little time at county.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Five years.”

  Candice tapped her fork with her index finger thoughtfully. “He owns his own business, right? The photography studio?”

  “He does,” I said, immediately knowing where she was going with that. “But he doesn’t look much like the sketch Haley gave us.” Haley had sat with an artist who’d drawn up a mock-up of the elusive Buzz. The sketch was pretty generic, showing a round-faced man with a thick neck and flat nose. He could have been anyone, really.

  “Oh, that sketch is ridiculous,” Candice scoffed. “It doesn’t even look like a real person. I mean, it’s so generic that it could be this dude,” Candice said, leaning over to look at the photo.

  My radar wasn’t buying that theory, however. “I don’t think it’s him.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “We should still run it by Haley to make doubly sure, but…” My voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  I closed the folder and stared at Simon’s photo. I didn’t like him. He seemed like a sort of weaselly character and his energy was suspicious—like he often skirted the line between right and wrong. “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I feel like he’s connected to all this somehow.”

  “Connected? You mean like he’s connected to this Buzz guy?”

  A small lightbulb went off in my mind. “Yes!” Turning to her excitedly, I said, “I think he knows who this Buzz guy is!”

  Candice checked her watch, then pushed her partially eaten dinner aside and slid the folder out of my hands. She opened the flap and trailed her finger down the page, which was a list of general information collected by the agent who’d interviewed Simon. “Let’s give him a call,” Candice said, pulling the conference room phone close to her so that she could dial. She waited through the rings and then mouthed, “Voice mail.” She left a message for Salisbury to call her, then hung up and gathered her purse and the file.

  “Let’s go to Haley’s first, then see if Simon’s home.”

  We met Haley in her living room with her parents sittin
g on either side of her protectively. We showed her the picture of Simon Salisbury, but her face showed no sign that she recognized him. “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Someone who may know Buzz,” Candice said casually. “Have you ever seen him before?”

  Haley shook her head. “No. He looks creepy.”

  I hid a smirk. Haley was pretty sharp. “You’re sure you’ve never seen him before?” I pressed. “He was never in the store with Buzz?”

  Haley shook her head again. “Buzz always came in alone.”

  “Did he ever mention having a friend who owned a photography studio?”

  Haley shook her head for a third time.

  Still, I was convinced there was a connection. We thanked Haley and her parents for their time, then headed out in search of the photographer.

  We went to the address listed on the info sheet, but there was no sign of either him or his car. We then headed over to the crime scene in case he’d decided to ignore the crime-scene tape and had entered his studio, but the entire strip mall was dark and quiet—the burned-out hull of the FedEx store still filling the air with an acrid smell.

  “Where is this guy?” I wondered.

  Candice yawned. It was going on nine o’clock and we’d already had a loooong couple of days. “Let’s camp out at his house until ten and see if he comes home.”

  After stopping at a nearby Starbucks, we did just that, but the stakeout was fruitless. We waited until midnight and Simon never came home.

  Calling it a night, we headed back to Candice’s, finding Brice asleep on the couch, surrounded by files. Candice gently woke him and made sure my “bed” was free of clutter, then promised to help track down Simon with me the next day.

  We had a slow start the next day, the three of us waking up exhausted and grumpy. I dug through my suitcase for something appropriate to wear, but I’d packed most of my business outfits and sent them on to the new house, so in the end I had to settle for jeans and a waist-length leather jacket. At least I had my black boots with me. Candice gave me a subtle once-over when she came out of her room, but she didn’t comment. Still, I made sure to let her know that my business attire had been packed up.