by Diana Palmer
Grace couldn’t resist a smile. Redheaded Tess was a tiger when she lost her temper.
* * *
GARON AND MARQUEZ had gone together to the outskirts of the city to interview, among many others, a witness who said he saw a shadowy figure take the child out of her house late one night. Garon had a BlackBerry, like Marquez’s. It came in handy here.
“Couldn’t swear to it,” the witness, Sheldon, told them. He lived next door to the child who had been abducted. “But he looked sort of like a drifter I saw near the computer shop in town. I write software,” he added in a lazy tone. “The man was tall, thin, completely bald on top. Middle-aged. He looked dirty. And he limped.”
“Could you see the child?” Garon asked.
He shrugged. “He was carrying something. It could have been a bundle of clothes for all I know. I was up late. I went to the kitchen for water, and there he was. It wasn’t until the next morning that I heard the child was missing. I did tell the police.”
“Yes, we had the patrolman’s report,” Marquez replied. He gave the man a long, steady scrutiny, noting his gloves. “Why do you wear gloves in the house?” he asked.
“I had an accident when I was a child,” the man replied, his eyes growing cold. “I have scars on them. People stare.”
“Sorry,” Marquez said.
“Can you type like that?” Garon queried, noting how very white the wrists were above the gloves.
“Yes, they’re kid leather, very thin.”
“Well, thanks,” Garon said, putting away his BlackBerry.
“Anytime,” he replied, rising from his chair. He was a tall, timid sort of man who seemed to like the best computers money could buy. He had two, a base computer and an expensive laptop. He said he had a girlfriend, but he lived alone in the small apartment complex just inside the San Antonio city limits.
“How long have you lived here?” Marquez asked.
“About a year,” he said. He smiled pleasantly. “I don’t stay one place much. I get restless. And my job is portable. All I really need is a post office.”
“Well, thanks again. If you think of anything else, give us a call,” Marquez added, handing him a business card.
The man looked at it curiously. “Sure. Sure I will.” He smiled oddly. “How’s the case coming? Any leads?”
“We’re hoping you might have given us one,” Marquez said.
“I can see how you’d need help finding this guy,” he remarked. “You cops aren’t required to have much education, are you? I was invited to join MENSA.”
MENSA, the organization for geniuses. Garon gave the man an odd look. “Were you?”
“Hey, I might only have two years of college, but the Fed here—” Marquez indicated Garon “—he’s got a degree.”
The man stared at Garon without blinking. It was disconcerting. “Fed?”
“Sure,” Marquez said. “He’s FBI.”
“I…I didn’t know they’d called the Bureau in on this case,” the man stammered.
“We requested his help,” Marquez said. He didn’t say why.
The man looked less confident. “Well, of course, the FBI would have experts on serial murder,” he murmured, almost to himself, “and you’d need one for this case.”
Garon frowned. “Why do you think this case is a serial killing?”
The man laughed hollowly. “No reason. It’s just, there was a very similar case in the papers last year sometime. That was a child, too. It was in Texas somewhere. Two of them would make it serial, wouldn’t it?”
Garon stared at him. “We’re not prepared to call it that just yet.”
The man was all smiles as he walked them out. “Anything more I can do, I’ll be here. Just ask.”
Marquez and Garon left, walking slowly back to the Bureau car that Garon had driven here in. The man watched them leave, waving again as they got into the car and pulled away.
“I don’t like him,” Marquez said suddenly.
“Why not?”
Marquez shifted, adjusting his seat belt. “I don’t know. There’s something about him. Something not right.”
Garon gave him a curious look. “How long have you worked homicide?”
“Four years. Why?”
Garon smiled to himself. “You carry a gun with you when you empty your trash can.”
Marquez’s eyes widened. “How the hell did you know that?”
“You keep one by the bed, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen and you wear a spare in an ankle holster.”
“Who’s being investigated here?” the younger man demanded.
“I’m right. You know I am.”
Marquez made a rough sound in his throat. “They aren’t catching me off guard,” he said firmly.
“You need to work in another area for a while,” he commented. “Too many homicides will burn you out.”
“And you’d know this, how?”
“I was in the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, and then in SWAT,” he said. “I wanted something to keep my mind busy. But I saw too many dead people. I woke up one night with a victim sitting in the chair beside my bed, asking why I didn’t shoot before the kidnapper did. The victim had been a hostage.” He shrugged. “You can work homicides too long.”
Marquez laughed hollowly. “I guess so.”
“But don’t ask for a transfer until we solve this case,” Garon added. “I think you’re right about the murders being related. He’s good. He’s very good. He put the body in a field near the road, where it would be found easily. He wanted her found. If your crime scene investigator was right, she’d been tortured for some time. That means the killer has to have a place where he feels comfortable keeping a child bound, without fear of discovery. It also means he’s cocky. He thinks he’s smarter than we are.”
“Did you ever do profiling?”
Garon shook his head. “We have professionals who do that. But I’ve read the crime scene report and talked to the parents. I’ve worked serial killings before. This guy is a sadistic killer. He likes to hurt children. He gets off on their pain.”
“Organized or disorganized?”
“Organized, definitely,” Garon replied, stopping at a red light. “He took time to dress the child and even put her shoes and socks back on. He posed her at the site where she was found. He tied a red ribbon around her neck. In fact,” he added grimly, “she was likely strangled with the ribbon.”
“You think there’s a connection to the Palo Verde case?”
“Yes, and also to the Del Rio case two years ago.”
“That would make three similar child murders in three years,” Marquez said.
He nodded. “And that makes it serial murder. We’re going to drive over to Del Rio right now,” he added, making a turn. “If we can’t get anybody to talk to us on the phone or via e-mail, we’ll just drop in for coffee.”
“I’ll bet you they drink instant,” Marquez muttered.
“I’ll bet you’re right.”
In fact, they did. There was only one policeman on duty when they arrived, and he was responsible for every facet of policing.
He apologized for not answering their calls. “We’ve had a clown calling the office day and night to report ghostly apparitions,” he muttered. “The guy’s got two screws loose and every time we ignore him, he threatens us with his family’s lawyers. They’re rich, his family.” He shook his head. “It was better when we had the voodoo guy, trying to put spells on us by sticking pins in a G.I. Joe doll.”
Garon smiled despite himself. “We want to know what you’ve got on the child killing year before last.”
He frowned. “Now that’s a funny thing,” he said. “No, I don’t mean the killing was funny. There was this guy, said he was a reporter for one of the east Texas dailies. He asked to see the file on the murder. I figured it wouldn’t hurt, to have a little publicity. Might turn up a suspect. I had a call, so I left the guy with the file and told him I’d be right back. I had to work an accident, a
nd wait for the state police because there were injuries. By the time I got back to the office, the reporter was gone. The phone started ringing. The file was on the desk, so I just stuck it back in the cabinet and answered the phone.” He sipped coffee. “Next day, I wanted to take another look at the case, so I pulled out the file. It had ten sheets of blank paper in it. No evidence, no crime scene photos, no nothing.”
“Damn!” Marquez grumbled.
“I know, it was naïve to leave the guy alone with the file. But I figured I could track him down. I phoned every daily in east Texas.”
“He didn’t work for any newspaper,” Garon figured.
“Apparently not.”
“What was in the file?” Marquez asked.
“Crime scene photos, trace evidence, swatches of the child’s underwear.”
Garon frowned. “Nothing else?”
“Not really.”
“Did you have negatives of the photos?”
“No, but I figured the photographer would, so I phoned him.” He shook his head. “He’d had a fire in his studio and all the negatives were gone.”
Garon and Marquez looked at each other curiously. It was some coincidence, those two mishaps.
“You’re sure there was no other evidence?” Marquez persisted.
The police officer pursed his lips. “Well, yes, there was the long piece of wide silk ribbon he used to strangle her…”
“Ribbon?” Garon asked quickly. “What color?”
“Why, it was red,” the officer replied. “Blood-red.”
CHAPTER 7
GRACE WAS SITTING IN the living room watching the news when Garon came in, tired and hungry. It was obvious that he didn’t work an average eight-hour day. In fact, FBI agents were expected to work ten-hour days, and they were paid accordingly.
He sat down in his big armchair. “What a day,” he said heavily.
“You’re still working on the little girl’s murder?” she asked.
He nodded. “That’s all I’ve done today. But my squad is trying to track down a team of bank robbers who carry automatic weapons. And on my desk, waiting, are a drive-by shooting, a gang murder, a supposed suicide and an attempted murder that the victim’s spouse hired a hit man to commit.” He glanced at her with a weary smile. “She had the bad luck to solicit an FBI agent to do the dirty deed.”
“Entrapment,” Grace chided.
He chuckled, leaned back and loosened his tie.
“That’s exactly what the perpetrator called it. You don’t solicit hired killers in bars that law enforcement personnel are known to frequent. The man she asked came straight to us.”
Miss Turner heard him come in and paused at the doorway. “You ready to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, then.”
“Shall I bring Grace?”
“That would be nice.”
He stood up and moved to where Grace was sitting. She colored prettily when he reached her, and those shy gray eyes made him feel odd inside.
He bent toward her. “Put your arms around me,” he said in a low, soft tone.
She caught her breath. He did have the sexiest voice she’d ever heard. She lifted her arms around his neck and felt him pick her up as if she weighed no more than a feather. He looked down into her eyes at close range and then at her mouth.
“I could get used to this,” he remarked.
Before she realized his intention, he brushed his hard mouth over her lips in a shiver of contact that made her heart jump.
He drew back, watching her reaction. She seemed nervous, but she wasn’t trying to get away. He bent again. This time, he brushed her lips apart with slow, sensuous motions and caught her upper lip between both of his in a sensuous, nibbling motion. She trembled. Her lips followed his as she gave in to the first rush of desire she’d ever felt for a man.
He laughed softly, under his breath, and then he kissed her. He was no longer teasing. His mouth was demanding, masterful. He curled her into his body, crushing her soft breasts against his broad chest. He groaned faintly and pressed her lips apart with a hunger that was contagious.
Just as her arms tightened around his neck, Miss Turner called down the hall, “It’s getting cold!”
His head jerked up. He stared at Grace with mingled desire and irritation. She was drawing him in, with her vulnerabilities and her sense of humor, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want her in his life. But her eyes were soft and searching, and his heart was still racing from the heady contact with her lips. He shifted her and walked down the hall toward the dining room, mentally reciting square root solutions all the way.
He hardly knew what he was eating. Grace’s sudden response had sent him spinning. He knew he should back off. But he wasn’t certain that he could. She appealed to him strongly.
They stared at each other all through supper, with Miss Turner watching covertly and grinning.
After supper, Garon carried her back into the living room and put her down gently on the sofa. Despite her ardor earlier, she was jittery and inhibited with him. He sat down in his armchair across from her. He didn’t turn on the television.
“Something happened to you,” he began quietly, wanting to understand her. His eyes narrowed when she reacted suddenly to the words. He leaned forward. “Yes. When you were a child. Someone made advances to you, frightened you.”
She bit her lower lip, hard, and averted her eyes. “How could you know that?” she asked, stiffening as she waited for the answer. He couldn’t know…could he?
“I’ve worked in law enforcement all my adult life,” he said simply. “I know the signs.”
She relaxed, only a little. Then she frowned and glanced back at him when she realized what he was insinuating. “Signs?”
“Yes. You cover your body in every way possible. You don’t wear makeup. You screw your hair up and keep your eyes down. You stiffen if a man comes too close.” His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Some man touched you inappropriately.”
She swallowed, hard. “Yes,” she bit off.
“Not a boyfriend.”
Her face colored. “Definitely not.”
“A relative?”
She shook her head. It was hard to talk about it. She couldn’t, even now, tell him the truth. At least, not the whole truth. She couldn’t bear to remember. “A stranger,” she corrected.
“Did you tell someone?”
She had, eventually. At the hospital. “Yes.”
He drew in a long breath. “Did they catch him?”
She smiled sadly. “No. He was gone when the police got there.”
“I don’t suppose your mother got you into therapy.”
“She was long gone by then, like my father,” she said simply. “My grandmother said we didn’t talk about such things to strangers.”
He wanted to curse roundly. No wonder she was messed up. Small towns and their secrets. “Were there any more cases like yours, at the time?”
“You mean, did they look for the man who did it,” she interpreted. “Yes, they did. But he wasn’t known locally. He didn’t leave a trail that anyone could follow. Even if he had, my grandmother convinced the police chief at the time to bury the file.”
“That was stupid.”
“Yes, it was,” she agreed. “He might still be doing it, somewhere.”
“If he’s still alive, he probably is,” he agreed coldly.
“Men who do inappropriate things to children don’t ever stop.”
It was worse than he knew, but she didn’t talk about it to anyone outside her family. She felt dirty when she discussed it.
He saw her discomfort. “Grace, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Everybody says that,” she bit off. “But he said it was! He said it was because I wore shorts and halter tops and…!”
“God in heaven, what sort of normal man is tempted by a child, whatever she wears?” he exploded.
That made her feel better. She searched his angry face. “I don�
�t suppose normal men would be,” she conceded.
He made an effort to calm his temper. It hurt him that a grown man could have approached a child that way, especially Grace. “Have you ever talked about it?”
“Only to Dr. Coltrain.”
So that was it. That explained her relationship with the redheaded doctor. He’d been her confessor. “I’ll bet he gave your grandmother hell about covering it up.”
She managed a smile. “He did. But she gave it right back to him. She said it wasn’t anything I couldn’t get over.” That was a joke, but he wouldn’t know.
He nodded. “Most women come to terms with it, eventually. Counseling helps.”
“So they say.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t go out much, do you?”
She shook her head. “I told you. I don’t like being touched.”
He pursed his lips, remembering the growing excitement of the kiss they’d shared earlier. “I’m working on that,” he drawled.
She laughed, surprised, delighted, by his attitude. He accepted her limitations without anger, without question. It was the first time she’d felt she could trust a man closer than arm’s length.
“You’re a nice man,” she commented.
His eyebrows arched. “Nice? I’m extraordinary!”
She laughed and started to reply when his pager sounded.
He pulled it from his belt and read it, grimacing. “Damn.” He got up and went to the desk where he’d placed his cell phone. He punched a number into it and put it to his ear. “Grier,” he said.
Someone spoke to him. He looked solemn. He nodded. “Yes, I can do that. When? All right. I’ll meet you there. Better call Marquez. Fine.”
He snapped the phone shut and glanced toward Grace. “I have to go. The medical examiner’s starting the autopsy on the child. I need to be present. There’ll be trace evidence to secure, in addition to the information the autopsy will give us.”
She gasped. “You have to watch?!”
“It isn’t something I look forward to, but yes, I do occasionally need to watch. We gather forensic evidence while it’s going on. The chain of evidence is important. If we break one link, if we ever catch this SOB, we won’t be able to convict him.”