Thread of Fear (17 page)

F
iona’s nerves started jumping the second she pointed her car south toward Graingerville.

Jack hadn’t called her. Her assistance on the Natalie Fuentes case had been
requested
.
Immediately.
But instead of Jack Bowman showing up at her door to ply her with his unique brand of persuasion, Special Agent Ray Santos of the FBI had made the invitation by phone.

And Fiona had accepted.

She’d stepped out of her afternoon art class, taken a three-minute phone call from Santos, and jumped right in her Honda.

And now she barreled down the interstate thinking of Jack. He’d put his heart into this case, and whether he realized it or not, it had just been ripped away from him.

She suspected he knew. And she suspected he was pissed. Royally. The Grainger County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with the FBI, was now leading the investigation. According to Santos, federal and local investigators were looking into the murder of Natalie Fuentes, as well as two suspicious disappearances in Grainger County, on the theory that the incidents were connected. What had started out as a determined effort on the part of one small-town
police chief had just turned into one of the biggest joint law enforcement efforts in the state, because whether by plan or happenstance, the man Jack was hunting had finally made headlines.

Grainger County’s latest missing woman was twenty-five-year-old Marissa Pico, the youngest daughter of Ben Pico, prominent south Texas rancher and longtime member of the Texas Senate.

Fiona took the Highway 44 exit, passing the now-familiar truck stop where she’d bought coffee a few days before. She wondered if she’d be pulling in again tonight for a shot of caffeine before making the drive home, or whether she’d end up staying the night.

With Jack.

Given their last conversation, she highly doubted it. Which was better, anyway, because she needed to get things back on a professional footing with him. She’d gotten too emotional yesterday—probably due to a lack of sleep—and she regretted it now. She wouldn’t let it happen again. She was here to work, not worry about her personal life.

She smoothed her lapels and checked her face in the mirror. Her hair was back, her makeup minimal. It was just the look she preferred when she dealt with law enforcement types, but it was all wrong for a meeting with Brady Cox. And the suitcase she normally kept in her trunk was parked inside her apartment, awaiting laundry day. She’d have to improvise.

The highway cut a path through the fields, through the never-ending rows of shriveled plants. Fiona gazed out, wondering what sort of plants they were and if there was any chance at all they’d survived the freeze. She knew noth
ing about agriculture, and as the endless acres raced by, she felt the full force of her ignorance.

She was an outsider here.

Unlike Jack—who seemed just as at home in a sushi bar as he did behind the wheel of his super-macho pickup truck—Fiona wasn’t adaptable. She needed the city. She needed congestion. She needed masses of people where she could lose herself and simply exist, anonymously, without the constant scrutiny of others. Courtney called it a defense mechanism, and maybe it was, but sometimes Fiona didn’t want roots or relationships. Sometimes all she wanted was her own company and the tantalizing option of remaining nameless. welcome to graingerville. please drive friendly.

She passed the road sign, remembering her talk with Ginny just a few days ago. She’d said Jack was a hardheaded man, just like his father, and that his family were the salt of the earth.

It was a quaint description, but Fiona had no trouble believing it. She wondered how such a man would stand up to the onslaught of federal investigators, politicians, and reporters who would be chomping at his heels by the end of today.

Fiona drove through downtown, past the police station, and the library, and the familiar Texaco station where she’d stopped for gas during her first visit. She turned into the parking lot of the Grainger County Administrative Building and spotted a row of news vans already lined up in the spaces nearest the entrance. Their antennae towered over the parking lot, transmitting images of Graingerville to satellites hovering high above the earth.

Fiona took a deep breath, smoothed her hair, and braced herself for the circus.

Randy Rudd was in his element. Surrounded by microphones and cameras, he seemed bigger, taller, swollen to nearly twice his usual size by all the attention.

Of course, it could be the lifts. Jack watched from the side of the meeting hall, arms crossed, as the Grainger County sheriff took the stage. He wore his extra-special ostrich-skin boots plus his usual ten-gallon hat. The overall effect was that the five-eight lawman appeared six feet tall. He straightened the microphone unnecessarily, made eye contact with key television reporters, and aimed a somber look at his audience. Everyone sat anxiously awaiting news from the Man in Charge.

This was such bullshit. Both Randy and the mayor had done a complete 180. The Natalie Fuentes case had gone from being a pesky annoyance for Jack to deal with to priority number one in the flash of a camera bulb.

Jack scanned the room, trying not to grind his teeth to nubs as Randy spouted sound bites. Jack told himself it didn’t matter. So the mayor had sidelined him, so what? So the bastard had threatened to have his badge if he so much as sneezed in front of a camera? Evidently, the black eye wasn’t good for PR. Ditto for Jack’s surly attitude. He didn’t give a shit, really, as long as he still had access to the case. Randy and the mayor could have the publicity; Jack simply wanted an arrest. And if Randy needed to be the guy slapping the cuffs on him, so be it. If Randy needed to pose with a bunch of FBI hotshots, virtually guaranteeing his reelection next November on a tough-on-crime platform, that
was fine with Jack, too. But what Jack
wouldn’t
tolerate—not for one minute—was some pencil-dick sheriff stepping in and messing with the actual police work. Randy was a politician to the core. He was skilled in front of a camera, but what he knew about homicide investigation couldn’t fill a thimble.

Sharon sidled up next to Jack and gave a barely audible whistle. “Who’s
that
?” she asked.

He followed her gaze to the line of agents and sheriff’s deputies standing off to the side, behind Randy.

“Who?”

“The suit,” she said.

Randy’s admin, who stood on Jack’s other side, leaned forward. “He’s FBI,” Myrna said. “Special Agent Santos.”

The two women exchanged a look Jack had seen before, usually when his sisters discussed Colin Firth or Brad Pitt.

“I wonder what he’s packing,” Sharon muttered, and Myrna snickered.

Jack shot Sharon his stern chief-of-police look, and she promptly shut up. Then he turned his attention to the fed. Ray Santos, of the San Antonio VCMO unit, stood silently behind the sheriff, watching the room with an eagle eye. This was the guy whose brilliant idea it was to get Fiona back down here to reinterview Brady Cox. Jack had checked out his background. Santos had a PhD in psychology, but instead of analyzing case files from some basement at Quantico, he had spent the past five years on the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders squad in San Antonio, which told Jack two things: Santos had some real, down-and-dirty police work under his belt, but there was a strong chance he spoke psychobabble.

Fucking feds. Jack welcomed their resources on this case, but he didn’t want to waste time sitting around a conference table talking about how their perp was probably a bed wetter at age ten. They needed to catch the son of a bitch, not profile him to death.

Randy droned on, taking full advantage of his captive audience. Jack’s gaze traveled over the gaggle of reporters, who had come from near and far to get a piece of the story. The print guys wore jeans and button-down shirts with cheap ties. The TV ones—mostly women—had dramatic hair and expensive white teeth. Jack almost didn’t notice the woman in beige seated way at the back. Unisex clothes, no smile, but Jack’s pulse picked up the second he saw her.

Fiona sat rigidly in her chair, hands folded, listening as Randy assured his viewing audience that “come hell or high water, the Grainger County Sheriff’s Department will bring Marissa home.”

Fiona winced at the statement. She would be thinking what Jack was: that Randy was way out of bounds making a pledge like that. Marissa had been abducted. Violently. Quite possibly by the same person who took Natalie Fuentes. So if Marissa was alive at all right now, she was likely being tortured by a sociopath. And if she wasn’t alive—if he’d already raped her and strangled her and ditched her body—her remains might never be found. Like Veronica Morales, she could be gone for years. Or forever.

And yet Randy stood there swelled up like a toad and promised Marissa’s parents—and millions of television viewers—he could bring her home.

Fiona glanced over and caught Jack watching her. A heated look passed between them, and he wondered what
she was thinking. Was she pissed off at Randy, like he was? Or was she still angry about his “advice” yesterday? Or maybe she was annoyed because she’d been roped in again.

He didn’t think she was upset over that. He was getting to know her now, and he’d learned she was dedicated. Committed. She had a personal stake in every one of her cases. And just like him, she probably wouldn’t get a good night’s rest until the clues came together and their man was arrested.

Fiona looked down and fidgeted with her sleeves as the audience erupted into a chorus of questions. Randy fielded them, one by one, somehow managing not to make an ass of himself as he discussed investigative procedures and forensic evidence he knew almost nothing about. Jack watched Fiona, with her ugly suit and no-nonsense hairstyle. At some point he’d begun to view all her clothes as disguises, and this one in particular really irritated him. She was hiding from him, and everyone else, thinking if she presented a cool enough front, nothing would get to her. Not the case. Not the victim.

Not him.

The press conference finally ended, and Fiona stood up and gathered her purse. Her body language said she intended to leave, and he decided then and there he wasn’t going to let her.

“Miss Glass?”

Fiona stepped away from the mob of reporters and spotted a dark-haired man in a business suit striding toward her. She’d noticed him at the press conference, as had every woman in the room, she guessed.

“Agent Santos.” She held out her hand.

“So it’s true.” He gave her hand a firm shake, which she appreciated. “There’s a rumor about you, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re psychic.”

She pulled her hand away, suddenly uncomfortable. This man was handsome, but the intensity of his gaze made her self-conscious.

She cleared her throat. “So. You want me to talk to Brady?”

He continued to stare at her, and she had the strangest sensation he was trying to read her thoughts.

“I talked to Garrett Sullivan early this morning,” he said. “He’s very impressed with your work. Says you’re one of the best interviewers he’s ever seen. That you have a way with young children.”

Fiona clutched her purse. She’d never been easy with compliments. “How’s his case going?”

“Well. They’ve got an interesting new lead.”

“Any word on Shelby?”

“I haven’t heard.”

A man bearing a tripod on his shoulder exited the meeting room, nearly knocking Fiona in the head. Santos took her by the elbow and steered her away from the crowd. His gaze never left her face.

“I’d like you to sit down with Brady again,” he said. “See if you can learn more about the vehicle in the Fuentes case. See if he can provide more information about the suspect’s clothing, too. Maybe he was wearing something distinctive that could give us a lead—maybe a hat or jacket with a logo on it.”

Fiona glanced past the agent. Jack was watching her from the other end of the corridor, and he had that same heated look he’d had during the press conference.

She turned her attention back to Santos. “I’ll do the best I can.”

She managed to escape the building without being recognized by any reporters. She pulled out her phone and called Sullivan, who answered on the first ring.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said.

“It’s no bother, but I can’t talk long.”

“What’s up with Shelby? I just met your friend Santos, and he said you’ve got something.”

“Yes and no,” Sullivan said, and her hopes dwindled. “We’ve found a Meridian, Mississippi, woman who got a call from Janovic.”

“Okay.”

“He wanted to set up a meeting about buying a used car. He’d seen her ad in the paper, apparently.”

“And?”

“And she showed up at his motel as scheduled, but Janovic had taken off. Most likely, he noticed his face all over the news and got spooked.”

“Was he with anyone?” Fiona held her breath.

“We don’t think so. The good part is, this woman provided us with a cell number. He’s using a stolen phone, and we’ve managed to track a few calls made on it during the past few days. Looks like he’s heading west. We don’t know where, precisely, but he’s on the run, so we’re expecting him to make a mistake soon.”

From the corner of her eye, Fiona saw Jack leaning
against the building, arms folded over his chest. He was watching her, waiting for her to finish the call and probably eavesdropping, too.

“Obviously, all this is confidential,” Sullivan said. “I shouldn’t be telling you.”

“Understood.”

“Listen, I have to go now.”

“Thanks for the update,” she said hurriedly, but he’d already hung up. She tucked her phone inside her bag.

“I thought you had class today.” Jack stood in front of her now with his hands on his hips. He was in street clothes today, no holster or badge in sight. The skin above his eyebrow had gone an interesting shade of green.

“Your eye looks terrible. Is that why they pulled you off the case?”

“I’m not off,” he said. “I’ve just been instructed to steer clear of the media.”