Guilty as Sin (17 page)

He wove through the crowd, nodding in greeting to the volunteers, most of whom he knew. As he got closer to Kate, he picked up on the snippets of their conversation.

“Nice, huh?” CJ was saying. “That’s exactly how guys like to be described.”

“What’s wrong with nice?” Kate asked.

CJ laughed. “Nice is the kiss of death for a guy. It’s like saying a girl has a nice personality.”

Despite his resolve to be all business, Tommy felt his hackles raise and his fists clench as Kate gave CJ a playful swat. “Based on what I’ve seen out there,” she said, “you could do a whole lot worse than nice.”

“You two look cozy,” Tommy said, regretting the words and his peevish tone the instant they left his mouth.

Kate looked up, her smile dissolving as she met Tommy’s hard stare. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

“I managed to ID Moto98 based on the IP address—”

“You could have called me. No need to come all the way down here,” CJ said, one dark eyebrow cocked as though he knew exactly why Tommy had gone to the trouble.

“There were other developments I wanted to go over in person,” Tommy said, schooling his expression into an impassive mask.

CJ made a quick announcement that his deputies would lead the first two search teams out as scheduled, while his team would be delayed.

The three went to the small office in the back of the space, ignoring the curious stares and whispers from the volunteers.

“So?” CJ said, his arms folded across his chest, his feet spread apart.

The office didn’t have any furniture except for an empty bookcase in the corner, so Tommy pulled his laptop out of his backpack and set it on top.

“I traced the IP address on the account back to a Roger Frankel of Grand Junction, Colorado.”

“I’ll call the local authorities and see if they can find him for questioning.”

Tommy shook his head. “Roger Frankel is seventy-eight years old and in a wheelchair.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t be making inappropriate contact with underage girls online,” Kate pointed out.

“But it does make him an unlikely candidate to physically carry off a healthy, able-bodied girl like Tricia,” Tommy said. “Besides, Frankel has no record or arrests for sexual misconduct. And then there’s the fact that his house was robbed over six months ago and the computer was among the items stolen.”

“You could have told us that to start,” Kate said. “How did you get all this anyway?”

Tommy gave her a pointed look.

“Right, you have your ways,” she said, exasperated. “I hope we never need to rely on any of this in court, because none of it will ever stand.”

“You can have a trial or you can have Tricia back safe.”

Kate recoiled from his harsh tone, and Tommy tried to ignore the pinching feeling in his chest. It wasn’t his job to make her feel good. “But here’s the really interesting bit I uncovered,” Tommy added, pulling a map up onto the screen. “When I look at the activity log on the wireless network at Jackson’s rental house, look what comes up.”

“Holy shit, that’s the same IP address,” CJ breathed. Tommy didn’t say anything, letting them read through the logs so they could reach the same conclusion he did. “He was using their network.”

“How close would he have to be to pick up the signal?” Kate asked.

“The network there has a range of about three hundred feet,” Tommy said.

Kate shivered beside him, and he could feel it ripple through every nerve. “He was so close, and no one ever saw anything.”

“There’s that pretty densely wooded area close to the house. Easy enough to hide, especially when he was there mostly after dark,” CJ pointed out.

“He was lurking on their network for two days before he made any contact,” Kate said. “Was he monitoring her, figuring out how she spent her time online? Is that possible?”

Tommy nodded. “It would take a sophisticated user, but it’s definitely possible.”

“So he stalks her online, befriends her, and encourages her to go out so he can be sure she’ll be alone and vulnerable,” Kate said, her voice tight with emotion.

“It’s a good bet he was watching her in person too,” Tommy said.

Kate nodded. “She might have even seen him, Brooke and Jackson too, and not even known it.”

“What else did you find out about Frankel?” CJ asked. “Any adult children who fit the profile who would have access to his computer?”

Tommy shook his head. “No children, no relatives that came up on the first search, but his insurance records show payments to a home healthcare service. I was planning to pull up records on anyone who visited his house in the past year.”

CJ nodded. “That would be great, and in the meantime, I’ll call the locals down there and make sure we get their cooperation in case we need to go and question anyone.”

Kate shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know if it’s such a great idea for you to be hacking into the files of a private corporation—”

“It is if it leads us to whoever took Tricia,” Tommy snapped.

“If it somehow gets out to the press that we’re using illegal methods to get our information, it could ruin the case, not to mention my reputation and the image of St. Anthony’s—”

“I don’t see how it will get out to the press unless one of us leaks it,” Tommy snapped. “And from what I’ve seen, you did a damn good job of trashing your reputation long before I ever came back on the scene.”

Kate’s face went white, and the look of devastation there hit him like a punch in the gut.

“Shit,” he said, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for—”

Kate held her hand up. “No, you’re right. As long as I can trust you two to keep this quiet we’ll be fine.” She looked at her watch and swore softly. “Speaking of the press, I’m scheduled to give a statement in twenty minutes and I need to prep.”

“We can meet back at my place,” Tommy said.

Kate shook her head. “John is expecting me at his place for lunch.”

Tommy couldn’t have stifled his snort of disdain if there had been a gun to his head.

“What’s your problem with him?” Kate snapped. Tommy was happy to see the color in her cheeks, the fight back in her after his cheap shot.

“He’s an entitled, self-important prick,” Tommy said, “who thinks his shit doesn’t stink.”

“He’s being very generous with the reward money.”

“Money he inherited from Daddy,” Tommy muttered.

“The business has been very successful since he took over, even in a recession. He must be doing something right,” Kate snapped back.

Tommy shrugged. “He always acted like the locals were beneath him, and that hasn’t changed a bit no matter how he thinks he’s going to come back and help the little people.”

“That’s not true—”

“It is kind of true,” CJ said. “Don’t get me wrong”—he backpedaled as Kate’s eyes narrowed—“I’m grateful for what he’s done for the town and the help he’s providing, but you have to admit he’s kind of a tool.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “You can think whatever you want of him, but I will always remember him as one of the few
people who reached out to me at a time when most of the people I cared about wouldn’t even look at me, much less speak to me.”

Her barb hit its mark, catching Tommy square in the chest even as he bit back the urge to correct her. Jesus, it shouldn’t hurt so much. He hadn’t let it hurt in years. She was just a kid, he’d told himself. They both were. She barely had any more control over the situation than he had.

Yeah, he could tell himself that all he wanted, but that didn’t keep the memory of the gut-twisting pain he’d felt all those years ago from trying to claw back to the surface. The memory of how he
had
reached out. And it had been Kate who had left him twisting in the wind after he’d opened up a vein and poured it onto a page, then stood by silently while her father did his damnedest to destroy his future.

She didn’t give a crap what Tommy Ibarra thought of her. No matter how many times Kate repeated it to herself, she couldn’t shake the sting of his words, the bone-deep hurt at the way he’d lashed out, striking her in what he knew to be her weakest point.

Of course his anger was to be expected. But it was still hard to reconcile the good-natured, smiling Tommy of her memories with the cold-hearted stranger who cared nothing for her and her feelings.

As he’d told her so bluntly, he wasn’t the same person he’d been. None of them was, and she’d do well to watch her back. Kate’s anger at Tommy disappeared as she pulled up in front of John’s lake house, overpowered by the wave of nostalgia that washed over her at the sight, so keen it stopped her breath in her chest.

When she’d agreed to have lunch here, she hadn’t realized how fast and hard the memories would hit her. She climbed out of the car and started up the walkway, only to stop in her tracks as she experienced a sharp, twisting vertigo. How many times had she parked in this driveway, walked up the front steps of the huge home built from logs and river rock? Caught the sweet smell of Andrea Burkhart’s peonies drifting in the hot summer wind?

The last time she had been here had been with her family as they all gathered for yet another crush of a barbecue. Her father’s hand had rested absently on her shoulder as she said hello to the Burkharts before he went off to the bar to get drinks for himself and her mother.

Lauren had waited for her father to turn his back before she rolled her eyes exaggeratedly in the direction of her latest crush.

Michael barely passed go before he took off down the beach to play football with a group of boys, his skinny tan arms pumping as he ran, his wide smile showing off the braces that were to come off when they got home, just in time for school to start.

Two days later he was dead.

Somehow, the fact that Michael had died without getting his braces off set free a new, fresh wave of grief so keen Kate barely made it to the front steps before her legs gave out.

Sometimes it hit her like this, unexpectedly, the pain so cutting she couldn’t even cry, so sharp she nearly blacked out. All she could do was sit with her head between her knees, struggling to breathe as she fought to beat the pain back before it consumed her.

“Kate?” The voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a deep well.

She squinted up at the dark shape silhouetted by sunlight.
Though she couldn’t make out his face, she recognized the familiar set of John’s shoulders. She tried to answer him, but her voice was frozen in her throat.

“Kate,” John repeated, the urgency in his tone breaking through the fog. “Are you okay? Do you need something? Some water?” He sank down on the stoop next to her and put his hand on her shoulder, but the warmth of his touch did little to chase away the cold that seemed to have settled deep in her bones.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to choke out between gasps. “Sometimes I—” Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest, and his face started to swim in front of her.

“Here,” John said, guiding her head between her knees. “Just relax and breathe.”

Kate struggled to do exactly that as he rubbed slow, gentle circles on her back and slowed his own breath to a steady, deep cadence.

Soon her heartbeat had calmed and her breath matched his. She lifted her head.

“You okay?”

Kate nodded, and he blew out a relieved breath. “Jesus, you scared me. For a second I thought you were going into anaphylactic shock or something.” Though he was smiling now, his blue eyes were still worried behind the thin lenses of his glasses.

“More like a combination panic attack and flashback,” Kate said. “It hasn’t happened in a long time but, being here, seeing this place…”

He grimaced. “Christ, I didn’t even consider that being here might bring back bad memories—”

“It’s okay,” Kate said. She pushed herself to her feet, immediately regretting it when her knees buckled under her.

John stood and caught her under her elbow, and she mustered
up a grateful smile. “It’s really not the bad memories that got to me. More like I got out of the car and suddenly remembered how happy we all were. Then it hits me all over again how we’re never going to get that back.”

She was grateful when John didn’t offer stupid platitudes about finding happiness again or how she couldn’t let what happened to Michael still affect her so deeply after so many years. Instead he just gave her a quick, sympathetic hug.