Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9) (22 page)

“Out as in on a break or—”

“She called in sick today. Said she has that cold that’s been going around.”

“Any idea when she’ll be back?”

“No.” She pointedly looked at her watch. “You could try tomorrow. She’s scheduled for the night shift.”

Without further chitchat, she walked past M.J. and pushed through the glass doors, letting in a chilly gust.

M.J. followed her outside, discouraged. Nearly thirty-six hours had passed since an anonymous caller had reported the bones in the woods, and still no one had interviewed the dispatcher who took the call.

M.J. stood on the sidewalk looking out at the square. It was already dark. The shops on Main Street were closing up for the night. M.J.’s gaze fell on a row of sheriff’s cruisers parked across the street. Several deputies in khaki uniforms and cowboy hats were milling around shooting the breeze. They made eye contact with her, but they weren’t exactly welcoming looks.

She averted her gaze and started down the sidewalk to her car, again wondering why Jacobs had sent her here. She wasn’t a fan of small towns. She was much more comfortable working in an urban setting where there was a mix of people and she didn’t stand out. Since showing up in Cypress County, she’d seen exactly three other Latinas. Two were maids at the Big Pines Motel, and the other was a murder victim.

M.J. shivered. The temperature was already dropping. She strode past the white gazebo in the town square.

She knew part of the reason the Bureau was here in the first place was to determine whether Catalina Reyes’s murder had been a hate crime. M.J. didn’t know. But she was well aware of the fact that not far from this place in the not-so-distant past, a black man had been chained to a pickup truck by white supremacists and dragged to his death. So maybe M.J. was here as sort of a human weather vane. Maybe Jacobs wanted her to stand in the middle of town and see which way the wind was blowing.

But she honestly didn’t know. The place was confusing, both friendly and inhospitable at the same time. And as far as the case went, various forces seemed to be conspiring against her, from the shifty-eyed sheriff to the common cold.

As she reached her car, she spotted Jeremy’s truck parked in front of Red’s BBQ. Interesting that he’d been leaving the county offices right as Amy Leahy’s shift should have ended. Coincidence? She decided to find out.

She crossed the square to the restaurant. The smell of barbecued brisket greeted her when she stepped inside. Jeremy was on a corner bar stool watching both the basketball game and the door.

M.J. smiled and walked up to him. “Hi again.”

He nodded. His face remained neutral, but she got the tiniest feeling he was glad to see her. Maybe she’d imagined it.

She took a stool and nodded at the menu in front of him. “Having dinner?”

“Picking up.”

“What’s good here?”

“All of it.”

She opened the menu and gave it a quick look. The bartender sauntered over, and M.J. ordered a brisket sandwich to go.

Jeremy was watching her. “What brings you to Cypress?” he asked.

“I need to talk to the emergency dispatcher, Amy Leahy.”

“Amy’s sick.”

“So I hear.”

M.J. watched him, waiting for more information. Was Amy his girlfriend? She didn’t think so. First of all, he didn’t seem like the type to have a girlfriend—too much conversation involved. And if he did have one, he probably wouldn’t need some receptionist to tell him she hadn’t gone to work today.

M.J. leaned an elbow on the bar. “So, what’s the deal with you and Amy?”

His eyebrows tipped up.

“Is she . . . your girlfriend? Your source?”

“My source?”

She shrugged. “We know you and Liam are getting inside information somewhere. Tara was thinking one of the deputies, but my bet’s on the emergency dispatcher.”

Something flickered in his eyes, maybe amusement. He didn’t know what to make of her, but at least he was listening. His gaze hadn’t strayed to the TV above the bar, which M.J. considered a victory.

“So which is it?” she asked.

“Amy’s a friend.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, still looking amused. Did he think she was hitting on him?

The bartender walked over with a pair of to-go bags, and Jeremy seemed to welcome the interruption. They handed over their credit cards. After they finished paying and collected their food, Jeremy held the door for her as she stepped outside. His gaze scanned the streets, the square, the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. The deputies were gone now.

“Where’re you headed?” M.J. asked him.

“Home.”

“And where is that, exactly?” She was being nosy again, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never met a professional bodyguard before, and she was curious how it worked.

“I have an apartment in town,” he said. “But when Liam’s gone I stay at the ranch.”

“To hold down the fort?”

“That’s right. Where’re you parked?”

“By the admin building.”

He started walking, and she realized he intended to escort her all the way to her car. She had no idea why that gave her a little lift, but it did.

“So,” she said to fill the silence, “you know, they formed a task force today.”

“I heard.”

“Tara’s in charge.”

He didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t tell whether he’d known that, too.

Did he also know that Tara’s first order of business was to take a close look at Wolfe Security? She believed Liam’s men fit the profile of the UNSUB, which meant that Jeremy was going to be looked at right along with everyone else.

Given his connection to Catalina, he had to have known this from the beginning. Maybe that was why he was so tight-lipped around her.

They reached her car, and M.J. turned to face him. He towered over her, and she caught something in his look, not amusement anymore but something else. Interest. Butterflies flitted to life in her stomach. The good kind.

She imagined inviting him back to her motel for dinner. Only it wouldn’t just be dinner. An invitation like that could only mean one thing.

She stood gazing up at him, heart thudding. Part of her wanted to do it. Another part of her thought she was crazy. She imagined him standing in her room, looking down at her as he was right now. If sex was involved, would he manage some small talk first? Or would he get right to the point?

He glanced around, and suddenly he looked like a bodyguard again, all business. His gaze met hers, and he nodded briskly.

“Drive safe,” he told her.

She opened her door. “I will.”

THE MEN WERE
easy to spot, and Tara watched them, waiting for her moment. They wore suits and holsters and had transparent radio receivers clipped to their ears, and every one of them noticed her—she was sure of it. Lurking near the gift shop and scrolling through her phone, she was just the sort of person they were trained to pick up on: someone trying to blend in, someone doing just enough to look busy but not anything that would attract attention.

One by one, they filed into the elevator. Liam was nowhere, though, and her plan of bumping into him was starting to seem far-fetched. He might have taken the service elevator or the stairwell.

“Hi.”

She turned around, startled. “Damn, don’t creep up on people like that.”

Liam stepped closer. “Why not?”

She looked him over, trying to get her heart rate back to normal. He wore all black, from the T-shirt that stretched tautly over his muscles to the combat boots on his feet.

“Why are you in Houston?” he asked.

“I live here.”

“Not lately.”

He was right. She’d spent the last five nights at motels, only swinging by her apartment once for necessities. Living out of a duffel was getting old, but she’d just have to deal with it. Liam evidently dealt with it a lot.

“I need to talk to you,” she told him. “You have time for a break?”

He held her gaze for a moment. Then his attention dropped to her neck, where the collar of her shirt didn’t quite hide her cuts.

He took out his phone and made a call. “What’s your twenty?” he asked, then listened a moment. “So, he’s in for the night?” He checked his watch. “Okay, you’re in charge. I’ll check in at 2100.” He hung up and looked at her. “You hungry?”

“No, but I could use a drink.”

She looked him over as he led her across the lobby. He exuded tension tonight. It was in his shoulders, his gaze, the tight set of his jaw. She glanced down and noticed the talclike dust on his boots.

“Long day?” she asked.

“I was on rooftop overwatch for three hours. Willet gave a speech on the steps of the federal courthouse.”

“God, why? It’s forty degrees out.”

“His strategists wanted the backdrop.”

The bar was dark and quiet. He found a corner booth and ushered her in first, then slid around so he had a clear line of sight to the door.

“I’d think he’d want to avoid open-air venues if he’s getting death threats,” Tara said.

“You’d think.”

“Did you try to talk him out of it?”

“I always try.” He signaled a waitress. “Sometimes they listen, sometimes not. When they don’t, I’m forced to make the best of it.”

The waitress stepped up and flashed Liam a smile. “What can I get for you?”

He nodded at Tara.

“Jack and Coke,” she said.

The waitress turned to Liam.

“Two Cokes,” he said. “And a hamburger, rare, no onions.”

The waitress left, and Tara looked at him. His gaze scanned the bar—searching for what, she didn’t know.

“So,” Tara said, trying to sound casual even though this meeting wasn’t. Liam knew damn well she wouldn’t come all the way here without a reason. “What was the candidate’s speech about?”

“The usual.”

“Does he do the same speech, over and over?”

“It varies a little. He switches jokes, depending on the audience.”

“You must get bored out of your mind listening to it.”

“I don’t listen.” His attention settled on her. “Listening’s a distraction.”

“You need to be in the moment, every moment.”

“That’s right.”

He leaned back in the booth, resting his arm on the back of his seat. At first glance, he seemed relaxed, but Tara knew better. There was an intensity to him, always. She studied the lines around his eyes and thought of how unjust it was that men actually looked good with crow’s feet.

“You ever get tired of it?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“Looking for assassins all the time.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “What’s an assassin look like?”

“Don’t be glib.”

“I’m serious.”

“You know what I mean. I’d think it would get tedious looking for bad guys everywhere you go.”

“I don’t look for bad guys. Or assassins. Fact, I try not to look for anything.”

“How do you mean?”

“Looking for something—some specific
thing
, like an ‘assassin’—that clutters your mind. It keeps you from seeing what’s there right in front of you.” He eased forward, seeming to warm up to the topic. “We train our people to be alert and observant without making judgments. If you spend your time making judgments, you’ll get sidetracked and miss something.”

She frowned. “So when you’re watching a crowd, how do you figure out who’s a suspect?”

“A suspect is anyone who draws your attention. That’s it. You don’t need to analyze it. Don’t overthink it, just go with your instincts. You want an unfiltered observation.”

The server dropped off their drinks. Tara took a sip, watching him.

“So if it’s all instinct,” she said, “why do your guys need so much training?”

“A lot of the training is about responding to a threat. Most people duck for cover if they hear a gunshot. We train our people to have the opposite response, to move toward danger, not away. That’s why we hire so many combat veterans.”

Tara’s pulse picked up. At last they were getting to what she really wanted to talk about. “What portion of your people are from military backgrounds?” she asked.

“Around seventy percent.”

“That’s a lot.”

“One reason we do so much screening is that the people coming back from overseas, a lot of them have the training, the discipline, and the maturity we’re looking for. But some are messed up, and that’s the cold, hard truth.” He paused. “So, yeah, I screen people. I’d be irresponsible not to. My business is about people, so I spend a lot of effort making sure I have the right ones for the job.”

“But you never know what you don’t know about someone,” she said.

“True. Sometimes it boils down to a judgment call.” He glanced out across the bar. “War changes people. You’re never quite the same when you come home.” He looked at her. “Everyone comes back with at least some adjustment problems. Unless they were a fobbit, and even then.”

“What’s a fobbit?”

“A guy who stays on the forward operating base, never leaves the wire. Our unit saw a lot of combat, so we were in the thick of it.”

“And that’s good?”

“It can be,” he said. “Guys who’ve been in combat, they’re used to bullets and explosions and other kinds of chaos. They know how to react in that environment without freezing up.”

She thought of her reaction last night.
Freezing up
was an understatement. And she’d had SWAT training. Theoretically, she should be immune to the sound of gunfire, but having live ammunition aimed right at her changed things. Somehow her brain had known instantly that it wasn’t a training simulation.

“You’re thinking about yesterday,” he said. “I can see it in your face.”

“Actually, I’m thinking how I don’t have combat experience. So if I applied for a job with Wolfe Security, I’m guessing I wouldn’t make the cut.”

“It’s doubtful.”

That annoyed her. “Do you hire
any
women? Even veterans?”

“It’s not that you’re a woman. If anything, that’s a selling point.”

“Right.”

“It is. Women are more in touch with their instincts,” he said. “It’s a survival thing. What women lack in physical strength they have to make up for by paying attention. How many times have you been in an elevator and some guy steps on and your guard goes up?”