Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9) (8 page)

“Want the leftover pizza?” Tara nodded at the box.

“You keep it.”

After she left, Tara returned her attention to the screen. Her eyes felt gritty. She rewound the tape again, cursing herself for not being pushier. She should have stood up to Ingram that first night. She should have called a halt to what he was doing and insisted on waiting for an FBI evidence response team. Instead she’d tried to be diplomatic, and now the original crime scene had been trampled on, driven on, rained on, and otherwise screwed up beyond repair. And there was no turning back the clock.

Tara rubbed her eyes and tapped play. Again. By now, she’d memorized the entire eighteen-minute loop. Deputy Lardass circles the fire pit, zooming in on beer cans and cigarette butts and evidence markers. He pans to the trees and then jerks back again, yelling at one of the deputies to get his butt over here, he missed a can. He tromps down the trail leading to the body, obliterating footprints and other possible evidence with his big boots. He pauses at the edge of the clearing, muttering softly as the body comes into view. Sheriff Ingram is standing there, his face twisted with revulsion. He waves his deputy over and orders him to get a 360-degree view of the area.

Tara sighed and picked up a pizza crust. She nibbled on it, watching the wobbly footage.

More back-and-forth with Ingram. The camera jerks down as the deputy picks up a spotlight. More wobbling as he adjusts the camera. He pans it around the scene, and the next six minutes is a collage of leaves, twigs, tree stumps, and pine needles, with the occasional glimpse of the deputy’s boots as he combs the woods surrounding the crime scene.

Tara sat upright. She hit pause, then backed up the footage.

She watched again—leaves, twigs, tree stumps. A gnarled root.

“There.” She hit pause and used the touch pad on her computer to zoom in.

Something small and white amid the leaves. A cigarette butt.

“Son of a bitch.” Tara’s pulse was thrumming. It was right there. Physical evidence, possibly
DNA
evidence, just a stone’s throw from the body. And it hadn’t been marked or flagged.

She chewed her lip, thinking. She reached for her phone to call M.J., then changed her mind.

“Damn it.”

Tara stood up and glanced around. Her motel room was a sea of files and clothes and empty fast-food cups. She grabbed her jacket and checked the battery on her phone. Twenty percent. She stuffed it into her pocket.

Then she strapped on her holster and reached for her keys.

T
ara dipped over the low-water bridge, her headlights illuminating the narrow road. She rattled over the cattle guard, then rounded a bend and rolled to a stop before a police barricade.

She cut the engine and stared at the barrier. What was the point of it? The remote outdoor crime scene was impossible to wall off, so the wooden barricade did little more than signal to the morbidly curious that they’d found the right place.

Tara grabbed the heavy Maglite from beneath her seat and went around to the cargo space. She unlatched her evidence kit, which she’d made from a tackle box. Not wanting to juggle both the kit and the flashlight, she cherry-picked the items she would need: gloves, tweezers, envelopes, a glass vial. She tucked everything inside the pocket of her windbreaker.

She glanced up at the sky. Dark, moonless. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since she’d let herself into her motel room thinking she was in for the night.

She closed the cargo door and switched on the flashlight. She swept the beam through the darkness. It didn’t take her long to find the path.

Tara passed the fire pit where forty-eight hours ago a huddle of deputies had stood watching her with skeptical eyes. Slicing through the darkness with the Maglite, she retraced her steps through the forest, scouring the ground for any further evidence that might have been overlooked.

High above her, an owl called out.
Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo
.

Tara stared up at the pines. She glanced around. It was darker and colder than it had been the other night. Lonelier, too, which was good. She could concentrate without having to navigate the political obstacle course laid out by Ingram and his deputies.

She trained her gaze on the path, sweeping the light back and forth as she neared the location. Her footsteps slowed as she approached.

Catalina’s body had been cleared away, along with the leaves and debris surrounding it. Only a sad patch of dirt remained. Tara identified the spot by the equidistant marks in the soil where CSIs had staked out the inner crime scene with orange twine.

For a moment, Tara stared. Wind gusted between the trees, biting her through her jacket. The air was damp and tinged with sulfur. She switched off the flashlight and stood still, just listening, letting the place and the darkness settle around her.

Silver Springs Park, then here. Two separate crime scenes, both part of the geographical region known as the Piney Woods. Yesterday morning, Tara had combed the park, interviewing people and looking for clues. But this site had more to offer. Silver Springs Park was about Catalina. She’d chosen it, for whatever reason.

This place belonged to her killer.

He’d brought her here, posed her, and left her.
He’d
chosen this place. Why? Tara didn’t know, but it revealed something about him as surely as any fingerprint.

Bile rose in Tara’s throat as she pictured the mutilated corpse. The body said something. The setting said something. The killer had selected a wooded spot but not a secret one. He’d chosen a known hangout with enough traffic to ensure discovery, a guaranteed audience for his show.

Tara switched on the flashlight. She sidestepped the empty patch of dirt and found the path into the woods. Ingram believed the killer had used the path moving to and from his vehicle. The reports weren’t in yet, but the CSIs Tara had interviewed said the tire tracks were consistent with an SUV or a pickup, which in Texas narrowed it down to just less than half of registered vehicles.

Tara swept her flashlight back and forth until she spotted the tree, a sycamore. She recognized it from the video, and her pulse quickened as she stepped closer to examine its knobby roots. She scanned the dirt, the leaves . . . nothing.

She crouched down. Using a stick, she gently raked away pine needles and leaves until the base of the tree was swept clean.

Disappointment welled in her chest. She slipped the phone from her pocket. She’d taken a screen shot back at the motel, and now she compared the image from the crime-scene video with the tree in front of her. It was the same.

Except the cigarette butt was gone.

Tara stood and tucked her phone into her pocket. It had been a fluke, but she’d been hoping. Frustration burned her throat. Her limbs felt heavy. Three weeks’ worth of endless workdays and sleepless nights seemed to catch up with her, and she was suddenly so tired she could hardly stand. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

A rustle in the trees.

Tara went still. She listened. Switching off the flashlight, she turned toward the sound and strained to hear.

Icy fear gripped her as she realized she wasn’t alone. Her senses sharpened. She heard something slinking through the trees.

Slowly, silently, she unholstered her Glock. The familiar weight of the pistol in her hand steadied her as she scanned the woods, straining to penetrate the gloom.

More rustling. A scrape of footsteps. Then a flurry of movement, and something crashed through the thicket. Tara moved toward it, a dog after a scent. She beamed her light at the noise and caught a flash of black plunging into the brush.

“Stop! Police!” she shouted, darting into the trees.

A searing pain clamped around her ankle. She dropped to her knees. Teeth bit into her flesh, and panic shot through her as she fell back against the dirt, kicking, trying to loosen the jaws. The flashlight was gone. She aimed her gun at whatever had hold of her and groped in the darkness with her free hand—

Metal. A cage. What had she stepped in?

An engine roared. She was blinded by headlights as a grille zoomed toward her. Her heart skittered, and she lifted her gun as the truck skidded to a halt and the door popped open.

“Freeze!” she yelled.

“Whoa there.”

The voice was deep and male, and she knew it instantly.

H
er heart hammered. She recognized the voice but couldn’t make out a face.

“Hands where I can see!” she yelled.

The shadow shifted. The door slammed, and he moved toward her, a giant silhouette in the headlight beams.

“You’re hurt.”

Liam dropped to a knee beside her, apparently unbothered by the gun pointed at him. He took the flashlight and aimed it at her foot, which was encased in a mesh cage all the way up past her boot.

“You stepped in a trap.” He looked at her.

She set her weapon on the ground and leaned forward, still trying to digest what had happened. Her pulse was racing, and her skin felt clammy.

“Looks like a crab trap,” she said, and immediately realized how absurd that sounded.

“Possum.” He handed her the flashlight and went to work unsnagging her jeans from the wire.

His face was cast in shadows, and stubble covered his jaw. She studied his features, still shocked to see him here.

“Nasty cut,” he said.

She reholstered her Glock. She examined the cut, registering pain again as the adrenaline subsided.

Liam pulled a knife from the pocket of his jeans. He snapped it open and cut through the wire to free her boot. Then he got to his feet and lifted her by the arm, and the warmth of his hand seeped through her jacket.

“Can you walk on it?”

“I’m fine.” She stepped forward and winced. “Really, I’m good.” She pulled away from him and limped toward the truck. Her ankle was on fire.

“I’ve got a blowout kit,” he said, going to the driver’s side. He pulled the keys from the ignition and stepped over to the toolbox.

Tara leaned against the bumper. She felt self-conscious now. The wind whipped against her sweat-soaked skin, and she started to shiver.

It had been a person, not an animal, crashing through the forest.

“What’re you doing out here?” He slammed the toolbox shut and came back with a red zipper pouch and a bottle of water. “Besides trespassing?” He tossed the pouch onto the hood, then unscrewed the lid off the water and crouched at her feet.

She pointed the flashlight at him. “I should ask you the same thing.” He tugged up the cuff of her jeans and doused the wound, and she bit her lip as water trickled into her boot.

“I’m not trespassing. I own it.”

She looked at him. Or, rather, at the top of his head. There was something very personal about his touching her clothes, but she didn’t pull away. To have something to do, she rested the flashlight on the hood and thumbed through the zipper pouch.

“
You
own this land,” she said.

“Yep.”

Another fact to be added to her growing list:
Things I Should Have Known Earlier
. And another connection between Liam Wolfe and the murder.

She pulled away from him and propped her ankle on her thigh. He stood up as she tore open an antiseptic wipe and dabbed at the cut.

He watched her. “When was your last tetanus shot?” he asked.

“I’m good.”

“When was it?”

She glanced up at him. “All my shots are current. It’s a prereq for SWAT. We never know what we might bump into.”

He watched her steadily as she cleaned the gash. He was right—it
was
nasty. She’d have to keep an eye on it, maybe swing into a drugstore tomorrow for some ointment.

“You’re on a SWAT team,” he stated.

“That’s right.”

“How much is female?”

She looked up. “What?”

“What percent?”

“What do you mean? My percent.”

“Just you?”