Thicker Than Water (25 page)

“Yes.”

She nodded, seemed to relax a little. “So what's the deal?”

“I came looking for Jones, she wasn't here, I let myself in.” He waved a hand at the mess. “It was like this when I arrived.”

“Have you touched anything?”

“Doorknobs on the front and back doors, the telephone downstairs.”

“Why were you looking for Jones?”

He shrugged, averting his eyes, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of here so he could search for her. He didn't have time to play twenty-questions with Jax.

“She didn't come to work this morning?”

He knew Jax could confirm it with a simple phone call, and he knew she would. “No. She didn't come in.”

“Did she let anyone know she would be taking the day off?”

He shrugged. “I'm her partner, not her boss. She doesn't answer to me.”

“But she didn't let you know.”

“No.”

“And you couldn't reach her by phone,” she said.

“No.”

“What about Dawn? Did she show up for school today?”

He glanced at Jax with a puzzled frown. “What makes you think I would know?”

She pursed her lips, scowling at him. “I know goddamn well you know.” Turning her head, she shouted toward the stairs, “Have someone call Cazenovia High School and see if Dawn Jones showed up for classes this morning, pronto.”

“You got it.”

She turned and faced Sean again. “She's skipped, hasn't she? She knew I was getting close to arresting her, so she skipped town.”

“I hope to God she's skipped on you. Because if she hasn't—” He couldn't even finish the thought, much less speak it. He looked around the room, lifted his hands. “Are you not
seeing
this mess? You think Jones did this herself, just to throw you off? Is it not clear to you yet that someone is after the woman?”

“If someone is, he'd better watch himself. The last guy who messed with her got his throat cut.”

“Oh, come on, you know as well as I do that Jones had nothing to do with that.”

“He was blackmailing her, MacKenzie. We have the bank records. She's paid him a small fortune over the past six months. What I don't know is what he had on her.”

He lifted his brows, played his hunch. “Rumor has it that blackmail was a goddamn vocation with this guy. You telling me she's the only one?”

Jax didn't answer.

“Someone's setting her up, Jax. It ought to be obvious to a cop as good as you are.”

“Oh, right, flattery's gonna work.”

He rolled his eyes. “Hell, you got here fast. I'll give you that much.”

“I was on my way here before we got the call from the security company,” she admitted.

“What for?”

“DNA.” He must have looked surprised, because she looked smug. “Got a judge to issue an order this morning, in case Jones doesn't want to cooperate. We managed to get a sample off that makeup container we found at the crime scene, and all I need now is a known sample for comparison.”

He shrugged, trying her smug look on for size. “Guess you can't get a sample if Jones isn't here to give it.”

“Don't be so sure about that. I'm pretty sure I can find a sample around here somewhere.”

He pursed his lips, angry and wondering why. “Jones is no killer, Lieutenant. She's in trouble, and if you don't start taking that seriously, she's liable to wind up as your next victim. You'll have to live with that. And it won't be easy, trust me. Especially if her kid ends up getting caught in the cross fire. Believe me, I know.”

He thought his final sentence got to her, but he couldn't
be sure. She flinched just a little, aimed her penetrating gaze at something besides him.

“I have to go,” Sean said. “Do me a favor and let me know if you hear from Jones?”

“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you,” Jax said. “Not that I expect you to comply.”

“Have a little faith.”

* * *

“Morning, Mr. MacKenzie,” a voice called as Sean hurried out the front door, toward his car.

He turned and spotted an old fellow walking toward him, apparently from the house next door, and he frowned. “Have we met?”

“Nah, but Dawnie's told me all about you.” The older man smiled, turning his face into a roadmap. “Recognized you by your car.”

“You must be Rodney White,” Sean said, taking the hand the old fellow extended. “Dawn has told me a lot about you, too.”

The man's grip was firm and cool. “You're worried about them, I take it?” He nodded toward the police cars on the side of the road. “They must be, too.”

Sean nodded. “Do you know where they might have gone?” Please, he thought, tell me they've gone somewhere.

He shrugged. “Julie wouldn't say. Just that it was a vacation weekend, and that she didn't know when she'd be back.”

Sean's entire body eased in a flood of relief. “Then you saw her before she left? She definitely went somewhere of her own free will?”

“Yep. About six this morning. She piled a couple of suitcases into the car, then left it running while she came over here.
Told me you'd be coming around. Asked me to give you something.”

Sean's heart damn near stopped as the old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white envelope. When he stretched out his hand to offer it to Sean, Sean noticed his jacket sleeve had been pushed back a little, and he glimpsed the edges of a tattoo. Not a professional one, but the dark blue lines of the homemade variety. The kind you got in prison.

He frowned, wondering just how much Julie knew about her next-door neighbor. But there was no time to quiz the old fellow. Not now. He took the envelope quickly, glancing back toward the house and hoping to God Jax hadn't seen the exchange.

“Thank you, Mr. White.”

“Call me Rodney.” He pursed his lips, shook his head. “Tell you the truth, I'm worried about those girls.”

“So am I, Rodney.” Sean was itching to be away, to be out searching for Julie, to read the note she'd left. “Did you see anyone near the house after Julie and Dawn left?”

“No. Why, has someone been there?”

“Yeah, there's been a break-in. The police are looking into it.”

The man shook his head slowly, sadly.

Sean looked longingly toward his car. “Look, they'll probably question you when they come out. Can you do me a favor?”

He nodded. “You don't want me to tell them about that note she left you. I don't figure that's anything they need to know, Mr. MacKenzie. That's private, between you and Julie.”

Sean thanked the man and got into his car. But he only drove
around the block before pulling over, taking out the envelope and reading the letter inside. The handwriting was Jones's.

That was it, the end. She'd signed the bottom “Jones.” He traced the swirls and loops of the letters with his eyes and then
his fingertip. And then he paused, frowning at the tiny blotch on the sheet that suggested a drop of water—or maybe a tear?

Yeah, in your dreams, MacKenzie, he told himself. His throat felt oddly tight, and he found it tough to swallow. He needed some coffee. But not before he'd read the note one more time. Jesus, she shouldn't have taken off on her own like this. Not without telling him just what the hell was going on. Then again, she didn't need to tell him, did she? He could put the pieces together. Jones had been at the Young Believers' compound on the day of the raid. She'd lived to tell the tale, and Mordecai Young—a man wanted on a dozen charges, including unlawful imprisonment, statutory rape, murder and federal drug and weapons violations—stood to lose everything if she talked. She obviously believed he was after her.

He read the letter again, searching for clues as to where she might have gone, but there were none, aside from the obscure remark that there would be no cell phone reception there. Then he stopped on the one line that give him hope. “Don't feel like you have to break it to Allan Westcott yourself. I'll find a pay phone somewhere and call him later in the morning.”

“That's it. That's how I find her,” he whispered. “If it's not already too late.”

J
ulie drove the car along the winding road, twisting under overhanging trees that still held on to their thin layers of brightly colored leaves. The fall foliage was well past its peak, but there was still color to be seen. The trees, she thought, were like old women who applied bright makeup to their crinkle-paper faces just to let the world know in no uncertain terms that there was still life inside. It was a show of defiance against aging and death, the way those few scarlet and yellow leaves clung to the bony arms of the skeletal trees. It was a shout against decay.

“So where are we?” Dawn asked. She had a road atlas open on her lap.

Glancing sideways, Julie said, “Look in the north and find Herkimer County.”

Dawn's finger ran along the map, and her eyes followed.
“Oh!” She looked through the windshield again. “So these are the Adirondack Mountains?”

“We're in the thick of them.”

“Cool. How far are we going?”

Julie shrugged. She'd been racking her brain to figure a way out of this mess, but she was drawing a big fat blank. She could try to find evidence to tie Mordecai to the murders he'd committed. Tessa, Sirona—even Harry Blackwood. But she couldn't do that from here, and if she stayed home, the bastard would try to take Dawn away.

She couldn't risk that.

It had even occurred to her to wonder if she were capable of killing him. She wasn't certain she was, but she hadn't ruled it out. The list of things she wouldn't or couldn't do to protect Dawn was tiny. Microscopic. Maybe blank.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“How far are we going?”

Julie realized she'd already asked the question once. “I don't know. Till we find a place that strikes us as perfect. Maybe we can rent a cabin on one of these lakes. I think it's sort of off-season.”

“There sure are a lot of them. Lakes, I mean.”

“One after another.” She'd told Dawn she wanted a spontaneous getaway. A long mother-daughter weekend. There was so much she had to explain to her daughter. This would be a good time to begin.

“I'm getting kind of hungry,” Dawn said. “Can we think about stopping for a hardy northern breakfast soon?”

“You got it.” She glanced at her watch. They'd been on the road for several hours already, taking a wildly roundabout
route, just in case anyone had tried to follow. It was 10:00 a.m., and she hadn't yet called her boss. She would have to do that soon.

She thought about Sean. Was tempted to call him, as well. But the sound of his voice, even over the telephone, might be more than she could handle this morning. After last night—God, what the hell had happened to her and Sean last night? They'd had a perfectly wonderful relationship that worked for both of them—and then everything went crazy.

She felt warm inside when she remembered him. She hadn't known he could be so tender—or so talented. Her lips trembled. She wondered where things might have led if she hadn't had to run for life.

But there was no point in pondering things that would never happen. She honestly didn't think she and Dawn were ever going to be heading back home.

She kept on driving, looking now for a place to stop and eat. Eventually they saw a log cabin with a sign hanging in front advertising Down Home Cookin' At Family Prices and Julie pulled into the driveway-size parking lot and killed the engine.

“I'm thinking pancakes,” Dawn said. “Or maybe French toast.”

“I'm going for an omelette. Gooey cheese and mushrooms.”

“Blueberry syrup—unless they have maple. Real maple, not the phony stuff.”

“I'll bet they do. Heck, with all these trees around here, why wouldn't they?” Julie got out of the car and waited for Dawn to unbuckle and do the same. Then she hit the lock button on her key chain.

A car passed on the road behind them as they walked into the diner, and Julie noticed Dawn frowning at it as continued on the road.

“Honey? What's wrong?”

Dawn frowned, gave her head a shake. “Nothing. I've been hanging around my jumpy mom too much, I think.” She smiled brightly, even though deep down she had to know something was wrong—that this was more flight than vacation. But she was too good a kid to press her mother on it right then. Instead she hooked her arm through Julie's and tugged. They walked side by side into the diner, where a sign over the counter told them this place had not only real maple syrup but the best real maple syrup to be found.

* * *

He didn't want to burn Julie's note, dammit. He wanted to keep it, in case he never saw her again. Besides, it might have more clues to yield. He pursed his lips. Lieutenant Jackson would want to talk to him again. Jones was still a suspect in the Harry Blackwood murder and she had skipped town. For an instant a vision flashed through Sean's mind of Jax and one of her uniformed sidekicks slamming him up against his car the second he stepped out of it, frisking him and finding the note.

He read it one more time, willing himself to commit it to memory. Then he used the cigarette lighter to set it ablaze. He opened the car door, set it on the curb and watched it burn until there was nothing left but ashes. Then he put the car in motion again, grabbing his cell phone as he did, dialing his boss's direct line.

Westcott picked up on the second ring. “Jones?”

“No, it's me,” Sean said. “Has she called you yet?”

“Not yet. Have you heard from her?”

“Not a word,” Sean said. “But I've got something else. Something solid on the Mordecai Young story.”

“Is it true or a hoax?”

“It's true,” Sean told him. “He's alive.”

“Holy shit.” Sean heard the man slam a hand onto his desk. “This is fabulous. Is anyone else on to this?”

“Nope, it'll be an exclusive. And not only can I get proof, I can identify him, if you'll trust me enough to do what I'm about to ask and not ask me any questions.”

“You've got it, MacKenzie. Whatever you need, just say the word.”

Sean nodded. “You have call forwarding?”

“Come again?”

“Call forwarding. Do you have it?”

“Sure I have it.”

“Okay. Then here's what I need. I want you to set your call forwarding so that every call you get today comes straight to my cell phone. Every single call. It should only be for an hour or two. And you have to do it fast. Understand?”

“No. I don't.”

“Just think about what will happen when we break this story,” Sean told him. “Think of the scoop.”

“All right. But I want my phone calls back by the end of the day. And I want constant progress reports. You're to tell no one about this, except maybe Jones once we track her down. We can't risk it leaking out to the other stations.”

“Got you. Now don't forget the call forwarding.”

Westcott sighed. “I'm doing it now. The second you hang up.”

“Got my cell number?”

“Of course I do.”

Sean nodded. “Thanks, Allan.”

“Just get busy. Go get the proof we need to run with this story.”

Sean dropped his cell phone on the seat beside him. And then he drove. He had no idea where to go, where to even begin looking for Julie and Dawn.

His cell phone rang within seconds, and he picked it up fast with his heart in his throat. The panel gave him the number that was calling—a local number. God, could she be that close? He jerked the car to the shoulder, yanked out a pencil and scribbled the number down. Then he answered the phone.

The woman on the other end was not Julie.

“Is this Sean MacKenzie?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Mr. MacKenzie, this is Miss Carter. I work for Nathan Z.” Sean lifted his brows but didn't interrupt. “I understand you and he had an appointment for an interview today?”

“Did we?” He had paid so little attention at this morning's meeting, he wouldn't have known if he had.

“Yes, set up by a Mr. Westcott? For 1:00 p.m.?”

“Right,” he said.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel that appointment.”

Just as well, Sean thought. Because he didn't have time for it, not until he found Julie, and if he did meet up with the so-called Nathan Z, he would probably beat the man senseless.

“He's been called out of town on an emergency. I'll call your office as soon as I can reschedule.”

Sean held the telephone and blinked. “He's left town?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Early this morning. Why do you ask?”

“If I were you, lady, I'd start looking for another job.” He hung up the phone, and wished to God Julie would call. Jesus, what if Nathan Z was the one who'd broken into her house? What if he somehow knew where she'd gone and was even now on her trail?

* * *

Julie stood at the pay phone outside the diner, freshly invigorated by three cups of coffee, mentally composing the words she would use to tell her boss that she was gone and probably wouldn't be coming back. There was no other solution she could think of, though it killed her to make this choice. It was going to break Dawn's heart to have to leave her home, her friends, her school, everything she knew, and start life again somewhere else. But it was the only solution. Short of hunting Mordecai Young down and killing him herself, it was the only way out. And Julie didn't think she had it in her to kill a man—not even him.

The phone on the other end rang four times, and she was beginning to wonder if Allan Westcott would pick up at all, when someone answered. But the voice that said “Hello” was not the voice she'd been expecting.

It was Sean. And just hearing that one word from him evoked an empty feeling deep in her belly. A longing that made no sense to her. It was alien, foreign. She'd always disliked Sean MacKenzie—or she thought she had. But it wasn't dislike that wrapped itself around her vocal chords, refusing to let her speak. It wasn't even close.

“Jones? Is that you? Don't hang up, just—just don't hang up. Please.”

She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “Yeah. It's me.”

“Thank God. Jesus, it's good to hear your voice. Where are you? Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes, because his words were full of emotion. She wasn't used to hearing him sound this way—almost desperate, almost pleading. She was used to his sarcasm and his flirting and his politically incorrect nonsense. Not this. This was too raw, too honest.

“Julie?”

“I'm—I'm all right. Dawn is, too. We both are.”

“Good. God, I've been worried. Jones, this isn't the answer. Running away isn't going to fix this thing.”

“Nothing is going to fix this thing,” she said softly. “Nothing can.”

He seemed to hesitate before speaking again. Then he said, “If you'd just trust me, tell me what the hell it is you're running from…”

“I can't.”

“It's Young, isn't it? Or Z, or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days. But, Julie, he can't hurt you. I won't
let him
hurt you. Just give me a chance—I'll expose him and he'll end up behind bars. He can't hurt you from prison.”

“He can hurt me from anywhere.”

“How? Jesus, how the hell can he do anything to you? Jones, he's a criminal. You were a victim. You got out alive. Even if he exposed you as having been in that compound, the public would celebrate that, not crucify you. You'd be a hero, for God's sake.”

She swallowed hard, looking toward the car where Dawn waited. It was running, and Dawn was leaning forward, prob
ably picking out a radio station for the rest of their drive. Her blond hair hung over her face. She was so beautiful.

“Jones, are you even listening to me?”

She closed her eyes. “I'm listening. But you're wrong. It isn't exposure or public crucifixion that I'm afraid of, Sean. It's not my career or my reputation I stand to lose.”

“Then what is it? What else could he take from you?”

Dawn looked up, met her mother's eyes, and sent her a smile and a wave. Julie's heart twisted in her chest. “The only thing that matters,” she said. “I could lose my child, Sean. I could lose Dawnie.”

Sean didn't answer right away. Then he said, “I was right, then. Mordecai Young is her father.”

“I can't—”

“Goddammit, Jones, talk to me! Stop being so freaking stubborn and let me help you.”

She shook her head slowly. “I have to go.”

“Jones, don't. Don't, please. I have a lot more to say to you. It won't matter that he's her father. He couldn't possibly try to challenge you for custody given what he's done. It's crazy to think any court in the world would—”