Thread of Fear (16 page)

A
knock sounded at the door, jarring Fiona out of her zone. She glanced at the clock. She’d been painting for hours, but it seemed like only minutes had passed. The canvas was an expanse of watery blues and grays, save the empty white swirls where she planned to add carp. When the blue dried sufficiently, she could start—

Tap! Tap! Tap!

The door. Right. Someone was here.

She stood up and stretched. Her legs were stiff, and she swayed slightly as all the blood rushed to her feet. She picked her way across her messy apartment and checked the peephole.

Jack.

Her heart did a leap.

And then she wiped the smile off her face and told herself to calm down. She shouldn’t get excited. He was probably here on business. Probably something about the case.

She glanced at her clothes and knew it was futile to try and primp. She unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“Hi.”

He looked her over, and his lip curved up at the corner. “I caught you at work.”

She stepped back to let him in. “Yes, you did.”

He entered her home, and she felt a touch of nervousness. He was going to see her painting. And her messy apartment. And her unmade bed.

He glanced around, noticing everything, but then his gaze settled on her and he smiled. “You’ve got paint on your nose.”

Her hand flew to her nose, and she ended up with cerulean blue on her fingertips. “Sorry.” She crossed the apartment to her easel, where she’d hung a rag. She dunked the corner into some turpentine and headed for the bathroom. “Just a second.”

After a few moments, she was slightly more presentable.

Jack was standing in her kitchen now, reading the
Far Side
comics on her refrigerator. He turned around. “I was wondering if that offer still stands.”

“You mean breakfast?” She glanced at the clock. It was just past noon.

“Or lunch. Whatever. Or we could go for a walk. You probably need a break from these fumes.”

She sniffed the air, and realized he was right. She’d neglected to open a window because of the cold, and her nose had gone numb to the smell. “That sounds good. Just let me change.”

“Why?”

She smiled. “Because I look like a hobo.”

“You look fine.” He snagged her coat off the hook in the foyer. “Here, come on.”

She hesitated a beat, then decided the hell with it. There weren’t any miracles she could work with her hair and her face in five minutes anyway, so she might as well go as she
was. She slipped into some sneakers and let him help her on with her coat.

They left the apartment and rode the elevator down to street level. As soon as they got outside, Fiona took a deep breath of fresh air. She felt relaxed and rejuvenated. Sometimes a good session of painting was better than a full night’s sleep.

She turned to Jack. “You hungry?”

“Not really. You?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

Fiona scanned the area. It was too early for a drink. They could sit in a coffee shop. Or they could head down toward the water. It was another drab day, but the temperature seemed to have inched above freezing.

“Come on,” she said, striking out toward the bike path that led to Town Lake. “I know a good route.”

They walked the first ten minutes or so without talking, and she got the feeling he had something on his mind. Maybe he wanted to tell her about his new lead or bounce some ideas off her. She waited until he was ready to talk.

“You get called out of bed a lot?” he asked, finally.

He was referring to the robbery-homicide. She scooped her hair out of her face and looked at him. “Sometimes.”

“And I guess you travel a lot, too, huh? When the FBI calls?”

“Sometimes.” It had become much more frequent lately, but she sensed he didn’t want to hear that.

“It’s a rough job. Maybe you should stick to painting.”

She scoffed.

“What?”

“It’s pretty interesting to hear you say that after all the
lengths you went to convincing me to work on your case.”

They neared the lake now, and Jack gazed out over the water. It was just as gray as the sky above it. “I’ve been re-thinking that. I’m starting to feel sorry I got you involved.”

They walked for a while, and she absorbed what he’d said. He was sorry he’d gotten her involved. Her work had led to two major breaks in the case, yet he regretted hiring her. Did he regret getting to know her, too? Did he regret their budding relationship, or whatever this was?

What was this?

They didn’t live in the same town. They didn’t have similar backgrounds. They had almost nothing in common except their work and a professional acquaintance—one who could single-handedly ruin Fiona’s reputation with APD if he ever got wind she was sleeping with a detective on a case.

Jack stopped beside a spindly sycamore. He shoved his fists in his pockets and looked at the ground. Then he looked at her.

“I won’t be asking for any more of your help on this,” he said. “I apologize for twisting your arm in the first place, ’specially after what happened with Hoyt.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. But I’m sorry anyway. He’s facing charges right now. Don’t know if they’ll stick, but I’ll do whatever I can to see that they do.”

She didn’t get this. Was this about guilt? Or maybe fear? Was he starting to feel some unwelcome attachment to her?

Was this about Lucy?

A jealous lump rose in her throat. She cleared it away. “Are you still seeing Lucy?”

His eyebrows arched. “Huh?”

“Are you still involved with her?”

“What does she have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“What did Ginny tell you, anyway?”

She huffed out a breath. “Nothing.”

“I told you, she stretches the truth.” He looked at the lake. “Anyway, there’s nothing there. Not anymore.”

Fiona’s hands balled into fists inside her pockets. He was
lying
again. It was so obvious. Why couldn’t he give her a straight answer about this woman?

Maybe because he was still in love with her.

“I need to get back,” she said, and started retracing their steps.

He quickly caught up to her. “Hold up a minute. Why are you upset?”

“I’m not upset.”

“Bullshit.”

She shot him a hostile look.

“Look, I don’t know where you’re getting all this about Lucy, but I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came here to tell you you’re done with my case. And to ask you to give police work a rest.”

“Oh, I see.” Her stride lengthened as her anger grew. “You think you can give me career advice now?”

“No.”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“I’m asking you as a friend. To give yourself a break from cases. I don’t think it’s good for you. You look tired.”

She halted and whirled around. “Let’s get something straight, Jack. You’re not my friend. My career is none of
your business, and just because you hired me on some case doesn’t mean I want your advice.”

He stood there, looking down at her, and she could see his jaw clenching and unclenching. He wanted to say something, but he probably knew she was about two seconds away from telling him to go screw himself.

She took a deep breath, and tried to summon some tact. “Why don’t you take yourself, and all your advice, and go back to Graingerville?”

Jack stared at the bulletin board in his office, and knew he was missing something. He could feel it. He gazed at all the evidence spread out across the wall and knew he’d failed to register some key bit of information that would bring the fuzzy picture into focus.

These crimes were connected, he felt certain. And after hearing all about the case, Nathan had agreed. The detective had ten years’ experience working homicide, and Jack trusted his opinion. Unfortunately, though, all that experience hadn’t generated any new insights. The best Jack had gotten out of his trip to Austin had been a reminder to keep hammering away at motive. What had prompted the killer to choose these particular girls? Who and where was he likely to strike next?

Jack gazed at the bulletin board, cataloguing the similarities among the crimes. The victimology was alike, the MO. Even the damn weather was the same from case to case. But it was the proximity of the crime scenes that bothered him. He stared at his map again, zeroing in on the section where Mesquite Creek cut through the southwest corner of Grainger County. Lucy had been picked up by her abductor
not half a mile from the creek. The body of Natalie Fuentes had been found off Highway 44, less than a mile from the same location. And Veronica Morales was last seen at Three Forks Barbecue, a restaurant about five miles north of where the creek intersected Highway 44.

The killer was local.
Had
to be. Why else would someone fixate on such a concentrated area? Whoever Jack was dealing with had some connection, some tie to Grainger County.

But if so, why didn’t anyone recognize him?

It couldn’t be Fiona’s drawing that was the problem. Both Lucy and Brady agreed it was practically a photographic likeness of the man they’d seen.

But the only other explanation Jack could think of—and just thinking of it depressed him—was that the killer
wasn’t
targeting Grainger County. Maybe he was going around all over the place, picking up girls and torturing them, and for whatever reason, the crimes weren’t getting reported.

“Got that tire tread for you, Chief.”

Jack tore his attention away from the map and saw Lowell standing in his office doorway. Jack caught the disapproval in the officer’s face as he took in his boss’s appearance.

Okay, so he looked like shit. He had a black eye still. He hadn’t been home to sleep or change clothes since yesterday morning, and his jeans and rumpled flannel weren’t exactly regulation attire.

“What’d you find, Lowell?”

He handed Jack a Polaroid of a tire. “Took that crime scene photo over to the guy I was telling you about at NTB. He’s a whiz with tire treads. It’s really something.”

Jack stared down at the photograph of the brand-new BFGoodrich tire. The shot looked to have been taken right inside the tire shop, and someone had jotted down all the specs beneath the picture. The state crime lab probably used a more scientific method to identify tread marks, but Jack wasn’t willing to wait three decades for someone to get around to his case.

“He thinks this is it?”

“Swears it,” Lowell said. “It’s an all-terrain tire. Standard on at least a dozen SUVs and pickups starting about two years ago. Then of course, you got people who put the new tires on older models, so it doesn’t really tell us anything for sure about the vehicle.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, but this is for what? A seventeen-or eighteen-inch wheel? Too big for your standard car.”

“That’s what my buddy said, too. We’re looking for a light truck, a Jeep, or an SUV. Not a sedan or a coupe, unless it’s some kinda tricked-out ride.” Lowell paused for a minute, as if he expected Jack to say something.

“Good work.”

“So if that’s all for tonight, you mind if I…?”

Jack glanced at the clock. Damn, it was after nine already. The entire weekend had gone by in a blur.

“Yeah, you get on home. Hey, and thanks for running down that lead with the tattoo artist.”

Lowell scoffed. “That guy Viper’s a freak show, but he doesn’t look like the drawing. Said he couldn’t remember anyone who does, and I think he was telling the truth.”

Lowell had a fairly good bullshit meter, which was why Jack had sent him out there when he got sidetracked with the Morales family.

“I hate body art,” Lowell continued. “You couldn’t pay me enough to let some nut job near me with a needle.”

“I hear you,” Jack said. He didn’t mind tattoos on other people, but he’d never once been tempted to get one. “Anyway, thanks for the help.”

After Lowell left, he ducked into the break room and fed some quarters into the Coke machine. He had mountains of paperwork to catch up on, but he’d most likely spend the night poring over the Natalie Fuentes file.

The victim had been driving a Hyundai Elantra at the time of her disappearance, and Jack had put a BOLO out on the car as soon as he’d gotten the details about it from her mother. He’d also compared the standard Elantra tires to the imprint found at the scene where her body was dumped, but the two didn’t match. It sounded like the killer was in a truck or SUV with large tires, which, in rural Texas, didn’t narrow things down much. Maybe he’d stopped using the gray sedan—not surprising, given that Lucy’s attack had occurred eleven years ago. Most people didn’t keep cars that long.

Jack wished they had more on the current vehicle. He wondered if Brady could be of any more help here. The boy had told Fiona he’d heard a “loud” engine, but that he didn’t really get a look.

Of course, he’d also told Fiona he didn’t get a good look at the perp. That was right before he gave her an extremely detailed description of him. Fiona had a way with witnesses, but Jack would be damned if he asked for her help again.

The front door burst open. Jack poked his head out of the break room and saw Sharon standing in the foyer shaking rain off her sleeves.

“You still on?”

“Yeah.” She wiped her muddy boots on the mat by the door. “I was on my way back from that domestic and I saw some activity out toward White Tail Road.”

Jack had heard it come over the radio. One of the sheriff’s deputies was out there checking on a disabled vehicle. “Any injuries?”

“Car looks fine, except for a flat tire. I think you’ll want to come take a look, though.”

“That’s a good mile out of town. We don’t have jurisdiction.”

“You’re going to want jurisdiction,” Sharon said. “The disabled vehicle’s registered to Marissa Pico.”

Jack’s stomach tightened. “The senator’s daughter?”

“That’s the one.” Sharon finger-combed her wet hair. “Her purse and cell phone are still sitting in the front seat, but there’s no sign of Marissa, and there’s blood inside the car.”