Unforgivable (18 page)

But Ric was already thumbing through another folder, this one filled with newspaper articles. “What’s all this?”

“Ah, just some research I did once on similar cases.”

Ric glanced up at him.

“Told you, she sticks.” Baker looked almost apologetic as he explained his continued interest in Laura Thorne. “Something about that girl—maybe her age, I don’t know. It’s a memorable case.”

Ric pictured Mia sitting beside him at El Patio, peeling the label off her beer and looking uncomfortable as she told him about her haunted dreams. He thumbed through the pile of news clips. Homicides mostly. A few rapes, all of young women in Texas, Louisiana, or Oklahoma. A clipping fluttered to the floor, and Ric crouched down to retrieve it from the beneath the table. He stared at the image of a smiling young girl. “Paroled Sex Offender Suspected in Teen Stabbing Death,” the headline read. Something about the girl’s youthful grin made it impossible for Ric to look away.

He stood up. “Hey, they ever collar this guy?” He showed Baker the clipping.

“Nah, not enough evidence.”

“Think it’s related to the Laura Thorne murder?”

“My best guess is no. That was twenty years ago. And the MO was totally different. I just ran across that and kept it, I don’t know why. Maybe because it was a stabbing.”

Ric slipped the article back into the file, and the photo caption caught his eye. His hands froze as he read the name.

Jonah’s cell phone started buzzing the second he tossed his gym bag onto the floor of his pickup. He dug it out and recognized his partner’s number on the screen.

“Where are you?” Ric demanded by way of greeting.

“On my way to pick up dinner. Want me to grab you some?”

“I’m still in Fort Worth.”

Shit, he should have been back hours ago. “What happened up there?” Jonah asked.

“A lot. I’ll fill you in later. Listen, you talked to Mia today?”

“Nope.”

Ric cursed.

“Why would I talk to her?” Jonah fired up his truck and navigated the congested parking lot filled with people still committed to their New Year’s resolutions.

“I don’t know. I thought maybe she’d been by the station or something. Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t reach her. She’s not answering her phone. I need you to go by her house.”

Jonah turned into traffic and cast a longing glance at the row of neon signs lining the highway. He hadn’t eaten all day, and he’d just spent an hour lifting weights.

He sighed. “Where does she live?”

Ric recited some directions, and Jonah pulled an illegal U-turn. “You want me to check if her car’s there or what?”

“Let me know if she’s home,” Ric said. “And if anything looks funny, go in and check it out. I’ll give you her alarm code.”

“How do you know her alarm code?”

“I saw her enter it the other night.”

Jonah filed that away along with the alarm code as Ric rattled it off. He heard the worry in his partner’s voice
and wasn’t sure what to make of it. Ric wasn’t a worrier. Protective, yeah, but he didn’t sweat the small stuff.

Jonah saw the sign for Sugarberry Lane. “I’m turning on her street now,” he said. “Call you in a few.”

Jonah located the little white house but learned next to nothing from the first pass. Some lights were on. No car in the drive, but the door to the single-car garage was closed, so she could have parked in there. He pulled another U-turn at a stop sign and parked in front of a house across the street from Mia’s where a
FOR SALE
sign was planted in the yard.

Jonah retrieved the pistol from his gym bag and the lock-picking tool from his glove box before climbing out of the truck. He left his keys inside. Anyone dumb enough to want a dinged pickup with nearly two hundred thousand miles on it was welcome to it. As he crossed Mia’s street, he marveled at the amount of crap he was willing to put up with for his partner. But then, it was a two-way street. They had each other’s back, which was more than Jonah could say for some of the guys he’d worked with over the years.

Jonah walked up the sidewalk. What was it with this girl? He didn’t like Mia Voss, not since that meeting with the district attorney. He could tell when people were lying, and she’d had been lying her ass off through that entire meeting, which didn’t sit well with him. It shouldn’t have sat well with Ric, either, but the man was blinded by lust. Jonah half hoped he’d nail her and get it over with so he could get his head back in the game and start clearing some of their cases.

He rang the bell and waited. He peered through the windows flanking the door. He rang again. No TV on or
voices that he could hear. Blinds covered the windows. He went around back. After finding the garage empty, he knocked on the door off the driveway.

Lights on in the kitchen. Drawers and a few cabinet doors hanging open. Not what he considered a good sign. Jonah knocked again, but again, no answer. He spent about ten seconds picking the lock with his slender tool before stepping inside. The alarm beeped at him, and he tapped in the code.

“Mia? Jonah Macon here. You home?”

No answer. He stood for a moment in her kitchen. All of the appliances were off. A notepad sat on the counter beside a cordless phone. It was a mess, but he didn’t pick up on that weird vibe he usually got at a crime scene. No funky smells. No signs of struggle. He glanced around and ventured into the hall, where a coat closet stood open and a heap of scarves and gloves lay on the floor. Jonah turned down a hallway leading to a bedroom, a bathroom, and what looked to be the master suite, where low music emanated from a radio. He stepped into the room.

Clothes were strewn across the bed. An empty duffel bag sat on the floor, and the closet stood open, as if someone had been packing in a hurry. Jonah glanced at the clock. Nine-sixteen, and the radio was tuned to NPR. Had someone turned it on tonight, or had it gone on that morning and no one had been there to silence it? Jonah’s detective instinct favored the second scenario. He glanced around some more. The top drawer of the dresser was open, and it looked as though someone had cleared out half the contents of—he stepped closer to see—the underwear drawer.

“Make
one
move, and I’ll shoot.”

Shit.
The female voice behind him was almost as surprising as the words. He spread his hands and started to lift them above his head.

“Not
one
move! I swear I’ll put a bullet in you.”

Something in her tone told him she meant it. How the hell had she gotten the drop on him?

He heard steps on the carpet behind him. He smelled perfume. It was soft and musky and didn’t belong to Mia Voss any more than that voice did.

“Take that gun out of your pants, and toss it onto the bed. Now.”

Jonah sighed. “Lady, I’m a cop.”

“Now.”

Slowly, he pulled the Glock from the waistband of his sweatpants and held it up by the trigger guard. “Jonah Macon, San Marcos PD. I’m a friend of Mia’s.”

“Are you deaf, too?”

Jonah took a deep breath and tossed the pistol onto the bed, turning as he did to get a look at her.

She was tall and blond and wore a short black dress and high black boots that left way too much to his imagination. And she held a snub-nosed revolver aimed straight at his dick.

Her wide blue eyes didn’t leave his face as she stepped to the bed and collected his pistol with her left hand. Confusion flittered across her face as she realized she didn’t have a place to put it. She glanced around, then backed up a few steps on those four-inch heels and set the gun on an armchair.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

He noticed the tremor in her fingers, which didn’t
inspire much confidence as she reached into the tiny purse hanging off her shoulder and fished out a silver flip phone.

“Ma’am, would you just listen before you do that? I told you, I’m a cop.”

A cop who, very unfortunately, had left his ID in his truck.

She ignored him and punched numbers on her sleek little phone. Shit, was she calling 911? This was going to be a huge pain in the ass—

“Vince? Hi, it’s Sophie.” Her voice shook only slightly as she held the phone to her ear. “I’m standing in Mia’s house, and I’ve got a man here claiming to be a police officer. Jonah Bacon.”

“That’s
Macon.
”

“Jonah Macon … Uh-huh. San Marcos PD, he says.” Those blue eyes widened a bit. “Okay, thanks. Make it quick, would you?” She dropped the phone back into her purse and thrust the gun forward. “My friend’s with the San Marcos police. He says he’s never heard of you.”

“What?”

“And he’s coming over. Along with
several
squad cars. They’ll be here any second.”

“He said that?”

“Yes.”

Jonah rolled his eyes. No one said “squad cars.” And Moore was fucking with him, the little shit. This was probably payback for Jonah cleaning him out last month at the poker table.

Jonah weighed his options. It would take him two seconds, tops, to disarm this girl, but if by chance she
got a round off, he might seriously regret not talking his way out of this. He didn’t particularly feel like getting his balls shot off tonight.

“Listen, Sophie, I really
am
a cop. I’m a friend of Mia’s, too. Call her up and ask her.”

“What are you doing in her bedroom?” A little line formed between her brows, and he could tell she sort of believed him.

“You want to aim that thing someplace else while we talk?”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Jonah closed his eyes and counted to three mentally. “Look, my partner, Ric Santos, was worried about Mia and asked me to check in on her, all right?”

Evidently, “Ric” was the magic word, because all of the tension went out of her. She lowered her gun, and Jonah was surprised by the wave of relief he felt. He was tempted to drop to his knees and kiss her feet with gratitude. But then, that might have been because of the boots. He wasn’t sure where this woman was going dressed up like that, but he was extremely tempted to follow her.

“Where’d Mia rush off to, anyway? Ric’s concerned.” He dropped the name in again, just for good measure.

“That’s none of your business.” She glanced behind him. “Neither is her panty drawer. What are you doing in here?”

Good question.

“She skip town?” he asked. “Ric’s not going to like that. She’s wanted for questioning in an ongoing criminal investigation.”

This got him a get-real look, and she thrust out her
hip. “Mia Voss hasn’t broken any laws. Unlike
you,
who seem to be trespassing.”

“And what are you, her house-sitter?”

She gave him a peevish look, then stalked around him and retrieved a gray tackle box from the floor of the closet. “I’m here on an errand.” She veered around him again, and he got another whiff of her perfume. Then she walked into the hall. Jonah followed, snagging his gun as he went.

“Tell your partner that Mia is fine.” She pulled the front door open and stood beside it, inviting him to leave. “And if she wants to talk to him, my guess is she’ll answer her phone.”

Jonah stepped into the cold night air. She punched a code into the keypad near the door, then joined him on the porch. She shivered slightly. He guessed she’d left her coat in the shiny black Tahoe that was parked in front of the house now.

She turned her back on him and locked the door with a key from her purse, which was just big enough to accommodate that LadySmith revolver with the rosewood grip. Very nice.

“You got a last name, Sophie?”

“I do.” She picked up the tackle box and turned to face him. “Good night, Officer Macon. Tell Ric I said hi.”

“What do you mean, she’s ‘indisposed’?”

Ric stood at the Delphi Center reception desk as Sophie pretended to be both disinterested and professional.

“She’s not available at the moment. If you’d like to leave a message—”

“I already left a message. And I need to see her. Now.”

“I told you, she’s—”

“Listen, Sophie, this isn’t personal,” he lied. “I need to interview her in connection with a homicide investigation. I’m not asking, I’m telling. Get her down here now, or get me her boss.”

Sophie glared at him. Then her gaze flicked behind him, and Ric sensed the very large security guard who had been stationed at the door a few seconds earlier.

“There a problem, Ms. Barrett?”

She gave him a saccharine smile. “Not at all, Ralph. We’re just fine.”

Ralph backed off, and Sophie dialed something on her phone. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a moment … ?” She looked at Ric expectantly, and he stepped away to admire the colorless January view through the windows as she finally summoned Mia. A few minutes later, the elevator dinged, and he turned to see a scrawny guy with glasses striding toward him. King of the lab rats. Great. Ric cut a glance at Sophie, but her attention was glued to her computer screen.

“I’m Dr. Snyder, director of DNA Services for the Delphi Center. How may I help you today?”

“I need to see Mia Voss. I’m sure she’s busy, but—”

“Dr. Voss is on sabbatical.”

“She’s
what
?”

“We encourage our scientists to take a break from their case work from time to time.” A condescending smile. “We are, after all, primarily a research institution, Mr. Santos. Is there someone else who might be able to assist you?”

Ric gritted his teeth. He glanced at Sophie, who
looked to be on the phone now, although Ric hadn’t heard it ring.

“How long is her sabbatical?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“We respect our employees’ privacy here, Mr. Santos. If you’re interested in the details of her schedule, you’ll need to contact her directly.” His gaze darted down to the badge at Ric’s belt. “I’m quite sure you have access to her contact information.”

Ric shook his head as he left the lobby and put on his shades. Sabbatical. Un-fucking-believable.

She’d run away. Something had spooked her the other night, and it had nothing to do with a raccoon. And now she’d skipped town without so much as a phone call. Why hadn’t she asked him for help?