Untraceable (7 page)

What was Coghan up to? And did it have anything to do with Melanie? Even if the man was in the market for a house, Alex hadn’t seen any
FOR SALE
signs. Plus, Captain’s Point was well above a police officer’s pay grade.

Alex pulled into the driveway of her garage apartment and glanced at the main house. The glow of the television in the living room told Alex that Thelma was home tonight instead of out playing bunco with her girlfriends. She climbed the metal stairs leading to her door, stepping over the gray tabby curled up on her welcome mat. Sugarpotamus stood up, arched, and stretched as Alex unlocked the door. He sniffed the bottom of the takeout bag and mewed plaintively. Thelma fed him table scraps all the time. No wonder the poor thing weighed eighteen pounds.

“Not for you,” she told him. “You’re on a diet.”

Alex pushed open the door, and the cat darted inside. She stepped in behind him.

And saw the man-size cowboy boots parked right beside her sofa.

CHAPTER SEVEN

How’d you get in here?” she yelped.

Troy Stockton watched her from his sprawled-out position on her couch. The side of his mouth curled into a smile. “I never forget a hide-a-key.”

“My alarm was on!”

“I never forget an alarm code, either.”

Alex glanced at the keypad beside her door and saw that he had indeed entered her code. She slammed the door and dumped her purse and takeout bag on the table.

She didn’t care for the fact that he’d let himself in here. She cared even less for the fact that he was stretched out on her sofa, all relaxed and gorgeous, while she stood there all tired and disheveled. She’d envisioned her next meeting with him countless times, and every vision was the same: Alex would be somewhere—preferably at a bar surrounded by men—looking sexy, but uninterested. Troy would be there, too, looking tortured and desperate to win her back.

“I told you to
call
me. Not show up here.” She strode into her kitchen, catching her reflection in the microwave as she went. Yikes. It was worse than she’d thought.

Troy sauntered into the room with the athletic gait she remembered so well. She never should have called him. But she’d only wanted him on the phone, not in her apartment.

He propped his shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “Three voice mails,” he said. “All urgent. You didn’t think that’d get my attention?”

She turned her back on him and busied herself at the sink, filling a bowl with water. The fact that she still had the power to get his attention made her feel funny. Good, yes, but also a little uncomfortable.

“I needed to talk to you about something.” She shooed Thelma’s cat back outside and put the bowl down for him beside the welcome mat. “It’s about a case.”

Troy smiled slightly and heaved a big sigh. “I figured that when you mentioned the Delphi Center.”

His disappointment was feigned. He must know he had a lot of groveling to do if he wanted back in her life. She planned to make him do it, too, because she’d missed him. But as a friend only. She wasn’t about to get burned twice.

“So let’s hear it,” he said. “You said you needed a favor.”

“I do.” Alex got two plates down from a cabinet and carried them to the table. She took out her burger and fries. “Bring me a knife, would you?”

He retrieved one from the drawer beside her oven, but she refused to be impressed that he’d remembered her kitchen even though he’d been in it only a few times.

She cut the burger in half and divided the food. Troy sank into a chair, and she winced as it creaked under his weight. She told herself not to feel self-conscious about her consignment-store furniture and her cheap Target dishes. Troy had more money than God, but he wasn’t a snob about it. It was one of the things she’d always liked about him.

“Here,” she said, and slid a plate in front of him. “You’ll be more likely to say yes on a full stomach.”

He chomped into the burger as she sat down at the table and poked a straw into her shake.

“I’ve got this client,” she started. “I helped her disappear about six months ago.”

Troy’s expression hardened. He knew all about her work with runaway wives and girlfriends. Alex was pretty sure his mother had been in a similar predicament once upon a time, but Troy didn’t talk about his childhood much, and Alex had never asked.

“Here’s the problem,” Alex told him. “She came back to Austin, and I think her husband found her. Now she really
has
disappeared.”

Troy ate silently as she explained the events of the past three days. When she’d finished, she took the clear plastic bag from her purse and placed it in front of him.

She went to the refrigerator for some water. A six-pack of Dos Equis sat on the top shelf. He’d remembered her aversion to beer, evidently, and brought his own. She grabbed one of the bottles for him, annoyed that her grudge was weakening. And he hadn’t even begun to grovel.

“You want this blood analyzed, is that right?” he asked.

She popped off the cap and handed him the beer. “You guessed it.”

Troy raked a hand through his longish brown hair. He’d always reminded her of Brad Pitt, and it wasn’t just because of the name.

“You still have that contact at the Delphi Center?” she asked. “The forensic scientist?”

“Mia Voss,” he said. “She’s a tracer. Works in their DNA lab.”

“You guys still in touch?”

“Just talked to her a week ago. She’s helping me out with some research.”

Alex slurped up milk shake. “New book?”

“Same one,” he said, then frowned at his empty plate. “It’s really dragging this time. I keep running into walls.”

She felt a twinge of sympathy. Troy was a bestselling true-crime writer, and he constantly dealt with police departments as he researched homicide cases for his books. Sometimes he had to go outside regular channels to get information, which meant he had a mind-boggling list of contacts in all areas of law enforcement. One of those contacts had referred him to Alex several years ago. Troy had needed to track down someone in the federal witness protection program for an interview, and he’d hired Alex to do it.

It was, without a doubt, the toughest assignment she’d ever been given. And she’d succeeded.

As had Troy’s book, which had been picked up by Hollywood and made into a movie.

Less successful was the affair they’d started last December. Troy had a wandering eye, and Alex had a zero-tolerance policy.

“So do you think Mia could run this for me?” Alex nodded at the earbud.

“For a fee,” he said. “The Delphi Center’s a private lab, so it won’t be cheap. Especially not if you want it soon. When do you need it?”

“Immediately.”

“That might take some persuasion.”

“That’s your department,” Alex said, getting up from the table. “I was hoping you could call your friend and put in a good word for me.”

He came up behind her as she rinsed the plates.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said when she turned around. “I’ll take you there myself. They’re about an hour south of here, near San Marcos. We can go tomorrow.”

She folded her arms over her chest and watched him. Troy lived on the lower Texas coast, which meant he’d come a long way to do her this favor. And he probably expected her to let him spend the night. Which she’d be happy to do.

“You have a hotel room somewhere?” she asked.

He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Thought I’d stay here.”

It was that warm, seductive look that had haunted her for weeks after the party they’d attended on New Year’s Eve. She’d also been haunted by the image of him in a lip-lock with another woman at 12:01. And 12:02. And 12:03.

Alex smiled, savoring the moment, if not the memory.

“You’re more than welcome to stay here,” she told him. “You can have the couch.”

Mia Voss peered through the eyepiece and sighed, then made a notation on her report:
Odocoileus virgianus
. Her detective was going to be disappointed.

“Great news.”

She looked up from the microscope to see Darrell standing in her doorway. He had a Starbucks bag in his hand and a grin on his face.

“You brought scones?” she asked.

“Muffins.” He pulled out a chocolate cupcake and started peeling away the paper. “But I’m willing to share. Want some?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Mia ignored the shower of black crumbs as she slid the file aside and gave Darrell her full attention. “Okay, let’s have it. I could use some great news this morning.”

“Remember that case that came in last week? The one from Dallas?”

“The blue jeans,” she said. How could she forget? The jeans had been saturated with so much dried blood, they could have practically stood on their own. The crime scene must have been horrendous.

“That’s the one,” Darrell said. “We got a forensic hit.”

“You’re kidding.”

“The perp’s profile matched one from a murder scene up in Oklahoma City. Crime’s five years old.” He popped another chunk of cake into his mouth. “I just talked to the cold case squad up there, and they’re reopening the file. Dallas PD’s got some fresh leads for them.”

Mia snapped off her latex gloves and tossed them in the biohazard bin. Now she was smiling, too.

Hits were a reason to celebrate. In Mia’s line of work, the only thing better than a forensic hit—which linked crime scenes together and generated new leads for the police—was an offender hit, as in, not only was this DNA profile already in the database, but they knew
whose
it was. Offender hits were the reason Mia got up in the morning.

She tucked her hands into her lab coat and watched Darrell polish off his breakfast. As a computer tech at the Delphi Center, Darrell’s job included entering DNA profiles into the national database on behalf of the lab. Letting the scientists who worked those cases know that their efforts had made a difference went above and beyond his job description.

“Thanks for telling me,” Mia said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“No problemo. Hey, catch you later, okay?” He lobbed his trash into a wastebasket and sidestepped the visitor approaching her door.

Mia’s smile widened. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite Texas Ranger. What brings you here?”

“Hadn’t seen your pretty face in a while.”

She walked over and gazed up at those gray eyes she remembered well. “Still full of bull,” she said.

“You got a minute?”

“For you, I’ve got hours. What’s up?”

John Holt stepped into her cramped, windowless laboratory and glanced around. “Nice digs.”

“It’s not much to look at, but everything’s top of the line.”

“I believe it.” His gaze landed on an electron microscope that probably cost more than he made in a year. “Looks pretty high tech. And the building’s nice, too. Never been here before. Thought I was walking into the Parthenon, all slicked up.”

She dragged a stool from the corner of the room and nodded at it. “Have a seat.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He sat down and crossed his feet at the ankles, displaying a familiar pair of cowboy boots. Mia hadn’t seen Holt since she’d worked at the state crime lab in Austin. Two years had gone by, but it looked as though he hadn’t changed a bit.

“Just dropped off a tissue sample with your evidence clerk,” he said.

“Something wrong with the facilities in Austin?”

The twinkle in his eyes faded. “This is a special case.”

“Okay.” She stepped closer. “How can I help?”

“Sample’s from a floater recovered in Travis County. Body’s a mess, no prints. We’re having a hell of a time getting an ID. I need a DNA profile so I can see if he’s in the system somewhere.”

“Okay.” So far, everything sounded standard. “When do you need it?”

“Yesterday.”

Standard again. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “What’s this about?”

“That, I can’t say. Only that it’s highly sensitive. After you generate the profile, send it straight back to me.”

“Our database tech can enter it—”

“Not this time.” His gaze locked with hers.

Mia folded her arms over her chest, trying not to get defensive. “Background checks on the tracers are very thorough. I trust every one of my colleagues, so—”

“I’m sure you do.” Holt stood up and rested his hands on his hips. His silver star gleamed at her, reminding her of the early days of her career when she’d paid her dues at the state crime lab. “I’d tell you more about it if I could, but you’re gonna have to take my word for it. It’s a sensitive case. You’re the only person I trust.”

She nodded. “All right, then. I’ll start on it today.”

“Thanks.” He squeezed her arm affectionately. “I sure appreciate it.”

When he was gone, she stared at her empty doorway until the telephone yanked her back to the present.

She picked up the receiver. “DNA.”

“You have visitors down in the lobby, Mia.”

She checked her watch. It would be Troy and his detective friend. Another face from the past. Mia glanced at her reflection in the glass cabinet. She tucked a wayward curl back into her ponytail and sighed. It had been years since she’d had a good hair day and almost as long since she’d had a good date.

Troy Stockton. Here we go.

“I’ll be right down,” she said.

Nathan pulled into work and knew it was going to be a shit day. All the clues were there: no coffee filters, a sopping wet newspaper, a sharp pain behind his eyeballs every time he looked at the sun.

Maybe Alex was right and he should get his eye checked out. Or maybe his headache had more to do with her than the punk who’d sucker punched him a few days before.

The station house was buzzing with activity as Nathan walked in. Only Friday morning, and the weekend rush had already started. Nathan hiked up the stairs to his department, trying to recall the last time he’d had two consecutive days for recreation.

“Yo, Dev.”

He turned to see Hodges coming toward him, a manila folder in his hand. More reports Nathan hadn’t had time to read.

“We got a problem,” Hodges said.

Nathan ducked into the break room, where the coffeepot was empty, of course.