Pensacola, Florida
Maggie had lost almost five hours. There was no comfort in knowing that Peter Gregory’s Mercedes had stopped some place in Pensacola and hadn’t moved since. As Alonzo tried to figure out where, he kept saying it looked like a residential area. New construction.
“Maybe he finally felt safe enough to rest,” Maggie told him, knowing that the Florida Panhandle might not be his final destination.
She wasn’t willing to relinquish Gregory’s trail to anyone else. But she had to hand over the body he’d left behind. For the second time, she had to trust Alonzo’s judgment and bring in Wren Warren and her team. Gregory had brought this body across state lines. He was suspected of multiple murders. She needed someone on the federal level to step in. Someone who would treat this dead body as part of Maggie and her team’s ongoing investigation.
Alonzo assured her that Agent Warren “was solid.” Maggie had to remind herself of his words when Warren showed up on that dirt road. She looked nothing like the self-assured professional Maggie had met at the airport.
Instead, Warren wore a baggy sweatshirt, jeans that were threadbare at the knees and hiking boots. Maggie caught a glimpse of the agent’s eyes under the shadow of her ball cap bill and knew immediately she hadn’t dealt with something like this before.
“CSU team is right behind me,” Warren had told her.
But when Maggie said she couldn’t wait and needed to get back on the interstate, Warren’s eyes widen and flew around the surroundings. The thunderstorms had moved to the north, but the remaining cloud cover added to the complete darkness. The headlights of their vehicles provided the only glimpse of thick foliage and tall pine trees. The symphony of night sounds didn’t help. Maggie couldn’t distinguish between bird calls, frogs, or maybe the hiss and slither of an alligator.
“Will you be all right?” she’d asked, trying not to embarrass the agent.
“No worries.”
Maggie almost regretted her last words to the newbie when she saw they had sent her even more on edge. But the warning was necessary. “Remind your team about alligators.”
That was hours ago. And by the time Maggie took the exit off I-10 and arrived in Pensacola, Alonzo and Kuszak were already getting preliminary details from Warren’s CSU team.
It didn’t squelch Maggie’s anxiety. Nothing seemed to calm it even after she’d eaten one of the deli sandwiches out of her cooler and downed all three cans of Diet Pepsi.
Now, as she followed the last couple of miles, her eyes kept flicking to the GPS monitor. Gregory’s Mercedes had not budged. Her senses were on high alert as she drove along Airport Boulevard.
She tapped her cell phone in the dashboard holder, and Alonzo answered after just two rings.
“You there yet?” he asked.
“Almost. You didn’t mention that he parked the vehicle this close to the airport. How do we know he didn’t take a flight this morning?”
“I checked all last-minute tickets bought, flying out of Pensacola.”
“But he could have booked a flight weeks ago. And we know he uses other aliases.”
Silence.
Had Gregory just taken her on a long distance road trip and bailed as easily as getting on a flight to who knows where?
“I’m working on something that ties him to Pensacola,” Alonzo said.
“You mean like family?”
“Yes. Maybe.”
“Which is it, Alonzo? Yes, or maybe?”
“A very strong maybe.”
She was exhausted and didn’t bother to hide it. She felt drained. Not to mention her shoes and pant legs were muddy from tromping around a swamp. She wanted a shower. A couple hours of sleep. The only things keeping her going were that image of Nessie and a promise to Racine’s partner.
“Also, I finally found a photo of him. It’s a group photo. I had to crop and zoom in,” Alonzo told her. “I’ll text it to you. It’s about four years old, but right now, it’s the best I can do.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“Considering I’m starting from zero, no. Not a hundred percent. But there are others from his management office. The caption identifies him.”
Right now, a photo wasn’t going to help her. She’d tried to get a look at him when he picked up the Mercedes at the Amtrak station. Shadows made it almost impossible. Nessie had described him as tall. The man Maggie saw running away in the D.C. streets looked young and agile.
“Speaking of the management company, are any of their properties here in Pensacola?”
“Already thought of that. They don’t distinguish between what they own and what they just manage. In Pensacola plus Navarre, there are thirty-three.”
“Thirty-three? Am I headed toward any of them?”
“No. Most of them are on the beach.”
She turned the corner onto the final street. A sigh of frustration escaped before she could tamp it down. She pulled her rental to the nearest curb and stopped.
“What?” Alonzo wanted to know. “What is it?”
“A storage facility. Probably over fifty units.”
“No way. It doesn’t show on my satellite feed.”
“Maybe it’s new. My monitor shows it’s somewhere inside. He parked his Mercedes in a storage unit.”
She rubbed her fingers over her eyes, then leaned her head back.
All their efforts and here they were. A dead end.