39

Jim paced the length of his hotel room. Eight strides in depth, thirteen in length. He’d made that journey fifty-seven times. Not that he was counting.

His computer sat open on one of the two double beds, notes and pictures scattered around it. He’d hit a dead end. Everything stopped with Elizabeth Stanton. Nothing beyond that. She’d gotten another name, started over. He glanced at the copied images of the IDs Agent Webb had been able to get. He had to hand it to her, Sophie had found a fantastic source for IDs. They were perfect. To start over completely, new name, new social security number, new you—that shit wasn’t cheap.

Jim Bean knew that, and not just from tracking lost kids and cheating husbands. More than once he’d considered starting clean himself. But he’d stopped short of doing it illegally. When he was accused of rape in college, he’d lost everything. His life, his friends, his shot at the FBI or the force. Not to mention the money of defending himself against that kind of lie. But he couldn’t clean up a past that lived in his head. He’d moved, changed his name. It had been enough. No one was looking for him. No one cared where he’d gone to hide. He wasn’t hiding like Sophie anyway.

He picked up a sheet that included the timeline of Sophie’s name changes and location changes. That made trip fifty-eight across the room. Grabbed another slip of paper. Fifty-nine. He compared it to the timeline of known vics. Again.

Usually he or Ely could find the trail, the electronic signature of name changes, money moving, auto registrations, utility bills, something. But right here in Dallas four yeas ago, she left. Elizabeth Stanton fell off the face of the virtual world after she … attacked Max. And she’d set him up first. Why?

Jim had to be missing something. Maybe it was just a power trip for Sophie, but why a coworker? He’d consider that very close to shitting in her own kitchen. That one act had her scrambling out of town. Had to be something else there. He made a mental note to call Max tomorrow. Maybe the man had stumbled onto something that would incriminate Sophie. Maybe he didn’t even know it. Or maybe she just lost control one night. Like in a bar in Texas. There was no reason to … assault Jim either. Except ego.

Jim sat on the paper-covered bed. There was nothing worse than failing. The idea of this trip was to find her before she had a chance to attack Dan. Not finding her meant sitting and waiting for her to come to Dan. Bug in a web, waiting on the spider to get hungry. That could take a while. She’d been planning and waiting seven years as it was. Waiting weeks, even months, would wear down his protection detail. Dan’s mom couldn’t take moving around to keep Sophie off their trail. And for that reason, fully going under witness protection wasn’t a good option. Not without a hit to her health.

Jim paced back to the bathroom counter.

Thirteen steps back to the door. Sixtieth time.

His gut tightened. This time it was a bad feeling, not anger or misery over the crummy life that twisted his insides. This was about the case. About Dan. The clock on the wall ticked off a countdown.

Sophie had waited this long. Hiring him had to be to speed up the process. She was so close to her goal. Staying away must be torturing her. Nope. She wouldn’t wait much longer. That meant Jim couldn’t wait either. He needed to do two things right away.