She lost the figure, but chased the sound of footfalls, dodging trees and jumping over brush. Then suddenly the only steps she heard were her own.
She stopped running. “Come out now!”
Raspy breathing sounds reached her ears. “Don’t shoot me,” a scratchy male voice said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Come out where I can see you!” she demanded.
A man rose up from the ground, holding his hands in the air. He had a mop of curly dark hair. His dirty clothes hung loose. He didn’t look anything like Willie Nelson.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” His hands remained in the air.
“I asked who you are and what you were doing here.” When he didn’t speak, she snapped. “Answer me!”
He flinched. “Name’s Milton Yates. I was looking for someone.”
“Who?”
He hesitated before answering. “Tomas. That’s his tent.”
“He’s not here,” she said.
“I know that now.”
“Do you know where he could be?”
He stared at her with suspicion. “You ain’t gonna shoot me?”
“No.” She lowered her gun.
He lowered his arms. “You gonna arrest me?”
“I just want to know where to find Tomas.”
“I…don’t know. He usually stays here. Sometimes he gets a meal at the shelter on Logan Street but he wasn’t there today.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Two days ago.”
“Were you here yesterday?”
“No. I stay under the bridge off of Main.”
She believed him. “Fine. You can go.”
She walked up and down the side of the road, hoping to find some evidence, proof. Disappointed and frustrated, she left and drove by the shelter, just in case Tomas was there. He wasn’t. She drove by a couple of bridges where some of the homeless hung out. He wasn’t there either.
At almost six, feeling as if she was floundering, she headed to the hospital. She longed for some good news and maybe a visit with Eliot. While the man wasn’t her father by blood or marriage, he’d been more of one than the two men who’d worn that title.
The rich deep sound of his voice had comforted her through many childhood fears, and even adult ones. Eliot had taught her to be strong and independent, but he’d also been the rock she could always lean on.
She’d been ten when she’d found a framed photograph in Eliot’s suitcase after one of their many moves. A family portrait of him with a woman and a girl. She learned the girl was her age—or would have been. Eliot’s wife and child had been killed in a car accident a few years before her family had hired him. First, he’d lost his leg working for our country, then he’d lost his family. Life wasn’t fair.
The news had devastated her. She’d grieved for what he’d lost but she also felt guilty because she knew if not for their deaths, she wouldn’t have had him in her life. It had also explained why in the beginning he’d been standoffish, determined to keep his heart out of the job. Loving someone, when you’d lost so much, was hard. She knew that personally.
But eight-year-old Brie had needed someone desperately, and somehow she’d sensed he needed her, too. He’d caved. He’d cared. He became the source of comfort, hugs, and love to a little girl who felt abandoned by everyone else in her life.
Getting off the elevator, she barely made it up two steps when Eliot spotted her and popped up from his post outside the ICU doors. His first step came with the slight limp of a man wearing a prosthesis. She could remember how shocked she’d been when she’d first seen the artificial leg.
He took a few more steps, then waited for her to come to him. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to check in.”
“You don’t need to check in. You need to rest.”
“I have to go to work.”
“At the Black Diamond?”
She waited for his disapproval. When she’d told him earlier that she’d been working at the strip club she could have heard an eyelash fall, he’d become so silent. She assured him she was just waitressing, but Eliot had some old-fashioned beliefs. Which explained why she hadn’t lost her virginity until college. Try having a six-foot-four ex-Special Forces manny give the respect-her talk with your dates. She’d barely snagged a kiss.
Eliot’s frown deepened. “They came after Carlos, they might—”
“I’m not walking away when I’m this close to catching my sister’s killer.” At her words, he gave her a look, but she defiantly glared back at him. “I am,” she insisted.
“I know you blame yourself. First for your informant’s death and now—”
“You can’t stop me from this. Give it up.”
“Fine.” His voice crackled with frustration. “I’m coming. Sam can—”
“No.” Eliot would come unglued if any guy dared to cross the line. And face it, most nights at least one guy put a hand where it didn’t belong. She dealt with it. Quite well. No one who tried it once, tried it a second time.
She needed Eliot in her life, but she didn’t need him to solve her problems. And he had a bad habit of wanting to do that.
“You promised to stop interfering in my adult decisions, remember?”
“Then make better decisions. If something happens—”
“It won’t! Trust me.” She looked around. “Where’s Tory?”
“In with Carlos.” The man continued to frown. “Did you see Agent Calvin?”
“Yeah,” Brie answered.
“And?”
“He’s pissed that I told the APD about the possible mole. And he’s blaming me for Carlos being here.” She noted Eliot’s scowl. “Everyone seems unhappy with me these days.”
“I’m just concerned. If someone from the FBI is protecting the Sala family, they’re probably protecting Dillon Armand. And if they discover you’re working—”
“If my cover gets blown, I’ll quit.”
Eliot sighed. “The APD knows all of this, right? Tell me they have your back.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
Wanting a change in the conversation, she told Eliot about the guy with bruises that she let get away. “I should’ve shot him.”
“You’re not officially on the job. Shooting someone might have caused some problems.”
Her gaze met his. “Yeah, you should know.”
A half smile had his white teeth showing.
She put her hand on his chest. “You are so difficult, but I still love you.”
“Which is exactly how I feel about you.” His smile came wider. He tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes. “You look exhausted.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
Right then the doors to the ICU opened and visitors walked out. Tory was the last to appear. Everything about him—his gait, his posture, his downcast eyes—spoke of pain.
He must have felt her gaze because he looked up.
“Any change?” She held her breath.
“No.” He teared up. “And test results still aren’t back. What the hell takes so long?”
“Be patient,” she offered through her own forbearing. She took his hand.
“I’m trying.” He squeezed, as if her grasp was all the hope he had to hang on to.
Brie remembered what she needed to ask. “We found out that Carlos didn’t check in to the hotel until Wednesday. Do you have any idea where he could have gone?”
“No, but he was already upset that he’d told me about the leak. He seldom talked about his work.”
She nodded. “Do you have access to his credit cards? The police want to get a list of what cards he has and their numbers in case someone uses them. And could you check if he used any of his cards the last few days? It might tell us where he was.”
“Yeah, I pay all our bills. Let me run to my car and get my laptop.”
Ten minutes later, Tory had returned and emailed her the list of charges and Carlos’s credit card information. He had eaten in Willowcreek, Texas, at a steak house. Was it just a rest stop or did he meet somebody?
With her phone out of battery, she used Tory’s phone and sent a message to Connor telling him what they’d found.
After an hour, visitation opened again, so she and Tory went in to see Carlos. Feeling like crying, she slipped her hand into her partner’s.
“You need to wake up, buddy.” His thumb shifted against her wrist. Gasping, she looked back at Tory. “He moved.”
“He did it earlier with me. The nurse said sometimes they have involuntary movements.” But Tory still walked over to the bed and stared at Carlos’s face.
The lump in her throat grew larger. Tory came and hugged her, and she heard his breath shudder right along with hers.
A short time later, after more tight hugs and goodbyes, she headed home. She needed to get ready for work and give Psycho at least a minute or two of TLC. She’d forgotten about the break-in until she saw her door ajar. It gave her a jolt. Her first thought was to worry if the cat was still locked in the bathroom, as Connor had said. Her second was to wonder if someone could be inside now.
Stopping on the doorstep, she listened. Despite hearing nothing, she still pulled out her Glock from the back of her jeans.
As she inched the door open, she saw the latch had been damaged, preventing the door from shutting. Moving inside with light footsteps, she heard a clattering sound come from down the hall. She stopped. Her hold on the gun tightened.
Then she heard the noise again followed by a meow. The sound had come from her bathroom. Probably just Psycho.
She still did a walk through her apartment to make sure no one was there. Then she grabbed a chair from her table and fit it under the doorknob of her broken door. At least that would make it difficult for someone to get inside. And almost impossible for Psycho to get out. Then she hurried to the bathroom.
Opening the door, she squatted down. “Kitty. Kitty.” She’d only had the feline two months. The shelter had set up a temporary adoption center at a strip mall, and just passing time, she had ambled over. A big mistake. She hadn’t planned on getting a pet until she saw Psycho. Abandoned and unwanted, he’d looked at her. Sentiments she knew all too well. Both from her father and later even from her mom. They’d warned her the kitten was leery of people. But since she was leery of people, too, she paid the adoption fee and brought him home.
The moment she let him out of the carrier, he’d absconded to her closet. So she’d simply fed him and left the litter box in there as well.
Finally, he’d started crawling into her bed at night. But anytime she moved, he’d dart back. After about a month, he decided he could trust her. She understood, she had trust issues herself. Two weeks ago, when she’d been on the sofa watching television, he’d actually curled up in her lap and purred as she stroked his fur. Brie had almost cried at his tentative trust.
Psycho jumped out of the bathtub and came to her, purring and rubbing against her legs.
“Hey. You okay?”
He lifted up on his hind legs to brush his face against her chin. She considered picking him up and cuddling him, but afraid that might be too much, she just let him rub against her.
She spotted the food and water and the litter box that Connor had left for him. And after the feline had scratched him pretty good, no less. She supposed that said something about the man. He could’ve just left, and let the cat run away.
He hadn’t.
She changed the cat’s water and gave him fresh food, then plugged in her phone. She listened to the voice mail from the apartment manager telling her about her apartment being broken in and called her back. Of course, the woman didn’t pick up. Brie left a message suggesting they fix the door and saying it would be cheaper to fix it than to have to send a biotech removal crew to come clean up her bloody, murdered body.
Hanging up, she noticed the shoe prints on her comforter, so she stripped the bed and replaced the sheets. Realizing the time, she grabbed the notes she’d kept on the missing women who’d worked at the Black Diamond. She photographed the files and sent them to Detective Acosta. Then after securing her cat in her bedroom, she went to shower.
Her mind still on Acosta, she recalled the day she’d gone to their office and insisted he owed her lunch for the tip she’d given him about his case. In truth, she’d simply been hoping to make a few friends in the department, which she had. She remembered the butterfly feeling she’d gotten when she’d laid eyes on his partner Connor.
Kicking off her shoes, and tugging off her socks, she stepped out of her jeans. When she pulled off her shirt, she caught a whiff of a spicy male scent. Pulling the white fabric up, she buried her nose in it. It smelled…good. A little musky, with earthy tones. She recalled catching that scent earlier when he’d stood too close.
Or was it not close enough?
Realizing her thoughts were headed someplace naughty, she tossed the shirt on the counter, started the water, and sat down on the closed toilet lid, waiting for the water to get hot. Sitting there, her bare feet tapping on the cold tile floor, her gaze fell back to the shirt. Picking it up, she took another long deep sniff and let her mind go places it shouldn’t.
Only when steam billowed out from the shower curtain did she put his shirt down and crawl into the shower. But she couldn’t wash his scent from her mind.