Steve caught the urgency of the traffic on the police band the second he climbed into his truck. A body had been found on the reserve behind Taylor’s place. Muir and the evidence techs were already there; the coroner was on his way.
Slamming the truck into gear, he pulled out onto Cold Peak’s main road. The gender of the body hadn’t been specified and there was no reason to assume that it was Taylor, but after more than twelve years working undercover operations, he was short on optimism. And Taylor hadn’t turned up at the gym.
He braked for an intersection. While he waited for the lights to change, he picked up his cell phone and called the gym. Mandy answered. Taylor still hadn’t come in, and she hadn’t phoned.
When he arrived at Taylor’s house, several police cruisers were parked along the road. A news van was just nosing into a space across the street and a group of bystanders and neighbors were gathering on the sidewalk. An ambulance was standing by.
Driscoll was on guard at the front gate, his face green.
“Male or female?”
For a split second, Driscoll didn’t respond. “Male.”
Some of his tension dissolved. “I need to talk to Muir.”
Driscoll was reluctant, but Steve was banking on the fact that because he had called in Letty’s murder, Muir would see him. The second killing had raised the stakes. Driscoll had to know that if Steve had information that would help with the inquiry and he blocked him, Muir would go ballistic.
Driscoll spoke into his radio. A split second later, he jerked his head. “You can go in.”
Muir glanced up as he walked toward the house. Steve reached into his pocket, slowly, because Muir looked pissed and Hart looked almost as green as Driscoll, and produced his ID.
Muir glanced at Steve, his expression mild, considering the information on the ID. “Now what does the death of an elderly lady and a lawn-mowing contractor have to do with the CIA?”
Steve supplied him with a copy of the letter that went with the ID. It didn’t contain much more than a list of the agencies that had agreed to cooperate with his investigation, but it was written on Office of the Director of National Intelligence letterhead and signed off by Saunders.
Muir took his time reading it. “I’m going to need a copy of this.”
“Be my guest.” He nodded toward the backyard. “Has the body been identified?”
Briefly, Muir filled him in on the details. Hansen had been dead for two, maybe three days. He had been on their list of suspects for the appliance thefts and they’d had an APB out on his truck ever since his girlfriend had called the previous night to say that he had gone missing.
“Who found the body?”
“An anonymous female caller, but my money’s on your girlfriend.”
“Mind if I take a look in the house?”
Muir still didn’t look happy. “Hart goes with you. The body is out-of-bounds.”
Hart led the way into the house.
As Steve passed the sunroom with its empty computer desk, he took his cell phone out of his pocket, stabbed the speed dial, spoke briefly then hung up. Taylor must have come back here shortly after he had left for work to look for the cat, found the body, reported it and left town. He was willing to bet that she had also found the cat, which meant her first stop would be a cattery.
He noticed that the photos in the sitting room were gone, along with a sampler that had been on the wall. Apart from taking these few personal items, it appeared that she had packed just the necessities.
When he walked out of the bedroom, Hart was waiting in the hall. “Where’s the body?”
Hart looked wary. “Over the fence in the adjoining park.”
“Mind if I take a look from the backyard?”
“Just as long as you don’t go over the fence. After the rain last night, the evidence techs are going crazy trying to find anything but mud.”
Steve stepped out of the back door just as Muir cleared the two ambulance officers carrying a stretcher and a body bag to hand the equipment over the fence. “How did he die?”
Hart watched in mute fascination as two uniformed officers disappeared with the stretcher into the overgrown reserve. “Two in the back of the head. That’s a first for Cold Peak.”
The tension in Steve’s stomach intensified. The sniper who had shot Taylor in D.C. had fired at least four rounds and only one of them had hit the target. The attempt in Wilmington had been a clear shot from an apartment window that had also been bungled, leaving Taylor with a grazed arm. This guy had made sure.
The shooting was different; connected, but different. Maybe it was simply that the killing had been so neatly executed; no mess on either Letty or Taylor’s properties, no sloppy marksmanship, just bad luck that Taylor had climbed over the fence and gone looking for her cat.
A burst of static erupted out of Hart’s radio. “It’s Harris. They’ve found the truck. It’s in a ravine on Herbert Pierce’s place, just off Highway 103. There’s a television and a VCR in the rear.”
Muir swore. “Tell Harris not to touch a thing and don’t let anyone near it.”
Muir issued orders, but Steve already knew the truck was another dead end. He’d been trailing this guy for months. If Muir thought he would find anything to hang a case on in the ravine, he was going to be disappointed. The only piece of information that was of real interest to him was that Harris hadn’t reported another body.
Just after twelve, Taylor used the new cell phone she had bought in Springfield, a town thirty minutes south of Cold Peak, and dialed Jack Jones’s number.
He picked up almost immediately. “What’s wrong?”
The sound of her father’s voice loosened off some of her tension. At this time of day he could have been out on his launch with clients and out of cell phone range, and right now every second counted. “I’ve left the Witness Security program. I need your help.”
“Where are you?”
“Nowhere yet, I’m driving. Don’t worry, I’m safe. There’s something I need you to do. It’s important.”
There was a brief silence. He said something sharp and succinct. “Dana.”
Relief made her feel weak. The conversation had been conducted in a weird short code, but they were on the same wavelength.
“Why didn’t they go for Dana before?”
“Because they had a line on me. Now that’s gone.”
There was a dull clunk, as though he’d set a plate down. “What happened?”
Briefly, she filled him in on the murders, the shot that had narrowly missed her and the fact that she had been followed to Cold Peak.
“Damn it. Where are you?”
“That’s not important. All I need is for you to get Dana out of San Francisco and keep her safe.”
“She isn’t going to like it.”
“She’ll understand. You’re the only one I trust to do it.”
There was a tense silence. She heard background noises, the sound of canned laughter. She had a sudden mental picture of her father watching TV while he ate lunch alone and she experienced an unexpected, vivid sense of connection. Jack Jones hadn’t lived the life she’d wanted him to live, but he was alive and, right now, he was the only person she trusted to help her.
“I’ll get a flight out this afternoon. As it happens, I was on my way to the West Coast. I’ve got a lead on the hit man and a contact who’s willing to talk.”
“Forget the hit man. Just get Dana out.”
At ten o’clock Taylor turned into a popular motel chain just off Highway 91 on the outskirts of Northampton, Massachusetts. She paid for a room with cash and parked the rental she’d picked up in Springfield outside the unit.
The motel room was sparse but comfortable. After depositing a change of clothes and toiletries in the bedroom, she dialed Burdett.
He picked up immediately, despite the fact that it was late, and he wasn’t happy. He’d had the Cold Peak PD, the FBI and the Attorney General’s office in his ear and he wanted her back in protective custody, ASAP.
Cutting him short, Taylor supplied the address of the bank, and the time and date Fischer and his sidekick had been outside, talking. “If you get hold of the bank’s front door and ATM security camera tapes, you should be able to get clear footage of two men who followed me to Cold Peak. One of them, the guy with the glasses, was in Wilmington. I’ll be in touch.”