Payback, p.4
Payback, page 4
Gin held her breath and waited patiently, not wanting to push too hard. From what Echo was saying, it sounded like the young woman and her drunk companion might have seen a lot more than she first thought they had, and now it was imperative that she heard all of it. When Echo suddenly dropped her hands and lifted her gaze to meet Gin’s, the drug-induced haze in her eyes had been chased out by fear.
“When I turned around to see who was screaming, there was a big whoosh.” She drew in a ragged gulp of air. “Like when a car, or maybe even a train, passes you real fast. And this ball of fire came out of the building. The front doors were wide open, and this fire just whooshed out.” Echo’s whole body shuddered. “It got really hot, and that fire looked alive and kept growing. I thought it was coming after us.” Her gaze dropped back to the floor. “So we ran. All the way back to that store where I wanted to buy some snacks.” She paused, her breathing gradually returning to normal before she looked around, a puzzled expression on her face. “And then we were in this room. I like it here. There isn’t any fire, and it’s so quiet that Thunder went to sleep.” Her gaze slowly returned to look at Gin. “Then you came with that man who took Thunder outside.” She shot Gin a wary look before scooting back a few feet. “It’s quiet here. I want to stay.”
“You can stay for a little longer,” Gin reassured her. “Then we can go someplace else that’s not only quiet, but even farther away from the fire. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
Echo frowned as she thought it over. “I guess. If Thunder can come too. I have to stay with Thunder. Stay with Thunder.”
When she cast a worried look at the closed door, Gin followed the direction of her gaze. “Thunder is just outside. He’ll be back soon and then we’ll go away from here, to that other quiet place I told you about.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees. “I’ve never seen a moon car. What did it look like?”
“Shiny.” Echo’s shoulders relaxed as her gaze shifted away from the closed door. “It glowed like moonlight.”
“What color was it?”
“I don’t know. What color is moonlight?” Echo’s brow furrowed into several lines. “Silver, maybe?”
Silver. Maybe. Gin sighed. “How about the person who ran past you? Do you remember anything about him? Was he a man, or maybe you saw a woman?”
“I don’t know,” Echo repeated. “I got knocked down.”
“Okay.” Gin pursed her lips as she sifted through Echo’s story. “You said after your friends drove here, you walked a few blocks to The Oasis?” She patiently waited for Echo’s slow nod before continuing. “And you didn’t notice any fire, or smell any smoke, before you heard that big whoosh?”
“There wasn’t any,” Echo said. “Not until I got knocked down. Then I heard that whoosh and saw the fire shoot out the front door, like a dragon was inside.”
Yeah, that whoosh. Gin took a slow breath. She’d heard that sound before, and Echo wasn’t wrong. Gasoline and a match did produce a dragon that sucked in air with a whoosh and then spit it back out as fire. She turned at the sound of footsteps, lifting an eyebrow when a raggedy-looking Thunder shuffled through the doorway, prodded in the back by a light push from Trey.
“Mr. Thunder here has decided to cooperate.” Trey clapped a hand on the swaying man’s shoulder and applied enough pressure that Thunder’s legs slowly buckled and he plopped onto the ground next to Echo. When his head slumped over his shoulder and he listed against her, his wet hair sliding against her cheek, she scooted to the side. With nothing to support him, he would have toppled over on his face if Trey hadn’t reached out and grabbed his arm, yanking him back to an upright position. “Sit up,” Trey commanded.
“Hey, man. Let go of me.” Thunder made a half-hearted attempt to free his arm from Trey’s grip before giving up and using his free hand to shove the hair out of his face. “Fine, fine. I’m sitting.” When Trey released his arm and took a step back, Thunder looked around, squinting up at Gin. “Who are you?”
Gin put her hands on her hips and stared down at him. “I’m Special Agent Reilly, and I assume you have a legal name?”
“Cody Matthews,” Trey supplied when Thunder stuck his chin out in a weak show of stubborn defiance before slowly slumping over. “He lives in Cherry Creek. Or rather, his parents do. Cody here stays in their pool house.”
“Cherry Creek?” Gin repeated, never taking her eyes off the man staring up at her. “The same neighborhood as the owner of the club, Mark Worthy?” She squatted so they were eye level. “Did you know him, Cody?” When he growled a “no”, Gin tilted her head to the side. “A friend of the family, maybe?”
Cody’s shoulders lifted into a shrug. “I don’t know. My old man is in real estate. He knows a lot of people.”
“Okay,” Gin replied pleasantly. “Can you tell me what you saw at The Oasis tonight?”
Cody jerked his head toward Trey. “I already told him.”
When Gin glanced at Trey, her partner rolled his eyes. “Nothing. According to Mr. Matthews, he didn’t see anything except a guy getting into a weird-looking car and a lot of fire.”
“A guy?” Gin pinned her gaze on Cody’s face. “Are you sure it was a man and not a woman?
“Yeah. He shoved Echo and then stepped on my foot and said “bitch” while I was trying to keep Echo from planting her face on the sidewalk. Dude’s voice, not a chick’s.”
“Did you get a look at his face?”
“No.” Cody rolled his eyes at Gin as if she was missing a brain. “I couldn’t stare at him and keep Echo from falling on her face too. The guy shoved her out of the way, then kept running and jumped into that car and took off.”
“You said it was a weird-looking car?” Gin asked. “Why was it weird looking?”
“It glowed in the dark.” Cody’s chin came out again. “You know, like those kid stickers you put on the bedroom ceilings and shit.” He grabbed his midsection, his face contorted with acute pain for a moment, then he belched loud enough to have the sound bouncing off the walls in the small room.
Gin waved a hand in front of her face at the offensive smell of stale-beer breath, then in sheer self-defense rose to face Trey. “Echo said the same thing. Before all the smoke from the fire, it was a clear night. What would make a car glow in the dark from moonlight?”
“A lot of polish?” Trey suggested, then held a hand up, one finger pointed in the air. “Hang on. I have a buddy who went into auto bodywork after his enlistment was up. We were shooting the breeze at his place one night and he talked about this chrome plating that celebrities and rich people with money to burn wanted to put on their cars. He sent me some pictures once. I remember those cars were definitely shiny.”
“Your buddy said that someone puts chrome all over their car?” Gin frowned. “Like paint?”
Trey shook his head. “I’m not sure how it’s done, but something like that, I guess.”
Gin’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t seen anything matching that description at the scene, but then one of their eyewitnesses said a person who ran out of The Oasis before the fire took over, had gotten into the shiny moon car and taken off. She looked at Trey. “Can you check the DMV site and find out what kind of car Mark Worthy drove?” As he moved off, she took out her own cell and called Americk. It only took one ring before a tired, annoyed voice answered.
“Whatever it is, Gin, I need some sleep first.”
“Just a quick question. Did Jimmy the Jerk give you all the evidence he collected from the bodies?”
“Yes. And I’ve already logged it into our lab. As a matter of fact, I just finished and am on my way home.” She paused for a single beat. “To get some sleep. You should do the same, because Agent Jones sent an email for a seven o’clock meeting, which is about in three hours, to go over everything.”
“He did?” Gin could already feel her body protesting at the thought. “Did you log in a set of car keys?”
“No car keys. And since I’m sure of that, I am now turning my phone off and going home.”
When a definitive click sounded in Gin’s ear, she held the phone out and stared at it. “Well, goodnight, I guess.”
“Problem?” Trey asked, looking from her to her cell phone.
“Nope. Just a grumpy doctor who didn’t log in any car keys from the evidence Jimmy turned over to her. So either he got a ride to work tonight, or maybe those keys are still buried in the debris.” Gin tucked her phone away. “Or the killer borrowed them. How about you? Any luck on that car?”
Her partner’s mouth curved into a satisfied smile. “Quite a bit. He had several cars registered with the DMV, so I called the business partner and caught a break. The guy was still awake and has gathered quite a crowd at the victim’s condo. Judging by the noise level, it sounded like he had quite a party going, but he stepped away from the group grieving session long enough to tell me that Worthy took his Audi R8 to work tonight. The one that he had chrome plated so it would shine like silver.”
“Bingo. If our witnesses are right, then the killer used Worthy’s car to leave the scene.” Gin jerked her head toward their witnesses sitting on the floor. “If you’ll get those two into your nice SUV, I’ll call Stroberg about taking them on as guests tonight and putting an APB out on that car.”
Trey’s eyebrows shot up. “We aren’t taking them home? What charge is Stroberg supposed to be holding them on?”
“Whatever he thinks will stick for twenty-four hours.” Gin’s gaze deliberately cut over to Echo. “It will give him time to do an age check.”
“Cody said she was twenty,” Trey offered, then paused to take a closer look at the woman. With her arms wrapped around her raised knees, Ellen Bonter, aka Echo, looked vulnerable and very young. “An age check might be a good idea.”
With an inward sigh, Gin took out her cell phone again. “Yeah. I’ll make the call.”
Chapter Four
Gin kept a firm hold on the cardboard coffee cup as she slouched against the elevator wall. Her system was slowly humming to life, making her grateful she’d ignored the urge to grab another half-hour of sleep so she could make the side trek to snag a coffee at the local Starbucks. She’d considered it a lifesaving necessity before having to make an appearance at the seven o’clock meeting.
Exiting on the fourth floor, she stopped to take a sip, making a soft humming noise as she absorbed another welcome jolt of caffeine. Through bleary eyes she surveyed the warren of cubicles.
The modern versions of desks were laid out in clusters, divided by glass walls into four distinct areas, each assigned to a different discipline within the Critical Crimes Unit. Every section housed six cubicles, most of which were fully occupied and humming with activity, even at this ungodly hour of the morning.
Only one area was deserted, mostly because she and Trey were the only two agents currently working on the homicide team. Since he was nowhere in sight, Gin assumed he was already waiting in the conference room. She hoped the rumors were true and that the two other pairs of partners already selected for the team would make an appearance sometime in the next week or two. It would be great to have some help. But in the meantime, she and Trey would have to shoulder all the work.
“Word has it that your murder squad has got itself a serial killer.”
Gin barely managed to suppress a sigh. If she had been more awake, she would have heard Richard Turner’s heavy step coming her way and made a beeline for the conference room. She pasted a polite smile on her face before nodding at the beefy, dark-haired man who had come up beside her. While the rest of his cohorts on the Cybercrimes team favored worn-out jeans and T-shirts with geeky sayings on them, Richard’s preferences ran toward tailored suits and expensive shoes.
“Oh? Whose word is that?”
“From the mouth of a forensic tech. A couple of them were here late and ended up sleeping on the couches in their break room,” Richard supplied, his squinty gaze shifting to zero in on the cup in her hand. “I don’t suppose you got that here?”
“Nope.” Gin’s forced smile stretched a little further. The only break room in the CCU was located on the forensics floor. It had been a condition of Americk’s before she would agree to desert Quantico and relocate with her wife to Denver. “Starbucks.”
Richard let out a deep snort. “I don’t know why we can’t have our own break room and fancy coffee setup.”
“Because the one in Forensics is easily accessible and having two would be a waste of the taxpayer’s money.” Gin kept a straight face as she quoted the reasoning they’d all heard multiple times from whoever was occupying the senior agent in charge position, and despite her distaste for the cybercrimes agent, she chuckled at his sour look. “Or probably because we’re all a lot more replaceable than the forensics team.”
Richard’s shoulders lifted into a shrug. “Almost everyone in the Cybercrimes Unit, maybe.” His smug tone left no doubt who he considered the exception to that rule. “Not me, and I’m guessing not you or your partner, either. I’m the best in the Bureau at my job, and I’d think that daughters of serial killers and hotshot search and rescue pilots are hard to find.” At Gin’s stony look, his expression settled into a smirk. “Although I’d think Robard’s skills would be better suited for the ATF. With all that smuggling they deal with, they could probably use a pilot now and then. That’s probably also true of the same unit your boyfriend is on. Domestic Terrorism, isn’t it?”
Gin gritted her teeth. She was used to everyone in the Bureau knowing about her father, but trust the never-lets-personal-boundaries-stop-him Agent Turner to dig out any gossip about her on-again, off-again relationship with Justin Cameron, the CCU’s newest bad boy.
She made a mental note to maintain some distance between herself and Justin to keep the whispering behind their backs at a minimum. Being the daughter of the Black Cross Killer made her enough of a target. But with Justin being in an entirely different unit, it shouldn’t be that hard to avoid him. Especially since they both spent most of their time in the field.
Determined to change the subject, she pointed at the walled-off section to the left of the elevator. Inside the glass cage, bodies were in continual motion and the noise level held at a steady hum. “So, what’s going on with them?”
Richard glanced that way, then curled his lip up in dismissal. “They’re all shipping out tonight and are really tight-lipped about where they’re heading. Being Organized Crime and all, they think everything they do is some kind of big secret.” He turned his back on the busy hive of agents and faced Gin. “So, were those dead guys found at The Oasis last night the work of a serial killer?”
She arched a brow before lowering one eyelid in an exaggerated wink. “That’s classified.” She did a quick sidestep around him. “Sorry. I have a briefing I can’t be late for.” Making short work of putting some distance between them, Gin rapidly walked to one of the smaller conference rooms on the far side of the floor and slipped inside. Tray was nowhere to be seen, but leaning back and looking very comfortable in one of the chairs clustered around the table was none other than Mr. Bad Boy himself. Wondering what else could go sideways that morning, Gin deliberately pulled out a chair as far away from him as possible and plopped into it.
After casting a quick look his way, she concentrated on drinking her coffee, ignoring the sudden spike in her heart rate. No big deal, she told herself. She’d ignored it, and him, before. Although it was never easy. Topping six feet, Justin Cameron wasn’t leading-man handsome. But with thick brown hair the color of rich, dark coffee, and a gaze that could pin you to the wall, he easily commanded the attention of an entire room. If he wanted it.
Catching his quick smile from the corner of her eye, she didn’t need to look to know his normally piercing gaze would be lit up with amusement. It was always his reaction whenever she ignored him. It didn’t stop her, but still, it was irritating.
“I was hoping I could catch you alone here. We need to talk.”
Not wanting to give him an excuse to move closer to get her attention, she shot him a pained look. “About what?”
“It has to be a private conversation.”
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and did a slow count to five. “About what?” she repeated.
“About my recent visit to Iowa.”
Gin froze for a moment before slowly dropping her gaze to meet his. The only thing they would need to talk about in Iowa was Frank Wilkins, a former captain in the Story County Sherrif’s department in Iowa, and the only person on earth who knew her secrets. Or at least most of them.
Justin had told her he intended to visit the captain who had caught the Black Cross Killer. But when she didn’t hear back from either of them, she figured either Frank, who she always called Cap, hadn’t been home or his conversation with Justin hadn’t amounted to much. “What about your visit?” she asked cautiously. “Cap hasn’t mentioned it.”
“That’s because he’s busy. Which is what I want to talk to you about.”
“Why?” She winced as soon as the words were out. She sounded like a pouting kid, for god’s sake.
“I’ll meet you at the Black Diamond after work.” His tone made it clear enough that he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. “We need some uninterrupted time to talk it over.”
Besides not being thrilled at the prospect of another late night, there was also a logistical problem. Her team had a case and that meant her hours were far from certain. She had no idea when, or even if, she could make it to the Black Diamond. “I’ll have to call and let you know. I might get held up.”
“It doesn’t make any difference what time,” Justin stated. He turned his head at the sound of voices right outside the conference room, then lowered his own. “The Black Diamond is open until four a.m. Just call and confirm the time you’ll be there.”
“Look, I barely got three hours of sleep last night, so unless this is some earthshaking thing that Cap didn’t bother to tell me about. . .” She trailed off and blinked at the hard look from Justin.
