Back from the Brink Read online

  “The lake is the common denominator,” Lars said.

  Nicole looked past the house, past the marker indicating where the woman had entered the foliage. The earth sloped sharply and beyond it lay the lake, a clear and glistening blue. The woman had run for cover and kept on running. She had run to the lake, where the homes were grouped more closely together. The way was rough, some parts impassable. But she had deemed the road an impossibility. Within a mile either way were homes and help. Why not duck into cover alongside the road and maintain a parallel passage? For a young woman, nine months pregnant and on the edge of delivery, certainly that would have been the best option.

  Unless she was running scared, unable to think through her actions.

  Or if she was an undocumented alien and couldn’t risk exposure.

  Or … maybe the escape was planned, a strategy worked out in advance.

  Because she’d known she would be hunted.

  Yes, that made sense. The lake drew her, because help was waiting somewhere along its shores.

  “She’s a UDA,” Nicole said. “She couldn’t just run to any neighbor for help.”

  “Explains the phony name, the medical care off the grid,” Lars agreed.

  Nicole walked around the hood of her Yukon and closer to the perimeter. She took sight of the window where, inside, a young man lay dead. The woman had come from that bedroom. She had slid down the roof until she made the eaves and then hung from the piping. The rain gutter peeled away from the trim and the woman landed at the side of the house, in a soft bed of newly turned soil. A tech had cast her prints—a pair of sneakers, size six. Then the woman ran to the trees. Not in a straight line, which would be expected for someone whose mind was filled with terror and clicked into survival mode. The entry was twenty yards southwest, and Nicole wouldn’t be surprised to find that it offered the best accessibility.

  “She knew she would have to run,” Nicole said. “She had an escape route already mapped out.”

  Nicole moved closer, off the gravel and into the grass. She skirted the woman’s trajectory, stayed well beyond her path. But she could see her—medium build, Tandy had said, strong—arms pumping as she closed the distance and then ducked into the dense foliage.

  “Why do you think so?” Lars followed, his gaze measuring the woman’s progress from eave to trailhead, and he got it. “Not a straight line. Not a frantic pattern of flight.” He nodded. “She knew.”

  “And she had a plan.” Nicole wondered what else the woman had set up in advance to save her life. “Why the lake?”

  “Someone was waiting there for her,” Lars said.

  “Yes, or if not waiting, willing,” Nicole agreed.

  “We assume she knew what she was doing, where she was going,” Lars said.

  “Agreed. And that she was well on her way to her place of safety when she gave birth.”

  “We assume she made it, and we start knocking on doors.”

  “We’re stretched thin. I have every available man looking for Monte and Baker.” Nicole thought for a moment, mentally moving deputies across the board. “We’ll go separately. You and me and a third—I’ll pull one deputy.”

  “Three of us for seven miles of waterfront property.” Lars didn’t like the progress notes likely to come of that. She could see it as his eyebrows pulled together over his nose. “And that’s the first wave. If she crossed the Lake Road and moved into the developments there, we’ve doubled our field.”

  “They’re connected,” Nicole said, because while coincidences certainly existed, they didn’t apply to crime. “The proximity and time overlap … Monte, the pregnant girl, the murder here. Something went very wrong last night, and she’s the only live thread to grasp and follow at the moment.”

  “If she’s still alive,” Lars said.

  8

  “He’s a beautiful baby.”

  “Yes.”

  He had her dark hair but Matthew’s chin, strong and dimpled, and a mouth ready to smile. She lifted the flannel blanket so that it covered his neck and kept the draft from his ears. Then she turned away from the woman, but not before she noticed the way age weighed heavily on her shoulders. Her face was sharp, from her hooked nose to her narrow eyes.

  Some women were like that, Adelai reminded herself. She had lived with a mother hewn by her father’s hands into a wooden idol.

  “Come put the baby down,” the woman said, and indicated a cushion she had taken from the sofa and placed on the floor. “He will be safe here.”

  But Adelai shook her head. “He is happiest when I’m holding him.”

  She had learned so much about him in so few hours. Not just the shape of his toes and the quiet, watchful way he had, but his preferences. When she offered her finger, tucking it into his palm, he held it tightly. When she spoke his name, he turned to her, his eyes open and inquiring. He woke up the same way. He’d had three naps since his birthing that morning, and each time he had shaken sleep from his body quickly and regarded her with a let’s go expectancy.

  “You have to put him down sometime,” the woman chided. And Adelai knew it was true. Her mind and body craved sleep. But not here. Not now. Not today.

  She knew that, to this woman, she was the door prize. Adelai had learned that expression from Matthew when he’d described those in the area who were friendly to immigrants. Lois and Eli Embry in particular. They were powerful, retired attorneys. They could make things happen for Adelai. They were big on advocating and on drawing all the attention they could to their altruistic handouts.

  But the woman was always close. And she had a way of making a request bear down on a person like a demand. There was a struggle of power here, and it was making Adelai weary.

  She wished Matthew would come. Knew it wasn’t possible. That would never happen again. He had saved her twice now. It was her turn. She would save their baby and she would do whatever that took.

  Don’t look over your shoulder, Adelai … Matthew had warned her about regret, about remorse. One was self-indulgent and the other a luxury. There was no time for either.

  Little Matthew cried, his voice already strong. He batted his hand against the blanket. It was time for a feeding.

  “I will get him some air,” Adelai said.

  “You can’t go outside.”

  “Of course we can. Just in the backyard. No one will see us there.” There were trees and blueberry brambles just beginning to bud. There were new leaves, as wide as her hands, and the dock and the lake were down a long and rugged path. It would not be easy to find them.

  “Adelai, you need rest. Put the baby down. Sleep.”

  She was moving toward the back door. The day had warmed and the windows were open. “We’re going outside, Lois. Just on the back porch.” She opened the door and slipped through it. “Just to sit in this chair,” she called over her shoulder. “Surely that’s okay.”

  And Adelai did exactly that.

  She had found help and she wasn’t necessarily caught, but trembled just the same in that outstretched hand.

  * * *

  Nicole returned to the lake, not to join the search for the missing BP agents but for an update on its progress and to let Larry Green know firsthand about the pregnant girl, the birth, and the man executed in the young woman’s home. It was one thirty in the afternoon and they were ten hours into an all-hands.

  “And you think this is connected to my missing agents?” Green’s voice was rough from the cold and the long hours on or near the water. From lack of sleep, from the encroaching thought of loss. Two agents missing, possibly perished. A nightmare for the division chief. For any leader.

  She had spoken briefly to MacAulay on her way over and had narrowed their timeline. She gave it to Green, then said, “It’s tight. That’s a lot going on at the same time within a few miles of each other.”

  Green nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like this is New York or LA.” Where crime populated the streets and was crammed into every minute.

 
“What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to take a deputy—” No CO wanted to hear that, a thinning of the forces at ground level. “He’ll join me and Lars for a door-to-door along the Lake Road.”

  He was nodding. “I understand that. Really, I do,” Green said. “But that’s a lot of houses. And the girl, how could she even be involved?”

  “Just the northern rim,” Nicole said. “We think it’s worth the time and manpower. Finding the young woman could be key to opening this case.”

  “I don’t see it,” Green said. “What could she do for us?”

  “If she saw something,” Nicole said. “The timing—”

  “Could be off,” Green insisted.

  “I don’t think so. We have a witness who observed two boats on the lake. And she was just a little behind in time from the young woman.”

  “What do you mean, a witness?” he demanded. “Who? And where is this person now?”

  Nicole ignored Green’s demands. Truth was, the sheriff’s department would be taking over the lead in this case and probably should have done so already. She was treading a slippery slope, respecting the feelings of an outside agency, needing their skills and efforts, but protocol and good policing would soon demand that she relieve Green. And he knew it.

  “We’re doing this,” she said. “Any information we gain from it, we’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah?” he challenged. His voice was loud and belligerent, and it raised the hairs on her neck. “Like you’re letting me know about this witness?”

  Nicole took a step closer to Green. “Rein it in,” she told him, keeping her voice deliberately calm. “You’re running low on sleep and high on adrenaline.” Not to mention mounting desperation. “Get a grip and loan me one of your agents,” she decided. That would make it four officers canvassing the lakefront.

  Green held her gaze, and Nicole watched the fight drain from his eyes. He inhaled deeply, and the tension in his shoulders loosened. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. One agent.”

  He lifted his head and scanned the crew assembled along the edge of the lake. Nicole did the same. Some were searching the shore for possible evidence washed up by the current. Others were photographing with long lenses and video equipment. A team was mapping out the terrain that spread from shore to woods and beyond, and agents were being given grids to search in an organized pattern that would leave no stone unturned. But there was a lot more land than officers and little time to fill the gaps.

  His attention turned to the water, where seven small craft—several rented from local shops—were attending to drags and sweeps and trolling the shoreline while officers used high-powered binoculars to peel between the layers of foliage. It was a big operation focused on three areas of pursuit: water, shoreline, and a quarter mile of inland.

  “Take one from the Highway Patrol too. Make it a united front,” he said.

  Nicole nodded. “We’re working on a sketch.” She looked at her watch. She had called in the request only an hour before. “For now, we’re going with a physical description.”

  “I know. Coloring, weight, and height. I heard it come across the wires. Didn’t know it would become a part of our investigation.” His lips peeled back with disapproval, but he pushed through it. “Of course, she has a baby with her. Nothing like a newborn’s cry. People will remember her.”

  “You’re right about that.” Whether drawn by the cute factor or repelled by the noise level, people remembered babies better than they did humans of any other size.

  “There’s something I should tell you,” Green said. “I’m not wanting it public knowledge yet. Maybe not ever, because maybe there’s nothing to this,” he cautioned.

  Nicole’s radar went on alert.

  “Monte and Melody,” he began. “Agent Baker. They’re good agents, both of them. I’ve known Monte going on sixteen years. Melody was assigned to the Canadian border eleven months ago. I have no reason to wonder about Monte’s integrity. Very little reason to question Baker’s.”

  “But …?”

  “There’s talk in-house. Whisperings, you know how it is,” he began.

  “Gossip?”

  He shrugged. “Suggesting a closeness that went beyond a partnership. More times than not it’s bullshit. And there are a lot of years between them, so I thought maybe it was a mentoring thing. Still, I took a look. Nothing official. Just went out of my way to observe them, in and out of the office.” He shrugged. “There seemed to be an intimacy there.”

  “You think they may have been romantically involved?”

  “I’m saying it’s possible.” He was quiet a moment, a heaviness building in the air as he considered the matter. “You know Monte lost his wife a few years ago. A terrible car crash involving a semi. His kids are grown, out of college already and living across the country. I’m saying if it’s true, we can trace it back to loss, loneliness, that kind of thing, on Monte’s part. Melody’s a big girl. Thirty-three years old, divorced, no familial attachments.”

  “So if it’s true, and it’s possible, loneliness could have brought them together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then what would have happened?”

  “Reassignment,” Green said. “And that’s no easy thing. It’s not a matter of separating them by shifts. It would be moving one to another office. Current possibilities would mean transferring Melody to our Arizona station or keeping her on the Canadian border but placing her in Baileyville, Maine.”

  Both more than a thousand miles from Blue Mesa.

  “And how do you see this impacting our current investigation?”

  “I don’t. I’m mentioning it because it could be a factor.”

  “Because they’re missing together?” It didn’t add up. Not yet. “What else?” she asked. “If they wanted out, all they had to do was leave their badges on their desks and walk.” That made sense. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He hesitated, and Nicole waited. “In the essence of full disclosure,” he began, and paused to trouble over his next words.

  “Just spit it out, Green.” She could hear the clock ticking over her shoulder, and it made her voice impatient.

  “About a year ago some evidence went missing. Nothing big, but enough to reduce a case to a misdemeanor. There was no break in the chain of evidence, but it had been transported from our office to Billings and from Billings to the crime lab in San Diego. We needed the SEM—scanning electron microscope—and we have only a few of those per region. There was a lot of finger-pointing between departments but no real suspicion cast our way.”

  “But it happened again?”

  He nodded. “Twice. The evidence lost”—he shook his head and whistled thinly between his teeth—“millions in both money and drugs.”

  “And the missing evidence changed the direction in court?”

  He nodded. “One case was thrown out. Another was dropped from attempted murder to possession. A difference in twenty years to life.”

  Nicole found it hard to swallow and knew Green must have choked on it.

  “But I want to make sure you know there’s no reason to suspect Baker. No reason at all. Melody worked only one of those cases and wasn’t even assigned to Blue Mesa for the first loss.” He paused. “And Monte—” He shook his head. “I just don’t see it in him.”

  But betrayals were the bee’s stinger. They welted. Spread. Caused an entire department to itch. And they hurt.

  “That they’ve both vanished, from the same boat, at the same time … two trained agents? No exchange of gunfire? It must have been a hell of an ambush.” His words rang with doubt.

  “Could be one turned against the other,” Nicole offered. Love gone wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. “We’ve been on the lake going on eleven hours. Soon we’ll have to change the direction of the investigation.”

  From rescue to recovery. From victims to perpetrators.

  A tow truck, king-sized and usually reserved for pulling semis fro
m off-road mishaps, pulled in ahead of the slip and stopped. Its diesel engine idled, huffing and puffing, and on its bed was the salvage boat that would pull the BP skiff from the bottom of Lake Maria.

  Green followed Nicole’s gaze and said, “I’m hoping there’s something you missed and as soon as we raise our crime scene from the deep we’ll see it.”

  Before he could turn away and start organizing the salvage, Nicole stopped him. “How do you want me to proceed?” she asked. “Given the possibilities you revealed.”

  “Quietly.”

  “That’s a given,” Nicole assured him. “But you told me for a reason. Do you want me to look into it?”

  “I want you to keep it in mind.”

  “I’ll have to do more than that,” she said. “Soon.”

  “You’re talking about taking over the investigation?”

  “You know it’s going to come to that, especially in light of the information you just shared.”

  “It wasn’t information, it was conjecture.”

  “Not the missing evidence,” Nicole said. “That’s fact. There’s something amiss in your department.”

  He nodded, and his mouth drew into a thin, flat line. “You think we aren’t already crawling with Internal Affairs? They’ve had us under the microscope for months. I haven’t taken a piss by myself since December.”

  “Fair enough.” For now. “What about the party barge?” Nicole had ordered it towed back to the lab. Forensics needed to comb through it for any possibility of DNA. Nowadays the samples could be microscopic and still draw a hit.

  “We used a department trailer,” he said. “It left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “My lab or yours?”

  “Mine, of course,” he said. “Your guys processed it, afloat and after we had it on dry land. The rest is ours.”

  That didn’t sit well with Nicole. Someone in BP had something to hide. And she was coming to believe that whoever it was, they were willing to kill in order to remain in the shadows.

  “You don’t like that,” he said, and his lip curled with derision.

  “You wouldn’t either.”