Chapter Thirteen
All the charm in the world and a federal badge weren’t getting him any play at the airline check-in desk. Apparently, no one was getting in or out of Boise by air for the next fifteen hours—and maybe then some.
“There has to be something available?” Tess said plaintively to the attendant.
The woman at the ticket counter took in Tess’s swollen nose and bruised neck, and shot Mac a nervous glance. He didn’t think it would do any good to deny he had anything to do with Tess’s injuries. It was his fault she’d been assaulted.
Eddie’s attack had come out of nowhere. Mac had stood paralyzed in that observation room, not knowing what it might do to Eddie if he saw Kenny Travers suddenly rise from the dead. Would it have tipped the balance and made the sonofabitch snap Tess’s slender neck? It wasn’t a risk Mac had been willing to take. So, he’d stayed put, wishing he’d never put the woman in danger.
Had something given her away? Or had Eddie always intended to attack her and bided his time, toying with her until visiting time ended? Was that how psychopaths entertained themselves in prison? And why attack Tess when his sentence was almost up?
Maybe the guy liked prison. Maybe the asshole genuinely hated Tess for not dying that night of the raid. Ironic, as Eddie was the only member of the family over the age of ten to have survived. Or maybe he knew something about what was going on with these murders and thought Tess might somehow give them away… That was a tantalizing proposition.
What might she remember that could help Mac with this investigation?
He wondered what Eddie’s old girlfriend was up to these days. Mac texted Dylan Walsh on a secure line urging him to check up on that lead.
Mac needed to re-listen to the recordings of Tess and Eddie’s conversation to see if there were any other clues. He had the list of visitors and copies of Eddie’s correspondence and details of his internet activity which he’d also forwarded to Walsh. If Eddie was communicating with someone about these murders, they’d find out. It was only a matter of time. Unfortunately, time wasn’t on their side. By their nature, investigations moved at glacial speed, and they needed to stop these murders fast.
Eddie-the-asshole was going to enjoy a few years added to his sentence, but maybe when someone had been inside their whole life that was a good thing. How would the guy survive in the real world?
The airline clerk had been typing furiously but finally looked up at Tess with a palpable expression of regret. “I’m really sorry, ma’am, there’s nothing I can do out of Boise today. It’s not just the snow. One of our de-icing machines broke down. We have technicians working on it, but a new part needs to be brought in from Utah by road.”
“Roads are open?” Mac raised his chin and ignored her disapproval.
She nodded. “Storm’s coming down from the north. Roads to the south are still open.”
Mac checked his watch. The idea of being away from the office overnight because of something as unpredictable as a blizzard drove him nuts, but having grown up in Montana he recognized the futility of arguing with the weather. Mother Nature did not consider anyone’s plans. He checked the weather app on his phone and sauntered over to the rental company.
“Got any SUVs?”
The guy nodded.
“I need to be able to drop it at Salt Lake City.”
The guy filled in the paperwork as Tess trailed slowly across the concourse toward him, wheeling her carry-on luggage like a kid dragging a teddy bear.
He tossed the keys in his hand, nodded to the clerk in thanks.
Tess’s hazel eyes widened when she spotted the keys. “You’re driving?”
“This is the southern edge of the storm and the forecast is for it to move north in the next hour. Salt Lake City is south east and on a good day it’s only a five-hour drive. The airport there is a lot bigger. I’d rather take a chance on getting a flight outta there than waiting in Boise.”
She gnawed her bottom lip. Aside from dabbing away the blood from beneath her nose she hadn’t cleaned up and her hair had escaped the pony she’d tied it in. And while her genes might have been warped, she was still one of the prettiest women he’d ever met.
“You wanna ride to Utah?” he offered.
Her eyes went huge. “You don’t mind?”
Mac suppressed a smile. Seriously? He’d jump at the chance to ply her with questions for endless hours, to fill in the blank details he’d forgotten about. The fact he found her attractive was inconvenient, but he could deal with it.
“But I’m leaving now.” There was something he wanted to see along the way.
She nodded eagerly.
He grabbed some coffees while she used the restroom. Soon they were loading their carry-on bags and laptops into the rear compartment and climbing into a brand-new Jeep Cherokee.
Tess was shivering and he couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to what happened with Eddie or the fierce heaping of winter they were getting. He turned up the heater and thrust a brown paper bag at her.
“Supplies.” He caught her gaze and grinned.
She peeked inside. “Donuts?”
“You used to have a sweet tooth.” She wasn’t the only one with a good memory.
“That was before the word ‘calorie’ entered my vocabulary.” She gingerly pulled one out and passed the bag back. She ate slowly with her coffee. Her color improved, but the red welts on her neck and swelling on the bridge of her nose were still neon bright.
It had been a mistake to use her. He’d underestimated how dangerous Eddie was.
The snow was coming down in thick cotton balls the wipers struggled to deal with. Despite the forecast it didn’t seem to be letting up, but Mac was familiar with this area and driving in these kinds of conditions. He actually missed Montana winters. There was a raw beauty in their ferocity. An elemental challenge in day-to-day living.
After thirty minutes, the amount accumulating on the road started to lessen. The handling got better and Mac drove faster.
“Did you notice he didn’t ask what murders?” Tess broke the easy silence.
He nodded. He’d noticed. The sonofabitch definitely knew something about what was going on in DC.
A look of revulsion crossed her features. “At least I can stop feeling guilty about not getting in touch with him for the last two decades. He’s repugnant. Did you hear what he said to me? About waiting for me to grow?” She hugged her coat tighter to her chest. “What an animal.”
“I heard.” The words hadn’t surprised him. Eddie had always been a nasty fucker and prison hadn’t softened him any. Mac’s fingers tightened on the wheel. There had been times he’d gone along with that kind of perverted sexist language to get on the guy’s good side. The memory made him feel ill.
“Did you know Ellie was being abused?”
“No, I told you. God, no.” He turned to look at her, outraged. Then his outrage died. “Except for the part where she was forced into marriage and, trust me, I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
Her next words made him wince. “Trust isn’t something I do anymore. Too many hard life lessons.”
She wasn’t trying to wheedle into his good side. She was stating a fact.
She slipped off her shoes and raised her knees to her chest, drawing her shoulders in. Her socks had math symbols on them and she wiggled her toes as if trying to warm them up.
“Walt had a bedroom next to mine. Ellie’s was the farthest away from our parents’ room. I don’t remember hearing noises and she never said anything to me about what was going on.” Grief etched lines of remorse around her mouth as if what had happened was her fault. It wasn’t.
“You didn’t live in a place that encouraged girls to stand up for themselves. Ellie was probably too confused or scared to fight back. Even so, I doubt they abused her under your parents’ roof. Your brothers were excellent at manipulating and threatening people but they weren’t brave.”
“No kidding,” she agreed. “Attacking children.”
Francis Hines’s behavior was more shocking. If what Eddie said was true she’d pawned her daughter off to a disgusting old man to hide the fact her sons had gotten her daughter pregnant.
Mac could have saved Ellie but he hadn’t. That guilt never got old.
“Did you know he had a girlfriend?” Tess asked. “Eddie?”
Mac frowned. “There were a couple of women I remember him dating. Eddie wasn’t exactly the sort of guy to show a woman a fun time. He treated them like crap once he got what he wanted, but some women gravitate toward that kind of relationship.”
“I remember Brandy. She wore skimpy clothes and too much makeup. Used to ride around on a motorcycle.” A smile touched the bow of her mouth. “I thought she was cool. Momma said she was a slut.”
Mac had a vague recollection of the young woman. It was a valuable potential lead they only had because Tess had agreed to wear the wire.
“What about you?” Tess said. “Were you ‘dating’ anyone?”
“Nah. I was too worried about letting my identity slip to get involved with anyone, although,” he grinned, “it’s possible a little ‘dating’ happened once in a while. I was nineteen and trying to fit in.”
“And the girls liked you. Yeah, I remember that, too.” She laughed and Mac watched her cheeks turn pink.
“It’s funny, the age difference was like a thousand years back then. Now we’re older it doesn’t seem relevant,” she said faintly. “Time changes everything.”
He shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t think she was trying to flirt with him. She seemed to be in a state of shock.
He certainly didn’t think of her as a child anymore. When she’d put the wire into her bra he’d been locked into place as surely as if someone had poured concrete over his feet. She hadn’t flashed any real skin but the idea she might have had held him transfixed.
Idiot.
He must be more deprived than he realized. Come to think about it, he hadn’t had sex since before the Minneapolis case. He’d have to learn to deal with it because nothing was gonna change until this new case was wrapped up and that could take months.
“I think Daddy was cheating on Momma, too.”
“What?” That was news to him. “What makes you say that?”
“I went into town with him once. Eddie was off somewhere, butchering a pig I think—probably with you now I come to think about it. Momma sent me to buy some groceries though Daddy didn’t want me to go with him. He bought me an ice-cream and made me wait in the truck for over an hour before we went to the store. I saw a woman looking down at me from the bedroom above the bar. Someone kissed her, but whoever it was stood in the shadows so I didn’t see his face. Might not have been Daddy at all, might have been my imagination, but I remember Momma complaining about smelling perfume on Daddy’s shirts sometimes. He got pissed and denied it.”
There had been a room above the bar that regulars sometimes used to hook up if they got lucky. Tess wouldn’t have known about the room and come to think about it there were times when David Hines had disappeared when they’d gone to the bar as a group. Mac had never figured out where the guy went, always assumed it was on Pioneer business. He’d wanted to follow, but if he’d been caught he’d have blown his cover.
But maybe David Hines was just your average adulterer, trying to keep his sins secret. Having an affair behind Francis’s back would have taken some balls, even for a man of David Hines’s stature.
“I have the names of Eddie’s girlfriends in my notes. I’ll check them as soon as I get back to DC. See if they can be traced.” They were buried somewhere in his new apartment.
“You kept notes?”
“Yeah.” He tapped the brakes as he came up behind a semi climbing an incline. “I had to write them in secret and hide them in a special compartment in my truck. The Pioneers would have lynched me if they’d found out I was a cop.”
Her hazel eyes studied him intently. “What you did was incredibly brave.”
He shrugged, uncomfortable with her praise. He’d have done things differently now. “I just lived the same way you did for twelve months. Hardly brave when a ten-year-old could do it.”
“I didn’t have any choice and I didn’t know any better.” Her mind seemed to go somewhere else for a moment and a frown crinkled the skin between her brows. “It was all we knew.”
“Do you know how your parents met?” He was curious.
“I have no idea. I remember them saying they bought the land in Kodiak after they got married. Momma came from money. She showed me the shack where they first lived while they were building the cabin.” Her eyes grew huge. “The place always gave me the creeps…”
He remembered the shack. On the edge of the woods over the hill from the main compound, it sat with an endless view of the plains. But road access had been limited which was why David Hines had chosen another site for the main buildings. Mac had searched the shack once. It was deserted but had been structurally sound. The place was empty aside from some blankets in a cedar chest and some logs to make a fire in the winter.
“You think that’s where Eddie and Walt took Ellie?”
“Either there or the barn where Walt attacked you that time.” The guilt rose inside him. “I never asked that day if Walt…” Christ, he couldn’t say the words.
She shook her head quickly. “He grabbed my hand and made me touch him, but I ran.” A gleam entered her eyes. “He’s part of the reason I took up taekwondo. I told Trudy about what had happened and she suggested martial arts training.”
Which had probably saved her life today. His fingers tightened their grip on wheel. “She sounds like an amazing woman.”
She swallowed noisily as if holding back emotion. “Yes, she was. She taught me everything I’d missed out on growing up in isolation. She was the smartest person I ever met.” Tess turned in her seat to face him. “Thank you for what you did to Walt that day.”
“I didn’t do enough.”
“Whatever you did kept him away from me for those last few weeks.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the road, the ghost of her sister drifting between them. “It wasn’t enough.”
“Ellie would have forgiven you, you know that, right? She never held a grudge.”
And all of a sudden he couldn’t speak, overwhelmed by the memory of a sweet little girl with red-gold hair and freckles.
He let the silence settle as he drove another few miles.
When he glanced at her again he noticed a dusting of icing sugar coated her cheek. Keeping one eye on the road, he used a thumb to gently brush it off. Her skin felt like silk.
He cleared his throat. “You have donut on your face.”
She pushed his hand away, wiping at the sugar. “It was worth it. Remind me I said that when I can no longer fit in my pants.”
“I don’t know how you turned out so normal,” he said honestly.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” One side of her lips tilted. “If it wasn’t for the fact I have her eyes I’d think I was swapped at birth.”
“You can dream.” Mac cleared his throat.
Her gaze grew pensive. “You think these murders are related to the Pioneers in some way, don’t you?”
He shrugged. He couldn’t comment on an ongoing criminal investigation. And he was reminded what his number one priority was. His job. Not Tess’s wellbeing. “I’ve been put in charge of the task force investigating the murders. Someone else on the team will need to question you further.”
Her expression turned wary. “You still think I could be involved?”
He shook his head. “I don’t, which is why someone else is asking the hard questions.”
“You’re abandoning me to the wolves again.” She seemed unimpressed and unsurprised and he felt like shit. “Feels like a habit when it comes to you and your law enforcement pals.”
Mac gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t ignore the fact he wasn’t objective when it came to Tess Fallon. She didn’t need to know that though. He glanced at the clock and swore.
“What?”
“I’m missing a task force meeting.”
“Can’t you call in?” she asked. “I’ll drive.” She dug out some earbuds from her bag and dangled them in the air. “I’ll lend you these so the evil daughter of the dead white nationalist leader doesn’t hear any damning evidence she can feed to…. Christ, someone, equally nasty.”
With a resigned sigh, he pulled to the shoulder and climbed out, walking around the hood, grateful that the storm was abating though snow covered the surrounding fields and hills. Tess slid behind the wheel, adjusting the seat as he climbed in.
He dialed the number and plugged the buds into his ears. “Don’t say anything. Okay? I’m hoping to be in charge of my own field office one day and I’m pretty sure I already broke fifty FBI guidelines this trip.”
She gave him a cheeky salute and pulled out onto the highway. He paid attention to the road signs because she didn’t realize it yet but they were going on a detour. One that might rekindle all sorts of memories neither one of them wanted to deal with, but might jog something useful loose. Guilt eased through him but he pushed it away. He had a killer to catch and the sooner that happened the faster Tess could go back to her quiet life in the ’burbs.
* * *
The house was empty. He had his hand on his dick sprawled on the couch, watching an NHL game contemplating whether or not he could be bothered to jack off. He’d had sex earlier but was still feeling horny.
His cell rang. Anticipation made his nerves spark as he checked the number. He’d been waiting for her call. “Is it time?”
“Not yet,” she said briskly. “Something came up.”
He knew better than to ask questions, but he was weirdly disappointed. He wasn’t sure he could do what she asked—part of him was terrified of messing up and the other part couldn’t wait to prove himself.
“Things are about to get intense. You’re sure everything’s in place?”
“I’m sure.” Although it wouldn’t hurt to double-check. He got up off the couch and headed upstairs.
He heard her swallow and a familiar pang of longing shot through him. Pathetic. He lifted the mattress and used the sheet to pull out the file and flicked it open. The information on all the potential targets was right where he’d hidden it. He frowned. Shit. Where the hell was the thumb drive?
“Are you sending another message tonight?” he asked, prolonging their conversation while trying not to freak. He checked under the bed. Nothing. Maybe it had fallen out in the filing cabinet. He jogged back down to the den.
“Yes.” Her voice was flat.
“Is it…”
“Is it what?” she bit out sharply.
“Is it easy?” he snapped back. God. Why was she always such a bitch?
A few seconds of surprised silence filled the space between them.
“It gets easier with practice. You’ll be fine. Just think of it the same way as bagging your first buck.”
That was an analogy he could relate to.
“I think it’ll be tomorrow, but don’t do it until I tell you. The timing has to be exact.” She sounded like she was distracted. Maybe she was already on the next job? “You remember everything I told you?”
“I remember.” Wear dark clothes with no insignia, a ball cap, avoid the street and surveillance cameras she’d marked on a map for him. Don’t be seen. Don’t get caught. Figure out the exit route before he went in.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Take care,” he said, but she’d already hung up.
He dug down to the bottom of the drawer and felt around. Nothing. Where the hell was that thing?
He went to the kitchen and fetched rubber gloves from under the sink. Then he pulled out a chunk of files and felt around some more. The jump drive wasn’t there. Taking a deep breath to stop himself from freaking out, he withdrew the rest of the files and checked inside the drawer and underneath. Then he checked all the other drawers.
He started to sweat. Encrypted on that thumb drive was the master copy of their plans and potential victims. In the wrong hands, it could ruin everything. Where the hell was it?
He scrubbed his face. He couldn’t afford to make a stupid mistake. He carefully put the files back, checking inside each one before sliding it in. Then he went through every drawer in the den, every pot and jar where someone might stash a data stick, including all the computer bags and backpacks in the house.
Panic bubbled in his heart, making it hard to catch his breath. She’d kill him if someone else got their hands on that information before the time was right.
An image of Tess going through the filing cabinet stopped his heart.
She must have taken it.
But why? Did she suspect? Or had she simply needed a thumb drive and borrowed it?
Something about the way she’d been watching him lately made him nervous.
He wiped his brow and stood, making sure the room looked like it had before. The hockey was still playing but he didn’t care anymore. He took off the gloves, pulled on a plain black hoodie and a navy ball cap.
He lifted her keys off the rack. He didn’t want to hurt Tess, but one way or another he needed to find that thumb drive.
His sister wasn’t getting in the way of his revenge.