She let go of him, her lips moving in silent rage. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door. His own vehicle was where he’d parked it last night, the roof covered in bird droppings. He backed out and tried to leave. He couldn’t get past Daniels’s vehicle and had to drive over the chalk outline. An unearthly chill passed through his body, and he turned onto Nebraska and hit the gas.
Chapter 14
Daniels found a service station and filled up her tank. She was ready to erupt and took several deep breaths to calm herself down. Jon’s refusal to answer her question had made her so angry that she considered dragging him to the nearest police station, and throwing him into a cell. She’d done that with uncooperative witnesses before, and it always paid dividends.
Only she’d let him go. That wasn’t like her, and she supposed it was the nagging desire to rekindle their relationship, and start dating again. It was weird. She liked athletic-looking men, and Jon wasn’t that. Nor was he handsome or debonair. His wardrobe left a lot to be desired, and the blond stubble that covered his chin would never pass as a beard. So what was the attraction? She wasn’t entirely sure, just that it was real, and that she wanted to see him again.
She entered the station’s convenience store to buy a water and spied three teenage boys hovering around the register. They wore heavy gold chains and looked like trouble. She placed her purchase on the counter, tossed her money down, then pulled back her blazer to show them the sidearm strapped to her side.
“Get out of here,” she said.
“You can’t order us around. We didn’t do nothing,” the tallest one said.
She showed him her badge. “I’m with the FBI, and I can do whatever the hell I want, which includes searching you. If I find any drugs or weapons, I’ll arrest you. Now get your sorry asses out of this store, and don’t come back.”
The teens took off. Through the store window she watched them race down the sidewalk as if their pants were on fire. It lifted her spirits, and the manager gave her an appreciative smile along with her change.
She drove north on the interstate. A few miles before her exit, she got a call from her boss. His name was Joseph Hacker, J. T. to his subordinates, and he was the acting director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. They had worked together for over a decade, and J. T. was responsible for her rapid rise within the department.
“Good morning, J. T.,” she said.
“Hello, Beth. Are you on a speakerphone?”
“Yes. I’m in my car, driving back to the hotel.”
“Are you alone?”
The question caught her by surprise. “I am,” she replied.
“Good. This conversation goes no further.”
“Understood.”
“Have you had a chance to question Jon Lancaster?”
“We just finished up. Jon did most of the talking. He knows a lot.”
“Do you think he’s involved with the gang behind these abductions?”
“Absolutely not. Jon is here on behalf of Team Adam, and discovered that his brother Logan was involved in Elsie Tanner’s murder and her granddaughter’s abduction. That’s the story Jon gave to the police, and I have to believe that it’s true.”
“Will Jon help us?”
“That’s up in the air. Jon wants to join my team. In return, he’ll help us track down the gang’s ringleader, Dexter Hudson.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t give him an answer.”
“But you’re considering it.”
“I don’t have much choice. Our investigation has hit a brick wall. If Jon can find Dexter, then I need to bring him on board.”
“I’m not comfortable with this, Beth. Call me on Skype when you reach your hotel. We need to talk this over further.”
J. T.’s voice had turned cold. That wasn’t like him, and she sensed that she’d said the wrong thing. She agreed and ended the connection. Her exit was up ahead, and she flipped her indicator on. The bureau had forty-five directors who dealt with everything from domestic terrorism to cyber security, and they’d all been walking on eggshells since Deputy Director McCabe had been fired and stripped of his pension. It was a hard time to be in the FBI, and she assumed that J. T. didn’t want his career to go down in flames because one of his agents had done something stupid.
The Residence Inn by Marriott on State Road 54 was tucked behind a complex of commercial development and invisible from the street. She used a plastic key to take the elevator to the basement where the conference rooms were located, and walked down a hallway to an unmarked door, which she rapped softly upon.
The door swung in, and she entered. Her team had seven members including herself, and the others sat around a conference table, poring over reports. Photos of the victims were thumbtacked to a cork bulletin board, while a whiteboard contained the details of each abduction. To help them keep their geography straight, a map of Florida was taped to a wall, with gold stars applied to each city where a woman had vanished.
The room also had a flat-screen TV, and it contained a live feed of surveillance cameras from Tampa’s highways and roads. The images were sharp, the faces of drivers and their passengers being compared to the victims on a software program. So far, there had been no hits, but there was always the chance.
She murmured hello, and got several muted greetings in return. She didn’t need to ask them how things were going; the worry on their faces said it all.
She entered a breakout room, and shut the door. Taking her laptop from her purse, she put it on the table, and sat down in front of it. The FBI had switched to using Microsoft Surface Pros, which were the size of a tablet but more powerful than most PCs.
She got on to Skype and found J. T. in her contacts. Moments later, his face filled the screen. He was pushing fifty but looked older, his face lined with worry. His unhappiness was more evident than it had been during their phone conversation.
“I’m not comfortable with this situation,” he said, forgoing the usual hello. “Jon Lancaster is the brother to a suspect in this investigation. He’s also your boyfriend. How the hell do we put these things into a report?”
“He can find Dexter Hudson. I have to use him,” she said defensively.
“Please answer my question.”
“My relationship with Jon has no bearing on the case. I wasn’t planning to include it in my report.”
“But what if your investigation breaks bad?”
She shook her head, not understanding. J. T. gave her a slow burn. He didn’t like to explain himself, and she found the ensuing silence unbearable.
“We’re going to find these guys,” she said. “They’re hiding out in the Tampa Bay area, and we’re going to sniff them out. It’s just a matter of time.”
“But what if one of their victims is dead?” he said. “You know how the families react when a loved one dies. They blame us, and we end up in court.”
One of the sad truths about performing rescues was that the victim’s family was often not prepared to deal with tragedy. If a victim died in captivity, there was nothing the FBI could do about it. But that didn’t stop the grieving family from filing a wrongful death lawsuit, which would lead to the bureau having to turn over the investigation’s reports, and the agents who’d handled the case being deposed. Daniels had been on the receiving end of these lawsuits before, and they were never fun.
“That wouldn’t be good,” she admitted.
“Actually, it would be a shit storm,” he corrected her. “If it came out that you and Lancaster were romantically involved, and that his brother was a suspect, we’d all go down hard. I could lose my job, and so could you.”
“What do you think the odds are of that happening?”