Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (33 page)

Except . . . the man staring down at them didn’t seem aggressive in the slightest. He looked ruined. Positively destroyed.

“Sissy Barten is right there.” He pointed behind himself. “Against the back wal of the next cave.”

He’s not going to hurt us, she thought with a conviction that came from the soul.

Redirecting the muzzle of her nine to the ground, she frowned. Around his body, there was a subtle glow, a radiance that might be explained by the fact that he was in a shaft of sunshine—except, wait a minute, he wasn’t. It was too late in the day for where he was standing.

“Are you al right?” she heard herself ask the man.

His haunted eyes locked on her. “No. I’m not.”

Veck spoke up, sharp and demanding. “How do you know where the body is.”

“I just saw it.”

“I cal ed the FBI. They’ve never heard of you.”

“Only the current administration.” The tone was bored. “Are you going to go help her or waste time—”

“Impersonating a federal officer is a felony.”

“So get out your cuffs and chase my ass—just come this way.”

As the guy jumped off the rock and disappeared, Veck glared over his shoulder. “You stay here.”

“To hel with that.”

Something in her expression must have told him that arguing would be nothing but a time suck, because he cursed a blue streak—and got moving.

Together, they scrambled up the boulder in front of them, surmounting it in clawing grabs. When they got to the top . . .

Jim Heron, or whoever he was, had disappeared.

There was, however, the opening to another large cave.

“Cal for backup,” Veck said, leaping down as he got out his flashlight. “I’m going in—and I need you to cover me from out here.”

“Roger that.” She palmed up her radio, but then barked at him, “
Stop!
You have to watch for footprints. Approach from the edges, okay?”

He looked back at her. “Good cal .”

“And be careful.”

“You have my word.”

Leading with the flashlight and his gun, he stepped into the cave, his broad shoulders barely fitting through the entrance. Almost immediately, he must have come to a corner, because the glow dimmed and then got cut off.

As she cal ed for their col eagues and received confirmation that the others were on their way, she careful y lowered herself down to the muddy patch of ground that was the cave’s welcome mat. She knew it was going to take some time for the others to arrive, and prayed that her instincts were right about that big blond man who evidently wasn’t worried about lying or misrepresenting himself—and yet who seemed crushd when it came to Sissy Barten.

If anything happened to Veck on her watch, she’d never forgive herself—

“What . . . the hel ?” she murmured.

Reil y frowned and sank down onto her haunches. Smack in the middle of the patch of soggy dirt, the impressions from where Veck had landed were like moon-craters. Likewise, around the rim, his path to the opening was deep and obvious, the sunken impression of smooth-soled shoes dominating the ground and announcing that a man of some two hundred pounds had been by.

Rising up, Reil y braced her foot on a ledge and stretched high to look where Veck and she had crossed over. On the top of the shelf of stone, there were two sets of wet prints, hers and Veck’s. That was it.

Surveying the expanse of the slope, she shook her head. No way Jim Heron or whoever he was could have gotten down here without having his feet get soaked. And no way he could have stood where he had without leaving damp prints behind, as she and Veck had done.

What the hel was going on here?

Behind her, Veck reappeared at the cave opening. “It’s Sissy Barten. He’s right.”

Reil y swal owed hard as she got back down. “Anything else in there?”

“Not that I can see. Did you cal us in?”

“Yes. Are you sure it’s her?”

“I didn’t touch anything, but there’s blond hair showing and the body is where Kroner said it would be.” Veck’s brows dropped. “What’s wrong?”

“Were there any other footprints on the floor of that cave?”

“Let me check.” He disappeared. Came back. “Not real y. But it’s not the best surface for capturing them. It’s relatively dry, with little soil depth. What are you—”

“It’s like he just dropped out of the sky.”

“Who? Heron?”

“There’s no evidence he’s been here, Veck. Where are his muddy footprints? On the ground? Up there?”

“Wait, aren’t there—”

“Nothing.”

He frowned and glanced around. “Son of a bitch.”

“My feelings exactly.”

Off in the distance, she heard the other officers approaching so she cupped her hands and cal ed out, “Over here! We’re over here!”

Maybe someone else could make sense of this. Because she was coming up with nothing . . . and evidently, the same was true of Veck.

A
s the last of the day’s sunlight drained from the sky, Sissy Barten’s remains were careful y bagged up and removed from the cave.

Veck was one of four guys who took the handles, bore her weight, and walked her out into the clean air. He’d stayed close as the afternoon had progressed, but kept his hands to himself, limiting his participation to taking his own photographs with his phone, talking with the coroner when the guy arrived, and helping wherever, and whenever he could with nonessentials.

Reil y had done the same.

And now the only thing left to do here was to get the body up the slope.

“Let’s go this way,” he said to the others. “It’s the best shot we’ve got.”

The four of them headed to the north, taking the least obstructed way—which was a relative term.

And there were plenty of people waiting for their arrival.

Natural y, the news crews had arrived and parked on the rim. God only knew who had tipped them off. No one in an official capacity at the site, that was for sure, but this was a public area and the whole town knew not only about Kroner’s capture and recuperation at St. Francis, but also the victim in that motel, and the other dead girls. The fact that there were a dozen uniforms traipsing around a remote area with a lot of dark places probably didn’t mean someone was having a birthday party at this pile of rocks. Plus now there was a body bag involved.

And God knew every idiot had a cel phone these days.

Which was precisely why, the moment after a positive identification had been made using photographs and birthmarks, de la Cruz had literal y run up out of the scene and gone gunning for his car. Although the CPD would not release the name to the press until after the family had been notified, there had been numerous e-mails, texts, and phone cal s back and forth with HQ—and there was no way of knowing who might have told their wife, who told her sister, who told someone at the television station.

Sometimes the information age sucked.

And no one wanted the Bartens to find out about their daughter on the evening news . . . or, heaven forbid, Facebook.

As Veck and the other three guys grunted and stretched and pul ed and lifted, Reil y was right with them the whole way, clicking her flashlight on and shining the beam to give them something to go on as things got darker. And darker stil .

Until it was pitch-black.

Nearly an hour later, they made it to the top and careful y placed the remains in the back of one of the search and rescue vehicles.

Veck and Reil y stood back as Sissy Barten was taken safely back to town.

As the other officers began to disperse and engines were started, Reil y said quietly, “I don’t think—”

“Kroner didn’t kil her,” Veck agreed just as softly.

“The MO does not fit.”

“Not at al .”

And they weren’t the only ones who’d noticed the discrepancy between Sissy and the other victims: This body had been suspended head over heels and drained of blood, and there had been some kind of design etched into the stomach. Further, even though she had been naked and picked clean of personal objects, no patches of skin had been removed and she hadn’t been sexual y assaulted—which had been another of Kroner’s perversions.

“I just don’t know how to explain the earring,” he murmured.

“Or why Kroner knew where she was if he didn’t kil her.”

Veck glanced over at his partner. “You want to eat somewhere?”

Bracing her arms over her head, she stretched. “Yes, please. I’m starved. And stiff.”

He took out his phone and texted her:
Ur place? Luks like u culd use a bath. Takeout n promise 2 b gent.

There was a discreet
bing
, and after making some smal talk, she surreptitiously got out her phone and glanced down at it.

“Perfect plan.”

His impulse was to kiss her hard and quick. Except he nipped that in the bud, because they were not just not alone; they were around people they frickin’ worked with, hel o.

And he wanted to drive back with her, but they were going to have to tandem it, thanks to his damn bike. Shit, to think he used to like that thing.

Then again, it had gotten her to take him home last night.

“See you in twenty,” he told her.

“Are you sure you don’t want an extra coat?”

“I’l be fine.”

As he walked off across the stil spongy, muddy ground, he thought about Jim Heron and the lack of footprints. He’d spent more time looking for evidence that someone other than he and Reil y had been walking around that area, but there had been nothing. Yet he was very sure the man couldn’t possibly have shown up nearly half a mile down the slope, having traversed wet, uneven terrain, without leaving any trace. And it wasn’t as if Veck had imagined the guy’s appearance.

Look down at your feet, Thomas DelVecchio. And then you call me when you get scared enough. I’m the only one who can help you.

Whatever, Heron.

Resisting the urge to shout at the shadows, he mounted up, started his engine, and waited as Reil y stood next to her open trunk and took off her caked, filthy boots. At least that made him smile. He was wil ing to bet she had either a plastic bag or a rubber mat in there so that she didn’t put the dirty treads on the rug. And she’d take those nasty suckers out as soon as she parked in her garage, and wash them right away so they’d be ready for the next time.

He glanced down at his own feet. His loafers were ruined. The kind of thing that you addressed with a garbage bag, not a scrub brush and a hose.

Hard not to find some other paral els there.

Reil y took the lead, and he was on her al the way into town even though going seventy on a bike on a night like this made you feel like you were back in December. Windbreaker, his ass. He might as wel have been wearing a muscle shirt and nothing else, the cold biting into him.

But it wasn’t as if he dwel ed on the temperature. In his mind, he went back to the shower he’d taken after that nightmare in the woods with Kroner, back to the dark presence that had wrapped around him and spoken to him and caressed him, back to his biggest fear up close and personal.

It was nothing of this world. Never had been.

And then he heard Reil y’s voice:
It’s like he just dropped out of the sky.

Christ, he was losing his mind. Had to be. Because he wasn’t actual y thinking Jim Heron didn’t exist.

Was he?

About ten minutes later, they got off the Northway and weeded their way over to Reil y’s neighborhood, and it was a relief to see al the nice-and-normal in the form of houses with lights and TVs on inside, and cars going at slow paces, and corner stores with lottery signs in them.

Al things that could be easily and concrly explained. And who’d have ever thought he’d crave that?

When they got to Reil y’s place, he pul ed in behind her and dismounted as she eased into the garage, the bright reds of her brake lights flaring and then disappearing as she cut the ignition.

“You should wear a helmet,” she said as she got out, went around to her trunk, and snagged her muddy boots.

Sure enough, she flicked a light switch on, walked them over to the garden hose on the front corner of the garage, and washed off the dirt.

When she glanced back at him, she flushed a little. “What are you smiling for?”

“I had a feeling you were going to do that.”

She laughed and refocused on the cleaning job. “Am I so predictable.”

Eyeing her bent form, he thought “sexy as hel ” would also cover it. Man, the woman could turn a mundane chore into something
so
worth watching.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured.

“Trust me, never that.” Cutting off the water, she shook the boots, dried them with a chamois, and put them back into the trunk.

Together, they went into her cock-a-doodle-doo kitchen and more lights went on. First thing he looked at? The table.

The hard-on was instant. As was the replay of the night before last when he’d done so much more than kiss her on it.

But neither lasted.

Through the doorway into the office, he saw that she had rearranged the furniture in there: The armchair had been pul ed into the far corner and angled outward, and a smal table was next to it. Extrapolating, he figured that if you were sitting there, you could watch both the front and the rear doors with your back to a solid wal .

“You want to try for pizza again?” she asked from over by the phone.

Cranking his head around, he said roughly, “Why didn’t you tel me.”

“What?”

“That you were being watched, too.”

Jim didn’t wait around to fol ow Sissy’s mortal remains out of the quarry and into town. Instead, he disengaged from Veck, leaving Adrian to stay with the guy, and proceeded to her family’s house along with a shortish, intense-looking detective who muttered to himself in Spanish.

He said, “
Madre de Dios
” a lot. And made the sign of the cross so many times it was like his hand had a stutter.

What he did not do was notice that he had a passenger with him in his unmarked: Jim rode shotgun al the way back to Caldwel with the guy. Yeah, sure, he could have taken the fly-by-night route, but this gave him some time to get his shit together.