He looked into her eyes and saw pain. Grainger had hurt somebody in her life as well. He couldn’t add to it. Damn it.
Their voices murmured in the background, making no sense even when he tried to focus. He needed to get to Tracy.
Grainger wasn’t a threat now, not while he was still out of it. But the minute he started recalling things, Tracy could be in danger.
Joel needed to get to her before that happened.
You will, baby…
“We need the wife, damn it! And the hell he doesn’t know where she is. Half of Maine knows he was fucking her—”
Joel moved. Grabbing Chaumers by the neck, he slammed him into the wall, pressing against the DA’s windpipe and watching as his face went red and then purple. “You don’t want to talk about her again, Mike. You understand me?” Joel said, his voice casual, an easy smile on his face.
Footsteps moved up behind him, but then they stopped. “Back off guys. He’s not hurting him.”
Chaumers’ eyes wheeled around, staring at somebody behind Joel and he heard Dowling laugh. “I told you, we don’t need the wife. You can’t find the wife. How is he supposed to know where she is? He’s been in lockup for the past two years.”
Joel smiled at Chaumers as he let go. The DA clutched at his throat, gasping for air and staring at Joel with wide, terrified eyes.
“Yeah, how am I supposed to know?”
Casey gestured to the two agents. “Why don’t you all take Mike down to the café and get him a coffee or something? I need to talk to Joel for a bit here.”
One of them paused only long enough to study her with a lifted brow. The other was already assisting the attorney to his feet.
By the time they were out the door, Joel was back to staring out the window.
“There’s really nothing to see. It’s a parking lot, Joel. Boring, gray. We don’t have the budget to get you anything worth looking at.”
Glancing at her, Joel shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Hmmm.”
Hearing that tone in her voice, he finally turned around and leaned back against the wall, staring at her with an expectant look on his face. “What?”
“There was something between you two. What was it?”
Joel studied her closely. “If I tell you, will you answer a question for me? Honestly, no lies? No FBI evasions?”
Casey arched a brow. “Well, I guess that will depend on the question. But I am very nosy. Sure—but I want the answer first. I don’t trust you entirely.”
“I love her,” he said quietly, simply.
Casey’s lashes lowered briefly. “I thought so. You have an excellent poker face, Joel. I’ve only seen it crack on rare occasions. And usually when it involves her. What would you do for her? What would you give up?”
Scowling, Joel shrugged, spinning away to pace the tight confines of the apartment. “Hell, what kind of question is that? I’d give up anything for her—everything.”
“And you did—didn’t you?”
Driving a hand through his hair, he turned and glared at her. “Hell, what are you, a fed or a shrink?”
She smiled, revealing dimples on either side of her mouth. “Both. I’m not wrong, though, am I? What aren’t you telling us, Joel?”
He stared at her blankly.
Casey finally sighed, shifting on the couch. She propped her arm on the back and stared at him, her eyes dark and brooding.
“You have secrets in those eyes, Joel. I see them. I don’t need evidence to know that.”
He laughed bitterly. “You’re a fed. Evidence is all you know.”
An odd, secret little smile curved her lips upward and she shifted her gaze, staring past him into the corner. Joel’s skin started to prickle and he felt that odd chill in the air again. “Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that, Joel. I know a little bit more than just evidence…now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”
Narrowing his eyes, he stared at her. His skin felt tight and it was cold in the room. Very cold. Carly was there, hovering just beyond where he couldn’t see her and although she wasn’t afraid, she was—something. Worried, intrigued, curious.
Something.
Damn it, he needed to get Dowling out of here before she started wanting to check the air conditioner or something.
“Why do you want Grainger so much? He’s your hot spot. You wanted the others, but him…” Joel shook his head. “You wanted him the most. Why?”
Casey’s smile faded. “You sure you aren’t a shrink?” Her eyes closed. “He’s a criminal. That alone should be enough. But there is more. You are right.”
Her eyes closed, her arm straightening out. She laid her head along it, looking vulnerable, and much younger. “I met him in high school—we were so alike. Two kids out to save the world. His name was Joshua. My dad almost had a heart attack—I think his did, too. I was a black girl, he was a white boy. Not what either of our parents wanted. But we loved each other. That was it for us—all that mattered. They came to accept that, even as young as we were. We got into college together, both wanted to become lawyers. It was our senior year. We both had gotten accepted into Harvard. We were going to get married that summer.”
Her voice got softer and Joel watched as a tear slid out from her closed eyes. “One night, he never came home. We’d been living together since our sophomore year. I called the cops. You know the drill—forty-eight hours for a missing person. Then I get a phone call. There’s a body.” Her voice cracked and she fell silent for a minute.
Slowly, she lifted her head and opened her eyes, staring sightlessly into the distance. When she spoke again, her voice was steady, but the silent rain of tears continued. “He saw a drug deal—they shot him. There were witnesses but none of them would testify. I begged them to—and they wouldn’t.”
She started to speak again, but a sob choked her.
Joel walked away, leaving her alone for a few minutes while he went into the bathroom, getting a washcloth and wetting it.
By the time he reached the living room again, she was a little more composed. He held out the cloth and she accepted it silently. He turned away, waiting until she spoke again.
“I couldn’t become a lawyer. They can’t make you speak, Joel. No matter what—they can put you on the stand, but they can’t make you talk. And if we can’t make the people who see things talk, we can’t put the bad guys away.”
Guilt churned inside of him. One arm propped against the wall, he closed his hand into a fist, hiding his face from her. She’d lost just as much as he had. And instead of turning into a vigilante and going after Grainger like Joel had, she’d used the law.
There was silence behind him and then a hand brushed his shoulder. “I know bad guys, Joel.” He stiffened under her hand, then slowly edged away, turning to face her.
She smiled at him, a sad smile that only added to the delicate beauty of her face. “I do. I’ve seen too many of them not to recognize them. You’re no knight, but you’re not the bad guy, either.”
She stepped away, pausing to look down at the coffee table. He looked down.
There was a plain manila file there. It hadn’t been there five minutes ago.
Her eyes lifted and met his.
“We all have our ghosts, don’t we, Joel?”
She walked out, leaving him alone in the room.
Well, not alone. Joel was rarely alone. Carly’s misty white form shimmered into view and she said in a puzzled tone, What an odd woman.
Joel ignored Carly as he bent down and took the folder, flipped through it.
His breath froze in his chest as he saw a photograph. She didn’t look the same. Not at all. But it was her. The soft dove gray eyes didn’t look quite so haunted, and that wide, mobile mouth looked softer in her face.
She had changed—but it was Tracy.
“She knows where she is.”
* * * * *
Casey looked over the rim of her coffee cup at Bryson. “Yes, I know he’ll take off. We don’t need him. Not anymore. There’s enough evidence, more than enough to convict him.” Then she paused and lifted one shoulder, smirking a little. “That’s if Grainger ever wakes up.”
“You really want to let our star witness just walk away?”
Casey sighed. “He’s not our star witness. What he is, is an ex-con. He’s served a prison term and worked for us, I know that. But every time we put him on the stand, the deal we made with him was thrown back at us. We don’t need him—not with the evidence he gave us, not with the witnesses we’ve unearthed from that evidence.”
A knot formed in her gut and she sat back, rubbing at her belly. “Besides, you saw Grainger the other day. It’s like looking at a blank slate. There’s nothing there.”
* * * * *
For the longest while, there was nothing.
No memory, no thoughts, no faces.
Just an empty fog.
But out of that fog came something ugly and black, a festering anger that ate away at him. Beyond that, it took longer for anything clear to emerge.
He’d waited though. There were people around him. He didn’t trust them—too many people, coming at him, probing, asking questions. He stayed quiet, stayed silent, waiting for the fog and anger to clear.
When it did—he saw their faces. Not the people around him.
But them.
A man.
A woman.
They had to die.
He didn’t know where they were. The man would be harder to find—in his gut, he knew that. The man was dangerous. Find the woman. She was the weak link. Find her and he’d get the man.
He had to get strong though.
First he had to get strong.
Chapter Six
Yes, Agent Dowling sure as hell knew where Tracy was, but all she’d left Joel were breadcrumbs.
He could follow them, but it was eating away time he didn’t have.
Frustration ate at him the weeks he’d wasted tracking Tracy to the small town in southern Indiana. By the time he approached realtors, hoping for clues to lead him to her, he knew he had wasted too much time.
Becky Cramer took one look at the picture and tapped her cheek, studying him thoughtfully. Tension knotted his gut but he just smiled and waited patiently.
Finally. She knew something.
It didn’t matter whether she told him or not. She knew something and he’d find out what it was.
“Mind if I ask why you’re looking for her?”
“That’s between us, but I’ve reason to believe she’s in danger.”
Becky’s eyes didn’t even flicker. She wasn’t going to tell him jack. But she knew something. And she’d seen Tracy. “Then perhaps you should consider approaching the authorities and not a real estate agent,” she advised coolly, handing the photograph back to him.
Joel inclined his head. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
He left, making note of the cars in the parking lot as he strolled away. Getting into her office would be child’s play.
All he had to do was find out to whom she had sold houses recently. His gut told him that Tracy hadn’t settled down until recently. She would have kept moving for a very long time.
How many young, single females would have bought houses in this area in the past few years? Small as it was, it couldn’t be that hard to narrow it down.
* * * * *
Becky watched as he walked away—wasn’t a hardship. The man had one fine ass. But he also had very, very hard eyes.
There was something dangerous about him.
And Becky had seen something fragile about Emery Hughes the minute she’d seen the younger woman.
Was this an ex? A private investigator? Becky didn’t know, but she’d be damned if she’d lead the man right to her. Waiting until he disappeared from sight, she turned to her computer and clicked on the file. She reached for the phone. Couldn’t hurt to call, right?
A chill danced along her spine and she shivered a little as she cradled the phone on her shoulder. She started to punch in the number, but the line went dead.
Frowning, she hung up briefly and tried again. Still just dead air.
Damn it.
Hanging up the phone, she reached for the cell lying on her desk. But it read “Out of service”. “What the hell?” she muttered.
Scowling, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. From memory, she jotted down the first three numbers and then glanced at her computer screen. Her pen fell from numb fingers.
The computer screen had gone black. Her breath came out in frozen little puffs as she found herself staring at the misty face of a woman.
It was a young woman—her features vaguely familiar. Becky cringed and stood, backing as far away from the thing hovering in front of her as she could, a whimper rising in her chest.
He won’t hurt her.
The words had no sound, just an echo that seemed to circle through Becky’s mind as she stared at…whatever it was. Logically, Becky knew what she was staring at. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t admit it.
“Huh…huh…who?” Becky squeaked out.
There was a laugh that seemed to ripple through the air, unlike the voice that didn’t really have a sound. The air warmed just a little. You know who I’m talking about. She’s safe—safer with him than she’s been in her whole life.
“She’s fine here.” Nothing ever happened here, not in Bethlehem.
She won’t be. Not for long. And I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t trying to take care of her.
The cold came back, wrapping her in its icy grip. A wave of black rose up, crashing over her, pulling her down in its grip. Her breath lodged in her throat and Becky fell helplessly into oblivion.
* * * * *
Her back ached. Becky sat up slowly, rubbing at her neck and wincing. The office was dark. Confused, she looked around.
The hands on her watch glowed slightly and she blinked as she realized it was close to ten. “Damn it.”
All the lights were off. It was quiet. Too damned quiet. It finally dawned on her why—her computer was off, too. The ever-present hum was missing.
Shaking her head, she reached over and clicked on the little table lamp.
Her head ached. Must have come from falling asleep. Too much work, not enough sleep. She started to try and sift through the files she hadn’t taken care of but finally just stacked them up neatly on her desk.
“Later,” she mumbled. “I’ll do them later.”
Reaching into the desk drawer by her right side, she pulled out her purse. With a sigh, she rose. Halfway to the door, she paused.