He knew there was a DPS unit that regularly patrolled Texas 17 between Weldon and Balmorhea. Knew, too, they were his best hope for tracking down the suspect. If the Sonora Nites Diner killer was in the car Jamie had seen, he hadn’t had time to get far.
It had been a gut-wrenching decision to make, but Kell had given those officers Jamie’s description of the two-door sedan, the possible combinations of tag numbers, the location and look of the driver’s tattoo. The unit that worked the stretch of highway between Weldon and Alpine was the one he’d sent to see to Jamie at work.
He’d been three hours out when she’d called. Three hours he’d cut to almost two by running with his grille lights flashing. He’d waited until hearing that the troopers were at the clinic before he’d let Jamie go and called Dr. Kate.
When he pulled up in front of Weldon Pediatrics, a sheen of sweat dampening his skin, his heart still pumping high-octane fuel, he found Jamie’s mother waiting for him in her Suburban just like he’d asked. He pulled his SUV alongside hers and got out, staying her from doing the same with the wave of his hand.
She rolled down her window instead, and beneath the brim of the ball cap she’d pulled low to shield her eyes from the sun, her frown furrowed with fury. “What the hell is going on with my daughter?”
He’d told Jamie not to call her mother, or let the others in the office call family members or friends until the troopers assessed the situation. He wanted to avoid a flood of concerned loved ones descending and raising a battle cry.
This wasn’t the scene of a crime. It was unlikely there was evidence to disturb outside; gravel dust didn’t hold tire tracks. Fingerprints, shoe prints, strands of hair left inside were a different matter. But keeping a lid on things until he knew what they were facing would keep speculation from blowing like seeds on the wind.
“She’s fine. Did you pack her things and enough food for a week?” Kell asked, thumbing his hat up his forehead. Whatever the investigation brought to light, he was not leaving Jamie here. And he was not bringing her back until the bastard was behind bars.
“I did, but I’m not handing them over until I get an answer,” Kate said, her hand gripping the strap of the duffel bag in her passenger seat. Two boxes and an extra-large cooler took up most of the back. “When you called me from Midland? Right after the hypnosis session? You told me she didn’t remember anything you could use.”
Kell wanted to get to Jamie, but her mother deserved consideration. She was the one who’d brought Jamie safely this far. He propped a forearm on the roof of the Suburban, staring into the distance at the Davis Mountains rolling like waves in the haze.
“I told you she remembered the tattoo on the killer’s wrist.”
“Right. And?”
“And, she just saw it again.”
“What? Where? Here?” Kate looked around frantically. “I want to see her. Now.”
He held the door handle, preventing her from climbing down from her seat. “Wait. Hear me out. The man is gone. Jamie is fine. She and her coworkers are inside, and the troopers have secured the building. We can’t let anyone else go in until we get the place dusted for prints, and see what other trace evidence he might’ve left behind.”
Kate didn’t like hearing what he had to say, but she didn’t fight him for the door. “But you’re bringing her out?”
He nodded. “And then I’m taking her someplace safe. I know she’ll argue, so having you on my side would go a long way to helping convince her.”
With a huff, Kate sat back, crossed her arms over her leopard-print scrubs and glared. “I’m not so sure she’ll be safe with you. He found her just days after you brought her home? Hardly a coincidence. I’d say your office needs to be checked for leaks. And I don’t mean just some careless talk,” she added, her tone brutally condemning. “What if someone there has known the killer’s identity all these years? And not turned him in for that horrific crime? What kind of person could do something that unconscionable?”
Kell had imagined the same worst-case scenario seconds into Jamie’s call, and had asked himself the same questions, though he was still weighing the possibilities. “He could’ve been here all this time, keeping an eye on her to see if her memory returned.”
He could tell from the shake of her head that Kate wasn’t buying it. “Or the story in the paper last week could have brought him here.” Though this conversation was one he should be having with the authorities on the scene instead of with Kate, sounding it out with Jamie’s mother couldn’t hurt as a first step.
“Yeah, he could’ve come because of the article, to see if his face rang any bells,” Kell said again. “But if he knew about the hypnosis…That was when Jamie remembered that he was Hispanic and tattooed. Either he knew that and wanted to see her reaction to his ink, or he didn’t know, and was looking for any reaction, any refreshed memories at all.”
“Six of one, half dozen of the other,” Kate said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He came here to find out if she could ID him.”
“And assuming she didn’t give anything away—”
“I hope you’re not basing your investigation on assumptions,” she interrupted him to say. “We’ve assumed all this time she was safe here. We’ve assumed he had no plans to risk exposure by coming after her. I’m done with assumptions.”
“No, ma’am. No assumptions. From here on, we work with solid evidence and facts.”
“Sergeant Harding!”
Kell took a step in reverse and glanced over the hood of his SUV toward the officer flagging him down from outside the clinic’s door. He waved that he was on his way, then told Jamie’s mother, “I’ll bring her out. Can you throw her pack and the supplies in the backseat with my things?
Kate opened her door, turning on her seat to face him. “Only if you promise me you’ll bring her home in one piece, and only when it’s safe.”
“Yes, ma’am. I promise.” He slapped the hood of his vehicle then jogged toward the clinic. Enough of a crowd had gathered that two of the officers were positioning their cruisers to form a barricade.
He wanted to get Jamie out of here, but he first had to speak to the officers on scene and the civilians still inside. Doing so would go down a lot easier without any distractions—which meant sending her with a trooper to wait with Kate. He pulled Deputy Aronson aside and asked him to take care of that while Kell did what he needed to do.
Though it took an hour to finish his questioning, Kell learned nothing from Jamie’s female coworkers, or from the doctor, or from the patients who’d been in the clinic when the man with the snake tattooed on his wrist had come in. Jamie had been the only one to see him.
Kell was interrupted twice during his interviews, hearing first from the troopers who’d gone after the car. No luck yet with them, or with the technician at the ranger station running the tag numbers on her end. Hitting dead end after dead end did not sit well with Kell.
This case had gone unsolved too long already. He’d be damned if he let this first solid lead they’d had in years go cold. Once he finished his initial investigation and made sure the officers knew he’d be in touch, he headed for his SUV, Jamie and Kate.
The two women were standing between the two vehicles, heads together, Kate’s arm around her daughter’s shoulders, Jamie holding on to her mother’s free hand. Aviator sunglasses covering his eyes, Deputy Aronson stood next to the rear of Kell’s SUV, arms crossed, stance wide, blocking the only entrance to the triangle of space where the Danby family stood.
That was what got to Kell. Jamie and Dr. Kate were the entire family, a fictional family created to save Jamie’s life. They were two alone, depending solely on one another. Kell had his parents, his brothers, plus aunts and uncles and cousins he saw only a couple of times a year but knew he could tap in an emergency. He also had the Texas Department of Public Safety at his back, coworkers in numbers dwarfing what the Danby women had, and his carried weapons.
The injustice of their situation rankled. Seeing them as victims left him vexed.” Yes, their circumstances were only unique to them; he’d dealt with dozens, hundreds of human casualties as he fought the war against crime, each with their own story, their own nightmares, but from those he’d kept his distance. Why he hadn’t kept it this time…
Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? He knew exactly why he hadn’t kept it this time. He’d walked through the front door of Weldon Pediatrics and seen that ponytail swinging, those big eyes dancing, those freckles spattering that nose, and that ass. She’d done him in, right then, right there; the teddy-bear scrubs hadn’t helped.
And then he’d seen the fear, the devastating realization that her life was coming undone, that her carefully constructed wall of Jericho was tumbling down around her. He was a lawman, a savior, a rescuer. The fact that she was a damsel in distress in name only didn’t keep him from wanting to be a full-fledged, bona fide white knight.
Once he’d released Deputy Aronson from guard duty, Kell approached the two women who, ready or not, were now going to have to say their goodbyes. As he passed, he glanced through his open driver’s-side window into the SUV’s backseat. Good. Jamie’s pack was there with the cooler and boxes.
She looked up at his approach. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed but dry. He needed to question her in detail, but they had a long drive waiting and plenty of time. For now, all he asked her was, “Ready?”
Her nod was brief. She knew nothing of where they were going. All he’d told her while they’d been on the phone was that he was coming to take her away.
“Give me a minute?” she asked.
“A minute,” he said, concern a whetstone making his voice sharp, then walked around to the passenger door. He opened it. He waited. Through the window on the other side, he watched as she hugged Dr. Kate. As gripped as his gut was, he couldn’t imagine what the Danby women were feeling, and when one minute became two, he still didn’t move.
Minute three ticked around, and now his impatience caused him to clear his throat. Jamie stepped back, letting her mother’s hand linger in her own until the distance grew and Kate’s fingers slipped away. She climbed into her seat without saying a word to Kell.
He stayed where he was, waiting, and when she met his gaze, it was all he could do to nod toward her seat belt and tell her, “Buckle up.”
The emotion in her face socked him in the solar plexus as hard as any hit he’d ever taken. Fists, football helmets, baseball bats. Brennan wailing on him after Kell had gone out with Lauren Randall, Brennan’s crush. Terry wiping out his skateboard in front of Kell’s and sending them both to the pavement where they’d broken bones. None of those incidents had left him feeling as hammered as the feelings Jamie couldn’t hold back, a mixture of anger and fear and loathing.
He closed her door, made his way around to his and stopped to offer Kate his hand. She shook it, said nothing as she released it, just climbed behind the wheel of her Suburban and sprayed rooster tails of gravel as she drove away.
Kell remained silent as well, putting on his seat belt, adjusting his visor, settling his hat so low that it bumped his sunglasses’ frames. The sun would be hanging on the horizon a couple more hours, but the day was still bright, hot, dry. Outside, anyway. Inside the SUV, he swore he could safely store a side of beef.
He understood Jamie not being happy with the state of things. Working this case wasn’t remotely how he’d hoped he’d be spending his time. They were both going to have to deal, and cross their fingers that they’d come out in one piece on the other side.
Once Weldon was behind them, he breathed deeply and nudged up the brim of his hat. “I know you told me everything on the phone, but I want you to tell me again.”
“Why? Nothing’s going to change,” she said, her gaze fixed out her window, one hand gripping the edge of her seat, the other doing the same damage to her armrest. “I remember it all. I don’t need to give you a mind’s-eye narrative to have my memory refreshed.”
Part of him wanted to growl. Another part wanted to laugh. He grabbed for middle ground. “I need the narrative. I know you told me everything, but I had a lot of things on my mind when you did. Mainly, securing your safety. I might’ve missed a detail that could’ve sparked a question with an answer that would help.”
She seemed to give that consideration because she released her hold on the SUV’s interior and sank into the seat. “It was a little bit after three. Roni goes on break then and I cover the front desk. I’d been on the phone with a sales rep wanting to schedule time with Dr. Griñon, and was late relieving her. Five or ten minutes.”
Good. An established timeline.
“She headed to the break room—”
“Were there any patients in the lobby then?”
“No. The Irigoyen twins were due at three-thirty for their six-month checkup. Emilio Duran should’ve been there, but rescheduled his school sports physical.” Jamie’s voice softened. “Dr. Griñon has been his pediatrician since birth. I think the other guys on the team give him a hard time about a baby doctor clearing him for football.”
Kell was intimately familiar with high-school locker-room razzing. “So you were there by yourself when this guy came in. And he didn’t set off any bells? Fidgeting, looking around, avoiding eye contact? Asking questions but not really paying attention?”