Reckoning for the Dead (8 page)

“She was found in her bedroom. Right there.” He didn't need to point to where Angela DeSalvo had died. Bloodstains marred the old floorboards. The pooling wasn't red anymore. It had turned dark brown with age.

When Jessie knelt by the stain and put her hand to the floor, she felt an overwhelming sense of loss. And flashes of violent images came from nowhere, bombarding her with a past she didn't realize she had buried. The darkness of it gripped her hard. And she fought a lump in her throat. She didn't want to break down in front of the chief, but a part of her didn't care.

“You ready to see a photo?”

Jessie looked up in shock, unsure what to say. After she took a deep breath, she stood and waited for him to fish out a photo from his file. When he handed it to her, she looked into the face of Angela DeSalvo.

“Oh, my God.” Jessie couldn't help it. She gasped with a hand to her lips, her fingers trembling.

“You recognize her?”

“I don't know. I'm not . . . sure.”

The woman in the crime-scene photo stared back at her, forever immortalized in black and white, a look of shock frozen on her face. The photo was a close-up, and a dark pool of blood was congealed under her head. Despite the image being graphic, Jessie had lied to the chief.

She'd recognized the woman from the many times she'd come to Jessie while she slept.

A flash of her smile and the sound of laughter jarred Jessie from her stupor, memories of the only happy moments she had when she was a child. The woman in her dreams had played with her in a park, on a swing.

When Jessie heard a steady squeaking sound coming from outside the bedroom window, she turned her head, trying to listen for the noise, and her breath caught in her throat.

“What's that?”

It took the chief a minute to realize what she was asking.

“That squeaking sound is from an old swing out back. You want to go see . . .”

Jessie didn't wait for him to finish. She ran down the stairs and headed for the backyard until she stood next to an old rusted swing, blowing in the breeze. The play set stood under a large tree, squeaking every time the wind blew. An eerie trigger for her memory.

Jessie knew right then that she had been there before. This had been where Angela DeSalvo had pushed her on the swing. That memory hadn't been from a park. It had come from right there, within steps of where Angela would later be murdered.

“Was she my mother? Can you tell me that?”

Avoiding the chief's eyes, Jessie looked down at the swing as she wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. He'd never answered her before when she questioned him on the DNA found at the scene, but now she had to know.

“Not sure how to answer that.” The chief's voice was low. Feeling numb, she really had to listen to hear him when he said, “Biology doesn't always determine a real parent, but if you're asking if your DNA is a match to Angela's . . .”

Jessie found that she was holding her breath, waiting to hear what he'd say.

“ . . . I'm sorry to say . . . No, her DNA didn't match yours.”

Jessie was crushed. She couldn't help it. If Angela's DNA had matched, it would have meant her mother was dead, which would have felt just as bad. Yet without having a biological connection to Angela, everything she thought she knew about the sliver of memory she'd always associated with her mother was gone.

She had a strong feeling that Angela had loved her, but if she wasn't her mother, then who was she?

And why had she crossed paths with a killer?

Chapter 6

Guadalajara, Mexico

S
ituated twelve miles southeast of the city, Guadalajara International Airport had only one terminal, with domestic and international flights coming into the same facility. That meant more traffic for Alexa to blend into. A tall blonde would have stood out in a sea of brown skin and dark hair, but after the dye job from last night, she was a brunette. Having changed disguises at the last two layovers and scrubbed off her fake tattoos, she now looked like a conservative schoolteacher on vacation.

She didn't need to fight the crowd at baggage claim since she carried only one bag. Keeping things simple also got her through Customs without a hitch. Now she stood on the curb, waiting in line for a cab.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching.

As a trained operative, she had learned to pay attention to her instincts. Using every tactic she had in her arsenal of tricks, she discreetly searched the crowd outside the airport. Tourist buses and yellow-and-green-striped taxicabs lined the arrivals ramp outside baggage claim, with the vehicles clouding the muggy air with diesel fumes. And men in uniform blew whistles and waved traffic through, yelling out orders in Spanish. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Yet she had the unmistakable sensation that someone was keeping tabs on her. If they had followed her to Mexico, after the many ways she'd covered her tracks, they were plenty good. Whoever got the hair on the back of her neck to stand at alert, they had her complete respect. She'd have to find a way to lose them,
pronto.

“You need a taxi, lady?” A short, brown-skinned man in uniform smiled at her.

“Yes . . . please.” Alexa adjusted her dark glasses and didn't look him in the eye.

She could have told the man she was also looking to rent a vehicle, but the fewer people who could trace her movements, the better.

“And can you recommend a good hotel in the city?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. The Hotel de Mendoza is very popular.”

The man grinned and rattled off a location in the heart of Guadalajara—a place Alexa had no intention of staying. If anyone had eavesdropped or traced her movements, they'd be running down bogus leads. She needed a good smoke screen to ditch whoever was watching her now.

“Thank you,” she told the man as she tipped him and got into the cab that he'd waved to the curb.

“
Gracias, señorita.
”

After the taxi pulled into traffic, Alexa told the driver to take her to the Hotel de Mendoza. From there she would find another place to stay. On pure reflex, she moved to where she saw the traffic behind her, using the driver's mirror. Although nothing looked out of the ordinary, Alexa had been in the field long enough to know looks could be very deceiving. And instincts carried much more weight than merely trusting her eyesight.

“How long to the hotel?” she asked the driver, to distract him from noticing her obsession with his mirror. As the man talked, she thought about her next steps.

She planned to get lost in the city of Guadalajara, traveling off the grid, using her fake passports and paying cash for everything. Once she got situated in town, she'd lease a rental car and make contact with the local Tanya had given her. For a price, he'd have what she'd need to conduct surveillance in a foreign country. She needed the right gear and enough firepower to make a good first impression.

Soon she'd be on the hunt for Garrett Wheeler, staked out near the compound of Manolo Quintanilla Pérez, the leader of a ruthless drug cartel. But if she couldn't shake whoever was following her, she had to come up with a better plan. No one was getting in her way, not when she was so close. If Garrett's life was at stake, she'd never forgive herself if she did nothing.

La Pointe, Wisconsin

“Were there any witnesses?” Jessie asked Chief Cook as she stood by the swing set in the backyard behind the abandoned old house where Angela DeSalvo had been murdered.

“Only a yardman who found the body three days later. The smell, you know. His name was Luke Brenner.”

“Was?”

“Yeah, he died three years ago. Hunting accident.”

“What about neighbors? Did anyone see anything?”

The deserted house was on a spur off the main road. And given the rural setting, the nearest neighbor would have been too far to hear much, but asking the question was worth a shot.

“When we get back to the station, I can let you look at the case file, but I don't need an outsider second-guessing the work of my men. I've had my guys go over every detail, and I questioned most of the key people who were living here at the time. I came up empty. DNA evidence is my last shot at reviving this case, but without anything to compare it to, this investigation has run out of gas.”

Jessie believed Chief Cook when he told her that he'd been over the case, reexamining every scrap of evidence. A murder like this would have been a black eye on his years of service. And it probably still haunted him, like it would have bothered her. But even if she wouldn't get a long look at the murder book back at the station house, she had another way to look into the case. If the local library carried old newspapers in its archives, she might find something intriguing to look into.

“When I talked to Detective Cooper about your case, Chief Cook, she mentioned something about children being reported at the DeSalvo house. What can you tell me about that?”

“Not much. We interviewed folks who lived close to the crime scene and one or two mentioned something about seeing kids at the residence the week prior to the murder, but none of that could be substantiated.” He pursed his lips and avoided her eyes. “Now that I think about it, if your DNA was found at the scene, what those folks saw was probably you.”

“But kids doesn't mean one child,” she argued. “And with my DNA being at the scene, there's proof that at least one child was there. Doesn't that give a new perspective on all those people who claimed to see children there?”

Chief Cook heaved a sigh and shook his head.

“Like I said, none of that could be substantiated. We saw no evidence of a child or children at the DeSalvo house. For all we know, if there were kids there, they could have been visiting one day. That's it. We just don't know. And, quite frankly, I don't see how it factors in.”

“It factors in because I ended up in the hands of a serial pedophile, Chief. If I was in La Pointe, how did I end up in Chicago? Someone had to take me there.”

Cook narrowed his eyes as he leaned a shoulder against a tree.

“I don't mean to sound insensitive, and I certainly wish I had answers to your question, for your sake, but backtracking who brought you to Chicago won't solve my murder.” He softened his expression. “That would bring closure to you. And I pray you find it, but I'm not sure what more I can do for you.”

“Can I see a copy of the DNA analysis?”

Sam had already sent for the analysis, but Chief Cook didn't know that. Jessie wanted to see how forthcoming he'd be.

“I'll see what I can do. After I got a look at it, I sent it to be filed. It should be in the evidence box, but maybe that hasn't gotten done yet. Why do you need to see that?”

“DNA brought you the first lead you've had in the case in nearly twenty years. Bet that made you feel pretty good.” After he nodded, she made her point.

“Well, think how I felt when I finally got a lead on a past I'd given up on knowing about. After I got rescued in Chicago, no one ever came forward to say they knew me. The Chicago PD posted my face in the news all over, and no one contacted them except the lunatic fringe. This is the closest I've come to knowing where I came from. I just can't walk away from this. I can't.”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Beckett. I truly am, but I'm not sure what you expect me to do for you.”

“You said you'd let me look at the murder book, that's a start. I don't want to interfere in your investigation, but maybe I could talk to those people who reported kids at the DeSalvo house.”

“You can read the interviews. I don't want you talking to the people of this town unless I'm with you. But after nearly twenty years, the memory of some of these folks may not be so good. The best you'll get is probably in those interviews, when their minds were fresh.”

“You're probably right. And thanks, Chief.”

Jessie followed him back to his squad car in silence. For the first time in a long while, she was stumped for anything to say. The harsh reality was that the death of Angela DeSalvo might only be another piece to the puzzle of her life. The case had gone cold for a reason. Getting her hopes up now would only make it harder later if the answers she'd hoped for couldn't be found.

She knew she had been at that crime scene before. That had been real, but none of this explained why she'd ended up with Danny Ray Millstone.

At least, not yet.

Guadalajara, Mexico

Two hours later

After Alexa had been dropped downtown, it didn't take her long to find suitable accommodations. She'd checked into the Villa Ganz, a quaint boutique hotel on the west side of the city near Avenida Chapultepec and the beautiful Zona Rosa district.

With the hotel catering to a discreet clientele, the average tourist couldn't afford the luxury accommodations, but she'd picked the hotel for other reasons. Her room had a good view of the street, and there were plenty of ways to bail in a hurry if she had to. And anyone who came looking for her, without an invitation, would get noticed if they weren't a guest.

While she waited for the sun to go down, Alexa had gotten familiar with the hotel layout, looking for viable egress plans in case she needed them. She had also made a few calls and arranged for a rental car to be brought to her. A dark SUV with tinted windows was waiting downstairs, but before she left the hotel, Alexa called Tanya to check in.

“I'm here. Anything new?”

“I had Seth do a little digging into the use of that satellite. Whoever is behind this off-book mission isn't only using it to trace one cell GPS signal at the Pérez compound. Harper backtracked their trace.”

“Oh? What else are they working?”

“Something happened in El Paso that triggered all this. And from the satellite imagery, they were following a moving signal that ended up at the Pérez estate.”

“Do we know what they were interested in?”

“Yeah, and Harper sent me the images. From what I can tell, a man was abducted on the U.S. side in El Paso and taken over the border to Pérez. We're trying to figure out who he is, but that's a long shot.”

“You think it's Garrett?”

“Don't know. He's been missing longer than this man was abducted, but no telling what this off-book job is. I've forwarded the images to you on your cell. There's not enough detail to see faces, so no luck there.”

Alexa couldn't help but let her disappointment get to her. They had plenty to be concerned about but nothing real to go on.

“Harper told me one other thing,” Tanya added. “It seems phone chatter inside the compound was picked up once the hostage was delivered. Whoever this man is, it's a big deal to the men who took him.”

“Do you think our team is there to rescue this guy?”

“From what we can tell, they haven't made their move,” Tanya said. “It's like they're waiting for something.”

“Or someone,” she speculated.

“Maybe, but none of this makes sense from where I'm sittin'. I'm worried.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks. I'll call you when I can.”

“Be careful.”

After Alexa ended the call, she sat on the edge of her bed, thinking about what Tanya had told her as she stared at the satellite image she'd been sent. Tanya was right. There wasn't enough detail to see faces. All they had was proof of a kidnapping. Only her gut made her believe that Garrett was the abducted man.

But if this was a Sentinels' operation, why would anyone sit on the sidelines watching a kidnapping and do nothing about it? She had a feeling Donovan Cross knew about this mission. And since he'd tried to stop her, that had given her another reason to fear that Garrett was the guy in the hands of that drug cartel.

But something else bothered her.

If Hank Lewis was on the ground in Mexico, why would he sit still and let anything bad happen to Garrett? Like Tanya said, none of this made sense.

No matter how things played out, she was in the right place to do something about it.

Alexa grabbed her stuff and headed for the lobby and her rental car. Dressed in dark jeans, hiking boots, and windbreaker, she tipped the valet and dropped the nearly empty duffel bag she carried on the passenger seat next to her.

Before she headed for the coordinates Tanya had given her for the Pérez compound, she'd make contact with a local that the analyst had given her, an arms dealer who would have what she needed to fill the bag she'd brought.

She wanted to acquire a com unit to keep in touch with Tanya, a full surveillance package, body armor, grenades, two MP-5s, and a couple of handguns with ammo. If someone was tracking a cell-GPS signal inside the compound of a drug cartel, they'd soon have a shadow.

Alexa only hoped her efforts would lead her to Garrett—and that when she found him, he'd still be alive.

Police Station

La Pointe, Wisconsin

“You plannin' on stayin' the night?”

Jessie looked up to see Chief Cook standing in the doorway of the small conference room they'd allowed her to use. She'd been poring through the murder book and had photos, interview notes, and other evidence spread over the table.

She'd officially taken over part of his station house.

“Oh, wow.”

When she looked past him toward a window, she saw that the sun had gone down, and it was dark outside.

“Sorry. I didn't realize what time it was.”