Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead (17 page)

Matt had to grit his teeth to keep from contradicting her. Was there any danger to Tessa? Hell yes. A serial arsonist had sent letters bragging about his murders to the same FBI office where Tessa worked. And her fingerprint on the notes made it glaringly obvious the killer knew her. Those two facts, when combined together, made it pretty damn likely the killer was specifically targeting Tessa. Why would she keep that from her parents?

Then again, maybe she had a completely different relationship with her parents than he had with his dad and brothers. There were no secrets in the Buchanan family. He’d grown up in a household where law-enforcement officials were a constant fixture, parading in and out of the house, having brainstorming sessions with his father over the many cases he litigated.

By the time Matt was an adult he was well aware of the kinds of dangers that existed in the “real” world, which had probably helped form his decision to become a private investigator. He would never consider hiding the truth from his father, but Tessa was busily sheltering her parents from worry by denying the obvious truth. He didn’t agree with her approach, but it was her choice to make and none of his business to say otherwise.

They said their good-byes and headed outside, but Matt paused on the top step as another thought occurred to him.

“Pete, Emma, if Tessa didn’t remember anything about her past, and her records were lost, how did you know her age when you adopted her?”

“Because of the bracelet.” Emma smiled at Tessa. “You remember, dear. The little pink bracelet you used to wear? The administrator said Tessa had it on when she arrived and never took it off. Give me a minute and I’ll get it.” She disappeared back inside. When she came out again, she placed something in Tessa’s hand.

Tessa held her palm out to Matt. In the middle was a small, cheap bracelet, the kind a child might make from a craft kit from a superstore. Braided pink plastic strings were threaded with little white cubes, each with a letter or number on it, spelling out Tessa’s name and her birth date.

“I’d forgotten about this.” A wisp of a smile curved Tessa’s lips. She held the bracelet up and examined it more closely. Her breath caught and her eyes widened. She curled her fingers around the keepsake, shutting it in her palm.

“Mom, do you mind if I take this with me?”

“Of course not. It’s yours.”

Tessa rushed through another round of good-byes, and soon she and Matt were driving down the street in his car. As soon as they rounded the corner out of sight of her parents, he pulled over and cut the engine.

“Mind telling me what freaked you out back there?”

She uncurled her fingers.

Matt scooped up the bracelet and studied it the way she had back at the house. Then he saw what she must have seen. On the last little square cube—faded, but still clear enough to see—was the same little curlicue the killer had signed to all the letters.

H
E STUFFED THE
body into the toolbox of his truck and flipped the lid closed. He’d chosen his location well. Here at the back of the apartment complex, behind the maintenance shack, the only witnesses were a couple of squirrels perched on the branch of a pine tree at the edge of the woods.

The kill had been pathetically easy. One crack of a tire iron and the man had crumpled to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head. No fight, no challenge, no fun.

He fingered the box of matches in his pocket. The thrill of the burn was what he really wanted. But that wasn’t the plan. This kill was just a means to an end, and he couldn’t afford to draw attention by starting a fire.

Not yet.

He smoothed the tan maintenance uniform with the name
Earl
monogrammed on the right breast pocket. Earl. He liked that name. Big, strong, like him. If he had more time, he might have chosen to use that name for himself. But time was the one thing he no longer had.

He hefted the ring of keys the
real
Earl had been carrying and headed across the parking lot. When he reached his destination, he glanced casually around.

It was the middle of the day. Most of the people in the complex were at work. Again, no witnesses. Perfect.

He shoved the master key into the lock and stepped inside Apartment 121.

It was small, just one open room, really. A red couch, a TV, a bookshelf. A round table with two chairs to his right, the kitchen behind that. The bedroom must be straight ahead, down the hallway in front of him.

He was surprised she lived this simply. Maybe the FBI didn’t pay as well as he assumed it did.

He fingered the box of matches in his pants pocket again, rubbing his thumb across the rough magnesium strip on the side in one long, slow caress. He ran his other hand over the deep red fabric of the couch, enjoying the way the soft texture teased the scars on his hands. The floor was formed by planks of dark, polished wood, lying side by side like giant matchsticks, waiting for a spark to bring them to life.

A shudder ran through him and he stroked the box of matches again, faster. No, not yet. He drew a deep breath. He had plans for his girl. Since she hadn’t come to him, he was going to take her back home himself. Everything was ready, waiting for her. When he was through, she’d beg for her life.

Not that it would do her any good.

T
ESSA HELD HER
apartment door open so Matt could carry in the heavy photo albums.

“You can set those on the table. I appreciate you taking the detour here before we go to the lab to follow up on that botanist idea. I didn’t want to leave those old pictures in a hot car. Mom will kill me if something happens to them. I’ll get some dental floss.”

“Dental floss?”

“To run behind the photos you want to copy. Unless you have a better strategy for removing old glued pictures from an album without tearing them.”

He plopped the albums on the table. “Dental floss it is.”

Normally, he would have relished the sway of her hips as she walked away from him, but he was too busy noticing how pale she looked. Seeing that little curlicue on that bracelet had shaken her, but she’d insisted she still didn’t remember anything and that she was fine.

She disappeared into the bathroom and came out a moment later with the floss in her hand. After tossing the dispenser to Matt, she headed into the kitchen.

“Beer? Wine?”

He glanced at his watch. It was only a little past noon. “No thanks. Maybe I can take you to the Wilkes House for a good old-fashioned Southern lunch when we leave.”

She laughed and twisted the top off a beer. “Good luck getting in. Or did you bribe some tourists to stand in line this morning to try to get us a spot at a table?”

He crossed his fingers and held them up in the air. “Me and Mrs. Wilkes are tight. She’ll let us in.”

“Right. I’m not buying it. Besides, we ate breakfast not too long ago. What, are you worried I’m going to get drunk again?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

He shrugged and worked the dental floss under the edge of the picture of Tessa standing in front of the group home.

“Fine. You win.” She poured the beer out in the sink and tossed the bottle in the recycle bin.

Matt popped the picture out of the album. “The floss worked.”

“You only wanted the one picture?”

“It’s the only one that seems relevant right now. Is there anything else you needed while we’re here?”

“No, I—” Her phone rang and she dug it out of her purse. Her eyes widened when she saw the screen. “Casey, hello.” She held up her hand, letting Matt know she’d be right back and went into the kitchen to talk.

Matt decided to put the albums in the bookshelf in the living room. It seemed like the obvious place for them. Tessa could always move them later if she disagreed.

A few minutes later, she stepped out of the kitchen with her purse on her shoulder and her keys in her hand.

“That was a quick call. Something happen?” Matt asked.

“You could say that. My dad called Casey right after we left. He wanted to express his concern for my safety. Now Casey knows I haven’t been sitting around like I’m supposed to, doing nothing. He wants to see me at the office in the morning.”

“Did you tell him about the bracelet?”

“I did. I think that’s the only reason he didn’t fire me over the phone.”

The dejected look on her face had him feeling guilty all over again. He wasn’t sure how she would react if he hugged her, but he decided the risk was worth it. He couldn’t stand seeing her looking so lost.

He put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. She stiffened at first, but then settled against him. They stood for several minutes, quietly holding each other.

When she pulled back, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here for me. I needed that.”

He gently caressed her cheek. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, but she wasn’t ready. And might never be ready. He dropped his hand to his side.

“After you.” He held the door open and they stepped outside.

W
HEN THE KEY
turned in the lock, he drew his first deep breath since they’d come into the apartment. He pushed the folding doors open and stepped out of the laundry room into the hallway. She’d been so close, only three feet away. He’d seen her in the bathroom through the slats of the folding door. If she hadn’t brought that man inside with her, he’d have stepped out to grab her.

But then he’d seen the bulge of her gun hanging from the holster on her hip.

He should have expected that, in her line of work, but it hadn’t occurred to him to worry about a gun until now. And she was working with a partner, who most likely also carried a gun. It was a good thing he’d hesitated. He needed to rethink his plan. He couldn’t win in a shoot-out. The only gun he had was his hunting rifle, back home.

He drew another deep breath and started coughing—deep, hacking coughs that made his chest hurt. He hurried into the bathroom and stood over the sink as the fit worsened. Painful coughs wracked his body. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He struggled to draw a shallow breath, easing the pressure on his chest. He drew another, then another. Finally the coughing stopped.

He rinsed his mouth out and washed the blood from the sink and his hands. His chest burned inside. Sharp pain spiked through his lungs regardless of how shallow he tried to breathe. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d given her three years to come back to him, to fulfill his plan, but he was running out of time. And now that he knew she had a partner, taking her by force would be too risky. The girl needed incentive to come home on her own. She needed a really good reason to come home.

And that’s just what he’d give her.

Chapter Nine

Day Five

W
HEN
T
ESSA STEPPED
inside the main room on the second floor of the FBI building the next morning, she stopped in surprise. The rows of cubicles were normally quiet except for the tap-tap of computer keyboards and the low hum of voices speaking into phones. But today that hum was a dull roar and the room was fairly bursting with people. And someone had hung TVs from the ceiling outside the two conference rooms, each one playing a different twenty-four-hour news channel, with closed captioning scrolling across the bottom of the screens.

People she didn’t know or recognize were sitting at cheap folding tables. Chairs were stuffed into nearly every available space. It was just like the chaos back in the Charleston PD squad room, multiplied by two.

“Tessa.”

She looked up at the sound of her name being yelled from across the room. Her boss was waving for her to join him.

She held up her purse and pointed toward her cubicle, several aisles over, letting him know she needed to put her purse away first. He nodded and went into the main conference room.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” Tessa murmured as she made her way through the maze of people.

Coffee would have been nice, especially at seven-thirty in the morning. Normally she’d lock her purse up and head right to the coffee area outside of Casey’s office. But not today. Not until she found out if she still had a job. Wearing a visitor’s badge into the office was an experience she hoped she wouldn’t have to repeat, but only if that meant trading it for a permanent badge.

She was stopped three times with greetings from her fellow agents as she made her way to her desk. Once she finally made it to her cubicle, she ducked inside and collapsed into her chair. She really, really needed a cup of coffee.

She put her purse away and was about to leave when she saw it, sitting in the middle of her desk, decorated with a little blue ribbon. A pacifier.

Damn it.

Carter. It had to be Special Agent Carter. He’d seen Matt save her from a fall and gently push her hair back from her face in the South Carolina office. He must have told everyone his suspicions about her and Matt. The pacifier wasn’t the stuffed cougar she’d been worried about seeing on her desk one day.

This was much, much worse.

She shoved the pacifier into her pocket and peeked over the short cubicle wall. No one seemed to be watching her, waiting for her reaction. But they had to know what Carter had done. Gossip spread like crazy in a small office like this. Soon everyone would believe she was robbing the cradle, and sleeping around when she and Matt had been working on the case.

If she could have sneaked back onto the elevator and escaped, she would have. But Casey had already seen her. There was nothing she could do now but face whatever was about to happen. She straightened her shoulders and did her best to pretend everything was perfectly fine.

When she went into the conference room, Casey waved her over and offered her a seat next to his. Since she was too nervous to sit still, she declined his offer and remained standing. Around her, the room was full of groups of agents huddled together or drawing on the white board.