Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (39 page)

For several seconds, you could have heard a pin drop in that office. “Shit,” Brice
swore. “You mean to tell me we had the wrong girl in protective custody?”

I nodded, feeling almost physically sick over it. I was the one who hadn’t put it
together, and I’d been the one to set the protective detail on Haley because I’d been
so sure that she was Buzz’s next target.

Gaston held his hand out for the report and the Homeland guy leaned over to read it
with him. Brice then pointed to me. “Take Fusco and Rodriguez over to Debbie’s house
and see what
you can find out.” I left his office before the expletives really began to fly.

Agent Rodriguez drove Candice and me to Debbie’s house. The mood in the car was somber.
Oscar had been pulled off any further protective detail for Haley, something I was
pretty sure he was still smarting from. Her parents had insisted that she come home
to their house and two APD officers had been assigned to stand guard out front. Two
Homeland Security agents had also been quietly assigned to walk the block periodically
and monitor the street to make sure Haley didn’t leave and that nobody suspicious
got too close.

Candice was also very sullen. I suspected she might be feeling personally responsible
for not thinking to protect Debbie. I knew exactly how she felt.

How had we missed that?
I kept asking myself. And I knew with intuitive certainty that Debbie had been the
latest victim in this madness.

We found Debbie’s town house after twice passing it by. Her home was a rather indistinctive
place; nothing about it stood out or made it different from its neighbors to the right
or to the left: just a brown, drab home without flowers or fanfare.

We walked to the door and rang the bell. It gonged hollowly and we waited even though
not one of us expected the door to open. Oscar pressed the bell again just to be thorough,
while Candice eyed the street. There were several cars parked out front—impossible
to tell offhand which one might belong to Debbie.

I could tell that Oscar was about to turn away from the door, but I had an impulse.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“What?” Candice and Oscar both asked.

“I swear I heard a cry for help coming from inside,” I said, feigning concern.

The corner of Candice’s mouth quirked, and she looked at Oscar expectantly. When he
wavered, she added, “You know, I think I heard it too. Someone’s clearly in distress
in there.”

But Oscar was playing it by the book. “We’ll get a warrant,” he said, pulling out
his cell—about to call Brice, no doubt.

Candice made a derisive noise and bent down to tug up the corner of the welcome mat
at our feet. She stood up triumphant with a key in her hand. “Fusco…,” Oscar warned,
but Candice wasn’t listening. She inserted the key, turned the handle, and called
out, “Hello? Debbie? It’s Candice Fusco. We talked the other day and we have reason
to believe you may be in danger! If you’re afraid for your life, don’t call out. If
you’re fine, please shout to us!”

Rodriguez rolled his eyes, but both Candice and I ignored him, moving into the foyer
to look around. In front of us was a set of stairs. Candice pulled out her gun and
slowly made her way up them. I sensed no danger, so I went around the stairs to the
living room, which looked to be furnished by Ikea, and poked around a little. Debbie
had a landline, and it appeared she’d missed eight calls—all from the previous few
days. I found a photo of her on the half wall leading to the kitchen. She was being
hugged by an older gentleman—I assumed he was her dad—and her flat plastic image smiled
out at me. Debbie was dead.

“Anything?” Candice’s voice asked from the foyer.

I turned and held up the picture frame. “She’s deceased.”

Candice didn’t say a word, but the look on her face said it all. Moving past me to
the kitchen, she took up a paper towel and tried the handle on the back door. It was
locked.

“Hey, guys!” we heard faintly. Rodriguez was calling to us from outside.

We moved quickly back out to the front porch and found Rodriguez pulling something
out from under a white Honda. It
was dirty and covered with leaves, but I was able to make out that it was one of those
reusable cloth grocery bags, and it looked partially full.

Candice and I made our way over to Rodriguez and I bent low to look under the car.
There was a smunched-looking loaf of bread there, and several unopened packages of
Lean Cuisine.

“She was nabbed here,” I said, immediately turning on my radar and picking up the
scent of a struggle.

“Probably right after I talked to her Saturday afternoon,” Candice said. “She mentioned
to me that she had to get going because she wanted to hit the grocery store on the
way home.”

I pointed to the white Honda. “This her car?”

Rodriguez nodded and held up his phone showing a text from Agent Cox with the description
of a vehicle registered to Debbie Nunez.

“Dammit,” I swore. “We’ve got to find this son of a bitch.”

“Let’s knock on a few doors and see if anyone saw anything,” Candice suggested.

Rodriguez pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from the bottom of the grocery bag.
“Store receipt says that Nunez checked out at three seventeen p.m. October twenty-fourth.”

“Saturday,” Candice confirmed.

“Which means this Buzz guy was either stalking her by following her around town and
looking for an opportunity, or was camped somewhere on this street, waiting for her
to come home.”

“It also means that he had her hidden away somewhere until this morning.”

“Come on,” Rodriguez said, putting the bag in his car. “We better talk to the neighbors.”

We spent two hours walking up and down the street and talking to anybody who would
answer the door. No one had seen
anything unusual. Looking at the rows of townhomes, I suspected that was because the
windows on nearly every home had the shutters drawn. Nobody looked outside anymore—they
were too afraid of someone looking in.

We drove back to the bureau feeling pretty defeated. When we got there, we briefed
Brice, Gaston, and the Homeland agent on what we’d found at Debbie Nunez’s town house,
and Rodriguez presented them with the receipt before he headed off to call the grocery
store and find out if they had any security footage of Debbie purchasing her items.
With any luck, there would be a suspicious-looking character in the background keeping
an eye on her and we’d at least get an image we could put out to the press.

“What about phone records for Mimi?” I asked, so frustrated that at every turn we
were meeting a dead end. “She had to have had a cell phone with texts and phone calls
from this Buzz guy.”

“We sent over the warrant late last night,” Brice said. “It’ll take those guys at
least a week to get back to us with her records, and that’s with an expedited request.”

“I’ll see what I can do to put some pressure on them,” Gaston offered, making a note
to himself.

Brice turned to me and Candice. “Tomorrow I want you two to canvass Mimi’s old neighborhood
and see if anyone remembers her and this guy she was seeing.”

And then Brice seemed to catch himself, and he pointed to me. “Scratch that. Cooper,
you’re on wedding detail. Fusco and Rodriguez can handle it from here.”

I shook my head vehemently. “Sir,” I said, “I’m not walking down the aisle until Saturday.
Plenty of time to work through a few more leads until then.”

Brice and Gaston both eyed me with unmasked surprise. “You sure?” Brice asked.

“Positive,” I told hm. I wasn’t going to be able to relax until that awful foreboding
feeling I had for Dutch’s safety left me, and so far, nothing in the ether had suggested
that it was lessening.

“Suit yourself,” he said, then pointed behind me. “But you can be the one to explain
it to that guy. If he asks, I’m going to tell him I already tried to order you off
this case.”

I turned and saw Dutch standing just outside Brice’s office, his expression impossible
to read. I got up quickly and headed out to greet him. “Hey!” I said as brightly as
I could muster. “You heard, huh?”

He nodded. “It’s all over the news. Do they know who the victim is?”

“Debbie Nunez. She was the manager of the Jamba Juice where Mimi Greene worked.”

Dutch sighed and ran a hand through his golden hair. “Damn,” he said. “Candice just
talked to her, right?”

“Saturday,” I said. There was a pause; then I decided to jump in with both feet. “I
think I’m going to work this case another few days.”

Dutch’s eyes locked with mine. “You’re not even supposed to be working it now, Edgar.”

I put a hand on the collar of his coat and tugged a little. “We’re close to nabbing
him, cowboy. And I can’t leave it alone until he’s caught.”

“What if he’s still at large by Saturday?”

I sighed and leaned in to put my forehead against his chest. “Can you give me until
Friday?”

Dutch didn’t say anything for several seconds and I waited him out. What could he
say, after all? Finally I felt his arms wrap around me, and he kissed the top of my
head. “Stay safe, okay?”

I hugged him, but that familiar awful feeling crept in between us, and I shut my eyes
against it. “I will. I promise.”

With one last squeeze Dutch backed up and said, “We’re all moved in and Mom and Aunt
Viv are unpacking the kitchen as we speak. You coming home?”

I swallowed hard. “Candice’s place is closer, and with your family at the house, I
worry that I’ll feel too distracted.”

Dutch’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t protest. “Okay,” he said. “Then I guess I’ll
see you at the rehearsal dinner.”

I nodded. “Definitely.”

And then he was gone, and I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut.

T
he news that Abby was running down a highway in her wedding dress with a bomb strapped
to her chest hit M.J. like a punch in the gut. It was one thing to sense her friend
in danger; it was a whole other thing to have it confirmed by a police report, and
the visual gave new perspective to the terror Abby must be experiencing with no one
around to help her and the love of her life too far away to get to her in time. At
that moment, however, the spirit of Rita came rushing back into M.J.’s energy, insisting—actually
shouting—that she go to Margo immediately. The moment M.J. had a clear look at Margo,
she understood why—the woman was pushing at a paramedic and trying to pull off the
oxygen mask strapped to her face.

“Ma’am!” one of the medics said sternly. “Leave the mask in place! Your heart is showing
signs of strain and we need to get you to the hospital.”

Margo shoved at him again, but then her gaze fell on M.J. and she waved her over urgently.

Behind her, M.J. could hear the helicopter circling low, looking for a place to land.
She imagined Dutch and Candice would
be whisked off to try to save Abby at any moment, but she couldn’t worry about that
now. For the moment all she cared about was getting to Margo so that Rita would stop
filling her head with shouts and demands to go to her friend.

“You!” Margo called, pointing to M.J. “Come here!”

M.J. was just a few feet away when she heard Candice yell, “Holliday! We need you!”
But M.J. didn’t turn around. Rita was being far too insistent.

At last she stood next to the gurney, which was half in the ambulance, half out. “What
is it?” she asked Margo, and the moment she said that, Rita’s voice subsided and her
mind was once again free of noise.

“I…remembered…his…name…,” Margo wheezed.

“M.J.!” Candice yelled from behind her. “Get over here now! We need you!”

“Ma’am!” the paramedic snapped. “Please stand aside! We need to take this woman to
the hospital!”

M.J. didn’t even look at him. Instead she gripped Margo’s hand and said, “Tell me,
Margo. Tell me who came to the shop that day and scared Rita.”

“Holliday!”
Candice yelled one final time.

“His…name…was…,” Margo gasped.

M.J. nodded. “Yes? What was it, Margo?”

“Hey!” Candice snapped, at the same time that M.J. felt a cold hand clamp down hard
on her shoulder. “Come on, M.J.! The chopper’s waiting and we’ll need you!”

M.J. tightened her grip on Margo’s hand. Every second counted now, but she couldn’t
lose her cool. “Tell me his name, Margo!” she pleaded desperately.

“Buslawski…with a
B
. I remember…’cause it was Polish…like my mom’s family.”

Behind her, M.J. heard Candice gasp. “Oh…my…
God
!” M.J.
turned to face her and Candice’s mouth was a round oval of shock. “I
know
him!”

Before M.J. could ask her how, Candice had gripped her free hand and was pulling on
her so she had no choice but to let go of Margo. Then they were both weaving and darting
through the crowd and then onto the street, weaving and darting again around all the
cars until they were in the clear and heading toward the end of the street at a mad
dash. There M.J. could see Dutch, Gaston, Brice, and the chief being whipped by the
wind created by the helicopter, which had just landed in the baseball field of the
school across the street. Candice let go of M.J.’s hand then so that they could both
run faster, and when they got to the men who were waiting on them anxiously, Candice
grabbed hold of Brice’s lapels, sucked in a few breaths, and said, “Buslawski! He’s
the unsub!”