Thread of Fear (11 page)

Sullivan jerked open the door, expecting to see a pair of crime scene technicians wearing paper shoes.

Instead, it was a woman. Mid-thirties. She wore a brown leather coat and had spiky blond hair.

“Are you George?” she asked breathlessly. “Sorry I’m late, but I got here soon as I could.”

F
iona showed up looking like a teenager. Jack watched her enter the station house, taking in the ripped jeans, the faded black T-shirt, the dingy sneakers. He’d told her last night Brady Cox was a discipline case who had problems with authority, and Jack suspected she’d chosen her outfit with Brady in mind. She looked like the exact opposite of an authority figure, the antithesis of someone who collaborated with the nation’s top law enforcement officials on a regular basis. Only her leather art case hinted at who she really was.

“I have an appointment with Chief Bowman,” she told Sharon. As the resident rookie, Sharon got to sit closest to the reception counter and deal with the whiners and wack jobs who dropped in from time to time.

Jack crossed the bullpen—which in this humble jurisdiction consisted of a few mismatched desks and file cabinets.

He caught Fiona’s eye, and she smiled, taking some of the punch out of her bad-ass look. He lifted the hinged divider that separated reception from the main office. At his old precinct in Houston, cops were separated from visitors by metal detectors, armed guards, and bulletproof glass, but in Graingerville life was more low-key.

“Come on back,” he said, nodding toward his office, aware that every gaze in the room was fixed on Fiona. All of his subordinates had heard about the hotshot FBI artist he’d hired yet again, in the hopes she could help crack their case. Every last one of them was skeptical.

She passed the break room just as Carlos came out, and the deputy chief sloshed coffee on himself as he stepped back to admire Fiona’s butt.

Jack shot him a look. “No interruptions. And the only visitor I want to see is Brady Cox. You’re in charge of distracting his mom while we do the interview.”

Jack pulled the door shut as he entered his office, no doubt fueling the fires of speculation already burning around town. Placing bets about Jack’s sex life—or lack of one—had been a popular pastime ever since he’d taken the chief’s job and moved back to Graingerville. Even his own mother and sisters weren’t above the gossip. It was one of the reasons he tried to get the hell out of Dodge whenever he wanted a woman’s company.

Fiona stood beside his window, staring through the glass. Jack took one look outside and predicted precipitation by late afternoon. Having grown up on a farm, he’d been paying attention to clouds all his life, and it amazed him how oblivious city people could be to something as basic as weather.

“Forget your coat again?”

She turned around. “Where do you normally conduct interviews?”

His lip curled at her tone of voice. All business. Like he hadn’t asked her to go to bed with him just last night.

“
Normally,
we use the break room.” Not that they nor
mally had many interviews to conduct. Most of the stuff they dealt with was such small potatoes, it didn’t merit a formal interview. But on rare occasions when one was called for, the break room worked best, provided Jack could keep his officers from streaming in and out to use the Coke machine.

Fiona cast a critical look around the room. Her gaze paused on the framed photograph sitting on his desk, then moved to the bulletin board beside the door.

“I’d prefer here,” she said. “The lighting’s good, and it’s nice and comfortable. We need to get rid of those, though.” She nodded at a series of mug shots pinned to the corkboard. It was a collection of area dirtbags, plus the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted. Jack knew the nation’s most notorious baddies weren’t likely to set foot in Graingerville, but he kept them clearly visible as a matter of pride. He’d paid his dues at one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country, and he took his job seriously, even if most days it consisted of nuisance complaints and petty theft.

“You think the mugs will spook the witness?”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “But it’s better not to suggest an image. I want to know what Brady remembers on his own.”

Jack nodded. “Okay, what else? I’ll bring another chair in. And have the phone routed to voice mail so it’s quiet.”

She stowed her purse on the floor beside his file cabinet. Then she lifted her art case onto his desk and started unloading supplies. Her hair fell in a wavy curtain around her face, and he wondered why she wore it pulled back all the time. It looked much better like this.

“We don’t need another chair.” She glanced up. “Unless
his mother insists on being present. Can you persuade her to sit outside?”

Jack propped a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “Shouldn’t be a problem. But
I’d
like to sit in, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s not.”

“Not what?”

“Not all the same to me. This child saw something disturbing. He’s probably scared, even if he’s acting tough. The last thing he needs is some puffed-up cop giving him the third degree.”

“Puffed-up?”

She sighed. “No offense, Jack, but you come on a little strong. I’ve been around cops a long time. I understand the swagger and the arrogance, and I know it serves a purpose.”

“Do you now?”

“But you have to understand how it can be interpreted by a victim. It’s intimidating. It stifles open conversation.”

Jack clenched his jaw, not sure which insult to deal with first. “This kid’s not a victim,” he reminded her. “He’s just a witness.”

“Fine, he’s a witness. But a traumatized one. I don’t want you hanging around making him uncomfortable.”

“Who says I make people uncomfortable?”

She glanced up at the ceiling, clearly exasperated. “Jack, come on.”

“I’m friendly. Ask anyone in town.”

Her eyes sparked with indignation. And damned if he wasn’t getting aroused.

“Jack, you’re six-one, built like a brick…wall. And then there’s that look you get.”

“What look?”

“Please.” Her eyes pleaded with him now. “I’m an experienced interviewer. And I’m asking you to leave us alone. It’s the best thing for the witness.”

Back to the witness again. The victim. Jack cared about that; he really did. It was one reason he’d been so determined to get Fiona down here to talk to Lucy. But Lucy actually
was
a victim. And this investigation was too important for Jack to keep tiptoeing around everybody. All this touchy-feely crap was starting to piss him off.

“I need to hear this kid’s story,” he said. “He’s my best lead.”

“I understand. And I’ll tell you everything. You can even videotape us, if you get permission. But I don’t want you in here.”

Someone tapped on the door, then pushed it open. Carlos poked his head in sheepishly, and Jack glared at him.

“Sorry, J.B., but Brady’s mom’s here.”

Jack turned to Fiona, who still had that plea in her eyes. Goddamn it, he couldn’t say no to her. She had better be right about this.

And if she wasn’t, he’d just have to hang on to the kid when she was done so he could milk him for more information.

“Give us two more minutes,” he told Carlos. “Then send Brady in. I’ll talk to his mother.”

Carlos cleared his throat. “That’s the problem. I just talked to her. She said Brady’s run off.”

Fiona’s stomach growled, and she glanced at the clock. Four hours, and still no Brady. And each time she thought about
going out for a break, she convinced herself to wait another twenty minutes. Every cop on Jack’s force was looking for the boy. They
had
to find him soon. In a town this small, how hard could it be to find a kid tooling around on a purple dirt bike?

She looked down at the papers fanned out across Jack’s desk, grateful she’d had them stashed in her car. At least the morning hadn’t been a total waste. She hadn’t helped apprehend any murderers, but hey, she’d managed to grade three dozen essays, meaning she might actually squeeze in some painting tonight, assuming she could get back to Austin in time.

She jotted some comments in the margin for one of her students, and her gaze wandered over to the photo by Jack’s phone. Two girls with their arms hooked around each other smiled out at the camera. By Fiona’s guess, they were seven and nine. They had Bowman features, from the gray-blue eyes to the square jaw, and Fiona wondered for the umpteenth time whether Jack had ever been married.

The thought made her uneasy, so she shifted her attention to the stack of mug shots on Jack’s file cabinet. He’d removed them from the bulletin board at her request, but not before she’d had a chance to look. Fiona made a habit of paying attention to faces, and without really trying, she’d memorized Jack’s collection in a matter of minutes. Most of them were from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

Fiona had her own top ten list of sorts—an array of rapists and murderers whose faces appeared to her in the wee hours of the morning, no matter how hard she tried to shut them out. They were from cold cases, mostly, from some of
the toughest investigations she’d ever worked, the ones that hadn’t ended in resolution. Lucy’s abductor had recently been added to the list. And whenever Fiona started to feel sorry for herself because her job had filled her head with such horrible images, she’d think about the victims. She’d wonder how
they
were sleeping—if they were lucky enough to be alive. Many weren’t so lucky. In those cases, Fiona wondered how their parents fared at night, and she knew she had it easy.

She returned her attention to her papers and tried to concentrate.

“Good news,” Jack said, sticking his head in.

“You found Brady?”

“Yep.” He smiled. “Sharon spotted him inside the video arcade at Dot’s Truck Stop. She’s bringing him in.”

“You make it sound like he’s being arrested. I don’t want this to be a hostile interview.”

Jack scoffed. “With this kid, everything’s hostile. But Sharon’s working on him. She took him through the drive-through at the Dairy Queen and promised not to write him up for truancy if he behaves himself.”

“Does he have a history of ditching school?”

“His principal tells me he’s one unexcused absence away from repeating fourth grade.” He checked his watch. “Hey, you hungry or anything? You want a Coke?”

“No,” she said, although she was famished.

“Well, sit tight. They’ll be here soon.”

Fifteen minutes later, Fiona was seated across the desk from a sullen nine-year-old, the best link anyone had between an unidentified girl and the man who’d choked the life out of her.

Brady had made quick work of his Hunger Buster with cheese, and now was finishing off a greasy pile of fries. His lunch smelled heavenly, and Fiona was practically drooling from sitting so close to it.

“I saw your drawing,” she said. “You’re really talented.”

He eyed her with suspicion as he dipped a fry in ketchup. At her urging, he’d taken Jack’s comfy swivel chair, which put him in the power seat. Fiona was in the stiff, plastic chair on the other side of the desk.

“You have a good eye for detail.”

Brady didn’t say anything. He chomped the last french fry and washed it down with a slurp of soda. Then he pushed back from the desk. After a quick spin in the chair, he leaned back and propped his feet on Jack’s blotter. His sneakers were richly embellished with graffiti, and Fiona noticed with a sinking heart that it looked like gang writing.

“You ever had art lessons?” she asked.

He squinted at her through his shaggy brown bangs. “You mean like painting?”

“Or drawing.”

“No.”

“Well, you’re very good at it.”

He shrugged.

“I’d like to talk to you about the picture you drew. You told your teacher you were up in your tree fort when you saw the girl?”

No comment.

“What were you doing up there in the middle of the night?”

Silence.

Fiona plopped her elbow on the desk and rested her chin on her fist. “When I was nine, we lived in an apartment. I used to sleep out on the fire escape when I didn’t feel like being home.”

Brady took his feet down and opened Jack’s drawer. He helped himself to some paper clips and started fiddling with them.

“That was in L.A., though. So it wasn’t nearly as cold as it is here right now. I hope you had a sleeping bag or something.”

He shrugged. “I had my Spurs sweatshirt. Plus my coat.”

“Does your mom get upset when you go out like that?”

Brady fashioned one of the clips into a triangle, carefully adjusting the metal ends to maximize the tension. “Sometimes.” He placed it on the desk—just so—and it shot into the air with a
ping
. “Did yours?”

“She didn’t always notice. But when she did, I’d get in trouble.”

Brady went to work on another paper clip. “You don’t seem like a cop.”

“I’m not. I’m just here to talk to you about the man you saw from your tree house, see if we can get a picture of him.”

Ping
—another clip went flying. Brady picked up yet another one, avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t really get a good look. It wasn’t hardly light out.”

“But you got a good enough look to remember the girl?”

His cheeks reddened, and for the first time, he actually looked his age. He chewed his lower lip, then hazarded a glance up at Fiona. “She was naked. I didn’t make that up. He took her out there that way.”

“I know, Brady. You wouldn’t make up something like that.”

He glanced down at his paper clip. He kept fidgeting with it, but this one wouldn’t cooperate. “She was dead, too. I couldn’t do nothin’.”

“I know.”

He glared up at her. “It was too late for 911. She was
dead
. Just like on TV, with her eyes all popped open.”

“I know.”

He tossed the paper clip aside and snatched the straw from his paper cup. He twisted it around his thumb.

“Let’s talk about the man, Brady.”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“I can’t draw him. This is stupid. I already tried drawing him, and I can’t.”

Fiona leaned forward, trying to keep her voice even. “You don’t have to draw him, Brady. Is that what you thought?”