Untraceable (6 page)

“How’d you get into PI work?” He scooped up a bite of pancakes and watched her.

“I always liked computers,” she said, as if that explained it. “I tried working for other people, but I do better on my own.”

“Problems with authority?”

“I like to call my own shots.”

More interesting than what she’d said was all the stuff she’d left out. Nathan had looked into her background—not that he’d ever tell her that. She’d grown up in Urbana, Illinois, the daughter of two university professors. She’d gone through her freshman year of college there, receiving what had to have been a nice break on tuition at U of I, where her parents worked. But then she’d dropped out. Three years later, she’d founded Lovell Solutions in her hometown. Then she’d taken the show on the road, apparently, moving herself and her company to Chicago, San Francisco, and most recently, Austin.

She was just twenty-nine. She’d been here two years, and it looked like she planned to stay. Unless she got itchy feet again.

“What?” Alex said now, and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. He’d been staring.

“Nothing.” He glanced down at his plate, which he’d somehow managed to clear, despite all the distractions. Alex had cleared hers, too.

She downed a sip of coffee and checked her watch. “I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got an appointment over in West Campus. Is there anything else you need to know?”

“The date of your last payment from Melanie.”

“October fourth. The day after she hired me.”

“That was it?”

“Yep.”

Shit, she’d let the woman walk all over her.

“That about covers it, then,” he said. “I’ll do some more digging today, see what I can find out.”

“Whatever you do, be discreet. I don’t want this getting back to Coghan.” She tried to pass him some money, but he waved it off.

“My treat,” he said.

“No, mine.” She slid out of the booth and tucked the bills under her coffee mug. “You’re spending time on this case for me. I feel like I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything yet. I haven’t done jack.”

She smiled down at him. “Yeah, but you will.”

Sophie twisted the last screw into the shelving unit with the little metal tool and stepped back to admire her work. Not bad. And this one had taken only half as long as the one she’d built yesterday. The main challenge had been deciphering the instructions that had come in the bag with all the different-size screws.

Someone knocked on the glass, and she whirled around.

A visitor. Her first visitor, and she was on her knees surrounded by files. She jumped to her feet and smoothed her skirt down as she walked over to the door. Alex hadn’t shown her how to buzz someone in from her desk. Sophie added that to her mental list of questions as she pulled open the door.

A tall man loomed on the sidewalk. He looked at least six-two, but it was hard to tell because of the cowboy hat.

“May I help you?” she asked crisply.

“I’m here to see Alexandra Lovell.” He stepped forward, and Sophie caught a whiff of tobacco.

“Ms. Lovell isn’t in right now.” She leaned back against the door and ushered him inside. “Would you like to leave her a message?”

He hesitated a moment, then stepped into the office and removed his hat to reveal a shock of white hair. His gaze roamed over the mess and then paused on the open door to Alex’s office.

“May I get your name?”

“Scoffield. Bill Scoffield.”

His voice had an east Texas drawl to it. Sophie was an expert on voices. She could place almost anything and sometimes made a game out of it.

“You know when she’ll be back?” he asked.

“Anytime now, I expect,” Sophie said, although she had no idea when Alex was coming back. She was doing some sort of surveillance, and it was taking much longer than she’d originally said. Sophie stepped over a stack of files and opened the drawer she’d organized this morning. She found a pink message pad and jotted down the man’s name.

“Anything you’d like me to tell her, Mr. Scoffield?” She glanced up, and he stood right by Alex’s door, peering into the office. Sophie stepped into his line of sight and pulled the door shut. “A message, maybe?”

“Just tell her I dropped by.” He gazed at her a moment, then he settled the hat back on his head and walked out.

Sophie watched him go, feeling uneasy. She didn’t like his interest in Alex’s office. She didn’t like something else about him, either, but she couldn’t quite place it.

She got down on her knees and resumed her shelving. Another knock, and she turned around, expecting the cowboy again.

But it was someone else.

No walk-ins for two days, and now they were flooded. Sophie hurried to the door and pulled it open.

“May I help you?” she asked, trying not to flinch when she saw his face.

“I’m looking for Alex.” He sauntered into the office and turned around. “She in?”

The man had a friendly voice. Southern. Louisiana or Arkansas would be Sophie’s guess.

“I’m sorry, she’s out right now.”

He ambled around the room, taking in everything, it seemed, despite the injury to his left eye. “You expect her back soon?”

“I don’t really know.”

“And who are you?” he asked, pausing beside the desk she’d just organized.

“I’m Sophie. Alex’s assistant.”

He nodded, then glanced down and thumbed through the Rolodex.

Annoyance overcame her intimidation, and she rushed over. “And you are?” She picked up the Rolodex and slid it into a drawer.

“A friend of Alex’s.”

Friend, as in boyfriend? Doubtful. He looked too scruffy, even for Alex Lovell. The navy blazer and gray slacks were probably meant to make him seem civilized, but they didn’t quite do the job. Maybe he was a loan shark. Or some angry husband whose wife’s PI had caught fooling around, and now he was out for revenge on Alex—

“Place is looking good.” He stepped over to Alex’s office door and stood there listening, as if wanting to confirm that no one was behind it.

Sophie crossed her arms. “May I take a message for you?”

But the man was more interested in checking out the reception room. His gaze drifted over the results of Sophie’s last two days of work: the two bookcases, which she’d unpacked and assembled from the dusty Ikea boxes leaning against the wall; the newly organized file cabinet, which now doubled as a table for the coffeepot.

“Looks like you’ve been busy.”

“Yes, well…”

He smiled, which went a long way toward calming her nerves. He had a nice smile. “Relax,” he told her.

“Excuse me?”

“You seem kinda jumpy.”

“I’m not, really. I just—”

“I bet she’s a tough boss, huh?” He stepped closer. “She’s good, though. At what she does. You’re lucky she hired you. She’s a pretty quick judge of character, so you must have made a good impression.”

Sophie felt herself smile, even though something told her she should stay on her guard.

“Listen,” he said smoothly, “I really need to find Alex, and she’s not answering her cell. Where is she, exactly?”

“I’m not sure.” Sophie perched on the desk and took a sip of coffee, then casually placed the cup on top of the note she’d made earlier. “But I’ll be happy to get her a message.”

He plunked his hands on his hips, revealing a gold shield clipped to his belt. “You know where she is, but you don’t want to say. Is that right?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose—”

“Honey, I’m a cop. And I need to talk to Alex. You can tell me.”

She gazed up at him, warmed by a sudden wave of trust. “She’s doing surveillance all day,” she told him. “That’s all I can tell you. But I’ll be happy to get her a message for you, if you like.”

“Thanks.” He smiled again, a flash of perfect white teeth. “Just tell her I stopped by.”

And then he was across the office, pulling open the door. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Good luck with the new job.”

Sophie smiled as the door whisked shut. He was cute. Sexy, even, if you overlooked the dings.

A thought struck her.

“Wait!” she rushed to catch him. “You never told me your name!”

She pulled the door open and poked her head out, but he was already gone.

CHAPTER SIX

Alex had never ruptured a disk in her back before. But she was pretty sure that if she
had
, she wouldn’t be eager to heft a kayak eight feet in the air.

“Lying liars who lie,” she murmured, zooming in on her subject. This was well worth the thirty-plus hours she’d sat roasting in a car, waiting for this guy to emerge from his girlfriend’s apartment. Standing on the running board of his Nissan XTerra, the subject centered the kayak on the luggage rack. He pulled a bungee cord from his pocket and tossed it down to his pretty female helper. Together, they started securing the boat.

Alex zoomed in closer, making sure she got a shot of his smiling face as he reached over the roof to hook the cord. What a faker. He hopped down and went back inside the apartment. Five minutes later, he returned with a huge cooler. Alex got a shot of his carefree grin as he loaded the ice chest into the cargo space. When the XTerra pulled away, Alex followed.

A little sunset kayaking? The SUV turned south, toward Town Lake, and her suspicions were confirmed.

Alex hung back discreetly, excitement fluttering in her belly. She had him, finally, after days and days of nothing. This was just the footage she needed to wrap up this project and get paid. Then, at last, she could give Melanie her undivided attention.

The subject pulled into a lot near a lakefront boat ramp and slid into a handicapped parking space. Alex double-parked on the opposite end of the lot and fumbled for her camcorder. This was too good to be true.

The passenger door jerked open. Alex dropped the camera in her lap as Nathan ducked his head in.

“Hey! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

He smiled. “Making a movie?”

She muted the sound on the camera. “Get in,” she said. “And don’t slam the door.”

He obediently slid in and eased the door shut. “This a company car?”

“It is now.” She lifted the camera and zoomed out for a wide shot of the couple unfastening the boat. The woman wore cutoffs and a T-shirt with Greek letters emblazoned across the front.

Alex glanced at Nathan. “How’d you find me?”

“Tailed you over here from West Campus.”

“Bullshit.”

“‘Fraid not.”

Alex bit her lip. She would have noticed a tail. She
should
have, but maybe she’d been distracted. She needed to be more careful.

She returned her attention to the subject of her surveillance. A few more seconds of him, and then she zoomed in on the license plate to underscore his identity for the insurance company that was paying his claim. Some collegiate-looking people wandered over from a nearby picnic table and exchanged greetings. Soon they were unloading the cooler, stowing it beneath the picnic table, and putting a pair of boats into the water.

Alex grabbed her tote bag from the backseat. She pulled out a khaki baseball cap—her quickie disguise of choice—and tugged it down over her unruly hair. “You coming or not?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What are you doing?”

“My job.” She rummaged through the tote for her black Astros cap. “Here, wear this.” She handed it to him. “That eye’s a little too conspicuous.”

Alex found an empty park bench facing the water. She placed her bag beside her and arranged the camcorder within it so that the lens peeked through the custom-made hole in the bag’s side.

Nathan sat down next to her.

“So what’d you want to tell me?” she asked.

He gazed out at the shimmering water where Alex’s subject was kayaking with his friends, practically guaranteeing a big paycheck in Alex’s future. But she couldn’t have cared less at the moment. Nathan had something to say, and she could tell from his suddenly grim expression that she wasn’t going to like it.

“I checked out Coghan today,” Nathan said. “It was real interesting.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little. They hadn’t found a body, thank God. “And what did you come up with?”

He stretched an arm out over the back of the bench. “Well, for starters, he just received a commendation from the chief of police. He got promoted last fall to head up the anti–drug task force—no small achievement—and he’s got a pristine record.” He paused, as if wanting this to sink in. “I checked with Human Resources, too. Not a single complaint about him in fifteen years of service.”

Alex’s mouth dropped open. “You checked with
Human Resources
?” Of all the places to check…

“I also checked police reports. Coghan’s got nothing linked to him about domestic abuse. No calls from Melanie or the neighbors, nothing. Not even a noise complaint.”

“You don’t believe me.” Alex’s breath caught. “After everything I told you, you still don’t believe me.”

“Melanie Coghan never reported any kind of abuse. Not once.” He rested his elbows on his knees and gazed at the lake. “But that’s not to say APD hasn’t heard of her. Your client’s got an interesting reputation, did you know that?”

She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. He didn’t
believe
her.

“Rumor is, Melanie Coghan’s a nutcase,” Nathan said. “She actually showed up at the station once, shitfaced drunk, and got into it with her husband, right there in the parking lot. She cursed him out. Told him she was leaving him. I talked to a patrol officer who says he saw the whole thing.”

“What are you trying to say?” Alex asked.

“I’m saying, all that doesn’t jell with your helpless, battered wife running away from her husband.”

“I can’t believe you.” Alex snatched up her tote bag and stalked back toward the parking lot.

Nathan followed. “What can’t you believe? That I checked into some facts before tossing around accusations?”

“I asked you to do this
quietly
.” She shook her head. “Human Resources is the gossip mill of any office. Don’t you know that? You’re going to tip him off! He’s probably out right now, getting rid of evidence!”

“Alex.” Nathan took her by the arm. “Listen to yourself. You’re not making sense.”

“
I’m
not making sense?”

“No.” He gazed down at her. She actually caught a flicker of concern in his expression, but she didn’t care. She was too mad.

“I understand that you’re worried about your client,” he said. “But you’ve got to get some perspective here. All you have is one woman’s story. And no evidence. And you’re accusing a veteran police officer of murder.”

She looked down at her feet and swallowed the lump of frustration in her throat. He didn’t believe her. And worse, he’d betrayed her trust.

“Let me ask you this.” His gentle tone made her chest hurt.

“What?”

“Does Melanie owe you money?”

“A little.” A lot, actually. Alex had paid the security deposit on her Orlando apartment out of her personal bank account. Ditto her utility deposits.

“You think it’s possible she’s avoiding you because she doesn’t want to pay?”

Alex looked away. It was possible. But she didn’t believe it.

In her heart of hearts, she believed Melanie was dead. And in her heart of hearts, she believed Craig Coghan was responsible. Melanie had come to Alex for help. She hadn’t had anyone else to turn to, so she’d turned to Alex.

“Alex? Isn’t it possible you’ve got this wrong? That you’ve made a mistake?”

She gazed up at him and felt the bitterness expand in her chest. He’d opted to trust his colleague over her because the guy was a cop. She’d always heard about the Blue Wall, but she’d never seen it up close like this.

She stepped back, away from him. “The mistake I made was thinking you’d help me.”

Captain’s Point was a luxury subdivision carved out of a hillside overlooking Lake Travis. During the dot-com heyday, hordes of thirtysomethings had built huge custom houses and thrown lavish parties there. Times had settled down, though, and now many of the houses were owned by retired couples or banks that had foreclosed after some Dellionaire couldn’t make his payment.

Alex wended her way through the neighborhood, too distracted to be dazzled by the pseudo-Tuscan architecture or sweeping sunset views. Nathan was wrong. That’s all there was to it. Alex didn’t care how many commendations Coghan had under his belt, the man was a wife beater, and probably a murderer, too. And just because Nathan couldn’t find a record of something didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

Of all the things he’d discovered during the course of his nano-second-long investigation, one thing stood out. It was the parking lot scene, when Melanie allegedly showed up at Coghan’s workplace, drunk and verbally abusive. It didn’t sit well with Alex. For one thing, Melanie had told Alex once that she didn’t drink. And for another, the meek, mousy woman who’d walked into Lovell Solutions all those months ago had seemed completely incapable of staging a scene like that. Alex couldn’t imagine Melanie threatening her husband at all, much less in public and in front of his coworkers. Was it possible Coghan had planted a witness to some imaginary fight?

Or was it possible there was another side to Melanie, a side Alex knew nothing about? In addition to the trembling, terrified victim who’d gone through a box of Kleenex in Alex’s office, maybe Melanie also happened to be a loudmouth drunk who didn’t mind humiliating her husband at his workplace.

But if she truly was afraid of him, why spark his temper in such a dramatic way?

It didn’t make sense. And it put the first nugget of doubt in Alex’s mind. Maybe she didn’t know Melanie quite as well as she thought she did.

Melanie’s return to Austin had been stupid. And her actions once she’d come back had been sloppy. But Alex’s background investigation had been sloppy, too.

Of course, none of that accounted for why Coghan was spending his workdays in Captain’s Point, stopping in at various houses. Alex passed the first of three homes that had been on Coghan’s agenda. She turned a corner and drove past the other two. Yesterday, each of the three houses had had cars in the driveway. Now, as dusk fell over the hillside, those driveways were empty.

Alex parked her Saturn down the street at a utility easement. After her run-in with Nathan, she’d dropped by the office to give Sophie back her Tahoe. Alex had been curt to the point of rudeness, and her new assistant was probably wondering what had put her in such a bitchy mood. But Alex hadn’t explained. Instead, she’d sent Sophie home, closed up shop for the night, and come here.

Expensive gas lamps flickered along Treasure Trail as Alex hiked up the hill to the first house on her list. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of nosy neighbors out and about. But Alex liked to be prepared for contingencies, so she’d tucked a clipboard under her arm. On it was a petition for improving water quality, which gave her a reason to be wandering around the neighborhood gleaning information from people.

A breeze cooled her bare arms as she neared the house. The two-story entrance was lit by an outdoor chandelier. No interior lights on, though. No cars, no dogs barking, no flutter of movement behind the closed curtains. It looked like no one was home, but she made her way up the cobblestone sidewalk and rang the bell anyway. After several minutes of waiting, she walked around to the wooden gate leading to the backyard.

She hesitated a moment, listening for the slightest growl or rustle of plants that would mean she wasn’t alone. Then she stepped into the yard and quietly closed the gate behind her. In the dimness, she could barely make out the shape of a spacious swimming pool surrounded by rocks. The water looked murky. Dark shapes hovered at the bottom, and it took her a moment to realize they were leaves. And branches. From the looks of it, the pool hadn’t been cleaned in months.

Alex stepped closer to the house, beneath a covered patio where the visibility was even worse. She pulled a penlight from her bag and shone it around.

An empty terra-cotta planter stood beside the column closest to Alex. The plant in it was shriveled and dead. Other than that, the patio was empty—no chairs or chaise lounges or stainless-steel barbecue pits.

And then she got it.
Duh.
This was a vacant house. She aimed her light inside the windows to confirm it. Not a stick of furniture anywhere, not even a rug—just bare tile floors.

What the hell? Alex checked the other two houses on her list and found them vacant, too. She drove out of Captain’s Point more puzzled than ever. What had Coghan been doing here?

Alex pondered the question all the way across town until her grumbling stomach broke her concentration. She hadn’t eaten all day, so she pulled into a Dairy Queen and ordered a Hunger Buster with cheese, a chocolate milk shake, and fries. While she waited at the window, she took out her phone and logged onto Google.

The first two addresses netted nothing, but she got a hit with the third. It came up as part of the online directory for the Austin Camera Club. The club’s president, evidently, had lived there in the not-so-distant past.

“Ma’am? Your order?”

Alex glanced up at the impatient teenager trying to hand her her dinner.

“Thanks.” She took the sack from him and pulled away. A warm, oniony smell filled her car, and she dug french fries from the bag as she made her way home.