Untraceable (8 page)

“What’s the problem?” he asked, fishing his wallet from his pocket and turning to the vending machine.

“Floater from Lake Austin,” Hodges said. “Strangling victim.”

A Coke thunked down, and Nathan retrieved it from the machine. “What about him?”

“I followed up on that phone number we found on the matchbook in his pocket,” Hodges said. “Took me a while to track it down.”

Nathan popped the top and chugged, eyeing his partner’s face over the top of the can. Hodges looked much too intense for the average day at the office, even in homicide.

“What?” Nathan asked.

“It’s a corporate account, belongs to A.L. Enterprises.”

“Yeah. And?”

“And that’s a shell company,” Hodges said. “Owned by Alexandra Lovell.”

Alex hadn’t expected one of the world’s foremost DNA experts to be cute. But that was the first word that popped into her head as she watched Mia Voss walk across the lobby.

Alex told herself to reserve judgment, at least until the woman opened her mouth. When Mia reached them, Troy pulled her into a hug while she regarded Alex with curious blue eyes.

“You must be Alex,” she said, and Alex could tell by her tone she’d been expecting a man.

They exchanged a polite handshake. “Thank you for seeing us on short notice,” Alex said.

“Troy tells me you’re down from Austin. So… you’re with APD?”

“Not exactly,” Troy said. “Hey, you mind giving us the tour before we head up to the lab? Alex has never been here.”

“Sure.” Mia glanced at the visitor’s badge clipped to Alex’s shirt. “Looks like you’re all checked in.”

She led them across the spacious lobby toward a pair of Doric columns. Alex wasn’t sure what to make of the place. Or the guide, for that matter. Besides the predictable lab coat, Mia wore faded jeans and ankle boots, and her strawberry blond hair was pulled back in a black scrunchie. Alex suddenly wondered whether this pretty young doctor was one of Troy’s many ex-girlfriends.

Alex cut a glance at him as they walked. Instead of signing in as Alex had and having his driver’s license swiped for a criminal background check, he’d simply pressed his palm against a screen at the front desk. The receptionist had waved him right in. How had he gotten that sort of clearance? She’d asked, but he’d shrugged off the question, which had only piqued her curiosity.

They passed through the columns and into a long corridor, and the architecture fast-forwarded into the twenty-first century.

“We call this wing Plants and Ants,” Mia said over her shoulder. “Our botanists and entomologists work here.”

Alex glanced back and forth at the glass doors as they passed. Behind each one, she saw stainless steel counters and sinks, lots of cumbersome-looking equipment, a few scientists in goggles peering into microscopes.

“Is it my imagination,” she whispered to Troy, “or are we going down?”

“We are,” Mia said from several steps ahead. “I’m taking you past our Bones Unit. They work in the basement.”

The temperature cooled as they descended. Alex had thought the complex looked large from the front steps, but she’d had no idea it extended so far underground.

Mia came to a double glass door. She rested her palm on the screen to the right, and the panels parted. A wall of cold air hit them.

“This is where we do cadaver research,” Mia said. “All the workrooms are closed off, but the entire section stays at about fifty degrees.”

Alex rubbed her bare arms and wished for a lab coat like Mia’s. As they moved through the corridor, she gazed through a long window at a group of people with clipboards and eye shields huddled around a table.

“That’s Osteology.” Mia stopped and nodded at the glass. “Looks like a class going on right now.”

Alex craned her neck, but she couldn’t get much of a view. “What are they looking at?”

“A skeleton,” Mia said. “They brought it in from the body farm this morning.”

Alex sent her a questioning look.

“We’ve got about a hundred acres southwest of the building where we research decomposition. How human remains react under different conditions—car trunks, ponds, open fields.”

Mia resumed the brisk pace. “Used to be, the country’s primary body farm was in Tennessee. But we get different kinds of weather and wildlife out here, so ours is more helpful for law enforcement agencies in the Southwest.”

Mia led them around a corner and stopped at an elevator. When the doors dinged open, she stepped inside and flattened her palm to the screen before pressing the button for the sixth floor, which was labeled
DNA/COMP
. Alex read the other choices:
IDENT, TRACE, PHOTO, QD
.

“What’s ‘QD’?” Alex asked.

“Questioned Documents. I’d take you by there, but they’re hosting VIPs today. Some group from Britain, I believe.”

“Delphi’s getting attention from all over the world.” Troy smiled slyly. “Almost like Quantico.”

Mia shot him a look. “Better than Quantico.”

The doors dinged open, and Alex kept her skepticism to herself as they stepped into a sunlit hallway. She squinted up at the glass ceiling. “Guess you get to work in the solarium?”

“Actually, no.” Mia led them down the hall as Alex gazed down through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the courtyard six stories below. They passed another interior window, and Alex stopped short. “Holy hell,” she muttered.

“Knew you’d like this part,” Troy said.

Alex gaped at the enormous room filled with sleek new machines: computers, servers, 3D laser scanners. A trio of latex-gloved men stood around a table at the end of one of the rows. One of them slowly waved a scanner over a skull, and the image appeared on a nearby screen.

“That’s Digital Imaging and Cyber Crimes.” Mia looked at Alex. “I take it you like computers?”

“Yeah.” Alex itched to go explore, but she had a feeling her visitor’s badge wouldn’t get her inside.

Troy leaned in close. “Jealous?” he asked, and his breath was warm against Alex’s ear.

He was talking about the computers.

“Not really,” she said. “I just upgraded, so I’m not in the market.”

Mia passed another row of windows, and Alex saw more scientists with eye shields working at tables. Then Mia stopped at a door and did her palm routine again. The panel slid open.

“This,” she said, stepping inside, “is where I work.”

They followed her into a windowless room, and the door slid shut with a
whoosh
. The space was dim, the only light coming from a desk lamp sitting on the counter beside an open file folder.

Alex glanced around. The center of the space was occupied by a rectangular, slate-topped table. Three microscopes were arranged in a neat row on top. On the far wall were shelves filled with glassware: beakers, test tubes, lots of other stuff Alex couldn’t identify. A red biohazard bin sat tucked in a corner.

“Is this all yours?” she asked Mia.

“Not really. Most of our DNA tracers work in the bigger lab next door. I like this room because it’s dark, and I work with lots of alternative light sources, chemicals that fluoresce, stuff like that.” Mia gestured to a stool. “Have a seat. Show me what you brought.”

Feeling a bit self-conscious now, Alex pulled out the plastic sandwich bag containing her “evidence.” It seemed out of place here, amid all the cutting-edge equipment. She passed it to Mia.

“Hmm.” She held up the bag. “Next time, use paper.”

“Paper?”

“To transport evidence,” Mia said. “Plastic containers can accelerate the deterioration of biological specimens. So what is it you want to know about this?”

“Well.” Now Alex felt even more self-conscious. “First off, I’m not sure whether it’s blood.”

“Let’s find out.” Mia reached for a box on the counter behind her and snapped on a pair of surgical gloves. She pulled down a metal arm suspended from the ceiling and switched on a light. The glare was intense, and Alex was reminded of visiting the dentist’s office.

“I’ll just do a quick TMB test,” she said, taking some supplies from a drawer. She tore a piece of paper from a wide roll, arranged it on the table, and emptied the plastic bag on top of it. Then she dampened a cotton swab with some sort of liquid and bent over the earbud.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Distilled water.” She dabbed gently until the tip of the cotton swab was pink. Then she dampened a paper strip with the water and held the swab against it. “This is a Hemastix strip.” She glanced up. “We’re looking for it to change color. Sort of like a home pregnancy test.”

Troy eased closer. Alex pulled up a stool and sat down to wait. Soon the paper turned greenish-blue.

“It’s blood,” Mia announced. “Next question, is it human blood? I would guess yes, since it’s on an earbud, but you never know. Just this morning I tested blood droplets on a pair of boots that belong to a murder suspect.
Odocoileus virgianus
, unfortunately. White-tailed deer.” She sighed. “My homicide detective isn’t going to be very happy. Anyway, I’ll run what’s called a precipitin test to be sure.”

Alex glanced at the cotton swab. “Aren’t you worried about using up the sample?”

“It’s okay. We’ve got methods now to replicate DNA so that we can get a usable sample from a very small amount. I can get one off a single hair follicle, if I need to.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s human blood, given the circumstances,” Alex said. “The question is, whose?”

“You want a DNA profile,” Mia stated.

“I guess.” Alex glanced at Troy. He hadn’t told her that when he set up the appointment?

“And I assume you also want us to run it through the database for you.”

“Depends.” Troy claimed the stool beside Alex, and she felt reassured by his closeness. “Alex believes the blood belongs to a murder victim.”

Mia’s brows arched. “A victim? Would they be in the missing-persons index?”

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“The national DNA database has three main parts,” Troy said. “One is for profiles lifted from crime scenes—that’s the forensic index. Then there’re profiles from offenders. The third part is missing persons. Profiles from un-IDed remains.”

“It also includes donated profiles,” Mia added, “from families who are looking for someone, hoping they’ll turn up someday.”

“I see.” Alex felt the weight of her ignorance. “Sorry, but this isn’t really my area. Tracing people in cyberspace, I know all about. Tracing people through genetic codes, I’m way out of my league.” Alex looked at Troy. “I doubt Melanie’s in the database, though. I mean, I’m the only one who even believes she’s missing. And she doesn’t have a criminal record.”

Mia tipped her head to the side, clearly confused. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I understand your objective here. Your department thinks someone was murdered? And they sent you here to—”

“I’m not a police officer,” Alex cut in. “I’m a private investigator. One of my clients disappeared, and I think there was foul play involved.”

Mia gave Troy a look, but Alex couldn’t decipher it. Had he misled her about why they were here today? Or maybe she was annoyed to be wasting her time with a civilian.

“Alex is trying to convince police that her client is dead,” Troy said. “She wants a murder investigation. But the only evidence she has is this”—Troy nodded at the earbud—“and a burned-down house, where her client was staying. Alex thinks the killer set fire to the place to conceal the crime.”

Mia leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “So there isn’t even a case yet, really. Just your belief that something bad happened to this woman.”

“That about sums it up,” Alex said.

Mia watched her for a moment, drumming her fingertips against her sleeve. “All right.” She shrugged. “Works for me.”

Alex stared at her. She was going to help. Alex hadn’t really believed it until just this moment, and she didn’t know what to say.

“What?” Mia glanced at Troy. “That’s why you came here, right? To make your case?”

“I’m just surprised,” Alex said. “Getting the tests run… this detective I know made it sound like such a big deal.”

“I get that a lot,” Mia said. “Old dogs, new tricks, and all that. Most cops still look at DNA as something used to prosecute a case, not investigate. It’s one of the biggest problems we’re up against.” Her voice took on an edge as she talked. “With the technology available now, that’s so shortsighted. We can use DNA to put a weapon in someone’s hand. To put a perp at a crime scene where he claims he’s never been. We can pile up evidence and pressure someone into a confession, save the taxpayers a big trial. But that’s not happening right now because the system is broken. We’ve got this amazing technology, but we’re really only using it to prosecute cases that have already been solved.”

The room fell silent, and Mia’s words hung in the air. Alex realized this woman was on a mission.

“Sorry.” Mia rolled her eyes. “Bottom line, yes, I’ll help you. I assume you brought me another sample? Something I can compare to this blood, see if I get a match?”

Alex pulled another plastic bag from her purse, this one containing the envelope Melanie had given her last October when she’d put a down payment on Alex’s services.

It was the only payment Alex had managed to collect from her.

“I watched Melanie lick this envelope.” Alex handed Mia the bag. “Will that work for you?”

She smiled. “Like a charm.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Troy turned onto Alex’s street, and she glanced out the passenger window for the hundredth time today. No tail. But still, she felt uneasy for some reason.

“What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. I just like to keep tabs.”

His brow furrowed. “You worried about something?”

“Force of habit.”

He pulled into the driveway behind her Saturn.

“Thanks for the ride.” Alex scooped the box of leftovers off the floorboard. They’d spent the afternoon walking around San Marcos and then stopped for drinks at a restaurant on the river. Drinks had become dinner. Now it was dangerously close to nighttime, and they still hadn’t dealt with the tension hovering between them.

Alex shoved open the door and got out. Troy walked her up the stairs, like she’d known he would, and stood patiently behind her as she fished her keys from her purse.

“You driving back tonight or tomorrow?” she asked, unlocking the door. She turned to face him and immediately knew the intention behind his warm, steady look.

“That’s up to you.”

Her stomach fluttered. He wanted to come inside and pick up right where they’d left off before New Year’s.

And she wanted to say yes.

“Thanks for your help today,” she said instead.

He gazed down at her.

“This case is important to me. And it means a lot that you gave up so much of your time to help me with it.”

“But you’re still mad,” he stated.

“I’m not mad.” And she wasn’t. Not anymore. The anger had lasted only a few hours. The hurt, though—that had stuck with her for months.

Troy rested his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t look upset. Just resigned.

“I know you’re going to think this is bullshit,” he said, “but I
am
sorry.”

She watched him, waiting for more. But he simply looked at her.

“Thank you,” she said finally. Where was the rest of it? The sweet talk? The seduction? This man was really good at the seduction part, and there was a strong chance he’d be able to sway her if he put some effort into it. Part of her wanted him to.

Another part of her was thinking of Nathan. She kept remembering him crouched in front of her the other night in his sweat-soaked T-shirt, cleaning up her knee and ignoring her while she cursed at him.

And then for some reason she felt guilty for standing here on the verge of inviting Troy inside. Where had that come from?

Troy dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Night, Alex. Lock up tight.” Then he went down the stairs and slid back into his car.

Alex stood on her doorstep and watched as he backed out of the driveway. She stayed there, thinking, until the sound of his engine faded completely into the night.

The Ferrari 360 Modena turned the corner, and Nathan watched Alex watch it go. When she finally stepped back inside, he sat in the Mustang for a few more minutes, collecting his thoughts.

Or, more accurately, grinding his teeth over the realization that Alex had spent the day with some rich hot-shot while he’d been busting his ass trying to find her.

He got out of his car and slammed the door. A dog barked nearby as he crossed the tree-lined street to the Hyde Park mini-mansion where Alex rented a garage apartment. Nathan had thoroughly scoped out the place earlier in the day, though why a woman who kept a brand-new Mercedes and a pristine-looking 1960 Ford Sunliner stashed in her garage should need to take a boarder was a mystery. Nathan walked around the side of the garage and glanced through a dusty window. The Sunliner alone was worth at least a few years of what Alex probably paid in rent. But maybe the rich old bird liked the company.

Nathan hiked up the stairs noisily and wasn’t surprised when the curtain behind the glass pane shifted and Alex peeked out at him. Then the door swung open.

She fisted a hand on her hip as he looked her over. Sometime in the past three minutes, she’d changed into—God help him—blue satin pajama pants and a tight-fitting tank top.

He dragged his gaze back to her face. “Hi.”

Sighing, she ushered him inside and closed the door. “Excuse me while I fire my assistant.” She turned and pulled a cell phone from the purse sitting on the breakfast table.

Nathan caught her wrist. “She didn’t give me your address.”

“Then how’d you find me?”

He lifted an eyebrow. It hadn’t been easy. Alex had a vast array of privacy shields, and every bit of information he’d had on her linked back to her business address.

“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I need to know.”

“I used your pizza trick.”

She crossed her arms. “I never order pizza.”

“No, but you like Hunan Cafe.”

She rolled her eyes and walked into the kitchen. She jerked the fridge open and grabbed a Coke from the top shelf. A half-empty carton of Dos Equis sat on the shelf, too.

Nathan’s irritation returned. “Where have you been all day?”

A look of amused disbelief came over her face. “Out.”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I was busy,” she said. “You want a drink?”

“No.”

She popped open the Coke and took a sip.

Nathan forced himself to let it go. How she spent her time was none of his business. Neither was her personal life. Or the fact that she kept her fridge stocked with beer she didn’t drink.

He turned his attention to the apartment. A flat-screen television sat on an empty bookcase opposite a striped blue sofa. The coffee table consisted of a scuffed black camp trunk. Cardboard boxes lined the far wall beneath a pair of windows, reminding him of her office the first time he’d seen it. The place looked as though she’d just moved in, but the Chinese restaurant had orders for her dating back two years.

“Don’t you ever unpack anything?” he asked.

“Not if I can help it. I like mobility.” She scraped back a wooden dining chair and sat down. A sliver of black lace peeked over the waistband of her pants, and Nathan’s imagination kicked into gear.

“So what’s going on?” she asked.

“Did Melanie Coghan have a boyfriend that you know of?”

Alex’s face paled. “You mean she’s… dead?”

“No.” He frowned. “At least, we don’t know that.”

“You said ‘did,’ as in past tense.”

“Okay,
does
she have a boyfriend? I need to know if she’s seeing someone. Someone here in Austin.”

Alex shook her head slowly. “She didn’t say anything. Not to me, anyway.”

“You think it’s possible?”

Alex watched him, wide-eyed. Gone was the snippy attitude. She was worried about Melanie.

“You mentioned she’d been taking trips to Austin,” he reminded her. “You think she was meeting somebody?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It would explain a few things. It would be incredibly stupid, though. What better way to piss off her husband than to come back here and have an affair, right under his nose?”

“I can’t think of one.”

Alex shook her head and muttered a curse.

“It’s not your fault,” he told her. “Whatever she was doing, she ignored your advice.”

Alex gazed up at him, her eyes wary. “What’s this about, anyway? What aren’t you telling me?”

“We recovered a floater from Lake Austin on Tuesday.”

Her eyes widened. “Was it—”

“Adult male. About five-ten, one-sixty. Dark hair. He sound familiar at all?”

“No.”

“We’re still working on an ID.” He stepped closer. “In the meantime, I need to know why your phone number was in his pocket.”

“
My
phone number? Why would some dead guy have my phone number on him?”

Nathan pulled a notebook from his jacket, flipped it open, and rattled off the number.

“That’s not my number,” she said.

“It was scrawled on a book of matches. It’s to a cellular account registered to A.L. Enterprises.”

A lightbulb seemed to go on. “It’s Melanie’s safe phone.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just a regular cell phone. But it’s part of her emergency kit. Or it’s supposed to be.”

“Why is it in your name?”

“I give all my clients a safe phone. Or at least this kind of client. They’re supposed to use it only in an emergency. It’s part of this kit I tell them to put together in case their cover gets blown. They keep some cash, a phone, a simple disguise, like maybe a hat and wig. I also suggest they keep a prepaid gas card, any prescriptions—whatever they need to take off at a moment’s notice.”

“But why is this registered to you? Why not a prepaid cell phone?”

“Mostly, they use prepaid phones. This is just for emergencies. And I have the number, so I can track them, if I need to. The phone companies have gotten wise to pretexts from PIs, so it’s gotten harder and harder to gain access to other people’s phone records. This phone is in my name, so it makes things easier.”

“And I’m assuming you tried this with Melanie?”

“The very first day,” she said. “The last call bounced off a cell tower in Florida months ago. I’ve left messages on it and Melanie’s prepaid phone, but the mailboxes are full now. I don’t think she’s retrieved anything. I figure she took the battery out. Or maybe Coghan got rid of it somehow. Even the GPS wasn’t working.”

“Interesting. And how would you know that, exactly?”

She cleared her throat. “I sort of have this friend in emergency dispatch. I explained the situation and convinced her to ping Melanie’s phone.…” Her voice trailed off as Nathan stared at her.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Nothing. It’s just, shit, here I am thinking you need a warrant, or at least a badge for that.”

“Hey, if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question.”

He shook his head, exasperated.

“There’s something more, isn’t there?” she asked. “Something’s bothering you.”

Everything about this case bothered him. Alex being mixed up in it was top of his list.

“We haven’t IDed this floater yet,” he told her, “but we think he may have had a gang affiliation.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can’t disclose the details.”

“Nathan, I need to know what’s happening.”

He watched her for a moment, debating whether to trust her. “This is confidential,” he said finally.

“Okay.”

“Whoever strangled this guy cut off some skin before dumping him in Lake Austin.”

She cringed. “Why?”

“Tattoo removal. We see it sometimes with gang murders. You kill off a rival, take away his symbols. It’s kind of like the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to the rival gang.”

“But if you can’t see what was there, how do you know it was a tattoo?”

“We don’t. It’s just a possibility. Course with this link to Melanie, and to
you
,” he added pointedly, “we realize it might not be that simple. We’ll know more when we get an ID. Unfortunately, the whole department’s slammed right now. We’re in triage. My lieutenant just ordered me to lay off this John Doe homicide and tackle stuff that’s more solvable.”

“But I thought gang killings usually involved guns. Didn’t you say he was strangled?”

“Maybe someone didn’t want any noise. Or any slugs recovered. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe this has nothing to do with gangs, and someone’s simply trying to make it harder for us to identify this guy. His fingertips were in bad shape, so even if he’s in the system, it’s going to be tough to get an ID.”

Alex shook her head and looked down at her bare feet. He could tell she was worried, which was good. Worry might make her careful. But it was the guilt on her face that really bothered him. He slid his hand up her arm and rested it on her shoulder. She glanced up.

“Stop doing that,” he said.

“What?”

“Thinking this is your fault. Melanie was a grown woman. She made her own bad decisions.”

“You think she’s dead.”

“Maybe,” he said. And at her worried expression, he couldn’t help giving her a sliver of hope. “Or maybe she’s just avoiding you. Could be she’s involved in something shady, something that drew her back to town.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Right now, anything’s possible. Sounds to me like she never told you the full story about why she left.”

Alex shook her head and glanced away. She looked so pretty sitting there, and sad, too.

It was time to go before he did something stupid.

He dropped his hand from her shoulder. “You need to be careful,” he said sternly.

“Me?”

“Whatever this is, it involves you now. And until we get a handle on it, you need to watch your back.”