Undercover Hunter Read online

  Cade meandered over to take a seat by DeeJay. The bartender had issued the message We don’t want no problems here.

  Good enough for him. He ordered his own coffee, and agreed silently with DeeJay that a burger was probably the safest thing to choose, not that the menu was big. Soon the smell of frying beef rose from the griddle and it was like someone let the tension out of the room.

  Lunch without problems. Always a good way to go.

  Then DeeJay astonished him almost to speechlessness. She lifted her head from her burger and said, “This is a great burger. Just the way I like them.”

  The bartender froze and stared at her. He probably received a compliment once every hundred years or so.

  DeeJay pushed her jacket out of the way, reached into her hip pocket and pulled out one of the phony business cards they had for this trip. “We’re travel writers,” she said. “We write about great places to stop. If you have a card, I’d like to tell folks about your burgers.”

  Now the bartender’s jaw dropped. Silence fell from the far end of the room, except for Hank Williams Sr. wailing tinnily about cheatin’ hearts. You could almost hear the ice in the room crack as it thawed.

  “Ain’t got no card,” the bartender said. “Take one of them menus, iffen you want.”

  “I’ll do that,” DeeJay said. “Thanks.”

  For her efforts they both received a complimentary piece of apple pie.

  Cade let DeeJay pay, figuring this wasn’t the time or place to get into an argument about who was buying lunch, and it was all the state’s money anyway. When at last they stepped back outside, he drew in lungfuls of fresh cold air and remarked, “Great job.” He didn’t even sound grudging.

  “The pie crust was heavy,” she remarked, her only response.

  Stifling a sigh, he climbed back in behind the wheel and set them once again on the road to Conard City.

  However long it took to catch this killer, it was going to be too long.

  * * *

  DeeJay didn’t care for men. It was one thing to have a fling with one, another to work with one. In a single instant she’d seen the resistance in Cade Bankston’s eyes when he’d heard they were to be partnered, and that had been all she’d needed. He was a macho meathead who couldn’t accept that women were as capable as men. Like that pinheaded CO who had turned her life into a living hell because he didn’t think a woman was qualified to command an MP unit. That freaking martinet had wanted every i dotted, and it damn well better be dotted clearly enough. But he wasn’t the only one. There’d been the CO in Afghanistan who’d warned her that if she filed a rape charge her career was over. And the series of them who had been infuriated when she insisted on investigating the rapes of other soldiers. There’d also been too many men working for her who didn’t get why they should take orders from her. And then there’d been the guy who had forced her out.

  They hadn’t all been bad, but enough of them had that DeeJay had a real burn on for men. A guy got one chance with her. Bankston had torched his.

  Still, she had to work with him. She wasn’t ready to nuke any bridges on this job. There was a killer to catch, although she still didn’t understand what lamebrain had come up with the idea that they had to pretend to be married. Wouldn’t it have been enough that they were working together on a travel story?

  She looked down at the thin gold band on her ring finger, courtesy of an evidence locker somewhere, and wished she could fling it out the window.

  She glanced occasionally at Bankston, taking in his square jaw and chiseled face from the side. His hair was a light brown, a little wavy, and he had a pair of aquamarine eyes that she would have admired in any other setting. He probably believed he set women’s hearts aflutter, and maybe he did. For a guy who must be pushing toward forty, he took good care of himself.

  All she knew about him, though, was that he had a lot of experience and had been with the criminal investigation unit for most of that time. She’d heard that he’d once been a beat cop in a major metro area, but she didn’t have any idea which one. It wasn’t a whole lot to go on.

  She did know, however, that he didn’t want to be working with her, and she didn’t want him any closer than the job required. When they’d received the news that they were pairing up for this, she’d seen it clear as anything in his eyes. If he’d been a mule, he’d have dug in his heels and brayed. She had to give him some credit for taking an order he didn’t like, but she wouldn’t give him any more than that.

  Nor did she feel as if she needed to prove herself to him. She’d proved herself countless times in a much tougher organization, and she’d learned the hard way that conciliatory women were considered weak, and tough ones were called bitches. She preferred being a bitch. At least no one tried to take advantage of her that way.

  Stifling a sigh, she wished this drive would come to an end. Looking out the window, with the mountains still purple in the distance, had begun to bore her. She wasn’t used to sitting still for so long.

  She glanced again at Cade and decided that maybe she should back off him a little. She’d made her position clear repeatedly over the past few days, but they still had to work together. The question was how much she needed to back off. Except for their disagreement about who would drive, he’d done his share of backing off. And she’d let him drive only because he’d made the logical argument that he knew this country and these roads. It had been clear at that point that he wasn’t insisting because he thought the man should always drive.

  Okay, give him back a point, but after that expression when they’d been told they were working together, he still had a lot of points to earn.

  “I guess that you don’t know much about the sheriff we’re working with, unless someone gave you a dossier,” he said, disturbing the endless silence between them, a silence filled with the humming of the car engine and tires on the road.

  “Not a thing,” she admitted reluctantly, wondering if she had been deliberately left out of some loop. Men often tried that with her.

  “He’s good,” Cade said. “Not your average elected official whose chief accomplishment has been kissing babies.”

  Despite herself, she almost wanted to laugh. Even as an MP she’d had to deal with that kind of local law enforcement occasionally.

  “He’s former DEA,” Cade went on. “Undercover operative until a car bomb nearly killed him and wiped out his entire family. He still carries the scars.”

  DeeJay swore quietly. She knew a lot of stories of car bombs all too well. Some of them had involved families.

  “Yeah,” Cade answered, apparently hearing her. “Anyway, long story short. He came here to heal, got hired as a crime-scene investigator, and years ago when the old sheriff retired, he was elected. Folks still call him the new sheriff.”

  “Of course.” That didn’t surprise her at all.

  “His name is Gage Dalton. Runs a tight ship. His predecessor, Nate Tate, was sheriff for forty years and still sticks his finger in the pie. Let him. There’s no one and nothing he doesn’t know about this county.”

  “Except who the killer is.”

  “Obviously.”

  DeeJay hesitated. Then, offering a slender olive branch, she said, “Sounds like a couple of good men to have on our side.”

  “The best. The deputies are good, too. Nate started a trend of inviting his old military pals to come this way. He was Special Forces. Anyway, they joke sometimes that they have more Special Forces types in Conard County than most military bases. Makes for an interesting and sometimes useful mix.”

  He was trying to tell her to be careful of stepping on toes, she realized. Trying to warn her that she’d be meeting men with backgrounds similar to hers and who shouldn’t be casually dismissed. Or wisely dismissed. While she resented the implication that she made a habit of stepping on toes, she’d ce
rtainly been stepping on his since their first meeting. Since she couldn’t just come out and say that she only stepped on toes she meant to break, she decided to take it as a good omen that he was trying to fill her in. Much as it killed her, she said, “Thank you.”

  “The sheriff knows we’re both coming. It’ll be up to him to decide who to trust with that information, but from what little I know of him, I doubt he’ll trust very many. They’re already working the case, though, and as you know we’re here by invitation.”

  “Got it. Been there, done that before.”

  “I guess you have.”

  She hesitated, then asked, “You read my jacket?”

  “That stuff’s private. What I know about you is exactly nothing.”

  That wasn’t good, she thought. They were partnered and both of them had to have some basis for trusting each other’s instincts, as far as the investigation went. They didn’t have to like each other, just to develop a professional trust. Partners could succeed no other way. But she still had a burr.

  “You didn’t want to partner with a woman,” she said.

  “No.” He didn’t varnish it. “Nothing to do with you personally. Bad experience once.”

  “I could say the same about working with men, only more than once.”

  She felt him glance at her before he spoke. “Then I suggest we focus on the badge and not the packages we’re wearing. I trained at Quantico and I’ve been a cop in one shape or another for seventeen years.”

  She gave a short nod. “I did Quantico, too. Twelve years as a cop, mostly in investigations. All over the world.”

  “Good. Well, we’re entering a different world here. You let me know if it reminds you of any place you’ve been before. People in this town are pretty tight. Just about everyone’s going to be upset about the missing boys. Then there’s a ski resort they started to build this past summer. Some new people from that. Some who came with the semiconductor plant and didn’t leave when it died. But most folks were born here and will be buried here. That kind of place.”

  “I’ve been in villages like that.” She’d run into them in the Appalachians on a couple of cases involving military personnel, and overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tight, cliquish and distrusting of outsiders. How was that going to help them?

  She looked out the side window again, feeling as if the day’s gloom was settling into her bones. Some nuts were impossible to crack, and this sounded like one. How the hell were a couple of pretend travel writers going to get any real information from anyone? It would give them the freedom to move around without suspicion, but little else.

  The more she thought about it, the less she liked this whole cover story. Profiling, in which they’d both been trained, could only get you so far. After that, you needed solid information.

  “You know,” she said presently, “this cover story stinks. The whole town is going to be upset because kids are disappearing. Does anyone think they’re going to want to talk about that with travel writers?”

  He didn’t answer for a minute. The car noises seemed to grow louder until he spoke. “That crossed my mind. But you tell me, Dawkins, how else we can insert a couple of strangers into a small community like this? No matter how we do it, we’re going to stand out and nobody’s going to want to talk. This cover story at least elevates us above a couple of dubious drifters and doesn’t give away our real mission.”

  He was right. “So we back up the local law. I can deal.”

  “Yeah. They’ll probably give us most of the information. We’re the ones who need to help pull it together. And who knows? We’re talking about one thing and looking for another. We might learn something useful just by keeping our eyes and ears open.”

  “You mean the unsub could slip up.”

  “We can hope.”

  Amazing how much of law enforcement came down to someone slipping up and someone else having the wit to notice the slip. She drummed her fingers on her thigh. They had been called up because of their training in profiling. She didn’t have the highest regard for it, but it could occasionally provide some useful directions to an investigation.

  She spoke as they passed the sign announcing that they were entering Conard County. “We’d better get on a first-name basis fast.”

  “Yeah. Why’d you tell that barkeep that you were going to tout his burgers? He’ll be looking for an article.”

  “Nah. He has a business card and a story to tell. That’ll make him happy. He’ll brag and our cover will be established.”

  “True.”

  She guessed that was an olive branch from him.

  * * *

  Calvin Sweet finished arranging his latest trophy and stood back in the barn loft to admire it. Three of them now hung from the commercial fish netting he’d acquired on his travels.

  He liked that netting. It was better than the cargo net he’d used before, thinner, made of highly durable plastic. As close as he was going to get to a spiderweb unless he took the time to weave one himself.

  His three trophies, wrapped in clear plastic painter’s drop cloth, hung beautifully like ornaments, visible but slightly hidden in their protective cases. Mysterious, like the life force he had taken from them. Holy now that they’d been saved.

  Backing up, he settled on a bale of hay to admire his handiwork. His private collection, growing steadily, a work of art. He hoped that someday someone other than himself would be able to admire it. It had taken a lot of work and thought. Hunting for something more to his liking than rope cargo net had actually taken quite a while. There were a surprising number of different kinds of fishnets and netting, and he’d had to do research until he could walk into that place on the East Coast and order exactly what he wanted.

  Even the clear plastic drop cloths were problematic, as he had to be careful not to buy too many at any one place. He’d driven many miles buying two or three at a time to make the stack that now stood in a corner of the old tack room. Always paying in cash, too.

  Then there were the plastic, disposable restraints. Easy enough to come by if you ordered them online, a hundred at a time. Figuring out how to avoid leaving that trail had cost him as much time and effort as any other part. He’d been delighted when he’d learned he could buy them in smaller quantities at some sex shops, and for cash. That had meant a lot of traveling, too, and going into places that he was certain were evil.

  But he liked the flexible ties better than tape, which damaged the skin and looked ugly, and better than rope, which could stretch and be wiggled out of. Imagine his surprise when he’d learned that most rope stretched on purpose so it wouldn’t snap.

  But now here he was, his trail concealed, his beautiful web in operation, three offerings to admire. It had been worth it. All of it.

  He had saved these three from miserable futures full of heartbreak, hard work, illness and sin. He had set them free. He had kept them pure.

  And in setting them free he had purified himself, made himself stronger with their unsullied energy. Just like the spider, who could poison her prey and then eat it without suffering from the poison. Receiving only the nutrition.

  His spirit had been fed. Now he honored those who had fed him, acknowledging their gifts.

  It was essential to be grateful for these gifts. Gratitude filled him with a righteous light and reminded him how important his boys were, thus endowing them with the importance they deserved.

  They had served him well.

  He would honor them just as well.

  But then the watch on his wrist beeped, reminding him it was time to get ready. He had a shift on the crisis line tonight, and no way would he miss it.

  There was more than one way he could help others.

  Satisfied, he rose and climbed down the ladder, locked the barn and headed to the house.

  Nights
brought him many good things. Tonight he might have the chance to help a mistreated woman. Life was good to him and he was great.

  He needed nothing more.

  Chapter 2

  The town looked as buttoned-down as a military base under a black flag warning, DeeJay thought as they tooled down tree-lined streets beneath the skeletal fingers of leafless branches. Snow berms lined the streets from the plows, and lawns lay beneath an icy blanket of white. Holiday decorations, unlit now, hung from the light poles, awaiting the people who would remember to take them down.

  “Do you know where this house is?” she asked.

  Cade nodded. “Near the downtown. The guy next door is the landlord. We’ll get the key from him.”

  If he was home. But she kept that thought to herself. “There’s no one about.” The winter night had fallen a while ago, but it was still early. “Is it always this quiet?”

  “I doubt it, but like I said, I’ve only been here briefly a few times and that was long ago.”

  “So people are hunkering down because of the kidnappings?”

  “Maybe so. Once we talk to Gage we’ll get a better idea.”

  Her eyes never stopped moving as she surveyed the streets, the town she could see, the emptiness that made it seem more like a ghost town. Lights glowed from inside the houses, but that didn’t change the sense of abandonment. She’d seen frightened towns before and this was a frightened town. Frightened for their young boys. It was enough.

  She itched to get on the job, to catch the scent and start her work. The time between the last two disappearances had been just over two weeks. The current victim had disappeared four days ago. They didn’t have a whole lot of time.

  She’d learned patience as an investigator, however. Impatience could lead to mistakes and oversights. These could not be allowed. She drew a deep breath and let relaxation pour through her. Time. It always took time.