Candice opened up the file and I had her type in the addresses for all three dead men. Small red pins dotted the homes in a nice tidy triangle. “Now can you plug in the addresses for Keisha, Patrice, Fatina, and Essence?”
Four more red dots appeared within the red triangle. “Whoa,” Candice whispered. “Abs, what’s going on?”
I was about to answer her when my phone bleeped. It was Dutch. I put him on speaker so Candice could hear. “One name on your list hit the registry,” he said. “Ronald D. Mundy. He goes by his middle name, Don.”
Out the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Dixon’s head snap up. “That’s him!” she gasped. “That’s the man who painted my house!”
“Don Mundy?” Genevieve repeated. “I know him. His mother is one of our most active members.”
“Where do they live?” I asked her quickly.
Genevieve thought for a moment. “Well, his mother still lives on Pecan Valley Drive—that’s about five miles from here—but Donny, he’s real close. Just behind us in the apartments next door in fact.” Genevieve pointed to the large window of her office and my eyes traveled to a set of apartments just beyond the parking lot.
“Abs!” Dutch said through the speaker. “What’s going on?”
But I didn’t answer him right away; instead I asked a question. “That sex offender registry, Dutch, is that something anyone can access?”
“Yes. It’s available online. You can just plug in your own address and it will give you a map of any registered sex offender within a two- to three-mile radius of where you live.”
“Oh, God!” I whispered, and closed my eyes as I thought back to that moment when I’d agreed to let Antoine take the list inside to scan into his computer.
“What?” Candice said. I opened my lids to see her staring at me with concern.
“LaSalle,” I whispered. “He’s the only one it could have been.”
“What are you talking about?” she and Dutch asked together.
“He’s been clearing his neighborhood of sex offenders. He must have pulled up the registry after his sister went missing, and killed anyone in his neighborhood who might have been a suspect. That’s why no new men have been murdered in the last year!” I said, sliding one more piece into place. “LaSalle’s been in Afghanistan. And that’s also why he wanted us to keep him in the loop, so that he could get to any additional suspects before we did.”
“We gave him the list!” Candice gasped, her face going a little pale.
And the weight of the terrible mistake I’d just made hit me like a punch in the gut. “Dutch!” I nearly shouted. “Send any available agents to the army base in Killeen. You’ve got to bring LaSalle in for questioning immediately.”
“On it,” he said. “And I’ll also send some agents to pick up Mundy for questioning. You two sit tight, you hear?”
“Got it,” I said, and clicked off.
For a long few moments no one spoke; we just looked worriedly around at one another. Candice got up then and went over to the window. I fidgeted in my chair, holding my phone and wishing it would ring soon.
The tense silence was broken when Candice suddenly exclaimed, “Son of a bitch!”
I jumped as she whirled around, drew her gun, and went running out the door.
I sat there for all of two heartbeats before I bolted after her.
Keeping up with Candice was tough. That woman can run. Still, I managed to follow her down the two flights of stairs, out through a back door, across the parking lot, and over to Mundy’s apartments.
I had no idea what she’d seen to cause such a reaction until we reached the parking lot of the complex, and passed by LaSalle’s green Jeep. Candice paused by his car and swore. “Shit! I forgot to get Mundy’s address!”
With shaking fingers, I pulled out my iPhone and tapped on the Internet icon. A few seconds later I had the sex offender registry up, and found him. “He’s in three-B!”
Candice dashed to the stairs leading up to the third floor and I pounded after her. When we got to 3- B, we could clearly hear sounds of a struggle from inside. Candice used her arm to halt me and press me flat against the side of the building. “Stay here!” she hissed. Holding her gun up, she stepped back from the door two paces, then used her heel to kick it in. In the next instant she was through the entry and shouting orders for LaSalle to drop his weapon.
A muffled voice inside screamed in agony, and LaSalle shouted, “This is none of your business!”
“Drop it, LaSalle!” Candice yelled again.
I closed my eyes and the most horrible image floated into my mind. In a flash I saw LaSalle, flat on his back with a bullet through his brain, and lying nearby was Candice, a large knife sticking out of her chest.
I inhaled sharply, gathered my courage, and stepped through the door. “LaSalle!” I shouted, moving quickly to Candice’s side.
The lieutenant was standing menacingly behind a chair, where a bloodied, bruised, and battered Don Mundy was duct taped. His eyes were huge, and it was obvious he’d been tortured, as various tools lay strewn about the chair, all of them tipped with red.
“Get out of here, Abby!” Candice commanded, her voice more furious than I’d ever heard her.
I ignored her and took one bold step forward, putting myself squarely between LaSalle and Candice. “Listen to me!” I shouted at him, my eyes on the huge army knife he held in his hand. “It’s over, Lieutenant! Your sister is not coming back! And killing Mundy will not change that!”
“I’m not looking to change it,” LaSalle told me. “I’m looking for revenge.”
I held up my hand in a stopping motion. “But don’t you want to know where she is?” I tried. “If you kill Mundy, you’ll never really know what happened to her! Don’t you owe it to Keisha to bring her body home and give her a proper burial?”
LaSalle’s eyes flickered for an instant between me and Mundy. I used the opportunity to take another step forward.
“Abby!” Candice shouted, and I felt her hand grab my arm but I pulled with all my might and tugged myself free. LaSalle crouched slightly with that big knife in his hand, and for a moment I thought he was going to make a move to stab one of us, so I turned as Candice made another grab for my arm and shoved her hard, out of range of the knife. She fell and Antoine took that opportunity to step menacingly toward me.
“Please, Lieutenant!” I begged, holding my hands up in surrender, while hearing Candice scramble to her feet behind me. I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if she thought I was in danger so I didn’t mince words with him. “Please just stop and think this through for a second!” LaSalle hesitated and I used the moment to say, “Help us give some closure to the families of these girls! If you kill Mundy before he tells us what he did, and where the girls are, their families may always wonder what happened to them!”
Outside we all heard sirens approaching, and I could tell that if LaSalle was going to make a move, he was going to do it in the very next second, so using every ounce of courage I had, I took one more step toward him and placed my shaking hand on the butt of the knife. Behind me I heard Candice suck in a breath. “You can do this!” I urged him, ignoring my partner and fighting down my own fear to maintain eye contact with him. “You can step back from here, Antoine, and bring justice to your sister and the other three girls.”
LaSalle’s eyes bored into mine, and all I saw was indecision. “Antoine,” I whispered as tears formed in my eyes as the emotion of the moment took over. “You saved my life! Please, let me return the favor.”
Outside the sirens stopped abruptly and loud footsteps approached. I gripped the butt of the knife as tightly as I could, praying I could stop Antoine from bringing it down into my chest, or Mundy, or tossing it at Candice. And with a suddenness I didn’t expect, LaSalle abruptly let go of it altogether just as the police burst into the room and began yelling at everyone to get down on their knees.
I stepped back from Antoine, lowered the knife to the floor, an
d did exactly as I was told.
It took Dutch the rest of the week to wrap up all three cases. Mundy cooperated fully to escape the death penalty, and led the CCS to the bodies of Keisha, Essence, and Fatina whom he’d buried next to an abandoned gas station somewhere out in the boonies.
LaSalle pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, but given the circumstances of his sister’s death, and his sterling military service, he was given a fairly light sentence of life with the possibility of parole in thirty years.
Candice was also able to bring final closure to Mrs. Dixon, matching the photo of Fontana to that of a woman’s body brought to the St. Louis morgue in 2006. Fontana had died of an overdose, just like her mother suspected.
A few days after Fatina’s funeral, I was called into the office for a meeting with Dutch and Harrison. I figured they wanted to talk about when my next class would be scheduled or a new cold case.
I figured wrong.
When I walked into the conference room, I was quite surprised to discover the newly promoted regional director of the FBI, Bill Gaston, sitting there waiting for me.
To his left sat a man I didn’t recognize, in a black suit, white shirt, and crisp black tie, who gave me the creeps, along with a military officer of high rank, given the number of stars pinned to his cap.
Introductions were made, and I found out that the man in black was actually CIA, and the military dude was a lieutenant colonel. Dutch and Brice joined me in the meeting, but no one else was allowed in. Gaston spoke first. “Thank you for joining us, Abigail,” he said.
“My pleasure, sir.”
“You’re probably wondering why we’ve called you in here.”
“It had crossed my mind.”
Gaston smiled at me. I genuinely liked him but was often intimidated by the power and intelligence that just radiated out of him. He was by far one of the sharpest and smartest men I’d ever known—and probably one of the most lethal. “I’m very impressed with the numbers coming out of CCS,” he said to me. “I understand much of the credit should go to you.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “It’s a group effort, sir.” Gaston merely smiled and gave me a nod. “Let me ask you something, Abigail,” he said in a casual tone.
“Of course, sir.”
“Do you love your country?”
My brow furrowed. “Of course, sir.”
“Would you be willing to risk your own life to protect it?”
I blinked. What the hello-dolly was Gaston getting at? “Yes,” I said slowly. “I would, sir.”
Gaston’s eyes flicked to Dutch, who did not look happy . . . like, at all. “It’s her decision,” Gaston said in a way that suggested they’d already had a pretty intense discussion about me.
Dutch’s lips pressed together, and I could tell he was holding his tongue with effort.
“Sir,” I said. “May I please ask what this is about?”
Gaston folded his hands on the tabletop and looked at me square in the eye. “We would like to propose a mission, Abigail.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “A mission? You mean like you need me to be a spy or something?”
But Gaston wasn’t joking. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
I gulped. “Ah,” I said. “Where?”
“I’m afraid I cannot tell you that until you agree to help us.”
“Okay,” I said, thoroughly confused. “Who am I spying on, then?”
Gaston said nothing. Instead he just continued to stare at me, and it became obvious that he would not say anything more until I agreed to the mission, whatever and wherever it might be.
But I was the cautious type, so I cheated. I turned on the radar and keyed in on the energy in the room. “Canada,” I said to him, and felt pretty smug when both the lieutenant colonel and the CIA guy blinked in surprise. I focused on the military man. “Something was stolen off a base,” I said. “Something critical to our national security.”
The colonel’s face flushed crimson. “Gaston!” he snapped. “Order her to stop!”
I would have laughed in his face if Gaston’s eyes hadn’t warned me to back off. “Abigail,” he said softly. “Don’t tread too deeply here, just yet.”
I shut off the radar and sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“Can you give me any details to help me decide if I should accept this mission?”
Gaston considered that for a moment, and again I saw him glance at Dutch. “It is quite dangerous,” he said softly. “I must warn you that the other two agents sent to retrieve our resource have both been murdered in the most grisly fashion.”
Gulp.
“We feel strongly that what we need is a secret weapon. Someone able to glean information about where our merchandise has been hidden without making themselves suspect. We also need to identify the major players who might be bidding on the merchandise, as apprehending them would help keep our country secure.”
“So, what?” I pressed. “You’re just going to stick me on a plane and say, ‘Go for it’?”
Gaston smiled again. “No,” he assured me. “We’ll send you in with a very small team. One other agent to help protect you, and a handler to guide you.”
That made me feel a little better at least. “Can that other agent be Dutch?”
Every head in the room save Dutch’s and Gaston’s shook no. Gaston, however, was the one to make the final decision. “Of course,” he said, and immediately I saw the surprise and relief wash over my sweetheart’s face.
“Okay,” I said. “If Dutch is willing, then so am I.”
All eyes swiveled to Dutch. I could tell the decision was tearing him in two, and he took a very long time to answer, but finally he said, “Yes, sir. We’ll do it.”
Gaston looked immensely happy. “Excellent!” he said, and got up from his chair. Everyone else followed suit. “Agent Harrison, I will need Ms. Cooper and Agent Rivers in Washington early next week to be briefed and meet their handler.”
“Yes, sir,” Harrison said.
Gaston then shook our hands, and left with his companions. When it was just the three of us again, Harrison asked, “Are you two certain about this?”
“No,” said Dutch, and he reached out to hold my hand. “But I think Gaston would have talked Abby into it eventually. At least this way, I can try and keep her safe.”
Harrison sighed. “I don’t like it,” he said softly.
And more than anything, that made me worry that I’d just made a terrible mistake.
The next morning was Saturday and Dutch woke me from a sound sleep before it was even light out. “Hey,” he said, rubbing my arm to bring me out of my slumber.
“Whaz a matter?” I asked groggily.
“Come for a drive with me.”
I lifted my head off the pillow and squinted in the gloom of the room. “What time is it?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
I noticed then that he was showered, shaved, and smelling amazing. “How long have you been up?”
“A little while,” he said, moving to the closet to toss some jeans and a sweatshirt at me. “Come on,” he coaxed. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Can’t it wait?” I asked.
“No, honey,” he said gently. “I think it’s waited long enough.”
I looked at him curiously, but he said nothing more. Instead he left me to get dressed, and I had to go looking for him once I had some clothes on. He was sitting out in his car in the driveway. “He done lost his dang mind,” I muttered, peering through the blinds.
I grabbed my purse and headed out to join him and he pulled out the moment I closed the car door. “Can we at least get some coffee on the way to wherever it is you’re taking me?” I asked. Have I mentioned that I’m not much of a morning person?
“There’s coffee where we’re headed,” he said. “And it’s not far at all.”
Dutch drove and said nothing more. I tried to get my brain to focus and r
ubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I had no idea where we were going, and anytime I asked Dutch, he simply said, “You’ll see.”
I couldn’t do much else but stare out the window. It was still a little murky out, but the sky was quickly moving from dusky gray to a peachy purple. The sun was just starting to rise.
Dutch drove first south, then west, and I could just make out that we were heading to higher elevations as we wound our way along a curvy road. Finally we came down a street without much in the way of housing, but off to the right were some really incredible views. The road we were on rose above a valley and I could see miles into the distance. “Whoa,” I said, pointing out the window. “Look at that.”
Dutch nodded but kept his eyes on the pavement. He stopped at the very end of the road, as it dead- ended into a peninsula that had breathtaking views on all sides. Pounded into the ground was a series of stakes with little red flags.
Dutch parked and started to get out of the car. “I thought you said there’d be coffee?”
Without replying, Dutch moved to the back of the car and opened the trunk. I headed back there with him and watched curiously as he unloaded a large blanket and a picnic basket. “I came prepared,” he said, swinging an arm around my shoulders and moving me over to the center of all the stakes.
I watched then as he unfurled the blanket and coaxed me to sit next to him while he got a thermos out and two coffee mugs. I sat down next to him grinning from ear to ear. “You’re like the most romantic man on earth, you know?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said, and handed me the mug.
I took a sip and sighed contentedly and looked around. “So what is this place?”
“This?” he replied. I nodded and he said, “It’s our new home.”
My jaw dropped. “It’s what?”
Dutch smiled and tilted my chin with his fingers. “See right here?” he said, pointing to a series of stakes that surrounded us. “Once Dave and his brother- in-law finish building the two-story Tudor I had their architect design, this will be our little breakfast nook. It faces east so we can watch the sun come up.”