Читать книгу Dangerous Waters - Sandra Robbins - Страница 11

TWO

Fifteen minutes later Laura stared at Brad over the top of her coffee cup and searched his features for any changes since she’d last seen him. She had to admit he was still the most handsome man she’d ever known. His dark unruly hair still tumbled across his forehead, and he pushed it back with his hand every so often, just as he’d always done. His brown eyes didn’t sparkle as much as she remembered, but she supposed the things he saw on a daily basis in his job could darken any man’s soul.

He stared at her from across the table. “So, you’ve been back for over a year, and you share a house with Grace Kincaid.”

“Yes, Grace has always been my best friend, and we kept in touch after I moved to North Carolina.”

Brad nodded. “I know. She used to tell me how you were doing when I would see her. I guess that’s why it surprised me that she kept your return to Memphis a secret.”

“I explained that.”

He exhaled and picked up his cup. “Yeah, you did. Anyway, it’s good to see you. I’m sorry it was under these circumstances, though.”

“It’s good to see you, too. I read in the paper that you and Alex and another detective had been appointed to head up the new Cold Case unit for the police department. I’m glad to see you and Alex doing so well. Of course, I knew from the time I met you during our freshman year in high school you would be successful. The director must have a lot of confidence in you to give you such a promotion.”

Brad shrugged. “Maybe, but I really like this new work. It’s giving me a chance to bring closure to a lot of families who didn’t get answers.” He stared at her for a moment. “Grace told me about a year ago that she thought you’d finally made peace with the past and could accept your parents’ deaths. What made you do that interview with her and open up all these old wounds?”

Laura wrapped her fingers around her coffee mug and stared at the dark Colombian blend. “I thought I’d moved on, but I guess I haven’t. I don’t suppose I ever will until the killers are brought to justice. Can you understand that?”

“I can. I hear it every day from other families, but they’re not being threatened by people who want to kill them. You made yourself a target when you did that interview.”

She nodded. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but I did when I was standing in the river.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Grace’s station had been reporting about your new unit, and she thought it might give the story a personal twist if viewers could hear from a family member wanting a case solved.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Well, I can’t say I like the twist your story took afterward.”

The waitress approached with their breakfast, and they fell silent as she set their plates in front of them. Laura clasped her hands in front of her on the table, bowed her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Brad stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Since when did you become religious?”

She smiled and put her napkin on her lap. “It’s not a question of being religious, Brad. The truth is I turned my life over to God, and I live my life in faith. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“What does your brother think about that?”

“He approves. Especially since he’s done the same thing, thanks to the influence of his wife.” Brad shrugged and began to spread jam on a piece of toast. “I guess whatever makes you happy is fine. You know I’ve never had any reason to believe in God. I don’t need God or anybody else in my life.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “You sound cynical. I hope I’m not the reason for that. I’m sorry for what happened between us six years ago. I’ve wanted to ask you to forgive me for a long time, but I didn’t think I’d ever have the nerve to face you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I can understand why. I loved you, Laura, from the first day I saw you at school. We were a couple from then on. I would have done anything to make you happy, and you gave back my ring and walked out on me without a backward glance.”

His words were tinged with hurt, and Laura wanted to make him understand what had driven her to do what she did. She set her fork down on her plate and clasped her hands on her lap. “I might have been twenty-three years old when I left Memphis, but I still felt like the ten-year-old girl who’d seen her parents bombed in that car. My brother, Mark, carried the same scars I did, and he wanted me to come live with him in Raleigh. He thought we could help each other. I left for your sake as well as mine.”

“That’s what you told me, but I wanted to help you, Laura.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, I know you did, but I felt like I had to find my own peace. It wasn’t fair for me to saddle you with all my baggage. You didn’t deserve that. I left here as much for you as for myself.”

He grimaced and a grunt of disgust rumbled in his throat. “I’m afraid I didn’t see it that way.”

She tilted her head to one side and stared at him. “I’m sorry I hurt you, but it was the right decision for us both.”

He picked up his fork and scooped up some eggs. “Well, as they say, that’s all water under the bridge now. I recovered and moved on.” He pointed to her plate. “Let’s eat our breakfast. Then we have to figure out what we’re going to do about keeping you safe.”

Laura stared at Brad for a moment before she poured syrup on her pancakes and began to eat. In the time she and Brad had been talking, she’d sensed a change in him. Instead of the caring man she remembered, he seemed distant and jaded. Had she caused that change in him, or was it his job?

A groan of approval rippled from her throat as she swallowed her first bite of pancake. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “Thank you for bringing me here and thank you for wanting to help me.”

He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and set it back on his plate. Then he cleared his throat before he looked up at her. “It’s my job, Laura. Don’t read something personal in what I’m doing for you. I would do it for anyone needing help. Now eat your breakfast, and then we’ll go by your house and get you some clean clothes.”

The rebuff felt like a slap in the face, and she struggled not to let her face betray how his words had hurt. After a moment she took a deep breath and nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was back, but I knew you didn’t want to talk to me. When I saw the article in the paper that you were heading up the cold case department, I wanted to ask you to look into my parents’ case again. Then I decided it was better to let it go, that maybe it wasn’t meant for me to know who killed them.”

He gave no reaction to her words. “Then why did you agree to that interview?”

“Coming back to Memphis triggered a lot of memories for me, and it makes me angry that the people who killed my parents are still out there somewhere. I thought doing the interview might make somebody who knows something about it step forward. I didn’t think that it might also get me killed.”

He exhaled and raked his hand through his hair. “It scares me to think how close you came to that happening. But you’d better think about what you really want before you get back on that emotional roller coaster you were on before you ran away.”

“I’m afraid of that, too,” she whispered.

He leaned forward. “If it means anything to you, one of the first things I did when I went to work in the unit was to pull the files on your parents’ deaths and look them over.”

Her heart pounded and she sat up straight. “Did you find anything?”

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t find anything at the time, but it wouldn’t hurt to take another look. Your abduction may give us some leads.”

“Like what?”

“We’ll question hospital personnel to find out if anybody saw a vehicle leaving the parking lot at the time of your attack. We’ll trace the cell phone number of the call you received. Either of those things might lead to something.”

“Thank you, Brad.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job to work on the cold cases we’ve been handed. But it’s not going to be easy for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve always been a little headstrong, Laura, but listen to me. You don’t want me to start something if you’re not willing to see it through no matter where it leads.”

“I know that.”

He shook his head. “No, you think you know that, but cold case investigations can take years. Are you prepared to wait out the time it takes to see this to the end?”

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I am.”

He sighed and nodded. “Okay. Let’s finish our breakfast, and we’ll go pick up your car at the hospital. Then I think we need to go by your house and let you get cleaned up. I’ll take you back to my office. If you’d like, I can pull your parents’ file, and we’ll look through it.”

“I’d like that. Thank you, Brad.”

“And another thing. I think you’re going to need some protection. I have to figure out how we’re going to do that.”

She started to protest that she didn’t need protection, but the memory of a gun pressed to her back and an evil laugh kept her from speaking. Brad was the trained police officer, and she needed to listen to him. He might not like her very much, but she knew he would do everything possible to protect her.

When she’d agreed to do that interview for Grace, she had no idea that it would lead her into danger. But even more surprising was the fact that her abduction had further fueled the desire she’d tried to suppress for years—to find out who hated her parents enough to kill them.

Now the fire she’d thought extinguished burned in her stomach again, and she wouldn’t rest until she had the answers she’d wanted since she was ten years old.

* * *

After showing Brad to the den, Laura disappeared into her bedroom, where she’d been for the past forty-five minutes. With three sisters in the house when he was growing up, Brad never had been able to figure out what took women so long to take a shower and get dressed.

With a sigh he leaned back on the sofa and flipped through the television channels. He never had a chance to watch TV in the morning, so he had no idea there were so many talk shows on. He punched the remote again just as his cell phone rang. The number displayed was from the local FBI office.

He muted the volume on the TV and raised the phone to his ear. “Detective Austin.”

“Brad? This is Bill Diamond. I just heard about Nathan Carson. How is he?”

Brad eased back into the couch cushions and sighed. “I don’t know, Bill. The last I heard they were taking him to surgery. The detectives from homicide were on their way to question his wife, so I left. My two partners should be at the hospital now.”

There was silence on the line for a moment until Bill spoke again. “So you’re not at the hospital now?”

“No.”

“When you head back downtown, why don’t you take a detour by here? Let’s put our heads together on this case and see if we’ve missed anything.”

“I can’t right now. I’m on another case. Is there anything we can discuss over the phone?”

“I think so. Hold on a minute. I want to check on something.”

Brad heard a desk drawer open and close, then the rustling of papers. As he waited patiently for Bill to speak again, he thought of the first time he’d met Bill. It was soon after the agent had been assigned to the FBI’s Memphis office, and they’d become friends right away. The man’s no-nonsense attitude had served him well as he’d risen through the ranks of the agency, and Brad was glad he’d been placed in charge of the office in Memphis.

“Okay, I’m back,” Bill said. “I wanted to get out the file I’m keeping on Nathan Carson.”

Brad took a deep breath and blew it out.

“The bureau has been watching Carson for a year now. He may have known that and decided to call you because he wanted to get some kind of deal before he was arrested. We believe he holds the key to catching the ring of human traffickers we’ve been after for years. When you told me he had called you, I thought we might be on our way to shutting down Lynch at last. Now Carson’s in the hospital fighting for his life.”

Brad nodded. “Somebody had to know he was meeting with me today, but I can’t figure out how they could have known. The only people who knew were my partners and you. How could anybody else have found out?”

“Who knows? They might have his phones bugged, or there could be someone planted in his office to keep an eye on him.”

Brad’s fingers tightened on his cell phone. “Are you sure the case he wanted to talk to me about is connected to your human trafficking ring?’

“It just makes sense that it is. An undercover cop discovers Lynch’s organization is dealing in illegal aliens. He’s murdered and left on the riverbank. Then we have no leads for five years, even though we’ve had several unidentified bodies found along the Double Nickel.”

Brad frowned. “Double Nickel? Is that some kind of bureau talk?”

Bill’s laugh rippled into Brad’s ear. “No. We’ve known for years that smugglers are bringing in illegal aliens on ships down on the Gulf coast. Some of them are sent up the Mississippi River on boats and others are transported on trucks up Interstate 55, which is called the Double Nickel by smugglers of both drugs and humans. The sad thing is, the people who are being brought in paid these people good money to get them into the States. What they don’t find out until it’s too late is that the men are bound for big farms in the West where they’ll be treated like slaves, and the women will end up in brothels.”

Brad’s stomach roiled. He’d heard these stories from agents for years, and it sickened him that the smugglers always seemed to be one step ahead of the police. Just like with Nathan Carson. Just when they had what looked like a promising lead, someone beat them to Nathan.

“What do you intend to do now?”

Bill sighed. “I talked to the director of the police department. They don’t have the manpower to keep a guard posted outside Nathan’s room twenty-four hours a day, but we can do that. If Nathan makes it through surgery, we’ll have someone guarding him 24-7. I don’t want anybody getting to him, and I want to know the minute he regains consciousness.”

Brad pushed up from the sofa and raked his hand through his hair. “That sounds good, but I need to tell you something else.”

“What?”

“I told you I’m working on another case right now. I think it may be linked to the Carson case, too.”

When he’d finished relating the facts in the unsolved case of the Webber murders and of Laura’s abduction the night before, Bill gave a low whistle. “The car bombings sound like more than a coincidence. Maybe both cases are tied to Tony Lynch and his organization.”

“That’s what I think. I’m going to look into the Webber case again and see what I can find out. With any luck we may be able to close two cold case files and catch your human traffickers at the same time.”

Bill chuckled. “That sounds like a mighty tall order, but nothing would make me happier. Let’s stay in touch.”

“Okay. Talk with you later.”

Brad ended the call and stared at the phone a moment before he punched in another number. It only rang once before his partner answered. “Detective Crowne speaking.”

“Hi, Alex. It’s Brad.”

“What can I do for you, buddy?”

“I’ve been on the phone with Bill Diamond and wondered if you’d had any word on Nathan Carson’s condition in the past hour.”

“No, I’m in the hospital waiting room right now, and he’s still in surgery. I suppose the longer he hangs on, the better his chances of survival.”

Brad nodded and glanced at his watch. “That surgery sure is taking a long time, but he had a lot of injuries. I’m working on something else right now, so keep me posted.”

“No problem. Seth and I will see you later.”

“Alex?” Brad blurted out in an attempt to keep him from hanging up.

“Yeah. Is there something else?”

Brad bit down on his lip a minute and hesitated. “Nothing really. I thought I’d let you know Laura is back in town.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. “She is? Have you seen her?”

“Yeah. That other case I’m working on involves her. I’ll tell you all about it when you get to the office.”

Alex hesitated before he spoke. “Okay. And how did you react when you saw her?”

“I’m all right. She wants us to reopen her parents’ case.”

“Well, it’s officially an active case. What did you tell her?”

“I told her we would.” Brad closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. “Look, we’ll discuss this later. I just wanted to let you know we’re going to take a closer look at it.”

“Sure. I’m up for that.”

“See you later.”

Brad ended the call and sat back down on the sofa. Maybe he could get Alex or Seth to take over the case. Then he wouldn’t have to see Laura. She would probably like that better, too.

It would be more comfortable for them both if they kept their relationship in the past where it belonged. He felt a surge of relief. That’s what he’d do—turn Laura over to Alex and Seth. He would tell her he had too many cases right now to devote the time needed for her parents’ murders.

On the other hand, he had nothing to fear about being around Laura. Their relationship had been over for six years, and there was no way either one of them wanted to resurrect something that was as dead as their feelings for each other. As a detective with the Cold Case unit, though, he owed her his help. But if he was honest with himself, he owed her for another reason.

He couldn’t count the number of hours in the past he’d spent listening to Laura talk about the morning she had watched her parents’ car explode right before her eyes. At times her anger and grief had reduced her to hysterics that were only calmed by his holding her in his arms and telling her he’d always be there for her. He’d meant it when he gave that promise, and he wouldn’t take it back now.

If Laura wanted to find the answers to her parents’ deaths, he would help her. He wanted to be there when they found out the truth.