Читать книгу Silent Night Shadows - Sarah Varland - Страница 11

TWO

The Treasure Point Police Department wasn’t somewhere Claire had spent much time. She was thankful for its presence in her little town, and for the men and women who worked there, but it had never had much personal impact on Claire’s life, beyond the time her sister had spent talking to the people here. She’d been the victim of several attacks, and then she’d married Matt and would occasionally come to the station to visit during his shifts.

Now, as she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before walking in, Claire found herself hoping that this would be both the first and last time she had any need to go inside the building.

“This way,” Matt directed her once they’d entered and moved through the open entryway. He motioned down a hall and then stopped in front of a door on the left, gesturing for her to precede him.

The room was nice enough. Not an interrogation room, at least not like any she’d seen on TV. There was a table and some chairs, but also a coffeemaker on a counter in the corner.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Matt said as he moved toward the coffeemaker. “Coffee? It’s nowhere near as good as yours, but it’ll warm you up if you’re feeling chilled.”

“No thanks.” Claire settled into one of the chairs.

The radio on Matt’s belt crackled, startling Claire. “Just ignore it,” Matt said. “I have to keep it on. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.”

The radio crackled again. More chatter. Claire wasn’t paying much attention.

Not until she heard the word homicide.

Her head swung left. “What did they say?”

Matt reached for the radio, turned it up.

“...Egret Cove Apartments, white female, early twenties. BOLO out for a man involved in a downtown attack earlier. Suspect for that is in his early to midthirties, medium build, dark hair, dark eyes. Suspect is not a local.”

When the radio crackled to white noise again, Claire spoke up. “Two women attacked in one night?”

“And one of them dead.” Matt shook his head.

“Coincidence?”

“We can only hope so.”

The door opened just then, and the chief, a man in his late fifties with gray hair and a full beard, entered the room. He came to her shop now and then for coffee during the day, usually mumbling disparaging remarks about whoever made the coffee at the police station.

“Hello, sir,” she greeted him.

Matt looked at her with raised eyebrows. Claire shrugged. Was she not supposed to talk until he did? How was she supposed to know how it worked, being questioned?

“Claire. I’m glad to see you’re okay.” The chief took a seat at the end of the table.

“Thank you, sir. I’m glad to be okay.”

“Can you tell me about what happened tonight?” He focused his attention her, leaned back in his chair a little.

“Sure. I was walking to the Christmas tree lighting. I was supposed to meet my sister there, and I was planning to tell her that lately I’d felt...” Claire trailed off, feeling foolish over what she was about to say, even after what had happened. Even knowing she’d been attacked, the idea of someone watching her seemed ridiculous. It was Treasure Point. It had its share of crime just like anywhere, but she’d never heard of there being problems of the stalker sort.

“Go on,” the chief encouraged her.

“Lately I’ve felt like someone is watching me. Not all the time, just sometimes. Nothing’s happened, so I figured it was probably just my imagination. But I felt that way tonight, and then not long into my walk, someone grabbed me from behind.”

“Did he make any moves to hurt you physically?”

Claire shook her head. “No, besides his grip on my arms, and then his hand over my mouth, I didn’t have any sense that he was trying to...kill me or do anything else. It felt more like he was planning to take me somewhere.”

“And why didn’t he succeed?”

“Another man ran over and told him to let me go. I didn’t quite recognize him, but his voice seemed familiar. He fought off the attacker, reminded me to call the police and told me to go inside one of the stores.”

A few seconds of silence passed. Then the chief looked to Matt. “She’s met him.”

Matt nodded. “I thought so, but wanted to see what you thought.”

“I’ve met who? Who is he?”

Claire was glancing back and forth between both men, so it wasn’t difficult for her to catch the slight head shake the chief gave to Matt. They weren’t willing to tell her who he was yet, but neither of them seemed worried that she’d met him, so maybe he was on their side?

“So, what do I do? Is it okay for me to go home?”

Both men nodded.

“I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t,” the chief began. “Right now we have no reason to believe your attack was anything but a random crime downtown. Sad, but it does happen. Take precautions, make sure your doors are locked tight, and let us know if you think someone is watching you again, but I don’t expect you to have any more trouble. Matt can take you home now if you’re ready to go. That’s all we need from you for tonight. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.” The chief stood, approached the coffeepot, then shook his head and turned away from it.

“I don’t guess you’d want to make us some good coffee before you go?” The chief smiled and held up a hand when Claire moved in that direction. “I’m teasing you. Don’t make any coffee. I’ve got to head to a murder scene. But if you want to have a cup ready for me tomorrow morning early, I’ll pick one up before our morning roll call.”

“I’ll do that, sir.”

Claire and Matt walked out of the room and made their way through the building to Matt’s car parked outside. “Do me a favor and call Gemma to explain what happened?” he said. “That way I don’t have to try to answer all of her questions when I get home.”

“Scared of your own wife?” Claire teased, though she couldn’t say she really blamed him. Gemma could be rather determined when she wanted something, like answers. She pulled her phone out. She did need to tell her sister what had happened.

She took a deep breath, braced herself for the conversation.

When Gemma answered the phone, Claire opened with “First, you need to know that I’m fine,” hoping that the chief was right and this would be an isolated incident. If things got more dangerous, Claire knew she could count on Matt and Gemma’s overprotection.

What scared her was the thought that she might actually need it.

* * *

As protocol dictated, Nate hadn’t touched Jenni’s body since he felt for a pulse and found none. He hadn’t moved her at all, and she still lay there, stretched across the floor, looking so innocent in death, as his sister had. Murder was evil, never justified. And whoever the faceless man or woman who had pulled the trigger on Jenni turned out to be, the killer wasn’t the real villain Nate was ultimately after. That was the entire illegal drug industry itself. It bore a lot of the responsibility for deaths like this one. Like his sister’s.

He looked out the shattered back window again. Still nothing from there. It didn’t appear that the shooter was coming back, which was logical. He’d finished the job.

Nate shook his head, moved his eyes quickly over Jenni’s body as he looked back toward the front of the apartment. The police should be here any moment.

“Police!” an authoritative voice announced, followed by the sound of people coming inside. Nate couldn’t see them yet, but he judged by the footsteps that there were several of them.

He recognized the police chief—his presence at a crime scene might have been unusual in a city, but it wasn’t as surprising in a small town that probably didn’t even see a murder every year.

“Agent Torres.” The chief nodded like he wasn’t surprised Nate had been the one to make the call. Nate liked the chief well enough, had had coffee with him when he first got to town to read him in on the GBI’s case. When he’d worked deep cover in the past, that kind of cooperation with law enforcement hadn’t been possible, but since this cover was less about embedding with drug runners and more about blending in to the background in Treasure Point long enough to get the evidence his team needed, Nate and his boss back in Atlanta had decided that working with the police department was better than not.

“Chief.”

“I’m sorry it took us a couple of extra minutes to get here. I needed to listen to what happened to our town’s coffee shop owner earlier this evening.” He surveyed Nate, then caught his gaze and wouldn’t let it go. “Would you know anything about that?”

“I might, sir.”

“We’ll talk more about that later.” The chief moved toward Jenni’s body, which one of the officers with him was photographing. “How did you know Jenni?”

Nate might have read the police department in on why he was in town, but he hadn’t told them about Jenni. It was too risky to discuss it, since confidential informants all too often ended up dead. “She was my CI.”

“Makes sense.”

“She was helping me get more intel on my case. She knew some people with loose ties to the organization,” Nate finished.

The chief nodded. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“Me, too.”

Nate turned to the door when he heard more footsteps.

It was a woman dressed in dark coveralls. “No one better have touched my crime scene.”

“About time,” the chief said to the woman. She raised her eyebrows, didn’t back down in the face of the chief’s bravado at all.

“I got caught behind the train.” She seemed to take in the room, all the people working. Then her eyes landed on Nate. “I’m Shiloh Cole, crime scene investigator. Did you find the body?”

“Yes, I did. Nate Torres.” He lowered his voice. “GBI, but I’m keeping that quiet.”

“Good to meet you.” She looked over at Jenni. “And this is?”

“Jenni was my CI. I’m afraid she got too close to some answers I needed about how the drug smuggling ring I’m tracking is transporting their merchandise, and who their supplier is. Either that or they found out she was feeding me information about them in general.

“Could be either.”

Shiloh had a notepad out and was sketching the layout of the crime scene, including approximate distances. Then, starting at one side of the room, she started giving orders, having men bag up things she thought might be evidence, and getting out a crime scene kit herself. She dusted for fingerprints—high-traffic areas especially, but also a few places she could get good prints in general.

As she worked the rest of the crime scene in silence, Nate’s respect for her grew. He hadn’t been sure what to expect from a small-town crime scene investigator, but she was good at this.

He appreciated being allowed to stay, even if they were keeping what they found quiet, not showing him much. Ideally he’d find out more tomorrow. For now he kept his hands in his pockets and tried not to get in the way at all while he thought about the horrible turn this day had taken. Jenni’s death was tragic, but the fact that she was killed on the same night Claire Phillips was attacked couldn’t possibly be a coincidence—and it might mean he was closer to a breakthrough on this case than he had realized. Interested parties had most likely noticed his presence in Treasure Point, and it was making someone very nervous. Maybe this meant he was close to seeing the fruits of almost eighteen months focusing on the same case with hardly any break.

Tomorrow he’d go to Claire Phillips’s coffee shop. First he’d make sure she was okay after the attack. She’d seemed like it, but his mind kept replaying how pale her face was, how wide her eyes were.

And then he’d try to figure out what the connection was between the attack against Claire and Jenni’s death. Because he wasn’t letting another woman die on his watch.