Texas Takedown (2 page)

When he put his full attention to the case, it took about an hour of digging to find that Samantha had withdrawn five thousand dollars in cash from her bank four days ago. The withdrawal was timed perfectly to her disappearance. His trouble radar jumped up a few notches. She might've been forced to pull out the money, murdered and then dumped somewhere. No. Forget it. He couldn't allow himself to believe she'd been killed and that he'd be looking for a body. There were other possibilities. Maybe she'd decided to pack up and take a vacation. Everyone was burned out from recent events.

A quick call to her employer shot down that prospect. Samantha hadn't been to work in a week.

The probability foul play wasn't involved shrank by the nanosecond.

Dylan scanned online news outlets for crimes with unidentified females on the date she withdrew money.

He came up short and sighed with relief.

There were dozens of hospitals in Dallas, even more counting the suburbs. He narrowed his search down to a five-mile radius of where she lived and worked. The number shrank to five. He called each one looking for a Jane Doe, relieved when he didn't find her.

Next he reached out to the city morgue, which was not a call he wanted to make.

Relief flooded him at receiving the word that no Jane Does had been received in the past week.

Having exhausted obvious answers, he had to consider other possibilities. The first one that popped into his mind said she could be on the run. But from what?

This was Samantha he was thinking about. Nothing in her background suggested she had criminal inclinations. He'd known her personally for more than half his life. Wouldn't there have been signs along the way? Lies told here and there?

Of course, the tight-knit group of twelve-year-olds had disbanded after Shane's disappearance, but they'd all gone to the same high school, traveled in loosely the same circles. Didn't he know her?

She came from a large middle-class family, the youngest of four kids. Her dad had been in sales, so she'd moved around most of her young life. He'd cashed out their life savings and rented space on the town square to open a hardware store after her mother had died. Samantha had settled in Mason Ridge in fifth grade, just a year before the tragedy. She'd been a good student. She'd played volleyball at Mason Ridge High School well enough to earn a scholarship to a small university in Arkansas. And that had been when he'd lost touch with her.

Her brothers had spread out, going to different colleges and then settling in separate cities. Last Dylan had heard, they had families of their own. The trouble came with her mom's side. Several uncles had rap sheets longer than the menu at Chili's. But Samantha never spoke about them, and Dylan figured the family had cut ties long ago.

He tried her cell. The call went straight to voice mail.

The idea one of her distant relatives could've gotten her into trouble didn't sit well. No way would she get involved with them.

Dylan made a phone call to a technical-guru friend he'd used from time to time to hack into databases and phones. If a device had a firewall, Jorge could sneak past it unseen and get out with the same ability. He was the freakin' Houdini of hackers.

Jorge picked up on the second ring. Not surprising for a man who was at his computer 24/7. “What can I do you for?”

“I got a missing person. Need to find out who she was speaking to in the days surrounding her disappearance.”

“Give me the details.” His voice was all business.

Dylan relayed information like her phone number slowly into the receiver.

Jorge repeated the digits.

Dylan confirmed.

“Got it. Hold on a sec.” The sound of fingers tapping across a keyboard came through the line.

“I can't get a location for you, but I can see who she's been talking to. I see your number on here. You have a relationship with this girl?” Jorge asked.

“She's a friend.”

“I heard about all that mess going on in your neck of the woods. Glad they caught the dude. Gives a whole new meaning to being burned, though.” His jokes were crass but Dylan got it. While women sat down with glasses of wine and talked about emotions until they felt better, men joked. Dylan wasn't arguing one style over the other. It was just a guy's way of trying to get his arms around the stuff he didn't have a good handle on. “I'll send you an email with a list of the numbers, but there's something weird. She received several calls from a burn phone in the days prior to her vanishing act.”

“None after?” Why would someone call her using a pay-as-you-go phone? Dylan didn't like any of this news. It took him down the path he didn't want to be true.

“Nope.”

“What's the number?” Dylan searched for a pen and paper.

“I'll send it in the report. Won't do you any good calling it, though.”

“Why's that?”

“The line's been disabled.”

“Which means you can't trace it?”

“Nope. Did your friend get herself into some kind of trouble?”

“Looks like it,” Dylan said. Several more scenarios ran through his mind. None he liked. He thanked Jorge and closed the call.

Dylan spent the rest of the morning tracking down Samantha's landlord in Dallas, who agreed to check out her place. Her car was gone from the parking garage of her condo. A few drawers had been left open in her bedroom, and her bathroom counter was empty. Experience had taught Dylan that women didn't go anywhere without their makeup bags.

Mail sat on the counter untouched. Other than a few necessary supplies, very little was missing from her condo. When she'd decided to take off, she hadn't brought much with her. A quick escape suggested someone on the run, just as he feared she might be. But again the question came up. Running from what? Or whom?

Was she dating someone? Dylan should've asked that question first. A woman's biggest threat in life was a man close to her—a boyfriend or spouse. Dylan's fists curled and released at the thought of any man hurting a woman. The notion hit him even harder now that he had a daughter. Let any guy try to hurt his Bel...

Anger roared through him like buckshot, exploding in every direction. He didn't need to go there about his child. Samantha deserved his focus.

The next trick would be to locate her. He kept his hunt inside Texas, figuring she'd stick with what she knew. Austin was her favorite city, or at least it used to be. He'd lost touch with her after high school. Taking a chance on his hunch, he decided to start his search in the live-music capital of the world, guessing she'd go somewhere familiar.

Once he narrowed the hunt there, finding her would be easy. Apartments had managers who followed rules, so an offer of cash to pay up a few months' rent would draw too much unwanted attention. She would most likely rent a house something near campus, so she could easily get around by throwing on a hoodie and shorts to blend in with students.

A quick internet search revealed there were 387 houses for rent in the city of Austin. Twenty-three when narrowed down to places on or near campus. Dylan put his resources to work finding out which ones had been pulled from the market the day Samantha disappeared. Two. With a fifty-fifty chance of success, Dylan gambled on the house nearest campus and checked the tenant. No dice. The place had been rented by four people. He hit the jackpot on the second.

He made a quick call to Ms. Anderson to let her know he had to leave town, and then located his duffel. The hope of being home by Maribel's bedtime fizzled as he stuffed a pair of jeans in the bag. He packed a sandwich to eat on the drive—roughly four hours one way, depending on traffic on I-35—left a note for Ms. Anderson to read
Goodnight Moon
to his daughter after tucking her into bed and locked the door behind him.

* * *

D
YLAN
 
LEANED
 
AGAINST
 
a tree six houses down from Samantha's. He'd driven his small sedan rather than his SUV in order to better navigate Austin traffic. Based on his research, a UT shuttle should be passing by in ten minutes to pick up college kids and deliver them to campus. With others hanging around waiting on transportation, he had a better chance of going unnoticed. With his six-foot-two-inch muscular frame, he looked as if he should be in athletic housing. Camo pants and the burned-orange UT shirt he'd bought at the gas station on the way into town should help camouflage him. Duffel slung over his shoulder, he did his best to blend in.

If Samantha was in trouble or being held hostage, he didn't want to tip off her captor. He had to consider the possibility that she wasn't acting on her own free will. Dylan planned to take nothing for granted.

His pulse kicked up a notch when she came into view, walking toward the front door of her rental alone. With a long and lean body like hers, she could easily be confused for a student athlete. Her high school years spent playing volleyball had paid off, especially with those legs.

He slipped on eyeglasses specially fitted with binocular lenses. Her smoky-brown hair cut in long shiny layers with bangs that skimmed along her brows brought out a deeply erotic shade of wide-set almond-shaped blue eyes. They stood out against her oval face. Samantha had always been beautiful. At least that much had stayed the same. She'd been smart, too. Her beauty had caught his attention. Her sharp wit and sense of humor had kept it. He hoped that she hadn't gone and done something stupid. Surely someone back home would've noticed if she'd changed.

Sometimes good girls were drawn to men who were bad for them. So far, there was no sign of a boyfriend.
Good.
He told himself it would be easier to help her with fewer people involved, and he didn't like the idea she'd be on the run with a man.

She glanced around, looking more nervous than afraid. Her long fluid layers of brown hair framed an almost too beautiful face and highlighted a graceful, swan-like neck.

Ignoring the rapid increase in his heartbeat at seeing her, he bowed his head and focused on the newspaper he held, pretending to be studying it as he kept her in his peripheral.

She unlocked the door, glanced left to right once more and then slipped inside.

Paranoid?

Dylan had half a mind to stomp over and demand to know what was going on. That would be a mistake. The simple fact was that he didn't know what he'd be walking into and didn't want to tip his hand. He slipped off the glasses and then slid them inside his duffel as the shuttle arrived. The crowd around him thinned, forming a line to get on the bus. He stood back, allowing others to crowd in front of him.

At the last second, he spun around, ducked his head and made a beeline toward her place. Moving around the side of the house, he crouched below the windows, careful to avoid being cut by overgrown holly bushes lining his path. He walked the perimeter, peeking inside windows through cracks in the closed blinds. From what he could tell so far, she was alone.

The back door was locked. It took all of three seconds to change that with his bump key. He slowly opened the door, moved inside the kitchen and listened. He already knew the layout of the house. Using the Department of Defense satellite, he'd homed in on the address and taken pictures of everything inside and out, to the level of detail of her furniture arrangement. Memorizing every inch of the space, every crevice, was a habit formed during his military days. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen in back, all of which had doors that led to a dining room. The master bedroom was off the living room. The place was set up like a maze.

Telltale clicks on a keyboard said she was on her laptop. The dining room was set up as a study room with tables pushed against the walls instead of a table and chairs.

Not risking chance, Dylan palmed his Glock, using it to lead the way.

“What are you doing here, Samantha?” He lowered his weapon when he was sure the place was clear.

Samantha jumped to her feet, the shock of seeing him evident on her face. It took her a moment before she was able to answer. “Me? I could ask you the same thing, Dylan.” The accusation in Samantha's voice fired at him as though he stood in front of an execution squad. A mix of panic and fear crossed her features as she sat ramrod straight. Her gaze froze on his gun.

Her fearful expression tugged at his heart.

“I'm not going to hurt you.” He surveyed the area. “Is there anyone else here?”

“Not that I know of.” Her gaze darted to the front door and then back.

“What does that mean?”

“Did anyone follow you?” The suspicion in her eyes hit him harder than a shot of tequila for breakfast, with a similar burn in his chest.

“No.”

“Are you sure?” More accusations fired in her tone.

“Yes.” This wasn't the greeting he'd expected.

“How can I trust you?”

“You don't have to, sweetheart.” He had no intention of hurting her. Her panicked expression ate at his insides. What was she so afraid of? Or maybe the better question was, what had she done?

He took another step toward her so he could really examine her. With her pallor, she looked as if she'd seen a ghost. “But it's me. And you know me.”

“How did you find this place?” She didn't seem ready to concede anything.

“The internet. It wasn't hard,” he said casually, trying to use his voice to calm her.

“If it was easy for you, then he can find me, too. I have to get out of here.” Her pulse hammered at the base of her throat.

Finally, he was getting somewhere. Someone had her seriously spooked. Dylan shot her an apologetic look.

“Who are you involved with? A boyfriend?”

Her head was already shaking.

“Then, tell me who's looking for you and I can help.”

She didn't respond. He needed to take another tack. Get her in the car for four hours, gain her trust and he'd get closer to finding the truth.