Undercover Hunter (23 page)

She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself and struggled internally. It was like facing a parachute jump off a plane, unable to take that first step but needing to. She’d already exposed so much to this man. So much. She must trust him, at least to some extent. But trust was so difficult for her.

He said nothing, simply continuing to hold her shoulders as if offering support. She recalled their lovemaking, the way he’d understood her so often, his kindness. He wasn’t like anyone she’d known before. Or at least not anyone she’d let herself know. Maybe the few men she’d chosen to date in the past had been selected simply because she knew it wouldn’t work.

This time she didn’t know if it could work but, damn, she wanted to find out.

She swallowed. “I just realized something.”

“What’s that?” he asked quietly.

“I protect myself by picking fights. I blow things up before they can blow up on me.”

“I see. Do you want to get rid of me?”

“No!” The word burst out of her. “But Cade, it’s so hard for me to trust.”

“Ahh.” He began rubbing her shoulders gently. “Have I done anything to make you distrust me?”

“No. But you will. Sooner or later...”

He spun her around suddenly, his blue eyes boring into her. “Sooner or later you’re going to learn I’m exactly the man I seem to be. And you can go kicking and screaming if you want, but I’m not ready to end whatever is happening between us.”

“You don’t have the right...”

“We’re not talking about rights here. We’re talking about giving things time. Do I scare you that much?”

He terrified her, she realized. He terrified her as much as anyone she had ever known because she knew he could hurt her so badly, worse than anything in her life. And the longer she was with him, the more he could hurt her. All because she was truly coming to care for him, something she had never really let herself do before.

Hiding behind her emotional walls kept life from dealing devastating blows. But in just a few days, Cade had shown her some of what she’d been hiding from, and she honestly wondered if she wanted to keep missing so much.

She’d taken a lot of risks in her life, but the one thing she had never risked was her heart.

A long, long time ago, she had vowed she would never cry again. She’d kept that promise to herself, but now, with Cade, the possibility of crying hot tears of anguish once again had become a possibility.

Why had she ever let him come this close? And now that she had, what choices remained? Sooner or later this was going to hurt.

He drew her close, wrapping her in his arms.

“Just hang with me, DeeJay. That’s all you have to do. Just hang in. We’ll solve this case and then see.”

He made it sound so easy, but deep in her heart she knew that nothing ever was.

We’ll see? That was a hell of a risky proposition.

Chapter 13

T
hey set out a short while later, stopping in a few places to check them out as if they were just looking for things to write about. People welcomed them a little more warmly now that everyone had heard something about them, and Melinda at the bakery sent them on their way with a bag of fresh rolls to try.

“This travel-writer gig could have some advantages,” Cade remarked after they stepped out onto the street. DeeJay laughed while they walked to the sheriff’s offices.

The sidewalks were clear but wet from the melting snow that created berms between them and the street. Every few feet, shop owners had carved an opening in the snow so people could cross the berm as needed. Between the snow and the cars that needed to park away from it so that people could get out the passenger side, she figured the street had narrowed to about half its usual width.

The day felt warm after the past few, though. She didn’t know if it was actually warmer or if she was just getting used to it, but before they reached the sheriff she unzipped her jacket. Certainly she felt no need for the ski mask today.

They stepped into a quiet hive of activity at the sheriff’s. Deputies were on the phone. The dispatcher, an elderly woman who croaked like a frog and defied all possible laws by puffing on a cigarette, spoke to patrol cars. Whatever had been happening earlier to delay Gage had settled down.

The dispatcher eyed them. “He’s in the back waiting for you.” Then she went back to annoying some deputy about his bowling game the night before. On the radio.

Apparently, things operated differently here. At least when they were quiet.

Cade led the way back to a narrow hall, which was framed by closed doors with plates on them, everything from individual names to designations like Interrogation and Janitorial.

DeeJay figured this building must run behind many of the storefronts that framed the street facing the square. It was certainly much bigger than it looked from the outside.

One door was open, however, and there sat Gage behind a loaded desk. Between heaps of paper and the computer, the man was almost invisible. He had a phone glued to his ear and waved them to seats while he listened and talked.

At another gesture from Gage, Cade closed the door behind them.

“Okay, got it. Thanks.” Gage hung up the phone. He leaned back, grimacing faintly. “I’ve got some news for you. Who talks first?”

Cade looked at DeeJay. After what she’d said to him such a short time ago, she realized he was going to let her decide the agenda. She almost blushed with embarrassment. On the other hand, he was reminding her that he trusted her judgment.

She looked at Gage. “You’ve probably got more than we have, information-wise, so you start.”

“Okay.” Gage nodded. “Sweet’s job application, first of all. He worked for a crisis line in Boston, got a stellar recommendation from his last boss. He didn’t just visit Houston—he lived there for over a year also working for a crisis line. The interesting thing is that he didn’t mention being anywhere else. A big gap in his résumé. But the point is, he lied about only having visited Houston. I have a deputy working on finding out if he lived in those other cities the FBI told you about.”

DeeJay nodded. “I’m betting he did.”

“I won’t be surprised at this point. I’ve had Sarah Ironheart going over the phone logs for the hotline. There’s no personal information about the nature of the call in them, but I can tell you she found one thing, and she’s got a whole lot more to go through. I didn’t realize the service was that busy. Anyway, to get to the point, the last boy who disappeared called the line and talked to Sweet three days before he vanished. Just one call.”

DeeJay felt her heart flip. Then her stomach turned over. “My God,” she whispered. When Cade had brought it up earlier, it had been just a speculation, and they’d been doing a lot of speculating. Her emotional reaction had been milder before because she didn’t know if it was true. It was entirely different to discover that that man had actually been setting his lures by holding himself out as someone who could help these kids.

“Makes you sick, doesn’t it?” Gage agreed. “Gain their trust and then go from there. You were right, DeeJay. Absolutely right. He lures them.”

Being right didn’t make her feel any better. Not one bit. “It was just one call. We still don’t have anything for a warrant.”

“Not a thing,” Gage agreed. “But when this many pieces start to fit, you know that you’ve got a good theory. Now we have to catch the bastard somehow.”

“And that’s what we’re here about,” Cade said. Again he looked at DeeJay, and now she felt about an inch tall. She didn’t want him deferring to her all the time. Damn her and her native distrust and her stupid blowup earlier.

“You go ahead,” she said. “You were the one who saw it.”

“Saw what?” Gage demanded.

“Calvin Sweet came to see us. He wants us out at his place by dawn tomorrow to take some photos of the mountains.”

Gage leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk. “My, my, he’s a little eager to get you out there.
Both
of you? Why not just DeeJay?”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” DeeJay said. “Then I asked myself a question. We’re supposedly here to write a travel piece. Would anybody give a damn if we just didn’t show up again? Even our landlord wouldn’t wonder for a while. But Cade would, if I didn’t come back.”

Gage swore quite inventively. DeeJay hadn’t heard anyone cut loose like that since she left the army, and she couldn’t help grinning.

“What’s there to smile about?” Cade asked.

“I’d like to introduce you both to a master sergeant I used to know.”

Both men smiled as they understood. But then Cade returned them to business.

“The thing is, for me this was all theory—good theory but still just theory—until I met Sweet.”

Gage’s brow lifted. “What convinced you?”

“You know him, maybe too well to see it. But he looks like he could be the brother of any one of his victims.”

Gage closed his eyes a minute, then his face seemed to sag. “You’re right. Damn it, you’re right.”

“It jolted me the instant I saw him. Maybe because I’ve spent so much time looking at the photos of those boys and hadn’t met Sweet before. Did you ever find a photo of his mother?”

“Not yet. The woman didn’t know anyone, didn’t go anywhere. If a photo of her exists anywhere outside the Sweet house, we haven’t found it. She was a true recluse.”

“Well, the female victims resemble him, too, although not as strongly. I assume when he goes for a woman, he’s going for his mother.”

“It would fit,” DeeJay said.

Gage drummed his fingers. “Didn’t I say you looked like his victims?” he reminded her. “I wasn’t actually serious, just a little disturbed at the time. I didn’t know then that he sometimes takes women. Just a moment of uneasiness that hit me. Well, double damn it.”

“So we’re going out there in the morning,” Cade said. “I don’t think we should wait.”

“Hell no,” Gage answered. “I’d love to tell you to put it off a few days. Some time would be nice. But Sarah found something else. Two days ago, Sweet talked to a ten-year-old boy on the hotline. We may not have much time. It was only a few days between the time he talked to the last victim and the day that kid disappeared.” He paused. “I put you off this morning because I went out to check the kid. He fits the victim profile.”

DeeJay looked at Cade. Her mouth had gone dry, and her heart thumped painfully. “We’ve got to go in. I may be the only thing distracting him from taking that boy right now.”

Gage spoke. “That and the fact that I gave the mother some money to take the boy out of town. They’re leaving in the morning. I didn’t tell them why, but I didn’t have to do a whole lot of explaining. Everyone’s scared. They’ll get him out of here.”

“Thank God,” DeeJay murmured.

“So that leaves you two,” Gage said. “And what the hell are we going to do about you? There’s not a whole lot of cover out there. The snow makes it hard to hide, leaves tracks anywhere anyone goes...” He glanced at his watch. “And you’re telling me I have seventeen hours.”

* * *

The boy, Andrew, called Calvin from school. Calvin could hear the sounds of young voices in the background, but experience had taught him how to filter out the background noise.

He, too, was on his cell phone. Once he was interested in a boy, he always gave them his private number for subsequent calls, a number that he’d picked up with a false name in another town with a well-stocked card to pay for minutes. He wasn’t a fool.

He’d checked out Andrew yesterday and had seen the aura around him. He was one of the chosen.

Andrew was upset that he was being bullied again. Calvin listened with sincere sympathy, promising the boy that he’d help him take care of the problem in a few days.

Damn, he had the woman to deal with first, and taking a boy so soon... Yet this one had wandered into his web as if put there by fate. He couldn’t ignore such a perfect offering or risk delaying his mission.

“I need a few days,” he told the boy gently, yet again. “Can you hang on a little longer?”

“I have to,” Andrew finally said. “I just hope I don’t get beat up.”

“Be sure to stay in sight of a teacher. Maybe I can find a way to meet you tomorrow? Just to talk some more?”

When he was done with Andrew, he went to work, but for the moment he’d forgotten the boy. He’d made a bold move asking for DeeJay’s husband to accompany her in the morning and he needed to figure out how he could eliminate the guy so he could have DeeJay to himself.

It unnerved him a little that he hadn’t planned ahead before persuading them both to come. He wasn’t usually sloppy. But even as he worried the problem uneasily, he felt a growing confidence that he would figure it out.

Later that evening he got another call from Andrew. This time the kid sounded happier. “I won’t see you tomorrow,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah, it’s really cool. My mom’s taking me skiing for a week. It’s a surprise for my birthday next month.”

Calvin felt confused. The boy was leaving? But he’d been chosen. “Isn’t that kind of early for a birthday present?”

“Yeah, but we have to take the trip this week. She won it, she said, and if we don’t go this week we lose the prize.”

Andrew sounded ecstatic. Calvin felt a huge pressure growing behind his eyes. He had to act. He had to take DeeJay and he had to take the boy. They were both chosen and he couldn’t afford to lose either of them. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he ever missed a chosen one, but he was sure it would be dire.

His head throbbed, making thought difficult, but he reached hard to gain some control over the impulses. He had to work this out or fail.

He must not fail.

“Well, that’s great,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Listen, maybe we can meet before you go. Can you get out for a walk tonight?”

The boy didn’t answer for a few beats, maybe thinking it over. “Sure. I guess. After my folks go to bed, I can come down to the county road.”

“Tell me when and I’ll be there.”

Andrew hesitated. “Midnight? Nothing wakes them up at midnight.”

“Cool. I’ll meet you there. Your drive at the county road?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bring a little present for you, too. Even if it’s early.”

The pressure in his head eased when he hung up. The feeling didn’t entirely vanish, but it told him he’d done the right thing.

Two at once. He’d never done that before, but a sense of his own power grew in him. He’d take the boy tonight while his family slept. Then he’d take the woman in the morning, and he’d figure out what to do about her husband. Remembering the medicines he kept hidden in a case under his bed, the paralytics he injected, the sleeping pills he could liquefy and put in beverages, he began to form a plan.

* * *

Micah Parish squeezed into Gage’s small office and closed the door. He leaned back against the filing cabinet, arms crossed, his dark eyes leaping from Gage to DeeJay to Cade.

“Okay,” Gage said. “You’ve got about sixteen hours to organize the best operation of your life. Anybody else you trust with Special Ops background, bring them in. Everyone else is out of the loop...in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case we’ve got the wrong guy. In case somebody talks before this is over.” He sketched the situation with additions from DeeJay and Cade, and Micah began to nod, his gaze growing distant.

“Civilians?” Micah asked. “I may need a couple with the right background. A few SEALs come to mind. Say Nate Tate’s son, Seth Hardin, for one.”

Gage looked at DeeJay and Cade. “Your asses are going to be hanging out and we called you for your expertise. What do you think?”

DeeJay spoke. “I’ve had a lot of dealings with Special Ops. Mostly Rangers, but some SEALs, too. If Micah has people he trusts to observe secrecy and do this job, go for it.”

Micah nodded and straightened. “I’m on it. I’m going to need one of the choppers to overfly the Sweet ranch today for a terrain check, and I’m going to have a team ready early tonight.” He looked at DeeJay and Cade. “It may go against your instincts, but let me handle this part. I’ll be in touch when we’ve got a plan and fully brief you.”

“Micah?” Gage spoke. “Remember, we don’t have enough for a warrant. One crisis hotline phone call isn’t enough to prove probable cause to a judge. Lots of people call the hotline, and lots of them talk to Calvin Sweet without getting into trouble.”

“I get it. The primary thing is to be ready to act if he tries to harm either of these agents. I’ll have us ready. They won’t be alone for long.”

* * *

Later, Cade and DeeJay walked along the streets of Conard City. For some reason Cade reached out and took DeeJay’s hand. Well, they were supposedly married, and she didn’t feel the least urge to pull away from the touch.

“The waiting is going to drive me nuts,” she said.

“I hear you. So you think these guys can do it?”

“I’ve had the privilege of seeing Special Ops in action more than once. It’s even more amazing than what they let you see on TV. If I have to put my life in someone’s hands, they’re it.”