Cut and Run (Criminal Profiler 2)
“You strike me as the type. It’s a very scientific and technical approach. And then I pictured you getting superbusy and forgetting to follow up. I watched you at the fundraiser and wondered if you even have time to sleep. But then I realized you aren’t ready for the truth. I’m also a master of avoidance, if you haven’t noticed.”
The spot-on assessment was disconcerting. “And so you searched the most recognizable sites and hacked into them?”
Kat picked off a piece of bread crust and popped it into her mouth. “Hack is such a harsh word.”
“What would you call it?”
Now that they’d shifted from the topic of the baby to computers and hacking, the girl came back into her own. “I had a look around on a few sites.”
“And found me.” She’d thought twice about sending her DNA into the site. She’d felt as if she was opening herself up to a world she wasn’t sure she’d really wanted to know about.
“And a half sibling. She left you two messages in your account’s inbox.” Kat removed her laptop from her backpack, opened it, and pulled up the genealogy site. With no hint of apology, she logged into Faith’s account. “You have a new password by the way. Can’t be too careful these days.”
“Do I?”
“Faith plus Kat equals exclamation point.”
“Thanks for sharing.”
“Next time make a password that doesn’t just include the year of your birth and your initials. Very amateur.”
“Good to know.”
Kat tapped on the screen. “Her name is Marissa Lewis. She is a twenty-nine-year-old lawyer living in San Antonio. Less than an hour south of here.” The girl folded her arms over her pregnant belly, looking pleased with herself. “You must come from very smart stock.”
Memories of the country graves jabbed at her, and she wondered if she and Marissa Lewis were connected to any of them in some way. Her fingers trembled slightly, and she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to reply to Marissa.
Could she really be biologically connected to this woman? And if they were half siblings, did they share a mother or father? It was possible that Josie could have had more children.
Again she thought about the three gravestones. Another darker possibility came to her, and her first thought was to reject it because it was so horrible. But if working in the medical examiner’s office had taught her anything, it was that humans did unspeakably cruel things to each other.
“Do you want me to message her?” Kat asked.
One way or another, she had to find out if she was related to this woman. “Sure. Message her. What do I have to lose?”
Kat’s fingers tapped quickly, and before Faith could even consider changing her mind, the girl hit “Return” and said, “Done.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it.” Kat peered at her over the edge of her laptop.
“It’s all a little much.”
“But you want to know the truth, right?” Kat said. “You want to know your birth family?”
She heard the girl’s fear. She was afraid of being forgotten by her own child. “I do. I want to know everything I can about them.” They both were silent for a moment, and then she said, “Let me call the shelter and tell them you’re spending the night here. We both could use a good night’s sleep.”
“We will find the truth, Faith.”
The truth. Whether she wanted to know it or not, the truth was barreling toward her, and she had no choice but to meet it head-on.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Wednesday, June 27, 1:00 a.m.
Hayden had spent the better part of the evening on the phone, arranging for the state forensic team to inspect the land out in the country. When he’d told them he wanted a team in the field in the morning, there’d been some grumbles until he explained it was the case Macy Crow had been working.
Word of Macy’s death had spread among law enforcement in the Austin area. One of their own had gone down, and regardless of which law enforcement agency Macy had been attached to, the Rangers and local police felt her loss personally.
He climbed the stairs to his one-bedroom apartment. He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and flicked on the lights. He rarely spent time here. He was either working a case or, when he was unable to face beige walls another night, staying in a hotel.
He locked the door behind him, and tossed his hat and keys on a small table by the door. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a simple peg.
This place was set up so that nothing in it reminded him of what he’d lost. The couch, coffee table, and end tables were standard and had been discounted floor models. The television was wide-screen with high definition, though he rarely turned it on these days. And the one bit of art was the Texas state flag, which he’d hung on the wall over the couch.
His mother had told him he would have to do better than a month-to-month lease overlooking dumpsters, and then told him to “hang a few pictures for God’s sake,” as she’d unpacked a new set of white dishes and a basic collection of pots and pans. When she’d discovered the cactus plant she’d left was nearly dead, she’d taken that back.
He strode into the kitchen and loaded the coffee maker with strong Mexican coffee. As the machine warmed up and gurgled, he grabbed a sausage biscuit from the freezer and popped it in a microwave. By the time it was ready, he was pouring his first cup of coffee.
In the next twenty minutes, he polished off the biscuit and downed two cups of coffee before laying his clothes on a neatly made bed.
He stripped and turned on the shower. As the steam rose up around the shower door, he looked in the mirror, loaded shaving cream on his face, and quickly whisked the blade around his jaw and up his neck.
Each day for the last four years, he’d wondered when the good Lord was going to release him from the purgatory of life. When he realized his maker was content to let him remain among the living, he’d taken matters into his own hands and embraced every fool risk a man could take. There were some Rangers who wondered aloud how he’d survived the bold chances he’d taken, but he was solving cases and getting results. Eventually those successes drifted up the chain of command and got him exactly what he did not want—a promotion.
Steam from the shower fogged the mirror, and when he wiped it away, a haggard face stared back at him. He realized he just might get his wish and how foolish it was. His life wasn’t anything close to the one he’d had with Sierra, but for right now, he liked what he had with Faith, whatever the hell that was.
He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water wash away the remnants of shaving cream, fatigue, and the aches and pains in his ribs still lingering from a fight with a drug dealer last year.
Out of the shower, he toweled quickly. Fueled on caffeine, his body was so wired the chances of sleep were slim to none. But he lay down, knowing he should at least try, because he’d been a cop long enough to know even a little crappy shut-eye cleared the fog from his brain. He needed every advantage he could take. He closed his eyes, but his mind kept turning.
Faith. Macy. Jack. Paige.
There was trouble connected to that damn ranch. He didn’t fully understand the correlation, but one way or another, he would get some answers in a few hours.
When his cell rang, it was four a.m. The cell’s display read MELISSA SAVAGE. Clearing his throat, he sat up and on the third ring said, “This is Hayden.”
“I have surveillance footage from several shops between Second Chances and the spot where Macy Crow was hit.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He dressed in the Rangers’ trademark khakis, white shirt, boots, and string tie. He brewed fresh coffee and filled a to-go cup. He was fairly certain if he were cut, he’d bleed java.
The streets were quiet at this hour, as were the hallways of the justice center. He moved down the third floor hallway toward the light spilling out from the last door on the right. In the office, Melissa Savage was sitting cross-legged in he
r chair, cup of tea in hand, watching what looked like raw video footage. A coffeepot on the counter gurgled out fresh brew.
Hayden knocked on her door, and she looked up over her glasses. “Do you ever sleep, Savage?”
“Every Saturday whether I need it or not.”
“I hear you. Mind if I grab a cup?”
“Help yourself. Brogan is on his way.”
Hayden crossed to the coffeepot as the last bit percolated out. He pulled the pot and filled his cup. One sip was a jolt to the heart. “You drink it this strong?”
“I don’t touch the stuff. But I’ve worked with cops long enough to know they run better on high-octane. I figured Ranger Brogan might want a cup or two to keep up with you.”
“He’ll get that.”
As if on cue, Brogan arrived and wordlessly went to the machine and filled a paper cup. He all but drained the first cup before topping it off with more. “Weak coffee, Savage.”
She didn’t look up from her computer and deadpanned, “You’re just bummed I didn’t write your name on the cup with a cute smiley face like the local coffee barista downstairs.”