Fatal Escape, page 21
On a hunch, I opened my laptop and connected to the in-flight wifi. It took most of the rest of the flight, but eventually I found what I was looking for. A private airplane owned and registered to Manuel Gutiérrez.
So much for you being a recluse.
Records gave a name I didn’t recognize as the pilot who had filed a flight plan to Jacksonville Airport—the date was a month prior to Tatiana’s death.
“Closing in on you, you bastard,” I muttered. That’s why he’d admitted to having business in Jax—he knew we might find the flight plan.
Jenny glanced my way.
“Again,” I said, “sorry about the harrowing car chase, but the case is coming together.”
“Against Gut–”
I quickly held up a hand. “No names in public. But yeah, against him.”
Jenny sighed. “No happy ending for our little boy, then.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Why couldn’t Señor P adopt him?” I figured I should take my own advice and avoid names.
She blew out another sigh, this one exaggerated. “Look, did I tell you how to do your job, even when you were scaring the pants off of me?”
“No…Okay, I get it. Sorry.” I turned back to my laptop.
Another half-baked hunch was hovering in the back of my brain. I searched for flight schools in Nuevo Léon. There was only one, in Monterrey. I expanded the search to all of Mexico and found eleven more.
I made a list of them, Monterrey at the top, and emailed Cruthers with instructions to check their student rolls for Gutiérrez’s name, going back twenty-five years.
The flight attendant instructed us to buckle our seatbelts. We were beginning our descent into Jacksonville Airport.
I imagined Cruthers reading that email. I could almost hear him groaning from thirty-thousand feet below us.
In the airport, a man in a khaki uniform and a wannabe Stetson stood at the edge of the luggage claim area. He was hard to miss since he held a huge bouquet of flowers.
Not sure what to do or say, I walked past him. “Gotta get my guns.”
I headed for one of the luggage carousels that was beginning to move, making its obnoxious noise, the light flashing.
“Ms. Coleman,” Sam said behind me, “There’s a deputy and a cruiser waiting out front. He can get you home in record time with lights and siren. That is…” he raised his voice, “if you’ll let me ride back with you, Judith?”
Before I could answer him, Jenny said, “I’d rather he go at a normal speed, thank you very much. I’ve had enough of speeding cars to last me a lifetime.” She gave me a curt nod and walked away.
Sam stepped up beside me, next to the carousel. He had both eyebrows in the air.
“Long story,” I said. I let him dangle a few seconds longer. “Yes, you can go home with me.” I immediately wished I’d phrased that differently, but I opted not to try to dig out of the hole.
He chuckled, knowing I hadn’t meant it like it sounded. “I appreciate the ride.”
Gawd! Even that sounded like a double entendre.
I stepped forward and grabbed the sturdy, hard-sided bag that held my small gun safe inside—the two pistols and ammo double-locked and checked, as required by TSA.
Sam was watching me, waiting. Waiting for what? Some cue that I’d forgiven him for being an overprotective jackass?
At least he had the good sense not to reach for the suitcase. I might have had to break his arm.
“Look, Judith, I was a jerk. I hope you can forgive me.”
I turned toward him, the case now on its wheels, the handle extended.
“A total jerk,” he added.
“You left out overprotective total jerk.” I walked past him, dragging the case.
I’d left my car in short-term parking, so we didn’t have far to walk. I kept up a brisk pace and he hung back a few steps. I glanced back once.
He looked kinda lame, all dressed up in his sheriff gear, but with that huge bouquet I’d yet to acknowledge. Some of my anger drained away.
We arrived at the car, and I stowed my carry-on and laptop case in the trunk. I was struggling to lasso the anger again, keep it going so I didn’t have to…
Have to do what? Accept his apology? Or maybe acknowledge that I was now the one being a jerk?
Or admit that he had been right. The trip had been far more dangerous than I’d thought it would be.
“Look, all I want to do is talk,” Sam said. “On neutral ground. I know this diner on the outskirts of Jax.”
I blew out air and handed him my keys. “You drive. I’m exhausted.”
At the diner, we took a booth and both ordered coffee.
“Decaf?” the waitress asked.
We shook our heads in unison. Whatever was coming, I figured I needed to be alert. And Sam never got decaf, no matter the hour. Said it was against his principles.
I half smiled at the memory of the first time he’d said that to a waitress—and I’d snorted my coffee out my nose. Not one of my finer moments.
And not the funniest joke ever, but Sam had good timing. His delivery was usually spot on.
But now he was stalling, playing with a sugar packet, even though he took his coffee black.
The waitress was back already, with a coffee pot. She poured dark liquid into thick white mugs and walked away. I took a sip and sighed.
Sam leaned forward. “Nothing I’m about to say is meant to be an excuse. It’s only an explanation.”
He paused. I swallowed more caffeine.
“I’ve only been truly in love once,” he said.
“I know. You told me you were divorced.” I was hoping to move things along. The coffee was waking me up, but it wasn’t making me any less tired.
He shook his head. “I married my wife because she was sweet and funny and reliable, the kind of woman a man wants to come home to. And I did.” He stopped, took a sip of coffee.
“Did what?”
“Want to come home to her…until I didn’t. I met a woman who absolutely fascinated me, and I realized that what I’d thought was love with my wife was really just contentment.”
The acid from the coffee made my stomach churn. I should probably try to eat something.
The waitress came by to check on us, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear the rest of Sam’s story. “Could I get a grilled cheese with tomato, to go, please?”
Maybe not the best thing for a queasy stomach, but it was my go-to comfort food.
Sam had a confused expression on his face. He cleared his throat as the waitress bustled off. “This woman was a detective in my precinct, in the special victims unit, only we still called it sex crimes back then. She was a few years older than me. I watched her in action for months. She was confident and yet compassionate. And she had more guts than three of our best male cops combined.”
My stomach roiled. “So you had an affair.” I tried to keep my voice nonjudgmental, but I was pretty sure I’d failed.
“Only in my fantasies,” he said. “But after a while I realized I wasn’t being fair to me or to Lil, my wife. Still, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt Lil, only to find out that this woman wasn’t interested in me. And then I made detective and was working with her.”
He sipped coffee. “Her name was Glenda. I was partnered with her, to learn the ropes.” He waved a hand in the air. “Lemme make a long story short. I’d finally worked up the nerve to, um, feel her out, when we got this big case. A human trafficking ring. Sound familiar?”
I nodded.
“These were the really bad guys. Before I’d been dealing with perverts who couldn’t keep it zipped around kids, and guys who got off attacking women weaker than themselves. They rarely fought back all that hard when we arrested them.” He fell silent, stared off into space.
The waitress arrived with my sandwich, wrapped in deli-style paper and inside a paper bag. But through all those layers, I could still smell the grease and cheese, with a slight tang of tomato. My stomach growled, loudly.
Sam chuckled, even though his eyes seemed…what? Haunted, maybe.
“Lemme guess,” he said. “You haven’t eaten all day.”
“Do airline pretzels and peanuts count?”
“Not really. Go ahead, eat it.” He smiled indulgently as I unwrapped the sandwich and devoured half of it in three bites.
I groaned. My mouth and stomach were much happier.
Then I caught the expression on Sam’s face. Haunted was the correct word alright. “Tell me the rest.”
“There isn’t a lot more to tell. We raided the building where they had the women, and things went south. I don’t think I made any mistakes, but still it’s always felt like it was my fault. That if I’d been a more experienced detective, she wouldn’t have…” He trailed off.
“She was killed?”
He nodded. “I was a mess afterwards. Lil kept asking what was wrong, and I couldn’t tell her.” His words rushed out. “It would’ve broken her heart and what was the point now? I took a leave of absence, and told her we needed to separate, that I needed some space to think, to heal.”
He shook his head. “But the healing was a long time coming—years, before I could put it in perspective. Or at least, I thought I had.”
“Until our raid the other night on that house,” I said.
“No, ironically that didn’t set me off. At least, I don’t think so. That was kinda therapeutic. You see, there was a woman in that raid too, who was posing as one of the girls, but who was really a member of the ring. She got the drop on Glenda and then got away.”
“So catching Lorraine was some kind of coming-full-circle thing?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
He sat forward, took my hand. “What set me off was you going to Mexico, without me. Going into a situation that could go south really quick.” He gave me a weak smile. “No pun intended.”
What pun? I must’ve looked confused.
“You know, south, to Mexico.”
I snorted softly. His timing was definitely off tonight.
He shook his head again. “Suddenly I was back there, that rookie detective, not sure what was going to happen, feeling out of control. I freaked out.” He squeezed my hand. “Please forgive me for being an overprotective jerk.”
I patted his hand on top of mine. “Apology accepted. Now let go so I can finish my sandwich.”
He did so, and I chomped off another bite of gooey cheese and tangy tomato.
I chewed and swallowed, then set the remainder of the sandwich down. “I, um, have a confession to make. Things got a little dicey, more than I’d expected them to.” I told him about the car chase.
I braced for an “I told you so.”
But he didn’t go there. “Why does this guy need so many armed men?” he said instead. “I mean, sure, he’s rich and Mexico isn’t the safest place, but…”
“I was wondering the same thing. Is there something else going on there, besides an abuser chasing down his escaped wife and child?”
“He could be a drug lord.”
I nodded, then filled him in on the private plane and the flight plan filed for a month before Caroline and Tatiana had been killed.
“Hot damn,” Sam chortled. “It’s looking like he is our man!”
“Yeah.” I picked up my sandwich. It was now cold. I nibbled along the edge. “I feel like an idiot for not planning better.”
“Planning what?”
“The whole trip. I shouldn’t have involved Jenny for one thing.”
Sam took my hand again. “Hey, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that. You had no reason to believe this guy had a small army.”
I gave him a weak smile and extracted my hand, picked up the remnant of my sandwich and popped it into my mouth. Anything to delay my next admission.
After I’d chewed and swallowed, I said, “I keep making mistakes. I’m not sure–”
“Of course, you do,” Sam cut me off. “You’ve only been head of your own force for two months. You expected to know how to do everything by magic.”
I shook my head. “I’m just not used to feeling like a rookie.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t like the feeling much either, when I was a newbie sheriff. The learning curve is pretty steep, but I have confidence in you.”
I sighed. “Most days, I do too, but after this day…” I sat forward and picked up the strap of my laptop case from beside me on the booth’s bench.
Sam cleared his throat. “Um, getting back to the subject of being overprotective. The other evening at Pirolnik’s building, when we arrested Juarez…”
Apparently we weren’t leaving yet. I settled again against the back of the bench. “What about it?”
“Do you remember screaming ‘no’ over the phone?”
“Vaguely, but I don’t remember why.”
“You’d asked me to get a good look at him when he came out of the fire stairs, and I said something like, ‘I can do better than that’…” He trailed off again, looked at me expectantly.
I shrugged.
“I meant to bring this up the other night,” he said, “over our romantic repast during your stakeout. But then all hell broke loose.”
He paused, lowered his gaze to the table. “It seemed like you were trying to protect me that night at Pirolnik’s place, from the guy who was running down the stairs. And you seemed angry with me because I’d tackled him.”
I stared at Sam, trying to remember what he was talking about. I vaguely recalled snapping at him. We were standing next to that tree, the perp sitting beside it, his hands cuffed behind him.
Sam lifted his head, made eye contact. “It was kind of annoying, considering I’m a sworn law enforcement officer and all.”
The memory came flooding back, not of the scene on the sidewalk, but of that moment on the stairs, when I’d realized I’d put Sam in harm’s way. Every muscle in my body had clenched and I had indeed yelled no into the phone.
I took a sip of lukewarm coffee. I was stalling, trying to process now the feelings that I’d shoved aside then. “I think it was about…” I floundered for a moment. “I’d brought you into that situation. That somehow made you an innocent and me responsible for protecting you. It wasn’t rational, just a gut reaction at the time.” I shook my head. “I didn’t give any thought to the fact that you’re a trained and armed LEO yourself.”
Sam nodded. “That makes sense. We both take the protect and serve to heart. But that doesn’t mean we have to protect each other.” He paused, rubbed his chin.
I noted it was free of stubble. He’d shaved a second time, before coming over to Jax to meet me. Somehow that warmed my chest more than the flowers had.
“I’m beginning to realize,” he said, “that I’m only truly attracted to women who are my equal in that realm, who can take care of themselves, and then some.” He grinned. “What’s that say about me that I like my women tougher than I am?”
I held out my hand. “Let’s make a pact.”
He went to take my hand, but I snared his little finger with my own. “I pinky swear that I won’t be an overprotective jerk if you don’t go there either.”
Sam threw back his head and laughed.
I slept like a rock, right through the alarm. I finally dragged myself out of bed and stumbled, groggy, out to the kitchen for caffeine. There was no time for exercising this morning, unfortunately.
The half glass of red wine and the opened bottle still sat on my breakfast bar. I’d poured it last night, drank half, then was so sleepy I couldn’t even stay awake long enough to finish it.
Nor put it away, apparently. But first things first.
I got my coffee maker going. While it gurgled, I corked the bottle and dumped the wine from the glass down the drain.
Finally, caffeine in a mug firmly secured in my hand, I walked toward the bathroom for a quick shower.
Wait, where’s the kitten?
A loud meow from the other bedroom’s door answered my question. I opened it and Pipsqueak wound between my ankles. “How’d you get in there?” I’d closed her in my bedroom with me last night, or at least I’d thought I had.
I stuck my head inside the room to make sure she hadn’t shredded something in frustration. Everything looked normal. I’d probably left both doors ajar last night, in my sleepy fog, and she came in here, rubbed against the door, and nudged it closed.
Ten minutes later, I was showered and dressed. I gathered my things, slipping my little revolver into its ankle holster and my Glock into the one at the small of my back. I headed for the living room, with the niggling feeling that I was forgetting something.
I stopped by my sofa and patted my pockets. I had my wallet and my cell phone. Wait, my laptop case!
I glanced at the sofa, where I’d plopped down the black leather case last night, the gun box sticking out of the top of it.
I froze. The sofa was empty, nothing on the leather cushions but cat hairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By the time I was headed for 3MB, I was over an hour late, not that I answered to anyone regarding my time, but still.
I’d spent forty-five minutes searching my apartment. Nothing else seemed to be missing or disturbed. Even the small suitcase I’d transported my guns in was there, next to the sofa.
After sending a text to Barnes to let her know I was on my way, I called Sam.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “Thanks for the company and the chat last night.”
Warmth spread through my chest. “You’re welcome. Thanks for the coffee and the sandwich.” I paused. “Afraid this is an official call, though. I think someone was in my apartment last night, and they took my laptop.”
“What? Last night while we were at the diner?”
“No, last night while I was sleeping.”
Sam let out a short stream of expletives.
“Yeah, my sentiments exactly.”
