“And you clearly make promises you have no intention of keeping. I think we’re done here. Have a good day, Ms. Beckett. And if I hear that you’ve come back here to harass this poor woman, I’ll arrest you. Is that clear?”
The man was done talking. He got in his squad car and waited for her to get in her rental. Any hope she had for his cooperation had dried up, and she had no idea why. She’d hit a wall that she had never seen coming.
Now she’d have to scramble, and she had a good idea where to start.
If Chief Cook wouldn’t give her any more information on the murder of Angela DeSalvo, Jessie knew how to dig up stuff on her own. And a good source for a story nearly decades old was the town library and the newspaper archives.
She took a corner of the archives and worked over the digital images of old newspapers until she was bleary-eyed. With only the occasional bathroom break and a raid on the snack machine, where she finished off the Cheetos and KitKat bars, she searched the digital records, looking for anything pertaining to the murder of Angela DeSalvo. And seeing the newspaper evolve over time gave her insight into the community and people of La Pointe.
TV detectives always had miraculous databases to help them solve cases in a make-believe world where DNA results could be done in minutes, and the killer always confessed in the last five minutes of the show. In real life, it didn’t work that way. Most cases involved “beating feet” on pavement and tedious grunt work that could be butt numbing.
When she’d located a string of articles that encompassed months after the murder, Jessie made copies of the best ones with the most details. Since this was a small town, the newspaper took liberties with its reporting. It deviated from the typical sparse style of journalistic writing and sometimes focused on the more emotional aspects of the story.
She scanned the pages and didn’t see anything that she hadn’t expected, but she’d go over the articles later when she had more time to read.
When the last article had printed, Jessie sorted through her pile and placed the most important pages on top. Once she got back to her motel room, she wanted to read them first. And considering the stack of paper, it would be a long night.
She headed out of the library with her gold mine of old articles on the DeSalvo killing rolled up in her hand. When she got outside, it was the first time she realized that she’d spent almost the whole day ratholed in the archives. But after she filled her lungs with cool dusk air and caught glimpses of the sunset glittering on the churning waters of Lake Superior, she got a second wind. And her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten much all day.
She followed the main drag, walking toward the water. From what she remembered of her ferry trip, the harbor area had some inviting restaurants near the shore. That made her belly rumble, but as she turned down a side street, she caught a glimpse of movement in the waning sunlight. A shadow had moved behind her.
La Pointe was small, a tourist town. Why she flinched at the sight of someone behind her, she didn’t know. Maybe her wariness had been a by-product of digging into the DeSalvo murder all afternoon. And being in the very town where it had all happened had caused her jumpiness.
The way Jessie figured it, it didn’t hurt to be careful. When she picked up her pace, she paid closer attention to the sounds coming from behind her and kept a watchful eye on any suspicious movement. Under her windbreaker, she carried her Colt Python. And with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she felt the weight of her weapon as she ducked around another corner. If someone was following her, she’d have precious seconds to expand the gap between them and look for a place to confront the bastard.
Jessie had no intention of losing him, not when she wanted to look the son of a bitch square in the eye.
Chapter 10
Jessie spotted a darkened alleyway ahead. The sun was low enough on the horizon to leave shadows in its wake. The alley separated two storefronts. One place was still open, a small gift shop. And the other had lights out and was closed for business. Before the guy who was tailing her rounded the corner, she darted into the alley and shoved her back against a brick wall.
She didn’t have to wait long.
When the guy thought he’d lost her, he’d picked up his pace. The sound of his footsteps grew louder. Jessie waited for him to run by the alley where she was hiding. All she saw when he jogged by was a blue plaid shirt, jeans, running shoes, and a navy baseball cap pulled low over his face.
After she’d turned the tables on him, she fell in pace behind him, tailing him instead. But the guy must have seen her make the move, because with barely a look over his shoulder, he made a run for it.
“Damn it!” she cursed under her breath as she chased him. “If you make me break a sweat, I swear . . .”
There was only one good thing about the guy hauling his ass down the street. With him running, it confirmed that he’d been following her. She hadn’t been overly paranoid after all.
But with the guy having a lead on her, Jessie had to make up ground. Her lungs were burning, and the muscles in her legs were on fire. With her arms pumping, she carried the rolled-up newspaper articles clutched in her hand. And when the bastard ducked around a corner without hesitating, she saw that he was taking her through a deserted part of La Pointe, a place she didn’t know at all.
The guy knew where he was going. It was his town. He had an advantage. And with him out of sight, she had to be careful. Jessie slowed up, bracing her body in case he reached out and grabbed her. With her chest heaving, she tucked her newspaper articles in the waistband of her jeans before she pulled out her Colt. She gripped the weapon in her sweaty hand as she neared the street corner.
Jessie slowed her breathing and stepped lightly so he wouldn’t know exactly where she was, but once she made her move, that was the end of her game of finesse. When she swung around the corner, with both hands on her Colt, she saw that the street was empty. An abandoned old gas station was positioned on her right and an auto repair place stood on her left, secured by a cyclone fence that was locked.
Jessie walked slowly down the street, keeping her gun aimed into every shadow. And after she’d checked both sides of the street, she lowered her weapon.
“Damn,” she cursed under her breath.
The bastard had found a place to hide, like the cockroach he was.
On day two of surveillance, Alexa had changed her clothes to more practical attire—camo BDUs. Garrett always came prepared and had brought extra gear. She was hunkered down in the foothills outside the Perez estate, with her elbows propped on a boulder, using high-tech night-vision binoculars to monitor the security patrols inside the compound. On instinct, she timed and tracked the intervals at which the armed guards patrolled the grounds and how many men made the rounds.
She felt dirt on her skin, but she kept perfectly still and didn’t fidget. And when something crawled up her ankle, she didn’t panic. She brushed the scorpion away by moving with slow deliberation to avoid any sudden moves, a practice honed from years of training and discipline. Hasty moves and unexpected noise in the stillness could make her a target.
She’d picked an isolated spot away from Hank’s ground team and kept to herself. She melded into the terrain as the moon cast a bluish haze that looked like a dusting of fine blue powder over the rugged landscape outside the
