10. Elliot
CHAPTER 10
ELLIOT
T hree days later.
“Tucker and Dylan are heading out to wrap up their assignment this afternoon,” Bradyn says as he makes a note on the tablet in front of him. “They’ll be out of touch for a few days, but Elijah Breeth has agreed to help with any tech issues that might arise.”
The former Army Ranger lives in Maine and works alongside our cousin, Silas, at a private security firm. He’s also the only one who can come close to beating Tucker on a computer.
“Any word on Elliot’s Jane Doe?” Riley asks then pops a piece of gum into his mouth and grins at me.
Irritation eats at my already frayed nerves. Something I can thank my lack of sleep for. “She’s not my Jane Doe.”
“You found her,” he replies. “She’s living with you.”
An all-too-familiar vise tightens around my heart. “Doesn’t make her mine. And she’s not living with me. She’s staying there so I can keep her safe.”
“Fine. How is the Jane Doe?” Riley asks again.
“So far, nothing has popped up on any database anywhere,” Bradyn replies. “Gibson said they cannot find a single record based off of fingerprints or facial ID.”
“I even ran her photograph through a few places the local PD can’t get into.” Tucker crosses his arms. “And nothing. Not a driver’s license, yearbook photo, or social media picture has gotten any hits.”
Strange. Even the most elusive people have a minor presence online. Whether it’s an old yearbook photo, passport, or membership card. She had to have popped up somewhere. It’s not like she just blinked into existence. Unless… “Witness protection?” I ask, noting that Bradyn’s fiancée actually spent some time with marshals up until three years ago. She ran away from them and spent nearly that entire time on the run before coming here to the ranch a year and a half ago.
“Nope,” Tucker replies. “I got into contact with Frank Loyotta over at Find Me, and he helped me get in touch with his marshal buddy. No one matching her description is missing from their program.”
“This makes no sense.” I push to my feet and start pacing Bradyn’s dining room. “What about the guy who attacked her?”
“Him, we do have answers on.” Bradyn taps something on his tablet, and a mugshot pops up on the projector screen.
I glare at the man staring back at me. His hair is a bit long, brushing his shoulders, and his eyes are so dark they almost appear black, but aside from the orange jumpsuit he’s wearing, he looks like any average man. Which is what would make it so easy to blend in when going after a target.
“Meet Christoper Dornan. Thirty-seven, on the FBI’s most wanted list. He’s been wanted for questioning in over twenty-two active murder cases all over the country. Yet somehow managed to evade everyone sent to bring him in.”
“Until Jane put him down,” Riley comments. There’s clear pride in his voice. Pride that she was able to defend herself against a professional like Dornan.
“So he was hired.”
Bradyn nods at me. “There’s more.” His gaze moves from me to Tucker. I know that look. He’s afraid what he’s about to say is going to set me off.
“What is it?” I demand.
“Well, as I said I would, I did some looking into the deputy stationed outside her door.”
“And?” I growl, wishing they’d just get to the point.
“There was a large deposit—fifty-thousand dollars to be exact—deposited into his account two hours before he took the shift.”
Fury ignites in my veins. “ What ?” I growl. Even as I knew no cop worth his uniform would have stepped away so an untrained nurse would watch over a patient in protective custody, I still hate that I was right.
“Gibson arrested him and brought him in for questioning an hour ago. He swears that the man said he knew Jane and just wanted to talk to her.”
“And the fact that he was willing to pay that much for alone time with her didn’t set off any red flags?”
“Apparently, he got himself into some gambling debt and was desperate,” Bradyn replies. “He’s not getting out anytime soon. Gibson has him locked up.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Absolutely not,” Bradyn replies.
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll rip him apart,” Riley replies. “We don’t have time to bail you out after you get slapped with murder charges.”
I turn to him. “I could get answers from him.”
“That’s not our job,” Tucker says. “Gibson is a good cop. He’ll get whatever he can from the guy.”
“Gibson is the reason that man was stationed outside Jane’s room in the first place.”
“Not his fault,” Dylan says. “We’ve all made mistakes.”
It’s a jab.
And a low one at that.
But he’s not wrong, and the comment did exactly what it was supposed to—it deflated my anger. I take a deep breath. “Fine. Anything on Rosalie Wallace?”
“Nothing new so far. She lived alone and worked for a shipping company. She handled transportation documents, some of them high-value clients. That’s an angle to work. Gibson asked local PD to do some canvasing over at her apartment in Galveston, and he said they reported that no one recognized the photo of Jane Doe. As of now, they’ve found nothing linking them,” Bradyn replies. “There was also no DNA on the body, and unlike Jane, she showed no signs of a struggle. They’re waiting on the tox report to see if she was drugged.”
Jane fought. Hard. The cuts and scrapes on her legs, hands, and arms, her bruised ribs, as well as the bruising on her face, are evidence of that. So why did this other woman not fight? Is it because she knew the killer? “Where’s the shipping company located?” I ask.
“The Port of Galveston.”
“A six-hour drive. So she was abducted out of Galveston and dumped here? How does that make sense?”
“Not sure,” Tucker replies. “But I looked into hotel bookings, motel bookings, B&B’s, and she wasn’t staying anywhere within a hundred miles of where she was found. Not under her real name, at least.”
More questions. A serial killer typically chooses hunting grounds. They likely wouldn’t have risked driving six hours with a kidnap victim in the car.
“It’s not a bad drive. I’ll head out first thing in the morning.”
“There’s no telling if they’ll talk to you,” Dylan says. “You’re not police.”
“No, but I might be able to show Jane’s picture. If they’re linked somehow, it’s a lead to go off of.”
“We can also have local PD go,” Bradyn says. “They’ve already notified her employers that she was found. We can send over a picture of Jane, too.”
I shake my head. “I want to look them in the eye,” I reply. “If they have something to do with this, I need to be there.”
Bradyn looks at our brothers then back to me. “You’re sure you’re up for this?”
“You made me lead on this case,” I tell him. “So, yeah. I’m good.”
“Okay. I’ll let Gibson know what you’re planning. Riley can stay at your place while you’re gone to help keep Jane protected.”
“Great.”
“You’re sure you’ll be all right with Tuck and me gone?” Dylan asks. “Seems like there’s a lot on the plate right now.”
“We’ll manage,” Riley replies, shooting a grin at the twins.
We were hired to track down a man wanted for embezzling his clients’ pension funds. Since Tucker can trace any digital signature, and Dylan is a punch-first-and-ask-questions-later type of person, they make an incredibly valuable team. Then there’s the whole twin thing, which means they’re even more on the same wavelength than the rest of us.
They’d spent the last trip doing recon, and now it’s time to track him and close it down.
“Should only take a few days. We’ve got most of the intel we need, and we’re pretty sure we know where we’re going to find this guy,” Dylan says.
“I bet we’re back in two days,” Tucker replies as he stands. “We’ll check in before we head out.”
“Sounds good, thanks. Let me know if you need anything.” Bradyn stands, and we say goodbye to the twins and then to Riley as he walks out alongside them. As soon as it’s just Bradyn and me, he turns toward me. “Want to talk?”
“I’m fine, big brother.” Even though Bradyn is only a year older than I am, he’s taken on a second father role for all of us. His leadership skills are far beyond anything any of us possess, and his time as an interrogator overseas gave him perceptiveness that no one else can match.
It’s also one of the reasons I knew this conversation was coming sooner rather than later.
“Remember when you confronted me about Kennedy?”
“You were being an idiot.”
He chuckles. “Fair enough. I see what you’re dealing with, and I want you to know we can talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You’ve had Renee on your mind since you found Jane in that creek. I can see it all over your face.”
My stomach twists into knots. “It’s in the past.”
“Renee will never be in the past for you.” Bradyn’s candid comment hits me square in the chest. “Not until you’re willing to forgive yourself.”
“This isn’t about Renee.”
“Isn’t it? You were pretty adamant at first that you wouldn’t be primary on the Jane Doe case. Renee’s sister, Jesse, was the last missing persons case you took on.”
“Yeah. And it went sideways, didn’t it?” Renee contacted us in hopes of locating her sister, who had been missing from her college dorm for three days. The police all claimed that Jesse would turn up. That, since she liked to take impromptu trips, that was all it was. But Renee had known differently.
And she’d been right.
“What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault, and pretending I didn’t miss important information is a lie.”
Bradyn takes a step closer to me and crosses his arms. “It was not your fault,” he repeats. “And bearing that burden is going to destroy you. It’s already done damage, Elliot. How much more are you going to let that case take from you? Your sanity? Your second chance?”
Emotion claws at my throat. “I’m choosing to learn from that mistake and not repeat it.”
Bradyn reaches out and clasps a hand on my shoulder. “Good. It’s been three years, brother. And it’s time you moved forward.”
* * *
“So do you think this means anything?”
I glance over at Renee as she holds up a slip of paper we’d found in the bottom of a shoebox beneath her sister’s bed. Reaching over, I take it and turn it over in my palm. “Looks like half a phone number. I’ll have Tucker run it. If there’s something there, he’ll find it.” After taking a picture of it and sending the image off to my computer-whiz brother, I offer it back to her. “How are you holding up?”
Her thick red hair has been pulled up in a loose bun, but a single strand touches the top of her shoulder. Renee turns toward me, and her hazel eyes are red-rimmed from crying as we go through her sister’s things. “I just want to know if she’s okay.”
“I know.” I reach over and cup her cheek, running my thumb over her soft skin. “We’ll find her.”
She nods. “I know. I’m honestly afraid of what we’ll find when we do.”
“Let’s get you home, okay?”
Nodding again, she buckles her seatbelt then leans back in the seat as I pull away from the dorm rooms. Every moment that passes, I grow more and more concerned that I won’t be able to reunite Renee with her younger sister.
Not just because she’s a case, though that certainly would be motivation enough, but because Renee’s become important to me in just the short time I’ve known her.
I want to see her happy. And bringing Jesse back is the only way to do that.
Minutes tick by in silence, and before long, we’ve made the thirty-five-minute drive back to Renee’s apartment complex.
After putting my truck into Park, I turn toward her.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She turns toward me. “I will be. I just want the truth.”
“I’ll help you find it.”
Renee smiles softly, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll call if that paper means anything?”
“Absolutely.”
She turns around in her seat and offers Echo a friendly pet on the head. “You’re a good boy. Take care of him, okay?” she adds, smiling at me.
“I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
Renee takes a deep breath. “I’m not the one in danger.”
* * *
It’s still dark outside as I tug on a pair of tennis shoes and head for the front door. Bradyn is on camera duty until seven this morning, so this might be my only chance at burning off some steam. Lani is asleep in the guest room, as is Jane. The house is quiet, but my thoughts are anything but. “Echo, hier. ”
He falls into step beside me, and we bound down the porch steps. By the time I’ve hit the bottom step, I’m already running. The nightmares aren’t new to me—Renee haunts me every time I close my eyes.
But this time when I woke, it was Jane I was thinking about. It was her lying on the living room floor, dead, because I’d missed the fact that it was her who was in danger. That Jesse was merely collateral damage for a deranged teacher’s assistant who’d become obsessed with Renee after she’d visited Jesse at school.
I’d been so focused on returning Jesse to Renee that I missed clear indications that everything was not what it seemed.
And she’d paid the ultimate price.
Pumping my arms faster, I move through the dark, racing through the trees. If I can just run off this anxiousness, I’ll be better. I have to be better. With me as primary, it’s my call what we do. How we handle things. Which means, if something goes wrong—I shake that thought off. Nothing will go wrong. Not this time.
The dirt is soft beneath my feet, the creek roaring beside me as soon as I hit the trail I want to run. Echo keeps pace, running beside me, his tail wagging, tongue dangling out of his mouth. For him, this is joy. For me, it’s therapy.
By the time I’ve reached the end of the creek trail, I’ve managed to run off the remainder of my nightmare. I sprint up a small hill then run down the other side, following the path around the bottom and back toward my house.
Muscles warm and exhausted, I’m feeling a whole lot calmer than I was when I left nearly forty-five minutes ago. Once I have a shower and coffee, I’ll be even better, my mind set on the task at hand, which is making the drive to Galveston and meeting with Rosalie’s employees at the port.
I come up the hill leading toward home, but as soon as I get close enough to have a clear vision of my house, I come to an abrupt stop. Bathed in the light of the guest room window, Jane stands, staring out into the darkness. Her red hair is loose around her face, delicate waves that fall well past her shoulders.
I can’t see her eyes from this far away, but I know they’re crystal green. The kind that seems almost too beautiful to be real.
I’m captivated by the sight of her dressed in a baggy sweatshirt, bathed in the soft light of the bedside lamp. Beautiful. Attraction burns in my gut. What is wrong with me? Bradyn believes I was so afraid to take this case because of what happened with Renee.
And maybe that is part of it. But the truth is I know myself. I know how Jane makes me feel even though we just met. I know that, even as I cared for Renee, what I feel when I’m around Jane is more potent than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.
And I know, with horrible clarity, that I will get too close and make a mistake that will cost this woman her life.
I’m lead on this case, so the rules have never been more important.
Work is work. Personal is personal.
And I can’t afford to mix the two.
No matter how badly I want to.