Chapter Forty-Six
Jules senses the figure behind her as she fast-walks from her car along the flagstone walk leading to her front door. Dammit, her dad left the porch light off. Her heart is thumping in her chest, rippling in her neck.
It’s after eleven and no one is outside.
Not Amy the neighbor. Not anyone walking the dog.
No one. She’s spent much of the evening fending off annoying approaches from men at Wicked Rabbit, a singles bar in the Old Market.
She’s not sure why the FBI asked her to go there, but Jack and plainclothes agents were keeping an eye on her all night, so she felt safe.
As safe as one can feel being bait for a serial killer.
She nursed her cocktail, something called Sunset in Wonderland, and tried to look casual while staying alert.
But it’s hard not to draw attention when you’re six feet tall and a model.
When the buffoons at the bar got too annoying, she headed to an Irish pub down the street, Jack and his team on her heels.
She had the bad luck to run into Miranda’s brother.
It’s hard to believe that Miranda and their group had been such a big part of Jules’s life, but she has no desire to see any of them now.
But the stop at the Irish bar wasn’t a total loss. What are the odds she’d run into Quinn Riley? Probably not bad since Omaha’s bar scene isn’t huge, but still.
She imagines for a beat a world where she had a friend like Quinn used to be, someone she felt comfortable talking to, someone who never seemed to judge, someone who listened.
He looked good, still handsome, without probably realizing it.
She wonders about the scar. What happened to him in the army.
Maybe he’ll call her for coffee. She wonders what that would be like.
Would they fall into the groove of study hall?
She often thinks about those days before, when she was a different person.
She looked forward to talking to Quinn, their different social circles allowing her to be herself, say whatever came to mind, put down her guard.
She sometimes ponders if anything would have happened between them if he hadn’t been shipped off to juvenile detention and she hadn’t been …
She suspects the Jules from before would have been too caught up with herself, her social status, to give it a real chance. But maybe not.
Other than that spark of Quinn Riley in her evening, the bait operation had been a wash. An ill-conceived idea by the desk jockeys at HQ, as Jack had said.
They should be focusing on a real lead: her encounter with Trent Vanderman, or “Hot Counselor” as they used to call him when she was in school.
Is it a coincidence that he’s part of Christ Church of the Heartland?
That there’s a thread connecting Carrie and Jules, however thin?
Jack seemed genuinely intrigued by the connection, but as usual remained tight-lipped.
The thing is, she’s been around Vanderman enough to know he wasn’t the man who did those things to her.
May Day didn’t have the same build and his speech wasn’t as refined.
You’re one of the Lucky Ones. The voice.
It wasn’t Vanderman. At the same time, the task force has speculated that it’s possible May Day isn’t working alone.
Jack isn’t forthcoming about the investigation, but the junior agents aren’t so discreet.
Jules flirts with Agent Roderick, or Rod, as he likes to be called, who always tries to impress her with confidential intel.
He told her that May Day’s ability to leave no forensic evidence behind, abduct the women so smoothly without witnesses, makes them think he may have some law enforcement training or perhaps works with a partner who helps cover their tracks.
And some of the other survivors, including Lucy, said that even though they were blindfolded, they sensed someone else present in the room when he …
She expels the thoughts from her mind, walks faster toward her front door.
Then her heart leaps into her throat at the yelling, the onslaught of figures running, the sound of a struggle.
In the melee, she realizes someone’s been tackled to the ground; Jack is yelling as he puts a knee in the man’s back. Two agents have their guns drawn.
The porch light comes on and Jules’s parents appear at the door, concern on their faces, confusion. It’s like Jules is frozen in place, the way she was last year on this very day when she and Lucy assaulted the sex offender on his porch.
Jack hoists the person to his feet and Jules is dumbfounded. “Brad?”