In the Blood

4 IN THE DARK

On I-5 between Portland and Salem, OR

March 22

SHANNON WALLACE DIED BENEATH the sheltering branches of an oak tree, her blood soaking into the pine-needled ground like rain on a hot summer day. She died in the dark without a struggle. She died drunk. And she died looking into the face of her killer.

Of that, Heather Wallace felt sure.

Twigs and dead leaves crunched beneath her Skechers as she stepped through the underbrush. She stopped beside a lichen-laced oak and stood at the spot where her mother’s body had been discovered two decades earlier.

Memories whirled like pinwheels in Heather’s mind, the revolving images blurring from one into another.

Whirl: Mom laughing. A smile lights her face and the air shimmers around her like a summer dawn. Rose incense burns in the little brass holder.

Whirl: Mom silent and focused as she cleans the house, scrubbing every surface with cleanser and stiff-bristled brushes. For hours and hours. For days.

Whirl: The raw sound of Mom’s rage. The crash and crack of thrown dishes, stoneware shrapnel. The heavy stink of cigarettes and booze.

Whirl: Mom sits at the kitchen table, elbows propped on the littered surface, her head in her hands. Her hair, uncombed and lank, spills over her knuckles. A cigarette burns in an ashtray full of stubbed-out butts. Empty brown prescription bottles roll on the table beside an empty bottle of vodka.

Whirl: Mom laughing…

Heather blinked the images away and drew in a deep breath of sun-warmed air to clear the lingering memory-smell of smoke and roses from her mind.

Shannon had been thirty when she died, mother of three, wife to FBI forensics expert James William Wallace. Heather had already outlived her by a year.

Shannon had been a woman no one had ever championed, not even her husband. The case had gone cold. Forgotten. No justice rendered. Heather wasn’t blameless either—even after she’d learned the truth about her mother’s death, it’d taken six years for her to act. And watching as Dante had spoken for the mother he’d never known.

“Avenge your mother,” Lucien whispers as Dante’s eyes open.

Heather hoped finally to speak for her mother.

And maybe, just maybe, the truth would heal Annie.

But before Heather could help her sister or champion their murdered mother, she needed to keep herself alive. And to do that, she wanted the Bureau to see an agent so focused on her job that she voluntarily worked a cold case while on medical leave just to keep occupied, an agent who behaved as though nothing had changed in the last three weeks.

Even though everything had irrevocably changed—including herself.

Dante…

She touched the spot on her chest where the bullet had pierced her, felt the steady beat of her heart beneath her fingers. Remembered the desperate sound of Dante’s voice, his words husky and Cajun-spiced: I won’t lose you.

Heather closed her eyes and gently pushed the memory aside. Not now.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and peered into the gloom beneath the trees, inhaling the thick smells of pine, damp soil, and moss. The trees and shrubs muffled the rush of traffic on I-5. Crouching, she studied the ground, trying to imagine what Shannon had seen and felt that last night of her life. Tried to work it like any other case.

Even twenty years ago, leads in the case had dried up fast. Shannon had left the Driftwood Bar and Lounge in northeast Portland alone around 11:30 p.m. on October first. Employees and patrons were interviewed, barfly statements sifted and compared.

Shannon Wallace frequented local watering holes and often made hookups. Wasn’t thought to be too choosy, according to her drinking buddies.

The Portland PD detectives working the case at the time had believed Shannon Wallace to be a victim of a serial killer working the I-5 corridor, the Claw-Hammer Killer. The CHK preyed on prostitutes and barflies, women who generally wouldn’t be missed. Not immediately, anyway. The FBI task force hunting for the CHK had also believed Shannon a possible victim of their perp.

If that was true, then Shannon had already been championed.

Special Agent Craig Stearns, then of the Portland field office, killed the CHK—a Hillsboro carpenter named Christopher Todd Higgins—during a violent struggle while serving a search warrant shortly after Shannon’s murder.

Stearns.

Heather fixed her gaze on the green and gold leaves above her. Tried to resist the memory flip back to New Orleans. Failed.

Stearns lifts his Glock and calls Dante’s name.

Dante, hands braced against either side of the house’s open threshold, turns. Fire sparks from the Glock’s muzzle. His head snaps to the side as the bullet catches him in the temple. He stumbles, then falls. He sprawls across the threshold, half-in and half-out of the house.

Stearns strides toward Dante’s body, gun in hand. Heather bails out of the car before Collins brings it to a full stop. She runs, .38 clenched in both hands. “Drop it!” she yells. “Don’t make me do this!”

Stearns spares her a glance, then turns back to Dante. Aims.

She fires.

“Shit,” Heather whispered, dropping her gaze to the ground. Only three weeks had passed and the memory still cut deep. She blinked until her eyes quit burning.

According to Inferno’s MySpace page, the band was on the road, so Dante was safe—for the moment. And Stearns, her mentor, the man who’d been more of a father to her than James Wallace, was dead, buried with honors in Seattle’s Lakeview Cemetery.

She drew in a deep breath. One thing at a time, Wallace. Just one thing at a time.

A heavy thunk penetrated the green-lit silence. Car door.

“Wallace? You okay?”

Sounded like Lyons had tired of waiting. Maybe he needed to stretch his legs. Maybe he was bored. She was pretty sure, however, he’d been asked to keep an eye on her, so maybe he was curious in a need-to-take-notes kind of way. She hadn’t wanted a guide to the kill site in the first place, and for someone of Lyons’s rank to volunteer for the job was more than a little unusual.

“Yes, sir, fine.”

Heather stood. Brushing dirt and leaves from her jeans, she turned and, ducking under low, slender branches, walked from the grove just in time to see Portland SAC Alex Lyons slide something into the pocket of his hoodie. Cell phone? she wondered. Blackberry? She walked across the grass to her car. Early afternoon sunshine sparked diamond dazzles from her sleek sapphire-blue Trans Am.

Lyons slouched against the passenger door, smoking. The breeze ruffled his curly blond hair. He looked at Heather, squinting in the sunshine. Lines crinkled around his green eyes, lending him rugged good looks and a Marlboro Man masculinity. Tall and lean-bodied, he wore weathered jeans, a gray Plan B hoodie, and black Rippers. She pegged him in his early thirties, but suspected at heart he remained forever twenty and golden.

“Get what you were looking for?” he asked, straightening. He dropped the cigarette to the pavement. Ground it out with a twist of his Rippers.

“Yes, sir. I appreciate you coming out with me on your day off.”

Lyons shrugged. “Not a problem. Glad to help.”

“Well, it wasn’t necessary,” she said. “And thanks for rounding up the Portland PD’s file on Higgins to compare with the Bureau’s file on the Claw-Hammer Killer.”

“Again, glad to help. Especially someone like you.”

“What do you mean—like me, sir?” Heather pulled open the Trans Am’s passenger door and scooted across the black leather interior to the driver’s seat. She grabbed her seat belt and strapped it shut.

Lyons slid into the passenger seat and closed the door. He fastened his seat belt. “I mean, aside from being a fellow agent, someone with a personal stake in the case.”

The smell of his cologne curled into the air, a cologne Heather remembered her brother wearing—Drakkar Noir—but in this case, its mingled lemon, sandalwood, and amber scent was edged with cigarette smoke.

“And all those sirs are way too formal for a day off,” he added with a smile. “How about you call me Alex and I’ll call you Heather.”

“Wow, good thing that happens to be my name.”

“Beautiful, smart, and a sense of humor,” Alex chuckled. “A killer combination.”

“You just caught me on a good day…. Alex.”

“So what’re your thoughts on the case after reviewing it?”

“Higgins was probably good for my mother’s murder,” Heather said. “But I’d like to know for sure.”

“I understand that completely.”

Heather keyed on the ignition. The Trans Am’s engine rumbled to life. She hit the gas and shifted the car through the gears to fifth, merging smoothly with the I-5 traffic.

“Can I ask you a question?” Lyons said.

“Sure.”

“How did it feel to take Elroy Jordan down? I mean, even after that fuckup of an ME had declared him dead in Pensacola, you still found him.”

Heather kept her gaze on the road, guiding the Trans Am into the fast lane to pass a semi hauling Budweiser, but her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “Just dumb luck,” she said.

“Just dumb luck?” Lyons laughed. “Hey, no need for false modesty. Claim your glory. I sure as hell would. You tracked that bastard down and put him where he belonged—in the ground.”

The Bureau had named her Jordan’s killer and a hero even though they’d known the truth, a truth never spoken aloud by anyone, a truth both she and the powers that be had wanted buried, but for very different reasons.

She to keep breathing and to protect Dante.

They to cover their collective asses.

And the ME in Pensacola that Lyons had so casually mentioned? The one who’d been ordered to falsify the autopsy report? A suicide. Slashed her wrists in the tub. Ended up on one of her own autopsy tables.

A very convenient suicide.

It’d chilled Heather to the marrow to realize how far the collective ass-covering would go, but it hadn’t surprised her, not after New Orleans. But worst of all was her own silence, a silence that—no matter how necessary—made her feel like an accomplice.

“Yeah, well, I wish Jordan could’ve faced the relatives of his victims in a court, instead,” she finally replied. “It felt like he got off too easy.”

“They often do.”

“They do,” she agreed. “But I still hope to change that with every arrest I make.”

“Amen, sister.” Lyons paused, then said, “I heard you took a bullet too. How are you feeling? You look good for a woman who nearly died three weeks ago.”

“I’ll answer your question,” Heather said, keeping her voice light, relaxed, “if you answer one for me.”

“Shoot.”

“I saw you putting something in your pocket when I walked out of the woods. Are you recording this conversation?”

“Something in my pocket? I’m not sure….” Lyons suddenly laughed. “My sister. I called my sister to see if she needed me to pick anything up for her on the way home.”

Heather looked at him. Amusement glimmered in his eyes and his level gaze met hers. Her gut instinct said: He’s telling the truth. Some of the tension drained from her muscles and she eased her grip on the steering wheel.

“So is this FBI-trained suspicion or just natural paranoia?”

Heather chuckled. “FBI trained,” she admitted. “But I don’t know how to turn it off anymore.”

“Another amen, sister. So, my question…?”

“My injury wasn’t as bad as you might’ve heard—” A cell phone’s abrupt beedle-beedle interrupted her.

“Is that you or me?” Lyons asked, reaching into his hoodie pocket.

“Shit, it’s me,” Heather muttered, fumbling one-handed behind the seat for her purse. She’d programmed a businesslike ring for the Bureau on her cell; a Leigh Stanz neo-grunge song—“Don’t Need Light”—announced her non-work-related calls.

Given that she wasn’t on active duty yet, a call from work couldn’t be good news.

“Keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel,” Lyons said, twisting around in his seat. “I’ll get it.”

“Thanks,” Heather said, doing as he’d advised. A second later, Lyons pressed her phone against her ear.

“Go,” he whispered.

“Wallace,” she said into the phone.

The conversation was short and most definitely not sweet. When it ended, she reached up and took the cell phone from Lyons, folded it shut, and dropped it into her jacket pocket.

“Trouble?” Lyons asked.

An update on your medical status has been requested. Be here at eighteen hundred hours. Be prepared for the possibility of additional debriefing.

Additional debriefing, sir?

Just a possibility. Eighteen hundred hours, Wallace.

“No,” she lied, flashing Lyons a quick smile. “A mix-up, most likely.”

“I hear that. The Red-Tape Bureaucracy Boys singing their latest, ‘It Needs to Be Filled Out in Triplicate.’”

Despite the hard knot in her belly, Heather laughed. “Exactly.”

She had five hours to drive back to Seattle and, although that should be enough time even after dropping Lyons off at the Portland field office parking lot, she’d have to cancel her surprise visit to see Annie at the treatment center. She’d also be cutting it too close to swing by her house once she hit Seattle to change from jeans into office appropriate slacks and blouse.

Maybe that wouldn’t matter. Be prepared for the possibility of additional debriefing.

The knot in her belly kinked tighter. Maybe they’d found out about her and Dante. If so, that’d give them enough reason to fire her, the hero they’d created. And a chance to transform her into another tragic figure like the ME in Pensacola, a suicide in her tub. Or maybe the victim of an auto accident or a burglary gone wrong.

Heather inhaled deeply, drawing in a breath of Drakkar Noir. Get a grip, Wallace. If the powers that be wanted her dead, they wouldn’t wait to fire her first. She’d already be on an autopsy table.

Maybe her father was behind this sudden medical status update. Maybe he’d caught wind of her cold case investigation. “Can I ask a favor?” she said.

“Shoot.”

“My father is James Wallace—”

“James William Wallace? The fearless leader of our West Coast lab?”

“The same.”

Lyons whistled.

“If he should contact you about what I’m doing—about this case, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep him in the dark.”

Heather looked at Lyons and something lit in his ocean-green eyes, a connection, an understanding. He nodded. “Can do. I’ll keep your old man in the dark.”

“Thanks,” she breathed, relieved he didn’t ask why. “I appreciate it.”

“Not a problem.”

For the last twenty years, James William Wallace had kept Heather in the dark. About how her mother had died, about how she’d lived; about Annie’s illness. She’d had to dig for every little bit of truth, sift it from lies and willful denial. She intended to return the favor. In spades.