Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

“For starters,” Quentin murmured.

“I have my people on that already,” the sheriff said. “We’ll expand the search, though.”

Several chairs squawked as their occupants moved restlessly, and Miranda rose with a rueful smile. “In the meantime, I think we’ve done all we can for today. The B&B is just up the street, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, three blocks up the hill, an easy walk. And you’ve got two good restaurants between here and there, both serving decent food and both keeping reasonable hours.”

“We may decide to take your suggestion and set up a kind of command center at the B&B, assuming it’s okay with the management, and the technical specs allow us to use our laptops and other electronics. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know.”

As the others rose to the accompaniment of creaks and groans, Duncan sighed and said, “I think that’s your best bet. We have some fairly undependable high-speed Internet access here, but Jewel’s place was renovated a couple years back and she installed all the latest tech stuff, including wireless.”

“Sounds good. You know where we are if anything new turns up overnight; otherwise, we’ll see you in the morning.”

Duncan escorted the agents as far as his small bullpen, where one of his part-time deputies, without the sense to even try to look professional, was leaned back in his chair, feet up on his desk, reading a magazine. A second part-timer was staring intently at her computer monitor.

The two full-time deputies for this shift were out on patrol.

Without bothering to remove his feet or put down his magazine, Dale McMurry said, “Somebody delivered rental SUVs for the agents, Sheriff. I was told to say they’re parked out front, keys under the mats.”

Before Duncan could think too much about “rental” vehicles in a town that didn’t boast a rental company or ask any questions about who had delivered said vehicles, Miranda said pleasantly, “We’ll just leave them out front tonight, if they won’t be a bother parked there.”

“No, no bother. Lock ‘em up, but they shouldn’t be disturbed here overnight. See you folks in the morning.”

As the doors closed behind the agents, McMurry said plaintively, “I thought feds always wore them jackets with FBI written in huge letters on the back.”

Bobbie Silvers said, “You watch too much TV. This is a small town, and they don’t want to stand out any more than they have to.”

I’m going to lose her to some outfit in a much larger town . Duncan sighed and said to her, “Any luck?”

“No, sorry, Sheriff. I’ve been through all the calls we’ve gotten in the last month—four times now, just to be sure I didn’t miss anything—and not a single still-missing person is in here.”

“Okay. Reach out to the surrounding counties, at least a hundred-mile-radius. Sheriff’s departments, police departments, highway patrol. And the state bureau too. Find out who’s on their missing-persons list and whether any of the names might even possibly match up with our victims.”

“Will do, Sheriff.”

“Neil, you go on home and get some rest,” Duncan told his chief deputy. “I’ll need you back here first thing tomorrow.”

“Right.”

McMurry said, “What about me?”

Duncan stared at him. “You get your feet off the desk, Dale. And then I want you to find some WD-40 and go into the conference room and oil every one of those goddamn chairs.”

BJ watched.

The building was old, its bricks musty and, on this northern side that would be shadowed even in daylight, smelling faintly of damp. But in the little-used alleyway between it and the building beside it, he was surrounded by darkness and felt sheltered.

Protected.

He watched them as he’d learned long ago to watch a dog whose temperament he was uncertain of, almost from the corner of his eye rather than directly. He glanced at them and then away, allowed his gaze to roam among them without lingering, avoiding a stare that one or more of them would likely sense.

They were special, and he had to be careful; he had learned that much today.

But it was surprising how much one could see only in glances.

Five of them, wearing casual clothing designed to help them blend in or, at the very least, not stand out as feds. Two men, three women. Mostly, he judged, in their thirties, people who moved with the ease of those comfortable inside their trained and active bodies. Strolling along the sidewalk, moving slowly up the hill toward the B&B where he knew they would be staying, at least for tonight.

They had stopped at one of the two restaurants along the way from the sheriff’s department, sitting at one table near the front window as they ate and talked among themselves. He had seen a few smiles but judged that they had not engaged in a great deal of meaningless social conversation.

He wondered if, in another place or time, they would be friends.

Still, there was a look about them he recognized. Like soldiers in the same battle unit or cops walking the same beat, they were all focused on the same things, the same tasks and information. And they carried that air about them no matter how relaxed they might appear, that inner wariness and tension, that alertness to their surroundings.

To danger.

The slightly taller of the two men was the least successful at hiding the coiled spring of readiness inside him. Every move he made—even simply walking with a cat-footed lightness—gave it away. He had good instincts, very good instincts. And quite probably more than mere instincts.

Otherwise he never would have been able to save the Templeton woman’s life.

“Take her out if you get the chance,”

More than one chance had come and gone. But there would doubtless be another.

He watched them walking away from him. It was a short street, all things considered, with short small-town blocks that city blocks would have sneered at, and he was able to watch the group, without leaving the shelter of his alley, all the way to the B&B.

An easy building to get inside. He had, the previous night, and had taken the time to look around, so he was completely familiar with the layout. Just in case.

He watched them go up the steps to the wide front porch and linger momentarily in the welcoming light at the door before being invited inside. The door closed behind them, and they passed from his view.

Just about to turn and go on to other chores scheduled for tonight, he was halted by a glimpse of movement in the shadows of the sidewalk near the B&B. He had to narrow his gaze and concentrate intensely, but within seconds he made out the shape of another watcher flitting along in the dark and quiet wake of the feds.

He wasn’t sure if the other watcher was a man or a woman; whoever it was clung to the shadows as though a part of them, giving away little of any other substance or shape. And when that moving shadow settled down at last, it was in one corner of the small front yard the B&B boasted, among tall shrubbery and inside the wrought-iron fence that was more decorative than protective.

A car drove quietly past, and the watcher noted that the other one was so completely hidden by the shrubbery or by skill that even the passing headlights failed to expose him—or her.

He hesitated a moment longer than he should have, then withdrew slowly back through the alley to where he had parked his own car, mentally adding another player to the game. An unknown player, with unknown motives.

Interesting…

It was nearly ten o’clock that evening when Miranda stepped from her room out onto the second-floor balcony that wrapped three sides of the Victorian-era building. She wasn’t yet dressed for bed, which was a good thing since the temperature hovered just a few degrees above freezing. Comfortable in her sweater and jeans, she leaned against the high railing and looked up and down the very quiet, softly lit Main Street of Serenade.