BATON ROUGE Read online

  “Maybe they weren’t drugged at all,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe the perp just got the drop on them, appeared in the doorway with a gun pointed at Marjorie, making it impossible for Jackson to take a chance at grabbing his own gun.”

  “Maybe,” he replied absently. “Let me take a look in the master bath to see if there’s anything there and then let’s get out of here.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom and Georgina felt his pain, his worry for his friend resonating in her heart. He’d been given a huge job, made all the more important because his good friend was now one of the missing.

  The Gilmer case had given him nightmares and thrown him into a black hole that she feared he would never climb out of. If he was unsuccessful on this case, she feared it would completely and utterly destroy him.

  * * *

  “IT’S SIX-THIRTY, you want to stop by Nettie’s and grab something to eat and talk about all the things we don’t know about this case?” he asked Georgina when they were back in the car and headed away from Jackson’s place. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten anything today except a bagel early this morning.”

  She hesitated only a moment before replying. “Sure, Nettie’s sounds like a plan. Besides, if I say no, you probably won’t eat anything tonight.”

  He smiled tightly. “I always did hate to eat alone.”

  The restaurant was a favorite place for the FBI agents to grab meals as it was only a block away from the building where they all worked. The prices were reasonable, the portions generous and the food was delicious.

  He tried to fight against the discouragement that attempted to work its way into his psyche. He’d hoped to find something at Jackson’s place, but given the fact that the other two crime scenes had yielded nothing in the way of clues, he shouldn’t be surprised that nothing had been found there, either.

  Reminding himself that he’d had the case less than twenty-four hours, he wanted to eat and then take the files he had on the previous cases home to study them all again.

  Before they’d all left the office, he’d told the team to be in the war room at seven the next morning, even though it was Saturday. Weekends and holidays would have no meaning at all until this case was solved.

  The fact that nobody from the team had contacted him while he and Georgina had been gone meant none of them had anything to report. Hopefully by morning that would change.

  They remained silent on the rest of the drive to the restaurant. He knew it was probably a mistake partnering himself with Georgina, given their history. He also knew how bright, how dedicated she was to the job, and that because of her knowledge of him and his habits, she’d make the perfect partner.

  He pulled into the crowded parking lot. Nettie’s on a Friday night was busy, but he hoped that he and Georgina could grab a booth in the back where they could talk in relative privacy.

  Nettie’s had an identity issue. While the food was more along the lines of home cooking, the interior was dim, with candles lit at each table as if it was pretending to be a fine-dining place.

  Nettie greeted them at the door with a wide smile. “Two of my favorite agents,” she said. She was a testament to the good food she served. Short and wide with brassy red hair, it was rumored that she’d once scared away a young would-be thief by wielding a large wooden spoon and threatening to spank his ass clean off his body with it.

  As Alexander had hoped, she led them to a booth in the back of the restaurant where the noise of the other diners was less audible and he and Georgina would be able to talk without shouting.

  The moment they slid into the booth across from each other with the candlelight glowing on Georgina’s face, a sense of déjà vu struck him and brought with it a sense of loss he’d never quite recovered from.

  They’d eaten out often during the early days of their marriage in places where candlelight had bathed her beauty in a golden glow. At those times her eyes had glimmered with a love that had showered him with warmth.

  Now that glimmer was gone and in its place was the pleasant but focused gaze of professionalism. As it should be, he reminded himself.

  The waitress arrived with menus and to take drink orders. Georgina went with a Cobb salad while he ordered a steak and baked potato. They each ordered a glass of wine.

  “This is going to be a tough one,” Georgina said. “FBI agents in two different locations haven’t come up with any clues to help apprehend or identify a suspect.”

  “True, but we possibly have something they didn’t have,” he replied.

  “The note.”

  “Exactly. If it’s the real deal, then we have the first communication from the unsub and I’m hoping it won’t be the last.”

  She unfurled the cloth napkin to reveal her silverware and placed the napkin in her lap as the waitress arrived with their wine. “I don’t want to be negative, but you know it’s possible that note is from some crackpot, or that single note will be all we get from him,” she replied once the waitress had left the table.

  “I know, but I’ve got a gut feeling that this guy is the real deal and at a place where he wants to crow about his victories.”

  She smiled. “Rumor has it that your gut is rarely wrong. It will be interesting to see if he makes any more contact with us.”

  They sipped their wine, falling into a silence that he’d often experienced when married to Georgina. She’d never been good at small talk, as if afraid she might somehow give away a piece of herself she could never get back.

  “How’s life treating you?” he asked, perversely forcing the small talk issue while they waited for their meals to be delivered.

  “Fine. I spend most of my time at work, which is how I like it.”

  “Are you seeing anyone?”

  She raised one of her dark eyebrows wryly. “I don’t have time to see anyone, and in any case I’m not looking for a relationship. What about you?”

  He shook his head. “There’s nobody in my life. Like you, I work so much it’s hard to even think about starting a relationship with anyone.”

  He didn’t say it aloud, but the truth was that the woman across the table from him had burned him so badly he had no interest in getting close to the fire ever again.

  “I have a feeling we’re all going to be putting in a lot of hours with this one,” she said, deftly turning the subject back to work issues.

  “I can’t help but think that somehow there’s a connection between the victims...the FBI agents who were taken. It has to be a connection beyond the fact that they were FBI agents—perhaps their specific expertise—otherwise why take Sam Connelly from Bachelor Moon? Why go all the way to Missouri to snatch Agent Amberly Caldwell and then come back here to take Jackson?”

  “So, you believe the people who were taken with the agents weren’t just collateral damage?” she asked.

  The conversation halted as the waitress appeared with their dinners. Alexander waited until she’d moved away once again and then replied, “They could be some sort of leverage. There’s no better way to get a man to talk than to threaten his wife or his child.”

  “But, Sam was a retired agent. He hadn’t worked actively as an agent for some time,” Georgina reminded him.

  “True, but he left the agency with the reputation of being one of the best profilers in the country.”

  Georgina took a bite of her salad, a tiny frown of concentration dancing across her forehead. “Is it possible that somehow Sam, Jackson and Amberly all worked a case together?”

  “Sam and Jackson might have worked together in the past, but I can’t imagine how Amberly figures in. She wouldn’t have been a part of any investigations that Sam and Jackson might have worked here in Louisiana.”

  “Even peripherally?”

  He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I don’t know. That’s
definitely something we should check out. We need to find out about any cases Sam and Jackson might have worked together and how, if at all, Amberly might figure in.”

  “Maybe Nicholas and Frank will have something for us tomorrow morning,” she said.

  “The sooner the better,” he replied.

  They fell quiet as they focused on their meals. Alexander found himself remembering all the silences that had filled the two years of their marriage.

  For the first six months or so, Alexander hadn’t noticed it. Captivated by her passion, eager to share who he was as a man, what he wanted for their future, he’d talked enough for both of them. He’d been crazy in love with her and thought she’d felt the same.

  It was only after she’d left that he realized the marriage had been a one-sided disaster. They were great in bed, they could talk late into the night about the cases they were working on, but when the conversation turned personal she grew silent.

  He knew her parents were alive and that she had two older sisters, but she was estranged from all of them. She never told him what had caused the estrangement, in fact had told him she rarely thought about her family.

  She knew everything about his childhood, but he knew nothing about hers. She’d been adept at changing the subject when the conversation got too personal and he’d been too crazy about her to mind.

  When he’d decided to partner with her on this case, he’d thought he was choosing her because he knew her work ethic matched his own and he believed she was one of the brightest agents on the team.

  Now, as he gazed at her across the candlelit table, he wondered if there wasn’t more to his decision. Perhaps he not only wanted her by his side to help in the investigation, but maybe he was also hoping that by spending more time with her, he would finally unlock the mystery of Georgina.

  Chapter Three

  Georgina awoke the next morning just after five-thirty, her mind already whirling with the horror of the nightmare that had plagued her for years.

  The dream was always the same. She was in a dark, small space, her stomach growling with hunger as the scent of food drifted in the air. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape the dark place except by awakening.

  Never one to linger in bed, by the time six o’clock arrived she was showered and dressed and in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to quit brewing.

  She had thirty minutes to relax until she’d have to leave to get to the FBI offices by seven. Minutes later she sat at her table with a cup of the fresh brew in hand. As she played over the events of the day before, the last thing she could find was any kind of relaxation.

  Already she felt tension riding her shoulders, a knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. It was bad enough that they had a complicated case where they didn’t even know if the kidnapped victims were dead or alive.

  As the only woman on the task force, she felt extreme pressure to overachieve, to prove herself to be the best that she could be.

  It didn’t help that Alexander had chosen to partner up with her. He reminded her of her biggest failure, not as an agent, but as a woman. She couldn’t imagine why he would make the choice he did when he could have partnered her with any other member of the task force.

  She sipped her coffee and stared out the window to the tiny fenced-in backyard. She had bought this small house three months after her divorce. It had been a bargain buy, as the place had been on the market for two years.

  The Realtor who had sold it to her had explained that the small size of the two-bedroom house made it unappealing to any couple planning for a family or any family looking for a home.

  It was perfect for Georgina, who knew there would never be a man in her life again, who knew there would never be any children. The spare bedroom was now an office, and she’d done little to decorate other than buying utilitarian furniture and hanging a couple of cheap landscape pictures on the walls.

  She took another drink of her coffee and thought of the seven missing people and the note that had been sent to headquarters. If it was real, then it held a hint of crowing, of an ego that needed to be heard.

  She could only hope that the ego needed constant feeding and the perp would maintain contact. It was often through some sort of communication that they got clues and found leads to follow in difficult cases.

  At exactly six-thirty she left her small house and headed into work. Although it was only a fifteen-minute drive, she’d rather be a little early than late.

  As she drove, she carefully kept her thoughts away from Alex. She had no idea how the past two years might have changed him and didn’t want to remember the man he’d been when she’d walked out on him.

  She’d have to walk a fine line to remain strictly on a partner level and not allow herself to fall into anything personal. She couldn’t emotionally afford to make a second mistake where he was concerned.

  The Baton Rouge FBI field office was located in an unassuming two-story building nestled between a dry cleaning store and a bank. She drove around to the back of the building where there was a large parking lot and pulled into one of the empty spaces. She grabbed the file folder that had kept her up reading reports and looking at photos far too late the night before, and then left her car.

  The sultry morning air pressed oppressively against her chest. Or was it just the anxiety of the case and the uncertainty of working closely with her ex-husband?

  The bottom floor of the building was dedicated to computer rooms and bookkeeping; the basement held storage and a cafeteria. It was on the second floor that agents actively worked at their own desks.

  This morning she passed by her neat and tidy desk to head down the hallway to the conference room that now housed the task force. The scent of fresh coffee greeted her as she stepped into the room, finding Alex and Nicholas Cutter already there.

  A large coffeepot had been set up on a side table, along with several boxes of doughnuts. The cliché of law enforcement at all levels. But Georgina knew as well as anyone that the sugar rush of a doughnut and the caffeine of a hot cup of coffee often provided the energy needed to get through long hours.

  She smiled at the two men as she entered and sat in the same chair she’d sat in the day before. While Nicholas looked energized and eager, Alex’s face wore the faint lines of fatigue. Like her, he’d probably been up most of the night going over the files of the previous kidnappings.

  Before either of the two men had a chance to greet her, other members of the team began to arrive and soon the room was full. Once they’d all found seats, Alex eyed them with a weary resignation. “How many of you saw the news this morning that broke the story that a seven-man, one-woman task force had been formed to investigate the disappearances of FBI agents?”

  “I saw it and I’d like to know who leaked it,” Frank said irritably. “We hadn’t had much publicity about these disappearances until now.”

  “At least it didn’t list our names,” Jeff said.

  “You know any reporter worth his salt will have our names by the end of the day,” Nicholas added.

  “If I find out anyone in this room leaked anything to the press, I’ll have your job.” Alex’s voice didn’t hold a threat, but rather held a determined promise. “Now, let’s get to the updates.”

  The first came from Tim and Jeff, who had spent the day before with both paper maps and working on the internet to locate vacant buildings that were isolated enough for seven people to be held captive.

  “There’s dozens of places,” Tim said. “There are abandoned warehouses and old factories all over the surrounding areas and within the city.”

  “We’re making a list of addresses and working through city records to find out owner names,” Jeff said. “But it’s going to take at least a week or two for us to get them all and even then there might be some places that slip through the cracks.
”

  “I’ll check with Director Miller and see if we can get some help from the local authorities to physically check out the places on the list you’re compiling,” Alexander said.

  It wasn’t unusual for the FBI to occasionally work with the Baton Rouge Police Department when it came to a job too big for the agents to handle alone. The police would be able to cruise by the buildings and check them out in person, lightening the manpower needed for the actual footwork of the investigative end of things for the FBI.

  Despite the tired lines that creased his forehead and made the small wrinkles around his eyes look deeper, Georgina couldn’t help but notice that Alex hadn’t changed much in the two years they’d been apart. His shoulders were just as broad, his stomach as flat and the air of command that emanated from him came naturally.

  He was born to lead, and if it hadn’t been for the Gilmer case, he would have led most of the difficult investigations that had come along in the past couple of years. She knew he’d been asked to be lead in other cases but had declined, indicating a lack of faith in himself. She was glad he’d finally decided to step up once again.

  There was no question that if she allowed it, she would be attracted to him again. All the qualities that she’d fallen in love with in the first place he still possessed. But she couldn’t allow it and besides, he’d given no indication that he wanted it.

  Although there had been little change in him physically in the last two years, she had no idea what changes had occurred on the inside. The one thing she knew for sure was that nothing had changed her. She’d been wrong for him then and she’d be wrong for him again.

  She tightened her fingers around the pen she held, telling herself it was vital she maintain her objectivity where he was concerned. Alex was nothing more than her partner, her immediate boss, and that’s the way it would stay for as long as they knew each other.

  When Jeff and Tim had finished their report, Alex moved on to Nicholas and Frank. “We’ve got nothing,” Frank said, his brown eyes dark with frustration. “We went through social media, used Google on all the names of the missing people, used Google on the FBI agents, and nothing popped up to tie them together other than the fact that they are all agents.”