Into Thin Air Read online

  She must be out of her mind. So the guy was slightly attracted to her. That didn’t mean anything. And even if it did, she’d made it a hard-and-fast rule never to date a fellow cop—especially one she worked with. Cops were notoriously unlucky in the relationship department. Two of them together were usually disastrous. Besides, she definitely didn’t want to be just one on his list of conquests. She’d be right up there with Sergeant Quayar, swooning to accommodate his every request.

  “Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Tony said from his desk as she entered Missing Persons. A few snickers from around the room followed his greeting.

  She walked over to his desk, placed her hands on the top, and leaned over, unsmiling. “You know damn well this schedule is not my choice.”

  As usual, her acidity had no effect on Tony. He merely smiled and said, “You could try being a little nicer to me, since I’m carrying half your caseload.”

  “Which I appreciate. But I could do without the snide comments. Sorry I barked.” She sat down and began shuffling papers. She shouldn’t be so grumpy. After all, she and Austin had gotten some decent breaks today. Then again, it wasn’t work that was getting to her. It was the way she was starting to feel around Austin Lomax.

  He irritated the hell out of her. Sometimes she wanted just to smack him. And yet she’d trusted him enough to tell him about Charlie Northcutt. And she’d let him kiss her. No, worse, she’d kissed him back. Much as she wanted to forget it had ever happened, she couldn’t push it out of her head for long.

  Tony was in her face again, having rolled his chair over to her desk. “Caro, you really okay?” he asked, no longer teasing.

  “Yeah.” She flipped through phone messages, hardly registering what they said. “Hey, Tony, how long you been married?”

  “Nine years. Why?”

  “You happy?”

  “What kind of question is that? Of course I’m happy. I’ve got the greatest wife in the world. You ever seen me even look at another woman? You ever seen me hang around here when I don’t have to?”

  She pointed an accusing finger at him. “What about Christmas?”

  He rolled his eyes. “My in-laws were at my house. That’s different. Why are you asking me this?”

  She shrugged. “No reason.” She forced her mind back to work matters. “I’m on to something hot, Tony. Or it could be, anyway. Austin and I may have found a connection between the Phelps and Arkin cases.”

  “No kidding?” Reflexively he reached into his breast pocket for a cigarette, which he hadn’t carried around for ten months. “Damn. You got any gum?”

  As she rifled through her desk drawer looking for an errant stick of Juicy Fruit, she explained what Ray Seifert had revealed. “Ah, how about a cherry cough drop?”

  Tony pulled a face. “Never mind. So, what’s your next move?”

  “We’re going in tomorrow to ask the doctor at the clinic some questions. Meanwhile, I have a hunch about something. Want to help me follow it up?”

  Tony immediately started rolling his chair backward. “This sounds like more work.”

  “Just a few phone calls. To every police department in the Metroplex.”

  He groaned. “You gotta be kidding.”

  “Look. I’m thinking that if these two girls are connected to that clinic, maybe there are others. Two could be a coincidence. If I could find even one more, we’d know for sure we were barking up the right tree.”

  “This is a shot in the dark, and you know it.”

  “But shots in the dark sometimes pay off. Think about it, Tony. We might be on the verge of breaking up a...a serial kidnapping and baby-thief ring or something.”

  Tony sighed in defeat. “I’ll give you exactly one hour on this wild-goose chase. Then I’m going home.”

  “An hour, that’s great. Now, we’re looking for missing teenage girls, presumed runaways, possibly pregnant. Any names we come up with I’ll take with me tomorrow and try to compare them to a patient list at the clinic.”

  “Okay,” he said dubiously. “You take the Dallas area, I’ll take Fort Worth, and we’ll, uh, meet in Arlington, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Tony. You’re a good friend, you know that?”

  He actually blushed as he turned back to his own desk and began flipping through his Rolodex.

  By the end of their shift at three o’clock, they had barely scratched the surface. There were dozens of little municipalities surrounding Dallas and Fort Worth, and each had its own police department with its own missing persons files, and there was seldom any coordination among them. Still, Caro had come up with one case that fit the profile she was looking for—a college freshman from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, pregnant, mixed-up and missing. Like with Amanda Arkin’s case, authorities had assumed Julie Yates needed some time to herself.

  “And listen to this, Tony,” Caro said excitedly after begging for every detail of the case over the phone. “After she’d been gone a week, her parents received a letter from her saying that she was okay, and that she was staying with friends in Dallas for a while. They thought it was on the level, and the police took her off the critical list. It seems she’s always been kind of unstable. But now that she’s been gone three months and no word, they’re starting to get worried again.”

  Tony’s level gaze met hers. “Just like Amanda Arkin.”

  “Exactly! And—get this—Julie’s roommate said she was talking about getting an abortion.”

  “But why would she come all the way to Dallas? Surely they have similar clinics in Fort Worth.”

  “Maybe she knew someone else who’d gone to that clinic. Or maybe she just wanted to get as far away from friends and family as she could, who knows? Anyway, I’m gonna get a look at those patient files if I have to break in and steal them.”

  Tony gave her a thumbs-up. “Awright, Caro! Sounds like the Terror is back!”

  Her face froze midsmile. “Don’t call me that. I’ll never be like that again.”

  “Like what, an aggressive, no-holds-barred detective?”

  “This work on CAPERS cases is strictly temporary.”

  “For now,” he said with a knowing smile.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that I heard Captain Raines is holding his breath, hoping this little taste of CAPERS will lure you back into his fold. Four years is a long time to punish yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  She grew very still. “You know? You know why I transferred to Missing Persons?”

  He shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

  “Damn that Austin Lomax,” she said, struggling not to shout the words. “How dare he betray a confidence. What’d he do, tell you in the men’s room? Couldn’t he keep it to himself for even a day? That son of a—”

  “Whoa, whoa, Caro. What does Austin have to do with this?”

  “Didn’t he tell you about Charlie Northcutt?”

  “Hell, no. I’ve known about you and Charlie Northcutt since it happened.”

  She felt the breath being sucked out of her lungs. “You’ve known all this time, and you never said anything?”

  Tony looked confused. “I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would.”

  “Does everyone know?”

  “A few people put it together. It didn’t make its way around the police grapevine, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Caro couldn’t believe it. All this time her friends had known about Charlie Northcutt, and they’d all been tiptoeing around her, waiting for her to snap out of it. Well, she wasn’t going to return to CAPERS. Just because she was taking this temporary assignment very seriously didn’t mean she wanted to do it on a permanent basis.

  “You wouldn’t want me to leave Missing Persons, would you?” she asked, trying to make the question sound light. But suddenly his answer was important to her. Tony was just about her best friend. “I mean, how would you survive here without me?”

  “I might g
et some of my own work done,” he quipped. But then his grin faded away, and he chewed on a ragged cuticle a few moments before continuing. “No, seriously, Caro. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, but...well, I’ve put in for a transfer to CAPERS myself.”

  “You’re kidding.” It was all she could think of to say. She’d had her quota of surprises for the day, and she just couldn’t cope with this one.

  “It looks like I might get it, too.”

  “That’s...that’s great, Tony.”

  “You’re not mad? I know I should have told you sooner, but I guess I didn’t want to think too hard about transferring away from you. We’ve worked together a long time.”

  “Of course I’m not mad. It’ll be awful here without you, but that shouldn’t hold you back from something you really want to do.”

  “Thanks. You know, Raines would take you over me in a second.”

  “You don’t have to worry on that account.” She smiled, even though the thought of coming to work every day without Tony sitting at that desk right in front of hers made her chest ache. For four years he’d been her anchor, her reality check, and he always gave her a smile when she needed it most. “You’ll be good in CAPERS, Tony. I hope you get it.”

  He shrugged off her good wishes. “Hey, you coming to my New Year’s Eve party?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t seem to enjoy New Year’s Eve. All I can think about is drunk drivers, and there’s always two or three homicides—”

  “And you want to sit home brooding about it, right? C’mon, Caro, lighten up. We’ll expect you at eight. Fran’s counting on your stuffed mushrooms. And she might even have a man for you to meet.”

  Caro groaned. “Look, I’ll come, but no fix-ups. How many times do I have to tell you guys I’m perfectly happy without a man in my life?” An image of Austin flashed briefly in her mind.

  “Until you can say it and sound convincing,” Tony said with a wink.

  * * *

  It was still dark when Austin pulled up in front of Caro’s duplex the next morning, but a corner street lamp illuminated the area like daylight. Her place looked almost exactly as he’d pictured—a small, undistinguished house with a wide front porch and faded green shutters, a postage-stamp yard that looked as if no one had raked it all year. Not as attractive as its neighbors, the house nonetheless appeared sturdy, practical.

  He opened the door of his Bronco, hoping Caro wasn’t ready yet, that she would come to the door flustered and not quite dressed, so she would be forced to ask him inside while she finished up. He was dying to see what the inside of her house looked like. But before he could even get out of the car, the front door opened and she emerged.

  If the house didn’t surprise him, Caro herself did. She was dressed up, wearing a pencil-thin skirt and a clingy sweater under a wool blazer. Her hair, which she almost always wore in a single braid, was swept into an elegant twist at the crown of her head, with several curly tendrils framing her heart-shaped face. And she was wearing makeup.

  “You look nice,” he couldn’t help saying the moment she was inside the car.

  “Yeah, well, don’t expect to see me in heels too often. I just thought maybe a thin sheen of sophistication might impress the doc. If he thinks we’re on his level, maybe he’ll be more inclined to confide in us.” She shrugged. “It’s probably dumb, but any little edge we can get...”

  “It can’t hurt.” Hell, if this Dr. Wayrick had a hormone anywhere in his body, he would be falling out of his chair to please Caro. Any man would. Austin had always thought she was pretty, but today she was a knockout. And for a few, giddy moments, he’d thought she’d dressed like that for him.

  “Did you get in your three miles this morning?” she asked, tilting her head coquettishly.

  “No. Really, I only run two. And I don’t do it every day. And I don’t always get up at four-thirty.”

  “My, my. Confessions so early in the morning?”

  “My conscience was bothering me. I lied to impress you—very juvenile of me.”

  She didn’t ask why he’d wanted to impress her. If she had, he might have patiently explained that a man always feels the urge to impress the woman he’s interested in. But it was probably just as well. She might laugh in his face. He wouldn’t put it past her.

  “Did you check out those other adopted babies?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Nothing promising. Justin Krill is still the best bet. Any more thoughts on that?”

  “I can’t get a search warrant for Beaman’s records. There’s no concrete evidence that Justin is Marcy’s baby. I mean, not that you didn’t do some good work, but you arrived at his name by process of elimination after an anonymous phone call.”

  “I know. But I still think there’s something to it. I wish that woman would call back.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  They stopped at a diner on Knox Street for breakfast. Predictably, Caro ordered a bran muffin, fresh fruit and hot tea. She didn’t even butter the muffin. Austin had a Denver omelet. Maybe he should think about eating more healthy foods, he mused as he took a bite of hash browns slathered with catsup. He was thirty-five, and that wasn’t all that far from forty. He glanced at Caro’s dry-looking muffin, then shook his head. What was the fun in living to a ripe old age if you had to eat that stuff?

  Caro insisted on paying for her meal, even though this whole breakfast thing had been Austin’s idea. Although he was annoyed, he couldn’t help but admire her independence. He couldn’t stand a clingy woman.

  They’d talked little over breakfast, and they were quiet now as Austin negotiated his way onto Central Expressway. Bumper to bumper at 7:00 a.m. At this rate, Wayrick might beat them to his office.

  “Oh, Austin, I almost forgot,” Caro said suddenly. “Yesterday afternoon I made a few phone calls to other police departments—just following up a hunch, really—and I discovered something kind of intriguing.”

  “Yeah?” He felt a vague sense of unease, and he didn’t know why.

  “There’s another missing pregnant girl, from Fort Worth.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Her case sounds very familiar. She was considering an abortion, she disappeared without a word—and her parents received a letter in her own handwriting assuring them she was fine, just like the letter Russ Arkin received.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Is that all you’re going to say? Don’t you think it’s odd?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “You think this girl ties in? All the way from Fort Worth? C’mon, Caro. I know you’re anxious to get this thing solved, and so am I, but you’re taking shots—”

  “—in the dark. So I’ve been told. It’s worth checking out.”

  “Sure, I guess,” he said noncommittally. “The subpoena only mentions records related to Marcy and Amanda, though, so we can’t legitimately demand any information about this other girl.” He was deliberately giving her lead short shrift, and it took him a few moments to figure out why. It was because he didn’t like her taking initiative on this case. He was the lead detective. She was supposed to be following his orders. Someone had to be in charge or the investigation would bounce all over the place. And yet, did it matter whose idea it was if results were produced? He had to admit, the possibility of tying a third girl into the investigative soup was intriguing.

  He deliberately changed the subject. “A reporter from the ‘Morning News’ caught me walking to my car yesterday. I told him we’d found the father of Marcy’s baby, but I didn’t tell him who it was. But was he satisfied? No way. He had the gall to call me incompetent.”

  “He was just trying to bait you, hoping you’d reveal something really juicy to salve your wounded pride.”

  “It almost worked, too. I’ve never had to deal with the media before.”

  “I did only once, after I’d finished an undercover assignment trying to catch a serial rapist who was stalking women at this apartment complex. We caught the guy when he went fo
r another woman instead of me. It was embarrassing.”

  Austin paused before speaking again. “You think we’ll catch the guy this time?” He immediately wished he’d kept quiet. He was letting his insecurity show, and to the one person he most wanted to think he was competent.

  “As long as we’re making progress, there’s a good chance. I tell myself that, anyway.”

  Austin tried to let her words reassure him, but he knew he wouldn’t take another easy breath until they had a real suspect in both cases.

  The sun was just breaking over the horizon as they arrived at the Women’s Services Clinic, an unprepossessing beige cinderblock structure slightly set back from the road. It was the kind of building Austin normally wouldn’t even notice. He pulled into the bumpy parking lot and wedged the Bronco between the only other two cars in evidence, an old Ford Fiesta and an even older Toyota. Austin guessed that neither belong to the doctor.

  He and Caro walked up to the front door, which was locked. The office hours were listed as eight until five, and it was only seven-forty-five. But by relentlessly banging on the glass, he produced a middle-aged woman—possibly a nurse, possibly an office worker dressed in white to appear reassuringly medical. She was scowling and pointing to her watch, mouthing something. Austin opened his shield and held it against the glass, whereupon the woman’s face immediately went blank. She scurried to the door and opened it.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were police,” she said breathlessly, ushering them inside. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Austin scrutinized the woman, whose name tag identified her as Nancy Frieze. She was nervous, as most ordinary citizens were in the presence of police. Too nervous? “We’d like to see Dr. Wayrick,” Austin said. “We were hoping to catch him early, so we wouldn’t have to interrupt his workday.” His busy, important work.

  Austin felt slightly sick at the thought of what went on under this roof, day in and day out. He looked at the depressing waiting room, the dingy furniture, the peeling linoleum floor, the brightly colored paintings on the wall that tried to make the place more cheerful—and failed miserably. He would have to be dead and buried before he would let any woman carrying his child set foot in a place like this.