Insinuations Read online

  “I thought you went home early last night,” he greeted her, his tone a mix of curiosity and concern. In all the years she’d known him, Derek had never been patronizing. Jordan hoped he wouldn’t start.

  “TJ Pratt, spent all his life under this address except for when he was convicted for armed robbery and aggravated assault and did time. Shared a cell with Hobbs for about eighteen months, then was released on parole. Hobbs escaped two months later.”

  “I see you don’t want me to comment on your fashionable outfit.”

  “The sun is hurting my eyes,” she said wryly.

  “I bet. Okay, let’s do this.”

  Pratt opened the door on the fourth or fifth knock, seeming neither surprised nor fazed to find the police at his doorstep. As she could have easily predicted, he gave Jordan a thorough once over, with just a quick glance at Derek.

  “I expected you earlier,” he said. “Come on in. I have nothing to hide.”

  Jordan wrinkled her nose at the smell of cigarettes and booze, her stomach doing a slight flip. She noticed today’s newspaper on a stained folding table. Next to it sat a can of beer and an overflowing ashtray. Just a few minutes, she reminded herself. They’d be out of here in no time.

  “I suppose you heard about your former cell mate?” Jordan asked, still looking around the confined space. Pratt didn’t offer them a seat, but she wouldn’t have sat on any surface in here anyway.

  “Hobbs made a run for it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sure. I watch the news, you know. Next you’re going to ask me if I’ve seen him.”

  “Have you?” Derek cut in.

  Hobbs shrugged. “You can imagine my P.O. wouldn’t be too happy about it, and I really want him to be happy. If Hobbs showed up here, I’d tell him to get the fuck away from me. I believe he’s on his way to Mexico.”

  “Did he ever mention that to you while your were cell mates? Mexico, or his escape plans?” She finally made herself meet his gaze.

  “Lady, I don’t know what you think it’s like on the inside, but everyone has those plans. Most of us just sit it out. I guess he wasn’t that patient.”

  “So did he or didn’t he?”

  Whatever he deducted from her impatient tone, it made him grin. Pratt was a far cry from the charming, intelligent predator Darby, but they had something in common all the same. The realization triggered a flight response. Jordan had enough therapy sessions under her belt to recognize it as such and not give in to the impulse to shrink away and run, but she had already shown too much.

  “He might have mentioned Mexico a couple of times. See, this is the reason why you don’t listen to stuff like that. The police think you’re a witness. Guys like him think you told on them, and they come back to slit your throat. I don’t know anything, so you can just as well stop wasting your time, and mine.”

  “You’re busy with what?” Derek asked.

  “Didn’t you listen? I’m a good guy these days, looking for a job.” He picked up the newspaper and opened it. Indeed, there were some ads circled in the job section. Another long look to Jordan. “You better find this guy soon. He’s one sick son of a bitch, gets off on pain.”

  “Really? I thought you didn’t listen to him all that much?”

  “Just a fair warning, for old times’ sake.” His grin widened. “You watch yourself around Hobbs. He doesn’t like chicks who talk back to him.”

  “Yeah well, thanks for that. If he tries to contact you, let us know.”

  She put a card on the table, careful not the touch the surface. Pratt had noticed, amused at her behavior. He picked up the card and regarded it.

  “Homicide? That’s…something.”

  “Hobbs already injured two people during his escape, one of them died. We want to make sure he won’t have the chance to take more lives.” Jordan knew that was not the answer he’d been hoping for. Some things never changed. She wouldn’t let him get to her.

  “Hey, I get you, this is bad. I never killed anyone.”

  “Good for you,” she said, and to Derek, “Come on, let’s go.”

  Derek waited until they were back in the car before he said, “What the hell was that all about?”

  “Pratt used to hang out with my parents,” Jordan said with a shrug. She could tell from the baffled look Derek gave her that he didn’t quite follow.

  “Somehow I have trouble seeing that.”

  “A different set of parents,” she explained, thinking that the end of the day couldn’t come soon enough. “My biological ones, to be correct. When I was twelve, Child Protective Services finally realized they weren’t too great to be around, so I ended up in the system and got lucky eventually. No, Mom and Dad don’t have that kind of friends.” She laughed wryly. Derek was right. The thought that the kind-hearted quiet people that became her foster parents could be in any way associated to Pratt, was absurd. Derek had met them in the hospital in the aftermath of a time Jordan was trying hard to forget. She hadn’t called them in a while either.

  However, Derek was suspiciously silent now, probably going over Pratt’s rap sheet in his mind.

  “Not today, okay?” she said. “I think I’ve revealed enough for the past few days.”

  At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer to that, but he simply took his time to weigh his words.

  “You don’t have to be on this case. In fact, you shouldn’t. Everyone will understand. It’s not your fault that the moment you come back, Hobbs escapes and he turns out to have some sort of connection with someone from your past.”

  Jordan snorted. “He’s not from my past. I haven’t spoken to my biological parents in over twenty years, and that’s just fine with me. I’m fine.”

  She might not be fine after work, or in the general sense, but Jordan was certain about one thing. She could do her job, and bring Hobbs back behind bars. That was all that counted, in her humble opinion.

  * * * *

  Jordan took a deep breath, content with the sensations, the scent of a familiar perfume, warm skin against hers, a strand of hair tickling her cheek. Ellie. She had missed her so much. She’d been fooling herself, thinking she could stay away from her. Her noble reasons didn’t stand the test of reality anyway. Ellie was a grown woman, and she knew what she was getting herself into, more than Jordan wished she would. The same man, who had abducted Jordan, had attacked her one night on her way home, with one difference—Ellie had gotten away. Sooner, anyway.

  There was an abrupt change, turning the sweet flowery scent to something coppery, her hand touching liquid. When her eyes snapped open, instead of Ellie, she saw him, grinning at her as he shook his head.

  “My, Jordan, did you really think it would be this easy?”

  Jordan jolted awake, spending a few minutes on the verge of hyperventilating before the paralyzing effect of the nightmare vanished and she could breathe properly again. Certain she wouldn’t get any more sleep, she got up and walked into her kitchen where she switched on the light above the stove. She didn’t mind the silence or relative darkness that came with living outside of the city.

  Darkness and silence didn’t scare her. The monsters were lurking in her mind.

  You must know you were my favorite. He’d try to get to her even after his arrest, and obviously, it still worked perfectly. Jordan sighed and turned on the faucet, pouring herself a glass of ice cold water. The smell and taste of blood lingered.

  She wasn’t fine.

  There was no way in hell she’d call Bethany and rip even more old wounds open. Jordan didn’t mind the games Bethany had played to try and lure Darby out of hiding. Brilliant minds often walked a fine line, and what she had done was risky, but not even completely outside the book. This was something Jordan understood. To get a women-hating creep off the streets, the purpose justified almost every means. It had been bad luck for Jordan that she got caught in the crossfire, and Darby had fooled her too.

  Her fingers clenched around the edge of the sink as she struggled to remain i
n the present, not give in to the real sensations of nausea that came with the memory. Going back to the trailer park and talking to Pratt had shaken her like she knew it would, but she couldn’t afford to let on too much. Her job, even considering the triggers that came with it, kept her sane. She needed sane, because otherwise, she might do something ill-considered, irreversible one day.

  Jordan considered going in right this moment, until she remembered that this was the first of her two days off. She had craved time to herself, but all of a sudden, the prospect looked terrifying.

  Once upon a time, she’d had a mostly functioning set of coping strategies, not all of them terribly functional, but they worked. At least, they had worked so far, but both intimacy and a few relaxing dreams came with the potential loss of control…She hadn’t lived with a psychiatrist for nothing. She knew her patterns. At this point, all Jordan wanted was for the noise to stop, and that was something she hadn’t achieved even in the stillness of her home.

  She didn’t know how.

  Chapter Two

  “So, what’s new with you?” Jensen Baker asked when they drove back to the station.

  Ellie wasn’t sure whether she appreciated her partner’s attempt at small talk. She was tired after a double shift, and there wasn’t much she could tell him anyway. Jensen, however, had great news. He and his girlfriend Kate were getting married. Jensen, Kate and Ellie had all graduated from the academy the same year, and they got to work together every now and then. She wondered what had happened—it seemed like she’d blinked, and all of her friends were getting married. Libby Marshall had dated a detective for some time now, Kate and Jensen were together. Ellie had thrown herself head over heels into an affair with gorgeous, but troubled—not to mention, taken—Jordan Carpenter. While it was none of Jensen’s business, the whole department already knew more than she ever cared to reveal to her colleagues. Gossip traveled fast, and Dr. Bethany Roberts, the scorned woman in this scenario, wasn’t known for keeping a low profile either.

  Ellie hoped to take the detective’s exam the next year, but that wasn’t news either. She still needed a roommate to pay for the higher rent since her ex had moved out months ago, but as someone newly engaged, he sure couldn’t help with that.

  “Nothing, really.” There had been a moment when Ellie had seriously considered asking Jordan if she wanted to move in with her, become roommates, with or without benefits, her choice. That was before she learned Jordan had bought a house, something she had kept from both her longtime girlfriend and her lover (though Ellie might overestimate herself using that term). It wasn’t easy to understand Jordan Carpenter. It had been too damn easy to fall for her.

  Presently, Ellie had to decide whether she should hang on, or move on—which was hard to do when they weren’t talking, and she knew Jordan was still working through the recent trauma of having been abducted by a serial killer.

  Ellie shuddered. She’d seen the basement. It didn’t take much to put together the clues. After her own attack, Ellie had craved and sought a human connection, something to make her feel alive. As for Jordan, it seemed like she needed distance and solitude instead. No, there was nothing new.

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Jensen commented, and Ellie had to agree. She was grateful he didn’t try to break the surface of small talk too much. It was different between women. Kate might have asked questions Ellie wasn’t able to answer.

  “Yeah.” She didn’t know what else to say. Lucky for her—not so much the person involved—the message from dispatch interrupted their stalling conversation. A likely disoriented woman had been spotted walking on the highway, endangering herself and drivers. There had already been a couple of minor accidents. They were close. Ellie answered the call, and they were on their way.

  Two ambulances and another squad car had arrived before them. Paramedics were already attending to a woman in her twenties who had been aimlessly staggering into traffic. Together with the other officers, they managed to block off a stretch of the highway and close one lane. Ellie approached the woman, who was dressed for a casual office workday, carefully.

  “Miss? Let’s get you off the street. It’s too dangerous.”

  The terror in the woman’s gaze was unmistakable, but she let Ellie lead her away and to the ambulance. Holding her arm, Ellie could feel her shaking hard.

  “He took my car,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

  Ellie took in the red ligature marks around her wrists and the bruise on the side of her face, and thought the car was probably not the worst loss the woman had suffered today. You went through your life most days unaware of the bad things that could happen—until they happened to you, or someone you cared about.

  “Can you tell me your name, and what happened?” she asked, keeping her voice soft and reassuring. The anger washing through her wouldn’t help the woman, or anyone, for that matter, although she couldn’t deny it was there, or where it came from.

  “Marley Gordon,” the woman said, her voice still barely above a whisper. “I was at the organic supermarket, in the parking lot. He pulled a gun on me and forced me to drive. I was so scared!”

  “I can imagine,” Ellie said, not simply to reassure Marley Gordon, but because she could. “You’re safe now. I’m going to need the license plate of your car so we can find him.”

  “Okay. He…he took my purse, with everything in it. Please find him.”

  “I’ll take care of this,” Jensen promised after Marley had recited the numbers and letters. “You go to the hospital with her?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “I need to call my husband…oh my God…who’s going to get the children from daycare?” Overwhelmed with questions, Marley started to cry.

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Gordon. We’ll go to the hospital now, and we’ll notify your husband as well.” Ellie climbed into the back of the ambulance with the paramedic, a tall blonde woman. She continued, “Could you describe the man some more, anything you remember, hair color, clothes, anything specific?”

  “I was so scared,” Marley repeated, clearly close to the end of her line. The paramedic’s expression was stormy, but she didn’t comment on Ellie’s line of questioning, aware that it was necessary.

  “I know.” Ellie tried not to think of the moment she had woken in the hospital, her own colleagues eager to question her about the man who had attacked her on her way home.

  “He had…brown hair, I guess. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. Fifties maybe. He looked…rugged.”

  “Did he ever tell you his name, or where he wanted to go?”

  “No, but his face looked familiar somehow. I don’t know. Maybe I saw him on TV somewhere. Is that possible?”

  Ellie had formed a suspicion. Could it be too much of a coincidence? The description Gordon gave was vague, but it fit the man whose spectacular prison escape had made headlines almost a week ago. Phil Hobbs. Jordan and her partner Derek Henderson had joined roll call to inform the uniformed officers about the situation, but the felon hadn’t resurfaced since then. If he had taken Gordon’s car, it meant he was still in the area.

  “I believe so,” she said, troubled. Hobbs had injured two people during his escape, one guard still in critical condition the other one dead. All things considered, Gordon was lucky. “Excuse me. I have to make a call.”

  When she detailed her suspicion to Sergeant Bristol, he told her to go to the hospital with Gordon.

  Ellie had expected that a detective on Hobbs’ case would meet her there. Since this was an ‘all hands on deck’ effort, she was still surprised and a bit nervous when she realized who waited for her outside the ER. Stay professional.

  “He tied her up in the car, and when she asked him not to kill her, he hit her. Eventually though, he let her out on the side of the road. When she told me he looked familiar, I thought this might not be a coincidence.”

  “Good call,” Jordan said. In spite of the dire situation, Ellie felt warmed by her praise. She
was still somewhat startled to see Jordan here, though she shouldn’t have been. It was Jordan’s first case after the abduction. Of course she’d have Derek call her if there was any development, even on her off day.

  Not that Ellie heard a lot from Jordan herself lately. She listened carefully to anything colleagues said in the department, in and in between the lines. She felt a bit like a stalker that way, but she wasn’t willing to let go yet.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Let’s hope this will be over soon.”

  “Yeah.” Jordan seemed to want to add something to that, and Ellie held her breath, as if anything other than catching a violent felon could count right now. Then her cell phone rang, and she excused herself.

  Ellie watched her from a few feet away, mixed emotion tearing her into every which direction. She, like Jordan, saw the job as #1 priority. Neither of them would cave because of road blocks along the way—but there was something else between them harder to define. The question whether they still had a chance, or ever had one to begin with, was weighing on her mind. Ellie wanted no detours in the career she had planned for a long time. She wanted Jordan. It was uncertain whether she could have it all.

  “Hobbs was caught on the surveillance camera of a gas station,” Jordan, who had finished the call, told her. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait…Shouldn’t I go back to the station, report to—”

  “You report to me for now,” Jordan said curtly. “It’s cleared with Sergeant Bristol.”

  “Oh. Okay then.”

  Jordan studied her for a moment, and sighed, before she said, “Let’s keep it about the job, okay? I know we should talk, and we will, soon. Now’s not the time.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  Ellie meant it. Jordan was right. Their private story was of little relevance at the moment. That didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed, and at the same time thrilled that Jordan seemed to want to keep that door open. At Marcus’s retirement party, she and Bethany hadn’t left together.

  It was better than nothing.

  * * * *