Thread of Fear
“I’ve got another witness,” Jack said. “Nine-year-old boy. He saw the killer dump the body.”
Fiona closed her eyes and counted to ten mentally.
“I need you to interview this kid for me, get a picture of the guy.”
She wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. He had this way of bulldozing right over her.
Jack’s hand closed over hers. It was big and strong, and she could feel the heat from him move up her arm into every part of her body. But she knew he was using these touches to wear down her resistance. He was a determined investigator—she’d seen that firsthand. He’d do whatever he needed to, including lie and probably fake emotions, in order to solve his case.
And she still didn’t know why this case meant so much to him.
“You drove all the way to Austin to ask me this?”
“I thought I’d have better luck in person.” She stole a glance at him and saw a boyish smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “You have a hard time telling me no.”
Praise for One Last Breath by Laura Griffin
“Enticing…a fun read and a promising career kickoff.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Laura Griffin hits all the right notes…compelling characters, unexpected twists, and a gripping story from the first gasp to the last sigh.”
—Roxanne St. Claire, author of First You Run
Also by Laura Griffin
ONE WRONG STEP
ONE LAST BREATH
And look for
WHISPER OF WARNING
Coming Spring 2009
from Pocket Books
Pocket Star Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Laura Griffin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-7074-5
ISBN-10: 1-4165-7074-8
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
For Lois
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the many people who helped with the research for this book, including Chris Herndon, Phyllis Middleton, and Tracy Pullan. I am particularly grateful to Lois Gibson and the dedicated professionals in the—hopefully, expanding—field of forensic art. Also, thank you to Kevan Lyon and Abby Zidle for their ongoing support and for believing in this story.
And finally, a special thanks to Leonard Folgarait for teaching me to love art, in all its forms.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
******at 11:25 PM shelB joined the room
shelB: ne1 wanna talk?
Justin5: waddup girl
shelB: nothing good
Justin5: been waiting 4u
shelB: who’s in here?
Justin5: just us
shelB: where’s Kylie from NYC
Justin5: dunno why dont u have a picture?
shelB: im getting 1 soon
Justin5: good u sound sexc ru?
shelB: lol
Justin5: seriously
shelB: thx
Justin5: your parents let u stay up this late?
shelB: its just my mom and she doesn’t care
Justin5: wheres your dad
Justin5: ru there?
shelB: he died last year
Justin5: j/k?
shelB: no 4 real
Justin5: how?
shelB: car crash
Justin5: that sux
shelB: my mom said he fell asleep but he was drunk she always lies 2 me
Justin5: that’s so weird
shelB: y?
Justin5: my dad died in a car crash 2 last year
shelB: no way
Justin5: we have so much in common i really want 2 meet u
shelB: i want 2 meet u2
Justin5: where do u live
shelB: mom here GGN!!
Justin5: later then
******at 11:32 PM shelB left the room
CHAPTER 1
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Wednesday, 4:05 P.M.
Fiona Glass was trained to notice faces, but even if she hadn’t been, she would have noticed this one.
The man watching her from across the crowded concourse was a study in contrasts, from his receding hairline to his youthful, ruddy cheeks. His hair was strawberry blond—the same color as Fiona’s—and a smattering of freckles covered the bridge of his once-broken nose.
But it was his eyes that really captured her attention. They were brown and serious and fixed squarely on her.
Fiona halted outside the arrival gate, creating a pileup of deplaning passengers.
“Sorry,” she muttered, tugging her black roll-on bag out of the flow of traffic.
“Miss Glass?”
She glanced into the eyes that had been boring a hole in her just moments before.
“Garrett Sullivan, FBI,” he said.
A special agent. His charcoal suit and forgettable tie should have been her tip-off. Fiona draped her coat over her arm and hitched the strap of her attaché case onto her shoulder so she could shake the hand he’d offered.
“I didn’t know someone was coming to meet me,” she said, pulling her hand back. “I was planning to take a cab.”
The side of his mouth ticked up. “Didn’t want you to get lost.”
“Aren’t we going to the police station?”
“Change of plan.” He commandeered her suitcase and led her into the river of people, creating a path for her in his wake. He wasn’t tall—probably five-nine—but he was bulky in the way of an athlete who had let things slide.
“Any checked bags?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No.”
He obviously wasn’t going to fill her in yet, so Fiona simply followed him through the concourse. Glancing around at all the harried business travelers, she smoothed her French braid and adjusted her lapels. She didn’t like suits, but she wouldn’t dream of wearing anything else to a meeting with police and FBI agents, most of whom would be men. Those occasions called for drab, wrinkle-resistant clothes, which she kept in the carry-on bag that lived in her car. Today’s gray suit was double-breasted and had the added advantage of concealing her figure. She looked tailored. Conservative. Professional.
She looked like Sullivan.
“We’re going to the house,” the agent finally explained. “The media wanted fresh sound bites for five o’clock, so there’s a press conference scheduled at police headquarters in twent
y minutes. Things are quiet at the residence now, and we thought it’d be a good time to get you out there.”
“Okay.” Fiona blew out a breath and mentally adjusted her expectations for the evening. She’d hoped to be thoroughly briefed on the case before she met with the child. She didn’t want to go in unprepared. All she knew about this kid was that he was “highly traumatized,” which could mean anything.
They passed the escalator leading down to ground transportation, and Fiona stopped. “Don’t we—?”
“We’re out here.”
He led her to a roped-off area near a bank of metal detectors and X-ray machines. A line of passengers snaked back and forth, their boarding passes and IDs held out for inspection. A security guard gave Sullivan a crisp nod, then unclipped the nylon strap from the stand and waved them through. Less than a minute later, Fiona stood on the curb beside a white Ford Taurus that had been illegally parked in the passenger-drop-off lane. Sullivan waved at the orange-vested guard patrolling the sidewalk as he opened Fiona’s door.
She slid into the car, discombobulated by the change of plan but grateful to be whisked away from the airport so efficiently. Fiona hated airports. They were inevitably bipolar—filled with people either frantically stressed out or morbidly bored.
She fastened her seat belt and stowed her attaché and coat at her feet. The interior of the Taurus felt warm, meaning Sullivan couldn’t have been waiting long inside the terminal. For some reason that came as a relief. Sullivan slammed her suitcase into the trunk and then opened the driver’s-side door to admit a gust of chilly air. Georgia wasn’t known for its bitter winters, but the entire South was in the midst of a cold snap. Even Austin was expecting snow tonight.
Fiona watched the agent settle in behind the wheel. She placed him at thirty-eight, maybe forty years old.
“Tell me about the case,” she said.
He turned up the heater and pulled out into traffic.
“Shelby Sherwood. Age ten. Last seen by her brother Monday afternoon.”
“And she was taken from her home?”
“Yep. Man came to the front door. Rang the bell, we think.”
So far he was only repeating what Fiona already knew from CNN this morning. She typically avoided news broadcasts, but she’d been surfing for weather updates, and the story had caught her attention. At the time, she hadn’t imagined that a few hours later she’d be abandoning her Survey of Western Art class to rush to the airport.
“Tell me about the witness,” she said.
Sullivan twisted his body around to retrieve something from the backseat, all the while steering the car onto Interstate 85.
“Colter Sherwood. Age six. Was home from school watching Power Rangers in the living room when Shelby answered the door.” He flipped through the file in his lap, taking his eyes off the road and making Fiona’s heart palpitate. “First-grader at Green Meadows Elementary. Same school as his sister.”
Sullivan unclipped something from the manila folder and passed it to Fiona. It was a color copy of Shelby’s school photo, the one that had been all over the television this morning. Shelby’s straight brown hair hung past her shoulders, and she wore a purple and pink striped T-shirt. The photograph made Fiona uneasy. Shelby’s expression wasn’t the carefree smile of a typical ten-year-old girl. Neither was it the sullen look you might expect from a middle-schooler. It was a tense smile, very self-conscious. Fiona studied the girl’s tightly closed lips.
“She has braces?”
Sullivan glanced at her, startled. “How’d you know that?”
“You can tell from the picture. She’s trying to hide them. What’s with the makeup?”
His gaze shifted back to the road. “I noticed that, too. Not exactly age appropriate, huh?”
“For a fifth-grader? I wouldn’t think so. Especially if her fifth grade is part of an elementary school like you said. You guys need to get a photograph of Shelby in braces circulating, pronto.”
“We’re working on it. Apparently Shelby hasn’t smiled for the camera since the braces went on.”
“How old is this picture?”
“September, I think.”
Four months probably wouldn’t make much difference in the girl’s appearance, assuming she hadn’t cut or dyed her hair recently. Still, they needed a photo with the braces.
A horn blared as Sullivan skated across two lanes of traffic. Fiona glanced over her shoulder.
“Are we late for something?”
“I’m trying to get you to the house while the media’s distracted,” he said. “No one knows you’re here, and we’d like to keep it that way.”
“That’s going to be tricky when we release a sketch of the subject tonight.”
“That’s if we release a sketch. We’re not sure the brother saw anything.”
Fiona looked up from the photograph, surprised. “Then why am I here?”
“His beanbag chair was parked in front of the television, not fifteen feet from the front door, but he says he didn’t see the guy.”
“And why don’t you believe him?”
“Because when the mother came home from work, the kid was distraught. Shelby was missing, and all he kept saying was, ‘I didn’t see him.’ That’s pretty much all he’s said for the past two days. No one can get anything else out of him—not his mom, not the cops, not the shrink we brought in. He’s freaked out, so we’re pretty sure he saw something. That’s why we called you.”
Fiona stared down at the school portrait and shook her head.
“What? You don’t think you’re up to it?”
She lifted her gaze, and Sullivan was smiling at her.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “You’re supposed to be magic with traumatized kids. It’s all in your file. You’re the rising star in forensic art.”
Fiona pressed her lips together and looked away. “This is my last case. I’m retiring.”
The car filled with silence as he digested this. She hoped he wouldn’t press her on it. She didn’t want to explain. All she wanted right now was to do her job and get back on a plane.
She glanced over. Sullivan was eyeing her with amused disbelief.
“You want to retire. You’re what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine.”
He tipped his head back and laughed, and Fiona’s spine stiffened. She didn’t expect him to understand. But she didn’t owe him an explanation.
“Who’s home with Colter?” she asked, changing the subject.
His smile disappeared. “The mother and grandmother.”
“And the dad?”
“Deceased. Drunk-driving accident about a year ago.”
“Okay.”
“Mom hasn’t left the house since Monday night,” he continued. “Doesn’t want to be gone in case there’s a call. She’s convinced Shelby has her cell phone with her, although we haven’t confirmed that.”
“And is Mom a suspect?”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Mom’s always a suspect.”
“You know what I mean. Any weird behavior? Boyfriends who don’t check out?”
“So far, no. Everything we’ve got indicates a stranger abduction.”
So Sullivan had leads he wasn’t sharing. Fiona wasn’t surprised. Her job was to provide information, both visual and otherwise, to investigators, but the information tended to flow one way. Most detectives she’d worked with operated on a need-to-know basis, and the artist didn’t need to know anything not directly related to the drawing.
A muffled snippet of Vivaldi emanated from the pile near Fiona’s feet. She dragged her case out from beneath her coat and rummaged around until she found her phone. The caller ID showed a Texas area code, the same one that had popped up on the screen three times today. It would be that detective again. He’d left three brief messages, and she’d been putting off calling him back. She needed to get this over with.
“Fiona Glass,” she said briskly.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Jack Bowman with
the Graingerville Police Department.” He paused, as if he wanted her to say something, maybe offer an excuse for not returning his calls. She didn’t.
“You’re a tough lady to get ahold of.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Bowman?” Fiona’s stomach clenched, dreading what he’d say next. They had a murder. An abduction. A serial rapist on the loose…
“Well, we’ve got a homicide down here, and we’d like to get your help.” His voice sounded relaxed, with a hint of Texas drawl. But Fiona sensed something more from him, a steely determination that told her he was going to be a difficult person to refuse.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Mr. Bowman, but I’m on another case at the moment.” She felt Sullivan’s gaze on her as she said the words. “You’ll have to call someone else.”
Silence. This was so much harder than she’d expected. She held her breath and prayed he wouldn’t tell her about the victim.
“Well, that’s just it, ma’am. There isn’t anyone else.”
She cleared her throat. “You might try calling Nathan Devereaux with the Austin Police Department. I’m sure he can recommend—”
“He recommended you.”
Fiona’s grip tightened on the phone. She’d told Nathan she was retiring. What was he trying to do here?