Far Gone Read online

  She felt a flutter of panic at her brother’s voice. She’d considered the possibility of her grandparents calling. Dee and Bob read the paper every morning and might stumble across the story out of Austin. She’d planned what she’d say to them, but she hadn’t given her brother a thought.

  “Are you there?”

  “I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “What’s up, Gavin?”

  Now it was his turn for quiet. Andrea waited. Would he bring it up right away or dance around it?

  “I need a favor.”

  The statement startled her.

  “I need some money. Not a lot,” he rushed to add. “And I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

  He didn’t know, then. This wasn’t about her at all—he was hard up for cash. If he was like most college kids, she’d assume he needed it for beer or gas. But Gavin wasn’t like most college kids. He wasn’t like anyone. “You been taking your meds?” she asked.

  “Come on, Andie.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes, all right? Gimme a break. Can you lend me the money?”

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “Two thousand? You said not a lot!”

  “It isn’t a lot.”

  “Are you out of your freaking mind? I’ve got rent due next week. Jesus. What’s it for?”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  She snorted. “How? Last I checked, part-time busboys weren’t making the big bucks.”

  “I quit that job.”

  Andrea thought about the number on the caller ID. Her stomach clenched with anxiety, and for the first time in days, it wasn’t because she’d taken another human life.

  “Gavin . . . whose phone are you on?”

  “A friend’s. Listen, can you lend me the money or not? I’ve got wiring instructions here. You can send it straight to my bank, and I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

  “Where are you? Are you even in Lubbock?”

  Silence.

  “If you dropped out, I swear to God—”

  “I didn’t call you to get the third degree.”

  “You did, didn’t you? You dropped out. Gavin! You’re what? Fifteen credits shy of graduation?”

  “Twelve,” he said tersely. “And I didn’t drop out. I took a leave of absence. For something important. I can go back whenever I want.”

  “Go back now. What the hell are you doing? And what’s this money for?”

  “Damn it, Andie. Why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?”

  “Does Dee know? Don’t you dare tell me you hit her up for money.”

  His silence confirmed her suspicions.

  “They’re on a fixed income! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  She waited, half expecting an answer.

  “Gavin?”

  The call went dead.

  ♦

  Jon North should have been fighting insomnia on a lumpy, too-short mattress, but instead he was speeding toward a crowded honky-tonk on the outskirts of Maverick, Texas, the capital of Middle of Fucking Nowhere.

  All because he trusted Jimmy Torres.

  Jon surveyed the array of cars and pickups as he pulled into the gravel parking lot. Located on a two-lane highway just south of Interstate 10, the Broken Spoke attracted its fair share of ranchers, roughnecks, and long-haul truck drivers looking for a break in the monotony between El Paso and San Antonio.

  Jon swung into a space beside an ancient Chevy and checked his rearview before getting out. The chilly air smelled of dust and diesel fuel. The sky was clear, and a half-moon shone down on the desert landscape. Jon approached the dilapidated bar. Neon beer signs cluttered the windows, and the thin walls seemed to vibrate with every guitar riff.

  Inside was stuffy and loud, just as he remembered. He stepped away from the door and skimmed the crowd. It was the Spoke’s usual array of men, most well on their way to being drunk. The women were of the heavily made-up, bottle-blond variety, with plenty of cleavage on display. They were here to have fun or make a buck, maybe a little of both. Some faces were familiar, some not. He cataloged all of them, swiftly discarding the ones that didn’t line up with his objective tonight.

  Jon turned to the pool room, where a brunette with a cue leaned low over the green felt—a move choreographed to get the attention of the beer-swilling man behind her. Jon peered at her face.

  Right hair color, wrong type.

  He scanned the room again and his gaze landed on a woman seated on a corner bar stool. Slender build, leather jacket, straight dark hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders. She glanced toward the door, noticed him, and gave him a brief look of appraisal before shifting her attention back to the bartender.

  Torres was right. She didn’t fit. Before joining the Bureau, Torres had put in five years on a Houston vice squad, and he was good at reading people. Jon was glad now that he’d hauled himself out of bed.

  The woman lifted a drink to her lips as he edged around the crowd. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was something about her alert expression, her posture. She noticed him again in the mirror behind the liquor bottles, and her gaze narrowed as he walked over and claimed a stool.

  “Hi,” he said.

  No answer. She was about as approachable as a coral snake.

  The female bartender lingered a moment, seeming amused, then slipped away to tend to other customers.

  “Buy you a drink?”

  She looked him over with cool blue eyes. “Thanks, I’m good.”

  “No, really, I insist.” He nodded at her almost-empty glass. “What is that, whiskey?”

  She seemed annoyed by his persistence but not surprised. “Jack and Coke,” she said.

  He caught the bartender’s attention and held up two fingers.

  The brunette shifted to face him, and he noticed the thin gray T-shirt beneath the leather. Faded jeans, snug. Scarred black biker boots. A slight bulge under her jacket told him she was packing. He pulled his gaze back to her face. She wore black eyeliner, and a trio of silver earrings dotted both ears.

  The drinks arrived.

  “I’m Jon, by the way.”

  She watched him over the rim of her glass as she took a sip.

  “You’re new in town,” he said.

  “So are you.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “The accent. Michigan, is it?”

  “Illinois.” He tipped back the drink and tried not to cringe at the sweetness of it.

  She was watching him while keeping a close eye on the mirror behind the bar. Clearly, she was looking for someone tonight, and it wasn’t him. She rested an elbow on the counter and pretended to give him her undivided attention.

  “Illinois is a long way,” she said. “What do you do?”

  “Search for people, mostly. And things.”

  At her questioning look, he expanded.

  “I’m with ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

  The corner of her mouth lifted, and he felt a warm pull he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Think I’ve heard of it,” she said.

  “They move us around a lot. I started out near Canada. Now I’m down here. So what about you? What’re you doing in town?”

  “Passing through.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Wherever.”

  He watched her eyes. Calm. Clear. Not lying, really, but giving nothing away. He was used to evasiveness. Most people out here valued their privacy and didn’t let down their guard with outsiders.

  Which was one reason so many leads in this case had turned to dust.

  She was still watching him. She sipped the whiskey again, and he saw her gaze return to the mirror. A stocky cowboy type steered a woman through the crowd toward the door. Jon recognized him as one of the ranch hands at Lost Creek.

  “I should get going.” In a quick, fluid motion she slid off the stool and scooped up her purse.

  “What’s the hurry? You haven’t fin
ished your drink.”

  “That’s okay.” Her mouth curved into a coy smile. “It’s past my bedtime. I need to get home.”

  He stared down at her, and the smile irked him more than the lie. She dug a crisp twenty from her purse and placed it beneath her glass.

  “Nice talking to you.” Another smile before she turned on her heel.

  He watched her walk away. When she was gone, he slid the twenty into his pocket and replaced it with one from his wallet.

  The bartender filled a few beers and made her way over. She had leathery skin and lines around her mouth that signaled years of hard living under the West Texas sun. Jon had talked to her before but never bothered to introduce himself, and now he regretted it as she cleared away the half-finished Jack and Coke.

  He smiled. “I didn’t catch her name, did you?”

  “Don’t think she threw it.”

  “You seen her in here before?”

  “Nope.” Her tone was clipped, and she darted a glance at the clock. He figured she was jonesing for a cigarette. After a moment, she looked up at him and seemed to give in.

  “She asked about Lost Creek Ranch, same as you did.”

  Jon glanced at the door. He got up from his stool, even though he knew it was pointless to tail her. She’d be looking for it. He didn’t know much about her, but he knew that.

  He left another twenty on the counter and maneuvered through the crowd. He stepped into the parking lot and saw a pair of red taillights fading down the highway.

  He called Torres.

  “You were right, she’s a badge.”

  Curses filled Jon’s ear as he crossed the lot to his pickup. “I knew it!” Torres said. “The DEA’s fucking us again. Did you run the plate on her Cherokee?”

  “I thought you had it.”

  “Yeah, but something’s screwy. Must’ve got it down wrong. I can swing by the motel later, see if it’s there.”

  Jon looked out at the horizon, at the vast, empty desert. No traffic, no houses. Just a twinkle of lights on some distant oil derricks.

  “Don’t bother. She was heading for the interstate.”

  For a moment, Torres said nothing. Then he said, “Well, that’s good, right? Maybe she’s going back where she came from.”

  “Maybe,” Jon said, but he didn’t believe it.

  Jon ended the call and pointed his truck toward Maverick. He checked the dash clock. Ten past midnight. Another day gone and nothing to show for it.

  He trained his gaze on the endless yellow lines. Thirteen days. Less than two weeks left.

  The clock in Jon’s head continued to tick.

  chapter three

  ANDREA SWUNG HER ARMS over her head and gazed up at the clouds. She bent down to touch her toes, did a couple of deep lunges, and set off toward the lake.

  She’d left her music behind so she could relish the sounds of traffic and construction and a city bustling with people. She’d actually missed the noise. She pounded down the sidewalk, passing commuters with umbrellas. She passed bus stops and coffee bars and bike shops with faded pictures of Lance Armstrong still on display. She passed aluminum trailers where the spicy scent of breakfast tacos wafted from the windows. Then she cut east at the lake, and as her feet hit gravel, she finally found her stride.

  The running helped. Always had. Her breathing was a soundtrack, better and more vital than any music as she focused on the tree-lined path and picked up the pace. The trail was clear today—nearly empty, in fact. She glanced left toward the water, but the usual fleet of stand-up paddle-boarders wasn’t out.

  The sprinkling became a drizzle as she ate up the trail. Her heart thrummed in her chest. She passed the statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan holding his guitar. She passed the dog park. She neared the Congress Avenue Bridge, home to the largest urban bat colony on the planet. The pungent odor of guano hit her, and she had a memory of her freckle-faced brother, age five, standing under the bridge in the black cape left over from Halloween. Gavin had idolized Batman, and their grandparents had taken them on a pilgrimage to Austin to witness the bats take flight over the city at sunset. Andrea had been twelve and thoroughly bored by it all as she’d sat on the hillside watching her brother zoom around pretending to be a superhero.

  She pictured Gavin’s ruddy cheeks and the unruly red hair that had earned him nicknames throughout his life. Once again, she was worried about him. Her brother was a genius but could be amazingly dumb when it came to people.

  Andrea quickened the pace. As the trail curved, she glanced up to see the concrete headquarters of the newspaper that had been running stories about her all week.

  Her chest pinched. Her breathing grew shallow. She looked at the building and fought against the panic.

  Don’t do it.

  She focused on the path and tried to get her rhythm back. She had to get a grip. She was meeting the department shrink in less than two hours, and she needed to have her shit together.

  And how are you sleeping, Andrea?

  Fine.

  Any nightmares? Insomnia?

  No, nothing like that.

  And have you experienced any flashbacks associated with the incident?

  No.

  What about sudden feelings of anger or hostility?

  She’d had feelings like that most of her life, but she knew the answers. No, no, no. She might throw in an occasional yes to make it seem like she was being honest, but no way was she letting some shrink climb inside her head.

  It was tougher to lie to Nathan.

  He’d had that look on his face when he’d come over the other night. Nathan knew. He’d been through an officer-involved shooting, and he knew, which was why they’d assigned him to her. He was supposed to help her. But she didn’t want his help. She didn’t want anything from anyone, even though for days, she’d felt this constant low-grade anxiety, as if she was holding on to something by her fingernails, but she didn’t know what.

  Andrea veered right, away from the newspaper building, prompting a honk from a driver. She cut across a parking lot and turned southbound on a busy street.

  For a while, she ran without thinking. Rain soaked her T-shirt. It seeped into her shoes, making her socks squish with every stride. She wove through residential streets, twisting and winding as she racked up mile after mile at a too-fast pace for the weather conditions. When her thighs burned and her lungs were about to explode, she looked up and spotted her apartment building. She set her sights on it and poured on the speed.

  She stopped at the bank of mailboxes and gulped down air. Arching back, she let the rain pelt her face. Six miles, maybe seven. She bent over to flatten her palms on the cold pavement, letting the drizzle soak her back as thoughts flooded in to fill the vacuum. She thought of Gavin and Dillon and her grandparents. She thought of her mother. She thought of the dozens of things she’d failed to do in her life and the handful of things she’d done right.

  A pair of shiny black wingtips stepped into her field of view, and she jerked upright.

  “Detective Finch.”

  He wore a suit and tie. Jon something . . . who clearly wasn’t an ICE agent. Her gaze dropped to the badge clipped to his belt.

  FBI.

  Water glistened on his dark hair. His broad shoulders were damp but not all of him, which meant he hadn’t been standing out here long. His eyes were shielded by silver aviators, so she couldn’t see his expression, just her own look of wariness reflected back at her.

  “You have a minute, Detective?”

  It was more of an order than a question. She glanced around the lot again but didn’t see any sign of the reporters who’d been hounding her for days.

  She turned and faced him. “I knew you weren’t ICE.”

  The side of his mouth curved slightly, but he didn’t smile.

  “Is your name really Jon?”

  “Special Agent Jon North. How about we find a place to talk?”

  Andrea glanced at her apartment window. She didn’t like the idea of
taking him up there—not because he was six-two and armed and a virtual stranger but because she assumed he was nosy.

  But if she took him to a coffee shop, they might get approached by a reporter.

  “Third floor, no elevator,” she said.

  He gestured toward the stairs with a politeness that fit the suit. “After you.”

  She trekked up the steps, untying the key from the drawstring of her sweatpants as she went. She opened her door and made a direct line to the breakfast table covered in paperwork.

  “Coffee’s still on if you want some.”

  She scooped the papers into her arms and headed to the bedroom, where she dumped everything on the dresser. Then she ducked into her closet and changed into a dry T-shirt before closing her bedroom door and rejoining him in the kitchen. He stood beside the breakfast bar, where she’d left her laptop out. Fortunately, it was off.

  She leaned back against the opposite counter and folded her arms over her chest. “So what can I do for you, Mr. North?”

  The sunglasses had disappeared, and he was watching her now with those hazel eyes she remembered from the bar. His hands were tucked casually into his pants pockets, putting his badge and gun on display. She wondered if he thought she’d be intimidated. His dark hair was thick, no gray. She put him at thirty-five, give or take, but what he lacked in years he made up for with a relaxed confidence.

  “You been back long?” he asked.

  “Two nights.”

  He nodded absently, and she could tell this wasn’t news. She watched him taking in details as he glanced around her apartment: her cell phone charging on the counter, the droopy yellow plant in the corner, the unopened mail.

  Nosy, just as she’d expected.

  “Mind if I . . . ?” He tipped his head toward the coffeepot.

  She crossed the kitchen and took a mug down from the cabinet. It was green, with a yellow John Deere logo on it, and she filled it to the brim. He didn’t strike her as the cream-and-sugar type.

  He accepted the coffee, took a sip, and put it down beside last night’s dishes.

  “You didn’t mention you’re a cop,” he said.

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “You didn’t mention your name, either.”