A Glimpse of Evil

  He kissed me on the forehead. “You’re sure?”

  I smiled and backed up a little to look straight into his eyes. “I pinkie swear.”

  “I was afraid to ask you.”

  “I didn’t even pick up on it,” I admitted. “Seriously, it’s such a small spot and so early that I had no heads-up about it at all.”

  “Sorry I’ve been taking all my stress about it out on you, Edgar.”

  “S’okay. Just don’t take me back to that shooting range anytime soon, all right?”

  Dutch gently gripped my chin with his fingers. “I have to know that you can take care of yourself, even if I’m not around.”

  “Sugar, if there is one thing I know how to do by now, it is call for help. And there are plenty of people like Candice and Milo who have answered that call. But we don’t need to worry about that, because you’re always going to be around for this particular damsel- in-distress, sweetie. Always.”

  That got him to smile. “If you say so.”

  I stood up and held out my hand. “Come on. Let’s go out and talk Milo into trading in his Motown collection for a cowboy hat and a pair of spurs.”

  “I’ve been working on that all day.”

  I tapped my temple. “Yeah, well, my radar says he’s going to hold out unless we keep at him.”

  “He seems to like the beer down here,” Dutch said, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Let’s get him drunk and convince him it was his idea in the first place.”

  Chapter Seven

  Milo left Austin a few days later. As we saw him off to the airport, I still wasn’t sure we’d convinced him to move—mostly because it would mean relocating his family from the only home they’d ever known. Still, I knew that the door to his relocating to Austin would remain open for some time, and that was a positive thing at least.

  Dutch compromised with my suggestion to take a sick day by working in the morning and scheduling his procedure for later in the afternoon. He kept reassuring me he wasn’t nervous about it—but I saw right through him. “I got you some snacks for later,” I told him. “I’ll pick you up from the office at three, and drive you over to the clinic. They said they’d get you in and out by five, and I’ll be in the waiting room the whole time.”

  “Thanks, doll.”

  “You’re going to be okay, you know.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Seriously. You are.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know you do.”

  I scowled at him. “God! Are you a stubborn son of a peach or what?”

  “What’d I say?”

  “Dutch!” I yelled angrily, using my hands like a bullhorn. “You’re going to be fine! Do you hear me?! F-IN-E!”

  He just turned and looked at me in that wide-eyed way that suggested he’d woken the beast without meaning to. “Of course I am,” he said very carefully. “I know I will. I’ll be fine. Ducky even. Okay?”

  “Bah!” I snapped, crossing my arms and turning away. “I give up. You’re impossible!”

  Dutch parked in front of the office, gave me a very quick kiss on the cheek, and hurried inside. I frowned at his departing figure, moved into the driver’s seat, and drove over to Candice’s. We were heading to Dallas to begin our discreet investigation into Keisha and Fatina’s disappearance.

  “Ready?” Candice asked, meeting me at the door to the parking garage.

  “Yep.” I followed her to a shiny new canary yellow Porsche. “Subtle,” I said, pausing next to the car.

  “It was a toss-up between this and candy apple red,” she admitted.

  “No one will ever notice you running surveillance from this puppy. It’s so nondescript!”

  Candice gave me a smart look. “Get in, Sundance. We’re already running behind.”

  If we’d been running behind, we made up time very quickly. And, for the record, Porches are super-duper fast, just in case you didn’t already know that.

  To take my mind off the scenery flashing by at lightning speed, I casually glanced over at Candice’s left hand.

  “It’s still in the box,” Candice said before I even had a chance to ask.

  “Have you seen it?” I’d heard from Dutch that Brice had moved back to Candice’s, and I’d hoped that meant that the two had patched things up and were now engaged.

  “Yes.”

  I waited for more, but Candice wasn’t talking. “Don’t force me to use my radar on you,” I told her. “Come on, girl! I want details.”

  The corner of Candice’s mouth lifted in a sideways grin. “We sat down and hashed it all out.”

  “Annnnnnd?”

  My partner squirmed in her seat. “Well, after discussing our feelings, we both decided that we’ve been moving pretty fast, and maybe it’s better to slow down and give this thing some time. See if we both feel the same way in a few months and then move it to the next level. We agreed to take all the pressure off—you know, just go really slow and easy. We even talked about seeing other people if the mood fit.”

  I gaped at her. “While you’re living together?”

  Candice shook her head. “Brice is going to look for his own place next week.”

  “So you two are splitting up?” I couldn’t believe it.

  Candice shook her head. “No. We’re just stepping back and giving this thing some room to breathe.”

  “Oh, so now your relationship is a bottle of wine?”

  “It’s the right thing to do, Abby. I mean, Brice and I have clearly rushed into this. Three months ago we couldn’t stand each other and now we’re living together and talking marriage? That’s not smart. So we’ve agreed to go back to casual dating, and if in six months we’re still together and want to move things forward again, then okay. But giving it some time makes sense.”

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow, mostly because I’d switched my intuition on anyway and my radar was insisting that a big ol’ diamond would soon find its way to Candice’s left ring finger.

  But it was none of my business, so I vowed to stay out of it. Using all my willpower, I turned in my seat without saying another word and stared straight ahead, repeating the vow to butt out.

  To distract myself, I flipped on the radio and tapped my toe to the music.

  Five minutes later I took out a pen and notebook and jotted down a grocery list.

  Three minutes later, I pulled out the paper from my purse and played Sudoku.

  Two minutes later, I gave up on Sudoku and leaned my head back to take a quick nap.

  One minute later I opened my eyes and snapped, “You know, maybe it’s me, but most of the succsessful relationships I know don’t come equipped with a day planner and a stopwatch.” (Vow of silence—eleven whole minutes.)

  Candice sighed. “Here we go,” I heard her mutter.

  I swiveled in my seat again. “I’m serious!”

  “Oh, I know you are,” she said. “So, go ahead. Get it out of your system, Abs. Lay the lecture on me.”

  I ignored the sarcasm and dove in. “It’s just that when I look intuitively at you and Brice, you work. As in, for the long haul. It’s like you guys have known each other for years, and I don’t know what six months of waiting and pretending to adore each other less than you actually do is going to accomplish. And agreeing to date other people is just ridiculous! You don’t want to see anyone other than Brice, and he doesn’t want to see anyone other than you, and I know that the moment he moves out, both of you are going to feel miserable without the other. You’re fooling yourselves with all this bullsheep of slowing down. What you two really need is some assurance from each other that you’re in a committed relationship. You guys love each other, Candice. And the sooner you own that and just say, ‘I do,’ the better. For you. For Brice. And for the rest of us faced with six months of looking at your sad little faces.”

  Candice didn’t say anything for the longest time. And I figured that she might be mad at me for speaking my mind, so I turned aga
in and went back to staring out the window.

  “You know what?” she asked abruptly.

  “What?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Duh.”

  That won me a smile. “So what do I do now, Abs? I mean, he and I already had the talk and all.”

  “You tell him how you honestly feel. You throw that big bag of caution you’ve carried around with you all these years out the window, and you tell that man that you love him, you don’t want him to move out, and that you’ll marry him anytime, anywhere.”

  Candice swallowed hard. “That’d be taking a mighty big risk, don’t you think?”

  I grinned. “Since when have you ever stepped away from taking a risk?”

  “Point taken,” she said.

  “And, Candice?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hear Key West is a great spot for a quickie wedding.”

  Candice laughed and pushed my shoulder playfully. “Stop, okay?” she giggled. “Just stop.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  We arrived in south Dallas about twenty minutes later. I resisted the urge to fan my underarms, as screaming down the highway at dizzying speeds tends to make me sweat like a gorilla. “You okay?” Candice asked when we got out of the car. “You look a little pale.”

  “I will be once we find the spot along the route where I lost my stomach.”

  Candice ignored me and looked at the house we’d parked in front of. It was a lovely home painted olive green with shiny black shutters and a beautiful white porch all along the front. The flower garden was well tended and fuchsia crape myrtles gave the porch some colorful shade. “Nice,” Candice said as we walked up the driveway.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked.

  “Fatina’s grandmother’s. Since Fatina went missing last, I thought it best to start here where the leads might be a little warmer.”

  We approached the front door and Candice rang the bell. “Did it ring?” she asked.

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  We waited another few seconds; then Candice knocked. From inside we heard a dog barking and footsteps clomped across a wood floor. The door was then opened by a woman with gray hair, big sad eyes, and hunched shoulders. She put her foot out to stop the inquisitive nose of a small white dog before addressing us. “May I help you?”

  “Mrs. Carter?” Candice asked.

  “No,” the woman replied, her sad eyes turning suspicious.

  Candice pulled out the folder she’d tucked under her arm. It was a duplicate of the one I’d given back to Dutch. “I’m so sorry. Yes, of course. You must be Mrs. Dixon. Your daughter was Mrs. Carter and your granddaughter was Fatina Carter.”

  At the mention of her granddaughter, the woman physically flinched, and those sad eyes returned. “What’s this about?” she demanded.

  Candice flashed a badge. I don’t know what the badge read. And I didn’t want to know what it read. My partner in crime wasn’t yet a licensed PI here in Texas, so there was no telling who she was claiming to be. “I’m Candice Fusco and this is my associate, Abigail Cooper, a civilian profiler with the FBI.” Candice nudged me and motioned that she wanted me to flash my ID card. I dug around in my purse for a minute, located it, and held it out for Mrs. Dixon to inspect. While she was doing that, Candice continued. “I’m working with the FBI on a joint investigation into the disappearance of your granddaughter.”

  Again Mrs. Dixon flinched, and her hand moved up to tug at the collar of her housecoat. “My granddaughter’s been missing over a year now, miss, and six months ago the FBI told me they didn’t have a clue what happened to her and until some new evidence showed up, there wasn’t nothin’ more to be done to find her. So I can’t see why you-all would be interested in her again now.”

  I decided to speak up. “Mrs. Dixon,” I began. “I was hired by the bureau specifically to audit some of their cold cases. I bring a unique set of skills with me and those have led us to the conclusion that Fatina was likely abducted. I believe a predator took your granddaughter right off the street on the day she disappeared.”

  “You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t already know,” Mrs. Dixon said, bending at the waist to pick up the white dog, who was determined to get past her foot and come out to sniff at us.

  “Yes, well, I also believe we’ll find her abductor.”

  Mrs. Dixon snorted derisively. “I heard that before.”

  For whatever reason, I wanted to convince her. I felt it was important that I have her on our side and so I flipped on my radar, and my focus went to the dog in her arms. “That was Fatina’s dog, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  Mrs. Dixon hugged the pooch and in her eyes, mixed in with the sadness and irritation, was a bit of surprise. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “She’s named after the weather?” I asked, puzzling over the intuitive clues now sorting through my mind.

  Again Mrs. Dixon looked surprised. “Her name’s Snowy. How’d you know that?”

  “I told you, I bring a unique set of skills to the table, Mrs. Dixon. On the day she went missing, your granddaughter almost took the dog with her, didn’t she?”

  Mrs. Dixon’s expression became stricken. It was as if I’d slapped her. “I never told no one that,” she whispered.

  “Her abduction was not your fault,” I said to her gently. “She would have been taken even if she’d had the dog with her.”

  But Mrs. Dixon didn’t look convinced. “Snowy was very protective of Fatina. She would have fought anyone who meant my grandchild harm.”

  I shook my head. “You’re wrong. The man who took Fatina would have gone after the dog first, and forced Fatina to cooperate to try and save the puppy she loved. He’s a devious psychopath, ma’am. And this wasn’t the first time he’d taken a little girl against her will.”

  I wasn’t thinking when I said these words. They sort of fell out of my mouth as I was speaking, and they stunned me as much as they did the two other women. “Another girl was taken?” Fatina’s grandmother asked.

  “Yes.” My radar was telling me that Fatina’s abductor was a serial killer, and I had the distinct impression that he’d killed more than just Fatina and Keisha. I didn’t mentally dwell on it, because at the moment, I needed to focus on Fatina.

  Mrs. Dixon fixed her stare on me, and I could see her mulling her next question over, as if my answer would give her some insight into my character. “Do you think my grandchild is still alive?”

  I didn’t even hesitate because I knew that she was looking for someone—anyone—to tell her the truth. “No. I’m so sorry, ma’am, but I believe your granddaughter died the same day she was taken.”

  Mrs. Dixon let out a long slow sigh, as if she’d been holding a little of her breath since her granddaughter went missing. “That’s what I believe too.” She then stepped back from the door. “Come on in.”

  We gathered in her living room, which was an assortment of colors and styles, none of which matched, but the overall effect was actually quite interesting. “What did you want to know?” Mrs. Dixon asked plainly.

  Candice looked at me as if suggesting I should take the lead. I nodded slightly and turned to Mrs. Dixon. “One of my theories is that Fatina was abducted by someone who knew this area well. They might not have lived here, but they knew the neighborhood. I believe that it could have been a worker or contractor.”

  Mrs. Dixon’s brow furrowed. “A contractor?”

  I nodded. “A plumber or a handyman or painter or an electrician. Someone who wouldn’t have been suspected driving a van and someone who could come and go without calling a lot of attention to himself. So my question to you is, was there a hired hand in the neighborhood at the time of Fatina’s abduction?”

  Mrs. Dixon’s head swiveled to the front hallway. “No,” she said slowly. “But about two weeks before she went missing, I’d had the house painted.”

  Candice looked sharply at me, and she mouthed, “Painter.”

  “What
was the name of the company you hired to paint your house, ma’am?” I asked.

  Mrs. Dixon wiped her hand down her face and rocked in her chair. “Wasn’t no company,” she said. “Was just a man. I don’t even remember his name. I saw his poster at church, and tore off his number and called him. He was real cheap and he done a good job.”

  “Do you still have his number?”

  Mrs. Dixon sighed, and I thought her thin shoulders slumped even farther down, like she carried the weight of the world on them. “No,” she admitted. “I had it tacked to my fridge for a time, but I remember throwing it out after he’d finished the job.”

  “Did you pay by check?” Candice asked.

  I crossed my fingers because that would be a great way to track him down. “No,” Mrs. Dixon said. “He wouldn’t take a check. He asked for cash only.”

  “And you don’t remember his name,” I repeated, “not even his first name?”

  Mrs. Dixon sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Dan?” she said, as if she were asking a question. “Or Don, maybe? It was one of them easy-to-forget sorta names.”

  Candice leaned forward. “Can you describe what he looked like?”

  Mrs. Dixon took a deep breath and tilted her chin up as she thought. “He was light skinned, probably twenty or twenty-five years old. He was a little husky too, you know. . . . He had some meat on his bones.”

  “How tall?”

  “Oh,” she said, tapping her chin with her finger. “I’d say about five feet eight or nine. He wasn’t no six feet, and I know that ’cause my husband was six feet tall and I used to come up to his collarbone. This man was shorter than that. I could almost look him in the eye.” And then something occurred to her and she let out a tiny gasp. “You know what’s funny, though?”

  “What?” Candice and I asked in unison.

  “He never did look me in the eye. I thought that was odd, ’cause he was always so polite and all. I don’t like people who won’t look you in the eye, but I made an exception for him ’cause he had good manners and always answered me ‘Yes, ma’am’ or ‘No, ma’am.’ But maybe he wasn’t so nice as I thought. Maybe he was a bad man and couldn’t look me in the eye ’cause of that.”