She didn’t need to fight the crowd at baggage claim since she carried only one bag. Keeping things simple also got her through Customs without a hitch. Now she stood on the curb, waiting in line for a cab.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching.
As a trained operative, she had learned to pay attention to her instincts. Using every tactic she had in her arsenal of tricks, she discreetly searched the crowd outside the airport. Tourist buses and yellow-and-green-striped taxicabs lined the arrivals ramp outside baggage claim, with the vehicles clouding the muggy air with diesel fumes. And men in uniform blew whistles and waved traffic through, yelling out orders in Spanish. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Yet she had the unmistakable sensation that someone was keeping tabs on her. If they had followed her to Mexico, after the many ways she’d covered her tracks, they were plenty good. Whoever got the hair on the back of her neck to stand at alert, they had her complete respect. She’d have to find a way to lose them, pronto.
“You need a taxi, lady?” A short, brown-skinned man in uniform smiled at her.
“Yes . . . please.” Alexa adjusted her dark glasses and didn’t look him in the eye.
She could have told the man she was also looking to rent a vehicle, but the fewer people who could trace her movements, the better.
“And can you recommend a good hotel in the city?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. The Hotel de Mendoza is very popular.”
The man grinned and rattled off a location in the heart of Guadalajara—a place Alexa had no intention of staying. If anyone had eavesdropped or traced her movements, they’d be running down bogus leads. She needed a good smoke screen to ditch whoever was watching her now.
“Thank you,” she told the man as she tipped him and got into the cab that he’d waved to the curb.
“Gracias, señorita.”
After the taxi pulled into traffic, Alexa told the driver to take her to the Hotel de Mendoza. From there she would find another place to stay. On pure reflex, she moved to where she saw the traffic behind her, using the driver’s mirror. Although nothing looked out of the ordinary, Alexa had been in the field long enough to know looks could be very deceiving. And instincts carried much more weight than merely trusting her eyesight.
“How long to the hotel?” she asked the driver, to distract him from noticing her obsession with his mirror. As the man talked, she thought about her next steps.
She planned to get lost in the city of Guadalajara, traveling off the grid, using her fake passports and paying cash for everything. Once she got situated in town, she’d lease a rental car and make contact with the local Tanya had given her. For a price, he’d have what she’d need to conduct surveillance in a foreign country. She needed the right gear and enough firepower to make a good first impression.
Soon she’d be on the hunt for Garrett Wheeler, staked out near the compound of Manolo Quintanilla Pérez, the leader of a ruthless drug cartel. But if she couldn’t shake whoever was following her, she had to come up with a better plan. No one was getting in her way, not when she was so close. If Garrett’s life was at stake, she’d never forgive herself if she did nothing.
La Pointe, Wisconsin
“Were there any witnesses?” Jessie asked Chief Cook as she stood by the swing set in the backyard behind the abandoned old house where Angela DeSalvo had been murdered.
“Only a yardman who found the body three days later. The smell, you know. His name was Luke Brenner.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, he died three years ago. Hunting accident.”
“What about neighbors? Did anyone see anything?”
The deserted house was on a spur off the main road. And given the rural setting, the nearest neighbor would have been too far to hear much, but asking the question was worth a shot.
“When we get back to the station, I can let you look at the case file, but I don’t need an outsider second-guessing the work of my men. I’ve had my guys go over every detail, and I questioned most of the key people who were living here at the time. I came up empty. DNA evidence is my last shot at reviving this case, but without anything to compare it to, this investigation has run out of gas.”
Jessie believed Chief Cook when he told her that he’d been over the case, reexamining every scrap of evidence. A murder like this would have been a black eye on his years of service. And it probably still haunted him, like it would have bothered her. But even if she wouldn’t get a long look at the murder book back at the station house, she had another way to look into the case. If the local library carried old newspapers in its archives, she might find something intriguing to look into.
“When I talked to Detective Cooper about your case, Chief Cook, she mentioned something about children being reported at the DeSalvo house. What can you tell me about that?”
“Not much. We interviewed folks who lived close to the crime scene and one or two mentioned something about seeing kids at the residence the week prior to the murder, but none of that could be substantiated.” He pursed his lips and avoided her eyes. “Now that I think about it, if your DNA was found at the scene, what those folks saw was probably you.”
“But kids doesn’t mean one child,” she argued. “And with my DNA being at the scene, there’s proof that at least one child was there. Doesn’t that give a new perspective on all those people who claimed to see children there?”
Chief Cook heaved a sigh and shook his head.
“Like I said, none of that could be substantiated. We saw no evidence of a child or children at the DeSalvo house. For all we know, if there were kids there, they could have been visiting one day. That’s it. We just don’t know. And, quite frankly, I don’t see how it factors in.”
“It factors in because I ended up in the hands of a serial pedophile, Chief. If I was in La Pointe, how did I end up in Chicago? Someone had to take me there.”
Cook narrowed his eyes as he leaned a shoulder against a tree.
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, and I certainly wish I had answers to your question, for your sake, but backtracking who brought you to Chicago won’t solve my murder.” He softened his expression. “That would bring closure to you. And I pray you find it, but I’m not sure what more I can do for you.”
“Can I see a copy of the DNA analysis?”
Sam had already sent for the analysis, but Chief Cook didn’t know that. Jessie wanted to see how forthcoming he’d be.
“I’ll see what I can do. After I got a look at it, I sent it to be filed. It should be in the evidence box, but maybe that hasn’t gotten done yet. Why do you need to see that?”
“DNA brought you the first lead you’ve had in the case in nearly twenty years. Bet that made you feel pretty good.” After he nodded, she made her point.
“Well, think how I felt when I finally got a lead on a past I’d given up on knowing about. After I got rescued in Chicago, no one ever came forward to say they knew me. The Chicago PD posted my face in the news all over, and no one contacted them except the lunatic fringe. This is the closest I’ve come to knowing where I came from. I just can’t walk away from this. I can’t.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Beckett. I truly am, but I’m not sure what you expect me to do for you.”
“You said you’d let me look at the murder book, that’s a start. I don’t want to interfere in your investigation, but maybe I could talk to those people who reported kids at the DeSalvo house.”