Текст книги "Fair Game "
Автор книги: Josh lanyon
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Fair Game
By Josh Lanyon
A crippling knee injury forced Elliot Mills to trade in his FBI badge for dusty chalkboards and bored college students. Now a history professor at Puget Sound university, the former agent has put his old life behind him—but it seems his old life isn’t finished with him.
A young man has gone missing from campus—and as a favor to a family friend, Elliot agrees to do a little sniffing around. His investigations bring him face-to-face with his former lover, Tucker Lance, the special agent handling the case.
Things ended badly with Tucker, and neither man is ready to back down on the fight that drove them apart. But they have to figure out a way to move beyond their past and work together as more men go missing and Elliot becomes the target in a killer’s obsessive game…
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Dedication
To Marcy
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
About the Author
Chapter One
His cell phone was vibrating.
From where he stood at the lectern, Elliot could see it jittering on the top of the desk. He ignored it. The days when a phone call might signal the need to leap into action—and danger—were long behind him. Seventeen months behind him.
“…rats overran the compound, and the stench of the brimming privies polluted the air. Starving prisoners ate candles, bootlaces, vermin.”
The usual ripple of disgust ran through the rows of students in his Bryant Hall lecture. A few busy hands made notes, but honest to God. Was the notion that life in a prison camp would be living hell really a point these kids couldn’t remember if it wasn’t jotted down in a notebook?
“By the time the Civil War was over, more than four hundred thousand soldiers were POWs—that number, you’ll be surprised to hear, nearly evenly divided between Union and Confederate troops.”
On cue, the blonde in the front line of chairs made a moue of surprise and shifted in her chair to better display her long, slim legs.
What was her name again? Mrachek, Leslie. That was it.
Catching his gaze, Mrachek smiled demurely. Elliot bit back a sardonic grin. Barking up the wrong tree there, Mrachek, Leslie. If Elliot was inclined to get involved with a student—and he wasn’t—it would more likely be the broad-shouldered redhead sitting next to her. Sandusky, John.
Sandusky was chewing the top of his pen, staring into space.
Elliot sighed inwardly and continued, “The treatment was no better for officers. More than three hundred of the nine thousand men held at Johnson Island in western Lake Erie, died—primarily of starvation and disease.”
His phone buzzed again.
Funny, how you just knew when it was trouble. Granted, Elliot didn’t get a large number of calls these days. Not like when he’d been a hot shot special agent with the FBI. His physical therapist, his teaching assistant, his father…that was pretty much it. Maybe that explained why he was having trouble tuning out that ghostly knocking on the desktop. So much for his vaunted power of concentration. Tucker would have—no.
He wasn’t about to let his thoughts stray in that direction.
Elliot glanced at the clock in the back of the room. Four minutes to the hour. Close enough.
“And that about does it for today, people.”
A few faces blinked at him as though he’d woken them from a dream—which he probably had. Hands dived for cell phones and the incessant messaging and texting began; God forbid anyone actually talk to the person next to them. Laptops, papers and books were shuffled into backpacks and the students began filing out of History 353.
Elliot turned away from the lectern.
“Professor Mills?”
Mrachek, Leslie accompanied by a bored-looking Sandusky, John smiled up at him.
Elliot raised his brows in inquiry. His expression must not have been encouraging because her smile faltered.
“Leslie, right?” he asked more cordially.
“Yeah. Leslie Mrachek. I’m also in your Film and History: The American West class.” She was turning the full battery of white teeth, blue eyes and adorably freckled nose his way. Elliot controlled his impatience. Not her fault if his knee was beginning to ache and he was suddenly, keenly feeling the frustration of his new sedate, confined life in academia.
“Oh, yes?”
Her escort, Sandusky, was checking the messages on his cell. Leslie said, “I was wondering if I…if you would consider looking at my essay on the films of John Ford before I officially turned it in?”
Was that done? Though he’d earned his doctorate before joining the Bureau, Elliot had done almost no teaching. All too often he felt like he was feeling his way through the dark, way less savvy than some of his younger, fresh-out-of-college peers.
“Sure.” If that wasn’t kosher, he’d know better next time.
“Are your office hours still from nine to eleven on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and two to four on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
He had to think about it before he assented.
She gave him that blazing smile again. “Sweet! Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Elliot nodded politely, bemusedly. Leslie departed with the stoic Sandusky in tow. Elliot retrieved his phone and checked messages.
His father’s number flashed up.
The letdown caught him off guard. What—who—had he been expecting? Automatically, he gathered his tan Brooks Brothers raincoat and briefcase. Speaking of office hours, he was due in his hideout now.
He punched in the phone number as he walked. His office was located in Hanby Hall on the other side of the quad near the arboretum. The rain had stopped. The campus—tidy lawns, old-fashioned brick buildings, towering white birch and beech trees—sparkled in the fleeting sunlight. He could almost justify wearing his shades.
“Hey, Professor!” A student on a bike winged past like a giant bird.
Elliot flinched. At least he managed not to reach for a shoulder holster that was no longer there, so progress was being made.
The phone ringing at the other end picked up.
“Hel-lo.” His dad sounded like always. Relaxed, cheerful. Clearly it was no family emergency that had him ringing Elliot during class hours. Of course, they were a two-man family, so if there had been a genuine emergency Roland Mills probably wouldn’t be the one placing the call.
“Hey, Dad. You rang?”
“I did. How are you, son? Still on for dinner tomorrow night?”
They had dinner every Thursday. They’d been having dinner once a week since Elliot had left the Bureau and returned to teaching at Puget Sound University. Dinner at Dad’s was currently the high point of Elliot’s social calendar.
“Yep.” An uneasy thought occurred. “Why?”
Roland’s voice altered, though Elliot wasn’t sure how. “I was going to invite friends to join us. You remember Tom and Pauline Baker?”
“Vaguely.” He skirted two girls in boots and mufflers texting madly as they walked and mumbled to each other.
“Their boy Terry is a student at PSU. At least he was up until three weeks ago.”
“What happened three weeks ago?”
“He disappeared.”
“Boys do sometimes.”
“Not this boy. Terry was a very serious kid. Good grades. No trouble.”
Elliot said dryly, “Sounds like he was due some time off.”
“Only Tom and Pauline don’t believe he dropped out of sight voluntarily.”
Elliot had reached the long narrow steps leading up to bullet-shaped oak door of Hanby Hall. As always when faced with stairs he felt a twinge of anxiety. The pain after his knee replacement had been excruciating, beyond anything he’d imagined or previously experienced, barring the original experience of getting kneecapped. But he was recovering well now and stairs rarely gave him trouble.
He took them briskly, went inside the building already quieting down as the next session of classes began. He nodded politely to Ray, PSU’s facilities maintenance, as Ray shuffled past pushing his utility cart. Ray ignored him as usual. Elliot could hear muffled laughter from Anne Gold’s classroom. That reminded him that he had never responded to Anne’s invitation to get together for dinner one night. If he didn’t make an effort he was going to turn into one of those cranky old professors who talked to themselves and kept parakeets.
Keeping his voice down as he walked past closed doors, he said, “If that’s the case, and they have some grounds for believing foul play, they should go to police.”
“They’ve been to the police. They’ve been to the FBI.”
Funny, that twist his guts gave at hearing FBI. “I haven’t heard a word on campus about this.”
“Charlotte Oppenheimer asked them to keep it quiet for now.”
Oppenheimer was the current president of PSU. She had a vested interest in keeping rumors of possible malfeasance to a whisper.
“What is it you want me to do?” Reaching his office, Elliot put his briefcase down and found his keys, listening to the uncharacteristic silence on the other end of the line.
“I’d like you to talk to the Bakers.”
Not what he was expecting. “How is that supposed to help anyone?” Elliot had had his share of talking to grieving parents. If there was a bright side to losing a job you loved, it was not having to deal with terrified or distraught loved ones.
“I thought you could talk to them. Reassure her. Them.”
Stepping inside his office, Elliot closed the door and said quietly, “There may not be cause for reassurance.”
“I know. But you’ve got experience in this kind of thing. I thought you might be able to use that experience to help them navigate these waters.”
Here was irony. “You hated every moment I worked for the Bureau. All I ever heard was how I was wasting my life in the pay of a fascist organization working for a corrupt regime.”
“And so you were.” The years had only slightly mellowed Roland Mills’s militant and anarchist tendencies. Back in the day, he’d been right out there with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, flowers in his hair and screaming for revolution, before settling down to relatively staid life as the most liberal professor on the campus of one of the most liberal of the liberal art colleges on the West Coast. Elliot was his only child, the offspring of Roland’s third and final marriage. “So you were,” Roland repeated. “And squandering all the gifts and talents the universe bestowed on you. But here’s a chance to put those oppressor-of-the-people skills of yours to good use. These are friends and they need help.”
“Christ, Dad.” Elliot stared out the window, but he wasn’t really seeing the pale, glistening tree trunks or the silver-pink rhododendrons in this part of the arboretum. The museum of trees. He was seeing another rainy afternoon—a park of brick and granite and trees in Portland, Oregon. Pioneer Courthouse Square. That day had ended in bullets and puddles streaked with blood.
Hell. Maybe it was the weather. Washington’s dark, wet winters got to him sometimes.
Elliot shook off the shadowy feeling of premonition. “All right. But let’s not invite trouble to dinner. I’ll give them a call now. What’s the number?”
Chapter Two
Andrew Corian’s deep voice was echoing down the corridor as Elliot left his office later that afternoon to meet with Terry Baker’s mother.
“What I’m talking about, you cretins, is a realistic monism. A philosophy of life. Not realism in the trite, hackneyed sense of the traditional repertoire of literary schools. I’m talking about the blood and guts methods and processes emerging from the raw, untainted past. What I’m not talking about is artistic eclecticism…”
Christ. Only in academia did people talk such bullshit and expect to be taken seriously.
Elliot grimaced as he locked his office door. Corian was an arrogant ass, but he was undeniably gifted and, surprisingly, one of the most popular instructors at PSU. His political views, in particular his opinion of “totalitarian” organizations like the CIA and FBI, inevitably irritated Elliot, but that was easy to do these days.
Apparently his once healthy sense of humor had withered and died over the last year and a half. Too bad, because he’d never needed it more. Even he couldn’t help seeing the paradox: after determinedly rejecting his father’s plans for him—stubbornly charting his own course in law enforcement—he’d ended right back where he’d started. And with a bum leg. That was now aching like a sonofabitch.
He started down the long polished hallway and nearly collided with Corian, who swept out of the seminar room followed by three of his acolytes. The great man wasn’t in the middle of a lecture, just pontificating for the amusement of the three denim-clad Graces hanging on his every word.
“The unity of art is actualized in a functioning world-attitude—And speaking of a world-attitude lit by ignis fatuus. Mills.”
Asshole.
Elliot nodded in greeting. “Corian.”
Andrew Corian was in his late fifties. A big, handsome man, starting to soften at the edges, but still fit. He was bald, having ruthlessly dealt with prematurely thinning hair by shaving his head, but it looked good on him. His eyes were a striking whisky color. He sported a meticulously trimmed black Vandyke and wore a gold earring in one ear, but it was artistic affectation. He was not gay. Not remotely. Thank you, Jesus.
“How’s your father?” Corian inquired, seeking the one neutral topic they shared.
“He’s good. He’s great. He’s working on his book.”
Corian chuckled. Memoirs of a Militant was kind of a PSU legend. Roland had, in theory, been working on it for the last ten years, but he had an agent now, so Elliot suspected the thing might actually become a reality in the not too distant future.
“Give Rollie my regards.”
“You bet.”
Corian swept away, nubile, grungy handmaidens in tow, and Elliot bit back a sour smile.
He continued out of the building and across the grounds of the arboretum. The glistening canopy of trees sheltered him from the drizzle and muffled the noise from the main campus. An occasional plop of raindrop was the only sound that reached his ears as he cut his way across the soft terrain. The scent of wet earth, cedar and the lemony mint of the gum trees hung in the cold air.
He had parked behind Cambridge Memorial Chapel as he always did, now that his leg was up to the hike over uneven ground. The small lot was usually empty and it saved him the inevitable chitchat with students and colleagues that parking in the faculty lot entailed.
Sure enough, the rain-streaked silver Nissan 350Z was the only car waiting on the shining blacktop. He unlocked it, slipped behind the wheel and sighed. Weary gray eyes met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “What are you doing?” he asked himself. “Why are you getting involved in this?”
Because it was a taste of the life he’d left behind? Or because it was easier than arguing with his dad? Or maybe both.
Elliot shook his head at his reflection, turned the key in the ignition and switched on the stereo. The sweet, mournful strains of “Ashokan Farewell” from Ken Burns’s Civil War series filled the silence as he jetted out of the parking lot.
* * *
“Tell me about Terry,” Elliot asked as Pauline Baker handed him coffee in a gold-rimmed china cup.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Would you like a cookie with your coffee?” Mid-motion of sitting on the brocade sofa across from him, Pauline hopped to her feet again. She was a petite forty-something with perfectly made-up porcelain features and gilt hair that coordinated becomingly with the Lennox cups and saucers. She was the second Mrs. Baker, that much Elliot remembered. Tom was his dad’s age, and the kid, Terry, was an only child. Maybe one of those surprise bundles of joy?
“Thanks, no. Tell me about Terry,” Elliot invited again. He was familiar with stall tactics. As long as she was in good hostess mode, Pauline didn’t have to confront reality. Once she sat down and started talking about Terry, she would have to deal with the fact that her son was missing. He didn’t blame her for wanting to postpone that moment, but it wasn’t helping anyone.
Gingerly, Pauline reseated herself—clearly ready to take flight the minute an empty teacup appeared. She nervously combed a perfectly placed strand of hair behind her ear and reluctantly met Elliot’s eyes.
“I don’t care what anyone says. Terry didn’t run away. He wouldn’t.”
Elliot nodded. “I understand. Tell me why the police and the FBI think otherwise.”
Wrong question. She was on her feet again, headed for the kitchen. “You probably haven’t had time to eat all day. I’ll just…”
He missed the rest of it as she vanished behind white saloon-style swinging doors. Elliot sighed and leaned back on the uncomfortable sofa.
Tom Baker was a pal from Roland Mills’s radical years—back in the day when guys were “cats” and women were “chicks.” Now Baker was a respected lawyer, although he still did pro bono work for various, mostly liberal, causes. He’d obviously settled down into comfortable capitalism. The house was located in the hills of Bellevue overlooking the Puget Sound. It had been decorated in a monochromatic minimalist style, bare wood floors and walls of ivory, ochre, and cream. The furniture was modern and uncomfortable. There were a few op art pieces on the wall and a couple of primitive-looking sculptures on the built-in bookshelves. A dramatic marble statue of a female nude stood near the windows. The room looked…cold.
Elliot had learned in his time at the Bureau not to draw conclusions about people based on their interior designers.
The kitchen doors swung open again and Pauline was back with a cheese plate and assorted crackers. She alighted once more across from Elliot, and said, risking a quick look at his face, “Roland said that you were shot last year.”
He could hear the shock in her voice at the idea. Even with her child missing, the idea of violence was still far removed from this well-to-do zip code.
“In the line of duty. Seventeen months ago.” But who was counting, right? Elliot said patiently, “How are Terry’s grades?”
“Fine. He’s on the honor roll.”
“What’s he studying?”
“He’s pre-law. He’s following in his father’s footsteps.” She swallowed on the last word.
“That must keep him busy. What about friends? What’s his social life like?” He set his coffee cup in its saucer on the table.
Pauline carefully repositioned the cheese plate on the iron and marble coffee table. “Terry is not a partier. He has friends. He gets on well with everyone. But he’s a quiet boy. A serious boy.”
A lonely boy. Elliot asked, “Does he have a girlfriend?”
Pauline shook her head, still trying to get that cheese plate exactly aligned. “No one steady,” she said vaguely.
“Okay, well it would be helpful if you could jot down any names of friends, male or female, you can remember. Has he had any recent run-ins with anyone? Even something minor could be useful.”
“No.” She sounded positive. “Terry doesn’t have run-ins with people.”
“All right. When was the last time you saw him?”
Almost imperceptibly, she relaxed. This was familiar ground, comfortable. “Two and a half weeks ago. On the twenty-seventh. He came by for dinner. He lives on campus but drops by a couple of times a month to have dinner with us.” She smiled ruefully. “And to have his laundry done.”
Elliot nodded encouragingly. “And how did he seem that night?”
“Fine. Fine.”
Riiiiiight.
“And Terry disappeared on the first of October?”
A tight bob of her head.
“And there’s been no contact of any kind since?”
“No. That’s why the police and that FBI agent think Terry left voluntarily. They say kidnappers would have made their demands by now.”
“That’s true.” Elliot tried to gentle his tone, but she was shaking her head.
“They might have reasons for waiting. It makes as much sense as the idea that Terry would deliberately walk away from his home and his family—from his life.” Her gaze met Elliot’s and he could see how close to tears she was. “He wouldn’t do that. He knows what that would do to me. How worried I—his father and I—would be. He’s not cruel like that.”
“I believe you.” Funny how powerful those three little words were. He’d seen them work their magic again and again, and they worked now. Pauline calmed almost instantly. “So no ransom note and no—”
“Suicide note.”
“No suicide note?” Elliot repeated. Not that it wasn’t always a possibility, but Pauline popped out with it as though it had been somebody’s favorite theory. Whose? And why?
Pauline’s voice shook as she said, “According to the FBI, even if a kidnapping had gone wrong, we should have heard something.”
“Yes.” Elliot met her eyes. He hated this part—always had. “I’m sure you’ve faced the possibility that Terry met with some accident or misadventure and his b—”
“No.” Pauline rose to her feet, instinctively wanting, he knew, to run from what he was suggesting. “He’s not dead. That I know. I would feel it here.” Her hand went to her chest in a tight fist. “I would know.”
If she only knew how many times he had heard that. Maybe it was better she didn’t know yet. With each passing day the chances of Terry coming home safe and sound dwindled, but it was three weeks, not three years. He had never known any parent who gave up hope in three weeks.
He said, still calm, still keeping it low key, “We have to keep in mind all the possibilities, that’s all.”
She shook her head, but she sat again. “I know. But…I’ve heard enough of that from the police and the agent in charge of Terry’s case. We need someone on our side. On Terry’s side. I realize that you’re not with the FBI anymore, Roland told me what happened, but you have insider experience with this kind of thing. Tom and I will pay you to help us. We can call it a consulting fee. We can call it anything you like.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I want to. We want to.”
Did she mean her and Tom or her and Terry? Did it matter? He didn’t want money from them. The idea made him queasy.
“I will help you,” Elliot reassured her, “but you have to understand that I can’t promise anything. And the other thing you have to realize is, I don’t have the resources of the police or the FBI. I know how hard it is when you’re watching from the sidelines, but they really are doing their best for you and Terry—and they’re very good at what they do.”
“I know,” Pauline said, clearly brushing that aside. “But your help will give us one thing more in our favor. And we need—” Her voice cracked. She stared down at her tightly knotted hands.
It was a mistake to get involved in this. Elliot knew it. He was still trying to glue his own life together. The last thing he needed was to start stumbling through the shattered wreckage of someone else’s. He knew it, and yet he heard himself say, “All right. I’ll do what I can. Who’s the special agent in charge of Terry’s case?”
“Special Agent Lance.”
In the silence that followed Pauline’s words, Elliot could hear the steady, remorseless tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Good thing something was keeping time. His heart seemed to have stopped. He asked carefully, “Tucker Lance?”
“I’m not sure. Big.” Pauline positioned her hands plank-width from her own slender shoulders. “Red hair. Blue eyes?”
“That’s him.” Elliot’s mouth was bone dry. His heart seemed to twist before it started to thud again. One of these days he was going to learn to listen to his instincts. He’d known getting involved in this would be a mistake, and here was the proof right on schedule.
“Is he any good?” Pauline asked anxiously.
Elliot could answer honestly. “He’s very good.”
At his job, anyway. When it came to Tucker’s people skills, well, when he was good, he was very good. When he was bad…he was hell on earth.
Just ask his ex-lover.
