Текст книги "You're Not Safe"
Автор книги: Mary Burton
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Outstanding praise for Mary Burton and her novels!
THE SEVENTH VICTIM
“Dark and disturbing, a well-written tale of obsession and murder.”
Kat Martin, New York Times bestselling author
“Burton delivers action-packed tension . . . the number of red-herring suspects and the backstory on the victims make this a compelling romantic thriller.”
Publishers Weekly
“Burton’s crisp storytelling, solid pacing, and well-developed plot will draw you in and the strong suspense will keep you hooked and make this story hard to put down.”
RT Book Reviews
“A nail-biter that you will not want to miss. Terrifying . . . it keeps you on the edge of your chair.”
The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia)
BEFORE SHE DIES
“Will have readers sleeping with the lights on.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
MERCILESS
“Convincing detective lingo and an appropriately shivery murder venue go a long way.”
Publishers Weekly
“Burton just keeps getting better!”
RT Book Reviews
“Terrifying . . . this chilling thriller is an engrossing story.”
Library Journal
“Mary Burton’s latest romantic suspense has it all—terrific plot, complex and engaging protagonists, a twisted villain, and enough crime scene detail to satisfy the most savvy suspense reader.”
Erica Spindler, New York Times bestselling author
SENSELESS
“Stieg Larsson fans will find a lot to like in Burton’s taut, well-paced novel of romantic suspense.”
Publishers Weekly
“This is a page-turner of a story, one that will keep you up all night, with every twist in the plot and with all of the doors locked.”
The Parkersburg News & Sentinel
“With hard-edged, imperfect but memorable characters, a complex plot and no-nonsense dialog, this excellent novel will appeal to fans of Lisa Gardner and Lisa Jackson.”
Library Journal
“Absolutely chilling! Don’t miss this well-crafted, spine-tingling read.”
Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author
“A terrifying novel of suspense.”
Mysterious Reviews
“This is a story to read with the lights on.”
BookPage
DYING SCREAM
“Burton’s taut, fast-paced thriller will have you guessing until the last blood-soaked page. Keep the lights on for this one.”
RT Book Reviews
“A twisted tale . . . I couldn’t put it down!”
Lisa Jackson, New York Times bestselling author
DEAD RINGER
“Dangerous secrets, deadly truths, and a diabolical killer combine to make Mary Burton’s Dead Ringer a chilling thriller.”
Beverly Barton, New York Times bestselling author
“With a gift for artful obfuscation, Burton juggles a budding romance and two very plausible might-be perpetrators right up to the tense conclusion.”
Publishers Weekly
I’M WATCHING YOU
“Taut . . . compelling . . . Mary Burton delivers a page-turner.”
Carla Neggers, New York Times bestselling author
“Creepy and terrifying, it will give you chills.”
Romantic Times
Books by Mary Burton
I’M WATCHING YOU
DEAD RINGER
DYING SCREAM
SENSELESS
MERCILESS
BEFORE SHE DIES
THE SEVENTH VICTIM
NO ESCAPE
YOU’RE NOT SAFE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
MARY BURTON
YOU’RE NOT SAFE
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Outstanding praise for Mary Burton and her novels!
Books by Mary Burton
Title Page
Prologue
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
Epilogue
COVER YOUR EYES,
Copyright Page
Prologue
The Hill Country, Texas
Monday, June 2, 1 A.M.
A hangover punched and pounded Rory Edwards’s brain as he woke to discover a hangman’s noose coiling around his neck. His hands lashed behind his back, his booted feet were braced on an open truck tailgate. He shifted, tried to wriggle free, but hemp dug painfully deep into an already bloodstained neck and wrists.
What the hell?
He blinked grit and film from his blurred gaze as he glanced up the thick rope meandering over a distant tree branch and snaking down the gnarled bark to a square knot at the trunk.
Shit.
He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but what had he done to land here?
Panic rising, he scanned the area, illuminated by the full moon, to find dense shrubs and trees and a patch of dirt too rough to be considered a road. He didn’t recognize his surroundings, but a lonely isolated feeling banded around his chest. Wherever he was, it was far from another human. Texas had hundreds of thousands of bleak acres where a man could die and never be found. A coyote howled in the distance.
Dread kicked and scratched his insides. Shit. Shit. Shit. He struggled to free his hands, but when they refused to budge, he couldn’t silence his fears.
“Help!” He shouted his plea over and over until his throat burned inside and out. No one came.
Breathless, he craned his neck trying to better identify his surroundings, but as he leaned forward his foothold slipped and he nearly skidded off the tailgate’s edge. Every muscle in his body tensed as he scrambled and threw his weight back until he was on firm footing. He was hyperventilating now, and minutes passed before he calmed enough to think.
This time his gaze roamed wildly and landed on a picture nailed to the hanging tree. It was an old picture, crumpled, tattered, and faded. Recognition flickered instantly. He’d carried the picture in his wallet for a dozen years, and he’d cherished it. More nights than he could count he’d stared at that picture asking for strength when life shit-kicked him in the gut.
Tears filled his eyes.
The aging image captured a grinning teenage Rory, tall, straight, and broad-shouldered. His thick sun-kissed hair skimmed piercing blue eyes. Tanned skin accentuated a crooked melting grin. His arm wrapped around the shoulders of a petite, young blond girl. She was pretty, not overly stunning like Rory, but her smile could be electric.
At first glance Rory’s embrace around the girl appeared casual and playful. Two young teenagers in love. However, closer inspection exposed a wrinkle of tension creasing Rory’s forehead and the pointed edge of desperation behind his gaze. The young Rory held the girl a little too close and a little too anxiously.
On that long-ago day, he’d been so worried about himself and his immense burdens. He’d never bothered to look past the girl’s forced smiles. Not once had he asked about her feelings. Not once. If he had really noticed her, he’d have seen she hadn’t been happy. Yes, she smiled, but her full lips often thinned into a strained line, and her blue eyes reflected the weight of her own demons. She clutched his shirt as if knowing one drowning swimmer couldn’t save another.
If he’d been a little less selfish, he would have seen her sadness. Instead of whispering empty compliments in her ear or kissing her when she needed to talk, he could have soothed her wounds. He could have done so much for her. But he didn’t.
Twin weights of regret and failure settled on his shoulders as he begged for her help one last time. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Save me. Just one more time, please. Don’t let me die. Save me.”
Laughter crept out of the darkness and rumbled behind him. “How many times is Elizabeth supposed to save you, Rory?” The deep, clear voice made him bristle. “Don’t you think Elizabeth deserves a break from your incessant whining?”
Shocked by the voice, Rory twisted his bound hands against the tight rope. “Who are you?”
Silence.
“Why are you doing this?”
Laughter.
In his peripheral vision, a strike and a flash of flame cut the shadows as the stranger lifted a match to a cigarette’s tip.
Rory craned his neck, trying to see the stranger’s face but the ropes cut and burned until he stilled. The smoke’s acrid scent wandered out from the shadows. “Who are you?”
As if he hadn’t spoken, the voice said, “How many days of sobriety did you wipe out last night? Two hundred and five or six?”
Two hundred and six days of sobriety had bolstered his confidence and plumped up his pride. He believed he’d never go back. And yet he had tossed away those months so easily. He stared at the sparse land as barren as his promises to get clean and sober. Shit. Why had he been so reckless?
The demons, which had stalked him for many, many years, murmured familiar words. Loser. Stupid. Failure.
Shit. He thought he’d licked the drinking. Pooling tears spilled down his cheeks.
Loser. Stupid. Failure.
The words beckoned him to step off the tailgate and let the rope end his suffering. Who would notice? Who would care? Likely no one.
And still he clung to life. “I don’t want to die. Whatever I’ve done to you, I’ll fix it. I’ll make it right.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
“I don’t know.”
The stranger chuckled. “Don’t you see? The true fix is death.”
Rory swallowed. His throat burned. “It’s not too late. It’s not. I can make amends and fix what I’ve done. I’ve a brother who has money. He’ll make it right. Just tell me what you need.”
The stranger moved out of the shadows toward the tree, giving Rory a glimpse of a red ball cap and a heavy blue jacket obscuring a lean frame. His tormentor tossed his cigarette on the ground and summer grass dried from drought crackled under his feet as he ground out the embers.
Rory cut his vision to the left toward his tormentor who remained just out of sight. “Come on, man.” Pure desperation emphasized the words. “I can make it right.”
“You can kid yourself, but you can’t fool us, Rory. You’ll never get it right. It’s not in your DNA.”
His slight body trembled and he pissed on himself. “What the fuck do you want?”
“We don’t want to hurt you, Rory. We want to end your suffering.”
“I’m not suffering!” He managed the strained smile of prey facing predator. “I’m living my life as best I can.”
“It’s a sad miserable life, Rory.”
His wrists strained against the unbreakable bindings. “But it’s mine, and I’ve a right to live it. I’ll get back on the wagon. Start over.”
“I know you’re scared.” The stranger’s voice gentled. “I know you don’t have the courage to see this through. Look at that picture, Rory. Even then when your chances were at their best, you clung to young Elizabeth who could barely take care of herself.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Do you really think Elizabeth would think your life is worth saving, Rory?”
“Elizabeth was kind and gentle. She’d want me to live.”
“Really? You hurt her badly. Disappointed her when she needed you most. And then you proceeded to screw up all the good works your family did for you. You’ve been in one crap job after another for the last decade, and you managed to piss away two hundred and six days of sobriety in one night. You talk of your brother, but in recent years he’s refused all your calls.”
Rory had burned the last bridge with his brother last year when he’d missed their mother’s funeral. “I’ve never claimed to be a straight arrow.”
“It’s as if you feel you don’t deserve any bit of happiness.”
He’d never wanted to be a suit like his brother or be jailed by the family business. “I like happiness just fine. I have fun all the time.”
“Where do you think your trouble began, Rory? When did your life go off the rails?” The stranger’s voice was soft but clear. And a little familiar now.
Rory rummaged through his memory trying to isolate the voice. When had they crossed paths? He’d been in that bar in East Austin last night. He’d had a lead on a job and had not wanted to go inside but the promise of work had been too tempting. Who?
“Just because I’m not a choirboy doesn’t mean I’m bad.”
A click of a lighter and then more smoke from a fresh cigarette. “I think you were done the day you were born, Rory. I think you could never hold a candle to your brother. He’s the one your parents loved. He’s the one who got all the attention and support.”
The stranger’s blistering truth rekindled the old anger that had chased him toward reckless choices, gotten him kicked out of a string of private schools, and thrown into too many jails. “Did my brother send you to do this? I know he’s wanted me gone for a long time.”
“Face it, it’s time you left this world for the next.”
Panic extinguished the anger. “That’s not true!”
“Of course it’s true.” The stranger’s voice remained soft, steady, and so reasonable. “You were the mistake. The child no one wanted. Sad your own parents wouldn’t want their own flesh and blood.”
Rory tipped his face up away from the picture and toward the moonless sky. “Stop.”
“It’s not good to bury the pain, Rory. Better to face it head-on and deal with it. Admit it. Your parents didn’t want you.”
Tears stung his eyes. He was thirty-one, could hot-wire a car, crack any lock, and hold a gallon of liquor in his belly and still walk straight. He’d grown a thick skin, but the stranger’s words stripped away the gristle and left him feeling like the sad, pathetic kid he’d been. “Not true.”
“Come on, Rory, it’s Come-to-Jesus time. The moment of truth. The pain had burrowed deep inside you, and though it does a good job of hiding behind a bottle, it’s there.”
Rory stared at Elizabeth’s face. He fisted his fingers. “Who sent you?”
“We weren’t sent, Rory. We were summoned by you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You called us. Your pain and suffering beckoned us to find you. I’m only here to take the pain away.”
Rory twisted his head toward the stranger and stumbled on the truck’s tailgate. Heels skidded up to the edge. Heart racing, he shouted, “I don’t want you to take the pain away. I like my life!”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Elizabeth?”
“How do you know Elizabeth?”
“I know all about her.”
Even now, here, hearing her name and staring into her and her lackluster blue eyes soothed him. “She told me she loved me.”
“And I believe she did. She was willing to go to the mat for you. And you sent all her letters back unread.”
More tears spilled. “I didn’t want to send them back. I loved her.”
“Our deeds define us Rory, not our words.”
Rory tensed, shocked a stranger would know deep and intimate details. “How do you know so much about me?”
“I know a lot about you. And Elizabeth. And the others. I know all your deepest desires.”
“You don’t.”
“You once said you’d die a happy man if the last face you saw were Elizabeth’s. Isn’t that right?”
“Go to hell,” Rory spat.
“I’m here to grant that last wish. No one should go to their grave without getting their last wish granted.”
The stranger ground out his cigarette and opened the truck cab door. His body scraped across cloth seats before the cab door slammed closed. He turned on the engine and revved it.
Rory braced.
His gaze bore into Elizabeth’s smiling face. In these last moments he ignored her tension and saw only her smile, her smooth skin, and her blond hair, swept recklessly over her right shoulder.
In these last seconds, he transported back to the night by the campfire. She’d raced to the fire laughing, and seconds before the image had been snapped, she’d nestled close. He’d hugged her tighter and attributed her tensing muscles to the evening chill.
Rory gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. He straightened. He’d die like a man for her. “I love you, Elizabeth.”
The truck engine roared and the bed moved slowly away from the tree. Even knowing he couldn’t escape his bindings, he struggled to free his hands and dig his boots into the rusted tailgate. His bindings clamped hard on raw wrists and his feet slid to the tailgate’s edge.
Seconds ticked like hours as the last inches of metal skimmed the bottom of his boots and his body fell with a hard jolt. The noose jerked tight and sliced into his skin. Pain burned through him. His struggles tightened the rope’s grip, crushing his windpipe as his feet dangled inches above the ground. He gasped for air, but his lungs didn’t fill. He dangled. Kicked. The rope cut deeper.
He was vaguely aware the truck had stopped. The scent of another cigarette reached him. The driver had stopped to have a smoke and watch him dangle.
Staying to enjoy the show.
And then his brain spun, spittle drooled from his mouth. As the blackness bled in from the corners of his vision, he stared at Elizabeth.
I love you.
His grip on life slipped away.
“Unbind his hands.”
Her voice had a shrill quality that made Jackson cringe. Out of spite, he ignored her and continued to stare at Rory’s dangling lifeless body. Head tilted to the right. Eyes stared sightless at the sky. Tongue dangled out of his mouth.
“Unbind his hands,” she demanded.
He sighed. “Why?”
“Tied hands mean murder and this is supposed to be a suicide.”
He hated to admit it, but she was right. Damn her. She was always right. She could be annoying that way. Always so sure in what needed to be done. And so judgmental when he didn’t listen.
“Do it!” she ordered.
He stiffened, not sparing her a glance. He couldn’t bear to look at her smug, smiling face. One day he’d be rid of her. One day he’d be free.
He pulled the switchblade from his back pocket. He kept his voice steady, choosing to keep the peace for now. “You’re always good with the details.”
“Which is exactly why you will always need me.”
Chapter One
Monday, June 2, 8 A.M.
Fatigue fueled impatience burrowing under Ranger Tec Bragg’s skin as he pressed his booted foot against the accelerator of his black SUV barreling along the rocky rural route cutting into the Texas Hill Country. Scrubby trees and low-lying shrubs bordered the road brushed with bone-dry dirt. A handful of plump clouds floated in a blue sky and teased a good soaking rain to ease the yearlong drought.
Bragg could hope and wish the rains didn’t destroy his crime scene, but he didn’t bother. Life had taught him his wants and needs didn’t mean shit to the universe. Whether the rains came or not, he’d deal.
Flashing blue lights of half a dozen police cars and media vans told him he’d found his crime scene. He drove past them all until he reached the Texas Department of Public Safety officer manning the entrance to the crime scene.
He slowed, unrolled his window as the uniformed officer approached, and touched the brim of his white hat.
“Morning. Ranger Tec Bragg. Heard I’m needed.”
The officer touched the brim of his trooper’s hat. “Yes, sir, Sergeant Bragg. Follow this dirt road a half a mile, and you’ll see the crime scene. No missing it. Sheriff is waiting for you.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Glad to have you back, Sergeant Bragg,” the grinning officer said. “Heard about what you did on the border.”
Bragg’s mood soured. Fame didn’t fit him well. “Right.”
The road led him toward a new cluster of cars from the local sheriff’s department. He’d received a call just after dawn from the local sheriff requesting a visit on an apparent suicide. The dead man, the sheriff drawled, had an older brother richer than Midas who claimed the governor as a friend. Sheriff wanted a Ranger on site for possible damage control.
Shit. His recent promotion, touted as a reward for his work on the border, required deeds he hated more than the cartels or the coyotes. Hand-holding. Meetings. Press briefings. He’d landed smack in the middle of a politicking world he’d carefully avoided for years.
Since he was sixteen, Bragg had gone his own way and learned it was best kept to himself. He didn’t rely on anyone and was careful to make sure no one relied on him.
His leather boots crunched against the dry earth as he took long impatient strides toward the scene. He wore a starched white shirt that itched, string tie, and creased khakis. His SIG Sauer gun hung on his right hip and on his left side rested his cell and cuffs. He sported a newly polished, albeit well-worn, Texas Ranger star on his chest.
Despite the heat, he resisted the urge to roll up his shirtsleeves as he nodded to more deputies, all curious about the suicide garnering a Texas Ranger the likes of Tec Bragg. He made his way toward the yellow crime-scene tape. Ahead he spotted county sheriff Jake Wheeler.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Wheeler wore his brown uniform, cowboy boots, and a wide-brimmed hat that covered a thick shock of white hair. The sun had etched deep lines in his tanned face. A belly rounded over the edge of a nonregulation thick silver belt buckle engraved with his initials. In his late fifties, Wheeler had been sheriff for twenty years but now faced a tough re-election next year. Though he didn’t fit the image of a politician, Wheeler was well practiced at avoiding controversy. Wheeler wanted to pawn off an explosive case.
The morning heat had already darkened Wheeler’s shirt with sweat. “Ranger Bragg.”
Bragg extended his hand to Sheriff Wheeler. “Morning, Sheriff.”
“Thanks for coming, Bragg. I think we might have an issue.”
Bragg glanced beyond Wheeler and the ring of officers surrounding the yellow tape to the crime scene. It wasn’t hard to miss the body. It hung from a tree.
A couple of hours, let alone a couple of days, in the Texas sun played havoc with the dead. The intense temperature triggered bloating and skin slippage within hours and the decomposition process drew black flies, which already buzzed. “By the looks he’s not been out here long.”
“I’m guessing not more than six hours. This time tomorrow he’ll be one hell of a mess.”
“I hear you found his wallet.”
“We surely did. It was at the base of the tree. If there’d been no wallet, I’m not sure how easy it would have been to identify him.”
Bragg glanced toward the tree and saw the forensic technician’s yellow numbered marker by the wallet. “Left it out so there’d be no missing it.”
Wheeler hooked his thumbs in his belt buckle. “Someone wanted it found.”
Bragg rested his hands on his hips. “I didn’t catch the victim’s name.”
“Didn’t want to say it over the radio until we were absolutely sure. Never know. Wallet might not belong to the dead guy.”
“Whose name on the wallet?”
“Rory Edwards.”
“Edwards? The oil family.” David Edwards was indeed a heavy hitter in Texas politics and explained Bragg’s summons.
“One and the same. Rory listed his brother’s fancy West Austin address on his driver’s license.”
“Old man was a wildcatter who struck it rich. Family has more money than God. Father died years back as I recall.”
“He did. Mother died last year but older brother still owns the family home. Controls the family business and has his eye on the governor’s office.”
As Bragg moved closer the buzz of black flies mingled with the growing stench of death and decay. “You think this is Rory?”
“Not one hundred percent sure. This guy doesn’t look like his picture so much.”
“Hell of a way to start the week.”
A faint smile lifted the edge of Wheeler’s mouth. “Yeah.”
“You wouldn’t just call me in for a suicide, Jake. I know you’ve an election coming next spring but a suicide is fairly straightforward.”
Wheeler’s brow knitted. “Look at the crime scene.”
Bragg let his gaze roam the site. First off he noticed there was no discarded chair, stepstool, or ladder near the body. Shifting his focus to the tree, he noted the rope snaked up from the dead man’s body, up and over a branch and to the base of the tree where it was securely tied. It wouldn’t have been an easy climb up the tree and out onto the branch dragging a rope but a motivated man could do it. Still, if Edwards had jumped from that height, he’d not only have broken his neck but the velocity of the fall combined with the body’s weight would have left a deep gash in the neck or, worse, decapitated it.
This wasn’t a suicide.
“Who found the body?”
“Surveyors. A vineyard owner recently purchased the land and plans to clear it and plant more vines. The surveyors were out here early just after dawn to beat the heat. They smelled him before they saw him. The buzzing of the flies drew their gazes up. They called it in.”
“Surveyors check out?”
“They did. Work for a local firm. I know both of them. They were pretty rattled so I let them go on. If you need them later I’ll get you their numbers.”
“What vineyard hired them?”
Wheeler cleared his throat. “Didn’t catch the name.”
“Find out.” Bragg rested his hands on his hips, studying the dead man’s boots, which were custom-made and would have set him back several thousand dollars. Fancy boots jived with the fancy address on the license.
“Want a closer look?” Wheeler said, offering plastic gloves.
“Sure do.” Bragg accepted the gloves and ducked under the crime-scene tape and waited for the tech to log him into the site. He nodded to the forensics technicians as he glanced around the area surrounding the body. Didn’t take more than a second to see the tire tracks. He knelt and studied the imprint. Judging by the depth of the tracks, the truck had backed up to the site under the body and then driven straight back out.
Bragg’s gaze trailed the tracks down the dirt road cutting through the brush and leading back to the rural route. “Rory might have driven a truck in here, but he didn’t drive it out.”
“I’m thinking he had a little help.”
Bragg rose, stretching his limbs. Too little sleep in the last months had left him stiff. “I’d bet Mr. Edwards stood on the flatbed of the truck when it pulled out.”
“And then he dropped and strangled to death.” Wheeler nodded. “Forensics also bagged two cigarette butts. DNA will tell us if it belonged to the victim.”
They might find Edwards’s DNA on one or both butts but Bragg’s gut said no. “I’m guessing it was the second person at the scene. Someone else was here and lingered to watch Mr. Edwards die.”
Wheeler rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Edwards had a history of trouble. Drugs. Drinking. Had a car accident in my county years back, and the family paid off the guy he hit. Problem went away. Heard similar tales of other such problems. He could have pushed the wrong person too far.”
“Maybe.” The dead man’s hands dangled at his side. Blood, no longer pumped by the heart, had settled in his fingers leaving them dark as if bruised. The nighttime heat, which had reached the low nineties, had also accelerated decomposition, causing the skin on his hands to loosen.
“I’ve seen murders like this before along the border. Cartels leave their victims out for all to see. Don’t see hangings as much as beheadings or shootings. And you sure don’t see folks from a family like the Edwardses getting strung up much.” Bragg noted the red rope bracelet on Rory’s right wrist. It appeared homemade. “Have you called the family?”
“Not yet. Figured I’d run it by you first. Didn’t want to stir a hornet’s nest if I didn’t have to.”
And being up for re-election, Wheeler wanted Bragg to do the stirring. “When will they be ready to cut him loose?”
“He’s good to go now. We were waiting for you.”
Bragg nodded, knowing his day had changed from meetings to fieldwork. He couldn’t say he was sorry. “Go ahead and cut him down.”
Wheeler nodded to the officer by the tree and both watched as the uniformed officer raised a saw blade to the rope. While two other deputies grabbed hold of the rope, the first officer cut. In a matter of minutes the hemp frayed and then finally gave way. The officers dug their booted feet into the ground, supporting the body’s dead weight. While a forensic tech snapped pictures, the officers slowly lowered the body to the ground. Stiff with rigor mortis it stood unbending. As the rope slackened, another gloved tech took the body by the shoulders and eased it to the ground. More pictures were snapped as flies buzzed and swarmed.
Bragg walked over to the body and studied the man’s half-open eyes and bloated face. He had grown accustomed to the foul smells of death. The gangs and cartels that moved in and out of the border traded in death as easily as dollars. Whereas the younger cops around him now had paled and taken a step back, he knelt and studied the victim. He’d built a reputation tackling dirty jobs.
Rope burns ringed the victim’s wrists. “Why bind his hands and then cut him loose?” he said, more to himself.
“Maybe the killer thought we’d be fooled by the suicide scenario,” Wheeler offered. “If the rains had come as the weather guys had said, those tire tracks would have been washed away. And a few more days out here and those wrist marks would have been gone.”
“Maybe.” Bragg glanced beyond the scene to the rugged brush and scrub trees around him. “What’s around this immediate area?”
“Immediate area? Not much. Brush and scrub. But like I said, on the adjacent land there is a vineyard. It’s small and family owned. Been around for twenty-plus years.”
Bragg studied the dead man’s brown and rotted teeth. He lifted the victim’s jean jacket and searched for any signs of trauma, bits of paper, stains—anything to offer clues about the man. He found a receipt in the front shirt pocket for Tate’s Bar. In his pants pocket he found two rumpled dollar bills, a room key, a couple of wrapped peppermints, and a half dozen sobriety chips. “Guy has nothing on him worth taking.”
“He sure pissed off someone.”
“That he did.”
Bragg rose and glanced back at the tree. Immediately he spotted the photo flapping in the slight breeze. He moved toward the picture featuring a young teenage couple. Both kids had the look of money. She wore pearl earrings and a gold chain around her neck. And he wore a white-collared shirt flipped up. His hair was thick and blond as if he spent a lot of time in the sun. Bragg leaned in and studied the boy’s smooth, hairless face. If he wasn’t mistaken, the boy was his victim. “Did you see this?”
Wheeler frowned and moved toward the tree. “Yeah, looks like the victim in the picture. But the image is old.”
“Who is the girl?”
“Don’t recognize her. A teen crush, maybe?” Bragg pulled out his cell phone, snapped a picture of the image, and then leaned in to study the young girl’s face. She smiled but it wasn’t joyful. Wherever she’d been when the picture was taken, she didn’t want to be there. Rory, on the other hand, appeared happy. His posture was relaxed and his smile full and genuine.
“The picture’s here for a reason.” He lingered on the girl’s image a beat longer, and then slid the phone back in its belt cradle. “We need to identify that girl.”
