One More Victim: Callow and Oakley FBI Thrillers Book 1 by David Viergutz

Author:David Viergutz [Viergutz, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DV Publishing
Published: 2023-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

“What are we doing, Marcus?” Callow asked, resting her head against the warm glass of the unmarked cruiser. She gazed out over a stretch of more brick and corrugated metal buildings, each one indistinguishable from the last, that created a narrow passage for the agents to drive through. A seemingly endless two-way street, representative of their overall case.

Callow didn’t dare look at the clock. Each glance would only remind her of time she didn’t have.

You’re chasing your tail, Callow. Icebox wants it this way. You’ve been bested.

Negativity crept over the tempo of her heartbeat, which was strangely calm under the circumstances. A girl’s life was on the line, and here she was, prancing around, chasing dead ends.

“Our jobs,” Marcus said firmly. “The old plan was to sit around and wait for contact. How long would that have lasted? An hour? Two? Twelve? What happens when the timer ticks down while we’re playing cat and mouse and we find another ice chest on the side of the road? And then another girl gets taken, and another? Do we sit and wait, then?”

He swore, beat his fist once against the steering wheel, and continued west.

“I’d rather say I did something. Chasing leads is something. So far, we’ve got more than Wainwright and Kennedy, too. They didn’t know to go after the girl’s job or roommate. Now, we’ve got a business card for another place she applied to, and someone might have seen her …”

Callow turned the maroon and yellow card over in her hand. There was a crease on one side she’d worked the last ten minutes to get out. No matter how straight she tried to make it, the white line defacing the card remained, like a scar.

She felt too close to the card, the personification disturbing. She could bend, unfold, straighten herself out … and still the scar would remain. That’s what the job did to you: it bent you, and you tried desperately not to break, all the while carrying the creases …

“This is what happened in El Paso. The trail ran cold,” Callow said, trying to edge the conversation along without dwelling on the bout of frustration she knew would surely come if this lead dried up, too.

“Yeah, but you tracked Carson down to an area. Then, with a few interviews and a stroke of luck, you had him, and I turned you away. I didn’t trust you.” Marcus settled back in his seat, teasing his lips nervously with his fingers. “I didn’t trust your gut, and we almost paid the price for it. I won’t do that again. I say we listen to your intuition. Let’s see what turns up.”

The car came to a stop in front of a bodega wedged between two buildings. A maroon and yellow umbrella matching the card cast shade over the bodega’s single glass door. A collage of different cuts of meat and their prices created an obscure piece of artwork that blocked the view inside. The images were visceral, sparing no

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