Nowhere to Run (A Harley Cole FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Harley parked at the edge of the dirt road overlooking the Rio Grande and stared at the trio of news vans, her mouth tightening. It was the very thing she had feared—a media circus, even before the agents had a chance to enter the crime scene. This was not going to be a quiet investigation but a public one.

“A day late and a dollar short,” she said, watching a sandy-haired man with a camera over his shoulder stagger toward the stony descent that presumably led to the cavern. They were high above the river, which coursed with sluggish determination through a screen of trees, its underbelly showing here and there in jutting sandbars.

“Let’s just hope they haven’t cracked the case before we get down there,” Callaway answered, flashing her a wink as he popped the latch on his door and shoved it open. He moved toward the trail with long, steady strides, his hands fitting casually in the pockets of his jeans with the thumbs exposed.

He turned back. “You coming?”

Harley leaned out the door as she switched into her trail running shoes. “Right behind you.” She wasn’t about to blister her feet by wearing flats over stony ground. She considered changing out of her blazer as well, but the day was still early enough that she did not think she would be too hot. Besides, the cavern ought to be cool.

After locking her Jeep, Harley joined Callaway and together they descended the rocky path, dislodging stones that bounced and pitched themselves into the golden water below. There was a pungent odor wafting off the river that would probably have been off-putting to someone unfamiliar with it. To Harley, however, it smelled like childhood kayaking trips on the river and fishing with her father on the banks.

At the bottom of the path, sectioned off by a strand of caution tape wound around a series of traffic cones, was the cavern, a glittering maw cut into the side of the cliff. A dozen or so people—the members of the boating party, Harley presumed—hunkered down against the far wall of the cavern, eating snacks and murmuring to one another, eyebrows pinched together in worry. The pontoon boat bobbed gently nearby.

The sandy-haired cameraman, who had just finished setting up his tripod, noticed the two agents and hurried toward them with the gawky gait of an adolescent still growing into his body.

“Alan Fielding, Sunny Day News,” he rattled off, crab-walking so he could keep the camera pointed at their faces. “Can you tell me why the FBI is getting involved in this investigation?”

Shit, Harley thought. He must have seen one of their badges clipped to their belts. Either that or he had made an educated guess.

“No comment,” she answered in an even voice, keeping her focus on the caution tape as if it were a finish line. All she had to do was get there, and Fielding would have no choice but to watch from a distance.

“I’ll take that as confirmation the FBI is indeed joining this investigation,” Fielding said, undeterred by Harley’s brusque response. His foot caught on a stone, and he stumbled, barely managing to regain his balance. The misstep affected him as little as Harley’s dismissal, however.

“We have a witness who claims there are multiple bodies in the back of that cavern,” he continued, his speech accelerating as they neared the caution tape. “Can you clarify that number for us? And does this mean we have another serial killer on our hands?”

The reporter’s words surprised Harley. The only “witness” Sunny Day News could have was one of the members of the tour boat, which meant someone was talking. Harley and Callaway needed to get a lid on this case as soon as possible, because one of the best ways to identify the perpetrator of a crime was to catch them sharing information only the perpetrator could know. If every detail of the case became general knowledge, this investigative tactic would no longer be an option.

“Do you have any advice for the general public?” Fielding pressed. They were only a few paces from the caution tape now. To Harley, the cavern might as well have been the Promised Land.

As Fielding shifted in front of her, forcing her to detour around him, she lost her patience. She stopped and stared directly into the dark lens of the camera.

“Yes,” she said, “I do have some advice. Stop watching the news. It’s bad for your health.”

With that, she ducked beneath the tape and turned her back to the reporter, ignoring his follow-up question about why she didn’t believe the public had a right to be informed.

“You shouldn’t lose your cool like that,” Callaway murmured, removing his sunglasses and peering around the cavern with his emerald eyes. A heavyset police officer with a caterpillar mustache and a slight limp moved toward them, a surgical mask hiding his neck.

“I can only take so much,” Harley said to Callaway. “He’s lucky I didn’t chew him out.”

“No, you’re lucky you didn’t,” Callaway said. “That’s the last thing we need—a clip like that going viral, making it sound like we think we know better than everyone else.”

Angry as she was, Harley knew he was right. She would need to be more careful. It was too easy to take words out of context, and considering they already had a high-profile victim on their hands, there was no need to draw more attention to this case—or to the agents working it —than there already was.

“You must be the Feds I was told about,” the officer said as he reached them. He stuck out a meaty hand. The brass name tag just above the officer’s right breast pocket read “BULLOCK.”

“Agents Cole and Callaway,” Callaway said by way of introduction. “Where do things stand, Officer Bullock?”

Bullock’s eyes scanned the camera crews as he spoke. “Well, we’ve got eleven frightened people who just had the shock of their lives. Officer Hessler and I—” he nodded toward a second officer on the far side of the cavern handing out bottles of water to the group huddled against the wall, “—have been taking witness statements, but there’s not a lot to be said. None of them have been here before, not even the guide, and most of them didn’t even see the bodies.”

“Even so,” Harley said, “someone’s talking to the media. I don’t know what you told them, but they need to understand this is a criminal investigation, and they risk charges by sharing what they know with the public.”

Bullock sighed as if he had worried about this very thing. “I warned them, of course, but with this many people it’s like trying to patch a sieve. Took all my energy just to keep them from disturbing the crime scene before the CSI got here.”

This surprised Harley. “There’s a CSI here already? Who is it?” First the press, now the CSI. Why did she feel like she’d been one of the last to know about the bodies?

“Angelina Brenner.”

The name didn’t mean anything to Harley. Callaway, however, seemed to recognize it.

“I know Angie,” he said. “Worked with her a time or two.” His face remained stoic as he said this, betraying no emotion at all.

Bullock nodded, a look of respect in his eyes. “Sharp as a scalpel, that one. Handle with care unless you want to get cut.”

Harley, who could not relate with Bullock’s description because she had never met Angelina, was still trying to figure out the order of events. She held a hand to her forehead and squinted her eyes.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Run through it again for me—how did everyone get here?”

Bullock didn’t seem to mind backtracking. “The tour guide, they do these river tours, right? This morning they’re out cruising the river, drinking beers, working on their sunburns. One of them kids sees this cave, has the bright idea it would be fun to poke around in there, and—” He turned, spotting another cameraman—this one older, with a salt-and-pepper beard and thick-framed glasses—as he pushed up against the caution tape.

“I’m going to need you to step back, sir!” Bullock said. “Away from the tape!”

The cameraman backpedaled, but he kept the camera focused on the trio.

“Animals,” Bullock muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the crook of his arm. He jerked his head, indicating the two agents should follow him away from the cameraman.

“You were saying something about the people on the boat?” Harley said as they skirted the pool in the middle of the cavern. It was clear and deep, with a murky bottom through which pale fish drifted, lifeless one moment and darting so quickly the next moment that her eye almost couldn’t follow them.

Bullock said, “So they go into this cave, right? Tour guide wants them all to stay at the entrance, liability reasons, yada-yada-yada, but two sneak off into a tunnel—looking to do a little exploring of their own, and not just to find petroglyphs, though there are some back there. Only instead of a tryst it becomes a threesome. A sixsome, if you will.”

He looked at them and raised his eyebrows, apparently impressed with his own joke. When neither reacted, he cleared his throat with a hint of embarrassment and went on.

“So the tour guide, Sharpton, calls dispatch.”

“And you were the first to respond?” Callaway said.

“CSI beat us to the punch.”

“How did she get here so fast?” Harley asked.

“Keeps a scanner in her car. She was nearby, heard the report, and decided to drop in. As for the news crews…” He shrugged. “You got a bunch of scared people in there with cell phones, calling their families. Only a matter of time before word gets out.”

Harley nodded, satisfied she had been brought up to speed. “I appreciate the explanation, officer. Mind showing us in?”

Bullock led them toward the back of the cavern, where a trail of glowsticks illuminated a narrow passage. As they moved through the luminescent darkness, an odor like spoiled eggs permeated the air. Harley coughed and covered her face.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Bullock said, pulling a package of surgical masks from his pocket. “You’re going to want these. A couple of the bodies look—and smell—like they’ve been in there a good while. Whoever killed them, he’s gotten away with it for a long time.”