One Wrong Step (3 page)

“You say ‘kid.’ Did you get an ID?”

Poole frowned. “What’s with all the questions? You’re not some kinda reporter, are you?”

“Actually, I work for the
Herald
. I’m pretty sure we’ll be running an article about the accident, especially if it turns out to be fatal.”

Poole scowled. “Shoulda known. If it bleeds, it leads, right? I’ll tell you, what we really need is a news article about this here road. Kills more people every year than all your serial killers combined. People speed, irregardless of warning signs and weather conditions. Why don’t you put
that
in your paper?”

He spat out some chaw juice for emphasis.

“It’s a good point,” Kate said, not bothering to explain that she didn’t personally oversee the editorial content of the entire paper. “So, is that it for the accident report? I really need to get downtown.”

He passed her his clipboard. “Sign at the bottom there.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, little lady. And lemme call a fireman over to take a look at your feet.”

Kate sat in the
Austin Herald
newsroom the next morning with her bandaged feet elevated on a stack of phone books beneath her desk. She’d worn flip-flops to work, which was pushing the envelope, even in Austin. But it was Saturday, so she figured no one would care.

She shuffled through her notepad, trying to find the phone number for Brackenridge Hospital. At pressrun, the hospital still hadn’t released the crash victim’s status, and Kate had been hoping that meant he was in surgery.

“Any more where that came from?”

Kate glanced up to see John McAllister looming over her. He sported his movie-star smile and a Widespread Panic T-shirt. He, too, was wearing flip-flops, which made Kate feel better about her attire.

“Any more…?”

“Krispy Kremes.” He nodded at what was left of her chocolate-iced doughnut. “No fair keeping ’em all to yourself.”

“Sure, uh, over by the copier. I brought in two dozen.” Bringing doughnuts to the newsroom on Saturdays was a quick way to make friends. Kate had recently supplanted McAllister as the newbie on staff, and she needed all the friends she could get.

“Kate, you’re the love of my life.” He winked at her. “Can I top off your coffee while I’m up?”

John McAllister was offering to fetch her coffee. Forget that she refused to touch the tar they concocted in the break room and had filled her travel mug at the doughnut store on the way over.

“Thanks.” She took a big gulp and handed over her cup.

“Sugar?”

“What?”

“You take sugar?”

Oh. For a second there she’d thought he was calling her “sugar.” He called women things like that all the time, which should have been offensive, but somehow he managed to get away with it.

“Um, sure. Sugar’s good. Or black’s fine, too.”

He looked amused. “Which is it?”

“Sugar. If they have it.”

He smiled and walked away before Kate could come up with more scintillating conversation. What was it about him? Every time she opened her mouth in his presence she lost IQ points. It was pretty embarrassing considering the man had joined the
Herald
with more journalism awards under his belt than any other reporter on staff.

She stared after him, admiring the way his jeans fit. He had that long, tall Texan thing going on, and even in a state full of Texans, he stood out. He was well over six feet, athletically slender, and had just enough drawl in his voice to charm the pants off of even the most clear-thinking woman. Kate had seen him in pickup mode over on Sixth Street, Austin’s hub for nightlife, and somehow
still
managed to have a crush on him.

“I need that car wreck update five minutes ago, Kepler.”

The weekend editor stopped at Kate’s desk, effectively ending her daydream. Bruce Schaffer was the anti-McAllister, short and skinny, with a receding hairline. He favored polyester pants with gray snakeskin boots.

“You need it now?” Kate asked. “I just got started. I haven’t even called the hospital yet—”

“Don’t bother. I already called. Guy was DOA.”

Kate swore under her breath.

“And I just got a call from Shel,” Bruce said. “He’s coming in to take a look at your story. So get your notes together ASAP.”

Bruce loved to talk in acronyms.

“Why is Shel involved?” Kate asked. The editor in chief never showed his face on weekends unless something major was going on.

“You must have been right about your hit-and-run theory,” he said. “Something’s weird, and suddenly the FBI’s calling.”

“The FBI?”

McAllister strolled over with her coffee cup and several doughnuts hooked to his long pinky.

“Yeah,” Bruce said, “apparently the victim’s someone important, but they won’t tell us who. You checked out the vic’s car with the DMV, right?”

“Thanks,” Kate said as McAllister passed her her mug. She reread her notes. “Just got a call back. Vehicle is registered to a Cecelia Wells, but—”

“Wait,
what
?” McAllister seized her arm, sloshing coffee all over her desk. “
Who?
”

Whoa. Kate double-checked the name. “I said Cecelia Wells. Owner of a blue Ford Explorer. Why? You know her?”

The color drained from McAllister’s face. It was remarkable. Two seconds, and he was white as chalk. “She was the
victim
? You mean she’s…?”

“Victim was a guy,” Kate clarified. “Looked like maybe a college student out joyriding in her car.”

“You know this girl?” Bruce asked McAllister.

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes briefly. “She lives in my hometown. Mayfield.”

“Not anymore.” Kate scanned her notes. “Looks like she’s here in Austin. Three-thirteen Grand View Drive.”

McAllister snatched the notepad away. “Fuckin’ A,” he muttered. “She didn’t tell me she’d moved here.”

Kate rolled her eyes. What an ego. She looked him over as he read through her notes. Okay, so he came by it honestly. He was gorgeous—
People
’s Sexiest Man Alive gorgeous. Kate watched his wavy, blondish-brown hair fall over his eyes as he stroked his stubbled jaw.

“We need a follow-up on this,” Bruce was telling her. “We need to find out what the deal is with her car. Was it stolen? Did she lend it to somebody? We got some FBI hotshot calling Shel about this, and he wants to know why. Get your butt down to police headquarters and find out what they know about this victim.”

“I’m on it,” Kate said.

Bruce turned to McAllister. “You want to lend a hand here? Is this woman married?”

McAllister looked up. “Huh?”

“Is she married? Any chance her husband was behind the wheel? Maybe she’s got a teenager?”

“Uh…she’s divorced,” he said. “No kids.”

“Well, call her up and see why someone else was driving her car last night.”

“That’s not necessary,” Kate said. “I can cover this.”

If this story turned into something big, Kate didn’t want McAllister stealing it out from under her. He had a competitive streak.

“No, this is important,” Bruce said. “I want both of you on it. Shel wants answers, pronto.”

Kate picked up her keys.

“And hey, Kepler,” Bruce said, “before you go, I’ve got a number for some FBI agent who wants to talk to you. Tell him what he needs to know, but don’t make any promises about what we will or won’t print. Remember who you work for.”

Kate froze. “Couldn’t
you
talk to him?” There were few things Kate would enjoy less than talking to an FBI agent.

“Sorry, Kepler. He wants you.”

Cecelia Wells was hiding something. Special Agent Mike Rowe had a gut feeling about it; he just hadn’t figured out what the something was.

“And you’re sure about the timeline, ma’am?” his partner asked. Nick Stevenski was young, charming, and nice to look at, and consequently their standard operating procedure was for him to interview any female witnesses. Stevenski had been sitting across from sweet little Ms. Wells for nearly an hour now, and she’d been extremely cooperative.

But something was off. She was holding back. Rowe knew it as sure as he knew that her ex-husband was at this very moment laid out in the morgue.

“He left around ten,” she told Stevenski for the second time. “I remember because right afterward I took a half-hour bubble bath to relax, and when I got out David Letterman was on.”

A half-hour bubble bath. Nothing like an indisputable time line.

Cecelia pulled another tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose in that dainty way only women can pull off. She looked different than she had down in Mayfield the last time Rowe had seen her. Her blonde hair was longer; maybe that was it. Her eyes looked greener than usual, but that was just because she’d been crying. Then he figured it out. She’d gained weight. Her cheeks were plump, and the rest of her body seemed slightly fuller now than it had eight months ago. Probably the stress, Rowe decided. Lots of people put on weight when they were under pressure, and Cecelia Wells had been under plenty of pressure since her husband became a fugitive last summer.

“And can you remember anything else you talked about?” Stevenski asked. “Anything besides money and your idea that he should seek rehab?”

Rowe wandered into the kitchen as the interview dragged on. Another strategic reason for Stevenski to take the lead was that he’d never met Cecelia before today. Rowe was interested to see whether his partner could elicit new answers to some of the questions Rowe had asked a few months ago.

So far, no luck.

Cecelia had cooperated fully and given a convincing performance as the bereaved-but-not-overly-so ex-wife. Everything she’d said thus far had checked out, right down to the wilted yellow carnations in the bottom of her trash can, the flowers she claimed Strickland had used to get past the doorman downstairs.

So what was bothering him?

“And about the money again,” Stevenski continued, “you say Robert asked for a few hundred bucks to tide him over, and that’s when you told him you only had a twenty in the house?”

“That’s right.”

Bingo.

Rowe pretended to be looking out the window while he waited to hear whether Cecelia would realize she’d changed her story.

“I told him I didn’t keep cash like that lying around, but he could have the twenty,” she said. “I hoped he’d use it for a meal. I guess deep down I knew he’d try to buy drugs, but I felt guilty, you know? He looked so skinny and awful, I didn’t want to send him away empty-handed.” Her voice faltered. “I guess I was wrong, huh? If he hadn’t been on something, he might not have had the wreck.”

Stevenski refrained from assuaging her guilt, and Rowe waited for him to pick up the thread of inconsistency in her story. At the start of the interview, she’d said Strickland asked her for a few
thousand
bucks, not a few hundred. She was lying about her conversation with Strickland, at least about the money part. And now Rowe had a lead.

“Okay, so that’s when you told him to wait while you got him an aspirin?”

Stevenski had switched topics again. Damn it, this was why Rowe liked to conduct interviews himself. But females didn’t open up with him like they did with Stevenski. At six-one and 210 pounds, Rowe tended to intimidate women, especially shorter-than-average ones like Cecelia Wells. Plus, other agents had told him that his eyes put people off, that there was something cold about them.

“—and when I came back in, he was standing by the door,” Cecelia was saying now. “I didn’t realize he’d taken my keys until I was getting ready for work this morning.”

“At the Bluebonnet House, right?”

“Right. We were supposed to have an Easter party today, but we’re doing it tomorrow now because I couldn’t make it. The police asked me to come to the station….” Her voice trailed off as she reached for another tissue.

Rowe strolled back into the living room and stood behind the sofa where Cecelia was curled up, her legs folded under her, hiding the shiny pink toenail polish he’d noticed when they’d first arrived. With her long blonde hair and soft southern accent, this woman radiated “sorority chick.” But Rowe knew better, even if Stevenski didn’t. This woman was sharp. He wanted to signal his partner to get back to the subject of money. Rowe had reason to believe Robert Strickland was indebted to the Saledo drug cartel for a quarter million in stolen drug profits, money he hadn’t been in possession of at the time of his death. If his ex-wife had some knowledge about the money, it might mean a break in the case.

Manuel Saledo wouldn’t turn his back on a debt like that—not because of the amount, which was chump change to him, but because he had a reputation to uphold. If Cecelia knew the money’s whereabouts, Saledo would damn sure try to collect. And when
that
happened, Rowe and his task force might get a chance to collar some high-level operatives in Saledo’s enterprise, hopefully someone who could help them develop useful intelligence on Saledo himself.

“Are you almost finished with your questions, Mr. Stevenski? Like I told you before, I have plans for the evening.”

Rowe shifted his attention back to Cecelia, who had just reminded him of the other thing bugging him—this lie she’d obviously concocted about a date coming over. Rowe didn’t know a woman alive who would go out on a date with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. And she was wearing gray sweats that didn’t exactly make a fashion statement. He’d bet money Cecelia’s only plans for the night included a bottle of Chardonnay and another one of those bubble baths. Which meant she was trying to get rid of them. Which meant—despite her seeming cooperation and polite, thorough answers—she was uncomfortable being interviewed. Which confirmed Rowe’s suspicion she was hiding something.

A buzzer sounded, and Cecelia sprang off the sofa.

“Excuse me.” She rushed across the living room and punched a button on the intercom by the door. “Yes?”

“Ms. Wells, you got a visitor here. A John McAllister?”

She went still. Rowe would have liked to see her face, but her back was to him.

“Thank you,” she said. “Please send him right up.”