Scene of the Crime: Baton Rouge

The Wingate apartments were set up more like condo units and definitely were for the wealthy who didn’t want the responsibility that came with owning a home.

Jackson’s unit was on the end of the last building in the complex, bumping up against a heavily wooded area and attached by a common courtyard entrance to the unit next door.

“Any sign of forced entry?” she asked as the car came to a halt.

“Not according to the initial walk-through.” He cut the engine and turned to look at her, his blue eyes like hard-edged sapphires. “We either have a perp who is an expert at picking locks or, knowing Jackson, it’s possible he went to bed without checking that all the doors were locked. He always thought he was invincible.” Frustration deepened the tone of his voice.

“Then let’s just hope that whatever has happened to him, he remains invincible,” she replied.

He cast her a quicksilver smile that lingered only for a moment, just long enough to whisper heat through her. “Let’s get inside and see what we can find.” He opened his car door and was halfway to the courtyard entry as she hurried to catch up to him.

They had just reached the fence that led to the courtyard when a figure stepped out of the woods. Alexander filled his hand with his gun in the blink of an eye and then muttered a curse and jammed it back into his shoulder holster.

“Jeez, Joe, do you want to get yourself shot?”

FBI agent Joe Markum stepped closer to them with a wry grin. “Jeez, Harkins, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“You know my motto...shoot first and ask questions later,” Alexander replied. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was assigned late last night to sit on the place to make sure nobody except appropriate officials gained access. Somebody should be arriving soon to take my place, but I’m assuming it isn’t you two.” He nodded to Georgina with a friendly smile.

“We’re here to investigate,” she said. “Miller formed a task force this morning and Alexander is leading it.”

“And we’re hoping to find something that was missed last night,” Alexander said.

“Knock yourselves out.” Joe gestured toward the front door. “It’s unlocked and there’s protective gear in boxes on the porch.”

“Thanks,” Alexander said and together he and Georgina walked through the gate and to the front door where a box of booties and latex gloves awaited whomever might venture into the house.

Georgina pulled on the protective gear and once again her heart began to beat faster. She’d never been in Jackson’s home before, but it was the fact that she was about to enter what they’d already determined to be a crime scene that had her adrenaline flooding through her.

As she followed Alexander into the house, she tried not to notice how his lightweight suit jacket pulled over his broad shoulders, how his black slacks fit perfectly around his slim waist and down his long legs.

She tried not to remember what it had felt like to dance her fingers over his naked muscled chest, how her legs had often twined with his when they’d made love.

They had been great in the bedroom. It had only been when they got out of bed that she hadn’t been able to get the relationship right. She firmly shoved these thoughts out of her mind as they entered Jackson’s living room.

Jackson was the epitome of a Southern man and his furnishings reflected the style of warmth and invitation that would have done any Southerner proud.

The oversize sofa was a rich burgundy and gold print, flanked by burgundy wing-backed chairs. The coffee table was a large square of wood that held a gorgeous floral arrangement. The room was beautiful, but obviously rarely used and not the center of the home.

“Nothing looks like it’s been touched in here,” Alexander said as he moved into the next room, a large great room more casually decorated and obviously the space where Jackson spent much of his time.

A huge flat-screen television hung over a stone fireplace and two leather recliners provided the perfect places to sit and watch a movie or dancing flames. Again, it appeared as if nothing untoward had occurred in this room. There was no sign of a struggle or anything amiss.

Neither of them spoke as they entered the kitchen with its large table and variety of pots and pans hanging from a baker’s rack on the wall. Everything was neat and tidy and she watched as Alexander dragged a hand through his dark hair.

“I guess the report we got that they were taken from their bed is true. Nothing seems to be out of place down here. We should head upstairs.”

She nodded and once again found herself following him up the stairs that led to three bedrooms and two baths. The first two bedrooms and the hallway bathroom showed nothing untoward.

She felt her entire body tense as they approached the master bedroom. She stepped into the room just behind her partner. The king-size bed was unmade. The sheets trailed off to the floor on the closest side of the bed to the door.

“That bedding doesn’t look normal to me,” Alexander said as he stood still as a statue, his gaze lingering on the bed.

“By the way the sheets are hanging off, it looks like somebody was dragged from the bed,” Georgina observed.

“I agree.” The knot in his jaw throbbed as he pointed to the farthest nightstand. “But, how could anyone drag them out of bed when Jackson had his gun right next to him.”

The gun was on the nightstand next to a silver-and-black lamp, an easy reach even in the darkness of night. “Maybe he drugged them? Drugged the food they ate before they came to bed? Slipped something in their drinks?” Her mind raced to make sense of the scene.

“I’ll have the crime scene guys come back and check everything that’s in the refrigerator to see if they find anything tainted by drugs.”

He remained standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the room as if in a trance. Georgina did nothing to break his focus. She knew this was part of his process, this concentration that he used in an effort to see the crime as it happened, to understand any clues that might have been left behind.

She wondered if he still had nightmares. If somebody was seeing to it that he ate right. She’d heard no rumors that he was dating anyone, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. He’d had two years to move on, and two years was a long time for a man to be alone, especially a man as vital, as alive as Alexander.

“Were the lights on or off?” He finally broke his trance and turned to look at her. “Do you remember from the report if the lights in here were off or on when the first agents arrived on scene?”

She frowned thoughtfully, trying to picture the initial report. “Off,” she finally replied. “Jackson is a big man. If they were both somehow drugged, then how did our perp move their unconscious bodies from here to a waiting vehicle down the stairs and outside?”

Alexander looked closely at the carpeting around the bed where the covers trailed to the floor and then stepped out of the room and stared down the long hallway toward the staircase.

He turned back to Georgina, a deep frown cutting across his forehead. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe they weren’t drugged at all,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe the perp just got the drop on them, appeared in the doorway with a gun pointed at Marjorie, making it impossible for Jackson to take a chance at grabbing his own gun.”

“Maybe,” he replied absently. “Let me take a look in the master bath to see if there’s anything there and then let’s get out of here.”

He disappeared into the bathroom and Georgina felt his pain, his worry for his friend resonating in her heart. He’d been given a huge job, made all the more important because his good friend was now one of the missing.

The Gilmer case had given him nightmares and thrown him into a black hole that she feared he would never climb out of. If he was unsuccessful on this case, she feared it would completely and utterly destroy him.

* * *

“IT’S SIX-THIRTY, you want to stop by Nettie’s and grab something to eat and talk about all the things we don’t know about this case?” he asked Georgina when they were back in the car and headed away from Jackson’s place. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten anything today except a bagel early this morning.”

She hesitated only a moment before replying. “Sure, Nettie’s sounds like a plan. Besides, if I say no, you probably won’t eat anything tonight.”

He smiled tightly. “I always did hate to eat alone.”

The restaurant was a favorite place for the FBI agents to grab meals as it was only a block away from the building where they all worked. The prices were reasonable, the portions generous and the food was delicious.

He tried to fight against the discouragement that attempted to work its way into his psyche. He’d hoped to find something at Jackson’s place, but given the fact that the other two crime scenes had yielded nothing in the way of clues, he shouldn’t be surprised that nothing had been found there, either.

Reminding himself that he’d had the case less than twenty-four hours, he wanted to eat and then take the files he had on the previous cases home to study them all again.

Before they’d all left the office, he’d told the team to be in the war room at seven the next morning, even though it was Saturday. Weekends and holidays would have no meaning at all until this case was solved.