Scene of the Crime: Baton Rouge

The fact that nobody from the team had contacted him while he and Georgina had been gone meant none of them had anything to report. Hopefully by morning that would change.

They remained silent on the rest of the drive to the restaurant. He knew it was probably a mistake partnering himself with Georgina, given their history. He also knew how bright, how dedicated she was to the job, and that because of her knowledge of him and his habits, she’d make the perfect partner.

He pulled into the crowded parking lot. Nettie’s on a Friday night was busy, but he hoped that he and Georgina could grab a booth in the back where they could talk in relative privacy.

Nettie’s had an identity issue. While the food was more along the lines of home cooking, the interior was dim, with candles lit at each table as if it was pretending to be a fine-dining place.

Nettie greeted them at the door with a wide smile. “Two of my favorite agents,” she said. She was a testament to the good food she served. Short and wide with brassy red hair, it was rumored that she’d once scared away a young would-be thief by wielding a large wooden spoon and threatening to spank his ass clean off his body with it.

As Alexander had hoped, she led them to a booth in the back of the restaurant where the noise of the other diners was less audible and he and Georgina would be able to talk without shouting.

The moment they slid into the booth across from each other with the candlelight glowing on Georgina’s face, a sense of déjà vu struck him and brought with it a sense of loss he’d never quite recovered from.

They’d eaten out often during the early days of their marriage in places where candlelight had bathed her beauty in a golden glow. At those times her eyes had glimmered with a love that had showered him with warmth.

Now that glimmer was gone and in its place was the pleasant but focused gaze of professionalism. As it should be, he reminded himself.

The waitress arrived with menus and to take drink orders. Georgina went with a Cobb salad while he ordered a steak and baked potato. They each ordered a glass of wine.

“This is going to be a tough one,” Georgina said. “FBI agents in two different locations haven’t come up with any clues to help apprehend or identify a suspect.”

“True, but we possibly have something they didn’t have,” he replied.

“The note.”

“Exactly. If it’s the real deal, then we have the first communication from the unsub and I’m hoping it won’t be the last.”

She unfurled the cloth napkin to reveal her silverware and placed the napkin in her lap as the waitress arrived with their wine. “I don’t want to be negative, but you know it’s possible that note is from some crackpot, or that single note will be all we get from him,” she replied once the waitress had left the table.

“I know, but I’ve got a gut feeling that this guy is the real deal and at a place where he wants to crow about his victories.”

She smiled. “Rumor has it that your gut is rarely wrong. It will be interesting to see if he makes any more contact with us.”

They sipped their wine, falling into a silence that he’d often experienced when married to Georgina. She’d never been good at small talk, as if afraid she might somehow give away a piece of herself she could never get back.

“How’s life treating you?” he asked, perversely forcing the small talk issue while they waited for their meals to be delivered.

“Fine. I spend most of my time at work, which is how I like it.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

She raised one of her dark eyebrows wryly. “I don’t have time to see anyone, and in any case I’m not looking for a relationship. What about you?”

He shook his head. “There’s nobody in my life. Like you, I work so much it’s hard to even think about starting a relationship with anyone.”

He didn’t say it aloud, but the truth was that the woman across the table from him had burned him so badly he had no interest in getting close to the fire ever again.

“I have a feeling we’re all going to be putting in a lot of hours with this one,” she said, deftly turning the subject back to work issues.

“I can’t help but think that somehow there’s a connection between the victims...the FBI agents who were taken. It has to be a connection beyond the fact that they were FBI agents—perhaps their specific expertise—otherwise why take Sam Connelly from Bachelor Moon? Why go all the way to Missouri to snatch Agent Amberly Caldwell and then come back here to take Jackson?”

“So, you believe the people who were taken with the agents weren’t just collateral damage?” she asked.

The conversation halted as the waitress appeared with their dinners. Alexander waited until she’d moved away once again and then replied, “They could be some sort of leverage. There’s no better way to get a man to talk than to threaten his wife or his child.”

“But, Sam was a retired agent. He hadn’t worked actively as an agent for some time,” Georgina reminded him.

“True, but he left the agency with the reputation of being one of the best profilers in the country.”

Georgina took a bite of her salad, a tiny frown of concentration dancing across her forehead. “Is it possible that somehow Sam, Jackson and Amberly all worked a case together?”

“Sam and Jackson might have worked together in the past, but I can’t imagine how Amberly figures in. She wouldn’t have been a part of any investigations that Sam and Jackson might have worked here in Louisiana.”

“Even peripherally?”

He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I don’t know. That’s definitely something we should check out. We need to find out about any cases Sam and Jackson might have worked together and how, if at all, Amberly might figure in.”

“Maybe Nicholas and Frank will have something for us tomorrow morning,” she said.

“The sooner the better,” he replied.

They fell quiet as they focused on their meals. Alexander found himself remembering all the silences that had filled the two years of their marriage.

For the first six months or so, Alexander hadn’t noticed it. Captivated by her passion, eager to share who he was as a man, what he wanted for their future, he’d talked enough for both of them. He’d been crazy in love with her and thought she’d felt the same.

It was only after she’d left that he realized the marriage had been a one-sided disaster. They were great in bed, they could talk late into the night about the cases they were working on, but when the conversation turned personal she grew silent.

He knew her parents were alive and that she had two older sisters, but she was estranged from all of them. She never told him what had caused the estrangement, in fact had told him she rarely thought about her family.

She knew everything about his childhood, but he knew nothing about hers. She’d been adept at changing the subject when the conversation got too personal and he’d been too crazy about her to mind.

When he’d decided to partner with her on this case, he’d thought he was choosing her because he knew her work ethic matched his own and he believed she was one of the brightest agents on the team.

Now, as he gazed at her across the candlelit table, he wondered if there wasn’t more to his decision. Perhaps he not only wanted her by his side to help in the investigation, but maybe he was also hoping that by spending more time with her, he would finally unlock the mystery of Georgina.

Chapter Three (#ulink_8c32a629-930a-519d-9272-df7d83f23911)

Georgina awoke the next morning just after five-thirty, her mind already whirling with the horror of the nightmare that had plagued her for years.

The dream was always the same. She was in a dark, small space, her stomach growling with hunger as the scent of food drifted in the air. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape the dark place except by awakening.

Never one to linger in bed, by the time six o’clock arrived she was showered and dressed and in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to quit brewing.

She had thirty minutes to relax until she’d have to leave to get to the FBI offices by seven. Minutes later she sat at her table with a cup of the fresh brew in hand. As she played over the events of the day before, the last thing she could find was any kind of relaxation.

Already she felt tension riding her shoulders, a knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. It was bad enough that they had a complicated case where they didn’t even know if the kidnapped victims were dead or alive.

As the only woman on the task force, she felt extreme pressure to overachieve, to prove herself to be the best that she could be.