Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [299]
The girl stopped her channel surfing in the middle of a local news report. With the volume muted, Maggie still recognized the truck stop behind the handsome, young reporter who gestured to the gray trash bin cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.
“Emma, shut the TV off, please,” Tully instructed after only a glance at the screen. His coffee mug was filled to the brim and the aroma filtered in with him. He handed Maggie a cold can of Diet Pepsi.
“What’s this?” she asked, taken by surprise.
“I remembered Pepsi is sorta your version of morning coffee.”
She stared at him, amazed that he would have noticed. No one except Anita ever remembered.
“Did I get it wrong? Is it regular and not diet?”
“No, it’s diet,” she said, finally taking the can. “Thanks.”
“Emma, this is Special Agent Maggie O’Dell. Agent O’Dell, this is my ill-mannered daughter, Emma.”
“Hi, Emma.”
The girl looked up and manufactured a smile that looked neither genuine nor comfortable.
“Emma, if you’re up for the morning, please put on some regular clothes.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” She pulled herself out of the chair and wandered out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” he said while he skidded the chair Emma had vacated around to face Maggie and the sofa rather than the TV. “Sometimes I feel like aliens abducted my real daughter and transplanted this impostor.”
Maggie smiled and popped open the Diet Pepsi.
“You have any kids, Agent O’Dell?”
“No.” The answer seemed simple enough, but she noticed Tully still staring at her as though an explanation should follow. “Having a family is a little bit tougher to accomplish when you’re a woman in the FBI than when you’re a man in the FBI.”
He nodded as though it was some new revelation, as though he had never considered it before.
“I hope I didn’t wake your wife, too.”
“You’d have to be pretty noisy to do that.”
“Excuse me?”
“My wife lives in Cleveland…my ex-wife, that is.”
It was still a touchy subject. Maggie could see it in the way he suddenly avoided making eye contact. He sipped his coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug and taking his time. Then, as though he remembered why they were here in his living room on a Sunday morning, he stood up abruptly, set down the mug on the overflowing coffee table and started digging through the piles. Maggie couldn’t help wondering if there was any part of Agent Tully’s life that he kept organized.
He pulled out a map and started unfolding and spreading it out over the surface of uneven piles.
“From what you told me on the phone, I’m figuring this is the area we’re talking about.”
She took a close look at the spot he had highlighted on the map in fluorescent yellow. Here she had thought he wasn’t even listening to her when she had called and woken him.
He continued, “If Rosen was lost, it’s hard telling exactly where he was, but if you cross the Potomac using this toll bridge, there is this piece of land about five miles wide and fifteen miles long that hangs out into the river sort of like a peninsula. The toll bridge passes over the top half. The map shows no roads, not even unpaved ones down in the peninsula part. In fact, it looks like it’s all woods, rocks, probably ravines. Pretty tough terrain. In other words, a great place to hide out.”
“And a difficult place to escape from.” Maggie sat forward, hardly able to contain her excitement. This was it. This was where Stucky was hiding out and keeping his collection. “So when do we leave?”
“Hold on,” Tully sat down and reached for his coffee. “We’re doing this by the book, O’Dell.”
“Stucky strikes hard and fast and then disappears.” She let him hear her anger and urgency. “He’s already killed three women and possibly kidnapped two others in a week. And those are just the ones we know about.”
“I know,” he said much too calmly.
Was she the only one who seemed to understand this madman?
“He could pick up and leave any day, any minute. We can’t wait for court orders and county police cooperation or whatever the hell you think we need to wait for.”
He sipped his coffee, watching her over