All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [103]
They left, Lincoln whistling a ditty, Marcus with his head held high. They’d done a good job ferreting out Lucy Johnson’s bullshit, and they knew it.
Taylor watched their backs, running a hand through her hair. Agent Baldwin. She was utterly transparent. So much for that. She stood, gathering her papers. Time to get out of here. She left the office and exited the building, stopping on the stairwell to light a cigarette. As she stowed the lighter in her pocket, she saw Fitz ambling up to her.
“LT, glad I caught you.”
“What’s up, Fitz? I’m on my way out.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.” He stepped in beside her. “Just got finished talking with Julia Page. Word on the street is that Terrence Norton is taking over the drug trade for the entire east side, but it’s going to take more than a few conversations with informants to get the whole story. We’re going to need a full-blown investigation, undercovers, the whole works. It’s not something that I can get cleared up overnight, unfortunately.”
They reached her truck and Taylor leaned against it, smoking the last of her Camel, thinking.
“Fitz, let’s get this out of our hands. Talk to Julia, tell her we need to turn the whole thing over to the TBI. Homicide can’t be responsible for running a drug sting. Let them take the lead, if we need to task out of Metro I’ll have them talk to Price. Interagency cooperation, and all that bullshit. That sound good to you?”
“Sounds great to me. We’ll have to deal with Terrence Norton on our own side of the fence soon enough.”
She patted him on the arm. “I’m going home, work on some more stuff with the Strangler. Oh, by the way, Marcus and Lincoln—”
“Yeah, I know. No connection to the real Rainman. Wish we could have tied that up in a nice tidy bow for Betsy. We still waiting on her DNA results?”
“Yes, I haven’t gotten word back whether it’s a match or not.”
“If I hear something I’ll give you a call. Try and get some rest, we’ll tackle it again tomorrow.” He gave her a pat on the rump, a wink, and moseyed away.
Thirty-Nine
Baldwin was moving like a whirling dervish through the house. He had a cell phone to one ear, a portable house phone to the other, the desktop computer was on, his laptop was open and buzzing and the laptop that belonged to Whitney Connolly sat in a place of honor in the middle of the slate coffee table.
A new message was blinking on the screen, from the same address as the other poetic e-mails.
He heard Taylor come through the door but barely looked up, just gave her an absent “Hi” and went back to the computer screen. She came over to see what he was reading.
She read the words aloud.
“Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.”
Baldwin sat down hard in the leather chair, flipping the hair back from his forehead. “Just came in. It’s been a bit of a rough afternoon.”
“Let me get you something to eat, then you can fill me in. I’m starved, so I assume you are, as well.”
“Yeah, I am. I already put some soup on. You had some of that vegetable beef in the freezer, it should be about ready.”
She brushed her lips against his forehead then left the room, headed for the kitchen. He heard her rustling around and was struck by the normality of it. He belonged here. With Taylor. It was time to start thinking seriously about getting the hell away from the FBI.
A bloodcurdling scream coincided with the crash of china. He leaped from the couch and bolted to the kitchen.
“What, what is it?” he yelled.
Taylor was backed into the corner between the refrigerator and the wall, her right hand on her gun, the left holding the holster in place so she could unsheathe the weapon smoothly. He looked around wildly, trying to find the intruder. Taylor was white faced, eyes wide. As he took a couple of breaths, he realized that no one was