Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [4]
And then she splashed loudly to draw his attention, because only a fool would sneak up on the FBI.
“Nice dog,” he called to her as she dragged the canoe to the barn and leaned it against the wall.
“Thanks, but she’s not mine.” Kendra braced herself for the dog’s enthusiastic greeting. “She belongs to my neighbor down the road, though she does occasionally forget that, don’t you, Lola . . . ?”
“What’s her mix?”
“I’ve heard great Dane and cocker spaniel, though I have some difficulty imagining such a pairing.”
Kendra stopped to pet the dog and sighed in resignation. Didn’t it just figure that the day Adam Stark pulled into her driveway she’d be wearing old cut-off jeans—old and wet cut-off jeans—a shirt tied at the waist, no shoes, and her hair would be a frizzy tangle tied up without thought on the top of her head.
“How’ve you been, Adam?” She walked toward him with her hands on her hips. Fat lot of good it would do to worry about her appearance now.
“Great.” He nodded. “How’ve you been?”
“Great,” she said without much enthusiasm.
“You look . . . great,” he said, and her eyes narrowed, thinking he was mocking her. When she realized that he didn’t appear to be, she softened.
“Thank you, so do you.” She stopped a few feet in front of him. “It seems that life is agreeing with you.”
“No complaints.”
They stared at each other, former more-than-friends not-quite-lovers, for a long minute.
“When John said he’d have a package delivered, I assumed he meant via some overnight mail service,” she said to break the silence.
“Well, I was visiting my father in Pennsylvania when John called yesterday afternoon. He had the file delivered to me at my dad’s before dinner last night so that I could look it over before bringing it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted me to go over the case with you.”
“I see.” She walked to an outside hose and sprayed a thin veil of water over her sandy feet. Lola came closer to investigate, licking at the spray. “John said he’s heading a special unit that focuses on serial crimes—abductions, rapes, murders. . . .”
“Right. I guess you discussed all this with him.”
“Not to any great extent. He just said he had a case he wanted me to work on for him. He’s pretty much a legend, you know, all those high-profile serial killer cases he worked on. So when you have a chance to work with him, you drop what you’re doing.” She resisted adding, Which in my case was nothing. “By the way, I did some work with one of your colleagues from the Seattle office while I was living in Washington state. Portia Cahill.”
Kendra switched feet. Lola’s pink tongue followed the spray.
“She’s worked with John, too, she said.” Kendra looked up at him and added, “She said she knew you.”
“Portia and I were at Quantico together” was all Adam said.
Kendra shot him an amused glance that let him know that she knew there had been more to it than that. Having made her point, she continued.
“Anyway, I worked on a few cases with her while I was out there.” Kendra turned off the hose and slung it over the water spout in a loose O. “She’s working mostly with the terrorist unit now, did you know?”
“I’d heard that.” Adam nodded. “Her sister, Miranda, was recently assigned to Mancini’s unit.”
“Portia said she had a twin sister with the Bureau.” Kendra stood about five feet away from him, her hands on her hips, as if waiting. Finally, she said, “These cases, the ones John called about, they started as kidnappings?”
“I think the local agencies held out hope that that was all they were. Until the bodies were found. Three, actually, that we believe to be related.”
“John said there’d been two.” He had her total attention now, her wayward hair and wet cut-offs forgotten.
“The third body was found this morning. John called again right before I left my dad’s.”
“Three in how many weeks?”
“The first was found almost a month ago.”
“He’s been a busy boy,” she murmured. “How were they killed?”
“Strangled. The body of the last victim showed evidence that she’d been roughed up a bit more than the first two before strangulation, but there