Page 5

Chapter 5

Brenna trailed behind Agent Tarver as he entered the Riverton Police Station’s conference room.

He hadn’t stopped to strip his jacket, performing this function on the go as he crossed to the whiteboard.

Notes had been added to indicate the location where the first victim’s body had been discovered.

The recurring image of the frozen woman floating at the bottom of two feet of ice wouldn’t be erased from Brenna’s mind any time soon.

“Any news on Olsen?” Nick asked.

“The police haven’t been able to put a finger on him yet.” Paul sat at the computer in the corner with his back to the room, pounding away at the keys. “He’s not where he’s supposed to be, and no one’s seen him.”

When Brenna entered the room, she felt the heat of Nick’s gaze following her as she circled the table and stopped in front of the whiteboard covering the east wall.

Melissa perched on the edge of the conference table, a clipboard and pencil in her hands. “We got the list of Special Agent Jensen’s convictions from Bismarck.” She dipped her head toward Brenna. “Impressive. Paul’s running a scan to see if any of them are out on parole, and if so, whether or not they’re in this area.”

“I should have a cross match in the next two or three minutes,” Paul said over his shoulder without looking up.

“I’m going to get some coffee.” Nick glanced at Brenna. “Want some?”

She shook her head.

When Nick left the room, Melissa’s gaze darted from Brenna to the empty doorway. “Did you see that, Paul?”

“With my back to the room? Uh, no.” His fingers didn’t slow on the keyboard.

“The great Agent Tarver actually asked someone if they wanted coffee.”

“Is that unusual?” Brenna asked.

“For anyone else, no. For Nick, hell yeah.”

“Our man Nick is known for his dedication to the job,” Paul explained.

“Dedication, hell.” Melissa snorted. “He is the job.”

Brenna didn’t like talking about the man while he wasn’t in the room to defend himself. She feigned interest in the documents scattered across the table and without looking up, said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Melissa stared down at the list in her hands, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Ever since Nick’s divorce, he’s been a driven man.”

So, Nick Tarver had been married? Brenna wasn’t surprised. A man with such a wicked combination of black hair and deep green eyes couldn’t stay single long.

“For the past two years, he hasn’t stopped to consider that others need food, sleep or even coffee.” Melissa tapped her pencil on the clipboard.

“Until today.” Paul looked around and stared at Brenna as if seeing her for the first time. His eyes narrowed. “Until you.”

“Think the ice is cracking on Nicky?” Melissa tilted her head to the side as her gaze wandered over Brenna.

Brenna squirmed beneath the intensity of their perusal. As if Nick Tarver had any interest in her. She was a criminal investigator, not her sister of the golden-blond cheerleader perfection. What would he see in her?

Nothing.

“I don’t know, might be too soon to tell.” With a shrug, Paul turned back to the monitor. “But my money’s on Special Agent Jensen.”

Melissa pushed away from the table and brushed past Brenna. “I’d keep my eye on him if I were you, sweetie. Nick can blow hot and cold in a matter of seconds.”

Melissa didn’t have to waste breath. Brenna already knew Nick was trouble. The only difficulty would be within herself. The FBI agent would never fall for a woman like her. But any woman could fall for a guy like him.

Not Brenna. She knew better. Nick was strictly a hit-and-run kinda guy. Having survived a past hit-and-run relationship, Brenna was in no hurry to step out in front of a speeding car again.

“Got it.” Paul hit a button on the keyboard and jumped up to stand in front of a printer. “The list I’m printing is a cross reference between all of Brenna’s convictions and those parolees within a two-hundred-mile radius.”

With a long leg swinging back and forth beneath the conference table, Melissa asked, “Did you need to go out that far?”

“We’re in North Dakota, Melissa, not Virginia. People are used to driving long distances to get to little pockets of civilization out here.” The printer spit out four copies of the report. Paul kept one and laid the others on the table.

Nick entered the room, the aroma of coffee filling the air. He leaned close to Brenna and lifted a copy of Paul’s report.

The combination of the coffee and the fresh, outside scent of Nick made Brenna fidgety. She lifted her copy of the report and moved to the far corner of the room—away from Nick. Then she forced herself to study the page in front of her.

“Most of these people live in Bismarck, Minot or Fargo,” she said.

“There’s our local, Bart Olsen.” Paul pointed near the bottom of the page.

“None of them jumps out.” Brenna tapped the list against her palm. “I’m going by Dr. Drummond’s office to see if any of these names match current or past patients.” She headed for the door, hoping Agent Tarver wouldn’t volunteer to go with her. She needed distance from the man.

Nick stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Paul, go with her.”

“Yes, sir!” Paul leaped to attention, a grin filling his face. “Come on, Jensen, I have my orders.”

As she stepped from the war room, a bit of the weight she’d felt bearing down on her lifted. At least with Nick out of the way, she wouldn’t be thinking about him. He was too much of a distraction when she had a killer to nail.

“On second thought, I’ll go with her.” Nick stepped up behind Brenna and assisted her as she pushed her arms into her jacket.

Paul gave her a lopsided grin. “Maybe next time.”

As Nick stepped through the door to Dr. Drummond’s office, he shrugged out of his jacket, his senses on alert. A light scent of potpourri filled the air, much better than the acrid aroma of disinfectant he expected in a doctor’s office. But then, Dr. Drummond had been a psychiatrist.

Brenna led the way into the doctor’s waiting room, stripping her jacket from her shoulders. “Hello, Mrs. Keckler,” she said to the woman behind the counter.

“Brenna Jensen? Is that you? Oh, my Lord, it’s so good to see you!” The older woman hopped out of her seat and came through the door to hug Brenna. “Or should I call you Agent Jensen? It’s been a long time.”

Why did Jensen know the receptionist in a psychiatrist’s office so well? Were they old family friends or was there something more to the relationship? Was Brenna a former patient?

“I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.” Brenna returned the hug and stepped back quickly, her movements jerky. “This is FBI Agent Nick Tarver.”

“Nice to meet you.” The older woman shook his hand and then turned back to Brenna. “I heard they found the doctor’s body—” Her voice cracked.

“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy for you,” Brenna said.

The older woman snatched a tissue from a box on the counter and dabbed at her eyes. “We’re all still in shock. “As soon as I heard, I came in to call her patients scheduled for today to cancel their appointments.” Mrs. Keckler looked around the room. “I didn’t know what else I could do. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Dr. Drummond. Who would do this?”

Smoothing a hand over the woman’s shoulders, Brenna said, “Actually, that’s why we’re here. We need to check the patient files.”

“Do you think it was one of her patients?” Mrs. Keckler twisted her hands together. “Oh my. How awful.”

“We don’t know,” Brenna said softly. “It would help to see the files.”

Mrs. Keckler sniffed and shook her head. “I can’t give you access. What with client-patient confidentiality laws and all, my hands are tied.” She sank onto a nearby chair. “Just thinking it might be one of her patients makes me ill. If it were up to me, I’d give you every last file.”

“We understand, and we’re not asking you to break the law.” Nick knew how important it was to obtain evidence legally. Too many criminals walked because of sloppy investigative techniques. “What we need is for you to cross-check a list of names we have with the patients in your files.”

“I can do that.” Mrs. Keckler took the list Brenna held out and ducked back into the inner office to sit at a desk with a computer.

In the ensuing silence, Jensen stood with her back to Nick.

“How well did you know Dr. Drummond?” Nick asked.

Her shoulders stiffened. “Fairly well,” she said, her words clipped, not inviting further probing.

That didn’t stop Nick. Brenna was holding something back. If it had anything to do with the case, he wanted to know. “Friend of the family?”

“Not really.”

Nick laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him, his fingers holding her upper arms in a vise grip. “I need to know everything, Agent Jensen. If you had a connection with Dr. Drummond, tell me. It could be vital to solving this case.”

She refused to look into his eyes, focusing instead on something over his shoulder. “I used to come here,” she mumbled. Then her gaze leaped to his. “I used to be one of Dr. Drummond’s patients. Okay?”

His gut tightening, Nick loosened his hold on her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“It’s not something I advertise. How would it look for a criminal investigator to have a mental health history?”

“There’s nothing wrong with seeing a psychiatrist.”

She snorted. “Tell it to the reporters and the security-clearance guys who love to jump to conclusions.”

“Look, it’s just another piece of the puzzle.” He drew a deep breath and held it a moment before he blew it out. “Promise me you won’t keep anything else from me. I need to know I can trust the members of my team.”

She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Okay, I’ll tell you what I know.”

Nick waited, but the silence lengthened. “Well?”

“I don’t know anything else right now. When I do, I’ll be sure to report it to you.” She glanced down at his hands on her arms and back up to his eyes. “Now if you don’t mind...”

Nick dropped his hands and stepped back at the same moment Mrs. Keckler returned.

“I checked all the files and none of them match.” Mrs. Keckler handed the sheet of paper back to Brenna. “If you have reason to suspect one of the patients, you can get a warrant, and I’ll release that patient’s information, but I can’t just let you go through the files.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Keckler.” Brenna hugged the woman and left the office.

Nick followed, stepping over a stream of melted snow to climb into the passenger side of the Cherokee.

When Brenna slid in next to him, she paused before turning the key in the ignition. “I started seeing Dr. Drummond when I was a little girl after I was involved in a pretty traumatic incident. She helped me get through it. I haven’t seen her since I left Riverton.”

“What kind of trauma?”

“I was severely burned in a barn fire at the age of ten. Dr. Drummond helped me to get past the nightmares and other issues related to the injuries.” Brenna’s voice was flat, unemotional, as if stating unimportant facts.

It must have cost her to say anything about an event that had had such a major impact she’d sought psychiatric help. A hard knot formed in Nick’s belly as he thought of a younger version of Brenna going through the pain of skin grafting. “How did you get caught in a barn fire?” He spoke in a soft voice, afraid if he pushed her too far, she’d clam up.

“I was playing with some of the neighbor children at my grandmother’s farm along the river. We were in and out of the barn all day, until one time I went in and I smelled smoke. I searched for the source and found a fire burning a stack of green hay bales. It had grown bigger than I could manage to put out, and by the time I turned to leave, I couldn’t see the door through the smoke. I couldn’t get out.”

Nick’s heart skipped several beats at the thought of a child’s terror. “What do you mean you couldn’t get out?”

“The smoke was so bad, at first I couldn’t see my way to the door. When I did find the door, it wouldn’t open.”

“Was it locked?”

“There were no locks on the inside. All I could figure was it was locked or jammed from the outside.” She attempted a shrug, but her shoulders were too stiff to look natural.

“Had the door gotten stuck any other time you went in or out of the barn?”

“No.”

“Sounds more like someone locked that door with you inside.”

“I don’t know.” She rested her head against the steering wheel. “My sister and some of the other children heard me screaming and got me out.”

“Did the fire department determine the cause of the fire?”

“They said that the hay in the barn was too green when it was stored. Spontaneous combustion was the cause noted on the report.”

“Bull.” Nick gritted his teeth. “Sounds more like arson. But who’d want to kill a kid?”

“None of my grandmother’s farm workers were around at the time, so they were in the clear. Besides my grandmother, there were just us kids.”

“Do you remember who was there?”

She shrugged. “What does it matter? That was a long time ago. We have a murder to solve in the here and now.”

“Sometimes, you have to look at every angle to solve a murder. If this guy is after you, who’s to say he didn’t try before?”

“I was too young to remember.” She looked up at him. “Do you think it’s important?”

“It might be.”

“Maybe my sister, Alice, will remember. I don’t. But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“I’d rather bark up a wrong tree than face another victim’s family.”

“Good point.” Brenna sat back, the key in the ignition forgotten. “This guy is sick, really sick. And if he’s doing all this to get back at me for something, Dr. Drummond’s death is my fault.”

“No, it’s not.” Nick took one of her hands in his. “You didn’t kill Dr. Drummond. Someone with a serious problem is responsible, and we’re going to catch him.”

Brenna felt drained after spilling her guts to Agent Tarver. During the trip back to the station, she sank into a silent stupor, blanking her mind from the terror of the barn fire that had almost killed her. Her chest burned as she remembered the thick black smoke that had coated her lungs and made it so hard to see, she hadn’t thought she’d make it out the door.

Brenna was glad when they arrived at the police station because she needed to get out of the vehicle and breathe.

Paul met them at the information desk. “We have Bart Olsen in the interview room. They just brought him in.”

“Good.” Nick moved past him and down the hall.

Brenna’s heart skipped a few beats as she hung her coat on a hook and hurried after him. “I want to interview him.”

“I’ll let you have him after I’m through.”

She frowned. “I don’t like it, but I guess that’s okay.” Without further comment, she passed the interview room and stepped into the observation area.

Through the two-way mirror, Brenna could see the man inside sitting alone at a table. His hands were cuffed behind his back, forcing him to perch at the edge of the chair. Brenna recognized his face beneath a couple of days’ growth of beard. Bart had been in cuffs the last time she’d seen him with the sheriff’s deputies escorting him to jail to serve his six-year sentence for rape, of which he’d only served two years. Why the hell couldn’t they keep men like him off the streets?

Nick Tarver entered the room and sat across the utilitarian table from him.

With Paul, Melissa and Chief Burkholder standing over her shoulder, Brenna kept her face turned toward the room. She didn’t want to talk to the others. Her job was to read into the words and body language of the man being questioned. Nick Tarver had better know what the hell he was doing. They couldn’t afford to waste time on the wrong suspect.

“Bart Olsen?” Nick settled into the hard-backed metal chair and leaned across the table.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Bart spat out his response. With bloodshot eyes and greasy hair, he looked like he hadn’t slept or washed in days. “Why the hell am I here?”

“We brought you in for questioning.”

“If you wanted me just for questions, why the cuffs?”

“Let me take care of them for you.” Nick stepped out the door and was back in minutes with a key. He unlocked the cuffs and slid them into his pocket. “Is that better?”

“Damn right.” Bart rubbed his wrists and stared at the agent, his eyes slightly narrowed. “So, what do you want?”

In low, steady tones, Nick asked, “Can you tell me where you were this past weekend?”

“Not that you have a right to ask, but I was at a hunting cabin by Lake Grayson.”

Nick smiled. “Do you like hunting and fishing, Mr. Olsen?”

Bart sat back in his chair and nodded. “Yeah, I go up to the cabin on weekends to unwind and catch a few fish.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But you didn’t bring me in here to ask about fishin’.”

Nick smiled. “You’re a smart man, Mr. Olsen. I like that.”

Brenna couldn’t help admiring the way Nick appeared relaxed and friendly, but she could tell beneath the surface he remained alert, completely attuned to the man across the table.

Bart was even relaxing and dropping his guard.

Nick was good at his job.

Brenna could appreciate that quality in any law enforcement official, even the FBI. But she couldn’t lie to herself and say she didn’t find everything about his looks attractive, from the black as night hair to the angular lines of his face. He looked like he could chew on nails with that jaw, and the determination in his green eyes gave her no doubt that if he wanted to, he could.

But the way he made his interviewee relax and feel like he was his friend interested her more. He’d have Olsen spilling everything he knew before long.

A thrill of awareness sped through her body, and she quickly tamped it down. Who had time for useless emotion where her team lead was concerned, or for the baser instincts of lust? She needed to focus on the suspect and solving the murder of an innocent woman, and possibly two more.

Nick leaned forward. “Do you know anyone who can place you at your cabin for the entire weekend?”

“No. In case you didn’t notice—” Bart tipped his head toward the barred window, “—the weather sucks around here. Not many people want to go to the lake under these conditions.”

“Some do.” He nodded at Bart. “Like you. Did you have any friends visit at your cabin?”

“I ain’t had no one visit me at my cabin or my apartment in town since I spent time in jail. I’m like the freakin’ plague.” He kicked the table leg and glared at Nick. “It’s all her fault, you know.” Bart lurched to his feet.

In one smooth, graceful glide Nick rose up and away from Bart, his stance ready for anything, though he did not appear nervous.

But Bart turned and paced across the floor. “If it weren’t for that Agent Jensen, I wouldn’t be a suspect for those missing women. That’s what all this is about, right?”

Brenna’s heart slammed into her ribcage.

“What do you mean?” Nick asked quietly.

“Nothing. I don’t mean nothing.” Bart dropped into the chair, his brows drawing low over his eyes.

Melissa leaned over Brenna’s shoulder. “Still want to interview this guy?”

“I don’t recommend it,” Paul said. “Not after that outburst.”

Ignoring them, Brenna concentrated on Olsen and Tarver.

Nick stood, planted his hands on the table and leaned into the other man’s face. “What are you hiding, Bart?”

A chill raced through Brenna’s blood. She’d probably tell Nick anything he wanted to hear if he asked her like that.

Not Bart. “I ain’t saying another word until my lawyer gets here.” He sat staring straight ahead, his lips pressed together. The man was done. After several trips to the courtroom, he knew the system, and he’d take full advantage of his legal rights.

“I guess I won’t be interviewing Mr. Olsen,” Brenna said to the chief and the agents in the room. “At least not until his attorney arrives.” A part of her was relieved. She should have expected the animosity Bart had for her, but hearing the loathing in his voice sent shivers across her skin. And her instincts told her Bart was hiding something—but was he the killer?

Without evidence, she couldn’t be certain.