Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(40)
Author: Abigail Roux

She ran the towel through her long hair again, biting her lip against the guilty smile that tried to bubble up as she looked at the tussled sheets of the bed and her clothing strewn across the hotel room floor. It all belonged to her. He hadn’t left a thing behind.

An FBI agent, he had said. His badge had looked awfully official, anyway, and Ty Grady hadn’t struck her as the type to lie just to impress her.

Get her into bed and never call again, yes. But lie? No.

Isabelle knew the man would never call her again. It was just as well, because he was the type that girls like her fell hard and fast for, and he was definitely not the type she could take home to meet Daddy.

She allowed herself another little smile and wrapped the towel around her damp hair. It had been fun, anyway. She didn’t bother dealing with the mess they had made of the bed, instead beginning to bundle up her clothing into neat little rolls, the kind that you could stuff in a small suitcase easily and wouldn’t leave fold or wrinkle marks.

Finished packing and already wearing her uniform skirt, she was shrugging into her white blouse when the knock at the door came. She looked over at it in surprise. Not many people would be knocking on her door. It was either Tina or Sylvia, her fellow air hostesses on the LA flight, wanting to get a bite to eat before they caught a cab, probably. Or it could be him again.

She bit her lip, unable to restrain a hopeful grin as she padded over to the door and peered out the little peephole.

An FBI badge was all she could see, held up so close that it was obscured other than the big blue letters on the card.

She laughed quietly and shook her head as she stepped back. She could really fall for this guy if he let her. She looked down and unbuttoned the one button she had managed on her blouse, biting her tongue in anticipation.

When he had showed up before he’d merely grabbed her, dipped her backward like they had been waltzing, and kissed her. She wondered how he would greet her now that they actually knew each other’s names.

“Back for another round so soon?” she called as she unlatched the door and swung it open to let him in.

She gave a little gasp of surprise when she realized that the agent in the hallway wasn’t Ty.

“I—I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else,” she stuttered as she blushed furiously and began buttoning her blouse hastily.

“I get that a lot, ma’am,” the man said before he produced a small white handkerchief and grabbed her roughly, pressing it over her mouth and nose and pushing her back into her hotel room. She flailed and tried to scream, but his hand covered the noise she made and her attempts at hitting and kicking him seemed to go unnoticed. He kicked the door shut behind him, and Isabelle struggled as her world faded to black.

ZANE worked deep into the files, sifting through details, muttering about the missing reports he’d been looking for when the monitor exploded. He’d also found other smaller bits and pieces missing, likely the result of overworked agents and the number of departments information filtered through in the Bureau. But it didn’t make him happy, not one bit.

Ty sat cross-legged on his own bed and stared at the map on the wall.

He’d tacked crime-scene photos near each location where bodies were found, 118

and beside them pictures of the accompanying tokens, trying to make sense of them. At first, he’d hummed slightly every now and then and murmured to himself, and he’d been perfectly still as he looked over the wall and took notes. But now, he rocked slightly back and forth and seemed to merely be staring mindlessly. If there was brain activity going on, his eyes didn’t betray it.

Disgusted, Zane tossed down the files. “I need a cigarette,” he muttered, standing up. “You game for a walk?” he asked as he reached for his holster.

Ty turned his head slowly, pulling at his ear with a frown. “Is my brain leaking out my ears yet?” he asked grumpily in return.

“Is that what that gray stuff is?” Zane asked, poking at the side of Ty’s head. Ty growled and flopped onto his back to stare blankly up at the ceiling. Zane grinned down at him. The past several hours of work had successfully cooled their tempers, and they were almost getting along again.

“C’mon. Stretch of the legs will do you good since we’re short on other forms of entertainment. I think we exhausted those options earlier this evening.”

“I’m never short on entertainment,” Ty grumbled.

“But you’re not particularly entertaining. So come on. Maybe we can find an ice cream place or something.” Zane nudged Ty’s arm with his knee from where he stood next to the bed.

“Ice cream?” Ty repeated flatly as he sat up. “Seriously?” he asked dubiously.

“Yeah,” Zane drew out. “Why? What’s wrong with ice cream?”

“Nothin’,” Ty grumbled. “Hurts my teeth,” he added with a slight blush as he sat back up, his head lowered.

Zane frowned. “You can stay here, you know,” he said. “I just figured you might want a break, too.”

“I’m coming,” Ty muttered. “I hate this feeling,” he told his partner as he sat on the end of the bed and pushed his feet into his boots. “I hate knowing I’m missing something and not being able to place it.”

That, Zane could identify with. He nodded and adjusted the straps of his holster once it was over his shoulders, grimacing as it rubbed over sore spots.

“Before we get you ice cream, let’s go over to the hotel room,” Ty suggested suddenly.

“What hotel room?” Zane asked with a frown.

“The last crime scene, where Sanchez and Reilly were staying,” Ty answered as he picked up the fax he had been studying earlier. “This is the list of phone calls made from their room the last few days they were alive. I highlighted everything that’s not delivery,” he said wryly as he waved it in the air.

Zane took the fax and looked it over with a slight grimace. There weren’t many calls at all, and there were only two lines highlighted.

“The first is Tim Henninger,” Ty said with a nod at the paper. “He was their liaison, just like us. The second is somewhere at Federal Plaza, but we’ll need to go there to figure out the specifics of the routing. My guess is they used their cells most of the time, so really the whole list is a big waste of paper,” he went on bitterly.

“What about cell phone records?” Zane asked as he handed the fax back to Ty.

“Another day out, they tell me,” Ty grumbled unhappily. “That’s why I’d like to go to the room, poke around,” he went on.