is?” Joel asked.
“We don’t have one.”
“Oh yeah? Then who’s in charge?”
“No one. Everyone.” He shrugged again. “We’re pretty egalitarian.”
Joel watched his expression, looking for signs that he was lying. He didn’t like Joel being here, but that didn’t make him guilty of murder.
A knock sounded at the door, and Trevor darted a look at it.
“That’s probably our pizza,” he said.
Joel stepped over and checked the peephole. A young guy in a red cap stood at the door holding a pizza box.
Joel looked at Trevor and caught him glancing at the duffel bag again.
“How long you guys in town this time?” Joel asked.
“A couple of days.”
“Are you here for a protest?”
His jaw tightened.
“The golf resort going in down by the lighthouse maybe?” Joel asked. “They’re scheduled to break ground on Tuesday morning.”
Another knock, and Trevor looked at the door, then at Joel. “Like I said, it’s a free country. I assume you’re familiar with the First Amendment? There’s nothing illegal about congregating with like-minded people.”
Joel stepped over and opened the door, startling the pizza kid, who was scrolling through his phone.
Joel turned and gave Trevor a long, hard look. “Stay out of trouble, Trevor. Gillian, too.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Damn,” Nicole said. “How’d you know?”
Joel drove with the windows down, letting in the warm breeze off the Gulf. The rain had blown through and the strip was now in full swing.
“Just a hunch,” he told Nicole over the phone. “What did you find?”
“Special Agent Brian Romero. He’s in the Houston field office. Looks like . . . the counterterrorism division. That’s weird.”
“Not really,” he said. “They’ve probably been on the radar for domestic terrorism since they planted that pipe bomb at that logging company.” He scanned the sidewalks for any trouble. Saturday was typically their peak night for arrests, mostly on drinking-related charges.
“Do you want me to call him up?” she asked. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Text me his info and I’ll do it in the morning,” Joel said. “We don’t want to piss him off right before we ask for a favor.”
“And what’s the favor?”
“We need him to share whatever he’s got on Trevor Keen.”
“Assuming he has anything. Could be a coincidence that there’s an FBI agent in Houston with this name.”
“Working counterterrorism?”
She didn’t respond, probably because she knew it was a stretch. Joel pictured Trevor in the motel room. He’d had his guard up. Did Romero tell you to talk to me? From the way he’d asked the question, Joel could tell Romero was a cop.
“I’ll call him early,” Joel said. “See what I can dig up.”
“Ask about the girlfriend, too. Maybe she’s in the mix.”
“I will. And good work tracking down Keen.”
“Sure. Thanks for the assist.”
Joel ended the call as he neared the entrance to Caribbean Sands. He passed the pastel-colored houses in tidy rows. North of the neighborhood was the turnoff to Miranda’s, and Joel slowed, muttering a curse when he saw that her house was dark. He made the turn anyway and switched off his headlights as he bumped over the gravel road. Rolling to a stop, he looked up at the little cabin.
She was asleep, which was probably good. The past two days had been crazy, and she’d been up all last night working a crime scene.
Joel glanced at the seat beside him. A ziplock bag sat beside his binoculars. Inside it was the folded piece of paper with the two murder victims’ pictures. Joel wanted Miranda to lift Trevor Keen’s fingerprints from the paper. But it could wait until tomorrow.
Joel studied Miranda’s house, and emotions churned through him. Worry. Impatience. Frustration.
Lust.
He wanted to see her. All day—and all night, too—he’d been thinking about her, even at the crime scene. It was distracting as hell, but he couldn’t help it.
We can’t keep doing this. She’d said that minutes after climbing into his lap.
Joel knew she was torn. He was, too. He understood full well that sex was going to complicate their working relationship. But so what? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way about anyone, even Elaina, and he and Elaina had been together for three years. It didn’t make sense, but this thing with Miranda felt different. Joel didn’t know why.
But he knew that he liked her. A lot. He liked spending time with her, even though he knew spending time with her was distracting him from his case. He didn’t want to stop. If anything, he wanted more of her.
Joel glanced at the plastic bag again. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t wake her