one of the clerks from administration, sorted through the bundle of mail she was carrying and dropped a letter onto Taylor’s desk.
Frowning, Taylor retrieved a paper knife from her drawer and slit the envelope. A business card slid out, and for a moment her mind went utterly blank. There were no words, just a crude symbol in the shape of a jaguar’s head stamped onto the card. The stamp lacked detail, it was the kind kids bought from bargain outlets and toy stores, but the fact that it was a jaguar’s head made her skin crawl.
Lopez had had a jaguar tattooed on the back of one of his hands. The tattoo was no longer visible. He’d had it lasered off years ago, but Taylor had seen a grainy photo of it.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Someone just sent me a calling card. A jaguar’s head.”
Feeling light-headed and a little strange, she turned the card so Colenso could see it, then slipped it back into the envelope so as not to further compromise any prints.
Colenso frowned. “It’s got to be a prank.”
“I’m not laughing.” The thought that it could have been Lopez made her freeze inside. If it was a bona fide calling card, the precursor to a hit—
He shrugged. “Sorry, wrong word. I’m not trying to trivialize it, but I’ve never heard of Lopez or the Chavez cartel using mafia tricks.”
Taylor dropped the envelope into a plastic bag, her mind automatically going over the list of people, aside from Lopez, who could hold some kind of grudge against her. Slater’s ex-wife and his hooker girlfriend. A number of Lopez’s security staff who had been arrested in Eureka following the bust on Senator Radcliff’s place, and who were presently standing trial. It had to be someone who knew about Lopez’s tattoo and who knew that she would recognize the significance of the jaguar’s head.
It could have been sent by Lopez.
The probability sent a shaft of raw panic through her. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she never wanted to see Lopez again. As badly as she needed him caught, as totally as she had immersed herself in his case, she realized Bayard was right: the personal cost was too great. She didn’t want back into a hell she’d spent months crawling out of.
Colenso touched her shoulder. She stared blankly into his concerned gaze, unaware until then that he had gotten up from his desk. “Stay there. I’ll get you something to drink.”
Minutes later he handed her a polystyrene cup of coffee. The hot liquid burned her mouth and was so sweet she could barely drink it.
Colenso propped himself on the edge of her desk as she sipped, his presence obscurely comforting because he blocked her off from the rest of the office, giving her time to recover. The last thing she needed was a cataloged report of an anxiety attack in the office. Bayard would have her out the door so fast she would be spinning.
Colenso studied the typed address label on the envelope, which was visible through the plastic. “If the card is from Lopez then it’s manna from heaven. It could be the lead we’ve been waiting for.”
But Colenso didn’t think so.
The thought slid into her mind, as sharp and acid as the sugar-laced coffee, and suddenly Colenso’s uncharacteristically PC behavior made sense. He was soothing her because he didn’t believe the card was a serious threat.
* * *
Three days later, Bayard handed Taylor the forensics report on the envelope and the card. The envelope, the card, the ink and the stamp were all locally available items, most likely purchased in D.C. Whoever had sent the card had been professional enough to wear gloves, because the only identifiable prints besides Gail’s and Taylor’s had belonged to post office personnel. The postmark was local and the address was a computer-generated label that had been affixed to the envelope. The stamp showed no traces of saliva and because the envelope was of the self-sealing variety it hadn’t yielded any, either, so there was no DNA.
Given that the envelope had been posted in D.C. on the same day Slater and the minor felons involved in the hostage situation had been sentenced, Bayard suspected that it was a hoax, most likely perpetrated by a family member or an associate of one of the felons. Without conclusive evidence of a death threat, he could no longer justify the around-the-clock security on her apartment or the escort to and from work, but she had options. She could scale down her hours until she felt better. If she wanted time off, she could have it on full pay. A holiday—a change of scene—could be just what she needed.
Taylor refused both offers point-blank. The “until she felt better” part had grated. She wasn’t sick and she needed to work. The last thing she wanted was time alone. Without her job, she was an emotional amputee.
When she walked out of Bayard’s office, the field room was abnormally quiet and no one glanced up, which was also unusual. She had known several of the agents for years, attended most of the departmental parties and done her share of hanging out at bars; the camaraderie had always been one of the best aspects of the job.
She had heard about the rumor that was circulating, that she had lost her grip, that someone down in records was running a book on the odds that she had mailed the card to herself.
Her stomach burned as she reached her desk. She checked her watch. It was after one, and she hadn’t stopped for breakfast. Instead of sitting down, she shrugged into her coat and buttoned it against the wave of cold that was going to hit her the second she walked out of the building.
Colenso rocked back in his chair. “How did it go with Bayard?”
“The card was sent the same day Slater and his hired muscle were sentenced. He thinks it was one of them.”
“Makes sense.”
She hooked the strap of her handbag over one shoulder. “Want to go get some lunch?”
Colenso tapped his watch. “I ate an hour ago. Besides, if I don’t get these notes written up, Bayard’s threatened to send me out with Tripp.”
Taylor glanced across the office, more than willing for some light relief to stave off her own growing conviction that Bayard was right and that she really was losing her grip. Martin Tripp was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen as if it were about to suck him into cyberspace and he wouldn’t mind the journey one little bit. Tripp, in his late forties, was a genius with computers and equipment, but he was also notorious for his bumbling in the field. Personally, Taylor thought he had a lot more potential than anyone had ever given him credit for. She glanced at Colenso with his sharp suit jacket and edgy haircut. At least Tripp had his ego under control. “He’s not so bad.”
Colenso glanced at Tripp and lifted a brow. “You’ve never been on a stakeout with him.”
Rico Casale hunkered down on the roof of one of the older brownstones that lined the street just down from the Bureau’s building. The brownstone was low enough that he got a good view of most of the street. With the aid of a pair of high-powered binoculars, he could just see the back entrance and the employee parking lot.
The roof of the brownstone also had the virtue of a water tower, a jumbled series of maintenance sheds and a waist-high parapet. It was cramped, and the parapet meant he couldn’t use a tripod because the angle to the street below was too acute, but there was enough cover
