“Oh, Callie, I’m so glad to see you’re back here and okay,” she exclaimed.
Callie smiled. It was the first genuine smile Tom had seen on her face and it punched a hole in his heart. He’d forgotten how her smile lit up a room, how it not only curved her lips but also warmed her cold blue eyes. “I’m fine. Elizabeth, this is FBI Agent Tom Ryan and Tom, this is Elizabeth Reddawn, receptionist extraordinaire.”
“Tom Ryan? Oh, I have a package for you,” Elizabeth said. She picked up a manila envelope from her desk and handed it to him.
It had been forwarded to him from FBI headquarters. He turned to look at Callie. “Is there someplace private I can go to open this?” He couldn’t imagine what might be inside.
“You can use my office. Follow me.” She led him across the lab to a door at the back of the room. The office was small and as impersonal as her home had been. “Feel free to use my desk if you need to,” she said as she grabbed a white lab coat that hung on a hook just inside the door and left the room.
“Thanks,” he said to her retreating form. He sat at the desk and tore open the manila envelope to reveal a letter-sized envelope inside. It was addressed to him and marked personal. In the return address space were the initials JG.
Julie Grainger? His heart began to pump with a rush of adrenaline. As he ran his fingers across the envelope he felt something hard inside. What the heck?
He carefully tore the top of the envelope open and withdrew the piece of paper that was folded up inside. He opened it and saw that it was a map of some kind. At the top of the map was a strange symbol, like the letters VDG entwined with grapes and vines. Vincent Del Gardo?
He shook the envelope and initially he thought it was a coin that dropped out on the desk. He didn’t touch it, but instead got up and called to Callie.
When she appeared in the doorway he pointed to the coin. “This coin or whatever it is came in an envelope from Julie Grainger.” Callie’s eyes opened wide as he continued. “I was wondering if you could check it for fingerprints.”
“Let me get a set of tweezers and a fingerprint kit and see what we have.” She left the office and returned a moment later. She carefully flipped the item over. “It’s not a coin. It’s a St. Christopher medal.”
“St. Christopher medal?”
“The patron saint of travelers. Legend has it that he once carried an unbearably heavy baby across a wide river and it was later learned that the baby was Jesus Christ.”
He looked at her in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“One of my mother’s best friends was not only a showgirl, but also a Catholic who had statues of most of the patron saints in her apartment,” Callie explained. “She taught me about them whenever she’d babysit me.”
Tom watched as she opened the fingerprinting kit then twisted the top of a bottle of metallic powder. Using the ostrich feather duster, she deftly swirled the powder onto the medal. She frowned as no ridges showed up. She flipped it over and dusted the other side with the same disappointing results. “Nothing,” she said, stating the obvious. “At least no fingerprints, but there are several numbers etched into the back of the coin.”
“Numbers?” He bent closer to take a look and tried to ignore the scent of her, the warmth of her body so close to his own.
“Looks like a seven, a nine and a four. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No.” He frowned and stepped back from her. “Can you dust the map?” He pointed to the piece of paper he’d withdrawn from the envelope.
“Sure.” She pulled out a bottle of black powder and began the process of dusting the paper. “What is this?” she asked as she worked.
“I don’t have a clue,” he replied. He was going to have to look at it more closely, see if he could make heads or tails of it.
“VDG,” Callie breathed softly, reading the initials at the top of the map. “Maybe this is some kind of a clue as to where Del Gardo might be hiding out?”
“Who knows?” At least for the moment the tension that had existed between them was gone, vanished under the bigger questions of the mystery map and the medal.
He picked up the envelope that he knew had probably been handled by too many people for fingerprinting. “It was mailed the day before her murder.”
Callie looked up at him, her eyes wide. “That gives me goose bumps. You think she sensed she was in some kind of danger?”
“I don’t know.” He watched as she finished fingerprinting the paper. She lifted two prints. Tom figured one was probably Julie’s and the other was his own and said that to Callie.
“You’re both in the system so we’ll be able to quickly rule you in or out,” she said as she straightened.
“Do you have a copy machine? I’d like to make a couple of copies of that map, then I want you to put the original in an evidence bag and lock it up.”
“I’ll get some copies made for you.”
Tom looked at his watch. “And then I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to be someplace in half an hour.”
It was just after eight when Tom left the building and got back into his car and headed for the park where he was meeting two other FBI agents for a quiet goodbye to Julie.
Julie, Tom, Dylan Acevedo and Ben Parrish all had gone through FBI training together and even though they didn’t often see each other, they’d shared a particularly close friendship that had lasted since their days at the academy. Julie’s murder had devastated them all.
He reached the park and got out of his car. The copies of the map he’d received burned hot inside his pocket, as did the St. Christopher medal that now hung on a cheap chain around his neck. Why had Julie sent them to him? What did they mean? What was he supposed to get from them?
He headed toward the gazebo in the center of the park and saw that Ben and Dylan were already there waiting for him. Ben’s dark blond hair shone in the early morning sunshine while Dylan’s black hair seemed to absorb the sun.
Dylan raised a hand in greeting while Ben merely hunched his shoulders against the cold breeze and kept his hands in his pockets. Ben had always been quiet and brooding, but lately he’d seemed more distant than ever.
“Heard you’re on guard duty,” Dylan said in greeting. “You think it was Del Gardo who tried to take out Callie last night?”
“Him or one of his minions,” Tom replied. “Nothing else makes sense. I’ve got some information that makes even less sense.”
He told the two men about the envelope he’d received containing the medal and the map, then handed them each a copy of the map.
He watched as they studied the pieces of paper, their confused looks mirroring his own. “I can’t get a feel for what’s depicted here,” Dylan said.
“I can’t either,” Tom replied. “What about you, Ben?”
He
