slip off and get on with their day.”
“Will do, but if nothing else, the traffic cam might give us a lead on the perp.”
Reynolds grimaced. “If it was working. Road construction in the vicinity has been interrupting coverage. I know because Randy has been running automated searches of footage for any of Naylor’s known vehicles suddenly appearing on the road.”
Soon, law enforcement and emergency personnel had cleared the scene, and Jax and Daci stood together near a squad car giving their statements to Detective Herriman, who was in charge of the investigation. By the familiarity of the greeting between the two men, Herriman apparently knew Jax either from his deputy marshal days or from his current gig as a lawyer.
“I doubt I can contribute much to the information pool.” Jax scrubbed his fingertips through the hair above one ear. “It was a bright red compact SUV. I have no clear recollection about the license plate, except that it was Massachusetts. Make and model escaped me as I scrambled out of the way.”
“Understandable.” Herriman made notes on his electronic tablet. “At least your account tallies with the majority of witnesses. A few descriptions we got ranged from monster truck to souped-up sports car.”
Jax chuckled. “If only the general public had a clue about the unreliability of eye-witness accounts. But I guess I can’t claim superiority in that area.”
The detective grinned as he turned toward Daci. “Do you have anything to add, ma’am?”
“Daci Marlowe, new with the Marshals Service.” She stuck out her hand, and Herriman shook it. “I may have a little to contribute. The vehicle was a late-model Toyota RAV4. Definitely Massachusetts license plate. I only remember two digits and a letter. Not necessarily in this order—three, eight and E. The driver was a male Caucasian, mid-to-late thirties. I didn’t see anyone else in the vehicle, and in the blur of leaping out of the way, I didn’t catch any facial details.”
Jax and Herriman stared at her like she’d grown a second head.
She stifled a smile. “You might want to write that down.”
“Uh, yes, absolutely.” The detective pecked at his tablet.
A short time later, she and Jax were cleared to leave the scene, and they headed up the block toward the restaurant.
“Do you have any idea how unusual that was?” Jax leaned his head down and spoke close to her ear.
The sensation of his breath against her cheek was pleasant, but she made herself ignore it and put a few extra inches of distance between them.
“I agree,” she said, keeping her voice neutral and professional. “Absolutely nuts if he was attempting a hit-and-run in the middle of the day on a busy street. I suppose the perp might have been substance-impaired, but if not, he sure couldn’t claim distracted driving as cause for running a red light. He had to turn a corner. That smacks of deliberation. But why us? Or were we random targets?”
“Good questions, but no, I meant the details you remembered from a split-second, crisis experience. That’s not normal.”
Daci stopped and faced him. He must be about six feet three inches to her five feet seven inches, which meant she looked up a significant distance to meet his gaze. Those blue eyes were clear and cloudless. Hers? Well, he was probably glimpsing the fringes of the storm that brooded inside her.
“You’re right. I’m not normal.” If she couldn’t manage utter calm, at least the tone emerged quiet and fiercely controlled. “With the way my life has gone since my earliest memory, I’ve had to develop certain skills so that my loved ones and I could survive. I don’t have a clue what it means to live in normal. I wish I did. So many times, I’ve prayed to God, begging for normal to somehow find me. It never has.” She broke eye contact. “Thanks for the lunch offer, but I’ve changed my mind. If you’ll excuse me, I don’t think I can eat anything. I’d better get back to my desk. See you tomorrow at the day care.”
She chewed out those last two words as she hurried away. If this first day of the rest of her life diverged any more radically from all she had confidently expected, she might simply implode into a splat on the sidewalk.
An hour later, she sat at her desk, staring at her computer screen, a half-eaten candy bar and a mug of cold coffee at her elbow. That incident in the street today puzzled her. Had the driver been impaired by drugs or alcohol to the point where he had been unaware of pedestrians? But his driving had seemed anything but erratic as he shot toward Jax and her like an arrow off a bowstring.
She’d tried running through the system the scrap of license-plate identification she’d remembered. However, following up on the number of RAV4s that popped up was beyond her ability, even factoring in the color of the vehicle. Red was highly popular. If she wanted to identify the driver, she’d have to approach this from a different angle. She came back to the same question: Who had been the driver’s target?
Jax may have made enemies during his days in the Marshals Service, maybe even more enemies during his dealings with volatile family court situations. Or could the target be her? She wanted to believe that the idea was ridiculous. Unless the attempted hit-and-run was connected to that stupid prank with the basket of rotten baby paraphernalia. What if the disgusting housewarming gift was not a brotherly prank, but a taunt with evil intent? The advice in the note to “enjoy” her life suddenly took on sinister overtones.
No use indulging needless paranoia. Chomping a bite out of her candy bar, she picked up her cell phone from the desk. A quick text to Nate, thanking him for his “thoughtfulness,” would settle the matter one way or another. He’d either acknowledge his twisted gift or have no idea what she was talking about. If she scored zero with Nate, she’d check with her other siblings. One of them had to be the culprit. The alternative was too creepy, if not downright scary.
Daci shot off a tongue-in-cheek thank-you, then turned her attention back to the research she was conducting on therapy for fetal alcohol syndrome babies. Virtually raising her siblings almost from her earliest memory had prepared her well for normal day care duties. Her boss was right about her mad skills in that area, but she’d never cared for a FAS infant.
That opportunity, which many would have considered a burden, had been denied her. Daci’s parents claimed her newborn baby brother Niall died at the hospital, but with no funeral being held for him, she’d never fully had closure. Where was he buried? Her parents wouldn’t tell, and to this day, she didn’t know and likely never would. As yet, she hadn’t found a way to make peace with that blank spot in her history.
At least tomorrow she’d have an opportunity to make peace with Jax for her abrupt abandonment of their lunch plans. He hadn’t meant anything insulting in his remark that she wasn’t normal, but the whole overload of the day had gotten to her in that moment.
She’d have to step up her game if she didn’t want him to write her off as a flake, which would be so unfair, since she’d never flaked on anything in her life. This case was extremely important on a society-impacting scale, even though parts of the assignment were a disappointment to her personally. Like Reynolds had told her: Suck it up, Marlowe.
While they were studying the files on Farnam and Naylor this morning, Jax had explained that he visited the day care frequently because many of the children were his clients. When he walked in tomorrow, she’d be ready for him with a friendly smile and, if they had a private moment, an apology.
By the time her
