You Can Run

You Can Run

by

Rebecca Zanetti

Chapter 1

 

Laurel Snow swiped through the calendar on her phone while waiting for the flight to DC to board. The worn airport chairs at LAX were as uncomfortable as ever, and she tried to keep her posture straight to prevent the inevitable backache. Christmas music played through the speakers, and an oddly shaped tree took up a corner with sad looking branches with what might’ve been strung popcorn. The upcoming week was already busy, and hopefully there wouldn’t be a new case. She stuck in her earbuds to allow an update rock playlist to beat through her wireless earbuds as she rearranged a couple of meetings.  

The phone dinged and she answered while continuing to organize the week. “Snow.”  

“Hi, Agent Snow. How did the symposium go?” asked her boss, and her music cut off.  

“As expected,” she said, swiping a lunch meeting from Thursday to Friday. “I’m not a teacher, and half the time, they looked confused. A young woman in the front row had serious daddy issues, and a young man behind her is facing a nervous breakdown. Other than that, one guy in the last row exhibited narcissistic tendencies.”  

“For Pete’s sakes. We just wanted you to talk about the FBI and help recruitment. You’re a good face,” George muttered.  

Laurel tapped her phone when the Wi-Fi struggled. “My face has nothing to do with my job. I’m not skilled at recruitment or teaching.” 

 George sighed. “How many people have you seen today who wore red shoes?”  

Yeah, she should change the computer update meeting from Tuesday to Wednesday. “Six,” she said absently. “Ten if you include maroon colored shoes.” 

 George laughed. “How many people in the last month have worn yellow hats around you?”  

“Just eight,” she said.  

George warmed to the subject. “Right now, where you are in the airport and without looking, who’s the biggest threat?”  

If she changed one more meeting, she could fit in a manicure on Friday. “Guy waiting in the adjacent area for a plane to Dallas. He’s five nine, wiry, and has cauliflower ears. Moves with grace.” Yes. She could fit in a manicure. “Another man to the north by the magazine rack in the bookstore is built like a logger and could throw a decent punch.” Would there be time for a pedicure? Probably not.  

“Why aren’t you the biggest threat?” George asked.  

She paused. “Because I’m currently performing parlor tricks for the Assistant Director of the FBI.” She looked up to check the boarding time.  

“I have a call on the other line. We’ll talk about this when you get back.” George clicked off.  

Laurel didn’t have anything else to say on the matter. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen before answering the call. “Hi, mom. Yes, I’m still returning home for Christmas.” It had been three years, and her mother’s indomitable patience had ended. “I promise. In two weeks, I’ll be there.”  

“Laurel, I need you now,” Deidre said, her voice pitched high.  

Laurel froze. “What’s wrong?”  

“It’s your uncle Carl. The sheriff wants to arrest him for murder.” Panic lifted Deidre’s voice even higher. “You’re in the FBI. They’re saying he’s a serial killer. You have to come help.”  

Uncle Carl was odd but not a killer. “Serial killer? How many bodies have been found?”  

“I don’t know,” Deidre cried out.  

Okay. Her mother never became this out of sorts. “Is the Seattle FBI involved?” Laurel asked.  

“I don’t know. The local sheriff is the one who’s harassing Carl. Please come help. Please.” Her mother never asked for anything.  

Laurel would have to change flights—and ask for a favor. “I’ll text you my flight information and can rent a car at SEA-TAC.” Murderers existed everywhere but not in Uncle Carl’s heart.  

“No. I’ll make sure you’re picked up. Just text me what time you land.” Her mother didn’t drive or like to be inside vehicles.  

“Okay. I have to run.” Laurel clicked off and dialed George’s private number. While she didn’t have many friends at the FBI, for some reason, George had taken a mentor-like approach with her and was usually patient. Sometimes. Plus, she had just closed a serial killer case in Texas, and she had some juice, as George would say. For now. In her experience, juice dried up quickly.  

The phone rang several times until George picked up. “I said we’d talk about it in DC.”  

“I need a favor,” Laurel said. Her gaze caught on a younger man escorting an elderly woman through the terminal, both looking up at the flight information boards. “I don’t have much of the information, but it appears there are at least a few suspicious deaths in Genesis Valley up in Washington State. I need to go take a look at the situation.” There was something off about the guy with the older lady. He reached in the slouchy beige-colored purse of the woman and drew out a billfold to slip into his backpack.  

“Wait a minute and let me make a call and find out what’s going on,” George said. 

 “Thank you.” Laurel stood and strode toward the couple, reaching them quickly. “Is everything okay?”  

The woman squinted up at her, cataracts visible in her cloudy blue eyes. “Oh my. Yes, I think so. This kind young man is showing me to my plane.”  

“Is that right?” Laurel tilted her head. The man had to be early twenties with sharp brown eyes and thick blond hair. His smile showed too many teeth. “Yes. I’m Fred. Just helping Eleanor here out. She was a little lost.”  

Eleanor clutched a plane ticket in one gnarled hand. Her white hair was tightly curled and her face powdered with a light red. “I was visiting my sister in Burbank and got confused after security in the airport.”  

Irritation ticked down Laurel’s neck. “Return her wallet to her.” 

 Eleanor gasped. “What?”  

Fred shoved Eleanor and turned to run. Laurel grabbed him by the backpack, kicked him in the popliteal fossa, and dropped him to the floor on his back. She set the square heel of her boot on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve in his upper thigh. “You know, Fred? There’s a nerve right here that can make a person…bark like a dog.” She pressed down.  

Fred yelped.  

A TSA agent ran up, his hand on his harnessed weapon.  

Laurel pulled her ID out of her jacket pocket to flip open. “FBI. I think this guy has a few wallets that might not be his.” She shook out the backpack. Several billfolds, bottles of pills, and necklaces dropped to the tile floor to bounce.  

“Hey.” Eleanor leaned down and fetched her billfold and one container of pills. “You jerk.” She swatted Fred with her purse.  

He ducked and pushed the bag away. “Let me up, lady.” 

 “Make him bark like a dog again,” Eleanor burst out. 

 “Sure.” Laurel pressed down on the nerve.  

Fred yelped and pushed at her foot, pain forcing the color from his face. “Stop it.”  

The TSA agent secured all of the contraband back in the pack and then pulled Fred to his feet once Laurel moved her boot. He quickly cuffed Fred. “Thanks for this. I’ve got it from here.” They moved away. 

 Laurel reached for Eleanor’s ticket. “Let’s see where you’re supposed to be.” A quick glance at the ticket showed that the woman was going to Indiana. “Your flight is over here at Gate Twenty-One. Let me grab my bag and I’ll take you there.” She retrieved her purse and bag before returning to slide her arm through Eleanor’s. “The gate is just on the other side of those restaurants.”  

“Excuse me?” George barked through the earbuds “Assistant Director of the FBI here with information for you.”  

“Please hold on another minute, sir,” Laurel said, twisting through the throng while keeping Eleanor safe.  

Eleanor looked up, leaning on Laurel. “How do you know my gate number? You didn’t even look at the information board.” 

 “I looked at it earlier,” Laurel said, helping the elderly woman avoid a couple of kids dragging Disney themed carry-ons.  

Eleanor blinked. “You memorized all of the flight information with one look?”  

“I’m still here,” George groused.  

Laurel took Eleanor up to the counter, where a handsome man in his thirties typed into the computer. “This is Eleanor and this is her plane. She’s going to sit right over here, and she needs extra time to board.” Without waiting for a reply, she helped Eleanor to the nearest seat. “Here you go. You should be boarding in just a few minutes.”  

Eleanor patted her hand. “You’re a good girl.”  

Laurel crouched down. “Do you have anybody meeting you at the airport?” 

Eleanor nodded. “Yes. My son is meeting me right at the gate. Don’t you worry.” She pressed both gnarled hands against Laurel’s face. “You’re a special one, aren’t you?”  

“Damn it, Snow,” George bellowed trough the earbuds.  

Laurel winced. “I am happy to help.”  

Eleanor tightened her grip. “You have such lovely eyes. How lucky are you?”  

Lucky? Laurel had rarely felt lucky to have heterochromia. “You’re very kind.”  

“You’re beautiful. Such lovely colors and so distinct. I’ve never seen such a green light in anyone’s eye, and your other eye is a lovely dark shade of blue.” Eleanor squinted and leaned in closer. “You have a little green flare in the blue eye, don’t you?”  

Laurel smiled and removed the woman’s hands from her face, careful of the arthritic bumps on her knuckles. “Yes. I have a heterochromia in the middle of heterochromatic eyes. It’s an adventure.”  

Eleanor laughed. “You’re a pip, you are. God speed to you.”  

Laurel stood. “Have a nice trip, Eleanor.” She turned to head back to her gate, her mind returning to her trip to her mom’s home. She’d have to change all of her plans in DC to the week after January, so her mind automatically flipped dates. If she moved a Monday meeting that January week, she would have time for a pedicure. Maybe she could skip the lunch with the forensic accountants that Wednesday to discuss the recently developed tactical reasoning software. The accountants rarely escaped the computer lab, and when they did, they always talked for too long. “Sorry about that, sir. What did you find out?”  

George’s sigh was long suffering. “Multiple body parts, including three skulls, were found this morning by kids four-wheeling on a mountain called…” Papers rustled. “Snowblood Peak.”  

Laurel switched directions, her heart rate kicking in. “Just this morning? It’s a little early to be narrowing in on a suspect.” She’d spent some time snowmobiling that mountain as a child with her uncles before leaving for college at the age of eleven. “Could be an old graveyard or something like that. Might not be a case.”  

“I know, and this is a local case and not federal, I think.”  

She paused. “Actually, it depends where the bodies were found. Snowblood Peak leads to a valley with half owned by the federal government and half by the state. It’s beautiful country.”  

“Huh. Well, okay. We could have jurisdiction if you feel like fighting with the state and locals.” George didn’t sound encouraging.  

She never felt like fighting. “Don’t we have an office in Seattle?”  

“Yes, but it’s in flux right now. We were in the midst of creating a special unit out of there called the Pacific Northwest Violent Crimes Unit, but there was a political shakeup, a shooting, and a bunch of transfers. The office is restructuring now, and currently in place I have two agents dealing with a drug cartel.” Papers shuffled across the line.  

“So I’m on my own with this, if this is anything.” Which was normal for her, actually. A flight from LAX to Seattle had been scheduled to depart out of gate thirteen, and a flight from LAX to Everett had been listed as gate seventeen. “Has my flight been changed?”  

More papers rustled. “Jackie?” George bellowed. “Does Snow have a new flight?” Laurel grimaced from the sudden pain in her ear.  

George returned. “You’ve been switched to Flight 234 that leaves in ten minutes. They’re holding the door open for you, but we could only get you a middle seat.”  

At least the gate was close to her current location, and she’d be flying into Everett, which was a quicker drive to Genesis Valley than the drive from Sea-Tac. She loped into a jog, pulling her wheeled carry-on behind her. “I only have a weekend bag and my agency issued Glock.” She hadn’t brought her personal weapon.  

“I’m not expecting this to be anything. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to see if it’s a case we want or not, and don’t forget, you called in a favor,” George said.  

Her temples ached. “Even so, you don’t want me being the face of the FBI. I don’t relate well to students or prospects.” At least two people had actually left during her presentation.  

“Get good with people,” George countered.  

She reached the gate and flashed her ID to the impatient looking gate agent. The woman kept tapping her heel. “I’m boarding. If you get any more information on the skulls, please send it to my tablet so I’m not going in so blind.” Her stomach cramped with instinct as well as from her knowledge of statistical probabilities. Three different skulls found on the peak?  

There was a murderer close to her hometown.         

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