“Send me this woman’s address,” I said to Quinones. “Right away.”
Cassie and I had to be at the Gainesville airport in forty minutes, but we got the address, and she took our speed over sixty on the state highway. Soon we were two miles away from the address. Then one mile. Then a block.
We pulled into a starter neighborhood not far from the county line. We had gotten there in eleven minutes, and a green Honda Civic was parked in the driveway. Blocking the old beater was a white Buick.
Cassie parked at an angle that jammed both cars, and we got out, drawing our service weapons. I pointed toward the back, and she moved to a wooden gate along the side of the house. She lifted it open and whistled, waiting to see if a dog came. When none did, she moved along the side yard, and I approached the front.
Outside the door, I heard a woman crying.
I tried the front knob. Unlocked.
I turned it and entered, my Glock out as I moved through theentryway and into the living room. A man stood there, his back to me. He had a bulky figure—six foot two and two seventy, at a guess. I spied Cassie approaching a glass slider on the far side of the room that led in from the backyard.
Cassie pulled at the slider.
“FBI,” she yelled. “Put your hands up.”
This forced the man to look in her direction, and I came at him from behind. Kicked out his legs and dropped him onto his stomach.
I swung him around and saw a familiar face.
“Offerman?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Former Agent Ed Offerman sat in a chair in the kitchen. We’d cuffed his arms behind his back until we could figure out what the hell he was doing in the residence of Mila Jones, whose sister’s body had been found in 2019.
Offerman was dressed in khaki slacks and a white golf polo, the logo of a country club on the chest.
“What the hell?” Cassie said.
“Calm down, cupcake,” Offerman said to her. His face was wet with sweat after the takedown, and the wooden chair groaned under his weight.
“What are you doing here, Ed?” I asked.
“I have every right—” he started, but Cassie put her hand on his chair, right behind Offerman’s back, and pulled, jogging it backward, the front two legs in the air.
“Jesus, okay!” he said. “I got an email from my old partner, all right? Ray told me the case was live again. I flew back. On my own dime.”
After the takedown, Cassie and I had separated Offerman fromMila Jones, who reported that he’d shown up unannounced an hour before we got there.
“Did he flash a badge?” Cassie had asked.
“Not exactly,” Mila Jones had replied.
“Did he say he was with the FBI?” I followed up. “Identify himself as an agent?”
No again.
The kitchen was tight with Cassie, Offerman, and me, and our flight time was approaching fast. “You’re obstructing a criminal investigation,” I said. “Chapter 73, Section 1510 of 18 USC—”
“I was having a conversation, is what I was doing,” Offerman said.
“We could charge you,” Cassie said.
“You’re not gonna charge me, Pardo,” he snapped. “We’re old friends.”
I took a step back. If Offerman had simply let Mila Jonesbelievehe was with the Bureau still, there was little we could do. The woman had invited him into her home.
