“Nice to meet you, Rafe.Feel free to call me Matt.”
Montoya nodded, then turned to Sean as Brian said, “And this guy is the sorriest son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.”
Sean gave his brother a playful but hard punch on his left shoulder.“Yeah, well, I can honestly say you taught me everything I know.”He extended his hand to the other investigator.“Sean Malone.”
Montoya shook the offered hand.“Nice to finally meet you.Brian’s always talking about you, KC, and your uncle.”
“Ha!Proof that he loves me.”
Brian pointed at his brother.“What he didn’t say is that I’m always trashing you.”
He smiled.“That I believe.But ya still love me.”When Brian opened his mouth to argue, Sean quickly held up a hand and stopped him.“Don’t deny it, or you won’t get the sandwiches we brought for you.”
His grin widened when his older brother glared at him quietly.Everyone knew the way to control Brian was with food.The man could eat nonstop, yet was one of the fittest guys in the SBI, thanks to his longtime discipline of running every morning.
The sheriff left the room to attend a brief meeting that was on his schedule as the three other men sat down at the table and spread out their lunches and the files.Brian began scanning through several reports while he ate.Sean, on the other hand, preferred to finish eating before reading.He knew he would lose his appetite if he examined the details of the cases during lunch.It had taken almost a full hour since the autopsy for his stomach to settle.
They ate in silence for several minutes.When Montoya got up to use the men’s room, Sean eyed his brother.“Did you know Bonnie’s niece is in town?”
Brian didn’t look up from the file but answered absently, “Little Gracie?Dan mentioned she moved here, but I haven’t seen her yet.”
He felt relief at his brother’s nonchalance.Hopefully, Brian wouldn’t be interested in Grace because the more Sean thought about her, the more he wanted to see her again.And soon.“She came over last night for dinner with Bonnie and Dan.”
Brian lifted his gaze from the report.“Yeah?She still gawky looking?”
“Um, not really.”Mentally kicked himself, Sean knew he should have kept his mouth shut.
His reluctance to elaborate didn’t go unnoticed.“What does ‘not really’ mean?Don’t tell me she’s hot.”
Hot didn’t begin to describe Grace—she was downright gorgeous.Calling her hot was like saying an erupting volcano was a campfire.Sean shrugged, grabbed one of the files, and pretended to be suddenly engrossed in it.But Brian wasn’t buying it.“Uncle Dan said she was opening her own PT practice.Maybe I’ll go see her for my back pain.”
Sean’s head whipped up, and his eyes narrowed at his brother.“What fucking back pain?”
“The pain I just got,” Brian teased, dramatically shrugging his shoulders.“I could go for a good back massage.”
The younger Malone growled to himself.If he could, he would have kicked himself in the ass.Now that Brian knew he had an interest in Grace Whitman, his brother was going to drive him nuts.They’d always had a healthy rivalry when it came to women.“Can we get back to the case, asshole?”
An evil grin spread across Brian’s face as he crumpled up the paper his sandwich had been wrapped in and tossed it like a basketball into the garbage can in the corner of the room.Grabbing his lower back, he moaned loudly.Sean wanted to kill the asshole right then and there.
A half-hour later, the three men were elbow-deep in the case files, each making notes on pads of white, legal-size paper.They all glanced up when the conference room door opened.A young, dark-haired deputy, whose name tag read Montgomery, stepped in.“The sheriff told me to tell you we got a missing person call that sounds like it might be last night’s homicide.Name’s Daphne Jones.He thought you’d want to check it out since he’s still stuck in the budget meeting.”He handed Sean a piece of paper.“Larry Cumberland’s at the residence now taking the initial report.He said her picture matches the description.I’m Ned Montgomery, by the way.”
“Special Agent Sean Malone.This is my brother, Brian, and Rafe Montoya with SBI,” Sean said as he stood and shook the deputy’s proffered hand.“How long has she been missing?”
“Last seen by her roommate on Saturday night.Her friends thought she’d left them at some club.Supposedly no one’s seen her since.”
Brian’s gaze went to his brother and then his partner.“Who’s coming with me?”
Montoya shrugged his shoulders.“Doesn’t matter to me, but I’d rather keep reviewing the other two cases.You can fill me in later.”
Grabbing his discarded sports jacket from the back of his chair, Sean nodded.“That’s fine with me.”He stopped Montgomery before the deputy had a chance to step out of the room.“Do you know if patrol has located Stuart Crowell?”
“Not yet.But I’m the desk deputy until 2000 hours, so I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”
Sean gave the deputy his cell phone number and then followed his brother out the door.
Within twenty-five minutes, they were sitting at the kitchen table in a two-bedroom apartment in nearby Kitty Hawk, talking to Cheryl Armstrong.The top floor unit was one of six occupying a three-floor walk-up in the town, which was part of Dare County.
Several pictures provided by Cheryl told them their victim was indeed her roommate, thirty-two-year-old Daphne Jones, a receptionist at a local insurance agency.A comparison of her dental records would confirm it, but Sean was certain the results would match.They’d gotten a brief report from Deputy Cumberland, but the brothers wanted the woman to start from the beginning.But before that, they had to fill her in on how her roommate had died.Cumberland hadn’t disclosed the details yet.
