“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 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 flustered. “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 I can rent a car at Sea-Tac.” Murderers existed everywhere but Uncle Carl wasn’t one of them.
“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 with her left hand while reaching in her bag for a printout of her schedule. Being ambidextrous came in handy sometimes. Though she didn’t have many friends at the FBI, for some reason, George had become a mentor 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 before 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 information, but it appears there are at least a few suspicious deaths in Genesis Valley up in Washington State. I need to investigate the situation.” There was something off about the guy with the older lady. He reached into the slouchy beige-colored purse slung over the woman’s shoulder and drew out a billfold, which he slipped into his backpack.
“Wait a minute. I’ll 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 in his 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. “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 butt, where he fell flat. 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.
An airport police officer ran up, his hand on his harnessed weapon.
Laurel pulled her ID out of her jacket pocket and flipped it 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 bounced off the tile floor.
“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.
