Elusive (On The Run Book #1) by Sara Rosett

pointedly
down at the papers.
    “Anything on the partners,” she
asked as she consulted her notebook for names. “Connor Freeman or Jack
Andrews?”
    “Nothing I can say. We’ve
interviewed some local investors. Freeman and Andrews are next up.”
    “Okay. Thanks, Mort.” It wasn’t a
lot, but Mort was on-board now and would keep her in the loop. “I have to get
back to work. I’ll call you.” She left him hunched over the papers, his empty
soda glass forgotten.
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    HALF an hour later, Special Agent
Gregg Sato, smelling so overpoweringly of flowers that Mort had to roll down
the window a few inches, turned the car into the parking lot of the business
complex where the office of GRS was located. “What the—”
    Mort didn’t look up right away.
Sato tended to whine about everything from the traffic to the wrinkles the
seatbelt put in his suit coat. But when Sato didn’t follow up with a moan about
the parking situation, Mort glanced up from the pages he’d been reading then
let them drop into his lap. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
    Yellow police tape ringed one of
the buildings, and a police officer stood outside the tape, waving incoming
traffic toward the next set of offices. Two technicians were combing the small
island landscaped with ivy and low-growing bushes that jutted out into the
parking area in front of the sealed off building. When the police officer saw
their car, a brown four-door Chrysler with tinted windows and special plates,
he motioned them to a park beside a crime scene van.
    “No idea, but I’m sure it’s not
good for our case,” Sato said.

Chapter Four
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    Dallas
    Wednesday 12:32 p.m.
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    ZOE wished she had fled the office
when she had the chance. She was seated in a miniscule park area on a stone
bench at the center of the office complex. The day had begun cool, but as the
sun rose, the humidity began to build along with the temperature. It felt as if
the sun was steaming the moisture from yesterday’s rain out of the ground.
She’d long since taken off her suede jacket and now she pushed the sleeves of
the batik print cotton shirt above her elbows. She’d grabbed whatever she could
find in her closet this morning and hadn’t been thinking about dressing for the
heat of the day when she left the house in the pre-dawn hours.
    She twisted around to watch
several guys in suits huddling at the edge of the park. Zoe had already
answered copious questions from the police officer who arrived on the scene
first. Shortly after his arrival, the parking lot had filled with a fire truck,
an ambulance, and more police cars. They separated her and Sharon, taking Zoe
into the small park area to answer questions. Sharon leaned against her
minivan.
    Zoe sat nervously watching as the
quiet office park buzzed with activity. Zoe assumed the people photographing things
and gathering small items in bags were crime scene investigators, and two men
in suits had to be the police detectives. A scruffy man toting a large camera
climbed on the roof of a nearby building to film the scene until a police
officer made him stop. Soon, crime tape blocked off the office and encircled
Connor’s BMW. Zoe watched as Sharon finished talking with a suited man, climbed
in her van, and drove out of the parking lot, passing several vans with
television station logos positioned at the exit.
    Zoe shifted on the bench. Her car
was only steps away. It wasn’t blocked off by the crime tape. She could slip
away right now. Zip out of the parking lot, just like Sharon had. No one was
watching her right now. She reached into the hip pocket of her jeans to slip
out her keys, but froze when she heard a deep voice behind her. “Got anything
for me?” It was Detective Martin. He’d been asking her questions in that bass
voice a few moments ago until he was called away. She twisted her head