A Profiler's Case for Seduction(64)

He hated this. He hated the position he now found himself in, questioning the guilt or innocence of a woman he’d come to care about deeply, a woman he thought might have a place in his future.

It was obvious she hadn’t wanted him to know anything about her past and now he was going to dig into it, find out everything he could about her. Then he would have to question her once again, to find out where she’d been during the twenty-four hours that Melinda had been gone and three men had been killed.

The war room was empty when Mark arrived. The first thing he did was call Ben and cancel the appointment he’d made with the young man for that evening.

As he remembered the suppressed fear that had shone from Amanda’s eyes while he’d questioned her, the potential of Ben Craig being the man involved in the murder had become a more viable scenario. The last thing he wanted to do at this moment was spook the cool, slightly arrogant young man who was so close to Melinda.

What he’d like to do was question the cool, beautiful professor herself, but that option had been taken off the table when she’d mysteriously returned after being “released” by her captor. The police and the FBI had gotten one shot apiece at questioning her and at that time she’d been considered nothing more than the victim of an unusual crime. He could have sworn that during that initial interview she’d mentioned that she’d had a sister who had died years ago. Maybe that’s why nobody dug too deeply into Melinda’s familial relationships. Still, it should have been done more thoroughly.

Unfortunately, since that time, Melinda had gotten a lawyer, compliments of the Darby College legal team, who wanted no hint of blemish about the illustrious professor. It had definitely hindered the investigation going forward having Melinda protected by a lawyer.

Still, Mark felt as if the dots were beginning to connect. He was gut certain that Amanda had placed the note of warning beneath his windshield. He was also equally sure that the young woman was terrified and obviously didn’t know whom to trust. She’d implied a distancing of herself from Melinda and a closeness between Melinda and Ben.

Those were the pieces of the puzzle. Ben and Melinda. Amanda and Dora. Somehow, they were all connected, and he just needed to find how they fit together and then he’d have his answers. Hopefully he would be able to prove that Ben and Melinda were guilty of staging a kidnapping and killing three men. And he was equally hopeful that he could disprove any theory that took Amanda or Dora to the wrong side of the law.

He got out his laptop and began the search to find everything he could about Dora Martin, who he now knew had been born Isadora Grayson.

He was still seated there hours later when Richard came in just before the four-o’clock briefing. “Working hard or hardly working?” Richard asked with a touch of humor.

Mark leaned back against his chair and stretched his arms overhead, trying to digest everything he’d managed to glean both in his time hunting via the internet and by making a few phone calls to Horn’s Gulf, Wyoming.

“Dora Martin is Melinda Grayson’s sister,” he said to Richard.

“Your bookstore lady?” Richard sank down in the chair next to Mark. “How did we miss this? How did you miss this?”

“She never told me,” Mark said, fighting against a trace of bitterness. “And it’s not in any of the background work we did on Melinda.” Mark shoved the laptop away and turned to look at Richard. “I’ve spent the last couple of hours finding out everything I could about Isadora Grayson Cook Martin.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“Their father is named Buck and her mother was Daisy. Buck is still alive but Daisy died two years ago of alcoholism. Daisy had a total of four children. The two girls she and her husband raised and two boys she apparently gave up to their father to raise on a neighboring ranch. Dora never knew about her half brothers until they met a few years ago. One of her half brothers is Samuel Grayson.”

Richard raised an eyebrow. “The creep running the show in Perfect, Wyoming. I’ve heard stories about our work there, but I don’t know much about it.”

Mark nodded and then continued, “Dora and Melinda were raised in Horn’s Gulf, Wyoming, and although I wasn’t able to get a lot of information online except official public records like birth, death and marriage certificates, I have made a few phone calls and gotten a better picture of Dora’s life before she came here to Vengeance.”

“Anything jump out at you that can be tied into what’s happening now with the murders and Melinda?”