C. J. sat in the office and stared at Simon who had updated her on the woman who had turned up battered and bruised at a public health clinic. She hadn't said very much about what had happened to her or where she had been before she turned up. But she'd had a tattoo on her shoulder that had attracted attention.
She knew without asking that it had been that of a jaguar like the one she had burned into her own skin. That had tied her to other women who had been found dead in several European countries and a woman more recently discovered back east.
But unlike the others, this woman had survived.
She had been left with serious injuries including signs that someone had tried to strangle her, leaving her neck bruised and the hyoid bone nearly fractured. And not much in the way of being able to communicate because of the swelling in her larynx.
"They're trying to find some way to help her tell provide her account without speaking," he explained, "but she's still being sedated."
"She's probably not in any shape to talk and won't be for a while."
Simon didn't argue with her and that surprised her. But they both knew what this meant, because the other women had been discovered further away.
"She wouldn't have that mark on her unless she was his property," he said.
C.J. bristled at his choice of words but they were accurate. Simon just stuck to what he believed to be accurate, factual, not concerned how people around him felt about what he said. She respected him for that even as she disliked him.
"She's not property, she's a person."
He sighed and leaned back in his chair which squeaked from the movement.
"She's a whore."
She gave him a steely look.
"Not by choice…because if you're going to label people that way, then so am I."
That shut him up and she continued to look at the few documents they had in the Jane Doe's file. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes that looked out from the swelling around both of her eyes. She had the broken vessels in her face, often found after strangulation but something had stopped her from dying. Maybe the killer had been interrupted or maybe he had believed her to be dead when he dumped her.
But Simon was right; she had been one of the sex slaves held by the Jaguar if she bore that mark.
C.J. hadn't worn hers long enough to see what it'd look like after it had healed. Hers had gotten infected not long after the branding and it had been largely abraded to save her life. After it had been documented as evidence for the current criminal proceedings, she had it erased further and then replaced by a tattoo.
She looked young in her photos but the Jaguar had taken a special interest in younger women. He had his eyes on Elena to acquire for his own but Andre had vetoed that because she had been his half sister as it turned out and had offered up C.J. instead.
But the Jaguar had never collected her though he might still be poised to do just that. She could never feel entirely safe anywhere as long as he lurked underground. She sensed that he had killed these women or had men in his employment that did it for him. Perhaps to hide his own tracks since he'd gone underground? If so, that might mean he planned to resurface at some point.
And probably in a different guise than he had used before he went into hiding and if so, that meant he could be hiding in plain sight. That sent more than a few chills through her because if that were the case, then he could show up from a number of different corners.
"Will you talk to her?"
She blinked her eyes because she thought she might be sitting in on any interviews not leading them.
"Why are you asking me to do that?"
He just looked at her.
"Because with your perspective, you might be better at getting answers out of her," Simon said, "and we need those answers if we're going to find out where this Jaguar guy is hiding."
She took a deep breath and exhaled it carefully.
"Okay I guess that's your way of saying that you need my help."
He grunted which would be his terms of agreement. But when he leaned closer to her, his eyes were somber.
"Come on, we both know this is way beyond the capabilities of Houston PD to handle," he said, "this is international in scope."
She agreed with that assessment because they had all been down in the Caribbean not too long ago while the feds and military of several countries had crashed Andre's party and busted up several different trafficking operations.
But that had left that of the Jaguar unscathed and maybe this woman could help them find him.
Matt sat back finishing his lunch that they had ordered delivery so that he and Dan could work on the final changes to be done on a security program designed for the homes of one of the Texan senators. It'd gone pretty well but after that, they had to look at the schematics for a security system for an oil tycoon who had received threats. He'd been spending a lot of time at the office lately which meant he missed doing field work but then again, he wouldn't trade anything to increase the time that he and C.J. spent in the same place.
With one or the other traveling often at different times, it had been great for them to spend time together. They hadn't done enough of that even though they'd meant to do it after getting back from Colorado. He had started his new work and moved in with her.
"So what did C.J. think of the party last night?"
Matt paused not sure how to answer that question. She had seemed to really enjoy herself but by the time they had headed on home, she had grown more distant and since then…this morning she had seemed quieter. But then she had a lot on her mind with Simon asking her to help them with a case.
"She had a good time."
Dan jotted some notes on one of the schematic maps.
"What'd she think of Mr. Kostas?"
Matt rubbed the back of his neck.
"I don't know…I got the sense that she didn't like him," he said, "but she didn't say anything about it."
Dan frowned.
"What makes you say that?"
Matt sighed.
"I came across them in the garden and she left abruptly," he said, "She hedged when I asked her lately what she thought about him."
Dan shrugged.
"She just met him," he said, "Maybe if you hosted him for dinner."
"I suggested that," Matt said, "and she vetoed it flat."
"Maybe you need to talk to her," Dan said, "Find out how they got off on the wrong foot."
Matt sipped his iced tea.
"I'm not sure that's what it's about," he said, "It's almost as if she knew him."
Dan leaned back in his chair.
"But if she did, wouldn't she tell you?"
Matt knew that would be the case because there would be no reason not to say something, not that he could see anyway.
"Yeah but there's some reason why she's not willing to spend time with him," he said, "She knows he's an important client to this firm so there has to be something going on."
"You can ask her," Dan said, "and get to the bottom of it."
"Get to the bottom of what?"
They both looked up and saw Chris walking into the room, her hand resting on her abdomen. She wasn't due for a couple of months but she had grown noticeably in the past several weeks. Matt couldn't be happier for her and Dan knowing it hadn't been an easy road for them.
Dan looked at Matt and he just rubbed his hands together before setting them down.
"What did you think of Mr. Kostas?"
Chris furrowed her brows but answered anyway.
"I thought he seemed cordial, friendly," she said, "if a little reserved but maybe that's customary where he lives."
Matt digested that.
"You didn't see anything else?"
She collapsed onto a chair.
"He seemed interested in C.J.," she said, "When I talked to him, he asked me a couple of questions about her and her work."
That piqued Matt's interest but then again it didn't seem that unusual. Maybe he had just been making polite conversation.
"What kind of questions?"
Chris tried to think.
"Oh just about her work with the feds," she said, "and whether she had been consulting on any particular cases."
Now that sounded a bit odd to Matt…if Stefan were a businessman working in pharmaceuticals, why would he be so interested in what the feds were doing? Maybe it had to do with regulation of his company's work product. But something nagged at him anyway.
"He did say he was amazed that she could go through what she did and be able to have such a good attitude."
Matt figured that Stefan must have gotten the same information on her experience that had been covered by the media in the past couple of years. But he had to figure out why C.J. hadn't warmed to the guy and if she weren't even willing to let him see it, he didn't know if she'd tell him.
C.J. left Simon thinking about the woman lying sedated in the hospital where she had been taken from the clinic for further treatment. She would be guarded by police officers until the federal agencies could take over. They knew that there had to be some connection between her and the dead women found on two continents an ocean apart. If the woman's larynx had been permanently damaged from the near fatal strangulation then she might never be able to speak to them. They would have to rely on other forms of communication and the investigators were working on that part.
But she didn't know how she felt about being asked to do the interviewing. When she had looked at the photos, at the bruised face, the eyes that had seen too much, she felt the horror of what she must have been through with the Jaguar.
C.J. didn't have any memories of him herself. She didn't even know if she'd spent much time with him. Andre had hinted that she had but he might have just been taunting her as part of his psychological torture. But from what she had discovered, even a trafficker like Andre paled next to the Jaguar.
A message from Matt had been on her cell phone to meet up for dinner but she had a ton of paperwork to do waiting for her at her own office. Kyra had called her earlier saying that two other DOJ files had come in that needed her review. So she'd be burning the midnight oil and it might be better just to do it there than to bring it home with her. But as she headed back to her office, she couldn't get her mind off the photos of Jane Doe looking straight out at her from some place that must be close to Hell.