She gave each of her siblings a quick hug, much as she had when she’d first arrived, with a promise to get together soon.
“’Bye!” With a quick wave, she walked out the front door toward her car. The air was replete with autumn, from the scent of the dry, crisp leaves under her feet to the swipe of frosty air. She relished the cold temperature, despite her shivers.
Maybe she should make more of an effort to spend more personal time with her siblings. But she’d been ashamed that she’d allowed Peter to take her for such a ride, making her think she was his everything. Until she’d come home early one weekday afternoon and found his cheating butt in her apartment with one of what had been several extracurricular affairs while they’d been together. The betrayal had been bad enough; for him to pick her apartment instead of his own hadn’t helped.
It was a year ago. Move on.
She’d taken her time healing, but enough was enough. Vikki wanted to get back to being the woman she was before her heart had been crumpled and tossed in a waste bin. It was time to start living again.
After she dug in to the RevitaYou case.
The last of the day’s light splayed from the skyline across Lake Michigan and lit up the view Vikki enjoyed from her small coupe. The westerly drive to Army Post Fort Rapids, on the other side of Grand Rapids, afforded her an unobstructed spectacle. Deep streaks of fuchsia and violet swept across the horizon, so rich they made her fingers itch for her watercolor brushes. A grunt escaped her throat, still scratchy from the eleven-hour drive. When was the last time she’d been able to take a day off, much less engage in her favorite hobby?
Her hands shook as she reviewed the meeting she’d just left. Vikki mentally went over her orders to gather all the information and potential evidence she could on RevitaYou, blamed for scores of users falling ill and now, in an awful turn, dying. Everyone at the CI table had been forthcoming with what they’d known. The team assembled around the Colton family table, also the CI conference table.
Riley had initially uncovered the pyramid scheme that had been established to distribute RevitaYou, at great profit to the criminal investors. Griffin was an adoption attorney by trade, but had been pulled into the RevitaYou mess when Abigail asked for help with Maya’s adoption. Abigail’s father was one of the original bankrollers of RevitaYou, but she had nothing to do with her father’s illegal doings. In fact, it was Abigail who revealed that the sketchy supplement in truth contained a deadly, lethal substance: ricin. It was the by-product of castor oil that the chemist used in the formula.
Pippa volunteered to help CI draw out the loan sharks by going undercover, but was also drawn in by her bond with Emmanuel. Kiely worked nonstop as a private investigator and was working with the FBI when she at first butted heads with Cooper as they both became entangled in the RevitaYou case. The twins had each found love along the way, which made Vikki smile even while thinking about such a ghastly investigation.
Vikki represented the Army as her orders required, and when not in uniform, she helped her lawyer siblings, Griffin and Pippa, with whatever they needed for their portions of the case. Now she was under very specific orders from JAG headquarters in Virginia to collect information pertinent to the death of an Army officer’s wife, due to RevitaYou. She shook her head as she drove, almost overwhelmed by the enormity of the investigation. What kept her focused was the desired endgame. Catch all players in the pyramid scheme gone wrong, and bring them to justice. All of the people and agencies they represented shared the immutable outcome.
She shut off her radio as she approached the post’s main entrance gate, slipping into her Army paralegal role as easily as she’d served as a paralegal for CI at the earlier meeting.
Everything she knew before joining the Army, she’d learned in her home state of Michigan. The sole Colton sibling to join the military, she’d eschewed going to college, enlisted in the Army right after high-school graduation ten years ago. It was a decision she had zero regrets about.
When she’d enlisted, Vikki hadn’t been stationed here right away. But after a two-year active-duty stint at JAG headquarters in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Vikki had signed up for the reserves and been stationed at Fort Rapids ever since. Her immediate superior, a JAG officer, had asked her yesterday if she was interested in getting the latest information on this high-stakes case. Since she’d been working the case on the fringes for her attorney siblings, she hadn’t hesitated to volunteer.
Stopping at the gate, she passed her ID and a copy of her TDY orders through the open window to the sentry. “Evening, Sergeant.”
The guard, an MP, scanned her ID with his handheld instrument. Once he verified her identity, he read over her Temporary Duty orders. Handing her ID and paperwork back, he waved her through the gate.
Victoria had spent much of her high-school years on post, where the local small towns used the state-of-the-art fields and track for athletic events. She always enjoyed arriving back on base as part of her reserve duty. But this wasn’t a time to reminisce. Time was her nemesis. The sooner she gathered the intel her boss needed, she’d have more time to work for CI again. And also, hopefully more time to spend with her family. She’d been contemplating the idea of leaving the Army reserves to more fully devote herself to the family business. But for now, she was 100 percent committed to her duty.
What a mess she faced in this current investigation. As she reread the facts, it was hard to reconcile the peaceful, law-abiding city she’d grown up in and its adjacent Army post as the scene of such deadly goings-on.
Ingestion of ricin-laced RevitaYou was the suspected cause of death for an Army captain’s spouse, Teri Joseph. Right before her death due to mysterious symptoms, the victim had bragged to her friends that she’d felt younger than she had in years. Several other spouses had fallen ill, as well, but survived. The common denominator: they’d all attended the same home shopping party and taken the nefarious supplement several times after.
Captain Joseph, widower of the woman killed by RevitaYou, had been making threatening statements at work, not so quietly railing against the “Toxic Scientist” Landon Street, ever since his wife had died. Vikki’s superiors wanted her to interview the widowed officer to try to determine if his threats were just grief gone haywire or worse. She wasn’t a clinical psychologist, and didn’t think it was up to her to figure out if the man was mentally stable or not, but orders were orders. She’d learned Captain Emerson Joseph’s regular work hours, 0730-1700, from his administrative assistant. So far, the captain had ignored every phone call and message she’d left him, at work and at home.
The second person of interest was of more importance. Vikki hadn’t attempted to contact him yet. She paused to read over the file of the sergeant she was going to be interviewing. Her boss had stressed that she shouldn’t give him a heads-up. “Surprise is the best tool you have in a situation like this, Sergeant Colton.”
Sergeant Flynn Cruz-Street, a decorated combat MP, was the half brother of mad scientist Landon Street, who had created the formula for the deadly supplement. If anyone knew where Landon was hiding out, Sergeant Cruz-Street would. He’d claimed to be estranged from his brother, but wasn’t that typical of someone realizing they were in trouble for associating with a criminal? Vikki wanted to interview Cruz-Street ASAP. Since some of Captain Joseph’s threatening statements had been directed at Cruz-Street, the sooner, the better. Before the aggrieved officer’s words escalated to physical violence.
Vikki took a few minutes in the barracks parking lot to review her notes. As she skimmed the report again, she had a fleeting wish that Riley’s suggestion that she leave this investigation to her siblings and other LEA professionals was possible. The case gave her the creeps. She’d been exposed to plenty of salespersons over the years in the Army Reserves, especially as she’d advanced in rank.
Her Army buddies included her in their family activities even though she remained h
appily single, and she was grateful. Several of their spouses were into various types of consumables sold in a home setting, from kitchenware to lingerie. It always tickled her when one of the spouses of someone she worked long hours with invited her to purchase yet another plastic container promising to keep her MRE fresher than ever. She didn’t like the pyramid-scheme-y feel to them, though, which was another reason the RevitaYou case had jumped out at her. She often thought that civilian reps of these get-rich-quick-promise companies saw military spouses as easy marks. It was hard to make a separate career succeed when your active-duty spouse’s career had you moving every two years to often remote postings.
A recent dinner party she’d attended had had a representative hawking vitamins, but Victoria had declined to buy any of the supplements. She wasn’t against remedies, but the Army had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to drugs. Without knowing exactly what she was putting into her body, she ran the risk of popping positive on a random chemical analysis. Even though she’d be able to show proof of the vitamins, it wasn’t worth the hassle. She noted that none of the alleged RevitaYou consumers on base were active duty or reserve, but rather Army family members. Was the Army’s no-drugs policy the only thing that kept active duty from getting sick, or worse, due to RevitaYou?
With a final mirror check to ensure her hair was smoothed back into its bun and that she appeared every inch a US Army paralegal, she headed for the door. She’d find Captain Joseph first, saving what she expected to be the longer interview with Landon’s half brother for a bit later. Sergeant Cruz-Street had better have some answers for her.
No one messed with her Army.
* * *
Sergeant Flynn Cruz-Street flopped onto the sofa in his barracks room and fired up his laptop. After a twelve-hour-duty shift, followed by two hours at the gym, and a huge, protein-rich meal at the chow hall, all he wanted to do was finish the paper for his British Literature class. One paper and two courses away from an online master’s degree in English lit, he was determined to finish. He had another year left on his Army contract. His long-term dream was to earn a PhD in English literature and work in academia.
A ding from his phone reminded him that he had several unanswered texts, all from his Army buds and one from his mother, Rosa Cruz-Street. They’d heard the rumors about Landon. Who hadn’t? Everyone knew his estranged paternal half brother, Landon Street, was suspected of creating a vitamin supplement allegedly responsible for scores of users falling ill—and now a death on this very Army post. He’d heard it was the spouse of an active-duty member, but so far no names had been released. Fort Rapids was like any other American town in that news and gossip traveled quickly. But with over twenty thousand active-duty and family members living on post, the particulars of any single incident weren’t something he’d know about. His friends didn’t believe him, though, when he assured them he had no idea how many people had been sickened, or if it was true that his half brother’s supplement was to blame.
“Where the heck are you, Landon?” He spoke the words to his empty room, wishing he’d paid more attention the last time he’d seen his half brother, over two months ago, at their father’s grave site. When reports of people being sickened came out, Flynn had tried to convince Landon to turn himself in, but Landon had insisted that RevitaYou was a “perfect molecular compound” that hadn’t caused the illnesses. And then his sibling disappeared and had not been reachable since. If people had died because of Landon’s crazy chemical cocktail, then how many more were in danger?
“Dang it.” He opened the internet browser on his laptop, but not to find his favorite movie. Maybe if he put the last several places he’d seen Landon on a map, he’d be able to figure out how to find him now. Because this had to stop.
A large bang from the adjoining room cut through his concentration. All senses went on alert, a holdover from being in a combat zone, yes, but also an intrinsic part of his job as a military policeman. Another sound echoed through the room, and his gut tightened. He had his quarters to himself with no roomies, earned from long hours and a spotless performance record. The privilege of having not only a bedroom but an additional room with a kitchenette and work area seemed great when he’d been assigned it last year. But with the threat of an unknown intruder, it suddenly seemed not so great.
Silently and purposefully, Flynn rose and went to the threshold to his workroom. Incredibly, he heard breathing, and it wasn’t his. Without preamble, he stepped in front of the entrance and yelled.
Into the face of his superior.
“Captain Joseph?”
“Bastard!” Without further warning, Emerson Joseph launched himself at Flynn, pummeling as if his life depended on it.
“Oof!” Flynn deflected the blows as they came at him, but a right hook to his jaw landed square and he cursed. “Sir, stop! What’s this about?”
Joseph kept swinging, never letting up. “Your brother killed—” jab “—my—” punch “—wife!” Captain Joseph roared the last word and, while it seemed to give his attacker more momentum, it made Flynn’s defensive posture deflate.
This was the active-duty person who’d lost their spouse? His boss?
“Teri is dead, sir?” He managed the query between gasps, ducks and dives, swerving to avoid the captain’s particularly painful left punch.
“Don’t act as if you didn’t know, Cruz-Street. Stop the innocent act. I’ll never forgive you or your brother.” Captain Joseph stepped back and Flynn waited, praying that the man was finally deplete of his rage, but when Joseph’s right hand retrieved his sidearm, Flynn raised his arms.
“Whoa, sir, stop. This is insane. We can talk this out.” Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and Flynn forced all thoughts about Joseph being his superior officer aside. As long as the man had his weapon out, he was an attacker, the enemy.
“Teri’s never going to talk again!” Flynn watched in horror as Captain Joseph pointed his pistol at him. Remaining thoughts fled as Flynn acted on years of Army training and instinct. Within three seconds that felt more like a lifetime, he wrestled Joseph onto the floor and held him down, gripping the right hand with the weapon with as much strength as he could summon. Though he held Joseph’s wrist flat against the floor, the captain still managed to fire two shots. Plaster flew and glass shattered, but Flynn barely noticed. All he focused on was keeping himself out of the crosshairs.
* * *
Vikki tried to ignore the tantalizing smell of the half dozen cider donuts resting on the passenger seat as she pulled up to the enlisted housing area. It’d been impossible to resist a quick dinner of fish tacos from a local taqueria food truck on post after she’d had zero luck contacting Captain Joseph and his immediate superior, the post commander, hadn’t had any helpful information about where Joseph went after duty hours. If he’d been home, he hadn’t answered his doorbell. The house had been dark, but she knew if she’d just lost her spouse she might be sitting in a darkened room, too, unwilling to speak to anyone.
With the delicious meal behind her, she was back to business, determined to get at least one interview under her belt before she called it a day. Hopefully, Sergeant Flynn Cruz-Street had at least an idea of where his half brother was. Finding the scientist who’d created RevitaYou would be a huge boon and help close this case all the sooner.
Leaving her car in the Bachelor Enlisted Quarters parking lot, she entered the large building and quickly jogged up the stairs. As she placed her hand on the steel door to enter the third floor, two shots rang out. She didn’t open the door right away, but took stock of her situation and reached for her phone.
Another shot, footsteps pounding. After calling post security, she heard sirens, no doubt triggered by other callers who heard the gunshots, or the victim.
The victim.
Vikki didn’t carry a sidearm unless in a combat area, but she knew enough first aid that she’d be able to help anyone who�
��d been hit. Moving very slowly, she inched the door open and looked into the corridor. A handful of men and women were standing in the hall, and she whispered to the nearest.
“Do you know which room it’s coming from?”
A petite blonde turned to face her, looked over her uniform. “Who are you?”
“Sergeant Colton, JAG.”
The woman nodded. “Right. It’s coming from Sergeant Cruz-Street’s room. We don’t know any more and, frankly, shouldn’t be out here. The MPs are on their way.”
Vikki tried to keep her professional bearing, but at the mention of her much-needed interviewee, her stomach clenched. “Has he been shot?”
“I told you, we don’t know. Are you okay?”
Vikki nodded. Before she had a chance to buck up, more shots rang out and she watched in horror as a man stumbled out of number 312, Cruz-Street’s room. But he was wearing a captain’s uniform, not a sergeant’s. He turned in the direction of the stairwell and began to run.
“Anybody try to take me out, I’ll shoot!” He swung his handgun up and down the corridor, the motion freezing everyone in place. He took slow, steady steps toward the stairwell. Toward Vikki.
As he neared, Vikki looked at his name badge, his insignia. Joseph. The widowed officer.
“Captain Joseph, I can help you.” She stood in front of the woman she’d spoken to, determined to talk this man off the ledge and keep others from being hurt. “Please, put your weapon away.”
He didn’t say a word until he was past her, his hand on the stairwell door as he held it slightly ajar, ready to escape. “Who are you?” His weapon was still drawn but at least he’d lowered his arm. The gun hung at his side, pointed to the floor. His eyes kept moving back and forth, constantly monitoring the soldiers behind her. Sirens drew closer and she knew her time with him was short.
“I’m a JAG representative, sir. I’m so sorry for your loss, but this isn’t how to handle it, sir.”
Agent’s Mountain Rescue Page 23