by Celya Bowers
“It’s only because you’re so concerned about Rachel’s well-being.”
“And my brother is the reason she’s in the hospital,” Maddie said quietly. “I’ll never understand why DJ does half the things he does. I could never set someone up like he did,” she said. “I just hope I can make things right with Rachel. Our family owes her that much.”
“I’m sure it will work out,” he said. “Just don’t forget it takes time for those wounds to heal, so be patient.”
She sat up and looked at him. “What do you know about wounds?” Who hurt you?
“I told you I’m divorced. Let’s just say I know about those invisible scars. No one can see them, but they’re still there.”
“Ah, baby,” she said. She kissed him and caressed his beautiful face. “If I could take away your hurt, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Please know that I’m always here if you want to talk.”
“You called me baby.” His voice was full of wonder.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I love it.” He picked up her hand and rubbed against his face. “It makes me feel closer to you.”
Maddie knew the direction all this mushy talk was leading them. If she allowed her attention to waver from her task, Rachel’s room wouldn’t be ready when she arrived. “We have a room to get ready,” she reminded him.
“I was hoping you’d forget.” He stood and reached for her hand. “I guess we’d better get busy.”
18
Kyle Buchanan was not what Maddie had envisioned as a college professor. She was expecting a senior citizen, probably hobbling on a cane, and driving an old rusty car because he couldn’t bear to part with it. The Kyle Buchanan sitting on her sofa next to Rachel was probably early 40s, had brown curly hair, bright blue eyes, and spoke with a thick Scottish accent.
“It’s very kind of you to let Rachel stay here,” Kyle said. “When she told me what happened, I couldn’t believe it.”
“I’m glad to be able to help,” Maddie said.
“Rachel is in my European History class,” he explained. “It does my heart good to see older students attending college. I’m from Edinburgh,” he said proudly. “I’ve been working at the college for about ten years. Before that I was at a private university in Dallas.”
“How did you get from Edinburgh to Dallas?” Maddie asked. “I mean that’s a pretty big jump.”
He darted a glance in Rachel’s direction. “I followed a lady friend. We had both completed out doctorates and she wanted to come to the States. She landed a job in Dallas, and I got a job at the university. A few years down the road things started getting bumpy. We parted ways and I decided I wanted to work at larger college and came to Arlington. I enjoy the students at Arlington.”
“I’m sure Rachel enjoys your class,” Maddie said. She wanted to ask Kyle a lot more questions, but knew it wasn’t her business.
“Yes, when she didn’t show up to class, I knew something was wrong. I knew she worked on campus in the student center, but I didn’t know where. Luckily, she contacted me to explain her absence and to get her assignments.”
Rachel finally spoke up. “Professor Buchanan is one of the best professors on campus. He knows so much about everything. He’s the reason I change my major to history,” she said proudly.
Kyle cleared his throat. “I’m aware of Rachel’s situation. Once she’s able to get around better, I’d be happy to pick her up and take her to class.”
Maddie had guessed right. The kindly professor had a thing for Rachel! “That’s truly kind of you, Kyle, but I’m sure you have better things to do than to cart a student around. What does your wife and family say about all this?”
“I’ve never been married, so there’s no wife. I have no secret family in the shadows. I understand your concern, but I’m only trying to help.”
“Understood,” Maddie said. “As long as we are on the same page.”
“No one asked me,” Rachel added. “You two sit here like I’m some invalid. Maddie, I appreciate everything, but I’m an adult. I trust Kyle. Just like I trust you.”
Maddie smiled. So, it was Kyle, not professor. “You’re right, Rachel. Everyone is an adult. Kyle, you can visit her here whenever you like.”
“Thank you, Maddie.” He rose from the seat. “It’s time I left, so Rachel can get settled.” He gazed at Rachel with those gorgeous eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He shook Maddie’s and Sean’s hand and then he left.
Sean decided now was the time to make his exit and he left as well. Sean guessed the women needed some bonding time.
Maddie watched Rachel as she struggled to find a comfortable spot on the couch. She knew some of Rachel’s injuries were still healing. Maddie wished she could do more to help.
“Okay, what?” Rachel asked when Maddie began to stare. “I know I’m still pretty banged up and I’m sure Kyle was a shock. He was just so nice; I couldn’t refuse him when he asked to bring me here.”
Maddie knew she had to say something, or it was going to be very awkward around the house and there had already been enough of that. “Kyle, wasn’t a shock.” She noticed Rachel’s look of disbelief. “Okay, I’m lying. Yes, he was a big shock. I had a picture of a little old man walking on a cane, white hair and all!”
Rachel laughed. “Definitely not Kyle.”
“I have to ask.” Maddie inhaled, then pressed forward. “Is there more than a teacher-pupil relationship going on here? It’s okay if it is, you’re both adults. I just wanted to know.”
“I can ask the same of you and Sean. I heard that good-bye kiss at the door. Sounded like teenagers in heat.” Rachel chuckled. “It’s nice to see you smiling for a change.”
She could take offense at the younger woman’s words, but they were true. Smiling had become second nature to her since Sean had entered her life and her bed. “It feels good to smile, too.” She rose from her seat. “Ready to see your room?”
Rachel gingerly rose from her seat on the couch. “Yes, I am. I’m ready to start living again.” She took a few steps. “Right after I have a nap.”
Maddie laughed. “You know that does sound good. I think I’ll have one too.” It had been quite a day, coupled with the fact that she and Sean didn’t sleep much the night before, a little sleep would do her a world of good too.
“Let’s go look at that room.”
***
Monday morning, Sean walked into his office and directly into a hot mess. Shay was sitting at her usual desk, but there was a gentleman in a dark suit sitting quietly in one lobby area. His attire and demeanor screamed FBI. Natasha, the news anchor, occupied the other seat. Another gentleman sat across from them in another government issue suit. He should have stopped for coffee before coming in.
“Good morning, Sean, these kind people were waiting when I opened this morning. So, I don’t know who was first.”
“Thanks, Shay.” He turned and faced the three visitors. “Okay, who’s first?”
The two men looked at each other, then at the news anchor. The men nodded at her. “Okay, Natasha, looks like you’re up.”
Natasha jumped from her seat, grabbed her briefcase, and followed him into his office. Sean offered her a chair, while he took off his jacket. He smiled as Shay walked in with a large mug of coffee for him. Natasha refused the offer of coffee.
“What can I do for you this morning?” He took a long sip of the liquid. Just what he needed after a sleepless night without Maddie.
“I understand you’ve had some contact with Rachel Park.”
“So.”
“How do you know her?”
“The same way you do. DJ.”
“She was released from the hospital yesterday.”
“Again, so.”
“How well do you know her?”
“About as well as you.” He was getting a bad feeling about her line of questions. Was Maddie in danger?
Natasha cleared her throat. “She didn’t return to the apartment on Vermont
Drive. The hospital didn’t have any information of where she went. You have any ideas?”
“Why do you want to talk to her? All my information points to DJ,” he lied.
“I think she’s a bigger part of the drug traffic than I initially thought. I don’t think DJ has much to do with it. That’s why those thugs beat her up. She was embezzling the money.”
Plausible, he thought, probable, hardly. “Okay, I’ll bite. How’s is Rachel involved? I mean, yes, she’s DJ live-in love, but from all the records I found, she’s been the main support for the two of them for the last five years, when he moved in with her.”
“Funny, I get the opposite picture. DJ says he’s the sole support. She has a low paying job at the college in the food service department. He says he pays most of the bills.”
“Whose name is on the utility bills?” DJ missed his calling, Sean thought. Anyone who can lie this well should be in politics.
“He said she never changed them once he moved in.”
“Where’s he getting the income to make all these payments? You know he hasn’t had a job in years.”
Natasha made a good show of retrieving a note pad and searching through the notes. “He said his father contributed monthly.”
“Right. Judge Bradford is covering the expenses at the apartment. What did the apartment manager say to this?”
“DJ said he gave Rachel cash and she paid the rent. So, on paper it looked like Rachel took care of everything when his father was doing it,” Natasha said.
Surely, she didn’t believe this pack of lies DJ was feeding her. “So, what do you want from me?”
“I need you to find her for me. DJ has no idea where she could have gone. She doesn’t have any family in the area.”
“You are going to pay me to find her?”
“Of course.”
Sean grinned. “Why do you want to find her so bad? I mean if he’s paying for everything, then he doesn’t need her,” he said, stating the obvious.
Natasha hesitated for a minute. Most likely she was pondering if she should share the information or not. Sean decided to push the envelope. “I do have two other people that are waiting to see me. Why don’t you think about your answer and get back to me?”
“All right, all right, yes there’s a reason I’m looking for her.”
“Which is?”
Natasha rolled her eyes upward. “There was a document at the apartment, but now it’s missing. Rachel has to have it. I need it.”
Now it begins, he mused. “What kind of document?”
“Not sure.”
“But you want to hire me to find Rachel and this document which you have no idea of what’s on it.”
“Yes.” She stood and stuffed her notepad in her bag. “I know it sounds sketchy, but I’m sure once you locate Rachel, it will become clear.” She headed for the door. “I’ll be in touch.” She left the office.
Sean sat at his desk, digesting the information. Natasha had to be in it with DJ. Why were they looking for Rachel? What kind of document? He didn’t have much time to ponder, he had two more guests in the lobby. He rang Shay and directed her to send the next person to his office.
He rose and waited. Soon the man in the dark suit entered the office and extended his hand. “Ethan Daniel, FBI.” He took a seat and begin his pitch.
“Mr. Conway, according to our intel you’re looking for David Bradford Jr. more commonly known as DJ. He has been missing roughly 14 days.”
“Yes, and I haven’t found him yet,” Sean said. “Don’t tell me you guys have him.” Sean laughed.
Agent Daniel didn’t return the laughter. “No, we haven’t located him yet. We know he’s one of the local drug dealers.”
“DJ?”
“Yes, we have him on tape making a deal with an undercover agent.”
“So why haven’t you guys arrested him?”
Agent Daniel cleared his throat. “He’s not the one we want. DJ is considered the middleman. He sells the stuff, but the money goes to someone else. We want that person. There is a shipment coming in this Thursday and we need your help.”
“You need the DEA.”
“No, we need you. The shipment is coming in via Mexico. A bunch of government agents would send up red flags and they will scatter.”
Sean nodded. “Why is the FBI involved anyway?”
“There’s a pattern. Several female college students have went missing from some of the colleges in the area. Guess who the girls were last seen with?”
He didn’t have to guess. DJ had gotten himself into a world of trouble. Finally, he could see the plan and why the judge’s son ghosted everyone. “So where are the girls being kept until they ship out?”
“Good question. I have a man following DJ, but he’s been keeping a low profile. Namely hanging out in shelters, girlfriends, and he went back to the apartment a few times. Funny thing, yesterday, he went to the hospital, but Rachel had already been released.”
“Apparently, they’re looking for some paper, and he thinks Rachel has it. She hasn’t been back to the apartment since she went to the hospital.”
“Make sure that she doesn’t,” the agent said. “There must be information about where the girls are.”
Instantly he thought of the paper he found Saturday. He never looked at it. It’s probably still in the pocket of the jeans in his dirty clothes hamper. “I’ll relay the message.”
“Good. So, will you stake out the shipment? Triple your rate and you don’t have to get your hands dirty. You call the minute you see the players and we’ll come in and take it from there. I don’t want the girls to leave the US.”
“What about the drugs?”
“DEA will handle that part; I want the traffickers.” Agent Daniel rose and walked to the desk. He handed him a business card. “I’ll be in touch when I get the exact time of the drop.” He left the office.
“Send in the next one,” he told Shay.
A tall man with dark blond hair walked into the office. He extended his hand and shook his hand. “Brandon Carter, DEA, Dallas division office.” He handed him a business card and took a seat.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?” Sean studied the card. “This has been a busy day for government agents.”
“Well, you can tell me about David Bradford Jr.”
“I’m sure you have the same information that I have.”
“I know that you’re looking for him. Why?”
“As a favor to a friend. His sister thought he was missing.” Sean hoped the agent didn’t realize how much information he wasn’t giving.
“So why not just file a missing person’s report? There’s not one on file.”
This guy was relentless, he thought. “As I said, I was doing the judge a favor. It was under the radar.” Sean wondered how DJ figured in all this trouble.
“Do you know him, on personal level?” the agent asked.
“No, I don’t know him personally. I’ve never met him.”
The agent nodded, digesting the information. Probably figuring his next question. “How about Natasha Bridges, the anchor for the news? I recognized her in the lobby.”
“She said she was investigating a story about the drug traffic around the college.”
Agent Carter smiled. “She didn’t mention her Angela Browning, then?”
“No, but that name rings a bell.” Sean racked his brain but couldn’t come up with a connection. “Who’s she?”
“She was the college student who missing last year around Christmas time. Rumor has it she was last seen with DJ buying drugs at the arcade. Her body was found around spring break behind the football stadium.”
“You think DJ had anything to do with it?”
“That’s where things get tricky. Coroner said she’d only been dead about a week when she was found. According to his passport, DJ was out of the country during the time she was killed.”
“Why didn’t you bring him in for questioning? Maybe he knows who d
id kill her?”
“We did question him, and he claimed he knew nothing. And since he was OUTCONUS at the time of her death, and his father is a judge, we didn’t press for more information.”
He could see the tightrope the DEA had to walk. “So, what changed?”
“He’s now a person of interest and we have information that a drug shipment is coming in Thursday.”
Sean shook his head. “We’re miles away from a real body of water, what do you mean by shipment?”
Carter laughed. “Sorry, our sources say the shipment is coming via the railroad. There’s a freight train coming through Fort Worth about midnight, Thursday. The drugs will be on there.”
Sean could now see how the drop was being orchestrated. Homeland security wasn’t checking freight as diligent as airplanes, eighteen-wheelers, etc. They could also smuggle the girls out of the city with little or no fuss. “Okay, so what do you want with me?”
“Since the drop is at the train yard, we really can’t go crashing in. We would be noticed in an instant. You, being a PI, can observe and report when you see any funny business. We’ll be close by.”
“What about DJ?”
“He’s going to be charge with a crime, but he’s a small fish in a big pond. We want the killer whale, not the goldfish.”
Sean filled in what the agent had not. DJ might face a small amount of prison time, none if he turned over on his crime boss. Which, he most likely would. “So, you’re paying me for a spot of spying,” he said.
“Yep. All you need to do is call us when the action starts, and we’ll be there before they can open the first crate.”
Sean dreaded the fact that he’d have to tell Maddie, but knew she deserved the truth about her brother. He loved Maddie too much not to tell her.
19
Maddie entered her home and let out a tired breath. It had been one of those days ending with a two-hour conference call with Hunter’s publisher. They wanted her to do more to rebrand his career. Thankfully, money followed that request so that she could devote more time to his book launch. Still, she just wanted a big glass of wine and something fattening to soothe her ruffled nerves. She wished she could hide under the covers and make the world go away.