Forget relaxing. Her body tensed. “Why would I do that?”
They got to within five feet of each other, but neither of them made any move to get closer. Cud kept shifting his weight from his left to right, and he raked a hand through his hair. For the first time in her memory, he wasn’t chewing gum.
“Listen, I know about the bracelet, the sex-trafficking ring,” he said. “Word gets around.”
“Why do you care if I’m looking into it?” She’d asked the question out loud, but the answer in her head sent chills right through her. She put a hand on her weapon. “Are you involved?”
“No,” he said quickly.
“Then why show up here, tell me to walk away?”
“Because if you don’t, someone could get hurt.”
The skin on the back of her neck tightened, but she set aside her fear. “People are getting hurt, Bishop—have been for years. Girls,” she stressed. “Innocent girls.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
He seemed to believe his claim, but she wasn’t having it. “You knew that an eyewitness spotted a man outside Casey-Anne’s apartment, but you didn’t latch onto that lead.”
“It meant nothing. He was her uncle.”
“You and I both know he wasn’t her uncle,” she snapped back.
“You know what?” He flailed his hands in the air. “I tried to warn you, but—”
“You threatening me?”
Cud’s eyes pierced hers in the relative darkness. “You’d be wise to back off. All I’m sayin’.” With that, he returned to his Mazda and drove off.
She stood there, her entire body shaking. What the hell had just happened and what had Cud threatening her? Was he involved in the sex-trafficking ring? She didn’t know the guy much outside of work, but she couldn’t imagine that—but then sometimes it was the people you didn’t see.
She walked to her front door, and it took a few stabs for her hand to calm enough to get the key into the lock.
You’d be wise to back off. His words replayed in her head.
They were the same ones her blocked caller had told her, and there was something in the way he’d enunciated the words. Was Cud her mystery caller? It was time to call Jacob and ask for that favor.
Once inside her house, she called him, knowing he’d be at work. He answered on the second ring and she told him she needed him to track a couple of calls made to her phone. She gave him the time and date of the one when the caller had spoken and the other times it had just been breathing followed by a click. “How long do you think it will take?”
“A day; two tops.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Night.”
She ended the call, dropped her keys in the bowl, shucked off her shoes and jacket, and headed for the master. But she found herself stopping outside Lindsey’s room. She cracked the door and inhaled. She was hoping to smell something that would remind her of her daughter, but it was just stale air. It had been a long time since she’d stepped foot in there; it simply hurt too much.
She flicked on the light and took in the space. Lindsey didn’t have parents with a limitless budget, so it wasn’t as decked out as Phoebe’s had been, but it was apparent that Lindsey had been loved. Still was.
Her bed wasn’t a canopy, but it had a bookcase headboard, and, just like Phoebe, her sweet Lindsey had also liked being read to. She could never pick a favorite among the classics that Amanda and Kevin had from their childhoods, but she had a slight preference for Curious George.
The bed was still made as if it were waiting for its owner to return. Barbies were in the corner of the room, some of them sitting at a picnic table. They’d been having that picnic for the last five and a half years.
Amanda walked over to the window, where there was a small desk she and Kevin had picked up for Lindsey. On it were her crayons, some of them strewn across an open coloring book, her daughter’s last strokes staring up at her.
She wailed, so violently her body convulsed. She’d worked so hard to suppress her feelings, to will them away, and they had returned with a bitter vengeance. They say time heals all wounds, but she had yet to experience that for herself.
She sobbed and sniffled. There would be no holding the doll her daughter had valued above all her toys, no tactile experience that way to bring her closer. That doll had long ago been destroyed. It had been in the car that night and had likely been stained with her baby’s blood.
Another gut-curdling cry hurled from her and she doubled over. Sheer, raw pain, so intense—as if the loss had just happened—overcame her. Rage also pulsated through her and she just wanted to throw something, to hurt something, to feel better.
She dropped onto her daughter’s bed and burrowed onto her side, snuggling in and wishing that night had never happened. That if there was a God, she’d just awaken and it all would have been a bad dream. It was something that she had clung to in the first few months—and years—but at some point she’d realized there would be no waking up. This was her reality and her nightmare.
She just lay there crying, heaving for breath.
Forty-Three
Amanda woke up to sunlight coming in through the white daisy curtains. Her head pounded and there was a kink in her shoulders. She grumbled as she turned slowly to her back. Her hip was tender too. She must have slept on her side all night without moving.
“My sweet, sweet Lindsey,” she whispered to the walls.
There was an emotional ache in the middle of her chest that was far more painful than her physical discomforts. She forced herself from bed and realized that she was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She’d slept from— She looked to the clock on Lindsey’s dresser, but it was blinking. She hadn’t reset it since the first power outage after their deaths. She didn’t want to think about how long the clock would have been winking at nothing, serving no purpose.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and squinted at the brightness of the screen. It was after eight in the morning.
She’d slept for the better part of eight hours, without a sleeping pill. That was the first night that had happened since she’d been released from the hospital.
She wandered down the hall and took care of business in the bathroom and got freshened up for work. Twenty minutes later she was out the door, and shortly after that pulling into the parking lot of Hannah’s Diner. A coffee and a muffin would hit the spot.
She went inside and May helped her out. She gave her an extra-large and only charged her for a medium.
Amanda said, “You don’t have to—”
May batted a hand. “Amanda, I know I don’t have to do anything, but I want to.”
Amanda gave her a large tip and grabbed her blueberry muffin. Its top was devoured well before she reached Central.
She passed Cud’s cubicle and was happy that he wasn’t in. She’d want to confront him and call him out in front of the department, but then she might never get to the bottom of what was really going on. The same went for reporting his threats to Malone. The question was, though, was Cud trying to protect himself, as she’d considered last night, or trying to protect someone else?
She sat at her desk, slurped back the rest of her coffee, then tossed the to-go cup in her garbage can. Her mind was juggling the unknown man in the photograph she’d collected from the Baldwins, and Cud. That’s if her trip to Williamsburg had sparked his visit. And if so, what was his connection to any of this?
She tapped her fingers on her desk and an idea came to her. There was one link between Cud and Ritter—the detective that Cud had worked the case with. But who was he again? Jonah… something.
She pulled up the file on the Ritter investigation and got the full name. Jonah Reid.
But now what? She had no way of accessing human resources records, but the internet had proved invaluable in her finding Casey-Anne Ritter’s true identity. She keyed in the name Jonah Reid and seconds later had several links to social-media profiles showing J
onah Reids of all ages and nationalities. She typed in Jonah Reid, Virginia.
Far fewer results, but she realized she could narrow it down further. She added PWCPD to the search bar.
Bingo. Only five images to look at it, but it was the first one that had her attention.
She pulled the photo that Tanya Baldwin had given her from her jacket and held it to the screen, angling her head this way and that. It didn’t take long for her to make a conclusion. The Jonah Reid on her screen was the man in the photo with Elise Pierce, Rhonda Osborne, and Phoebe Baldwin. What the hell?
She clicked the link that took her to his LinkedIn profile. Her stomach twisted at his occupation.
“Hey.”
She looked up at Trent. “Hey,” she replied absentmindedly.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.” She kept her gaze on the screen, not believing what she was seeing, but there it was in black and white: Jonah Reid had gone on to become an aide to Washington congressman Eugene Davis.
She got up and walked outside the station. Fresh air might be the only thing that could help her right now. What should she do? Was a current congressman’s aide involved with sex trafficking? Or was she leaping to a conclusion based on his brief stint at PWCPD combined with Cud’s strange behavior and his face in a picture with Phoebe Baldwin? Surely there could be some reasonable explanation.
She paced the parking lot. Her thoughts weren’t settling. Take the blip at PWCPD. Sure, not everyone was cut out to be a cop, but the pieces weren’t assembling unless… What was she even thinking: that Reid had been planted on the Webb investigation? If that were true, how entrenched was the ring and was it those deep connections that had Cud fearful and spewing threats?
She had to see Reid and confront him, and she’d have to go it alone. If she laid all this out for Malone, he’d rattle Cud and it would sure as hell get back to Reid and the other cohorts in the ring, and they’d go so far underground, there’d be no way of finding any of them. Whether she liked it or not, whether it was wise or not, she had to go this alone.
But when?
What would be the best time to approach Reid? The answer presented immediately that she’d need to get him alone. She couldn’t exactly go into the congressman’s office and demand time to speak with Reid. She’d have to find him at home, and Washington kept long hours.
She returned to her desk and brought up the background on Jonah Reid. No criminal record—not that she’d expected one given that he’d served as a detective. Reid lived just outside of Woodbridge, and she scribbled down his address and left the station. She then keyed off a quick text to Malone, who wasn’t in, that she wasn’t feeling well and was going home to rest. What he didn’t know was that she’d spend the rest of the day likely splitting her time between home and gathering intel. Then, as soon as night fell, she’d show up at Reid’s door. Hopefully he wouldn’t be expecting her.
Forty-Four
It was nearing midnight when she decided to head out to Reid’s house. She figured she’d find the aide home from Washington and still awake. She’d driven by the address earlier in the day but hadn’t managed to get a good look at the place from the road as it was nestled in the woods. All that peeked out between branches and evergreens were sections of the roofline. Noting the seclusion, goose bumps pricked her flesh at the thought that the isolation would serve the purposes of a sex-trafficking ring well. Especially if Reid was holding girls here.
She was armed with her service weapon, but she’d also grabbed her Beretta and had it in an ankle holster. Just to be safe.
She pulled the department car she’d signed out into the driveway and slowly crept toward the house. She watched the woods on each side closely for any sign of armed guards.
A two-story, older house sat in an open patch and was bathed in moonlight. Lights were on in a few rooms and shone through the closed curtains.
She parked next to a couple of mid-level sedans and got out.
Loudly cooing mourning doves and a towering sycamore with its wide, outstretched branches gave the property a sinister feel and had shivers trickling down her spine.
She talked her imagination back and knocked on the front door.
It took doing it twice before footsteps headed toward the door. The curtain in its window was pulled back and a woman’s face was looking out at her. The deadbolt clunked as it was unlatched. The door slowly cracked open.
“Yeah?” It was a woman in her forties and Amanda recognized her immediately as Elise Pierce, but she kept her expression neutral—revealing that she knew who Elise was wouldn’t help the cover story she’d devised.
“Sorry for the late hour, but I’m Detective Steele with Prince William County Police Department. I’m looking to speak with Jonah Reid. I understand he lives here.”
“What’s it to you?” Elise crossed her arms.
“I have concerns about a former associate who used to work within the department.” She planned to feel Reid out while making him think she considered Cud a suspect.
Elise narrowed her eyes. “What sort of concerns?”
“Kind of something I’d like to discuss with him.”
“Fine, step inside.”
“Thanks.” Amanda stopped short at the sight of the place.
To call it a sty would be unfair to pigs. Takeout containers littered every available surface, along with empty beer bottles. Framed movie posters covered most of the wall space. Her stomach knotted as she remembered the contacts in the spreadsheet were all named based on literary and movie characters.
“Maid hasn’t shown up yet,” Elise said. She must have sensed Amanda’s disgust.
Amanda gave her a pressed-lip smile. “No worries. I wasn’t expected.”
Elise took Amanda to a living room, cleared a cushion on the couch, and pointed for Amanda to sit. She did so, and Elise dropped into a wooden rocking chair.
“You must be Jonah’s wife? Girlfriend?” Amanda said. She’d been surprised by Elise’s presence, but she was also uncomfortable by the fact that Elise hadn’t offered to go get Jonah.
“Girlfriend.” A few seconds then, “Name’s Elise.”
“Nice to meet you,” was what Amanda said with all the pleasantry she could muster, but just being in this place was nauseating. Did they keep any of the girls here or did they pass through here? Either way.
“Could you go get Jonah?” she asked lightly, as if Elise not already doing so had been an innocent slip, but everything was telling Amanda that Jonah Reid was already aware of her presence.
“I’m sure he’ll be along— Oh, there he is.” Elise smiled smugly, her gaze going behind Amanda.
Amanda turned and found Jonah Reid standing there, a gun trained on her.
“Whoa, wait, what are—” Amanda put her hands up.
“You aren’t here to talk.” He was about five-nine, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a slight lisp.
Uncle! She screamed in her head, recalling the eyewitness account Banks had told her about.
He was the right size to be the man in the video from Happy Time—so had he also struck and killed Palmer?
“I had a bad feeling you’d end up at my door,” he said.
“Why?” she tried to play it cool.
“Let’s just say I’m an informed person, Detective.”
The way he said Detective it felt like tiny spiders were scurrying along her arms. “I’m just here to talk about your old partner, Dennis Bishop.”
“Oh, please, you must think I’m an idiot.”
She went to reach for her service weapon.
He clicked back on his shotgun. “I wouldn’t.”
“No one needs to get hurt.” She put her hands up. “I just came to talk.”
Jonah nodded toward Elise. “Take her gun and get her to the basement.”
Amanda was questioning her earlier decision to go on this mission without backup. She’d underestimated Jonah.
Elise grabbed a gun from a drawer in a tab
le next to her and approached Amanda. Each step she took, Amanda ran through scenarios in her head, but none of them resulted in her walking away.
“Gun, now,” Elise barked and held out one hand, her other holding the gun trained on Amanda.
Amanda moved slowly so as not to startle them and her phone rang. Shit!
“Ignore it and give her your gun!” Jonah barked over the trill.
“I should probably answer or—” She really had no idea who was on the other end of the line, but whoever it was might be able to get help here.
“Shut up.” Jonah pushed the gun harder against her skull. “Give me a reason,” he said.
She raised her arms again. “We can work something out.”
“I don’t negotiate with cops. Elise!” he barked.
Elise took Amanda’s phone from her coat pocket. The entire time it kept ringing, only drilling into Amanda’s head that help was so close yet so far away.
Elise stuffed it into a pocket of her pants. “Get up and do as I say,” she said.
Amanda stood, and Elise prodded her in the back.
“Take the first door on the left and go down,” Elise told her.
Amanda might be able to play Elise and get her to turn on Reid, but they had been together for at least fifteen-plus years if the photo Tanya had given her was any indication. “You don’t have to do as he says.” Amanda spoke just above a whisper, not certain if Jonah was following them.
Elise said nothing but applied more pressure with her gun on Amanda’s spine.
“No one needs to know about this if you stop now,” Amanda dangled out there.
“Turn right at the bottom of the stairs.” Unfazed.
Amanda reached the bottom and gagged. The reek of shit and urine was overpowering. A few dim bulbs fought the shadows that clung in the corners, but she could still make out numerous steel doors. Most of them were shut, but one about ten feet away was open. There was no more doubt: the girls were being held here.
“Move!” Elise nudged her toward the open steel door, and when they were within a foot, she shouted, “Get in!” and pushed Amanda forward.
The Little Grave: A completely heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Amanda Steele Book 1) Page 26