The force was unexpected, and she’d been mid-stride. Amanda toppled forward but caught herself on the doorframe. Her mind was screaming. There was no way she could allow herself to go into that room or it would be over. But then, maybe, just maybe she could see Kevin and Lindsey again.
All in a flash, her father’s voicemail also replayed in her mind, It’s over, sweetheart.
Completely out of context, but a tiny part of her almost welcomed the comfort of defeat if that meant a brief meeting of the darkness followed by a walk toward the light. Being with her family again would be a marvelous reunion, something that she’d dreamed of for many years. But it had also been great seeing her parents the other day and how would they cope if something happened to her now?
Her phone started ringing again. Maybe it was the same person again, desperately trying to reach her. She could only hope that someone would look for her and track her whereabouts.
“Get in the room!” Elise kicked Amanda’s legs.
Only then did Amanda realize they had been preventing the door from closing. If she went into that cell, she could only guess her future would be torture, rape, and murder. And she couldn’t serve the girls in the other cells if she was dead. She had to fight.
She put her arms under her and lifted herself up, then stood and spun to face Elise. Her gun was level at her solar plexus. In that second, Amanda didn’t want to die, but she wasn’t afraid of it either. And at least there was no sign of Jonah.
In a swift motion—an act of reckless abandon—Amanda wrapped her hand around the barrel of Elise’s gun and swept it to the side. A hail Mary, let-the-fates-decide move.
A bullet fired and the sound was deafening. Elise screamed and the gun went flying.
Amanda kicked Elise in her ribs, and she let out a strangled cry.
“Elise!” Jonah was thumping across the floorboards above them and nearing the top of the basement stairs.
Amanda had less than a second to decide on her next step. She needed to rid Elise of her gun if she was to stand a chance. She ducked to the ground, throwing herself on her side. Her fingers played on the handle; the weapon was just out of reach.
Elise was clawing at her legs and pulling her back. Amanda stopped her struggling and let the woman advance on her. When she was within reach, she wound up and punched her as hard as she could in the nose.
Bone and cartilage crunched, and Amanda’s knuckles were likely bloody and throbbing, but she felt nothing. Adrenaline had kicked in and she was ready to go down fighting if she had to, but she sure as hell wasn’t going down without one.
Jonah’s steps were getting closer, then they were on the stairs.
Elise resembled a deranged animal as she lunged at Amanda again.
Amanda held up her hands to thwart her attack when there was a thunderous crack, and Elise’s body collapsed against her—her head had a gaping crater where her brain had been.
Amanda’s ears were ringing, and her vision was hazy, but she still made out Jonah standing across the room with a smoking shotgun.
Amanda reached for the gun in her ankle holster. If she had to, she’d use Elise’s body as a shield.
“Stop fucking moving or you’re next!” Jonah yelled.
He hadn’t even hesitated to kill his girlfriend; she would be less than nothing to him. She could scream at the top of her lungs, but it wouldn’t matter. Even the shotgun firing wouldn’t have been heard by anyone. They were in relative isolation.
“That bitch cost me far more trouble than she was worth!” he spat.
“Wh-Who?” Amanda asked, not sure if she’d heard him correctly.
“Little Miss Colonial!” He advanced on her and her body became lead.
“Did you kill her?” She tried to articulate the revelation as a shock.
“What the hell do you think?” He stopped moving, and Amanda took a deep breath, still paralyzed by fear.
Fear—a feeling. She had to survive, if only to bring this shit down and free those poor girls!
“I think you did,” she said defiantly. “I also think that you killed Jackson Webb.”
“Ding, ding, tell her what she’s won, Bob. None of this was supposed to track back to me, so how the fu—”
“You’re not the smart and glamorous man you think you are, you piece of shit!” She scrambled to her feet, managing to get her Beretta free of the ankle holster in the process. She held her gun behind her back. “You sell young girls for a payday, probably play with the merchandise yourself.”
“You don’t know anything,” he bellowed, but her talking to him, challenging him, and his enormous ego seemed to be keeping him from pulling the trigger on her.
“I do, actually. You took Phoebe Baldwin from a park in Williamsburg. Ah— nah, that was probably Elise who did that for you right? Little girls would be far more trusting of a woman than a man. Though maybe Rhonda, the babysitter, was in on this thing you’ve got going too. Or should I say had going.”
“Shut up!”
“You couldn’t have gotten the little girl to go with you.”
The man snarled and he raised the shotgun on her.
“Go ahead. Shoot.” She stared down the man with the gun, her hand holding hers still behind her back. “Take the coward’s way out, but know that if you kill me, you’ll never live another day of your life without looking over a shoulder. If I found you, someone else will too.”
“I’ve been looking over it all my life,” he hissed.
“It must have been worse when Phoebe stole your bracelet. You know, the one with all your organization’s players on it.” She smiled smugly at him.
His eyes bored through her.
“But you killed her, and you still didn’t recover your property, so you tried to torture it out of Jackson Webb, only he didn’t have it either. You must have been shittin’ your pants.” She gave a forced laugh. “But see, if you had found it, then I wouldn’t be here now. We never would have met.”
“What a tragedy that would have been,” he said drily.
“You killed Chad Palmer too—just changed up your MO.”
“No,” he pushed out, the shotgun lowering slightly.
“You’re really not too bright. He had your bracelet all these years—well, the county did. He was wearing it when he was arrested.”
Jonah’s eye twitched—
She raised her gun and fired off two consecutive rounds just as Jonah was raising the shotgun again.
The first struck him in the arm that held the weapon and it clattered to the basement floor. The second bullet embedded in his shoulder.
“You bi—” He lunged toward her, and she popped a third round in his left kneecap. He crumpled to the floor.
She quickly kicked his shotgun out of reach and aimed her gun at him. “What’s it gonna be? Want another hole in your fucking body or do you surrender to a girl? Now, give me the key for the other cells!”
“Fuck you!”
“Now!” Screw him. There was no way she was getting any closer than necessary. He might be injured, but he wasn’t unconscious and adrenaline had a way of muting pain and infusing strength.
He writhed and wailed as he twisted his body to access his pocket. He eventually withdrew the key and tossed it at her with his good arm.
“Now, get in that cell!” She nodded toward the one she’d almost been locked in. “I don’t care if you crawl or if I have to drag you! Get moving!”
Jonah flashed her another murderous glare, and she cocked her gun.
Her turn to say, “Give me one good reason.”
He started to move, and she kicked him the rest of the way into the cell and shut the door, locking it behind him. She set about freeing the girls, then she’d call it in.
Fifteen in total, all of them somewhere between ten and fifteen, and sharing three small cells.
The sound of approaching sirens was as melodious as an angels’ choir and just as miraculous. She hadn’t called for help.
Forty
-Five
The next afternoon Amanda was sitting across from Malone, running through her entire thought process on going to Reid’s solo. It had made sense in her mind, but on speaking her reasoning out loud, it fell flat. She should have trusted him to keep her play on the down-low.
“We’ve had this conversation before, Steele,” Malone said, the formal address never a good sign. “You have to stop acting like a one-man show.”
“Woman. One-woman.”
“Whatever.” Malone batted his hand in the air. “You’re missing my point. We work with partners for a reason.”
“Didn’t benefit Bishop much.” She fought the smirk that so desperately wanted to come to fruition.
“Don’t be using that partnership as a model. At least he ended up doing the right thing,” Malone said.
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?” One of the calls she’d missed while fighting for her life had been from Jacob Briggs. He’d tracked down the source of the blocked calls. Two numbers had come back. Her silent caller had been Rick Jensen, and—as she’d suspected— Cud had been the one to use the voice modulator.
“Bishop’s the one who sent cars to Reid’s house.”
In the flourish that had transpired after other officers had arrived on scene, getting the girls sorted out and provided for, she’d forgotten all about the backup coming before she’d had a chance to call. Today would be a happy day for a lot of families as their girls would be going home. Tears filled Amanda’s eyes. She’d saved them! But there were still so many more out there. “How did he know I was there?”
“Said that he’d been keeping an eye on you. Anyway, he admits to burying evidence in the Webb case,” Malone offered.
“Why would he do all that though? He isn’t… tell me he isn’t part of the ring?”
Malone shook his head. “Not at all. Never was, but like you he was starting to get close to the truth—had his suspicions anyway and they were too strong for Jonah Reid’s liking. Reid threatened Bishop’s sister, and he believed him enough to turn the other way.”
Amanda could understand a bit how that could happen but wasn’t saying that much to Malone.
“You did good, but I can’t stress enough that next time—”
“I know, go with backup.”
“At least with your partner.”
“Kind of hard when I didn’t have one at the time.”
“Nah, no, you’re not flipping this back on me.”
“Well, there has to be some accountability.” She smirked.
Her phone rang and the caller ID was blocked. Not again, she thought. “I should probably get this.”
“Go ahead.”
Amanda answered on her way out of Malone’s office and headed for her cubicle.
“Detective Steele, it’s Patty—ah, Detective Glover.”
“Yes, Patty?”
“I heard you found the girls. That’s marvelous.”
“At least some of them will be going home.”
“Some more too, hopefully.” Patty paused a few heartbeats. “I have more good news for you. Now, I haven’t been able to track anywhere near all the clients yet—and sadly, I might never be able to. The money transfers are deeply rooted and hard to track. I was able to find that the deposits tended to go to a few different bank accounts and they always came back to a few names. Arrest warrants are in the works.”
“Great news.” Amanda would have loved to be there when they brought those miscreants down, but let those trained in that handle it. Speaking of…
“How did the interrogation go with Reid? And did you bring in Rhonda Osborne?” Amanda had got a signed confession from Jonah Reid that he’d killed Casey-Anne Ritter and Jackson Webb and then Amanda had handed him over to Sex Crimes.
“Reid will be going away for a long time. He’s still refusing to give up anyone he was working with,” Patty said. “These types never operate on their own, but we’ll do all we can to get him to speak, and if not, well, we keep working. Rhonda Osborne was brought in and questioned, but there’s no evidence to indicate that she was involved or facilitated Phoebe’s abduction. She was genuinely horrified when she found out that her friend had played a role.”
Amanda accepted that Patty and her team knew what they were doing, but she still had a niggling in her gut about Osborne. Then again, people don’t always truly know those closest to them. “Were you able to find out who purchased Phoebe Baldwin?”
“Unfortunately, not yet. Still working through the maze on the wire transfer.”
“Too bad.”
“We’ll get him.”
She would celebrate the day that man—or woman—got what was coming to them. “Please keep me posted on the girls I found, who bought them, etcetera.”
“Absolutely. I hope to keep in touch. I know you cleared the murders you were looking at, but…”
“I’d love to stay in touch. Thank you.”
Amanda ended the call. She was looking over at Trent’s cubicle, but he wasn’t there. As Patty had noted, she’d solved the cold cases, but she still had to see things through with Palmer. Reid had told her he wasn’t involved, and she believed him. She was just about to call Trent when the phone on her desk rang.
“Detective Steele,” she answered.
“This is Lily; Lieutenant Hill wants you to come to her office.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.” Hill’s assistant hung up.
Amanda got up and made her way to Hill’s office, and it felt like she was making her way to the guillotine. Lily told her to go on in and that the lieutenant was waiting for her.
She let herself in, but Hill wasn’t waiting alone. There was a man with her: mid-fifties, graying hair, still dark at the temples. Handsome and wearing a suit. He rose from a couch Hill had in her office when Amanda entered.
“There she is.” Hill grinned. It had Amanda wondering if she’d fallen and hit her head.
“Here I am,” she parroted and feigned a smile.
The man came over to Amanda. “I wanted to personally thank you for bringing Jonah’s crimes into the light and serving justice to those poor girls.”
Amanda glanced from him to Hill, who was striding over, back to the stranger. “And you are?”
“Detective Steele,” Hill said, “this is my brother-in-law, Congressman Eugene Davis.”
Amanda’s eyes snapped to the congressman’s eyes. Brother-in-law? Jonah Reid had worked for Davis. Some pieces were starting to make sense—at least how it might have been possible that Reid pop into PWCPD and out so quickly. But was Amanda really thinking that Hill had facilitated that for a darker, more sinister purpose—that she was somehow involved with the ring? That was ludicrous.
“Thank you,” Davis repeated. “I truly mean it.” He held out his hand to shake Amanda’s and the cuff of his jacket sleeve lifted enough to expose a bracelet, much like the one that— Her head went light.
“Detective?” Hill prompted.
“Oh, sorry.” She touched a hand to her forehead. “I’ll be fine. Just a little off balance still with all that happened.” She offered a tepid smile to both the lieutenant and the congressman.
“Understandable,” Hill said. “Maybe take a day or two off.”
“I just might.” Amanda eyed the door. “Can I—?”
“Yes, of course. That’s all I’d wanted you here for.”
Amanda staggered back to her desk, sometimes brushing against the walls. She had to have imagined what she’d swear she’d seen. A bracelet, just like the one with the recovered data chip, around the congressman’s wrist—the lieutenant’s brother-in-law’s wrist. Was Eugene Davis part of the sex-trafficking ring with Jonah Reid? And did Lieutenant Hill know about it or worse was she involved herself? Ridiculous, she concluded, and just further proof she needed some time off. After all, there were a lot of silver bracelets out there.
Amanda made it back to her desk and dropped in her chair. Trent was sitting at his.
�
�Congratulations on solving your case,” he said to her.
“Thanks, and I’m still alive to talk about it. Ah, how’s the Palmer investigation going?” She swallowed roughly, smiled at Trent.
“Actually, I’ve been waiting for a good time to talk with you.” Trent’s eyes darted around. “Maybe we could grab a Jabba.”
She could tell he’d said the word as a stab at joviality, but something was bothering him. “Sure.”
She let him drive, but he didn’t go anywhere for coffee. He drove a few blocks from the station and parked on a side street.
He angled toward her. “I know I’m not supposed to… Well, you’re not supposed to touch the Palmer case, but…”
The way he was looking at her had her stomach twisting like he was going to tell her someone died. “What is it?”
He pulled a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to her.
She took it, tempted to ask what it was, but the letterhead was stamped with a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“It’s a list of names of those who have been issued twenty-year sobriety coins in the last ten years,” he said.
“Okay and…”
“You might want to look at page five.”
She eyeballed him, holding his gaze for a few seconds before flipping the sheets of paper. On the fifth line was a name she knew far too well. She let go of the report.
“I’m sorry, Amanda, but it looks like—”
“I— I know what it looks like but, no, he wouldn’t have done this.” Her mouth was pasty, and she felt like being sick. She looked back down and there it was in black and white: Nathan Steele. The coin had been issued the week before the accident; she’d been so caught up in the whirlwind of her life, she’d had no idea, but then how could she have?
“I thought you might like to know.”
She looked at him, blinked tears, found her voice. “Did you follow up the other leads? A cab that could be tied to the perp or…”
“Not successfully.” He wrung a hand around the steering wheel and didn’t say anything.
“You shouldn’t have shown me this.” She stiffened, no longer wanting any part of the Palmer investigation. She’d figure out how to handle Rick Jensen and his threats another way. “And there’s no way…” But in her memory there was a flicker of the amber liquid in her father’s glass… His choice of drink was whiskey. Could he have made that slip when killing Palmer?
The Little Grave: A completely heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Amanda Steele Book 1) Page 27