by B J Bourg
“Do you know why Lenny would take his own life?” I finally asked.
“I…I have no idea. He was supposed to take us on a vacation when he got home. He…I know he was excited about work, especially lately. He had been given some special assignment and he was receiving hazard pay, so he was taking in more money on a regular basis. And just recently, he called me to say he was about to get a big raise for a high-risk job, but for me not to worry.” She wiped tears from her face. “It seemed everything was going good, so I don’t know why he would choose to leave us like this. I…I just don’t understand.”
“Do you know anything at all about this high-risk job?” I asked. “Did he mention anything at all, however small?”
“No, sir. He didn’t give me any details. He just said it would pay a lot and we would be able to buy up all of the family land and never have to worry about his mom and dad getting a divorce.”
“Was that discussed?”
Natalie nodded. “My mother-in-law recently said she was going to divorce Mr. Ricky and that they would have to sell the land. She said Junior could live with her and that we would get a share of the money, but Lenny said it wouldn’t be enough. He said we’d be out on the streets in no time if he didn’t do something about it. Besides, he had plans for the land. He wanted to develop it and make a neighborhood. He said if we could do that, then we’d never have to work again and the kids would be set for life.”
“What do you think he meant when he said he’d have to do something about it?”
Her expression was blank. “I think he meant he would do this dangerous assignment and make enough money to get us out of a bind.”
“Do you think that assignment entailed killing his mother and kidnapping a young girl?”
Natalie threw herself back in her chair. “Oh, God no! He had nothing to do with that!”
I didn’t want to cause any more harm, so I didn’t argue with her. We had searched her house earlier and hadn’t found any evidence linking her husband to Rose, but we hadn’t gotten into his computers yet. We’d applied for a search warrant of his bank accounts, and my guess was that we’d only find large sums of cash deposits—if he put his money in the bank—rather than a paper trail leading to this mystery man about whom Junior had spoken.
I questioned her for about thirty minutes longer, with Susan interjecting now and then, until we were interrupted by Lindsey’s screams from the dispatcher’s office.
CHAPTER 52
112 Rooster Drive, Mechant Loup, Louisiana
“So, where are we staying?” Amy asked Trevor as she shoved the last of her clothes into the suitcase and wrestled the zipper down the length of the track. “The Ritz-Carlton?”
“Nah, the Roosevelt. I booked us a Presidential Suite.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you crazy?”
Trevor smiled, but he still appeared unsettled by the earlier news of Lenny’s suicide. “I guess I am—just a little.”
She walked over and gave him a hug. “I know Lenny was your friend and this is disturbing, so we can cancel the trip if you like.”
“No, I think it might help to take our minds off of things.” He forced a smile and leaned back. “After all, it’s a Presidential Suite!”
“You don’t need to twist my arm.” Amy smiled and grabbed her bag. “Which vehicle are we going in?”
“The Lexus, of course, and you’re driving.”
That brought a broad smile to her face and she rolled her luggage out of the bedroom, down the hall, and through the laundry room. She shoved Trevor’s scuba gear out of the way with her foot and grunted when she felt water on the floor. “How many times have I told you to dry off your gear before dragging it in the laundry room?” Amy hollered, stopping momentarily to wipe off her foot. She didn’t expect a response, and didn’t get one.
She opened the door to the garage and froze in place for a moment, staring at the red Lexus. She could’ve sworn it was singing to her. Damn, that’s a beautiful car. She held up her right ring finger. And a beautiful ring.
Smiling to herself and giddy with joy, she moved around to the trunk, which was already open. The smile faded when she saw Trevor’s bags. He wasn’t the most organized of persons, and that sometimes annoyed her. She’d tried to explain to him time and again that they could fit more bags if they took a few minutes longer to pack. His response had always been the same: “That’s a few more minutes I could be playing on the beach.”
She shook her head and smiled as she jerked his suitcase out of the trunk and dropped it to the ground beside hers.
“Did I not pack it the way you like it?” Trevor asked, coming up behind her. “Forgive me if I didn’t get the memo.”
They both laughed and she twisted to give him a peck on the cheek before grabbing his other bag and wrestling it against the left wall of the trunk. “If we position all the bags of similar shapes and sizes together,” she explained, “we can make more use of the room in the trunk. When you just throw things in here—”
“I know, Mother.”
“Oh, gross.” Amy faked a shudder. “Don’t call me that. I’m your wife-to-be.”
She reached for his suitcase, jerked it effortlessly from the ground, and placed it in an open space. She was about to grab her bag when something in the far right corner of the trunk caught her eye. It was white and contrasted against the black carpet.
“What the hell…?” Amy turned from her bag and leaned far forward, reaching for the tiny object. It was shoved up into a crack and was hard to grab. She had to use her index and middle fingers to latch onto it. When she pulled back, her heart nearly stopped beating in her chest.
“Hey, what’s that?” Trevor asked, trying to see over her shoulder. “Did I forget the price tag on the car? If so, don’t look!”
Amy turned the item over and her suspicions were confirmed—it was the bottom half of a school identification card and Rose Murdock’s name was displayed in bold letters toward the upper edge. Near the bottom edge, her school’s name was listed in smaller letters.
Amy whirled around, her eyes wide and her heart pounding like a speed bag in her chest. Trevor’s own eyes grew wide when he saw what she was holding.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, lifting his left hand in a pleading motion, “I can explain that.”
Amy instinctively dropped the ID card and reached for her right hip, but she wasn’t wearing her gun belt. The significance of the motion wasn’t lost on Trevor. Moving with lightning speed, he reached his right hand behind his waistline and produced a black Glock pistol. He pointed it right at Amy’s face, and she knew she was about to meet her Maker.
CHAPTER 53
At that very moment, Amy couldn’t remember ever seeing such a large barrel on a gun. She knew it was a .40 caliber pistol, but the muzzle looked like that of a shotgun. She could make out every detail of the surface—the little speck of dust at the eleven o’clock position, the scratch at three o’clock, and what looked like gunk buildup just inside the barrel—and she was confident this would be the last thing she’d see before she died.
“I can’t believe you would reach for your gun,” Trevor said, breaking through her thoughts. His voice was cold and angry. “We’re engaged to be married and you would shoot me? I thought you loved me. I thought we meant something.”
Amy knew she needed to somehow alert Susan or Clint, but how? Her police radio and cell phone were in the house. If she tried calling out he would shoot her before the neighbors could hear. She was at his mercy—unless she could get close enough to him to get her hands on that pistol. “I do love you, Trevor.”
“Then why’d you reach for your gun? I saw you drop your hand to your side—the same side you carry your pistol.”
Amy had to distract Trevor and buy some time. Her pistol was on the nightstand in their bedroom. It could’ve just as well been buried under fifty feet of concrete.
Thinking quickly, she waved her hand dismissively. “I wasn’t reaching for anyth
ing. Don’t you think I would know if I was wearing my gun belt or not?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Amy.”
“I’m not. I swear. I would never shoot you.” Amy thought about moving closer to Trevor, but dared not. He was watching her too closely. She needed to keep him talking. She was about to open her mouth to speak again when she remembered the watch he had given her for Christmas. Her heart quickened slightly when she remembered setting up the emergency feature and linking it to her cell phone. All she had to do was press the side button and hold it for more than three seconds for it to connect to her cell phone and dial 9-1-1.
Am I out of range? She frowned wryly. That would be my luck.
“Look, Trevor, I don’t want any trouble between us.” She brought her hands together in front of her face while she spoke, easing her right thumb toward the side button on her watch. As she pressed it, she continued talking. “I won’t bullshit you if you don’t bullshit me. We’re engaged to be married, so I think we need to work through this together. We need to consider all of our options.”
Trevor’s trigger finger relaxed a little, but he seemed suspicious. “What options?”
Amy took a breath and exhaled softly, wondering if the call went through. She lowered her hands just a little. “First, I need to know your part in the kidnapping of Rose Murdock. If we’re going to be married, I need to know everything about you, just like you need to know everything about me.”
Trevor indicated toward the ID card on the floor with the muzzle of the pistol. “Before I say anything, what do you plan on doing with that?”
She knew it wasn’t the smart thing to say in the current situation, considering she was trying to stay alive, but she needed to create a record in case she didn’t make it out of this alive—and that was assuming her watch had dialed 9-1-1 and she was being recorded. “Well, it’s the other half of Rose Murdock’s student ID card and it was found in the trunk of my car, so I’ve got to submit it as evidence. It’s my job.”
Trevor flashed a wicked grin. “You know I can’t let you do that.”
“Okay, so we need to discuss a different option. What do you propose?”
“I propose we burn the damn thing with the car and get the hell out of town.”
“Don’t you think that would seem a little suspicious?”
“You’re right. Let’s just burn the ID and go to New Orleans like we had planned.”
“They were your plans.”
Trevor was thoughtful, but didn’t respond. He had stepped forward a little, still holding the pistol out in front of him, but it wasn’t close enough for her to grab.
She stabbed at the school ID with her toe. “What was that doing in the trunk of my car anyway? I don’t understand how it got there. Were you trying to set me up?”
“Oh, God no! I would never set you up.” Trevor sighed. “I was at the dealership buying your car when Lenny got the bus stuck in the mud. He called me and said he couldn’t make it to his boat at the old fishing camps, so I had to leave to pick him up. We had no other choice. We had to put the girl in the trunk of your car. I…I can’t believe she left it behind like that.” He grunted. “That’s one smart cookie.”
Amy had known Trevor was involved with Rose’s kidnapping from the second she found the ID, but to hear him say it out loud sent a chill down her spine. She had been about to marry this man. She had slept with him for years. Now, she realized she had no idea who he was.
CHAPTER 54
Amy stammered for a second, trying to find the words. She knew she needed to pretend to go along with Trevor’s plan in order to buy some time and stay alive, but it was too difficult. “How could you be a part of this? How could you help kidnap a young girl? She’s just an innocent child, Trevor. How in the hell could you do this?”
Trevor sighed and the muzzle of the gun dipped slightly. She took notice and the muscles in her legs tensed, waiting and watching for an opportunity to charge him.
“They said they would get to you and kill you. They offered me half a million dollars to find them a young girl, someone who wasn’t damaged goods. They said if I cooperated they would pay, but if I refused, they would burn this whole town to the ground, starting with our house.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let them come after you, Amy. I love you too much. I did what I had to do for survival—for your survival.”
“If you really loved me, you wouldn’t be pointing a gun at me.” She shifted her eyes slightly, taking in her surroundings. She didn’t hear any sirens, so she didn’t know if the call had gone out.
“If you really loved me, you’d forget what you found and we’d move on with our lives.”
“You know I can’t do that. I’m a sworn law enforcement officer. I can’t turn a blind eye when I know a crime has been committed.”
“Even if it means losing your life?”
She nodded solemnly, didn’t say a word. Instead, she waited for him to pull the trigger.
“Well, here we are then.” His jaw was set. He shifted the pistol in his hand, took a breath.
Amy knew she needed to keep him talking or she would be dead soon. “These people who said they would find me and kill me—who are they?”
Trevor was thoughtful. He glanced over his shoulder as though he were worried someone might overhear him. When he finally spoke, his voice was a low whisper. “The main man was Hector Ortega. None of us knew it, but Hector was working with Tucker, the captain who ran the boat before me. Lenny was involved, too, and he gave them my name when I made captain and told them I would cooperate. God, if I would’ve known all of this, I would never have taken the damn promotion.”
“Cooperate with what?”
“This Hector Ortega runs a section of the Gulf where we operate our boat. He’s a smuggling kingpin and he’s been using the Sea Nightmare to run women from the United States to Mexico.” Trevor waved his hand in the air. “Apparently, Tucker met him in a Mexican bar on the border and they struck a deal. He’d give Tucker some money, Tucker would round up some prostitutes from La Mort and New Orleans, and then he’d deliver them to Hector.”
“Wait—what? Were they going willingly? This sounds like human trafficking.”
“No, no they were all going willingly. Well, at first anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“According to Lenny, they were told they could come back to the U.S. once they’d made some money, but that never happened.”
Amy was incredulous. “How could you agree to work with these animals?”
“I had no choice, Amy. Not long after I became captain, Ortega’s men stopped the Sea Nightmare late one night when we were heading to one of the rigs. They boarded my vessel armed with AK-47s and were talking about four women that were supposed to be delivered. They forced me below to search the abandoned cabins, but there was no one down there.” Trevor shivered involuntarily. “I thought they were going to kill me when I told them I didn’t know what was going on. Lenny stepped up and assured them that I didn’t know anything about Tucker’s previous dealings. He told them that Tucker had been fired and that’s why he hadn’t delivered the women. He assured them that I would cooperate and give them what they wanted. They…they didn’t seem convinced, but he promised to deliver what he referred to as a “pure” and “untouched” girl and he said he knew how to get one.”
“I can’t believe you went along with this.” Amy shook her head slowly. She felt nauseous. “It makes no sense.”
“I thought they would kill you!” He waved the gun in the air. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you realize how much I love you? I would die for you. Hell, I would kill for you.”
Amy’s eyes refocused on the gunk buildup in the barrel. In the same instance, she suddenly remembered the wet scuba gear in the laundry room. She sucked in her breath. “That gunk in the barrel—it’s blowback. It was you! You killed Lenny with that pistol and you went overboard with his body!” She shot a thumb toward the laundry room. “You escaped in y
our scuba gear and made your way back here, didn’t you?”
“Ah!” A wide grin of admiration spread across Trevor’s face. “That’s the smart cop I fell in love with.”
“But why’d you kill Lenny? I know he’d bad, but I thought y’all were friends.”
“He was the fall guy. Once I realized Clint was on to him, I knew I had to get rid of him before he could implicate me. I left you and went home to get my scuba gear. I parked my truck on the eastern side of the port and humped it to the Sea Nightmare. I told Lenny we had to leave right away, that we had to get to Mexico.” Trevor paused and shook his head. “When he reached for the line that was attached to the anchor, I…I shot him in the temple. It was hard.” A long frown played at the corners of his mouth. It was the first sign of remorse Amy had noticed since she’d located the ID badge. “I didn’t want to have to kill him, but it was the only way. I had no choice.”
“When did you kill him?”
“It was about fifteen minutes before y’all showed up. I left him where he was and suited up in my scuba gear. I then waited on the forward deck until y’all arrived. Thanks to the moonlight, I could see someone moving in that open field. I needed y’all to think Lenny got hit in the crossfire, so I turned on the spotlight and fired some shots into the air so y’all could shoot back. When the cops on the water opened up with their machine guns, I wrapped my arms around Lenny’s body and rolled into the water with him.” He paused and shuddered. “They almost got me. I thought I was a goner for sure.”
“So, that splash they heard was you and Lenny hitting the water?”
Trevor nodded and continued. “I swam underwater to the eastern side of the port and got in my truck. I then hurried back home and waited for you to get back so we could leave.” Trevor was thoughtful. “It was the perfect plan, really—and it would’ve worked if that little bitch hadn’t gone and left her school ID card in the trunk of your car. Hell, we’d be half way to New Orleans by now if you hadn’t found it.”