by Dana Nussio
Eric lifted a brow this time. “Okay, so the guy liked animation and might like to visit websites where he didn’t want his IP address collected.”
Dawson kept talking, but Tony had tuned out when he’d mentioned cartoon royalty.
“...couple of tiaras on the top shelf of the closet...more rhinestones in the carpet...was charged with receiving child pornography but convicted of a lesser charge. On probation.”
“Hold on a minute.”
Tony didn’t bother waiting for anyone to acknowledge his comment before rushing back to his desk. He instinctively went to the stack of printouts taken prior to the Toledo girl’s disappearance and started shuffling through the papers, barely acknowledging that the others were crowded in the doorway of his cubicle.
“They have to be here somewhere.”
He scanned the pages, looking for conversation starters where a potential suspect tried to connect with possible underage girls by asking about their favorite animated princesses. Tony and Kelly had joked about the dude’s smooth line. Just the thought of it nauseated him then.
After flipping through a few more pages, he was ready to give up, or at least tell the others to go back to their desks and let him have a few more minutes to find it. Then his gaze caught on one of the lines.
My Briar Rose trumps your little Cinder girl every time.
“I found him. It’s got to be him.” He pointed to the line on the transcript as the others crowded behind his desk. “FRIENDS 4-EVER.”
“How can you be sure?” Dawson said. “We have suspects with all kinds of...interests.”
“Here.” He flicked divided sheets detailing contacts from the past ten days among his colleagues. He recognized that one of them still might be willing to hide what he found, but he didn’t have time to worry about that.
“See if he’s been active at all during this time. I’ll look at his contacts during the three days prior to both incidents.”
He hated how easy it was, how simple it should have been all along, if they’d just known what they were looking for. Even without an in-depth study, they’d already determined that FRIENDS 4-EVER had at least spoken to FUNNY GAL, Sienna’s screen name, and that he’d invited her into a personal chat. The evidence connecting Cory Fox to that screen name and to Harper’s disappearance was still circumstantial, but they had enough to consider him a person of interest.
Dawson rushed into Tony’s cubicle without bothering to knock this time.
“I thought you said Kelly would be back soon?”
“I did.” Soon was stretching too long for him, as well. What was going on with her mother? Maybe it was something serious. Maybe he should reach out to help. “I’m sure she’ll be back any minute.”
“We need her sooner than that,” he grumbled. “Fox’s mother said he might be a suicide risk. She listed several places he might have gone. One was a cabin owned by her late father. We’re trying to locate the place, and we need all hands on deck.”
Tony reached for his phone. “I’ll call her cell.”
“Don’t bother. I already tried three times. It just goes to voice mail.”
Every muscle in Tony’s body clenched, and the hair at his nape leaped to attention. Whether Kelly would have answered for him or not, she always would have responded to her boss.
Unless she couldn’t.
“Sorry, man.” He couldn’t have regretted more that he’d listened to her.
He had to force himself to wait until after Dawson stomped away from his desk to lunge for his phone. His fingers fumbling over the numbers, he had to enter his password twice before the screen would awaken.
Forget minding his own business. Forget worrying whether she would be furious when she found out he’d been watching her movements. Nothing else mattered until he made sure she was okay.
The tiny circle that pulsed again on the screen didn’t come close to matching the pace of his heartbeat. If her mother lived in downtown Brighton, what was she doing heading west on Michigan 36 toward Hamburg? But the answer was as clear as if she’d shouted it: she’d gone rogue. He’d known this could happen when he’d asked Dawson to remove her from the case. Why hadn’t he already made that change?
“Why did you let her go alone?” he whispered and then shot a look around him to ensure that no one had overheard.
Deep down, he’d known she was lying. Why hadn’t he called her on it then? His shaking hands gripped the phone tighter.
Curiosity killed the cat...and the girl. The words from that note several days back sneaked into his thoughts again. His stomach clenched. Who had really sent her the message? It clearly hadn’t come from her mother. Had it been from Fox? Were these crimes and the threats against Kelly and him even connected?
Questions filled his thoughts, one after another, but one elbowed its way to the front row, insisting on being heard. What had the texter said to convince her to go in alone? It was a trap. Couldn’t she see that?
Checking once more if anyone was watching, he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. He made quick work of transferring his Glock, hip holster and extra magazines into his briefcase. He hoisted the bag on his shoulder and hurried to where Dawson was speaking to Golden.
As he stepped close, he gestured for his boss to come over to him.
“Where are you going?” Dawson said in a low tone when he reached him.
Tony lifted a shoulder and lowered it. “I might know where she is.”
“Why would you know—”
Then Dawson stopped, as if he’d just figured out why Tony might have more information about the young police officer than anyone else on the task force did. They were involved. His gaze narrowed.
“We can’t afford to lose you, too, right now.”
Tony braced his shoulders to keep them from shaking. Of course, his boss only meant losing them both as manpower. If he only knew.
“We need everyone on the team.” He held his hands wide. “Look. I know where she is, and her phone must be dead. I’ll go there and bring her back. Then, at least, we’ll be at full strength.”
The lies came so much easier than he’d expected. Effortlessly. But he had no choice. He couldn’t let whoever had been feeding task force information to the guy give him the heads-up that Tony was coming. Kelly’s life might depend on his surprise arrival.
Dawson blew out an exaggerated breath. “Fine. Just get back here twenty minutes ago. We’re going to need everyone, once we get the exact location of the cabin.”
With a nod, Tony hurried toward the door. He had to force himself not to run. He was lucky Dawson hadn’t asked more questions he couldn’t answer. Hell, he was relieved the guy hadn’t asked him right then what he’d been thinking to sleep with Kelly.
His hand was on the office door when Dawson called out to him again. He turned back to find the special agent standing ten feet away.
“When this is all over, you’ll both have a lot of explaining to do.”
Chapter 25
Kelly checked her phone’s GPS again and turned into what must have once been a driveway. With the crowded rows of trees on either side and the seedlings and weeds that had choked out most traces of gravel, she couldn’t tell for sure. Her rental car crept forward, winding past fallen branches, the unsettling scent of decay creeping in through her slightly cracked window.
She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, but it wasn’t enough to relieve the tightness in her chest. As she braced her back against the car seat, she tried again. She had nothing to be afraid of there, anyway. The place was deserted. No cars. No tire tracks. Nothing.
“Harper isn’t here,” she spat.
She probably wasn’t anywhere in a hundred miles. If anywhere at all.
Kelly shook her head to push away the thought that was no more helpful than her journey to this rotting property. Never
mind Harper, no one else had been to this place in years. What had she been thinking, taking off after receiving that text? She knew better than to go in without backup. Whoever was threatening them had probably been trying to separate the team and leave them vulnerable. What kind of cop was she not to recognize that?
A structure caught her attention peeking out from the lattice of low-hanging branches. More a huge shed than a cabin, the place’s wood siding had long since cracked and faded to a dull gray.
She parked, slid on her Kevlar vest and hip holster and debated about her phone. It wouldn’t fit in her tiny dress pant pockets, so she left it behind as she climbed out of the car. Since she was already there, she should at least check out the place.
The crunch of sticks beneath her flimsy flats echoed around her, but at least no other sounds joined them. Even the cicadas had chosen this moment to be quiet. The building ahead gave her no reason to worry. The level of crud on the single-pane window all but guaranteed that no one would have been able to see in or out of the place in a decade.
Still, to be safe, she moved closer to try to peek inside. Only as she lifted her foot on the bare wooden porch that stretched the length of the building, something out of place caught her attention in her side vision. Something purple. She jerked her head to get a better look. A beat up, eggplant-colored minivan was parked off to the side.
A deserted old car shouldn’t have surprised her in a place like this, but the black luxury car parked next to it did.
As she backed off the porch, she withdrew her weapon and pulled back the slide to load a round. There’d been more than one entrance into this property. She’d obviously chosen the wrong one. With all the mistakes she’d made that day, what was one more?
She shot a look in both directions and then started around the side of the cabin closest to the cars. A shout and a responding shriek from the opposite side of the house brought her up short. Harper? She was alive? Not for long if that sound gave any indication.
Her ears attuned to every sound, she switched directions and jogged past the window to the other side. As carefully as she could to avoid making it squeak, she stepped up on the porch again and pressed her back to the wood near the corner. Then, with her weapon poised between her grip hand and support hand, she turned toward whatever lay on the other side.
The scene in an open area not thirty feet from the house made no sense. Not a teenage girl, but two men grappled on the ground. Or rather, one was trying to kill the other with repeated blows to the head, while the victim made ineffectual attempts to shield his face. He wailed every time a strike connected. Why hadn’t she heard them before? Had the fight just started?
Kelly turned fully away from the house, planted her legs wide and braced arms.
“Stop! Police!”
Her legs were shaking so much she was surprised she could even stand, let alone walk, but the men kept rolling and punching, so she continued forward. She didn’t have time to worry that there were two of them and one of her. She had to make this stop, or she would be witnessing a murder.
“Step back from each other. Now! Lie face down and put your hands behind your head.”
One of the guys could barely wiggle out of the fetal position he’d rolled into, but the other shifted off, as if he planned to comply. Only when he should have stretched out on the dirt, he sprang up, dragged his opponent in front of his knees and pressed a handgun that hadn’t been visible before to the guy’s head.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Trooper Roberts.”
“What?”
Of course, if he’d managed to obtain her cell number and had sent that text to get her here, he knew her identity. Who was he? Maybe the adrenaline was messing with her senses, but something about the guy’s imposing frame, salt-and-pepper hair and cockeyed wireframe glasses struck her as familiar.
She didn’t recognize the frail younger guy with strawberry blond hair at all, but he probably looked different without blood all over his face and an eye that was nearly swollen shut.
“What’s going on here?” she said in a stronger voice. “Where’s Harper?”
The man in the power position smiled.
“Now, slow down, my friend. We’re just having a little off-line party, but I can’t tell you more about it until you get rid of that.” He slid his gun away from the other man’s head and pointed with it toward her weapon.
That barrel and the firepower behind it should have been the only things on her mind then if she had any survival instinct, so why couldn’t she stop thinking that she’d heard his voice before? Hadn’t she learned from the BIG DADDY fiasco that her auditory recall couldn’t always be trusted? The man who’d been slumped against him jerked into a seated position. At least one of them recognized the danger.
“I meant now!” the older man barked.
“I can’t do that.” The other guy’s life depended on it. Maybe Harper’s. Certainly, her own. She held her weapon steady, refusing to tremble.
“Do you want me to splatter his brains right now?”
The younger man shrieked as the metal touched his head again.
“No. No. There’s no need for that.”
She swallowed as she considered her options. She had none. While pointing the barrel downward, she disconnected the clip. Then she rotated the weapon to its side, pulled back the slide and dropped the cartridge into her left hand.
“Always a good cop, following proper gun safety rules.” He chuckled. “Throw it and the round in the brush. Your cell phone, too.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Then take ten steps forward and sit on the ground.”
As useless as her unloaded weapon, Kelly followed his instructions. She needed to buy time, and she had nothing to bargain with to even rent a delay. If only she hadn’t quit carrying her second weapon in an ankle holster when she’d stopped wearing her uniform. She was defenseless.
“Now, that’s better,” he said once she was settled.
“Let’s talk about this,” she said. “You don’t really want to hurt this guy, do you?”
“How do you know that I don’t really want to tear my little friend’s head off?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that, but the other guy’s yelp spoke for them both.
“Well, you wanted me to come,” she managed. “I’m here. Now tell me why. And tell me who you both are and where Harper is.”
She couldn’t think about where the girl might really be. Instead, she calculated the momentum she could gain in the short distance between them and his reaction time if she tried to overpower him.
“You don’t recognize me, Trooper?”
She did. That was the worst part. Even if he hadn’t answered her question about Harper, he’d keyed in on her confusion. If only she could recall where she’d seen him before.
His chuckle was slow, low and creepy enough to make a shiver play her spine like a clarinet.
“I guess I look different without my robe. And gavel.”
She swallowed and blinked several times. “Judge... Stevenson?”
Why she posed it as a question, she wasn’t sure. Now she couldn’t imagine how she’d failed to recognize Luther Stevenson before. What did a powerful judge of the Livingston County Circuit Court have to do with the murder of two local girls or the abduction of one from out of state? And why had he been trying to kill the other guy?
“Yes, but my friends online call me MR. SUNSHINE.”
“You’re MR. SUNSHINE?” Some investigators they were. Though the screen name was familiar, it hadn’t even made their list of possible suspects. Yet here she was.
“The name is a play on Soleil Enterprises. You know. Sun. That’s my highly successful online business venture. More profitable than any job on the bench.”
“You mean all of this is about a business?”
“Well, not a
ll of it.” He glanced at the man next to him and then looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Special Agent Lazzaro? You were supposed to bring him with you.”
“But you said—” She stopped herself because it was so obvious what he’d expected. If you bring your FBI boyfriend, he’ll die first. She was a cop. Even if she’d agreed to come alone, he’d known she would bring Tony. It would have been the only smart thing for her to do. Stevenson had tested her emotions against her training, and she’d failed that test.
“How do you know he isn’t on his way right now?” She shouldn’t have bothered lying any more than she should have tried saying that she and Tony weren’t together. No way would Stevenson ever believe her.
“Oh, I know.”
He also had to be aware that if any others were coming to her aid, they would already have arrived by now.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come up with a plan B,” he added.
If only she had one.
“Are you...could you be...INVISIBLE ME?”
Next to Stevenson, the injured man had perked up again though a powerful hand still rested on his shoulder. He was studying her with his good eye, while she had both of hers focused on him. How did he know her? How did he know her screen name? At first, he’d appeared to be Stevenson’s victim, but if he knew about INVISIBLE ME, he was somehow involved, too.
“Good guess, Cory?” Stevenson answered for Kelly as he transferred the gun from his dominant hand to the other. “Too bad you couldn’t put it together earlier that the trooper here carried a gun. And would never wear a crown.”
A crown? Something clicked in her memory, but it kept misfiring instead of offering answers.
Then, as quick as a shot, Stevenson grabbed the smaller man’s arm, twisted it behind him and then pushed it even higher, using the gun barrel for leverage.
“Stop!” she called out too late.
A sickening snap fractured the silence. His captive cried out like a wounded animal and then collapsed into a heap, whimpering.