by Katie Reus
Maria had given her all this information freely, then told her that her husband was FBI—and was lying. Amelia was alone in the community center and no one knew where she was other than the two people here. Why was Maria lying to her? What if he wasn’t law enforcement? He looked like a scary biker, not a federal agent. Oh God, what if they were somehow involved in this? It wouldn’t make sense for Maria to show her all this, but maybe she’d just wanted to see Amelia’s reaction, to see if she suspected something . . . Amelia needed to get some space so she could think, but for now she made herself respond. “That’s good, then,” she said, glad her voice sounded normal. “What do you want me to do? I’ll do it. If Danita is missing we need to find her.”
Maria seemed to relax at her words. “Cade will want to interview you, go over everything you know about the missing twelve women. It won’t be tonight, but as soon as possible.”
“I’ll make time in my schedule,” she said quickly, then wanted to wince. She didn’t want to sound too eager, but the truth was, she was eager to get the hell out of here and call her detective friend. “Tomorrow, if you’d like?”
Maria nodded. “I think that will work. He would have been in here, but I thought it might be less overwhelming if it was just the two of us.”
Amelia nodded, as if grateful. “I appreciate it.” She let out a short laugh, but she didn’t buy any of this. The FBI had let one of their agents bring his wife in to talk to Amelia? No freaking way. Something more was going on here, she knew. Hoping she didn’t seem too eager, she set the binder on the edge of the desk and stood. “I’m exhausted and you’re right, this is overwhelming. Unless you have anything else to show me, I want to get home and start making a list of things I remember about each woman’s time of employment. Friends, stuff like that. That would help, right?” God, she just wanted to get out of here.
Maria smiled, looking relieved. “That would be great. Cade will probably contact you in the morning. Do you work tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m scheduled to stop by both restaurants in the morning, but I can shift stuff around.”
“Great, I’ll walk you to your car.”
Amelia nodded, glad she knew how to keep cool when inside she was scared. She had a shitty mother to thank for that. That survival skill was one of the only good things she’d gotten from her childhood.
“Did something about her seem off to you?” Cade asked as he and Nathan watched Maria and Amelia on the laptop.
The recording of Maria’s office was crystal clear. The NSA’s Miami home base had patched them in to the feed. It didn’t matter that they were only a few doors down from Maria; they were on standby in case she needed them. Now it was clear she didn’t.
Cade’s wife had played tonight perfectly. Well, almost. She’d paused before saying who Cade worked for. “It was slight, but when Maria said you worked for the FBI, Amelia stopped breathing. For just a second. Could mean nothing.”
“No, I saw it too. She might not believe Maria.”
“She didn’t ask to see your ID or anything either.” Amelia was a hard woman to read; she’d always been like that, but she’d been ready to get away from Maria and the center. “How did she seem about her Jeep being rammed?” Nathan hadn’t been able to get that out of his head. The thought of someone going after Amelia made him see red. He’d wanted to see the damage for himself but hadn’t been willing to risk being seen by her or anyone else.
Cade lifted a shoulder. “Annoyed, but not concerned. Could be a case of simple road rage.”
“Maybe.” Nathan didn’t believe in random, though. According to Cade someone had run into her twice. “I want to see if we can get a hit from any traffic cams, maybe of the actual attack or her attacker’s license plate. She said she was near an IHOP?”
Cade nodded. “I’ll ask Karen to do a search for us. And whether it was random or not, Amelia seemed pretty disgusted at the thought of women going missing.”
Nathan nodded, relieved in that knowledge. She might not believe Cade was who he said he was, but it seemed unlikely she was involved with the missing women. Her financials certainly wouldn’t suggest it, but her reaction had been real, plain and simple. “When you talk to her in the morning, I’m going with you.”
Cade shot him a sideways glance.
“After I talk to Burkhart,” he muttered, pulling his cell out. Pushing up from his seat in the break room the volunteers used, he dialed his boss.
Burkhart answered on the first ring. “I want you to go with Cade to the meeting with Ms. Rios tomorrow,” he said by way of greeting. “She showed a raw reaction to what Maria told her, but she’s still spooked about something.”
“We both caught that too. I don’t think she believed Maria when she said Cade works for the FBI . . . Listen. I know Amelia.” He quickly launched into the explanation of how his grandmother had lived next door to Amelia’s poor excuse for a mother. How they’d been friends but hadn’t gone to the same high school. There was no paper trail linking them anywhere, no pictures that he knew of. Except a couple of prom pictures and some photographs they’d taken at the beach together that he’d saved. He’d never been able to get rid of those last few. It was a tether to his past, something he knew. He wasn’t sorry for it either. Of course he didn’t tell Burkhart the personal details or about his real relationship with Amelia. He made it sound like a casual high school dating thing.
When he was done with the basics, Burkhart was silent for a long moment.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I didn’t know. I . . . fuck, boss, I scanned her file, but I didn’t delve into it, since Cade was the one who was going to make contact with her. Her last name’s different now, so I didn’t make a connection. Not that it’s an excuse. I screwed up and I take full responsibility for it.”
“Why do you think she didn’t call you out and use your real name with Mercado?” Burkhart asked, ignoring Nathan’s apology.
“We have a history together and she’s . . . loyal to her friends. I promised to give her answers, promised to call her and explain what was going on.”
“She could have already blown your cover.”
No way in hell. He reined in his automatic, emotional response. If he showed emotion, Burkhart would pull him tonight without a second thought. “That’s true. I don’t think she did, though.”
Another silence stretched between them, seemed to go on forever. Finally Burkhart spoke again, his voice clipped. “You’ll go to the meet tomorrow . . . Damn it, she’s making a phone call.”
“What?” She’d literally just left the center.
“Amelia Rios is calling someone right now. Keep your line open.” Burkhart ended the call abruptly.
Ice filled Nathan’s veins as he turned back to Cade, who’d already packed up the laptop and their equipment. Nathan could hear Maria’s heels echoing off the hallway in the distance as she made her way to where they were. He tuned it out as he tried rationalize why Amelia would be calling anyone this late at night—technically morning now. She didn’t have a boyfriend, and by her own admission this had been her first date with Mercado. It wasn’t normal to call people after midnight without a serious purpose.
He might have told Burkhart there was no way Amelia would have sold him out to Mercado, but what if after meeting with Maria she’d changed her mind? What if she was involved in all this after all?
She could blow his cover, a cover the NSA had spent years building. Not only that, but she could tip off whoever had taken the women that someone was looking into them. If the kidnappers got spooked, they might decide it was easier to kill the women they’d taken and close up shop. Since the NSA didn’t know what their end game was, it was impossible to narrow down the many possibilities of what could happen.
The one thing he did know, if Amelia was involved with taking and hurting women, he’d bring her in himself.
Chapter 5
Classified information: information held back from universa
l circulation for reasons of national security.
As the gate to Bayside closed behind Amelia, she pulled her phone from her clutch. Certain no one was following her as she steered out onto the street, she felt her hand still trembling slightly as she dialed Detective Joel Sinclair. The shaking was from the culmination of the night’s events: from seeing Nathan, to being randomly rammed on the road, and now not knowing what was going on with a woman she considered a friend. It was all too much to handle. She turned on her Jeep’s Bluetooth system so she’d be hands-free as the phone started to ring.
When she realized it was close to one in the morning, she cringed. Crap, Sinclair was probably asleep—or with someone. The handsome detective would never want for female company, she was sure. Feeling guilty, she started to end the call when he picked up.
“Amelia?” His voice was raspy, but not groggy. “What’s up? You okay?”
“Yeah, listen, I’m sorry—I just realized the time. I shouldn’t have called. We can talk in a few hours—”
“Nah, I’m up. Seriously, I’m on a stakeout, bored out of my mind, sitting in an unmarked right now drinking stale coffee.”
She laughed lightly. “You’re such a liar.”
“But a handsome one.”
Her lips curved up. He’d been just as cocky the first time she met him years ago. He and some other detectives came into Plátanos Maduros a couple of times a week and she’d formed a friendship with him. “That’s true. And so humble.”
He snorted. “So, why are you calling this early?” Now it was all business.
She was thankful because she didn’t think she had the energy for more small talk. Feeling paranoid, she glanced in the rearview mirror. “I . . . God, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
She sighed, not sure where that was. So she decided to start with the auction tonight—leaving out any mention of Nathan/Miguel—and how Maria asked her to meet her at Bayside. Sinclair was familiar with Bayside, as many of the local police were. As she drove, she told him about their meeting in Maria’s office, all the paperwork Maria had shown her, and her claim that Cade was part of the FBI.
When she was done, he let out a low whistle. “That’s a whole lot of information.”
“I know.” Amelia took another random turn, not wanting to go directly home just yet. She wanted to be certain she wasn’t being followed.
“And you say twelve of these women worked for you?”
“Yeah. Can you look into them? I want to see if what Maria is telling me is the truth and I also want to know if her husband is who he says.”
“You think they might be lying?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine why they would. Unless they wanted to see how much I knew about the missing women because . . .” She left the thought hanging in space, not wanting to voice any more when Sinclair could draw his own conclusion.
He was silent for a moment and she could hear him scribbling on paper. They’d been friends long enough that she knew he was writing down everything she’d told him, probably using bullet points. He had an interesting shorthand.
Finally he spoke. “This is tricky, since these women are of legal age and haven’t actually been reported missing by anyone—at least according to Maria. You know the full names of your twelve offhand?”
Amelia quickly rattled them off, also listing other information she remembered about the women off the top of her head. “I’ll get you more information later today once I get a chance to look at my employee records.”
“This is good for now, but yeah, get me everything you have. I’ve got a serious caseload at the moment, but I’ll make time for this. Give me a day to enter this information into various databases and I’ll see what pops up.”
Relief slid through her. “Thank you for this. And I’m sorry for calling you so late.”
“No worries, I’m glad you came to me.” There was no trace of his sleep in his voice now. The workaholic detective was firmly in place.
“Listen, something else happened on my way to meet Maria. I thought it was possibly random, but now I don’t know. I mean, it might be, but—”
“Amelia, just spit it out.”
She relayed the “incident,” as she’d started to think about it, for the third time that night. Thankfully Sinclair agreed to make a report for her—that she’d simply have to read and sign—and see if he could tag the license plate of the driver who’d attacked her using a traffic cam. Now she felt stupid for not thinking about that before. There were so many traffic cams that of course the police would be able to find something. Or at least look, especially since she’d run a red light. The cameras automatically took pictures of people who ran red lights. She hadn’t been thinking earlier, though, just reacting.
“Is there anyone you can think of who’d want to target you?”
“Not really.” She didn’t have any enemies that she knew of.
“No competitors?”
She let out a short laugh even though it was a fair question, considering how tough the restaurant business could be. “Not where my restaurants are located. My only ‘competition’ is corporate-style places. They’re not struggling for business and I’m not crossing into any small business owners’ territory, so . . . no.” She racked her brain, trying to think of who could have tried to run her off the road like that.
“You fire anyone lately?”
“Uh, yeah. I let go a couple guys go recently. Both about a month ago.”
“Names?”
“Neal Gray and Rodger Turner. The first for harassing my female staff and Turner because he was lazy. Neal was pretty lazy too, so it’s hard to see either of them motivated enough to come after me. Especially a month later.”
“Hmm,” was all he said as he paused, likely writing this down as well. “You got a security system at your place?”
“Yes.”
“Good. What about a Taser?”
“I’ve got pepper spray, but I also have a small pistol—and a concealed weapons permit,” she quickly added. Not only was she a single woman in a big city, but she owned two restaurants, which meant a lot of late-night deposits. She had to be careful when she was working, and sadly, this was one of the survival things she’d picked up from her mother. Her mom had held down a regular job as a waitress during the day, but at night she’d sold her body—and kept a gun for protection. It had saved her mom’s life more than once. And Amelia hadn’t always lived in the nice neighborhood she did now. When she’d been working crazy hours trying to save enough money to start her own place, she lived in the cheapest places she could find, which meant sketchy neighborhoods. She’d never been oblivious about the type of protection she might need.
“Okay. Do you know how to use it?”
A fair question. “I go to the range every two weeks.”
“Good. Until I know more, don’t meet with Maria or her husband alone. I’ll look into them asap, see what I can find.”
“I owe you.”
“Yeah, you do. You can buy me dinner next time I stop by one of your places.”
“Deal. You can bring a date. I’ll cover both of you.”
He laughed lightly. “You wound my ego, Rios. I thought you wanted me for yourself.”
Maybe if there had never been a Nathan Ortiz in her life, she could have let herself open up to someone else. Strangely enough, she wished she had a way to contact him right about now, tell him about what had happened. She immediately chastised herself at the thought. She hadn’t seen Nathan in over a decade; she shouldn’t be thinking this way. “With our schedules we’d never see each other. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Yeah, yeah, one day I’ll convince you to go out with me.” His tone was light, teasing. “Text me when you get home, let me know you’re inside safe.”
“I will. And thanks.” After they hung up, a weight she hadn’t realized had been sitting on her chest lifted. Instead of heading straight home, she drove around for
an extra ten minutes to make sure she wasn’t being followed.
As she reached the turnoff to her cul-de-sac street, even more of that tension lifted. Tonight had been freaking crazy on too many levels, the main one seeing Nathan Ortiz. The car incident and strange meeting with Maria should probably rank higher on her “holy shit” list, but Nathan was at the top.
Even now she could picture him clearly in her mind. Tall, dark, and handsome. He certainly fit the bill. He’d always hated being considered a pretty boy, and now he was simply striking to look at. Like a beautiful fallen angel. Even his beard, something she’d never thought of as hot before, looked good on him. She was going to need to take a cold shower just thinking about him. Thinking about how delicious he’d looked in that tux.
Mentally shaking herself, she pushed all thoughts out of her mind as her house came into view. She and Nathan were done, had been a long time ago. All she wanted right now was wine and a few hours of sleep so she could think clearly. Because as soon as she woke up, she was scouring all her records for any bits of information she could find on the women who were allegedly—and probably if Maria’s information was correct—missing.
“You sure this is the best approach?” Cade asked from the driver’s seat. Maria had headed home after the meeting at Bayside, but Cade and Nathan weren’t done for the night. Not even close.
Nathan nodded, looking at the map on his laptop. The red dot that indicated Amelia’s phone wasn’t heading to her address. “Yeah . . . Elliott,” he said, talking to the analyst on the other end of the phone. They had him on speaker as they drove to Amelia’s place. “Is what I’m seeing right?”
“Yeah, looks like she’s just driving around in circles, but she’s slowly making her way to her home. I can see it in her driving patterns.” Nathan could hear Elliott typing away on his keyboard. Tall and a little lanky, the analyst with a pattern of short zigzag braids on his head was very good at his job.