Code of Valor

by Lynette Eason

  “Yeah. Don’t be surprised at what you see. When we do training exercises, we never know what we’re going to come across.”

  An hour later they surfaced after a safety stop about ten feet from the top, and Mary Beth helped them into the boat under cover of the canopy. With the fabric sides attached, no one could see inside and wouldn’t have any idea if they were still under the water or on the boat. She decided not to think about the fact that someone using a machine gun could easily take them all out. With cops patrolling the surrounding area as well as the water, she was going to believe that no one would be able to sneak past the security.

  Emily let Brady help her pull off the helmet and drew in a deep breath. “That was fabulous. When can we do it again?”

  Brady laughed.

  “I think you’ve created a monster,” Mary Beth said.

  “We’ll do it again soon,” Brady said.

  “Good.” Emily drew in a deep breath. “I really needed that.” She paused. “Do you think you could write down some of that stuff about dive times and ND . . . what?”

  “NDL,” Brady said. “Non-decompression limit. Meaning how long you can stay at what depth without worrying about decompression because of nitrogen build up.”

  “Right. I understand I should do a safety stop ten to twenty feet from the surface, but all of the facts and figures are running around in my brain.”

  He grinned. “Sure. I can’t believe you’ve remembered as much as you have. I’ve had students on their fifth or sixth lesson before they actually understood about NDL and safety stops.”

  “I guess it’s because I’m really interested. And more relaxed. And I think I’m ready to get back to work on trying to figure out who’s behind everything.”

  “Good,” Mary Beth said, “because Derek and Linc are on the way back. Izzy and Jordan are with them as well.”

  Relaxation fled. “Did they find anything at Heather’s?”

  “An SD card under the refrigerator and some flash drives in a hidden area. One of the bricks on her fireplace was loose. She had them stuffed behind it.”

  “That’s really cliché,” Emily said. “But it sounds like Heather. And they’re bringing everything here? Not to the station to David?”

  “They talked about it,” Mary Beth said, “but Derek decided he wanted to run the contents by you before taking it to David. It’s safer for them to come out here than take you to the station.”

  “Okay. Let me get showered and changed and we’ll see what’s on the card.”

  19

  Brady met his brothers along with Izzy and her partner, Jordan, in the kitchen. Derek held the card up. “Linc insisted on looking everywhere. Even to the point of moving the furniture and appliances. If it was movable, we moved it.”

  “And there it was,” Linc said.

  “Well,” Izzy said, “we’re not sure that it’s the card, but it’s the only one we found.”

  Jordan and Linc seated themselves at the table. “We also found a couple of flash drives behind a brick in the fireplace,” Jordan said.

  “We’ll go through them all,” Brady said.

  “No laptop, though,” Izzy said. “It wasn’t at her place and no one’s been able to locate it.”

  “Chances are, the person who trashed her home has it,” Brady said. “Although, I suppose it’s possible it could have been in the car with her. I wonder if we could access her cloud.”

  “If Emily has the password, it sure would make things easier,” Linc said.

  Mary Beth joined them and headed for the refrigerator. “Emily will be here in a second. She’s trying to reach Heather’s parents again.”

  “Before we get started on this,” Linc said, “I’ve got video footage of Emily’s kidnapping.”

  Brady stiffened. “We already saw that.”

  “It’s from a different camera and a different angle.”

  “All right, let’s take a look.”

  It didn’t take Linc long to access it. “It’s not a great angle, but it was the only other one we’ve got. All of the bank cameras that scanned the parking lot were expertly dismantled.”

  “Just like in the garage where Heather was attacked,” Brady muttered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Another indication that whoever killed—or took—Heather is after Emily. They scope their target, find the easiest place for a kidnapping, and then set it up to make it happen. Where did this footage come from?” Brady asked.

  “From the toy store across the street,” Jordan said. “It’s a small camera with a minion cover that faces the area where Emily was parked.”

  “A what?”

  “You know. That Disney movie Despicable Me—with the minions? Cute little yellow . . . um . . . things?” Jordan shrugged. “I only know about them because of my grandkids.”

  A smile played around the corner of Linc’s lips. “The owner set it up as a display to show customers how it works. Fortunately for us, the two who snatched Emily didn’t know about it.”

  “Fine. Let’s see what it got.”

  Linc clicked the footage forward until Emily walked into the line of sight. “There. She comes out of the bank and down the steps. Heads down the sidewalk to her car.” He paused the video and used the mouse to point on the screen. “See that shadow there?”

  Brady saw him.

  “He falls in behind her and the other one comes out of the doorway of that restaurant.” Linc clicked and the footage resumed playing. “There.”

  “I see him,” Brady said. Unfortunately, facial recognition wouldn’t help since the two had on ski masks. They closed in on their prey, and his heart picked up speed even though he knew what was going to happen.

  A dark sedan pulled to a stop in the middle of the street. “Is that a Cadillac?” Brady asked.

  Linc nodded. “Keep watching.”

  The two men in ski masks moved fast, grabbing her on either side. She fought them for a brief moment before she went slack. They dumped her in the trunk and sped off. Linc pointed to the time stamp. “Under six seconds from grab to go.”

  Jaw tight, anger pumping his blood in a rush, Brady sat for a moment. The strength of his reaction stunned him. If her kidnappers were in the room at this moment, he actually wondered if he’d have enough self-control to keep himself from pounding them to a pulp.

  “She never saw it coming,” Jordan said. Brady detected anger in the other detective’s gravelly voice; however, the man’s poker face didn’t give anything away.

  “One good thing,” Linc said, “even though we can’t see their faces, we do have this.” He zoomed in on the license plate of the vehicle that held Emily. “I looked it up. Belongs to Martin Burnett.”

  “Our dead guy.” Brady sat back with a disgusted growl. “We need to find that car.”

  “Already got a BOLO out on it,” Izzy said.

  “That’s not the vehicle that Burnett was driving when he shot at us at the call center,” Brady said.

  Izzy nodded. “According to the DMV, he owns three cars. The one he was killed in, the one they used to snatch Emily—which is a very nice Cadillac, by the way—and a 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.”

  “That’s not cheap,” Brady said. “Guess the murder-for-hire business is paying well.”

  “As well as the trafficking business.” Linc shook his head. “You want to wait on Emily or keep going?”

  “Let’s keep going. I’ll fill her in later if I need to.”

  “All right. Annie couldn’t find anything about a boat sinking on a South Carolina lake in the last two weeks, so if it really happened, there’s no report of it.”

  “But I can see that happening,” Jordan said. “If the boat was out in the middle of the lake and it sank sometime after dark, then it’s quite possible there wouldn’t be any witnesses.”

  Brady nodded to the laptop. “Let’s start looking.”

  Emily stepped into the kitchen. “Not starting without me, are you?”

  “
Have a seat and we’ll fill you in.” Brady motioned to the chair next to him even as he noted her fresh appearance. She wore a long-sleeved oversized T-shirt and jeans, and he wondered if she ever wore short sleeves.

  He introduced her to Jordan, then told her, in detail, what they’d seen. “You want to watch it?”

  “No. Not unless you need me to.” She shuddered.

  “I don’t see any reason you should.”

  “Good.”

  “Did you speak to Heather’s parents?” he asked.

  “Briefly.” She took the bottle of water Mary Beth offered from across the table. “Heather’s father answered the phone and we spoke for a minute before Mrs. Gilstrap called him away. They had a lot of family over, but he promised to get back to me when they had a minute.”

  “So, do you feel better?”

  “Not really. I got some weird vibes from Mr. Gilstrap.”

  “Weird how?”

  She shook her head. “I’m really not sure how to explain it.” She waved a hand. “I’ll figure that out later. Let’s see what you found.”

  Linc turned the computer over to Brady and handed him the SD card. Brady inserted it, then clicked to open it.

  Emily settled in the chair next to him, tension radiating from her. He did his best to ignore the scent of her shampoo tickling his nose and focused on scrolling through the pictures.

  Emily pointed. “Those are from the last vacation we took together.”

  “Nice. Which beach?”

  “Hilton Head Island.”

  They went through every picture on the card and found nothing that could lead them to Heather—or the reason someone would attack her in the parking garage.

  She sat back. “I can’t believe there’s nothing there.”

  “We found that under her refrigerator. She probably dropped it and didn’t realize it. Might not have even missed it if she had the pictures on her laptop. Let’s move to the flash drives,” Brady said.

  Linc handed them over.

  They repeated the process. “Documents, stories she was working on, a few family pictures,” Brady muttered.

  “Read through the stories,” Emily said. “Anything about human trafficking?”

  For the next thirty minutes, they scanned until Brady shook his head. “Nothing.” He rubbed his eyes.

  Linc blew out a short breath. “All right. You said the boat sank, right?” he asked Emily.

  “Yes. At least that’s what they said when they were demanding answers from me.”

  “The date stamp on the pictures is from a week and a half ago,” Linc said. “It also looks like the sun is going down, so it’s probably around five thirty in the evening. If the boat actually sank, there could have been some casualties. If someone didn’t come home that day or the next, there might be a missing person report.”

  Brady nodded. “And if there was something illegal going on, if there were any survivors, they might be keeping their mouths shut for fear of being implicated in whatever happened to make the boat sink.”

  “And in any deaths that may have resulted,” Linc said. “If it actually sank.”

  “Right.”

  Emily rubbed her nose. “We need to find out who those people in the picture are.”

  “Hopefully, David will get back to us soon,” Brady said.

  “I’ll put a request in on any missing person report during that time period,” Izzy said.

  “I’m going to get my laptop and see what else I can figure out,” Emily said. “This is like a big puzzle. All of the pieces fit somehow, it’s just going to take a lot of work to put it all together.”

  Emily sat in the living room with her laptop open and a notepad next to her. Peanut butter crackers and celery eased the gnawing in her stomach, but the food was simply for nourishment. She’d discovered fighting for her life had demoted food a few more steps on the priority list.

  More than anything, she wanted to help figure out exactly what was going on and what Heather had been trying to tell her with the messages.

  On the notepad, she wrote:

  Jeremy (J) visits Calvin at the bank. Connection?

  J opens several different accounts (with different names, but trace back to him) with multiple high dollar amounts under ten thousand.

  Multiple withdrawals from the accounts from various ATMs all on J’s accounts.

  Heather tracked Martin Burnett—making the deposits. Part of a human trafficking ring?

  Heather was at the lake and took pictures. Which lake? And what made her so interested in that boat?

  Connection between Nicholas Raimes and Martin Burnett?

  “What else? What else?” she whispered.

  She paused, staring at her notes. She’d always been a list maker, finding great satisfaction in crossing things off as she finished each task. Not only that, she especially made lists when she was confused or needed to think things through.

  The last list she’d made regarding her investigation had been on her desktop in her office in a Word document. One she’d simply minimized before leaving. What if someone saw it? But who? No one had access to her computer except her.

  And the IT department. Or a really good hacker.

  An email popped up from David.

  Emily, these are the pictures Heather sent you. I’ve enhanced and enlarged them as best I can. Take a look and see if you recognize anyone now.

  She opened the attachment. One by one, she zoomed in on the faces, wondering how long it would take for the facial recognition software to identify them.

  “What are you doing?”

  Brady’s soft voice made her jump and she looked up. “You sure do walk quietly.”

  “One of the requirements of the job if you don’t want to get shot sometimes.”

  “True.” She turned her attention back to the computer. “I was just making a list, but David sent me the enhanced versions of Heather’s pictures, so I’ve switched my attention to them.” She clicked and brought up the first one again, the figure still rather grainy. He looked familiar.

  “A list of what?”

  “Questions mostly.”

  “Well, here are a few answers for you. David called and said he traced that boat back to Nicholas Raimes.”

  “Raimes? That’s interesting,” she said. Click. Zoom. Next person. “What does he have to say about that?”

  “That he sold the boat a couple of weeks ago.”

  “To whom?”

  “He said he’s never met the guy. The transaction was done online. He’s sending me the bill of sale and we’ll track down the buyer and see what he has to say.”

  “That all just seems like too much of a coincidence, if you ask me.”

  “I agree, but weirder things have happened. On a positive note, David also managed to identify the four guys on the boat.”

  She paused and looked up. “Who are they?”

  “Three of them are Frank Jarvis, George Hollis, and Lonnie Darlington.”

  “Who’s the fourth?”

  “Jeremy Hightower.”

  She froze. “What?”

  “Yep.”

  “Unbelievable,” she said softly, then frowned. “I don’t recognize Hollis or Darlington, but Frank Jarvis was good friends with Jeremy in high school. There was a transaction in addition to the others on Jeremy’s account that caught my attention. It was a payment to Frank Jarvis in the amount of ten thousand dollars.”

  “Frank’s a big-time charity supporter and active in local politics,” Brady said. “Could that payment have gone to one of those things?”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it.”

  “I ran all four of them through missing persons and two popped up. Frank Jarvis and Jeremy didn’t. Frank’s got quite a history. From bar bouncer to county councilman, he’s come a long way.”

  “And there’s a long line of greasy palms behind him.”

  “He bought his way up, huh?”

  “As near as I can figure,” she said. “In h
igh school, it was his daddy who had the money. He bailed Frank and Jeremy out of more messes than you can count—and paid people off to keep them out of further trouble.” She paused. “So, what does this mean?”

  Brady frowned. “It’s not too much of a stretch to think the two men reported missing went down with the Lady Marie.”

  “Can you talk to Frank?”

  “I would definitely like to, but he’s in the hospital in a coma.”

  “Wait, what? Seriously? What happened to him?”

  “Car wreck. Broke his neck. He’s got machines breathing for him right now.”

  “Holy wow.” She drew in a breath. “All right. Did anyone talk to Calvin Swift? My boss at the bank?”

  He nodded. “I asked Derek to go by and find out why he was meeting with Jeremy Hightower.”

  “And?”

  “He said it was just routine. When he has clients who keep a lot of money in his bank, he likes to give them the personal treatment. Make them feel important.”

  “Okay, that’s true. He does that a lot.” Could it be that simple? Or was Calvin somehow mixed up in everything?

  “Is he a good boss?” Brady asked. “Or is the congeniality just a façade? You know, nice to all the customers, but a pain to his employees?”

  She shook her head. “Calvin can be a bit overbearing in the office, but it’s only because he’s very meticulous about things and hates to fix mistakes—his own or anyone else’s. But he’s not a bad boss overall. Like, I’m not afraid of him or anything. Or worried that he’ll fire me over something trivial. He’s just very detail oriented and a bit of a perfectionist. As a result, he expects his employees to be the same way. Which isn’t always a good thing.”

  “I know some people like that.”

  She clicked and studied the next picture. “Once I realized that was just his way of doing things, I was able to relax and do my job. We have a pretty good working relationship, although I’m sure he’s wondering what’s happened to me by now.”

  “Derek let him know that you’re okay, but that you’re helping the police in an investigation. Your job is secure.”

  A lump formed in her throat. “Really? When did he do all that?”

  “This morning, I think.”

  No doubt Brady was behind the request. “Thank you.”