Every Dark Corner (The Cincinnati Series Book 3)

by Karen Rose

  ‘You’re not under arrest, ma’am,’ Kate said politely. ‘You’re welcome to call your attorney if you like, but I don’t have to wait until he or she gets here to continue.’ She pulled out a few still photos and spread them on the table in front of Nell. ‘These were taken at the ER last night. The victim is Dr Dani Novak.’

  Nell’s expression became horrified. ‘Dani? We just hired her for the clinic. She was hurt? Who would do that? She wouldn’t hurt a flea.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, ma’am,’ Kate said. ‘Dani was attacked last night as she left the clinic, but her attacker didn’t know that someone was watching over her. That someone threw a knife at the attacker’s right arm. The attacker took the knife out of his arm and stabbed Dani with it. She’ll live, but only because the man watching out for her thought quickly and got her help. That man’s knife made the wound that you just saw your brother stitching up.’

  ‘That is absurd,’ Nell said again, but her voice trembled.

  Nell was second-guessing herself now, Kate could tell. She pressed harder. ‘Why didn’t he call you? Why didn’t he ask for help? Why did he forge your name on a script for antibiotics?’ She showed Nell her phone. Adam had obtained a copy of the script Edwards had used.

  Nell stared at the document. ‘There’s an explanation. There has to be. That’s not my handwriting. And the script is for Roxy, my sister-in-law.’

  ‘Who is now in ICU.’

  Nell rolled her eyes. ‘She drank herself to death. I told Remy she needed help.’

  ‘Why do you call your brother Remy?’ Kate asked, genuinely interested.

  A shrug. ‘His name is Brandon. Kids called him Brandy, just to be snotty and cruel. Our father called him that too, to belittle him. So I told my brother that Remy was the best make of brandy. It was our little inside joke.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I raised that boy, Agent Coppola. There is no way I’ll believe any of the things you’ve said to me.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Kate said. ‘And I hope Mallory’s assessment of you is valid, because I’m about to show you something that I’d hoped not to have to show.’ She cued up the clip of Mallory at twelve years old. ‘This is very serious, ma’am. I wouldn’t show it to you . . . I wouldn’t possess it if it weren’t so serious. My job at the FBI is stopping human traffickers, specifically those who force their victims into sexual slavery.’

  Nell’s eyes blazed. ‘You’re accusing my brother of being a sexual deviant. I’ve had enough!’ She stood up and Kate rose with her, leaning in until they were nose to nose.

  ‘I swear, ma’am, if you do not sit down, I will sit you down. This video is of a child being raped. And it’s not the only one. You. Sit. Down.’ She stared Nell down and the woman sank into her chair again, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered. ‘Why this witch hunt against my brother?’

  Kate hit play and sat back, her arms folded over her chest. ‘Watch.’

  Nell turned away from the screen. ‘I will not. That’s disgusting.’

  ‘That’s Mallory,’ Kate said coldly.

  A scoffing sound. ‘I’m . . . not surprised. She’s a disturbed child. I can see her in a relationship with a grown man. She’s too . . . alluring.’

  Kate blinked at her. Wow. No wonder her brother had managed to fool her all these years. ‘Look at the man, Miss Edwards. Look at him.’

  Nell kept her eyes averted. Kate lifted the laptop and shoved it up to her face, forcing her to look at the screen. ‘Open your eyes. Look. At. Him.’

  Nell did, her mouth dropping open in horror. ‘She . . . she seduced him.’

  Kate put the laptop down carefully, because she wanted to throw it against the fucking wall. ‘You are . . . Mallory was wrong. You are not good. You are not good at all.’

  Nell lifted her chin, but it trembled. ‘May I go now, Agent Coppola?’

  ‘Two more clips,’ Kate said. She hadn’t wanted to show Nell these, but now . . . Now I do. I want her to feel some serious pain. She cued up the clip of Bob the cop coming into his garage. ‘You know this man?’

  ‘Of course. He’s my brother-in-law. Why do you have this video?’

  ‘I told you. Your brother has cameras everywhere. Including your bedroom, but that’s not important now. Watch.’

  Kate watched Nell’s face because she couldn’t watch the screen. Not again. It had nearly destroyed her the first time. Thanks to Decker and Troy, she hadn’t fallen apart in front of her colleagues.

  I’ll fall apart later.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Nell began breathing heavily. ‘Oh my God. No. No!’ She flinched at the moment Bob pulled the trigger, a sob barreling out of her mouth. ‘Why? Why did he do this? Why would you make me see this?’

  ‘Because I had to get your attention,’ Kate said flatly. ‘And because I had to watch hours of your brother raping a twelve-year-old girl.’

  ‘He didn’t. She seduced him. My brother is a good man!’ She screamed the final words, her hands stretching into claws as she went for Kate’s face.

  Kate grabbed her wrists, holding the woman a few inches away. Thankfully Troy had leapt to his feet the moment Nell had started screaming, and he pulled the woman back, none too gently, then cuffed her hands behind her back and held her shoulders down so that she didn’t jump out of her chair.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘They’re all fucking nuts.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘And she was supposed to be the sane one.’ The door opened and Decker rushed in, his handsome face dark with fury.

  ‘Do you need assistance, Agent Coppola?’ he asked.

  Kate smiled at him. ‘No, but thank you, Agent Davenport. Oh, Davenport, I’d like to introduce you to Miss Nell Edwards. Her brother, Dr Brandon Edwards, is the one who tried to have you murdered while you were in the hospital.’

  Decker had calmed himself while Kate made the tongue-in-cheek introduction, as she hoped he would. ‘I’d like to say it was a pleasure, ma’am,’ he drawled, ‘but I’d be a damn liar.’

  Nell stared wildly at them. ‘You’re all insane.’ She looked back at the screen, which had ended with Bob the cop’s brains all over the interior of his Honda, then closed her eyes. ‘I can’t believe any of this. Why would Bob do that? Why? He and Gemma have a good life. They have a daughter.’ She stiffened. ‘Where is Gemma? Where is Macy?’

  ‘Ah,’ Kate said. ‘Segue.’ She saw Decker tilt his head toward the table, asking if she needed him to stay. She gave him a nod and waited until he sat down. ‘So, Nell, tell me about Bob and Gemma. Bob was a cop, we understand.’

  Nell’s eyes darted between Kate and Decker. Troy still stood behind her, ready to restrain her further if he needed to. ‘Yes. He worked in the main office. He managed the dispatch office.’

  Which explains a lot, Kate thought. ‘So he’d see all incoming calls and be able to follow up on arrests.’ And warn his brother-in-law when young women called for help, like Mallory did today.

  ‘I guess so. You need to let me go. I have to find Gemma. I need to tell her. What if she finds him like that?’

  ‘What is Bob’s last name?’ Kate asked.

  Nell froze. ‘I’m not telling you. I need to go. To find my sister and my niece.’

  ‘Your niece has been abducted by your brother. We have video of that too,’ Kate snapped. ‘We’ve had an Amber Alert out since mid-afternoon. So maybe you could help us find her instead of calling us liars and standing in our way.’

  Nell paled. ‘Macy’s gone? Abducted? How?’

  ‘By. Your. Brother,’ Kate repeated, leaning into the woman’s space. ‘And you’re permitted to treat live people in your practice. Oh my God, woman! Wise up!’

  ‘You are mean,’ Nell said, sounding like a child now. ‘Mean and awful and I’m going to rep
ort you to your supervisor.’

  ‘Go ahead, he’s behind the glass,’ Kate said with a jerk of her head toward where Zimmerman watched. She drew a breath. Calmed her voice. ‘Miss Edwards, your niece has been abducted and your sister is dead. Please don’t make me show you those tapes too.’

  Nell straightened in her chair, pulling her dignity around herself despite being cuffed. ‘I don’t believe you. I want to call my lawyer.’

  Kate huffed, exasperated. ‘And you are still not under arrest.’

  ‘Then arrest me!’ Nell snapped. ‘I want my lawyer.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘I thought this would be easy. Because I thought you’d be a good person. All right, I’ll arrest you so that you can call your lawyer, but watch this first.’ She cued up the clip of Macy’s abduction and Gemma’s murder and hit play.

  Nell, to her credit, did watch, horrified fascination on her face. When the masked man came in to drug Macy, she made a sound of real pain. And when Gemma pulled the hat off Edwards’s face, she began to weep. ‘Oh Remy, what have you done? What have you done?’

  Kate hit pause. ‘He slits her throat and then he shoots her in the head. That’s why your brother-in-law took his own life. He found your sister’s body. Do you really need to see that? Because I’ll show it to you, simply because I do not like you, ma’am.’

  Nell shook her head, sobbing. Rocking in her chair. ‘Why are you doing this to me? To us?’

  ‘Mary and Joseph,’ Kate whispered, realizing that the woman would not believe until she saw it with her own eyes. ‘Here. See for yourself.’ She hit play.

  Nell didn’t breathe, flinching at the shot to Gemma’s head. ‘Remy,’ she whispered. ‘Why?’

  ‘You can ask him yourself once we’ve rescued your niece and the other four kids he abducted,’ Kate said, then showed the video of Macy and the children tied up in the basement. ‘Your brother is in this house.’ She spread stills from the studio on the table. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. If I knew, I’d tell you, for Macy, but I don’t know.’

  Kate wasn’t sure if she believed the woman or not when she said she didn’t know. But she did believe that Nell would go on protecting her brother. She caught Decker’s eye, saw he thought the same. ‘What is your brother-in-law’s name?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Seifert,’ Nell sobbed. ‘Robert Seifert.’

  ‘And his address?’ Kate pressed. ‘We need to retrieve their bodies.’

  Nell made a keening noise, like an animal in pain. She gave the address, rocking herself.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Decker said, and Nell looked up. ‘Did Bob and Gemma drive a gray minivan?’

  Nell’s eyes were startled. ‘Yes. A Chevy Traverse. It was a gift from Remy for their anniversary.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Decker stood up. ‘I am sorry for your loss. But for you to accuse a twelve-year-old girl of seducing your brother . . . You, ma’am, are not a good person.’

  He turned on his heel, leaning on his walking stick as he left the room. Kate and Troy followed, the three of them collapsing against the wall when they got to the hallway. Kate was trembling, but so were Troy and Decker. Some rage, some nerves, some the release of adrenaline.

  Zimmerman joined them, pulling the door closed so that Nell couldn’t hear them speak. ‘I thought she’d tell you where the house was,’ he said.

  ‘She might not know,’ Troy said, ‘or she might have blocked it out. She seems comfortable with denial.’

  ‘Run Robert Seifert through the DMV,’ Decker said. ‘It’s a Chevy. Brand new.’

  Kate could feel new energy bubbling up through her bones as she caught his train of thought. ‘It might have OnStar. We can track it through the company.’

  Decker met her eyes and nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And we can get a head start,’ Troy added, ‘by going to the drugstore where he picked up his prescription.’

  ‘I’ll have backup follow you,’ Zimmerman said. ‘Go.’

  Cincinnati, Ohio,

  Saturday 15 August, 9.35 P.M.

  The worst part of any op, Decker thought, was waiting for it to start. The atmosphere in the van was tense, but at least it wasn’t grim. They’d tracked the gray minivan with relative speed, although every minute they’d waited at the drugstore where Edwards had filled his prescription had felt like a year. They were still a few miles away, even with Troy driving like he was on a Formula One track.

  Which had made for something of a bumpy ride.

  The house belonged, ironically enough, to Bob Seifert, Edwards’s brother-in-law. Or at least it was Bob’s name on the deed and the mortgage and the bank account from which the mortgage payments were drawn. Whether or not he had known about the house – or what went on there – wasn’t clear and might never be.

  Because Bob had taken the coward’s way out. Decker still hadn’t processed that. He’d seen people die, too many times. He’d seen men’s heads explode when hit by enemy fire. But today had been the first time he’d seen anyone take his own life like that. Unlike Kate.

  He looked across the van, where Kate sat on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her. She was quietly knitting and had been for the last forty minutes, but every now and then she’d stiffen and suck in a breath, close her eyes and visibly regulate her breathing.

  Decker would tap his foot against hers and she’d smile at him. It wasn’t her real smile, but it seemed to anchor her enough to control her breathing. He fully expected her nightmares to continue making a regular appearance for a good long time.

  Hell, he’d probably have nightmares too. And then they could wear each other out enough to hopefully go back to sleep. The thought brightened his mood considerably.

  He glanced at the monitor mounted to the ceiling of the van. It was the feed from Edwards’s camera system. Quincy had come through, finding a way to hijack the wireless feed and route it their way. The screen was filled with Edwards sleeping.

  They crossed their fingers that he’d still be sleeping by the time they finally got there.

  ‘We’re coming up to the turnoff,’ Troy called back. ‘Is everybody suited up?’

  A smattering of yeses sounded back – just Decker, Kate, Adam, and Triplett, who’d been relieved of guarding Mallory by one of the men who’d been on duty in the parking garage at the safe house. Zimmerman had wanted to keep the team small and tight – and staffed by people he knew he could trust.

  With Bob the cop out of the picture, they were safer from leaks than they’d been with him on the job. But they were all very aware that a man like Edwards didn’t operate for as long as he had without serious allies in CPD. Or maybe even the FBI. Until they knew for sure, Zimmerman wasn’t going to risk the safety of five children.

  Even the SWAT team that was on their way to cover them had been hand-picked. They’d left the city immediately after OnStar had provided the minivan’s location. Zimmerman had held them back, just in case the drugstore where Edwards had gotten his meds wasn’t on the way. So they were coming. Hopefully they were driving like the wind.

  Kate put her knitting aside and began checking her weapons, including the rifle she now slung over her back. Just like the night she and Decker had met. She scrambled up on her knees and pressed a button on the communications console on the van’s back wall directly below the monitor.

  ‘Quincy, can you do a final sweep through the house, interior and exterior? I want to be sure I have my bearings.’

  She’d find herself a tree to climb up as soon as they got there, a tree that would give her a direct line of sight to – hopefully – all the house’s exits. They were hoping they could sneak the children out before Edwards woke up, and then restrain him in his sleep, but just in case he did wake up, they needed to be ready.

  Because the man had shown a nasty willing
ness to throw ricin around, and they didn’t want to have to rely on luck and cooperative winds again just to stay alive. Plus, they had no doubt that he’d kill those kids without a second of hesitation or an ounce of remorse.

  The monitor above them flicked from room to room, all empty except the room where Edwards was sleeping and the basement where the five kids still lay tied and gagged. And still terrified, the three who were awake. Two of them had their eyes closed, hopefully asleep, because it was now too dark to be sure their chests were moving. Let them be alive. Please let them be alive.

  ‘You need me to go through it again, Kate?’ Quincy asked through the console. He was still in Edwards’s house.

  ‘Yes please,’ she said. ‘One more look around the outside.’

  Quincy repeated the loop as the van began to slow. Troy made a turn onto a side road that led up to the house and brought the vehicle to a stop.

  ‘This is as far as I want to go until we’re sure he doesn’t have the road booby-trapped. Kate, Adam? You two ready?’

  They were the best shots of the group, so they were tapped to do the recon.

  ‘As I’ll ever be,’ Kate said. She and Adam prepared to leave the van. Kate checked her weapons a final time and gave Decker a last smile. ‘Be back in a jif.’

  But she went no further, because Quincy had moved the camera back to where Edwards had been sleeping.

  The bed was empty.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Decker muttered. The monster was awake.

  Cincinnati, Ohio,

  Saturday 15 August, 9.40 P.M.

  He staggered into the bathroom, splashing water on his face, trying to wake up completely as the alarm continued to whoop obnoxiously.

  Someone is here. Someone had triggered the alarm at the end of the driveway. He gave his left cheek a stinging slap with his good hand, then tried the same with his right, relieved when the arm moved more fluidly. The antibiotic had started to work.

  He ran to the studio where he did all his post-production editing and brought up his surveillance system, starting with the cameras at the end of the driveway.