Deadly Ties

by Kate Allenton

  “Stay close.”

  I saluted him before following him inside. We jogged down the steps to find the lights already on. The beautiful furnishings that had been there yesterday were all gone, the living room completely empty.

  “Looks like someone has been busy,” I whispered.

  West didn’t even reply as he stormed through the apartment toward the bedroom. That, too, had been cleared out.

  He disappeared into the closet and returned seconds later. “Had to have been more than one person. They took everything. The computer monitors and everything.”

  “Even the computer-generated voice. I liked being greeted.” I frowned and headed for the picture room. That, too, had been cleared out. The only remaining evidence was the dust outlines around where the pictures had been taped.

  “Not everything,” West answered, and I followed the sound of his voice. He stood in front of the safe and rubbed at the black marks marring the titanium steel. “Looks like they didn’t get in here.”

  “Sucks for them,” I said and walked over to the keypad. I started punching in the ten digit number the ghost had told me this morning.

  I punched in the last one, and West turned the handle and pulled the safe door open.

  Chapter 17

  “Jackpot,” I whispered, stepping inside. The room was filled with sensory overload. Gold coins and jewelry sat inside a real treasure chest. I picked a coin up. It was dated the seventeenth century. This was more than any bank heist could have produced.

  A famous painting we all had thought Thomas had stolen hung on the far wall. Beneath it sat a black canvas bag. West picked it up and peeked inside. “Diamonds.”

  “This stuff must be worth a fortune,” I said, running my finger over a gold Buddha statue.

  I pulled a sheet off a clump of something resting against the wall to find paintings that looked like they belonged in museums. Had he stolen all of this?

  West moved to the center of the room and flicked a switch lighting the table from underneath. It illuminated a map of the eastern seaboard. Several X’s were drawn on it with lists by each but two. One of the unlisted X’s was circled. “Looks like he was a collector.”

  “Maybe that accounts for all those numbers in the book. Some type of code, maybe?”

  “Or latitudes and longitudes. This guy is getting more and more interesting every day.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, overwhelmed by the find. Was I supposed to call the police, my Faraday, or, hell, the FBI? Had all of this stuff gotten him killed?

  I took out my phone and took pictures of the room and treasures inside in the event this stuff went missing as well. My last picture was of the map. I forwarded them to my email straight from my phone. Lord forbid something happened to us.

  As I repocketed my phone, West grabbed the bag of diamonds and tossed some of the gold coins inside. “What are you doing?”

  “We need proof, and we’re going to need help. Let’s go.” He headed for the opening, only pausing at a table near the door. Files with the CIA emblem were sitting on top. He grabbed those files.

  I was walking out when Thomas Faraday appeared in the room. His ghostly apparition was pointing to a box on the shelf. I slowed and headed for it. The box had John’s name was written on the outside of it. My Faraday.

  I was about to open it when West peeked back inside. “Let’s go.”

  I grabbed the box and carried it out, jostling it in my arms as West shut the safe and turned the knobs, locking it.

  We hurried back to his car, and he took off down the street. Every fiber of my body screamed warnings that if we went back to the Lady Blue, we’d be taking danger back with us. We’d be sitting ducks no matter how much firepower we had.

  I rested my hand on West’s arm. “We have to give this to Harrison. If we go back to the Lady Blue, it might be stolen like the book was.”

  He glanced at me. Worry riddled his brow. “I agree. What do you want to do?”

  I slid my phone out of my pocket and fired off a text to Freddie asking him to take Charlotte and Veronica out of the house and keep them somewhere safe. Something about this mess just didn’t feel right. “You’re the spy guy. Where would you go?”

  “Lay low while I waited for backup,” he answered, turning toward me. “You need to get a message to Harrison to meet, only keep it cryptic, something only he and you would know.”

  I slowly nodded. There was only one person who I knew could help. I dialed the familiar number and waited for her to answer.

  “Cree, it’s fabulous to hear from you,” Glynis, the deputy director’s daughter, answered.

  “I’m afraid I need a favor,” I said, glancing in the side view mirror.

  “Sure, anything you need,” she answered.

  “I need to meet with your dad, only it needs to be private and secure. Someplace he’s familiar with that he’ll know exactly where to go to find me.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” she asked, her voice holding worry.

  “I’m in so far over my head it’s going to take a miracle for me to see the sun again. Do you have a place that only he’ll know?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “The old fishing shack he took me to as a little girl. It’s an hour outside your town off Lake Gerti. I’ll send you the GPS.”

  “How can I get him to go there without telling him the exact location over the phone in case it’s tapped?”

  “We had a code when I was little. Mom and I were to drop whatever we were doing and go to the fishing cabin if he ever said the word. It was his fail-safe in case we were ever in danger.”

  “What’s the word?” I asked.

  “Frankenstein,” she answered. “I hated Frankenstein. It scared me as a little girl.”

  “Thanks for your help. I’ll call him myself. I don’t want to get you any more involved than you have to be.”

  “Cree, tell me what is going on.”

  “I can’t tell you…yet.”

  I said goodbye and called Harrison. He answered on the first ring.

  “Hello, Cree. Did you finally come to your senses?” he asked.

  “Frankenstein,” I said.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Frankenstein, Harrison.”

  “I understand. I’ll be there in three hours,” he said before the line went dead.

  I let out a tired sigh and glanced at West. “We’re meeting Harrison near Lake Gerti.”

  He slowly nodded as the GPS pinged my phone with the exact location.

  “What was up with Frankenstein?”

  “It’s a code Glynis has with her dad in case they’re ever in danger. It signified they needed to drop everything and meet at a safe location only they would understand.”

  “Lake Gerti.” He nodded. “Smart. We should come up with something similar.”

  “Brussels sprouts,” I blurted out. “They make me sick.”

  “Okay, and the meeting place?” he asked.

  “The old fort my dad built me in the woods just north of the Lady Blue.”

  “You never told me you had a fort.”

  I grinned. “If I told you all my secrets, you might get bored with me.”

  He chuckled and grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers. He kissed my palm. “I’ll never tire of you, Cree.”

  He said that now, but one day, he would. I shoved the thought aside and glanced into the backseat at the treasures he’d taken. “What was in those files you picked up?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look, but they had the CIA seal on them, and I figured if they were in the vault and not his office, they must be important.” He glanced at the box in my lap. “What’s in the box?”

  I shrugged. “It has our Faraday’s name on it, and his brother was standing next to it. I hope it holds some answers.”

  Chapter 18

  They’d arrived at the small fishing shack on Lake Gerti. It took about two seconds to pick the lock so they could get in. The shack was sparse
at best. Four walls, a bed and a couch, and a few canned goods in the cabinet, but what it lacked in niceties, it made up in the view. They had a beautiful view of the lake and the surrounding mountains, leaving no doubt there was a strategy to where they’d built this shack. To the north was a landscape of high mountainous terrain. That would be a bitch to attack from. From the south, a surrounding lake, empty of structures, no other homes or shacks as far as the eye could see. East was a field of daisies and the west provided a cover of trees, just enough to escape unnoticed. If I were a betting woman, I’d guess Harrison had the forest filled with surveillance cameras or maybe even something else hidden out here in the sticks.

  West had the bag of goodies, the Faraday box, and the files sitting on the table. It felt a bit taboo going through another person’s things, but that didn’t stop me. I found an old hunting knife on the counter and slit through the tape as West sat at the table picking up the first of three files.

  I opened the flap and peered inside. A small gasp left my lips as my heart raced. I pulled out the contents.

  A file as thick as the other two combined lay inside. A newspaper clipping was attached to the front. One I knew well from years ago.

  A picture of Faraday standing in front of the police station. He was giving a report on the only serial killer that he’d never found. The same serial killer case that Faraday and my father had been chasing when my dad died using Insight. The case still remained unsolved.

  I plopped down into the wooden chair. The blood slowly drained from my face, and I clasped my trembling hands.

  “What did you find?” West asked.

  I couldn’t find the words to answer. I could barely believe my eyes. On the outside of the file, one sentence was written. “I found him.”

  West abandoned his files and stood behind me, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Who did he find?”

  I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “The only person that my father couldn’t.”

  West picked up the file and read the article on the outside. “This article is about a serial killer that John was trying to catch.”

  I slowly nodded. “The same killer that my dad was using Insight to help find when he died.”

  “Cree, I’m sorry,” he said, gesturing to the file. “Are you going to open it and look who it is?”

  My shoulders deflated. Did I want to know? If I did, would I be tempted to track the bastard down and kill him myself for what he’d taken away from me? All those years gone. I could never get them back.

  I flipped the file open and stared at a picture of two men. One I’d never seen before, and one I recognized instantly. Faraday was standing at the podium like in the newspaper clipping, only this picture was taken from another angle and blown up, showing a close up of Faraday’s face. Behind him stood another man in a police uniform, only in this picture the other guy was circled with a red marker.

  “Another cop?”

  I leaned back in my chair, my shoulders deflated. “That makes sense. The killer was always good at covering his tracks and was always one step ahead of the police.”

  “Wait.” West leaned down to get a better look. “We’ve seen this guy. He was at your house for the wake.”

  I clenched my eyes closed. “How did I miss it? I should have picked up on a man that evil.” I opened my eyes and glanced up at West. “He was in my house.”

  West pulled a chair next to mine and began flipping through the file. “Faraday must have missed something Thomas uncovered, something that points the finger at the other cop.”

  We’d read through most of the file when West pulled out a picture of a police car taken at night from what looked like a store’s security camera. The number on the car was circled in red. The identity of cop sitting in the car with his window down was obvious. The cop was watching as the prostitute, judging by the way she was dressed, had the passenger door open. The name written at the top was Beth Shultz.

  “Wait. I think there was a police report on this woman,” West said, flipping back through the file like a dog sniffing out a bone. He pulled it out and scanned the contents. “There was. They found her body. It was the only one where evidence existed besides the same MO being used. The killer had left a bite mark, but they couldn’t find a match for the DNA.”

  I flipped the picture over to find a date stamp on the back.

  “Did she go missing February 24, 2007?”

  “She was reported missing on the 25th. They found her body in April that same year. How did you know?”

  I showed him the date on the back of the picture. “Faraday’s brother figured it out.”

  “But why did he choose Beth?”

  “Maybe he has something against prostitutes.” West shrugged.

  “Not all of the serial killers victims were prostitutes.”

  “I’m sure the police will eventually figure out his motive,” West said, shutting the file. “It still doesn’t change the fact that while using Insight, we all witnessed Thomas Faraday killed that other woman in the alley. Just because he found proof about the serial killer, doesn’t change that fact.”

  “I agree. What did you find in your files?”

  West grabbed the files and pulled them closer. They were CIA employee files. He flipped the first one open. A man I didn’t recognize dressed in a suit with the CIA logo on the pocket. The word Dirty was written across the employment application for Edmund Splinter.

  “Edmund was a naughty boy.”

  West flipped the second one open, and my eyes widened in surprise as I yanked the file from his hand.

  It was the dead woman that we’d witnessed Thomas Faraday kill when we used Insight to figure out Jane Doe’s identity. “Isn’t that…?”

  “Genevieve Bartell.” I flipped through the file pages. “That’s her face but not the name we saw on her ID while using Insight a month ago.”

  West unpeeled a piece of tape holding a computer memory stick attached to the file.

  I paused on the last page. Another application with the same woman’s face attached to it. Only this one was written in what appeared to be German. I couldn’t read the words, but there were several words written at the top in English. Double Agent.

  My mouth parted when the shack door flung open. I jumped from my seat. West aimed his gun in that direction.

  “Don’t shoot, it’s just me,” Harrison said, holding his hands up in the air.

  We spent the next thirty minutes telling the deputy director what had happened at Thomas Faraday’s secret hiding place and what all we’d found in the safe. A hit of recognition crossed his face as he looked at Edmund Splinter’s CIA picture.

  Judging by the look on his face as he stared down at the Genevieve Bartell’s file, he was as perplexed as we were. “Are you sure Genevieve is the woman he killed?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “That woman is dead. She was a Jane Doe that John Faraday was trying to solve before his retirement.”

  “And you saw Thomas kill her?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “Not that I can prove it, but yes.”

  “And where did you find this bag of diamonds?”

  “In the safe, along with a lot of other stuff. We resealed the safe, but since Thomas’s other belongings were gone, I’m not sure if all that stuff is still there.”

  “You were smart coming to me. Edmund Splinter is a CIA operative and trained, just like Thomas.”

  I nodded. That was all I could do. “What are you going to do?”

  “Take all this back, have it analyzed, and have Edmund arrested. If half of what Faraday claimed is true in these files, Edmund Splinter is going away for a long time.”

  “You might want to start by looking into his medical file. Thomas Faraday was administered a lethal dose of insulin at the hospital after his surgery.”

  “And how exactly do you know that? The files are gone.”

  I shrugged. “Connections?”

  “You never cease to amaze me, Cree.”

/>   “Well, there’s still one thing I haven’t figured out.” I said.

  “What’s that?” Harrison asked.

  “I don’t understand why Thomas would believe his brother is in danger,” West said, resting his hands on his knees.

  “They must know that Thomas had proof and would have given it to someone he trusted.”

  “We need to call him and tell him everything. He doesn’t even know he has a nephew.”

  Harrison’s gaze shot to me. “Agent Faraday had a kid? It’s not in his file. Where is he? We need to put him in protective custody until all of this is resolved.”

  “I think he’s safer right where he is. You’ve got a dead double agent, a dirty CIA agent, and a serial killer cop. I’d trust the mob before I trusted anyone in uniform right now,” West said.

  “And then there’s the book and the weird room,” I added, almost forgetting those two important facts.

  “We have the book and we cleaned out what we could of Faraday’s apartment.” Harrison said and slid the book out from his jacket pocket. “We had eyes on you for your own protection. Someone we both trust. What we didn’t have was the combination to the safe.”

  My mouth parted as anger stirred in my gut. “Eyes on me?”

  Harrison grinned and pulled out his phone and punched in a number. “Get in here.”

  West rose from his spot, the gun clamped in his grip. The door opened, and my eyes widened in surprise.

  Mason Spencer dressed in tactical black from his head to his toes stood in the doorway. “Cree.”

  “Leonard,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Mason hated when I used his first name. When he still lived in town, he’d been the local cop assigned to deal with my psychic craziness, much to his angst. We’d grown apart since then, him moving away to work with the FBI and me moving on with my heart. We were better for it, well, at least I thought.

  Times like these called for pushing those buttons I knew existed. I had a right. He’d stolen from me without even so much as a hello. Bastard. “I should have known you’d be involved.”