by Karen Rose
Marcus blinked. Hard. ‘Scarlett Bishop called you? Why?’
‘She was looking for you. She thought maybe you’d come to my house for some reason, since you weren’t answering your home or cell. I made her tell me why she was looking for you because she sounded worried.’
A delicious heat curled around Marcus’s heart. ‘I’m fine, just busy. I was in morning meeting. I’ll call her back.’ When I’ve finished that damn list. ‘Where are you?’ he asked when he heard a familiar bark in the background.
‘Home. I went to your apartment to see if you were there, but I only found BB. I . . . brought her home with me for a while. I hope you don’t mind. She’s . . . I know it sounds silly, but sometimes . . .’
‘She’s all we have left of Mikhail,’ Marcus murmured, his heart breaking for Jeremy’s double loss. Jeremy had found out that Mikhail was his son only a short time before Mickey’s murder. Jeremy had always loved Mikhail, who’d been conceived after the divorce in what had appeared to be a one-time fling. Marcus understood why his mother had kept the identity of Mikhail’s father a secret – she’d been worried that Jeremy’s new partner, Keith, would be angry at Jeremy’s indiscretion. But the secret had cost both Jeremy and Mikhail dearly. Mikhail had missed out on having the best father on the planet, and poor Jeremy . . . To have found out Mikhail was his son only to lose him so soon thereafter had broken his heart.
‘Exactly,’ Jeremy said quietly. ‘You always seem to understand. Your heart is too big, Marcus. It’s going to get you hurt someday.’
‘I’m fine,’ Marcus assured him. ‘Barely a bruise.’ That was a goddamn lie, but Marcus told it convincingly. ‘Are you all right, Dad?’
He didn’t always call Jeremy ‘Dad’, but sometimes he needed to say it and he thought Jeremy needed to hear it.
‘I’m fine,’ Jeremy said hoarsely, tears in his voice. ‘I tried to call your mother. I didn’t want her to read about it online.’
‘I know. So did I. But she was still asleep.’
‘I’m worried about her, Marcus. She’s taking so many pills. Along with her drinking . . .’
One of the things that Marcus loved about Jeremy was that the man loved others so genuinely. He understood why Jeremy hadn’t been able to stay married to his mother, but he also knew that the divorce hadn’t meant that he had stopped caring about her or her children.
Marcus’s mother had explained everything to her sons when she and Jeremy had filed for divorce, because they’d been so angry and hurt with Jeremy for leaving. But Della hadn’t been angry or hurt. Jeremy had been honest with her, telling her that he was gay when they’d first met. She’d only asked that he be discreet and not cheat with other women. She’d had enough of that with Marcus and Stone’s biological father. Della and Jeremy had nearly a decade of happiness and had produced Audrey together. But then Jeremy had met Sammy.
He’d asked for a divorce, and Della had given her blessing. She’d been so truly happy for them that Marcus and Stone couldn’t help but be happy too. They’d all loved Sammy, and when he had been killed in a car accident, they’d all grieved along with Jeremy.
Jeremy’s new partner, Keith . . . Well, he was intense. Not a bad guy, but not a super-friendly type. Marcus suspected that he was threatened by the family bonds that Jeremy had been unwilling to sever. Especially Jeremy’s bond with Della. Whenever she’d needed him, Jeremy had dropped everything to go to her side.
‘I’m worried too,’ Marcus said. ‘I tried to get her to therapy. I thought Faith might actually have managed it, but Mom backed out at the last minute.’
Jeremy’s chuckle was watery. ‘That Faith. She’s got a big heart too. Promise me you’ll be careful, son. Please.’
‘I promise. How’s Keith?’
‘Grumpy, but he’s walking again.’ Jeremy’s husband had had to undergo knee replacements on both legs because his kneecaps had been shot by the same psychopath who’d shot Marcus and stalked and tried to kill his cousin Faith on multiple occasions.
The man had murdered Mikhail in cold blood when he’d found him in the family’s cabin in the Kentucky forest. The murderer had been using the cabin to hide the two young women he’d taken hostage, and Mikhail had simply been there at the wrong time. Stone had been the one to find Mikhail’s body, sending him spiraling into the dark place where he retreated when his memories became too intense to bear.
Mikhail had been shot in the head. Marcus swallowed hard. Just like Tala.
He cleared his throat roughly. Pushed the memory of the hole in Tala’s head to the side so that he could focus. ‘I’m glad he’s doing better. Tell him that we’ve been missing him at third base.’ Keith had been one of the best players on the Ledger’s softball team. ‘We’re six games behind the guys at the country radio station.’
‘I’ll tell him. I have class this afternoon, so I’ll drop BB back at your place around noon. Will you be home by then?’
‘God, I hope so,’ Marcus muttered. ‘If not, it won’t be much after that. I’ll make sure I walk her this afternoon. Thanks, Jeremy. And if Detective Bishop calls back, tell her I’m fine.’
‘That’s all you want me to tell her?’ Jeremy asked. ‘I’m not stupid, son. I heard what she didn’t say. She was pretty scared for you this morning too.’
The warmth returned to curl around Marcus’s heart. ‘That’s all I want you to tell her, Dad. And don’t tell Audrey. She’s a pest about stuff like this.’
‘I won’t,’ Jeremy said, a smile finally in his voice. ‘But thank you for confirming it for me. I think Detective Bishop was a little afraid of me. Tell her we’re solid. That’s a thing, right?’
Marcus chuckled. ‘Yes, Dad, it’s a thing. Why was she afraid of you?’ Jeremy was one of the most non-threatening men on the planet.
‘I think she didn’t want to make me sad. I like her, Marcus. And she’s very pretty.’
‘Jeremy, leave him alone,’ Keith said in the background. ‘Stop playing Cupid.’
‘Gotta go, Dad,’ Marcus said firmly. ‘Later.’
He hung up, hearing Jeremy chuckling as his own lips curved. Until he looked at his computer screen again. It was a mess of cut and pasted names, all from the two threat lists. He had been trying to choose which names he’d give Scarlett for too many hours.
Of course, he could always print it out when it was finished. Then he could take it by the police station and give it to her himself. First things first, boy, he told himself. He had to get the damn thing done first.
Nine
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 8.50 A.M.
Ken Sweeney drummed his fingers on the table in his conference room, waiting impatiently for Demetrius to join them. Ken had called the emergency meeting of his leadership team seconds after Demetrius had informed him that Jason Jackson was not at home.
‘Where the hell is Demetrius?’ Joel asked, rubbing his eyes. He’d been up all night balancing the real books. What Joel had given Decker was just the tip of their corporate iceberg. ‘I’m going to fall asleep here at this table if he doesn’t get here soon.’
‘You used to be able to pull a week of all-nighters,’ Ken said with little sympathy.
‘You used to be able to run a six-minute mile,’ Joel shot back irritably. ‘But neither of us is in college anymore, so shut it.’
Ken calmly lifted his chin and leveled Joel a silent warning. Joel paled slightly, gulped audibly and slid down in his chair. Ken relaxed, satisfied that he’d made his point.
They’d gone to college together – Ken and Joel and Demetrius – becoming three very unlikely friends. Joel had been the nerd, Ken the jock born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and Demetrius the inner-city kid on a football scholarship who’d had more street smarts than actual book learning. Ken and Demetrius had met through the team, Joel joining their group after he’d been assigned to be Demetrius’s tutor. Demetrius had been no dummy, though. Of all of them, he might even be the smartest. Ken, of course, w
as the leader. He always had been. Joel just needed to be reminded of that sometimes.
‘Demetrius is on his way in,’ Ken said calmly. ‘He just texted me from the lobby. But if you’re that impatient to sleep, you may leave, of course.’
‘No.’ Joel’s voice was quiet, with the smallest of quivers. ‘I’m good.’
‘I’m so glad,’ Ken said, still calm. ‘It’s not like we have an urgent issue or anything.’
Nervous looks were exchanged between his son, Sean, and Dave Burton, Reuben’s second-in-command in Security. Both Sean and Dave were younger than the rest of them by more than a decade. They knew their place in the pecking order and wisely kept silent.
The door opened, then closed quietly behind Demetrius. The man was built like a goddamn tank but still moved with the fluid stealth that had made him a hard man to catch on the football field. He took his seat and cocked a curious brow at Ken. ‘Any word from Reuben?’
‘None,’ Ken said, torn between being furious and worried. ‘You?’
Demetrius shook his head. ‘Me neither. You planning on making Decker stand outside in the hall for the whole meeting?’
‘No,’ Ken replied. ‘Just until we hash out the full plan. I’m not ready for him to know everything yet. Sean, tell them what you told me.’
Sean cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the tension in the room. ‘The tracker,’ he began, ‘transmitted a tamper alert at 5.45 this morning, while in the vicinity of the morgue. It was moved from the morgue, but the battery died a little later, at the corner of Fourteenth and Race. I’m assuming it was en route to CPD.’
‘Shit,’ Demetrius muttered. ‘Who got killed?’
‘The tracker was assigned to Charles Anders,’ Ken said, ‘one of five workers that we sourced on March fourth, three years ago.’
Demetrius turned on his iPad and, after inputting several passwords, unlocked the spreadsheet where he kept his contracts and sales information. Ken had been averse to Demetrius using the electronic tablet at first, but since it wasn’t hooked up to the Internet and couldn’t be hacked, he’d finally agreed to it. It could be physically stolen, but then again, Demetrius had pointed out, so could Ken’s notebooks, and Demetrius’s tablet would be a helluva lot harder for the thief to break into and read.
Each member of Ken’s team kept their own records and none was accessible on the Internet. If one of them was caught, whoever had done the catching would not be able to see their entire operation. Joel’s data was the most damning, since he kept the actual books, but Ken knew where Joel was at every moment, thanks to the cell phones that each of them carried. Hidden tracking software showed Ken the location of every member of his leadership team. They didn’t know he was tracking them. He knew they’d be displeased if they ever found out.
His own phone was the only device that was not tracked. He’d made sure of it.
Reuben’s phone had stopped transmitting a few minutes after they’d spoken that morning, but Ken hadn’t realized that fact until he’d checked his tracking software after speaking with Demetrius earlier. The last place the phone had been active was on the road that Reuben would have used to get to the office. Either Reuben’s battery had gone dead, or the entire phone had been destroyed.
‘On that date, we imported eight units from Southeast Asia,’ Demetrius said as he flicked through the spreadsheet. ‘Most of our acquisitions are placed on the West Coast, but we did bring one shipment here. Ah, yes. On that date we processed a family unit of five recruited from the Philippines – father, mother, two daughters, fourteen and thirteen years old, and a son, nine years old. The father’s previous work experience included teaching biology at university level and manual labor on a farm. The mother had been a nurse.’
‘Were you able to pinpoint positions on the other four trackers, Sean?’ Ken asked.
‘Yes. Two of them – the two males – are in what appears to be a factory northwest of Dayton. It’s the middle of nowhere. Google Earth shows a large warehouse structure with a parking lot.’ Sean turned his laptop around to show Ken and the others. ‘Keep in mind that Google also says this image is three years old, so it may not look exactly like this anymore, but this is the location.’ He turned his laptop back to face him. ‘The other two trackers are located in Anders’s main residence in Hyde Park.’
Ken lifted his brows. ‘Main residence?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Sean said. ‘I ran a background check as soon as you gave me his name. He’s purchased a condo in Vail and a small property in southern France, both as corporate assets.’
Dave Burton, acting head of security until Reuben returned, leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘The men I sent to sit outside Anders’s house say that he is there right now. They’ve seen him pacing in front of the windows.’
‘I’ll bet he’s pacing,’ Ken said grimly. ‘He knows he should have contacted me hours ago. Make sure your men don’t let him leave.’
‘They won’t. They’re under orders to watch the house, and if they see Anders, his family or any of his assets trying to leave, to pick them up and transport them to our safe house.’
Meaning it was a house safe from scrutiny. Anders, Ken thought, was far from safe. ‘Perfect. So the wearer, who is likely still in the morgue, was one of the females.’
Burton frowned. ‘Don’t you know which tracker was placed on which wearer?’ he asked, his disbelief and disapproval apparent.
Everyone tensed. ‘No,’ Ken said with a tight smile, ‘we do not. I’ll let your question go this time, since this is your first time dealing with us directly.’
Burton looked around the table, saw the stares and glares, then swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect. It’s just that how can I know which live people to chase if I don’t know who’s missing and presumed dead?’
‘We don’t keep any more information than we absolutely need to,’ Demetrius explained, his deep bass rolling over the table like quiet thunder. ‘No trail for our competitors or the authorities to follow.’
‘I know which female it was,’ Sean said. ‘At least I think I do. I had Decker listen to the tracker’s audio feed. Most of what he heard at first was just idle chat at the morgue, but then a man started talking about getting her processed and logged in.’ He tapped a key on his laptop and an older man’s voice came out of the speakers: Unidentified female, late teens, early twenties, of Asian descent. Multiple gunshot wounds with a large-caliber weapon, one to the abdomen, no exit wound, the other to the left temple, exit wound. Paramedics were called, victim was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced DOA.
Sean paused it. ‘He goes on to X-ray her torso, where he finds the bullet. Then this.’ He hit PLAY again. No broken bones in the upper thighs, knees and . . . What the . . . What is that? A short pause, then a huge sigh. Hell.
‘After that, he seems to make two phone calls,’ Sean explained. ‘What we hear next is this.’ He hit the PLAY button again. Vince, I got something here that you need to see . . . Yeah, I mean right now. The gunshot victim from the alley . . . Thanks, man. Another pause, a second phone call. Carrie, I need you to come in a little early. We got a homicide in this morning and I just got to processing her. She’s wearing an ankle tracker . . . No ID on her, but I’ll have her printed by the time you get in here . . . Already called him. He’s on his way.
Sean hit pause again. ‘“Vince” refers to Vince Tanaka, head of CSU. “Carrie” is Carrie Washington, the head ME. The guy on the tape reports to Dr Washington. What we hear next on the audio is what sounds like him taking the victim’s fingerprints, and then CSU arrives and cuts the tracker off the wearer. I checked the CPD dispatch log. They responded to a matching scene this morning at about three A.M., three blocks north of the Meadow homeless shelter.’
Demetrius scowled. ‘That’s where the dealers and hookers hang.’
And he ought to know, Ken thought. That was where Demetrius had grown up. ‘What else did you get from the CPD dispatch l
og?’ Ken asked Sean.
‘Initial reports say the wearer of the tracker was with a man when she was shot. The man was also shot, but apparently not injured badly enough to be transported. He was treated at the scene.’
Ken frowned. Not good at all. ‘Who was the man?’
‘He was questioned at the scene and released,’ Sean said. ‘The log didn’t list his name, but I have someone in CPD who owes me a favor and can find out.’
‘Do it,’ Ken snapped, then looked at Demetrius. ‘We need to find Reuben and Jackson. They didn’t just disappear into thin air. Someone took them. That Reuben disappeared right after this tracker was cut . . . We can’t assume it was a coincidence.’
‘When I left Jackson’s house,’ Demetrius said, ‘I drove to Reuben’s place, then drove the route he would have taken to work. I saw no evidence of his car. No wrecks. No sign of any struggle.’
Burton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I know where his car is.’
All eyes swung to Reuben’s right-hand man. ‘Where?’ Ken demanded.
A long hesitation. ‘In the parking lot of a hotel near the airport,’ Burton finally said.
An even longer silence. ‘Excuse me?’ Demetrius asked. ‘He went to the airport?’ He turned to Ken, eyes dark with rage. ‘And you’re only mentioning this to us now?’
Ken held up a hand, stemming Demetrius’s fury. ‘Burton, how do you know that? And when did you know that? And why didn’t you tell us immediately?’
Burton blew a frustrated breath straight up his forehead. ‘I didn’t say anything immediately because I still don’t know where Reuben is. I found the car about thirty minutes before coming to this meeting, but I can’t see that he actually booked any flights, and he’s not checked in at the hotel. Not unless he’s done so under another name.’
‘You haven’t yet covered how,’ Ken said coldly. ‘Define how you found the car.’
Burton blew out another breath, this one through puckered lips. Calming himself. ‘Reuben had trackers put on any mode of transportation owned by anyone who worked at this company.’