by Karen Rose
It was a fair bit nicer than the quarters Marcus had lived in while he was in the army, but if this basement had housed Tala, it was still a prison, no matter how nice and clean it was.
‘Oh my,’ Scarlett said when she saw the trackers Deacon held. They were identical to the one Tala had worn, and both had also been sliced off their wearers. ‘This either just got very good or very bad. If they escaped along with the baby, that’s wonderful. But if they were taken by the same people who took Anders and his family by force, then they could be in even more danger than before.’
Marcus bent down to look at the cuts in the tracker straps, taking care not to touch anything. ‘I’m guessing they escaped,’ he said quietly. ‘Look at the jagged edges. They weren’t cut. They were sawed by someone without enough strength to cut with a single slice.’
‘I was thinking they’d been locked around women’s ankles,’ Deacon said. ‘They aren’t big enough to fit on a man’s ankle, unless the male was very young. So the baby escaped? That’s good news. You got a lead?’
Scarlett nodded. ‘Yeah, I do.’ She told him about Tabby and her friend from church, Annabelle.
‘She said that Chip gave her the bruises for taking the baby,’ Marcus added.
‘Why did she?’ Deacon asked, tilting his head watchfully.
‘She didn’t say, but she did say it was “not enough”.’ Marcus pointed at the trackers. ‘Maybe this Annabelle person knows where these other two are.’
‘Possibly.’ Deacon’s head tilted a fraction further. ‘Why are you here, Marcus?’
Marcus returned Deacon’s gaze, not blinking, the man’s tone rubbing him the wrong way. ‘What?’ he drawled. ‘You mean existentially?’
Deacon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.’
Marcus lifted his chin, maintaining his stare. ‘Back atcha. Oh, and I’m all right, by the way. How is that cop in the unmarked car?’
Deacon’s mouth tightened to a firm line. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘Bullet through the passenger window, through his head.’
Marcus flinched. ‘God.’ There couldn’t have been an exit wound. He’d have seen the cop’s blood on the driver’s window.
‘How did his shooter miss you?’ Deacon asked, his tone becoming so mild that it was insulting. ‘Far as we can tell from the direction of the bullet that hit Agent Spangler, the shooter would have had a clean, unobstructed shot at you standing at the back door, long before Detective Bishop found you.’
Furious, Marcus leaned forward. ‘What are you really asking me, Agent Novak?’
‘Deacon,’ Scarlett admonished sharply. ‘Come on now. And Marcus, back the hell off. God, it’s like living at home all over again. Six damn brothers fighting over every damn thing. But at least they were teenagers. They had an excuse.’ She blew out a breath, then pointed to Marcus’s cap. ‘That one of your cap-cams?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Marcus said brusquely, mostly embarrassed that she was so right. He was acting like a testosterone-crazed teenager. He took off the cap and put it in her outstretched hand. ‘It won’t hold much, a minute or so, but you’ll be able to see the damage to the door.’ He glanced at Deacon. ‘As for why I’m here, I came around the back because I figured if someone was home, they might actually talk to a newsman when they wouldn’t talk to a cop. I’m not under arrest, there was no crime scene, and I was well within my constitutional right to be exactly where I was.’
‘And the shooter didn’t miss Marcus,’ Scarlett said quietly. ‘We both escaped being shot because Marcus acted quickly. Someone had busted that door in before either of us got there. Probably the people who took Anders, his wife and their daughter.’
Deacon nodded stiffly. ‘That makes sense. I’m . . . sorry. Spangler – the agent who died – was a friend and I’m . . . not reacting well. I’m glad you’re not dead too. Again.’
Marcus exhaled heavily. ‘I’m sorry too, Deacon, for your loss. I figured something had to be wrong when nobody stopped me. I figured he’d come down from his car or radio someone else. Then I’d argue loudly enough that whoever was in the house would hear me and let me in, thinking I was on their side.’
‘It wasn’t the worst plan ever,’ Deacon conceded with a scowl. ‘So what do we know?’
‘Not a hell of a lot,’ Scarlett said wearily. ‘Somebody named Annabelle – who attended church with Tabby – took the baby. Who knows what happened to the other two women? And who knows who took Chip and his family?’
‘And why was Chip’s aunt was in the basement under a bed? If he beat her up, why would he hide her under the bed when they came in with guns?’ Marcus added. ‘Did she come down specifically to get the baby, or did he make her live down here too?’
Scarlett nodded. ‘That all this happened hours after Tala’s tracker was cut off her can’t be a coincidence, so we can assume these events are related. Maybe whoever took the Anderses is the trafficker who sold them Tala and her family.’
Deacon nodded. ‘Agreed. But was that person the same person who just shot at Marcus and killed Agent Spangler? And who shot Tala to begin with?’
Marcus looked around with a frown. ‘And where is the dog?’
‘Coco,’ Scarlett murmured. ‘The dog’s either not here, or it’s drugged or dead.’
The Asian man who’d processed the scene this morning joined their little group. Scarlett had called him Sergeant Tanaka, Marcus recalled.
‘We’ll search the house top to bottom, Deacon.’ Tanaka glanced at Marcus with interest. ‘You’ve had a busy day, Mr O’Bannion. I’m glad to hear you’re not hurt. Did I also hear you say that the door had been broken in?’
‘You did,’ Marcus said. ‘Someone had pressed the broken wood back together and set the door back into the frame, but it wasn’t secure. It fell off its hinges when I shouldered into it. I didn’t see any indentations in the door itself, no marks on the paint. I don’t think they used anything like a battering ram to force it open.’
‘Strong guys,’ Deacon said. ‘The Anderses didn’t leave without a fight. There are bullet holes in the living room walls. The bedroom door was also broken off its hinges.’
‘We’ll print every surface and search every corner,’ Tanaka said. ‘And we’ll check to see if any of the bullets match the one that Carrie took out of this morning’s victim.’ He sighed. ‘And Agent Spangler.’
Both Scarlett and Deacon went still for a moment. ‘He was a new father,’ Deacon said quietly. ‘His baby’s only a few months old.’
Scarlett’s eyelids lowered, and when they lifted, Marcus saw the expressionless gaze he’d seen in his office earlier. His heart clenched as he realized that once again she’d shoved her hurt deep down.
‘Why was the shooter there?’ she asked, her tone sharp and logical. ‘Was he waiting for someone to come out of the house? Was he waiting for someone to go into the house? Who? Was he on guard, trying to keep the cops out? If so, why didn’t he take any of us out in the front while we were waiting?’
‘Maybe it was because you were waiting,’ Marcus said. ‘He knew you didn’t have a warrant or you would have gone in. I wonder how long he’d been sitting there. Did the people who took the Anders family leave him on watch duty? Or did he come back for something?’
The three of them moved a few steps back as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher holding a deathly pale Tabby toward the basement stairs. ‘Where are you taking her?’ Scarlett asked them.
‘County,’ one of the medics said. ‘She’s unconscious now. I’ll tell them to call you when and if she wakes up.’
Marcus knew County General Hospital well. It was where he and Stone had been taken nine months before. He made a mental note to have Gayle keep in contact with their sources there, so they would also know when Tabby woke up. If she did. Marcus didn’t want to consider the fact that the old woman might die, but it seemed she’d done what she felt she needed to do. Even if it wasn’t enough, whatever that meant exactly. Although Marcus thought he migh
t know.
The paramedics disappeared up the stairs with Tabby, and Marcus returned his gaze to Deacon, who’d picked up the thread of their conversation.
‘If the shooter came back, it might have been because there’s evidence here in the house linking Anders to his abductors,’ Deacon was saying. ‘Which could be good for us if they’re the traffickers. He saw us outside and went around the back.’
‘When did he shoot Agent Spangler?’ Marcus asked.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ Deacon said. ‘He hadn’t been dead long. The ME will have to give us the time frame.’ He closed his eyes tight. ‘God. I have to tell his wife.’
Scarlett squeezed Deacon’s arm sympathetically. ‘I can do it,’ she offered.
Deacon shook his head. ‘That’s okay. You did the last one. Plus I recruited him from the field office into the joint task force with CPD. Zimmerman will go with me.’
Zimmerman, Marcus knew, was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office and Deacon’s direct boss. Marcus knew this because Zimmerman had visited him in the hospital. He’d seemed like a decent man.
Scarlett dropped her hand back to her side. ‘If you change your mind, let me know.’
‘I will.’ Deacon turned to Marcus. ‘Why did you want to know when he was killed?’
‘Because I’m trying to put the pieces together in my mind,’ Marcus said, ‘to get the timeline straight. If he was killed as soon as he parked back there, then the shooter had to have been here before you arrived, which would mean he was likely left to guard the house. But since he wasn’t dead that long, the killer probably came back to find something – or someone.’
‘You think he came back for Tabby?’ Scarlett asked.
Marcus shrugged. ‘Maybe. Whoever broke down the door could have shot Anders and his family and left their bodies here, but they didn’t.’
Scarlett nodded. ‘They dragged them out kicking and screaming, according to Tabby.’
‘Lots of bullet holes in the walls upstairs,’ Deacon said. ‘There was a definite struggle.’
‘They might have killed them when they got them away from the house,’ Scarlett continued, ‘so that they didn’t leave any bodies for us to find. They didn’t take Tabby because Chip had shoved her under the bed.’
Deacon frowned. ‘It doesn’t make sense that he’d try to save her from the thugs that broke in after nearly killing her himself.’
‘She was trying to reach for a cell phone when I found her,’ Marcus said. ‘Chip might have shoved her under the bed not to save her, but so that she could save them later. Maybe he left the phone so that she could call the police, but she was beaten too badly to crawl out and get it once the intruders were gone.’
‘Vince, what can you tell us about the phone?’ Deacon asked, motioning the man over.
‘It’s a throwaway,’ Tanaka said. ‘The number doesn’t match the one that the victim used to text your cell phone, Mr O’Bannion,’ he added before Marcus could ask that very question. ‘It’s bagged and tagged. We’ll check it out at the lab, see if we can figure out who it belonged to.’
Scarlett was frowning. ‘If the intruders had known Tabby was here, they would have searched until they found her. I don’t think they would have left her here to be a witness.’
‘So Chip was keeping secrets from his dealer,’ Deacon said thoughtfully.
‘Secrets they might have since forced out of him,’ Marcus said. ‘That’s why they didn’t kill them here – they wanted answers.’
‘Like maybe who killed Tala?’ Scarlett asked.
Marcus nodded. ‘It keeps coming back to her.’
Scarlett retrieved her phone from where it had fallen when she and Marcus barreled through the door. ‘I’m calling in for a security detail to stand outside Tabby’s door at the hospital. If the shooter did come back to find her here, he might try to get her there. She may be our only witness to what happened here. If she lives.’ She made the call, then handed Marcus’s cap-cam to Tanaka, who put it in an evidence bag.
‘Wait,’ she said with a frown when Tanaka opened evidence bags for the trackers Deacon still held. ‘Why did they leave the trackers?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Tanaka asked.
‘I’m trying to get the timeline straight in my mind too,’ she said. ‘If the intruders came in through that door, they would have walked right by these trackers on the floor on their way to the stairs. They kidnapped the Anders family, firing shots in the process. They had to think that the cops might be called at some point. Why leave the trackers here for us to find later? Why not take them?’
‘Especially since they’re a match for the one you took off Tala,’ Deacon added.
Tanaka shrugged. ‘I can’t venture a guess right now. Did you get the serial numbers from these two?’ he asked, holding up the bags with the trackers.
Deacon nodded. ‘I did, thanks. I’ll check it out ASAP and get back to you. I’m off to pick up Zimmerman.’ He glanced at Marcus. ‘Lie low for a while, okay? Twice in one day . . . I’d hate to see them get a chance to get lucky on a third try.’
‘I’ll keep my head down,’ Marcus said. It was the most he would promise, because he didn’t want to lie to Deacon.
Scarlett’s pointed gaze said that she hadn’t missed his evasion and that he hadn’t heard the end of the matter. ‘I’ll start tracking down Annabelle,’ she said to Deacon.
Deacon sighed wearily. ‘Zimmerman and I need to notify Agent Spangler’s wife. Don’t forget about our meeting at the field office. I’ll meet you there.’
When he was gone, Scarlett moved to the open doorway, stepping around the door that lay on the floor. Silently she studied the wreckage, then turned to face Marcus, her expression subdued. ‘I’ll take you back to your office now.’
Sixteen
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 2.30 P.M.
Scarlett buckled her seat belt, then leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She’d been calm through the whole ordeal, but now that they were truly alone, she let herself feel the terror of those moments when bullets were flying far too close to their heads. Or, more accurately, to Marcus’s head. Those bullets had not been meant for her. A shooter good enough to follow them as they fell to the ground had aimed several inches above where her own head had been. ‘You could have been killed,’ she murmured to the man sitting beside her. ‘Again.’
‘But I wasn’t,’ Marcus responded calmly, his voice giving her chills despite the fact that the black department car, having been sitting in the August sun, was about five million degrees inside. ‘Again,’ he added, his voice dipping lower.
A new shiver raced over her skin, tickling between her legs. Swallowing a sigh, she pressed her thighs tighter together, her hands clenching the steering wheel. Words formed in her mind but disappeared before they reached her lips, so she sat there, clenched and . . . wanting.
‘Although,’ he said after a minute of absolute silence, ‘I might die of heat stroke soon if you don’t turn on the air.’
The rueful amusement in his voice shook her into action. Starting the car, she kicked on the AC. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking straight ahead.
‘I’m not.’
She twisted her head to stare at him, exhaling when she saw the raw desire in his eyes. ‘You can’t look at me like that.’
‘Why not?’ His lips curved, sinfully sexy. ‘I’m not a cop. No breaking of police rules there. I’m not a suspect, am I?’
‘No.’ The word she’d intended to sound businesslike and practical came out husky and breathless.
His jaw clenched and he swallowed hard. ‘You can’t talk to me that way, then.’
She drew a breath, executed a quick three-point turn, and pulled away from the line of police cars. ‘Okay.’
From the corner of her eye, she saw his lips twitch. ‘Okay to what?’
‘I won’t talk to you that way and you won’t look at me th
at way.’
His almost-smile disappeared. ‘Where will I, then? And when?’
She didn’t pretend not to know what he was asking. She knew what she should say, that they couldn’t have a relationship until this case was finished. Or maybe ever, at least until she knew what kind of reporter he was and what kind of threat he represented. But none of that came from her mouth.
‘Not at a crime scene. And not in public while this case is still ongoing.’ She could feel his gaze, studying her profile.
‘Why were you looking at that door in the basement?’ he asked.
She blinked, not expecting that response. ‘I wanted to see where the bullets hit. He was aiming at you. If you hadn’t moved, you’d be dead.’
‘But I did move, and the bullets missed us. You’re not dead and neither am I. Not by a long shot,’ he added in a mutter.
She glanced over at his face, then down at his lap. And had to bite back a whimper. No, he was not dead. Nowhere even close. She clenched her hands around the wheel to keep herself from touching him, from stroking that hard ridge that beckoned her.
‘God,’ she whispered. ‘That’s not fair, Marcus.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ he said under his breath, then adjusted himself with a grimace. ‘So where, Scarlett, and when?’
‘I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far.’
‘I have,’ he said quietly. ‘Take me home with you.’
She turned her head with a jerk to stare at him. He was not joking. She’d never seen a man look more serious. Another car tooted its horn, and she abruptly returned her attention to the road just in time to avert an accident. ‘You mean now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I . . . Marcus, we can’t do that now. I have to walk my dog and get back to work.’
‘Why, Scarlett,’ he said, the dry amusement back in his voice. ‘I’m only planning to look at you. You know, like that. Which I can do while you’re walking your dog. Whatever did you mean?’ He clucked his tongue. ‘You naughty woman, you.’