Alone in the Dark

by Karen Rose

  Ken sucked in breath. Sonofabitch Anders. I’m so glad I killed him, and even happier that Stephanie wanted that puny little prick to hurt.

  Demetrius exploded over the speaker. ‘What? What the fuck did you just say?’

  ‘I said,’ Sean repeated clearly, ‘Chip listed you and Ken as his labor suppliers. If we’d been a little later, that file would be in the hands of the cops.’

  ‘He may have had hard-drive backups,’ Decker said. ‘We took several sets of keys from his house. One of those keys will hopefully fit the safe deposit box where he hid his backups. If they’re hidden in the house, the cops may have found them.’

  ‘Slimy little bastard,’ Ken muttered. ‘How much money did we get from his accounts?’

  ‘Less than three million,’ Sean said. ‘He may have offshore accounts. I’ll keep looking if you want.’

  Ken shook his head. ‘I’d rather we concentrate on his safe deposit boxes. I want any backups accounted for and disposed of.’

  ‘I’ve already identified the backups he made from his operating system logs,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll focus on finding out where he stored them. He probably has an encrypted file on his computer listing the locations for the backups he made. He listed everything else.’

  ‘You may want an alternate story to feed the cops in case they find the backups before we do,’ Decker said quietly.

  Ken raised his brows. ‘Say more.’

  ‘Well, if the cops do find it, you’ll claim it’s a dirty lie, of course. Then you could have an explanation of why Anders would want to implicate you, a reason he’d hate you that much or how he’d profit by implicating you. Maybe a business deal gone wrong, an affair with his wife, a snub at the country club . . .’

  Ken looked at Alice. ‘Come up with something good, okay, honey?’

  ‘On it,’ Alice said, noting it on a pad of paper.

  ‘What else?’ Ken asked.

  ‘I need the trackers you recovered from the Anders house,’ Sean said. ‘I need to reset them and have them ready for the next shipment.’

  Burton frowned. So did Decker. The two men looked at each other with narrowed eyes.

  ‘We gave them to Sean along with the computers,’ Decker said.

  Sean went still. ‘I don’t have them.’

  Ken’s gut did a slow twist and roll. Not good. Not good at all. ‘Where does the signal say they are?’

  ‘It doesn’t. The last place they show up on the tracking software is the Anders basement. They ran out of battery shortly after they were cut from the two women.’

  ‘I saw them in the van when we loaded the Anderses,’ Decker said.

  Burton nodded. ‘So did I.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re still in the van,’ Decker said. ‘They have to be.’

  Ken exhaled, unnerved. ‘Find them. One ankle tracker falling into the wrong hands was bad enough. Three trackers have the potential of giving away too much information to the police. Demetrius, when’s the next shipment due?’

  ‘The Brazilians,’ Demetrius said through the speaker phone. ‘They’re coming in through Miami. I’ll be transporting them. If Alice can ride shotgun, I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Sure,’ Alice said with a shrug. ‘When are we going to do that?’

  ‘Friday,’ Demetrius answered. ‘We’re getting six, half of which are cherry.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Joel said, startling Ken, who’d nearly forgotten he was there. ‘They should bring a good price. We can use all the income we can get.’

  The virgins always brought more. ‘Demetrius,’ Ken said, ‘I want you to set up an auction for the Anders girl. I want her out of here ASAP. She’s too much of a pain in the ass. We’ll get some photos and a list of her attributes.’

  ‘She does have nice attributes,’ Burton allowed.

  ‘And she’s fluent in French,’ Ken added.

  Decker grimaced. ‘Plus she knows curse words in at least six other languages. She used every one of them when we were dragging her out of her house.’

  ‘And she bites,’ Alice complained loudly.

  ‘She should be sedated for shipment,’ Ken said. ‘Plan on that.’

  ‘I’ll set it up,’ Demetrius said. ‘I have to go. I’ve nearly lost my mark twice now because I was distracted by listening to you. I’ll call in later.’ He disconnected without another word.

  So sorry we distracted you, buddy, Ken wanted to say sarcastically, but held his tongue. ‘Burton, you haven’t given an update on what you’ve found in Reuben’s car.’

  ‘Not much,’ Burton admitted. ‘A few hairs that belonged to him, a few that belonged to Miriam, but she was his wife. She would have been in his car. I found one hair that’s consistent with Jackson’s. In the trunk.’

  Everyone winced. That the assistant who’d disappeared along with Reuben had been in the trunk was not a good sign. Not good at all.

  ‘Reuben can’t just disappear off the face of the earth,’ Ken said decisively. ‘I’ve known the man for years and he has expensive tastes. If he falls off the grid and can’t get his fancy Belgian beer, he’ll have a fit. He’s not the kind to rough it in a tent. He’s going to surface sooner or later. You are all dismissed. Just keep your phones on.’

  Decker and Alice left the room, and Sean and Joel signed off via video. Ken called Joel back on his cell phone. ‘So what did you need to tell me that you couldn’t say in front of everyone?’ he asked.

  ‘I found some money missing from our paycheck account. Five million. I traced half of it to an account that links to Reuben.’

  Ken closed his eyes, both surprised and not, all at once. ‘Shit. What about the other half?’

  ‘It was harder to trace, but it went into an account that belongs to Demetrius.’

  Ken stared at the phone in his hand, disbelieving. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very sure. I put a tracer on both accounts. If either Reuben or Demetrius tries to access the money, I’ll know. I’m sorry, Kenny.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ken sighed. ‘Me too.’

  Demetrius was his oldest friend, but this was business. He had to go. Demetrius of all people would understand that.

  Nineteen

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Tuesday 4 August, 5.45 P.M.

  ‘I wish I knew what this was about,’ Marcus muttered as he followed Scarlett into the elevator in the lobby of CPD’s headquarters. Being summoned by Isenberg was disconcerting. He’d never met the lieutenant, but he knew Scarlett was nervous and that made him edgy.

  Scarlett hit the button for the homicide floor, then stepped a foot away from him, her arms crossed over her chest. He didn’t mind the distance for now. She’d laid down the rule that there was to be no PDA at crime scenes or in public. He briefly wondered if elevators counted as public, then squelched the thought. Elevators had cameras, and CPD’s elevator-cams were probably strong enough to be scoping out his blood cells at this very moment.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said glumly. ‘Lynda’s usually cool, but sometimes she gets a bug up her ass and turns kind of unpredictable. But if she gets on my case for my “involvement” with you, I’m going to go ballistic. She never said a damn word to Deacon when he started shacking up with Faith.’

  He smiled at her. ‘Are we going to shack up?’

  Her cheeks turned red. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know if I do or I don’t,’ he said as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. ‘I may need you to explain it to me.’

  ‘Explain what?’ The clipped words came from a woman with short gray hair and steely gray eyes that snapped with temper.

  Scarlett tensed. ‘Marcus O’Bannion, this is my boss, Lieutenant Isenberg, the CO of the Major Case Enforcement Squad. Lynda, this is Marcus O’Bannion, publisher of the Ledger.’

  Isenberg glared at him. ‘Don’t even consider calling me Lynda.’ Then she turned to Scarlett. ‘Explain what?’

  ‘The hierarchy in MCES,’ Scarlett told her. ‘You know, how you a
nd SAC Zimmerman share FBI and CPD resources, who gets the final say in any conflict, you know – stuff like that.’

  Marcus wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or appalled at the ease with which Scarlett lied to her boss. He decided he’d wait to see how he fared with the lieutenant before making a final decision.

  ‘Yeah, well, when you figure it all out, maybe you can tell me,’ Isenberg said grumpily. ‘Come on. She’s waiting.’

  Scarlett didn’t move, so neither did he. ‘Who’s waiting?’ she asked. ‘What’s this about?’

  Isenberg’s smile was a shark-like baring of teeth. ‘Miss Annabelle Church. Follow me.’

  ‘Wait,’ Marcus said, and Isenberg halted mid-step, turning to face him. ‘Did you get the baby from her, Lieutenant? Is the baby safe? And did Annabelle know about the other two escapees? Tala’s family?’

  Isenberg gave him a hard, indecipherable look. ‘Yes, yes, and no,’ she said, ticking off her fingers. ‘Children’s Services is in Interview One with Church and the baby. Church wouldn’t relinquish control until she’d talked to her attorney, and to you, Mr O’Bannion.’

  Marcus stared at her. ‘Me?’

  ‘You. Church said that Tabby Anders told her to keep the baby safe and to contact you if she – Tabby – didn’t get in touch with Church by five P.M. today. It seems that after reading your article in the paper today, Tabby Anders trusts you. So, congratulations. You’ve managed to manipulate public opinion positively.’

  Marcus let the sarcastic dig go, shaking his head. ‘It wasn’t only the article. Tala had told Tabby about me. It was Tabby that encouraged her to trust me.’

  ‘Marcus captured her saying this on the video file that I sent you,’ Scarlett said gently. The file he’d captured using his cap-cam.

  ‘I know. I listened to it.’

  ‘Then why are you angry with me?’ Marcus asked her bluntly. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ Isenberg rolled her shoulders as if to loosen them up. ‘You’re right. But I don’t like witnesses dictating the presence of the press. It’s a bad precedent to set.’

  ‘I haven’t printed anything that I haven’t cleared with Detective Bishop first.’

  Isenberg shot Scarlett a sharp look of disapproval. ‘I know that too. Come along. Both of you. Time’s wasting.’

  Marcus didn’t like the way Isenberg was treating Scarlett, but this wasn’t his world, and if his years in the military had taught him anything, it was to respect the chain of command. Biting his tongue, he did as Isenberg requested, following her into a classic interview room with a mirrored wall that undoubtedly hid observers. Those observers had probably muted the volume control, because Tala’s baby was wailing at the top of her lungs.

  At the table sat an elderly lady with a frail, crêpe-papery look about her. Beside her was a sharply dressed man wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit and shoes that cost at least that much or more, rubbing his temples with a pained look. At the back of the room a woman in her thirties walked back and forth, trying to calm the source of the wailing.

  The baby’s cries made Marcus’s shoulders sag in relief. This was the child that Tala had sacrificed her life to save. He nodded at the elderly woman at the table. ‘Ms Church? I’m Marcus O’Bannion.’

  ‘Finally.’ Annabelle Church glared at Isenberg. ‘I didn’t think she was going to let me see you.’

  Marcus’s lips curved despite his best intentions to keep Isenberg happy. ‘Well, I’m here now. But can you give me just a minute?’ Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the social worker who was unsuccessfully trying to quiet Tala’s child. The baby appeared to be about a year old and – to his relief – very healthy. Physically she seemed no worse for the day’s events. Of course the emotional damage was yet to come.

  This child has a long row to hoe, he thought, his heart twisting at the big brown eyes that stared up at him, filling with tears. ‘Hi, Malaya,’ he said softly, pitching his voice in a way that he knew children liked. ‘What’s wrong, honey?’

  Immediately she stopped crying, sniffling a little. Then she stopped his heart by reaching her chubby hands toward him, looking like she was about to cry again.

  Marcus glanced at the social worker for permission.

  ‘Just while we’re in this room,’ the young woman said. ‘I have to take her to emergency foster care when we’re done here, so please don’t get too attached to her.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, then gathered the baby in his arms. Hitching her up so that her cheek rested on his pec, he wished he’d taken off the Kevlar so that she had a softer place to rest her head. A few pats to her back and Malaya was asleep, but a glance at Isenberg had his temper rising. The woman was watching him with a resentment she didn’t even try to hide.

  ‘I was eighteen when my brother Mikhail was born,’ he told the lieutenant, keeping his voice melodic and smooth. ‘I spent my senior year of high school getting him to sleep at night to give my mom a break. So if you don’t mind,’ he continued sweetly, ‘please wipe that insulting look off your face or I won’t be responsible for the next words that come out of my mouth.’

  Isenberg blinked, startled. ‘I . . . I apologize.’ She shook her head. ‘Proceed, Detective Bishop, so we can get that child into emergency foster care before she starts screaming again.’

  Scarlett’s surprised expression told Marcus that this crass behavior wasn’t the lieutenant’s norm. Curious, he held his temper and sat at the table, letting Scarlett take the lead.

  ‘Has she been fed?’ Scarlett asked quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ the social worker answered. ‘Ms Church fed her, and I gave her another bottle while we waited for you. I changed her, too. I think she’s just scared and tired, but Mr O’Bannion seems to have taken care of that.’ The social worker gave him an approving nod.

  Scarlett’s glance was equally approving. ‘That’s good.’ She took the seat on Marcus’s right, across from Annabelle. ‘Ms Church,’ she started, ‘thank you for coming in to talk to us. This has been a trying day for so many people.’

  Annabelle took her eyes off the sleeping Malaya long enough to nod at Scarlett. ‘I didn’t want to come in with the officer and the social worker. I was hoping Tabby would call me. Nobody will tell me what’s happened to her.’

  ‘She’s at the hospital, getting very good care,’ Scarlett said. She’d called for an update on her condition as she and Marcus drove to the police station. ‘She was beaten severely.’

  Annabelle pressed trembling fingers to lips. ‘Oh my Lord. I was afraid of this. She told me to go, not to come back and not to call the police. She didn’t want to risk Mila and Erica.’

  ‘Mila and Erica are Tala’s family?’ Scarlett asked, and Annabelle nodded.

  ‘Mother and younger sister, respectively. Where are they?’ Annabelle asked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Scarlett said. ‘We were hoping they were with you.’

  ‘No, no.’ Annabelle shook her head sadly. ‘I haven’t seen them, not since Tabby gave me the baby.’

  ‘Why did Tabby think she’d be risking Tala’s family if she called the police?’ Marcus asked, afraid he already knew the answer.

  ‘She was afraid they’d be deported,’ Annabelle said, ‘or maybe worse. Her nephew told them that the police would put them in jail if they complained. They’re here illegally, but Tabby said they’re good people. I should have said something this morning, but I was afraid for Tabby too. That nephew of hers . . .’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘We don’t know that either,’ Scarlett told her. ‘Tabby told us that he, his wife and daughter were taken away at gunpoint.’

  ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’ Annabelle muttered. ‘That man is a beast. He’s been abusing Tabby for years.’

  ‘Did you know that Tala and her family were being held against their will in the house?’ Isenberg asked.

  Annabelle shot her another glare. ‘No, I did not, not until toda
y. I didn’t know about anything other than the fact that Tabby was afraid of her nephew. That I’ve known for a few weeks. I didn’t know there were other people in the house until Tabby called me this morning and asked for my help. She told me that there was a baby in danger and asked me to take the child and ask no questions, just to keep her safe until I heard from her again. And if I didn’t hear from her, to contact you, Mr O’Bannion. She told me the baby’s mother was the girl that was killed in that alley this morning. The one in your article. She said that you would help us.’

  ‘And I will,’ Marcus said, with a side look at Isenberg. ‘What about Mila and Erica? How do you know their names?’

  ‘Tabby told me this morning. I came to the house in my golf cart, and she brought the baby to me.’ Annabelle smiled sadly at the child in Marcus’s arms. ‘In a covered basket. Kind of like Moses, I guess. I could see two other women standing in the doorway, holding each other and sobbing. The older woman was clutching a rosary like a lifeline. Tabby said that they were the baby’s grandmother and aunt. I asked why they were giving the baby away, and Tabby told me that the baby’s mother had been murdered this morning and they were afraid of what would happen to the child. I asked why they didn’t come with me, said I’d take them all to the police, but Tabby said they wouldn’t leave the house, that they were afraid of being deported.’

  She doesn’t understand, Marcus thought. Annabelle doesn’t know these women were slaves. He wondered if Tabby had known, but then he remembered her saying she hadn’t done enough. Never enough. She had known, he thought, but had probably been too terrified of her nephew to cross him. Considering the severity of the beating Anders had delivered, she had been right to be terrified.

  ‘Tabby asked me not to tell anyone,’ Annabelle continued, ‘until she could get things sorted out for them. But she said that if something happened to her, she wanted me to call the police anyway. She wanted someone to know their names.’ Two fat tears ran down the woman’s papery cheeks. ‘I didn’t understand. I still don’t. I do charity fund-raisers and give a lot of my money to the needy, but I don’t know this world. I wish I’d followed my instincts and called the police. Those two women might be all right now.’