by Karen Rose
If O’Bannion’s employee had hit an artery, Demetrius wouldn’t have made it to his car, Ken thought sourly. The man was such a hypochondriac. ‘Did it spurt?’
‘No, just a slow bleed. But it’s a mess. I can’t go to the hospital. Didn’t Decker fix up Reuben’s guy that got shot this morning?’
‘He did. Where are you, buddy? I’ll come get you.’
Alice’s mouth opened to protest, and Ken shook his finger at her again while he listened to Demetrius give his address.
‘Hold tight, D. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He hung up and glared at Alice. ‘Give me a little credit, kid. You’re not the only one with a brain, just because you have a damn law degree.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go get Demetrius and make him tell me his suppliers and contacts.’
‘You think he’ll just tell you? Really?’
‘Really. Demetrius acts like a big stud with all his love of torture and beating people up, but he’s a whiny baby when it comes to pain. He acts like a paper cut is a double amputation. I’ll get what I need out of him after Decker makes sure he’s not going to bleed to death.’
‘Nice,’ Alice said approvingly.
His finger hovering over Decker’s speed dial number, he glanced up at her. ‘You knew about the tracking?’
‘Yeah,’ she said in a duh voice. ‘For several months now. You stopped asking me where I was when I went on dates. Sean, too.’
‘That’s why I didn’t know about you and DJ.’
She tapped her nose.
‘It doesn’t . . . bother you?’ he asked. ‘That I was tracking you?’
‘Yeah,’ she repeated, annoyed. ‘But we knew you were worried about your leadership team, so we just left our phones behind when we didn’t want you to know where we were.’
‘How did you know for sure?’ he asked, positive that he was not going to like the answer.
‘Sean hacked your phone. Took him a minute and a half. Before you even consider being soft on Demetrius, though, I want you to see this.’ She showed him her phone, and he heard himself gasp.
‘Fuck.’ It was the local TV news website, and the shooting at O’Bannion’s apartment building was the top story. Two victims en route to the local hospital with ‘grave wounds’. The building was on lockdown. It was good that Demetrius had gotten out when he did.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mention that he didn’t actually kill the employee, or that he shot the security guard, did he?’ She let it sink in, then turned to go. ‘I’ll get the room upstairs ready for him.’
‘Alice, wait,’ he said, and she paused mid-step. ‘You’re right. Both of them need to go. I’ll take care of Demetrius. O’Bannion is now officially yours.’
She gave him a hard nod. ‘Thanks.’
‘Two more things.’ He waited until she’d turned around to fully face him. ‘Are you still monitoring McCord’s partner?’ The partner who would have been exposed if Marcus O’Bannion and his Ledger team had continued to dig for the story nine months ago.
‘Yes. He seems to be in control and to have learned from Woody’s mistakes.’
‘Has he added any assets?’
‘A few, but not from us. We’re still taking a cut of his profits, though. Not huge profits, but steady, and there’s promise for future expansion. McCord’s partner welcomed Sean’s e-commerce expertise. Locating his server offshore and teaching him about proxies was also . . . appreciated. His appreciation increased the profit trickle to a steady flow. We haven’t made personal contact in months. He knows I watch his progress, but as long as the deposits are made every month, I don’t bother him.’
It had been an agreement among the team, to take a cut of the business that high school teacher McCord and his more socially prominent partner had successfully started and maintained. But then McCord had thrown his share away when he’d attracted O’Bannion’s attention for being a little too friendly with the students in his class.
Wanting to expose McCord’s lechery, O’Bannion had somehow hacked his way into McCord’s computer and discovered his collection. What O’Bannion had believed to be his collection, anyway. The newsman hadn’t realized what he was looking at, because most people didn’t have the stomach for those kind of pictures to begin with. To clinically analyze them required a specific kind of individual. Marcus O’Bannion was not that man.
But O’Bannion was a man who didn’t give up once he’d gotten the scent of a story. He had published the ‘truth’, exposing McCord’s proclivities to the disgust of the community. Luckily he hadn’t published the whole truth. Luckily Sean had been able to remove the more damaging files from McCord’s server before the police raided his house, took his computers and tossed his ass in jail.
We had to take a huge risk to ensure that good ole Woody McCord didn’t talk. It had been a stroke of fate that O’Bannion had been hospitalized at the same time, his life turned upside down by his own injury and the loss of his brother. Had he kept going, Alice was right. Ken and his entire team would be sitting behind bars.
‘And the second thing?’ she asked.
‘How will you get close to O’Bannion?’
‘I don’t plan to get close. I don’t care if anyone thinks it’s related to the girl this morning or not. Like I said earlier today, the man has so many enemies, nobody will know what hit him. I’ll make up a room for Demetrius, then I’ll focus on the O’Bannion problem.’
Ken dialed Decker as she left the room. ‘I need your medical services again,’ he said when the younger man answered. ‘Meet me in Eden Park near the Conservatory. I’ll be waiting next to Demetrius’s car. And bring some chloroform or something to knock him out with.’ He hung up and dialed Burton. ‘I need you to tow Demetrius’s vehicle to my garage. I want you to clean out the blood and then get rid of it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Twenty-three
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 9.05 P.M.
Scarlett found Marcus sitting on a sofa in a sleek, opulent living room, cradling a Sheltie in his arms. The dog wasn’t moving.
Oh no, she thought, her heart hurting for him even as her body trembled with relief. He was unhurt. Strong, healthy and alive. He looked up, met her eyes, and a new wave of fear passed through her. His looked stark and cold. Empty.
An officer stood behind him, his expression irritated. The man had his hand on his holstered service weapon as if he expected Marcus to bolt and planned to gun him down when he did. ‘Are you Bishop?’ he asked stiffly.
Scarlett glanced at the man’s badge. ‘I am Detective Bishop, Officer Towson. Stand down, please.’ She could see that there were people in the bedroom and knew from Dispatch that Marcus had made two calls to 911, one for the doorman, Edgar Kauffman, and the other for his employee, Phillip Cauldwell. The second ambulance had still been parked outside, so the medics weren’t done with Phillip yet. She looked over her shoulder at Kate, who’d stayed a step behind her the whole way. ‘Can you see what’s happening in the bedroom?’
Kate nodded and went to the master bedroom. Scarlett carefully sat next to Marcus.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked, keeping her voice low and calm. As calm as she could, anyway, with her heart beating a hole in her throat.
‘I’m not hurt.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Phillip Cauldwell’s one of my team,’ he said, his normally beautiful voice flat and emotionless. ‘On the Ledger. Good kid. I’ve known him for years. His sister is Lisette Cauldwell. She’s also on my team. She’s one of my oldest friends. I need to tell her about Phil. I don’t want her to hear it from strangers.’ He fixed his gaze on the dog in his arms. ‘I also need a vet,’ he continued in the same flat voice. ‘He hurt her.’
He was in shock, she understood. Not physical shock, but emotional shock. ‘The person who attacked Phillip?’ she asked softly.
‘She bit him. She’s evidence, but I don’t want her in a cage. I want her taken care of.’ Another audible s
wallow. ‘She’s all I have left of Mikhail,’ he whispered, his voice breaking.
‘I understand.’ She placed her hand on Marcus’s forearm and gave it a light squeeze. ‘I called Sergeant Tanaka. He’s on his way with a team. I’ll ask him to call a forensic vet, okay?’ She made the call, then ran her hand gently over the dog’s coat. The animal whimpered softly, and Marcus’s hold tightened ever so slightly.
Kate came back in and crouched next to the sofa, looking up at Marcus. ‘Your friend isn’t dead. He’s hurt badly, though, but you knew that,’ she said honestly. ‘You stopped his bleeding, so he’ll have a chance.’
‘This is Special Agent Coppola,’ Scarlett told him. ‘She’s Deacon’s old partner. She’s just been transferred here, so she’s helping us with this case now. Deacon says you can trust her. Tell us what happened.’
He glanced at Kate before lifting his eyes to Scarlett’s again, his still stark and cold. He told them how he’d found the wounded guard in the lobby, how he’d found his apartment trashed. ‘He forced Phillip to bring him up here, but I guess he didn’t expect the dog to bite him or Phillip to stab him with his own knife.’
‘I guess not,’ Scarlett said softly. ‘I’m glad they took him by surprise.’
‘You were right,’ Marcus said, his voice as dead as his eyes. ‘I was the target this afternoon. They were shooting at me, not you. Maybe this morning in the alley, too. Maybe it’s been me all along.’
‘Not this morning,’ Scarlett murmured. ‘Tala’s killer tracked her to the alley.’
‘And Agent Spangler,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t said a word. ‘Maybe he’s dead because of me too. Maybe they’ve been following me all day.’
Scarlett wanted to sigh. His emotional shock was worse than she’d thought. He was taking responsibility for everything that had gone wrong this day. Although he didn’t sound paranoid. He sounded too coldly logical. Her gut had told her to look at Marcus’s enemies this morning, but she’d brushed the instinct aside, focusing on Tala as the target.
Because Tala had known her killer. And because Tala’s owner had been removed from his home, kicking and screaming. But then the killer came here. To Marcus’s home. To hell with sighing. Now she wanted to curse in frustration. I’m missing something important.
‘Who’s they?’ Kate asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Marcus said, his voice controlled and pulled taut at the same time.
‘I think we need to go over that list of yours,’ Scarlett said, keeping her voice soft, ‘because too many things don’t fit together. I need to call my boss. Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.’ She squeezed his arm as she rose, wishing she could brush a kiss over his lips or take him in her arms, but she knew that comforting him would have to wait.
‘Officer Towson,’ Scarlett said. ‘Bring the building manager up here, please. I want the security tapes for this building. I want to know if the shooter left, from which exit, and when.’
‘He’s gone,’ Officer Towson said. ‘I cleared every room.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘He’s gone from this apartment, but if he’s stabbed and bleeding, he may have holed up somewhere else in the building.’
‘I’ll get the building locked down and handle the door-to-door search,’ Kate said. ‘Hopefully he hasn’t taken anyone hostage, but we might find that someone saw something.’
Scarlett gave her a grateful nod. ‘Thanks. I have to give Isenberg an update and find someone else to lead the search for the women.’
‘No,’ Marcus said, grabbing Scarlett’s arm with a speed she hadn’t anticipated. He didn’t hurt her, but he’d startled her.
‘Hands off, buddy,’ Towson snapped, grabbing Marcus’s wrist and trying to yank it away. Marcus released her, but Scarlett knew that it was only because he didn’t want to hurt her.
‘I asked you to get the manager, Officer,’ Scarlett said, allowing the uniform to feel the sharp end of her tone. ‘Please do that. Mr O’Bannion is not a suspect. He is a witness, and we will treat him with respect.’
Towson gave her a dark look. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said mockingly and marched off, leaving Scarlett shaking her head. She could and would deal with Towson later. Now she sat back on the sofa, curling her fingers around Marcus’s wrist. ‘Why did you tell me no?’
‘Because you need to find those women. They can tell you who took Anders.’
‘Maybe. But the person who attacked you may be the one who took Anders. There’s something more going on here than we’re seeing. Too many unanswered questions and loose ends left flapping in the wind. I need answers, Marcus. You’ve been attacked three times today. If you’d been here when this guy forced his way in, you might be the one lying in there.’
He turned to give her a cold glare. ‘I should be. Phillip is innocent in all of this.’
‘I know Phillip is innocent,’ she said, gentling her voice. She still held onto his arm and now brushed her thumb over the fabric of his shirt to try to soothe him. It was all she could do with so many eyes watching. ‘But I’m allowed to be glad you’re not hurt. Now, we need to think this thing through. If someone’s been after you, why did they go after Phillip? Why not just wait for you to get home?’
‘Because Phillip stabbed him.’
‘I got that, and don’t worry. Sergeant Tanaka will do a thorough sweep of your place. If the shooter left anything behind, Tanaka will find it.’
‘Phillip said the guy wrapped his arm, left with the knife embedded in it. So no blood.’
‘Maybe not. But there’s still skin and hair. Tanaka is the best I’ve ever known. We’re going to let him do his job, okay?’
A stiff nod was her answer, and she squeezed his arm lightly again.
‘What I meant,’ she continued, ‘was why did he follow Phillip up? If he wanted you, why not simply wait till you came home?’
His stare never let up. ‘Maybe he wanted to force his way in to wait up here for me.’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ She shook her head. ‘He left a victim behind the desk, Marcus. He had to have known the guard would be discovered sooner versus later.’ She exhaled, suddenly understanding. ‘He was counting on the guard being discovered. He wanted you to come home. Wanted to draw you home.’
‘That’s how I see it,’ he said, his voice still cold and expressionless.
‘If we look at it that way, I can see how you think you were the target all three times.’ She sighed. ‘Let’s check the security tapes. See what they show. Until then, sit tight with BB. She might be our best lead.’
She stepped toward the door of the master bedroom, watching the medics work on Marcus’s friend as she dialed Isenberg. ‘It’s Scarlett.’
‘What’s going on at O’Bannion’s?’ Isenberg asked, foregoing a greeting as she often did.
Scarlett filled her in as Vince Tanaka came through the door with his toolbox filled with gadgets. He put it down and motioned that he was going to have a look around, so Scarlett stayed on the call with Lynda. ‘I need to follow this lead,’ she told her boss. ‘Can you get someone else to accompany my uncle to search for Mila and Erica Bautista? Zimmerman said he told you about finding the father and son, too. Maybe you can have them ready to talk over a speaker phone to Mila and Erica when you get close so that they don’t run away.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll ask Adam Kimble to accompany the searchers.’
Scarlett winced. ‘Is he ready?’ Having recently returned from a six-month leave of absence, Adam was looking calmer every day, but every so often Scarlett wondered about how much of his calm was real and how much was for show.
‘As ready as he’ll ever be,’ Lynda said in the tone that dared anyone to disagree.
Scarlett was not planning to take that dare, so she approached from a different angle. ‘Erica, the daughter, and John Paul, the son, are both minors. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a therapist on hand to deal with any immediate issues they might have.’
A pregnant pause, then
Lynda snorted. ‘Damn, Scarlett, you are good. Sure, let’s have a therapist there. If nothing else, it’s CYA, but they might be able to help. Who will you call?’
‘How about Meredith Fallon? She’s proven herself reliable and trustworthy.’ And Meredith had also shown an ability to calm Adam Kimble when he’d been agitated.
‘I like her. Call her. Is Vince there yet?’
‘Yes. He came in a minute ago.’
‘Good. Find this guy, Scarlett. Soon.’
The line went dead as Lynda ended the call, and a few moments later the paramedics wheeled Phillip out, an oxygen mask over his face. His eyes were closed, his skin far too gray.
‘County,’ one of the medics said before Scarlett could ask. ‘And yes, we’ll have them call you with updates. And yes, we have your cell number.’
‘Thank you,’ Marcus said, and one of the medics gave him a sympathetic nod before pushing the stretcher into the hall toward the elevator. The cold facade cracked, pain flashing over his face, deep in his eyes. ‘I have to tell his sister.’
Scarlett sat back down beside him, wrapping her fingers around his forearm again, wishing she could put her arms around him instead. ‘Lisette, right? One of your oldest friends.’
He nodded miserably. ‘Lisette works for me too. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. She’s like my sister, and Phillip’s always been the kid brother who wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Dammit to hell.’
‘I’m so sorry, Marcus,’ she murmured, giving his forearm a hard squeeze. ‘Let’s catch this sonofabitch.’
Marcus’s eyes opened and in them she saw barely bridled rage. ‘Yes. Let’s.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 9.45 P.M.
Scarlett parked her car in the emergency room lot, switched off the ignition, then turned to look at Marcus with dark eyes that understood his pain. ‘You didn’t cause this,’ she whispered into the quiet.