by Karen Rose
‘You keep saying so. I don’t see it.’
She thought about that. ‘Maybe when I’m around you I don’t feel so angry.’
He smiled. ‘I like that explanation.’
‘Dad never wanted me to be a cop. He said I had too soft a heart, that I’d be chewed up and spit out. But it’s all I ever wanted to be. And when Michelle died and Trent Bracken walked . . . I made a promise to Michelle’s memory that I’d be a cop and I wouldn’t have a soft heart. That I’d do my job so well that future Trent Brackens wouldn’t go free.’
‘But your dad is right. You do have a soft heart, and cases like Tala’s tear it open. So you do that long-blink thing and shove it all down. How long will you be able to keep that up?’
‘For as long as I can. For as long as it takes.’
He sighed. ‘I figured you’d say that. I also don’t figure I’m in any position to tell you any different.’
‘Pot meet kettle,’ she said in resignation. She pulled into the CPD parking garage, started to take the keys out and stopped cold as her mind snapped back to the case. ‘Wait just a minute. The Feds brought that suspect in from Constant Global Surveillance yesterday. They could have brought him in this way, through a protected parking garage, but they took him in through the front, where he became a target.’
‘You’re right.’ Marcus folded his arms over his chest. ‘When we asked how they knew the shooter was on the roof, Coppola said they got a tip.’
‘They set it up,’ Scarlett said. ‘Made the tracker guy bait. Not that I’m complaining, but it was risky.’
‘They must have really trusted that tip,’ Marcus said, watching her carefully.
Scarlett considered what she was about to say and decided he had a right to know. ‘They have a man inside.’
‘The Feds?’
‘Yeah. I don’t know who. Don’t know where. Don’t know how they contact him. All I know is that I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.’
His expression went carefully blank. ‘I would have guessed eventually. But thanks for telling me now.’
He said it so stiffly that she was certain ‘thank you’ was not what he was really thinking. ‘I didn’t ask you about Diesel.’
‘True, but this is different. This impacts my life.’
‘I didn’t know for sure that it would, not until just now. They were watching more than one trafficking group – which is what they do. They’re the human trafficking task force. That’s not news to anyone. I didn’t know that the undercover Fed was watching the same people who want you dead. I know now. And so do you.’
He relaxed. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right.’
‘Damn straight I’m right. But now you have to act surprised if someone tells you.’
He feigned a shocked look. ‘How’s this?’
She snickered. ‘Don’t give up your day job. Come on. Let’s go meet Alice Newman.’
Thirty-three
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 6.00 P.M.
Ken found Decker sweating and shirtless in the bedroom where Demetrius had died. The younger man had a circular saw in his hand and was cutting up the last of the bloody mattress into strips. The room was stifling hot, largely because Decker had opened the window to air the place out. The air conditioning simply wasn’t keeping up.
Decker turned the saw off when he saw Ken standing there. ‘Almost done, sir,’ he said, pulling a hand towel from the back pocket of his jeans and wiping the sweat from his face. ‘I’ll haul it out and burn it.’
‘No. The smoke will attract attention. Just bury it.’ Ken was glad to see the mattress go. Killing his oldest friend had been far harder than he’d thought it would be, even though Demetrius had betrayed him.
‘Will do.’ Decker started to turn the saw back on, but hesitated. ‘Anything else?’
‘Where are Burton and the Anders girl? I just checked the basement and it’s empty.’
‘I did what you said. They’ve been taken care of.’
‘Already?’
‘Like I said, I like working the woodchipper.’ Decker frowned. ‘Please don’t tell me you changed your mind.’
Ken laughed grimly. ‘No. I thought I’d have a last chat with Miss Anders. She was . . .’
‘A bitch,’ Decker muttered. He turned to show four deep claw marks down his shoulder.
‘Wow. I guess that teaches you to wear a shirt.’
Decker glared. ‘I was wearing a shirt. She grabbed me, up under my sleeve. Those nails of hers were fake. She’d been sharpening them on the concrete foundation of the cage.’
Ken wished he could have seen it. He wished more that he could have gotten to her before Decker had killed her. A good fuck always cleared his head before he went hunting, and thinking of Stephanie Anders clawing at Decker made him even harder than he’d been when he’d gone to the basement looking for her.
‘Make sure your tetanus shots are up to date,’ he said.
‘They are, luckily. Between that bitch and her mother.’
‘Oh, that’s right. Marlene bit you.’
‘Give me a male prisoner any day of the week,’ Decker grumbled, then shook off his bad mood. ‘When I’m done here, I’m going into the office. With Burton and Reuben gone, the work is piling up. You’ll need to hire new security personnel. I thought I’d start compiling a list of ex-military that I know would be interested and trustworthy.’
‘Yes, do that,’ Ken said, but he was thinking no so loudly his teeth ached. He was done, his leadership team decimated. Alice incarcerated. And as much as he wanted to believe she’d be stalwart under questioning, he knew she’d give him up in a heartbeat if she thought it was her best option. He’d be out of the country before she decided on that course of action.
He already had a first-class ticket from Toronto to Papeete, Tahiti, leaving tomorrow night. From Papeete he’d take a charter to Bora Bora, where he’d rented a small bungalow. All under the false ID that he had arranged for himself a long time ago – just in case of an emergency such as this. No one knew about it, not even Alice or Sean.
Ken hadn’t yet decided if he’d send for Sean. He’d always had a more hands-off relationship with Sean than he’d had with Alice. Sean had never liked getting his hands dirty. Alice thrived on it. Damn, I miss her already. But he wasn’t willing to trap himself trying to bust her out of jail. She had access to assets. She was a lawyer, for God’s sake. She was better equipped to get herself out of jail than he was.
Decker and the others who were left could do what they pleased. If they wanted to take the contacts Ken and his team had built over the last decade, they were welcome to them. Joel still had the accounting records, after all. Joel might even end up as the leader of the group after Ken was out of the picture. He was welcome to that too. Not that Ken thought Joel would last too much longer. The young pups would either eliminate him or Joel’s heart would simply give out. Either way, Joel was a big boy. He’d have to be fine on his own.
Ken had a singular focus – kill Marcus O’Bannion, then get out. O’Bannion was the type to follow him across the world if he put enough of the puzzle together. I’ll snip that loose end so that I don’t have to be looking over my shoulder for the next thirty or forty years.
He’d start hunting at the Ledger’s office. Many of O’Bannion’s employees had been with him for years. There had to be someone there he’d want to get back were they to be borrowed. And if he didn’t find what he was looking for at the Ledger, he had a plan B.
He’d found photos on Demetrius’s iPad of O’Bannion and that homicide detective sitting in the detective’s car outside an animal shelter. Ken had forgotten that Demetrius had tracked them there until he’d seen the photos. It seemed that O’Bannion and the detective were in some kind of very personal relationship. He didn’t want to tangle with a cop if he didn’t have to, but the pretty homicide detective would make the perfect bait.
‘Um . . .’ Decker said, and Ken realized he’d been standi
ng there too long. ‘Is there anything else you want me to do?’
‘No, no. The list of potential hires would be fine. I’ll let Sean know to expect you down at the office.’ He gave a last, mournful look at the bedroom, falling back on nostalgia to excuse his wool-gathering. ‘Demetrius and I had a lot of good times over the years. I’ll miss him.’
The look Decker gave him was warily sympathetic. ‘I understand, sir.’
No, you really don’t. ‘Goodnight, Decker. Please lock the front door on your way out.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 6.00 P.M.
Marcus had been nervous the last time he’d emerged from the elevator into the MCES squad room, but this time he was doubly so. He knew Scarlett wanted him to identify the woman in Interview Room Four as the one who’d participated in the attempt to kill him nine months ago, and he understood how important it was – both to the case and to Scarlett herself.
Trouble was, he didn’t know if he could. He had no compunction fudging a story when the target of their investigation had been guilty of so many, even worse offenses. This woman was definitely a killer – or would have been but for the tip the Feds got from their unnamed source. It should be a no-brainer just to tell Scarlett what she wanted to hear.
But where his conscience had allowed him to fudge facts in the past, this was different. This was for Scarlett, who looked at him like he could do no wrong.
Isenberg was waiting for them at the elevator. ‘Mr O’Bannion, Detective Bishop.’
Marcus didn’t miss Scarlett’s minute wince, and once again he found himself biting back the urge to tell Isenberg to fuck herself. Scarlett had enjoyed an informal, friendly relationship with her boss. Until I came along, he thought.
He clenched his teeth and followed the lieutenant to the darkened observation room on the other side of the glass from Interview Room Four. He stepped up to the glass, Scarlett standing at his side, her hands shoved in her pockets. She leaned into him just once, surreptitiously touching his upper arm with her shoulder. Support, he thought.
‘If you’re not sure, it’s okay,’ she murmured, so quietly he almost didn’t hear. But he did hear, and it was like a weight sliding off his shoulders.
There were a few people sitting along the wall behind them, cops and Feds, including Deacon and Agents Coppola and Troy. The three of them came forward, Deacon taking the spot next to Scarlett. Coppola positioned herself next to Marcus, and Troy hovered in the background.
Marcus was relieved to see that Isenberg had disappeared into the shadows in the back of the room. Scarlett had said that her boss was looking out for her career, but he thought the woman could find a better way to do it.
But he wasn’t here for Lieutenant Isenberg. He was here to identify someone who might have tried to kill him if she’d had enough time – the woman on the other side of the glass. I was her next target. The realization left him shaken. And pissed.
‘That is Alice Newman,’ Kate Coppola said. ‘She’s not happy to be here.’
Alice sat turned away from the glass, her face hidden. She was handcuffed to the chair, her back ramrod straight. Her blond hair was cut in a bob that seemed vaguely familiar.
But he hadn’t seen her, had he? He’d only heard her.
Deacon pointed to the man sitting next to her. ‘That’s Karl Hohl, the lawyer she called. She asked for the Yellow Pages, since we’d taken her phone, closed her eyes and pointed.’
‘I’ll have her turned around,’ Kate said.
‘Not yet,’ Marcus said. ‘I’d like to hear her voice before I see her face.’
‘All right,’ Kate said. ‘Then I’ll try to get her to talk.’
‘She hasn’t been cooperative,’ Deacon said. ‘You may have to make your judgment based on the recording.’
‘Understand. Try to get her to say “Hurry up”.’ Or something like that.’
As if sensing she had an audience, Alice Newman turned to look over her shoulder, and Marcus’s mouth fell open, dumbstruck. ‘Whoa. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.’
‘You know her,’ Scarlett murmured, sounding unsurprised. ‘Who is she?’
Marcus sure as hell was surprised. ‘Allison Bassett, the older sister of one of Mikhail’s friends from school. Or so she said. I didn’t know her brother and I thought I knew all of Mikhail’s friends. But after he was gone, people came out of the woodwork to give their condolences. I met a lot of Mickey’s friends that I didn’t know, so I didn’t think anything of it.’
‘How did she make contact?’ Deacon asked.
‘She came to see me in the hospital when I was out of ICU, told me how torn up her brother was. Said that they’d just moved to the area at the beginning of the school year, that her brother was nervous about being the new kid in school, but that Mickey had befriended him. She came to see me several times. We just talked. She never tried to smother me or anything,’ he added lightly, but his voice shook a little. The woman had sat three feet away from him. Close enough to kill him in his weakened state had she really wanted to.
‘What would you talk about?’ Deacon asked.
Scarlett was uncharacteristically silent, watching the woman grimly.
‘Mostly me and my family, how my recovery was going, when I was going back to work. She’d read a few of our exposés in the Ledger and asked a lot of questions. She even asked about the McCord article, saying how disgusting he was.’ He shook his head, still reeling. ‘She must have been digging, trying to find out if I planned to pick up the McCord investigation where I left off. Holy God. I had no idea. All those times she was a few feet away from me. God.’
‘And after you got out of the hospital?’ Kate asked. ‘Did she see you again?’
‘She stopped by Mom’s house a time or two. After I was healthier, I’d see her when I went to the gym and we’d talk while we ran the inside track.’
In the reflection in the glass he saw Kate frown. ‘You didn’t think it odd?’ she asked. ‘That maybe she was stalking you?’
Marcus blew out a breath, wondering how Scarlett was going to take what he was about to say. ‘No, I didn’t think it was odd because, yes, I thought she was stalking me, but not for any reason other than the normal one. I had several women visit me in the hospital. I also got emails, Facebook posts, you name it. When the news story came out about how I got shot . . .’
‘Women thought you were a super-stud hero,’ Deacon said dryly. ‘A savior of damsels in distress.’
Marcus shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Something like that. I got a number of interesting propositions, but I knew I was just the flavor of the week. It tapered off quickly enough, except for this one. That she was interested in me was pretty blatant. I flat-out asked her how she’d chosen my gym and she said it was so that she could run into me, that she’d bribed the guy at the counter to tell her when I came in so that she could work out at the same time.’
In the reflection of the window he watched Scarlett do one of her long blinks. He wasn’t sure what emotion she was hiding this time – fury that the woman had stalked him, fear that she’d come so close. Hopefully it was not hurt that Marcus had allowed it, because he hadn’t.
‘I told her I was flattered but not interested,’ he said firmly.
‘But she kept showing up,’ Scarlett said, her tone crisp and professional. Then he felt the fleetest of brushes against his hip – her fingers, still in her pocket, flexing to touch him. All she felt safe doing in the situation.
He let out the breath he was holding. ‘She did. I changed my workout time and she’d change hers. I finally told her that there was someone else.’ He dropped his voice to a murmur meant only for Scarlett’s ears. ‘And I meant it.’
Another one of those tiny brushes of her fingers. ‘Did she back off?’
‘She did, actually. She started working out with another guy and they were all over each over in no time. I was just happy that she wasn’t chasing after me anymore. Now I’m wondering who that other guy w
as, because he’d chat me up too. He just wasn’t as obvious about it. The gym – Silver Gym, a block away from the Ledger – would have a photo in their system of the guy. She called him DJ. Big guy, African-American, maybe twenty-one. Six-two, had to be two-sixty. Kid could bench three hundred. I can point him out if the gym can pull photos that match.’
Scarlett and Deacon exchanged glances. ‘His name was DJ,’ she said, ‘and he’s the right age.’
Marcus got it. ‘Demetrius Junior? He could have been. He had the right build.’
‘I’ll get on it,’ Kate said. ‘The question is, is she the one who you heard telling Demetrius that someone was coming when he was smothering you?’ She handed him an earphone and plugged it into her phone. ‘This is what we’ve got.’
Marcus put the earphone to his ear, hit play on Kate’s phone, and heard a harsh, angry voice asking for a lawyer. He listened several times, but shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘It’s such a fragmented memory, and this voice doesn’t even sound like the one I remember when I was talking to her face to face. Hearing her speak in person didn’t make me remember the time she spoke to Demetrius, so I don’t think my testimony is that relevant.’
‘I figured as much,’ Kate said. ‘But I had to check anyway.’
‘Her being associated with Demetrius’s son links her to the traffickers,’ Scarlett said.
‘Not closely enough,’ Kate said with regret. ‘Cross your fingers that we get something more useful out of her during interrogation.’
‘I can talk to her,’ Marcus said. ‘Maybe seeing me will startle her into speaking.’
Kate looked to Troy. ‘What do you think?’
‘You go in first,’ Troy said. ‘Confront her with what you know and see if you can get her to ID the older man. If she doesn’t budge, we can send O’Bannion in to join you.’
‘What older man?’ Scarlett asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘What do you know that you’re not sharing?’