One Final Breath

by Lynn H. Blackburn

Ryan blew out a long breath. “The thing with Anissa was mainly me trying to figure out where your head is with her. The real reason I brought you out here is that the captain’s thinking about taking you off the Littlefield case.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “Why?”

  Ryan pointed at Gabe’s shoulder. “You’ve been out of the office for two days. You aren’t at full strength. He’s concerned the family will be upset—”

  “Does he know you’re telling me this?”

  Ryan pursed his lips. “No. I’m guessing he has to know it’s a possibility given our friendship, but he’s planning to make a decision tomorrow.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ryan didn’t answer.

  Oh. “He’s going to give the case to you.”

  “I don’t want it, Gabe. I told him that I don’t and that I don’t think it’s wise to switch investigators midstream. I don’t guess you watched much TV while you were in the hospital, but there’s a lot of public interest and pressure on this case. There’ve been no arrests and there are no leads. He’s getting tired of having nothing to say to the press.”

  The press was going to ruin him again. “I need to get back into the office.”

  “Not tonight you don’t, but tomorrow? Probably. Leigh will lose her mind, but I’ll back you up.”

  Gabe’s thoughts ricocheted from the Jeremy Littlefield case to the Liz Brown/Jillian Davidson case to the stabbing and the bugs in Anissa’s car. He’d been in over his head plenty of times before.

  But this time it might finally be too much.

  If he dropped a ball, who would pay the price?

  15

  By unspoken but mutual consent, no one talked about the real reason they were together until after supper. Adam and Sabrina arrived around five fifteen and by five thirty the six of them had gathered around the dining room table with loaded salads and baked potatoes.

  An hour later, everyone had eaten, the kitchen was cleaned, and Sabrina, in true professorial form, had her laptop connected to Leigh’s television screen and was flipping through what appeared to be a PowerPoint presentation, but it was too fast for Anissa to catch what she’d prepared.

  “She made slides.” Gabe spoke from behind Anissa, his tone heavy with both amusement and respect. “She probably has all our cases solved by now.”

  “I do not, Gabe Chavez.” Sabrina mock-glared at Gabe over her glasses.

  “We’ll see, Dr. Fleming soon-to-be Campbell.”

  Except for when he was telling her about the listening devices Dante had located in her car, Gabe had been his usual jovial self since he and Ryan had returned from their lakeside powwow. But he’d stayed unusually close to her as well.

  She didn’t mind.

  But she minded that she didn’t mind.

  Man, she was a mess.

  When Gabe picked a spot on the left end of the sofa so he could prop his elbow on the arm—and take off the sling—and then patted the spot to his right, she sat without hesitation. Then she caught Sabrina’s reaction. The slight lifting of her eyebrows. The way she looked at Leigh, and Leigh gave her a knowing nod.

  Anissa had already spent thirty minutes deflecting Leigh’s questions. Questions she didn’t have answers to.

  She had no choice but to admit that there was one big difference between this week and last. Last week, she’d held any rogue emotions about Gabe in a firm chokehold.

  Tonight? They held her.

  “Are we ready?” Sabrina glanced around the room.

  “We’re ready, Bri.” Adam said the nickname like an endearment. Kind of the way Gabe said “Nis.”

  Sabrina perched her glasses on her head. “As I understand it, we need to talk through three separate incidents tonight. We’ll start with the one that I actually have something to talk about—the situation regarding the young girl at the hospital, Liz Brown, and her possible connection to the thirteen-year-old missing persons case of Jillian Davidson. Then we’ll discuss the Jeremy Littlefield case and then the situation with Anissa—the stabbing and the bugs.”

  Anissa couldn’t keep herself from flinching at that last part. Gabe’s right arm, which had been behind her on the sofa, landed across her back. His hand squeezed her shoulder, and then it was gone and his arm was back up on the sofa.

  Heaven help her, but she missed the weight of his arm, the warmth of his hand. She forced herself to sit straight and not lean against Gabe. She’d never had a problem avoiding him before, but now that her heart had grabbed the reins from her mind, it was running wild.

  She didn’t like this out-of-control feeling. At all.

  “Anissa?” Sabrina’s question pulled Anissa’s brain back to the situation at hand.

  “Yes?”

  “I have your permission?” Sabrina didn’t elaborate further, but Anissa knew what she meant.

  “Yes. I think everyone is familiar with the circumstances, and you’re free to share anything we’ve talked about previously. I’m an open book these days.”

  Sabrina frowned at her comment. “Anissa, I don’t like to operate in a world of opinion. I prefer facts and verifiable data. But from personal experience, I am confident that I can tell you this. Your life will be so much better for having everything out in the open. Living with secrets is exhausting. I, perhaps better than anyone else here, appreciate the difficulty in coming to terms with a new normal. A place where your dirty laundry is exposed for all to see.”

  Sabrina’s family had held a woman as a slave for a decade. Not the kind of thing you want to post on social media.

  “I was terrified of exposure. Of the truth being revealed. But it turns out that open books aren’t so bad. They let the people who love you most help you read them correctly. Most of the time people who keep everything closed and secret don’t have an accurate interpretation of the facts.”

  Anissa couldn’t respond with anything other than a nod. Thankfully Sabrina wasn’t a superemotive person and Anissa’s nod was enough for her. Leigh, however, was sniffling across the room and Ryan got up to get her a tissue.

  Sabrina turned back to her slides. “So, as we know, three-year-old Jillian Davidson disappeared from a park in Virginia and was never seen again. No body was found. No ransom request made. The case remains open, but there have been no sightings and no new leads for years.”

  She tapped her laptop and the age-progression images Sabrina had created appeared. “Anissa shared the story with me last year. I asked my friends to run three different photographs of Jillian Davidson through the software we use in our human trafficking work. These are the results we got for what she would look like at ten, thirteen, sixteen, and twenty-one.”

  Another tap. Another slide. This one with two pictures. Side by side.

  “Whoa.” Ryan leaned forward in his seat. “The picture on the left is the picture from your software. Where’d you get the picture on the right? Is that the girl from the hospital? Liz Brown?”

  “It is.” Sabrina pointed to the photograph. “I was able to obtain this from my good friends in the hospital security department. They gave me access to some footage. I told them nothing about the specifics of this case, only that I was working on a possible kidnapping, and they gave me what I needed.”

  The hospital security team probably shouldn’t have done that, but then again, Sabrina and Anissa had worked closely with them last year when Leigh was kidnapped, and it wasn’t like any of this would be needed in court.

  Neither Ryan nor Adam had seen Liz, and their surprised reactions further confirmed Anissa’s suspicions.

  “If that isn’t the same girl, then she has an identical twin out there somewhere.” Adam rubbed his hands over his face. “What’s the next step?”

  Sabrina tapped her screen. “Dante is running some prints off a water bottle Anissa got from Liz at the hospital—they weren’t awesome prints, but he’s hopeful. If we get a match, we’ll be able to get a warrant to get DNA. But w
e have to be careful. For one thing, based on Anissa’s and Gabe’s observations, this sweet child has no clue she was kidnapped as a toddler. She knows she was adopted. That’s it. This is going to be potentially earth-shattering. As ecstatic as Mr. and Mrs. Davidson will be to have their daughter returned, this is a complicated and messy situation no matter how you look at it.”

  “So much pain all the way around.” Leigh blew her nose.

  “Indeed.” Sabrina put a new slide on the screen. “It’s further complicated by the fact that Liz Brown’s mother, Velma Brown, is currently receiving oncological care in Columbia, South Carolina, for a brain tumor. I was able to do some checking and it appears that the whole story Liz told Paisley about her mom being in China was false. The mom knew she was going to be having chemo and didn’t have anyone to help care for Liz, so she sent her off to a two-month summer camp.”

  “I haven’t decided if that was merciful or diabolical.” Gabe voiced Anissa’s own thoughts.

  “I may be able to shed a little light on that,” Leigh said. “First, brain tumors can cause erratic and irrational behaviors in their own right.”

  Leigh would know. She’d once had a patient with a brain tumor who’d become fixated on her and almost killed her.

  “But this afternoon I learned that the type of tumor Velma Brown has is one that often responds well to treatment. It’s possible—and I am speculating here—that she honestly believed that if she sent Liz to camp, she could give her daughter a fun summer and spare her the angst and fear of watching her mother go through a brutal chemo regimen. And when she came home, it would be either over or almost over and she’d be well on her way to recovery.

  “Unfortunately, it seems her tumor, while it has responded to treatment, hasn’t shrunk enough for her doctors to attempt surgery and she’s facing months of chemo. There’s no way she’ll be able to hide it from Liz. She may have another five to ten years. Maybe even more. But they will be tough years. At least physically.”

  A somber hush fell on the room.

  Gabe broke it. “What about Liz’s dad? She told Paisley that he’d been gone for years.”

  “Yes. Bernie Brown. Split ten years ago around the time Liz got sick.” Sabrina flipped to a new slide. “I found him. Well, to be precise, I found his death certificate.”

  “What?” Anissa hadn’t heard this part.

  “I found it this afternoon,” Sabrina said. “He died as the result of a hit-and-run in New Jersey in March of this year.”

  This year. Was that significant? Maybe. Maybe not.

  “Do you think Liz knows? About her dad?” Adam asked.

  “Paisley or Brooke might know for sure. All we got was that he’d taken off when she was a kid.” Gabe shifted his position, and the sofa cushions tilted Anissa in his direction. She had to lean away to keep from falling against him.

  “I always thought if I ever found Jillian that it would be a glorious reunion. That everything would be happy and wonderful. I never once imagined that reuniting her with her biological family could mean ripping apart the only family she’s ever really known. I wanted her to be both safe and happy, but also happy to go home. If that makes any sense. There’s no winning here.”

  If she could get her hands on the man who did this . . . what? Would she kill him? Would it change anything if she did?

  “We have to do the next right thing.” Gabe spoke in a tone both soothing and confident. “Not oblivious to the complexities of the situation, but not fearful of them either. God’s big enough to handle this. If he’s put you in a position—now—after all these years to restore this family, then we have to trust he has a plan for dealing with the fallout.”

  “She’s so . . .” Anissa’s voice cracked.

  “I know.” Gabe patted her shoulder, and this time his hand rested there as he spoke to the group. “Y’all would love this girl. She’s fun. Spunky. Great attitude. I don’t want to be responsible for putting her spark out. We have to be very, very careful as we move forward.”

  “If Dante can’t get a usable print off the water bottle, I’m prepared to go back through her trash can and find something. And if that doesn’t work, I’m prepared to take all this to the captain and get permission to get a print no matter what.” Anissa’s stomach roiled. “But I don’t want her to have a clue about any of this until we’re one hundred and ten percent certain.”

  “Agreed,” multiple voices responded.

  “Did you say Velma Brown is in Columbia?” Gabe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What if I call Brady St. John and see what he can find out about her? He might even be able to talk to her. Go by her place and see what there is to see.”

  “Who is Brady St. John?” Leigh asked.

  “He’s Gabe’s buddy,” Ryan said. “Underwater criminal investigator. You remember. He’s the one we helped out last year when that boat was at the bottom of Lake Porter.”

  “Oh yeah. The one where lots of bullets went flying? He sounds perfect for a job like this.” Leigh’s tone and smile were a master class in sweet sarcasm.

  Gabe ignored Leigh. He moved his right arm away from Anissa and tugged his phone out of his back pocket. “I’ll text Brady now. Sabrina, please proceed.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He rested the phone in his left hand and bit back a hiss of pain when he moved too fast. It was annoying to have his entire left side so stiff and achy. Getting stabbed stank. He finished the text and left the phone on his leg. It was easier than trying to squirm around and put it back in his pocket.

  He settled back into the corner of the couch and caught Anissa watching him. Not in an obvious way. More of a side glance. He would have taken another stabbing to have a clue what she was thinking.

  “So, we have a loose plan going forward regarding Liz Brown, who may or may not be Jillian Davidson.” Sabrina tapped a screen. “On to Jeremy Littlefield.”

  Sabrina wasn’t one for lengthy transitions.

  “I have been digging into both of the families—both Jeremy’s and Brooke’s. The Littlefields are well-off. Finances are good. Marriage seems to be good. Work situations stable. Mr. Littlefield is well liked. I’ve run through numerous scenarios and can’t find any reason for anyone to target the family.”

  A picture of Paisley Wilson filled the screen.

  Leigh let a little hiss escape. “I don’t like that girl.”

  “Join the club,” Sabrina said. “Paisley Wilson has ticked off more than just the Carrington law enforcement community. Since becoming a reporter, she’s exposed a representative’s illicit affair, blown the lid off another county’s bribery scheme involving a sheriff, and been ferocious in her reporting on everyone associated with the human trafficking ring we busted last year.”

  Sabrina shrugged. “Any one of these people, plus about twenty others, could have been angry enough to go after her in some way. But targeting Brooke instead of Paisley herself? That’s pretty cold. And it doesn’t fit the facts. From what I was able to gather, their dip in the lake was spontaneous. They’d spent the day on the lake and were sitting on the dock at Jeremy’s aunt’s house. Brooke dared Jeremy. They dove in. No one could have known they would be in that lake at that time. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but the facts we have available to us don’t support that this was anything other than a random shooting.”

  She looked at Gabe. “I’m sorry. I was hoping for a smoking gun—literally or digitally—but I don’t have one right now.”

  “It’s okay. This is all important too. We have to rule it out so we know we’re looking in the right direction. Thank you.”

  She blew out a breath and a new slide appeared. Two electronic listening devices. “Moving on. These are the bugs found in Anissa’s car. Dante is trying to find out where they came from, but it’s a long shot and we both know it. The bottom line is that given the timing of the placement of these devices—one a week ago and one within the last seventy-two hours—the air out of your t
ires takes on a whole new dimension. It’s an educated guess, but it seems likely this one was placed whenever the culprit let the air out of your tires. This one? I don’t know for sure, but I’ve checked surveillance footage from the sheriff’s office and it didn’t happen there. It could have happened at the gym—you go early in the morning and it’s dark and they don’t have cameras. It could even have happened at church Sunday. Big, open parking lot. Lots of people. There’s no way to know, but the one thing we do know is that someone who does not like you has gotten very close to you. And, of course, the stabbing—I analyzed the placement, how Gabe would have been standing, et cetera. If you had opened the door and the knife had taken the same trajectory . . .” Sabrina ran out of words. Not normal for Sabrina when giving a presentation.

  “Go on,” Anissa said.

  “The knife would have been at your neck.” Sabrina didn’t stop there. “You need to get it in your head that someone is trying to kill you and they don’t seem likely to stop trying anytime soon.”

  Anissa didn’t flinch. “My list of people with motive is longer than Paisley’s. Where do we even start?”

  “I think you need to go through all your old case files. See who’s still in jail, who got out recently, that kind of thing. Because I think we need to consider the timing.”

  Another click and the screen changed. This slide had a timeline on it.

  “Paisley was sent the file on the murder of Carly and kidnapping of Jillian back in March. Liz Brown may be Jillian. Her adoptive father was killed by a hit-and-run in March. Both Velma and Liz have been very vulnerable for weeks and nothing has happened to them, which leads me to think they aren’t targets. Possibly because they don’t know enough to be a danger. I’ll admit that this is a bit of a leap, but based on everything in front of me, it’s entirely possible that whoever killed Carly and kidnapped Jillian is coming after you.”

  Gabe didn’t like it when Sabrina made leaps in her logic.

  Well, that wasn’t true. Normally he liked it a lot. She was disciplined, methodical, and didn’t like to guess at anything. When she did, her guesses were almost always accurate.