Storm's Cage

by Mary Stone

  And more than that, I knew that Floyd and Natasha would find a piece of evidence.

  They’d find the murder weapon, and then they’d find the D’Amato man.

  10

  Drumming his fingers against the doorframe, Joseph craned his neck, hoping to glimpse an end to the bumper-to-bumper traffic that had them in a standstill.

  He slumped back against the passenger side seat. “It’s not even rush hour. How the hell does this happen?”

  To his side, Amelia let out a quiet snort of laughter. It was the first sign of humor he’d gotten from her since they’d been in her car. “Trips downtown are always a hot mess. It’s why I try to avoid them at all costs.”

  Joseph scrubbed his hands over his cheeks. “Yeah, I learned that the hard way when I first moved here. But still, even after living here for eight years, Chicago traffic still just blows my mind.”

  “I think that’s true for most of us.” As her green eyes momentarily flicked to him, then back to the road as quickly, the corner of her mouth lifted in the slightest of smiles. “I don’t think I ever asked you, but where were you before you moved to Chicago?”

  “Miami.”

  One of her sculpted brows quirked up. “Really? I didn’t really picture you as a Miami type of person.”

  With a chuckle, he shook his head. “I’m not. I was stationed in Florida, and then I met my ex-wife.” He was quick to correct himself. “The first ex-wife. Staying in Florida seemed like a good idea at the time, but I hated it. The ocean and the beaches are great, but that climate is not my idea of a good time. Then she cheated on me, so I filed for divorce and moved to the first field office I could find. And now, here I am.”

  The recollection was only partly untrue. His ex had cheated on him, but his decision to transfer to Chicago was more calculated than he was willing to admit to Amelia. The Windy City was one of Brian Kolthoff’s stomping grounds, and Brian and his friend, Stan, had offered Joseph a job he would have been stupid to refuse.

  On paper, Joseph’s employer was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In reality, he worked for Senator Stan Young.

  “Wow.” Amelia pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “That sucks, I’m sorry. About the ex, I mean.”

  “It happens.” He waved her sympathy away with a swat of his hand. “And I guess it happens more when you’re gone working for weeks at a time. But the good thing about it was that she got turned down when she filed for alimony.”

  She smiled again, this time a bit broader. Amelia did have a pretty smile. She should show it off more.

  “I guess you’ve got to look for the silver lining when something like that happens.” Her voice had a hopeful tone.

  “Yeah, I guess.” As the car crept forward a few measly inches, Joseph gazed out through the windshield. He wondered who would reach the traffic light first, them or the lady hobbling along on her walker. “Well, as long as we’re stuck here, what’s our plan when we get to the prison?”

  Amelia tapped her index and middle finger against the steering wheel. “Security footage first. We might get lucky, but I doubt we can count on finding any witnesses willing to talk to the Feds.”

  “So, we look into the physical evidence first.” He nodded. “That makes sense. Gives us more ammo when we finally start interviewing.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Well, so much for that discussion.

  As the newest Creedence Clearwater Revival tune—one of the few bands he and Amelia could agree on—came to an end, the traffic finally started to move.

  As much as Joseph hated to be stuck in traffic, he figured he might as well use his and Amelia’s time alone together to his advantage.

  Clearing his throat, he turned his full attention to Amelia. “Hey, could I ask you something? Kind of personal, but not.” He waved a hand. “Not that kind of personal. More like a question from one combat veteran to another, you know?”

  The good humor drained from her face. He’d expected that, given their recent past encounters. “Um, okay. Sure.” Her eyes flicked to his. “What is it?”

  Joseph rubbed at his chin in feigned contemplation. “I’ve just been wondering, or I’ve been curious, I guess. When you were in that room with Alton Dalessio, how’d you know he was going to shoot? Not that I doubt you or anything. It’s not like that at all.” He tilted his head to the side, hoping to appear genuinely curious. “It’s just, from where I was standing in the doorway, it looked like Dalessio was about to drop his weapon.”

  Amelia kept her eyes straight ahead. To her credit, no part of her facial expression belied so much as a hint of anxiety. In fact, he would have been convinced that she was relaxed if he hadn’t spotted the way her knuckles were going white under her crushing grip on the steering wheel.

  As if she could sense the scrutiny in that pregnant silence, she turned to meet his curious gaze.

  In the split-second when her eyes first fell on his, he could have sworn he spotted the low-burning fire of fury in her expression. But as quickly as the flames had appeared, the ire vanished.

  He realized then that she knew the game he’d started, and he was hard-pressed to keep the smirk off his face. If she knew the game, his victory would be all the sweeter.

  Deeply satisfied, he turned toward the never-ending line of cars. “Sorry, like I said, I don’t mean to sound like I’m doubting you. But…” he let the word hang in the air with a long pause, “I vouched for you, under oath. It might ease my conscience a little if I knew more about what you were thinking at the time.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was harsh, almost like she’d just finished chain-smoking an entire pack of unfiltered cigarettes. As she cleared her throat, her stare didn’t so much as drift in Joseph’s direction. “Dalessio was dangerous. We both knew that. I’d just finished passing the bodies of four little girls he’d killed, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume he’d put a bullet in my or Yanira Flores’s skull if he got the chance.”

  “I completely agree.” And he did. Joseph was glad that Alton Dalessio was dead, but the creep’s untimely death was useful. “But I suppose I’m mostly wondering how you knew he wasn’t willing to surrender. Some guys like that, even some mass shooters will throw down their weapons so the cops won’t kill them, you know? It doesn’t make any sense to us, but there’s some twisted logic in their heads that they follow.”

  Shifting awkwardly in her seat, Amelia turned to meet Joseph’s gaze with a sudden look of dominance. “It was a situational assessment. You know those, right?”

  “I do.”

  “You weren’t standing where I was. You didn’t see the look in his eyes, and you weren’t there when he told me he wasn’t going to prison. I’ve seen that look before, and I knew what it meant. He was about to make his last stand.” She shook her head. “As soon as I saw his arm lifting, even after I’d told him to drop his weapon, I knew what he was going to do.”

  Joseph drummed his fingers along the doorframe as he pretended to mull over her words. He hadn’t actually seen her fire the shot that had killed Dalessio, but as far as the FBI was concerned, he’d been the only reliable witness. Though one of Dalessio’s victims, a sixteen-year-old girl named Yanira, had been inside the room with Dalessio, she’d been too scared to be reliable enough to pull into an official FBI hearing.

  Joseph casually leaned against the headrest, choosing his words carefully. Not too threatening, they had to apply just the right amount of mental pressure. “I guess it’s a good thing that I was there to back you up, then. I don’t think the Bureau would’ve been all that keen on that response. Especially not with the spotlight that’s been shining on law enforcement in the past couple years.”

  He swore he could hear her teeth grate together.

  Though he wanted nothing more than to lay out his leverage over her, to request a pit stop, to see that beautiful shadow of defeat in her eyes as he watched her undress, he knew better. Amelia was smart and resourceful, and if he wanted her to b
end to his will, he had to be patient.

  He had the upper hand today, and he’d have the upper hand tomorrow.

  This was a game he’d played before, and he’d never lost.

  11

  Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Amelia fought against the urge to keep more than a professional distance from Joseph Larson. Fellow agent or not, Joseph’s presence gave her the same sense of safety and comfort as a stick of lit dynamite.

  As they waited for Donovan Gillem to enter a code into the keypad so they could access MCC Chicago’s surveillance room, Amelia made a last-minute effort to pull together her thoughts.

  Though her gut instinct—the same one that had kept her from falling victim to Mr. Davids, her grade school math teacher—told her there was a vile intent hidden beneath Joseph’s composed exterior, she had no tangible evidence to back up the suspicion.

  Sure, her personal dealings with Joseph had revealed the truth of him being a prick with no qualms about lying to his so-called friend. As long as that lie meant he’d get laid. But in the near decade she’d spent in the military, in a profession dominated by men, she’d met plenty of guys whose skeevy behavior qualified them as womanizers.

  Most grew out of the phase, but maybe Joseph was one of the special jerks who clung to their frat boy mentality.

  His questions about Alton Dalessio could have been driven by genuine curiosity, as he’d assured her they were. If Amelia hadn’t been justified when she’d shot Dalessio, and if Joseph really had covered for her, then his need for answers about the situation was reasonable. Had their roles been reversed, Amelia was sure she’d be compelled to ask him for clarification, wouldn’t she?

  Yes, she would.

  The clatter of the magnetic lock snapped her attention back to the present.

  Warden Gillem looked at her and Joseph as he pushed down on a sturdy lever handle. With one hand, the warden held open the door until they had entered the dim space.

  White light from dozens of flickering monitors shone on the bald head of the corrections officer who was seated at the wide, horseshoe-shaped desk.

  Brushing off the front of his black uniform dress shirt, the man turned to face them. “Afternoon, Warden.” His dark eyes flicked between the two agents. “Are these the two Feds we’ve been waiting for?”

  “Agents Storm and Larson.” As he held the door, Gillem gave the man a stern look. “I’d stay to help, but I’ve got my hands full with this lockdown. Agents, this is Phil Mason, one of our security specialists. He knows more about this system than I do, but if you need anything from me, just holler. I won’t be far away.”

  Joseph nodded. “Appreciate it. We’ll let you know.”

  Waving to a pair of chairs at his side, the man scooted to make room for them. “Have a seat. I had a little time before you two got here, so I’ve got a lot of the footage pulled up and ready for you to look at.”

  Amelia accepted the offered seat and rolled closer to the pair of computer monitors at the center of the workstation. She expected Joseph to sit, but he continued to stand.

  Amelia propped an elbow atop the matte gray desk and returned her attention to the corrections officer. “What have you got for us?”

  Phil pointed to the computer monitor as he pulled up a folder and opened the first file in the list. “For starters, we put the time of Carlo Enrico’s attack between 11:27 and 11:31.”

  “Four minutes?” Amelia leaned forward and squinted at the black and white video of one of the prison’s cafeterias. She was used to dealing with estimated times of death in the range of hours, not minutes.

  Lifting a shoulder, Phil tapped a key to zoom in on the image. “Other than the cells themselves, just about every part of the building that’s occupied by inmates is monitored by a camera around the clock.” Phil moved the cursor to the shape of a man who was returning an emptied tray to a cafeteria worker.

  As Joseph leaned in to get a better look at the video, he rested a hand on the back of Amelia’s chair to balance himself. The faint scent of his woodsy cologne drifted to her at the lessened distance, and the first rush of nausea built in her throat.

  Swallowing past the desert in her mouth, Amelia clenched her hand into a fist. She didn’t stop until her nails bit into the sensitive skin of her palm.

  She needed to focus.

  The sooner they figured out who’d stabbed Carlo, the sooner she could go back to the shoebox office with Zane and forget that Joseph Larson existed.

  Until the next time she was stuck on a case with him, at least. But she’d cross that bridge when she got there.

  Though she was tempted to shoot Joseph a warning glance, she tilted her head at the monitor instead. “That’s Carlo Enrico.”

  “Yep.” Phil kept the cursor on Carlo as he strode past a pair of circular metal tables to make his way around the edge of the room.

  None of the inmates seated throughout the space made the slightest movement to indicate that they were aware of Carlo’s existence. Conversations continued unabated, eyes remained fixed on the late morning meal, and asses stayed glued to seats.

  As Amelia watched Carlo disappear into a hallway at the other end of the cafeteria, Phil pressed a key, switching the feed over to a new camera, and Carlo came into frame again.

  Just in time for them to see him disappear around a corner. The seconds ticked away on the timestamp at the bottom of the video, but none of the inmates took off after Carlo.

  Finally, at the 11:31 timestamp, a portly man with a head full of thick, silver hair ambled over to the entrance of the hall. Less than twenty seconds after he stepped into the corridor, he shot back into the common area with speed Amelia hadn’t expected. But even if the inmate was in better shape than he appeared, twenty seconds wasn’t enough time to stab a person fourteen times.

  Hurrying up to the nearest corrections officer, the middle-aged man jabbed a finger at the hall.

  As the alarm was sounded, the scene descended into organized chaos.

  Turning her puzzled stare to Phil, Amelia had almost forgotten about Joseph’s bizarre closeness. “No one followed him from the cafeteria. What other views do you have?”

  Phil tapped another monitor that was midway through the second row of glowing screens.

  A pair of crime scene techs milled about behind the yellow tape that blocked off the bloodied walls and floor. From where the camera had been mounted high in the corner, they were afforded a view of a hall that led to a T-shaped intersection.

  Joseph’s pale blue eyes shifted to Phil. “That camera should’ve caught the entire thing, right?”

  Rubbing a hand over his bald head, Phil hesitated as if uncertain what to say. His arm trembled as it reached toward the computer mouse. “It should have. But, well. Here’s the footage.” He used the mouse to drag the recording back to 11:27.

  Black and white static covered the screen, and Amelia bit her tongue to suppress a groan. “What was wrong with it? It’s fixed now, obviously. Why was it down in the first place?”

  Scratching the side of his face, Phil shook his head. “I noticed it go staticky at about quarter past eleven, and I called the tech guys as soon as I saw it. None of them were able to get to it until after the lockdown, and after this poor SOB got stabbed half to death.”

  Joseph recrossed his arms. “Okay, but what was wrong with it?”

  Phil clicked through a couple windows to pull up a short form. “This is the work order. It says that there was something wrong with the cable. Guess it was faulty. No signs that it’d been tampered with, though.”

  Joseph snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t disagree, Agents.” Phil’s head jerked up so fast to face them, Amelia wondered if it might snap off. “I’m just reading what’s on the work order.”

  As Amelia propped her head up with one hand, she absentmindedly fidgeted with the hem of her cardigan. “I know, Mr. Mason. We appreciate your help, but Agent Larson has a point. The timing of that camera outage is
too convenient. Is there any way you can contact your tech people and have them send the faulty camera hardware over to the FBI?”

  The tension eased from Phil’s face. “I can do that.”

  “Good.” She waved a hand at the computer monitors. “What about an alternate route to that hallway?”

  Moving the live footage aside, Phil pulled up a new scene. “This camera is mounted above the door to a broom closet, but the opening you see on the left leads to the hall where Enrico was stabbed. Here, I’ll roll it back to a few minutes before.”

  As Amelia kept her intent stare on the video of the hall, the room lapsed into silence. Though Phil had pressed a button to speed up the footage, there was no mistaking what the camera had recorded.

  An empty hallway.

  The only foot traffic—a pair of corrections officers and a doctor—arrived after the flashing lights indicated a lockdown was underway.

  Turning her attention to Phil, Amelia lifted an eyebrow. “Are those the only two entrances to the crime scene?”

  Phil’s head bobbled awkwardly as he nodded a little too eagerly. “Those are it.”

  Joseph stared at the screen, scrunching his face as if searching for something they had missed. “And there’s no one. Not unless there was someone waiting there for half an hour, but my guess is that an inmate lurking in a hallway for that long would’ve drawn someone’s attention.”

  “It would have shown up on the video of the cafeteria.” Amelia tapped her foot and squinted at the screen. “We would have seen them leaving the scene on either that camera or this one, but there was no one, in or out. So, unless Carlo stabbed himself and sliced into his own liver, or unless our perp is a ghost, we’re looking for an alternate entrance.”

  Joseph leaned in to point at the live footage of the blood-spattered floor and the two techs. “There’s a door here, halfway between where Enrico dropped and the end of the hall. Where does this lead?”

  “That door’s locked.” Phil shook his head. “It leads to one of our backup supply areas, and then a breakroom, and past that is a locker room.”