Storm's Cage

by Mary Stone

  Though the color drained from Gabriel’s cheeks, he nodded. “Okay. But…how the hell did you know any of that?”

  With an expression of pure sugary sweetness, Amelia rose to her feet. “I’m with the FBI, and we have our ways. Now, do us both a favor and tell these detectives that you were downtown dressed up like a raccoon when Ian Strausbaugh was killed.”

  Gabriel wrinkled his nose, but Amelia pretended not to notice as she made her way back to the camera in the corner.

  Even once the charges against Gabriel were dropped, Detectives Reyman and Yoell would only be at the tip of the iceberg.

  One of their own had pilfered a Glock from the evidence locker and passed the weapon on to a person—more than likely a Leóne soldier—who’d put a bullet in Detective Ian Strausbaugh’s head.

  All the while, the man or woman who’d stolen the nine-mil would be lurking in the background.

  Watching for someone to get too close to their secret.

  Waiting.

  23

  I’d lingered at the precinct for a few hours after my run-in with the Fed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the agent’s visit was a harbinger of impending doom. The reason for her visit had made sense, and Natasha had told me that she’d previously worked with the woman—part of the Bureau’s Organized Crime Division—on a Leóne-related case.

  Rather than stick around for long after Detectives Reyman and Yoell had interviewed Gabriel Badoni, I advised my sergeant that I wasn’t feeling well, and I was headed home for the day. With Ian’s murder and subsequent funeral still so fresh in all our minds, he didn’t question my request.

  As I stepped into the modest foyer of my apartment and flicked the deadbolt into place, I turned to face the short hall as I rested my back against the door.

  My head was still a mess, but I needed to act. I couldn’t stand idly by and cross my fingers for the best possible outcome. I had to prepare for the worst.

  No matter how certain I was that I hadn’t left behind a trace of evidence when I’d killed Ian, I had to prepare for the very real possibility that I’d missed something.

  A hair, a fingerprint, a witness who’d seen me slip in through the kitchen door while Ian was asleep.

  Something.

  Only fools convinced themselves they’d committed the perfect crime.

  Rubbing my tired eyes, I kicked off my dress shoes and made my way to the sunlit dining area. Though the last thing I needed was more jitters, I prepared a pot of coffee as I signed onto my laptop.

  Before leaving the precinct, I’d swung by Natasha Reyman’s desk to ask her what, if anything, they’d learned from the interview with Gabriel Badoni. Her body language had been relaxed, her tone amiable and friendly, but I couldn’t help wondering if she knew.

  Apparently, Badoni had changed his alibi. I’d relied on the late hour to ensure the man would be home and that his spouse would be his only corroboration. Until today, the plan had worked.

  Now, however, Badoni had admitted to attending a swinger’s party in downtown Chicago. According to the story he’d given Natasha, his wife had felt ill that night, so she hadn’t accompanied him to the venue. Normally, swinger’s parties didn’t permit men or women without their spouse, but Gabriel claimed he and his wife were regulars. The hosts already knew him, so he’d been allowed to join even though he was solo.

  Naturally, Natasha’s first reaction was to ask Gabriel why he’d waited until the eve of the grand jury hearing to tell them the truth about his whereabouts. That had been my first question too.

  Apparently, Gabriel had been concerned for the negative fallback he and his wife might face if word got out about their extracurricular activities.

  Mrs. Badoni was a ballet instructor at a renowned dance academy, and the Badoni’s two children attended a nonreligious private school. Coupled with Gabriel’s recent promotion at the construction firm where he worked and the fact that his boss’s views trended in a more conservative direction, the upheaval to their lives, personally and financially, would be borderline disastrous.

  How, exactly, had he thought a murder charge was less embarrassing than a swinging lifestyle, I wasn’t sure.

  I also wasn’t sure that I believed Gabriel Badoni’s newest alibi, but I had to admit that his secrecy made a sick kind of sense.

  He wasn’t the only one whose source of sexual pleasure was taboo.

  Even though I was certain that Badoni’s job at the D’Amato-run construction and manufacturing business was a front, that didn’t mean his real boss—Alex Passarelli, and above him, Salvatore D’Amato—would approve. As progressive as the D’Amato family liked to think they were, sexual deviancy could taint a mafioso’s reputation for the rest of his life.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee. If Gabriel’s alibi exonerated him, I’d need all my mental clarity to prepare for the worst.

  Mug in hand, I returned to the counter-height dining table. I rarely sat there, but today, I didn’t need the cushioned comfort of the couch in the next room. I couldn’t relax. I wanted my mind sharp as I mapped out my next move.

  My go-bag was up to date with cash, fake identification cards, and a counterfeit passport. Aside from the cash I kept stored in the ceiling of my bathroom, I’d stashed money away in a couple different offshore accounts.

  All I needed was a plane ticket, and I could disappear to Panama or to any country that didn’t have extradition agreements with the United States.

  Was I overreacting?

  Carlo Enrico was dead. Other than Carlo, only Alton Dalessio and Matteo Ricci could place me at the Kankakee farm. Both of those men were also burning in hell.

  Of course, I’d been in my fair share of videos from the warehouse basement—the footage was my payment to Alton for allowing me to visit the girls they’d kept on hand. But each time, I’d gone through precautions to conceal my identity. In addition to a mask, I’d used concealer to cover up an old surgical scar on my abdomen.

  There was no way they could find me. I was sure of it.

  I shook my head. Those were the same words Ted Bundy had likely uttered before he’d been arrested and sent to the electric chair.

  I knew better. Prepare for the worst.

  Gritting my teeth, I typed in the name of a worldwide airline that ran routine flights out of O’Hare.

  I’d work on what to tell my sergeant after I was out of the country.

  24

  As Joseph glanced to his watch and then to the glass and metal door, he slumped down in his mesh-backed office chair. He’d arrived at the FBI office just before nine, and for the last four hours, he’d seen no sign of Amelia Storm anywhere in the building. Around eleven, he’d even gone as far as asking Zane Palmer if he knew Amelia’s whereabouts.

  To Joseph’s surprise, Palmer didn’t have a clue.

  However, Jasmine Keaton hadn’t stopped by the conference room to ask Joseph why Amelia hadn’t come to work. Wherever Amelia was, she’d at least informed the SAC.

  Blinking against the sunlight that streamed in through the wall-spanning windows, Joseph fiddled with the cap of a ballpoint pen as he turned to the list of names that filled the whiteboard. All but one was crossed out.

  Russel Ulmer.

  Joseph’s mouth twisted into a scowl. He was sure news of the corrections officer’s untimely demise would reach Senator Young, but Joseph didn’t particularly care. As far as Joseph was concerned, he’d done the Leónes and the senator a favor.

  I did humanity a favor. This planet’s better off without him.

  And one day soon, he’d watch the light go out in Sawyer Kastner’s eyes. He’d have retribution for the damage that bastard had done to his brother. If the prick wasn’t serving a ten-year sentence for molesting another boy—a boy whose parents held sway with the District Attorney—Joseph would have already undertaken the nearly five-hour drive to St. Louis.

  Only a year remained until Sawyer could apply for parole.

  Joseph hoped his request was g
ranted. Because as soon as Sawyer was free, he would die.

  With a sharp breath, Joseph shook himself free from the line of thought. Sawyer’s time would come. Right now, Joseph needed to figure out where in the hell Amelia Storm had gone. She hadn’t answered the two texts he’d sent, nor had she picked up when he’d called.

  A prickle of dread moved up his scalp.

  Had she told someone about his advance the night before? Had she gone to SAC Keaton to request a transfer to a different department or to a different office altogether?

  No.

  He was sure no one would side with her even if she went over their encounter. If she told anyone, they’d ask why she hadn’t just declined or why she hadn’t done more to put distance between the two of them. They’d speculate that maybe she’d led him on or that maybe she’d been dressed provocatively.

  Plastic blinds clattered against the glass door, shattering the room’s silence with the force of the Thor’s hammer.

  Joseph’s heart leapt into his throat as he dropped his pen and snapped his attention to the doorway. For the second time that day, he’d been surprised to within an inch of a coronary event. Apparently, the confrontation with Russel had made him jumpy.

  As the door swung open, a familiar pair of green eyes fell on him. The rush of foreboding receded as a slight smile crept to his face.

  With an outstretched hand, Amelia beckoned him forward before he could offer a greeting. “Come on. The tech lab has something for us.”

  Blinking away his confusion, Joseph pushed to his feet. “Good morning to you too, Storm.”

  Her expression changed little as she stepped out into the hall. “Yeah, it’s morning.”

  Joseph followed, waiting until they were close to the elevator before he spoke again. “Where have you been? I tried to get ahold of you.”

  Like a streak of lightning across a cloud, indignance flickered in her eyes. And like lightning, the anger was gone as soon as he spotted it.

  “Following up on something. I knew we didn’t have any leads to chase on the Enrico case, so I figured I’d get this taken care of.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Get what taken care of?”

  “Just a case I was helping the CPD with.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Something I’d been procrastinating.”

  With a frown, he pressed a button to summon the elevator. “Okay. Well, it would’ve been nice if you’d said something, you know?”

  Amelia kept her gaze on the number pad, staring intently as if she were inspecting each button. “Yeah, my bad, I guess. I left my phone in the car while I was in the precinct.”

  Avoiding eye contact was a clear sign to Joseph that he had successfully wormed his way into her mind. Good or bad, she was thinking about him. That was progress.

  He thought to continue the guilt trip until he received a real apology, but the irritability he’d seen in her eyes made him second-guess the tactic. Applying too much pressure often resulted in the opposite outcome. Using a person’s kindhearted nature to his benefit was an art form Joseph had mastered over a decade ago, but Amelia was different.

  Difficult, even.

  Joseph had no doubts about Amelia’s kind heart, but at the same time, she was cynical. The moment she even suspected she was being played with guilt she’d return the sentiment in spades. She had the power to make him pay dearly, though he doubted she realized it. He needed to keep it that way.

  He dismissed the idea and tucked one hand into his pocket. “Happens to the best of us. Sometimes, it’s nice to have a little break from the damn thing anyway.”

  As she tightened her ponytail, she nodded. “Yeah. It was kind of nice, actually. But I’d almost forgotten about the message I got from the tech lab manager yesterday. She didn’t say it was urgent, but I figured it’d be a good follow-up since we’ve got nothing else on our plates today.”

  The silver doors slid open with a ding, and Joseph followed Amelia into the empty elevator. “Follow up on what?”

  She jabbed a button. “The fourth guy in Alton Dalessio’s kiddie porn ring.”

  Joseph’s blood turned to ice. “Wait, what kind of follow-up?”

  Leaning against a handrail, she quirked up an eyebrow. “What do you mean? What other kind of follow-up would there be? The tech lab has been going through those videos for the past few weeks. Ever since we took down that farmhouse. Dalessio tried to run all the electronics through the dishwasher, but Portia and her team recovered about five-hundred gigabytes of data.”

  “The videos. Right.” To Joseph, his voice sounded as if it had been projected through a cheap radio from the eighties.

  Joseph had been to more murder scenes than he could count, some of which had occurred in an un-air-conditioned house in the middle of July. Between his time in the military and his tenure with the FBI, he’d seen bodies in almost every state of decomposition. He’d witnessed the gruesome start of an autopsy after the body’s rib cage had been cracked open like a walnut.

  But he’d never seen a video of a young child being sexually assaulted. He’d never wanted to see one of those.

  If Amelia had noticed his sudden panic, she didn’t react. Her voice remained monotone as she continued. “Now that Carlo Enrico’s dead, the videos are the only thing we’ve got to find the fourth guy. Enrico told us that he’s a detective in the CPD, but that’s all we got before he died.”

  Joseph took in a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves. “Right. The detective. I remember.”

  Silence descended over them like a shroud, but Joseph wasn’t inclined to break the spell. One by one, he took his thoughts and memories of Sawyer, of Dan, and he tucked them in a box in the depths of his mind.

  Neither of them spoke for the rest of the trip to the tech lab. A middle-aged woman with silver-streaked blonde hair greeted them at the door, and she introduced herself to Joseph as Portia Wingrove. Though her name was familiar, and though she advised him that she’d been with the FBI for most of her adult life, he had yet to work with her in person.

  Portia led them to a pair of monitors at the end of a lab table that spanned the length of one wall. Glancing between the computer screen and Amelia’s expressionless face, Joseph eased himself into an office chair.

  As much as he didn’t want to be here to see the photographic evidence the tech lab had amassed, he refused to show how much it rattled him.

  He couldn’t. Any semblance of weakness would lessen the control he held over his and Amelia’s relationship.

  “Sorry we couldn’t make it yesterday.” Amelia’s voice ripped him back to the present. “Our suspect is in the wind, and we were trying to catch up to him. Have you and your team found anything new?”

  Portia scooted closer to the glowing keyboard and began to type. “No need to apologize, Agent Storm. We found something, but it isn’t earth-shattering, so it’s okay you waited an additional day.”

  A slight smile made its way to Amelia’s face, but the pleasant expression disappeared as her gaze flicked over to Joseph. “Agent Larson has been helping us on this investigation. But with Carlo Enrico dead, these videos are the only chance we have to find this detective.”

  Portia tapped a few keys. “That’s what Agent Palmer said. A friend of mine in Cyber Crimes, Agent Redker, took over most of the investigation, but he told me to keep you and Agent Palmer in the loop.”

  As an image of a naked man in a ski mask appeared on the screen, Joseph sunk his fingernails into the armrest of his chair. The victim had been cropped out of the still, but the edge of a mattress and a set of flowery pink sheets were plainly visible.

  Joseph’s stomach turned as bile stung the back of his throat.

  To his relief, Portia’s disgusted exhale was enough to ground him and ward off the bout of panic.

  “This is the best image we have of him standing upright, with his feet on the floor.” Her blue eyes shifted from Amelia to Joseph. “We have a few more that we used for comparison, but this is the one we used to calcu
late his height. That whole warehouse is still sealed off, so a couple of my team went to the site and took a few measurements.”

  Clearing his throat, Joseph straightened. “Right, yeah. We did something similar to this with a snuff film about six years back. It helped us narrow down the suspect pool quite a bit.”

  Portia offered him an appreciative half-smile. “So, you’re already familiar. It’s mostly trigonometry, but we needed a reference point to start.” She pushed the cursor to the mattress and then to an exposed pipe that ran along one cement wall. “These were our two reference points. It’s a standard twin-size, so we had one of the team stand in approximately the same spot so we could have another image to refer to. The placement of this pipe helped us pin down which room this video was filmed in.”

  Amelia’s chair squeaked as she tucked one leg beneath herself. “What did you find?”

  “From our calculations, this man is somewhere between six-three and six-six.” She pulled up a separate image with lines and triangles drawn over the photo. “It’s not exact, but that height itself narrows down what we’re looking for.”

  Amelia plucked at the black fabric of her sleeve. “Well, we know he’s a detective, at least according to what Enrico told us. I’ve got no reason to think he was lying, so we could at least narrow down the suspect pool to tall detectives in the CPD.”

  As Portia opened another widow—a record of current detectives in the Chicago Police Department—she pointed to a list of names. “These are all current CPD detectives who are six-two and over. From there, we ruled out all African American and Latino men since our suspect is clearly white. Now, it’s hard to pin down his age exactly, but I didn’t see any gray hairs, so we eliminated men over fifty-five.”