Dark Deeds

by Anne Marie Becker

  Tony shook his head in wonder. “I had pegged him for a weakling who got his rocks off by hearing how tough guys got the job done.”

  “Where’d you get the girls, Tony?” Becca could barely conceal the hate in her voice as she imagined Samantha, young and alone, taken from the world she’d known and thrown into hell.

  “Everywhere. Wherever we came across them. There were so many. Too many to count.” His grin was back. “Certainly more than the cops charged me with. But I kept something from each...so I’d have something to remember them by.”

  “And you remember Samantha?”

  “Oh, yes. She was unusual.”

  “How so?”

  “She was a special request.”

  Becca could sense Diego wanting to draw closer. Something big was about to be revealed.

  Tony met Becca’s gaze with a sly grin. “Someone paid me big money to take her.”

  “Tell me who, and where.” Was that her voice that was so breathless?

  Tony shook his head. “I’ll only tell Damian Manchester himself. I want him here, with my lawyer. I’m not giving the information away for cigarettes anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Thursday, 5:55 p.m.

  Northwest Side, Chicago

  The street his target lived on was quiet and cold, and Patrick stomped his feet in the dead grass several times to keep the blood moving. But with the winter cold came the early darkness that would aid his mission.

  He’d called to see if she’d left for the day and had been immediately sent to voicemail. Given her vigilance at the SSAM desk, Catherine Montague must have headed home. He only had a little while longer to hang out in the cold along the side wall between her and her neighbor’s home.

  Once he had Catherine, the game would truly be underway. Eve had been impatient, both angrier and more lethargic as time went by, but she wouldn’t have to wait much longer. It would give her time to rethink her priorities, anyway. The little bitch probably hadn’t ever been spanked as a child, and now felt the world was entitled to hear her opinion. He used to think her opinion counted. Now he knew she wasn’t trustworthy.

  Like Jack Spratt, he’d tucked her away in a pumpkin shell where he could keep her very well. He snickered, then recovered his composure. The thought of seeing Becca, face-to-face, soon had him giddy, which could lead to mistakes. But there was nobody around to hear him. Catherine lived on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood with old brick single-family homes. He wondered why a single woman in her late twenties would rent a house like this, especially on an administrative assistant’s salary, rather than choose an apartment closer to town. Perhaps she’d confess to him tonight, when he helped her unburden her conscience.

  A car approached and he ducked further into the shadows, pressing his back against the cold brick as the headlights of a vehicle flashed against the neighbor’s wall, indicating Catherine had turned into her driveway. The sound of the garage door rattling as it slid upward confirmed he could slip out of his hiding place. He silently made his way along the outside wall of the garage and waited until he heard her car door close with a soft thunk.

  Most people didn’t bother to look back to see if the garage closed all the way once they’d pressed the button to initiate it, let alone watch to make sure nobody dodged inside before it was fully closed. He was betting Catherine would do the same.

  The door began rattling again, this time on its way down. The garage door was still only halfway through its descent when he heard the interior door that led from the garage to the house close, indicating she had gone inside. Patrick bent in half to squeeze under, but lifted his feet high as he stepped across the threshold, so as not to trigger any safety mechanisms that would stop the door.

  Ducking his head low, he pressed close to the rear of Catherine’s Jeep Cherokee, letting the adrenaline settle a moment before he moved on. The garage grew quiet as its door finished its journey, shutting out the frigid evening air and leaving Patrick with nothing but an inner door between him and the next part of his project.

  Very slowly, Patrick opened the door leading into the house. It didn’t creak, and there was a small laundry area on the other side, with another open door that gave him a view of part of the kitchen. Though he couldn’t see Catherine, she hummed as she moved about, out of sight but not far out of reach. His fingers caressed the length of rope coiled in his pocket. Soon it would be about her slender neck.

  Thursday, 6:07 p.m.

  Metropolitan Correctional Center

  “I think it would be best for me to wait in the observation room,” Lorena told Damian. She was at his side as they went through the security checkpoint at the prison.

  He was touched that she had dropped everything the moment Becca had called him with Tony Moreno’s demands. It had taken a while to get Tony’s lawyer there, too, and to arrange for a private meeting with the prisoner after hours. But Damian had friends in high places, and had gladly traded favors to make this happen. He’d do anything to learn more about Sam’s disappearance.

  With a half smile, Lorena turned to Becca and Diego. “Fill us in.”

  Becca looked toward the interview room where, presumably, Tony was talking with his lawyer. “Tony likes to manipulate, so be on your guard. In fact, this whole thing might be a game for his amusement.”

  “But you think he has something valuable?” Damian said, daring to hope. He trusted Becca’s instincts.

  She blew out a breath. “I hope I didn’t bring you here for nothing, sir, but I think he does have information about Samantha. He mentioned he takes trophies from his victims.”

  Damian was surprised. “We didn’t find any evidence of that when you caught him last year.”

  “No. He apparently kept a storage room he gave Patrick access to, in exchange for Patrick proving himself to Tony by killing Fanta. Tony would have been in his mid-twenties at the time of Samantha’s disappearance, he’s a hardened criminal with a record stretching back to juvie, and records show that he’s lived in Chicago all his life, so it’s not unbelievable that he could have been involved in her disappearance.”

  “But?” Damian sensed there was a flip side to this coin.

  “But we think he could also be snatching at his last chance to make some kind of deal,” Diego said. “He knows who you are, and is aware of your connections and wealth. He thought Patrick would be his road to fame and fortune, but that appears to have fallen through. The Circle must know he’s been talking to Patrick, and now to us. He doesn’t have many friends left, by my count.”

  Damian’s gaze moved between the pair. “You think he’s making things up to get something from me?”

  Becca shrugged delicately. “Hard to tell until we see what he’s asking for in exchange. Couldn’t hurt to talk.” She glanced at the clock on the wall in the waiting area. “We don’t have a lot of time, sir. We need to know where Patrick thinks it all began.”

  Lorena reached out and slipped her hand into his, then gave it a supportive squeeze. Her fingers were long, smooth and warm within his. “I’ll be listening and watching from the other room.” The prison had a surveillance video feed hooked up to watch from an adjoining security office.

  Becca and Diego entered the interview room with Damian but stayed on the fringes. Tony grinned and Damian hated him all over again. Had this monster grinned at his daughter like that, just before he stole her away? Damian didn’t want to think what other crimes this man might have perpetrated on his daughter, or anybody else. It filled him with a rage he struggled to subdue.

  “You requested to see me, Mr. Moreno?” Damian managed to keep a cool exterior as he sat opposite the man without offering his hand.

  Tony’s lawyer cleared his throat. “My client is prepared to give you some valuable information if you sign this document.”

  Damian pulled reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on. He scanned through the paragraph that laid out what Tony expected of him.

  “As you can s
ee,” the lawyer summarized, “this agreement indicates you will attempt to arrange for Tony Moreno’s transfer to a more comfortable high-security prison in a state far from here.”

  “He doesn’t specify where.”

  “Anywhere,” Tony said, speaking for the first time. “As long as it’s out of the Circle’s reach. And I want a personal bodyguard or extra security, or whatever you can arrange, until I can ship out.”

  Damian doubted anyone was outside of the Circle’s reach. “Why?”

  “They’ll kill me once they know I’ve been talking. I thought Patrick was going to be my ticket to safety, exchanging my interviews for a book deal that would keep me in enough money to buy protection within these walls. He duped me.” Tony’s voice vibrated with anger. His muscles flexed beneath his orange jumpsuit. When they put Patrick in jail, he’d better pray he wasn’t near this man. “Nobody gets away with that.”

  Tony’s gaze flicked to Becca and Diego, then back to Damian. “You want answers that only I have. I need a deal only you can provide. The ball’s in your court.”

  “I’ll do what I can to get you transferred. You have my word.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  Unflinching, Damian held the man’s gaze. “It’s all I can promise. I don’t have ultimate power here. I only have connections of whom I can ask favors. My offer ends in—” Damian pulled his sleeve back to look at his watch, “—one minute.”

  Tony slammed a fist on the table. “I’m not giving you something for nothing.”

  “I’m in a bit of a time crunch. And you can bet I’ll try to get you moved if you talk to me. I want to know what you know...and that means keeping you alive.”

  Tony looked at his lawyer, who nodded. “Deal,” Tony said. “But if you don’t come through...” His lawyer put a hand on Tony’s shoulder, keeping him from completing his threat.

  Damian pulled a pen out of his pocket and signed the document, then pushed it across the table to the lawyer. The lawyer scooped up the document, nodded to Tony, then left the room.

  “I told him we’d want privacy for this,” Tony said. He seemed to forget Becca and Diego were there. They’d faded into the background.

  “Did you touch my daughter?” Damian couldn’t control the tic in his jaw at the thought of Samantha’s possible pre-death torture. Of course, if it turned out that wasn’t Sam’s body...

  “I didn’t touch her,” Tony said, solidly meeting Damian’s gaze. “Nobody did but the client.”

  “And I’m just supposed to believe that?”

  Tony shrugged. “Believe what you want. Someone paid big money to have her. You want the man responsible for your daughter’s death?”

  Like he wanted his next breath.

  Tony smiled, apparently seeing the answer in Damian’s nonverbal cues—the tightening of his jaw, the widening of his pupils, the hitch in his breathing. He struggled for a calm demeanor when his brain was screaming to reach across the table, rip out Tony’s taunting tongue and shove it down his throat.

  “Then follow the money,” Tony said.

  Damian had no patience for cryptic messages. “You had to have told Patrick more than this. What did you give him?”

  “Sam’s necklace.” Tony’s statement seemed to echo in the room.

  Damian’s chest hurt so badly he thought his sternum was caving in. He blinked, trying to control the painful reaction to the memory of Sam wearing the gift he’d given her. She’d very rarely taken it off. They’d held back the details of Samantha’s jewelry from the media, hoping, when it hadn’t been found with her body, that it had been kept by the killer, and would become a useful piece of evidence one day. It looked like that detail was about to pay off.

  * * *

  Becca hid her nervousness behind a stern look, trying to be invisible as the two men squared off verbally. But when the necklace came up, she couldn’t stifle a gasp. Tony really did have something to do with Samantha Manchester’s disappearance. Surreptitiously, she tried to glance at Damian to see how he was taking this information. His jaw was clenched, but otherwise, he was calm. He had to be reeling inside, but he was determined to get the answers he deserved.

  “Describe the necklace,” he ordered.

  Tony shrugged. “I could have showed it to you, before Patrick got hold of it.”

  “Describe it,” Damian ordered again.

  “Silver chain, little silver butterfly with pale pink gems in the body. The wings were made out of a whitish gem that sparkled like a rainbow.”

  “Opal. Her birthstone.” Damian spoke to Becca without turning to look at her. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from Tony. “I gave it to her for her twelfth birthday. She wore it always.”

  “And it wasn’t found on the body?” Becca asked.

  “No.” Damian still nailed Tony with his gaze.

  Tony smirked. “And neither was the matching bracelet, was it?”

  Damian’s fingers gripped the edge of the table. “What do you know about a bracelet?”

  He shrugged. “It had the same charm, only smaller. A butterfly with the same gems.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “The man who paid for her has it, I’m sure. Unless it was found with the body.”

  A muscle leaped in Damian’s jaw. “Is that my daughter’s body that we buried, or is it someone else, meant to mislead us?”

  Tony’s grin faded, and he finally looked to be taking this as seriously as they were. “That’s her body.”

  Becca stifled a gasp. Samantha was dead. There was no more hope for Damian—except to find her killer.

  Damian closed his eyes for a brief moment, then turned an intense look on Tony. “Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask her killer that.”

  “How do I know you didn’t kill her?”

  “I was only paid to take her. I stashed her in the usual place for a day.”

  “What place was that?” Becca asked, sensing they were getting to the information she needed to find Patrick. He’d told her to meet him where it all began. That she’d find Eve there. Could he mean the place where Samantha had been taken by the Circle...where the crime had begun that had ultimately led to Damian starting his agency...the agency Patrick had become such a fan of?

  “A building with holding cells in the basement,” Tony said.

  “Just like in New York,” she said. “The Cattle Call.”

  “Makes sense,” Diego said, emerging from his silence. “The Circle has a set way of doing things. They find what works for them and repeat it in other cities.”

  “Give me an address,” Damian ordered Tony. “I’ll get you your protection.”

  * * *

  “You think he’s telling the truth?” Becca asked when Tony had been returned to his cell and she and Diego stood outside the interview room.

  “I do.” Diego looked down the hall to where Damian’s head was bent close to Lorena’s. She was saying something forcefully, but they were too far away to hear. Given the way her hands were fluttering about, it was important.

  Diego turned his gaze to Becca. “You okay?”

  “I will be once we find Eve.”

  “Lock Patrick away. Save Eve. Find Samantha’s killer. You can do it all, can’t you?” His gentle smile said he wasn’t being sarcastic.

  “You bet your ass I can.” Now that they had an address, she could do anything.

  “I’d place that bet.” He looked at her mouth as if he wanted to press a kiss there. Her lips tingled with anticipation, but he didn’t bend to claim his kiss. “We should find Nico and fill him in.”

  Becca glanced at her phone to check the time. “We’ve got a few hours. Damian will have Einstein track down the blueprints for the building. Maybe we can study it and get an advantage.”

  Damian came toward them at a fast clip, holding a phone to his ear. “Let me know when you’re sure,” he said to someone on the other end. Lorena was following in his wake.

  Becca got a chill
at the look on Damian’s face. Had they found Eve’s body? “What’s wrong?”

  “That was Einstein. He’s been trying to get in touch with Catherine for the last hour to see if she could help view more videos at the CPD. She promised she’d make herself available, but she’s not answering the phones at SSAM or at her house.”

  Becca’s skin tingled with certainty that something was wrong. It wasn’t like Catherine to be unreachable.

  Thursday, 9:54 p.m.

  South Side, Chicago

  Nico jutted a chin toward them. “Armed?”

  “To the teeth,” Diego said. He had a gun at his hip and another at his ankle. And a rebar knife at the other ankle. For balance.

  “The CPD is standing by in their positions. And I’ll be there the moment you need anything,” Diego said into the mic, looking toward the other alley where Becca had moved to test the connection, putting some distance between her and the car he and Nico were sitting in.

  “Gotcha.” Becca responded through the mic sewn into the collar of her shirt.

  The equipment was working then. They’d gone over and over the plan, but it had been hastily put together and there were always unknowns walking into a situation such as this at the last second.

  He looked down the street to the building Tony had indicated had once been a front for the Circle’s illegal activities, including the Cattle Call operation. Tony had told them they’d shut it down years ago, when Damian had been searching for information on Samantha’s disappearance, offering a monetary reward that many people in this neighborhood couldn’t refuse.

  Had they guessed correctly? Was Patrick in there now, with Eve and Catherine as his prisoners, and was he planning to put Becca through the same thing? Diego knew how capable she was, what a skilled agent. Hell, he’d depended on it during his niece’s case. But a fist gripped his heart at the thought of this operation going sour. And he hadn’t even had a chance to do more than send her a supportive look before she’d gotten out of the car. They were on Patrick’s timeline now, nearing ten o’clock.