One Last Song (A Thomas Family Novel Book 3)

by Kristi Cramer

  “You should be so lucky, but I don’t think luck is in your cards tonight, Maria. Not unless you give up your boss.”

  “You can save your breath,” Maria said. “You don’t have enough.”

  “Enough what? I’ve got victims who are making their statements as we speak. I can put you away until they stick a needle in your arm and your heart stops beating in front of a room full of witnesses.”

  That got her attention. “I didn’t kill anyone. That was all Alan. If they’re being honest, those kids will tell you as much.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” Callie said. “And the kids won’t have to lie. See, there’s this little thing called ‘aggravating factors’ that you have going against you. If you’re committing another federal crime, like kidnapping, and someone dies, we can pursue the death penalty under federal law. There’s also a clause called ‘grave risk of death to additional persons.’ If you, and I quote, ‘in the commission of an offense, or in escaping apprehension, knowingly create a grave risk of death to one or more persons, in addition to the victim,’ you are subject to prosecution up to and including the death penalty. I have no doubt we have enough to make it stick. Once he started killing people, you were just as culpable as he was.”

  Maria stared at her, her face gone pale in the halide light.

  “It’s one thing to consider spending the rest of your life in prison,” Callie said. “Quite another to consider dying for a man who will surely leave you twisting for this.” She waited a beat. “Agree to testify against him, and I’ll see what I can do to get you into WITSEC.”

  When Maria failed to answer, Callie took a step back and waved Bradley forward. “Think about it,” she said. “You don’t have to decide this instant.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Kylie was exhausted.

  It was well after midnight when Grandpa Colt pulled up in front of the Super 8 in Clovis. They all piled out of his old pickup—he and Cody from the front, Vera, Jax, and Kylie from the crew cab—and staggered inside. Kylie and Vera collapsed on the couch in the lobby, leaning against each other. Vera had pitched an epic fit when the FBI wanted to make her wait in Roswell for her parents so, in the end, Agent Sanderson had allowed her to ride with them, saying it would be easier to avoid the press if they traveled in a civilian’s vehicle.

  On the drive, Kylie had slept a little, holding Jax’s hand on her left, Vera’s on her right. They hadn’t spoken, and Grandpa had turned up Hank Williams, Sr., on the radio to help him stay awake. Even when they stopped at a Wal-Mart, where Cody ran in to buy toothbrushes and sweats for each of them, they had sat, listless and exhausted.

  Before too long, Jax held out hands for each of them and pulled them to their feet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got rooms.”

  Cody had rented a two-room suite on one end of the ground floor for the men, and the room next to it had two double beds for the young women. They took turns showering, and Kylie thought she had never felt anything as welcome as washing the grime of the past twenty-six hours off her skin and out of her hair.

  Vera had gone first, so Kylie didn’t worry about keeping her up. The water ran from near scalding to lukewarm before she shut it off and toweled herself dry. She pulled on the sweats, which were loose and comfy, then combed her hair out with her fingers and brushed her teeth.

  As tired as she was, Kylie delayed climbing into bed. Vera twitched in her sleep on the bed farthest from the window, and Kylie was in no hurry to find out what her own dreams had in store for her. Instead, she drew back the curtain to look outside.

  She wasn’t surprised to see Jax standing on the sidewalk, leaning against the pole supporting the balcony above them.

  As quietly as she could, she opened the door and stepped out, using the sliding lock to block the door from shutting and locking her out.

  “Hey,” she said, stepping up and putting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t jump, and she knew he’d been aware of her since she opened the curtain. When he turned to her, she saw a haunted look in his eyes that felt really familiar. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

  He shook his head. “I tried. Too much going on behind here.” He waved his hand at his eyes, and she knew exactly what he meant. Events of their day seemed to be imprinted on the back of her eyelids, replaying every time she closed her eyes.

  Instead of lowering his hand, he reached out and pulled her against him, like it was the most natural thing in the world to hold her. Maybe it was.

  With a sigh, she slipped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest. “I meant what I said in that trailer.”

  “When?” he asked, pulling his attention away from whatever thoughts occupied his mind.

  “At the end, when I thought he was going to kill me.” She shuddered, and he squeezed her shoulders.

  “I didn’t hear. I was outside.”

  “That’s right,” she said, suddenly nervous and shy enough that she felt the need to lighten her next words. “Well, I don’t remember it exactly, but I was eloquent. It was beautiful.”

  A ghost of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “What did you say?”

  “That I loved you, and I do. If those were the last words I spoke on this planet, I thought I’d better be truthful.”

  He turned her in his arms until he held her against him so tightly, she thought he might squeeze the air right out of her, and it was the best feeling in the world.

  “Kylie.” His voice broke against her ear. “If he had.... If....”

  “Shh. He didn’t.”

  They stood like that for a while, until she could feel them both swaying with exhaustion. “Come inside,” she said. “Lie down with me.”

  His head jerked back in shock and she laughed, tracing his jaw with her fingertip. “We can stay on top of the bedspread. I just don’t want to be alone tonight, and I don’t think you do, either.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll just, um, close the door to the suite.” He cracked the door and reached in to fold the sliding lock out of the way, then gently shut the door with a click.

  Inside her room, Kylie climbed onto the bed, weariness making her every move feel leaden. “Leave the bathroom light on,” she said, keeping her voice quiet so as not to disturb Vera, “and come here.”

  She watched Jax hesitate, silhouetted against the comforting glow from the bathroom, then he stretched out beside her. She scooted in close and felt his arms around her again. They fit against each other like they were made to match. She wanted to lift her head and kiss him; instead, her eyes drifted closed and refused to open.

  “I love you, Kylie,” she heard him whisper.

  “Love...too,” she mumbled.

  With his arms around her, she did not dream.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Cody opened the door of the suite onto a fresh new day. Well, fresh was relative. It was closing in on checkout time. They had all slept through the time the free breakfast was available. If the kids still showed no signs of waking, Cody planned to ask at the desk if they could stay until noon.

  He debated knocking on the door to see if they were stirring, and frowned slightly with the knowledge that Jax had spent the night with Kylie.

  He’d been dozing on the couch when he heard the door to the suite open, then saw Jax’s hand snake through to unstop it. He’d crossed to the door and opened it in time to see Jax going inside next door, then peered like a voyeur through a crack in the curtain long enough to see them settle on top of the bed together, arms around each other.

  He’d contemplated knocking and bringing Jax back to his room, but settled for taking the bed Jax had abandoned.

  Cody couldn’t deny them the comfort they found in each other. He had no right. He wished he’d had someone to comfort him while he tossed and turned, repeatedly seeing the guns pointed at his daughter. The horror of yesterday’s events would stay with him for a long time. He could only imagine the trauma those kids were feeling.

  “Any signs of life?” Mr. Thomas asked,
walking up with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. He offered one to Cody.

  Cody took it, surprised to see Mr. Thomas already up and around. He’d thought the old man was still in the suite’s other bedroom. “Not yet. Can’t decide if we should wake them or not.”

  Mr. Thomas grunted. “If we expect to get back to Syracuse by dinner, we’ll have to. Janie will skin us alive if we miss the homecoming shindig she’s planning.”

  “Shindig?”

  “Well, she’s cooking up a big pot of Jax’s favorite chili and baking Kylie’s favorite apple pie. Small gathering. Just family.”

  “Ah.”

  “I take it Jax stayed with her last night?”

  Cody nodded, sipping the coffee. It was black and strong enough to stand a fork in, but he thought that was just as well. He needed a good caffeine kick in the ass.

  “Good. It helps to have someone who knows what you went through.” If anyone knew about that, it was Colton Thomas, Jr.

  “Makes me worry a bit about Vera. When her folks take her home, she won’t have anyone,” Cody said, taking another sip.

  “Hmm. Might want to encourage Kylie to keep in touch with her.”

  Just then, the door to the other room opened, and the two men turned to see Vera blinking in the bright sun. Her hair was mussed and dark circles ringed her eyes.

  “Good morning, Vera,” Cody said, keeping his tone light and pleasant.

  “Morning,” she said, and rubbed her eyes. “Are we leaving soon?”

  “Soon,” Mr. Thomas said.

  Cody moved around her and peeked in the door to see Kylie and Jax just beginning to stir. They lay in pretty much the same position as when they went to bed. As he watched, they exchanged smiles that made Cody smile himself.

  “Hey, sleepyheads,” he said, causing them to jump and turn to him with varying degrees of guilt in their eyes.

  “Hey, Dad,” Kylie said, going for nonchalance.

  “Mr. Buford,” Jax said, then struggled to sit up and move to the bathroom, keeping his body turned away from them both. Cody couldn’t help the smug twist to his lips, remembering the days of his youth when his body was all too willing to betray him.

  A pillow hit him square in the face, bringing his attention back to his daughter.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Dad. He saved my life.”

  “I know, Kylie. But there are some things in life that offset being a hero.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, giving him the classic “whatever” tone of voice. Cody thought the fact they could make light of anything today was a good sign she was going to be okay. “Time to go?”

  “Soon as you’re ready. I hear your mom is baking apple pie.”

  Eyes wide, she said, “Hurry up, Jax. We’ve got to get moving.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Oh, good. You’re up,” Callie said as she poked her head through the doorway of the adjacent hotel room. She’d caught Ducharme in the middle of a bone-cracking stretch, and watched in appreciation of the lean body under his t-shirt, not to mention his boyish good looks. He sat up on the couch and vigorously scratched at his short hair, making it stand even more on end. His expression was blank as he looked around, registering where he was and why he wasn’t in his own bed. She could tell the moment he remembered. He blew out a sigh of relief and his body slumped for a moment before he straightened and brought his gaze back to her.

  After Cody, Kylie, Jax, Mr. Thomas, and Vera had left for home, she had handed the crime scene over to her investigation crew, and her prisoner to a pair of agents for transport back to Roswell. Faced with a long drive, Dylan had offered to give her a ride back in his helicopter. He explained he had to return to refuel and file new flight plans back to Syracuse in the morning, and told her he could use the company to help him stay awake.

  They hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other on the flight back, but she had shared a deep sense of a job well done with him. Together, they had helped save the lives of three young people, and that wasn’t something that happened every day.

  “Are you with me?” she asked. “I think you might want to see this.”

  When she’d shown him the couch in her suite last night, he hadn’t bothered to undress. He stood up and crossed to the adjacent suite, pausing at the sight of the large video monitors set up on a desk. In the center monitor, the prisoner from last night sat in front of a table in an interrogation room.

  “What’s this?” he asked, scrubbing his face before he rubbed his hands over his hair again.

  “Wanted to give you something to take back to Syracuse, give the family a little relief. I had a productive morning.”

  “Nice,” he said, although she could tell he wasn’t paying too much attention to her words just yet. He scanned the tables, looking for something. “Java?”

  Callie gave him a knowing smile and gestured to a beverage carrier next to the alarm clock. He helped himself to the last cup and took a sip, visibly savoring the bold taste of a dark roast with nothing added to it.

  Finally ready to focus, he turned back to the monitors as Callie began to explain.

  “She held out for most of the night, but we finally got her name out of her. Maria Roman, originally from Boston. I won’t bore you with the bulk of the interrogation. Trust me when I say it was mostly standard fare. It did take dragging a federal prosecutor out of bed to confirm, via Skype, that we could indeed bring the death penalty into play for her, even though she wasn’t the one pulling the trigger.”

  “Huh. Learn something new every day,” Dylan said, taking another sip of coffee.

  “Once she cottoned to the idea that she’d have to die if she wanted to protect her boss, she sang like the proverbial canary and gave us plenty to convict the man who runs the human trafficking ring out of El Paso.”

  “And that is?”

  “Watch.”

  Callie clicked the play icon. On the screen, the woman straightened from speaking to her lawyer and spoke in a tired voice.

  “I hope your protection is as good as you say it is. Otherwise, I’m just as dead as a federal death sentence—only I won’t have to wait through years of appeals. The man who paid me to bring him young girls and boys for his sex trade....” She paused and looked at her lawyer, who nodded, “is Nicholas Price.”

  On the tape, she watched herself sit back in surprise. “The Nicholas Price? The media mogul?”

  Callie hit the pause button. “He owns four cable news stations, each with their own studios, and two movie production studios. That’s just here in the States. According to Maria, he has six studios in three different countries making pornography—four of which film underage, non-consenting talent recruited by force. Plus, he has a lucrative trade in sex workers, selling off those who don’t perform well or are used up.”

  “And this woman is going to provide testimony?”

  “She is. She also knows the location of the production studio here in the States where they edit the raw footage. She says Price visits in person enough that we should be able to catch him entering the premises. We’ve already got eyes on the building, just in case they decide to move when they hear about Maria’s capture.”

  “That’s some great work, Agent Sanderson,” Dylan said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Thank you.” She appreciated his recognition. “Rounding this guy up will put to bed five years trying to dismantle this ring. We’ve got a bit more work to do, and we have to keep Roman under wraps until we can link Price to the operation, but I’m optimistic we’ll be able to make an arrest by fall.”

  “And then what?”

  She wasn’t sure why he asked that, but it was an intuitive question. Callie was the kind of woman who lived for her work, and to wrap up a huge piece of the game that had featured in such a large part of her life was going to leave a big hole.

  “Reckon I’ll be due for a long vacation.” She heaved a sigh. “There’ll be time enough to figure it out then.”

  “
You want to fly with me to Syracuse to give Cody the good news?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll leave that to you. I’ve got to attend a press conference hosted by the New Mexico State Police about the road closure in...,” she checked her watch, “twenty minutes. I’m to make a statement about recovering three kidnap victims, and tell the world how Alan and Maria died during the rescue.”

  Dylan raised his eyebrows, and she tapped her forehead. “If Price thinks they both died before they could rat him out, he won’t suspect we’re onto him. Then I want to get down to El Paso and supervise the surveillance down there. I don’t want anything to go wrong that lets this devil wiggle away from me. From us. He slipped through the cracks in Houston, and I’ll be fried if he’s going to get away again.”

  Dylan gave her a grim smile. “Sounds a little personal.”

  She didn’t take offense. “Maybe, but I blame myself for every kid who has been taken by this guy since we made our move in Houston. We should have gotten him then, and yes, I take that failure very personally.”

  “You’ll get him,” he said by way of encouragement. “And he’ll pay for what he’s done.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then maybe you can come out to Syracuse, deliver that news to Cody in person, and relax a little in a town with folks who know exactly what you’ve done to put the bad guy away.”

  The offer pleased Callie. She thought she wouldn’t mind that kind of change of pace—at least for a while.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  When he spotted a line of trees along Highway 27, Jax roused himself out of the trance he’d slipped into. He’d been lulled by the hum of tires on the pavement and the monotonous prairie outside the window, but passing the feed lot his father worked in—the familiar smell of cattle in the air—had penetrated the fog of his thoughts. Now the sight of trees bordering the Arkansas River stirred him properly awake.

  He nudged Kylie. “Almost home.”

  She shifted against him, slow to wake from the sleep that had claimed her. When she saw the flash of afternoon sunlight on the water of the river, she sat up straight and gave Vera a little shake, then squeezed his leg. “Does it seem different to you?” she asked, her voice quiet.