“He killed a child, of course he is a monster.”
This was getting us nowhere. Leo needed a confession.
“Then why did you pay her to fuck him?”
If he confessed to that at least we’d have grounds for a warrant, a reason to look further into him and his shady dealings. It might not be enough to save Leo but it was more than we had now.
“I didn’t pay my daughter to fuck anyone, Ella,” Attwood snapped, narrowing his eyes at me, his fists clenched, his lips pulled tight. Make a move, Sir, I beg of you. I moved forward, squaring my shoulders.
“You gifted her a Ferrari to sleep with him, same thing. And why was it important that she take him back to her place?”
“I did no such thing.”
“You did, daddy. You told me if I got close to Leo, brought him home, slept with him, you’d buy me a car, any car I wanted. You came round the next day, acting all odd and then the condom we’d used vanished from my bedroom trashcan.”
“Lucy, you’re confused.”
“I am not confused,” she hissed. “I wrote down every detail in my diary, I want the truth daddy or I go to the Police and tell them everything.”
The colour drained from Attwood’s face. He jumped off the sofa, glowering at his daughter.
“Get out of my office, Lucy. Now. I’m not sure what it is you are accusing me of but you’re playing a dangerous game. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”
Lucy scrambled from the sofa, pressing herself behind me. Attwood paced the office, his eyes locked on me.
“Get out of there, Milano,” Schilling hissed into my ear. Not a fucking chance. This man had a dark side and I intended to force him into revealing it. Men like this were all I’d known for years. He had buttons and I was about to start pressing them.
“You used your daughter as a whore, Sir. You turned her into a cheap, nasty slut all so you could frame Leo before he exposed you for the monster you truly are. You’re willing to risk the lives of thousands to make a quick buck, Leo was onto you, so you took him out and you used your own daughter to get to him. You make me sick.”
Lucy’s hand wrapped around my arm, urging me to back off, pulling me away from her father. Schilling was erupting in my ear. Leo was begging me to back down, stay safe. My father was spouting bile, muttering all kinds of threats. It all played out in my earpiece. None of it sank in.
Attwood turned puce, his fists balled tightly at his side, you could almost see the steam pouring from his ears.
“You’re making a mistake, little girl,” he hissed, squaring up to me.
“And why is that, Sir?” I spat, “what will happen to me if I press you? Will you frame me too? Will I end up raped and murdered like Stacey and Maia?”
“If only you knew what could happen to you, Ella.”
My heart raced.
“Tell me, Sir.”
“Did my daughter ever tell you what happened to Leo's one true love?”
I was done playing nice with this guy. The Hell we’d get a confession playing by the book. I moved closer, shrugging Lucy’s hand away, stepping out of earshot of her wire.
“She doesn’t need to,” I hissed. “I was there. Leo ever tell you who is one true love really was?”
“Some Mexican slut.”
“If only that were true, Sir. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Detective Danica Milano, formerly Danielle Ramirez, daughter of José Ramirez, Leo’s one true love and I will make you pay for what you did, one way or the other.”
I grabbed Lucy and stalked out of the office, leaving Attwood flailing and pale, his sneering mouth flapping like a fish out of water. I’d meant every damn word. One way or the other, that man would pay for what he’d done.
I’d put Lucy in the firing line and if we were doing this the right way, the non-lethal way, that’s exactly where she needed to be. Attwood didn’t care for her, he’d meant every bit of the threat he made towards her. I’d given him reason to act on it, revealing myself as a Detective. That I was a Ramirez would have them all vying to throw someone under the bus, sacrifice one to my father to save the rest. Divide and conquer. All we had to do was sit back and wait for their tower of cards to tumble.
Chapter Sixteen
Danica
Schilling blew up when I dragged Lucy, sobbing back to the van.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” He snapped.
“Nope,” I shrugged. “We weren’t gonna get shit from him.”
“And now they know we’re onto them.”
“Exactly,” I grinned. “They’re now firefighting on all sides. They know PD are on their ass, they know they’ve sparked a war with one of Mexico’s biggest, most brutal cartels. All we have to do is sit back and watch the fireworks. Oh, and protect Lucy, of course, he’s gonna make a move on her tonight. I guarantee it’ll be the same guys turning up who killed Stacey and Maia, they’ll go after Lucy in the same way, pin it on Leo. You should probably get that fed you have to put a detail on your house, Schilling. Leo’s family home too.”
“Why would they go after Lucy when they know we’re onto them?” Leo frowned.
“Because Lucy’s all we have on them and they’re about to learn that.”
“How?”
“We tell them, now, with Lucy. Schilling, you said the chief's in on this, right? Let’s go tell him about this hunch we have and all the dead ends we’ve smashed into chasing it.”
“Kid,” Schilling grinned, “you’re either a genius or completely insane.”
“She used me as bait,” Lucy sobbed. Leo pulled her into his arms.
“Not you, Lucy, me. You’ll be safe with Leo.”
I wanted to punch them both.
“You can trust, Dani, Luce. Promise.”
My dad drove himself and Leo back to the cabin, where Maria had a feast waiting for them. Lucy, copies of her diary, myself and Schilling all headed to the station.
◆◆◆
“You can see why we came straight to you with this, Chief?” Schilling asked. Lucy had poured her heart out, telling him everything, even things Schilling and I didn’t know, minus the bit about meeting up with Leo. Copies of her diary, marking the dates her dad asked her to get all snuggly with my boyfriend, the date she received the car, Leo’s arrest and the suspicions she had at the time were all laid out in that dairy, interspersed with meaningless girly twaddle about getting her nails done and the barista at the local coffee shop asking for her number.
The Chief sat behind his cluttered, worn mahogany desk, his belly straining at his shirt, peering over his rimless glasses at Lucy, who sat opposite him, sandwiched between me and Schilling.
“This is all you have?”
“Afraid so, boss,” Schilling sighed.
“And this is the fugitive’s ex-girlfriend?”
“Not exactly, Sir,” I hissed, “they fucked. I wouldn’t say they were close.”
Schilling ground his heel into my boot. Lucy shrank down in her rickety wooden chair.
“It ever occur to you two fools that she made the whole thing up?”
“No,” Lucy pleaded, “I didn’t, I wouldn’t. There’s more proof. It’s all in here, all the awful things my father has done. I’ve been blind to it for years, but after Leo… He’s a monster, him and all his friends.”
She pushed the copied papers from her diaries towards him. A photograph of her and Mexican contractor slid towards the Chief.
“And this proof you have?”
“Other people have been hurt, not just Leo. Accidents that weren’t accidents, Sir. My mother, what happened to her was no accident.”
Fuck. This is the first we were hearing of this. Lucy’s mom died of a cocaine overdose as far I knew.
“My mother didn’t do coke, she was a good mother. I see now. I see exactly what he is. He has to pay.”
“And you have proof of that?”
“Her diaries, I have those. She kept diaries for years. That’s why I keep min
e. The Police wouldn’t look at them, they said they weren’t valid to their investigation. My father said they were the ramblings of an insane woman. They both lied.”
“And where are they?”
“Safe,” Lucy said, straightening in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “And that’s where they’ll stay until my father is arrested and I’m protected from him.”
Finally, she goes with the plan.
“Fine,” the chief sighed, pushing back in his seat, “I’ll get something organised for your protection, until then Lucy, I suggest you go home.”
Schilling grabbed Lucy’s arm, pulling her from the chief’s office.
“Was that okay?” She asked.
“Next time you wanna spring a surprise on us, don’t,” I hissed.
“It was great, Lucy. He took the bait, I could virtually hear the cogs turning in his head. And kid, green don’t suit you. He chose you, there’s no war to fight here. Leo is head over heels with you. Christ, he was willing to confess to an unthinkable crime to make you hate him so you didn’t suffer losing him as an innocent man you couldn’t save.”
Lucy smiled weakly at me, batting her false lashes.
“These diaries of your mom’s, we’ll need to see them,” I sighed.
“They’re under my bed with mine. What now?”
“Now, we wait for someone to go looking for the diaries, only the chief knows about them and your dad. It should be enough to get a warrant from an understanding judge against them both, then we wait for the cards to tumble.”
An understanding Judge, who thanks to my dad’s connections, we knew was in bed with the cartel, not some up their own ass American boy’s club. My dad scouted Judges earlier. The warrant already on his desk, just needed a signature, one we’d get when Lucy’s apartment was broken into and they made a move on Lucy herself.
◆◆◆
Lucy exited her apartment, pulling her red hooded sweater over her head, shielding her face. She ran every night if she wasn’t working, same route, same time. She was nothing if not predictable. The only difference this time, we were waiting for her.
She ducked into our car, handing me her hooded sweater. I pulled it over my head. My sneakers and pants didn’t exactly match hers, Lucy was tiny, much smaller than me, her clothes didn’t fit me. We’d found some a similar shade, the darkness of the night would help with the rest. I tucked my earpiece in. Lucy ran over her route again.
I slipped from the car, taking up Lucy’s run. The streetlights cast my shadow ahead of me. I kept my eyes glued to it, ignoring the familiar faces I raced past. My dad and Schilling had this route lined with feds and trigger happy Mexicans.
“They’re in,” Schilling hissed in my ear.
Him and his fed buddy sat opposite Lucy’s apartment, supping coffee in a diner across the street. The chief had taken the bait.
Lucy’s surprise worked to our advantage after a little brainstorming. Only the chief knew about her mom’s diaries, if they kept looking after finding Lucy’s, we knew the chief had tipped them off. The Judge sat by his phone, waiting for our call.
I took a deep breath, focusing on the cool metal of my gun against my skin. Armed intruders waited for me beyond the glass doors of Lucy’s apartment, hidden in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Intruders we knew had no qualms over hurting women.
“Hey,” I muttered to the guard. Lucy always greeted the guard. He pressed the button behind his desk, the elevator slid open.
“Good run, Miss Attwood?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He’d bought it.
“Guards in on it,” Schilling hissed. “Rang up to Lucy’s apartment the second the elevator closed.
Lucy’s apartment had been filled with bugs, hidden cameras, you name it, we had it in there, recording every move the killers, every word they uttered.
“I’m right behind you, Milano,” Schilling soothed as I paced the elevator. It moved up floor by floor, my heart rate increasing with every floor it passed.
This was it. The doors slid open, I faced Lucy’s apartment door.
Behind those doors, Stacey and Maia’s killers waited for me.
My hand shaking, I reached for Lucy’s key, stepping into the darkness as the door opened. My hand reached under my hooded sweater, clutching my gun. I didn’t get the chance to pull it out before they were on me.
Cold, sharp metal pressed to my neck, a thick, strong arm wrapped around my body, pinning my arms to my side.
Fuck. One false move, they’d feel the shape of my gun pressing into my side. I’d be dead before Schilling reached me. I told him wearing it was a bad idea. He’d insisted.
“Scream and die,” he warned.
“Please don’t rape me, take anything you want but don’t rape me,” I begged in my well practised American accent. It seemed like the kind of thing a beautiful blonde doctor would say.
“Can’t promise that, sugar,” he leered. “You help us, we’ll go easy on you.”
“What do you want? My dad has money, he’ll get you anything you want, just please don’t hurt me.”
“Who do you think sent us here, sweetheart?”
Idiot. This was gonna be easier than I’d expected.
“What do you mean?” I sniffed.
“Daddy’s money is the reason why we’re here, Princess, Daddy dearest wants you dead.”
“He paid you to do this?”
“Bingo, Princess. Now, me, I don’t want to hurt a pretty little thing like you, but you have something my boss needs.”
“Your boss?”
“Never mind you’re pretty head about him. Where are the diaries?”
“Under my bed.”
“The other ones, your mother's?”
“In a safe deposit box at the bank.”
“Which bank? Where’s the key?”
The blade pushed into my skin. A warm wetness trickled down my neck.
“Got him,” Schilling hissed in my ear.
Through my earpiece I heard orders barked at the guard. Hands on your head, step back from the desk.
Hurry the fuck up, Schilling.
“In my jewellery box, the key’s in there, it’s the Bank of America, the one on the high street opposite the hospital. Please, don’t hurt me.”
“Check it out,” my captor snapped to his friend, “I’ll keep Daddy’s little Princess company.”
He kept the blade at my throat, loosening his grip, his free hand strayed down my front, pushing at my waistband.
Anger bubbled inside me like a superfluous volcano ready to explode. Any vestige of fear I’d held vanished, overwhelmed by rage.
Why is it men always move to rape? This asshole planned on killing me, as if that wasn’t horrific enough he wanted to sexually assault me first.
I closed my eyes, focused on his breathing and the pounding of Schilling’s feet racing up the stairs in my ear piece. I’d practised this move every day since escaping the sex trade. I could do it my sleep, I had done it my sleep, winning many wars with my bedding, during the nights when the nightmares were more frequent, more vivid.
His hand crept below my waistband, reaching into my panties.
“Enough with the rape already,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“Eh?”
My head slammed back. His nose exploded, filling the air with the metallic scent of blood, soaking the back of my shirt. I kept my hands locked on his forearm, yanking it down and away from my throat. My head ducked under his arm, my grip still on his wrist forced the knife down.
It happen with such speed he didn’t react, not until his own blade plunged into his side. My foot met with his face, crushing his already broken nose. He crumpled, folding to the floor, one hand on his side, the other on his nose.
“I said enough with the rape already, Jesus, is that all you assholes know?”
He dragged his sorry carcass across the wooden floor, leaving blood smeared behind him, pulling himself towards the blade that had ski
dded over the room. It nestled by the sofa, street light glinting off its cruel, 9 inch blade.
I grabbed my gun from its holder.
“Don’t fucking move,” I spat.
Schilling burst through the door. The accomplice raced from the bedroom, his gun drawn.
“Police, drop the weapon,” Schilling warned.
His steely black eyes roamed the dimly lit scene bouncing from his bloodied friend, laid out on the floor to me, to Schilling and his fed friend.
He lowered his gun slowly, his fingers loosening on the hilt. It crashed to the floor.
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