by LENA DIAZ,
“Sure we do,” Blake said. “The person behind this isn’t interested in anyone on the SWAT team, or the chief, as Claire said.” He nodded to her. She nodded back from the chair where she was rocking the baby.
“What, then?” Ashley asked. “Was it about Randy? And the rest of them just...” She swallowed hard. “The rest of them got caught up in it, and the ransom note is a diversion? The bad guys want to get out of town while the police are waiting for a ransom phone call?” Her last word was a broken whisper that barely made it past her lips before she burst into tears.
Donna gave Blake a look of pure misery before joining Bex and Julie in an effort to comfort Ashley. Many tears were shed before they all seemed to gather themselves.
Bex rubbed Ashley’s back and put her arm around her waist. “Is there anything else you needed from us? I think we’re all ready to head back home now.” She frowned. “Or, I guess we should contact the local FBI? Since they wanted to talk to us? I know you two wanted to talk to us first because, otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to get your timeline information. But since the FBI is actively working the case, seems to me we should go ahead and make contact instead of hiding.”
“I agree,” Blake said. “That’s probably better than just hopping on the plane with Donna and me. There’s no point in not talking to them now. I can’t thank you enough for speaking to us, though. You never know what will matter in a case, what little piece of information might eventually make all the puzzle pieces fit together. I just wish we could have resolved all of this before you came back from your law-enforcement family cruise.”
Bex snorted. “Law-enforcement family cruise? That’s a joke if I ever heard one. I don’t know what happened. Some kind of mix-up, I guess. That cruise was a singles cruise. We were the only married ones on board. And there weren’t any other police family members that I saw. Let me just say, we didn’t exactly fit in.”
Blake frowned. “You were the only law-enforcement family members on the whole ship? Are you sure?”
“Well, as sure as we can be,” Bex said. “When there weren’t any police-themed dinners or announcements or anything, we thought it was odd, and we started asking around. None of the staff seemed to have a clue what we were talking about when we mentioned the charity that funded our cruise.” She glanced back and forth between Donna and Blake. “Why? Is that significant?”
Blake shook his head. “Probably not. Mix-ups like that happen all the time. Still, I’ll note it and follow up, just to make sure it’s not related. What was the name of the charity?”
Bex looked to Julie for help. “Do you remember the name? It was something really simple like Fun for Families. Was that it?”
Julie was nodding as she pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to Blake. “It was completely arranged from beginning to end, all prepaid. Even if they ended up accidentally putting us on the wrong boat from the rest of the law-enforcement families, as far as I’m concerned, the cruise was great. We really had a good time.” Her bottom lip trembled, but she drew a deep breath and held it together.
“We’re all exhausted,” Ashley said, once again speaking for the group. “I think we should freshen up, check out and head to the FBI field office to answer their questions. You two don’t have to wait your plane on us. We’ve got commercial airline tickets already. We’ll just switch to a morning flight so we have time to talk to the feds today.”
Blake left Donna to help them make arrangements for the FBI to pick them up at the hotel while he headed into the kitchenette, where it was more quiet. He made a call to one of his contacts back in Knoxville to get more information on the charity. By the time he finished the call, his stomach was churning, and his blood running cold. He rushed into the main part of the suite.
“What time are the feds getting here?”
Donna rose from the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“What time?”
She checked her watch. “About thirty minutes. Why? What are you—”
“Grab your things. We have to get out of here. Now.”
“Blake—”
“No time, Donna. We have to get out of here before the feds get here. Trust me on this.” He made a quick call to the limo driver, telling him to bring the car around, while the others grabbed their things, and Ashley put the baby in the stroller.
Blake could say one thing about these ladies. They were as well trained as their husbands. He didn’t know anyone else who could have gotten things together and been in the limo, being whisked away from the hotel, in under six minutes.
“Okay, yet again, we’re running from the very men who are trying to find our husbands,” Ashley complained as she patted her daughter in the car seat beside her, trying to keep her whimpering from turning into a full-fledged tantrum. “Why?”
“A friend of mine did a quick trace on that charity,” Blake said. “It was set up as a one-time thing and traced back to a shell company—basically a fake company like criminals use to cover their tracks. If they were a true charity, there wouldn’t be any problem tracing it back. Because the supposed donors would want to be able to claim their contributions on their taxes. My friend also said that they’d been looking into the charity because one of the wives in Knoxville complained that the charity never announced the winners of the cruise tickets. It’s as if the charity was set up for one purpose—to give just you ladies tickets. I called the cruise line, too. They didn’t know anything at all about the charity or a law-enforcement family cruise on any of their ships.”
Donna stared at him. “So a fake charity just happens to send the wives of our now missing officers out of town for a week. And no one else? Quite the coincidence, which means no way is it a coincidence. Why would they do that? What do they stand to gain? And what does this have to do with the FBI?”
“As to why and what they gain, I have no idea. But regarding the FBI, I have one name for you—Lopez.”
“Lopez. As in SSA Grant’s assistant, Lopez?”
“One and the same. The city balked at issuing a permit for the charity event. Guess who intervened and basically sweet-talked the city into granting the permit?”
“Lopez.” Donna’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But the FBI has no authority over something like that, unless...unless it has to do with white-collar crime or cyber-crime. Maybe they were investigating the charity and needed the event to move forward to help them gather more evidence? That could explain Lopez’s involvement.”
“Excuse me.” This time it was Julie who had a question. “Who are Grant and Lopez?”
“They’re both part of the FBI team in Destiny investigating Randy’s murder and your husbands’ kidnappings. Supervisory Special Agent Richard Grant is in charge. Colin Lopez, Stacy Bell and Joel Lawrence are his leads, basically his assistants, his right-hand, top investigators. All four of them were handling a high-profile case—the Sanchez drug kingpin case—before getting the judge to grant a delay so they could help in Destiny. Apparently they’re supposed to be top guys from the Knoxville field office, and the bureau thought they were their best chance at getting the Destiny case resolved as quickly and safely as possible. There are some other FBI guys they brought with them, too. But Lopez is one of the top dogs.”
“Okay, so you think, what, he’s dirty? This Lopez guy? Just because his name comes up in support of the charity and he’s working the Destiny case?” Julie continued.
“If it was just those two things, I probably wouldn’t. But his boss, Grant, seemed way over the top to me in how he went after the two of us—almost as if that was his goal from the start. Each thing by itself seems okay, has a perfectly reasonable explanation. But, together, it starts to pile up and look suspicious.”
“Each thing. Is there more you haven’t told us?”
The suspicions swirling through his mind had made perfect sense back in the hotel, with the FBI on the w
ay. But now he wasn’t so sure. Saying it out loud would just emphasize how little they knew and would make his doubts seem even more far-fetched.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” Donna said. “We can’t go into everything right now. Just suffice it to say, at this point, there are too many questions around Grant, Lopez and potentially others for us to feel comfortable with you being around them. We can pass the timeline information from you to Grant through one of the Destiny officers. That way, if our fears prove to be wrong, no harm done to their investigation. And if you can all lie low somewhere for a few days, or until we find the team, that would take a huge weight of worry off Blake’s and my shoulders, knowing for sure that you’re safe. Is that something you would consider doing?”
Julie looked at the others. One by one, they each nodded their agreement. She turned back to Blake and Donna. “Okay. We’ll do it. But only if you follow through on the timeline data, like you said. I know I’d never forgive myself if something happened to Chris because I didn’t speak to the FBI over a hunch that ended up proving false. I want them to have that information. And I don’t see being able to stay away more than a couple of days, tops. I want to be out there, searching for Chris and the others, not holed up in a hotel room wringing my hands.”
Alarmed, Blake said, “Please don’t do that. Until we know the goal behind the kidnapping, I implore you to stay off the radar. Maybe you can hire some personal security guys for the duration, too. Couldn’t hurt. I know my mind would be more at ease if you did.”
Julie nodded. “I think that’s a great idea. I’ll take care of that. We’ll stay gone as long as we can, but if it’s more than a few days, I can’t promise you won’t see every one of us back in Destiny, demanding an update from the FBI. Put yourself in our place, Blake. If Donna was missing, I suspect you’d move heaven and earth to be involved in the case and find her.”
He blinked, not sure what to say to that. But Julie was already huddling with the others, speaking in low tones as they discussed something. He chanced a quick look at Donna. She was staring at him, her brow furrowed as if she was thinking about Julie’s statement. He swallowed and looked away. Was he that transparent? Were his feelings for her out for everyone to see? Or had Julie just assumed he’d be that invested in trying to protect her because they were partners?
“All right.” Julie turned back around. “We’ve agreed on a location, where we’re going to stay for now. We’ll—”
“No.” Blake held up a hand to stop her. “It’s better if we don’t know the details. That way, if we end up being interviewed by Grant or the others, we can honestly tell them that we don’t know where you are. The limo driver can drop Donna and me off at a car rental place. We’ll get to the airport on our own from there. I wouldn’t want you ladies with us, again, in case the FBI is watching the airport. I imagine they’ll be watching the terminal for your commercial flight you scheduled, waiting for you to show up. So you’ll need to drive wherever you go. They don’t know about Donna and me taking the private plane, or even that we’re here. So we should be able to catch our flight with none the wiser.”
“Okay. Anything else we should know?” Ashley spoke up this time, glancing from him to Donna and back again.
“Burner phones,” Donna suggested.
“Right. Good idea,” Blake said. “You can stop at one of those postal stores in a strip mall and mail your personal phones back home. They can be traced, so keeping them with you isn’t a good idea, just in case someone really is going to try to find you. Make one stop, and one stop only, at a bank and draw out enough cash to get you by for at least a week. Purchase a prepaid phone without a plan of any kind to keep your name out of it. That’s what Donna means by a burner phone—something that can’t be traced back to you. After that, don’t go to the bank or an ATM and don’t use any of your credit cards anywhere. You need to go all cash and leave no electronic trace.”
Ashley frowned at him. “We’ll need a credit card to rent a hotel room.”
“A five-star hotel, sure. But if you keep a low profile, you should be able to pay a cash deposit up front to convince someone to rent to you. I’m not saying you need to stay in a dive. Just pick a clean, modern hotel off one of the interstate exits, and you should be okay.”
None of them looked happy with his plan, but to give them credit, they didn’t argue. Half an hour later, Blake was driving with Donna to the airport in a fairly generic four-door sedan, after watching the wives head in the opposite direction, down the highway, in the limo.
“I hope we did the right thing back there,” Donna said.
“Me, too. You know there’s more to this than what I told them, don’t you?” He steered around a slow-moving car, before moving back into the right lane.
She nodded. “I’m starting to feel that way, yes. Nothing about how the case is being handled feels right. The way the evidence was delayed by being sent to the FBI lab instead of a local one that’s more than capable of processing everything, that alone raises questions in my mind. Added with everything else, the doubts are definitely piling up. Something is way off here.”
“Remember what Ashley said earlier, asking whether the ransom note was just a diversion? No one has made contact with details about how to pay. That really struck me. Not that it was a diversion as much as a delay tactic. It puts things on hold while we wait to hear from the kidnappers. And that’s not the only delay that has come up.”
“You’re talking about the Sanchez trial,” she said. “Which was literally delayed because the main FBI guys were needed for our Destiny investigation?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t think much of it, except that Officer Lynch updated us on the way here saying there wasn’t any progress that he could tell with the investigation. Kind of surprising if the FBI’s best guys out of the Knoxville field office were diverted specifically because they’re so good. Wouldn’t you expect more from them?”
Again, he passed a few cars before moving back to the right. A sign up ahead showed they were just a couple of exits from the airport. Blake had already called ahead to notify the pilot to be ready.
She nodded slowly. “I would expect more from the FBI, normally. You’re right. Time is supposedly of the essence in a kidnapping situation. But instead of being proactive and pounding the pavement, trying to find our guys, it would seem that they’re sitting back, waiting for first contact—or second, if you count the note. And like Ashley said earlier, it doesn’t make sense to remove you and me from the case if the main goal is to find the missing cops. Who better to help navigate the local scene than the only two remaining detectives, two detectives who could have given them a lot more information about their missing peers to help them zero in on potential grudges, suspects who might have an ax to grind against Dillon and the others?”
Blake shook his head. “The more I think about it, the more all of this seems horribly wrong. If we assume our FBI guys are dirty, then what’s the motive? Why kill Randy? Why kidnap the others?”
“Maybe the kidnappers know that Chris’s wife is wealthy,” Donna said. “Maybe that’s why the note talks about a ransom—because they know Julie can pay.”
“Except that no one has given instructions for how to deliver the money. The note didn’t even list a specific amount so the families could gather the funds. The longer we go without a specific demand, the thinner the idea of kidnapping for ransom seems.”
“Then why kidnap our team?” she asked.
He tapped his hands on the steering wheel as he reasoned it out. “Okay, how about this. What’s the one consistent thread that keeps coming up as we talk this through?”
“Delays. No question,” she said.
He nodded. “What if the delay in the Sanchez trial is the only delay that matters? What if everything else is secondary, and all of this is intended to divert the FBI’s attention to Destiny and put a stop to the criminal case?”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense, though, does it? From what I’ve heard on the news channels, the Sanchez case is wrapped up tight. A delay won’t change the outcome. Sanchez’s empire is about to come crashing down around him. He’s going to go to prison for the rest of his life.”
He put his blinker on for the airport exit. “Look at it from another angle. Our FBI guys went from high-profile case to high-profile case. Kidnapping an entire SWAT team is a big deal. And yet, they’ve managed to keep it out of the news so far. So it seems unlikely that the person behind this cares about media attention. If they did, they’d have leaked information and it would have already hit all the major networks.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m with you so far.”
“All the kidnapping has accomplished at this point is that it diverted resources and put the law-enforcement community’s attention on Destiny instead of Knoxville.”
Blake steered the car down the exit ramp and followed the signs to the car rental company’s parking lot.
“All right.” Donna picked up the line of reasoning. “We have kidnappers who don’t seem to be in a hurry to get any money. And we have a case that diverted resources from another case. No matter how we look at this, it circles back to the FBI and the Sanchez case. Assuming that Sanchez’s goons are responsible for Randy’s death and the kidnappings—which seems like a logical leap—we need to figure out how this helps Sanchez.”
Blake parked the car. “As soon as we land at McGhee Tyson Airport, I think we should head to where all of this—whatever this is—seems to have started.”
She nodded. “We’re going to Knoxville.”
Chapter Twelve
Even though they’d both dozed on the plane to and from Miami, it hadn’t been what Donna thought of as “quality” sleep. She was so exhausted, she fell asleep the moment she leaned back in the passenger seat of the little blue Ford Focus they rented at the McGhee Tyson Airport. And she didn’t wake up until Blake shook her awake in a hotel parking lot somewhere in Knoxville.