by J. M. Madden
Roark and Olivera were humoring her but neither seemed very interested. She couldn’t blame them for being anxious considering what happened to Charger. She wasn’t trying to make things more difficult but she was still sorting it out in her own head. “I found a letter to their lawyer stating that had they known I was a twin they’d have adopted both children. They were requesting further information on the sibling and asking if adoption was still possible. There was a response pinned to the back but almost everything had been blackened out. The only piece of information was that my sibling had been adopted by a couple in Detroit. The father’s place of employment was listed but nothing else. Not the gender of the child. Not the name. Nothing. I lost it. I hired a private detective to try to find out more but there wasn’t anything else anywhere. I struggled with it for nearly six months, then one day I packed a bag, hopped a flight and came to Detroit. I’d read that they were building a new hospital and they were hiring. I walked in for an interview and walked out with a job. I went back to Maine, settled the rest of my affairs. Some friends from nursing school took advantage of the opportunity to find quick work, too, so they ended up moving as well..” Demi looked over at Roark. What she had told him before was technically true. She didn’t think sharing anything about being adopted mattered before this.
“It was irrational but I was hoping if I just walked around somehow we’d be reunited. Some magic movie moment of serendipity. A few months in, one night while I was just wandering the streets desperately hoping for something to happen, I realized how slim the odds were and how much of my life I was wasting away. My parents wouldn’t have wanted that. The next week I got offered a spot on a clinical trial team and when they warned me it would take all my time and focus I welcomed that. I threw myself into my job.” Demi swallowed hard as she remembered the struggle every day. There wasn’t a moment she stepped outside of her apartment that she didn’t pray she’d find something to help her feel connected to someone.
“You’re not Alexandria Conway,” Roark said slowly as he locked eyes with her, finally showing he believed what she was saying.
“We’re still going to check all this out,” Olivera insisted. “It shouldn’t be difficult if you truly lived in Maine your entire life. We’ll ask you for a few contacts back there we can qualify all this with.”
“Fine,” Demi shrugged. “I’ll do whatever you want. But you have to do something for me.” She tilted her chin up as though she were readying for a fight.
“I can assure you that your safety is a priority to us,” Olivera said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Now we know you’ll need longer term protection while we see this case through. I’ll have you moved to a more comfortable safe house.”
“No,” Demi blurted frantically. “Don’t cut me out of this. I can help. They’re looking for me, right? So use that. All I want in return is to know about my sister. I’ve learned more about her in the last three minutes than I have in all the years leading up to that. Don’t shut me out of this now.”
Roark shook his head and put his hands firmly on her shaking shoulders. “This isn’t a television show, Demi, we aren’t going to use you for bait. But maybe you do know something that can help.”
“Oh come on,” Olivera laughed. “I get it, you want to keep your girlfriend close by. But you’re going to be gallivanting all over town chasing down leads, and, if I know you, looking for heads to smash in. You really think having her with you is a good idea?”
“I’m not suggesting that,” Roark snapped. “There are no leads to chase. It’s pretty clear this is tied to the case ten years ago. Someone must have spotted Demi around somewhere and it stirred all this up. All we need to do is dig into that. But I don’t want some rookie cop on guard duty. These people obviously mean business. I’m not taking any chances with her.”
“And I’m not his girlfriend,” Demi offered, trying to come to his defense. She saw a flash of something in Roark’s eyes the she couldn’t pinpoint.
“Yes you are,” Roark countered, finally pulling her in for a hug. “And no one is going to hurt you. Not while I’m around.”
TWELVE
“Well that got us nowhere,” Olivera reported as he tossed his cell phone down on the coffee table next to the cemetery of empty Chinese food containers. “There are no hits on Alexandria. No credit cards, no phone bill, no arrest record. Nothing. About six months after the attack she was gone.”
“Do you think she’s dead?” Demi asked as she busied herself stacking up the remnants from their takeout dinner and tossing them in the trash.
“Might be.” Olivera shrugged and grunted when Roark shot him a look. “What? If she insists on being here then she can deal with the truth. If someone goes off the radar like that there is a good chance they’re dead. She may have assumed a new identity and be living happily on some farm somewhere. That’s just not usually the ending we find. There was some good news though,” Olivera gestured for Demi to bring him another soda and she reluctantly obliged. She’d been anything but kind to him earlier, and although he deserved every word she’d spat in his face, she unfortunately needed him now. If it meant she brought him a drink or cleaned up a bit it was the least she could do. It was worth it to be able to hear the good news. “Your story checked out,” Olivera said, taking the soda without a word of thanks. “You are who you say you are, from Maine and all. At least we can put that to rest.”
“I’d hoped we already had,” Demi hummed as she took a seat on the small couch next to Roark. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I just want to help. So what do you do next?”
Roark jumped in before Olivera could get snarky. “I’ve been reading over all the notes from the original case. Something is definitely missing. Resources are always limited in a city like Detroit and I’m guessing they didn’t dig as deep as they needed to. I see that they pulled some financials on Alexandria and her boyfriend. They didn’t have much money, paycheck to paycheck type thing. Alexandria volunteered at the community cultural center. Toby was an artist from Australia and neither had a criminal record of any kind. No real debt either. With all that in mind the lead detective ruled the crime as random, a home invasion gone wrong. With Alexandria stating that she didn’t remember anything and no other witnesses, the case went cold. I was assigned somewhere else and it fell through the cracks.”
Demi shook her head as she tried to process this. “What about their families? Wouldn’t they be looking for justice?”
“There are records of calls in to the department from Toby’s family back in Australia for the first couple of years but none of them could make the journey over. Alexandria’s father died years earlier from pancreatic cancer. After that her mother moved back to Canada where she was originally from. Maybe that’s where Alexandria ended up heading.” Roark flipped through more pages in the thick file as he spoke.
This wasn’t adding up for Demi. “So why don’t you agree that it was a random home invasion gone wrong? You sound unconvinced.”
“I am,” Roark admitted. “There should have been detailed phone records pulled on both of them. Statements from some of their friends and co-workers should have been taken. Just because their bank accounts were low doesn’t mean they weren’t dealing in cash with someone. The odds this was random, in my opinion, is slim to none.”
“Why?” Demi asked, knowing she sounded defensive. It was strange to feel the need to protect someone you didn’t even know but she’d shared a womb with this girl. She had to believe that she was the victim of a crime, not the perpetrator of one.
“Well, knowing what we know now about these people, they don’t likely commit random crimes. They have the skill and balls to gun down a detective. They’ve got the knowledge to do so in an area where they know there will be no security cameras. In the notes they left for you they use the term ‘we’. I’m betting they are some form of gang or organized crime. That makes them business men and takes away the motive of random home invasion.” Roark looked over to Ol
ivera to see if he agreed.
“Sounds right,” Olivera decided. “We can check the database to see if the crime matches any particular group in the area and if they left any type of calling card that was missed. But the odds are this was retaliation for a deal gone badly. If we can find out what Toby and Alexandria were involved in we’ll have a better shot at tracking it back to a particular gang.
“Finding Alexandria would be helpful,” Roark said, pressing Olivera to see if he could have his team try harder.
“What makes you think she would know anything at all?” Demi asked again with too much edge to her voice. “You said yourself she was beaten nearly to death. That doesn’t sound like someone who was involved in the crime does it?”
“There’s a better chance they meant to kill her and she survived,” Olivera announced as he flipped through the notes on his lap. “Then maybe they gave her some kind of ultimatum about leaving town. That would coincide with the threatening letters you received. There was clearly some communication between her and the criminals after the attack since they gave her instructions. Leave town. No cops. Someone involved probably spotted you at some point and started following you. It might be that they escalated their attempts at warning you when they saw you with Roark. He looks like a cop from a mile away.”
“Thanks,” Roark smirked.
“That wasn’t a compliment,” Olivera shot back. “Wait, I just got an email from the detectives back at the precinct. They dug up records on the community culture center where Alexandria was volunteering. Apparently they’ve got a lead. The center has been the target of multiple investigations. They are thought to be a mill of sorts for women from other countries who want to give their children up for adoption on the black market. There are sex trafficking concerns and kidnapping allegations. No one has been able to pin them down even after two raids of the place. Oh and here,” he said, handing his phone over to Roark. “They just sent over a statement from a coworker of hers from years ago.”
Roark scrolled down the screen and read out loud. “Alexandria was helping transition young pregnant women from Russia who were trying to start a new life. She loved what she was doing but then one day she suddenly said she wasn’t going to go back. Something upset her.”
“That must be it,” Demi said, clinging to every word. “Maybe she found out she wasn’t actually helping these women but instead they were there against their will or something.”
“And if these guys thought she might spill the beans on their operation they wouldn’t think twice about murdering her to keep her quiet,” Roark deduced.
Olivera picked up his phone and dialed it quickly. “Get me everything you can on the Russian Mob in this area. Check the community cultural center specifically to see what ties they have there. I think these might be the guys who shot up Charger. Make this a top priority. Bring as many of them in as possible. Let’s shake that tree until every last apple hits the ground.”
“I want to go interrogate some of these assholes,” Roark said, hopping to his feet.
“Not a chance,” Olivera barked back. “You don’t have a badge, remember? You’ll jeopardize any case we have against them if I let you in that room. Stay here. I’ll leave a guy on the door and I’ll keep you posted with what we find out. That’s the best offer I have for you.”
Roark growled at the thought of missing an opportunity to shake down these bastards. He wanted to be kicking in their doors and dragging their stunned faces across the pavement. What he really wanted, even though he’d never let himself admit this, was to be a cop again.
When the room was quiet again, just Roark and Demi standing in the silence, he turned toward her and she fell back into his arms. “I don’t want her to be dead,” Demi admitted.
“Let’s just worry about keeping you alive first,” Roark replied but his words were cut short when he heard an unfamiliar voice coming from outside the door. “Russian,” he whispered to her but before he could tell her what to do next there was the pop of gun fire and the thump of a body falling to the floor.
Demi let out a shriek as Roark tackled her to the floor behind the couch. “The bathroom,” he instructed. “Stay low.”
She nodded her head and began shimmying her way to the bathroom just as the first kick hit the door. It took two more tries to send the wood splintering and the door flying open. She screamed again and rolled into the tiny windowless bathroom.
This is where I’m going to die, she thought to herself. This tiny unfamiliar bathroom would be the last place she took a breath.
She kicked the door shut and leaned against it, realizing full well she didn’t stand a chance against the bullets that might pierce that door. She pulled her knees to her chest, tucked her head in, and waited for the inevitable.
THIRTEEN
Roark had eleven rounds in his gun. That was nothing compared to the weapon he just heard fire on the other side of that door. But he remembered what his commanding officer always told him. It only takes one good shot. The problem with that statement was that it could go either way. But hopefully the guy who just kicked in the door wasn’t as good of a shot as he was.
After he’d seen Demi roll into the bathroom he made his move. There was one thing he always thought to be true in a gunfight. The element of surprise swung the odds of survival heavily in your favor. High ground was always better. The nice thing about a safe house, a good one anyway, was that there was usually some place to take cover. He climbed the built in bookshelf and hoisted himself to the small area between the top and the ceiling.
A large bald headed man with a tribal tattoo on his face shoved his way through the door and fired a volley of bullets into the couch. “Come out,” he demanded as he fired a few rounds into the ceiling. When Roark saw his eyes connect with the bathroom he knew this was the moment. It had never been an easy thing to take someone’s life. He’d had to do it multiple times in his life and every single one was still etched into his soul. The one thing that made it bearable, though, was the knowledge that if he didn’t act someone else would be hurt or killed. And now, that someone else was Demi, and he’d do anything to protect her. As he raised his weapon and lined up the kill shot there was no hesitation.
Squeezing the trigger, he watched the man’s head ricochet forward, the rest of his body falling in the same direction. He sat on his perch for a few more seconds waiting to see if any other men might come through the door. He’d kill them all if he had to. No one was getting anywhere near Demi as long as he had breath in his lungs and a gun in his hand.
FOURTEEN
Roark stood at the foot of Charger’s hospital bed and cleared his throat. “Looks like you were just trying to give us a scare. You seem fine to me.”
“Two surgeries later and a hell of a lot of pain meds,” Charger said with a grimace as he tried to adjust his body. “I heard Olivera caught a couple bullets too.”
“He’s fine,” Roark laughed. “No one can shut that guy up, not even an automatic weapon. You’ll be happy to know they’ve caught the triggerman who ambushed you. They’re unraveling all the shit that was going on at the community center. It’s going to be big.” Roark pushed his hands into his pockets, feeling that uneasiness that came over him when he was in a hospital.
“So what’s your plan now?” Charger asked. “You going to try to get back on the force or something? If you were ever going to do it, now would be the time. I heard from a few guys what happened at the safe house.”
“My days with a badge are over and I’m fine with that,” Roark shrugged, biting at his lip to remind his brain to keep telling that lie. “Demi and I, we’re going to go look for her sister. I told her I’d travel with her and lend her my expertise.”
Charger laughed and then regretted it as the pain came. “I’m sure you’ll be nothing but professional,” he scoffed. “I can tell just by the way you say her name that you’re more than crazy about her.”
“Well, kid, you always were a good detective,” Roark j
oked as he headed for the door. “Glad to see you’re going to pull through. I’ll be in touch.”
“You’ll just call me when you need something,” Charger countered.
Roark leaned back inside the doorway for a moment as he spoke. “See, there you go again being a great detective.”
There were three uniformed officers standing in the hallway circled around Demi. “Ready?” Roark asked her with a wide smile.
She leaned in and kissed his unshaven cheek as she looped her arm into his. “Thanks for everything, Roark,” Demi said in a tiny voice. “I have no idea how I’m going to move on from this but I’m glad I’m not doing it alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere. We have a big job ahead of us.”
Demi let her face fall serious; the task of finding her sister was overwhelming. It was still sinking in that she quit her job and intended to dedicate every second and every penny she had to just one goal. She gritted her teeth, clenched her hand down on Roark’s arm as she spoke. “Then let’s get to work.”
OTHER BOOKS BY DANIELLE STEWART
Piper Anderson Series
Book 1: Chasing Justice
Book 2: Cutting Ties
Book 3: Changing Fate
Book 4: Finding Freedom
Book 5: Settling Scores
Book 6: Battling Destiny
Book 7: Chris & Sydney Collection – Choosing Christmas & Saving Love
Betty's Journal - Bonus Material
Edenville Series – A Piper Anderson Spin Off
Book 1: Flowers in the Snow
Book 2: Kiss in the Wind
Book 3: Stars in a Bottle
The Clover Series
Hearts of Clover - Novella & Book 2: (Half My Heart & Change My Heart)
Book 3: All My Heart
Book 4: Facing Home