Chain of Custody

by Carol Ericson

  “Well, you got that right.” He picked up the phone again and reread the message. “If this opportunity just fell into his lap by coincidence, why was he after Wyatt in the first place?”

  “You never did follow through with getting that Rapid DNA test done.”

  “Like I had time?”

  “I’m not criticizing, but what if the story Brett concocted was the actual truth all along? Wyatt is Lanier’s baby, but Lanier didn’t want that getting out. He didn’t want his wife to find out. Or Jaycee was going to blackmail him, so he wanted to...destroy the evidence.”

  “That could all be true. When Jaycee died, one threat had been eliminated, but Brett knew. He had the baby and he was ready to follow through with Jaycee’s plan.”

  Emily wedged her bare feet on the coffee table and wiggled her toes. “Lanier had Brett killed but, by this time, had figured out who you were and what you could do to him. So when he ordered Brett killed, he also ordered his henchman to take Wyatt as insurance.”

  “Poor kid.” Nash ran a hand beneath his nose. “His whole life he’s been nothing more than a bargaining chip.”

  Emily turned toward him and, taking his face in her hands, said, “That’s why we have to rescue him now, Nash. We have to give Lanier what he wants and hope he follows through.”

  “Listen to yourself.” He lightly clinched her wrists. “We’re not letting a guy like Lanier get away with his crimes and continue to make money from people’s suffering. We’re not going to hope that a known liar, thief and killer is going to follow through on his promises.”

  “I get all of that, but we can’t abandon Wyatt.” A sob caught in Emily’s throat, and tears splashed down her cheeks.

  He caught one of her tears with his thumb and sucked it into his mouth. “We’re not going to abandon Wyatt. We’re going to rescue him without giving Lanier a damned thing except a jail cell in federal prison.”

  “How are we going to do that?” She swiped a hand across her wet face.

  “First of all, I need to find out what Webb knows about all this. How is it Lanier knows the name of the guy responsible for his forensic accounting? Why does Lanier believe he’s in the clear once I delete my file?”

  “That is weird.” Emily scooped up her phone and checked the location of the car seat. “Still there, but with all this work you have to do, we can’t get him.”

  “I want to know what we’re walking into.” He tapped the phone in her hand. “Lanier didn’t mention how we’re supposed to know Wyatt is okay. Maybe that’s the first thing you text him. Ask for proof that Wyatt is alive and healthy. Tell him I need some time.”

  “Now?”

  “What time did he send that message?”

  “Around six this morning—after we took care of Gustavo and Danny.” She held her fist out for a bump. “We do make a good team, don’t we?”

  “I told you. You have the instincts of a cop. Get out of this PI business. You never know what kind of clients you’re going to get.” He leaned over and kissed the side of her head. “Send that text. I’m going to feed Denali. He deserves a steak.”

  “Should we take him to the vet today?”

  “Does he look like he’s suffering any ill effects to you?” He tipped his head toward Denali in the corner, gnawing on a bone.

  Emily cupped the phone in her hand, her thumb hovering over the keyboard display. “What should I write?”

  “‘We’re working on it. Send proof that Wyatt is okay.’”

  Her thumb darted over the display, and then she held the phone out to him. “How’s this?”

  “Hit Send.”

  Emily sent the text, and Nash went into the kitchen to get Denali’s food ready. When he opened the fridge, his gaze tripped across one of Wyatt’s bottles, filled with formula. He’d talked a bold game with Emily, but fear clawed at his gut when he thought about Lanier with Wyatt. That man had no regard for the child—whether Wyatt was his or not.

  And how was Webb involved in all of this? If Lanier knew Webb’s name and title, he must know he had the data, too. He wouldn’t put it past Lanier to put a hit on Webb, but the file implicating him would still be on Webb’s computer.

  Emily called from the great room, “He responded.”

  “Read it to me.” Nash grabbed Denali’s dish.

  “He said he’d have the woman watching Wyatt live chat with me.”

  “That’s good. Do it now. We have to have proof of life right now.”

  “I just texted him that.”

  Denali abandoned his bone when Nash carried his dish out to the dining area. “Here you go. Steak later.”

  Emily waved her phone at him. “I’m waiting for this person to call me.”

  Two minutes later, Emily’s cell rang and she answered with the phone display toward her.

  Nash didn’t want to have his mug on this call, so he stood just out of view behind Emily on the couch.

  Wyatt’s face filled the screen, and Nash swallowed the lump in his throat. The woman didn’t allow her own face on the display, but she held Wyatt in her lap and said, “You can see. The baby is fine. He’s healthy and well cared for, and Mr. Marcus told me to tell you he’ll stay that way until Mr. Marcus gets what he wants.”

  With a catch in her voice, Emily said, “Hello, Wyatt. I miss you, baby boy.”

  Wyatt gurgled and smiled when he heard Emily’s voice.

  Emily blew him a few kisses but then addressed the woman. “What’s he paying you? Why would you do this to an innocent baby? Bring him to us, and we’ll make sure you walk away from this.”

  The display swung away from Wyatt and captured a room. A gruff voice came over the phone. “Shut up. The kid’s fine. That’s what you wanted. Just do what you’re supposed to do, and we won’t harm him.”

  Emily shouted, “Let me see him again.”

  Wyatt appeared on the display again and Emily cooed. “It’s okay, Wyatt. We’ll see you soon. I love you, baby boy.”

  They ended the call on the other end, and Emily slumped against the couch cushions.

  Nash squeezed her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have done that. It didn’t help.”

  “Sure it did.” She swung around to face him. “We know he’s not just with some woman. There’s a man there for security, and we got to see some of the room where he’s being held. There was a window in that room and a view of the outside. I’m going to go frame by frame and enlarge those images to get a better look at everything.”

  He bent over and kissed her sassy mouth. “You’re a badass, Officer Lang.”

  “I’m terrified that Lanier has Wyatt, but in a way I almost feel better. He won’t do anything to Wyatt until he has proof that you deleted his file.” She pressed the phone against her heart as if it had captured Wyatt from that chat. “How are you going to contact Webb if you’re off duty?”

  “Our sector is low-key. Even though I’m on leave, nobody at the station is going to stop me if I want to come in wearing my civvies to close out a little business before taking off. I’ll try to reach Webb then. I hope...” Nash bit the inside of his cheek.

  Emily finished his sentence. “You hope he’s still alive. They couldn’t kill him. He still has Lanier’s file on his computer.”

  “That’s right, but he only did the investigation into Lanier. He didn’t reach any conclusions.” Nash wedged his hip against the back of the couch. “If Webb is dead and I delete my file, nobody will pick up the thread.”

  “Wouldn’t you have heard by now if Webb were murdered?”

  “If his body has been discovered. What if nobody knows?”

  Emily grabbed a pillow from his couch and hugged it. “I guess you won’t know until tomorrow...or rather later this morning when you call him.”

  “Lanier’s communication and that live chat with Wyatt just bought us some time, a
nd I’m going to use mine to get a few hours of shut-eye, a shower and breakfast—in that order. I suggest you do the same.”

  Emily stared at the red dot on her phone and then held it up. “We have the advantage, don’t we? They’ll never see us coming.”

  “We’ll hit ’em like a ton of bricks.” Nash brushed Emily’s hair to the side, like gathering sunset in his hands, and kissed the nape of her neck.

  Just like he’d never seen Emily Lang coming. She’d hit him like a ton of bricks...and he’d never be the same.

  * * *

  LATER, AFTER A few hours of sleep with Emily curled up at his side, Nash dropped off Denali at Meg’s place. Meg complained that Clay and her cousin, April, should’ve left the dog with her when they went on their honeymoon, but she just liked complaining.

  Nash and Emily went to breakfast, where he wolfed down eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, the works, while she played with a bowl of oatmeal. He left her with that cold oatmeal and a hot cup of coffee as he made his way into the station.

  Valdez blinked when Nash walked in. “You supposed to be here, bro?”

  “Does it look like I’m working?” Nash plucked at his white T-shirt and patted his hip. “I don’t even have my weapon.”

  “What the hell went on last night?” Valdez raised his coffee cup as if in a toast. “Brett Fillmore dead. Some Las Moscas soldier dead. Another soldier in custody.”

  “Baby still missing.”

  “Yeah, this is complicated. Do you need any help?”

  “Nah.” Nash pulled out his chair and waved at his computer. “Just wanna close a few loose ends in case the investigation into the shooting takes a long time. It shouldn’t, but you already know how slowly the bureaucracy works.”

  “I sure do.” Valdez slurped some coffee. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will, thanks.” Nash waited until Valdez was on the phone, deep into a call. He scrolled through his contacts on his computer and found Webb.

  With a sick flip-flop of his stomach, Nash placed the call. He closed his eyes and blew out a breath when Webb answered on the second ring.

  “Nash Dillon.”

  “That’s right. Everything okay there, Bruce?”

  Bruce responded, “I was expecting your call, Agent Dillon.”

  Nash’s gut twisted again. Hadn’t the guy told him the other day to use his first name? Nash licked his lips. Why did he feel that the Agent Dillon held some significance?

  Nash lowered his voice. “You know about Marcus Lanier and that file, don’t you?”

  “Marcus who?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nash’s hand curled into a fist. Had Lanier gotten to Webb?

  He cleared his throat. “The file you sent me linking Lanier’s finances to those of Las Moscas—you have it, I have it and Lanier wants it destroyed.”

  Webb’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You’re the only one who has that file now, Dillon. I suggest you delete it, and I sincerely hope you didn’t make any copies or send it to anyone. That file never sees the light of day. I will deny any knowledge of it and its contents.”

  “What does he have on you, Webb?”

  “Just do it, if you know what’s good for you and that baby.”

  “What’s to stop me from duplicating the file or not deleting it at all?”

  Webb clicked his tongue. “I put in fail-safes, Dillon. You’ll send the file I emailed to you back to me. I’ll be able to tell if it’s been duplicated or attached to an email. Then I will corrupt the file and send proof to our friend.”

  “He’s no friend of mine... Yours, either, Webb. We can do this together.”

  Webb laughed and Nash knew he’d lost him. The finance guy who loved numbers had gone over to the dark side.

  “He is my friend, and while he may never be yours, you don’t want him as your enemy. I’ll send you instructions on how to embed certain codes in the file. You do that, send it back to me, and he will cooperate with you. Any recording or reporting of this conversation will have a very bad ending for you, Dillon.”

  He and Emily would have to fix this on their own. “I’ve been put on leave for a shooting. I won’t be back at work for a few days.”

  “I know that. We have time. I’ll explain it to him.”

  Time. That was what Nash wanted and what Wyatt needed.

  “Send those instructions to my personal email.”

  Webb got Nash’s personal email address to send him the instructions to prepare the file for obliteration. He didn’t have to know that Nash had no intention of using them—but he would be obliterating Webb’s career.

  Nash ended the call with a feeling of dread gnawing at his gut. Lanier’s tentacles reached farther than he thought, but he didn’t know who he was dealing with. When Lanier had hired Emily to spy on Wyatt, he’d unknowingly unleashed a powerful force of reckoning—a mama bear protecting her cub. Emily would go to any lengths to protect Wyatt...and Nash would go to any lengths to protect both of them.

  On his way out of the station, Nash waved to Valdez, talking on the phone. He drove back to Emily, still nursing the same cup of coffee.

  She half rose from her seat at the booth when he walked into the restaurant, eyebrows raised in a question—or a hundred questions. She started with two of the most obvious. “Is Webb alive? And if he is, what did he have to say?”

  He settled across from her and folded his hands on the wooden tabletop. “He’s alive, but he’s in league with the devil.”

  Clinging to the edge of the table, she said, “What does that mean?”

  “It means Lanier got to him, and I don’t mean in the same way he got to me. Lanier is threatening me. I think he’s rewarding Webb.”

  “Webb’s dirty?” She chewed on her bottom lip.

  “Yeah, he’s dirty.” Nash brought his clasped hands to his face, digging his knuckles into his forehead. “My guess is that the guy who loves numbers loves them even more when they appear in his bank account.”

  Emily whistled. “Does that mean his file on Lanier is already gone?”

  “Gone, and he’s going to send me instructions to add code to my file so when I email it back to him, he can destroy it.”

  “Can you copy it first? Send it to me?”

  “Webb claims that when I send the file back to him, he’ll be able to tell if it’s been duplicated or forwarded.”

  “Do you believe him? That could be a complete lie.”

  “After the stuff I learned from our IT guy, I don’t doubt it. Do you want to take that chance with Wyatt’s life?”

  “What do you think?” She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “When are you going to do it, or are you? You seemed to think before that we could have our cake and stuff our faces with it—get Wyatt back and prosecute Lanier.”

  “I believe that more than ever now.” He downed a glass of lukewarm water on the table, probably leftover from his own breakfast. “Webb knows I’m on leave. I can’t access the Lanier file while I’m on leave. He’s going to pass that information along to Lanier, which buys us time, buys Wyatt time.”

  She dug her elbows into the table and balanced her chin on her palms. “While Webb and Lanier are waiting for you to get back to work and implant the code to facilitate the destruction of that file, we’ll be on our way to Phoenix and Wyatt.”

  “You—” he tucked her hair behind her ear “—are right.”

  She spun her phone on the table to face him, and he glanced down at the GPS app that she must’ve been staring at for the past hour. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “Nightfall, for one. We’re not going to charge into some Lanier property in Phoenix to rescue Wyatt in broad daylight.”

  “We can drive to Phoenix, though. I can’t sit around Paradiso knowing Wyatt is with that woman and some guard.” She
scooped her hands into her hair and grabbed it by the roots. “I’ll go crazy.”

  “With your hair like that, you look a little off balance.” He smoothed his hand over her red head. “First, we’re going to kill some time by going out to the border and retrieving your rental car.”

  “I always meant to ask you how you knew I was driving a rental.”

  He twisted his lips. “C’mon. I ran your plates. You must’ve taken that into consideration, as the car was rented to Emily O’Brien, not Lang.”

  “When I rented that car, I didn’t even know of your existence. I was creating my identity.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago we met, was it?” He didn’t wait for her answer. He didn’t want to discuss their relationship right now. “Next, we’re going to check you out of that motel.”

  “Which I barely occupied.”

  “And we’re going to pack a bag of gadgets and disguises and weapons.”

  She formed her fingers into a pistol and aimed it at him. “Let’s not forget the weapons.”

  They spent the afternoon doing just what Nash planned. When they finally made it out to the border to get Emily’s car, they found a smashed windshield.

  Emily wedged her hands on her hips as she surveyed the damage. “Gustavo and Danny must’ve been really upset when they found this car.”

  “At least Lanier’s paying for it, right? What better way to use dirty money than to pay for dirty deeds.”

  Once they dropped the car off at the rental company, they started packing. The Border Patrol had confiscated Nash’s service revolver, but he had his personal stash and he was bringing most of it.

  Emily surveyed his weapons duffel bag with an appreciative spark in her green eyes. “Nice collection. You have only two hands, though. Are you gonna share?”

  “I’ve never dated a woman yet who wanted to share—weapons or anything else.” He zipped up the bag, closing it to her acquisitive gaze. “But I can be persuaded.”

  “That’s good because I can be persuasive.”

  “I’m aware of that.” He spread his hands to encompass their gear on the floor. “Do you think I’d be doing this otherwise?”