Exposed

by Laura Griffin

  He took out his phone now and composed an e-mail. He would handle things personally this time, and there would be no mistakes. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being afraid to get his hands dirty.

  CHAPTER 6

  The address listed on Volansky’s driver’s license was about what Brian expected, with a few unpleasant surprises. He stepped through the front door of the apartment unit for the second time that night and traded his shoes for paper booties.

  “I talked to the landlord,” he told Sam, who was standing beside a sliding glass door and watching a crime-scene tech dust for prints. It was one of the few places to dust, as the unit was nearly empty.

  “Where’d you find him?” Sam asked.

  “Called the number posted at the front office. Turns out he lives on the premises.”

  Sam lifted an eyebrow.

  “Don’t get excited. He doesn’t know much. Or so he claims. Says the tenant in this unit wasn’t around a lot. Says he leased the place fifteen months ago and paid a year’s worth of rent in cash—”

  “Cash?”

  “Yep. And he was back the first week of January to pay this year’s.”

  “You ask to see the lease application?”

  “He thumbed through the files, says he must have ‘misplaced’ it. My guess is he pocketed some money not to get one in the first place.”

  “Don’t nobody know nothin’ about nothin’,” Sam said.

  “And he was jumpy as hell, which tells me he at least has some idea his tenant’s got something going on here.”

  Brian glanced around, more carefully this time. The only furniture in the apartment consisted of a sofa, a plastic patio chair, and a big-screen TV in the corner of the living area. The bedroom didn’t have a bed, and the fridge was completely empty. Brian had checked.

  “You get a look at what this guy bought at the gas station earlier?” Sam asked him.

  “A six-pack of beer. Why?”

  “Anything else?”

  “Probably cigarettes. He lit up as soon as he exited the store.”

  “We need the brand.” Sam nodded at the small patio on the other side of the door. “There are some butts out there, all Marlboro Reds. We need to find out if they belong to Vlad or one of his buddies. Maybe we’ll even get lucky and find one that belongs to Mladovic.”

  Highly doubtful, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Brian pulled out his phone and scrolled through three separate messages he’d just received from Maddie, all with photographs attached.

  “Maddie got a picture of the SUV’s interior,” Brian said. “Looks like a six-pack of Bud on the seat, but I don’t see a carton of smokes. Maybe he only bought a pack.”

  “Brian? Sam? You guys need to look at this.”

  He turned to see Elizabeth LeBlanc standing in the foyer. The agent was even newer to the job than Brian, but they’d brought her along in the unlikely event that they found Jolene Murphy alive.

  Brian braced himself as he followed her down the short hallway leading to the bathroom. It smelled like a litter box. A crime-scene tech was crouched beside the bathtub.

  “Check out these marks,” Elizabeth said.

  Brian studied the side of the tub. “What’s that from, a hammer?”

  “Probably a hammer, maybe a mallet,” the CSI said. She turned and pointed to the drainpipe under the sink. “We’ve also got some scratches here on the pipe. I can’t say for sure, but they could be from handcuffs.”

  “Any idea how old those bloodstains are?” Sam asked.

  “Could be days, maybe even weeks. It’s hard to pin down.”

  Brian exchanged looks with Sam. They’d already guessed that Jolene had been held captive here. The question was when. A fast-food receipt they’d recovered from a trash bin was dated two days ago. Brian glanced around.

  “What are those marks on the wall?” He tugged Elizabeth aside and crouched down. “See there?”

  “Probably from her feet,” Elizabeth said. “Looks to me like she was on the floor here, kicking the wall.”

  “And no one heard anything,” Sam said disgustedly.

  “Neighboring unit’s unoccupied,” Brian told him. “Maybe a coincidence, maybe not.”

  Sam checked a message on his phone and muttered a curse.

  “What is it?”

  “Jolene’s father wants an update.”

  The family had been hounding them around the clock, and Brian didn’t blame them. But Jolene’s dad had bought a police scanner and was listening intently to any and all activity that might have something to do with his daughter’s disappearance. His frequent phone calls were a distraction.

  “I told him I’d stop by tonight.” Sam checked his watch. “Now I’m wishing I hadn’t.”

  “Hey, you guys mind taking it into the hall?” The CSI looked annoyed. “I need to finish in here.”

  “I’m happy to stick around if you need to go,” Elizabeth said as they migrated into the living room.

  “That’d be good.”

  “Want me to come?” Brian asked, even though he dreaded the idea. He’d spent half an hour yesterday with Jolene’s distraught mother, and it had been miserable.

  “I got it.” Sam peeled off his gloves. “You should go home and pour yourself a stiff drink. Or better yet, buy a lotto ticket. It’s dumb luck you didn’t get pumped full of lead tonight.”

  “He shot at you?” Elizabeth looked stunned.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, sure, maybe after about a fifth of bourbon.” Sam jerked his head toward the door. “Go on, get outta here. You’ve had a shitty day.”

  Brian walked out to his car and stood for a moment looking back at the apartment building. Cold air whipped through his shirt as he stared at unit 18B. How long had Jolene been kept there? What exactly had been done to her? And why hadn’t neighbors heard anything suspicious and picked up the phone?

  A lot of questions, with answers that were guaranteed to infuriate him. Brian slid behind the wheel. He’d been up nearly twenty hours, and—mentally—he was tapped. Physically was another story. He still had that buzz of adrenaline that told him sleep anytime soon would be impossible.

  He started the car and glanced at the clock. Eleven-twenty. He thought of Jolene being tortured in that apartment. He thought of his best friend in Afghanistan, who’d been killed right in front of him by a roadside bomb. He thought about fate and luck and all the fucked-up things people did to one another for no good reason at all.

  Brian pulled out of the lot, and his bleak mood started to close in on him. He thought about his empty apartment in San Antonio and the bottle of Jack in his cabinet.

  It wouldn’t help. But he knew something that would.

  Maddie wasn’t sure what she was doing here. One minute, she’d been curled up on her sofa in pj’s, flipping channels and eating Cheetos in a vain attempt to forget the day. The next minute, she’d been zipping up her jeans and caving in to what was sure to be an extremely stupid impulse.

  Brian pulled open the door and held it for her as she ducked under his arm. She stepped into the warm, dim restaurant and was greeted by the tantalizing scent of fresh pizza.

  “Pretty crowded for this time of night,” she said.

  “They’re open twenty-four seven.” He ushered her to the counter, and she tipped her head back to gaze at the menu board posted above.

  Maddie sighed. This outing was testing her willpower on every front. When her phone had chimed and the caller ID had said US GOV, she’d immediately known it was him. She should have felt alarmed or at least annoyed that he’d accessed her private cell number and decided to call at eleven-thirty, but instead, she’d felt vaguely flattered.

  Which should have been her first clue that this was a mistake.

  “What do you like? Sausage? Pepperoni?” he asked. “I’m open-minded when it comes to pizza.”

  Only when it comes to pizza? But she kept the question to herself, because it would sound flirty, and that was definitely somet
hing she needed to avoid. This was not a date. Not. A. Date. This was a couple of tired colleagues grabbing a meal after work.

  “How about Canadian bacon and pineapple?” she asked, just to test her hypothesis.

  He surprised her by shrugging. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Or wait—on second thought, how about pepperoni and mushroom?”

  “Whatever you want. I haven’t eaten since lunch. I could pretty much eat a shoe right now.”

  They placed the order, and the cashier slid their beers across the counter as Brian reached for his wallet.

  “I got it.” She plunked her purse on the counter.

  “No, let me.”

  “Really, let me. This isn’t a date.”

  There, she’d said the D word. She’d meant it quite seriously, but the corner of his mouth curved up.

  “All right, then, you get the food, I’ll get the beers.”

  Maddie picked up a plastic number that looked like an evidence marker and found a table in the corner under a neon beer sign. She sank into a chair and shrugged out of her jacket, proud of herself for having cleared the air. Now they could hang out without awkwardness.

  She took a sip of her cold beer, which she had to admit tasted better than the diet soda she’d been drinking back at home. She rested the bottle on the table and glanced around. The booths had brighter lights, and some of the customers there had textbooks open. It was a college hangout.

  “I like this place,” she said. “How’d you find out about it, living in San Antonio?”

  “Sam heard about it. We were working a case here in town, keeping pretty crazy hours. It’s one of the few places that serves food late. You’ve never been here?”

  “Nope.”

  His gaze met hers across the table. He was giving her that look again, the one that made her skin tingle.

  “So.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for giving me that shell casing. I’ll get it into ballistics tomorrow—”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about we don’t talk about work tonight? I could use a break.” He tipped back his beer.

  “That’s fine. I was just—” Babbling. She was definitely babbling. It was something she did when she was nervous, and the fact that this nondate was making her that way underscored the fact that she needed to get out more. With men instead of girlfriends.

  She reached for some small talk. “So, how long were you in the military?”

  He looked amused. “Been talking to Sam, I take it?”

  “I just assumed. You seemed pretty . . . undaunted by the whole shooting incident.”

  “I went through college on ROTC. Did four years with the Army after graduation.”

  “You served in Iraq?”

  “Afghanistan. After my second tour, I decided not to reup.”

  “How come?”

  “Lot of reasons.” Something in his tone told her he wasn’t going to share all of them. “I couldn’t see making a career out of it, for one thing. I was more interested in solving problems closer to home.”

  “And where is home, exactly?”

  He smiled. “This is quite the interview. You ever work as a journalist?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  He took a sip of his beer and rested it on the table. “Grew up in Florida.”

  “You’re kidding.” She tilted her head to the side, trying to see it. “I never would have guessed that.”

  “Inland,” he said. “On a farm, actually.”

  Now, that she could see. “Citrus?”

  “Dairy.” He smiled. “Believe it or not, we grow things in Florida besides oranges. What about you? Where’s home?”

  “Well, this is, now. I’ve been here eight years. Originally, I’m from Dallas.”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “You don’t like Dallas?”

  “Nah, it’s fine. It’s just . . .” He shook his head. “I had a girlfriend from there once, and she was very—” He stopped and seemed to be groping for a word. Maddie waited, enjoying the suspense.

  “She was very . . . ?”

  “High-maintenance. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect body.”

  She laughed. “Gee, that must have been torture for you.”

  “Believe me, it got old. Anytime we went anywhere, it took her, like, ten hours to get ready. Used to drive me crazy.”

  “Well.” She felt herself relaxing now that the conversational ball was rolling. “Some of my best friends are from Dallas. Not everyone’s like that.”

  “Obviously.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. It was another one of those offhand comments that seemed loaded with meaning, especially when delivered with that glint in his eyes.

  She needed to tackle this issue head-on. Why was she being such a wuss about it? This wasn’t her normal MO with men—usually, she was assertive.

  “How’d it go earlier?” he asked. “The injury accident?”

  “You said you didn’t want to talk about work.”

  “I meant mine. We can talk about yours all you want.”

  “It was fine.” She turned her bottle on the table.

  “Fine?”

  She glanced up. “Actually, it was horrible, if you want to know the truth. Motorcycle versus pickup truck.”

  He winced.

  “Two fatalities,” she said. “And why anyone would be stupid enough to own one of those crotch rockets and go zipping around on a curvy two-lane road—” She stopped and looked at him. “Oh, my God. You have one, don’t you?”

  “Guilty.”

  “I thought you were smart! Please tell me you wear a helmet.”

  He reached for his beer. “I almost always wear a helmet.”

  “Brian!” She slapped the table. “Do you have any idea what the fatality rate is for motorcycle riders? And that’s with proper headgear. I should bring you to the ME’s office sometime. If you saw what I saw—”

  “I’m sure it’s bad.”

  She shook her head and twisted her beer bottle. Bad didn’t begin to describe it.

  “Have you ever been on a bike?”

  She looked at him. “No.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “What case? You didn’t make a case for anything.”

  “I’ll take you on my bike sometime and show you what I mean.” He sipped his beer, and Maddie watched, speechless. She imagined herself shooting down the highway on the back of his motorcycle, hair streaming behind her, arms wrapped around him, thighs clinging to him for dear life. Just the thought of it made her insides tighten.

  He was flirting with her. She’d thought she’d been imagining it before, but now she was certain.

  The waitress slid a giant pizza in front of them, and whatever sensible thing she’d been about to say was lost as the smell of garlic and pepperoni wafted up to her. Brian wasted no time digging in.

  “I just want to be clear,” she said, hating how uptight she sounded. But she genuinely liked this guy, and she didn’t want to mislead him. “This isn’t a date.”

  “You said that already.”

  She eyed him suspiciously as she picked up a slice of pizza and tore a strand of cheese.

  “It’s good,” he said.

  She took a bite, careful not to singe the roof of her mouth and ruin the whole meal. The sauce was spicy, and the crust was just the right balance between doughy and crisp. She was coming back here again for sure—just maybe not with him.

  After another bite, he put his slice down and looked at her. “What if it was?”

  “What?” She dabbed some grease from her mouth.

  “Us, on a date. I’ve been wanting to ask you out, although I probably should have started with something nicer than a pizza joint.”

  She took a sip of beer to fortify herself. She looked directly at him. “Brian, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  She closed her eyes. “Oh, my God.” He was younger than Roland. She looked at him again, and he seemed completely rel
axed. “Don’t you want to know how old I am?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  She arched her eyebrows.

  “I saw your DOB on the police report,” he said. “So what?”

  “So, don’t you see the problem?”

  “What problem?”

  She looked at him, dismayed. “Do you have any idea what people say about—” She stopped talking, because the slight smile on his face told her he knew exactly what people said. He swigged his beer, eyeing her over it, and she felt her cheeks warm.

  He plunked the bottle down and leaned forward on his elbows. “Look, I can tell you’re uncomfortable. So, fine, this isn’t a date. It’s a pizza. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, I don’t know. Tierra del Fuego. I’ve never been there. Tell me what it’s like.”

  Maddie managed to talk for the rest of the meal as he sat attentively and chimed in with occasional comments and questions. He was a great listener. It was a skill so few people had, and she appreciated it. By the time he’d wolfed down the last morsel of pepperoni, the restaurant crowd had thinned.

  He pushed his plate away and rested his arms on the table. He leaned in conspiratorially, and Maddie found herself leaning closer, too.

  “Maddie, can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you keep looking at my hands?”

  She glanced at the long, thick fingers that were curled around his beer bottle. She hadn’t realized he’d noticed.

  “Habit, I guess.”

  His eyebrows lifted.

  “I pay attention to how people touch stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “People have unique styles of handling things,” she said. “For instance, that you hold your beer by the top, where the neck tapers in, when you’re taking a sip. If I needed to get prints, that’s where I’d go first.”

  He was looking at her a little warily now, and she smiled. Most people would probably be shocked to know the sort of details CSIs picked up on.

  “Also, you eat your pizza taco-style. You fold it in half.”