Smoke Screen (The Darcy Lynch Series Book 2)

by Elin Barnes

  “Has Virago come to talk to you yet?” Sorensen asked him.

  “She came earlier to say hello.”

  “So she didn’t tell you anything?”

  Jon stopped tapping on the laptop and looked at him. “About . . . ?”

  “This and that.” Sorensen avoided his eyes and picked up the box from the bed.

  “The captain has a proposition,” Darcy shared.

  “She’s going to pay me?” His eyes shined.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Sorensen said. “Well, don’t want to ruin the surprise, so don’t tell her we mentioned anything.”

  “But you haven’t told me anything,” Jon protested.

  “Better if she tells you.” Sorensen was already halfway out the door.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” Darcy said loud enough for Jon to hear.

  “What?” Sorensen walked faster still.

  “Really? ‘What?’”

  “Sorry. I thought she would have told him already.”

  “Tell me what?” Jon yelled from the room.

  “Oh, for God’s sakes.” Sorensen turned around and walked back into the room. “The captain has an offer to lead a task force for the San Jose PD.”

  “She’s leaving?” Jon asked.

  “No. Well, yes. But she asked us to go with her.”

  “You’re leaving?” His voice was a shriek, and his vitals spiked.

  Darcy took a step forward, closer to the bed. “She wants the three of us to go with her.”

  “Me too?” Jon’s vitals rose up even more.

  The same nurse popped her head into the room and asked, “Everything okay here?”

  “Yeah, all good,” Jon waved a hand at her. “She wants the three of us to work for the SJPD on a task force? How cool is that?” he said to Sorensen, almost jumping out of the bed.

  Darcy smiled. He hadn’t seen Jon so happy in a while.

  “When?”

  “Not sure. We’re still thinking about it,” Sorensen said.

  “You’re not coming?” Jon asked, blinking several times.

  “I didn’t say that. It’s complicated,” Sorensen said.

  “Are you coming?” Jon asked Darcy.

  “Haven’t thought about it too much yet.”

  “Oh.” Jon looked down at his computer screen as if he was looking for something.

  “Anyway, act surprised when Virago tells you, okay?” Sorensen said.

  “Sure.” Looking up at them again, he added, “Don’t forget to get me the soft copies of all this. I’ll call you with whatever I find.”

  Sorensen pulled his phone and called Brantley. A moment later he said, “You’ll have them in less than five minutes.”

  They drove back to the station. Darcy felt agitated. There was something that was bothering him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He agreed with Sorensen that there was something fishy about Bishop and Mitchell, but they didn’t have any hard evidence against them to break the case. He couldn’t find the connection between the Marines and Malik or de la Rosa, but there had to be one.

  “Is there any way we can hack into these guys’ bank records or something?” Sorensen asked when they walked into the bullpen. It sounded more like a rhetorical question than anything else.

  “Bishop and Mitchell?” Darcy asked.

  Sorensen nodded.

  “I was just thinking the same thing. I have a feeling they’re moonlighting.”

  “I’m leaning in the same direction. Nothing else makes sense.”

  They both looked at their boards.

  Darcy picked up a black marker and stared at the information pinned there. “Let’s say they are. For the sake of argument,” he said.

  “Who hired them? What did they want from Malik?” Sorensen asked, thinking out loud.

  “Wait, let’s start from the beginning.”

  “Okay.” Sorensen got out of his chair. “This sounds like it’s going to take a while. I need a Red Bull. You want one?”

  “No, I’ll get coffee.”

  When they were back in the bullpen, Darcy stood in front of the board, and Sorensen leaned against his desk.

  Darcy started talking: “We have two Marine pranks with identical MOs. The two teams dared each other to kidnap their gunnies and ship them off, shaven and tattooed, to a foreign land.”

  Sorensen nodded and said, “Then we get another case, carbon copy of the pranks, but it’s not a prank. They take a regular Joe.”

  “The media didn’t release enough details for a copycat this perfect.”

  “Somebody who participated in the pranks, or knew somebody who did, shared enough information or participated in the kidnapping.” Sorensen finished his first can and opened the second one.

  “What if the first two were just a smoke screen? Something to take us on a wild-goose chase and make us waste our time investigating while they took Malik? Maybe we weren’t supposed to find the gunnys so fast.” Darcy sipped some coffee and went on: “And then, something went wrong.”

  “Or they realized he wasn’t who they needed,” Sorensen said.

  “They made a mistake? No. These guys are too good. Everything was meticulously planned. Think about it: they haven’t left a single piece of evidence anywhere. They knew exactly who they were taking.”

  “Okay, let’s go with your theory. So, if Malik died before he gave them what they wanted, they had to go get somebody else. But why not do it the same way?”

  “Because we were already on their trail,” Darcy said.

  “Yeah, shooting at the police is never a smart move. I bet the whole kidnapping with the gas and all that took a lot of planning.”

  They both paused. Darcy left to refill his coffee.

  From the kitchen he started talking: “Okay, so they had to come up with plan B. De la Rosa goes MIA, and eleven people are dead at his home. Either he did this, or somebody kidnapped him too. We have no witnesses and still no clues.” He paused. “Oh, wait.” Darcy picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Detective Lynch, how can I help you?” Rachel asked.

  “I saw security cameras. Were there any tapes?” Darcy asked.

  Rachel chuckled, and he saw Sorensen sneer.

  “Detective, this is Silicon Valley. The security cameras were state of the art, and we haven’t figured out where the footage is being stored.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Darcy joked.

  “The perps severed the network cable anyway, so I’m not sure what you’ll find once you get the records.” Her phone beeped. “I’m getting another call. Anything else?”

  “No, thank you, Rachel.” Darcy hung up. Looking back at the board, he said, “Okay, so de la Rosa goes MIA.”

  “Maybe dead, maybe kidnapped, maybe in Mexico having margaritas.”

  “It can’t be coincidence that Malik worked for de la Rosa. I hope Jon finds something.”

  Darcy’s desk phone rang. It was Rachel. He put her on speaker again.

  “I talked to Michelle and she confirmed that there were no prints. I mean, like no prints at all—as in the equipment and cables had been wiped clean.”

  They thanked her before she hung up.

  “There’s no reason for de la Rosa to get rid of the prints. It’s his house.” Sorensen opened a bag of potato chips and put three in his mouth. “We’re no closer.”

  The phone rang again, but this time it was Sorensen’s. He picked it up.

  “Done already?” he asked.

  Jon was now on speaker.

  “Well, it’s a lot easier with the digital files.” Jon swallowed on the other end. “I found seven cases where there was a specific connection between Malik and de la Rosa. Four are cases that have been settled out of court already. Three were start-ups that grew to some decent size. The last one was a much more mature company. Not too big, but it had just started being profitable when they were hit with the lawsuit. It went bankrupt fighting the patent infringement in court.”

  “Jon,
you sure you are doing okay?” Sorensen asked.

  “Yes . . . Why?”

  “I thought your math was better than that . . . that’s eight.”

  “Oh. Yes. Eight. That’s what I meant.”

  Darcy imagined the intern fidgeting as he blushed.

  “Losing your company seems good enough cause for a grudge. What’s the name of the company?” he asked to give Jon a break.

  “ZoneTech.”

  Sorensen wrote it on the board.

  “What’s up with the other three?”

  “There are two currently in litigation. One, HyperDyne, is in negotiations. The other, Rattle, is actually in court. The third one, NanoQ, apparently was served papers two weeks ago, but there’s no court filing yet. No indication of whether they’re thinking of settling or fighting.”

  Sorensen wrote everything down on the board. “Okay, can you dig more into the one that went bankrupt first and the three active cases?”

  “Will do. I’ll also start working on the connection between Malik, de la Rosa, Bishop, and Mitchell, and see if I can find something.”

  Chapter 61

  Blake was unable to move for a long time after the woman hung up. He recognized the voice, of course. It was that bitch from last night. Belle’s sister. He got out of his chair and closed the blinds. He needed privacy and time to think. He sat back down in his chair, then swiveled to look out the window. The parking lot was full.

  He felt his torso. He was sure Madam X had bruised at least a couple ribs. He’d told them the truth: he didn’t know where Belle was. All he knew was that Ethan had taken her with him.

  He fetched his disposable cell and dialed. He didn’t expect Ethan to answer. Blake had left him at least a dozen messages describing in detail what he went through the previous night and how it was all Ethan’s fault. His desperation had increased with each call, culminating in the last one, where he’d threatened not to pay Ethan for the job. That should have got Ethan’s attention, but he still hadn’t called back.

  When Ethan picked up, Blake’s apprehension subsided. The threat had worked after all.

  “You told me you fixed that little problem we had,” Blake said.

  “I did say that.”

  “Then why did she just call me at my office to tell me she’s going to go to the police to rat me out?” Blake felt his heartbeat quicken. He took a deep breath. “Ethan, she called me at my office.” Gritting his teeth, he added, “Why the fuck did you have to take Belle? If you’d killed the hooker like all the rest, none of this would have happened.”

  There was silence on the other end. It lasted so long, Blake wondered if Ethan had hung up. “You there?”

  “You want me to eliminate the sister?” Ethan finally asked.

  “No, no! Why would you ask that?”

  “Well, I’m having a hard time understanding what you want.” Ethan paused again for an eternity. “First you tell me you want this problem to go away. I offer you the only solution that can ensure that, and you tell me you don’t like it.” He exhaled with a low whistle that hurt Blake’s ear. “I’m kind of confused about what it is that you really want.”

  Blake pushed himself against the back of his chair and wiped his face with his hand. “I want all this to be over,” he said more to himself than to Ethan.

  “Okay, well, I’m kind of busy here, so call me back when you’ve decided how you want me to handle this situation.”

  “Wait,” Blake said. “How are things with de la Rosa?”

  “That problem will disappear before your next exec meeting.”

  “Thank God,” Blake said. Before Ethan could hang up, he added, “So what do we do about this woman?”

  “Are you asking for my opinion?” Ethan’s voice sounded sarcastic.

  “Yes.”

  “The pimp should be out of commission for a few days. The girl . . . Very different than her sister. She put up a decent fight earlier and ended up pepper-spraying one of my guys, and after all that she still had the balls to call you at the office and threaten you. I would say this ticking bomb is about to go off.”

  Blake exhaled slowly. He knew Ethan was right. “This would have never happened if you hadn’t taken the hooker. Why the hell did you have to do that?”

  Ethan hung up.

  Chapter 62

  Darcy checked the emails Jon was sending as they came in in. “It’s going to take a long time to check out all of these leads,” he said to Sorensen.

  “I know. We have to be smart about it.”

  “Can we get more people?”

  “Why don’t you ask the captain?” Sorensen snickered.

  Darcy got up to get more coffee. Coming back with an empty cup, he said, “Why is it so fucking hard for people to brew a new pot of coffee when they take the last cup?”

  “I have no idea.” Sorensen wasn’t paying attention. “How many people do you think went missing in your multiple homicide?”

  “No way to know without the security feed. But if Rachel is right, it looks like they found twelve coats by the entrance that don’t belong to de la Rosa or his wife, and four visitor cars, matched to some of the victims. Eleven bodies, so considering they probably went in as couples, I would say maybe three people missing.”

  “Let’s say these are the same guys who did the bank job. You take three hostages and fit an additional five guys in your vehicle . . . What were they driving? A school bus?”

  Darcy left the kitchen and came back to the bullpen, forgetting the brewing coffee. “Yeah, that seems a bit surreal. Maybe two getaway cars?”

  “Assuming they had an even number of girls and boys at this party, if they took three people . . .” Sorensen checked Darcy’s board. “That means they probably took two guys and a woman.”

  “They took the host. But why not take his wife?” Darcy stood and tapped at the picture of a woman with too much cosmetic surgery. “He was married to this woman.”

  “Was she in it?”

  “She’s dead,” Darcy protested.

  “Well, some jobs don’t go as planned.” Sorensen chewed the end of his pen. “If they kidnapped somebody else, they could get additional ransom . . . Have you got anything from your sister about a possible guest list?”

  “No. She said that an acquaintance told her that she and a friend were supposed to go to the party, but something came up, and they had to cancel at the last minute. That may explain why there were so many pros.”

  “And no way we could get some names of possible guests?”

  “She told me she was working on that.”

  “Can you tell her to work faster?”

  “I’ll get right on that,” Darcy said as if he hadn’t thought about it himself. “Any luck with prints?”

  “No, it seems that we have no matches in the system, which is not surprising given the social status of the known guests.”

  I’m hungry. Let’s order Chinese,” Darcy said.

  “Not again. Can we get pizza?”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  They ordered, and Sorensen asked for it to be delivered. “Screw that. We’ll come and get it.” Sorensen hung up the phone. “Can you believe that, an hour to deliver?” he said as if somebody had committed a deadly sin.

  He got up and started putting on his jacket.

  “No, I’ll go. I need some fresh air,” Darcy said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Darcy stood by Sorensen’s desk and extended his hand, palm facing up.

  “What?”

  “Keys.”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes, you’re always driving my car. Can you get your own?” he asked, but planted the keys on Darcy’s hand.

  “It should be ready tomorrow. I’ll be back in a second.”

  Chapter 63

  Ethan was getting fed up with the Rich Boy. He was whiny, needy, and not as smart as he claimed to be. Ethan was always a few steps ahead of Blake and he liked that, but still, the mission was getting old.

  He p
ut the phone on the table and looked into his special room. “Where were we?” he asked out loud.

  He’d sent everybody home. Ethan thought about all their missions together. Most of them had included the elimination of some target. They’d been simple, straightforward. He never felt pity or remorse. There was always a reason why the world was a better place without somebody.

  Ethan thought about Blake’s question. He usually didn’t take or keep souvenirs from the missions, but this time he’d taken the hooker. It’d been a much more spontaneous action than was typical of him, and he had to admit that it had complicated things quite a bit. But there was nothing he could do about it now except get the most out of it. Ethan figured his crew were curious about his extracurricular activities, but they knew better than to say anything to him.

  Carlos de la Rosa was naked, lying on a wooden table. His entire body was strapped to it, a la Dexter, but with medical restraints rather than saran wrap. The table was tilted about five degrees, so de la Rosa could see what Ethan was doing.

  The fat man had attempted to free himself, fight, and even tried to bite Ethan once. He then gave up and switched to crying, without making too much of a sound. He was gagged. The chest that had been coated in hair not even twenty-four hours earlier now was covered in second-degree burns. Ethan had set the hair on fire and only extinguished it when de la Rosa had passed out from the pain. He didn’t want another heart attack, or the job would never end. And he wanted to get paid.

  De la Rosa had several other wounds. Looking at the bleeding feet, Ethan thought back to when he was pulling the toenails out. One by one. He’d heated the pliers, then touched the skin right below the nail. Grabbing the end of the nail with the hot metal, he pushed up hard every time, ripping the nail from the nail bed to the matrix in one fast movement. De la Rosa’s screams were so loud, even through the gag, that at one point Ethan actually worried the soundproof room might not be as soundproof as he needed it to be. But nobody had come knocking on the door to ask what was going on, so he continued.

  After all the nails were gone and the chest hair nicely removed, Ethan had pulled the man’s mouth open and drilled tiny holes, not even that deep, in every receding gum he’d found. He’d read something similar in a book when he was a teenager. It was supposed to cause intense pain, and he’d wanted to do it to somebody ever since.