She nodded, uncertain, wishing that Colt was in the room with her. Henry indicated a door to the left which would take them to the room where the men were. Her knees wobbled as she moved forward, while her stomach flipped several times. With a silent prayer, she was glad she hadn’t eaten, or she would have brought up her breakfast and lunch with the way her stomach churned.
“This way,” the detective said, standing aside when they reached the door.
He held it open and allowed her entry first. The urge to tell him to go ahead of her was strong, but she suppressed it, reassuring herself of his earlier statement that the precinct was full of cops and nothing would happen to her. Moreover, Colt was somewhere in the building; he would save her should the cops fail. She shook her head at the thought. What was she thinking? How could Colt save her if the police could not?
There were several uniformed, armed officers at the door. This gave her a sense of security, knowing they were a few meters away in the event the perpetrator should try anything; that is if he was in the lineup.
“Walk close to them and get a sense of anything familiar … anything,” Henry encouraged. “I’m right here, and so are they.” He thumbed at the officers outside the door, then gently nudged her in.
A voice came over an intercom inside the room and startled her. She looked at the men lined up against the wall. There were numbers on the wall above their heads. Upon closely scrutinizing them, she realized their hands were cuffed behind them and their feet chained at the ankles.
“Number 1, come forward two steps,” the voice over the intercom said.
The person under the number one sign stepped forward as instructed. Henry nodded to her, and she stepped closer as well. Her legs were wooden, but she managed to reach the person. She moved as close as about a foot, then closed her eyes and tried to remember that day. The scent, the feel of the man as he grabbed her, the height. She inched closer, trying to see if the height matched.
She knew that number one was not the guy as soon as she closed in another six or so inches. Shaking her head, she turned to Henry who motioned to the person behind the panel.
“Number 2, make two steps forward,” the male voice instructed once more.
The second man stepped forward as well. Chelsea did the same as before, stepping close, closing her eyes and trying to conjure the day in question. They completed the ritual with all six men, the third and fourth were closest to the height of her kidnapper, but she could not be certain from them standing so still.
When the session was over, she felt that she’d missed something, and as she approached Henry who never left the door, a weird presence enveloped her that she stopped short and turned. A shudder ran through her at the thought that the kidnapper was actually there, but she could not point him out.
“What’s wrong?” Henry took a step and was by her side.
“Nothing,” she replied, swallowing and trying to appear unaffected. “Are we done?” She wanted Colt, but he was not allowed back there.
“No, we have two more things we want to try. The officers here will be inside the room when we do the last one. But first, we want you to listen.”
“To what?”
He held her gaze as he told her what would happen next. “We’ll have each of them talk first through the voice changer; it may not help much, but let’s give it a shot. After that, we’ll have them say ‘I did it for you’, according to the report you gave.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“We can go back behind the panel; you look like you could use some coffee.”
Her stomach was still somewhat queasy, so coffee perhaps was not a good choice. On the other hand, maybe the caffeine would do her some good. Henry went ahead and poured a cup, bringing it back to her.
“I’m not sure how you take it.” He smiled.
“This is fine,” she said, returning his smile.
The dark liquid was smooth and rich, no sugar or cream, but it suited her fine. The DA beckoned them over to stand beside him while the men turned their backs and the hoods were removed from their heads. They were all given baseball caps to wear so that they would all appear the same. Their cuffs were removed from behind them, and their hands cuffed in front. Chelsea thought it was natural police procedure so didn’t think twice about the direction of the cuffed hands. But the inability to see their faces bothered her.
“Why can’t I see their faces?” She turned to Henry quizzically.
“Because it would put them at an unfair disadvantage since you never saw their face in the first place. If someone was present that you knew, it might influence the identification process.”
Nodding her understanding, she turned back to the panel as the officer at a desk near the panel began to speak through a microphone. “Number 1, speak into the voice changer, ‘keep still!’”
Chelsea closed her eyes and waited. The first man spoke; it sounded like Darth Vader, but too tame. She asked the officer to instruct him to repeat with a little more venom.
“Keep still!” came through the voice changer once again. Keeping her eyes closed, she listened as number 2 repeated the words, number 3, number 4, and then it was time for number 5. But as number four repeated the words, the weird feeling hit her again.
“Can you make number 4 repeat please?” she asked the officer.
The one at number 4 repeated; she asked him to do it three times, and each time he sounded more annoyed to her by the slight rise in pitch of Darth Vader’s voice. Her heart had started drumming unevenly, and she caught herself breathily shallow. She was almost certain it was him, but she needed to make sure. For though she wanted the culprit behind bars, she needed to make certain she was correct.
“Can you ask him to say ‘I did it for you’ without the changer?” she asked the officer.
Henry had a pleased expression as he and the DA exchanged glances. Chelsea believed that they thought she was identifying the one who held her. Her gut told her number 4 was the guy, but the small doubt lingered.
“Number 4, say ‘I did it for you’, without the voice enhancer,” the officer instructed. The man hesitated, resulting in the officer repeating the instruction. “Number 4, say ‘I did it for you’, without the voice enhancer.”
“I did it for you,” the man said.
The instructing officer looked at her. Her heart was pounding loudly, and her stomach quivering. “Again, please,” she requested. She was surprised with the dread that threatened to overwhelm her that she could speak clearly.
“Number 4, repeat.”
“I did it for you,” the voice came through, and for Chelsea, it was the same tone, except that it seemed far away in her haze. She closed her eyes and focused, clearing the fog from her drugged state, lying on the cold floor of her prison.
As she listened to the voice repeat the line, she knew it was one and the same. She staggered back, her knees threatening to buckle. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. A flood of memories, buried through her drugged out state began to surface. A hand clamping over her mouth, her inhaling something smelly, and just as her eyes began to close, the tattoo on the wrist as he removed his hand.
“I remember something,” she breathed. “I remember. He has a tattoo of a pentagram or star of some sort on the inside of his wrist.”
The DA walked over to her as he straightened from her earlier bout of weakness. Her stomach was still queasy, and her knees weak, but the memory was the best option for seizing the suspect.
“Are you sure?” Kirkpatrick asked, with one brow raised.
“I’ll draw it.”
Someone handed her a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. One of the police officers offered her a seat at one of the desks. She closed her eyes and pictured the tattoo. There was a six-point star with two circles inside each other, inside the star. In the crook of each star were some symbols that she could not make out. In the center of the star was something red, like a heart.
She handed the paper to Henry wh
o looked at it keenly and asked her once more if she was certain that the perp had the tattoo she’d drawn. She was certain. He handed the paper to the DA who nodded with a smile.
“We got him,” Henry said. “Would you like to see his face?”
She inhaled deeply before expelling it slowly. “Can Colt be in here with me?”
“Yes, I suppose he’s as anxious to see the fellow as you are,” he replied, beckoning to one of the other officers, who moved toward the door to the right.
A moment later, he returned with Colt right behind. As soon as he was in the room, she ran into his arms which encircled her tightly. She wrapped her arms around his waist and let herself sag against him. She wasn’t sure when the tears started, but somehow they were flowing freely.
“What did they do to you?” Colt’s tone was accusing.
Chelsea raised her head to see that he was looking pointedly at Henry. She sniffled, wiping the tears with the back of her hand.
“I’m okay. I’m just happy to see you.”
Henry moved up beside them. “She did great, even remembered something else.”
“Really?” Colt sounded surprised and pleased at the same time. “Did you identify him?”
“She picked someone. She even picked him before mentioning the tattoo.” Henry turned to the panel and spoke through a microphone Chelsea hadn’t noticed was there before. “Officer, Myers, cover number 4 with the hood,” he instructed. A female officer moved toward the suspect, removed the cap and replaced the hood. “Now let him turn around and remove his cuffs.”
Officer Myers followed the instructions, and the perp turned around. His cuffs were removed, and he rubbed his wrist.
Henry glanced over at her. “Was it his right or left wrist, Chelsea?”
She closed her eyes for a second and pictured the hand over her mouth, then as her eyes began to close the hand moved. “The right hand,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“You’re certain about this?’ Henry asked.
“Yes, I’m certain.”
“Number 4, Lift your right hand and hold it out.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, but he complied. The tattoo of the six-point star was there with a bleeding heart in the center. The two circles were there inside the star along with the symbols which Chelsea could not remember.
A gasp escaped her as she stared at the wrist of the suspect. “That’s it!” she breathed.
Colt’s arm closed around her shoulder, pulling her up against him for support. The man held up his hand for a few minutes while Henry spoke to the DA in a low tone. His words were not discernible to her, but she knew that she had the right man. Her gut had told her that even before listening to his voice. The terror she had felt in the moment he grabbed her, that same feeling had almost paralyzed her while she was in the same room.
“We almost didn’t get him because of the articles you posted, Chelsea. He was about to leave the country,” Henry informed them.
She stiffened, her eyes becoming wide with the dawning that the perp was someone mentioned in her articles. “What do you mean?” she croaked, a frog seemed to have lodged in her throat.
“See for yourself,” he said.
Officer Myers pulled the hood from the face of the suspect, and it was no surprise to her. But she could feel Colt tense beside her. She chanced a glance at his face and noticed how hard and dark it had become. His eyes glinted dangerously as he stared at the face of his stepbrother.
“Son of a …” Colt ground through his teeth.
“You had no idea about this, Mr. Montgomery?” the DA asked.
“No, I never suspected him to be the one to do this.”
“Chelsea did. She named him as her captor in the articles she sent to the press. That’s why he ran,” Henry informed them. “We were lucky; as it turned out he was also responsible for assaulting his sister.”
His jaw clenched. Chelsea knew Colt was trying to contain himself. He was staring at the glass panel as though the heat from his eyes could penetrate the glass like Superman. She took his hand and twined her fingers with his. With their palms clasped together, she hoped she could help him relax. Slowly, his face relaxed as he tore his eyes away from the panel and looked down at her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, now that you’re here with me.”
Chapter 50
“He lawyered up,” Henry said, his tone dry. “That bastard’s not talking.”
It was three days after the identification parade. They’d gone back to the police department to give their final statement and sign some necessary paperwork since Chelsea was not up to doing it after the event. When asked about the case, Henry informed them that Jason was not talking and was asking for his lawyer.
“The Feds are being soft on him, that’s what. If it were still my case, he would be singing like a bird.”
“So what happens next?” she asked.
“He must be arraigned before a federal judge, and they will decide if he is a flight risk or not. Given that he was about to leave the country, I don’t think they’ll let him out. In addition, they have a witness,” he replied with a grin.
Colt raised a questioning brow. “A witness?”
“Yes. They refuse to tell me who it is, needing to keep things on the low, I suppose. These ungrateful bastards! Wasn’t it me who got the guy? Now they don’t want to share info with me.”
“Do you have any idea who it is? Did someone witness the kidnapping?” Colt asked.
“I don’t know … maybe. What I do know is your stepsister when she awakes will be one hell of a witness. What I can tell you is that Jason fellow has more charges against him in the federal court.”
A shocked expression crossed Colt’s face as she asked, “The insurance fraud?”
“I’m sure that will be added to his crimes, but there’s more than they are saying.”
Meanwhile in the federal department in their interrogation room, between the agent and Jason stood an eight-foot metal table which was five feet wide. In front of the agent was a file folder and in front of Jason was a cup of water. Jason took a sip, as expected. Behind the FBI man was a glass panel where the criminal psychologist and a few more agents observed.
“Don’t I get a phone call?” Jason’s icy tone did not go unnoticed by the federal agent sitting across from him.
Agent Norman York had worked with the FBI for nearly two decades. He knew the tone well. As he observed Jason Williams, the guy was arrogant and felt that they had nothing on him since Chelsea could not identify his face. He knew the guy was going to call his lawyer with his phone call, and that’s what York was depending on. Williams was making his job way too easy, but he had to appear as though it wasn’t so.
“Why are you wasting time, just tell us everything and save us a whole bunch of time and taxpayers’ money. We could be out of here already,” he said, trying to sound impatient.
York rested a large chocolate complexioned arm on the metal table. His sharp brown eyes studied the suspect as he leaned back in his chair with a smirk. York wanted to wipe the snarky expression from his face. He hated cocky criminals, and Jason was one of them. They believed they were smart enough to beat the system.
“I ain’t saying nothing without my lawyer,” the cocky bastard replied.
Norman chuckled. “Using a double infinitive pencils it out to a positive. I bet you didn’t know that you just told me you would talk without your lawyer, and it’s all recorded.”
The bastard’s eyes widened ever so slightly with a puzzled look on his face. “No, I didn’t say nothing like that, man.”
“You just did it again, but I guess you were too busy kidnapping innocent women that you didn’t have time to learn your grammar, huh?”
“Innocent?” Jason spat but caught himself in time and snapped his mouth shut.
“Alright, I’ll let you have your phone call. Don’t waste it, though; you only get one shot.”
Jason still appeare
d confused about the grammar issue and looked at York with narrowed eyes and a somber expression. His snarky look was gone, and York smiled with satisfaction. Another agent led Jason out of the room and into the main area where he would make the call. Norman York waited patiently for him to return.
Phone calls were timed, and an agent was stationed a few feet away to monitor any conversation that may seem like a threat to victims or any illegal activity. He’d instructed the agent to stand within two feet, keeping his eyes on him while appearing to take notes. This would make Jason uncomfortable and cut the ten-minute conversation in half.
Within seven minutes of leaving the interrogation room, Jason was escorted back. The junior agent winked at York to indicate success with the little game. He waited until Jason was seated before proceeding with his questions. What he was actually doing was waiting for the lawyer to show and then it was show time.
York’s blood pumped wickedly in his veins. This was a part of his job he liked. The adrenaline rush of knowing you had a criminal right where you wanted them gave him such a rush that he wanted to dance. It never grew old. He loved his job and would never trade it for anything. Half hour later, he got his wish.
The junior agent entered the room and walked over, bent and whispered to York who nodded. “Thanks.” After the young agent left, York stood, picking up his file, smiling at Jason. “I’ll be back,” he said before he chuckled. “Don’t go anywhere.”
The six foot, broad shouldered agent sauntered into the main area where a dozen of his colleagues were standing about. A man in a gray suit with a briefcase was standing to the right, talking to an agent. York could hear the condescending tone in which the man spoke and knew immediately it was Williams’ lawyer.
“Take me to my client or you will be charged with obstructing his sixth amendment rights,” the man said.
“Calm down, Mr. Boyles … it’s Boyles, right?” York said upon reaching him.
“Who are you?” The man turned at his voice with a scornful expression, his pale blue eyes hard as nails.
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