Back from the Brink

by Emery Hayes

“You didn’t tell Lars when he interviewed you.”

  “No.”

  “You’re a sworn officer,” she pointed out. He had an obligation to convey all that he knew about the commission of a crime. “You risked prosecution with your silence.”

  “Hard to know who to trust when your boss is the ringleader.”

  She would give him that. She wondered for how long Franks had gone in to work, always looking over his shoulder. How often his calls for assistance had gone unanswered.

  “Were you out there, with Monte?” she asked. “On the boat?”

  He shook his head. “Monte called me right before he called you. I already knew they were on the move. I didn’t know it was planned as their last hurrah, not until they killed Baker. There was no coming back from that. Too much had happened already, and everything since then has been cleanup, just trying to stay one step ahead of you.”

  “And they used Ty for that, didn’t they?”

  Franks nodded, his look somber.

  “Why didn’t you say something before now?”

  “We did,” he said, “but to the wrong people.”

  Monte appeared in the door. “Please, Nicole, let’s talk.”

  The only reason she was still standing were these two men who had no allegiance to her but stood high on moral ground.

  She looked past Franks, her eyes sweeping the grass, the trees beyond. The unnatural silence continued to hold. She turned away, briefly, and walked toward the fallen body of her deputy. She had watched him go down and known he was dead before he hit the ground. Still, she felt for his carotid artery, pressed her fingers against already cooling skin. Gone. She looked over her shoulder, toward the tree line. There were others. Three lying in the grass just beyond the full blast of the security lights. None seemed to be moving. All too far out to risk her life if there were others in the trees.

  It was hard to do, but she turned her back to Franks and followed Monte into the house, using her elbow to nudge the door a few more inches until she could look around it. Monte sat in the breakfast nook, his gun on the table in front of him.

  Next to him sat a young man. Fair, a buzz cut, and a scar at his temple, irregular in shape and rigid. She wondered if it was shrapnel that had ended his military career—she’d seen similar in other soldiers featured in the nightly news following tours in Afghanistan. He had a broken nose, recent, with racoon bruising under his eyes. He’d been hit, probably hard enough that he was rendered unconscious.

  “Matthew Franks?”

  He stood. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Nicole nodded. “Congratulations. You’re a father, did you know that?”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. I just fed him dinner and tucked him in for the night.”

  “Here?” The thought was alarming, with armed men rushing the house just moments before.

  “No. I brought them to the Embrys. They’ll be okay there, for now.”

  And Nicole felt a slim smile soften her lips. “Yes. I’ve met Lois.”

  But she had a deputy guarding an empty house and possibly a material witness sheltered with a pair of plucky senior citizens. She called in and had dispatch send Sisk over to the Embrys.

  “I was in the house when you arrived this afternoon. I should have made myself known then. But there was too much I didn’t understand, and I needed first to keep Adelai and the baby safe.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Hospital, ma’am.”

  “Glacier Community?”

  Luke stepped into the conversation then. “He was admitted Tuesday late morning.”

  “And was still there when we brought Adelai and the baby in?”

  “Yes,” Luke said. “He wasn’t yet conscious. Not for more than a few minutes at a time, anyway.”

  “A concussion?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Matthew Franks said, “but I have my wits about me again.”

  She turned to Luke Franks. “And you’ve been standing guard over him ever since.”

  “They came after my family,” Luke Franks said. “I sent my wife and girls to San Diego a month ago. We have family there. Matthew and James, they were stubborn. They wouldn’t leave town.”

  “We have a life here,” Matthew said. “Family. That’s important to Adelai, and to me.”

  Nicole studied Matthew’s face. She saw a stubbornness there, strength of conviction, and an earnestness that seemed pure. He hid nothing, including a small wince as he shifted on his feet. He was favoring his right side. “What happened to you?”

  “Green happened to him,” Luke Franks said.

  “They jumped me,” Matthew said. “They followed me out of town. I service electrical lines, and some of that is really rural, but they didn’t have the patience to wait too long before they had their lights and sirens going. I called Luke right away, before I even pulled over.”

  “I’d warned Matthew there were problems.”

  “Did they say anything to you?” Nicole asked.

  “That it was a shame the only way to teach Luke a lesson was to kill me.”

  She turned to Luke. “You’ve been trying to stop them?”

  “I was working with Gates. Or thought I was. Same as Monte and Melody.”

  She let that settle. Agent Devon Gates. He’d been working the case for months with little progress. And the people he’d been moving around on the board were dead or lucky to be alive.

  “You have doubts about Gates?”

  “Nothing seemed to happen,” Luke said. “No matter what information we gave Gates, it was never enough.”

  No arrests made. No transfers of personnel. Nicole’s investigation had revealed that much.

  Nicole turned to Monte. “So, let’s start talking,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting,” he said. “For you to get the upper hand in the case. I think you’re almost there.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “Evidence,” he said. “You’re going to find some of it on Faris Amari. I think you already know that. But the key to unlock it all is here.”

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a USB flash drive. It was slim, black, plastic, and perhaps worth the thirty million dollars loose on the mesa.

  “Are those your notes?” Nicole asked.

  “Notes, maps, recordings, video surveillance.”

  “We have a copy,” Nicole said. “Abridged, of course.” Their copy of Monte’s digital notes contained no recordings, no video, and a lot fewer words.

  “You mean Green cleaned it up before he handed it over.”

  “That’s what I mean. Will yours be any different?” she asked.

  He leaned forward and withdrew his cell phone from his back pocket. He laid it on the table next to the flash drive and his Smith & Wesson. “I took all my notes on this. You’ll be able to verify that.”

  “I believe you’re a good man and probably a better agent,” she began.

  “Aren’t we all,” he agreed. “But I’m not squeaky clean. Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “What happened out there, Monte?” she asked. “From the top.”

  Nicole took a seat at the table. She kept her Glock in hand, resting it on her thigh. Across from her, Matthew Franks resumed his seat. Luke kept his vigil at the door. In the distance she heard the first peals of sirens as her units responded.

  “Melody was working with the attorney general’s office,” Monte began.

  “They moved her here, to Blue Mesa,” she said.

  “Yes. Eleven months ago. Soon after the first piece of evidence disappeared. The first we know of, anyway. It’s possible, probable, that some arrests, and the evidence with it, never made the books.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s move forward from the moment Agent Baker arrived.”

  “I didn’t know, at first, that she was working with the AG,” he said. “I mentored her.”

  “And you slept with her,” Nicole said.

  Monte held her gaze even as color bloo
med in his cheeks. He nodded. “I did,” he confirmed. “We had a romantic relationship, but it didn’t last long.”

  “Why?”

  “Some things weren’t adding up. She started getting cozy with Green, long meetings and some of those over dinner or lunch. I thought maybe we were like one of those nebulas—burned bright and fast and then burned out. I understood that—there are a lot of years between us.”

  “You thought she had moved on to Green?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it wasn’t that?”

  “She insisted not. That sidling up to Green was what the AG wanted her to do. It was the order coming down from BP as well. They were onto Green, and they needed Melody to get the proof.”

  “Did she?”

  “She was aboard the boat when Faris Amari threw himself overboard.”

  “He threw himself?”

  “Yes. He said he’d sooner throw himself on his own sword than allow this to continue. He felt dishonored and had lost hope in finding an end to it. It’s on the recording.” He nodded at the flash drive. “Green is on there too, along with a few other agents. Most of them identified as they talked amongst themselves.”

  “Talked about what?”

  “The pipeline and what they expected Amari to do for them—there’s more than one conversation covering that. From Melody’s recordings, we have Green ordering the killing of several refugees when they refused to be used or Green felt they had become a risk.”

  “Why didn’t she show up for work that night?”

  “She was with Green and company. A total of seven men. Two—Green and one of his minions—were on the party boat, securing their lake passage. Five were to roust Adelai Amari.”

  “Agent Baker was there,” Nicole said. “We have castings and tread to prove it.”

  Monte nodded. “What we don’t know is, was she there undercover? Or was she one of the gang?”

  Nicole turned and connected with Luke. He stood close to the window, occasionally lifting an edge of the curtain to peer out at the backyard. She adjusted her gaze to include Matthew. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have good news for you.” She paused and allowed her first words to prepare the way for her next. “Your brother James is dead.”

  “They killed him?” Luke said. “I thought so.”

  Matthew’s lips thinned and trembled. He blinked rapidly as tears rushed his lashes. Luke grew still and somber.

  “Did you send him?” she asked.

  “Yes. To get Adelai. I stayed with Matthew.”

  “Because you couldn’t help a UDA,” Nicole said. She kept her voice neutral, stating a fact, but Luke took exception.

  “Yes, that was part of it. But I stayed to protect my brother. I knew Green wasn’t done. He wanted what we had. He’d killed for it already—we have that on wire.” He nodded at the USB. “And he wanted what was buried in the ice with Faris Amari.”

  “Evidence that will lock him up,” Monte insisted.

  “It’s so much harder to enjoy life when you’re on the run,” Luke said.

  “But Green gave that up tonight,” she said. When he’d shot at her. Not only did they have her testimony on that, but they had surveillance footage from cameras outside the sheriff’s office as well as the bank and several other businesses along Main Street.

  “The man has no patience,” Monte said.

  “It’s not a matter of patience,” Matthew Franks said. “Your boss, he has a king-of-the-mountain perspective. By nature, that means people will die.”

  Nicole liked Matthew Franks’s take. It was clear to her that his military training was an asset. Here only on the fringe, he had been able to sum up Green’s character and put it into words that rang true with her. King of the mountain. Not only in the criminal deeds he was executing but also as leader of BP North. It was why few of his men knew him well. And why none of the related agencies knew him at all.

  “I want them more now than I did a moment ago,” Luke said.

  “We’ll get them,” Monte promised.

  “Include me, Luke,” Matthew said. He stood, tall and sure. “I want in, for James and for Adelai. For all the refugees he used and terrorized. For the lives he’s taken while in a position of authority.”

  Nicole stood. She faced Matthew Franks. “I’m leading the investigation,” she said. “And you are a civilian.” Maybe one day he’d like to change that, she thought, ignoring the taunting voice that reminded her she had believed in Ty Watts too. “You need to stand down.”

  “I can do some good,” he protested.

  “I believe it,” Nicole returned. She felt herself loosening. “So we’ll keep you close,” was the best she could give him. “Now back to Amari.” She turned to Monte. “He gave this evidence to Gates.” Gates had told her so himself.

  But Monte was shaking his head. “Not all of it. Faris Amari was smart. He trusted no one. He gave them teasers. Sound bites. But the bulk of it he’d hidden.” Intensity built in his voice. “Tell me, Nicole, did the ME find anything on Faris Amari?”

  But she would tell him nothing. She believed the story he’d woven but felt the need to keep what she knew to herself.

  “I’ve spent the night being shot at. Three times,” she told him. “So I’ve been scrambling. I’ll be in touch with the ME in the morning. You’re not done telling me about that night.”

  “Green came in dark,” Monte said. “And too fast. He hit the skiff after I’d called you, nearly knocking me overboard. Which turned out to be a good thing. I took to the floe, and they followed.”

  “On foot?”

  “That’s the only way,” Monte said. “But I doubled around and got into their party boat—the skiff was taking in water and not worth the risk. I pulled out the same way they arrived—dark. That was the last I saw of them, up close, anyway. Later, I watched a boat pull up to the floe and Green and company board.”

  “And Agent Baker wasn’t with them?”

  “No.”

  “Who killed her?” she asked.

  “I think she was aboard the party boat with Green and Shepherd—one of his minions—before they came after me. Green had said as much. And he said he killed her. That they had just dumped her body. I thought he was taunting me. He knew Melody and I had an affair.”

  “That’s who you were looking for when you motored away from the BP skiff?”

  “Yes, but it was useless. Too much time had passed, if he’d truly tossed her overboard.” He winced, and it wasn’t the bruising on his face causing it. She heard the urgency, the regret, in his voice. “But I had to do something.”

  A desperate search as Monte made his escape.

  “What happened to your face, Monte?”

  “I fell into the console when the party boat made contact.” His fingers probed the welting on his cheek and the discoloration that reached into his hairline. “I felt their approach, the change in the current, and turned in time to catch sight of the bow emerge from the dark. I reached for the radio but too late.”

  She considered his words. They fit but blanched beneath the pall of impropriety. Monte had made a mistake. He’d had an affair with a fellow agent. An agent later murdered. Nicole didn’t see how he would ever walk out from beneath the shade of that decision.

  “Tell me about finding Adelai,” she prompted.

  “She was close to shore, and I heard her call out,” he confirmed. “She was having the baby.”

  “And you helped her.”

  “Yes. And after the baby was born, I got them onto the boat and took them to the Embrys.”

  Because their sympathies were well known. “And after that?”

  “By then I knew Luke was waiting for me, at the southern edge of the lake. I motored back, cut the engine, and jumped ship as I got close to the shoreline. I met up with him on the Lake Road.”

  “You left your parka to wash up on shore.”

  “I took it off because it would sink me,” he said. “But then I realized it would buy
me some time, and I was glad for it. If BP thought I was dead, they wouldn’t go looking for me.”

  But neither would the sheriff’s department. The back-and-forth between innocence and guilt was wearing on her. She left Monte square in the middle and decided to let time and evidence bear that out.

  “Where are the drugs? The thirty million in fentanyl?”

  Monte leaned to his side and picked up a waterproof pouch off the floor. It was tagged as evidence, and both he and Franks had signed for it. He placed the bag on the table, next to his gun and the USB. “Right here.”

  He’d taken it off the party boat.

  28

  “Did you know about Ty?” Lars asked.

  “No,” Monte said. “I’d have gone down swearing he was one of the good guys.”

  Lars would have done the same.

  Sleeping Bear walked into the kitchen, bringing with him the cool night air.

  “Your side arm, Sheriff.”

  He held out a box, top off and an evidence sticker already fixed to the cardboard. Lars noted Nicole’s natural reluctance, but she surrendered her gun. Sleeping Bear collected side arms from both Monte and Luke Franks in the same manner. A deputy came in and began a search of Matthew Franks, who raised his arms and turned as requested. He wasn’t carrying.

  Nicole had already given Lars the details she’d received from Monte and Luke, but he would have to interview them again, separately. Matthew Franks too. He watched her walk to the window and gaze out at the backyard. CSIs were setting up halogen lamps. EMTs had already transported two of the men to the hospital. He had taken their IDs. Both were BP agents, men he recognized in passing. The ME from Glacier County had yet to arrive.

  Lars approached her.

  “MacAulay’s not coming,” she said.

  “No. That was a good call,” he said. MacAulay had run for his life alongside Ty Watts. They didn’t need to cast shade on that connection, especially when it reached the courtroom.

  She nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Make sure you interview Matthew Franks,” she said. “If I’m any tell of character, he’s a good guy.”

  “We all thought Ty was good,” Lars said.

  She turned and held his gaze. “I need to do better,” she said. She rolled her shoulders and let out a deep breath. “So let’s get this over with, okay?”