by Lucy Farago
The paramedics came in to examine Shannon and she waved them off, claiming she’d need to stay with Mrs. Santos until Diaz was finished with his questions. Shannon for the time being acted as her attorney, even though Diaz told her it was a conflict of interest because she herself was a victim and a witness. Shannon told him to go fuck himself. If not for the side of her face turning purple, it would have been almost comical.
When Diaz explained that he’d have to arrest Mrs. Santos and it would be up to her lawyers to get bail, then took out his handcuffs, Shannon gave him another piece of her mind. Then explained that handcuffing a confused woman who had been noticeably battered wasn’t a good idea. Mrs. Santos needed to be examined by a doctor, and if the police left another mark on her, it wouldn’t look good in court. Diaz reluctantly did her the favor, but not before putting two men on the woman. After taking a brief statement from Shannon, during which Noah again wanted to kick the now confirmed dead body of Miguel Santos, Diaz left, giving the paramedics time to examine Shannon.
She’d been giving him surreptitious looks throughout Diaz’s questions, and after the paramedics looked her over, he wasn’t entirely sure she was happy to see him. But when she fell into his arms, he knew he couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Fuck, Shannon, I was so worried about you.”
“You and me both. It took you long enough to make the bust,” she said.
“We didn’t have everything, but when we discovered you’d been taken … Fuck, Shannon.” He gave her another hug. When she stiffened he pulled back. “Where are you hurt? What did the paramedics miss?” He quickly scanned for injuries but saw none other than the large welt on her chin and the ugly marks around her neck.
“I’m fine. I think I bruised my back when I fell over the coffee table. You came over here before you had all your ducks in a row. Not good, Monroe.” She shook her head.
“You’re the only duck that mattered. Care to explain why you left the house?”
“It’s a long story and you’re going to have to hear it, but I need to go with Elena to the station first. If you want something to do, add a warrant for Mrs. Hyatt. She and JJ were old friends.”
“Mrs. Hyatt?”
“Mrs. Hyatt,” she confirmed, her voice sounding worse.
“Okay, enough. The paramedics said to limit your talking. I’ll get you a pad and paper and you can scribble on the way to the station.”
“Scribble? You want me to scribble?” she said indignantly.
“I’ve seen your handwriting.”
She shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Diaz returned. “Are we ready to roll?”
“Ready.” Noah tucked Shannon under his arm while the other two officers readied to escort Mrs. Santos.
Coming out of the bedroom, the sound of one very angry Alejandro Casales could be heard from outside in the corridor. “I demand to know what is happening. I am family.”
“Who is that?” Shannon asked.
“Elena’s uncle and Miguel Santos’s boss.”
Shannon pulled away from Noah and turned to face Elena, who’d been following them. “Your uncle is holding a federal agent.”
Elena opened her mouth to speak as another more welcome voice was heard.
“Holy shit. I disappear for two days and look what happens. You were supposed to arrest him, not put him in a grave.”
Damon entered the suite looking a little worse for wear. He had a few days’ growth on his pretty face and a bandage around his head, but man, Noah was happy to see him. They exchanged a bear hug before Noah asked if he was all right.
“First day sucked. My head was killing me, but I’m okay now. What happened here?” he asked, pointing to the scene unfolding in the living room.
“Special Agent Monroe,” one of the officers said, “if you don’t mind, we’ll take Mrs. Santos in for processing.”
“Mrs. Santos?” Damon finally noticed the woman standing with Shannon. “Shit, what did I miss? Shannon, you okay?”
“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”
“You’re Mrs. Santos?” he asked Elena, who nodded in response. Damon grabbed another look at the dead body. “You never gave me the chance to properly thank you. So thanks.”
Elena inclined her head.
Noah and Shannon exchanged confused looks.
“Did she shoot Santos?” Damon asked Noah.
“Yes, but care to explain what’s going on between the two of you?”
“Sir?” The officer still waited for his reply.
“In a minute,” Noah told him.
“She’s the one who set me free. She bandaged my head and took me to the police station. No one there could tell me what was going on. It took forever to reach someone at the office and they told me something had gone down. So I headed here.”
“Sir,” the officer repeated impatiently, “they want her processed.”
Casales was still shouting and Noah had a thousand questions, but this wasn’t the place. “Agent Fox will be with me. I’ll take care of Mrs. Santos.” It wasn’t like Shannon was going to leave her side anyway, and he didn’t want to leave Shannon. “And as her husband was about to be arrested for too many federal offenses to mention, we’ll just say the FBI need to question her.”
“So long as you take any flak for it, she’s yours,” the officer said and stayed behind in the suite with his partner.
In the corridor two more officers were holding Casales at bay. When he spotted his niece they blocked him. “Get out of my way.”
“Casales, I’m still itching to arrest someone today. It’s going to be you if you don’t back off.” With any luck they’d be able to charge him with Damon’s abduction.
“I’m fine, Uncle. Don’t worry,” Elena told him.
It was Shannon, now holding the woman protectively under her arm, who spoke next. “Have her lawyers meet us at the station. I won’t allow anyone to talk to her until they arrive.”
Casales didn’t look as if he liked it, but it wasn’t as if he had much choice. “I’ll see you there, mija.”
*
The following hours turned out to be very informative.
They learned that it was Shelley Hyatt who had the gambling issues. Once he learned his wife’s part in Shannon’s car accident and her abduction, Mr. Hyatt wouldn’t shut up, wanting no part of those charges.
He confessed that it had been his wife’s idea to work for Santos. It had started out as a simple you-scratch-mine, I-scratch-yours kind of a deal. Santos would pay off Shelley’s gambling debts and in return, Hyatt would see to it that anyone Santos brought him received loans. In his mind it was against bank policy but not illegal, so he agreed. From there things escalated. His wife started adding exorbitant spending to their long list of problems so he began pushing through fraudulent loans to help pay for it. Then Santos started demanding more and more. He wanted out, but his wife convinced him you didn’t say no to a man like Santos. He might be doing some time, but he told them he was going to do it as a divorced man.
A search warrant was issued for Hyatt’s house. He’d negotiated a deal with the district attorney after telling them where to find hidden documents. The representative from the IRS was ecstatic, as was Agent Riley, who’d recovered boxes of valuable information, among other things, now with forensics.
“How’s Damon?” Shannon asked when Noah finally took a ten-minute break, more to see her than to stretch his legs. When this was over he was going to lock them in a bedroom and not come out for a week … or longer.
He grabbed a chair from one of the outside desks and made her sit. “You should know I’ve called Maggie. I know you want to stay, but Mrs. Santos has her lawyers now and you need to rest.”
They’d discovered that Santos had a private physician on staff, one paid to keep his mouth shut about the many times his wife accidentally slammed her face into a door. Battered woman syndrome or not, he owed Elena Santos. He didn’t know what he could do for the woman, but for helpi
ng Shannon he was going to find a way.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving him off, “after I hear the whole story. First, Damon?”
“Dehydrated, but other than that fine. Not surprisingly, he’s refusing to go to the hospital.”
“And Elena set him free?”
“Against what we assume were Casales’s orders. They were holding him hostage in a van parked at the Wynn. She claimed two men had been acting suspiciously around the vehicle, and after they left she’d gone to investigate. She’s not about to go against her uncle and Damon has asked we leave it alone. She didn’t have to rescue him.”
“Why do you think she helped?”
“Maybe she felt guilty. Casales wanted revenge, but killing his great-nephew’s father isn’t cool. I don’t know.”
“She told me she knew about his affairs and even saw the last one leaving their yacht. When the girl was reported missing on the news she suspected her husband had something to do with it. She was scared and bought a gun.”
“Madrid is trying to link him to more missing women.”
“Sick prick. I hope they don’t cremate him so worms can have at him.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” he said, brushing his knuckles against her swollen chin.
“Stop,” she said, scolding him. “I’m fine.”
For her sake he smiled, but inside … He’d nearly lost her and all because he’d wanted that damn promotion so badly he’d allowed old wounds to cloud his judgment. He was the reason she’d gotten mixed up in all this.
“So how is JJ involved? Did he bring Shelley in or the other way around? And how did she find out about my file? Does she know where my sister is?”
“No,” he said, answering the most important question first. He took a chair for himself and straddled it backward. “She’s been very evasive about the girl. Shannon, we suspect maybe she’s Cecilia’s mother and doesn’t want her husband to find out. But without DNA we can’t prove it and she’s denying it; claims she doesn’t know who the mother is.”
“So we’re not any closer to finding her.”
He desperately wanted to give the woman he loved her sister. He could have lost her tonight. Who gave a shit about all the miles between them after that? He’d give anything to wipe away her grim expression, but to do that he’d have to find Cecilia. And right now they had no leads.
“What about the file?” she asked, tugging the jacket he’d given her to wear over the dress closer.
“Turns out she and your father had been having a long affair, but when she gambled their latest cut from Santos, he was ending it. It’s why we suspect she’s Cecilia’s mother. She admits knowing about the file and was afraid you’d go public with it.”
“Why would I do that? He must have told her I was using it to shut him up.”
“I don’t know. You think she’s lying?” He had his own doubts. And if there was a way to get her to do more time, Noah was all for it. For starters the bitch had nearly gotten Shannon killed.
Shannon got the feeling they were missing something. “It’s an awful big risk to take on the off chance I would make that file public after JJ was dead. She didn’t want to be linked to him. Why?”
Agent Diaz came around the corner and handed Noah a piece of paper. “Nice to see you made it through all right,” he said to her. “Lover boy here was aiming to do some serious damage otherwise.” He gave Noah’s shoulder a friendly nudge with his elbow. “Forensics thinks this might be of interest to you. So I brought it over right away.”
Noah’s eyes widened as he read. “Diaz, can you set up a lineup while I make a call?”
“Sure, who for?”
“Shannon. I want to see if you can ID Mrs. Hyatt. Then,” he said to Shannon, “you’re going home with Maggie.”
“But if she worked for your father wouldn’t you know what she looked like?” Diaz asked Shannon.
“I remember what she looks like,” Shannon agreed, her voice sounding worse.
“Humor me. Riley,” he shouted to a man talking to Officer Stinson two desks over. “Can you take Ms. Joyce to lineup? I don’t want her out here when we move Shelley Hyatt.”
“Sure.” He came over. “Ma’am, if you’ll follow me.”
Shannon stood. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes, I think it is. Go with Riley. I don’t want anyone to say we didn’t do this by the book. Maybe he can fetch you a tea with honey while you wait for us to set it up?”
“Whatever the lady wants,” he assured Noah.
She went with Riley, more to make Noah happy than anything else.
In a room with yet another two-way mirror, Shannon accepted the tea. She didn’t need to add a caffeine buzz to her already frazzled nerves, which continued to fray with every passing second she had to sit there, but the honey helped her throat. It took twenty minutes before Damon and Lieutenant Cooper joined them. Then Noah came in, curiously looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“Something happen with the case,” she asked.
“Yes … no. Something else. Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm and putting her in the right position. “Let’s get this started.”
“Shannon, you should know, Maggie’s outside waiting to take you home,” Horace told her.
“Thanks.” She wanted to go home with Noah, but this was his job and he’d have to stay. Problem was, where was home? It wasn’t Maggie’s house, and yet returning to her condo—a condo she loved—felt empty. Maybe it had always felt that way. She’d called it home, but wasn’t that a word everyone tossed around? If you were staying at a hotel, how many times would you refer to it as home when returning to it? She’d refused to think of Tweedsmuir as home because it wasn’t. But a home meant much more than a bed to sleep in, and wasn’t that all her condo was? Or had ever been?
Noah gave her a soft kiss on her cheek, then pressed the monitor button beside the large viewing mirror. “Okay, send them in.”
Eight women filed in and turned to face forward. They all looked relatively alike, except three were blondes, the others redheads. They turned to their right and then their left when asked. Of varying heights but similar weights, all were pretty in their own way, all mid-to late-forties. What they weren’t was Shelley Hyatt. Were they trying to trick her?
“She isn’t there.”
“Are you sure? Take a closer look.” Noah urged her forward. “Ignore hair color. That can change.”
Shannon looked at each one separately, doing her best to block out the other women. When it came to the last one, she struck her as familiar, but it wasn’t Shelley. “I think I’ve seen her before.” Maybe she was a cop. It wasn’t uncommon to throw one in a lineup. “Is she on the force? ’Cause it’s going to bug me until I figure it out.”
“No, she’s not.”
“Damn. Okay, then, she’s the only one that’s vaguely familiar.”
“Well, it was worth a shot,” Noah said.
“Wait. I have an idea.” Damon left and returned a few minutes later. “Shannon, I want you to close your eyes and listen.”
“Sure, but I have to sit or I’m going to fall down. Balance isn’t my thing.”
Noah pulled a chair for her and she sat, closing her eyes.
One by one, each woman said, “I’d rather be anywhere than here. Can I please go?” On the fifth woman Shannon said, “Stop. That’s her.”
“Are you sure?” Noah asked.
“I know that whine. Can I open my eyes?”
“Should we make her hear the rest?” Damon asked.
“Shannon, are you sure?” Noah repeated.
“Have her say it again if it makes you happy.” She was curious to see how she’d missed her. Had she changed that much?
The phrase was repeated and again she confirmed it was Shelley Albinson. “Now can I open my eyes?”
“Go ahead. Number five, step forward,” Noah said into the microphone.
It was the same one she’d found familiar. “Damn, it doe
sn’t look like her.”
“It wouldn’t.” Damon opened the manila envelope he held in his hands and while he spread its contents on the table, Shannon focused on number five.
Double damn. “I guess I was too busy ignoring her bitchy whining, but that’s the woman who sat next to me on the plane.”
“Bingo,” Noah said, as if that’s what he’d been waiting for.
She swung her head in his direction. “What are you not telling me? Why does the woman who sat beside me talk like Shelley?”
“Because she is Shelley,” Damon answered. “Come see.” He waved her over.
“Lieutenant, can you deal with them?” Noah indicated the lineup.
“Leave it with me,” he said and left.
Shannon stared at the pictures Damon had laid out. The first was of Shelley as she remembered her: thin lips, mousy brown hair, nose a little crooked, canines a vampire would envy. Then every photo after showed a consecutive change to her face. “She had plastic surgery. She changed her appearance.” Shannon laughed. “Go figure; I always knew she was a fake.”
“A fake and a murderer,” Noah said.
“Who’d she kill?” Shannon asked.
“Your father.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Shannon stood back and watched as Shelley Albinson … Hyatt, was taken away in handcuffs, formally charged, among other things, with the murder of JJ Lewis. The search warrant had turned up a Glock 19 and then of course, with the help of Monty’s fast fingers, they’d been able to place her in Boston the night JJ was killed. Not only had she flown out, she’d flown back on the same flight as Shannon, seated right next to her.
“So why did she shoot him?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. Noah hasn’t come out and told me anything. She sure did look different. New nose, fake lips, cheek implants, I hear she had a boob job too.”
“No wonder you didn’t recognize her.”
“And why she’d been so desperate not to sit beside me. Here I thought I’d gone and forgotten to wear deodorant. I kept smelling myself.”