by Mary Stone
No more, and no less.
4
Bree Stafford eased the heavy door closed with an elbow before she turned to offer a quick grin to the man seated at a square table. As his gray eyes shifted up to hers, he returned her pleasant expression with a strained smile. The shadows beneath his eyes were more pronounced, though Bree wasn’t sure if the contrast was the result of the harsh overhead light or the two hours he had been in the interview room.
She held out a paper cup. “I brought you some coffee. No cream or anything, I wasn’t sure how you preferred it.”
“This is fine.” His fingers trembled a little as he wrapped them around the steaming cup. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Dalton.” Metal scratched against the concrete floor as she pulled out a rickety chair to sit across from the older man. His neatly kempt beard was roughly the same color as his hair, though the silver flecks on his face were more noticeable than those at his temples. If it hadn’t been for the gray, he could have passed for a man in his early forties, not his late fifties.
“Is Noah going to be here?” Eric asked after a tentative sip of the coffee.
Bree shook her head. “No. This is a formal interview, Mr. Dalton. I’m here to get your statement and ask you some questions so we can better understand what type of threat you’re facing. Agent Dalton’s presence would be a conflict of interest.”
He mouthed the word “oh” before he took another drink.
“Why?” Bree arched an eyebrow. Noah and Winter had given her a rundown of their interactions with Eric so far, and both agents were sure that there was more to Eric Dalton’s presence than met the eye.
“It’s just…” As he paused, she didn’t miss the forlorn shadow that passed over his bearded face. “Nothing. You’re right, it would be a conflict of interest. I guess, I mean, I think I just hoped that he could get it expedited somehow, something like that.”
“Mr. Dalton.” Bree’s voice was as flat as her stare. “We don’t give priority to people based on their relationships with agents within the bureau. We give priority to the most dangerous and life-threatening issues. Anything less would be unprofessional at best, and outright immoral at worst.”
With a sharp nod, he shifted his gaze back to the paper cup. “Of course, Agent. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how that sounded.”
“It’s all right.” She extended a hand across the table and smiled. “I’m Special Agent Stafford, by the way.”
“Agent Stafford,” he replied as he accepted the handshake. “You already know, but I’m Eric Dalton.”
Bree knew little and less about the man seated across from her in the cramped, windowless room, but based on Noah’s irritable demeanor, the younger Dalton didn’t care for his biological father. Bree couldn’t let the son’s impressions blur her own, so she pushed Noah from her mind.
“Well, Mr. Dalton, like I said. I’m here to get your statement and learn a little bit more about your situation. Agent Dalton said you called him late in the night because your life was in danger.” She settled her intent stare on him as she folded her hands atop the table. “We need to know who’s threatening your wellbeing, and we need your best guess as to why.”
Clenching his jaw, he nodded. “I’m not proud of this. Of any of it. I made a mistake. I’ve been furloughed for the past six months, and we’ve had to rely on my wife’s income. She’s a small business owner. She owns a yoga studio in Baltimore, and it’s been getting more popular as the years go by. We were worried we’d have to dip into our savings, and that…” he sighed, “would have been fine.”
It didn’t sound like the man was “fine” with it. Bree just looked at him, keeping a carefully neutral expression.
“With your many years of experience, may I ask why you were furloughed, Mr. Dalton?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I made the mistake of changing airlines a couple years ago, grass is greener, that kind of thing, so while I have seniority as a pilot, I don’t have seniority with the airline, so when cuts needed to happen…” He made a slicing motion across his throat.
Bree pulled a pen from the pocket of her canvas jacket. Septembers in Virginia were far more moderate than what she’d grown accustomed to in Maryland, but she was always freezing when she was in the FBI office. She made a note to double-check his story, then nodded for him to go on.
“Kelly, my wife, she’s good with money. She always has been. She made it work, and I drove for Uber for some extra cash. We couldn’t afford quite everything we’d been used to, but we were okay. The airline still gave insurance options for those of us who were furloughed, but I couldn’t afford the same plan we’d been on. I had to drop it down to one of the really basic ones. You know what I mean, right?”
“I do.”
“Kelly and I figured we’d be all right for a few months with just bare-bones insurance.” His eyes shifted back down to the tabletop. “We just said we’d have to cut back on all those extreme sports we’d been planning. No more BMX or cliff diving. We were kidding. Those were just the type of jokes we made to one another.”
He paused, clearly waiting for Bree to laugh. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat and took another sip of coffee before continuing.
“But then, back in May, Kelly got in a car accident. The cops and the insurance company ruled that she was at fault, but it wasn’t like she was being negligent or anything. It was just one of those freak things, you know. The other driver had a concussion, but otherwise, they were okay.” The shadows shifted along his throat as he swallowed, but he didn’t meet her gaze.
“What happened to your wife?”
“Kelly got hurt pretty bad. She had to be life-flighted, and they had to do a few different surgeries just to get her stabilized. She lost a lot of blood, and for a second there, it was pretty scary. But once they told me that she’d pull through, all I could think of was how we were going to pay for this.”
“That’s understandable.” Bree nodded slightly.
“My son, Ethan, he had to have his appendix removed when he was in high school. I had insurance at the time, but I still got the statement from the hospital. It was something like ten thousand dollars, just for that. I couldn’t even imagine what the bill would look like for six days in the ICU. And multiple surgeries. Plus, they…they had to amputate her leg.”
As she scribbled down a couple notes, she glanced up to Eric. His vacant stare was fixed on the coffee cup, the sadness in his gray eyes plain to see. But there was more to that forlorn look than just sadness. Bree kept her attention on him until he finally met her gaze.
She had a suspicion where his tale was headed, but even then, she wondered if he would tell the whole truth. Or was he just ashamed that he had to crawl back to the son who so clearly disliked him? Was he disappointed because he hadn’t been able to handle his wife’s accident like he had hoped?
There was a distinct possibility that the reason for Eric’s wariness was due to a battle the man fought in his mind, that the explanation was as innocuous as lingering guilt.
Bree was not one to assume the simplest explanation. No one in the FBI was.
“What happened then?” Bree made sure to keep her tone calm and reassuring.
“I had to do something,” he managed. “I couldn’t let us lose everything just because I didn’t have a job. I thought about a loan, thought about selling all my expensive watches, but none of that would’ve come close to touching the number on that first bill.”
“How much was it?”
“Eight hundred thousand,” he answered.
In spite of the air of professionalism she had maintained so far, Bree’s eyes widened. “Eight hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yeah. That’s everything, at least for right now. Kelly’s been to a few different specialists, and she’s still going to physical therapy. That bare-bones insurance I told you about, it didn’t cover stuff like that. I tried to apply for some assistance through the hospital, but even though I was fur
loughed, Kelly’s income made it so we didn’t qualify. Filing bankruptcy would have ruined my wife’s business, and that business is Kelly’s livelihood.”
When he paused to swallow, Bree nodded for him to continue.
He sighed. “There’s some of the hands-on work she can’t do anymore, but she’s still able to be around the studio. She can still be active in her business. She’s got some great people who work for her, and they helped out a ton after the accident. But, still, being able to participate in it meant everything to Kelly.”
Bree nodded her understanding. “Then what?”
He rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I started getting calls and letters in the mail last month to tell me they were going to send the debt to collections if I didn’t start making the payments on time. I worked out a payment plan with the hospital, but that monthly payment is more than my mortgage. Kelly’s been so busy and so stressed lately, and I couldn’t bring myself to burden her with it. But if it went into collections, I would have had to tell her.”
Probably should have told her anyway. Bree kept the thought to herself.
“It seemed like I was the one who got us in this mess, so I had to do something to get us out. I tried everything, but nothing came close. Baltimore’s a big city, you know. There’s a lot that goes on there, and even though I’d always known that, I never really considered it until then. I asked around, and someone I knew, a guy who made a habit of gambling his paychecks away in Atlantic City, pointed me to some people who could help.”
Bree locked her stare on his. “What people?”
“Some people who bailed him out when he got in a little too deep at the casino. They were pretty new in town, but they had connections. At least that’s what he said.”
“What people?” Bree repeated, her tone flat.
“They were Russian.” He finally pulled his eyes from hers. “I didn’t know what else to do. We would have lost everything. My wife’s business, her entire life, our house, all of it.”
“You were worried about being able to pay back a hospital, so instead, you decided it’d be a better idea to be in debt to the Russian mafia?” She wasn’t entirely successful at keeping the incredulity out of her tone.
“I thought I’d be able to pay it back.” His response was hurried, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before he went on. “I thought I’d start working, and we could just pinch our pennies and I’d pay them back. But then the airline told us that the furlough was going to last another three months, and that’s when I panicked. I only asked them for five hundred thousand. I thought if I could pay off that chunk, then the rest would be manageable.”
“Five hundred thousand dollars?” Crossing her arms over her chest, Bree leaned back in her chair. “You thought you’d be able to repay the Russian mob five hundred thousand dollars with the kind of interest outfits like them charge?”
“Yes.” He clenched his jaw. “That’s what I told myself. I know how stupid it sounds, believe me.”
“The Russians.” She gave him a hard stare. “Well, I’ll give you one thing, Mr. Dalton. You definitely didn’t half-ass this. Now, I’d like to know how in the hell you managed to convince them to give you half a million dollars.”
He swallowed again, but he didn’t answer right away. As the silence dragged on, Bree thought she would have to ask the question a second time.
“I have a life insurance policy.” He turned his gaze down to the tabletop. “It’s for a million dollars. I told them if I couldn’t pay them back, then they could collect it.”
“Hold on.” Bree held up a hand and narrowed her eyes. “You’re telling me that you told the Russians they could kill you and then take the insurance money that was supposed to go to your wife?”
Jaw clenched, he nodded.
As Bree stepped through the door to the small conference room, three sets of eyes snapped over to meet her arrival. Noah was already tired of discussing Eric Dalton, but he was pointedly aware that the conversations had only just begun. If the expression of puzzlement on Bree’s face was any indication, they had a long way to go.
“Agent Stafford,” Max Osbourne greeted Bree with a crisp nod. “How’d the interview go?” The Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Violent Crimes Task Force was as direct as usual.
“It was interesting,” she answered, glancing to Winter, and then to Noah. “He borrowed money from the Russians to pay off the medical bills for his wife.” As she dropped down to sit beside Winter, Bree heaved a sigh. “He thought he’d work out a payment plan with them or something. And I know how stupid that sounds, but this guy’s never had to deal with that side of the tracks in his entire life. He doesn’t know how people like that work.”
“Why would anyone give him that much money?” Max asked. “The guy must’ve had one hell of a sales pitch if he got the Russian mob to cough up a shit ton of money.”
“He said he only asked them for five hundred thousand,” Bree replied with a shrug. “And, yeah, I don’t really get it, either. He said he was under the impression that he’d start paying them back when he went to work in a month, but the airline told him the furlough would be extended. Now, they want their money back in the next week, or they’re going to kill him so they can collect his life insurance payout.”
“What does he want us to do about it?” Noah muttered to himself. “Take down the whole damn Russian mafia?”
A faint smirk flitted over Bree’s face. “To answer that, I think we can circle back to how ignorant someone like him is when it comes to the way organized crime operates.”
“All right,” Max replied. “For the time being, maintaining Eric Dalton’s safety is our priority. Until we can figure out how exactly we tackle this thing for good, we just have to make sure no one blows his head off. Did he give you any names, descriptions, anything?”
Tucking a piece of curly hair behind her ear, Bree shook her head. “No, he didn’t. All the names were fake, and all his descriptions were pretty generic. They describe about fifty percent of white men with Slavic ancestry.”
“Stafford, you worked in Baltimore for a while.” Max turned his full attention to Bree. “What do you know about the Russians? They don’t have much of a presence in Richmond, at least that’s what I’ve gathered from the folks over in organized crime.”
“Not much,” she answered. “When I was in Baltimore, they were just starting to get a foothold. I didn’t deal with them much, since I was usually investigating the Italian crime families. The Russians are quite a bit different. The Italians can be pretty traditional, but the Russians don’t care about tradition, unless it’s profitable.”
Noah wanted to ask what sort of business model included lending half a million dollars to someone who lacked the ability to repay the debt, but he kept the sentiment to himself.
Bree had worked in the organized crime division of the Baltimore field office, and her knowledge of the mob world was far more extensive than his. Though he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there was more to Eric’s story than had been revealed so far, he would trust Bree’s judgment until he had evidence to back up his doubts. Bree Stafford was a smart woman and an experienced federal agent, so he was sure any oddities about Eric Dalton would not elude her.
Plus, if Noah was honest with himself, he was biased. His perception of his biological father had been tainted by nearly thirty years of negligence. Thirty years of being treated like a knock-off variant of Eric’s real family. Thirty years since he had betrayed Liv and left her to raise two children as a single mother.
He could still remember the moment he and Lucy had fully realized for the first time how unwanted their presence had been in the Eric and Kelly Dalton household.
They had flown from Dallas to Baltimore at the start of Christmas vacation. The plan was for them to fly back to Texas on the day after Christmas so they could spend New Year’s with their mom and Chris, but neither Noah nor Lucy had been enthusiastic about the trip.
L
iv had tried to reassure him and his sister that their father would be happy to see them for the holiday, but they knew better. Their mother’s kind reassurances were the only reason they relented. Noah was thirteen, and Lucy was fifteen, and they had both drawn the conclusion that just because Eric was their father didn’t mean that they had to like him. However, it wasn’t until years later that Noah realized Liv’s encouragement for them to visit the man was to ensure they formed their own opinion about him.
And that year, they did.
None of the conversations between Kelly, Eric, or their two kids, Natalie and Ethan, involved Noah or Lucy.
Hell, the topics were so far from what Lucy and Noah knew that they might as well have spoken in a different language. Worse, Natalie and Ethan were always critical of the way Lucy and Noah dressed, the way they spoke, the way they looked. In a sense, they were more akin to schoolyard bullies than siblings.
And then, of course, there was Eric and Kelly. Eric seldom made an effort to engage his two oldest children in a conversation, much less an activity. During gatherings with the Raeburn or Alvarez side of their family, they all laughed and played games like Uno or Pictionary. But during gatherings with the Dalton side of their family, they watched television.
That year, Lucy had dyed her hair for the first time—jet-black with blue underneath.
Though he wasn’t sure if Lucy remembered the remark, Noah knew he would never forget the way Kelly Dalton had reacted when she saw the unnatural color.
There had been a look of unabashed disapproval as she made a comment about how Lucy would never be able to get a job or find a husband with hair like that. Kelly droned on about how pretty Lucy’s face was, but how she would have to watch her figure lest she gain weight and “get fat.”
Not once in all his thirteen years of life had he heard his mother utter a single disparaging comment about Lucy or Noah’s appearance, and then this woman—a veritable stranger—felt authorized to critique his sister’s hair, makeup, fashion sense, and even her body.