Constant Risk

by Janie Crouch

  “Why didn’t you just kill me in the parking lot?”

  “Why, Bree, of course. My Bethany. You are the only way I can get her to come to me of her own accord. If I didn’t use you, she would go to ground, hide. And we both know how good she is at that.”

  “Do you expect me to just call her and lead her here to slaughter? I’ll die first.”

  Jeter actually winked at him. “Don’t worry—you’re going to die anyway. I mean, hell, Deputy, you said so in that hospital room. If I wanted her, I had to go through you.”

  “You were listening in the hospital room?”

  Jeter rolled his eyes. “I feel like all I’ve been doing for the past twenty-four hours is listening. Listening in the hospital room. Listening to your investigation.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on. I even helped you with the last one. Bethany got a little sloppy making that shell program to trace the chat room. Your suspect wasn’t going to fall for it. And that woman in the box was going to die. I stepped in, shot the suspect in the head and sent you a little message. I would think you’d be a little more grateful for that.”

  Jeter had been a step ahead of them this whole time, waiting for the right moment to strike against Bree.

  Tanner shifted slightly and finally realized why this place seemed so familiar. They were inside the restaurant where Shelby’s body had been found. One of the first places Whitaker had shown him when he and Bree got here—in his old neighborhood.

  “You’ve been inside the police files,” Tanner said. “Otherwise you would’ve never known about this place.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve just wanted to be close to Bethany, and this case has been her sole focus the last couple of days. She’s really just so wonderful, isn’t she? Her brain. I want to say it’s the sexiest thing about her, but now that she’s all grown up I can’t say that anymore.”

  Tanner began to fight against his restraints.

  “Come on now, Tanner. You’re about to be her fiancé, right? You can’t tell me you don’t think she’s sexy.”

  Jeter began tossing something casually in his hand. It didn’t take Tanner long to realize it was the ring box.

  “You stay away from her, Jeter. Just disappear and leave her alone. I’m not going to let you take her.”

  Jeter tilted his head to the side with a condescending smile. “Like I said, you’re not going to be alive to have a say-so. Your case has actually been pretty helpful to me overall.”

  Tanner stopped his struggles. There was no way out of this box the way he was restrained. He needed to work smarter, not harder.

  And do it before Jeter got Bree here.

  “How did the case help you? Besides getting us to Dallas.”

  “I have to admit, that was quite fortuitous. I thought I was going to need to travel all the way to Colorado before seeing Bethany. But instead, the case brought her here. But it did so much more than that.”

  Tanner felt the slightest give in the zip tie around his wrist. Would it be possible to work his hand out? He could feel his backup weapon still in his ankle holster, but had no way to get to it, restrained like this.

  “Once I hacked into the Dallas PD system, I was able to see everything you all—and Bethany—were seeing. She was so busy trying to figure out how to follow the broadcasts, she didn’t even try to fortify her computer actions against possible outsiders. So I was able to know exactly where Bethany was and what she was doing every minute. It was quite refreshing, I tell you, to be following someone as brilliant as her.”

  Tanner let Jeter continue to monologue. Anything to buy him time to try to get his wrist loose.

  “Plus, your case provided me with the ketamine I needed to knock you unconscious. And most important, it made me realize how I could get Bethany’s attention.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to drown me.” Tanner kept trying to twist his wrist to loosen the zip tie but it wasn’t working.

  “No.” Jeter asked, “Who has time for that sort of drama? No, I have a much better plan. I’m going to suffocate you.”

  Suddenly the box Tanner was in seemed much smaller.

  “I’ll add a little carbon monoxide to make sure the job is well and truly done, thus our stay at a restaurant—but yeah. I thought suffocating you would get Bethany here pretty damn quickly.”

  “Bree is too smart to show up here just because you threaten her.”

  “Well, that’s where the case comes in once again... How about some live footage of you dying? That’ll be pretty damn motivating for our girl, don’t you think?”

  * * *

  “YOU REALLY ARE BRILLIANT,” Jeremy said as Bree finished showing him everything she’d done to track the killers. “I can’t believe you wrote that shell program to track number four in under ninety seconds.”

  Bree shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t believe she fell for it. Obviously she must have been really upset or she would’ve quickly realized it was a trap.”

  Of course, obviously she’d been really upset since she killed herself.

  “Thank God it worked,” Jeremy muttered. “After all that, I can’t believe none of the victims died.”

  “Except the first two,” Bree reminded him. “The ones that were never broadcast.”

  “Penelope is concentrating on Rory Gresham for those two, since he was the ringleader. Looks like he was practicing on them. Making sure it would all work before he brought the others in.”

  Bree stretched her back. “I hope she can get a confession out of him.”

  Jeremy smiled and stood up. “If anyone can, it’s Penelope. And if she can’t, he’ll still be going away for a long time. At least four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “I hope that’s a long time.”

  Jeremy patted her shoulder with his nonburned hand. “I’m sorry I was a jerk to you before. If it wasn’t for you, all four of those women would be dead.”

  She shrugged. “I got lucky for some of it.”

  “Yeah, well, your luck is still based in skill. So just take the compliment. I hope we’ll get to work together again, Bree.”

  Bree looked around after Jeremy went over to talk to Penelope, searching for Tanner. She hadn’t seen him since she’d started talking to Jeremy and that had to have been twenty or thirty... She looked at her phone. Crap. Make that two hours ago.

  Maybe he’d gotten tired of waiting for her to finish with Jeremy and decided to grab some lunch or something.

  “You looking for Tanner?” Whitaker walked over to her.

  “Yeah. I had no idea Jeremy and I had been discussing my methods for two hours. Where’d Tanner go?”

  “Um, he had some things he wanted to look into with the case.”

  “Is there a problem? Oh, no, there aren’t more victims or anything, right?” The thought that she might have missed something ate at her.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. Actually I think this had to do with another case.”

  “What other case?”

  Whitaker looked down at his phone. “Look, you haven’t heard from Tanner? He texted me over an hour ago. He should be back here any second. I’m sure he’ll explain everything then.”

  Bree’s eyes narrowed. “What would he need to explain, Richard? Where is he?”

  Whitaker shifted on his feet. “I think it’s better if you hear it from him. I’m sure he’ll—”

  Bree’s phone chirped in her hand. She looked down and saw a text from Tanner. She shooed Whitaker away with her hand. “You’re off the hook, poker face. I’ll get him to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Good,” Whitaker muttered, and took off in a hurry.

  I need something from you.

  Bree’s brows furrowed at the message. Tanner usually started texts with a greeting when they hadn’t been around each other. She
shot back one of her own.

  Everything okay? What do you need?

  I need you to sit down at the air gap system and make sure no one is paying attention to you.

  Bree froze and stared down at the phone in her hand. If she’d had to have guessed she would’ve said that Tanner wouldn’t even have known what an air gap computer system was, much less that they had one here. It was an internal system, not connected to the internet.

  Are you there?

  The terse words had her moving quickly to the terminal. Tanner needed something from her and if she could give it, she would. She could ask questions later.

  A few seconds later she was in front of the system, using the DOS operating function to get to a workable spot on the computer. She typed back on her phone.

  Okay, I’m on. What do you need?

  She waited, but nothing came back up on her phone. Finally a near-silent beep on the computer itself got her attention.

  And two tiny words.

  Hello, Bethany.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bree stared at the screen. How was Jeter contacting her through this system? It was a closed system, not utilized for communication outside of the Dallas law enforcement department.

  Had Jeter somehow found a way to hack into their system from the hospital? She thought he was still unconscious, but obviously not.

  Her cell phone buzzed in her hand, a video call from Tanner. She needed to let him know that Jeter was somehow in the law enforcement system. God only knew what he could do from there.

  She was still staring at the computer screen when she pressed the receive button for Tanner’s call. Was there any way to trace Jeter through the air gap system?

  “Tanner, we’ve got a problem. Jeter has somehow—”

  Her stomach dropped as she finally looked away from the computer and at the screen of her phone. It wasn’t Tanner’s brown eyes looking back at her. It was the face from her nightmares.

  She stared at the picture in silence, unable to even force any words past her throat that seemed suddenly completely closed. If she could figure out anything to say anyway.

  Why did Jeter have Tanner’s phone?

  The computer screen beeped softly in front of her.

  Put in headphones. If you’re interested in seeing Deputy Dempsey again alive.

  Bree couldn’t stop the small cry that escaped her. She reached down into her bag and pulled out the headphones, placing them in her ears.

  “Bethany, you look well,” Jeter said. “It’s so good to see you. I chose this computer for a reason. I want you to set your phone against the screen and keep your hands resting on the front of the keyboard, but not typing anything. This way I can see you and your hands, and I can hear you.”

  “What do you want?” she said softly.

  “Right at this moment I want to make sure nobody knows that you’re talking to me. So I’m going to turn off the video feed on my end—” the phone screen went black “—but I can still see and hear you. Now, put the phone where I said and your hands on the keyboard. I know what you’re capable of, and we’ll not have any of that.”

  She did as he asked.

  “Good. That’s very good, Bethany.”

  Bile curdled in her gut and her fingers began to shake. This was just like when she’d been a child. He’d always been behind her back, looking over her shoulder, where she couldn’t see him. All she’d ever been able to do was hear his voice.

  “How do you have Tanner’s phone?” she finally got out.

  “He lent it to me.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” The best possible scenario would be that Jeter had somehow stolen Tanner’s phone without him being aware of it. The worst... Bree couldn’t even stand to think about the worst.

  “How about you just ask him yourself.”

  Tension flooded her body. “What?”

  Instead of a picture on her phone, a small video box opened on the computer screen.

  It was Tanner, lying in a box—a casket. His hands were bound and crossed on his chest. He had a gag in his mouth.

  Bree couldn’t hold back the little sob that escaped her.

  “Quiet now, Bethany. If you let anyone know you’re talking to me, you’re going to watch your boyfriend die pretty brutally. After all, he’s already in a casket. Makes cleanup pretty easy.”

  “You son of a—”

  Bree’s words were cut off as Whitaker walked up to her. Instantly the video box containing Tanner disappeared from the screen.

  “Everything okay?” Whitaker asked.

  Bree’s fingers grasped the end of the keyboard hard. Jeter was watching. If she moved to warn Whitaker she had no doubt Tanner was a dead man.

  “Yeah. Just wrapping things up. Ready to get home—you know how it is.”

  “What did Tanner say when he called?”

  Bree swallowed hard, struggling not to give herself away. “Not much. That he would be back soon and we would talk.”

  Think. She had to figure out a way to let Whitaker or someone know Jeter had Tanner.

  “All right. I’ll let you finish up here. I’m not going to fly back to Risk Peak for another couple of days. Just want to make sure Penelope doesn’t need any further help.”

  “I’m sure she appreciates that.”

  Whitaker gave her a smile and walked off. Bree wanted to scream out for him to come back.

  “See, you handled that quite well.” Jeter’s voice came back on in her ear. The picture popped back on the computer screen. “Now maybe if you continue to follow directions so well, your Tanner will live to see another day.”

  It was all she could do to stop herself from reaching up and touching the screen. Touching Tanner. As if her touch could somehow make this all go away.

  “It’s like the case you’ve been working, isn’t it? I’ve been watching. I can’t help but be proud of what you did there. Helping arrest Gresham, Elliot the others. Those people were reasonably adept. The Dallas Police Department would’ve never caught them without your help. The women in the boxes would be dead.”

  “Were you a part of all this?” Bree didn’t know how it was possible, but if it was, Jeter would be the one to accomplish it.

  “Oh, no. I can’t take credit for that. But it did make it very easy and convenient to follow you the last day.”

  She was sure it had been. She’d been trying to work as fast as possible, only hiding herself from the killers. She’d never dreamed somebody would backdoor their way into what she was already backdooring into.

  “But the prison bus accident. You orchestrated that.” She already knew it was the truth, she didn’t have to ask it as a question.

  “Come on now, Bethany. You had to have known I would get out. You’ve always known I would come for you.”

  Bree shut her eyes. He was right. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to herself, but she’d always known Jeter was going to find a way to come after her.

  She’d let herself become so soft. Someone her mother—who had given her life trying to protect Bree and teach her how to best combat the dangers posed by Jeter and the Organization—wouldn’t even recognize now.

  Bree had let herself fall prey to the magic of her and Tanner’s love. Like that was some sort of protection. As if it was some sort of talisman able to protect them from the reality of the evil of the Organization.

  She’d let herself believe that the law would be able to control Jeter, someone who’d fooled the entire world for decades.

  She should’ve known better.

  She studied the video of Tanner on the screen once again. He didn’t look panicked. The only way someone would even know that he was scared at all—and he had to be, sitting inside a casket with a madman standing over him—was by the frantic movement of his finger against his chest.

 
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  She should’ve never allowed herself to stop permanently in Risk Peak. She’d brought this danger straight to Tanner.

  “Why all the theatrics?” she finally asked Jeter. “Are you trying to outdrama the case we just worked on?”

  “Don’t worry I’m not going to drown Tanner, not when suffocation will work just fine. Or if we need to speed things up, I’ve always got some carbon monoxide.”

  Bree swallowed another sob, looking at Tanner again.

  His finger was still moving in overtime. She wanted to reach out and grab it, just to calm it. To...

  His finger was moving in a pattern.

  Bree fought to keep her face neutral. To keep this news away from Jeter.

  What are you trying to tell me, hot lips?

  Because he definitely was.

  Tanner must know where he was. Why would Jeter gag Tanner? It was just as much overkill as using the voice modulator.

  She watched his fingers more carefully. Yes. He was using Morse code.

  W-H-I-T. Pause. S-H-E-L-B-Y. Pause. S-C-E-N-E.

  The message repeated from there. When they’d first gotten here, Whitaker had taken Tanner to the crime scene where the girl from his neighborhood had been found. Where was that? Bree wasn’t completely sure, but knew it was somewhere on the south side of town.

  If Jeter had hacked the Dallas PD system, he would definitely have knowledge of that location.

  The question was, how did Bree let anyone else know where Tanner was without alerting Jeter.

  “What do you want, Jeter?”

  “I want a lot of things. I want you to not have run away a dozen years ago. I want you to have not betrayed me a few months ago. But for right now, I’ll settle for you trading yourself for Tanner’s life.”

  She would do it. She would do it in a heartbeat, every single time. She would give herself over to Jeter a thousand times if it meant Tanner lived.