He put his hands up. “Sorry.” Lau’s mouth was set in a straight line. Something was wrong.
She lowered her phone. “What is it?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I talked to Daley.”
“What’s going on?”
“This has to stay between us.”
“Of course. I would never—”
“I know,” he said, stopping her.
She gripped her phone in her hand. She wanted to talk to Rosa.
“I think he’s done something.”
Cameron studied Lau. “Something—”
Lau clenched his jaw. “Illegal maybe.” His eyes cast downward. “Something bad.”
Cameron thought about that night in Ahrens’ office.
“You knew?”
“Just a sense, I guess,” she said. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know, but he sounded terrible. And he was babbling.” Lau’s frown deepened as he continued. “You know how he is normally. Cocky, full of shit. It didn’t even sound like him.”
“What did he say?”
Ryan looked up. “That he was trying to get out. That he had a lot of things to undo. He kept saying ‘please, God’ and ‘God, help me.’”
Cameron heard those words, Ahrens’ voice echoing in her ears, and suppressed the urge to shudder. Did it all relate to the boats, to the traffickers? “Did he say what he’d done?”
“No. He said it had gone too far. Some girl was in the hospital.”
Holy shit! Ivana!
“And now something happened that can’t be undone.”
Shivers trailed across her shoulders and back. She thought again about not reaching Rosa, trying to convince herself that there were a thousand reasons why she hadn’t been able to reach her.
“I don’t know who to tell, and I can’t get in to see Ahrens. She keeps putting me off.”
She wanted to shake him, get him talk faster. Spit it out. She gripped her phone. “Call Hailey Wyatt. Tell her about Daley.” Cameron recited Wyatt’s cell number. “She can help. I’ll call you from the road.”
“I’ve got a new cell number, 415-555-9876. Want a pencil?” he said. She shook her head. She’d already committed it to memory.
She started for the door. Lau moved with her. “He kept talking about something happening by the water, at some warehouse.”
The boats. “Where?”
“He didn’t say.”
“There was one more thing,” Lau said.
She had to fight to stay still.
“He said your name.”
The tightness in Cameron’s stomach turned to lead. “My name?”
“He was mumbling, but I thought he said, ‘I should have done something for Cruz.’”
Cameron’s thoughts fired off like rounds from a machine gun. Was he talking about running her off the road? “Call Wyatt,” she told him.
“I will. Call me as soon as you can.”
Cameron tried to make sense of Daley’s odd behavior. What did he mean, and how was he involved? And how the hell did it relate to her? Was this what Diego was talking about?
As she made her way to her car, she listened to the voicemail from Rosa.
“Cameron, you need to call us at home as soon as you can. Ivana said a police officer came to her in the hospital room and threatened her. She was so scared.” Rosa’s voice sounded scared too. Cameron felt a chill run deep inside her. “The policeman told her if she didn’t follow his instructions, when she was released from the hospital, he would hurt us. He used our names—yours and mine.” She paused and for a second, Cameron thought the message was over. “How would he know us?” Rosa asked.
Cameron was thinking the same thing. Her breath seemed to stop in her chest before releasing like a bullet. Adrenaline burned through her as she sprinted toward her car.
Rosa’s message was still playing as she ran. “I told her to come here. Call me and tell me what I should do.”
No, Cameron thought. Not there. Not with you and Nate. “Oh, God. Rosa.” She listened to the recording tell her that the message had come in at two p.m. Oh, Jesus. Jesus, no! That was more than three hours ago.
Cameron twisted the key in the ignition and started the car with a roar. She shoved the car into reverse and squealed out of her parking place. Her gaze nailed to the road, she floored the gas and drove as fast as she could. She continued to dial her home number and her cell every few minutes, but no one answered either one. Finally, she dialed Ricky.
He was out of breath when he answered. “Hello?”
“It’s Rosa, something’s happened.” She spurted out the story of Rosa’s message until she’d told him everything relevant.
“Jesus, Cameron. A police officer? Is she sure?”
“I can’t reach her, Ricky. I don’t know where she is.”
“Okay, calm down. I’m across town. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Her knuckles were white on the wheel. She gripped it as though somehow the effort might save Rosa.
She called Lau next and told him about Rosa’s message.
“Do you want me to come?”
Daley’s words pulsed in her brain like a neon sign. He should have done something for Cruz. She dropped the phone and scrambled to pick it up. When she looked up at the road, she was inches from the row of cars parked on the side of the street. With a gasp, she swerved back into her lane.
“Cameron?” Lau was saying when she got the phone back to her ear.
She was shaking. “I don’t know. I have to get home.”
She was hanging up when Lau said, “If I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’m calling for backup.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Be careful, Cameron.”
With that, she hung up the phone and tossed it on the seat beside her. She tried to think rationally. It would be okay. She had to keep it together. Ivana said a policeman had come to her hospital room. How had she known him? If she’d believed he was a cop, Cameron assumed he’d been in uniform. Daley could have been in uniform, or the sergeant, but what would they want with Ivana? Had she seen something at ORG Lounge that night? Had she seen them kill that other girl? Had Daley done something that terrible? Were they involved in smuggling the women? Murder?
Cameron arrived at her house, her mind filled with awful possibilities. Nate’s face passed through her mind—his tiny fingers, his puckered lips. Rosa holding him in her arms, his tiny toes painted tangerine orange. Oh, God. Please not them.
She threw the car door open and ran inside. The front door was unlocked. “Rosa,” she screamed as she opened it.
No one answered.
She ran through the kitchen and the living room, scanning for any indication of where they’d gone. Nothing was disturbed. She tried Nate’s room next.
She pushed the door open and stopped as though she’d been hit with a baseball bat. The wind gone, her knees weak, she let out a piercing scream. There, lying on the floor, was Rosa.
“Oh, God. God, no.” Cameron sobbed. She went to her sister, dropped to her knees and touched her face. She felt cool, clammy. Cameron touched her neck and felt a thready pulse.
“Damn you. Damn you all.” She ran for the phone and punched 9-1-1. Choking and sobbing, she said, “I’ve got a woman down. Looks like head trauma. Send paramedics. Now. Now.”
The dispatcher tried to keep her on the line, but she dropped the phone. “Nathaniel!” she screamed, running through the house. There was no sign of him. His diaper bag sat beside the front door, his car seat beside it, but Nate was gone.
She returned to his room and dropped to her knees beside Rosa. “Oh, Rosa. Estás bien. No te preocupes,” she said in Spanish. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here now. I’m here, honey.”
Tears falling down her cheeks, she ran her fingers through her sister’s long hair.
The sirens began to wail, and she ran to the door to greet the paramedics. Ricky was coming up the front steps. “In here, hurry.”
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The paramedics ran in and Cameron led them to Nate’s room. As Cameron stepped through the door, she caught sight of something she hadn’t seen before.
“Oh, Jesus. It’s him.”
The paramedics moved around her to Rosa.
“Who?” Ricky asked. “Who did this?”
Cameron reached down and picked a button off the carpet near Rosa’s foot. It was a standard jacket button, waves of brown and white and tan like cream poured in coffee. Strands of navy thread hung from it. It could have been anybody’s button, but she remembered seeing one like it before. The button had been loose, almost off when they were in the captain’s office.
“Brad Daley,” she said.
Chapter 45
Diego wouldn’t last more than twenty minutes in hold up. They weren’t going to let him stay here where he might talk, but he hadn’t gotten any visitors yet either. He’d relayed his message. The files off the jump drive would be enough to fry some of them. Or so he was telling them. He passed the word on.
He was amazed at who showed up. But it was there in his expression. He was in on it. Crooked. A man he’d spent a decade working with. Cameron, too. And she trusted him. Somehow, Diego had to find a way to tell her. Which meant he had to get out of there.
“What’s with all the bullshit evidence, Ramirez?”
Diego held his expression level. “I’m telling the truth. I’ve got enough to go to federal court. It’s out there. You can’t erase it by erasing me.”
The man across from him leaned back with crossed arms, so confident. “What did you do—send something to our friendly Chronicle staff?”
“What’s that from—a movie?” Diego asked, his hands trembling as he shoved them in his pockets. Had they heard? All the evidence Cameron didn’t already have was on its way to the only person he thought he could trust aside from Cameron—Renee Eberhard at the Chronicle. Had he been wrong?
Still staring, there was a brief nod and then, “What do you want?”
“Two things: first, I want to walk.”
“On Benjamin’s murder?”
“On all of it. I’ll keep my insurance. You keep doing what you do.”
“And second?”
“I want Claudia. Safe and sound.”
The man frowned. “Can’t do it. Too risky.”
“It’s not negotiable,” he said, trying to sound like he was the one with the power. “If I don’t make a phone call in twenty minutes, it’s over for you guys.”
The man didn’t respond but walked away.
Diego felt himself melt against the cell bars. Was that it? He held himself strong. They probably wouldn’t risk killing him behind bars. They’d likely move him first. That would be his only chance.
He made a racket, insisting on his right to a phone call, but his demands weren’t answered. No one was giving him anything, and he wasn’t sure who to call. Cameron? She was in deep enough and what could she do? Gather his evidence from Eberhard and take it—where?
Two men arrived to transport him less than an hour later. They were big and thick, not agile enough to be cops. They were more like bouncers. They were silent as they signed him out and walked him through the station. No cuffs. Not legitimate policemen. Just a couple of guys hired to do the dirty work. He held himself calm. He could do this.
“Where’s the place?” the smaller of the two demanded as Diego was shoved at gunpoint into the back of their car behind the Hall of Justice.
“What place?” he asked dumbly.
“Where you’ve been hiding. We got to check it out.”
Diego shook his head when the bigger one grabbed his left index finger and snapped it like a pretzel. Diego fell onto his knees, howling.
“You can make it easy or you can make it tough.”
Diego allowed himself to be manhandled into the car. If he fought them, it would only make matters worse. He had to bide his time and make a plan. Leaning back, he gave them the address.
He kept his eyes closed, trying to map out a plan. Nothing was coming to him. He had no weapon, and he could tell from the familiar bulges at the waist and ankles that these guys were well armed. The safe house was on the second story. There was a fire escape, but it was a large room, and the chances he’d make it to the window were nil.
He heard the whisk of flame. He opened one eye, his heart pounding in his broken finger and watched the big, silent guy light a cigarette.
Diego was ushered into the cramped safe house and pushed into a far corner while the two guys went to work on it. Cardboard boxes lined the floor, and the big one was tossing them over, dumping out the junk inside them. The smaller one was destroying the kitchen. None of it was Diego’s. He had nothing there except a few clothes he wasn’t taking with him.
They needed something else from him other than the location of the safe house. Otherwise, he’d be dead already. At least, that’s what he was banking on.
Diego noticed the gas main with its big red handle. “Where we going, guys?”
The big one spun around and fired his gun. The first sensation was like his leg was buried in a glacier. Then, it was on fire. “Jesus Christ.” He touched the edge of his jeans where the bullet had torn a hole and taken a chunk of his thigh.
“Shut up and sit down,” the other said.
Diego steeled his breath. “Can I at least have a fucking cigarette?”
The talker one deferred to the big one who shrugged, then tossed over his pack. It landed far enough away that he had to put weight on the bad leg. His eyes clouded with the pain.
He eased himself back onto his feet and lit the cigarette. He took a drag, focusing on the burning in his lungs instead of the fire in his leg. Moving slowly, he got up and eased his way to the wall where the gas valve was.
The smaller guy had moved to the closet while the bigger one was digging through boxes of crap. Diego took off his button-down shirt and made a tourniquet around his leg.
The big one had run out of boxes as Diego reached the gas main. Blocking it with his body, he palmed the red handle. The closest door was in the line of fire, so he was going for the window, a long fifteen feet away, especially with his leg injured, but it was his only shot.
The small guy slammed the closet door and cursed. The handle in his grip, Diego used his cigarette to light fire to a newspaper dated six months back.
He flicked the cigarette onto the ground. The big one turned around and saw the cigarette. Diego waved the paper, and they both watched him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He leaned down and dropped the paper into the closest cardboard box and waited as it caught fire. The two stepped toward it, looking pissed.
Diego twisted the handle. The gas came out in an angry hiss, as though reaching for the fire.
“No,” the big one screamed as Diego ran for the window.
He saw a flash behind his eyelids and felt the torrent of heat follow him. His scalp punched through the glass, and he landed hard on the fire escape, knocking his head. He felt the searing pain and saw spots, but kept moving. As he crawled away from the window, glass chewed at his palms. He kept moving. Once he was clear of the blaze, he scrambled across the cold metal, using the handrails to support his bad leg.
The men were screaming.
The metal of the fire escape was wet from the fog, and he slipped and fell. He struggled to pull himself up to run. His leg burned, shaky beneath him. Without hesitation, Diego ran along the metal until he reached the corner of the building. He stopped at the last window.
He pushed on the jamb, and the window wrenched open. It stuck at eight inches, and he crawled in, catching his leg on the windowsill as he went. When he looked back, flames were pouring out of his open window. Fire engines wailed in the distance.
Diego pushed the window shut and locked it, then ran for the door. He hobbled through the empty warehouse space, which smelled like vomit and urine, and down the stairs, using the handrails to swing himself down t
hree and four at a time.
When he was sure he was alone, he hit the street and hid behind a dumpster. He retied the shirt around his bleeding leg and half sprinted, half limped, until he could no longer hear the sound of the fire engines and he could not take another step without collapsing.
He found a quiet alleyway and sat down behind a mountain of empty liquor boxes. Resting for a moment, he gathered his thoughts. If they had come after him, he knew exactly who was next on the hit list. He had to get to Cameron.
Chapter 46
Cameron paced the living room as Ricky spoke to the policemen in Nate’s room. Though she couldn’t hear his words, his voice was low and calm, and she thanked God that he was here. He’d called her parents and her brothers and had spoken to the police and the detective who had arrived shortly after. He’d sent men to Brad Daley’s house and after Sergeant Lavick, but so far there was no sign of Daley, Lavick, Ivana, or Nate.
Cameron had left messages for Lau and Hailey, and Ricky had called Señora Accosta to sit with Cameron while the house was cordoned off and searched, prints taken, and evidence collected. She’d been home almost two hours. Two hours that Nate had been gone. Probably more. Nearly twelve hours since she’d last seen him. Twelve hours since the last time she’d spoken to her sister or held her son. And she prayed she would again.
Ricky entered the room and asked Señora Accosta to give them a minute. Señora Accosta stood up, withdrawing her hand from Cameron’s. It wasn’t clear if Señora Accosta was comforting her or vice versa, so Cameron was happy for the break.
“You hanging in there?” Ricky asked.
Cameron scowled at him. “I only called you because I knew you could talk to Mama. Calm her down. I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Ricky crossed and sat where Señora Accosta had been. “About ten years ago, Margaret Ahrens and I worked together on a joint Special Ops/Sharpshooter project. Evelyn was going through menopause. It was hitting her hard. The final step in the realization that we would never have kids. She was pushing me away.”
She didn’t want to hear this now. “I don’t care.”
Ricky raised his hand to stop her. “We were involved, briefly. I broke it off, but I never told Evelyn. Not until yesterday.”
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 81