by Karen Rose
“You’re that scared of stalkers?” Liza asked, now worried for Karl and Irina.
“No, dorogaya maya,” Irina said. “Karl, you have made her afraid for us. Liza, Karl’s marketing business works with celebrities who film endorsements and commercials. There is a lot of information in the company’s computer that could damage some very influential people. Their addresses, phone numbers, children’s names, products or brands that they haven’t yet launched, for example. Good security is necessary.”
“That makes me feel better.” Liza stood, kissing both of them on the cheek. “Thank you. I’ll be careful with your SUV.”
“Be careful with yourself,” Karl said gruffly.
“I will.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, MAY 26, 8:30 A.M.
“You got all this in eight hours?” Croft asked, looking at the photographs Tom had spread over the conference table in Raeburn’s office, products of his overnight facial recognition searches. “Wow. Did you sleep at all?”
“A little,” Tom lied. He hadn’t closed his eyes all night, Liza’s words banging in his head like sledgehammers. I need more than that.
He’d worked at his keyboard for hours, then had run on the treadmill. He’d even bathed Pebbles and baked a cake, but nothing had helped.
I need more than that. At some point he’d stopped hearing her voice say the words, instead hearing his own. I need more than that.
But did he? He didn’t have any idea.
“I mostly let the facial recognition software run,” he went on. “Knowing his initials and that he had a six-year-old son helped narrow things down.”
“So this is Kowalski,” Raeburn mused, examining each photo.
“Roland Kowalski,” Tom said, “when he’s working his drug business.”
Croft was looking at a photo of the man in a fancy three-piece suit. “And Anthony Ward when he’s developing real estate.”
“His office is in Granite Bay,” Tom said. Too close to the Sokolovs’ house.
“Lots of pricey real estate out there,” Raeburn said, turning to the second stack of photos. “His wife and kids, too? How did you find these?”
“His wife’s Facebook page,” Tom said. “Her name is Angelina. Their six-year-old son is Anthony Junior. They call him Tony. They have another son who’s about two.”
Raeburn’s brows went up. “The wife didn’t have her Facebook account locked?”
Tom shrugged.
Raeburn chuckled. “Right. No locks can keep you out.”
“I never said that.” But her password had been criminally easy to break. Her son’s birthday, easy to find from his birth certificate once he had the father’s name. Amateurs.
Raeburn waved a hand as if his denial was of no consequence. “Never mind. Bring the bastard in.”
“We’ll start at his business,” Croft said. “We’re more likely to be allowed in.”
Raeburn nodded. “Take Hall and Summerfield with you. I doubt he’ll come in easily.”
Tom felt a rush of adrenaline at that. He hadn’t been in a takedown situation since Ephraim’s last stand at Dunsmuir. He really wanted to take someone down today.
“Will do,” Croft said. “Anything else?”
Raeburn nodded. “I had your tattoo artist, Dixie Serratt, put in protective custody. She can’t ID Kowalski if she’s been harmed in the general population. When you bring Kowalski in, we’ll put him in a lineup. Any chance that your source would agree to do a visual?”
“Yes. He’s already agreed to that.”
“Good.” Raeburn pushed away from the conference table and returned to the chair behind his desk. “You have your orders. Keep me informed.”
When they were in the hall, Croft lifted a brow. “Who’s your source, Hunter? That sixteen-year-old who brought us Cameron Cook?”
“No.” Tom was saved further reply by the buzzing of his work phone. It was a San Francisco area code. “This is Agent Hunter.”
“This is Cameron Cook.”
Speaking of. Tom stopped midstep and leaned his back against the hallway wall, letting others pass. Croft stood beside him, looking concerned. “Cameron,” Tom said, and Croft tilted her head, hopeful excitement in her eyes. “How are you?”
“Not good,” Cameron confessed. “Have you heard anything? I’m so worried. Hayley’s due any day now. She must be so scared. And I can’t even think of my Jellybean in that place.”
Tom’s shoulders sagged. He fully understood Cameron’s fear. “I have some leads, but nothing that tells me where she is. I was hoping you’d gotten another e-mail.”
“No. Sometimes I stare at my screen for hours at a time, hitting refresh over and over.”
“I get that,” Tom said. And he did. It had been like that for him when Tory was murdered. He’d stalked her killer through Internet forums that no decent person should ever see, clicking refresh in the hope that the vile monster would show his virtual face. “I don’t have anything I can tell you, though. I’m sorry, Cameron.”
A choked sob met his ears. “Thank you anyway. I’m . . . I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“You didn’t,” Tom said firmly. “I promise you didn’t. But keep watching your e-mail. Maybe Hayley and her brother will be able to send you another message.” Especially if Pastor and DJ were both in Sacramento. Tom wondered who was minding Eden in their absence.
“I hope so.” Cameron shuddered out a sigh. “I’ll call you as soon as I see something.”
“Thank you. Listen, Cameron, do you have someone with you?”
“My mom and dad. They let me take a few mental health days but they say I have to go back to school on Tuesday. So after that I can’t watch my e-mail.”
“If I have your permission, I can put an alert on your e-mail that will let me know if you get a message. I might see other personal messages, though.”
“Do it,” Cameron said quickly. “I got nothing to hide, Agent Hunter. I need to get Hayley back. I need her. And my daughter, too.”
“All right, then. I’ll send you a form you can sign, and then I can do it legally. I have to go now, but you have my number.” He ended the call and looked at Croft helplessly. “I hate having to tell him that I’ve got nothing.”
“But you don’t,” Croft encouraged. “You got a lot of somethings. We just don’t know how they fit together yet. But we will. Come on. We need to round up Hall and Summerfield. If Raeburn offers backup, I am for sure taking it.”
GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, MAY 26, 8:45 A.M.
“Oh my God.” DJ grimaced at his reflection in Smythe’s bathroom mirror. “This is awful.”
It wasn’t the dye’s fault. It had done exactly what was advertised. His hair and scruff were now Deep Dark Brown. Just like the guy on the box. So why do I look so bad?
He didn’t consider himself a vain man, but this was truly awful. “I look dead.”
Which was true. His skin was pale, his face gaunt. It hadn’t shown so much when his hair was blond, but it sure did now. His cheekbones jutted out in sharp relief, his dark eyes looking . . . Dark. Like black-hole dark.
Some people were not meant to go dark. He snorted. With their hair, anyway.
But, he thought objectively, he didn’t look like himself anymore, which was the effect he’d been going for. He trimmed his scruff and slid on the glasses that he’d bought on a whim.
“Not bad.” He stroked the edges of the goatee that was the only thing that looked better dark. The dye had made his blond scruff a little denser, and he’d been able to remove the stains left on his skin with some rubbing alcohol he’d found in the Smythes’ medicine cabinet. The glasses were an excellent touch, drawing attention to the end of his nose where he settled them.
Grooming completed, he cleaned up his mess and bagged it. He’d notic
ed the neighbors putting all their trash cans out the night before and he hadn’t heard the rumble of the garbage truck. He’d toss the bag into one of their cans on his way out. No way was he leaving any of his personal trash around any more bodies.
Nor would he leave any more extraneous bodies. That was what had led to Ephraim’s capture. I have to stop killing people and leaving them to be found.
He wasn’t sure what he himself could have done differently, though. Nurse Gaynor had deserved to die. She’d broken the trust of her patients and her employers. She’d been extortable.
Mrs. Ellis had also deserved it. She’d been a nosy busybody who’d probably never been told no in her life. This was what happened when women weren’t kept on a leash and busy doing chores. They got gossipy and peeked in your windows and played armchair detective.
Mr. Smythe, now . . . DJ did regret having to kill him. But if the man had only minded his own business, he would still be alive. Storing his body in the freezer had been necessary, because he could no longer count on Kowalski for body disposal.
Kowalski had to have some kind of chipper shredder, because the bodies simply disappeared. Even when there had been half a dozen rival gang members dead on the ground. He’d always wondered where Kowalski put them.
He wondered how long it would take for Mrs. Smythe to think of looking in the freezer for her husband once she got home. Maybe he should move some of that frozen meat out of the chest into the kitchen freezer. That way she wouldn’t need to open the chest for a while.
It would give him time, especially if he hadn’t finished this by Tuesday when Mrs. Smythe came home. Luckily, she hadn’t called yet, opting instead to send a few texts every day. He’d noticed a few new texts pop up on Nelson’s locked phone screen that morning and needed to try to answer them, or the lady of the house might ditch her trip and come home early.
DJ hoped Smythe’s face hadn’t gotten freezer burn. He wasn’t sure if it would still unlock his phone if there were ice crystals forming. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter, because hopefully he was getting out of here sooner rather than later.
He’d wasted too much time watching video that was after the fact. He had added the camera to Smythe’s Wi-Fi, which enabled him to watch the feed in real time when he wasn’t physically in the bedroom, but that was still playing defense. It was time to get ahead of the power curve.
After a good night’s sleep, he’d realized that he had a valuable piece of information: Daisy Dawson’s place of employment. Everyone else had either hidden their addresses behind fucking corporations or, like the Sokolovs, had round-the-clock security.
Daisy worked at a radio station in Midtown Sacramento. She was on the air right now, so she was there. Her show was over at ten, so he needed to get his ass in gear.
He was going to shoot her as she left work. With any luck, he’d kill her, and then all he’d need to do was pick off Gideon, Mercy, and Amos at the funeral. And if she survived, Gideon would rush to the hospital. I can follow him home from there.
Then, eventually, the prick would visit his sister. And then I’ll have them both.
GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, MAY 26, 12:00 P.M.
“Wow.” From behind the wheel of the Bureau-issued SUV, Croft stared up at the mansion that Anthony Ward—a.k.a. Roland Kowalski—and his wife Angelina called home.
Ward’s business location had been a bust. Mr. Ward had not been in, according to his receptionist. She’d told them that Mr. Ward would call them if he wanted to and, unless they had a warrant, to remove themselves from the premises or she was calling security.
Tom had low expectations for this home visit. Anthony Ward would already be in hiding. Or manufacturing an alibi. But maybe they could get through to Mrs. Ward.
Croft glanced at Tom from the corner of her eye as she turned into the grand driveway. “I guess this kind of place is old hat to you, though.”
The Wards’ house resembled an old manor home. “I’ve seen a few like this. A lot of my former teammates had estates like this, with electric fences and security guards.”
“Why don’t you?” Croft asked. “I’ve wondered why you bought a duplex in Rocklin when you could have had something like this.”
“I didn’t want something like this.”
Her glance had become disbelieving. “What did you want, then?”
“I lived in the house that my stepfather grew up in. When it got burned down, we rebuilt on the same foundation. It’s a home. Not a mansion. I wanted something like that.”
“But a duplex?”
“I liked the neighborhood,” he said defensively. “There are real families there that you can smile at, and you can buy their kids’ lemonade.”
She smiled. “Even though it was awful.”
He smiled back, not surprised that she remembered the detail from their conversation on Wednesday. “Even though.”
“But you could have afforded more.”
“Liza couldn’t.” The words were out of his mouth before he could call them back.
Croft’s brows went up. “Liza couldn’t? Did she buy the house with you?”
“No. But we’d agreed that she’d rent from me, and she stipulated that it be a place she could afford. She spent hours while we were driving down from Chicago researching neighborhoods and rent values. She found the duplex online.”
And he hadn’t argued. He’d been so damn grateful to know that she was on the other side of the wall that he’d made an offer on the duplex the day after they’d arrived in Sacramento.
“But don’t you want security?”
He shrugged. Hiding his address behind layers of corporations was good security, in his book. “I’m not that recognizable. That guy yesterday in Yuba City wasn’t rare, per se, but it doesn’t happen that often. And fans aren’t exactly a threat, except to my privacy.”
Croft shook her head fondly. “You already signed something for that cop’s kid, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Liza had—” His words stumbled to a halt and he felt his cheeks heat at Croft’s too-insightful gaze.
“Liza had?” Croft prompted.
“She bought some basketballs when we first moved in. For some of the kids I met at a charity event. They were raising money to help kids who’d come from abusive homes. Liza asked if I’d offer up some signed gear and told me that she’d found a sale on basketballs at the local sporting goods store. She bought four dozen.”
“Four dozen basketballs?” Croft laughed. “Where did she put them?”
“In my spare bedroom closet,” he said wryly. “Half of them are still there, and I’m terrified to open the door. It’s like snakes in a can.” He spread his hands like an explosion. “Boing. They rain down on my head and she laughs.”
Laughed. She laughed. Because she’d left and wasn’t laughing anymore.
Croft, having pulled to a stop in the circular driveway near the front door, turned in her seat to give him her full attention, so he forged on.
“Anyway, she donated the basketballs and the organization auctioned some of them off. The others they gave to kids as prizes for selling the most raffle tickets, that kind of thing.”
Croft tilted her head, studying him. “Did she buy the basketballs herself?”
He nodded, remembering that argument all too well. “I told her to use my credit card, but she’s stubborn. Said she had money saved and wanted to do some good.” His throat closed. “She said that she wished there’d been an organization like that to help me when I was a kid.”
“She knows about your bio-father, then?”
“Yes. She knows my whole family.”
She is my family.
I need more than that.
He cleared his throat again. “Let’s talk about Angelina Ward. You want to take the lead?”
“Nah. She might like the loo
ks of you better. I’ll be bad cop this morning.”
“Only this morning?” Tom teased.
“Shut your pie hole,” she said, but with obvious affection. “You’re growing on me, kid.”
“Let’s do this. I assume she won’t want to let us in, but I’ll bat my eyelashes or something.”
“She’s not going to tell us anything, and if she lets us in, I’ll be shocked. But if she does let us in, be on the lookout for anything we can use to track her husband. Sometimes it’s as simple as a hotel brochure they’ve set aside or a Post-it Note on a fridge.”
A maid answered their knock. “We don’t accept solicitors.” She started to close the door.
Producing her badge, Croft rested her hand on the door, halting its progress. “Special Agents Croft and Hunter, here to see Mr. Ward.”
The maid’s eyes widened. “He’s—”
“That will be all, Carmela.” The words were delivered in a clipped staccato by a woman with waist-length black hair who wore a spotless white pantsuit. “Please return to your duties.” When the maid was gone, Angelina Ward glared at them with unveiled malice. “Get off my property.”
Tom smiled. “Ma’am, we’d just like to talk to your husband. That’s all.”
Angelina’s chin lifted. “He’s at work.”
“No, he’s actually not,” Tom said. “We’ve just come from there.”
“Well, he isn’t here. Leave, or I’ll report you for trespassing and harassment.”
Tom wanted to roll his eyes, but he held his smile. “We’re merely trying to get information on one of his business associates. Maybe you know him? Roland Kowalski?”
The woman’s nostrils flared and her jaw tightened. “Leave. Immediately.”
“Mommy?” a little boy’s voice asked uncertainly.
Angelina instantly changed from vicious to warmly maternal as she turned to the child who was hidden behind the door. “It’s all fine. These people are salesmen and are leaving.”
“I’ll make them leave,” the boy said, and Tom could picture the child’s chin lifting just as his mother’s had.
“No, sweetheart. Let Mommy handle this.”