by Elle Keaton
An hour later he carefully returned the file and the notes he had found to the cabinet. His hands were shaking so badly he had to shove them into his jeans pockets. He tried to recall what he personally knew of Matveev.
It wasn’t much. Mitya Matveev was an elusive shadow across Skagit, he had appeared in the 1990s, with an enormous influx of eastern European immigrants fleeing poverty and unrest in their native countries. People suspected he had his fingers in many illegal, or mostly illegal dealings, but nothing ever came of the whispered accusations.
Brett Ryan had clearly been one of those, and tried to do something about it. His father’s hastily written notes, painfully familiar handwriting strong across yellowed pages, made it clear he had believed he was close to putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.
He needed to call Adam.
Adam’s cell went directly to voice mail; of course it did. The next best thing was calling the information desk at SkPD. Officer Parks answered the phone. Micah remembered him from when he’d tried to give information about Jessica. He had not been helpful, in fact the guy had been downright rude. He hung up.
All these years, he’d never once considered his family’s death to be anything more than a terrible accident. An accident he wasn’t involved in because he had been down in Seattle longer than he expected. By the time he’d finished his classes and turned in his last assignment, it had been too late to drive north, and besides, the weather had been terrible and he’d been nervous about driving in it. He’d begged off coming to see the gymnastics competition his sister was in.
A terrible suspicion was pounding through his veins, goose bumps swept up his arms, leaving a chill in their wake. The SkPD had investigated the death of his family as an accident. The minivan had hit a patch of black ice and spun out; traveling over the speed limit it had hit a mature Doug fir so forcefully that the van basically shattered and burst into flames at the same time. Micah’s parents were dead on impact. Shona was thrown clear, but crushing injuries took her life hours later.
Any other time Micah would have been in that car, too. Even though she was ten years younger than him, he loved his sister and she had him wrapped around her little finger. He would have been going to that tournament. She missed him so he came home to visit as often as he could.
He had to talk to Adam.
Mitya Matveev. Micah couldn’t keep the name out of his head. His father had been building a case against him in the months before he died. As far as Micah knew, the case had been dropped upon his father’s death. It seemed beyond coincidence that the name would pop up now, in connection with the break-in and arson attempt on his family home. As a child, he’d read some creepy fairy tale where thinking the name of a person (or fairy) would call them to you if you had the right magic. Keeping that name out of his head was proving impossible, and the feeling of someone watching him was growing exponentially.
Adam had been gone for hours. Micah finally locked up the house, turned off all the lights, and sat in the living room with nothing but his tablet, phone, and the cat. He’d also gotten out one of his dad’s golf clubs and had it next to him on the couch.
Sleep was no good. He would drift off, only to start violently awake at the sound of a tree limb against a window (needed to take care of that) or a car door shutting down the street. His street wasn’t that far from the strip where college kids hung out watching live music and drinking cheap beer, so cars were not unheard of. He felt foolish.
A car door slammed much closer. Okay, murderers probably didn’t announce themselves by slamming car doors and stomping up the walk to the front door. Probably. The doorknob shook and Micah about peed his pants.
The door rattled again, and Micah gathered his courage to peek out the front window and see, thank God, Adam hunched against the wind and rain with his hands in his pockets. Micah threw the door open, practically dragging Adam inside. The relief he felt at Adam’s presence was overpowering. Micah grabbed him and wrapped his arms around him as tightly as he could.
Adam tipped his chin down to see him better. Micah knew he looked like shit, no getting around it. It was 2:30 a.m. and he’d spent the majority of the last ten hours running his fingers through his hair and feeling sick to his stomach.
“Why are you awake? I saw your call but couldn’t answer. Hard to believe, but that moron Jack Summers may have actually cracked this thing wide open.”
“Yeah. About that.”
Adam leaned back to really see him, eyebrows raised.
“Matveev.”
“Yeah?”
“My dad was building a case against him when he died. From what I gather, it was hush-hush because he believed Matveev had a contact on the police force. Let me show you.”
To describe Adam as a force of nature was a massive understatement. He read the files standing up, with his cell phone pressed to his ear. He’d called both Weir and Mohammad. He then ordered Micah to pack up necessities and be ready in five minutes. Micah spent at least three of those minutes frantically trying to find the cat who, like any respectable cat, managed to disappear when Micah needed him. The fear he had felt all evening had abated with Adam’s arrival, but now he was on full alert, his body humming with adrenaline. Maybe if he put treats in the cat bowl he could lure him. When he picked up the carrier from where it was lying in the mud room, he saw Jessica’s backpack again.
He stared at it for a lifetime before tossing the carrier aside. Frankie could fend for himself. After dumping some dry food into the cat dish, he grabbed the backpack, stuffing it into the bag he had in his hand. Jessica must have known she was going to die, that day he had seen her in the Booking Room. However she had gotten a hold of the memory card, she had believed it was important enough to risk her life. Had she seen him by chance, and come to say a strange goodbye? Why hadn’t she said anything? Asked for help?
Micah would have done everything in his power to protect her. She’d only been eleven or twelve when his family had been killed, but she had come to say her goodbyes at the funeral, alone. He remembered seeing her at the service small and alone. He’d been drowning in his own grief, never recognizing that she had lost so much as well.
“Grab what you’ve got; a car is going to come up the alley. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been to let you come back here. Don’t stop, don’t look back, get into the car. I’ll be right behind you. No reason to be subtle; if someone is watching the house now it’s because they know shit is about to hit the fan from five different directions.”
Micah could hear, but not see, a car of some kind coming up the alley behind his parents’ home. It rumbled to a stop right at the back gate and Micah saw a figure at the wheel hold up his cell phone and flash it. Adam nudged him in the back and he was off running across the backyard as fast as he could, his bag bouncing across one shoulder.
It was kind of anti-climactic when Adam hopped into the car after him, no gunshots or thugs rushing out of the shrubbery to accost them. Micah laid his head back on the seat, listening to Adam brief the driver about what Micah had discovered.
“The backpack!” Micah said out loud.
“Your bag’s right here.” Adam pointed at it.
“No—yes, I mean, when I was trying to get the damn cat I found the backpack again.”
“And?”
“I thought I should bring it.”
Adam unzipped Micah’s bag and rummaged for the battered pack. Pulling it out, he dumped the main compartment and began searching the inner pockets. Micah sifted through the stuff that was now on his lap. A couple of tampons, a battered bestselling novel, a few candy wrappers, and a spare clothing—T-shirt and panties. Nothing else. He flipped open the book out of habit. A tiny piece of paper was tucked into the middle, and Micah tugged it out. It was a receipt for a coffee, but there was something written on the back: a phone number and a local address.
Adam took the receipt and read it quickly before tucking it into his pocket. He put his arm around Micah and pulle
d him close. Micah saw the driver watching them in the rearview mirror, a funny expression on his face.
Forty-Three
They ended up camped out in a lonely cut-rate motel south of Skagit, not close enough to the freeway to be convenient for road-trippers and not nice enough for a romantic weekend getaway. Micah had no idea how they stayed in business. Adam was talking about police protection or even witness protection, but Micah was ignoring him. No way was he hiding. No way. Plus, he didn’t trust the police at the moment. He’d been frightened the night before, now he was angry. He’d had time to process, time to think about how brave Jessica had been even when she believed she was alone in the world. He was not hiding.
“You need to have protection,” Adam repeated.
Weir, the driver who turned out to be Adam’s partner, was sitting at the cheap desk, snickering and pretending to do something on his laptop. They’d been over this at least five times in the last hour. When they had arrived at the motel Adam had called Mohammad and filled him in on what they had found in Jessica’s bag and in his dad’s files, and what Jack Summers had discovered. Neither Adam or Weir could bring themselves to admit that Jack had found something important, but he had. They were sure it was pure luck.
Jack had not been wrong when he suspected Natalia Verdugo of harboring criminals. Apparently the same kids he thought were behind some recent mini-mart robberies were also the ones who had vandalized, and then later set fire to, Micah’s house, as well as responsible for the break-in at the Booking Room. They’d been told to search for a blue backpack.
Jack had only wanted to question the baby hoodlums about the robberies; instead the teens had confessed to much worse and implicated a local officer. Not entirely stupid, Jack stashed them in a holding cell and then called Adam.
It hadn’t taken them long to admit they had been coerced to do the damage by none other than the recently deceased Ms. Verdugo. She had threatened to turn them in for theft and whatever else she could come up with if they didn’t, and since they had, in fact, been out robbing convenience stores, they did what she wanted them to. When she had turned up dead they freaked out and turned themselves in anyway, demanding to talk to anyone but Officer Parks.
Micah breathed a little easier when he found out the teens had been tucked away somewhere safe. He was more concerned about their well-being than any kind of charges for damages to his home. Officer Nathan Parks. He had been the one to discourage Micah from reporting Jessica missing. He was deeply involved in whatever was happening, Micah had no doubt. He wondered what else the corrupt officer had his fingers in.
***
Micah rolled over, the cheap sheets scratchy under the weight of his body. Adam was solid and warm next to him, apparently still asleep while Micah overthought everything he had ever known. Weir was in the other bed, also traitorously asleep. Micah grumbled and burrowed closer to Adam’s heat, trying to go back to sleep.
When he woke again it had to be late morning, because there was actual light seeping around the edges of the motel’s blackout curtains. Adam rolled onto his side, plastering himself against Micah, one hand sliding down and under Micah’s sleep pants. Micah groaned.
“Knock it off over there. It’s bad enough I’ve been assigned as Klay’s partner, again; no way am I going to listen to you guys have sex,” Weir growled into the semi-darkness.
Adam laughed and squeezed Micah’s hard length, whispering in his ear, “Later, then.”
During breakfast, Adam explained that between Micah’s information, which he had gotten to Mohammad by carrier pigeon or something, and the teen witnesses/arrestees, Officer Nathan Parks had been taken into official custody. At first he’d claimed ignorance, saying the kids were trying to set him up. When he’d been confronted with the testimony the kids had provided, he collapsed like a house of cards.
Adam very much suspected a connection between Parks and Matveev, the man who his father had been investigation so many years before. And, frankly, so did Micah. Why else would they try to destroy his house?
Mitya Matveev was nowhere to be found. The auto-repair shop he owned was locked tight, a couple of confused grease monkeys standing around scratching their heads, wondering what the boss was up to. He owned several houses across town and did not appear to be at any of them.
Adam was waiting on a search warrant for a property near Oyster Bay. Matveev’s name wasn’t on the county records, that was why the judge was taking so long to decide, but they had discovered that his business taxes went to that address and Matveev’s silver BMW was registered to the same address. It was also the address scribbled on the receipt from Jessica’s backpack. Adam was confident that the judge would come through.
Until they had Matveev, Micah was to stay out of sight. The guy was running scared, and cornered animals did anything they could to escape. Unfortunately, this animal was armed with guns and knives and not afraid to use them. Matveev had long been a source of criminal activity in the county. There wasn’t a lot he didn’t have his fingers in one way or the other, but they hadn’t been able to catch him at it. His minions were too loyal, or too terrified, to turn evidence against him. The few that had tried had ended up dead or disappeared. Including his father.
Except now they had Parks, if they could get him to confess everything.
“I don’t know anything; why am I in danger? You are in as much in danger as me,” Micah argued.
Weir cut across the heated exchange they had been having over stale bagels and watery orange juice.
“Pretty sure the guy thinks you brought the feds here.”
“What?” How was that even possible?
Weir had a kind of slow way of talking, almost a drawl, although Micah had not yet heard a “y’all” or “howdy.”
“Here’s how I see it. From what Adam has told me, you and Adam meet at the Booking Room and then the girl shows up. They must have been following her—”
“Her name was Jessica. And she showed up before I really met Adam.”
“Well, he was hanging out there, and I bet she was followed. They thought she might have that memory card, or something else incriminating. Parks somehow figures out Adam is a Fed, and they all panic. They think Klay here”—he gestured at Adam with his bagel—“is undercover, his father’s death was a ruse or something, and they’ve been figured out.” Now he looked at Micah. “I bet they’ve had their eye on you since your dad and rest of your family were killed. Trying to see if you knew anything. After all, your dad was supposedly working up a pretty solid case against him. I read your file, too, Mohammad gave it to me. Seems like all of you coulda been in that van. Yeah, so he kept his eye on you over the years. Then Adam shows up and the girl talks to you out of the blue. Matveev is thinking you know something. Hence, he tried to scare you—well, kill, but he had Natalia Verdugo take care of it with…bumbling kids.” The guy’s eyes filled with tears and he was laughing so hard he could barely talk. Micah thought he was going to need the Heimlich when Weir breathed in a chunk of bagel.
“Care to share, Ace?” Adam asked dryly.
“I never…heh, never thought I’d get to use the phrase ‘bumbling kids.’” He wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “You’ve got to find humor where you can in this job, Micah. Right, so, where was I? Bumbling kids. Heh. They messed it up. From what they’ve said so far, they didn’t try very hard. They thought they’d break in and toss the place a bit and you’d run for the hills. When that didn’t work, they tried arson. But neither one of them is a killer. So they lit up the porch and ran. Matveev must be incendiary with fury.” Weir almost snorted his coffee up his nose. “Jesus Christ, I am on a roll today! The Russians are nobody to mess with, but Matveev went cheap, instead of doing it himself, and now he’s on the run. Anyway, that’s what I think. Not sure where the victims fit in. The girls, women. I have an idea but I want to think about it.”
The room was silent for a few moments. Micah thought about Jessica and the backpack and how out of pure desper
ation she had set off a chain of events that the entire Skagit Valley was feeling. He also hadn’t forgotten two words, human trafficking, from his dad’s paperwork. He looked over at Adam, who appeared to be deep in thought, his bland coffee forgotten.
Most of Adam’s team had descended on Skagit overnight. Adam swore Micah would be safe and surrounded by capable agents while he was serving the warrant for the address scribbled on the back of the receipt they had found in Jessica’s back pack.
“I don’t need a keeper, I will be fine.”
Pulling Micah aside, Adam leaned in to whisper against his ear, “For me then? I need to know you are safe.” When he asked like that Micah couldn’t deny his request. “Andrea should just be minutes away.”
Forty-Four
Best laid plans. As soon as the words left Adam’s lips, his phone buzzed. His face was grim and when he clicked off the first thing he did was apologize to Micah.
“Another agent is on her way from Seattle. For some reason she didn’t fly and is now stuck in construction traffic on I-5. She’ll be here as soon as she can. Call if you need anything?”
A nod from Micah and Adam and the rest of the agents left the room. He heard the knob rattle and knew Adam had checked to make certain the door was shut and locked. His action sent a little buzz through Micah, Adam demonstrated in tiny little ways how much he cared. And big ones too, Micah smirked to himself.
Micah was bored, a little frightened, and a lot angry. Not necessarily in that order. Pulling out his laptop, he got to work. He was good with computers; maybe not black-hat good, but he knew what he was doing.
Several hours later he was searching for local car-rental shops. He needed to see for himself if what he had found was even a remote possibility. Because it probably wasn’t, he had no compunction against going to check it out for himself. Ever since he had heard “human trafficking,” his brain had been working overtime.
It was a welcome distraction from worrying about Adam. From worrying if he should worry because Adam was probably going to leave Skagit anyway. And from going crazy because he was worrying about worrying. So messed up. The other agent had still not arrived, and Micah was going stir-crazy. How ironic for someone who had happily spent the last few years in his house, only leaving for necessities.
