by Freya Barker
He barks out a harsh laugh.
“Share? Sure, I’ve had shit on my mind. It sucked not to be able to get to you when you needed me. Again,” he emphasizes, before his shoulders slump and his next words sound defeated. “And every day that passes without getting closer to solving this case is a slap in my face.”
Talk about taking the wind out of my sails.
I’m suddenly not pissed anymore. I get it—I get him.
The past days have been frustrating for everyone with no real new leads developing. The only contact we’ve had with Bill has been occasional texts, he’s impossible to get on the phone. We haven’t had an update from Linda in Palisade. Detective Bissette is hitting dead ends with my building manager, who claims he never had a key to the door, and the cameras they recovered are still with the lab. To top it all off, Radar has his hands full with his pregnant wife, Hillary. Debilitating morning sickness left her severely dehydrated over the weekend and he had to take her into the hospital for IV fluids.
It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall and I’m sure no one does that harder than Yanis. On the best of days, he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and these past days were definitely not the best.
“Yanis…” I lift my hand to his face but he abruptly turns away, shifts the vehicle in drive, and pulls out of the parking lot. Determined not to take it as a rejection I forge on. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I understand.”
He’s silent for a while, maneuvering his vehicle through city traffic until he finally speaks.
“You say it bothers you I don’t share. Sharing goes both ways, you know?” He darts me a quick look but it’s enough to recognize he’s not angry, he’s somber, and that’s almost worse. “You expect me to trust you, yet you keep yourself guarded. I’ve had it on my lips to tell you I fucking love you, but held back because I don’t even know if you want to hear it.”
An invisible hand reaches into my chest and squeezes my heart. A sudden lump plugs my throat and my nose tingles as tears burn my eyes.
He’s right. There are things I know he wants to understand, but he’s been patiently waiting me out and I haven’t given him anything. Trust goes both ways and as much as I’ve wanted him to earn mine, I’ve done nothing to earn his.
“I do. I want to hear it,” I finally manage, my voice raw.
Yanis
“And I’m sorry I’ve kept a wall up.”
Fuck, she’s killing me.
I open my mouth to tell her it’s all right, but she’s already speaking.
“I told you I grew up with Ted. We were neighbors, our mothers were friends, and so were we; just friends. After graduation he went straight into the military while I headed out for college. We stayed in touch, mostly through our mothers.”
I can see tears streaking down her face, and it’s all I can do not to pull over and take her in my arms. Instead, I drive the Yukon past the office and head toward home.
“He showed up at Mom’s funeral with his mother. I was in a bad place. He showed up at my mom’s place the day after the funeral and offered to help sort through her things.” She wipes impatiently at her wet cheeks. “We talked quite a bit over the next couple of days, got to know each other again. Shared our problems. We were both dealing with a lot. He suggested maybe marriage would be a solution. For both of us.”
I grind my teeth as I pull into my driveway.
“Maybe I need a drink for this,” I admit as I get out.
What I really want to do is find the bastard who took advantage of Bree in a weak moment and introduce him to my fist. Instead, I grind my teeth and help her out of the vehicle.
Once inside I head straight for the cupboard over the stove and grab the rye.
“You?” I hold the bottle up for her and she nods.
“Mine with ginger ale, please.”
I fix us drinks and join her on the couch, taking a fortifying sip before I shift to face her.
“Go on,” I prompt, bracing myself. “Why was marrying him a solution?”
“Ted needed something to lend him credibility.”
“Credibility?”
“He was already passed over for a promotion once and up for a second try. The US Army practices the ‘move up or move out’ policy, meaning—”
“Yeah, I know, get turned down twice and you’re on your way out the door. How does marrying you play into that?”
“He was always very private but suspected his commander had cottoned in on his orientation. Ted is gay.”
If you hit me in the head with a sledgehammer it wouldn’t have the impact her words do.
“What?”
“Ted is gay,” she repeats, playing with the hem of her shirt. “He always dreamed of a military career and felt if he had a wife his chances would improve.”
Her marriage was a sham?
It takes me a minute to process the information, and then I have only one question.
“What was in it for you?”
“Security,” she answers far too easily—like it’s been practiced over and over.
She’s got to know that response won’t fly with me. Bree didn’t and doesn’t need anyone to provide her with security.
“You forget, I know you better than that,” I point out.
“I needed health insurance,” she confesses, purposely not looking at me.
I feel that one in my gut. PASS was in its infancy and at the time I couldn’t afford health insurance for myself or my staff. That has long since changed and PASS offers a comprehensive package now, but there was nothing like that back then.
“You mentioned a ruptured cyst. I would’ve helped you if you’d come to me.”
The look in her eyes is part hurt and part sympathy. Something tells me I’m not going to like what she says next.
“There was no cyst,” she admits. “I was pregnant.”
Suddenly I’m breathing too fast, feeling light-headed—dizzy—and I bend over to drop my head between my knees.
Pregnant?
Holy fuck, do I have a child out there?
I know Bree, so I know the answer, but I have to ask.
“Mine?”
She doesn’t answer so I lift my head and glance over. She’s crying. Silent tears stream down her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally whispers.
“Where…I’m…” I stammer and shake my head to clear it. “Where’s the baby?”
What am I saying? Baby? Christ, that was fifteen years ago.
This is what shock feels like. As if someone turned you inside out and you can barely remember to breathe.
“I lost it. Ectopic pregnancy.” I throw her a confused look and she quickly clarifies. “It’s when the egg nestles and grows in a fallopian tube instead of the uterus. I was fourteen weeks when it ruptured.” Her gaze drifts, looking at nothing in particular. “There was quite a bit of damage and a lot of bleeding. They were able to leave the other tube, but had to take the uterus.”
“Jesus.”
Because, what else is there to say?
I get to my feet and walk to the kitchen door, sliding it open.
“Where are you going?” I hear her ask.
“I need some air.”
Without looking back, I walk across the deck and down the steps. Thoughts are spinning in my head at a frightening speed and I feel pressure building inside me.
Bree, pregnant with my baby.
Had she known when I sent her away?
I don’t stop until I’m at the edge of my property, where I bend down, bracing my hands on my knees until I feel like I can breathe again. Then I straighten up and stare out at the mesa, willing my mind to slow down its churning.
The one thought that keeps circling back is if she’d carried that baby to term, would I ever have known it was mine?
I need to know.
Taking in a deep breath, I turn on my heel and find her standing at the bottom of the steps, her hand clasped to her chest. At a brisk pac
e I walk back, but before I have a chance to ask, she gives me my answer.
“I was going to tell you. I just needed some time to…get over the hurt.”
I forgot. She knows me well too.
“Bree, I—”
The shrill tone of my phone ringing cuts me off and I pull it from my pocket.
“Dimi, now is not a good time.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he fires back smugly. “I found something.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Bree
“Hey, where’s your boot?”
Lena leans over her desk to look at my feet.
“Don’t need it anymore.”
Yanis brushes past me and heads for the bullpen. I notice Lena looking after him with an eyebrow raised.
“Not even his usual grunted greeting? What crawled up his butt?”
I shrug at her and rush after him.
The five-minute drive to the office had taken place in loaded silence. I’m well aware I dropped a bombshell, but I wish he’d had a chance to finish what he was going to say when Dimi called. The uncertainty is killing me.
If I’d thought there was even the slightest chance of us rekindling anything at some point, I would’ve told him. Probably. He’d never given any indication until he did a full one-eighty last month. There’d been no reason to open that can of worms.
Cowardly, I know.
Then suddenly I had it back—had him back—and I knew I should come clean, but I didn’t want to lose what I found again. The first time it almost broke me. But when he mentioned loving me, I knew it wasn’t fair to keep him in the dark. I had to come clean about the past or there could be no future.
The truth is, I still love him too. I never stopped. Working together, seeing each other on a daily basis, had kept that hopeless flame alive. Except, as it turns out, it wasn’t hopeless. It’s just…complicated.
Yanis is a proud and principled man, and I’m afraid he’ll see keeping my secrets for so long as a betrayal.
“Radar had me going over these phone records he pulled on McNeely.”
Dimas is in Radar’s office, showing his brother something on the monitor on the desk and I sidle up on his other side to get a look.
“I highlighted one number. Look at the dates and times of the calls.”
Yanis sees it before me.
“They correspond with the events at the winery.”
Sure enough, the same number appears for each of the dates. In fact, this past Friday there’s a series of incoming calls from that number between about eight thirty and midnight.
I point at the first call logged at twenty-seven minutes past eight.
“That’s right after you left my apartment,” I point out to Yanis.
“Tell me you know who that number belongs to,” he says to his brother.
“It looks to be a burner number. Radar thinks he can trace it. He said he’d be in shortly.” He minimizes the screen and pulls up another. This one looks like a PayPal account. “McNeely’s bank account showed his income from the winery, but also money drawn from a PayPal account. Radar was able to hack into it and found a bi-weekly payment coming in from one Moira Kennedy.”
“Who is?” Yanis prompts.
“Executive assistant at Falcone Scrap and Metal in Colorado Springs,” Dimi says with a triumphant smirk as he looks up at us. “Now tell me, why would Falcone continue to pay McNeely regularly when he hasn’t worked there in over six months?”
Great information, solidifying the ongoing link between the Albero family and McNeely but not enough by itself. I’m sure the reason this Moira Kennedy is using her own account to forward the payments is to create another level of separation, and I’m sure the family wouldn’t hesitate to throw this woman under the bus to save their own ass.
Now, if we can link that phone number directly to Sarrazin, that would have a lot more clout, although, I’m not sure if there will be any legal way to make the information we find stick.
“Good,” Radar says when he walks in. “You’re here.”
“What’ve you got?” Yanis asks, as Radar shoves Dimi out of his chair.
“Give me a second to pull it up.”
“How is Hillary?” I ask, since no one else seems to.
Radar throws me a quick grin.
“Much better now. They’ve put her on something for the nausea. They did an ultrasound, according to the OBGYN the baby’s doing good. Strong heartbeat.”
I smile back at him. Even after all these years, it’s still a bit of a bittersweet experience, but this is my family, how can I be anything but happy for them?
“Can we get back to this?” Yanis barks, pointing at the screen.
“Yeah, sure,” Radar quickly says, looking surprised.
Dimi gives his brother the stink eye, but neither of them get what a raw topic it is for Yanis. I wish I felt confident enough to put my hand on his back to signal my understanding, but I’m afraid he’ll snap, he’s strung so tight.
“Okay, so I was able to triangulate the movements of the burner phone.” Radar points at the screen where a map of Colorado is visible. “I marked them out on the map. At the time of the first call to McNeely’s phone, the burner pinged off this tower here.”
He indicates a red dot on the map.
“That’s right here,” I notice.
“Yup. Right under our noses. Watch how it moves east, pinging different towers. Then suddenly it turns back, making a few detours before it returned to where it started.”
The location he points to is within a four-block radius of my apartment. My heart starts beating faster.
Then he enlarges a second map so they’re visible side by side. “And this one is Sarrazin’s registered cell phone account.”
The path showing up on that map is identical to the first one. Including the detours and of course the tower four blocks from my apartment.
I know I floated the idea that everything might be connected, but to have it confirmed still makes me a little ill.
“We’ve got him,” Dimi says excitedly.
“We have confirmation it’s him, but we can’t take this to the cops,” Yanis says with a dose of reality. “What we can do is find out where the hell he’s been staying in town, and see if we can find out where he stopped that night. That’s the kind of information we can hand over to Bissette.”
“I also think maybe we should go have a talk with my building manager,” I suggest, my focus on Yanis. “If he can wield power over law enforcement brass, it’s not a stretch to imagine he could’ve bribed or threatened the manager into giving him a key to my balcony door. Because this sure looks like it was Sarrazin in my apartment that night.”
He nods once before putting a hand on Radar’s shoulder.
“You guys start calling hotels, short-term rentals, and find out where he might’ve stopped that night. Oh, and start looking for any connection between Sarrazin and Bobby Lee.” Then he turns to me. “Let’s go find your manager.”
As we walk out of the office, Yanis says, “Try Evans again. Tell him it’s imperative we talk to him. I don’t like you being in the crosshairs of a fucking mafia thug. We also need to touch base with Sergeant Fillmore.”
I’m not too hot on that factoid myself, but I’m not sure what we can do about it if they have law enforcement in their pocket.
“Have you thought about going to the CBI or the feds with this?” I ask when we’re driving away from the office. “I’m getting a little worried.”
“Not yet,” he grinds out, his jaw tight and his eyes locked on the road.
“We’re vulnerable, Yanis. I’m not just talking about me; I’m talking about PASS.”
That earns me a sideways glance and a pat on my knee.
“I know, Bree. But let’s build our case first. Get something concrete in our hands before we make any moves.”
I guess that makes sense, but we better find something soon. I have a bad feeling.
“Sure.”
>
He stops in front of a red light and turns his head toward me.
“Not gonna let anything else happen to you. I promise.”
I nod, wishing I could feel as confident as he sounds.
“Okay.”
Yanis
“Let me do the talking.”
Bree nudges me out of the way.
I just knocked on the door of apartment one-ten. The nameplate on the door says; Matthew Billings, Manager.
Heavy footsteps sound on the other side and the door opens a crack. Red-rimmed eyes in a face that looks older than it probably should, peer at me suspiciously before settling on Bree.
“Hi, Matthew? It’s Bree, from three-fifteen? I just need a quick word.”
The door opens a little wider.
“What can I do for you?”
He glances my way suspiciously.
“Oh sorry, this is my boyfriend, Yanis. Could we come in for a second? I promise it won’t take long.”
I force myself to relax and even try to throw in a friendly smile to put the man at ease. It takes him a moment to make up his mind but he finally eases the door open, stepping out of the way to let us in.
Bree leads the way into a small front room that is set up as an office. She’s clearly been here before. The cramped space is cluttered with a desk, a bookcase, and a filing cabinet, as well as two uncomfortable looking visitor chairs. An ancient computer and stacks of files litter the desk and a layer of dust covers every visible surface. It doesn’t look like Matthew spends a lot of time in here.
He sits down in the squeaky office chair behind the desk and Bree and I take seats as well.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” Bree starts. “I know you already spoke with the police and I understand that can be intimidating.”
I notice the man’s eyes dart over our shoulders to the door, his only exit.
“I have nothing to add,” he says quickly, getting to his feet.
“Mr. Billings,” I take over before he sends us packing, and I’m taking a risk. “We know Angelo Sarrazin was here.” If I needed any confirmation, the terrified look in his eyes is enough. “We also know he forced you into handing over the key to the balcony door of three-fifteen.”
