by Mary Stone
“What?”
The tinge of defensiveness in her voice brought a slight smile to his lips. “Haven’t seen them since I got home last night, but I think that gives Bree’s theory a little validity.”
“Oh my god.” She heaved another sigh. “Okay, I’ll tell everyone here about that too.”
“We’re just grabbing some coffee before we go to the office to do that exact same thing.” He chuckled.
After a short pause, she cleared her throat. “Really quick, before I let you go.”
A chill rushed through his veins. Here it came, he thought. The regret. The awkward apology.
He swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat. “What’s up?”
“I’m really glad I stayed with you the other night. We should do it again sometime.”
Relief and complete damn happiness had him smiling. “Yeah, I’m glad you stayed too. And yeah, we should absolutely do it again. Any time. Any place.”
When she laughed, his smile grew face-breaking wide. That sound always seemed to put him at ease, and he suspected it always would.
“That’s good to hear. Watch your back, okay?”
“Always, darlin’. I’ll talk to you soon.”
As much as he wanted to revel in the feeling of relief that had washed over him, he reminded himself that he couldn’t let himself lose focus. Scanning the street for the Mazda, he knew there was a real possibility that he was being stalked by a Russian gangster.
For the first time, he was glad his family was in Texas.
The night before, I’d been almost elated when Agent Tim Gibbs had agreed to meet up with me to discuss the state of the FBI’s investigation.
I shouldn’t have been.
Late morning sunlight caught the polished face of my watch as I raked a hand through my hair. Gibbs hadn’t given me a damn thing, and now I had to relay that failure to Alek Mirnov—one of the most battled-hardened Russian enforcers in the entire city of Baltimore.
As the taller man approached, I caught sight of the familiar Russian lettering on the back of his left hand.
From my early days, nothing but misery.
Alek leaned against the car at my side as he shifted his piercing stare to me. “I hope you have good news, Detective Smith. Eric Dalton has twelve hours left, and so far, he’s given us nothing. You know what that means, right?”
Gritting my teeth, I nodded. “I know. It means that you’ll go to Noah Dalton directly. Hold his father as collateral, get the location from him, and then kill Eric.”
Shrugging as if the answer didn’t matter, Alek produced a cigarette from the inside of his jacket, hunched over, and lit it. “Close, but not quite. We will kill Eric, but he’s not collateral. He and his son aren’t close. There is someone else, though.”
“His mother and sister are in Texas. Are you prepared to go that far?”
Alek shook his head. “No need. Most of his friends are Feds, but one isn’t. A pretty redhead, in fact. His friend or girlfriend, hard to tell.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a devilish smirk. “You know, I almost hope Eric fails. I could use a few days with a pretty girl like that.”
My blood had turned to ice. So much for letting me handle Noah Dalton.
Right then, I considered giving the man a false lead, but didn’t dare.
Coughing into one hand to clear my throat, I met his gaze. “You’d better be careful if you’re going after a federal agent. It’s one thing to go to him through his father, but if you’re going to him directly, you’d better make damn sure there isn’t a trace to tie you back to any of it. Like there was with Natalie.”
Alek furrowed his brows. “What do you mean? There was no trace. We cleaned the house.”
I shook my head. “Not well enough. The Feds have something. I’m trying to figure out what it is, but they have something solid. You’d better take a step back from this and find another way to break open the RICO case.”
He waved a hand as he took a long drag. “Someone else is handling it, don’t worry. I’m leaving town for a few days. I’ll come back when Eric gives us the rat or when my people have to deal with his son.”
If I were in a room with Eric Dalton right now, I’d throttle the man. Clearly, the pilot was in over his head.
He had no idea the type of shit storm into which he’d just thrown his family and everyone he knew.
Estranged or not, the Russians didn’t care.
They’d burn the entire city to the ground to find their rat.
28
Eric’s hand shook as he flipped open the prepaid phone. He didn’t want to answer the call. Right now, he wanted to crawl under a rock and pretend that the Russians and the FBI didn’t exist.
But right now, what he wanted didn’t really matter.
Slowly, reluctantly, he raised the device to his ear. “Hello?”
“Eric.” The caller was none other than Alek himself. Anymore, Eric always had to deal with Alek. “Do you know how much time you have left?”
Eric swallowed as he leaned against the cool drywall. He always took these calls in the bathroom so he could disguise the sound of his voice with the vent fan, and he was starting to loathe the room.
Pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand, Eric took in a shuddery breath before he dared to respond. “Ten hours.”
“That is right. Ten hours. Ten hours, and then your daughter dies just like her husband. One shot to the stomach.” Alek’s voice was as jagged and unwelcoming as concrete.
Ten hours, a million hours, by this point, Eric was convinced there was no way he could possibly meet Alek’s demands. Noah hadn’t even been to the damn safe house since his first brief visit. The only two federal agents he saw were Agents Stafford and Vasquez.
“I need more time.”
“We gave you a week.” Alek’s response was like bullets piercing his skin. “That is one-hundred sixty-eight hours. So far, you have wasted a hundred and fifty-eight of those, yes? Now, what? You want me to give you more hours to waste?”
“Not waste, no. Noah, my son, he’s been gone. He’s been in Baltimore. He was gone for at least a day, and I can’t leave this house. That’s an entire twenty-four hours I lost that I could’ve used to get your information.” To his surprise, his voice didn’t waver.
“That is your problem, Eric. Not mine.” Alek clucked his tongue. “Hold on. Hold on.”
There was a light clatter on the other end of the line, and then the faint sound of Alek’s voice. But Alek’s voice wasn’t what froze Eric in place. It was a woman’s voice.
Her words were distant and tinny, but he would recognize that voice at any volume.
“Nata…?” His voice broke, and he had to try again. “Natalie, sweetheart, is that you?”
When the bloodcurdling scream pierced through the speaker of the archaic phone, Eric almost lost his grip on the device. The cool touch of adrenaline in his veins had turned into a frozen stranglehold, and he needed all his willpower just to keep himself breathing.
As another scream rang out after the first, he felt himself slump down to the linoleum floor. His stomach turned, and he had to swallow the sting of bile in the back of his throat lest he vomit.
He wanted to scream and berate the Russian, to throw every conceivable insult at him in hopes that one might strike some feeling Eric doubted the man even had. Alek was a sociopath. He had to be.
But as much as Eric wanted to scream obscenities into the phone, he was hunched in the bathroom for a reason. Any suspicious shouts would undoubtedly draw the attention of Agent Vasquez, and then any chance for Eric to sway Noah and save his daughter would be gone.
So instead, Eric bit down on his tongue until he tasted iron.
The clatter at the other end of the line sounded minute compared to the shriek from only moments ago. “Did you hear that?” Alek asked.
Eric dropped his face into his hand. Of course he’d fucking heard it. In fact, he was still hearing it now, the screams echoing over
and over in his head.
“Two fingers, both from her left hand. For now, at least. I do not think she will need her wedding ring anymore, do you?” There was a hint of mirth in Alek’s voice that only made the pit in Eric’s stomach more noticeable.
Still, try as he might, he couldn’t formulate a response to the psychopath’s callous observation.
“Ten hours, Eric. Do not disappoint me.”
The line went dead.
For several long, agonizing moments, Eric held his position—slumped down on the bathroom floor, knees bent, face in his hands.
He had to get the Russians their witness. One way or the other, he had to save his daughter.
If he had access to Noah’s credentials for the bureau’s databases, then maybe he could look up the RICO case. No, that wouldn’t work. Eric knew enough about technology to be sure that he’d have to sign into the FBI server from a secure VPN unless he was in the building.
What about Agent Vasquez? Vasquez seemed amiable enough, but no, that wouldn’t work either. Amiable or not, he and Miguel were just short of perfect strangers.
Getting in touch with Noah was the only option. Eric had wanted to sway Noah to see the situation from his perspective, but it seemed increasingly obvious that the effort was a lost cause. Eric’s hope had been to keep himself from serving time in prison by convincing Noah to keep the entire agreement between the two of them.
Now, the idea seemed asinine. For all the good it had done him so far, Eric might as well buy a rifle and storm the Russian compound—or whatever in the hell it was—by himself.
As the analog clock above the towel rack ticked away the seconds, Eric realized for the first time how truly hopeless the situation had become.
Alek had been adamant that Eric not involve the FBI any more than was necessary to get to Noah. If he and the Russians caught wind of him enlisting the bureau’s help to find his daughter, they would execute her. Not only would they kill her, but they’d seek out and systematically murder Eric’s entire family.
But if Eric didn’t get Alek the location of his witness, then the end result would be the same.
Did he risk Kelly and Ethan’s lives by gambling on the bureau’s ability to track down Natalie within the next ten hours, or did Eric roll the figurative dice on his ability to uphold Alek’s demands?
Neither option was ideal, but he had left “ideal” a long time ago.
Now, he sought survival, and nothing else.
29
A flicker of movement at the entrance to the conference room drew Bree’s focus away from the screen of her laptop as Noah strode through the doorway. After she offered her friend a quick smile, Bree closed the lid of the computer and scooted forward in her chair.
They’d spent the afternoon catching up on all the details gleaned by their fellow agents in Baltimore, but aside from certainty that Natalie Falkner’s kidnapping was connected to Drew’s murder, they hadn’t broken any new ground.
Bree had even gone so far as to stop by the safe house to speak with Eric Dalton, but the man hadn’t offered any useful insights—just more of the same tried and true bullshit.
Once he eased the door closed, Noah took a seat at the circular table. “I just talked to Winter. She said that they’re still looking for Aleksander, and they still aren’t any closer to figuring out who Detective ‘Smith’ is. The audio techs are getting close to the end of the recording, but so far they’ve only heard the three voices, two with Russian accents.”
Tapping a finger against the matte silver laptop, Bree nodded. “Eric didn’t seem in much of a mood to talk earlier. Just more of the same shit about his money laundering adventure with his Russian comrades.”
With a snort, Noah shook his head. “Figures.”
“Any sign of that black Mazda? Or anyone else, I suppose.”
Noah shook his head again. “No. And believe me, I’ve been looking. Haven’t seen anyone out of the ordinary.”
“What about Autumn?”
He shot her a curious look. “What about her?”
Bree folded her hands atop the table. “They’ve seen the two of you together. We’re talking about the Russians here. If they want something from you and they’ve gleaned that she’s important to you, then…” She left the statement unfinished and merely shrugged.
“Oh my god.” With one hand, Noah covered his face and groaned. “Are we going to need someone to babysit her again? She’s never going to want to talk to any of us. She’ll just pack up and move to Alaska or something.”
In spite of the grave situation, Bree snickered. “I wouldn’t worry about it just yet. She’s been paranoid ever since Nico Culetti. Honestly, I’ve been meaning to talk to her about it, but now it seems like I ought to just leave it be.”
“She’s a psychologist who counsels murderers and psychopaths, and she’s friends with a bunch of FBI agents.” Noah’s expression turned matter of fact. “She probably should be paranoid.”
Bree propped her chin in one hand. “Probably. Anyway, did Winter say anything else about what they’ve found so far? I know it happened beneath an overpass, but were there any security cameras nearby that might’ve caught someone driving to or from the scene?”
“She mentioned checking for that, actually. But, to answer your question, no. There weren’t any witnesses nearby, nothing like that. We’ve got good physical evidence, and we’ve got the recording, but otherwise.” He paused to shrug. “No definitive answers about Detective ‘Smith.’”
Of course, there weren’t any witnesses. The Russians didn’t leave witnesses. If there was the threat of a potential witness who could bring harm to their operation, they eliminated the threat.
Bree took in a sharp breath as she snapped her stare back to Noah. “Wait. No witnesses. Holy shit. That’s it.”
A glint of curiosity came to light in his green eyes. “What do you mean?”
“A witness. When I talked to Drew the day before he was killed, he mentioned a case that the Baltimore office made against the Russians. A RICO case.” She paused to meet his curious stare. “A RICO case that hinged on the testimony of one witness. A Russian enforcer who grew a conscience and decided to flip in exchange for him and his family’s safety. Drew said that the Russians were preoccupied by the pending RICO case. That’s what they want. They want that witness.”
Noah’s expression darkened. “That’s the deal they made with Eric, isn’t it?”
Bree nodded. “It has to be. They made a deal with him to find their witness because they knew his son was an FBI agent. It’s a federal case, and the witness is in federal custody. That’s why their errand boy in the BPD couldn’t help them.”
He was going to kill his father.
But something didn’t make sense. “The US Marshals handle witness protection, though. Even if I wanted, I’m not on that case so there’s no way I could find that damn witness. Why would they even begin to think I could access someone like that?”
“Because your father is a liar who lies to save his ass. He probably promised them the stars and the moon, then thought he could sob story you into doing something you aren’t able to do.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Plus, there are ways around it. You just have to know the right people, and apparently, the Russians thought you knew the right people.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “I’m flattered that they think I’m so well-connected.”
Pushing herself to stand, Bree tucked the slim laptop under her arm. “Come on, we need to get this to Winter and Bobby.”
With a nod, Noah followed her out the door.
The knowledge that Eric had been enlisted to persuade his estranged son into coughing up the location of a federally protected witness wasn’t necessarily useful in finding the dirty cop involved in Drew’s death, but at least one piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place.
Though one piece was better than none, they were still a long way from the finish line.
30
T
he object of their veritable manhunt had only been in custody for a whopping fifteen minutes, but the Baltimore field office was already abuzz. The man had been caught on his way out of town, and if the clothes and personal items stashed in his trunk were any indication, he didn’t intend to come back for at least a week. Winter and Bobby had walked into the interview room where they’d been met with the hard stare of a man who’d seen and done things Winter didn’t even want to consider.
After watching Aiden’s impressive interrogation of Sergei Kolesov, Winter had been amped up to try to get inside Aleksander Mirnov’s head. But before she or Bobby made it through two questions, Alek demanded a lawyer, and the interview ended as quickly as it started.
However, just because the man wouldn’t talk didn’t mean they were unable to tie him to Agent Hansford’s murder and Natalie and Jon Falkner’s kidnapping. Much like they had with Sergei, the forensics team had confiscated Alek’s clothes, and a couple Baltimore agents were in the process of executing a search warrant for the man’s apartment.
At two in the afternoon, Winter felt like the day had already lasted a full twenty-four hours. She was sure they’d spend the rest of their day sifting through the items obtained from Alek’s residence, but to her surprise, she’d received a call from Bree only moments after she and Bobby gave up on their interrogation.
Well, Winter wasn’t surprised that she’d received a call from Bree, but she had been surprised by the reason for the call.
When she relayed the information—the realization that Eric’s debt to the Russians was slated to be repaid by providing them with the location of a federal witness—to Bobby, the man’s eyes had widened as his mouth gaped open.
Sure, there was some organized crime in Richmond, but nothing on the level of the assassination of a federal witness. They were in uncharted territory, and they’d wasted no time seeking out Marie Judd herself.
Once the door closed behind them, Marie glanced from her to Bobby as she took a seat behind her desk.
