Undercover Protection

by Maggie K. Black

  It had been barely more than an hour since Jay had watched helplessly as Leia had been kidnapped and whisked away by helicopter. Jay was endlessly thankful that Jess had been put in charge of the operation, instead of any number of other officers it could’ve been. Her authority and command of the scene was unquestionable, and she’d been quick to authorize Jay to take part while still maintaining his cover. Now, he was dressed in the smart, blue-black uniform of a Toronto beat cop, complete with the deep-brimmed hat, with its wide red band, pulled low over his eyes and hiding half his face. The lower part of his face was disguised with a trim and surprisingly realistic-looking beard. It reminded him of his father.

  Jay followed closely behind the senior officer as a startled security guard led Jess and a small phalanx of officers up the elevator to Franklin’s apartment. She knocked sharply, announced they were police and then burst in.

  Franklin Vamana, the billionaire CEO of an entertainment industry and presumed cold-case serial killer, was sitting alone in a large armchair, while both a shocked but tired-looking male nurse and a grumpy security guard stood beside him. His gray hair was meticulously groomed, and his housecoat was scarlet.

  Jess announced herself and read off the list of charges.

  Franklin snorted. “I’ve never heard of Leia Dukes, but feel free to search my building. You won’t find her. As for the men who allegedly raided her farmhouse and abducted her, I haven’t had any dealings with them for years.”

  His smile was smug, bordering on a smirk, and radiated a confidence that worried Jay.

  Jay waited, behind Jess, in a small group of officers while she peppered Franklin with questions he refused to answer about Leia, her mother, the fact he was allegedly Leia’s father and the Phantom Killer. Her walkie-talkie crackled occasionally with officers announcing their designated search area was clear, until finally the entire building was swept.

  With each moment that passed, doubt dripped into Jay’s core until it pooled in a puddle of despair. If Leia wasn’t there, where was she?

  Help me, Lord! She’s in danger and I was wrong.

  “Let me save you some trouble,” Franklin said. “If I allegedly had a daughter, kidnapping her and bringing her here would be the furthest thing from my mind. I have no children, because I want none. If a person did claim to be my child, I’d make myself very clear that they were not, and to never mention it again.”

  “There are such things as paternity tests,” Jess snapped back.

  “No person who knows me would be foolish enough to take one,” Franklin said. Then Franklin’s smirk hardened angrily into a sneer. “I want you to know that I will destroy your life for this, Detective Jessica Stone.”

  He drew out her title and full name to every syllable for emphasis.

  “Maybe I will sue you in the courts for harassment,” he went on. “Or I’ll talk to the good friends I know within the police and make sure you’re investigated for misconduct, and your entire career will be tanked. Maybe the tabloids will start trailing your family and digging up every possible skeleton of your husband’s past, including planting a few. Or strange men will start watching your children in the playground—you won’t know why and you’ll never quite feel safe.”

  He chuckled as if the well-coiffed man in his smart red dressing gown relished the thought. Tension built up Jay’s spine like a tight coil ready to spring. He’d always known, if not suspected, that threats like this were how Franklin had gotten away with nobody investigating his crimes and how the information Annie had provided to the police thirty-five years ago got buried. But witnessing it in person was an entirely different thing. It shook him.

  But Jess just nodded professionally. “We’ll be in touch.”

  She turned, stepped out into the hallway and signaled for Jay to join her, and the other cops to stay. She sent a quick text and then spoke to Jay.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll find Leia. I promise. And then we’ll get the proof to take him down. We can’t arrest him yet until we build that case and lock it down. But he won’t get away with this.”

  “Thank you,” Jay said. He knew it was one thing to know in his heart that Franklin Vamana was a serial killer and quite another to hammer down the proof beyond a reasonable doubt needed to prove it in court. He blew out a long breath. “Are you okay? He sounded pretty vicious.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jess rolled her eyes. “He’s not the first man to threaten me and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Now, just give me a second to regroup and we’ll figure out our next move.”

  Jay closed his eyes and prayed. Lord, help us and keep Leia save.

  “Hello!” Franklin’s voice rose, summoning them from the other room as if they were waitstaff. “Is that Jayce? Hey, Jayce, come talk to me.”

  A sudden, palpable fear, such as he’d never experienced before, washed over Jay like a wave, freezing the blood in his veins, as he heard the serial killer call his birth name.

  “Breathe,” Jess said, “and that’s an order from a superior officer. Don’t let him provoke you.”

  “It’s Jayce Starling, right?” Franklin’s voice had a teasing and menacing lilt. “It’s been a very long time, but I’m pretty good at faces. You were named after your father, right? Come talk to me, little Jayce, about your daddy.”

  He wondered if his face was as pale as it felt. Maintain your cover. Don’t let this monster steal that from you.

  “It’s amazing what a man will tell you when he knows he’s about to die,” Franklin taunted. “Hypothetically, of course. He might say, ‘Please, I’ve got a wife. I’ve got a son. He’s just a little boy. You can kill me but don’t kill my boy!’”

  Jay’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.

  “Don’t react,” Jess said. “He’s just guessing at your identity, that’s all. Some people happen to be exceptionally good at remembering and identifying faces. You’ve met plenty of them in law enforcement.”

  “But he’s confessing to killing my father...”

  “I know,” Jess said. “But he’s too smart to say anything that will hold up in court. Don’t let him provoke you into doing something you’ll regret.” Then his superior officer turned back toward Franklin. “If you have anything to say to my officers you can say it to me.”

  Jay closed his eyes so tightly he practically clenched them. Leia’s beautiful face filled his mind, filling him with strength. He would find her and rescue her. As much as he loved his father, who’d fueled Jay’s passion to take down the Phantom Killer, his past was behind him. Whatever happened next with Leia was the future.

  Lord, help me be strong.

  A text pinged from somewhere behind him. Then Jess swiftly pulled him aside.

  “So how do you feel about total longshots?” she asked.

  “That sometimes they’re the only shot we’ve got,” Jay said. “Why? How out of the box are we talking?”

  “Very,” Jess said. “I’m almost embarrassed to bring it up. As you know, I have a good friend, Seth, who’s a tech genius. I asked him to see if there was anything interesting popping up on social media or public domain sites about any Vamana properties. Nothing needing a warrant, just whatever he could glean, and fast. I told him to inform me of anything weird. Anything at all. No matter how seemingly irrelevant to this case.”

  Considering this case that sounded like a good way to go about it.

  “And he found something?” Jay asked.

  “Nothing relevant, but yes,” she said. “Only in Niagara Falls.”

  A jolt of electricity brushed Jay’s spine. Leia’s mother Annie had been in Niagara Falls with Franklin when Walter had driven through the night to save her.

  Jess held the phone and Jay looked down at a blurry picture of a small brown, white and black tabby.

  “Apparently there’s a stray cat prowling one of Vamana’s five-star c
asino buildings in Niagara Falls,” she said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  * * *

  Leia had no idea how long she’d been held captive in the lavish hotel room. There was no clock in the room or even a television, let alone a phone. She’d scoured the room in vain for anything that could be used as a weapon, and after checking the food thoroughly for any potential tampering, she decided it was important to take the risk and eat. Her father had always taught her that food and sleep were two of the most important things someone needed before a fight, so she rolled herself up in the duvet and catnapped, too.

  When she’d awoken, she freshened up, washed her face, braided her hair and put together a hybrid outfit out of her own clothes and the ones they’d offered her. She ignored the makeup, except for grabbing the one tiny perfume sample she figured might briefly sting an attacker’s eyes and buy her a moment in a pinch.

  Then there was nothing left to do but pray, pace and wait for battle.

  Finally, the door opened, and she found herself stretching to full height as she turned to face it. There stood Stan and Ross, two of the men who’d kidnapped her in her own farmhouse the night before, still holding weapons at her. By the look of things, they were still in the same dirty clothes they’d been wearing all night.

  “Turn around,” Stan said. “I’m going to blindfold you.”

  There was less of a confident snarl in his voice than she was used to and more of a resigned, simmering anger. Not that she was about to battle two heavily armed men twice her size and survive. Lord, show me my moment. Tell me when to act.

  She turned her back and let him blindfold her eyes, contorting her facial muscles as soon as her face was out of his sight to ensure the cloth would be as loose as possible. Then she turned back and let them march her down the hallway yet again.

  Fear battled against faith in her heart. Where was Jay? Had she been wrong? Had she just walked into the lion’s den like the biblical story of Daniel? If so, would God save her?

  A door opened in front of her with a sweeping sound that told her two opposing doors were swinging back like some kind of grand entrance.

  “Leave us.” The voice was female, crisp and assured.

  The double door slammed behind her. The floor creaked.

  “My my, you are pretty,” the voice said. Leia felt the figure walking around her in a circle like a sculpture being evaluated. “You can take off the blindfold.”

  Leia did so and looked up to see Esther Vamana standing in front of her. She blinked. What was this?

  “Where’s Franklin?” she asked.

  “Not here,” Esther said, as if the question was completely inconsequential.

  Despite the early hour, the older woman was impeccably dressed with exquisitely applied makeup, a matching pearl pendant and earrings and a long and sweeping turquois jacket that seemed to perfectly complement her stylishly short silver hair. Leia looked past her and around the room. It was an expansive and lush office, with a huge magnificent desk, two couches and several large and ornate pieces of modern art, which wouldn’t make half-bad defensive weapons if she could lift them. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows behind her turned the entire wall into a sheet of glass, which gave a panoramic view of Niagara Falls at the crack of dawn, awash in gentle hues of pink and blue.

  Then she watched as an object slowly rose into view on two thin cables she hadn’t even noticed at first glance. The top of a hat appeared and then she saw the window washer. He was suspended outside the building dozens of stories off the ground, in a long and thin metal cage. He was tall, and dressed in a workman’s jumpsuit that matched the safety harness that clipped him to the railing. He had a long and full bushy beard like a lumberjack and the rest of his face was buried in a blue baseball hat.

  Then his gaze rose to meet Leia’s and joy exploded like fireworks through her heart.

  It was Jay! He’d found her, he’d come for her, and now the man who was afraid of heights was suspended several stories above the falls, alone. Jay raised his squeegee and started soaping the window.

  “Your eyes really are purple,” Esther said. Her manicured hand lightly clasped Leia’s chin, turning her face back toward her. “My mother had purple eyes, too, you know. Indigo irises, in fact. I’m told it’s a rare genetic mutation that’s passed down. Sadly, it missed a generation with my brother and me.”

  “Why did you send all those goons to my family farmhouse last night?” Leia demanded. “Why did they ransack the place and kidnap me?”

  Esther blinked and stepped back, shocked, as if one of the pieces of art in her office collection had spoken to her.

  “Does it really matter now?” she asked. “I was looking for something to use to pressure my sick brother into signing his shares over to me and giving me a controlling interest of the company before he rallied and recovered. I got a tip through a police contact that someone had been running around telling stories to a junior officer about my brother and an unknown woman, who I realized had to be Ann-Margret Herber. So I got the name of his source and sent some people I knew to the late man’s farm to see if there was anything to it. I had no idea your mother was dead or that you existed. We hadn’t exactly kept tabs on her after we quashed the stories she tried to sell to the police. I believe my father tried to find her and failed.”

  Leia glanced at Jay’s strong form washing the windows outside. And even though she’d only seen his face for a fleeting moment, disguised by the hat and beard and even couldn’t see it now, just knowing he was there filled her with confidence. Esther glanced around, and Leia held her breath, but then the glamorous older woman turned back as if the sight of a figure soaping the window outside was nothing more than scenery. Leia suspected she went through life often dismissing seemingly irrelevant people that way.

  “Did you know that one of the men you sent was murdered by another one?” Leia demanded. “Or that another one, a young father, was trapped in a barn fire and nearly died?”

  “And a third was arrested,” Esther said, like they were discussing the path of ants on a driveway, “and it will take a lot of money and hassle to shut him up. Yes, I know. You’re completely missing the bigger picture.”

  A gust of wind shook the metal platform outside the window. Leia watched helplessly as Jay gripped the edges of the railing for a moment. His fake beard flapped in the wind so hard that for a moment she was afraid it was about to blow off. Then the gust died down and Jay returned to cleaning. Her heart ached. What was even the plan? How was she going to escape this?

  Jay was so very close and yet still so far away.

  Esther took a step back and leaned against the desk.

  “I have good news,” Esther said, as if about to bestow a gift beyond measure on her. “The blood tests came back positive. You’re indeed my brother’s daughter and my niece. Franklin has been waiting for months on the transplant list and we’ve been helpless to procure him one. His blood type is rare, and the official organ list is long. Thanks to some police investigation, the private market for organ sales is simply impossible to access in Canada right now.”

  In other words, black market organs.

  “So, you kidnapped me to force me to help your brother stay alive?” Leia said, the full horror of the situation slowly dawning on her.

  “Not necessarily,” Esther said. “Even if you come forward publicly as a potential donor, it puts my brother in my debt even if it never goes through. In exchange for extremely good financial compensation, of course, and that’s just for starters. I’m willing to pay your law school tuition in full at the university of your choice, provide you with a healthy living allowance and an apartment in downtown Toronto and cancel your debts. As for your three sisters, all of them have considerable debts, do they not? Consider them paid, along with each of them receiving a very generous handout to enable them to live the lives of their dreams.”

  L
eia felt her mouth open. She knew about her sisters?

  “I was doing my homework while you were resting,” Esther said, as if reading the unspoken question on her lips. “Your family has struggled considerably financially. I’m offering to take care of all of that and give you a fresh start at life. I also hear you’re involved with some farmhand? If you wish, I can arrange for him to be taken care of, as well. I’m not promising you can have a public relationship, but if it matters to you, something private can be arranged.”

  Did this mean Jay’s cover hadn’t been blown and they still had no idea the farmhand was an undercover cop?

  Leia met Jay’s wide eyes over Esther’s shoulders. He could hear them somehow. No doubt it had been nearly impossible to get a recording device actually inside the room. Was there a high-powered microphone on his window-washing rig? Perhaps police were even recording the conversation.

  “In exchange for a transplant,” Leia said.

  “No,” Esther said. “For a good story! The press is going to eat up the idea of a long-lost daughter making a national appeal for my brother and stepping up to care for him. You’ll be a media darling. You work for the less fortunate and you’re undeniably beautiful. Your story will be compelling, and everyone wins. Perhaps his health will improve, and he won’t even need anything more. No promises, but it’s possible.”

  “As long as you get control of his company,” Leia supplied, “and can use my existence to blackmail him.”

  “Yes,” Esther said, “and every bit of rumor, allegation or evidence to my brother’s unfortunate past is permanently erased and refuted.”

  “So, you want me to cover up the fact your brother is a serial killer,” Leia said, “and trade my happiness at the thought of justice for his victims and peace for their families...for money.”