Mr. January: Mercer's War Book 1

by Jordan Dane

  Cruz heard voices ahead, the words garbled by the distance and the steady whir coming from a power generator. With the electricity gone, the portable generator would allow CSI techs to work by floodlights to bag and tag evidence and take digital photographs.

  Cruz spotted Detective Kyle Dravin standing near an open door. He stared down into what looked like a storage room.

  “What do we have?” he asked the younger man.

  “Three women. Bound and gagged. All dead. Coroner thinks they died of smoke inhalation, but he won’t confirm that until the autopsies.”

  Cruz shoved by Dravin and stepped into the room, steeling his spine for what he would see. The bodies of three women were slumped in a corner. Ligature marks, from barbed wire that bound their hands and feet, had cut deep into their bloated skin. Their faces were contorted. Smoke had darkened their noses and the skin of their faces with soot, but the heat had swollen their eyes, cheeks and lips to make them unrecognizable.

  Cruz lived with many ghosts in his years as a homicide cop. He had no doubt these poor young women would haunt his dreams.

  “Barbed wire. That’s different,” he said to Dravin. “If this has anything to do with trafficking, see if you can find any other cases like this. Run your query against ViCAP.”

  The FBI’s national crime database would allow Dravin to reach beyond their jurisdiction.

  “Will do. Paramedics also treated one young woman and took her to St. Joseph’s. SWAT located her behind the loading bays, unconscious. Hospital called to say her name is Zoey Meager. She’s awake. You want me to question her?”

  “No. You finish up here. I’ll do it.” Cruz headed for the door, but stopped. “She was treated for smoke inhalation by EMTs?”

  “Yeah.” Dravin consulted his notes. “Why?”

  “If Zoey Meager had to be treated for smoke inhalation, that means she was inside. How did she get out?”

  Dravin shrugged.

  “Sounds like an excellent question for Ms. Meager. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  “Smart ass.” Cruz left the storage room and headed to where he’d seen Jack Appleton, arson investigator.

  The older man had staked a spot near the storage room, collecting evidence into plastic tubs.

  “What’ve you got, Jack? Talk to me.”

  “I’m seeing signs of an accelerant. Arsonists believe fire destroys evidence of their tampering, but not if a good investigator knows what to look for.”

  “Thank the good Lord we have you, Jack.”

  “Pass that on to my boss.” The seasoned arson investigator pointed to a spot against the wall. “You see the pattern here? Arsonists forget that only the vapor burns, not the liquid part of the fuel. For material saturated with an accelerant, the wetness prevents the materials from burning. That leaves behind evidence for us to connect the dots. If we match the cloth to something that’s in the possession of a suspect, we’ve got a link to the crime scene. It’s worth a shot."

  "What do you have so far?" Cruz asked.

  "I've been examining patterns of burn, the structure of the building itself, the ventilation factors, and what fuel loadings were available. Most old warehouses are veritable powder kegs, but we found pour patterns to indicate this is where someone started the fire.”

  “Is that blood on the cement?” The detective kneeled down near a brown stain on the floor. “I’m sure your eagle eye took trace on this?”

  “You know it.” The man grinned. "I'm still collecting evidence. Looks like a struggle happened here, but I can’t be sure when it may have happened. As for the fire, I’m enclosing what I find in air-tight containers to prevent cross contamination and keep the integrity of the accelerant intact, but it looks like arson, deliberately set."

  Cruz shook his head. He had no doubt that whoever set the fire had intended to kill any witnesses. The fire had been started near the only ventilation they had. Their bodies hadn’t burned. He hoped they could ID the women easier, but they had died in abject fear, killed by the gases and smoke billowing into their death chamber.

  The women in the locked storage unit had been nothing more than collateral damage, but one young woman had escaped their fate—Zoey Meager. He reached for his phone to call Central.

  “Get me everything you have on Zoey Meager. I’m heading to St. Joseph’s now.”

  He wanted to believe the only witness to the fire would be as innocent as the women who had died in the blaze, but he knew better than to assume. In his career with DPD, he’d seen the cruelty of the most depraved human beings.

  Zoey Meager could’ve escaped her abductors—or she could be a heartless killer.

  Chapter 3

  Warehouse District

  Denver, Colorado

  Dawn

  He peered over his shoulder one last time before he headed down the shadowy alley. He couldn’t afford to be careless. No cars. No foot traffic. He melded back into the darkness and eyed the windows above where he stood. When no one stared down from the condemned warehouse across the street, he drew a sigh of relief.

  No one had seen or followed him home. He’d made sure.

  He turned and headed deeper into the alley. It took everything he had to keep his boots moving, one foot in front of the other. His wounded arm had grown numb and his fingers tingled. His head spun from the blood loss and he could barely keep his eyes open.

  It had been two days since he’d last slept.

  Karl had been smart to leave. He didn’t blame him.

  Too many cops had surrounded the warehouse. He almost didn’t get away. He’d messed up and gotten shot because he’d taken a chance by going into the burning building. But if the shooter had seen his face, he would have finished the job and put a bullet in his head.

  Damned woman. Why the hell had she risked her life?

  If he hadn’t rushed into the flames for another reason, she would’ve died. He’d stayed long enough to haul her outside and made sure someone found her. She could’ve blown everything if the cops had hauled his ass to jail.

  Need sleep. Get patched up.

  Wincing, he reached up with his good arm to pull down the fire escape and lumbered up the metal stairs. On the third floor, he yanked on a window and slid it open. He straddled the ledge and lingered to let his senses work.

  Everything looked the same. He sniffed the air for smells only he would know and he listened to the utter stillness, the emptiness of the place. After he was sure no one lurked in the dark, he crawled inside and headed for the utility sink.

  A broken mirror hung in pieces on the brick wall. Smeared with soot, his blackened face stared back, cut into slivers like a nightmarish kaleidoscope. He reeked of smoke, sweat and blood. He grimaced with pain as he shrugged out of his shirt, careful not to start the bleeding again, and tossed his dirty clothes in a heap at his feet.

  He stood naked at the sink and washed off. Every move took effort. Panting, he put on fresh clothes—a pair of faded jeans and a black T-shirt—before he sacrificed a white tee to dress his wound. The bullet had gone straight through. No bones broken. He’d been lucky. He only hoped his good fortune meant no infection. The blood loss made him dizzy and he already felt feverish, but before he slept, he had to fuel the furnace of his body.

  Stacked on a windowsill, he had bottles of water and a few energy bars stashed in a plastic container. He grabbed one of each and forced himself to eat and drink as he watched a rat scurrying into the shadows across the room.

  Live and let live. The rat had staked a claim first.

  After he ate and drank, he cleaned his bloody mess and set out stuff for when he saw Karl. He eyed the mattress on the cement floor and collapsed into it. His eyelids grew heavy as he stared into the rafters and metal ductwork. He drifted into a fitful sleep until he heard the sounds of footfalls on the fire escape stairs.

  On gut instinct he reached for the SIG Sauer P226 that he kept stashed by his bed and racked the slide to chamber a round. He took aim towar
d the open window. A familiar shadow eclipsed the steel gray of the early morning and clamored inside.

  “It’s about time, Karl.” He lowered his gun and put it away.

  The black Tibetan Mastiff padded toward him—ignoring the food and water he’d set out—and crawled into bed with him. Karl burrowed his head into his good shoulder and whimpered, licking his hand.

  He heaved a sigh and shut his eyes.

  “Yeah, I missed you, too. Don’t hog the bed.”

  ***

  St. Joseph’s Hospital

  7:00 a.m.

  Detective Estefan Cruz parked outside the ER and entered St. Joseph’s Hospital through a set of sliding doors. He stepped up to the ER check-in and caught the eye of the receptionist.

  “I’m here to see Zoey Meager. She was brought in last night. What room is she in?”

  A petite blond in a nurse’s uniform typed the name onto a keyboard and stared at the monitor until she found the room.

  “She’s in 302.” The nurse pointed. “Down this hall, you’ll find an elevator. She’ll be on the third floor, follow the signs by room number. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks.” The detective turned to leave.

  “No problem.”

  Cruz cringed and stopped in his tracks. No problem? He hated those two words. Whatever happened to ‘my pleasure’ or ‘you’re welcome?’ He heaved a sigh and carried on. When he got to the third floor and room 302, he found it empty. He looked in the bathroom and the closet for personal belongings, but the room showed no indication it was occupied.

  He accosted the first nurse he saw in the corridor.

  “Where’s Zoey Meager, the woman who’s supposed to be in 302?” he asked. “Has she checked out?”

  Hospital staff had already told DPD she would be under observation for forty-eight hours. His hinky meter buzzed in his head. Something didn’t smell right.

  “Let me see.”

  He followed the nurse to her station on the floor and waited until she looked up Meager’s record.

  “I don’t show her being checked out. Let me confirm that with her doctor. It’ll only take a minute.”

  While the nurse made the call, Cruz’s phone rang. The display showed the name. It was Detective Kyle Dravin.

  “Cruz.”

  “I’m still at the scene of the fire. I was about to finish up until I saw a familiar face in the crowd of looky-loos.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a guessing game, Dravin. Spit it out.”

  “Zoey Meager. She turned up, out of the blue. I’m holding her in a squad car. What do you want me to do?”

  “Detain her for questioning. Take her to Central and wait for me.”

  “Will do.”

  Cruz ended the call with his mind stewing on Zoey Meager. Why had she run from the hospital and returned to the scene? Reasons flooded his head—none of them good.

  ***

  Denver Police Department

  Central Station

  8:10 a.m.

  Zoey had seen enough cop shows on TV to know detectives left suspects ‘in the box’ to observe them from a two-way mirror. She fidgeted in her seat and tried to act normal—avoiding a nervous glance at the observation window—but what the hell did ‘normal’ mean any more? When she heard footsteps outside the room, she sat up and watched the door.

  A tall man in a navy suit and purple paisley tie entered with a file in his hand. He wore his dark hair a little long and his eyes were mesmerizing in a fierce way. His eyes held the potential for kindness—or stern judgment.

  “My name is Detective Estefan Cruz.” He made no attempt to shake her hand. “You’re Zoey Meager, is that right?”

  “Yes. That’s me.”

  The detective read from his file, information about her. He knew where she worked, where she lived and what she drove. As he read, she glanced toward the mirror and wondered who watched her from the other side.

  Paranoid much?

  Out of the blue, he pulled her attention back by asking a direct question.

  “What were you doing at that warehouse?” the detective asked as he slouched back in his chair. He fixed his dark eyes on her and didn’t back off. “SWAT officers found you near the loading bays, unconscious. You were suffering from smoke inhalation. That means you were inside. Why?”

  The man glared at her as if she were guilty of something. She took a deep breath and ignored his attitude.

  “A friend of mine is missing. Kaity Boyer.” She shut her eyes tight and pictured the face of her best friend. “I filed a missing person report a week ago, but no one can tell me what’s going on.”

  The detective flinched and a flash of something dark veiled his eyes. The accusation in his gaze had vanished.

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Why were you at the warehouse?”

  “I’ve been looking for Kaity. I took all my banked vacation days at work. I just have to find her.”

  Zoey wrapped her arms around her chest to fend off the cold. Whenever she thought about not finding Kaity, it scared her.

  “I haven’t slept much since she disappeared,” she said. “I drive to all the places she used to hang out and I ask around. Someone told me the Bloods were into human trafficking. It scared the hell out of me, but I went to that abandoned warehouse because I heard they used it as a safe house to keep women.”

  “So you thought your friend, Kaity, might’ve been held there? Did you hear about the hostages? Dispatch got a call, reporting a hostage situation.”

  “No. I didn’t know anything about that until Sam Riggs told me. He’s a fireman out of—”

  “I know who he is. Go on.”

  “When I got there, the place was already torched but the fire crew couldn’t put out the blaze. Cops had to make sure it was safe.”

  “That’s standard protocol.” He narrowed his eyes. “So you decided to run into a burning building to look for her. That’s insane.”

  “It seemed like a stellar idea at the time.” She bit the inside of her lip. “That fire was deliberately set. Whoever did it, they used an accelerant on the first floor, near the back. I smelled it. I think I saw the guy who did it, too.”

  The cynical expression on the detective’s face vanished. She’d poked his interest.

  “What? You saw someone inside?”

  Zoey told him about the man in black, how he’d tried to kill her. She told him about the snake tattoo and his bloody arm. She didn’t hold back.

  “I don’t know how I ended up outside,” she said. “I thought I’d die in that warehouse.”

  “You didn’t know the man you claimed you saw in the building?”

  “What do you mean, claimed? Why would I know—?” It took her a long moment to realize he had accused her of something. “You think I set the fire?”

  “You just know a lot about where the fire had started and that an accelerant was used. I’m a cop. My brain is hard-wired for suspicion.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “In my line of work, crazy isn’t so crazy.”

  The detective stopped taking notes. His cocky belligerence faded when he had difficulty looking her in the eye.

  “Look, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but after they put out the fire, we found the bodies of three dead young women.”

  Zoey gasped and her eyes stung with welling tears.

  “Is Kaity…I mean, was she—?” She couldn’t finish. Saying the words aloud would make them real.

  “The coroner hasn’t identified the bodies yet. Autopsies are scheduled for today and tomorrow.” The detective leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his voice. “Until you know your friend is one of them, don’t borrow trouble. I’ll call you when we ID them, but tell me about your friend, Kaity. What happened to her?”

  Zoey fought through her misery to tell him about her friend. She told him the facts of what happened the night she was abducted. Facts were easy. They didn’t punch her heart like the guilt did. She let the detective
ask the questions and she answered. She gave him the names of the cops she’d spoken to, the people on the street where she gathered information, and where she’d been to look for Kaity.

  “Do you believe me?” Zoey asked. “I didn’t set that fire. I never would’ve hurt those women.”

  The man only stared at her and refused to answer her question. She couldn’t believe she had to convince him she wasn’t a murderer. When her exhaustion kicked in, so did her temper.

  “Unless I’m under arrest, you have no reason to hold me.”

  She stood and glared at him, daring Detective Cruz to challenge her. The four walls of the interrogation room closed in on her. Like a cold-blooded reptile, Detective Cruz didn’t blink, but she refused to back down from the reptile king. He’d either call her bluff or let her go. At the moment, Zoey didn’t feel lucky, but she doubled down and pushed her questionable fortune.

  “I’ll need someone to drive me back to my car.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin.

  Dead silence, but Cruz finally blinked.

  “Don’t leave town,” he said, as he handed her one of his business cards. “Call me if you think of anything I should know.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Leave town? Not on your life, Detective.

  Zoey had no intention of leaving Denver, not while Kaity was still missing. Cruz was only the latest detective, in a long line of law enforcement skeptics, who’d refused to help her. She wouldn’t give up on a friend who was closer than a sister.

  Kaity would’ve done the same for her. Fact.

  ***

  Denver Police Department

  Central Station

  Noon

  Detective Cruz took his time letting her go. By the time he wrangled a cop to drive Zoey back to her vehicle, she was starving, worn out, and mad as hell. She had parked down the street from the destroyed warehouse. After she pulled into the street, she slowed down when she drove by the building, to take it all in.

  I almost died last night.

  The tears on her cheeks weren’t because of what could’ve happened to her. She cried when she thought of Kaity. One of the bodies the coroner would identify might be her best friend. She felt gut punched and had nowhere else to look for Kaity if she were dead and at the morgue. Zoey had run out of bread crumbs. Now she’d have to wait for a call from Detective Cruz to let her know if her search had come to a very bad end.