Every Dark Corner (The Cincinnati Series Book 3)

by Karen Rose

  He watched as Charlie offered Junior his pills and earnestly explained the ‘pick-me-up’ concept – a way to magnify the effects of the meth safely. Safely yanked them in every time.

  Sheep, he thought with contempt. But lucrative sheep, so he couldn’t complain.

  He watched as Tim Junior frowned at the pills for a minute, then looked at Charlie assessingly. Charlie had taken his pill and he was okay, therefore Tim Junior would be. He popped both pills in his mouth and downed them with a bottle of water.

  He sat back in the driver’s seat and let out the breath he’d been holding. That little scenario could have played out so many different ways. But it had worked.

  Now all he needed to do was wait for the capsule coating to wear away in Junior’s stomach. Pain would begin within a few hours. If Tim Junior went untreated, he’d be dead in three days. Luckily I won’t have to explain the dangers of ricin to Rawlings Senior. The guard had handled the stuff himself when dealing with Alice in prison.

  He waited patiently for the boys to get too hot to play anymore. Junior took off on his bike and Charlie ambled back toward where he sat parked, as was their agreement. Charlie was his frontman. His job was to get his friends to try the Professor’s new pill.

  In exchange for special goodies, just for him. Sheep.

  He slid the binoculars under his seat when Charlie approached, then turned to him when the kid slid into the passenger side. ‘Charlie, my man. What did you think?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Dunno. Doesn’t seem that much different.’

  The kid was honest, at least. ‘Here. Try this one then.’ He handed Charlie a pill that was pure meth, guaranteed to blow the kid’s heart to smithereens. In hindsight, he should have used this on Sidney Siler, but he hadn’t wanted to wait around to make sure she was dead. Cyanide was faster, and with her skin tone, any residual skin changes would have been undetectable. Plus, he’d still had it on hand after giving it to Rawlings as a last-resort pill for taking care of Alice.

  Plus, cyanide was just too cool. But too much of a good thing wouldn’t do, and Charlie was as pasty as Elmer’s glue. If his skin turned red from cyanide, everyone would know.

  ‘Cool. Thanks.’ Within a few minutes, Charlie was jumpy. A few minutes later, he was breathing very hard. ‘Wow. Professor. This feels . . . freaky.’

  ‘Give it some time. It’ll mellow out. So . . . did your pal ask where the pills came from?’

  ‘Nah. I always get them from my ma’s medicine cabinet. He knows that.’ Charlie wiped his brow. ‘Damn, Professor. This feels really weird.’

  Fifteen minutes later, the job was done. He drove Charlie’s body back to the basketball court, now completely empty, and pushed him out of the passenger seat to the ground behind the boy’s car.

  He’d give it an hour or two, then he’d call Rawlings Senior and tell him what he needed to do to save his son. He smiled, visualizing it.

  But he couldn’t crack open the bubbly just yet, because he had one more end to snip. It was time to get down to business about removing Agent Davenport from the equation. Which meant removing him from the earth.

  Then he’d remove the Professor from his face and destroy the disguise.

  And then I’ll crack open the bubbly, because I’ll be home free.

  Nineteen

  Cincinnati, Ohio,

  Friday 14 August, 4.35 P.M.

  Decker knew without looking that Zimmerman had entered Alice’s apartment. He could actually feel the man’s scowl.

  ‘Are you trying to put yourself back in the hospital?’ Zimmerman asked impatiently.

  Decker turned around in the folding chair to look over his shoulder. Zimmerman stood in the doorway of Alice’s bedroom, arms crossed tight and looking generally pissed.

  ‘No, sir. But I asked Dr Novak and she didn’t say no.’

  ‘Did she say yes?’ Zimmerman demanded.

  ‘Not exactly. Truthfully, she didn’t say anything at all. She never returned my text. I figured she’s pissed off with me, so I’ll buy her some pretty flowers and apologize later.’

  Zimmerman rolled his eyes. ‘Who drove you here?’

  ‘Trip. But he was following a direct order from me, so please don’t penalize him. Look, we have good security here and I’m feeling strong.’

  ‘Until your adrenaline crashes,’ Zimmerman said with a shake of his head, but he walked to the large square hole in the wall, standing next to Decker’s chair. ‘Well, you’re here. We’ll deal with the fact that you aren’t cleared for duty later. What did you find?’

  Decker pointed to the growing stack of DVDs on the floor. ‘Video. Lots and lots of video.’

  Zimmerman frowned. ‘Alice kept the child porn here too?’

  ‘No, sir. Not child porn. These all seem to be sex tapes of adults. Specifically Alice and . . . well, lots of guys. Not at the same time,’ he added when Zimmerman looked rather scandalized. ‘But she seemed to be remarkably . . . active.’

  ‘God. How many have you found?’

  ‘About twenty-five so far.’ Decker pointed at the hole in the wall, then at the set of bookshelves about three feet away. ‘She used the bookshelves to hide the hole.’

  ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘Tracks in the carpet, and the paint on the wall was scraped. She must have pushed it back and forth frequently.’

  ‘Good work, but please don’t do this again. Wait until Dr Novak clears you fully.’

  Decker nodded dutifully. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Zimmerman rolled his eyes again. ‘You lie like a rug, son. One big question. Did you tell Kate that you’re here? Because I don’t want to be around when she finds out.’

  The front door opened, setting off blinking lights overhead – a silent warning system Alice had set up. The warning this time was accompanied by a familiar voice demanding to know where Agent Davenport was. ‘I asked her to meet me here, yes. I imagine she’s not too pleased.’

  Zimmerman shook his head. ‘I imagine you’re right.’

  Seconds later, Kate strode in, her expression dark and forbidding. God, she was gorgeous. Decker was instantly hard. ‘Agent Coppola,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Glad you could join us.’

  Kate stopped next to Zimmerman, not looking at Decker. ‘Please tell me you didn’t condone this, sir.’

  ‘I did not,’ Zimmerman said. ‘Apparently Agent Davenport recruited a little help from Triplett and Troy. I don’t think they knew that Dr Novak hadn’t cleared him.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered if they had,’ she muttered, ignoring Decker completely. ‘Agent Davenport could charm a snake out of its skin.’

  Zimmerman grunted in agreement. ‘Then I suppose it’s a good thing that he uses his snake-charming powers for good and not evil.’

  ‘His charm isn’t going to help him if he puts himself back in the hospital.’

  ‘That’s what I tried to tell him,’ Zimmerman said with a nod.

  ‘I’m right here,’ Decker said mildly.

  ‘Oh, of that I am well aware.’ Kate drew a breath and let it out.

  Decker held up his hand, hoping to ward off a tirade. ‘I know you’re upset—’ he started.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m upset that you care so little for your own recovery. The doctors saved your life once. How many times do you expect them to be able to do that? Hell, I killed two men to save your life. Two bad men, sure, but I killed two men. And then you do this? How many more do I need to kill to save you? Just tell me so that I can prepare myself. Two more? Ten more?’

  Decker winced. ‘Good one, Kate. Direct hit.’

  Zimmerman backed away, the coward. ‘I’m going to check on Agent Taylor’s progress.’

  ‘I hit where I aim,’ she said when the boss was gone. ‘I meant it to get yo
ur attention.’

  Decker pinched the bridge of his nose. Technically, she hadn’t killed two men to save his life. They’d already shot him and were escaping. She’d shot at their car to stop them. But he decided not to belabor that point, because at the end of the day, she had killed two men. He wouldn’t have felt one iota of guilt, but he wasn’t Kate.

  Kate was the woman who listened to Disney music when she was sad, but only in secret because she wanted people to believe she was an iron lady. She was the woman who’d given Sidney Siler’s grieving parents her own hotel room because they couldn’t afford one of their own, and who’d cared for her dying husband until he’d drawn his last breath.

  She was the woman who’d sat by his side for a week because he’d had no one else. It had been her voice that he’d listened for when he’d been in the dark, when he’d been disoriented and . . . yes, afraid. Her touch that had grounded him when he’d gone so long without.

  So she had saved him, just not in the way she was thinking, and he wasn’t going to insult her by minimizing her guilt or her gift. But nor would he allow her to treat him like a stray puppy she’d taken in and needed to coddle.

  ‘I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. I’m wearing Kevlar. We have personnel all over the damn place. My nurse came with me. She’s the nice lady sitting in the living room. Her name is Bailey. She said it would be good for me to walk. To get some fresh air. To work off some of the tension that had my blood pressure creeping up. Her husband had already picked up their daughter from the safe house, so I asked her to join us because I knew you’d be more comfortable if I had medical coverage nearby.’

  Kate’s eyes blazed. ‘I’d be more comfortable? What about the fact that you just got out of the hospital yesterday, Decker? Out of a fucking coma?’

  ‘Medically induced,’ he said stubbornly, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. ‘And I’m walking today. I’m working today. I figured out where Alice lived today.’

  ‘And you figured it was only fair that you got to be here for the search,’ Kate said quietly, and he couldn’t decide if she was for or against that statement. He couldn’t let himself care.

  ‘Look. You can be angry with me all you want. It’s not going to change reality. You say you killed two men to save my life. I say that you killed two men, saved my life, and now I should do something with the life you saved. That won’t happen if I’m cooped up in a fancy-ass kitchen in a safe house, staring at a computer monitor. And whether you’ll admit it or not, you’d be doing the same thing as me if I’d killed two people for you.’

  ‘Are you done?’ Kate asked, her expression not giving an inch.

  Decker sighed. ‘Guess so.’

  ‘Then show me what you’ve found. Please.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said warily. ‘This hole appears to have been the only secret hiding place in the house, but CSU is bringing in some wall X-ray equipment to make sure Alice didn’t stash stuff all over the place. The hiding place was filled with DVDs that she made using that camera, right there.’ He pointed to the wall opposite the bed. ‘It was camouflaged by some pictures she’d hung around it. The camera was focused on the bed. From the few DVDs we’ve looked at so far, it seems she taped herself having sex with several partners. One at a time. So far. Quincy Taylor is cataloging them now, getting stills of their faces so we can put them through facial recognition software. I just finished digging out the last of the DVDs right there.’ He pointed at the stack.

  ‘Why would she tape them?’

  ‘Maybe just her kink. She wrote the date, a set of initials, and a rating on each jacket.’

  ‘Rating as in R, X, or triple X?’

  ‘No.’ Decker could feel his cheeks heating. ‘As in six out of ten, seven out of ten, nine point five out of ten. A . . . performance measure.’ He cleared his throat. ‘One of the first ones we checked featured the son of one of the other traffickers, the one you interviewed in the jail. We’re hoping that her other partners were also involved in the traffickers’ ring. Then we get her business contacts.’

  ‘Makes sense, actually,’ Kate said thoughtfully. ‘Alice had to keep her identity secret to outsiders, so she spent her free time with insiders.’

  ‘It’s also possible she was using the DVDs as leverage. Maybe some of the men were married. Or, like I said before, it could just be a kink. Or a way to feel powerful. Her dad kept her on a pretty short leash.’

  ‘That I actually understand,’ she said, rubbing her tongue over her broken tooth in that subconscious gesture. ‘Did you find any ledgers or any record of her business dealings inside the wall? Contracts or invoices?’

  Decker had to push away his anger at the man who’d broken her tooth so that he could focus on her questions. ‘Not yet, but I may have another lead on customers and suppliers. I was given a flash drive with the contents of McCord’s real computer – the one hooked up to the Net.’

  Her eyes narrowed and sparkled simultaneously. ‘Diesel came through. He had a backup.’

  ‘I got it from a source who’s worried the FBI could make his life miserable and put his friends in jail,’ he averred, for form only. ‘I promised anonymity.’

  Kate smiled for the first time since entering like a hurricane. ‘Diesel came through,’ she said again.

  ‘I don’t reveal my sources,’ Decker said, but nodded. ‘He’d looked over the files before he gave them to me, to make sure they were what we were looking for. He was in bad shape.’

  Kate’s smile vanished. ‘Poor guy.’

  ‘You have no idea.’ Decker grabbed her hand, relieved when she didn’t pull away. He held on, needing her. ‘He didn’t realize there was a backup. He checked to see, then brought the evidence straight to me. I checked some of the picture files myself after he left, while we were waiting on the search warrant for this place.’ He closed his eyes, shaking his head. ‘It was what you’d expect. Just vile.’

  Kate squeezed his hand. ‘I reviewed some of the Sunshine Suzie films today,’ she whispered. ‘She was only twelve. So I know what you mean.’

  ‘I had to get out of the apartment, Kate.’ His voice sounded bleak to his own ears. ‘After looking at McCord’s picture files . . . I had to do something.’

  She crouched beside him. ‘I get it, Decker. I do. But until you can run and jump and dodge bullets, you are a danger to yourself. I don’t want to watch you bleeding on the ground again, or sit with you for another week because you’re in a coma.’ Her voice broke a little and he was rocked to see tears in her eyes. ‘Please don’t make me do that.’

  He exhaled heavily. ‘Okay. I’ll . . . respect my recovery, because it hurts you if I don’t.’

  She pressed her forehead against their joined hands. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But if there’s adequate security, I will work. I won’t be coddled. You wouldn’t be if our situations were reversed. You said that yourself.’

  She looked up, her eyes damp but clear, and he suspected her dark slacks had absorbed a tear or two that she’d let fall. ‘I did say that. And I’ll help you go through the files from McCord’s computer. I don’t think we should involve anyone else until we’re sure there’s no leak.’

  ‘I agree. Are we okay now?’

  ‘Can I coddle you, just a little?’

  ‘If it involves baking, that’s a yes. If it involves . . . other things, that’s a yes, too. If it involves wrapping me in bubble wrap, that would be a no.’

  ‘I love that bubble stuff,’ she said wistfully. ‘Pops like a gun, but nobody gets hurt.’

  He smiled, delighted with her. ‘I really like you, Kate.’

  ‘Good. Same goes.’ She released his hand and pivoted, landing on her knees next to the hole in the wall. ‘I think Alice forfeited her security deposit.’

  Decker chuckled. ‘I’d have to say she did.’


  Kate pulled her flashlight from her belt and shined it down into the black space. ‘It’s clean at least. No mice or snakes. So their skins are safe from charmers.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ he said flatly. ‘Everyone’s a comedian.’

  She switched off her light and came to her feet. ‘Nothing more in there. If this had been a real hidey-hole, she would have had other stuff, like a fake passport, or ledgers. Maybe ammunition and firearms. I imagine the important papers are in a safe or maybea safe deposit box somewhere. She was a good shot, so she should have a rifle hidden away. But there isn’t one here. The hidey-hole was for her DVDs and was easily accessible. Alice liked to watch.’

  ‘I don’t want to watch her,’ Decker said wearily. ‘I’ve seen too many things today that my brain can’t unsee.’

  ‘Me too. But we’ll have to help. There are too many for a single person to process quickly.’

  ‘I know. But I can still not want to. When do you want to start?’

  ‘Well, I think we need to be sure we’ve searched every nook and cranny. You said CSU is coming in with X-ray machines to check the rest of the walls. When is that?’

  ‘Tomorrow at the earliest, I think. They’re going to focus on searching what’s out in the open first. Drawers and closets and such.’

  ‘Then while they’re doing that, we can work on the videos. But first, I think I could use some supper and maybe a short nap. I’m running on fumes.’

  ‘A nap sounds good to me.’ His cell phone buzzed and so did Kate’s. ‘Diesel,’ he said when he saw caller ID.

  ‘Mine’s from Deacon,’ she said, a worried frown tilting her mouth down. She took a few steps back so that they didn’t talk over each other’s conversation.

  ‘Diesel, what’s up?’ Decker said when he answered. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘No.’ The man sounded downright frantic. ‘It’s not okay. It’s not fucking okay.’

  Oh shit. ‘Slow down,’ he said steadily. ‘What’s happened?’