by Karen Rose
‘In order to copy them, I have to figure out where he’s keeping a hard copy of the tapes,’ Quincy said. ‘The file storage might not even be here on the premises. The surveillance system appears to be wireless. For now we may just have to snap a photo of this monitor.’
‘For now, that’ll do.’ Decker watched as the man on screen continued to pace. ‘Bob looks upset, but he hasn’t reported Macy missing, has he? Or did he while I was sleeping?’
‘No.’ Kate frowned. ‘Nobody’s reported her missing. We have only the Amber Alert based on the photo Edwards left for Mallory. Why wouldn’t Bob report it?’
‘Or why wouldn’t her mother?’ Decker added, a bad feeling in his gut. ‘Search the house, if you would, Quincy.’
Quincy tabbed slowly, viewing the study, the kitchen, the master bedroom. A child’s room with the camera pointed straight at the bed.
‘Oh God,’ Decker breathed. A woman lay face up on the pink lace bedspread, her throat obscenely slit. Her eyes open and blank. The bedspread under her covered in blood. And a bullet hole in the center of her forehead. ‘Gemma. Edwards’s younger sister.’
‘The kid’s chair by the desk,’ Kate said, pointing. ‘It’s kicked over. There was a struggle. That’s where Macy was abducted. Can you rewind?’
Quincy did, and they watched in horror as a masked man came into the room, grabbed Macy from behind, and pressed a cloth against her mouth. She fought and kicked, knocking the chair over, but finally went limp. Seconds later, Gemma came in and there was a similar struggle, but the woman played possum, tricking the intruder into relaxing. Then she jumped to her feet and grabbed a lamp, but hesitated too long. She was overpowered but managed to rip the mask from the intruder’s face. Edwards, his face plainly visible. Eyes huge, Gemma stared, then her expression became one of confused betrayal. Just before her throat was slit.
‘That should be enough to convince Nell that her brother’s not Mr Nice Guy,’ Decker said. ‘But just in case, can you look for the studio?’
Sure enough, there were cameras in the studio, externally and internally. The exterior of the house showed it to be isolated, with lots of trees surrounding it.
‘This looks like the view through the back window of the newer Suzie films,’ Adam confirmed. ‘No neighbors. And no indication of its location. Dammit.’
‘What about inside?’ Decker pressed. ‘Tab to the interior.’
The camera in the basement showed five children, tied and gagged. All still appeared to be breathing. One was Macy. The other four were adolescents.
Decker gripped the edge of Edwards’s desk, his knees threatening to buckle in relief. ‘They’re still alive. All of them. Thank God. Where’s Edwards?’
‘Look.’ Kate pointed. Quincy had tabbed past a few more rooms to a nice bedroom, where a man lay sleeping. He’d removed his shirt and his arm was bandaged – exactly where Diesel had made contact with his knife. ‘Thank you, Diesel, for practicing your knife-throwing skills,’ she murmured. ‘What’s that on the nightstand?’
‘A prescription bottle,’ Quincy said. ‘But the camera doesn’t zoom. I can’t get a closer look at it. Some of the imaging software may be able to get some clarity, though.’
‘It looks like a new bottle,’ Decker said. ‘Remember, Kate, that Mallory said she’d gotten a prescription filled for him at the Kroger right before he hit her with the car?’
‘That bottle was found,’ Troy said. ‘It was an injectable antibiotic, not pills like that bottle. It had rolled into the street. One of the officers on the scene picked it up. It was written for Roxanne Edwards.’
‘Maybe he wrote another one,’ Decker said. ‘If we call around to the pharmacies, find out if another prescription was filled for Roxanne, we’ll at least know the direction he was traveling.’
‘Very, very good,’ Troy murmured. ‘Maybe I’ll try one of those naps, too. Where’s the minivan? I didn’t see it in any of the exterior shots.’
Quincy tabbed until he came to a garage where the minivan was parked. ‘But the angle’s wrong. I can’t see the license plate.’
‘Go back to Bob the cop’s house,’ Decker said. ‘If Edwards stole the cruiser from the Kroger and parked it . . .’ He frowned, thinking. ‘It was a shopping mall where he left the cruiser, right?’
‘It was,’ Troy said. ‘He either stole another car to get to Macy’s or he walked. Either way, he may have taken the minivan from Bob’s house. If we can get the license plate, we can get Bob’s address, at least.’
Quincy had tabbed back to Bob’s garage, a double garage where only one car was parked – a new Honda Accord. The camera was pointed at the car’s hood. ‘Still can’t get the fucking license plate,’ he growled. ‘We could have tracked the address from that, too.’
‘We still might be able to,’ Troy said. ‘Rewind to when Edwards got there.’
‘No,’ Decker said. ‘Wait.’ Because the door from the house had opened and Bob the cop staggered out – in real time. He held a gun in his hand. ‘Aw, shit. It’s got a silencer on it. What the . . .’ The bad feeling returned to his gut, amplifying by a million when Bob got in the Honda and closed his eyes, his expression one of freaked-out despair. ‘Don’t do it, Bob,’ Decker muttered, half a plea, half a prayer. ‘Just . . . don’t.’
But Bob did do it. In full view of the camera, he put the gun in his mouth. And pulled the trigger.
For a moment there was nothing but silence around the monitor.
‘Fuck,’ Adam hissed. ‘Goddammit.’
‘Kate?’ Troy’s voice, filled with concern. ‘You okay?’
Too late, Decker remembered Kate’s nightmare. Jack’s suicide. Shit. He turned to her just in time to hold her up. His arm went around her waist, taking her weight as her knees buckled, giving her time to regain her composure. Her face was pale, her lips parted and trembling. Her eyes wide and glassy with shock.
‘Kate,’ Decker whispered in her ear urgently, giving her a little shake. ‘Not here.’
He knew she wouldn’t want to break down in front of the others. The shake and the whisper were what she’d needed, and he watched as she pulled her composure back around her like a cloak. He held on to her waist until he felt her body stiffen and she stood on her own.
‘God,’ she whispered, still staring at the screen, where the cop’s brains covered the interior of the Honda.
Troy gave Decker a knowing look before affecting a queasy grimace. ‘Jesus, Quince, can you tab to a different room? I’m one second away from puking. And it won’t be pretty.’
His movements jerky, Quincy moved the camera back to the sleeping Edwards.
‘Thank you,’ Troy said dramatically, then gave Kate’s hand a quick squeeze.
She nodded her gratitude, and Decker was suddenly, fiercely glad that Troy was her partner. He knew that he himself couldn’t be, not if he wanted to keep his sanity. I’m way too close to her. Way too close to falling for her.
But Troy . . . he’d watch Kate’s back. So that was good.
Quincy huffed a mirthless chuckle. ‘Sonofabitch is still asleep. I half expected him to wake up, just from the shock. Stupid, huh.’
‘No,’ Troy said kindly, not a hint of sarcasm. ‘I’ve been on this job for nearly twenty years, and that’s only the second time I’ve actually seen anyone blow his own brains out. It’s not something we’re likely to forget anytime soon.’
As a group, they stared at Edwards, everyone struggling to find their emotional footing. Because they had just seen a man die.
‘We need to find him,’ Decker said, ‘before he wakes up. If we can surprise him . . .’
‘But we still don’t know where he is,’ Adam snapped, frustrated. ‘Either of them.’
Kate shuddered out a breath. ‘But we have enough to convince someone who really is a good person
to do the right thing,’ she said grimly. ‘Let’s go see Nell.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Saturday 15 August, 7.50 P.M.
‘Have you ever seen Kate do an interview?’ Zimmerman asked as he and Decker stood in the observation area on the other side of the glass from the interview room. Kate and Troy sat at the interview table, reviewing their notes and finalizing strategy.
‘Not a formal one like this,’ Decker said.
‘She’s good. Of course, she has plenty of ammunition to wear down Ms Edwards’s objections that her brother is a good boy, so this probably isn’t a fair demonstration, but still.’
Zimmerman had decided that Kate and Troy should do the interview and Decker hadn’t questioned the decision. He’d been so goddamn glad to leave Edwards’s house.
It was the shock of seeing Bob the cop’s suicide, live, in real time. The helplessness of the moments just before. And the pain of knowing that watching it had hurt Kate more than the rest of them put together.
But it was also that the pace of the last few days was getting to him. He’d pushed through the fatigue for two days, but in the last few hours he’d started craving the feel of a soft mattress cradling his body. And, of course, the feel of himself cradling Kate’s body.
Soon. They were closing in on Edwards and soon they’d have him in custody. Then we can sleep. And then we can have sex. Lots and lots of sex. They’d make love, slow and sweet and . . . He needed to stop thinking about such things while standing next to their boss.
Decker pulled a chair close to the glass and sat down, forcing his mind back to the case. ‘Quincy was able to make copies of the recorded security footage, and he and Adam will keep searching the tapes.’
‘What we have is pretty damn powerful,’ Zimmerman said. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then sighed. ‘I know about Kate’s brother-in-law. I know she found his body.’
No, Decker thought. She saw him pull the trigger, same as Bob the cop.
‘If she needs . . . anything,’ Zimmerman went on, ‘tell her it’s okay. She probably won’t tell me if she’s having issues with her PTSD, but she might tell you.’ He looked down at Decker, one brow raised. ‘And that’s all I have to say on the subject.’
Decker understood that ‘the subject’ meant both Kate’s PTSD and the fact that Zimmerman was aware of their budding relationship. ‘I’ll let her know,’ he said mildly.
The door to the observation room opened and Deacon Novak let himself in. ‘Respectfully requesting permission to come aboard, sir,’ he said, saluting Zimmerman smartly.
Zimmerman sighed. ‘Deacon . . .’
‘I’m not near the crime scene. I’m not going after Edwards.’ Deacon’s attitude fell away, leaving his face completely readable. He was angry and scared, but determined as well. ‘Please. I just need to know. To hear.’
Zimmerman sighed again. ‘Okay. But one outburst . . .’
‘And you’ll have my white head on a platter. Yeah, Kate told me. Um . . . Scarlett’s outside. She wants to play in the sandbox, too.’
Zimmerman rolled his eyes and opened the door. ‘Come in, Detective. Anyone else wanting to “play in the sandbox”?’
Scarlett grinned at him as she walked in. ‘No, sir. Thank you, sir.’ She and Deacon arranged a few more chairs and they all sat down to watch. ‘Last time I saw Kate in action, she was in there with Alice. Good riddance and may she burn in hell,’ she added in a mutter.
‘On that we can agree,’ Zimmerman said dryly. ‘I guess you and Deacon deserve to be in on the end of it, since you were there at the beginning. And speaking of beginnings, I’m surprised you didn’t bring Marcus O’Bannion along.’
Because Scarlett and Marcus had been the ones to unravel the traffickers from the outside while Decker had been working from the inside.
Scarlett grinned at Zimmerman again. ‘Oh, Marcus wanted to come, but I didn’t want to push my luck.’
Zimmerman snorted. ‘Now you don’t want to push your luck? After all this?’
She winked at their boss. ‘Well, Marcus did say he’d settle for an exclusive interview when all this is over.’
‘Which will hopefully be soon,’ Deacon said. ‘Where is Nell Edwards?’
‘In another room,’ Decker said. ‘They’ll bring her in when Kate and Troy are ready.’
Deacon stared through the glass at Kate. ‘I heard about Bob the cop. She okay?’
‘What do you think?’ Decker countered.
Deacon sighed. ‘Right. Do we have an ID on Bob yet?’
‘No,’ Zimmerman answered. ‘Nobody reported the gunshot because he used the silencer. Somewhere in the city a cop’s sitting dead in his car. I don’t get why he did it, though. He never reported Macy missing. Does he think she’s dead?’
‘Maybe,’ Decker said, because he and Kate had discussed this as they’d driven from Edwards’s house into the city. ‘But Mallory said that Edwards gave Macy to his sister and her husband. Why would he need to do that? Did they try to adopt and couldn’t? Macy would have been three years old at the time. How did they explain that all of a sudden they had a kid? Did she go to school? Nell will know something because she’s in a few of the photos in Bob’s living room. She and Gemma and Macy. Kate’s going to ask her about it.’
‘Gemma isn’t a common name,’ Scarlett said, ‘even though Bob is. Have we run a Robert, wife Gemma, through the CPD database?’
Zimmerman nodded. ‘Your lieutenant did. But nada. We found Gemma Edwards in the birth records, but there’s no marriage record for her, so maybe she and Bob were common law. They never filed taxes jointly. Gemma never filed at all.’
Decker’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the incoming text and Zimmerman did the same. ‘From Adam,’ Decker said. ‘They tracked down the prescription Edwards picked up a few hours ago. It was filled at a CVS nowhere near his house. And the prescribing doctor was Nell Edwards.’
‘Physician assistants can write scripts in certain situations,’ Deacon said thoughtfully. ‘If she called it in, she knows he’s hurt. If not, he’s forging her name.’
Kate and Troy were also reading from their phones. Kate looked up then and pointed upward, so Zimmerman turned up the volume for the room’s speaker. ‘We’re having her escorted in now,’ Kate said.
‘You got the text about the prescription?’ Zimmerman asked.
‘Yep, we both did,’ Troy answered for them. ‘So we know the general vicinity where he is. Hopefully we can push Nell for more.’
‘Cross your fingers and toes,’ Kate said. ‘Showtime, everyone.’
Twenty-eight
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Saturday 15 August, 8.05 P.M.
Nell Edwards was about fifty years old, but Kate thought she looked much older. Most of that was worry. And carefully banked rage. Hopefully she and Troy could use that rage to their advantage.
Nell narrowed her eyes when she saw Troy at the table. ‘You again.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Troy said respectfully. ‘I’m Special Agent Troy, in case you don’t remember my name. This is my partner, Special Agent Coppola.’
‘I remember your name,’ Nell said coldly. ‘I remember that you and your band of apes barged in and destroyed my office, telling lies.’
‘We had a warrant, ma’am,’ Troy said. ‘Now we have a little more information.’
Kate took the lead, as they’d discussed. ‘We have some videos we’d like you to watch.’ She and Troy had carefully lined the videos up, hoping they wouldn’t have to show all of them before Nell’s resistance was chipped away. If she really was good, as Mallory had said, it seemed cruel to start by showing the video of her little sister being murdered. ‘This was taken this afternoon, in the hospital.’
Nell’s mouth pinched when she saw Mallory’s battered face on
the screen. ‘That girl is delusional. She needs help, not for people to buy into her lies.’
‘Just listen,’ Kate said gently, and hit play. It was the part of the interview where Mallory had simply come forth, talking, telling all. ‘Um . . . he’s got a sister, Nell. She’s nice, but she thinks I’m bad. I don’t think she knows about him.’
‘She’s right,’ Nell said. ‘I believe she’s a liar.’
‘I only started there so that you’d know that Mallory believes you to be good,’ Kate said. ‘I’d like you to remember that.’ She brought up the next video. It was one that Quincy Taylor had found when he’d rewound the view into the office at the Edwards practice.
Nell gasped. ‘That’s my office. Where did you get that?’
‘In your brother’s home office. He has cameras all over his own house, including the bedroom and bathroom that Mallory uses. He also has cameras in your practice and in your home.’ Kate hit play. ‘This was taken at your practice last night.’
Another gasp. ‘He’s . . . hurt. How did he get hurt? He didn’t call me.’ She grimaced as her brother began to stitch himself up. ‘That’s a bad cut. He should have called me.’
‘He’d just attacked a doctor behind the free clinic,’ Kate said.
‘That is absurd!’ Nell stood up, shaking. ‘I won’t hear anymore!’
‘You will sit down,’ Kate ordered in a voice she rarely used, but which always got results. Just like it did now, because Nell carefully lowered herself back to her seat. From the corner of her eye Kate watched Troy bend his mouth, impressed. ‘Thank you,’ she said to Nell.
‘You’re crazy,’ Nell whispered. ‘You’re both crazy. I’m calling my lawyer.’
But she wouldn’t, Kate knew. She wouldn’t call her lawyer and she wouldn’t walk out. Not yet. After years of dealing with people, as both an MP and an FBI agent, Kate could see that Nell was a woman easily cowed. Easily manipulated. It was probably how her brother had fooled her for so long, at least partially.
