by Mary Stone
Heidi’s hands were almost gentle as she held his head up and moved the cup to his lips. He drank fast, afraid she’d take it away. Even though it tasted like straight sulphur from a bad well, he gulped it down so that water trickled down his chin.
“Good boy,” she murmured as he finished off the glass. “Time for your nap now, love.”
“It was drugged, wasn’t it?” It didn’t surprise him. He would have drunk hellbroth from the Devil himself to quench that awful thirst.
“It was drugged,” she confirmed, looking into the glass. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a lot of work to do, and I don’t want you whining or banging around in here and distracting me.”
Maybe it was just his imagination, but his limbs already felt heavy. His head felt woozy.
He could get lucky. She could overdose him by accident, and he’d mess up her final scene.
“Sleep well, and I’ll see you later.”
She went to the door, pulling it open. Beyond her was darkness. He assumed he was in a basement, but it could be a bomb shelter in Winnipeg, Canada, for all he knew. After she walked out, he realized he had to take a piss.
Drifting off, though, it didn’t seem to matter that much. He’d rather wet himself in his sleep like a toddler than ask her to help him use the bathroom.
Heidi climbed the short staircase that led to the main floor and locked the door behind her. The key went in her pocket.
She was pleased.
With few exceptions, everything had gone exactly the way she’d wanted it to. Three jobs down, and only the final—and probably the easiest and most satisfying—left to go.
Ryan would be surprised, of course. She’d thought about letting him off the hook, but that was before he’d tried to seduce her and go through her things. She’d softened toward him, but he had shown her the mistake in that. With that one mistake, he’d signed his own death warrant.
She didn’t forgive easily. As a matter of fact, she didn’t forgive at all.
In fact, she was planning on tracking down Ionie afterward and killing her, just for fun. Jamaica could be just one stop on her victory tour after this last phase was complete. Ryan’s weak attempts at diversion had been pathetic. He’d be beyond caring if his woman was dead, but she’d have the satisfaction of revenge to look forward to.
Jamaica wasn’t a bad idea. She wouldn’t be going back to Saint Ignace, that was for sure. The house there could rot like her parents for all she cared. Maybe, eventually, the FBI would identify her despite her precautions. Maybe they’d find the house. It wouldn’t matter. Let them waste their time. It wouldn’t affect her in the slightest.
Thinking about the house, she grabbed a can of Pepsi out of the refrigerator of the rental she’d booked for this last, most epic event.
The chance of the FBI agent she’d picked identifying her was slim. Even if Sun Ming was the best FBI agent since J. Edgar Hoover, according to her own overinflated bio.
Heidi’s disguises were perfect. She’d covered all of her tracks. No one would be able to hack her emails with all the walls she’d put into place. Not within the short timeline she’d given them, anyway.
But if, by chance, Special Agent Ming had managed to find out who she was, she’d probably found the house that Heidi had made no effort to hide. And if she’d found the house and the hiding place under the floorboards, she was already dead.
That would be a little disappointing. She’d planned a front row seat for Sun during the final festivities.
She opened her laptop and went to the program that ran her security cameras.
They were blank.
She was surprised, but not put out about it.
Her cameras were all rigged to a backup generator, in case of a winter storm or a power outage. The only way the screens should be blank was if the trap had blown. Interesting.
She skimmed through the different camera files until she found the one that showed the driveway view and skimmed back through the footage. She wished she had some popcorn to go with her soda. Watching this would be better than anything cable TV had to offer.
She found the moment a car pulled up in the driveway. A white SUV with two people inside. They sat talking for a while and then got out, slogging through the snow to the front porch. They looked like law enforcement, but neither one was a petite Asian American woman.
Sun had sent her minions. Even better.
Heidi got a good look at both their faces. The man was tall and broad, built like a football player. She disliked him on sight. He was good-looking, like Ryan, and moved in a confident way that said he knew it. The woman was more interesting, and Heidi recognized her right away. Winter Black. She had a way of looking at things that made you think she saw everything. She was intense.
Heidi related to intensity. Was drawn to it.
It was like watching the buildup to a movie that you knew the ending to but still liked. She switched cameras as they moved through the house, tracking their movements until they got to the attic floor. She’d set the camera up there just above where she kept her things, so she’d be able to get a good last look at anyone who was smart enough to find where she’d hidden them.
To her fascination, the male agent started poking around the obvious places. The female agent, though, just looked around the room. As if she had x-ray vision or something, her eyes locked on the floor, and she walked directly to the right spot. The room wasn’t wired for sound, so she couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, and she regretted that oversight.
Heidi almost clapped her hands in excitement when the cocky guy was the one to crouch down and remove the lid. She could no longer see him since he was below the view of the camera, but she still had a good view of the other agent. She wondered how much of their deaths she’d see before the blast destroyed the camera. A few seconds, maybe? It would be worth it.
And then, as if she’d known about the trip wire, the female’s face changed. Her mouth moved, and the two ran for the exit. The room was empty, and less than fifteen seconds later, there was a bright flash of light, and the camera went dark.
Surprised, Heidi switched to the upstairs hallway view.
The agents were disappearing down the stairs.
Main floor. They got almost all the way through the parlor before the explosion happened. She couldn’t believe it. She should have given the detonator a shorter timer, but then again, no one should have been able to tell that a trip wire had been triggered.
Heidi switched again to the outside shot. The big guy had his arm around the woman, who was dialing a number on her phone. He had Heidi’s laptop under his other arm, and he was grinning like an idiot that hadn’t realized how close he’d just come to being blown to pieces.
Let him think he’d gotten away with a prize, Heidi thought, unconcerned. The second the idiot tried to log on, he would erase the entire hard drive in the process.
The woman, though, was staring up at the house, her face intent. Agent Black. She remembered her from the armored depot takedown.
As Heidi studied the agent’s pale face, she shivered…in dread and anticipation. This must be the agent who’d located her childhood home, Heidi thought with a certainty she couldn’t explain.
Sitting back in her chair, Heidi was starting to think she’d chosen the wrong FBI agent.
She hated to be wrong.
26
“On the one hand, it’s good we came here ourselves,” Noah said. “Otherwise, we might have more bodies to add to the count. Not everyone’s as fortunate as I am to have a built-in bomb detector for a partner. On the other hand, I wish Heidi Presley lived in a more metropolitan area. The next flight to New York doesn’t leave for another five hours. Traverse City doesn’t exactly have a bustling airport.”
“No problem,” Winter replied. “That’ll give us a chance to go to Heidi’s mom’s assisted living complex before we have to make the drive back down to the airport. Might as well get as complete a picture as we can.”
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Shady Oaks was a small facility on the edge of the small town, tidy and well-kept. Inside, it didn’t carry the odor of depression and urine, like a lot of places that catered to older adults. The lobby was neat and attractive, with small seating areas and vases of fresh flowers.
A pretty receptionist in her mid-twenties smiled up at them from behind the counter. “Can I help you folks?”
Noah turned on his mega-watt smile. “Maybe,” he said. “You don’t look old enough to have worked here long enough, though.”
She giggled, focusing all her attention on charismatic Noah. Winter had seen the power of that smile in action dozens of times, and it never failed to amaze her how effective it continued to be. “I’ve been here four years now,” she offered.
“Oh, wow. I stand corrected. Maybe you can help me. Do you remember a woman who was a resident here? Her name was Monica Presley? Oh, and it’s okay to tell us,” he added, showing her his badge. “We’re with the FBI. We’re looking for any information on Monica’s daughter, Heidi.”
The receptionist, Katie, according to her nametag, furrowed her brow in thought. “It rings a bell. I remember Monica, but not her daughter. Let me ask around and see if any of the nurses remember her.”
Within moments, one nurse came around to corner them at the desk.
“Is this the kind of turnaround time the FBI has? Over a year?” she demanded. The woman was short and generously rounded, with tightly permed brown hair. She looked like she was in her late forties or early fifties. “It’s about time you answered my calls.”
“Your calls?” Winter asked. “When was this? And what about?”
“Well over a year ago! Almost a year and a half,” she replied indignantly. “About that poor Monica.”
“Monica Presley? What about her?” Winter blinked, trying to keep up with this unexpected development. Stopping at the nursing home had been more of a time killer than anything. She hadn’t expected one of the nurses to have already contacted a field office.
The woman’s face was still tight with anger. “We’re supposed to report any elder abuse or anything to do with patient disability rights, and no one would listen to me. Neither the Saint Ignace police department or the state cops. As a matter of fact, Dennis Hodgson, the administrator here, threatened to fire me if I didn’t let the issue go.” She sneered. “He’s good buddies with the police chief. Probably didn’t want any scandal and covered the whole thing up.”
“What kind of abuse?” Noah asked.
“Neglect. And I’d call murder a kind of abuse, wouldn’t you? Monica Presley, that poor woman, wasn’t dying. She’d had a stroke, yes, but you could just tell that daughter was itching to knock her off, tired of waiting around for some money that might never come.”
“Money?” Winter asked the question. This might solve the question of why money from the first robbery was donated to the church in California.
“Yep,” said the woman. She lowered her voice. “I don’t want to get in trouble for violating any HIPAA laws by telling you this, but hell, I guess if you can’t tell the feds, you can’t tell anyone.”
She gave a hard look at the receptionist, who raised her hands in an innocent I’m not going to say anything gesture.
“Monica Presley had a life insurance policy on her worth millions.”
Winter glanced at Noah. They were both thinking the same thing. An IT contractor didn’t get paid enough to have access to the kind of resources it would take to travel all over, bribing people, buying weapons-grade knockout gas, sourcing materials off the dark web.
“Did Heidi visit her mother a lot?” Noah asked. “What did she act like when you saw her?”
“Cold,” said the nurse. “She came in like clockwork, twice a week. But she’d just sit by her momma’s bed, tapping on that laptop of hers she always carried with her. Monica was bad off, but she could still hear. Most patients in her condition can respond, if not verbally, at least with hand gestures or facial expressions. That daughter of hers didn’t even try to engage with her. She’d just sit there next to the bed. She could have been at a coffee shop for all the attention she paid her mom.”
“What about the day Monica died?” Winter asked. “Did Heidi visit that day?”
“She sure did. That poor lady passed on not a half-hour after she left. I don’t know how she did it, but Monica’s daughter killed her. I’m certain of it. She never even came back to pick up her momma’s belongings after. There wasn’t even a service. Just a cremation.” The nurse’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked rapidly to keep them at bay. “I always go to my patient’s services if they pass on my watch. Monica’s was the only one I ever missed.”
A man walked in then, wearing a suit and an official-looking expression that marked him as administration. Dennis Hodgson. The nurse clammed up, and the receptionist ducked her head.
“Linda,” he said, his voice flat with an extra-nasal Midwest tone. “We need you in room twelve.”
“Yes, sir.” The nurse ducked her head deferentially and gave Noah and Winter a pleading look behind her boss’s back as she headed back to work.
“Can I help you?” the man asked. He smiled, but it felt forced to Winter. She already knew what he was thinking. He didn’t want them in his facility, asking questions. What would it look like to their visitors? Which meant that they’d already gotten all the information here that they were going to get.
Noah was clearly thinking on the same track. He shook his head and smiled at the man. “No, thank you. We were looking for a patient who was said to be at this facility, but I’m afraid we have the wrong location.”
They headed out to the car.
“Want to look into Administrator Hodges?” Noah asked. “I gotta say, I didn’t care for the guy on sight. Plus, a cover-up like that is super illegal.”
Winter shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll find anything to tie him to Heidi. There’s a chance that he’s aware that Heidi killed her mother, but I think he was just a run-of-the-mill jerk. Heidi doesn’t leave witnesses. If he’d received a payoff from her in exchange for not asking any questions, he’d already be dead.”
Noah still looked troubled. “It still doesn’t seem right. That nurse went to a lot of trouble to blow the whistle, and no one listened. I’m going to send out some inquiries when this is all over. Covering up what might have been the murder of someone vulnerable should be punished.”
Winter looked at him for a long moment. “You’re quite the softie for a big bad FBI agent. Might want to watch that reputation of yours.”
He shrugged, and to her amusement, she saw that she’d embarrassed him.
“Let’s head to the airport,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We can grab something to eat and go through the numbers on the burner phone while we wait for the flight.”
They decided to leave the laptop to the experts since Heidi was so fond of kill switches. Her laptop was probably full of them. But it was a simple process to match up the numbers on the burner phone Noah had grabbed, with people they belonged to. Cheap technology like that didn’t include much in the way of security.
While they sat in the Cherry Country Café inside the airport, waiting for their flight, Winter divided the phone numbers between the two of them. One by one, they looked up the owners of each number.
The calls spanned about the last twelve months and ranged in area codes. One of them matched Mike Garofalo’s phone number. He was the manager who’d been killed with his girlfriend.
Another belonged to a guy named Romeo Martinez, out of New York. His Facebook page confirmed that he worked in housekeeping at The Phoenix Hotel. Winter made a call to one of their case contacts at the NYPD and asked them to do a well-check on Martinez. A couple of the messages left on his page were from people who’d been trying to get ahold of him in the last several days. There was a pretty good chance he’d already been eliminated.
“See if you can find anything on this,” Winter said, pointing
out a number on the list. “I haven’t had any luck with it.”
“Sure. I’ve got a couple tricks I can try for finding unlisted phone number owners.” Noah wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll do it on the condition that I get the French fries you didn’t eat.”
“Fine.” She pushed the plate over. She wasn’t hungry anymore anyway. His answer reminded her of Bull. She’d managed to push back the thoughts of him, and of Sun’s behavior, but it was hard. She had to keep her focus.
Her phone rang, and she frowned when she didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
A voice, harsh and low-pitched, was on the other end. “Agent Black?”
Goose bumps prickled on her arms.
“Yes? Who’s speaking?”
“Shannon…Marchwood.”
“Oh my god,” Winter breathed, everything else forgotten for the moment. “How are you? Should you be talking? Your voice sounds horrible.” She winced. Like the sheriff needed to be reminded of that.
There was a choked laugh on the other end of the line that broke into a painful-sounding cough. After a long pause, she came back. “No. Shouldn’t be talking. Had to thank you.”
Winter pictured the last time she’d seen the woman. She’d been so close to death, and now she was on the other end of the phone. Sounding horrible, yeah, but also very much alive.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Winter said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “You’re the one doing all the work. Go. Get better and call me back when you can talk again.”
There was a rustle, and another woman’s voice came on the line.
“Special Agent Black?”
“Winter. Yes.” Winter swallowed back the emotion that was threatening to overwhelm her.
“This is Jodi Marchwood, Shannon’s wife. She insisted on speaking with you personally, but I wanted to talk to you too.”
“I’m so glad she's doing better.”
