Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Victoria trusted Izzie implicitly. They had worked together for a long time, and they were good friends. And Victoria knew that, in general, Izzie was levelheaded, and smart, and that she should pay attention when Izzie talked.

  But her gut was so strong on this one.

  “I know that I look like I’m acting crazy,” Victoria said, walking over to her partner and putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. “But I’m telling you …Barrett Rockwell. There’s something there. I know there is.”

  Izzie put her hands on Victoria’s arms and squeezed. “You don’t like the Rockwell’s. What role is that little fact playing in all of this? You’ve never liked the Rockwell’s for infringing on your job.”

  “I just know.” That was all that Victoria could say. She dropped her hands from Izzie’s shoulders and turned around, dragging a hand over her red hair, which was once again tied back in a ponytail. Then she turned back around again and shook her head. “I don’t know how, Izzie. But I know there’s something there, and I need to find out what it is.”

  “And what about Annie Upton?” Izzie asked. “Is this about her?”

  “I don’t know,” Victoria said. “I am aware that it is one hell of a leap to connect a missing woman with a report that there was a body lying on someone’s living room floor. I’m not so completely obsessed that I don’t know that. I’m not sure about Annie. What I am sure about is that Barrett Rockwell is hiding something from me and inviting us in to search his house was his checkmate move, and we fell for it. We walked out of there looking like we’d been proven wrong. Now we can’t get a warrant on him, and we have nothing—literally nothing—to push forward a case about him. I mean, can you imagine going to the prosecutor and saying that a neighbor said she saw a dead arm through the window of her neighbor’s house? It could have been anything—it could have been a girl he was spending the night with, and they were having sex on the floor and only her arm and shoulder could be seen from the window.”

  Izzie’s eyebrows arched. “That’s one explanation, yes.”

  “I can’t go to Rick and tell him I want to move forward.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Which means I need to find something else on him.”

  Izzie crossed her arms over her chest and pinned Victoria with a look. “You know as well as I do that developing a vendetta against someone and then looking for something to use against them is the opposite of good police work.”

  She wasn’t wrong, and Victoria did know that, but this was different. “It’s not like that,” Victoria said. “I’m not just out to take him down. I really believe that there’s something there. Something that I need to find out.”

  “I love you like a sister,” Izzie said, “so, I’m going to be straight with you, Tori. I don’t work with police officers who approach a case believing they already have the result and then find the evidence to reaffirm that result.” Izzie shook her head and shrugged. “I just don’t. And neither do you. What I think you need to do is drive back over to Rockwell’s house and apologize to him for the way the police treated him today.”

  Victoria’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “I mean it,” Izzie said. “You might be right, and he might have something to hide. But I don’t like that we loitered around and put pressure on him, until he felt like the best thing to do was let us in to invade his privacy. And we found nothing, by the way—less than nothing, if that’s possible. Our job is to pursue hunches and investigations, of course, but it’s also to respect the way that the law is set up. And right now, hunch or not, Barrett Rockwell is a civilian who has a decent relationship with this precinct, and we pressured him into giving up his rights today.”

  “He did that voluntarily,” Victoria said, although she was starting to get uncomfortable.

  “Because we made it clear we weren’t going away,” Izzie said, “and I take the blame, too—I was there with you. I searched his house with you. The difference is, now that we found nothing, I can take a step back and say—okay, I need to back off and reassess. You would normally do that, too, but you’re not. Which means that the Rockwell connection is personal for you.”

  Victoria absolutely hated it when her partner was right, and she absolutely loved her partner for being willing to say what needed to be said. Victoria blew out a frustrated breath and lifted a hand in a gesture of acceptance.

  “You’re right,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re entirely right. I still have this gut feeling, but I know that if I didn’t, I would be agreeing with you.”

  Izzie nodded. “You would. You’re a good cop.”

  “You’re a better one,” Victoria said, walking over and hugging her partner with a sigh. “I will go back over there.”

  “With the express purpose of …”

  Victoria rolled her eyes as she stepped back, but she was smiling—slightly. “Apologizing for my brusque manner and the invasion of his privacy.”

  Izzie smiled. “Good. I think that’s a wonderful idea. Glad you had it.”

  Chuckling, Victoria shook her head and walked back to her desk. “First, I’m going to see if I can have lunch with Olivia if she has her lunch period free at school. Then I’ll head over to Rockwell’s place. But I won’t be long. I’ll be back to start working other angles on Annie’s case.”

  “Yeah, I’ll pick up with that while you’re gone,” Izzie said. “Mike can jump in and help me if I need backup.”

  “Great,” Victoria said, grabbing her keys and her phone from her desk and rounding it to meet Izzie. “Thanks, for talking me down.”

  “You’ve done the same for me,” Izzie said, punching Victoria’s shoulder lightly. “Get out of here.”

  Victoria hurried towards the precinct door, her keys in hand and ready to let her into her black SUV. She still believed, in her gut, that Barrett Rockwell had a lot to hide, and that she should try to figure out what it was. After all, there were so many rumors flying around about that agency, especially lately. It seemed like all the time something strange was happening, and nobody ever held them accountable. But what Izzie had changed her mind on was her approach. Victoria didn’t want to be a cop with a vendetta. That didn’t mean that she had to forget her interest in Barrett—but she wasn’t going to obsess over finding out what it was he was hiding from her.

  Her mother liked to tell her that she would catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and as a general rule, Victoria didn’t take her mother’s advice …but this time, she might be right.

  Chapter 9

  Barrett

  Barrett pulled into his driveway and killed the engine on his car, sitting there for a moment and looking at his house. He loved where he lived and the house that he’d had built based on his own designs. It was grounding now, in a time when not much else was. His job was in limbo, his relationship with his family was strained because of the accusations against him, and even his sanity and his freedom were threatened because of the body he had actively hidden from the police that morning.

  What he did have was his home. And his friends. And hopefully his grandfather.

  Barrett got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to his front door. When he walked inside, there would be no one there except him and the dead woman who was now stored in his freezer. He had touched base with his friends, and they were busy with the tasks he had assigned them and with running the agency in his absence. Norman had asked for some time to think about all that Barrett had told him and to try to figure out what to do next.

  And now here Barrett was, standing in the doorway of his own home, wondering what to do next, where he fit into all of this, what was happening to him, and what to do about the dead woman in the garage.

  What he knew for sure was that he needed to stay busy. He set down his phone and his keys on the table by the front door, and then he went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water, chugging it down quickly before sitting down at his kitchen table and opening his laptop. He needed to
get everything that had happened on record, both for his own protection—potentially—and so that he could keep it all straight as he moved forward with the investigation into both what had happened at the agency and the body that had turned up in his living room.

  As he worked, he cursed himself for not also installing cameras around his house. He’d never had a problem at home, so it hadn’t occurred to him. But maybe it wouldn’t have been any use anyway, given that the cameras at the agency hadn’t turned up a thing that would help him figure out who was messing with him. Of course, that only made him look more guilty to the elders, because the only people on camera were him and his friends. There was no one else to blame.

  Barrett worked for over an hour, making records of everything that had happened and fleshing out the few theories that he had. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he barely noticed. He also didn’t hear the knock at the door the first time, but the second knock was much louder and forced him to lift his eyes from his computer screen and return to the real world.

  Immediately, he looked through the kitchen archway into the living room, his eyes resting on the door that led to the garage, where the body was in the freezer. The thought of letting anyone else into his house right now, under the circumstances, was unpleasant, to say the least. He got up, knowing that with his car parked outside, not answering wasn’t an option. He could only hope that it was one of his friends or Norman, ready with some information. He wouldn’t know if they were coming—he’d left his phone on the table by the door.

  But as he walked towards the door, he knew that it wasn’t anyone he knew, just by the sounds that filtered through his heightened senses. He wasn’t shocked at all to open his door and find Victoria Crenshaw standing there. He wasn’t shocked, and he also wasn’t pleased.

  “Detective Crenshaw, to what do I owe this further invasion?” he asked, standing in the doorway and making it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in her presence or what she had to say. He’d already played nice with her, and that had been stressful enough. It had also made him deeply suspicious about what involvement she might have in what was happening.

  “Mr. Rockwell,” she said, extending her hand to him. “I believe I owe you an apology. I’m afraid that I overstepped my bounds this morning and pressured you into allowing the police into your house when there was no cause.”

  Now he was surprised. “What?”

  “I’m apologizing,” Victoria said again. She wasn’t smiling or being overly friendly. It was a very businesslike transaction, this apology, and her hand was still outstretched towards him, though he’d made no move to take it.

  “Apologizing,” Barrett repeated, more skeptical than ever. “So that I’ll let you in the house, and you can have another look around? Really, Detective Crenshaw, I would think that you would know I’m smarter than that. I would also like to think that you wouldn’t stoop to such manipulative tactics.”

  Victoria’s eyes narrowed and her cheeks reddened. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “I came here to apologize,” Victoria said, through clenched teeth. “I would think that you could accept an apology gracefully, but clearly you don’t have the manners for that.”

  Barrett was unmoved by her obvious offense. “I think we’re at an impasse. You’ve apologized. I’ll accept. But I don’t think that we have any further business together. If you don’t mind, I’m very busy.” He started to close the door on her.

  But as the front door closed, out of nowhere, the garage door began to open. Barrett felt his blood run cold at the first sound of the garage door creaking open, and his eyes darted towards Victoria’s instinctively and immediately—and very suspiciously. The garage door hadn’t startled her nearly as much, but when she saw the way that Barrett looked at her, her eyes narrowed again, and she turned around on the porch, hurrying down the steps.

  Barrett knew where she was going, and he rushed through the house to the inner garage door and frantically pressed on the button to stop the door from rising. Even as he did, he knew that the game was up because there was nothing more suspicious than a person panicking if their garage door opens in front of a police officer—except an open freezer with a naked female body stashed in the ice.

  And that’s exactly what Barrett’s eyes focused on after he punched the garage door again and again with one finger. His stomach flipped over, and his heart stopped in his chest as he saw that the freezer stood open, the body on full display. It hadn’t been like that before—he knew it hadn’t been.

  But as he turned to look at Victoria, standing there in front of his slowly closing garage door, he saw the look on her face, and he knew that she had seen everything.

  Her hand was already reaching for the radio at her hip, to call for backup, and Barrett ran towards her, pushing the closing garage door back up with one hand, snapping the mechanism as he shoved the door open. He reached Victoria’s side before she spoke into her radio.

  “Let me explain,” he said, quietly, looking down into her face. His suspicions that she had been involved had all flown out of his head the moment he saw her reaction to the body. That was pure shock and horror, and there was no way she was that good of an actress. Which meant that now he was in the position of throwing himself on her mercy and hoping that she would find something to believe about his story—at least enough to believe that she wouldn’t try marching him off and turning him in. “Give me a chance to explain to you and just you, and then if you want to call in backup, you can. But talk to me first and hear me out. Please.”

  “You killed a woman, hid the body, and lied about it,” Victoria said, her voice cold and her eyes steely. “I’m not granting any of your requests.”

  “I only did two of those things,” Barrett said, “and I’ll tell you all about it. Honestly and openly. But just you. If you bring me in, I won’t say a word. Not to anyone. No matter what. Talk to me first, Victoria.” He used her first name, hoping to establish some connection between them. “Please.”

  Victoria was still holding her radio, and she didn’t look convinced. “I’ll take your statement myself,” she said. “But don’t think that you can persuade me out of doing my job. That’s a dead body in that freezer, Rockwell. People have to answer for things like that, and you should know that I’ll do my duty.”

  “I know you will,” Barrett said, risking everything—but mainly because he didn’t have a choice. She knew now, and he couldn’t take that back. “But justice doesn’t always follow the law.”

  “That’s where you and I disagree,” Victoria said, walking around him and over to the freezer. She winced as she looked in, the body a less than pleasant sight after death, and lividity, and freezing. “God. This poor woman. What kind of sick bastard—.” She cut off and turned to look at him. There was such anger in her face that, had the circumstances been different, Barrett would have been impressed. “Entitled. You’re so entitled that you think that you get to choose who lives and dies. And what about me, Rockwell? Are you going to kill me now that I know your secret?”

  Barrett walked over and pulled the garage door down by hand, the mechanism broken by his violence against it earlier. Adrenaline was rushing through his entire body. “I know that you don’t think much of me, but if I was a man who murdered women, I would have already silenced you. I’m going to be honest with you instead. Do me the favor of reserving your judgment—for ten minutes.”

  “Not a second more,” Victoria said, staring back at him, her defenses fully raised.

  They were now standing alone together in a dimly lit garage, a frozen dead body in front of them, and nowhere to go from here …except towards honesty. There were plenty of people who Barrett would have trusted with his secret—people at the precinct even. But Victoria wasn’t one of them.

  Nevertheless, this was the hand he’d been dealt, and he had to put all his cards on the table.

  “Come inside,” he said, pushing the inner garage
door open so the light of the living room flooded in. “I can’t talk beside her. We shouldn’t talk beside her.”

  They walked into the house together, and Barrett noted that Victoria’s hand was on her gun. She probably didn’t think that she would need to pull it any time soon, but she wanted to make sure that he knew that she had it with her, and that she was willing to pull it on him.

  And he did know, even though it would make no difference if she shot him. His body was too strong and too powerful to be slowed by a bullet.

  “Sit down,” he said, gesturing towards the couch. “Something to drink? Are you hungry?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Victoria said, still standing, her hands on her hips. “I’m ready for this statement that’s going to be so convincing, Rockwell. Let’s hear it.”

  Chapter 10

  Victoria

  Barrett Rockwell seemed to make her not only willing, but eager, to break all of her rules. First she had pushed him into a home search this morning, which Izzie had effectively pointed out to her hadn’t been appropriate, and now that she had actually seen a body in his freezer, she was standing in his living room, ready to let him explain instead of bringing him into the precinct immediately and calling backup to come get the poor woman taken away and identified.

  And the only explanation she had was her gut. Because it was clear that she was not relying on protocol or logic.

  “I woke up this morning,” Barrett said. He wasn’t looking at her. He was leaning one shoulder against the wall, and he’d fixated his gaze somewhere behind her. Everything about him looked tense and strung out, but he was holding himself together—somehow. “I walked out into the living room. And the body was there. Just lying there on the ground. Naked. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know why she’s here. I know that she has been dead some time because of the way the blood has settled. I think that she was allowed to lie on her back for some time after death, and then positioned in my house in the same way she’d lain after dying, because the lividity matches up with her position. I have a friend working on getting an identification on her. I suspect she’s one of your missing person’s cases, like you thought.”