Still Life

by Dani Pettrey

  “This place looks like something out of a horror movie,” Finley said as they approached the side entrance he and Avery had come through. It didn’t help it was pitch-black and the sound of bats echoed through the rustling trees.

  He pulled the rotting plywood back, holding it for them. “Wait until you see the inside.”

  “You weren’t kidding about the inside of this place,” Griffin said, holding a flashlight in one hand and Finley’s hand in his other, helping her maneuver over and around metal chairs tipped on their sides, piles of trash, and random gurneys.

  “If someone were purposely making a haunted house for a carnival, this place would make a fantastic source of inspiration,” Finley said.

  “Two more floors up,” Parker said.

  He so wished they’d found Skylar alive, but at least they were finding evidence and viable leads. At least Skylar’s case wouldn’t become a cold case like Jenna’s.

  Jenna.

  The horrific images of her remains on the shoreline they’d grown up playing on still ripped at his soul. If only they could find her killer. Bring Jenna justice. It was so unfair.

  He climbed the next flight of stairs, fearing he’d never see justice happen for Jenna’s brutal murder. But he knew one day justice would prevail. One day, if it didn’t happen on earth, her killer would stand before Almighty God and answer for the evil he’d done.

  Parker wanted, ached, to deal out that punishment, but earthly punishment for murder was the court’s jurisdiction and in eternity, God’s.

  It was infuriating at times not to take matters into his own hands, most certainly in regards to Jenna’s murder, but at least God had seen fit to bless him with the drive and skill required to help bring truths to light, to expose the deeds of evil men and women, deeds they thought they’d hidden so well. And they had not just let Jenna’s case remain cold, not any longer. They, as a team, were still working her case whenever they had the chance—evenings, weekends, days off—with each focusing on their area of expertise to hopefully, finally bring Jenna’s killer to justice. No matter how long it took, they weren’t giving up. Not until Jenna’s killer was behind bars.

  “What’s your profile of Sebastian?” Griffin asked, holding the stairwell door open for Finley and Avery, Jason bringing up the rear.

  Parker swallowed. “There’s darkness in this guy, a penchant for dancing with death.” Just like whoever killed Jenna displayed by his brutal actions.

  “So you believe he killed Skylar?”

  He blinked back to the present, fully focusing his attention on Skylar’s case before them. “There are no signs of a struggle here, but in pictures of her body I saw signs of her having fought back. We know Sebastian was at her trailer and took props for the photo, but there were no signs of a struggle there either. I don’t know where he killed her, but so far everything points to him as our man.”

  Parker remained by Avery’s side as the cops canvassed the place. Edward was nowhere to be found—but they discovered that the tunnel system went throughout the entire complex.

  “Dude, this guy is beyond creepy,” Finley said, studying the photographs and sketches of Skylar on Sebastian’s studio wall.

  “Hopefully someone will spot him.”

  “And if not?”

  “We go back to his home? Come back here? I think he’s too attached to this place to leave it for long.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “We search the grounds for Skylar’s body.”

  27

  Declan entered the interrogation room at his Bureau office followed by Lexi. The Hiram’s captain, Randal Jackson—an American citizen—sat cuffed to the table, waiting with a smirk on his full face. Declan dropped a file on the table, and both took a seat opposite Jackson.

  “Well, I imagine you can guess my surprise when your records showed you were a boatswain mate with the U.S. Navy.” Declan scanned the file. “You served your country for a decade until you were honorably discharged due to injury.”

  He sat back. “And now you’re smuggling not only illegal immigrants but also a known terrorist into America. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Jackson’s jaw shifted, and he shook his head before leaning forward, rattling the cuffs with the jerky motion. “My country betrayed me.”

  Declan arched a brow. He hadn’t read anything about that in Jackson’s file, nor anything about reprimands or poor performance on Jackson’s part, so where was this coming from? “Betrayed?” he asked.

  Jackson sat back, propping one foot on his knee. “Yeah, betrayed. They conveniently discharged me after a mooring line snapped while we were in port in Okinawa, and I lost my right leg. This”—he stomped his right foot on the floor, his left knee bouncing as his left foot still rested on his right knee—“is a fake leg. Very pirate-like, don’t you think?”

  “So that’s why you turned smuggler? A pirate leg?” He was being crass, but he needed to push Jackson’s buttons and get him to give away the details he needed to get to the heart of his actions.

  “Something like that,” Jackson said smugly.

  Man, he wanted to knock that look off the captain’s face.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your leg.” That was a raw deal. “But it’s no excuse for illegal activity, and most certainly not for treason.”

  “Treason.” Jackson shrugged.

  Was this a game to him?

  He looked Declan straight in the eye. “My country betrayed me. I betrayed it.”

  “By smuggling in a known enemy?” Lexi said, her throaty voice heated with irritation.

  “What’s it to me who wants a ride on my ship? And for your information, I am a man without a country. The sea is my home.”

  Declan looked back to the file. “It says here you were married and have a son, Randy. I’m guessing named after you. What about them?”

  “My wife left me, took my son away, and remarried some hotshot attorney out in Vegas. Just like I got no country, I got no family.”

  “So you don’t care if the man you smuggled in blows up your family?” Might as well lay a worst-case scenario on the line.

  “Vegas ain’t exactly a terrorist hot spot.”

  So he did care about his family, or at least about his son. Declan could use that to his advantage.

  “So you know where Anajay’s target is located?” Lexi asked.

  That dimmed Jackson’s haughty attitude. “I never said that.”

  “But you seem pretty confident it isn’t Vegas, where your boy lives, so that tells me that you do love your son,” she said, resting her arms on the table, leaning in.

  “Of course I love my son. I’m not a monster. I just hate his cheating momma and her lover.” The edge to his voice was dark and full of rage. Declan half wondered if part of the deal Jackson had made with Anajay involved a hit on Jackson’s ex and her husband in return for passage. Or perhaps Jackson was planning to simply hire a hit man with the money he was paid. They’d need to look into his financials and check the burner cell they’d found in his cabin.

  “I’m curious. Did you set out with the intention of smuggling a terrorist into the country as payback for what it did to you?” Lexi asked.

  “I didn’t set out with the intention of smuggling anyone, but merchant marines don’t exactly make a whole lot, and neither do wounded soldiers. A man came to me, offered me ten thousand dollars to help some hurting people get to America for a better way of life.”

  “Well, doesn’t that sound like a generous sacrifice on your part,” Lexi said, “but here’s the problem: There’s nothing generous about treating refugees like animals.”

  “I didn’t treat them like animals. I offered them a better way of life.”

  “It’s funny you keep saying ‘a better way of life,’ but you’ve been very clear that you hate America, so how is bringing refugees here offering them a better way of life?” she pressed.

  “It’s better than where they were at.”

  �
�Ah, how generous of you.” Lexi sat back, arms crossed. “All for the price of ten grand.”

  “Nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur.”

  “It is when it involves illegal activity. Speaking of which . . .” Declan shoved Anajay’s wanted release in front of Jackson—including sketches from the descriptions given by both Hana and Tom Fisher, which had come in, matched remarkably well, with only subtle differences. In Fisher’s sketch, Anajay had more facial hair, a fuller face.

  Anajay had aged a bit since the photo the Bureau had of him was taken.

  “Smuggling refugees is one thing. But smuggling a terrorist is a completely different concern,” Declan said.

  “Smuggling is smuggling.” He pushed the picture back to Declan as best he could with cuffed hands. “I gave him passage just like the rest.”

  Declan shook his head. “Not just like the rest. You gave Anajay the same meals the crew ate, full water privileges, even a private berth.”

  Jackson shrugged. “So?”

  “So, I’m betting you made more than ten thousand dollars to smuggle Anajay Darmadi into the country. I’m also betting the money for Anajay’s passage didn’t come through Max Stallings.”

  Jackson shifted uncomfortably.

  “That’s right. We know who paid for the cargo, as you call the refugees. Agents are bringing Max Stallings in as we speak,” Lexi said.

  “That’s his business to work out with you.”

  “But someone else paid you for Anajay’s passage. We may not know who yet, but we’ll track your financials,” Declan said. They’d track the money trail right back to the person or organization who funded Anajay’s passage into the country.

  Jackson pressed his lips together and stared at the ceiling.

  Declan leaned forward, resting his forearms on the lacquered tabletop. “What I’m curious to discover is how many times this person or organization—which we will find—paid you. If it’s more than once, then we will investigate on the premise that you’ve already smuggled in other terrorists.”

  Jackson swallowed, his fingers twitching. “I want a lawyer.”

  So there had been others. Dear God. How many other terrorists had Randal smuggled into America?

  “Grey, Kadyrov.” A fellow agent opened the door.

  “Yes, Matt?” Declan said.

  “We have something you’re both going to want to take a look at.”

  Declan looked back to a now panicked Randal Jackson and smiled. “The case against you is already building. If I were you, I’d cooperate. Might save you the death penalty for treason.”

  “I want a lawyer now!”

  Declan stood. “Matt, you heard the man. Call a lawyer, and in the meantime, put him in a holding cell.”

  Matt nodded.

  Declan and Lexi followed him out.

  “So what do you have?” Lexi asked.

  “Techs confirmed Anajay Darmadi’s fingerprints were on that payphone, among a good number of others.”

  “Have we traced his call?” Declan asked.

  “The only call placed on that phone on Saturday was to the Islamic Cultural Institute of the Mid-Atlantic.”

  A center they’d been investigating for years. A center they highly suspected of extremist ties. He and Lexi would be paying them a visit first thing Monday morning.

  “Agents canvassed the area and found a gas station attendant across the street from the payphone who saw a black sedan pick up a dark-skinned man less than half an hour after he placed that call.”

  “Good memory.”

  “Said the payphone is pretty much never used, so he noticed the man making a call and then pacing anxiously until the sedan arrived.”

  “Any markings on the car he can recall?”

  “Nope.”

  “You know who I bet has black sedans like that?”

  Matt smiled. “The cultural institute.”

  “It appears I’m going to need a couple of warrants.”

  28

  It was nearly two in the morning when Parker followed Griffin, Finley, and Avery into Charm City Investigations, where Kate, Declan, and Tanner were waiting.

  Kate took one glance at him. “Rough night?”

  “You have no idea.” He’d thought he’d lost Avery. He couldn’t get his heart to stop pounding in his ears. What would he have done if he’d lost her? He dared not think.

  “I made cookies.” Tanner held up a plate of chocolate espresso cookies. “Fresh out of the office oven.”

  “I’ll take a handful,” Avery said. “I can’t remember the last time we ate.”

  “Chick-fil-A. About a dozen hours ago,” Parker said, taking a handful for himself.

  “Glad I made a double batch,” Tanner said, setting the plate on the coffee table while everyone took seats around it.

  “So you have your guy?” Declan, who looked strung out on caffeine and exhausted, asked.

  “All the evidence points to Sebastian Chadwyck,” Parker said. “His prints were all over the place. Skylar’s hair was there, along with the portrait set and the clothes she’d been photographed in.”

  “We need to find him,” Avery said as urgently as her exhausted state would allow. He needed to get her home.

  He sat down beside her, rested a hand on her knee, and exhaled, hating himself for letting Sebastian get away. “We nearly had him.”

  Declan arched a brow. “At the abandoned hospital?”

  Parker explained what happened with Avery.

  He was still thanking God she’d been able to fight him off until he’d broken through and Sebastian fled.

  “So what’s next?” Declan asked.

  “I take Avery home,” he said. “It’s been a long couple of nights.”

  “You take me home?”

  “You can’t seriously think I’m going to let you go home alone when you’ve been threatened by Gary and nearly abducted by Sebastian. We’ve already talked about this.”

  “Fine,” she said, clearly too tired to fight.

  “I’ll fill you in on what Kate and I learned in the morning,” Griffin said.

  “No,” Avery said. “Go ahead. I want to hear.”

  “You sure? You look spent.”

  She linked her arms across her chest. “I’m positive.”

  Parker settled back. He too was curious what Griffin and Kate had discovered before he had called Griffin and Jason to the hospital.

  “We interviewed Connor Davis,” Griffin began. “He admitted to knowing Skylar. Well, he said he hooked up with her once. Met her at a bar but couldn’t remember which one.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “But not impossible if they were doing a pub crawl.”

  “True.” From what Parker had seen, by the end of the night most couldn’t remember which Fell’s Point bars they’d even been to—the drunken night a hazed blur. It was surprising Connor even remembered Skylar’s name if it was just a one-night hookup. So why did he remember her, and was he lying about how often they’d been together? Perhaps he was lying about the nature of their relationship entirely. “Maybe it wasn’t a one-time thing?”

  “No . . . he seemed to be telling the truth,” Griffin, who was the master at reading body language and facial expressions, said.

  Kate jumped in. “But it seems to me like he wanted it to be more. Like Skylar moved on from him before he was ready to end things.”

  “I concur,” Griffin said.

  “What gave you that impression?” Avery asked.

  “His expression when he said Skylar slept around a lot.”

  “How would he know she slept around a lot if it’d just been a drunken one-night thing? Ewww, by the way.” Avery cringed, though she didn’t protest Skylar’s virtue, so clearly the possibility of that sort of behavior on Skylar’s part wasn’t out of the question.

  “Exactly,” Kate said. “So we asked if he knew any of the other guys she’d been with, like had he heard rumors or something . . . ?”

  �
�Which would make sense,” Parker said.

  “Yeah.” Kate nodded with a smile. “But his response was odd.”

  “How did he respond?” Parker asked, curious.

  “Connor immediately glanced to a picture of him, his roommate, and a woman we are guessing is the roommate’s girlfriend, though she identified herself as Connor’s friend.”

  “Talk about a piece of work,” Kate said, shaking her head.

  Avery frowned. “You mean the roommate’s girlfriend? She was there?”

  “Yeah,” Griffin said, clearly sharing Kate’s opinion of the woman.

  Kate continued, “Her name is Amanda King, and she came in right when we were asking Connor if his roommate, Kyle, had slept with Skylar.”

  “Based on his instant trajectory to the photograph of him and Kyle,” Avery said. “Smart.”

  “What did Connor say?”

  “Nothing. Amanda walked in and asked who we were talking about.”

  “Did she know Skylar?”

  “She claims not to.”

  “But you think she’s lying.”

  “She called her a skank. Seemed like she knew her and was not a fan.” Kate blushed and dipped her head a bit. “I’m so sorry about the skank comment. I know we’re talking about your friend.”

  “Thanks. But I’m under no illusions that Skylar is some kind of saint. She’s just my oldest friend. I never could bring myself to give up on her.”

  Avery was still referring to Skylar in the present. Despite what they’d found tonight, her mind still hadn’t accepted that her friend was dead.

  Parker studied the determination on her face. Avery wouldn’t give up on Skylar until they’d found her body and arrested her killer. He prayed hard that, as difficult as it would be to endure, she got her closure. For the alternative—never catching the killer—was a far worse, enduring torture.

  “Sure sounds like Amanda knew Skylar,” Declan said.

  He looked like he, too, was carrying a heavy weight tonight. They still needed to discuss what’d happened on the ship after he and Avery headed for the abandoned VA hospital and Sebastian’s disgusting “studio.”