Marc must’ve seen my newfound fellows flanking me through the door’s peephole. Because he opened the door cautiously, narrowly. And I would’ve bet my bottom dollar he gripped his service weapon in his hand, just out of sight, behind the line of his thigh.
“Special Agent Sandoval?” my male captor demanded. He flipped open one of those leatherette cases that usually hold a badge.
“This is the long-lost Marshal Tyler Douglas,” I said, stealing his thunder and what remained of his swagger. “He’s a friend of former AUSA Sam Brewer.”
Douglas ignored me and went on with the introductions.
“This is Marshal Ingram,” he said, indicating his partner. “We’d like a word with you and Ms. Sinclair.”
“You make it sound optional,” Marc replied.
I eyed the shield in Douglas’s hand, pitched my voice in stage whisper that probably carried halfway to the state line. “It isn’t.”
“Ms. Sinclair,” Ingram said, “take a walk with me.”
That wasn’t an invitation, either.
But this, as far as I was concerned, was Marc’s party. And he could see the divide-and-conquer tactic the marshals were trying to employ here. When I looked a question in his direction, however, he nodded.
“Remove the jewelry first,” I told Ingram.
She did, unlocking the handcuffs and setting me free. And then she nudged me into Marc’s little apartment. She fell into step beside me, and together, we walked into the kitchenette at the far end of the unit.
“Water?” I offered.
“No thanks.”
Truth be told, I wasn’t particularly thirsty, either. But I snagged a glass from the open shelf and filled it at the sink. Because doing so gave me a grand opportunity to look out into the sitting room and see how Marc and Marshal Douglas were getting along.
“Douglas ought to get himself an ice pack,” I said.
He’d waved Marc onto one end of the sofa so he could loom over him like a prison warden—or maybe my strike to his groin made him too sore to sit down. But Marc had made the most of the situation, leaning back on the couch and crossing his legs at the ankles as if he were settling in to watch a baseball game on TV. Douglas didn’t scare him and the marshal had to know it.
“What about you?” Marshal Ingram asked. “Want some ice for that black eye?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Then let’s talk. I understand you and Special Agent Sandoval have been making the rounds,” she said, “visiting the home of Burt and Elena Preble, and Elena Preble’s place of business. You even met Marley Jones for an after-hours beer.”
I shrugged a careless shoulder. “What can I say? I like beer.”
“So does Marley. Elena Preble, on the other hand, likes things much harder.”
I sipped from my glass, measured Marc’s conversation across the room.
“What’re you saying, Ingram? Is Elena using again? Is that why she’s disappeared?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
Ingram studied me for a long moment.
She herself was a delicate thing, with dark brown hair and a generous dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Gray wasn’t her color, but she wore it anyway, and her menswear-styled suit had been cut to flatter her. Of course, she could move in a suit like that. She could keep up with the big boys. More importantly, she could keep up with Douglas without giving up the essence that made her who she was.
Personally, I understood those kinds of wardrobe choices.
And those kinds of soul-deep motivations.
“Who’s your tailor?” I asked, but I didn’t really mean it as an insult.
“What’s your interest in Elena Preble?” Ingram returned.
“Marc’s a friend. Elena’s his son’s mother. She’s missing and he asked me to look into it.”
“Did he ask nicely?”
I didn’t like the question and what it implied. But Ingram had turned her attention to the men. Marc had left the sofa to surge to his feet. Douglas, long and lanky, towered over him. Marc, however, had presence, like a scrappy kid in the schoolyard.
Marc had probably always had such self-possession, even before he’d become a DEA agent. The Drug Enforcement Administration had simply taught him how to make the most of it. Now he wasn’t going to let a U.S. marshal push him around.
And I wasn’t either.
“If you’ve got a crush on Marc,” I told Ingram, “I can pass him a note in study hall.”
To my surprise, she flushed crimson.
“What’s your interest in Elena Preble?” I pressed.
“It’s slim to none,” she replied. “As you undoubtedly know, Elena Preble was formerly an assistant federal prosecutor. Her final case sent an organized-crime boss named Maximillian Ribisi up the river. He was released on parole twelve days ago. Since then, as you also know, his associates have paid several visits to Elena Preble’s family.”
That explained so much. Knuckles, the creep in the undershirt, and the dirty cop: they weren’t just run-of-the-mill criminals. They were a gangster’s muscle.
I said, “Why would Ribisi be gunning for Elena? Sam Brewer was large and in charge of the case at the time.”
“It’s likely Ribisi believes Elena’s aware of sensitive information connected to his trial.”
“Like Lucy Ribisi’s new name and location?”
“Lucy Ribisi,” Ingram said, “is dead.”
Yet, if what Ingram said was true, Elena’s father had been killed because Ribisi wanted to know where Lucy was living. Elena’s mother was barely clinging to life. Her brother might’ve ended up the same if Marc and I hadn’t intervened—and that angered me to no end.
I said, “Well, tell Ribisi his ex-wife’s deceased, will you?”
“I wish I could. Marshal Douglas and I have no knowledge of his present whereabouts.”
“Isn’t that a violation of his parole?”
“Yes,” Ingram agreed. “It is.”
Chapter 23
In that instant, I saw right through Marshal Ingram. I knew why she and Marshal Douglas had turned up outside Cody’s school. No doubt they’d been in constant contact with Sam Brewer as well. Tonight, my asking him about Lucy Ribisi’s new identity had brought the marshals to my doorstep. Because they wanted something—and they figured Marc and I could give it to them.
“You want Marc and me to lead you to Elena Preble,” I told her. “And you want Elena to lead you to Max Ribisi.”
“All Ms. Preble has to do at this point is stand still,” Marshal Ingram said. “Ribisi will find her.”
“Ribisi will kill her.”
“Not if you stay in touch.” She produced a business card from the besom pocket of her gray suit and handed it to me. “Marshal Douglas and I will be more than happy to intervene.”
Or bait the hook, I thought, with Cody’s mother.
“I’ll look forward to your call,” Ingram said.
Not so coincidentally, in the sitting room, Douglas had wrapped up his little chat with Marc, too. From the way both men scowled, I didn’t think it went as well as Ingram’s and mine. The four of us converged at the door, and that’s where Douglas issued his final warning.
“Remember what I said,” he told Marc. “You’ve got a spotless career, a family who depends on you, and close personal friends—”
The marshal aimed a pointed look at me.
“—so if you want to keep this situation from wrecking everything you’ve got, Sandoval, you’ll pick up the phone.”
Marc said nothing.
But he didn’t blink and he didn’t back down.
Douglas smiled, and as if he’d had a personality transplant, he turned to me. “Try a warm compress on that eye tonight. Might make it feel better.”
“Thanks.” And because he’d tried to manipulate Marc through me, I added, “I hope your testicles grow back.”
Ingram’s indelicate snort of appreciation for my rude
comment turned into a coughing fit she tried to cover with her fist. Douglas flushed an embarrassed purple. He wasted no time leaving after that, and his partner had to hurry to keep up with him, despite his rather bowlegged hustle.
With obvious satisfaction, Marc slammed the door on their retreating backs.
“Well,” I called over my shoulder as I stepped into Marc’s bathroom to run hot water into a washcloth. “What do you make of that little visit?”
“For one thing,” Marc said, “Sam Brewer’s a blabbermouth.”
“He’s still a member of the bar, and therefore an officer of the court. He might not have had any choice in the matter.”
I emerged from the bathroom, stretched out on the sofa, and parking my glasses on the top of my head, I applied the warm, damp cloth to my battered face. Without wanting to, I sighed in relief. I had to admit, for all Douglas’s faults, he’d been onto something with this home remedy.
Marc scooped up my feet. He sat on the end of the couch, deposited my boots in his lap. He began to untie my laces.
I said, “There’s one thing about the marshals’ conversation that bothers me.”
“Just one?”
One at a time, Marc slipped my boots from my stocking feet. He dropped the boots to the floor and his capable hands closed over my right foot. When his thumbs drove the tension from my arch, I had to bite my lip or let out a groan.
Tamping down the sensation, I managed to say, “Sam Brewer, Douglas, and Ingram were all pretty quick to tell us Lucy Ribisi had died.”
“That bothered you?”
“Yes. Because no one’s said what’s become of her daughter.”
Marc froze. “What did become of her daughter?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I think it’s a very interesting question.”
Marc and I weren’t going to come up with the answer to it in his hotel room in the middle of the night, however.
As quickly as I could, I made my excuses, snatched up my boots, and decamped for my own room. I reasoned that the Colorado Springs police wouldn’t bust in on us now that we’d had a visit from the feds. And Marc was inclined to agree—even if he wasn’t happy to see me go.
Behind my own locked door, I showered until my aching muscles eased and the hot water ran out. And then I climbed into bed with the slice of chocolate cake Sam Brewer had ordered tucked into the doggie bag he’d sent from the Blind Justice Brewery. The gesture almost led me to forgive the fact that he’d surely told Douglas and Ingram about our stopping by his brewpub and the questions that had driven our discussion.
Almost.
But not quite.
I licked the plastic fork clean, clicked off the bedside light, and as I began to doze, my cellphone began to vibrate. Barrett’s photo lit up my screen, along with an invitation for a video chat. My heart leapt, eager to hear his voice, but at the same time, dread took hold of me with cold fingers.
I’d been keeping secrets from him.
And that was no way to treat him.
Barrett deserved better than the likes of me. I needed to face that fact. And I needed to persuade him to face it, too.
Tonight, however, wouldn’t be the night.
Powering down my phone, I tried to put Barrett from my mind. I tried to think about Cody instead, safe and sound in San Antonio by now. And I tried to think of Lucy Ribisi’s daughter.
What had become of her when her mother died? Did Elena know? And was Max Ribisi bulldozing his way through Elena’s family until she shared that knowledge with him?
I didn’t come up with solutions to any of those complex questions. Instead, I fell into an uneasy sleep borne out of fatigue and frustration. And when I woke, it was time to head to the airport, to North Dakota, Dustin Toomey, and, hopefully, Elena Preble herself.
Chapter 24
North Dakota blew hot and cold.
Wintry weather whipping across the High Plains had meant delay after delay, which kept Marc and me stuck in Colorado Springs long past our departure time. We made the most of it, working our phones to try to draw a bead on Dustin Toomey—and to learn what had happened to Lucy Ribisi’s daughter. According to the math, the little girl would’ve been twelve years old right about now. But no database we searched and no one we contacted could so much as scrounge up her name, let alone the details of her fate.
Dustin Toomey’s present remained a mystery as well.
But possibilities regarding his past jumped into stark relief when I searched for him through a certain web service.
If Sam had been correct when he’d said Toomey was from the greater Pikes Peak area, you couldn’t have proved that through what existed online. The man didn’t appear to have a current Colorado driver’s license, he wasn’t registered to vote, and he didn’t carry so much as a library card from what I could tell. Fortunately, Toomey wasn’t listed in the Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System, either. In short, that meant he hadn’t been convicted of a crime in the Centennial State. However, Dustin Toomey’s fingerprints turned up when I dug a little deeper.
Maybe Toomey’s digits were on file with the government because he’d been cleared to work with kids or the elderly. If I requested a background check through the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the agency that handles such things, I’d have to wait days and days for the results. The other option wasn’t nearly as tidy. Maybe Toomey’s prints were on file because he’d served time under the Division of Youth Corrections. If that were the case, his juvenile record would be sealed, or possibly expunged, and practically invisible to the likes of me.
Given Marc’s propensity to view Toomey as a deadbeat already—and to grumble about the possibility that the man had spent time with Cody—I decided to keep these lines of inquiry to myself for a while.
And as it turned out, that proved to be an excellent decision.
In the meantime, we finally got to board our plane. Stiff winds buffeted us all the way to Fargo. The terminal, when we disembarked, was stifling. Outdoors, however, as Marc and I retrieved our rental car, the brisk wind and frigid air temperature threatened to snatch my breath away. I took consolation in the notion that if Douglas and Ingram were still following us, they’d be just as cold as we were.
Scraping enough frost from the windows of our Honda CR-V so we could see to drive off the rental company’s lot, Marc said, “I hope you packed your long underwear, babe. I’d hate to think of what you’d need to do to keep warm.”
“I’ll be all right.” I slipped Marc a sideways look that was full of warning as I loaded my backpack into the rear seat. “You just keep your mind off my underwear.”
Marc didn’t make me any promises.
I rolled my eyes and climbed behind the wheel.
Once we left Fargo and the Red River Valley behind, the wind died down and North Dakota unfolded in all her glory, just past the far side of the windshield. And she was lovely. Everywhere I looked, last year’s golden grasses reached for the sky and the hope of spring. Antelope grazed on the rolling plain without any thought of us. In these wild places, our narrow ribbon of highway became nothing more than a rude interruption built by the hand of man. Towns were extremely few and far between. And truth be told, I liked it that way.
Eventually, however, we needed to find Sam Brewer’s cabin, and find it we did. Where the SUV’s GPS was no help at all, the lawyer’s turn-by-turn directions brought us to a dirt track, cloaked by scrub, well after sundown. We bumped along the lane with only our headlights and pinpricks of starlight to guide us. A curve in the earth marked the boundary of an ancient stream. And around the bend stood the cabin.
Marc and I got out of the CR-V.
“It’s not bad-looking,” I said, firing up my Maglite and letting its beam play across the clapboard.
“If you like toolsheds,” Marc replied, aiming his own flashlight at the structure. “Or fishing shacks.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “but does Elena like them well enough to hide here?”
Narrow and weathered, the place certainly wasn’t all that inviting from the outside. A short porch fronted the cabin, but it was hardly deep enough to shield someone from snow or sleet while she fumbled with the locks on the heavy wooden door. There were no windows to speak of, no chimney, and no stovepipe poking through the roof, either.
“If she’s been here, it hasn’t been lately.” I turned my Maglite on the lane’s gritty surface. “The only tire tracks are ours.”
Marc scowled over his shoulder at the roadway we’d left behind. “She could’ve hitchhiked to the top of the drive and walked down.”
I backtracked up the lane, sweeping my flashlight from side to side. I didn’t find so much as a raccoon’s trail. “Is Elena savvy enough to stick to the long grass?”
“I don’t know what she is anymore.” Marc stepped onto the porch’s planks. They seemed sturdy enough. Nothing creaked underfoot. “Maybe I never did.”
Banded iron reinforced the door and a trio of deadbolts secured it. I joined Marc as he pulled Sam Brewer’s key from his pocket, inserted it into the first lock. The countryside’s dry weather hadn’t taken much of a toll on it, and it opened easily enough.
Marc said, “Why do I feel like I should carry you over the threshold?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve been watching too many Ralph Bellamy movies in your spare time.”
“There’s no such thing as too many Ralph Bellamy movies.”
“At least we agree on that.”
Marc made quick work of the remaining locks, I pushed the door with my splayed fingertips, and it swung wide without so much as a squeak. The beam of my flashlight cut a swath through the middle of the cabin. To my surprise, it landed on a pair of high-priced leather club chairs angled close to an electric fire. A small table bearing a lead-crystal decanter and two tumblers sat between them. The decanter was empty—but it wasn’t hard to imagine it brimming with good scotch.
“Pretty rough,” I said, “if you’re a Vanderbilt.”
The Kill Wire Page 15
