Shepherd's Fall
Page 28
Andrea stared at the two agents, and her heart sank. Realization began to emerge through the confusion and the fear. She had only met Paul six weeks ago. How well did she really know him? He said he worked at 4375 North Seventh, and she'd picked him up in front of the building once, when his car broke down. She never questioned the veracity of anything he'd told her. Why would she? He was nice looking, funny, thoughtful in ways a lot of men weren't, and had never pressured her for more than she was willing to give. He claimed he had been swept away the first time he saw her. If he lied about where he worked, what else was a lie? Was it all a lie?
She looked up at Chamberland as the tears welled up in her eyes. “I've been set up, haven't I?”
1
Prodigal Recovery,” Steven Shepherd said, slapping the paperwork for Jimmy Turner down on the counter in front of an officer. “Bringing in a prisoner.”
The officer took the paperwork and began to page through it. “Magistrate is running late. I'll have an officer take him down to lockup until we're ready.”
Steven wasn't surprised. This was Baltimore, after all. In some counties, he could get a guy turned in and get out in under an hour, but Baltimore was a whole different world. His record for the shortest time handing over a fugitive in Baltimore was a shade over two hours, the longest just shy of four hours. Steven wished he had brought a book. His brother, Nick, would be horrified by the thought of Steven's nose shoved in an economics book while he waited for a skip to be processed. He'd carry on about the agency reputation; what would the cops think about the Prodigal Recovery Agency and those Shepherd boys?
The desk officer stood up and stretched, looking over at the leash Steven held, then down at his dog. “You can't have him in here.”
“Know somewhere I can leave him?”
The officer tilted his head in disbelief. Steven shrugged. “I know, I know—but my ride just left and I'm stuck.”
“Not my problem, Shepherd. Get the dog out of here.”
Steven handed Jimmy over to a guard and walked Killer outside. “What am I going to do with you?”
If Connor hadn't had to run off to help Nick, Steven wouldn't be in this situation. Killer would have been fine to hang out in the car. Having him around for the ride made chasing a fugitive more palatable.
The dog yipped and jumped up on Steven's leg. Leaning down, Steven picked him up. “Cut that out. No licking. My reputation is taking one already, you being here.”
He was mulling over his choices when he heard a familiar voice behind him. “You guys at Prodigal don't have anything better to do than hang around here like it's a dog park?”
Steven turned to face ATF Agent Peter Chamberland. “What are you doing here in the trenches? I figured you'd be briefing the president on your outstanding job with Carver by now.”
Chamberland's lips curled in what could only be identified as an amused smile. “Cute.” He reached over and scratched the dog behind his ears. “And I'm not surprised Nick demoted you to dogcatcher.”
“Seriously, Baltimore is a little out of your usual stomping grounds, isn't it?”
“We go anywhere, anytime.” Chamberland glanced around. “Why are you standing out here? I was inside, getting a drink, saw you down the hall, so I followed you out. Haven't talked to you or Nick in a while.”
“I just turned in a fugitive, but they made me take Killer here out of the building.”
“Killer?” Chamberland smiled with near-warmth as he scratched at the bichon's chin. Then he glanced over at the Expedition parked at the curb and jerked his head. In response, a young man climbed out from behind the wheel and hurried over.
“Sir?”
“Watch this dog. Mr. Shepherd and I need to talk.”
The young agent stared up at Chamberland as if he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fact that he'd just gone from ATF agent to dog-sitter.
“You have a problem following orders, Nebel?”
“No sir.”
Steven set the dog down and handed Agent Nebel the leash. “Be careful. He thinks he's a Rottweiler.”
The agent shot Steven a look, then walked Killer down the street.
Chamberland led Steven back into the building. “We've been tracking shipments of guns coming in from South America. We know that at least three shipments have come in through the Baltimore ports. If we know of three, there are more.”
Steven glanced up as two young men, handcuffed and cursing, were led into the fingerprint room. “What does this have to do with me?”
“We set up a sting today and caught some of those involved.”
“But not the ringleader?”
Chamberland frowned and shifted his gaze to look down the hall. “I wish. I think he suspected we were on to him.” Chamberland turned back to Steven. “We caught one young woman we think was being used.”
“By?”
“We don't know for sure. Either the group leader or one of his men. She claims she was just asked by her boyfriend to drop off keys and got swept up in all this. Thing is—we can't find any trace of this so-called boyfriend.”
Steven stopped at the vending machines and fished down in his pockets for a wad of singles. Chamberland waved him off. “It's on me.”
“You're making me nervous, being so nice.”
Chamberland didn't smile as he fed a couple of singles into the machine and punched his selection, then nodded for Steven to make his choice. “I don't know whether she's an innocent being framed or just a very good actress.”
“So what does this have to do with me?” Steven selected a water and dug it out of the shoot.
“My gut tells me she's innocent. If she is, she's going to need some friends on her side. All her family is on the West coast. I just figured you could bail her out. Help her get an attorney. That sort of thing.”
Steven tipped his head back and drank some of the water, taking his time while he weighed Chamberland's words. After the way the ATF agent handled Krystal's abduction last spring, Steven wasn't inclined to trust him. “Just playing good Samaritan, is that it?”
“Not exactly, but I don't want to see an innocent kindergarten teacher go to prison simply because she didn't have good taste in men.”
Steven studied the man for a few minutes. Those pale blue eyes gave away nothing. Or maybe there was nothing to find. He had a hard time telling the difference. Give him a company's yearly report and he'd have it dissected in minutes, but people weren't nearly as easy to understand as numbers.
“Well, it won't hurt anything to at least talk to her. Where is she?” Steven twisted the cap on his water.
“Follow me.”
Chamberland led him to a room where she sat at a table, her hands in her lap, her light brown hair tousled from hours of running her hands through it, her makeup smeared from crying, and her nose red from the rough, low-grade tissues. When she lifted her head and looked Steven in the eyes, he felt a jolt strong enough to make him want to punch Chamberland in the face.
Instead, Steven grabbed the agent by the arm and pulled him out of the interrogation room. “This is a joke, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That woman is as involved in criminal activities as I am!”
Chamberland looked amused as he folded his arms across his chest. “And you know that from what? Two seconds of evaluation? Wow, Shepherd…I want you on my team. We could cut interrogations down to minutes instead of hours.”
“How could you even arrest her?” Steven wanted to step back into that room, wrap his arms around her, and assure her it was all over, that it would be okay. He didn't have much respect for Chamberland before. He had even less now.
“We have the evidence. Cut the hero act or help her out.”
“If you know she was framed, why are you even bothering to charge her? Why not just cut her loose?”
“I repeat, I have the evidence. But I asked you to help her, didn't I? I could have just tossed her into the system and let it eat
her alive.”
“Yeah, yeah. You're just a peach of a guy.” For once, Steven wished Nick were around to handle this. While Steven knew something didn't feel right, Nick would have known exactly how to cut through Chamberland's apparent benevolence and get to the truth. But Nick wasn't there, and it was up to Steven to deal for now and pray Chamberland wasn't setting him up down the road. He pulled out his cell phone, scrolled through the address book, and dialed a number. “Liz? I need a favor.”
SHEPHERD'S FALL
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Wanda Dyson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dyson, Wanda L.
Shepherd's fall / W. L. Dyson.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(Prodigal Recovery Agency; book one)
eISBN: 978-0-307-45810-0
1. Bounty hunters—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.Y77S54 2009
813′.6—dc22
2008049857
v3.0