what she knew (BREAKDOWN Book 4)

by Regan Black

  “Ana.” Laney’s frustration and anger drained away at the blend of fear and defiance welling in Ana’s eyes. “Why didn’t you say something earlier? We can arrange for more protection—”

  “No. Despite the mess on Monday night, this is about Sylvia and Josie.” She rubbed her arms briskly. “Let me finish with patients and then we can talk more if it’s necessary.”

  “Oh, it’s necessary,” Laney said. She scrolled through Ana’s phone again and started to hand it over when something caught her eye. “Sunday, you said you didn’t get the text from your alarm company.”

  “Correct.”

  “And Monday night, the broken door didn’t sound the alarm, you did.”

  “From the garage, yes,” Ana confirmed.

  “But your windows are wired into the system. That alert should have gone off whether you had the system armed or not.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it.”

  No. She’d been in shock, Laney remembered. Potentially hours after the attack. She flipped to another page in the folder she’d brought along. “Someone has been running interference.”

  “How?”

  “There’s new tech that can mimic a cell tower and cause all kinds of problems. When I look at Sylvia’s phone records from the provider, I can see the text messages between her and Nolan that were erased from her phone. In your case, the alert from the security company wasn’t erased from your phone. It never got there to begin with.”

  “That’s possible?”

  “It isn’t easy and it sure isn’t cheap.” Laney rolled her shoulders. “But it seems to be what happened.” She frowned at the information. “Whoever did it had to be close to your phone, between you and the tower in fact.”

  “Close enough to shoot at my house?”

  Laney met her gaze. “To shoot at you.” When Ana blanched, Laney thought she’d open up and be honest. “I can’t solve this, can’t protect you if you keep holding back.”

  “Sylvia’s letter explains that everything she knew or we suspected is on the drive. Yolanda is giving her statement to Griff.”

  “You’re going to stand there and tell me that will be enough?” Laney snapped.

  “I haven’t seen the information on the drive, yet. Once I do, if I have something to add, I’ll reach out.”

  Laney slapped Ana’s phone into her hand. “Do I tell you how to treat patients? Would you even let me try?”

  “No.”

  “Then stop trying to do my job,” she said, at the end of her rope now. “The thing is, Ana, you don’t know my work. You don’t seem to realize every piece matters in an investigation like this. Hell, the entire town is in crisis, confidence in the police department has never been so low. Without all the pieces, I’ll never see the whole picture.”

  Ana set her phone beside the tablet on the counter. She rubbed her temples and when she lifted her face Laney knew she was about to get the truth. Finally.

  Just as her lips parted, McCabe burst into the room. “We need to get back and reevaluate the case.”

  Laney saw Ana, on the verge of opening up, close down again. She looked at the doctor. “We are not done.”

  McCabe gave her a long questioning look and she ignored him. Gathering the documents she’d brought with her, she followed the chief out of the room, out of the clinic.

  Back at the station, she listened to his rundown on the conversation with Yolanda. The woman’s suspicions about her husband were damning indeed.

  “Any follow up questions?” McCabe asked.

  Laney shook her head. “You know them better than I do. It was smart for you to handle it.” She reached back and tightened her ponytail, thinking through the case from the moment Renata had found Sylvia’s body.

  “With that stack of cash in the safe, we know more than a few people had motive to want Sylvia dead,” she said. “Though we may never know how many.”

  “We also know from the coroner that a man taller and far stronger than her and likely known to her is the killer. Zion fits that description.”

  “Known to her,” Laney echoed, laying out the pictures, turning them. “And nothing new or helpful, despite Zion’s insane reward.”

  “You’re thinking the reward was a red herring.”

  Was she? “The reward would keep him involved with the investigation. He’d know if there were witnesses. Know what to do to mitigate any damage.” She rubbed at the tension between her brows. “Does it work for you?” she asked. “Zion killing his daughter?”

  McCabe let loose a soft whistle. “Yolanda believes it, even without solid proof. We owe it to her to find out one way or another. What did you find on Ana’s cell phone?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at the first-name familiarity and let it pass. “Not the same trouble we found with Sylvia’s phone. Someone cleared the activity from Sylvia’s phone. In Ana’s situation, it looks more like someone diverted the signal.”

  “Which leaves us where?”

  Laney pulled out the little unicorn flash drive and letter, setting both on the desk. “With more work to do.”

  McCabe poked at the unicorn without picking it up. “Where’d this come from?”

  “Ana said she got this flash drive and the letter earlier today. Apparently Sylvia left both items for her at Duval’s place.”

  He scowled at the unicorn as he reached for the letter. Reading it, his scowl deepened. “He took Josie.” McCabe swore. “I wish this was enough.” He flicked the paper. “We need to look into this Sergio Rojas before we bring in Zion to ask about the day Josie went missing.”

  “Definitely.” She tipped her head toward his computer. “I’m thinking the tech that interfered with Ana has to be in a car. We’d need a warrant.”

  “All right.” McCabe plugged the flash drive into his computer. “The letter might get us started, but let’s see what the unicorn has to say. Has Ana looked at it?”

  “She claims she hasn’t had a chance,” Laney replied. “She read the letter and tried to get into Zion’s office for the recording device, but she says it was locked. I think she knows the name in that letter,” she added.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Laney patted her stomach. “Intuition.”

  “Holy crap.” McCabe leaned closer to the monitor. “These are Zion’s credit card records and bank statements.”

  Laney came around the desk, reading over his shoulder as McCabe opened each file and paged through the information. She tapped his shoulder and pointed to a large purchase. “What’s that?”

  He clicked to enlarge the details on the transaction. “Purchase at a tech company.”

  “At that price point it just about has to be the cell tower mimic.” Laney could feel the net drifting down over Zion Cole. “How much credence do we give Sylvia’s comment about hiding Josie on the old homestead?”

  “One, step at a time, deputy chief.” McCabe took a screen shot of the transaction and continued searching.

  She pointed to another folder and he clicked to open it. “That’s a file on the Windermeres. Good grief. Open it.” She skimmed the connections Sylvia had been trying to make between the host family and the missing girls. “Glad we cleared them before she exposed a hell of a mess.”

  “Look at this.” McCabe clicked the mouse to open another folder. It was a collection of articles and screen shots about missing teenage girls. Two from Josie’s old neighborhood in Venezuela, per the notes. The reports and research went back, missing teens from every neighborhood that had sent an exchange student to Shutter Lake.

  “No wonder they suspected the Windermeres, especially after she discovered Quentin’s previous side hustle,” Laney said.

  McCabe grumbled an agreement. “We could’ve used her on the police force,” he said.

  Laney moved back to the files littering the desktop. Finding the print out of Sylvia’s cell phone records, she paged back to the day Josie supposedly returned to Venezuela. Again, data from Sylvia’s phone didn’t match with
the provider’s record. She pointed out the discrepancy to McCabe.

  Piece by piece, she thought. “Zion has to be suspicious. He’ll harass Ana about being locked away from Yolanda.”

  McCabe sat back in his chair. “Afraid Zion will make a move on either his wife or the doc?”

  “We’d be fools to think otherwise.”

  “You’re smart as a whip,” McCabe said. “I may be a recovering drunk, but I’m no fool.”

  “Recovering?” The sideways declaration was great news, barely suppressing her excitement. He wouldn’t want her making a scene about it. His eyes were clearer, she realized and his mind sharp, though she knew he still felt out of his depth with this investigation. “When was your last drink?”

  “Sunday night.” He hitched a shoulder. “Still practicing the sobriety thing.”

  “You’ll get there,” she said. It gave her a burst of confidence for the department and the town. Assuming they could give the residents closure by solving this case. “I’m behind you all the way.”

  McCabe grunted.

  “We could bring him in, question him,” she suggested, shifting back to the matter at hand.

  “He’ll bluster and lawyer up before we can get him into the interrogation room.”

  “And the city council will come calling too.” Laney swore under her breath. “What if we set a trap?”

  “Give him enough rope to hang himself?”

  “Stranger things have happened. We could stroke his ego.” She snapped her fingers. “Or let him know we have a claim on the reward. A witness who identified someone else.”

  “Someone else…” He spread his hands. “Like who?”

  “What about the missing credit cards and cash?”

  We could say one of the cards was used out near San Francisco.”

  McCabe shook his head. “Not a chance. Assuming Zion has the cards he’ll know it’s a lie.”

  “Well then how do you want to get him in here?” she asked.

  “Josie.”

  Laney propped her hands on her hips. “What about her?”

  “Quentin saw her through airport security,” McCabe said. “We know she didn’t get on the plane, thanks to Julia and her FBI pal. Which means she had to have received a message from someone she trusted to leave the airport before boarding.”

  “Right! I’ll go back through the phone records. Zion must have used Sylvia’s phone and erased the message. He was always dropping by the Sparkle office. Access to his daughter’s phone would have been a piece of cake.”

  “I’ll set up security for Yolanda at the clinic and then start picking apart this Rojas guy Sylvia mentions.”

  “That Rojas name was also on the short list Ana gave us,” Laney said.

  McCabe cocked an eyebrow. “Well, I doubt that’s a coincidence.”

  Plan set, they got to work.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ana was often ready for the day to be over, but this one couldn’t end soon enough. An hour past closing they were finally locking the front doors and turning the reception phone to the answering service. Donovan was taking the overnight shift and one of the staff nurses agreed to sit with Yolanda through the dinner hour, having been part of Sylvia’s circle of friends in high school.

  Renata and Lucy were just walking in the back doors to handle the general cleaning as Ana headed to her office. She said hello, made sure they were doing okay after the long emotional day, and told them not to worry about tending to her office.

  As the three of them went their separate ways, she deliberately ignored the notion that the exchange might be her final farewell to two hardworking, lovely women.

  She’d barely settled behind her desk when Griff called with an update that Officer Delaney would be posted at the clinic as extra security until he and Laney could get there.

  “I’m picking up dinner for all of us from Stacked in about an hour,” Griff said. “What would you like me to bring over?”

  She knew better than to argue with him. “The Wednesday special is fine.” The roasted turkey with bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and honey mustard was his favorite. If she wasn’t going to eat, the least she could do was make sure Griff would enjoy the leftovers.

  She was down to her final hours in the community she loved so much. She’d much rather spend that time watching the sunset over the lake than closed up in her office.

  She didn’t like lying to Griff, but it couldn’t be helped. She finally understood what she had to do. Her best chance of catching Zion and putting him out of the trafficking business meant exposing herself.

  Her identity and career was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

  She logged into the cloud account where she’d copied and stored the information from the drive Sylvia had left behind. Slowly, she picked through the files documenting teenagers who’d gone missing most recently.

  Choosing three particular cases, she looked at the dates and banking records Sylvia had gathered. Her intention was only to give the forensic teams a head start. She was sure she could narrow down the transfers from Zion to her father and vice versa.

  The further she’d run from her father, the more she understood exactly how effective he was at keeping his nasty operation going. It was terrifying to know her father’s business had survived this long, generally unchecked. As she worked, adding to and organizing a formal report for Laney and Griff, she found a poetic justice in two powerful, vile men being taken down by the daughters they didn’t value.

  Sylvia knew enough of her father’s business habits to have pinpointed the financial transactions that coincided with missing teenagers. Ana knew how her father operated and moved the girls from acquisition to jobs to auctions. Though it would take more tracking she wrote up the likely choke points at various borders and ports for authorities to dig into.

  She couldn’t believe he was using the same import/export company, but it all fit when she checked the company’s public records at the port nearest Colombia. Her father believed hiding in plain sight and generous bribes were the most secure and profitable business model.

  It was hard to argue with his success.

  He’d always kept business level and the cash flowing with legitimate transports, but she remembered his patterns well enough to put the SLPD and hopefully the FBI on the right track.

  Ana looked through the rest of the files before making the call that would change everything.

  When the person on the other end answered, Ana felt her world shift. During her ER rotation in Texas she’d met a young undercover officer working to break a trafficking ring. Ana had given her a pattern to look for and the names of her father’s top lieutenants.

  The officer had used the information and made the bust. She’d returned to the hospital weeks later and asked Ana for an extended interview. Though Ana couldn’t give her all she’d hoped for at the time, they had stayed in touch until Ana had accepted the Shutter Lake position and believed she’d left those horrors behind.

  In Spanish she delivered the tip to her old friend.

  Checking the clock she realized it was past time to go if she wanted any kind of head start. Locking her office door, she pulled the tote she’d brought from home a few days ago out of her closet. Quickly, she slipped out of her dress and heels and into jeans, a long-sleeved tee and a heavy sweater. She tugged warm socks over her feet and laced up her hiking boots, determined to be prepared for anything.

  Ana quietly left the clinic and drove out of town, down Old Mine Road. She pulled to a stop on the far side of the bridge where it wouldn’t be so easy to spot her car. The pieces Laney and Griff had now would probably be enough to convict Zion, but if she could find the place he kept Josie before he’d tossed her in the river, that would be the real coup.

  He’d practically dumped Josie’s body in his own backyard. The arrogance of it offended her as much as the abuse and crime itself.

  Guilt swamped her.

  The girl had undoubtedly suffered
. Nearby. Ana closed her eyes as the faces of others who’d endured humiliation and abuse at her father’s hand paraded through her mind. Her attempts to help them then had failed. Here, watching the river flow under the bridge, she knew she could do something more.

  Men like Zion Cole wore two faces, one respectable and one hideous. Being a respected pillar of the community would only make his despicable actions more unbelievable. If she had an escape hatch, she was sure Zion did too. Money and power only made it easier to hide the crimes.

  He’d gotten to know Josie and then he’d isolated her so he could kidnap her. Ana knew the system. He must have held her somewhere nearby. Somewhere within easy driving distance, she thought, recalling Yolanda’s comments about his driving habits.

  No, she didn’t have proof, only intuition and firsthand experience watching her father operate. She thought of the letter and wondered if Zion had been dumb enough to keep Josie on his property.

  It would have been an arrogant move which fit Zion to a tee.

  Ready to explore, she took the back roads out of town and across to the north side of the Cole property. In the waning light, it was difficult to see, but she found the service road that was little more than a dirt track. She went as far as the overgrowth would allow in her car and then parked and pocketed the key.

  Grabbing her flashlight, phone, and a bottle of water, she hiked down the trail Sylvia had shown her a couple years ago. About a half mile in she found the clearing. What had once been a service shed now had windows and a door with a padlock on the front. At the peak of the plywood roof, she saw a small satellite dish and an antenna.

  She picked her way around the dilapidated structure, looking for more evidence that someone had been here recently. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean it had been Zion with Josie, but it upped the odds.

  After pausing to listen for any activity inside, she stepped to the window and shined her flashlight through the glass pane. A short chain, maybe six or eight feet long, was looped around a corner support post and bolted in. At the other end, open on the floor was an adjustable wrist cuff like her father had used.

  Damn it. Her gut clenched and roiled.