Fatal Secrets

by Allison Brennan

  “But if she doesn’t understand—”

  “She knows a language. We just have to figure out which one.”

  “How many languages do you know?”

  “Enough to get by. I’ll figure it out. Unless it’s Russian. If that’s the case we’ll find a translator.”

  A Sac P.D. cop was stationed at both the nurse’s station and Ann’s door. Dean and Sonia showed their identification, and entered Ann’s room. Black followed.

  The patient’s bed was tilted up and she was watching cartoons on television. The white bandages on her face stood out against the dark bruising on her cheek and nose. Her neck was grotesque, a dark, swollen purple. Her white-blond hair had been washed and brushed. She looked younger now, though based on her teeth and bone growth Dr. Miller had said Ann was over fifteen but not yet eighteen.

  The nurse in the room rechecked their identification, which pleased Sonia. The staff was taking this matter seriously. The nurse said, “Dr. Miller doesn’t want her to try to talk. There’s a dry erase board on the table next to her bed. I don’t know if she understands anything we say. She does enjoy cartoons, though.”

  “How is she emotionally?” Sonia asked. “Nightmares?”

  “She woke up last night in a panic. I wasn’t on duty, but the night shift told me she pulled out the IV and jumped out of bed, then collapsed. They sedated her, monitored her, and played classical music. When she showed signs of waking again they spoke softly, assuring her she was safe. She was better this morning. She kept pointing to the television until I turned it on, and she’s been hooked for two hours.”

  Ann had been watching them from the moment they came in. Sonia smiled at her. Ann didn’t smile back, but continued to watch with distrustful blue eyes.

  Sonia sat down on the edge of the bed. She started in English. “I’m Sonia Knight, and my partner is Dean Hooper. We’re here to find the man who hurt you.”

  No recognition.

  Sonia pointed to herself and said, “Sonia.” She pointed to Dean and said, “Dean.”

  She handed Ann the whiteboard. Pointed to her chest and then put her hands out and motioned to the board.

  She got it on the first try. She wrote in sloppy letters with her right hand.

  KIRSTEN

  “Kirsten,” Sonia said.

  The girl nodded and pointed to herself.

  Kirsten was a common name in Scandinavian countries. If she didn’t speak English, she might speak French. Sonia said in French, “Do you understand French?”

  The girl perked up a bit, nodded tentatively. She understood well enough to know what Sonia had asked.

  “Where were you born?” she asked in French.

  “suriname,” Kristen wrote.

  “Suriname? Wouldn’t they speak Spanish?” Dean asked.

  “They have several dialects, but Dutch is the official language.”

  “Dutch?”

  “Suriname was colonized by the Dutch. It’s had an interesting history, but there are few Boers left. They were the descendants of the Dutch settlers. They teach English in the schools, as well as Dutch. There are many languages spoken. Most of the population is trilingual.”

  Black asked, “Does that mean she didn’t go to school? Because she doesn’t understand English?”

  “Maybe she’s been gone for a long time,” Sonia said, her voice tinged with sadness.

  “Kirsten, how old are you?”

  Kirsten wrote on the board: seize.

  “Sixteen.” Sonia smiled at Kirsten. “Good.”

  Sonia then asked a harder question. “Do you know when you left Suriname?”

  Kirsten wrote, “Six or seven years. Don’t remember.” She frowned and averted her eyes.

  Her heart went out to this poor girl. “Kirsten, you’re safe now. If you want, we can find your family.” She waited for the response—if her family had put her in this situation, Kirsten wouldn’t want to go back.

  But her eyes looked into Sonia’s with hope. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

  The nurse said, “Tell her not to try to talk.”

  Sonia did what the nurse asked and Kirsten nodded, her expression pained. She erased her last message and wrote in another language—Dutch, Sonia suspected. She said, “I don’t read Dutch, Kirsten. I’m sorry.”

  Kirsten erased it and wrote in French, with enough misspellings that Sonia had to guess what it meant.

  “Sonia?” Dean prompted.

  “I think she’s telling us how to find her family.” She nodded to Kirsten. “I’ll find them,” she said.

  Now for the hard part. Sonia would give her right hand to spare the girl the pain of this conversation, but it couldn’t be avoided. She touched her wrist, covering the tattoos with her hand. “When did you get these marks?”

  Kirsten started shaking. Sonia tilted her head and made Kirsten look at her. “It’s okay. Kirsten, I know you’re hurting. I know how you feel. I want to find him. I want to put him in jail. But I need your help. I need to know who did this. I want you to look at some photographs for me, okay? You tell me if you recognize any of them. They cannot hurt you. I promise you are safe here. Understand me? You are safe.”

  Kirsten nodded almost imperceptibly, but she understood.

  Dean handed Sonia the stack of photographs and sketches they’d compiled of everyone involved in the Xavier Jones investigation.

  Sonia first showed the picture of Xavier Jones. Kirsten didn’t respond.

  The nurse said, “She has a hard time moving her neck, and the doctor wants her to minimize movement while she heals. He tried a neck brace, but it terrified her when she woke up.”

  Sonia wasn’t surprised after Kirsten had nearly been choked to death.

  She said, “Sonia, if you recognize the man, touch the picture. Okay?”

  She gave a weak nod.

  Sonia asked about Jones again. No response. Then she put a picture of Craig Gleason up. Nothing. She had the picture of Charlie Cammarata that she’d showed Andres. Nothing. Greg Vega. No. Kendra Vega. No. She ran through the other photos of Jones’s key people and no one popped. She finally showed the picture of the nine men.

  She pointed to one of the men and frowned.

  “That’s Thomas Daniels,” Dean said. “He’s dead.”

  “Kirsten, this man died four years ago.”

  The girl motioned for the whiteboard. She wrote in a combination of Dutch and French:

  He took me from Mama.

  “Smitty kidnapped her.” She asked Kirsten, “He took you from your mama in Suriname?”

  She wrote, Yes.

  Sonia asked Kirsten. “Do you know where he took you?”

  She either didn’t understand the question or didn’t know.

  “Did someone force you to do things you didn’t want to do?”

  Kirsten frowned. She grabbed the marker and wrote, I am whore.

  Sonia wanted to cry, but let the fury rage instead.

  “No, you’re not,” she told Kirsten. “You never have to do that again. You understand? Never. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

  Dean put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. His support meant everything to Sonia, but right now all she wanted was to destroy the people who subjected innocent girls like Kirsten to sexual abuse.

  Dr. Miller entered the room. “You’re not tiring her out, are you?”

  “No. She speaks French and Dutch,” Sonia said. “She’s from Suriname, a small country in northern South America originally a Dutch settlement.”

  “You did good, Ann.” He smiled.

  “Her name is Kirsten.”

  “Kirsten,” he said. He added in French, “Beautiful.”

  The girl lit up. Though Sonia had found Dr. Miller cold, he’d warmed up around Kirsten.

  “I have some more questions,” Sonia said. “This really will help us find out who did this.”

  “All right, but don’t distress her. I want to kill the creep who did this to her.” His voice was calm, b
ut his words were clear. “The man was a brute. Huge.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Other than the internal damage? The marks on her neck. He had fingers like sausages.”

  Sonia showed her the last picture she had. Johan Krueger, the man who had tried to kill her while she lay unconscious. “Do you recognize him?”

  She pointed and her eyes watered.

  “Did he do this?” Sonia gestured to Kirsten’s neck.

  Kirsten grabbed the whiteboard and wrote frantically. Sonia wasn’t sure she translated it right, but said to Dean, “He didn’t try to kill her, but he did something else.” To Kirsten, “What did he do?”

  Kirsten was frustrated, erased her words and thought, then drew a crude picture of a bird.

  “A bird?”

  “Helicopter,” Dean said. “Ask her if she came to Sacramento in a helicopter or plane.”

  “Did this man fly you? Take you in a plane?” When Kirsten looked at her quizzically, Sonia said, “Did you fly in the air? Was this man a pilot? Or did he come with you?”

  She wrote in French: He drove plane in air. He did sex to me.

  “Did he hurt your neck?”

  No. Crazy man want to kill me.

  Dean said, “Sonia, the river victim.”

  “I can’t show her that picture.”

  “You have to. He’s connected to Jones as well. He’s big with large hands.”

  Sonia didn’t want to show Kirsten the dead man’s photo, but the girl was strong and wanted to help. Sonia said to Kirsten, “The next picture might upset you. The man is dead. He doesn’t look right, okay? I want to show it to you, but be strong.”

  Dean handed her the crime-scene photo.

  The recognition was instant. Her eyes widened and she nodded and pointed.

  “Kirsten, calm down,” Dr. Miller took her hand and petted it. “Shh, you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  Sonia reiterated what Miller said, then added, “He hurt you?”

  She wrote: He wanted to kill me while we do sex. I didn’t want to die. I hurt him, too.

  Sonia asked Dean, “Did the autopsy report any scratches or injuries to the victim?”

  “I haven’t seen the report. I’ll call.”

  He stepped from the room, and Dr. Miller said, “Your crime-scene gal, Ms. Charles, took a rape kit that included scrapings from under Kirsten’s fingernails.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Sonia said. “We might have something to compare it with.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes. He was found in the river yesterday.”

  “Apropos. I hope he suffered.”

  He didn’t suffer enough, but at least he can’t hurt anyone else.

  * * *

  Noel Marchand was not pleased with being interrupted while he meditated. He didn’t ask for much from his staff: competence, loyalty, and peace. He rarely got what he wanted.

  “What is it now?”

  Mr. Ling said, “Raul is on the phone. He is at the hospital and hasn’t seen Agent Knight. Wasn’t able to find the brother, either. I called and Riley Knight was released at one A.M.”

  Noel tensed. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Raul then checked the residences, and all are empty—no one home. He’s watching, but he’d like direction.”

  “The kid is first. He’s always been first. He needs to be dead. Where is the fucking kid?” Raul was his best sniper, had served him well over the years, and he’d called him in last night specifically to kill Sonia Knight. But the kid could identify him, and that would not do. Until Noel was safely back in Tres Palos, or the kid was dead, he couldn’t be certain the kid wasn’t a risk.

  Anyone who escaped was a potential danger to his organization. Look at that bitch Sonia Knight.

  “The kid is the priority. But he needs to be prepared to take care of Agent Knight on my command.”

  “Are you sure—”

  Noel looked at Mr. Ling. He didn’t have to say a word, but Ling understood.

  “Yes, Mr. Marchand. I’ll let Raul know.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dean wasn’t one hundred percent confident that letting Sonia interview Johan Krueger was the best use of their time. Krueger hadn’t talked to anyone but his attorney since he was arrested, not even a word to his cell mate. But Sonia was adamant that she must see him.

  “I can get him to talk,” she vowed. “He used a knife from Argentina, just like Vega’s killer. He brought Kirsten to Sacramento to be killed for the sick pleasure of that bastard in the morgue. I just wish he’d suffered a hell of a lot more.”

  Sonia was highly stressed. Dean suspected it had more to do with the photograph of her biological father and Kirsten’s comment about being a whore. Sonia was taking it personally. Sometimes, cops who put themselves in the victim’s shoes ended up turning the case for the good. Other times, it ate them alive.

  Dean didn’t want Sonia hurt anymore. While there was no doubt in his mind that she could handle anything life threw at her, he wanted to keep her safe. She was well-trained and sharp. Smart. But this case had gotten too personal for her to be wholly objective.

  Krueger was brought into the interview room of the county jail.

  He sat down and stared blankly at the wall behind Sonia.

  She introduced herself and said, “Mr. Krueger, the charges against you are serious, and I have additional charges that my office will be bringing.”

  No reaction.

  “The girl you tried to kill Wednesday night at Sutter Hospital? She’s awake. She’s talking. And she pointed a finger at you. You flew her to Sacramento. You raped her. And you handed her over to—” she slid a photo of the river victim in front of him, “this man who tried to kill her. Now, he’s dead.”

  Krueger couldn’t resist glancing down at the picture of Kirsten’s attacker. Surprise crossed his expression before he became stony again. Dean was surprised that after hours of interrogation and nothing, five minutes with Sonia had sparked a reaction.

  “I have your DNA. I have an eyewitness identification. I have you and I have your knife, and surprise surprise, your knife matches another knife used in another murder.”

  Nothing.

  “Who do you work for?”

  Nothing.

  “Where did the girl come from?”

  Nothing.

  “Who paid you to kill her? To bring her here?”

  Nothing, nothing. The man was a statue. Clearly frustrated, Sonia slammed her fist on the table.

  “I work for Immigration. You are a German national. You are going to pay for this, no matter what, no matter who you know, who you pay, who wants you alive …” she paused. “That’s it. You talk, you die.”

  A blink.

  “Oh. I get it. Great. You don’t want to talk to me? Fine. Don’t. You don’t have to say a fucking word.”

  She turned to Dean and he knew exactly what she had in mind.

  “Agent Hooper,” she said, “can you put a press conference together?”

  “Absolutely. When? Who do you want there?”

  “As soon as possible. In time for the noon newscast. Radio and television, might as well get print in as well. We have a witness.” She glanced at Krueger, then turned to Dean. “Do you think we can get witness protection?”

  “If he gives us information.”

  “Can you work on that? I want to prepare for the press conference announcing that we have a witness who is in protective custody. I don’t want to give away his identity …”

  “Why not simply say it’s the pilot of the helicopter who was the last to see the minor rape victim before she was attacked?”

  “Oh, that’s good! Thanks.”

  Krueger spoke with a growl, “You won’t say a word.”

  Sonia whirled on him. “Watch me.”

  She left the room.

  “Bitch,” Krueger said.

  Dean looked at him. “If you don’t think she’ll hold that press
conference, just wait.”

  “She doesn’t scare me.”

  “Who does?”

  “Someone who should scare you, Agent Hooper.”

  Dean left and heard Sonia telling the chief corrections officer to monitor the prisoner’s phone calls.

  “We aren’t allowed to eavesdrop without a warrant, and not if he’s talking to his attorney.”

  “But you can find out what phone number he dials, right?”

  “You’re certain he’s going to call someone?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I can get the number.”

  “Who’s his attorney?”

  The guard looked it up. “Bernard Cline.”

  “Cline? Is he a big defense lawyer or a public defender?”

  “Private. Never heard of him before, never seen him in the pen.”

  “Thanks.” She gave the guard her contact information. “Just let me know what number he calls and when.”

  They walked out into the bright mid-morning sun. Dean said, “You rattled him.”

  “Good. Sometimes you just have to shake a lot of trees before you spook a rat.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard that expression before.”

  “I just made it up.”

  Dean stopped walking, took Sonia’s arm, and pulled her to him. She was surprised, but then got a shy smile on her face and her incredible eyes stared at him seductively.

  “I’m really beginning to like you, Agent Knight.”

  She licked her lips. “I’m right there with you, Agent Hooper.”

  He kissed her. He couldn’t resist those lips. “Let’s solve this case fast so we can do something fun.”

  “Are FBI agents allowed to have fun?”

  “Twice a year. It’s in the manual.”

  “You’re on. What do you do for fun?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “You brought it up. I don’t think I know what ‘fun’ is. The last time I remember having fun was at Disneyland with my family when I was sixteen.”

  “That does sound like fun. So, how about Disneyland again?”

  Sonia laughed. Dean loved the sound coming from her. Sonia was passionate in everything—in her job, how she laughed, with her family, in his bed. Though technically they hadn’t made love in a bed. Yet.

  “Agent Hooper, you just solved the most complex case in human trafficking. Where do you want to go? Disneyland!” She giggled and kissed him. “You’re on.”