The Secret She Kept (Blake Wilder FBI Mystery Thriller Book 5)

by Elle Gray

  “The preponderance of evidence we have will guarantee that a jury—”

  “Oh, this will never go to a jury, SSA Wilder. That much, I promise you.”

  I can feel the unease wafting off Astra like waves of heat from the sun. I can’t help but feel that we just walked into a trap. Tinsley has been baiting us this whole time, and now that we’re in the cage, he’s ready to spring it on us. As if he’s reading my mind, he gives me a knowing smile.

  I gather myself quickly and steel my nerves. We have Petrosyan. I don’t know what slick legal maneuver Tinsley is trying to pull, but the evidence is on our side. Granted, much of it is circumstantial, but a jury will be able to see through that. We have him cold.

  “And why do you think this won’t get to a jury?” I ask.

  “Because Mr. Petrosyan will never be charged with anything. And this case—if that’s what you wish to call it—will never see the inside of a courtroom,” he says.

  “Enlighten me, Counselor. What is it you think you have that can help your client wriggle out of a murder charge?”

  “A confession,” he says. “From Azad Mushyan.”

  I feel my entire body tense up and my jaw clench tight. I stare at Petrosyan and watch the grin spreading across his face as my hands ball into fists. This can’t be happening. We have him dead to rights. There is no way he can get out of this. I open my mouth to speak but find that I can’t form a coherent word.

  The case we’ve worked so hard to build is crashing down around us in flames. This man, who I know beyond the shadow of a doubt either killed or at least participated in the killing of Ben Davis, is going to walk out of here a free man. My stomach churns and I can taste the bile in the back of my throat. Petrosyan remains silent and just stares at me with a glint in his eye that tells me he’s enjoying this. He’s amused by watching this house of cards come tumbling down around me.

  “And who is Azad Mushyan?” Astra asks.

  “He has served as Mr. Petrosyan’s personal bodyguard for the last fifteen years,” Tinsley says as he pulls a sheet of paper out of the file in front of him.

  He slides the paper over to Astra and she picks it up. She makes a snort of disgust as she reads it, then hands it over to me. I read the words. Then read them again. And a third time. And as I read them again, I feel the disgust in me welling up, blending with the pure, unabashed hatred I feel for the man sitting across from me.

  “So, you convinced one of your men to take the bullet for you,” I growl.

  “No. Mr. Mushyan freely admits that he acted alone and without direction from anybody,” Tinsley replies and taps the page in my hand. “You can see that he admits to having been in love with Chloe. When he learned of her plans to run away with Ben, he just lost it. Snapped. He admits to killing him and disposing of his body the way you so eloquently described earlier. What was it? Oh, that’s right. A human jigsaw puzzle.”

  “This is absolute crap. Garbage,” I snap, crumpling the paper into a ball and throwing it across the room. “That confession, if you want to call it that, is a work of pure fiction.”

  “Don’t worry, I have copies. I’ll make sure you get another one,” Tinsley says. “And you can see for yourself that the document is signed, witnessed, and properly notarized. It’s all very legal and binding, I assure you.”

  “This is garbage,” I growl.

  Tinsley shrugs. “Love makes men do some very crazy and sometimes distasteful things,” he says. “Would you agree, SSA Wilder?”

  “Nobody was more shocked than I was when Azad confessed to such a barbaric crime,” Petrosyan adds. “I did not think him capable of such violence. I suppose that old saying is true—you just never truly know somebody, eh?”

  “We will coordinate with the King County DA to arrange for Mr. Mushyan to surrender himself,” Tinsley says. “Which I suppose ends our business here.”

  Tinsley and Petrosyan get to their feet and start for the door. The rage in me boils over and I launch myself at him. I hear Astra calling my name as I pin Petrosyan to the wall with my forearm. I lean so close to him, the tips of our noses are touching. He stares back at me, and although his face is darkening as I squeeze the air from him, he smiles at me.

  “You may get away with this, but your luck is going to run out. And when it does, I’m going to be there,” I spit. “I’m going to make it my life’s mission to bring you down, you piece of filth. I’m going to bring your whole world crashing down on you. I swear it.”

  Astra finally manages to pull me off and Petrosyan stares at me, rubbing his throat and gasping as he tries to catch his wind again. Tinsley looks at me, his expression moving from one of shock at my savagery to one of amusement.

  “We will give you that one, SSA Wilder,” Tinsley says. “But rest assured, if you ever lay hands on my client again, there will be a reckoning. I will file enough charges that the Bureau will fire you just to be rid of the paperwork.”

  My eyes are still fixed on Petrosyan, though. “I’m going to get you. I’m going to bring you down if it’s the last thing I do. Your days are numbered, you piece of garbage.”

  “Yeah. Good luck with that,” he says.

  I watch them walk out and close the door behind them. My rage swirls around me unabated, and with no other outlet, I grab one of the chairs and hurl it at the door. It hits with a thunderous crash and bounces off, hitting the floor with a sharp metallic twang. I take a moment and try to gather myself.

  Astra stands to the side, watching me in surprise. “I get it, babe,” she says. “But you have to control yourself. The only way to get that prick—and we will get him—is if we’re calm, focused, and determined. We can’t go off half-cocked like that or it could cost us our creds. And if that happens, he will win.”

  “I know. I know,” I say. “I know you’re right. I’m sorry. I just—I lost it.”

  “You think?” she asks. “But I’ve never seen you like this before. What is it?”

  “Chloe,” I sigh. “I promised her things would get better and that she would be in control of her life. But that was when I was certain we had him. What’s going to happen to her now that she has to go home with him? I’m terrified for her, Astra.”

  She steps forward and pulls me into a tight embrace, and I let myself melt into her. And as she holds me, my worry for Chloe overwhelms me. I find myself sobbing.

  Thirty-Seven

  Wilder Residence; The Emerald Pines Luxury Apartments, Downtown Seattle

  Following the debacle with Petrosyan, Rosie suggested I take a couple of weeks off. Well, suggested isn’t the right word for it—unofficially ordered is probably more accurate. She told me I needed to get my head on straight, as I’d never before put my hands on a suspect like that, and she was worried about me. I can’t say I blame her for benching me. I deserved it. I’ve never lost my cool like that, and for the first time in my professional life, I voluntarily took some time off. I do need to clear my head.

  I realize that I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now. On top of the normal stresses of the job, I’ve taken on the added burden of worrying about Chloe, not to mention the fact that I have the ever-present threat of being murdered myself by the Thirteen—who have already possibly sent someone to my home. All of that has coalesced into one frightening ball of fear and anger in my head. With all of that churning inside me, it’s no wonder I snapped likethe way I did.

  But it’s also the fact that I know Petrosyan killed Ben. Or he at least participated in the killing. I don’t think it was a simple as his ordering the hit. He was there. He watched as Ben’s body was taken apart piece by piece. And the fact that monsters like that don’t just exist in the world but are walking among us because they can pay their men to take the fall for them burns my ass. It enrages me. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

  As gratifying as I sometimes think it would be to go rogue and carry out vigilante justice sometimes—and I have been sorely tempted to hunt Petrosyan down and put two in the back
of his head—I know that would be a betrayal of who I am.

  I took this job to hunt killers. Not become one. Which means I need to make peace with losing sometimes. Once in awhile, the bad guy is going to win. My only choice is to do my job to the best of my ability. All I can do is put together a case I think will win the day and bring justice for the victim, but there are a lot of things that are out of my control. It’s hard to deal with, but I need to learn to do just that.

  I’ve tried contacting Chloe a few times since that day and haven’t heard from her. She’s not enrolled at Oakmont and she doesn’t return texts. It makes me fear what’s happening to her. I worry about what she’s doing. How she’s feeling. And maybe more than anything, what’s being done to her. I have no doubt that her father is trying to turn her into the monster he is, and all I can do is hope it doesn’t take. I hope she has the strength to fight it and find a way out. She deserves a life well-lived, not a life of fear.

  But none of that is anything I can control. All I can control is what I do. So to that end, I’ve spent my time switching my obsession from Chloe and her father to trying to unravel this conspiracy. The Thirteen. It’s probably just as unhealthy for me to fixate on this as it was to fixate on Chloe, but at least with this obsession I actually do have some modicum of control. I can say how far is far enough.

  I stare at the pictures of the replacement Justices I’ve pinned at on the wall in front of me, beneath photos of the dead ones. I’ve spent a good portion of my time off so far reviewing three years’ worth of SCOTUS decisions and the rulings made by each of the new Justices. I haven’t found anything overtly nefarious, but what I have found is that in each case the Justices have ruled, those decisions have benefitted the moneyed class.

  There have been other cases, of course. But the cases that involve corporations and financial matters stand out to me simply because of something Gina Aoki said to me. She said the Thirteen were all about power and money. That the accumulation of wealth and consolidating their own power were the purposes behind the Thirteen. She said they aren’t religious or political ideologues. She said the only thing driving the group is sheer greed.

  If that’s true, it certainly wouldn’t be the most original reason for conspiracy and murder. Granted, murdering a Supreme Court Justice is a new wrinkle on that old story, but it’s a motive I can understand, at least. It’s one I’ve seen more times than I can count. The trouble is, I need more information. I need proof. And I need names. And to get those things, I’m going to need Mo’s help. She’s a wizard when it comes to spotting patterns in finances. If anybody can find out what’s really going on behind the scenes, it’s going to be her. She’ll be able to tell me if this is all smoke or if there’s fire there as well.

  I worry about asking her, only because I fear that pulling her into this is going to put a target on her back as well. By having her help me, she’ll be facing the same dangers I am. And I don’t know if I can ask that of her. But to figure this out, I’m going to need somebody with her skills and somebody I can trust. And at the moment, aside from my team, I don’t know that there’s anybody around I can completely trust.

  My doorbell rings, pulling me out of my head and back to the present. I give myself a shake and walk out of the war room, closing the door behind me, then locking it. On my way out to the living room, I feel the adrenaline flowing through my veins like liquid fire. I’m not expecting anybody today. I told Mark I need some time to myself, and I’m pretty sure Astra would have texted me before just stopping by.

  I grab my weapon and slip it out of the holster, then quietly approach the door and look at the display screen. I’ve had one of those doorbell camera units installed just for my own peace of mind. But when I see who’s standing at my door, I freeze. I watch as he reaches out and pushes the bell again, then turns to the camera and waves. My fear ebbs and I let out a breath of relief as I unlock the door and hide my weapon behind my back as I open it.

  “Fish,” I say. “What are you doing here? And in an avocado green lamé suit, no less.”

  “Good afternoon to you, too, Agent Wilder,” he says. “And I’ll have you know this suit is at the pinnacle of fashion today.”

  He holds his jacket open and turns in a circle, the light from the windows at either end of the corridor sparkling off his suit. All I can do is smile at him and shake my head.

  “Well, I’ll say that nobody can get away with that suit but you,” I tell him. “It looks strangely good on you.”

  “I shall take that as a compliment, then.”

  “By all means,” I say.

  “May I come in for a moment?” he asks. “There is something important I want to speak with you about. Something you need to see.”

  “Of course.”

  I step aside and let him in. He notices the weapon I’ve kept hidden behind my back and raises an eyebrow. I shrug.

  “I wasn’t expecting visitors today,” I say.

  “Believe me when I say I understand that completely. I have been there myself.”

  He walks into my apartment and looks around as I tuck my weapon back into its holster and set it back down. Fish pauses in the middle of the living room, a frown on his lips as he continues to look around.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “You need color in here, Agent Wilder. It’s very cold and sterile,” he says. “A little color will not only liven your home up, but it will also have a positive psychological impact on you. Trust me on this. Color, Agent Wilder. Color.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell him. “Can I ask you something, Fish?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did you know where I live?”

  He chuckles. “Really?” he asks. “Do you think there is a scrap of information out there I cannot get my hands on if I wish to have it?”

  “No, I suppose not. Silly question.”

  “I heard about what happened with the Armenian.”

  “Yeah. Total crapshow,” I grumble. “I should have seen it coming.”

  “I did try to warn you that he is a slippery one.”

  “Is that why you stopped by? To say I told you so?”

  “Of course not. I would never be so gauche as to say something so petty and juvenile.”

  Aside from the fact that he already said it in a backhanded sort of way, I could believe him. Fish is a lot of things, but petty isn’t one of them.

  “No, I actually stopped by to hopefully put your mind at ease,” he says.

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and opens it up. “Well, you had me looking into the Armenians to see what I could find.”

  “Right. I remember asking.”

  He holds the phone out to me, and I take it, looking down at a black screen.

  “Just hit play,” he instructs.

  I do as he says and watch as the video starts to play. The footage is dim and grainy, but I can clearly see Ben Davis standing next to his car. It looks as if he’s about to unlock it when he stops and turns, as if somebody had called him. My head snaps up and I look at Fish.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “Just keep watching, please.”

  I lower my gaze and watch as a man enters the screen. He’s tall and burly with a dark beard. He makes no effort to hide himself as he approaches Ben, and I recognize him instantly.

  “Azad Mushyan,” I say.

  On the screen, Mushyan raises his arm, and I can clearly see the weapon he’s holding. I see the flash of the muzzle and watch as Ben’s head snaps backward, a jet of dark liquid spraying out onto the car behind him. Ben’s body slumps to the ground and doesn’t move. After that, Mushyan throws Ben into the back seat of his car. He then gets in and drives off. Just like that.

  “Why are you showing me this?” I ask softly.

  “I wanted you to know that you were not duped. That you were not played or did not do your job somehow. Knowing you as I do, I am fairly cert
ain you have spent ample time beating yourself up because Petrosyan wriggled off your hook,” he says. “I wanted you to see this so you know that he is—technically—innocent of killing Ben Davis. He is definitely guilty of a host of other things, but in this particular instance, he did not do the crime.”

  I replay the video and watch again, disbelief washing through me. “That’s fine. Even if Petrosyan didn’t pull the trigger, I’m sure he ordered Ben’s death.”

  Fish shrugs. “That’s entirely possible. But it also may have happened just as they said—Azad, in a fit of jealousy, killed Ben so that Chloe would not leave.”

  I hand the phone back to him. “Should I ask where you got this video?”

  He waves me off. “Oh, a friend of a friend.”

  “Of course. Can you send me this?”

  “Yes, I will. But I wanted to come by and show you this today so you could stop with the self-flagellation I know you’ve been engaged in,” he says.

  “What, do you have cameras in my house?” I say.

  “One does not need cameras to recognize a person who cares so much, it is often to her own detriment,” he offers. “And it does not take a psychic or a voyeur to know that when that sort of person perceives she failed at something, she does terrible things to herself when she believes nobody is looking.”

  “I think you’re too observant for my own good, Fish.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m quite fond of you, Agent Wilder. And I do not like to see you torment yourself. You did not fail. You did everything right.”

  “Then how did I let myself get outmaneuvered?”

  “Because people like Petrosyan have spent their lives learning how to do evil and to get away with it. They are professional criminals and know how to navigate the difficult waters in a way that ensures their freedom,” he says. “Anyway, I must be off. Think on what I said, though. You know my advice is always sound.”

  I chuckle. “Thank you, Fish. I appreciate your trying to cheer me up.”