“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
She leaned closer and looked him in the eye. “Yes, I do, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
Brian debated what to tell her. Part of him wanted to tell her zip. But she was involved in the investigation now, and she at least deserved to know something.
“We’re looking at him for a long list of offenses—drugs, racketeering, murder,” he said. “He’s very dangerous, and so are the people working for him.”
“Who is he, some mob boss?”
“Dr. Goran Mladovic, also known as the Doctor.”
She looked startled. “He’s an M.D.?”
“Yeah, but don’t let that fool you. He’s lethal when he wants to be. When someone crosses him, he’s outright sadistic.”
The little worry line was back between her brows. “If you know all this about him, why don’t you arrest him?”
“What we know and what we can prove are two different things. It boils down to evidence. And we appreciate your help with that.”
“I hope it pans out.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and he saw a flicker of something in her eyes. An awareness.
“Listen, Maddie—”
Her phone chimed. She dug it out of her purse and read the screen. “Damn, I have to go.” She looked up at him. “Injury accident up on Route 12.”
Opportunity blown. She grabbed her bag, and Brian stood up as she scooted out of the booth.
“Let me know how it goes with the bank cams, okay? I’m very interested in Jolene Murphy’s investigation.” She pulled the scarf around her neck. “Even if you don’t find anything, I still want to know.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.” She pinned him with a look. “Don’t keep me out of the loop—I hate that.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “I’ll call you either way.”
Jolene had to pee. Again.
She lifted her head and took a longing look at the toilet four feet away.
She closed her eyes and bit down on the gag tied around her face. The bandanna was dry as sawdust, just like her mouth. She didn’t understand it. How could her body produce pee and tears and snot, when she’d never felt so dehydrated in her life?
Tears burned her eyes, and she squeezed them back. They didn’t help. They only made it worse. She looked down at what remained of her hand. It was purple and swollen, hardly recognizable as human, and she’d been trying not to stare at it. If she’d seen something like it on the Discovery Channel, she would have thought it was some kind of exotic coral.
A door slammed. Jolene’s heart jumped into her throat. She glanced at the crack beneath the door as the familiar male voice reached her. She listened, trying to tell if he was on the phone again, or if someone else was with him.
Please, no more. The tears were back, making hot tracks down her cheeks. She scooted farther under the sink and pulled herself into a ball. Her heart pounded wildly.
She listened.
He was on the phone, speaking Russian, or Serbian, or some other language she didn’t know. He sounded like Katya’s father did whenever he got really mad.
The door swung open. She blinked at the brightness. She glanced at his hand—no hammer. The relief was so strong she felt light-headed.
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. He crouched beside her, and she smelled the stink of onions on his breath. Her stomach growled, desperate for food, even something as repulsive as whatever he’d been eating.
Metal clinked as he unlocked the cuff attached to the drainpipe.
Where are we going? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t ask anything. She couldn’t say a word, and her desperate kicks and moans over the endless hours had gone unanswered.
He pushed a sweatshirt at her and hauled her to her feet. The hallway was bright and empty. She blinked at it and then turned to face him. Vlad. His name was Vlad. If she ever got this gag off, she was going to find a way to use his name and maybe make a connection. She was going to plead for her life.
She looked at the bandage on the bridge of his nose and the gray eyes, flat and cold.
“Go,” he grunted. He grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the light.
CHAPTER 4
By the time Maddie left the building, the sun had dipped below the trees and there was no way she was making it to a seven P.M. yoga class. She tossed the tail of her scarf over her shoulder and started down the stairs.
And spotted Brian getting out of his car. Her stomach fluttered as she watched him walk up the path with that confident gait that was undeniably appealing. She couldn’t help it. She found him attractive. There—she could admit it. Not that she’d ever admit it to him.
He stopped in front of her and smiled slightly. “Hey.”
“What brings you here?”
“Came to see if this place lives up to all that bragging you’ve been doing.” He glanced around. “You guys are really out in the boonies. Took me forty minutes to get here.”
“Yeah, well. Most people don’t want a body farm in their backyard.” Their gazes locked, and for a moment, they just looked at each other. “I feel a request coming. Let me guess. The bank cams were a dead end?”
“Any chance we can pull up those pictures again, see if we can get more on that license plate?”
“I did everything I could in the photo lab this morning. I wish I had more tricks up my sleeve, but . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the sixth floor, where all the windows glowed. “There might be something else we can try. No guarantees.”
“Lead the way.”
He fell in beside her as she hiked back up the stairs to the building’s front entrance.
“You always work this late?” he asked.
“Pretty standard.” She didn’t ask about his hours because she already knew.
“I want that plate,” he said. “I’ve had it stuck in my mind since you showed me that picture. The fact that you got it on film, but we can’t read it . . .” He shook his head. “Could trace back to a dummy address, but still.”
“No stone unturned. I get it.” And she respected it. Cops—even feds—didn’t make great money, considering the hours they put in. The ones Maddie knew did it because they were committed to the job.
She felt his gaze on her as she dug out her employee ID badge from her purse. She glanced up but couldn’t read the look on his face.
“What?”
“Thanks for doing this,” he said in a low voice.
“Of course.” She looked down. He was here for work, obviously. But sometimes when he looked at her, she suspected his thoughts weren’t work-related.
She swiped her way into the building. The receptionist had left for the night, so the security guard signed Brian in, looking first at his face and then at his ID, while Maddie subtly checked him out. He’d ditched his suit jacket, so now his FBI shield and holster were readily visible. He’d rolled up his sleeves, too, and she noticed his tan forearms. Even with the long hours, it looked as though he managed to spend some time outside.
The guard handed him a visitor’s pass, and Maddie led the way to the elevators.
“We’ll try Cyber Crimes.” She jabbed the call button. “They test-drive a lot of new software, so they might have access to something I don’t.” They stepped into the elevator, and the doors whisked shut. An uncomfortable silence ensued. She looked over at him.
“Which floor?”
“Oh.” She reached for the button. “Sorry.”
Her cheeks flushed as they rode up. It wasn’t that he made her nervous, because he didn’t. But he had a definite . . . presence. Part of it was his sheer size. He was so tall and broad-shouldered, with that military-straight posture. Part of it was those intense hazel eyes. She snuck a glance at him beside her. He was very nice to look at. But he was also young, possibly even younger than Roland.
“Cyber Crimes is on our top floor, right by DNA,” she said. “They work on identity theft, credit-card fraud, chi
ld predators, pretty much anything related to the Internet. Recently they’ve been getting into online criminal profiling.”
Okay, now she was babbling. But he politely pretended not to notice as they stepped off the elevator and she led him down the corridor to the glass door marked CYBER CRIMES UNIT. He pulled it open, and she spotted Ben Lawson sitting at his computer. He looked up as they walked in.
“Good, we caught you,” Maddie said.
She made quick introductions as Ben stood. It was a clear case of alpha and beta. Besides their height, Brian seemed to have little in common with Delphi’s top cyber-sleuth, who sported shaggy hair, a goatee, and a faded Billabong T-shirt.
“What can I do for you?” Ben looked at Maddie.
“We’re here about a photograph—and you know what? I need to run down and get you a disc.”
“Don’t bother.” He dropped into a chair and swiveled to face his computer. “I’ve got access to your desktop.”
“You do?”
“What’s your password?”
She peered over his shoulder at the screen. She had no doubt Ben could get past her ridiculously easy password, but she nudged him aside and keyed it in herself.
He grinned. “Your dog? Come on, Mad. I would have expected a little more.”
“It’s my cat. From seventh grade. How would anyone figure that out?” She reached across him and used the mouse to click open the file. “It’s this one.”
“We’re trying to get a read on that license plate,” Brian said, easing closer to Maddie so he could get a better look. “Any way to enhance it?”
Ben sat back and stared at the photo for a moment. Then switched into a new screen and opened a software program Maddie had never heard of.
“FillFlash?” she asked.
“It’s something we’re testing out. It’s got some bugs, but it does a pretty good job lightening up an image.”
With a few clicks, the shadowy license plate became brighter. But the digits were still fuzzy. Ben cropped the image, creating a close-up of only the plate. Then he pulled down a new menu and used a few more clicks to sharpen the picture.
Brian whistled.
“Wow,” Maddie said. “I should have come to you first.”
Ben smiled smugly, and Brian took his phone out.
“Who are you calling?” Maddie asked.
“Sam. I need him to—” He stopped talking as Ben navigated into a new program and entered the license plate into a database. Within seconds, he pulled up a name, address, and driver’s license photo.
Maddie’s shoulders tensed as she stared at the face on the screen.
“Vladimir Volansky,” Ben said. “Now, there’s a name you don’t hear every day.”
“That’s him,” Maddie said. “That’s the guy who attacked me.”
Brian gave her a sharp look. “I thought he had a ski mask on.”
“I recognize those eyes.”
Brian seemed skeptical, and Maddie looked at the picture again. Bile welled up in her throat as she studied those icy gray eyes. It was him—she felt sure of it—and she couldn’t believe he lived in San Marcos. Actually, she could, because that’s where the crime had happened, but the prospect of her attacker living so close made her queasy.
“Could be a fake address,” Brian said.
“We can check that out, too.”
Ben pulled up a search engine and copy-and-pasted the address. Moments later, they were staring at a street-level view of an apartment complex.
“Looks real to me,” Ben said.
Maddie’s pulse picked up as she turned to Brian. “Do you think she’s there?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Brian didn’t talk as they drove through San Marcos, and Maddie suspected he regretted bringing her along.
“I can help you ID him,” she said, breaking the silence. “And I’ll stay out of the way.”
He glanced at her, clearly unhappy. He hadn’t wanted her to come, but Sam had insisted that it would be good to have an eyewitness along in case the apartment was occupied by more than one person.
“And it never hurts to have a photographer on hand,” she said. “I brought my camera.”
“You won’t need it, because you’re staying in the car.”
His phone buzzed, and he grabbed it from the cupholder. “Beckman.” He glanced at Maddie. “No . . . Yeah . . . Okay, got it.”
He veered into the left-hand lane and turned at the next intersection.
“Change of plan. Sam’s rounding up SWAT.”
“He’s bringing a SWAT team?”
“This guy’s got some weapons charges under his belt,” he said. “Plus a possible hostage. We’d rather be safe than sorry.”
He swung into a gas station.
“What are we doing here?”
“This is the meet point,” he informed her. “The target lives around the block.”
“Do I have time to get some water? There’s no line at the counter. It should just take a sec.”
“Sure.”
“You want anything?”
“I’m good.”
She dashed into the store and bought two bottles of water and a pair of Snickers bars. When she slid back into the car, Brian was on the phone.
“—and then let me know.” He looked at her. “Okay, see you in a few.”
He clicked off, and Maddie could tell he was in a better mood.
“He managed to scrounge up two teams. They’re fifteen minutes out. He’s also bringing one of our female agents in case we have a traumatized victim on the scene.”
Maddie interpreted that to mean the female agent was a rape counselor.
“She can hang out with you while the guys hit the door.”
“Make sure I don’t get in the way?”
He didn’t answer but gazed out the window at the passing cars. Maddie didn’t see a gray sedan, and she’d been on the lookout the entire way over.
“How’s the bruise?”
She glanced at him and rubbed her jaw. “A little sore.”
“Still looks swollen.”
Maddie didn’t want to talk about her injury. She offered him a candy bar, but he shook his head. She twisted the cap off her water.
“I’m glad Ben was around to help us with this address,” she said.
“There’s a good chance it’s phony.”
She looked at him and noticed the tight set of his mouth. “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”
“That’s the most likely scenario.”
Maddie glanced out the window and felt a pang of sympathy for Jolene’s parents.
“I’ll tell you one thing. This guy’s going down.”
She glanced over, and Brian had a fierce look about him she’d never seen before. “You sound like you’re on a mission.”
He didn’t say anything. Maddie waited.
“Whatever happened, it’s on me. I was her contact. Me and Sam.”
“You recruited her to be a witness?”
“She came to us, said she had information.” He rested his hand on the wheel and stared straight ahead. “You know, I should’ve seen it. When we met with her, she was nervous—sweaty palms, shaking hands, the whole thing. I figured she was on something.”
“So you’d already interviewed her?” She shifted in her seat to face him.
“She said she knew Mladovic, that she had information about illegal business activities. We established that she was legit, but then she clammed up, said she didn’t know whether she could go through with it. She told us she wanted a few days to think.”
A carload of teenagers pulled up to the gas pump behind them. Maddie watched them pile out and tromp into the store.
“We got tunnel vision,” Brian said. “We were so caught up with how she could help us, we weren’t focused on protecting her.”
“They might have gotten to her anyway, you know.”
But she could tell by the grim look on his face that what she said didn’t ma
tter. He felt responsible for Jolene’s fate.
He turned to look at her. She wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind, so she just sat there, holding his gaze.
He shoved open the door and got out. She felt the trunk pop open. After a few moments, he slammed it shut and slid back behind the wheel.
“Put this on. That sweater’s distracting.” He handed her a navy-blue Windbreaker with FBI printed on the back.
“Distracting?”
“I don’t want him to notice you.”
“How’s he going to notice me? I’m going to be in the car, like you said.”
“Yeah, well, I get the sense you don’t always follow directions.”
She wanted to argue, but that would only prove his point. She unwound the scarf from her neck and shrugged into the jacket. He reached into the backseat and dropped an FBI baseball cap in her lap. She shot him a peevish look.
“You should conceal your face.”
She nestled it on her head and pulled her ponytail through the back. “I look ridiculous.”
“You look hot.”
“Uh, no, I look like some kind of FBI groupie.”
The corner of his mouth curved up, and she turned to gaze out the window. You look hot. Where the hell had that come from? Her heart started to thud as she felt him watching her.
His phone beeped, and she was relieved for a change of subject as he read the screen.
“Text from Sam. First van’s ten minutes out. Second one’s not far behind.”
She downed some more water as he put the phone away.
“So.” She cleared her throat. “Tell me about Sam.”
He looked startled. “What about him?”
“How long have you been working together?”
“Two years.”
“Is he married?”
“Divorced.”
“Hmm. And he’s from where, Baltimore?”
His gaze narrowed. “How’d you know that?”
“My grandmother lived there. I remember the accent.”
He watched her, and she could tell she’d thrown him for a loop by asking about his partner. If he had any ideas about hitting on her, she wanted to nip them in the bud and save them both the embarrassment.
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