Exposed

by Laura Griffin

  “Matte finish. Snakeskin metal slide. Paperwork was fudged, so a cop I know seized the weapon. Shop owner’ll cooperate if we lean on him some.” Black leveled a look at Brian. “Fired a few test rounds. Casings match the one from the movie theater last week.”

  Sam looked at Black. “You’re telling me someone offloaded this gun after shooting it at an FBI agent? What’s this guy, brain-dead?”

  “Greedy. Seller probably got at least a grand for it. Pawn shop owner was asking three times that.”

  “Who’s the seller?” Brian asked.

  “Luis Gutierrez. Minor-league gangster who thinks he’s a gun expert.” Black looked from Brian to Sam. “I have reason to believe the weapon was once in possession of someone you’re investigating. Anatoli Petrovik’s prints were on it.”

  Sam didn’t even bother to conceal his amazement now. “Anatoli sold it without wiping it down?”

  “Outside of the piece was clean as a whistle. Not even Gutierrez’s prints. These were inside,” Black said. “You know how it is—guys sitting around, shooting the shit, cleaning their weapons. Their prints are on everything, but later they forget and only wipe down the parts they touched recently, like the grip and the trigger. Shop owner ID’d Gutierrez in a photo array, said he was the seller but gave a different name. Because of his record, looks like Gutierrez used a phony ID when he made the sale.”

  Brian stared at him, trying to get his head around this stroke of luck. The fingerprints could mean a warrant and an arrest that could shift the tide of the entire investigation.

  Black reached into his back pocket and pulled out some folded paperwork. “Here’s a copy of the report.”

  “This tipster of yours,” Sam said. “Who is it, some crackhead?”

  Black smiled. “Not exactly.”

  “We’re going to need names, numbers, everything you got.” Sam slapped Brian on the back. “You believe this? We’re finally going to arrest one of these assholes.”

  “There’s more,” Black said. “Anatoli isn’t the only person who handled that gun.”

  Brian looked up from the paperwork.

  “I lifted a stray thumbprint. Just one, but it’s good and clean, so I ran it. Comes back to a Dr. Goran Mladovic.”

  Special Agent Chris Hicks sped through the hills, content to let Maddie sit quietly as he chauffeured her to the Delphi Center. She was glad for the silence. Since Brian had walked out her door, all she’d been able to think about were his parting words.

  You’re a coward.

  The accusation stung. She felt hurt. And angry. But she also felt panicked, because he knew her secret. He knew her.

  Despite everything people had been telling her for years, Brian somehow could see that she wasn’t brave, or resilient, or strong enough to carry any burden God placed on her shoulders. She wasn’t any of those things people said about her. In reality, she was weak and scared, and Brian was the first to have the courage to come out and say it.

  For five years, she’d held her grief in a white-knuckled grip, as if clinging to it would somehow bring Emma back. She couldn’t loosen her hold. And if she was honest, she didn’t want to loosen it. She didn’t want to let go of the one thing she’d been clinging to like a lifeline, because it would be like letting Emma go, too. The grief was agonizing, but it was also familiar, and she couldn’t imagine living without it. She didn’t want to.

  So Brian was right. She was a coward. And it unnerved her to think of what else he might be right about.

  Her heart ached as she thought of the look on his face, the vulnerability she’d seen in his eyes when he’d said he was crazy about her. She felt a fresh surge of fear, because those words had been a trap. He knew she couldn’t continue to see him and keep it only about sex. He knew perfectly well that the more time he spent with her, the more he’d wear her down, until her defenses were gone and she was trapped in an impossible relationship.

  It struck her once again how different he was from Mitch. She remembered what he’d said about infidelity. And the crazy thing was, she believed him. He was strong and committed and loyal. He was probably good at long-term relationships, and he deserved to have one with someone who had everything in life ahead of her.

  “Ma’am?”

  Her bodyguard du jour was looking at her.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Why?”

  “You just seem . . .” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know, upset about something.”

  She watched as he trained his gaze on the road, obviously regretting that he’d said something personal. She surveyed his close-cropped hair, his clean-shaven face, the FBI golf shirt and khakis that evidently passed for weekend attire at the Bureau.

  “Let me ask you something, Chris, how old are you?”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “Why?”

  “I’m just wondering.”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  She burst out laughing. “You’re joking.”

  “I’ll be thirty next month.”

  He was actually older than Brian. Maddie turned and watched the hills race by in a blur.

  “Why?” he said again. “What does it matter?”

  She looked at him and didn’t have an answer. She had no idea. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe none of her reservations mattered. Maybe she was just throwing roadblocks out there because she was scared of what she felt.

  I’m crazy about you.

  He’d actually said those words, just minutes ago. Why didn’t she believe him? Why didn’t she just trust that he was being honest, that he meant it?

  Maybe she did.

  Maybe that was what scared her. She knew he was sincere, and she was terrified she’d screw it up. She actually had fun with him. She smiled with him. She felt passionate with him. It had been so long since she’d felt any of those things, she didn’t believe that it was real. And even if it was real, she didn’t believe she deserved it.

  What if she let go of all that and simply trusted him not to break her heart?

  Maddie’s phone chimed inside her purse. She dug it out, and the screen showed a Delphi Center number.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Ben said. “Where are you?”

  “Almost there. Why?”

  “I need to tell you something important. You should probably pull over.”

  Dread filled her stomach. “I’m not the one driving. Why? What’s happening?”

  “I was here all night,” Ben said. “I got hold of my friend in Germany, and working together, we managed to get that picture cleaned up. We got it sharp. Lightened. It’s a good image, Maddie.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then I used your idea and uploaded the photo to the Facebook account of Mladovic’s wife.”

  She held her breath.

  “No tags popped up. But then I got to thinking, since Craig Rodgers was the one who summoned you out to that crime scene—”

  “Someone using his phone summoned me.”

  “Right, whatever. I loaded the photo into his account, thinking maybe he’s the key.”

  “And?”

  “A tag popped up right away. Jack Bracewell.”

  Her blood ran cold. “Sheriff Bracewell?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re saying Bracewell helped kidnap Jolene? That he works for Mladovic?” Maddie cringed at her own words—they sounded obscene.

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m telling you he’s the man in this photograph. Now that I have the name, I’ve run this image against the photo on file with the DMV, and the software likes him for a match. Jack Bracewell is the man in that car. I’ve also got about half a dozen candids of him on Craig’s page. Looks like they like to go deer hunting together.”

  “Where?”

  “What?”

  “Where do they go hunting together?” Maddie’s pulse quickened as an idea took shape. “I know Bracewell has a lease someplace, that he goes on trips a lot.”

  “No i
dea,” Ben said. “You can’t tell from the shots. It’s just a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and showing off guns. Looks like some campers and pickups, but I don’t see any landmarks.”

  “Check the metadata. If those pictures were taken with a cell-phone cam, it’s probably embedded.”

  Silence as Ben carried out her request. Maddie held her breath. Her heart felt as if it would beat out of her chest as she thought about what this could mean.

  Bracewell. The last time she’d seen him had been at the Delphi Center, in Kelsey’s autopsy suite.

  She suddenly felt sick. She gripped the dashboard. God, she’d tipped him off. She’d told him about taking pictures of the unidentified men casing the bank. He knew if she managed to enhance the photos, she’d recognize him.

  She’d handed him a motive to kill her.

  “I’ll be damned,” Ben muttered.

  “What? What is it?”

  “You were right. Location’s embedded right in the tag. Maddie, this place isn’t far from here at all. You want the GPS coordinates?”

  “Send them over.”

  Sam and Brian sped across town to the home of the judge who they desperately hoped was going to sign off on their warrant.

  “Any chance he won’t go for it?”

  Sam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I think our chances are good.”

  “He tossed the last one.” Actually, the judge had balked at it.

  “Our probable cause was weak. This guy likes physical evidence. He’ll like these fingerprints.”

  Brian’s shoulders tensed as he thought about everything they had riding on this warrant. He just hoped they could nail it before anything else happened to any of their witnesses. Namely, Maddie. His phone buzzed, and he yanked it from his pocket. LAPD. Had to be bad news.

  “It’s Vega,” he told Sam, and answered.

  “I thought you’d want to know,” the detective said, “we’ve located that woman you were looking for, Nicole Sands.”

  “Where is she?” And is she alive or dead?

  “She’s in lockup. Vice squad picked her up this morning in North Hollywood.”

  Brian looked at Sam. “You arrested her for drugs?”

  “Prostitution. Thought you’d be interested, in case your task force still needs to interview her.”

  “We do.” And if they hadn’t been in the process of getting a warrant for Goran Mladovic at that very moment, Brian and Sam would have been on the next plane. As it was, they were going to have to wait until tomorrow.

  “How long can you hold her?” Brian asked.

  “Not long. We’re full up right now. This is her first prostitution charge, and she’ll probably be out with a slap on the wrist.”

  “How long?” Sam asked.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Brian told him. “Maybe we can get LeBlanc out there.”

  “Not a bad idea. She’ll probably have better luck talking to her than we would, anyway. We should run it by Cabrera.”

  “Listen, we need to send an agent out to interview her,” Brian told the LA detective. “What’s her mental state look like? Can you tell if she’s using?”

  “If she’s not, she’s the only one in that jail who isn’t. But like I said, no priors on the prostitution. Judge is going to kick her loose. How soon can you get an agent over here? Want me to call the LA field office?”

  Brian’s phone beeped with an incoming call, but he ignored it.

  “Tell them to rebook her,” Sam was saying. “We don’t want her name on any of the paperwork.”

  “No, we need someone from the task force,” Brian told Vega. “We’ll get someone on a plane, hopefully by this afternoon. In the meantime, we need you to book her as a Jane Doe.”

  Silence on the other end as Vega probably contemplated the crapload of red tape this would entail.

  “She’s already booked.”

  “I know, but we can’t let her identity slip out.” Brian pictured the smiling teen standing with her friends on the beach. Every other girl in that photo was either dead or missing. “The witnesses in this case are being targeted. We believe the hit on Gillian Dawson was meant for her, and we can’t take any more risks. We’re going to need you to rebook her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No one can know she’s in custody,” Brian said. “Not even her family.”

  “I haven’t told anyone besides you and the sheriff.”

  “What sheriff?”

  “One who’s been calling here. Bracewell.”

  “Jack Bracewell’s been calling you?”

  “He’s been hounding me all week for updates. He said he’s on your task force.”

  “He’s not.” The world seemed to shift as Brian put the pieces together. Why hadn’t he seen it? “Listen, did you tell him about the case? Did you tell him you have Nicole Sands?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “That lying son of a bitch,” Sam muttered, obviously coming to the same conclusion as Brian.

  Bracewell was the missing link they’d been looking for all these months. He’d helped Mladovic stay one step ahead of law enforcement. He’d looked the other way on a pill mill in his county. He’d been in that car, staking out the bank when Maddie snapped her photos.

  Shit. The last time he’d seen Bracewell was at the Delphi Center. Brian hung up on Vega and started dialing Maddie.

  “Turn around,” he told Sam.

  “What?”

  “You’re on your own with this warrant. I need to get to Maddie’s.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Maddie answered her phone on the first ring. “Where’d you go? I’ve been trying to call.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the car.”

  “Where’s Hicks?”

  Something was wrong. She could hear it in his voice.

  “He’s right here,” she said. “Listen, we—”

  “Go home. Turn around right now, and go back to your house. I’m about to send another team over there to beef up security.”

  “Brian—”

  “Just do it, all right? Something’s come up.”

  “Brian, would you listen? Something’s come up here, too. I figured out the other person in that picture. It’s Sheriff Bracewell.”

  Pause. “How did you know that?”

  “My friend Ben at the Delphi Center—”

  “I thought you were in the car.”

  “I am. I got a phone call about it. Listen, we figured out that Bracewell’s working with Mladovic. And I think I know where they’re keeping Jolene.”

  “You have proof she’s alive?”

  “You have proof she’s not?”

  No response. She could almost picture him racing across town in his Taurus, about to blow a gasket.

  “Maddie, listen to me. Nicole Sands is alive, and Bracewell knows about it. That means they don’t need Jolene anymore to reveal her location. They’re going to kill her if they haven’t already, do you understand?”

  Maddie’s skin felt cold as the words sank in. She glanced out the window as the hilly landscape rushed past.

  “Maddie, are you listening? I need you to go home. I need you to stay out of this.”

  “Hicks was ordered to do some surveillance of the property. There’s a team on the way.”

  “Goddamn it, would you listen? Stay away from Bracewell. Stay away from his property. Let the team handle this.”

  “That’s the plan. But Hicks is the closest agent, and they want him to gather some intel, report in, and await backup.”

  “Hicks is your security detail! No fucking way. Tell him—”

  She didn’t hear the rest, because she handed the phone to Hicks. “He wants to talk to you.”

  The agent listened for a moment. He turned to look at Maddie, and she could hear Brian ranting at him on the other end of the phone, probably threatening him within an inch of his life if he didn’t ignore his orders and turn the car around.

  “
I know. This is from Cabrera.” His face reddened as Brian’s voice kicked up another notch. Maddie couldn’t hear the words, but Hicks seemed to be holding his ground.

  “I told you, no. Unless someone’s in imminent danger, I’ve got orders to wait.” After a few clipped words, he hung up and handed the phone to Maddie. She could tell he was embarrassed.

  Maddie switched back to the other screen, where she was following a map of the area through the GPS coordinates Ben had sent. “There should be a road up here, and you’re turning left. Just after this creek.”

  They crossed a bridge, and he hung a left onto an even narrower road than the one they’d been on. Maddie glanced around. The landscape had become more and more desolate as they’d traveled west, and they hadn’t seen a house in miles. The land was arid and dusty, dotted with scrub brush, cacti, and the occasional head of cattle. They crossed a low-water bridge, and she noted a change in the barbed-wire fencing.

  “We might be getting closer,” she said. “You see any more turnoffs?”

  “No.”

  The road dipped lower, and they were hemmed in on two sides by limestone. They drove in silence for a while, and anxiety started to nip at her. It was isolated out here. They had a twenty-minute jump on the backup team, but she still felt worried. What if they couldn’t find it? What if they crossed paths with Bracewell or one of Mladovic’s men on this road? The terrain was rugged, difficult. Plus, everyone and their grandmother out here drove a pickup. The Taurus was bound to attract attention. Ditto a SWAT van or whatever sort of vehicle they planned to send.

  They rounded a bend, and a trio of buzzards flapped up from the roadway where they’d been scavenging an armadillo. Maddie’s stomach did a somersault. The area gave her the creeps. If she felt scared just driving around, she could only imagine how Jolene felt, being held captive out here with no one to hear her cries for help.

  “There! On your right!” Maddie pointed at the distant turnoff. She consulted her map again.

  It was a dirt road, and Hicks pulled over soon after they passed it. Maddie looked for the best place to hide the car, and her gaze landed on a line of scrub brush.

  “What do you think?” she asked, glancing around.