by Kara Lennox
“Celeste, are you by any chance available to pick me up at Daniel’s and take me downtown? The police want to interview me about my supposed ordeal.”
“I’d be happy to. The Vette needs to get out of the garage. But why doesn’t Daniel give you a limo or something?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain it to you while we head downtown.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TRAVIS HAD NEVER been in an interrogation room before. When he’d been arrested after that fateful bar fight years ago, there’d been no question who had been responsible for the guy lying unconscious on the floor. More than a dozen people had witnessed the fight. At least half were ready to tell the truth of what had happened—that the other guy had thrown the first punch and Travis had merely defended himself. Unfortunately, the other half—buddies of the unconscious man—had been eager to tell the police the exact opposite, that Travis had attacked the guy for no reason.
Travis hadn’t seen any point in trying to argue his way out of it. He’d taken a lousy plea bargain. Given the seriousness of the other guy’s injuries, Travis had received two years and was released after eighteen months for good behavior. The sentence had been unusually harsh, but Travis hadn’t done much to help himself. He’d been pretty torn up back then, still freshly postdivorce and not too far removed from his stint in the army, which hadn’t left him in a positive frame of mind.
Eric had been furious with him for not calling him, for not asking him to find a good criminal defense attorney who could have gotten him off, or at least gotten him a lighter sentence.
Now, he didn’t have Eric to call, and, like before, he didn’t feel much like arguing. He’d done the deed, after all; no one could dispute that he’d kidnapped an innocent woman.
The only thing that stopped him from just pleading guilty and getting it over with was the knowledge that while he was behind bars, he would be of no help to Eric or MacKenzie.
Eric had told him the best thing to do if he was ever arrested for anything was to not say a word, just ask for a lawyer. So this time around, he was going to try to do the smart thing.
The two detectives who entered the cold, dismal, claustrophobic room looked ready for a fight. The older one smirked, as if he knew a secret that Travis didn’t. The second one just looked deadly serious, like if it were up to him he’d just get a gun and shoot Travis now.
“So,” the younger one began. “Why did you kidnap Elena Marquez?”
Travis took a deep breath. “I’m not saying anything without a lawyer present.”
The two cops looked at each other. They couldn’t hide their disappointment.
“Okay,” said the older one. “Do you wish to hire your own counsel? Or would you like a public defender?”
A private criminal defense attorney would blow through what little savings Travis had in no time. Then again, he wouldn’t have any use for the money if he was locked away in Huntsville for twenty years.
He thought about the court-appointed guy who’d handled his assault case. He’d looked like Howdy Doody with acne. He could have passed for a high schooler.
“I’ll hire my own.”
The younger detective looked up at the video camera in the corner and made a slashing motion across his throat. Then he looked at Travis with a superior half smile. “You think you’re pretty smart, I guess. You know better than to answer questions without an attorney, at any rate.”
“Pretty much anyone who watches TV knows that.”
“You didn’t know it back when you got nailed for knocking that guy out cold in a bar, did you? Back then, you spilled your guts.”
Of course they would know about his criminal background. He knew what they were doing. They’d turned off the video, and now they were illegally continuing to question him without his attorney when he’d plainly asked for one. Anything he said now could still be used against him. They would just claim he’d said it in the paddy wagon on the way over.
Travis shrugged.
The young cop got in his face. “Tough guy. What are you, about six-one, six-two? Maybe two hundred twenty pounds?”
Travis said nothing.
“That would make you about twice as big as Elena Marquez. Guess you moved on to easier victims than... Who was that guy you beat up?”
“You read the report. I’m sure you know his name.”
Suddenly the cop came around the table, leaned down and put his face right in Travis’s. “I hate guys like you—guys who victimize people who are smaller and weaker. Tell me, Riggs, did she struggle? Did she scream? Did it turn you on? She’s hot, for sure. I hear Cuban women like it rough.”
It was all Travis could manage not to smash the guy’s face in. He gritted his teeth. He said nothing.
“Hey, Eddie,” the older cop said, “knock it off. He asked for a lawyer.”
The younger cop, who was apparently Eddie, stood up and straightened his tie. He glanced at the older man and murmured a foul word that indicated he didn’t have much respect for his colleague. Travis was just glad when they both left. A few moments later, a uniformed cop led him to a holding cell.
They’d appropriated his truck and taken his cell phone when he’d been arrested, but now they gave the phone back. “You got one phone call,” the cop said in a bored voice. “Make it a good one.”
Hell, who was he going to call? Who knew a good criminal defense attorney?
He scrolled through his contacts. The letters and names swam together so he could hardly tell them apart; his reading problem got worse when he was tired or under stress, both of which were the case right now.
Then one name on the list jumped out: Paulie. Paulie was a guy Travis often called to do roofing; he had a brother who was in constant scrapes with the law.
In a matter of about thirty seconds, Paulie agreed to find him a good lawyer. He didn’t even ask what Travis was in for and didn’t sound all that surprised, either. “You got money to pay?” Paulie asked.
“Some. Not a lot. But it’s a high-profile case,” he added. “I’m accused of kidnapping a billionaire’s personal assistant.”
“That’s messed up, man.” Paulie sounded slightly awestruck.
The guard took Travis’s phone back. He wondered if he’d ever see it again.
* * *
CELESTE DROVE AS IF she was trying to qualify for the Indy 500. Her car was a late-model red Corvette with the most souped-up engine available. She burned rubber taking off from every stoplight, took every corner on two wheels and treated speed-limit signs as suggestions rather than the law.
But she wasn’t sloppy. Elena released the death grip she had on the door handle after reminding herself that Celeste was actually pretty skillful behind the wheel—and why wouldn’t she be? She’d driven a patrol car for God only knew how many years, and then Daniel had sent her to a special school to learn evasive driving techniques. He liked for all of his key people to be prepared for anything. He’d even talked about sending Elena to that driving school.
“So what’s the scoop?” Celeste asked. “Why did Daniel take your car away?”
“That’s not it. I’m taking a leave of absence.”
“Really.” She sounded shocked, and it was no wonder. Very few people ever left Daniel’s employ, even temporarily. For one thing, he selected his employees carefully and rejected anyone with a sketchy work history. But mainly, working for Daniel Logan was everybody’s dream job. He hired the best, and he paid them extremely well. The benefits were top-notch. So, yeah, Elena walking away, even temporarily, would surprise anyone who knew her.
It wasn’t as if she could walk out and expect to find an equivalent job, especially since she was a nobody without any prestigious experience. She’d been running the Logan Oil day care center when Daniel had waved his magic wand over her and transformed her
life.
“Celeste, Daniel lied to me. He betrayed my trust.”
“That doesn’t sound like Daniel.”
Elena knew Celeste was fiercely loyal to Daniel. After a lifetime of being overlooked as a female cop, turned down for promotion to detective again and again, she’d been on the verge of retirement and resigned to life as a senior, tending her garden and wondering what could have been, when Daniel had given her a chance at a second career. He’d seen her worth—she was tough and scary and smart, if a tad unconventional. She was Project Justice’s first line of defense.
“Look, I don’t want to talk Daniel down. Whatever he did, he thought it was the right thing. But he should have trusted me—” Her voice broke, and she clamped her mouth shut.
“Men can be clueless sometimes, even Daniel. You’re not nursing some kind of crush on him, are you? ’Cause I can guarantee you he’s utterly devoted to—”
“Oh, God no. That’s not it at all.” She wouldn’t admit that her crush was on her kidnapper. “Celeste, how much trouble can I get in for lying to the police?”
“Depends. Did you commit a crime?”
“No. But I don’t want Travis Riggs to go to prison.”
“Well...you don’t have to lie. You can simply refuse to talk about certain things, and you can make it clear you will not appear in court to testify against Travis. Without your testimony, I doubt they’ll bother to even formally charge him.”
“Really?” Could it be that simple?
“Yeah. They have enough people to prosecute without taking on an iffy case like that.”
“Even if Daniel wants him behind bars?”
“Daniel has a lot of influence, true, but it wouldn’t do much for his image if he ended up on record trying to put someone in prison instead of the other way around.”
“I never even thought of that. Celeste, you are so smart. Thank you.”
“My pleasure. But I hope you’ll repair your tiff with Daniel. He needs you. Frankly, no one thought Jillian could be replaced, but you’ve stepped up to the plate.”
“Thanks. Things just feel a little strange right now.”
Celeste was willing to go in with her to talk to the cops, but Elena politely declined the offer as she climbed out of the low-slung car. “It might look odd, me showing up with someone from Project Justice when I haven’t committed a crime.”
“How will you get home?”
She leaned into the open passenger window. “I’ll call my dad.”
“Okay, but I’m around if you need me. Since I’m near downtown, I think I’ll do a little shopping. There’s a fantastic African market here where I can pick up amazingly fresh, exotic squashes, right off the boat.” She hit the gas, tires screeching right in front of a stopped patrol car, but the cops ignored her.
Elena’s stomach swooped as she entered Houston Police headquarters on Reisner Street, in the shadow of the downtown skyline. As a child, she’d had it instilled in her that cops were bad. They could arrest you on a whim, and you could be convicted without a fair trial and spend the rest of your life on a chain gang—for nothing. They had no Project Justice in Cuba. Cops in America were different—in general, better—but some of them were still entranced with their own macho images. Power could go to anyone’s head. Where the police were concerned, you had to be careful.
They were waiting for her. She didn’t have to introduce herself or explain anything; a young, female uniformed officer met her almost before she cleared the doorway.
“Ms. Marquez, thank you for coming in. First, I want to say that everyone here admires your bravery—”
“What bravery?” she asked in all honesty. It wasn’t as if she’d chosen to be kidnapped. But she didn’t say anything else; she wasn’t going to admit that she ever was kidnapped.
The cop looked at her quizzically. “Um, come right this way. The detectives are waiting for you.”
She was taken to what was undeniably an interrogation room. Right now, they were treating her as a guest. One cop offered her coffee, and another asked if she wanted a snack from the vending machine or maybe a sandwich from the deli down the street.
“No, thanks. I’d just like to get on with this.”
“Of course, Ms. Marquez,” a guy in a suit said. He must have been the detective. “We understand. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal—”
“No, I haven’t.” All conversation stopped. Everyone froze and stared at her. “It wasn’t that bad, okay?”
They gave her a chair. They brought her water. And then they started in with the questions.
Recalling Celeste’s advice, to every question she answered with some version of “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
“Ms. Marquez,” the young detective said. His eyes were filled with phony sympathy. “I know this must have been traumatic for you, but we need information in order to put your attacker—”
“Attacker? Where did you get that? I was never attacked.”
“Then why don’t you tell us what did happen?”
Ah, they’d tricked her. “Look, it wasn’t traumatic, okay? I know you think something horrible happened to me, but it didn’t. Regardless of appearances, I do not feel as if a crime was committed against me.”
“So, you weren’t kidnapped?”
“I...don’t want to talk about that.”
“That’s not going to sound very convincing to a jury.”
“I don’t plan to speak to any juries.”
“But don’t you want your att—I mean, Mr. Riggs—don’t you want him locked up where he can’t commit any more crimes?”
“No.”
The young detective remained quiet, thinking for a few moments. He conferred softly with an older detective and then came back at her with more questions. “Ms. Marquez, did you cooperate with Mr. Riggs to...to make it look as if you’d been kidnapped in order to—”
“You mean did Travis and I cook up a fake kidnapping scheme? No. Absolutely not. I never met him before yesterday.”
“So when you called Daniel Logan and told him you were being held hostage—”
“I never said that. Not in those words.”
“But you did call Daniel Logan.”
“Yes.”
“According to him, you reported you were being held against your will.”
“I don’t recall precisely what I said to him, but if that’s what he told you, then I’m sure that’s what he understood to be true.”
“But it wasn’t true? You weren’t being held hostage?”
“I don’t want to talk about that. And if you continue in this confrontational manner, I’ll be forced to end this interview and retain an attorney.” She knew that was the thing cops hated more than anything—getting attorneys involved in any sort of questioning, even that of a witness.
“So you’re saying that you won’t testify to the fact that you were kidnapped?”
“No, I won’t.”
“Listen, if Riggs is exerting any kind of pressure on you—if he threatened you or your family or even your dog, you need to let us know. We can offer protection.”
“He didn’t pressure me. He didn’t threaten me. We never even talked about what I might or might not tell the police.”
They took another couple of stabs at her—speaking in soft, conciliatory tones so Elena wouldn’t consider them confrontational—but once they realized they were getting nowhere with her, they let her go.
The young detective—Eddie Peck, his name was—couldn’t resist one parting shot. “If I find out you and Riggs cooperated to pull some kind of fraud on your boss, I will nail you to the wall.”
“You won’t find evidence of that because it didn’t happen.” She turned and walked out, never looking back, though she could feel a dozen cops’
eyes drilling into the back of her head. She didn’t take a full breath until she was outside in the sunshine. She walked half a block from the police station and then dialed her parents’ number.
* * *
WHEN TRAVIS’S DEFENSE LAWYER finally appeared, she wasn’t what he expected. For one thing, he’d been picturing a male, which was sexist of him, he knew. But what he got was a polished young woman, probably close to his own age, with honey-colored hair pulled back in a bun and stylish glasses. She had a curvy figure, a healthy, farm-girl complexion and a sweet smile.
“Well, good afternoon, Mr. Riggs,” she said. “I’m Megan Ramsey.”
“Is it? A good afternoon, I mean.”
“Actually, it is. No formal charges will be filed against you. You’ll be free to go shortly.”
“Wow. You work fast.” She had to be kidding.
“Fortunately, I didn’t have to do anything. Just thought I’d introduce myself and give you the good news.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t lie about something like that. There’s a serious lack of evidence. Apparently your alleged victim refuses to say one word against you.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. There’s a little bit of paperwork to fill out, and then they’ll spring you.”
“What did she say? Elena, I mean.”
“I don’t know the particulars. Just that she didn’t give them enough to make the charges stick.”
“What about Logan? He couldn’t push some magic buttons?” Travis got a chill when he recalled how angry Daniel Logan had been with him. The emotion had been a tangible thing, wafting over the cellular network.
“We live in a democracy, Mr. Riggs. Absent of rampant corruption. One man can’t buy another man’s fate in the justice system.”
“Still young enough to be idealistic,” he said with a smile.
“Not idealistic. Just optimistic. I have faith in people.”
