Cold Secrets (Cold Justice Book 7)

by Toni Anderson

  “Nope.”

  “Me, neither. Boy, do I ever love my job.” Mallory crumpled the wrapper and tossed it in the garbage can.

  “Me, too.” Ashley’s cell buzzed, and she checked the screen. “Lucas Randall.” She felt her face heat a little and hoped Mallory didn’t notice. “He found out one of the fugitives was called ‘Cho.’” She lifted her head. “I wonder where he got that sliver of information?”

  Mallory drew a zip across her lips.

  Armed with this new detail Ashley led the way inside the tobacconist’s shop with her badge held high. The sweet smell of pipe tobacco rushed over her. The place was full of looming shadows thanks to more boarded up windows. One lone strip of fluorescent lighting was on behind the counter, highlighting a smiling shopkeeper and a carved, life-sized, cigar store Indian, standing sentinel.

  The man behind the counter was rail-thin, with hollowed out cheeks that reminded Ashley of her paternal grandmother the week before she’d died of cancer. The glass displays were highly polished and contained super-expensive cigars and intricately carved pipes. She’d never understood this vice. Why waste money on something that had a good chance of killing you?

  She introduced herself and Mallory. The owner’s name was Victor Drover. Yes, he had surveillance, but it only covered inside the store, and it recorded over itself every twenty-four hours.

  “You didn’t think to save the tape from the day the bomb went off?” Ashley asked, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

  He folded his hands primly in front of him. “I did. And I gave a copy to the police already.”

  Ashley masked her surprise. “Who’d you give it to?”

  “I don’t recall his name. He wore a uniform and was bossy and ill-mannered, but that seems to be a common problem with law enforcement.” Drover eyed her balefully. “Anyway, there’s nothing incriminating on the tape as you’ve probably seen for yourself. I sold another copy to the television people. They’ve been playing it on loop over and over.”

  “You sold it after you figured there was nothing incriminating on it?” Ashley asked.

  “That’s not what I said.” He looked flustered. “You’re twisting my words.”

  He looked less sure of himself now.

  She could use that. “What can you tell me about Mr. Cho?”

  “What’s to tell?”

  “Did he come into your shop in the twenty-four hours prior to the explosion?”

  He stood straighter. “I don’t believe so.”

  “But you did know him?” Ashley prodded. This was good intel. “Why haven’t you come forward with any information?”

  Drover looked impatient. “I didn’t say I knew him—”

  “But you knew his name,” Ashley pushed. “You saw his face.”

  “We weren’t friends.” His voice climbed higher.

  “You can identify him. What about the other men who lived there?”

  He kept silent, only his eyes moving between her and Mallory like they were trying to outflank him.

  “Did you avail yourself of the facilities across the road, is that why you’re reluctant to talk?” Mallory asked. “We might be able to figure out a deal—”

  He pressed his hands on the shop counter; his fingers were stained with nicotine. “I did not ‘avail myself of the facilities.’”

  “But you knew what was going on there?” Mallory said.

  “I did not know what was going on. I sold cigarettes and cigars, and minded my own business.”

  While women were used and abused every day.

  “Did they use cash or credit cards?” Ashley asked.

  “Cash.” He eyed her like she was stupid.

  “So how’d you know his name?”

  “I don’t know,” Drover said in exasperation. “I assume I overheard someone calling him it at some point.”

  “What are the names of the other men who ran the place?” Ashley demanded.

  Victor Drover’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down his scrawny throat. “I have no idea.”

  “But you knew Cho?” she reiterated.

  He grimaced and looked like he wanted to flee.

  “Describe them.”

  Even though he was shorter than them both he sneered down his long Roman nose. “No one around here is going to give you any information.” His eyes grew hunted. “Everyone is too scared.”

  “That’s not what the guy in the corner shop says.”

  Weary humor sparked in his eyes. “Gino has friends in low places. We’re not all so fortunate.”

  Ashley jerked up her chin. “At least thirty young women were trafficked, and sold for sex on a daily basis less than a hundred yards from your doorstep—and then they were brutally murdered along with seven law enforcement personnel, and you’re too much of a coward to even give us a description?”

  “They all looked like you,” he snapped.

  Mallory rolled her eyes. “Big help.”

  “Nothing I do will bring those people back, but if I talk…”

  Ashley’s gaze sharpened. “So you think they’re still around here? Or their friends are? Do you know the name of the organization?”

  “I didn’t say that.” His voice lowered. “But I know if I talk to the cops they’ll know about it, and they’ll kill me.”

  “We can protect you.”

  He snorted. “Not from these people.”

  “You know who their associates are?”

  “I don’t know anything.” His eyes grew frostier than a Boston winter. “I thought we’d already established that.”

  He came out from behind the counter and walked quickly to the front door and opened it wide. He looked at them expectantly. Mallory took a long hard look at Drover before heading outside. Ashley followed and a motorcycle with a pillion rider raced by so fast Ashley felt her hair lift off her shoulders. She watched the bike zoom through traffic. It wouldn’t be long until they were another statistic.

  By the time she turned around Victor Drover was closing the door and turning the sign to “closed.”

  They were getting nowhere fast. She raised her face to the sky. A plane went overhead, its path reflected in the side of an apartment block just south of the blast site.

  A figure moved in one of the upper windows. Ashley squinted. Maybe they were going about this all wrong.

  “You said you know who called the cops about seeing Mia Stromberg?”

  Mallory nodded.

  Ashley faced her. “How about we pay them a little visit?”

  Mallory stared at the building. “We’re not supposed to know who they are.”

  “Hey, we’re canvassing the neighborhood. It would look more suspicious not to question them.”

  Mallory looked doubtful.

  “What harm can it do?” Ashley pushed.

  Mallory eyed the glaziers who were giving them the once-over from the front of the pizzeria. Wolf whistles followed.

  “No way anyone will tell us anything useful with so many witnesses around,” Ashley pointed out.

  Mallory tugged her jacket closed. “This whole community is terrified of the people who ran that brothel, and yet they weren’t even on the cops’ radar.” She pursed her lips. “Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  They slipped into the apartment building when some kind soul held the door for them. Ashley refrained from rolling her eyes at their naivety. People were hardwired to be polite, and it put them in danger every day.

  They knocked on the door of the building manager and flashed their badges. When they told him they wanted to conduct door-to-door interviews he waved them along with an uninterested gesture. Then he started following them, complaining about the cleanup from the explosion, the fact they hadn’t caught the guys yet, and that the cops had already questioned everyone in the building. They walked away before he started blaming them for the lousy weather and last week’s crushing defeat of the Bruins.

  There was nothing unusual with repeat canvassing, especially after
an event of this magnitude. Talking to people was an integral part of the job.

  She and Mallory started on the seventh floor and worked their way down to six. The walls were painted fern green, and the carpeting was newish but definitely in need of a steam clean. The strong smell of Indian cooking permeated the air and noises could be heard from behind some of the apartment doors—TVs and the occasional voice raised in loud conversation. She and Mallory started at the east side of the floor and began knocking on the doors of apartments that overlooked the brothel. They worked their way along, asking if the occupants had noticed anything unusual about the building below them. Some of them had. Most hadn’t. Ashley made notes while Mallory did the talking. By approaching everyone on the two floors they were covering themselves with plausible deniability when they questioned their real target, Susan Thomas. Ashley caught Mallory’s gaze as they reached the woman’s door. Ashley knocked loudly, but there was no answer from inside.

  She swore under her breath and knocked again.

  The elevator opened, and a woman in yoga pants and a hoodie walked towards them.

  “Hi,” she said brightly.

  “You live here?” asked Mallory, pulling out her badge.

  The woman shook her head and offered a perky smile. “Nope. I’m Trinity Taylor.”

  Damn.

  “But Susan should be in.” Trinity lowered her voice. “She never goes out. That’s why she hires me to walk her dog.”

  “You’re a dog walker?” Ashley asked in surprise. The woman looked more like a catwalk model.

  Trinity smiled. “It’s helping me pay my way through college, keeps me fit and lets me hang around puppies.” She pulled a lanyard with a handful of keys from around her neck. “Susan’s probably in the bathroom, but,” she frowned, “Rex usually barks when someone comes to the door. I wonder what’s going on?”

  Those words made Ashley exchange a surreptitious glance with Mallory, and they both put their hands on their firearms. Trinity slipped the key in the lock and turned the handle. The door opened ten inches before it got stuck. Something whimpered. A dog.

  Ashley elbowed Trinity aside. “Back away from the doorway, please.”

  She pulled her weapon, poked her head inside and looked down. A golden retriever lay on the carpet, blood seeping from a wound in its flank.

  “Stay here,” she ordered the civilian. She pushed as gently as she could until she was able to slip into the apartment. The scent of blood was ripe and cloying. Mallory called for backup.

  “Get a vet for the dog. Looks like it’s been shot,” Ashley urged.

  The dog walker gave a cry and tried to come inside. Ashley blocked her.

  “I’m training to be a veterinarian,” Trinity exclaimed angrily.

  “Stay where I tell you until we clear the scene or I will arrest you.” Ashley gently moved the injured animal farther away from the door so Mallory could join her. She and Mallory were both wearing vests, but Ashley wasn’t happy to be teaming up with a pregnant woman. Frazer was probably going to kick her out of the program for this. Alex Parker would smother her in her sleep and no one would ever know.

  But they needed to secure the scene and see if anyone was hurt.

  The apartment was tidy but crammed full of knickknacks. No one in the bedroom, or bathroom. The bed was made and the bathroom had one of those walk-in showers designed for people with mobility issues.

  An even stronger smell of blood hit her when she got to the open-plan kitchen and living room where a woman sat slumped in a wheelchair, facing the window. Ashley’s stomach took a sharp nosedive.

  Susan Thomas’s wrists and ankles had been bound to her wheelchair. Blood soaked every inch of her front. Both eyes had been removed.

  Ashley checked for a pulse but it was obvious the woman was dead. Then she searched every possible hiding spot. The apartment was clear.

  She and Mallory holstered their weapons and walked back to the entrance. Ashley bent down and slid her hands beneath the silky fur of the injured animal. It whimpered pitifully but made no move to resist as she picked it up, murmuring comforting words in its ear.

  Outside the apartment she laid the dog on the carpet and watched the dog walker try to staunch the bleeding.

  Mallory pulled her aside. “How the hell did they know where to find her?” She kept her hand on her weapon and her eyes on the corridor.

  “Maybe they tracked her the same way Alex did. Or she trusted the information to someone close to her and they betrayed her.”

  The elevator dinged and both she and Mallory tensed. She let out a breath of relief as uniforms arrived, and held up her shield.

  “Call Alex. Ask him to look for any traces that someone else went snooping wherever he did,” she told Mallory. She’d do it herself but she was going to be busy here for the next little while. She strode forward to block the officers’ path into the apartment. They needed to call CSU. The last thing this particular investigation needed was more cops trampling the crime scene. They bitched her out, but she held her ground and insisted they call in the detectives first.

  “Scene is secure,” she insisted. “Get people on all the entries and exits and start taking statements. See if there are any surveillance cameras on site.”

  The bulky officer looked like he wanted to shove her aside, but she held his stare and dared him to try it. Finally he backed down with a curse and turned away to radio dispatch.

  Ashley let out a breath. Good thing she’d never cared much about being popular.

  * * *

  Lucas Randall snapped on latex gloves and stepped inside the small apartment wearing paper booties over his shoes. The smell of blood was thick as an abattoir and drove a nail into the back of his throat.

  Jesus.

  After he’d left Becca, he’d spent time with Mia and her parents, asking if she recognized the driver of the minivan—she hadn’t. Talking with Mia, hearing her laugh at some of his stupid jokes had soothed the rage he felt toward Becca’s mother. He couldn’t wait to find that poor excuse of humanity. Not only was she a possible lead into the gang’s gambling activities, there was another kid at risk.

  After seeing Mia, he’d worked with the police sketch artist trying to piece together a semblance of an identikit photo for the tall skinny guy he’d seen by the front door. The results were less than ideal, and looked more like Ashley Chen than he wanted to admit.

  He walked over to where the woman in question stood talking to a tired-looking ME. The morgue was already overrun with bodies. He doubted anyone there had slept since the bombing. “Who’s the victim?”

  “Susan Thomas. Forty-five-year-old female. Suffered from MS. According to her dog walker she wasn’t bedridden, but didn’t like to leave her apartment.”

  Lucas eyed the bindings that held the victim in place. “Why are we here?”

  Ashley indicated he follow her into the kitchen as the ME’s assistants prepared to move the body onto a gurney.

  “Mallory and I drew a blank on surveillance cameras, so we were canvassing the area to see if we could get any additional information on the people who ran the brothel. We started with the stores on the main street but were getting nowhere. I figured we should try the buildings overlooking the entrance, and that’s when we found the victim.”

  He crossed his arms. “Okay. But why are we still here?” The FBI didn’t investigate single victim homicides without good reason.

  She pressed her lips together, and he knew he wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say. She walked over to the blinds and held them open for him. From here there was a perfect view of the brothel below. Her voice dropped to a low murmur that he had to lean closer to hear.

  “Susan Thomas is the person who called in the tip about Mia Stromberg. She’s the one who got the one hundred thousand dollar reward.”

  Lucas exhaled sharply through his nose. “Do we know for sure that it was the Chinatown brothel people who killed her?”

  “Well, her eyes were go
uged out and tongue removed, and the woman probably choked to death on her own blood.” Ashley put a gloved fist on her hip. “The ME hasn’t decided yet if the eyes were removed pre- or post-mortem, but I think it’s safe to say this isn’t your average homicide and is a hell of a coincidence under the circumstances.”

  Lucas’s stomach lurched. He’d seen a lot over the years—Edmund Meacher’s skanky basement had contained photographs and videos of violent rapes and murders—enough blood and gore and evil to last a lifetime. But this was chilling in its clinical precision. This hadn’t been for personal gratification. This was sending a message—talk to the cops and you’re dead.

  “So, it’s a warning.” He shook his head. “No wonder no one’s coming forward with information.”

  The dead woman was placed in the body bag, and there was a palpable sense of relief as she was rolled away.

  He leaned close to Ashley’s ear and tried not to notice the graceful line of her neck. It wasn’t appropriate for a crime scene, but beat the hell out of thinking about the mutilated human being they’d just taken away. “How’d you know she was the tipster?”

  “Alex Parker.”

  “He told you?” he asked in surprise.

  The twist of her lips and narrowing of her gaze told him Alex’s mistrust was mutual. “Mallory.”

  “And how did the bad guys know this was the snitch?”

  A fine line formed between her brows. Her skin was smooth and flawless which probably accounted for why she looked so young. According to Bureau records she’d turned thirty on December 26th. Not that much younger than he was.

  He hid his thoughts. He was standing at the scene of a gruesome murder, but the subtle scent of oranges on her skin and some weird internal chemistry made his pulse kick up anyway.

  Obviously he’d worked too many murders.

  “They either used the same methods Parker did, or they have someone on the inside.”

  “The name of the tipster wasn’t released to most of the LEOs working this case. I didn’t know it.”

  “Then it should be easy to narrow down who did know.” Ashley shrugged one shoulder.

  “What about Susan Thomas? Would she have told anyone?”