by Kylie Brant
Every action had a consequence. Moreno sending Baldwin to kill Cam was his.
“This sting…the whole thing hinges on us trusting the word of a known scumbag.”
Cam sipped from the coffee. Wondered why it was that every time Sophie touched the machine, the brew tasted better. “If Baldwin wanted to kill me I’d have been dead a month ago. Offing me would have cemented his position in Moreno’s upper echelon of lieutenants. So when he says Moreno is holding his wife and daughter until he finds the informant, I believe him. He had everything to gain by killing me when he tracked me here. Everything to lose by crossing Moreno while the man holds Gabriella and Zoe. No one has more at risk if this operation goes wrong than Matt.”
“You would know.” Harlow’s tone was meaningful. “From what I hear you and he were buddies during the operation.”
Everything inside him went still. But he’d survived life immersed in a Mexican cartel. When a thoughtless word or slip meant the difference between life and a slow brutal death. Dodging a verbal grenade lobbed by Harlow was child’s play. “Survival undercover depends on building relationships. Establishing connections. It’s how you get information, and it helps you keep from getting a bullet in the brain. So, yeah. He and I were friendly. Like I was with some of the others. What’s your point?”
Sophie laced her fingers with his. And the slight contact eased a measure of tension.
Harlow shrugged. “Just an observation. He managed to be absent when the bust went down.”
Cam drank, wishing for the jolt caffeine would have given him. He was too damned tired to play cat and mouse with the man. “Next time I see you, Harlow, I want to go through all your case files. That’d be a real education to read about busts that went off perfectly, without a hitch.” The man couldn’t know that Cam had made sure Matt wouldn’t be there. He was fishing. And damn close to the truth.
“Touchy.” The FBI agent looked at Sophie. “He always this sensitive?”
“Apparently,” she said coolly, “just with you.”
“Apparently.” He regarded Cam silently for a moment. “It’s important that Baldwin is getting his orders and all his information from one source. We don’t want to send mixed messages. The success of the upcoming operation depends on it.”
Cam’s gut clenched at the thought of his involvement in the sting they were planning. Symptoms of the PTSD from his ordeal last time had faded. But he didn’t kid himself that they’d completely disappeared. Not when a random nightmare could still yank him from sleep, sweating and shaking.
“Since my ass depends on the success of the upcoming operation, you appear to be preaching to the choir.”
“Okay.” Harlow drained his mug, leaned forward to set it on the coffee table. “I just had to be sure. We suspect he might be communicating with someone, but we can’t prove it. Maybe we’re paranoid. We just can’t afford to take any chances this time around. There’s too much riding on the success of the bust.”
Including, Cam figured, Harlow’s career ambitions. “What’d you discover about the license plate I texted you? The one Sophie has seen twice on the street near here?”
“Dr. Channing’s very observant.” The smile the man aimed at Sophie was as insincere as his words. “It was one of ours.” He got up to leave. “You’ll be relieved to know we haven’t noted any suspect activity in the area. With the exception of your little friend,” he nodded in Sophie’s direction, “all has been quiet.”
Cam looked at her quizzically as they both stood. “You have a little friend?”
“A neighborhood boy came by looking for his cat.”
They followed Harlow to the door. He had one hand on the doorknob before turning back to them. But his words were addressed to Sophie. “Baldwin got to Cam the first time by approaching you. It’s important that if he does contact you to get in touch with us immediately.”
With that he pulled open the door and walked out into the darkness. Cam closed the door behind him with barely restrained force. Reset the alarm.
“Well.” She went back to the table and picked up the empty mugs. Carried them to the kitchen. “He’s every bit as pleasant as you mentioned. Why would he think Matt might contact me?”
“In an operation as big as they’re planning, they attempt to isolate the informant. Close off all outside communication to try and control his exposure. They don’t trust Baldwin, but they’re willing to use him to make the bust.” And Cam had reason to know Matt didn’t trust the feds either to follow through on their promise of immunity. With good reason. “Harlow isn’t worried about you. This was a veiled warning to me.”
She sent him a shocked look. “To you? Why?”
He shrugged. Went to the kitchen and started taking the makings for sandwiches out of the refrigerator. He didn’t bother with the beer. His plans for a couple relaxing hours before sleep had just been shot to hell.
“He wants to be the one doling out any information that gets shared. Maybe he’s afraid Baldwin and I will compare notes.”
Which proved, Cam thought as Sophie came to help him in the kitchen, that the agent had better instincts than he would have given him credit for.
* * * *
“If you’ve come to join me, I’ve already showered.” Cam ran an appreciative gaze over her form, clad in a thigh-length flimsy robe. “But a guy can never be too clean.”
His banter stopped when he noted the pensive look on her face. “What?”
“I just got a call from Bobby Denholt.”
He dried his hair then dragged the towel carelessly over his chest. “The neighbor of Coates’. The son that got caught up in the paternity gossip over Baxter’s pregnancy. Ok.”
She leaned against the bathroom counter. “Yesterday I spoke to several people who knew Baxter back then, and like the rest of those I talked to, he denied having any contact with her since she left home.”
“And less than twenty-four hours later he wants to talk.” Intrigued, Cam draped the towel around his neck and padded over to the sink next to her to shave. “Something tells me he has a guilty conscience.”
“Let’s hope. Guilty consciences loosen lips.” She inched over a little, to give him a few inches of space. “He wants to see us before his first appointment. Which is at seven.”
“Seven? In the morning?” He was instantly annoyed. “Who the hell opens at seven?”
“Apparently he does. He’s a chiropractor in Indianola. Which means we’ll have to leave…” She glanced at the bathroom clock. “Faster than humanly possible.” She pushed away from the counter and hurried out of the room.
Shit. Cam glared at his reflection in the mirror and picked up his shaver. He’d had her car delivered to the DCI offices, but hadn’t seen the point of both of them driving home and then back. If it wasn’t safe there, surrounded by DCI agents and state patrol officers, it wasn’t safe anywhere.
Regardless. He brought the shaver up and clicked it on. It wasn’t like he would have allowed her to make the trip without him. But seven AM. As he drew the shaver down a patch of skin he decided that there was a special place reserved in hell for morning people.
* * * *
Lavontae Cross was two hundred seventy pounds of solid flesh. A mountain of a man with full sleeves of tattoos depicting an on-going battle between dragons and demons. He’d gained steady employment at seventeen as a leg breaker for a bookie in the East Village. He’d graduated to security at Sid’s Pleasure Palace, protecting strippers from the attentions of inebriated patrons. No one mourned the renovation of Des Moines’ east side as much as he did.
For the last four years Rico Cervantes, who ran a profitable heroin and oxy supply business catering to upscale professionals in downtown Des Moines, had employed him. The dealer was unique in that he allowed credit. His rationale was simple: his clients were known to him, gainfully employed and all with much to lose if they were outed for their habit. There was still the occasional customer, however, who abused Rico’s good nature. An
d when that happened, Lavontae stepped in. He was presently in Polk County jail for puncturing the eardrum of a recalcitrant client with an antique ice pick.
He hadn’t made bail because of Rico’s displeasure with him. Not only had Lavontae been caught, he hadn’t retrieved the money owed.
Besides Lavontae’s, the only solitary cell was one directly across from him in the opposite corner. The man occupying it had muscle-bound shoulders and a gleaming white head. Everyone in lockup knew who he was and what he’d done. And they all had something to say about it.
But not Lavontae. The two hadn’t exchanged a word the entire time they’d been here. A man who had accomplished what Mason Vance had deserved a little respect. A little deference. Not because of what he’d done—Lavontae didn’t hold with rape—but for what he’d accomplished. The TV news claimed the man had raked in over three hundred thousand dollars kidnapping those women and forcing them to make hefty withdrawals from their bank accounts.
Lavontae appreciated a businessman. One like Mason Vance. Like Rico. While Lavontae had the brawn, the other men had the know-how.
Vance also had enviable aim. Nearly every time he came back from a talk with his lawyer, within an hour a tightly folded fifty-dollar bill would come sailing through the bars of Lavontae’s cell. Not a word had ever been exchanged between them, but nothing built loyalty like a steady stream of Grants.
People like them didn’t need words. Lavontae knew that when the time came, he’d have a role to play.
* * * *
Sophia looked past Dr. Denholt to the open office door directly across the hall. She’d suspected that Cam’s presence would have a chilling effect on the man, and Cam had already nixed letting her meet with the man alone. This was their compromise, and neither of the men seemed particularly happy about it.
“I was glad to hear from you, Dr. Denholt.” The man kept sending suspicious glances toward Cam, despite her assurances that the DCI agent was here only to ensure her safety.
“You can call me Bobby.” His smile was fleeting. “Mom said she’d talked to you.”
“She explained about the circumstances that destroyed your parents’ friendships with the Coates.”
He looked away. He’d gone from the unformed nondescript boy in the senior portrait to an undistinguished man in his late forties. Thin, with graying hair and glasses, he was fading into midlife. There were three pictures on his desk. One of him with his mother, another with his siblings, and a third of a sunset over water. If he had ever married and had a family, there was no evidence here of it.
“What you asked me yesterday.” He still wasn’t looking at her. Instead he seemed intensely focused on brushing a piece of lint from his slacks. “I didn’t tell you everything.”
Excitement thrummed through her veins. But her voice reflected only polite interest. “You mean about Vickie contacting you?”
Nodding miserably, his fingers clutched the tops of his thigh convulsively. “It’s been years. More than a decade at least. But Vickie did call me, three different times.”
“How long ago did the calls start?” There was very little known about the woman’s life from the time she left her relatives’ home and the time the bodies began showing up. Any light the man could shed on those years could possibly be useful for the profile.
“The first time was,” he reached up to rub his nose, “let me think. Fifteen years ago, I believe. I had just started my own business.”
Comprehension dawned. “She asked for money?”
He nodded miserably. “I didn’t have it. I tried to explain to her that I was strapped myself. I paid for graduate school on my own, and my first job out of school didn’t pay much. I had to get help buying this place. But she…you had to know Vickie. She had a way of making people do what she wanted.”
Sophia was fairly certain that she could predict how the conversation had gone. “Did she…mention her son?”
“She said…she claimed he was mine. That I hadn’t paid a dime of support all those years, and she lost custody of him because she was broke. That it was my fault and she was going to make sure my mother knew it.”
Recalling Karen Denholt’s bitter defense of her son, Sophia could imagine just how frantic he was to keep the threat from going any further. “Could the baby have been yours?”
“I don’t…” He looked away. Swallowed hard. “It was only that once. I couldn’t believe it myself at the time. I was still living at home, working for the school. I’d see her sometimes in the hallways there. She never even acknowledged me. Then on a night our parents were playing cards together at the Coates place, the rest of my family went along. I stayed home because I had a cold. And she showed up at the door.”
Sophia could imagine the rest. Where some teenage girls were femme fatales, collecting male affection like fireflies in a jar, Vickie would have been more manipulative, even at that age. “But there was never a paternity test.”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of. Certainly I never took one. I had to take out a payday loan so I could give her a couple thousand dollars. She came back for more twice after that, claiming she was using the cash for lawyers to fight DHS.”
“She never fought for custody,” Sophia said gently. “She didn’t show up for the custody hearings at all.”
Biting his lip, he nodded. “I figured I was getting scammed. I mean, she was with a lot of guys back then. A lot. There was probably no way for her to be sure, and she never asked for a blood sample or anything like that. So that last time, I said that was it. I had asked for a picture of the boy, at least. Something that I could look at and maybe see…if he at least looked like me.”
The confession was just a little heartbreaking. Bobby Denholt had likely been easy prey for Vickie Baxter. Even as a grown man, Sophia doubted his confidence with women.
And maybe for a man without a family or prospects for one…maybe a part of him had wanted to believe what she was telling him, even when deep down he knew how implausible her story was. “And that was the last time you saw her?”
“She knew I meant it. My mother had believed me all those years ago.” He had the grace to look a little ashamed. “And she had despised Vickie. There was no way she’d believe her over me. Vickie never came back.”
She’d run that well dry, Sophia corrected silently. And then she’d moved on looking for a fresh mark.
Unzipping her purse, she reached inside it for a card. Handed it to him. “I doubt you’ll hear from her after all this time. But if you do it’s very important that you contact Agent Prescott at DCI. You’ve seen her name on the news.”
He looked slightly sick. “Her name. And her son’s.” Slowly he took the card from her. Withdrew his wallet and carefully tucked it inside. “Tell me, Dr. Channing.” His brown eyes appeared enlarged and slightly myopic behind the glasses. “You worked on this case with the DCI. You would have seen him. The boy. Sonny.”
Comprehension dawned, filtered with compassion. In truth, all Sophia had ever seen of Sonny Baxter were the death photos. But she knew what the man was asking. “I don’t notice a resemblance. He doesn’t look much like Vickie either. I imagine that Sonny Baxter takes after his father in looks.”
She’d expected to see relief in his expression. She just hadn’t thought it would be mixed with disappointment.
“Good. That’s good.” He rose, then didn’t seem to know what to do from there. “It haunted me when I started hearing about…things he’d done. I really never believed Vickie when she claimed I was the father…but there was always that fear.”
