by Tara Brown
“I know. I’m headed there now. Ground team support and all.”
“Jesus, Jane. This is serious. Are you going to take him down with people watching?”
“Yes. I will take him like the scum he is, like any other mission.”
“Only this one is personal.”
“Very.” I nod, and look out the window as the city passes by. “So I have to be careful.”
“I will meet you. Let me get Mrs. Starling to pop over to the house and stay here with the kids.” His words make me smile as I hang up and look out the window some more.
I’m glad he’s coming. He can’t come to the mission, that would give away too much, but he will be there for the after part. And I won’t be alone.
23. A DOG’S LIFE
Do we have any idea of ETA?” Cami speaks into her mic, but gives me a look before she glances around the bush we have been hiding in so the surveillance guys can do their job.
Dwayne, the giant wanker, as Cami calls him, murmurs into the earpiece, “We got movement, but I can’t trace what it is.”
“So what is the plan?” Cami asks.
I bite my lip, looking at the dark farmhouse in the middle of the huge field. The bushes and trees we are hiding in are the only real cover. The two military guys behind me standing guard are huge and might be seen easily, but I don’t want to go in without them. I don’t know how I will react to such a personal mission.
I nod my head at the small house. “We take the house silently—take him into custody if that’s him that they are sensing in the house. We wait for Antoine to verify his identity and then we hunt down the evidence. There’s no warrant and we are interrupting an IRS investigation, so we need to be silent and fast and efficient.” I turn and look at the two men behind me. “Cami and I will go for the home office; you two search the entire residence. I don’t want a couch cushion left unturned. Check for hiding places, wall paneling, and heat sources.”
Cami lifts one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. “IRS isn’t going to be pissed at us?”
“They will be if we don’t hand them their case on a platter.”
“Then we better get the platters ready.”
Antoine laughs too hard at the cheesy joke. I roll my eyes, but Cami smiles. “Like that one, did ya?”
“I did,” he says softly so we can all hear.
She grins at me, but I roll my eyes. “Focus. We have one shot at this. And he’s been a career criminal. He is ready for this. He’s ahead of the game.”
Cami nods, no longer smiling at all.
“You are good to go. There’s no movement,” Antoine mutters. “Dwayne is showing the person inside as localized to one area.”
I make a forward motion and we all burst from the bushes, where we have been sitting for an hour waiting for the sun to completely go down. Criminals get amazing sunsets in Montana.
If it weren’t for the night-vision goggles, I wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing. It’s blindingly dark. We enter the farmhouse from the back door after disabling the alarm with the weird magnetic thing Antoine tried explaining.
A dog barks, but I can tell it’s confined to one room. I would bet my money on that room being the one we are seeking. “We’ll take care of the dog. You guys search.” I grab the fire extinguisher off the wall next to the oven and carry it with me as the two men leave and start the search.
“What’s that for?” Cami whispers.
I lift a finger to my lips. The movement detected in the house was not a man, but a large dog. I nod at the door we have just come in. “Be ready to open that.”
Cami stares at me, not saying anything. I carry the extinguisher to the room with the barking dog. I crack the door, spraying the extinguisher at the massive beast. He cowers, pissing on the floor. In the dark I can smell it and also see it with my night-vision goggles. I spray again, making him whimper. I kick the door open wider and step back. He runs past me. “Now!” I shout and Cami opens the door. The dog runs yelping from the house.
“What did you do to him?” She asks like she’s upset.
“I scared him. I didn’t hurt him. I don’t like hurting animals. But this is a dog whisperer in a can. It always scares the piss out of them.”
She looks at the puddle on the floor and nods. “I see that.”
“The dog was holed up here, which makes me think this is the room.” We both start searching the small office. I place the remote access pad on the computer.
Cami finds something and holds it up. “A list of names and dates. It doesn’t say anything else.” I stare for a moment before finding the date with a name next to it. Wendy 11/27/98. That is two weeks after the attack on me.
This is the man who attacked me. “Take a photo and see if the timeline matches other abductions.”
Cami takes the photo and sends it directly.
“Got it. Hold tight and give me a couple minutes. I made a list of baby abductions a while back.” Antoine sounds excited.
I give Cami a look, and whisper, “This is the very thing I adore about working with Antoine. He’s obsessive-compulsive when it comes to fine details like these. And a genius with numbers, patterns, and probabilities. I like competent people.”
We spend the next several minutes checking the office thoroughly.
Cami looks at the doorway. “How much more is there to look at?”
“The other two have it.” I point at the computer. “It’s likely he doesn’t have anything here. Antoine will be in his bank records and from there we might find the answers we are looking for.”
Antoine confirms what I have just said. “His bank records have been pulled by the varying teams following him. He has a few suspicious deposits early on. Back in November of 1998, for example, he deposited twenty-five thousand dollars over the course of a month. Several small deposits. I think he thought that he could escape the eye of the IRS with small deposits. Like he could say he sold several things. Or something like that.” Antoine speaks like he is distracted by something else.
“In ’98 did he escape their notice?”
He pauses before speaking. “He did. He wasn’t flagged for four more years. He slipped away somehow. There are no notes on the account because it’s so old. He went under the radar again for a while, but got noticed last spring making some large purchases, too large for his income. They’ve been building a tax evasion case against him for several months and are going in for the kill. I think that’s our best bet for a trial too. Black-market baby sales won’t get him a lengthy prison term. That lawyer who got caught a couple years ago in San Diego got five years and served one. But tax evasion in the United States is worse than killing a cop.”
“Maybe we should take care of the problem.”
“Ha!” he shouts, ignoring my idea. “I got it!” He chuckles into our ears as we stand there awaiting the news so we can formulate a plan. “His bank accounts aren’t in the United States. When he caught the eye of the IRS in 2002, he started using offshore accounts under different names, that’s why they lost him in the system. His incomes there all have names on them, weird ones like Rose or Kennedy or Jameson. And they are all wire transfers. I bet he thinks he’s invincible because he uses offshore accounts. All I have to do is link those accounts to his ones here and the IRS will have him. The names of every person who transferred him money from 2002 to today are there. And he has a lot of money, far more than he can account for. If the accounts are linked, then I can prove the money came from people who adopted. The list of baby abductions only has four matches, but the people who adopted the babies will have records of the adoption. They might not even realize they went about it illegally.”
I sigh, annoyed that I won’t have the answers I want, but then Antoine speaks softly, in my ear only. “The largest deposits he made in November ’98 were several checks cashed from a lady named Wendy Cassopolis. She
lives in Maryland. She has a daughter who is seventeen named Whitney Cassopolis. I have just texted you the address.”
“Do we have enough to get this guy?”
“We have enough for the IRS to get him. I can fudge some shit and make it look like he hid his trail a little, but not nearly as well as he thinks he did. The moment I finish these changes, they will have him. The adoption dates will match the payments and he will owe at least seven hundred thousand in back taxes.”
“He cut the baby from one girl, Antoine. Cut her baby from her belly.”
“There is no way to prove that unless you remember.”
It’s disheartening but I agree. “Okay, let’s go then. Tell the team to get out of here before he comes home.”
Cami interrupts me from the doorway. “Should we get the dog back?”
“No. Let him know we are coming for him.” I close the door to the office and walk from the house, putting the fire extinguisher back on the wall.
The four of us stalk quietly across the field. The dog is nowhere to be found.
I wish the man had been there. I wish I had killed him.
When we get to the trees we were hiding in, we run for the road as a team, back to the vehicles and the rest of our company.
“No movement, Master Sergeant,” one of the guys says in my ear as I approach. “No surveillance detected either.”
“Odd,” Cami says and climbs into the Humvee, catching her breath and giving me a look. I have to wonder if she suspects there is something more to the story about why we are here. She’s a smart cookie and we never work a lot of American soil. Add to that the fact we never work cases like these, and I have to assume she is suspicious.
We always work the ones in which no one cares about a trial or evidence. We are the branch of the government that shoots first and answers questions later.
I sit in the front passenger seat on the way back to Missoula. And maybe it’s the scenery in Montana, the openness and huge skies, or maybe it’s the fact I am nearing the end of something, but I am nostalgic.
I am lost in the ending of a person who saved me.
The Humvee stops outside my hotel and I nod at Cami. “See you soon. Don’t forget to get the reports on this filed. Make certain we have something special to give the IRS so they don’t come looking for answers.”
I stroll into the hotel, leaning against the wall as the elevator goes up, and in the mirror opposite me I stare at the different-colored eyes I have. I can’t help but wonder where I got them.
When the elevator dings, I stroll to the door I have been daydreaming about entering all day.
He opens it before I even lift my hand to knock. He grins and flashes that crooked smile. “Why, hello.”
A soft sigh falls from my mouth when I see his face. He is like going home, no matter where it is. He offers me his hand and a look. “How was it?”
I drop my hand in his and let him lead me inside. “Well, it was a bust in one way and not in another.”
“What do you mean?” He closes the door and pulls me to the bathroom of the fancy suite, where he has already filled the bath.
“I think we found what we were looking for, but I don’t know if the evidence is enough. I don’t know if he will suffer the way he should.” I can smell the scented salts and start to melt in anticipation of the feel of that hot water.
“Did you find anything about the child?” he asks as he peels my shirt and pants from me, helping me into the water before he undresses and climbs in after me.
“Yes.” I turn and lie back on his chest, relaxing into him and the huge tub. “The woman who possibly adopted my daughter is named Wendy Cassopolis. She lives in Maryland. Whitney is the girl’s name. She’s seventeen.”
“What’s the bad part?”
“He wasn’t there, the broker. His house was eerily calm. No heat sources except a damned dog, no hiding places, no nothing. So we searched with a fine-tooth comb, and barely came up with a way to frame him for the crimes he has actually committed, but covered up.”
“What a disappointing way to end it. I suppose you wanted to break his neck?” He dunks a cloth in the water and squeezes it, pouring water over my chest.
“Yup, though I like knives better than neck-breaking. But I would have done that.”
He lifts a finger as a disappointed tone fills his voice and his body tenses. “Wrong answer. I want to hear that the only thing you wanted was to see him cuffed. Which you will. Even if Antoine has to make something up about it all and frame the man, he will see time for what he has done.”
It isn’t comforting. Not like watching the man bleed all over the carpet and his eyes lose the light of a soul.
That is a fine ending for a foul man.
But I keep that to myself.
24. ALL OF ME
I glance about the scary church they call an abbey from the bench against the wall. The whole place creeps me out. “What’s an abbey?” I ask softly.
Cami gives me a cockeyed look. “Why do you think I know that?”
“You’re British.”
She rolls her eyes. “Funny. I think it means something big or important. Like more than a regular church.”
It’s massive and in downtown London, so that makes me dislike it even more.
I don’t love cities. I would go back to Montana in a heartbeat. In fact, I intend on going back to Montana to snuff out a heartbeat.
I swallow, realizing I just plotted murder in a church that is so important they call it a different name.
I run my hands under my pits and wince, feeling the sweat building up again.
My only saving grace is that the noise of the traffic doesn’t filter in here. The large doors keep everything out. I can hear my heart beating like it’s trying to escape.
“At least you aren’t getting married in here. This place is intense.”
I nod, agreeing. We are in the church next door to the one I am getting married in.
We could have gotten married in this one, as Dash is a member of the Order of the Bath, but he knew I would be intimidated to get married where all the royals get married. I know Dash is trying to spare me the intensity of a wedding from hell, but he doesn’t realize the one we are about to have is just about as bad as I can imagine. In his mind Saint Margaret’s, Westminster, is a small church.
To me it’s imposing and called a cathedral.
“You all right?” Cami asks in a whisper.
“I am about to have a stroke just thinking about going over there. But I’m good.” I nod and lift my brows, hoping someone is thinking about getting me a paper bag.
“You looked really weird last night at the practice. Angie and I think you might need a Valium or some Ecstasy.”
I nod again. “Valium might not be bad,” I mutter as I gawk, mouth agape and all. The art and the vast columns in each row are intensely beautiful, and they do bring about a spiritual feeling in me, a pious feeling. The ceiling may still make me cry. I can’t stop staring at it. It is someone’s version of heaven.
Angie walks briskly to me with a glass of water. “Why are ya sweating again?” she asks and hands me the water.
I drink like I have been in the desert for a hundred years. “He knows I hate being the focus. I hate being center stage. I wanted to elope in Vegas.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Saint Margaret’s is a lovely church with proper stained glass and columns. It’s stunning. Ya won’t get that in Vegas. Ya won’t get that organist in Vegas either. She’s mighty good.”
I sigh and wonder what the deal is with that. “Why do people care who the organist is? People have already complimented me on our organist.”
“It’s a thing apparently,” Cami offers weakly.
“Look, the royals are showing up in droves out there,” Angie squeals softly.
My stoma
ch tightens as I look and see the hordes of fancy English people showing up. We are across the way in Westminster Abbey, awaiting our moment to walk across the garden to the front doors of Saint Margaret’s.
I take a deep breath and remind myself I will have Antoine, Mrs. Starling, and three guys from my early years in the Marine Corps to sit behind me, and Angie and Cami next to me. Serving as real seat fillers on my side, however, are members of the Secret Service, since the president of the United States is the man walking me down the aisle.
That makes me laugh a little as we watch hundreds of people milling about outside. The guests all have ornate hats. People keep calling them fascinators, but they are hats, with feathers. It’s another thing to add to my Google list.
“This is over the top and silly. We might as well be rock stars. I can’t believe the president is walking me down the aisle.”
Angie cocks an eye at me. “The president isn’t even a big deal here. He’s the least famous person, besides me and Cami. So far I have heard that ya are the next American sweethearts. Ya are apparently the kindest girl in all of America, saving animals and helping old ladies with their gardens.”
I glance up at Angie with an exasperated sigh. “They talked to Mrs. Starling?”
She rolls her eyes. “Would ya try to put it into perspective? This is making ya as famous and fabulous as Dash is. He is coming up to yer level now.”
I cover my eyes. “Oh my God.”
“Don’t touch zat face!”
I jump up and lower my hands. Angie snickers and I tremble, trying not to notice the sweat under my arms.
“I told you no sitting!” Georges barks and goes over the dress again. He tugs at it and swipes his hands along the pleats. He’s seen me completely naked, completely terrified, and now completely ready. He lifts my arms, and the girl who did our makeup but never speaks spritzes something under them. It smells like lavender.
“You are like svan princess.” He’s on edge as much as I am but he’s better at hiding it.
