The sheriff sat back and grabbed a pen, turned the recording device back on as if that would intimidate her into silence. In for a penny, in for a pound as her aunt would say.
Speaking of numbers not adding up. “Why did you search the house?”
“The department received an anonymous call that said you approached Derek’s vehicle with a small caliber weapon. The description didn’t match your Glock, so I knew you had a backup piece somewhere. Dryer vent wasn’t a bad place to hide it. Took me a couple hours.”
“That’s something.” The number of mistakes she’d made while working this case was enough to shame her. If she’d handed over her weapon in the first place, it wouldn’t have seemed suspicious, but she hadn’t wanted to be unarmed if and when Sully showed up. “Reach deep, Sheriff. Trust your experience. You’ve been in law enforcement your entire adult life. Doesn’t this seem too pat? Look at the evidence again.” She wafted the sheet back across the table. “Because I guaran-damn-tee you, my weapon wasn’t used to kill Derek and ballistics will prove it. I was nowhere near the man and my twenty-two stayed strapped to my ankle all morning. You won’t find any bloody clothes; there was none of the victim’s DNA on my coat.”
“DNA testing takes time. You know that.”
“Everything you have is circumstantial and merely prevents me from protecting my witness.” At some point in the conversation, Dez had decided to trust Jerry. It was a gamble, but he was the only one who could get her out of this mess and on her way back to Nate’s side. “Tell me how I could possibly get close enough to shoot him without getting blood and brain matter on my hands.”
“We’re searching the house now.”
“For my clothes. Think about it, Sheriff. If my coat has GSR, then you’re alleging that I wore it during the shooting. If I wore it, it would have some nasty body fluids all over it.”
“We’ll see what happens after they finish the search.”
“You won’t find any other physical evidence linking me to the crime because it doesn’t exist. This is a trap. Maybe it’s not meant to be enough to convict me, but if it pulls me off my witness long enough, it served its purpose.”
“Prove it.”
…
Mick watched the techs bag Dez’s personal effects. Nothing seemed to implicate her, but then, he’d have thought the same thing about her weapon. If Dez said she didn’t kill Derek, she didn’t. He wasn’t sure how to prove it, though, at least in time to keep Nate out of the wrong hands. The list of suspects kept getting longer. The sheriff moved pretty high up Mick’s shit list by searching the house while everyone slept. Plus, someone had to plant GSR evidence on Dez’s coat, which meant either the sheriff or someone on his staff was crooked. Someone on the task force was also complicit, and they knew that Dez had been taken into custody, which left Nate virtually unprotected.
Nate hadn’t eaten any breakfast, but he still threw up when the deputies searched the house. Peg took him upstairs once they’d cleared his room. Mick joined them for a while, but the room closed in on him. Too silent, too tense, and Nate’s tears gutted him. Peg came down as the techs finished up. Her shoulders stiffened when the door slammed shut behind them. She turned on Mick the second the last patrol car drove off. “What’s going on?”
The time for secrets was long past. “I don’t know how Dez’s gun ties her to the crime, but she didn’t do it. Someone local is dirty. That’s the only way the evidence points to Dez.”
“It’s not Jerry. I’m mad as hell at him, but he’d never—”
“Be like Dez’s old man? Did you ever suspect him?”
Her face paled. “I didn’t live with Dez’s father.”
“You don’t live with Jerry, either.”
Peg sat hard in her rocker. “You’re a dirty fighter, Mick. What happened to the charm?”
“I don’t have time to play nice. Someone is setting Dez up, which opens the door for all kinds of bad shit to hit us hard. If the wrong people get their hands on Nate, you can kiss that kid good-bye for good.”
She dropped her head against the back of the rocker. “How do we stop that from happening?”
Mick had a few ideas, but it kept circling back to the challenge presented by the car parked out front. He moved to the window and stared out. The sky hung low and gray over the miserable little town as another round of snow started to fall. In front of the house, a patrol car sat across the drive to keep Mick and his truck from leaving town. The sheriff wasn’t stupid. Doug and Vern were there to sit on Mick as much as to protect Nate. They needed reinforcements yesterday. He picked up Peg’s landline and dialed Blake. When the phone went straight to voicemail, Mick cursed and slammed the receiver down. An instinct he’d learned to trust had him convinced that trouble was about to rain down. “We need to move Nate without Deputy Doug knowing.”
Peg adjusted a picture sitting on the table next to the rocker. “I’m not much of a rule follower, but I’ve never lied to Jerry.”
“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you to help move Nate until reinforcements arrive. Do you have somewhere you can take him? A cabin or a friend you can trust?”
“You said me, not us.”
“I’m staying behind. Whoever’s coming for Nate, I plan to be here to meet them.”
“Sounds risky.”
Mick liked danger, especially when it brought him closer to the man who’d killed his brother. “Let me worry about that.”
…
“What I’m about to tell you is classified.”
Jerry turned off the recording device. The move could be a lie. The department might have a secondary device, but she’d already made the choice to trust Jerry, so she ran it down from the beginning. “The task force was established nearly two years ago. We’re trying to track the supply of drugs into Colorado and the flow of illegal money into Patrick Sullivan’s bank account.”
“In two years, you’ve got what kind of evidence?”
“Less than you have on me. When Nick Calvetti died last summer, we collected some assets and evidence we hoped to parlay into access, but Patrick Sullivan is smart, he has more informants than we do, and his lawyers keep him out of the interrogation room. Everything we had against Patrick Sullivan crumbled when he sat his happy ass in a coffee shop with my partner while his men attacked Blake’s girlfriend on one side of town and Nate’s family—plus WITSEC agents—on the other end of town.”
“That’s quite a story.” Jerry tapped the pen against a yellow legal pad as he processed the information. “How did your suspect know where to find the kid?”
“There’s a leak in the task force. My partner is running it down, but with a leak in place, we couldn’t risk Nate. We had to take him where no one would find him. No one knows about my connection to Peg, to this town.”
“You took Peg’s last name,” Jerry commented.
“Harper is a common enough name. And not really the point. We thought we were safe, but when you took Mick to the airfield, he recognized one of our suspects working as a mechanic. No way is Wayne an airplane mechanic. And FYI, there’s a warrant out for his arrest, one you and your men aren’t chasing down.”
“Nothing’s come down,” Jerry insisted.
Her pulse spiked. The warrant existed, and they’d listed the local airfield as last known location for the perp. Was the sheriff protecting Wayne and the airfield? Or had one of the deputies managed to use the murder to distract Jerry? She took a deep breath and prepared to roll the dice. “Whatever is going down in that airfield, they have inside help, because there’s no way to bring the level of drugs we’re talking about without an inside man. Someone like you.”
He glared at her. “What the fuck do you take me for?”
She smiled, blessing him with the same sarcasm she used to nail Mick. “Same goes, Sheriff. I’m no killer, and the longer we debate this, the more danger Nate is in. And guess what? Peg’s there with him.”
The man stood so fast, his chair fell back wit
h a clatter, landing on the cement with a metallic thud. “You’re spinning quite a story, Detective, but I can’t take it on your word. I need corroboration.”
She picked up the evidence report. Something about it had to be off because the coat shouldn’t have tested positive for GSR. “Who had access to my coat?”
“The seal was unbroken when the deputies took it to the evidence locker.”
“Who had access?”
“Anyone on my staff. You’re saying one of my deputies is dirty.”
“Them or you, Sheriff. That’s the only way this works. I’m risking my life believing it’s not you. Time for you to ante up.”
“What do you have in mind?”
The missing warrant for Wayne was the smoking gun. They had to figure out how someone had hidden it from Jerry. “Go check for the warrant on Wayne. The roads may be closed, but you still have phone service and internet.”
Jerry grabbed his notepad and stood. “I have to be off my rocker to trust you.”
“What does your gut say?”
He reached for the door. “If you’re wrong, I’ll park your ass in cold storage as long as the law allows.”
Heart pounding, she nodded. “I’m not wrong.”
Big. Dumbass. Gamble. The stakes were life and death, and the cards hinged on Jerry being on the up and up. She was all in.
…
Mick shoveled snow off the trapdoor to the cellar. The slanted door that covered the stairwell leading to the basement was buried under two feet of snow. Peg said she hadn’t cleared it all winter, which explained the ice encrusting separate layers like sediment. While he worked, Peg donned snowshoes and marked several false trails into the trees behind the house. Nate, bundled in ski pants and a down jacket, watched from his perch on the back deck. No way was Mick letting the kid out of sight.
When metal hit wood, Mick smoothed the shovel around the edges of the door and scraped the last of the snow free. He yanked on the handle, had to pull to break the ice seal around the edges. The steep cement descended into darkness.
Peg marched up, huffing vapor into the frigid air. “That should do it. Door’s locked from the inside, so we’ll have to go down and shove it open. Make it obvious.” She sat down on the edge of the deck. “Help me pull these off.”
Mick yanked off his gloves to help unbuckle the snowshoes from around her hiking boots. A layer of ice coated the outside of her jeans, but laughter lit the smile on her frosty face. “Let me tramp down the stairs, plant some fresh snow in the stairwell.”
She was enjoying the art of deception. “You and Nate walk through the kitchen, dropping snow on the stairs leading down.”
He nodded. Nate followed him silently into the house. As they walked downstairs, he held onto Mick’s hand. The hand felt fragile and tiny in his big mitt. He swallowed the emotion trying to lodge in his throat. They walked straight through the basement to the back door. The lock resisted, and then gave with a groan. The door squeaked inward on cold hinges.
“That should do it.” Peg clapped her gloved hands. “Now we wait.”
Mick’s heart pounded. They were playing hide and seek with a mobster. Bad fucking idea.
Chapter Eighteen
“Un-fucking-believable.” Jerry sequestered Dez in the interrogation room, no longer interrogating. “You were right about the warrant.”
“I was right about everything,” she insisted. “Someone in your department is dirty.”
Jerry paced the small windowless room much as she had when they first brought her in. “You’re saying I can’t trust a single man or woman on my staff.”
“I’m saying someone buried the warrant for a known drug dealer, planted evidence, and endangered my witness. Someone in your department. I need to talk to my partner.”
Jerry deliberated before handing over his cell phone.
“It’s about time you answered your phone, Butthead.” She grinned. Hearing Blake’s voice gave her hope. “Have you and law-and-order figured out how to get here?” The answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “We don’t have that kind of time. Fly in.” She dug a hand through her hair as Blake ran down what was happening on their end, with the snow keeping them out just as it kept them trapped inside. It was like living on a deserted island. “No, the airfield is open. I don’t care what the local airfield manager is saying. Mick saw it with his own eyes. Considering the situation, I’d have DEA or someone monitoring traffic in and out. If this is where drugs are coming in, this may be the way to track the source. We play this right, we can nail Sully.”
A sharp knock rapped three times on the door. Jerry silenced Dez with a swipe of his hand across his throat.
“Hold on.” She tucked the phone under her shirtsleeve. Having her use a cell phone during an interrogation was nonstandard procedure.
Jerry opened the door to one of the admins. She had short dark hair shot through with gray. “There’s someone here to see you, sir.”
“Deb, I’m in the middle of an interrogation. Tell them to wait.”
The woman blushed at the rebuke in his tone. “I’m sorry, sir, but Agent Stiles insisted I interrupt. He said the Feds wanted to sit in on the interrogation, as a courtesy since she’s on their task force.”
“Stiles? He your boss?” He glanced at Dez.
Her stomach knotted. How had Stiles gotten here so fast? Jerry had only notified her department a few hours ago just prior to taking her in for questioning. “Deb, tell him I’ll be right with him. And have one of the deputies come stand guard out front.”
The woman nodded, her bangs falling over her left brow. Jerry closed the door and looked straight at Dez.
“I heard.” Blood drained from her face making her feel lightheaded. She brought the phone to her ear. “Agent Stiles is here.”
Blake cursed like a drug dealer while having a side conversation with Logan. Their opinion tracked with hers, but she didn’t relish telling the sheriff. Things in this not-so-perfect town were about to get uglier. She rang off and handed Jerry his phone. “If the highway is still closed—”
“And the other agents couldn’t get through,” Jerry interrupted. “How did this Agent Stiles make it?”
…
The phone jangled at the same time someone banged on the front door. Mick’s taut nerves vaulted into overdrive. Peg bounced from her seat on the couch. The second ring sent her racing for the phone in the kitchen. The afternoon had droned on with Nate watching television and Mick and Peg waiting for trouble. Peg didn’t have a safe place to stash the kid, so they’d worked another angle, one Mick didn’t like as much, but they didn’t have a choice. The knock pounded again, more urgent this time. Mick was ready to pound whoever stood on the other side.
While Peg stepped out, Mick grabbed Nate’s coat from the hall closet. “Put this on.” Nate shrugged into his coat, his hands shaking. Mick grabbed an old Louisville Slugger from inside the closet. The bat was the only defensive weapon in the house. Peg didn’t believe in guns, which was ridiculous since she was sleeping with a cop.
Peg was shrugging into her coat when she slipped back into the living room. “That was Jerry on the phone. Agent Stiles is at the station questioning Dez. He said—”
“Expect trouble,” Mick guessed. If Stiles made it through the snow and Blake couldn’t, then there was only one way the agent had gotten through. The airfield. And he wouldn’t have come alone.
Peg grabbed Nate’s hand. “Come on, Nate. We’ll head out to the cellar.”
Another knock, this one more insistent.
“You won’t make it to the tree line before they’re on you,” Mick said. He didn’t want to scare the boy, but if Sully or his men were in town, then the house was probably surrounded. The fake trails only worked if someone was trying to track them, not if someone was already parked at the door. Sully’s men would kill Peg and take the kid. “Down to the basement.” They’d discussed possible hiding spots as a backup. “Go.”
Mick closed the basem
ent door, swinging the bat as he approached. The constant banging meant an agitated person on the other side of the door. Agitation caused mistakes. Mick took a deep breath and pushed everything out of his mind. He laid the bat against the door as he opened it, effectively hiding his weapon but keeping it in hand.
Deputy Doug stepped back and pulled his weapon on Mick. “The sheriff called. Told me to bring you in.”
Disappointment kept Mick rooted to the spot. He was really hoping the inside man wasn’t Deputy Doug. “And the kid?”
“We’ll keep him safe once you’re in custody.”
“Like hell.” He swung the bat at Doug’s weapon, knocking it across the yard. The sound of breaking bone shattered the snowy silence.
“Freeze.”
Mick felt the bite of a gun in his back. “Vern.”
“Drop the bat,” Vern said, shoving the muzzle of the gun into Mick’s spine.
The odds were not in his favor. He hadn’t expected both of them to be in on whatever bad stuff was going on in town. The bat clattered to the tile entryway.
Doug stepped toward the patrol car, holding his arm at an odd angle.
“Bet that hurts,” Mick taunted. He felt better knowing one of the bad guys couldn’t hold a gun.
Doug ignored the jibe. He opened the passenger door and reached into the car. “Hey, Vern.” He pulled out a dangling piece of electronics. “Someone destroyed the radio.”
Understanding hit Mick a minute too late. Deputy Doug had been played, likely convinced by his partner that they were supposed to arrest Mick, putting Doug in the crosshairs while Vern went around back. After Vern had destroyed the radio. Mick had disarmed the wrong deputy.
In a swift move, Vern shoved Mick and aimed at Doug.
“Down,” Mick yelled. He righted himself to tackle Vern into the side of the house, but not before the gun went off. He didn’t have time to check on Doug. The struggle for the gun wasn’t as easy as Mick expected. Vern fought dirty, kicking and biting and shoving his elbow, but Mick had fought Blake for enough years to counter the moves. The gun went off again, followed by searing pain in Mick’s leg.
Unstoppable (The Untouchable Series) Page 17
