Edge of the Heat 3

by Lisa Ladew

  “I made us dinner,” he said, smiling.

  She gave him a tentative smile back. “It smells wonderful.”

  “Sit, sit.” He motioned for her to sit across from him. She did, but seemed on edge, like a rabbit ready to bolt. Just don’t mention Senator Oberlin, and don’t mention how you’ve been treating her, and you’ll be fine. He served her up chicken and fries and wracked his brain for something to say.

  Anything.

  She took a small bite of the chicken and closed her eyes in appreciation. “Oh this is so good! Where did you learn how to cook?”

  “I taught myself. Sometimes I watch Rachael Ray and follow along with the recipes. Sometimes I watch youtube videos. Or I just try new recipes and see what happens.”

  She ate more chicken and tried the fries. “Oh, wow, these are good too.” She smiled at him, a real 5000 megawatt smile.

  Her beauty pierced him and he felt a little pang in his heart. The back of his neck prickled and his heart started beating faster. Which usually was his body trying to tell him he was in danger. He told the feeling on his neck to fuck off. He wasn’t going to go all Neanderthal on Vivian again just because he found her pretty. He could have a conversation with a pretty woman and not be scared of where it was going to go. They could have dinner and not a romantic relationship. Besides, Vivian might look a little bit like Gianna, but inside, Vivian was nothing like Gianna. Vivian was sweet and kind and caring and thoughtful. And she didn’t seem to be pretending or pretentious about anything. She’s not Gianna, he told his brain and his body, not sure which one needed to hear it.

  “Vivian, I uh, wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have pressed you to meet with Senator Oberlin. It must have been hard for you to hear that he’s probably your father.”

  Vivian dropped her glance to her food. “Yeah, really hard. Wait, what do you mean, probably?” Her eyes speared into him.

  “Well, a match of an uncle is not foolproof. I doubt CODIS made a mistake matching you with Tim Oberlin, but it’s a possibility. And what if Tim does have siblings and he just doesn’t know it? Unless you and Frank Oberlin are tested and come back as a father/daughter match no one can say with 100% certainty that he is your father.”

  Vivian nodded, eyes far away like she was lost in thought.

  “So what was Tim Oberlin in the criminal database for anyway?” she finally asked.

  “He was arrested for a DUI and possession of cocaine 5 years ago.”

  “Lovely family tree I have. Wonder what Mom’s like?” Vivian muttered.

  Hawk smiled. “Hey, we all have skeletons in our family closet. Don’t let it get to you.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that, well, that…” Vivian couldn’t bring herself to mention Hawk’s sister. She’d seen before how much it hurt him to talk about it. How hard and resistant he became when her name was mentioned.

  “That you are related to the man I think killed my sister?” Hawk finished for her, his voice soft. She looked him in the eyes and nodded.

  “No, it doesn’t matter to me. How could it? It has nothing to do with you or Emma.”

  He gave Vivian another sweet smile and she melted a little bit inside. How did this man do such a complete 180 in the last few hours? She didn’t understand it, but she felt herself falling under a spell he wasn’t even aware he was casting. She’d known he was drop-dead gorgeous since she’d first laid eyes on him. She learned over time that he was smart as could be and truly dedicated and hard-working. Now she was coming to learn that he was kind, sweet, thoughtful, and open to criticism. Oh, and he could cook like a dream. Hawk Kinkaid was turning out to be every single thing she’d ever wanted in a man. But would he ever want her back?

  Chapter 18

  Craig ran over his to-do list in his mind on the way to work. His first order of business was to get the warrant needed to pull the records of all the self-storage outfits in the city. Then he’d serve them. If that search turned up nothing he’d have to go back for a second warrant for nearby cities. Then he was headed out to the prison hospital to question the prisoner who had tried to kill Norman Foster. Hopefully he’d also have a look at the progress on the search for Foster. Not that he expected much there.

  Thinking about Norman made his stomach go queasy. But what could he do? He couldn’t stand watch over Emma all day, every day. Luckily, she carried her gun constantly now, except at work. But he’d found a way to still feel like she was safe at work. Hopefully she didn’t get too mad when she found out. And he was certain she’d find out eventually.

  He pulled into Headquarters’ parking lot and was surprised to see it full of cars already, with a gathering of people by the door. What the hell?

  He got out of his truck, scanning the group. Agent Donahue broke off from the pack and strode his way. There goes my day, Craig thought.

  “Agent Masterson,” he began, a snide smile on his face. He thrust a paper into Craig’s hands. “Here’s my warrant. Open the door and let my men in.”

  Craig looked over the warrant. It was signed by a judge and gave them permission to investigate Hawk’s quarters, his truck, and the main headquarters room, plus take a few items. It stated Hawk was being investigated for transport and sale of cocaine, crack-cocaine, and methamphetamines, plus he was using his position in the FBI to assist drug trafficking organizations in Venezuela and Colombia.

  Craig shook his head. What a load of crap. Who made this shit up? It was a good thing he didn’t know if Donahue was just taking orders from someone or not. If he thought Donahue might be the one who was creating this lie about Hawk, he would have a hard time not throttling him here in the parking lot.

  Craig handed the paper back. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He pushed past Donahue and unlocked the door without a word.

  He pointed out the two rooms and stood back. The 5 men got to work quickly. In Hawk’s room they dumped the dresser drawers, the bathroom drawers, checked every pocket of all his clothes, checked every inch of the mattress for rips, and even tore up the carpet. Craig knew better than to protest.

  In the main room, agents packed up Hawk’s computer and took all of the digital surveillance tapes they’d been working on for months. That’s weird, Craig thought. Why would they want our surveillance tapes? Hawk doesn’t watch himself. They also went through every file in the filing cabinet and every number in the rolodex, one agent painstakingly taking pictures of all of it.

  Craig kept notes of exactly what they were doing and even took some video with his phone. Trouble was, they were 100% by the book. There wasn’t a thing Craig could say.

  Special Agent Donahue approached Craig and asked, “Have you heard from Agent Kinkaid?”

  This was the tricky part. Craig wished he had asked ‘do you know where Agent Kinkaid is?’ because Craig didn’t. But this direct question put Craig at risk of lying to a federal agent during the cause of an official investigation (even if it was a bullshit investigation), which could lose him his job, or worse, get him arrested. He decided to go the direct route.

  “Yes.”

  Donahue raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “Is he on vacation?”

  “No.” Craig wasn’t going to lie, but he wasn’t going to volunteer anything either.

  “Oh? Does he make it a habit to disappear in the middle of the week when he is supposed to be working?”

  “No.”

  “Does his boss know where he is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who is his boss?”

  Craig thought hard. Did he have to answer this? He didn’t want to piss Donahue off enough that Donahue’s sights fell on him, but he didn’t want to play ball either. He didn’t think Hawk had notified his boss, Richard Carr, Regional Director, about the situation here yet. They’d been hoping to get more of a handle on it first. Right now though, there was no handle.

  “I report to Agent Kinkaid. I’m no
t exactly sure who he reports to.”

  Donahue sneered. “Well what’s your best guess then?”

  “Richard Carr.”

  Donahue nodded and made a notation on his pad.

  “Why isn’t Kinkaid here?”

  Craig sighed. This is where things got tricky. “He says that he caught wind of your investigation. He says he’s completely innocent and someone created this case out of thin air to keep him from investigating his current caseload. He said it worked, because he’s off investigating your investigation right now and you’ll be hearing from him soon.”

  Donahue raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Well why don’t you take my card and tell him to call me.” Donahue fished a card out of his pocket and gave it to Craig. Craig took it. Neither man spoke while they eye-wrestled for supremacy.

  One of Donahue’s agents came out. “Sir, we are done inside. All that’s left is the truck.”

  Donahue smiled again. “Tell me you don’t have the keys.”

  “I don’t.” Craig’s anger flared. Why was Donahue taking personal enjoyment in this?

  “Great.” Donahue sauntered over to the truck slowly, then put his fist through the driver’s side window.

  Craig’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t even checked to see if the truck was unlocked!

  Craig shook his head and turned around. He’d seen enough. This was a flame job if he’d ever seen one and there was nothing he could do here. He headed for his truck before he hit something. Or someone.

  Donahue’s voice rang over the pavement. “Innocent huh? This doesn’t look too innocent.”

  Craig didn’t turn around. He knew if there was something in Hawk’s truck it was planted there. And if something was planted in Hawk’s truck it was done by one of these officers. Craig knew he had to get out of there quick, before he lost it. There was very little he hated more than corrupt law enforcement officers. And he’d been running into way too many of them lately.

  He threw himself in the driver’s seat and peeled out quickly, not sparing Donahue another glance. He’d come back when they left and salvage what he could.

  Craig didn’t even trust himself to call Hawk and tell him what had just happened. Instead, he hit the highway out to the hospital prison and prayed the road would calm him. By the time he got to his destination, he could almost think of calling Hawk and telling him what happened without immediately wanting to punch something. Almost.

  The gate guard opened up for him immediately. No lockdown today. After jumping through the hoops at the front he met with Sergeant Coleman again, expecting Coleman to take him to an interrogation room. On the way he checked his file for the prisoner’s name again. Keen. Jayden Keen.

  Instead of an interrogation room he ended up in Coleman’s office. Craig looked around, noting the plaques on the wall. Coleman was highly trained and decorated.

  “Have a seat please, Agent Masterson.” Coleman indicated a dark, leather chair opposite his desk. Craig raised an eyebrow, but did. He’d find out soon enough what this was about.

  Coleman sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers, as if he were stalling or about to say something difficult.

  “You are here to see Keen, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are looking for news on the search for Foster?”

  Craig nodded.

  “I have a report for you. There’s nothing new in it. So far, no trace has been found of him. There are some theories as to how he got out of the grounds, but nothing concrete. They are all in the report.”

  Craig nodded again and tucked it away. He’d read it later.

  “As for Keen, I’m afraid I have some bad news. He’s dead.”

  Craig’s anger returned in a second. He shook his head, wondering if he was running up against another wall of corruption, or if this prison hospital was just fantastically inept.

  “Have you ever worked in a prison, Agent Masterson?”

  “I haven’t,” Craig admitted, almost under his breath.

  “Then you are unlikely to understand what has happened here. But please try. Prisons are full of the people society has thrown away. You know this. Most of them come in here without a shred of dignity or hope left. Society would say they don’t deserve to have dignity, or hope. I don’t judge, but I do see what this does to a person. It’s not pretty. It leads to high rates of suicide, and homicide within the prison. These people just don’t care anymore. They are already in jail. Why do they care if their 4 life sentences are turned into 8 life sentences. They are in prison till they die. Why not get it over with? These are the attitudes I see every day. Prison hospitals are a bit different, but we actually have higher rates of certain crimes. Basically, what I am trying to say is, unless we had a 1 to 1 guard to prison ratio these kinds of things could not be prevented. But we don’t. Most prisons say they have a 1 to 5 ratio. 1 guard per 5 prisoners. But when you factor in supervisors and sick leave and vacations, that is usually 1 pair of boots on the ground per every 10 prisoners. Here in the hospital it’s worse. We have an ratio of 1 guard to almost 25 prisoners most days. Think about that very carefully while I tell you what happened to Keen.”

  Coleman paused, looking to Craig for acknowledgment. Craig nodded. Those numbers were sobering.

  “Keen was here for a tumor in his left armpit. Early stages of cancer. That arm was almost completely useless. But he was still strong and his right arm still worked fine. He was in an ambulatory ward. Which is just a big open bay with cots. He received local radiation treatment to the tumor weekly. He’d been here for 6 weeks and was expected to be here for at least another 6 for continuing treatment. Up until the incident with Foster, he’d been a model prisoner. After the incident we put him in the lockdown ward. Which means he had a cell, but still attended meals with other lockdown prisoners. A prisoner named Madras followed him into the bathroom and beat him to death with a metal pipe he had removed from a piece of physical therapy equipment in the gym.”

  Craig nodded again with a little more understanding. “Motive?”

  “None according to the official investigation. But I have done some checking and found something I know you will be interested in. I will show it to you soon.”

  “Ok. I would like to interview this Madras.”

  Coleman steepled his fingers together again and looked down. When he finally spoke, the words chilled Craig’s spine. “Madras is dead.”

  Craig blinked in disbelief. Coleman had almost convinced him he was judging the hospital too harshly.

  “He’s dead too?”

  “Yes. Officers tried to subdue him after he attacked Keen and he went crazy. They handcuffed him and he was still biting and punching and kicking. They tazed him and he barely felt it. It took 7 of them to hold him down and when he finally stopped fighting he was dead. Preliminary autopsy results suggest ingestion of bath salts.”

  Craig sat, dazed, unable to think of a single question. He needed a few minutes of quiet to sort through this.

  “Which brings me to what I want to show you.” Coleman opened a folder and pulled out 2 black and white pictures taken from an overhead camera. “I pulled the visitor file for both prisoners. This man visited Keen the day before the attack on Norman, and this man visited Madras the very next day, which was three days before the attack on Keen.” Coleman slid the pictures across the desk to Craig.

  Both pictures were Frabrazio, Senator Oberlin’s new friend from the LA mob.

  Chapter 19

  Vivian pulled her nose out of her book and watched Hawk’s strong back as he bent over the computer. He was working hard as usual, but when she wandered out of her room this morning and said good morning he had smiled at her, which was definitely unusual. She had made him breakfast and again he had smiled and said thanks. She had sat down on the couch behind him instead of the couch in the other room and he hadn’t protested at all. She could get used to this.

  “Hmmm,” he said under his breath.

  She wanted to ask what he was worki
ng on, but she didn’t want to bother him, so she stayed silent.

  “Crap,” he said, a little louder.

  “What?” Vivian asked. She grimaced. It had slipped out.

  “I’m not finding any record of your birth.”

  “You’re looking up my birth records?”

  He swiveled around in his chair and faced her. “Yep. I’m trying to find a connection between Norman and Oberlin right now, and your birth seems like it might be our key. But there’s no record of it. Do you have a birth certificate?”

  “Yes, but mine has my adoptive parents names on it.”

  “Oh.” Hawk’s face fell.

  “But I’ve seen Emma’s,” Vivian added quickly.

  “Do you remember what it said?”

  “It had her name and under father it said unknown and her mother was named Jane Doe. Place of birth was Westwood General Hospital.”

  Hawk was silent. He chewed slightly on his bottom lip and stared off into space. Vivian stared at his bottom lip, thinking she’d like to chew on it too.

  His head turned to her quickly and she jumped a little and blushed. Quit it! she chastised herself.

  “So you guys weren’t dropped off somewhere like an orphanage or a church. You were born in the hospital but they didn’t know your mother’s name? How is that possible?”

  “My guess is she died in childbirth. Like she came in while in labor and for some reason they didn’t get her name and she died. Or maybe she came in unconscious and we were delivered by c-section and she never came to.”

  Vivian felt flat while she said this. She’d thought of her birth mother many times, but never been able to conjure up any emotion for her. She wanted to, but without a name or an image it just didn’t work. Whenever she tried to think of her mother, a picture of her adoptive mother filled her brain. She loved her adoptive mother. The woman still treated her like gold.

  Hawk watched her closely. “You OK?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good. It doesn’t bother me to talk about it.”

  He smiled and spun back to his computer, working the keyboard.