Amber’s voice was cold.
“And I know my rights. I’m not talking without my lawyer.”
Vanzinger ignored the comment. As he pulled out his Miranda card and began to read, Peyton felt a flicker of doubt.
Maybe we should have waited longer to see what she was really up to. We could have seen who else was involved and taken them down as well.
But as they led Amber toward the Charger, Peyton knew it was too late to turn back. They’d have to see what information they could get out of the woman during an interrogation.
Telling herself that Misty Bradshaw would be safe now that Amber Sloan was in custody, Peyton couldn’t silence a niggling doubt.
But what’ll happen once Amber posts bail and is back on the street?
✽ ✽ ✽
Amber sat in stony silence. Her thin face held no sign of emotion as Peyton stared at her across the little wooden table.
“What were you planning to do with the drugs recovered from your vehicle?” she asked again. “Was your intent to sell them?”
“My client has no obligation to answer your questions, Detective.”
Eugene Wexler had arrived within an hour of getting Amber’s phone call. The lawyer wore a shiny suit and thick glasses, and he’d done all the talking so far.
“Your unwarranted search of my client’s car violated her rights, and anything found inside will be inadmissible in court.”
The door behind them opened and Peyton turned, expecting to see Vanzinger. Instead Clint Marlowe stepped into the room. The FBI agent’s tall frame towered over the table as he approached.
He ignored Amber, pinning his gaze solely on her lawyer.
“I’m Special Agent Marlowe with the FBI.”
His words were accompanied by an accusatory glare, and Peyton saw Wexler shift uncomfortably in his seat.
“I have some questions for your client about her involvement with the Diablo Syndicate. I assume you’ve read about them in the paper?”
Nodding up at Marlowe, the lawyer appeared to be lost for words.
“What about the Diablo Syndicate?” Amber asked, speaking up for the first time since Wexler had arrived.
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
Marlowe switched his hard gaze to Amber’s thin face.
“Are you now, or have you ever, worked with anyone associated with the criminal organization known as the Diablo Syndicate?”
Wexler finally found his voice. He banged a fist on the table.
“My client doesn’t have to-”
“Shut up, Eugene,” Amber snapped, keeping her eyes on Marlowe.
She spoke slowly, as if trying to piece together her words.
“Who said I was working with Diablo? Who told you that?”
“Excuse us just a minute,” Peyton said, standing up and turning angry eyes to Marlowe. “We’ll be right back.”
She crossed to the door and swung it open, then gestured for Marlowe to follow her out into the hall.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Peyton hissed. “You know we can’t tell her that Misty Bradshaw filed a report.”
“I wasn’t going to tell her anything,” Marlowe said with a raised eyebrow. “But since you and Vanzinger jumped the gun and brought her down here, I figured we might as well try to get something useful out of her before she bails out and goes to ground.”
Chiding herself again for acting rashly, Peyton sighed.
“Okay, we should have trailed her for a while to find out who she’s been working with, but she was already preying on some teenagers in the park,” Peyton protested. “If we waited too long who knows what she would have had them doing.”
“That may be,” Marlowe said calmly, “but Amber Sloan’s just a little fish in a much bigger and more dangerous pond.”
“What are you saying?” Peyton asked.
“I’m saying I think we may have to let the little fish go in hopes she’ll lead us to the sharks.”
Peyton stared up at Marlowe in dismay.
“Now, let’s go in there and prepare the bait.”
Following Marlowe back into the room, she bit back further words of protest. Marlowe was heading up the task force, and it wasn’t her place to argue with him, especially in front of Amber Sloan.
If she had doubts about his decisions, she’d need to take them up with Chief Ainsley. In the meantime, she’d have to be a team player.
“Ms. Sloan, if you know anything about the Diablo Syndicate, I’d advise you to tell us now.”
Marlowe lowered his big body into the chair next to Peyton.
“It may help you in the long run.”
Amber stared at the agent for a long beat, then shrugged.
“I might know something,” she admitted. “But I’d need some assurances before I tell you what that is. I’d need immunity.”
“I wouldn’t advise you to say anything else before we have a chance to review the charges against you.”
Wexler’s eyes were wide with alarm as he regarded his client through thick glasses, but Amber didn’t seem to hear him.
“If you can deliver us someone high up in the wider operation, we might be able to work something out,” Marlow said in a neutral tone.
Leaning back in her chair, Amber studied the agent. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw in his stony face, she nodded.
“I know a guy at the heart of the whole damn network.”
Amber ignored Wexler’s groan at her words.
“He arranges shipments and plays middleman between buyers and sellers. You get him and you’ll disrupt the entire supply chain. Give me immunity and I’ll make it happen.”
Peyton stared at Amber in disgust. The woman was talking about the trafficking network as if they were selling any old product. The fact that they trafficked in human beings, along with life-destroying drugs and dangerous weapons, didn’t seem to register with her.
Standing up from his chair, Marlowe crossed to the door. He looked back at Amber with his big hand on the doorknob.
“I’ll talk to the state prosecutor and see what I can do,” he said, then turned to Peyton. “In the meantime, let’s get Ms. Sloan some lunch. This could take a while.”
Peyton’s stomach lurched at the thought of food. She followed Marlowe out to the hall, but he was already pushing his way through the door to the lobby. Chasing after him, she caught up to him just before he could exit the building.
“Where are you going, Agent Marlowe?”
“I’m going to talk to Riley Odell and see if we can work out a deal.”
A familiar voice spoke behind her, and she turned with a frustrated sigh as Marlowe’s tall figure vanished through the door.
“Peyton?”
Frankie Dawson stood in the lobby, a hesitant expression on his clean-shaven face. His shaggy hair had been smoothed down, and he was wearing a neat, button-up shirt instead of his usual baggy hoodie.
“You ready for our lunch date?” he asked, watching the door swing shut behind Marlowe. “Or is this a bad time?”
Chapter Five
The look of dismay on Peyton’s pretty face quickly answered Frankie’s question. She didn’t appear to be happy to see him, much less eager to join him for a romantic lunch. The thought that Agent Marlowe’s abrupt departure may have had something to do with Peyton’s distress prompted a familiar pang of jealousy in Frankie’s chest.
“I’m sorry, Frankie.” Peyton stepped forward to put a hand on his arm. “Something’s come up and I can’t go to lunch.”
Closing his hand around the now wilted rose he’d impulsively picked from his mother’s garden on the way out, he pushed the crushed petals into his pocket and felt around for a stick of gum.
“No big deal,” he said, shrugging his skinny shoulders. “I had a big breakfast so I’m not really that hungry anyway.”
Peyton’s face softened as she watched him unwrap the silver foil and push the stick of gum in his mouth. With a sudden smile she pulled him t
oward the back.
“Come in here for a minute.”
She led him through the door and into a narrow hall, then stopped abruptly. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing, but she stopped his words with a kiss. Lifting her hand, she ran a finger down his smooth cheek.
“You shaved and put on this new shirt just for me?”
A warm flush of embarrassment flooded through him.
“What? No…I’ve got an appointment this afternoon and…”
Smiling up at him, Peyton pulled his head down for another kiss, then stepped back quickly when the door behind them opened and Tucker Vanzinger’s bulky figure filled the doorway.
“Hey, Frankie, how’s it going?”
Tucker didn’t seem to notice the pink flush on Peyton’s cheeks as he turned to her with raised eyebrows.
“So, how’d the interview go? You get anything out of her yet?”
“I guess you could say that,” Peyton answered stiffly. “She’s still in there, and apparently I’m supposed to bring her lunch.”
Frankie looked down the narrow hall toward the interview rooms. Memories of his own harrowing interrogations behind those very same doors came crashing back. Although he’d eventually been exonerated, and more than ten years had passed, he’d never forgotten the feelings of helplessness and fear he’d endured. He wasn’t sure he ever could forget.
Realizing Peyton was talking to him, Frankie looked up to see a hint of a frown between her big amber eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Frankie snorted.
“I should be asking you that,” he said, trying to laugh off his unease. “You’re the one who looked like you’d just lost your best friend when I came in.”
“Well, I was just saying that I need to get back to work.” Peyton’s eyes followed Vanzinger as he stopped outside a door down the hall. “But I’ll give you a call later, okay?”
She hurried toward her partner, leaving Frankie staring after her. He took a tentative step closer, leaning forward to catch a glimpse into the little room that he’d often revisited in his nightmares.
Spying the same wooden table he remembered from the times he’d been inside the room, Frankie stepped even closer, unable to resist the pull of the past.
He stopped short when he saw the woman sitting in a metal folding chair behind the table. The door swung shut before he could do anything more than gape, but the woman’s frizzy brown bangs and hard, thin face were impossible to mistake.
What the hell is Amber Sloan doing in there?
✽ ✽ ✽
The fresh spring air went unnoticed as Frankie walked through downtown Willow Bay heading toward his office. His mind kept returning to Amber Sloan. What had she done this time? Why had Peyton and Vanzinger been interrogating her?
Could they have found out about the thefts at the hospital?
Willow Bay General Hospital had recently become Frankie’s latest and most lucrative client. Drugs had started to go missing from the dispensary at an alarming rate and the hospital’s CEO knew someone on staff must be filching from the supply.
The hospital security team had tried and failed to uncover the suspected thief, but the CEO had decided not to contact the police. Hoping to avoid a PR disaster, he’d retained Barker and Dawson Investigations instead, and Frankie had spent much of the last few weeks running surveillance on the most likely culprits.
Having been spotted at the hospital on more than one occasion, Amber Sloan had automatically shot to the top of his list of suspects. Frankie had seen Amber a few times at his friend Little rays’ trailer, back before Ray had gotten clean, and his friend had warned him then that she was trouble waiting to happen.
“She’d slit her own mother’s throat if the price was right,” Ray had told him without a hint of a smile. “Stay as far away from that crazy chick as you can. She’s nothing but bad news.”
The thought of Amber Sloan sitting only a few feet away from Peyton in the WBPD interview room made Frankie’s skin crawl. He tried to remind himself that Peyton was a seasoned detective, and that she could take care of herself, but his chest was tight with worry as he approached Barker and Dawson Investigations and opened the door.
“You back already, lover boy?” Barker boomed, as Frankie stepped inside. “I was just telling our new clients here that you had a lunch date. How’d it go?”
Stopping short beside Barker’s desk, Frankie stared down at the couple sitting across from his partner. Veronica Lee and Hunter Hadley looked up at him, their smiles tense.
“It wasn’t a date after all,” he muttered, his forehead creasing into a frown. “Guess I got my wires crossed.”
He walked over to his desk and dropped into his chair.
“You two hotshot investigative reporters need our services?” he asked, cocking his head and folding his arms over his skinny chest. “Or is my partner just pulling my chain again?”
“We want help finding out what happened to someone,” Veronica explained, her voice strained. “Someone who went missing a long time ago. A woman who is most likely dead. The U.S. Marshals and the FBI haven’t been able to figure out where she is and-”
Leaning forward, Frankie raised both eyebrows.
“Wait a minute. The FBI and the Marshals have been looking for this woman and can’t find her, but you think we can?”
Barker cleared his throat and shot Frankie a dirty look.
“No need to sound so shocked,” Barker griped. “I was a detective for a few decades, you know. A pretty damn good one, too, and I do know what I’m doing.”
“It’s a little more complicated than just a missing person,” Hunter admitted, covering Veronica’s hand with his own and squeezing. “The feds are looking for a body so that they can close out a case, but it’s personal for us. We want to know the whole story.”
Veronica held up a hand to stop Frankie’s next words.
“Now, before we say more, I need you both to agree that whatever we tell you will be kept strictly confidential.”
She lowered her voice as if someone might be listening in.
“Since there’s an ongoing federal investigation related to the case, we have to be careful not to do anything that could be seen as interfering with or impeding their work.”
“Of course,” Barker responded. “We can do that. Right, Frankie?”
“Yeah, sure, my lips are sealed,” Frankie agreed, curious about the FBI’s involvement in the case. “So, who’s this missing lady? What’s her name?”
Hunter looked over at Veronica and nodded.
“Well, that’s the problem,” Veronica said slowly. “I don’t know her name. I just know that she is, or she was, my half-sister’s mother, and that my father claimed to have buried her on his ranch up in Montana.”
Her words hung in the air as Frankie tried to absorb what she was saying. He had gotten to know Veronica while working on several cases in the past year, and he’d come to respect her. Not many reporters were as committed as she was to exposing the bad guys and uncovering the truth.
And like almost everyone else in town, he also knew that her father had been a fugitive from justice for decades before showing up in Willow Bay over the winter.
And if the stories in the paper are true, daddy dearest was a serial killer.
But Frankie hadn’t heard anything about her having a sister. Of course, things seemed to happen pretty fast where Veronica Lee was concerned.
“So, you think your father killed this woman?”
“Yes, my father, Donovan Locke, said he’d buried her in the woods by his ranch,” Veronica explained, her green eyes bright. “And the feds have found bodies up there. Six so far, I think. But none that match Skylar’s DNA.”
“And Skylar’s your half-sister?” Barker asked, making notes on the pad in front of him. “Her mother was one of Locke’s victims?”
Swallowing hard, Veronica gave a weak nod.
“We haven’t told anyone about Skylar’s past besides
the doctors that have been helping her.”
She looked at Barker and tried to smile.
“Dr. Horn...Reggie…well, she knows, but other than that…”
Hunter put an arm around Veronica’s shoulders.
“Skylar deserves to know who her mother was, and what happened to her,” he said softly. “The U.S. Marshals and the FBI have recovered the remains of six women, and they are still trying to track down the network of traffickers that worked with Locke. They have their hands full.”
“And we can’t just wait around,” Veronica added. “We need to find out the truth so that Skylar can move on with her life.”
Pulling a photo from her bag, Veronica slid it across the desk toward Barker. The older man looked at it, then handed it to Frankie.
A painfully thin girl stared out of the picture, her solemn green eyes dominated her pale face, and long silvery blonde hair fell over her shoulder in a thick braid.
“She’s just a kid,” Frankie murmured, handing the photo back to Veronica. “How old is she?”
“We…we aren’t sure.”
Veronica’s voice tightened with pain.
“Skylar doesn’t remember her mother, at least not clearly, and Locke never told her anything. He never even told her he was her father. The Marshals found out through a DNA match.”
“Poor kid must be pretty confused,” Frankie said, his voice grim. “And I’d love to help, of course. But you two are investigative reporters. Why bring us in?”
Glancing at Hunter, Veronica shook her head.
“He thinks I’m too emotionally invested to be able to handle the investigation objectively,” she said with a grimace.
“We’ll get the answers we need faster with more resources involved,” Hunter countered. “Besides, Veronica and I have our commitments at the station. We’re hoping you guys can stay focused on finding out what happened to Skylar’s mother.”
Thinking of their current caseload, Frankie sighed.
“Well, we do have another big case going on….”
“But we can handle both,” Barker interrupted. “Now, we will need to get all the background information, and we’ll need to know what you’ve done so far, and where you think we should start.”
Her Silent Spring Page 4
