Fatal Exchange

by Harris, Lisa

  You’ve got thirty-six hours to come up with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you want to see him alive …

  According to Mason, they might as well have asked for the moon. Avery shook her head. She needed a distraction from the images playing in her mind.

  She glanced up at Tory. “You know he has a crush on you.”

  “Griffin?”

  “Who else would I be talking about?”

  Tory shook her head. “Crushes are for sixth graders, Avery.”

  “Maybe.” Avery lowered her voice. “But I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Overly attentive and helpful. He brings you coffee most mornings, offers to buy you lunch at least once a week, and is always trying to make you laugh. How else would you interpret it?”

  “I don’t.” Tory closed the closet door with a little more force than necessary. “You’re imagining things.”

  Avery pulled open the top drawer of one of the dressers. “Am I?”

  “We work together. I find his company … entertaining. It’s like working with one of my brothers. That’s it.”

  “You’ve got four brothers. Somehow I don’t think you need another one.”

  Tory chuckled as she opened the other closet door. “You’ve become a romantic, Avery.”

  Maybe she had, but Levi Griffin had an exemplary record as a cop and was the perfect southern gentleman when it came to the women in his life. Add to that his charming dark looks, boyish grin, and a hint of a mystery about his past that only the captain knew about, and she could see how he had women turning their heads.

  Avery dug into the next drawer, jammed with socks and Tshirts. The routine nature of an initial search helped numb the worry and keep her mind off reality. The tech team would come in behind them and do a full sweep, taking computers and electronics back to the lab and dusting for fingerprints, followed by the K9 drug team that was on their way. But they needed something now.

  A gnawing sense of guilt returned as she continued searching. She knew how hard it was to be a single mom, and she not only had a good-paying job but a family who was there to pick up the slack when she couldn’t be.

  From what she knew about Elaine Cerda, the woman had neither. No husband or boyfriend. Low-paying, minimum-wage jobs … Sometimes life simply wasn’t fair. Ironic how they were now both facing similar situations with their children.

  Avery glanced across the room at Tory. “I’m realizing how much we have in common, Elaine Cerda and I. Her son held for ransom, while her other son holds my daughter.”

  Both of them faced a mother’s worst nightmare. Their children’s lives were in danger. Avery felt the bottom of the drawer for anything hidden, then shoved it shut.

  “I know this is hard on you—you don’t have to do it.” Tory stood up and rested her hands against her hips. “You can go back to the station, back to the school, to your parents’ house, wherever would help you get through this. We’d all support your decision.”

  Avery shook her head. Nothing could help her get through this. “I need to be here. But what makes it even harder is that Tess and I had a fight this morning.” She’d always prided herself for not bringing her personal problems to work—just like she tried not to bring her work problems home. “I never like to send her off to school mad, but I needed to get to the office early for a meeting and we were running late. My mom offered to take her to school.”

  “No matter what happened between the two of you, Tess loves you and knows you love her.”

  “I know.” Avery twisted her hips, trying to relieve the ache in the small of her back. “But how does anyone handle the fact that your child is in danger, and there is nothing you can do to stop it?”

  “I don’t know, beyond trying to take one moment at a time without letting your mind settle on the worst possible outcome.”

  Avery finished going through the bottom drawer of the dresser, digging through contents, then feeling around the sides and top for anything that might be hidden. For now, staying focused on her job was better than sitting around worrying. At least she was doing something. If Mason couldn’t convince Rafael to stand down, finding Eduardo was their only other option. She’d deal with her emotions once this was all over. And Tess was safe.

  “Anything?” Tory interrupted her thoughts.

  Avery shook her head. “Nothing.”

  No drugs, no cash, nothing that pointed to Eduardo’s involvement with the cartel.

  Griffin entered the room. “I just spoke to Carlos. He finished checking footage from the street cams around the hotel where Mrs. Cerda works.”

  “And?” Avery pressed.

  “Rafael was telling the truth. They spotted his car dropping off his mother at the corner just after seven.”

  “Can they tell where she went after she got out?” Tory asked.

  “She headed toward the service entrance of the hotel, but once Rafael drove away, she doubled back down the main road, then took a side street. After that, the camera loses her.”

  Avery tugged off one of the gloves she’d been wearing. “What was she doing?”

  “It’s impossible to say,” Griffin said. “Maybe she was contacted by Eduardo’s kidnappers with further instructions. Or maybe she decided to contact a rich relative.”

  “So all we really know is that she didn’t go in to work this morning. What about her phone logs?” Avery asked. “Did someone call her this morning before Rafael dropped her off?”

  “Carlos is checking that right now, but if it’s the same person who called Rafael, they used a burn phone and the number will be impossible to trace.”

  Technology had its advantages, except when it ended up giving the bad guys the edge.

  “So Rafael drops her off at work, and then what?” Tory leaned against the dresser. “Not only did she not go in to work, Rafael didn’t meet Mason as planned. So between his talking to Mason at seven and his pulling a gun on a roomful of high school students an hour later, something had to have changed.”

  “Maybe not.” Avery spoke her thoughts. “His brother is being held for ransom, and he knows he and his mom can’t pay it. What would you do if you couldn’t pay a ransom and knew your brother’s life was on the line?”

  “I wouldn’t pull a gun at school,” Griffin said.

  “Rafael was threatened not to go to the police, so maybe he started to regret his decision to talk to Mason,” Tory added. “In his mind, he was out of options.”

  Griffin shook his head, clearly not buying into the theory. “I can maybe understand the option of taking his class hostage crossing his mind, but most people wouldn’t actually follow through with it. Certainly not a kid like Rafael.”

  Something crashed in the back of the apartment.

  Avery pulled her Glock out from beneath her jacket. “Someone’s in here.” She headed out of the room. They couldn’t have missed someone …

  He came from the master bedroom, carrying a duffel bag, and sprinted toward the front door with Griffin right behind him.

  “Freeze!”

  The man turned and plowed into Griffin, knocking him down before running out the front door.

  “Go … go … go!” Griffin yelled.

  Avery flew out the front door behind the suspect, ducked beneath the stairwell to the cement steps leading outside. He was already a good ten yards ahead of her before he was forced to slow down to hurdle the shoulder-high chain-link fence on the other side of the sidewalk that surrounded the property. It was raining again, leaving the ground soft and slick.

  She shoved all worried thoughts of Tess and Emily aside, leaving just enough to act as motivation to catch the guy. They needed to know why he’d been in the apartment and what he knew—if anything—about their case.

  She jumped off the last step, holstering her gun as she crossed the sidewalk, then propelled herself over the fence, landing on all fours. Her knee skidded across the wet grass on the other side, ripping her pants, but she stood back up and started running after him down one of
the wooded trails behind the apartment complex.

  She had to stop this guy.

  Her lungs burned, legs ached, but she pushed through the pain. She’d missed her run this morning and hadn’t planned to make it up.

  I don’t know that I’m up for this today, Lord.

  She was gaining. Ten yards, six …

  He miscalculated the sharp curve in the trail and slipped in the mud. Avery landed on top of him, hard, then heard his body slam against the ground beneath them. His elbow jabbed into her ribs as momentum carried her forward. Shoving his shoulder against the ground, she ignored the throbbing pain in her side.

  He tried to push her away, but she pressed her knee into his back to hold him down as Griffin pulled out his handcuffs.

  “Don’t even try to move!”

  It was over.

  “Guess you didn’t need us, boss.”

  “It’s about time the two of you showed up.”

  Avery looked down at her pants, now caked in mud, and frowned. At least she’d gotten him. “He could have picked a day when it wasn’t raining outside.”

  Avery turned the guy over and pulled him up onto his feet. “What’s your name?”

  He turned away, jaw clenched.

  “He was carrying this.” Tory unzipped the bag. “Dropped it a few feet back.”

  Griffin let out a low whistle at the pile of cash inside.

  “Not enough to pay off the ransom demand, but still, not a bad start.” Avery turned back to their runner. “Apparently you had the same idea we had. Except you don’t have a search warrant.”

  She pulled a wallet out of the man’s back pocket and found his license. “Ben Jacobs?”

  Avery’s heart quickened at the memories the name evoked. This was the man she’d been looking for the past five months. The intruder who’d broken into her house. If it weren’t for Jackson and her former partner, Mitch, who’d insisted on protection duty outside her house all night, she could have been seriously hurt. Ben Jacobs had escaped but had left DNA on a piece of broken glass—DNA that connected him with her brother Michael’s case. And with the cover-up surrounding his death.

  “Ben Jacobs.” She looked at him. “What were you doing in the Cerda apartment?”

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Oh, I think you have a lot to say. Starting with your connection to the Cerda family, a kidnapping—”

  “Kidnapping? Wait a minute. I might admit to breaking into that apartment, but you’ve got it all wrong if you think I’m involved in a kidnapping.”

  “I don’t think so, and I’m not even finished yet. Add to that ransom demands, drug dealings …” Avery gave him a penetrating look. “And the death of my brother, Michael Hunt.”

  10

  Emily glanced up at the clock on the classroom wall and watched the second hand move in slow motion. Each minute that passed felt more like a day. She slipped off the sweater she’d exchanged earlier for her coat, draping it over the back of the chair where she sat. Despite the cool weather outside, the room felt muggy. Humid. She wished she were out shopping with Grace. Drinking hot chocolate in front of the Christmas tree with her family … anywhere but here.

  But like so many instances in life, there was no escaping this moment.

  Or the feeling that she wasn’t doing enough.

  Her gaze shifted to the red-stained tile halfway down the row of desks where Philip had fallen. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could ignore the reminder, but instead, the scene replayed again and again through her mind like it had over and over the past thirty minutes. She’d watched the medics walk cautiously through the door, while Rafael pressed the barrel of the gun against Tess’s head. She’d seen the terror in her niece’s eyes, while she sat helpless to do anything. The message was clear. Rafael might not have meant to shoot Philip, but he would shoot Tess if he had to.

  She’d wanted to pass on information to the medics. Communicate something to Mason and the others that would help, but nothing she could think of was worth risking Tess’s life.

  All she’d done was watch.

  How many times had she sat through a cop show on television or the movies and imagined how she might react? She’d always fantasized that she’d end up being the hero of the day, but reality was proving to be completely different. Forget brave and heroic. She was terrified. If it weren’t for the students and the fact that she was the adult responsible for their safety, she’d have already lost it.

  But she was out of options. Unless Mason and his team could find out who was behind Eduardo’s kidnapping, bringing a resolution to this was completely out of her hands. All they could do now was wait for the demanded ransom money to be transferred and pray that things resolved without anyone else getting hurt.

  God, I’ve never felt so out of control. Never felt so helpless. All I can do is sit and wait and pray that you somehow turn this mess around.

  Izzie nudged Emily’s shoulder from behind her, pulling her from her thoughts. “Miss Hunt?”

  Emily nodded at her to continue.

  “I meant what I said earlier to Rafael. This isn’t like him.” Izzie hesitated before lowering her voice. “Something seems … off.”

  Emily shifted around in her chair to face Izzie. She’d felt the same thing all morning, but had finally decided she was trying too hard to make excuses for Rafael. She wanted to believe that somehow he was an innocent player in all of this. It certainly wasn’t true. Still … “What do you mean?”

  “Rafael has always been nice, Miss Hunt. He smiles at everyone. Says hi to me in the hall … I don’t understand how he could do this.”

  “I don’t either, but he is. And as much as I’d like to think there’s somehow another explanation, he’s ultimately responsible for what’s happening in this classroom right now.”

  Izzie played varsity volleyball, ran track, and had been on the homecoming court this fall. Nothing in life prepared you for something like this.

  “I know, but he’s not like the loners you see on the news who end up blowing up all the kids who ignored them.”

  Izzie was right. Emily had been racking her brain for the past couple of hours, trying to remember anything in Rafael’s past behavior that would explain his snapping like this. His going to Mason had proved that he had started off in the right direction. But something had happened to make him believe that this was his only option. The question was, what?

  “Last week these boys from my third-period class were bothering me,” Izzie continued. “Rafael stood up for me. That’s not the kind of person who threatens to shoot you.”

  Emily looked back at Rafael, who was on the phone again with Mason. Every fifteen minutes the detective called in an attempt to make headway in the negotiations and give Rafael an update.

  She turned back to Izzie. “Sometimes stress does things to people. Sometimes when people feel trapped, they do things they wouldn’t normally do. He’s scared and not thinking properly.” Emily listened to her own explanation, not wanting to justify Rafael’s actions, but simply trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “I noticed something else,” Izzie continued. “Maybe I’m imagining things, but …” She lowered her voice again. “Have you noticed how he pauses before saying something?”

  “Yes, but he’s scared.”

  “What if it is more than that? What if someone is telling him what to say?”

  Emily felt her heart skip a beat. Izzie was speaking out loud the same thing that had been running through her mind. Except she’d dismissed the idea, thinking it was too outlandish to be true.

  But if it were true, what kind of leverage would it take to have made him do something like this?

  She turned to watch Rafael. His reactions, his mannerisms, his expressions. He shifted the hat on his head and continued to pace, jaw tensed. What had they missed?

  “Maybe it’s just my imagination,” Izzie said, “but what if someone is forcing him to do this?”

  R
afael hung up the phone and walked toward them, interrupting their conversation. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m just making sure everyone is okay and stays calm.” Emily kept her voice steady. If Izzie was right, there had to be a way to find out the truth. “They’re scared, Rafael. You know that. I don’t want anyone to get upset and panic like Philip did.”

  He shoved his phone into his pocket. “As soon as I get the money, all of this will be over.”

  Emily stood slowly, weighing her options. There had to be a way to test their theory. “What did Mason say?”

  “He asked if everyone was okay. Told me they’re working on getting the money. That I need to be patient. That it was going to take more time. Nothing has changed. I reminded him he was running out of time.”

  “It takes awhile to get that kind of money. You’re asking for a lot.” She moved down the aisle between the desks, closer to him. “I’m worried about you. This isn’t like you at all.”

  “We’ve gone over this before. It’s too late to stop this.”

  “I’m not talking about that right now. I know you’re worried about your brother. You know I’m here to help.”

  “Go back and sit down with the rest of the class.” The irritation was back in his voice. “As soon as I know that the money’s been transferred, this will all be over.”

  Emily hesitated. The kids sat silent, tears on the faces of some of the girls, worry mixed with fear on the boys’. If there was an outside person, they would need a way to communicate with Rafael. Could they hear him? See what was going on in the classroom?

  The room was wired to communicate between her classroom and the office, but she’d know if they were using that. The school administration had discussed putting in video monitors as extra security but in the end had felt it wasn’t necessary. Still, there were definitely other options. The technology was readily available. She knew Avery wore a wireless earphone in certain cases. A video camera could easily be placed in a hat.