by Harris, Lisa
Emily nodded, still too numb to fully feel the effects she knew would eventually hit her. “Today simply confirmed that all I want right now is to go back to my normal, boring life.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back to mine,” Avery said. “Every day I go out on the streets and try to clean up someone else’s mess. Sometimes I get tired of digging inside a person’s mind so I can see why they did what they did.”
Emily waited for her sister to continue.
“Tess and I fought this morning, and I never had the chance to tell her I’m sorry. I think that is what’s killing me the most. If anything happens to her … if I lose her without the chance to tell her how much I love her—”
“You’re going to have that chance, Avery. Don’t ever stop believing that.”
“And if I don’t?” She looked up at Emily. “I’m sorry. I just feel so out of control. I couldn’t lead the investigation. I couldn’t fix the situation. And now I’ve got a bullet hole in my leg and I’m tied to a stupid IV. All I can do is pray and trust that someone out there finds my baby, because I’m terrified. I can’t lose her, Emily.”
Emily pulled her sister to her, no longer able to stop her own tears. “We’re not going to lose her, Avery. We’re not going to lose her.”
Mason eased his shirt back on after the doctor finished examining his side. They’d confirmed that there were no cracked ribs, only a few nasty bruises and the 9mm souvenir bullets he’d pulled out of his vest. A few inches another direction, and he’d be lying on an operating table right now.
God, so many things have gone wrong. So many people hurt.
Today reminded him of how sin had come into the world with Adam. But everything that happened today wasn’t a reflection on God, but instead on man’s decision to turn away from their Creator. And how turning away from his will affected everyone. Which was why he was worried about Emily. Today her world had been shaken to the core, and it wasn’t something that any of them could fix or erase.
“You got lucky out there today, son.” The older doctor’s words pulled him out of his thoughts. “But even though the bullets didn’t do any real damage, I’d still suggest you take it easy the next few days. You’re going to be sore.”
Tell me about it.
A moment later, he thanked the doctor, then headed for the third floor where Emily was. He wanted—needed—to see her. To make sure she was going to be okay, and to somehow try to help her through this. His phone rang as he stepped out of the elevator. He stopped at the edge of the waiting room where the reception was decent and took the call. It was the captain.
“Officers just found another body dumped,” the captain began. “Same MO. Slit throat. Same ransom note stuck to the door of the victim’s house. They’re interviewing the family now.”
The news hit like a punch to the gut. “They’re sending us a message.”
If they didn’t get the money, Tess could be next.
“I think you’re right, and Charlie’s not going to be any help anytime soon. Doctors are giving him a fifty/fifty chance of pulling through. Our only other lead is to track down whoever was in the van with Mrs. Cerda, and we don’t even know what he looks like.” There was a short pause on the line, before the captain continued. “Which is why I want you to bring Emily in to the station for an official interview.”
“I don’t know if she’s ready for that after what happened today.” Even though his first reaction was to protect her, he knew the captain was right.
“Emily knows Charlie better than anyone. She had to have seen something, met someone … anything that will give us another lead. Because all we’ve got right now is an unidentifiable suspect who’s supposed to meet Charlie tonight.”
Mason hung up, then found Avery’s room. Emily was sitting beside her, their conversation intense.
She looked up after a minute, then joined him outside the room. Her expression mirrored his own fatigue, but there was still a tiny spark of determination in her eyes.
“What did the doctor say?” she asked.
“That today was my lucky day.”
“I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.”
“I don’t either.”
He stood in front of her. Close enough for him to breathe in the subtle scent of her perfume, while trying to give her the space she needed.
“Any word on Charlie?”
“I just spoke with the captain.” He hated having to be the one to tell her. “The doctors … they’re not sure if he’s going to make it, Emily.”
He recognized the fear in her eyes because he understood what she was feeling. He remembered his own flashbacks, the guilt, and the constant second-guessing of what had happened the moment he pulled the trigger. He still had the occasional nightmare. It didn’t matter that she’d had no choice, or that Charlie probably would have ended up killing all of them. There were always consequences when your moral beliefs clashed with reality.
“And there is something else,” he said. “The captain asked that I bring you down to the station for an interview. You knew Charlie better than anyone else, and we still need answers.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
Debriefing might be a part of the process, but he’d trained for this. She hadn’t. She was only going to want to forget.
“You’re not in any kind of trouble, Emily. I promise.”
“I know, I just feel like I’m barely able to think right now, and to delve into everything again … Will you be there?”
“If you’d like me to.”
She nodded.
“You understand that this is simply to try and find Tess. You’ve been through so much today, but you’re strong. And even more importantly, there are people praying for you and your family. You’re not in this alone, Emily.”
Her faith was what would keep her going in the days to come when the numbness left and reality hit full force.
“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath and looked up at him. “I’ll do it. For Tess.”
31
Emily sat down on the offered metal chair in the interrogation room and gripped the seat with her fingers. Seeing her sister had brought home further the reality of today. The numbness had spread through her, though apparently not enough to completely mask the pain.
She slid off her coat that someone had brought from the safe house. The room seemed warm. Too warm. Maybe she was coming down with something. Or maybe it was just the combined stress from today … and knowing today’s stress was far from over. She wished she could go back to this morning and start over again. Before Rafael had decided to walk into her classroom with a gun. Before Tess had vanished. Before she’d shot Charlie.
Mason reached for her coat, hung it on a hook on the wall behind him, then handed her one of the bottles of cold water he’d been carrying. “Can I get you anything else? If you’re hungry—”
“No. I’m fine. Thank you.”
He was feeling guilty. She could see it in his eyes. But while part of her wanted to escape, she knew she had to do this.
He sat down across from her. “You’re not in any trouble over what happened today in the parking lot. You understand that, don’t you?”
She nodded, thankful he was here. Surprised at how her thoughts kept flipping back to the moment he’d tried to kiss her. Maybe it was just her mind looking for a diversion from the nightmare unfolding around her, but her heart told her it was more than that. Her gaze shifted to his chest. She was so grateful he was alive. It was a miracle the bullets hadn’t caused more damage. Now she was praying for another miracle.
“You know why we’re here.” Mason sat down across from her. “We need to ask you some questions about Charlie so we can find your niece, because we believe he’s connected not only to the man who was in the van manipulating Rafael but to Tess’s disappearance. We can’t question Charlie until he wakes up—and time is running out.”
She nodded. If he woke up. The last report twenty minutes ago hadn’t bee
n good. Complications had sent Charlie back to the operating table.
“What about the man who texted Charlie in the parking lot? Can they find him?”
“He used a burn phone, so the call can’t be traced.”
“And the van?” she asked. There had to be a connection.
“The CSI team found fingerprints, but we still don’t know who they belong to.”
Panic was setting in. Tess was missing, time slipping away, and all they had were a bunch of dead ends. She put her elbows on the table and started rubbing her pounding temples, digging for any remaining threads of strength.
“Can I get you some Tylenol?”
She shook her head. “They gave me something at the hospital.”
She’d refused the offer to take something stronger that would help her sleep. As much as she’d prefer not to face what was happening, giving in to sleep at this point would only delay the inevitable. Except at the moment, she felt like she’d just walked into Rafael’s shoes. Everyone demanding information out of her she didn’t have. She didn’t want to relive her past with Charlie, but if finding Tess meant stepping back into the past, she would have to find a way to cope.
I need you to help me through this, Jesus. Help me cope. Help me remember.
She grabbed a package of tissues from her purse, blew her nose, and then nodded. “What do you need to know?”
Carlos cleared his throat across from her. Apparently she wasn’t the only person in this room feeling uncomfortable. “You’re here because you probably knew Charlie better than anyone else.”
She’d thought that … until today. “Charlie was the kind of guy who knew everyone, but you’re right. He didn’t have a lot of close friends. Work always came first.”
“Did you ever sense that something wasn’t right? That he could have been involved in something illegal?”
“Never.”
“So your breakup didn’t have anything to do with your doubting his integrity?” Carlos asked.
“No.” Emily shifted in her chair, wishing Carlos’s questions weren’t so straightforward. Clinical. “I didn’t call off the wedding because I thought he was a dirty cop, or involved in some kind of illegal activity, if that is what you mean. I loved him, but in the end, it came down to the fact that I felt that something was missing from our relationship. And it wasn’t just him.” It was that something that couldn’t be marked off on a checklist. She looked down, avoiding Mason’s gaze. “I realized I’d said yes to his proposal for the wrong reasons.”
Carlos scribbled on the paper in front of him, even though every word she said was being recorded. “Can you explain?”
Emily tapped her nails against the table. Two of her nails were chipped. She had an appointment to have them redone Saturday morning. Somehow it didn’t seem important anymore. “Charlie was—is—a charmer. He came in and swept me off my feet. It’s still hard for me to pin down my reason, but I’ve learned that sometimes the desire to get married can become more important than the person you’re marrying. My friend Grace was planning her wedding at the time, and I got caught up in the idea of being married, instead of making sure our relationship was grounded in the right things.”
“And his reaction when you called off the wedding?”
“He was … upset.” Emily picked at one of the chipped nails, feeling exposed and vulnerable at the question. “I tried to make him understand, but I’m not sure he ever did.”
“When you say upset, was he ever resentful, vindictive, or angry after your breakup?”
“I …”
An unexpected wave of panic washed over her. She could still see him so clearly. Lying in the parking lot. Snow falling. Blood pooling beneath him. She’d caught the fear in his eyes. Felt his hand gripping her arm when she’d tried to ask him about Tess.
I don’t know what to do here, Jesus. I thought I was a good judge of character.
“I know this is hard.” Mason leaned forward, the concern in his eyes obvious. “We just need to consider every angle.”
“No. He never seemed angry. Just quiet. Hurt.”
“What about his family?”
“His mother lives in an assisted-living complex in northern Florida near his sister.”
“Are they close?”
“He flew down to see them a couple times a year. His father died about five years ago.”
“What does his sister do?”
“She works for a real estate company.”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“Once. She had a second trip planned, but canceled when the wedding was called off.”
Carlos jotted down another note before looking back up at her. “Did Charlie ever talk to you about going away? Disappearing?”
You could have come with me, Em. We would have been free. Just you and me.
“In the parking lot today … when the officers were trying to get the bleeding to stop … he started babbling about how we could have gone away together with the money.”
Another memory resurfaced. Charlie had taken her out to dinner at one of her favorite restaurants for her birthday. She’d been wearing a pink vintage cocktail dress she’d impulsively bought online. “There was another time.” Had the signs been there all along? “He asked me if I’d ever thought of getting away from it all and moving overseas to some exotic locale like Argentina or Madagascar. I laughed, dismissing the idea as nothing more than idle talk. I reminded him that I was a southern girl, through and through, and while I enjoyed traveling, living overseas wasn’t on my bucket list. At the time, I didn’t take his comments seriously.”
Emily wrapped her fingers around the water bottle. Questioning people might work for their line of work, but she needed to see things from a different angle. “Can I ask a couple questions?”
Carlos glanced at Mason. “Of course.”
“You said Avery’s office and possibly her home was bugged?”
“Ben Jacobs confirmed he put a bug in her house.”
“My sister was determined to prove Michael wasn’t the department mole. What if he realized she was about to figure out the truth? That Charlie was the leak, not Michael.”
Mason nodded. “Charlie feared he was going to get caught, knew he needed to disappear, and saw the ransom opportunity as his last chance to cash in.”
“Except from the very beginning things didn’t go as planned.” Her mind organized the situation like the World History timeline hanging on her classroom wall. “Charlie was the department negotiator and assumed he would be in control of the situation. And he would have been until you told the captain you knew Rafael and believed you could get through to him. Things continued to go wrong when I told you I believed Rafael was being controlled.”
“He panics, realizing that his plans are falling apart.”
Carlos tapped his pen against the desk. “Faking Rafael’s death was Charlie’s idea. He convinced the captain it was the only way to keep him safe.”
“Why?” Emily asked.
“I’m assuming he saw Rafael as a loose end and thought he’d have more control at a safe house than the station.”
“Rafael told me he saw a man watching him when he picked up the gun at the park,” Emily said. “Said he thought he could identify him, which wasn’t proof of involvement, but it might have brought up questions.”
“Or,” Mason added, “he might have thought Rafael knew where the rest of Eduardo’s drug money was. He’d already sent Ben Jacobs to search for it in the Cerda apartment, so he believed the boy had it.”
Emily drew in a slow, deep breath. If Charlie died, they might never know.
“Looks like another kink in Charlie’s plan was the safe house.” Mason leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “Since I knew Rafael, the captain assigned me to take you to the safe house and question him, which cut his access to Rafael. He realized he wasn’t going to get his money. His partner was on the run—either about to get caught or had been caught—but he still had hi
s eye on that two million, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. So he took a chance and grabbed Tess.”
“Which brings us back to the man in the van,” Emily said. “We can hope he knows where Tess is, because right now, besides Charlie, he’s our only connection.”
But they had no idea where the man was. Which meant no matter how they looked at the situation, they were still going in circles.
“Let’s go back to the attack at the safe house,” Carlos said. “If he was an associate of Charlie, there’s a chance you’ve seen him before. Was there anything familiar about him?”
“I don’t know. He wore a ski mask and long sleeves.”
Emily closed her eyes. She didn’t want to relive the feel of his grip on her shoulder. His warm breath against her skin. There had been something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place him. All she did know was that if it hadn’t been for Rafael, he would have killed her.
She felt her pulse speed up and she reached for the water bottle Mason had given her, trying to relax. She twisted open the cap and took a couple gulps.
“Think, Emily. He’s our only link to Tess right now.” Mason reached out and grasped her hand. “Did he have any identifying features? Anything—”
She jerked her hand away and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore, because I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Mason signaled to Carlos. “Give us ten minutes alone.”
32
Emily’s gaze dropped. Guilt surfaced. She thought she could do this. She thought she could walk in, tell them everything she knew about Charlie, and in turn help them find Tess. She’d imagined herself in her sister’s shoes, playing the role of the hero who swept in and saved the day. She’d just never imagined it would be emotional.
“I knew this would be hard, but—”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You just need a break. No recorders. No videos.”
She fought back the tears, avoiding Mason’s gaze. “I’m still trying to absorb everything. I trusted Charlie. Promised to marry him. I don’t know how I didn’t see the truth behind who he really was.”
