10
I remembered to check my pocket after running for another thirty seconds and was relieved to find the baton still there by some miracle. I had no doubt that Jo would kill me or make me buy a new one as soon as we made it off this crazy rollercoaster if I had lost it. I looked at the blood on my hand again and wiped at my head absently. I should have seen Fuller sooner, but my right eye was still half closed. I really was going to slow Jo down, or be a liability to her if I wasn’t careful.
We ran through the alleyway and came to an intersection in what looked to be one of the rougher neighborhoods. I’d long since lost track of where we were but could figure it out if my tablet or phone survived. As if hearing my thoughts, my phone rang again. I still couldn’t look because I’d just spotted Fuller.
“There,” I yelled as he ducked into a burned-out store, the brick shell the only thing left standing.
“He’ll go out the back door,” Jo said, her breathing starting to come in hoarse gasps.
“We’re in better shape, and he’s dragging the girl. He’s got to take a breather sooner or later,” I said, noting that Martin Fuller was much older than either of us and appeared to be overweight.
He wasn’t as big as Ralston, but big enough that I was surprised he’d lasted this long. Then again, he was a cop and he knew this area. I didn’t, and I doubt Jo knew it well either.
We both slowed as we approached the building. Some of the interior walls were visible through the shattered glass, and in places the flat roof had fallen in. Still, there was a side door that they’d used to gain access, and I could only pray that the back door was blocked by the wreckage. My phone rang again, and I pulled it out and silenced it, noting that it’d been Skye calling multiple times.
“Susan?” she asked.
“No, but I need to—”
Gunshots rang out, and we both ducked instinctively.
“No time,” Jo panted. I nodded.
We stepped on either side of the doorway. Jo took the far side and I winced, expecting shots, but nothing happened. She pulled her gun and stepped into the darkened doorway, sweeping left to right.
The pipe appeared suddenly, swinging from the right side of the door and connecting with her gun just as it went off. It slid off into a darkened corner of the room. I heard another gunshot go off, and I rushed inside, fearing the worst. Johanna had Martin Fuller by the wrist and was using both of her hands to try to control his gun hand. The cords of the muscles on her neck stood out, but she was losing the battle of brute strength.
I remembered our sparring matches, and I knew how to do some of the moves I’d seen her do, albeit much slower. I was thinking of jumping in when Jo stepped closer, pushing the gun lower as she brought a knee up and hit Fuller in the groin. He instinctively slouched, his grip loosening, and Jo head-butted him. He fell back into the half-rotted wall of the building, his back punching a hole in the wet sheetrock. He slumped down, and Jo snap-kicked him in the face, slamming his head against the wall. She reached down and picked up his gun.
Just like that, Martin Fuller was unconscious. He was breathing raggedly with blood coursing down the ruin of his nose, and another gash had opened up over his right eye.
“Shit,” Jo said, walking towards the dark pool of shadow where her gun had landed.
My phone rang again, and I almost jumped. I pulled it out and accepted the call.
“Go,” I said, surprised at how calm I felt.
A terrified Caroline Taylor stepped out from behind some debris as Jo picked up her gun. She tucked the weapon into her holster and approached Caroline to see if she was ok.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” a nervous-sounding Skye said. I put her on speaker.
“Go ahead. We’ve got Fuller and Caroline,” I told her as Jo and the young woman started to talk animatedly.
“I found the connection. It isn’t what we’re thinking. Fuller is connected to the governor’s personal assistant, Craig, who came up in the IAB files. Craig is the nephew of some of the underground gambling house bosses. Looks like there’s some debt…”
“Fill in Susan,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”
I almost ended the call, but Skye screamed for me to wait.
“I also hacked Craig’s email… he’s been dating Caroline for about two years now.”
I heard a whack and turned to see Jo falling forward, the mayor’s daughter holding a length of pipe. She bent down and grabbed the dropped gun, Martin’s gun. She pointed it at me.
“Give me the phone,” she said, her voice sounding pissed.
For once, I think I guessed a woman’s feelings correctly, because if I knew what murder looked like, it was now staring me right in the eye. I held the phone out and watched as she stepped closer. The bore of the handgun grew in size until it was almost touching my forehead. I couldn’t stop staring into it, noticing the rifling of it. Skye was screaming into the phone, but I was shutting down. Fear and anxiety crashed into me at once. I started locking up.
“Bye bitch,” Caroline said into the phone, ending the call and dropping it on the floor. She then stomped on it.
“Don’t,” I asked her. The bore of the pistol seemed to be inches from my right eye, centimeters even.
“This was supposed to be easy. Now I have to finish this myself,” she said, her voice cracking.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the half a heartbeat before I was going to die. I clenched my hands to my side, almost at attention, and tried to breathe, tried desperately not to hold my breath.
I heard the report and opened my eyes, surprised to not be a statistic. Caroline was spinning, her gun searching. I saw Jo an instant before Caroline did. When Jo had gone down, she’d still had her pistol, and the Beretta had been tucked back into the holster. Miss Taylor had neglected to disarm her, and a woozy Jo had gotten to her knees, and was trying to steady her hand for a second shot at Caroline as her arms wobbled. Blood ran down the side of her head, and I just knew Jo wasn’t going to be fast enough.
Everything went in slow motion for me—from fear, from stress or the moment. I’ll never know. But as I moved, my hand brushed the handle of the baton. I grabbed it, and with one motion swung it at Caroline’s hand. It wasn’t the efficient flip that Jo used to extend it—for me it was just a handle to swing, and I was out of options. Jo’s gun went off, missing again as my underhanded swing extended the baton and crashed into the bottom of Caroline’s wrist. The gun discharged into the ceiling, and Caroline dropped the pistol, screaming as she pulled her injured paw to her chest.
My father always said never hit a girl, but I’d done it. She had been going to hurt my friend, and I didn’t know what else to do. I was panicking now, but as I watched Caroline reaching for the gun with her good left hand, I raised the baton up and brought it down across the back of her head in a quick motion. She dropped to the floor, unconscious.
“Johanna?” I asked, rushing over to her.
“Just knocked me silly,” she said, getting to her feet and then falling.
I tried to catch her under her arms, but she was out cold, and we both fell to the floor, my body cushioning her fall. I pulled her to me, taking the gun out of her hands. We were sitting in the middle of the floor, ruining my suit as I tore my jacket off and pressed it to the side of her head. I felt her pockets for her phone but didn’t find it. It may have been lost in the chase or the scuffle. I laid Jo in my lap gently and she moaned. I pulled the jacket back to make a tighter wad to compress against her head and felt something flat. The tablet! It had LTE wireless built in, same as my cell phone!
My brain was locking up, but I saw that I’d missed Skye’s video call a moment ago and hit redial. I set the tablet down in the rubble so I could hold the gun and the compress. I fought against the anxiety attack, but I was losing… so if either Caroline or Fuller got up, they were going to be shot. I was no match for any of these goons, and there was still too much to do, and I was on the verge of passing out.
“Boss? Oh my God, are you ok?” Skye gushed.
“Get Susan and Landon over here. Johanna’s knocked out, maybe hurt bad.”
“I already called everything into Susan and Landon. Susan’s on her way to your location right now.”
“How?” I asked her, my vision getting dim.
“GPS on your tablet and phone, before it died,” Skye said. “Is she going to be ok?”
“She has to be. She lied to me and we have a lot to talk abou—”
My vision went completely dark.
* * *
Susan filled me in on what happened when I woke on the way to the hospital. Other than bumps and scrapes, I was fine. I’d just passed out. Jo, on the other hand, was diagnosed with a serious concussion and was patched up with a line of stitches on her temple. She’d been furious when they were forced to shave part of her scalp to stitch her, but if Jo wasn’t angry or upset with someone, she wouldn’t be Jo. Both Caroline and Martin were in custody, although Caroline had a knock on the head that almost matched Johanna’s in intensity.
“I told you, get out of here,” Jo snarked, and I snapped awake.
I was sleeping in the chair next to her bed, or at least I had been.
“Tomorrow,” I told her, knowing when they were discharging her.
“She’s right, you know. We need you downtown,” Susan said as she and Pete walked into the hospital room.
“Who’s driving?” I asked them, nervous.
“I am,” Pete said.
“Can it wait for tomorrow?” I asked hopefully, knowing what a horrible driver Pete was.
“No,” all three of them chorused.
“Fine, but as long as Susan drives,” I said, and she nodded.
* * *
The drive to the precinct was quick and painless. Pete kept hammering that fact over and over, complaining about how Susan was catering to me. Regardless, I’d given them a partial statement, but the Mayor and all the big brass were there, waiting for me to give them my official statement.
Pete and Susan filled me in that the Mayor’s assistant had been pounced on as soon as they’d heard about Martin’s arrest. The Mayor hadn’t been aware that his daughter had been dating the assistant, nor that she’d been in on it. At the time, Pete had only told them she’d sustained a blow to the head but was in no danger.
“You ready?” Susan asked me.
No.
“Yeah,” I lied, fishing a bottle out of my pocket and dry swallowing a Xanax.
“Ok, we’re in the task force room on the third. There’s only going to be about ten people there,” Susan said, reaching out to pat me on the shoulder.
I shied away and waited for her to keep walking. The noise and flurry of motion walking through booking was overwhelming, and I swayed on my feet trying to hold it together. My breathing started to become labored as we waited for the elevator.
“What’s wrong?” Pete asked.
“Panic attack?” Susan asked.
I nodded.
“Are you going to faint again?” Pete asked.
I shook my head. The door opened and I stepped out. The air seemed fresher somehow, but I was suddenly nauseous. I made a beeline for the men’s room.
“You need—”
“Let him go, Pete,” Susan said, putting a hand up to stop his progress.
I got the door open and headed for the sink. Usually a public restroom would never be something I’d use, but I didn’t want to chance getting sick all over the floor out there. I splashed water on my face and through my hair. I’d seen that in the movies, and was surprised that it worked. I stared at my reflection in the mirror and tried to put all the pieces together before I went in the conference room, or task force room or whatever. I was about to tell the Mayor that his daughter tried to murder my best friend.
I heard sharp words and a slight commotion outside, and Pete pushed his way into the restroom over Susan’s protests.
“Just let me be for now…” Pete said, closing and locking the door.
Locking me in there. With him.
“You ok?” he asked me.
“Almost.”
“Good,” he said, pulling a rolled-up file folder out of his suit pocket.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Warrants. For everything you did. Backdated.”
I stood there, trying to understand.
“The Mayor hired you to assist the FBI and the police department. You were already acting as a police contractor, so I made a few phone calls for some things I couldn’t do myself and—”
“So it was all legal,” I said, making it a statement of fact.
“Yes,” Pete said quietly.
That had been my biggest worry. I was willing to take the fall for the illegal actions my team and I had committed, although I doubted I’d serve a day of time with the lawyers GIS kept on retainer. But a conviction would greatly hamper the business, and perhaps the next time a situation happened that was time-sensitive, we wouldn’t make it in time because I had played fast and loose with the rules in a case that had federal babysitters.
“Thank you.” I told him after a long moment.
“Susan has no idea, and I don’t want her to. If the shit hits the fan, it’s just you and me,” Pete said, smacking me in the chest with the files so I’d have to grab it.
I did, and I noted that my damp hands were making wet marks on the outer edges of the folder. I set it down and dried off. I could feel the medicine kicking in finally.
“Thank you for leaving her out of it. I think I can do this.”
“We know parts of the story too. This is a dog and pony show for the top brass, so don’t sweat it.”
11
“Are we ready?” Special Agent Landon Sorenson asked.
“I just want to know why,” Mayor Taylor asked.
“It’s taken me some digging, and I’m still unraveling data,” I told them as I sat down, feeling the calming effects of the pills.
The story was a lot simpler than any of us realized, and Skye had finished piecing most of the puzzle together with Susan’s help. I’d put a lot of the pieces together just from reading the updates on my tablet, but it would help if folks talked.
“According to my IT department and public records, your daughter and Craig started to date two or three years ago. Both Craig and Martin Fuller are associated with some of the underground gambling clubs here in Detroit, the higher stakes games,” I told them.
“My daughter doesn’t gamble—”
“When Craig got in deep, some heavies from a loan shark started circling. That’s where Martin Fuller came in. He’s done some moonlighting as security, as I’m sure your IAB investigation knows—”
“How?” Susan began to ask, and I tossed her the warrants that traced the numbered accounts and the printouts I’d been saving back.
She pawed through them and then looked at Pete, realizing something was off.
“That’s how we found out two hundred thousand dollars had been wired from the Mayor’s office,” I went on, Landon hanging onto my every word as Susan passed him the copies. “At first I suspected the Mayor’s involvement.”
The Mayor jumped right on that. “You son of a—”
“Because not only did the money come from his personal accounts, but as soon as Johanna called to update him, Fuller up and moved. Also, I suspected somebody from within your troop as well,” I said, nodding to Landon.
Surprisingly, Landon nodded in agreement. “It was weird. How did you figure out Caroline was involved?”
“When she clubbed Johanna over the head. We didn’t find out the other connections until afterwards. Then it was fill in the blanks.”
“We were with Mayor Thomas when the call for the 2.5 million dollars came in,” Landon said. “And when Susan called to say they’d recovered the Mayor’s daughter, Mr. Taylor there punched out Craig. Mr. Thomas says that, towards the end, Craig confided that if he wanted his daughter alive, he’d better pay
and not go along with the FBI’s plan to bug the cash. He’s the reason Fuller got the info. We found a burner phone that matches the number to the one that we found at Fuller’s last location. We figure Fuller must have gotten spooked when he saw you and Jo on the cameras. We think Craig tipped him off that you’d zeroed in on his properties. How did you do that, by the way?”
I pointed to the paperwork Susan had passed to him.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling at me. “I see all the stuff from the United States and the warrants that go along with it, but how did you get the data from the Caymans and Switzerland? It would take us months to unravel that kind of red tape…”
“You have enough there to link it all up. I just took a shortcut,” I told him, realizing the fatal flaw that neither Pete nor I had foreseen.
Then again, it was the laws of those countries and not those of the United States that mattered in that area. I wondered if that would get me on some kind of watch list or—
“Shortcuts. I like that,” Landon said.
I was surprised that, other than a few outbursts, the Mayor had kept quiet. He looked like a man broken.
“I never realized,” he said after he saw me trying to read his expression.
“I never realized this started in my house. My home. She must have been the one to wire Fuller the money to get this going. But why? Why?”
“I think it was actually Craig who set up the wire transfers. You probably signed something thinking it was a part of your campaign fund or advertising,” I told him, and he nodded quietly. “And for the second question, I have a guess. I think it was love.”
“Love?” Mayor Taylor asked.
“It’s a confusing and often illogical emotion, one I’m not familiar with directly. But I’m learning about the concept from friends. Your daughter had a long relationship with your assistant. I’m sure somebody threatened to hurt or even kill him. Your daughter did what she felt she had to do. Fake a kidnapping, get the money, and pay off his debts. Maybe have enough to live happily ever after, because oftentimes there’s much cheaper and nicer places to live than in Detroit, and a few million would really go a long way once you get to a beachfront in some South American country—”
Kidnapped: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 1) Page 12
