Winter Black Box Set 2

by Mary Stone

  Now, they had to try to convince Tony Johansson to tell them where Natalie and Jon Falkner were.

  Now came the hard part.

  36

  Aside from a bruise on the side of his forehead, Winter was surprised to see that Tony Johansson was unscathed. According to Bobby, he’d leapt off a railing to tackle Johansson to the ground. Although she didn’t care much if Bobby had squashed the man into a greasy spot on the concrete floor, she was glad the detective was alive and well. He wouldn’t be able to tell them the location of Eric Dalton’s daughter if he was in a coma or dead.

  Before Bobby had joined her behind the familiar pane of one-way glass, he’d stopped by his hotel room to shower and change his clothes. According to him, he didn’t want to subject her to an extended period of time in close quarters with a sweaty man who smelled like a week-old gym sock.

  As she caught a whiff of the woodsy scent of his shampoo and conditioner, she was suddenly glad for his attention to vanity. The light scent of soap was a vast improvement from body odor and smelly feet.

  They had been forced to wait for Tony Johansson’s lawyer to arrive, and Bobby had made good use of the time. While she had waited for the agent to return to the office, Winter had sent a message to Noah, checking in with him. He hadn’t replied yet, and she was starting to worry. If he didn’t reply soon, she thought she’d send out an all-point bulletin.

  She’d also exchanged a handful of text messages with Aiden to check on the status of Justin’s case. Forensics in Richmond was in the process of wrapping up the examination of evidence from a homicide, and next on their docket were the items they’d taken from the house in Harrisonburg.

  Meanwhile, the forensics department in the Baltimore office had suddenly been inundated with evidence secured from Alek’s residence, and now Tony Johansson’s. Marie Judd was nowhere to be found, and Winter could only assume she was busy helping the crime scene techs and agents sort through their findings.

  Bobby’s alert eyes flicked over to her as he lifted a brow. “You ready?”

  Winter nodded.

  “Too bad Parrish isn’t here, huh?” A ghost of a smile passed over Bobby’s face as he cast one last glance to the glass.

  She clapped Bobby’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Aiden was sort of my mentor, so I’ll try to make him proud.”

  Bobby chuckled as they stepped out into the hall. “Ready?”

  Winter dropped one hand down to the metal handle. “Ready.”

  A light creak accompanied the motion as she shoved the door inward. She shifted her gaze from the well-dressed lawyer to his disheveled client. “Mr. Johansson, we’ve already met. Mr. Thorton, I’m Agent Black and this is my partner, Agent Weyrick.”

  Bobby offered the pair a charming smile. “Gentlemen.”

  The lawyer nodded. “What can I do for you, Agents?”

  As the door latched closed, Winter took up residence against the same wall where Aiden had stood the night before.

  “Well,” Bobby paused to pull out a chair across from Tony and his lawyer, “we think your client might be able to help us with something, and in exchange…” He left the thought unfinished and shrugged.

  Before Winter could add her piece, a sharp pain lanced from her temple through her head. The sensation was so sudden, she hardly managed to hold back a wince. Not now, dammit. Not now.

  Thorton narrowed his eyes at Bobby. “What exactly is it you think my client did that he’d need your help, anyway?”

  With a chortle, Bobby shook his head. “Really? We’ve got physical evidence that ties your client to a double kidnapping and the murder of a federal agent. Your client’s staring down the barrel of the death penalty unless he gives us something we want to know.”

  The lawyer turned his incredulous stare from Bobby to Winter and back. “The death penalty? How exactly do you figure you’re going to get a seasoned, decorated detective in the narcotics department of the Baltimore PD sentenced to death, Agent?”

  Bobby’s shrug was as noncommittal as his expression. “Even if he had a purple heart hanging from his balls, that’s the normal penalty when you’re responsible for the death of a law enforcement agent. That, plus the kidnappings, plus your client’s ties to the Russian mob ought to do the trick. Doubt any judge in his right mind would think any of those were mitigating circumstances.”

  “The Russian mob?” Thorton paused to laugh, though the mirth didn’t reach his dark eyes. “You’re kidding, right? Do you have any proof of that?”

  Winter was more prepared for the second lance of pain. As the warmth trickled from her nose, her heart hammered in her chest. With one hand, she reached into the pocket of her slacks for a tissue. Even though the headaches were few and far between these days, she was grateful she still carried a tissue with her at all times.

  Johansson’s blue eyes followed the motion as she dabbed at her nose. “Sorry.” She wasn’t actually sorry. “It’s the dry air. I’m used to the Virginia humidity.”

  Johansson looked unconvinced, but he returned his focus to Bobby.

  “Agents.” Thorton sighed. “If you keep throwing around ridiculous accusations like this, you’d better be prepared to show us some evidence. Yeah, I know you’ve got the particles. And you should also know that the Russians deal in automotive work quite a bit, and it’s entirely likely that the particles were transferred to Mr. Johansson’s jacket when he was doing his job.”

  Winter could hardly make sense of the thoughts that flooded her mind in those next few moments. Her pulse rushed in her ears, but there was no new twinge of pain.

  Just names—Russian names. Names she’d caught a glimpse of while in the police station. She’d wondered about them then, but she knew about them now.

  An offshore account located in the Cayman Islands, far away from the prying eyes of the IRS.

  And then, there were the victims.

  Women’s names, men’s names, young, old, all at the start of a news article about a suspicious death or a mysterious disappearance. All their names scrawled along a whiteboard in the Baltimore police station, along with dates and case numbers. She watched as an officer rewrote some of the names and dates in a black marker to indicate the case had been closed, but more often than not, the text remained red.

  But one name stood out above the rest—Alena.

  Winter had read that Alena was an immigrant from the Ukraine, and she’d been brought to the States with the aid of her brother, Ilya Gulin. Her brother, a Russian mafia enforcer.

  The nameless, faceless RICO witness.

  Winter knew it as well as she knew her last name.

  “What about Ilya Gulin?” She felt like someone else had voiced the question, but she recognized the voice as her own. “Or Ivan Tokarev? Ivan’s wife and Ilya’s sister, Alena, what about her?”

  The shock on Tony Johansson’s face would have been funny if she hadn’t wanted to punch him in the throat.

  “What?” Johansson managed.

  When Winter squeezed her eyes closed to rub the bridge of her nose, she saw a woman she knew instinctively was Alena Tokarev, Ivan’s wife. No, not his wife. Alena Chekhova was Ivan’s mistress. And Ivan was one of the two brigadiers who had been imprisoned without bail as they awaited a RICO trial that would likely send them to prison for the rest of their lives.

  Winter could hear Alena’s voice as she pleaded with Ivan to just let her leave. The woman’s pale blue eyes filled with tears as a tall, broad-shouldered man wrapped her golden hair around one hand and jerked her head backward.

  They’d been in Alena’s house, standing in front of the open suitcases that she’d been midway through packing when Ivan arrived.

  Alena Chekhova had been killed—murdered by Ivan after she’d become pregnant with his child. He’d beat her to death in a fit of rage, and who better to help him clean the scene than a Baltimore detective?

  “Ivan Tokarev,” Winter repeated. “You helped him, didn’t you? Helped him wipe Alena Chekhova’s blood
off the walls of her bedroom, helped bleach all the spots where her brain matter stained the hardwood floor. Bleach makes it so blood doesn’t show up with luminol, that’s what you told him, wasn’t it?”

  As she watched, the remaining color drained from the detective’s face. The shadows beneath his eyes were so pronounced, he looked as if he’d just risen from the dead. “How…how did you know that?”

  The lawyer flashed Johansson an incredulous glance. “Tony, you don’t have to talk to them.”

  Winter ignored the man. She ignored how much of her secret she was giving away with all these insights. She didn’t let her glare waver from Tony Johansson. “You didn’t know she was pregnant, did you? You didn’t know until the cops found her body six months later. Then, you spent a week drinking yourself into a stupor every night because you couldn’t get her face out of your head.”

  Shock making his mouth grow slack, Johansson shoved his lawyer’s hand off his arm. “You can’t know that. It’s not possible. Who…who the hell are you?”

  She’d have to deal with the fallout of this little performance later, she knew. “You thought the cops wouldn’t be able to identify her body if you cut off her hands and her head, didn’t you? The next best thing to incineration, isn’t that what Ivan said? But you didn’t know about her surgeries. She’d been hit by a car when she was younger, and all the pins and the steel rods in her legs were easy enough to trace back to her. Then, it was on the news, and that’s when you found out that she was pregnant.”

  Where he’d been a flurry of frantic movement just a moment before, Johansson now seemed carved from stone. “This is impossible. She was in the water for weeks, months before they found her.”

  Thorton grasped at his client’s shoulder. “Tony—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Mark!” Johansson turned his glare to the lawyer. “Shut the fuck up, or just get out, all right?”

  Now, Mark Thorton looked pale too.

  Winter dabbed at her nose again. “You’ve got a conscience, don’t you, Detective? Earlier today, you tried to talk Alek out of…of.” She had to pause to swallow down a twinge of rage. “You tried to talk him out of going after Noah Dalton, didn’t you?”

  Bobby’s head snapped around, his eyes wide. In spite of the expression of shock, he didn’t speak.

  “There’s no way.” Johansson’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. “There’s no way you could know that.”

  “But here we are.” She narrowed her eyes. “You tried to talk Alek out of kidnapping Noah Dalton’s…what? His friend, his girlfriend? Seemed like Alek was pretty excited about that, about having that ‘pretty redhead’ all to himself for a couple days.”

  In the silence that ensued, Winter thought Tony Johansson might either faint or throw up. She let the unsettling moment drag on until she was satisfied that the man would remain conscious when she spoke again.

  “You’ve got a conscience, Tony. I don’t think you would’ve brought Agent Hansford to Alek that night if you’d known who he was. You were the one who told Sergei to check his pulse, weren’t you? And right now, we’re looking for Natalie Falkner and her husband, Jonathan. I know you know where they are, and I hope you’ve figured out that you can’t hide anything from me, so there’s no point in denying it. Tell us where they are, and we’ll make sure you sit down with the US Attorney to work out a deal on that death sentence my partner mentioned.”

  The shadows moved along his throat as he swallowed repeatedly.

  “If you don’t tell us where they are, Natalie is going to die.” Winter suspected the additional pressure was unnecessary, but she wanted to make sure Johansson knew what the hell he’d done.

  She also had a sinking feeling they were too late, but she let the seconds of disquieting silence drag on.

  Jaw clenched, Johansson’s eyes flicked up to hers.

  “Okay. I’ll help you. Just…just get to her. Make sure she’s safe from that fucking psychopath. I don’t want more blood on my hands.”

  Despite her inexplicable knowledge to the contrary, Winter nodded and glanced at the clock.

  Ten after nine.

  Shit.

  She was sure they were too late, but they had to try.

  The tactical team—the same group of men who had accompanied Winter and Bobby to execute the search warrant on Tony Johansson’s house earlier that day—had been ready to leave within fifteen minutes of the interview’s conclusion. This time, the leader, Agent Bevins, advised Winter and Bobby that they would follow the team to make sure each room had been thoroughly swept and cleared.

  She and Bobby had both accepted M4 rifles almost identical to those used by the tactical unit. Coupled with their black Kevlar, they could almost pass for members of the elite squad.

  Winter nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand came down on her shoulder. She whirled around and stared into familiar green eyes.

  “Sorry, darlin’. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Winter was so glad to see Noah that she nearly flung herself into his arms. She settled on poking a finger in his chest, then immediately regretted it when she only poked the tactical gear.

  “How did you get here?”

  “Bicycle,” he deadpanned, looking serious as a monk. When she narrowed her eyes at him, he smiled. “Got lucky with a late flight.”

  She was glad he was here, but…

  “Are you sure you should be here?” she asked, concern tightening her shoulders. “We don’t know what we’ll find in there.” She nodded at the warehouse. “Natalie might be…”

  She didn’t finish. She didn’t think “might be” was correct, and she didn’t want to lie to him or get his hopes up.

  He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I need to be here. No matter what.”

  Before they could talk further, it was time to go in. The time to worry was over. It was time to face reality.

  As they made their way to each room after the agents called out that it was clear, Winter half-expected to be met with a veritable army of Russian gangsters.

  The setting was conducive to a bloody conflict. The entire warehouse looked like it had been ripped straight from the set of a horror film. The doors were rusted, the concrete floor was worn and dirty, and more windows were shattered than remained intact.

  As they neared the far end of the building, a familiar stench drifted on the stale air.

  It was the sickening scent of decay. The same smell that had greeted her in Harrisonburg a week ago.

  But today, she doubted they’d be lucky enough to find a pile of headless rats.

  Swallowing against the cloying scent, Winter glanced to Bobby. “Someone died in here, didn’t they?”

  His expression was as grim as she’d ever seen when he nodded. Noah didn’t nod, but he looked equally grim.

  A flicker of movement at the end of the hall jerked her attention to where Agent Bevins waved vehemently. “We found her.”

  Lowering the rifle to carry it with one hand, they each increased their steady walk to a jog. With each passing step, the smell of death grew stronger.

  A ray of sickly light spilled out onto the dingy floor, and when Winter stepped into the illumination, she almost wished she hadn’t.

  “She’s alive,” Bevins said. “But he’s been dead for at least a couple days.”

  Winter’s stomach turned as her eyes fell on the man crumpled in a heap at the opposite end of the room as Natalie. His skin was pallid, and even the blood that stained his abdomen had darkened to a hue closer to brown than red.

  When she jerked her eyes away from the man’s body, the sight of Natalie Falkner wasn’t much better.

  In all the photos Winter had seen of Natalie, her skin had glowed with a healthy tan. She’d always looked energetic and put together, almost like she was one of those online fitness and health personalities.

  Now, however, she stood on death’s doorstep.

  Winter had to do a double take. At first, she didn’t even think the woman cru
mpled on the dusty concrete was Natalie Falkner.

  Her dark hair was matted to the sides of her face with sweat and blood. Sweat even glistened on her closed eyelids. Any of her meticulously applied eyeliner had been smudged off days ago, and her skin was pale as death.

  One of the agents from the tactical team knelt at her side, pressing a white towel to the center of Natalie’s abdomen. Well, the towel had been white, but now it was stained with crimson as the agent tried in vain to stem the bleeding from the wound he couldn’t close. It was quickly becoming the same color as the towel wrapped around the woman’s hand.

  Winter had seen gruesome crime scenes, but she’d never seen anything like this.

  She hardly heard Bevins as he raised the radio to request an ambulance and a team of paramedics. All she could do was watch Noah kneel next to his sister.

  37

  Even under the circumstances, Noah’s half-sister still looked familiar to him. Beyond the mask of gore, she looked very much like the girl he’d known so many years ago.

  Back then, her mouth was so often twisted in a sneer. She’d been a brat and had reveled in her position of princess of her daddy’s house.

  He remembered her cruel words, to both him and Lucy.

  He remembered her lies.

  But now…none of that mattered.

  Now, he’d never get the chance to learn if she’d grown into a person he might actually like.

  Now, he’d never get to ask why she’d been so intent on being so shitty to them. What had motivated her. Was it true bitchiness or was it fear?

  Because now…his half-sister was barely clinging to life. And if the expression on the people’s faces around him was any indication, she didn’t have long.

  “Natalie.” The word was cracked and raw from an emotion he didn’t expect. “It’s me. Noah. Your brother.”

  Unless he was mistaken, her eyelashes flickered a little.

  A hand came down on his shoulder, and he didn’t even need to look to see who it was. He felt Winter’s warmth. Her comfort. Her support. Maybe something more.