“Please, just tell me what happened to her. Is she injured? Is she—”
Agent Martinez suddenly broke into a run. He bumped into Chase as he passed, pushing her up against the wall. The breath was forced from her lungs, and a pain shot up her hip.
Brent, eyes still wide, instinctively turned and started to bolt, but Martinez was on him before he had taken more than a handful of steps.
His shoulder slammed into Brent’s back, and both men went sprawling to the ground. The commotion drew Chief Downs from the security room, and he moved his considerable girth past Chase, who was still struggling to catch her breath, and toward the two downed men.
Martinez grabbed Brent’s left arm and twisted it behind his back. Brent was strong, and he struggled mightily, but Martinez lowered his weight between the man’s shoulder blades, pressing down on him.
“Stop moving!” he shouted. “Stop moving!”
Chase watched this with earnest, her heart racing in her chest. Behind her, she heard someone approaching, someone who was also breathing heavily.
Instincts took over, and she slid the pistol from her holster and spun around.
The man who moved toward looked like an overweight accountant, with a gray mustache and thinning hair. He was a large man, not as large as Chief Downs, but it was clear that he didn’t miss too many meals.
“Don’t move,” Chase said, vaguely aware that her hand was trembling. The accountant’s arms rocketed upward.
“Easy! Easy! I’m not doing anything wrong here!”
And yet he continued to stride forward.
“Stop!” Chase shouted.
The man didn’t listen. His body language was one of complacency, but he continued to approach nonetheless.
Chase’s finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger itself.
“You take one more—”
A hand gently came down on the top of the pistol.
“It’s okay, Agent Adams,” Chief Downs said.
Hearing his voice, Chase lowered the gun and turned to face him.
Her breathing was coming in short bursts, and the entire ordeal since seeing Yolanda’s photograph, suddenly felt strange to her.
What the hell am I doing?
Her hand shook so badly now that it was a blur, and it took four tries to put the pistol securely back in her holster.
“Jesus, take it easy lady,” the large man, who Chase now pegged was the manager or owner, said.
Chief Downs came between them, and Martinez spoke up next.
“I’m going to take Brent in for questioning,” he said.
Chase saw that Brent had been put in cuffs, and his head was lowered.
“This is crazy,” the owner/manager said. “He didn’t do anything.”
Martinez shook his head.
“I’m taking him in for questioning, that’s all. And then I’ll be back… back with a warrant for those tapes. You better hope I don’t find anything on them or I will take you in too,” he lifted Brent’s arms from behind, and the man winced. “And you think this is bad? Just wait to see what happens to you next.”
CHAPTER 20
Chase was still shaking when she finally made it back to Floyd’s car.
“Y-Y-You okay?”
She was getting annoyed with that question, and took a deep breath.
He means well, she told herself. But the other two? Chief Downs and Agent Martinez? With those two, she wasn’t so sure. They both seemed to have their own agendas, ones that clearly didn’t include keeping her involved.
What’s the point of me being here if I can’t even do my job? If they won’t let me in?
“Fine,” she snapped back.
Floyd’s eyes drifted to the mirror, but he caught wind of her attitude and resisted saying anything else other than, “Where to?”
Chase bit her tongue.
Home, she almost said. Take me home to my husband and son.
“The precinct. Take me to the precinct.”
Images of Yolanda flashed in her mind, and she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts as Floyd pulled away from The Barking Frog.
Why is this affecting me so much? She wondered.
She hadn’t even felt this way when Dr. Mark Kruk, the infamous Butterfly Killer, had taken her hostage, intending on making her his final victim.
She had been scared, then, terrified even, but this… this was different somehow. It was as if she had been Yolanda, really been her, and that she had died.
Her feet had been hacked off, the wounds cauterized, and then Chase had been left to freeze to death in the snow.
I’m dead.
The thought carried so much impact that Chase felt a tear spill down her cheek. She turned her face to the window, and then swiped the tear away with the back of her hand.
What’s wrong with me?
With a shaking hand, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
Please have a missed call, a text at least.
But as she stared at the screen, her heart sunk further. There were no missed calls, no texts, no messages whatsoever. Loneliness was like an ill-fitting glove, one that only served to annoy rather than to offer comfort and warmth.
Her thumb hovered over the button, before Chase eventually pressed it and unlocked the phone.
All she wanted was someone to talk to, someone to share what she was feeling with.
Her first instinct was to call Agent Stitts, then her husband. But for some reason, she hesitated on both fronts.
Never in her life has she felt so alone.
Instead, she scrolled down to a person she thought might be able to help her.
With a deep, hitching breath, she clicked the name and waited. After two rings, a man answered.
“Drake? It’s Chase. I need… I need someone to talk to. You have a minute?”
“It’s nice to hear your voice,” Damien Drake replied. “What’s up?”
~
Invigorated, Chase stepped out of the Town Car and made her way toward the precinct with determined steps. Her conversation with Drake had soothed her mind, at least temporarily.
It had also given her perspective.
There was a killer on the loose, and that killer might just be Brent the Bartender.
The rest could wait.
Agent Martinez had told her that they intended to interview Brent in Room 3, which is where she headed to directly.
As she neared the room, however, two of Chief Downs’s men stood blocking the door.
“Agent Adams,” the first said. Chase nodded, and then reached for the door.
The man didn’t move—he remained blocking her path.
“Chief Downs wants you to watch from the observation room,” he said, indicating another door next to the one he stood in front of.
Chase frowned. She wanted to be in there with Brent, to see his face, gauge his reactions, not observe from behind a thick pane of glass.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I want to speak to him.”
The man misunderstood what she meant, and said, “Chief Downs says it’s best for you to just watch this one. Too many people in the—”
She shook her head.
“No. I want to speak to Downs.”
The officer’s face twisted and Chase got the impression that Downs wouldn’t react kindly to the interruption.
But she had the badge, didn’t she? A nice badge with her name on it, followed by the letters F, B, and I.
“He said—”
Chase squinted at the man. He was young, younger than her, even, and was just trying to do his job.
“Tell him I need to speak to him,” she repeated. The officer swallowed, then reluctantly turned to the door.
“Please,” he said, looking back at her, “Wait in the observation room, at least.”
Chase considered this for a moment before agreeing. Burning bridges to get what she wanted was one thing, but setting the entire town alight wouldn’t serve her any good. As t
he officer entered the interrogation room, Chase pulled the adjacent door wide and stepped inside, observing the scene from behind glass.
Brent, no longer cuffed, sat in a chair that looked as if it was made of welded coat hangers. A sheen of sweat covered his face and forehead, and his posture was slumped, dejected.
Agent Martinez stood off to one side, propping himself up against the wall with his foot. The officer that Chase had just spoken with was presently conversing with Chief Downs. Downs was leaning over him, his shadow completely engulfing the other man.
The officer looked more frightened than Brent did.
After saying his piece, Chief Downs barked something that was inaudible then looked over to Martinez.
Agent Martinez chewed his lip for a moment then shook his head.
Downs smirked, then waved the other officer away.
“What the fuck?” Chase mumbled. She reached over and pressed the button marked Room 3 Audio.
The officer left the room and closed the door, and then, instead of following him out as Chase had expected, Downs planted two meaty hands on the table and pressed down on it. His considerable gut sagged and rested on the table between his palms.
“Brent Pine… Brent Pine…” the Chief said almost thoughtfully. “Let me ask you something… you have a foot fetish, Brent?”
Chase cringed at the associated imagery, but her eyes remained locked on Brent’s handsome face.
The man’s lips twisted in confusion.
“Foot fetish? Wha—what are you talking about?”
Chief Downs frowned.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Foot fetish. I bet you get to enact all sorts of weird fantasies working at that bar, don’t you?”
Brent was no longer the charming man tending The Barking Frog, Chase realized. That had just been a front. Now, he was just scared.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is Yolanda okay? Did something happen to her?”
Downs laughed and looked over at Martinez again, who was also studying Brent intently.
“You hear that, Chris? Brent Pine, handsome Brent Pine, is acting innocent, isn’t he? Acting like he doesn’t know what happened to those girls.”
Brent leaned even further away from the Police Chief.
“I don’t… I really don’t—”
“Oh, you don’t, do you? Maybe we can jog your memory, then.”
Chief Downs stood up straight—Chase actually thought she saw the table rebound just a little as his weight lifted—and went to Agent Martinez, who produced a file folder from somewhere behind him.
As the Chief strode back toward Brent, there was a knock on the observation room door.
“Yeah?” Chase said over her shoulder. The door opened, and the officer with whom she had spoken with moments ago appeared, looking pale.
“Chief Downs said… well, he said he would speak to you after.”
Chase didn’t turn around.
Instead, she continued to focus on Brent and the Police Chief.
The latter opened the folder and then shoved it over to Brent. From her vantage point, Chase couldn’t see exactly what the images were, but she knew that they must have been of Yolanda and Francine.
“What is—” Brent suddenly went completely white. “I’m going to be sick,” he gasped.
Chief Downs pouted dramatically.
“Oh, now you’re going to be sick, but at the time—”
“Agent Adams?” the officer behind her said. “Did you hear what I said?”
Frustrated by the interruption, Chase spun around.
“What? What do you—”
The officer’s walkie chirped, cutting her off mid-sentence.
“Officer Greenwald?”
The young man tore the walkie from his belt.
“Yeah?”
“We found the van… we found the van outside Brent Pine’s house.”
Chase gasped.
CHAPTER 21
Agent Martinez offered to drive Chase to the van outside Brent Pine’s house, which left Floyd standing empty-handed outside the precinct. For some reason, Chase felt bad for him; it was clear that for once in his life, Floyd was finally finding himself useful, that he was needed by someone.
Any reservations or suspicions that Chase might have harbored for him had long since vanished; he was a simple man, one that, like her, needed to feel important, like he had a role to play in the world around him.
That he could affect things, and wasn’t just simply along for the ride.
Chase momentarily debated declining Martinez’s offer and going with Floyd instead, but decided that that would be unwise: their relationship, if it could be called as such, was already strained, and if their partnership was to work there would be some give and take involved.
Chase, however, thought that she was likely the one to do most of the giving, at least for the time being.
She apologized to Floyd and went with Martinez.
Guided by a train of police cars, Martinez pulled out of the precinct parking lot, and followed.
Three times Chase opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t find the right words. In the end, it was Martinez who spoke up first.
“He fits the profile,” he said simply. “Young, good looking. No record. Probably convinced the girls to stay after the bar closed. Maybe slipped something into their drinks.”
“But the tox came back relatively clean,” Chase replied instinctively.
Martinez shrugged.
“No idea how long they were held captive for. Might have cleared their system by the time they died.”
Chase chewed the inside of her lip. Martinez was right and, besides, she had witnessed the man’s charm and charisma firsthand.
Brent Pine definitely fit the profile.
So why did she feel in the pit of her stomach that he wasn’t their guy?
“I can see it in your face,” Martinez continued as he pulled onto the highway. “You don’t think he did it.”
Again, Chase started to say something, but bit her tongue. She wasn’t sure if it was the way that Chief Downs had brushed her off, or how Martinez had shaken his head when she had demanded to speak to them in the observation room, but something felt wrong here.
It was too easy.
Could Brent Pine be a mastermind manipulator, a sadistic torturer, and yet be foolish enough to abduct the girls from the bar, his bar, a bar with cameras no less, and then leave the murder van outside his home?
No, it was way too easy.
Something occurred to her then.
“Hey, did you manage to subpoena the tapes from the night the girls went missing?”
Martinez shook his head.
“Not yet—left that to Downs and his men. But now with the van, it should be a slam dunk.”
Chase nodded and turned to the window. The train of cop cars lit up the sky and the dark clouds that threatened above reflected their combined purple color. It was only mid-afternoon, but dark came early in Anchorage, and the foreboding weather wasn’t helping any.
“I know what you’re thinking… that he couldn’t be this stupid.”
Chase looked back at Martinez, whose eyes were locked on the road, surprise on her face. Martinez, evidently, knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Something like that,” Chase conceded. She still felt the need to be guarded around her partner.
“I’ve been at this game for a long time, Chase.”
So you keep telling me…
And while she had no reason not to believe Martinez, it dawned on her that she knew nothing about him. Absolutely nothing. How long had he been with the FBI, for instance? How old was he?
Floyd had mentioned something about him having a sister who used to live here, but what about other family? Was he married? Did he have children?
Chase wasn’t the poster-child for openness, certainly, but he seemed to know about her.
“And one of the things that I learned early on,
” he continued, “is that there isn’t always a demented yet somehow noble motive for these murders. You need to come to terms with the fact that there are just bad people out there who are destined to do bad things.”
Martinez paused, and his head tilted to one side just a little.
“And sometimes people do bad things just because they can.”
Chase mulled this over. She wasn’t as naive as Martinez made her out to be, and was reminded of her time as a Narc in Seattle.
The man’s name had been Tyler Tilsdale, and he grew up in an upscale neighborhood close to the Vancouver border, and was raised by two professional parents. By all accounts, Tyler and his two sisters, both younger than he, had a decent if stale upbringing. Background checks revealed no evidence, not even a hint of molestation or abuse. And yet at some point, things went wrong for Tyler. It started with taking drugs, but when his parents figured out what he was doing with his allowance, they turned off the faucet, so to speak. As cash grew tight, it became easier for him to start dealing and cutting what he dealt to feed his own habit, as was often the case. Somewhere along the way, Tyler’s descent into darkness degenerated to pimping, and his crack den slowly transitioned into a whore house.
It was Tyler who Chase went undercover with to try and expose. It was Tyler who had given her her first hit of heroin, and it was also Tyler with whom she had first traded her body as a commodity.
During this time, Chase had met Tyler’s youngest sister, Amy Tilsdale.
Tyler was pimping her out to the highest bidder and had her hooked on meth to keep her under his control.
Just fourteen years young. Jesus; fourteen.
Yeah, Chase knew that sometimes ordinary people did bad things just because. And yet despite this, something in her gut suggested that Brent Pine just wasn’t their guy.
Instead of beleaguering this point, Chase decided to change the subject.
“You said that you spoke to Agent Stitts recently? Because I’ve been trying to reach him…”
Martinez turned back to the road, and Chase followed his stare. The sky was alight with police cherries, and they slowed for a roadblock.
“Yeah, he’s the one who put in a good word for you.”
“But have you heard from him recently? Because I can’t get a hold of him.”
Frozen Stiff Page 8
