by Leslie Wolfe
“I found one,” she announced, lifting one file from the pile and letting it drop in the middle of the table to underline its importance. “It’s a weird case regarding a murdered cop and the thug who shot him.”
“I got one too,” Glover replied. “Let’s hear yours first,” he invited her, then leaned against the backrest and rubbed the root of his nose with his fingers, trying to stave off a migraine.
He didn’t like how Meredith’s case had evolved, not for a moment. He checked his watch and repressed a sigh of frustration. Thirty-two hours had passed since she was taken, and the chances to find Holt’s kid alive were dropping by the minute. The absence of a ransom call was the most concerning aspect of the investigation, leading to one of two possible conclusions. Either the kidnapper wasn’t intending to return the kid, or Holt had already received the call and was acting on his own. For that second scenario, Glover was running out of reasons not to charge the man with obstruction and making a false statement. Although—
“Are you listening?” Rosales said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Holt arrested TwoCent for the murder of Detective Park, but then had to let him go.”
Glover frowned. “Why? Was it a bad collar?”
“No, but listen to this. Holt caught the perp with the murder weapon in plain sight in his car. He booked the thug, but then that night someone broke into the evidence locker, and the weapon went missing. They released the suspect because without the murder weapon they had no case.”
“Where’s this man now?”
“In jail, serving time for the shooting of Detective Park. He cut a deal.”
“Why the hell did he do that?”
“Exactly,” Rosales exclaimed, satisfied with herself as if she’d run the marathon in record time. “The murder weapon, presumed stolen from the evidence locker was mysteriously found under a shelf. Then, during trial, the perp felt a sudden urge to confess. I’m not buying it. Internal Affairs was involved too.”
“Involved, how?” Glover asked, leaning into his elbows. The IAB involvement was an interesting correlation with the case he’d found, the first one so far.
“They reviewed the case file a few times, spoke with some of the people involved. Then nothing. Crickets.”
“This perp’s still locked up, right?”
“Yes, he is, but I’ve seen revenge orchestrated from jail before. It can happen.” Rosales drank the last of her coffee and set the cup back on the table with a loud thump. “I want to talk to this guy.”
“What’s your theory?” Glover asked.
“That maybe Holt planted the murder weapon on him or something. If he’s pissed off at Holt, he might be willing to spill.”
She stood and straightened her jacket, then tucked her shirt a bit deeper into her pants.
“I’ll leave now unless you have something else,” she announced.
Glover pursed his lips and gestured toward the chair she’d just vacated. Rosales sat reluctantly on the edge of the seat, eager to spring to her feet and rush out of there. Then she invited him to speak with a gesture of impatience, both her hands facing upward with fingers spread as if to ask, “What are you waiting for?”
He shook his head slightly, more to himself. She was unbelievable.
“Did you know Holt was undercover for eight months, five years ago, infiltrating a drug organization, here in Vegas?”
“Uh-uh,” Rosales replied, closely examining her cuticles.
“He wasn’t Homicide back then; it was after that undercover stint that he was promoted,” he explained. “Holt joined a distribution network with ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and was tasked to find out how it was bringing drugs from Mexico over the border and straight to the Strip. He figured it out and requested more time to get to the leader of the Vegas distribution organization, a man by the name of Samuel Klug, aka Snowman. The top brass approved his request, but then they suddenly pulled the plug on Holt’s assignment and executed a poorly planned bust that went badly. Klug escaped and left no evidence of his connection to the organization. Several of his key people were busted, but some made it over the border. Seven kilos of cocaine were confiscated, but only six made it into evidence. A mess.”
Rosales looked at him with an intrigued glance.
“Internal Affairs was in on this case too. We should—”
“Sounds to me the best lead is the IAB officer who handled these cases,” she interrupted, taking the words out of his mouth and pissing him off to no end.
“We should question Holt about this, and yes, the local IAB.”
“I told you,” Rosales said, standing and pacing the floor, going in slow circles around the table. “You should’ve had that man followed. We knew he was up to something. What if they turned him when he was undercover? It’s known to happen.”
“We did follow him, if you remember. He made us in two minutes and disappeared.”
“Pick him up again somewhere and this time, don’t lose him,” she said as if giving direction to a junior officer.
He felt he couldn’t breathe, choked with anger. How did he, the senior agent on the case, end up being given direction and justifying himself to this woman? He forced himself to calm down; she’d be dealt with later after Meredith was found. Now wasn’t the time for any pissing contest.
“His phone is off, he’s in the wind. Finding him would take time and effort better spent looking for his child.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” she asked, crossing her arms at her chest and thrusting her chin forward.
“This is a kidnapping, Rosales, and that girl’s life is hanging by a thread. Let’s cut the bullshit and find Meredith Holt. You speak to your perp in jail, and I’ll take the IAB.”
22
Another
Thirty-three hours missing
When I arrived at the nearest point on the highway from the coordinates Dr. Hickman had sent, he was already there, unloading his utility terrain vehicle from a rusted platform trailer hooked up to his Dodge Ram truck. I pulled over behind him and rushed to help out with the vehicle. It looked like a large ATV fitted with a roll cage, with bars welded across and above it to protect the passengers in case it rolled over.
He didn’t bother securing the trailer or even locking his truck. The moment the UTV had all four wheels on the Nevada dirt, he started the engine, and I hopped in the passenger seat, holding on to the crossbar above my head for balance.
He hit the gas pedal, and the UTV bolted forward, throwing dirt and pebbles in the air. Despite the loud engine noise, I thought I heard someone calling my name.
“Baxter!”
The second time he called louder, and I recognized the voice. Holt. He was still alive. I felt a rush of relief so strong, it brought tears to my eyes.
“Turn around,” I told Hickman, and he immediately obliged.
As we approached Holt, I noticed the state he was in. His clothes, the same suit and shirt he’d worn yesterday, were dirty and torn. His face was bruised, and his left eye was almost shut from a direct hit. A cut marred his eyebrow, and another had split his lip.
Hickman slowed when the UTV approached Holt, but he didn’t wait for it to stop. He grabbed the crossbar and jumped on, using the base of the passenger door as footing.
“Go, go,” he shouted, and Hickman stepped on the pedal, setting the UTV in motion with a jerk.
I wanted to ask him where the hell he’d been all that time and many other things. I looked at him, searching his eyes, but he was staring intently at the horizon, where, in the distance, vultures were circling lower and lower.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” he asked, although the UTV was bouncing off the terrain at dangerous angles.
“That’s it,” Hickman replied. “Pedal to the metal.”
We were getting close; I could see the birds clearly now, and I squinted in the oblique sunlight to see the object of the birds’ interest. I still hoped it was a snake-
bit coyote taking its last breath out there.
Without a word, Dr. Hickman reached inside a duffel bag and extracted a pair of binoculars and handed them to me.
“Thanks,” I said, then started to scan the terrain ahead, although with every bounce of the UTV, the heavy rims sent shockwaves into my orbits. The glare from the setting sun was directly in my eyes, making it difficult to distinguish anything.
A gust of wind swept across the desert, lifting dust high in the air, and something else. Close to the ground, it waved and danced in the wind, as if shreds of golden silk were toyed with by the circling dust devils.
Not silk, I realized as the UTV approached.
Hair.
“Over there,” I said, pointing straight ahead, right underneath the kettle of vultures. Then I grabbed Holt’s arm to get his attention. “It’s not her, Holt. It’s not Meredith.”
“How could you possibly know?” he asked, his eyes darker than I’d ever seen them.
“Her hair,” I replied. “This girl is a blonde.”
He shuddered. “Are you sure?”
I handed him the binoculars. Holding on to the UTV with one hand, he lifted the binoculars to his eyes with the other and scanned the area.
Then he handed the glasses to me and squeezed my shoulder gently, before grabbing on to the crossbar again.
“She’s right there, by those large boulders,” I said. “Where that vulture just landed.”
“I see it, yes,” Dr. Hickman replied.
Holt pulled out his gun and aimed at the bird.
“Please don’t shoot them,” Dr. Hickman pleaded. “It’s not their fault.”
Holt glared at him for a brief moment, then discharged the weapon in the air, sending echoes against the rocky desert hills. The vultures scattered, and Dr. Hickman reduced speed as we approached the shallow grave.
“This is close enough,” I said, and he slowed to a stop.
Holt jumped off while the UTV was still moving and rushed ahead. I followed, running the remaining distance on small rocks that twisted my ankles every other step.
As I approached, I had an eerie, sickening feeling of déjà-vu. She couldn’t’ve been more than sixteen years old. Only her head and hands were above ground; the rest of her body was covered in dirt and small rocks. Her hair had been fanned out around her head like the rays of the sun and weighed down with stones, but the wind had blown a few long strands free. She looked asleep, her beautiful face pale but untouched yet by the bluish tint of death and body decay.
Maybe there was hope. Perhaps this one would live.
I crouched next to the girl’s head and felt for a pulse. Her skin was cold to the touch, and I couldn’t sense a heartbeat. Then I lifted her eyelid and saw corneal cloudiness obscuring her blue irises.
We were too late. She was gone.
“Ah, bloody hell,” I muttered, then I stepped away. I couldn’t touch the body until Anne cleared us. I was glad I’d called Dispatch when Dr. Hickman sent me the coordinates. She wasn’t far behind; in the hues of the early winter sunset, I could see red and blue flashes lighting the sky toward the highway. Within moments, the Crime Scene techs would be taking over the scene.
It was as good a time as any to talk to my so-called partner. I walked over to him and got in his face. “Where the hell have you been all this time, Holt?”
He stood silently, avoiding my gaze. Deep ridges marked his forehead, and his knuckles were raw and swollen. He’d been in fights, probably in desperate attempts to get people to talk.
“How did you know to come here?” I asked, thinking he might consider answering a more straightforward question.
He looked at me briefly, then looked away. “I heard the Dispatch call on the radio,” he eventually said.
Across the dunes, we could see two ATVs approaching at high speed. Anne was driving one of them; I recognized her buzz-cut hair and thin frame from afar.
“Why are you here, Holt?” I asked, then realized how stupid my question sounded. “I understand why you needed to see for yourself,” I added, gesturing toward the girl’s body, “but why are you still here?”
He stared at me without saying a word, his eyes dark and almost menacing.
“It’s bad enough you won’t let me help you find your daughter,” I said, “but you’re—”
“Yeah, that,” he said with a long, pained sigh.
He wasn’t making any sense. He must’ve been completely exhausted; he probably hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since his daughter’s ordeal had started. I rushed over to Dr. Hickman’s UTV, looking for a bottle of water.
“My partner isn’t exactly there for me,” Holt said, following me and speaking in a low, sad voice.
I froze in place. “What do you mean?”
He ran his dirty hand over his mouth in a downward gesture, clasping his chin. “You couldn’t find someone else to take this case off your hands?”
“And do what? Wait for you to turn on your damn phone? You ran away from me, Holt, not the other way around. I called and called.” I stopped talking, waiting to hear what he had to say, but nothing came from him. “I have a job to do, the same as you do, and not long ago you used to care about all that.”
I opened Dr. Hickman’s duffel bag and found a bottle of water and a Snickers bar. Embarrassed to be going through a man’s possessions without permission and yet satisfied with the findings, I grabbed both items and turned to Holt. I extended my hand with my offering, but he wouldn’t take them from me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but he still wouldn’t take the water from my hand. He made me angry as hell, while at the same time my heart broke to see him so damaged, so desperate. “Come on, Holt,” I pleaded, “you need your strength.”
He grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the cap and downed it all in a few thirsty gulps.
“Yes, we need to catch this sick son of a bitch,” he said, “but pardon me for thinking of my kid first.”
“But that’s exactly what—” I blurted, then immediately clammed up, as soon as I realized what I was about to say. He’d been off the grid for so long, he probably didn’t know about Alyssa’s kidnapping yet.
He walked closer to me, and grabbed my arm.
“What the hell aren’t you telling me, Baxter? Come on, spill it.”
I hesitated a little, thinking of the shock he was about to experience.
“I have a right to know, damn it,” he shouted, and a few CS techs raised their heads from the work they were doing and looked at us.
“Alyssa, the girl we found yesterday,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “was abducted the same way Meredith was, apparently by the same two men.”
I’d expected him to falter, keel over, curse, or throw a fit. I had not expected the look he gave me, a cold stare, the kind I’d seen before when he put two and two together on cases we’d worked on previously.
“I see,” he said calmly. “I have to go.”
I grabbed his sleeve. “You’re not going anywhere, Holt. Not without me. Not this time.”
He looked at me, the intensity in his eyes scary, a bad omen I couldn’t understand. But I didn’t lower my gaze, I didn’t look away.
“Please, tell me who this man is,” I asked. “You know who took your daughter, don’t you?”
That moment his burner phone rang. He took the flip phone out of his pocket and answered the call on speaker without checking the display.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s Holt.”
“Hello, Detective,” a man said, with laughter in his voice. I recognized the voice I’d heard before, at Fletcher’s place, when he’d called the first time. “It’s time to meet.”
“Say when and where,” Holt replied, the urgency in his voice unmistakable.
“There’s a gas station at the corner of East Windmill Parkway and Bermuda Road, a 7-Eleven. Two AM. Come alone or face the consequences.” The laughter in the man’s voice was gone.
“I’ll be there,” Holt replied.
“Don’t get any crazy ideas,” the man insisted. “You called in the feds after I told you no cops. The entire city is looking for your kid. That’s not what you promised me, Detective. I feel tempted to make her pay for your sins.”
“No,” he shouted, “please, don’t. I didn’t call anyone. The feds saw that teacher spill it on TV.”
“I’ll believe you this time, Detective, for old times’ sake. See you tonight.”
“Wait,” Holt said. “I want to speak with my daughter first.”
“You’re not setting terms, Detective.”
Holt clenched his fists and swallowed hard. “Either I speak with her or no deal.”
I heard muffled talk as if the caller had covered the mouthpiece of his phone and was speaking with someone else.
“You know you’ll have to pay for your attitude, for real,” the man said.
“I just want to speak with my girl,” Holt insisted calmly.
There was some chatter, the sound of open and shut doors, then a girl’s tearful voice came across the air.
“Daddy?”
“Mer,” Holt said, “are you okay?”
The girl sniffled and whimpered, then took a deep breath and blurted, “Large garage, five men, tattoos—” Then there was a loud noise; she screamed, while the phone clattered to the floor.
“Mer?” Holt shouted. “Meredith?”
“Your girl is a piece of work, Detective,” the man from earlier said. “I’m itching to teach her a lesson.”
“If you touch her—”
“Windmill and Bermuda, two AM, alone,” he said, then hung up.
23
Lessons
Thirty-four hours missing
He yanked Meredith’s arm brutally. She whimpered, but he didn’t care. He busted the door open and shoved her into the garage, then grabbed her arm again twisting it hard behind her back, until she fell to her knees.
“You think you’re so smart,” he said, then slapped her across the face with his other hand. “Think again, bitch.”
