by Matt Lincoln
Tucker led us into the police station.
“Hey, man,” he greeted the officer at the front desk. “Got the federal agents here. Is Davis ready?”
“Yeah, I think he is,” the officer behind the desk responded. “He should be in the third interrogation room. The one by the conference room.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tucker waved him off. “I know where it is. I’ll catch you later, okay? We still hitting the festival after work?”
“That’s the plan,” the other man smiled.
“Alright,” Tucker nodded. “Come on this way, agents. Interrogation room three is just down this way. It’s the only one with a two-way mirror. We thought you might like that one.”
“You thought correctly,” Patel confirmed. “It’s always better to have an extra set of eyes and ears where the suspect can’t see.”
“I hear you,” Tucker nodded as he led us to the room. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and used one to open the door. We stepped inside, and I could see Davis on the other side of the two-way glass. His attitude was similar to Jackson’s when I’d interrogated him earlier. His posture was relaxed, and he had an easy-going sneer on his face. Like Jackson, he didn’t seem to be putting on an act.
“Looks like he’s going to be a pain to crack, too,” I sighed. “We didn’t get anything out of Jackson until that cop started backhanding him across the face.”
“I’m not sure that kind of tactic will even fly here,” Patel remarked. “Bermuda’s a little more strict when it comes to police regulations. We’ll have to figure out some other way to get him to talk.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. I’d never intended to start beating the information out of him, but it sounded as though Patel was disappointed that it wouldn’t be a possibility.
“So, how’s this gonna go down?” Tucker asked. “He wanted to speak to Agent Hills, but perhaps it would be better if both of you go in.”
“What do you think, Charlie?” Patel turned to look at me.
I thought about it for a moment.
“Let’s do that,” I agreed. “I’m not sure if that’ll make him feel any more intimidated, but it’s worth a shot. No one likes feeling outnumbered. You were also the one who fought with him. That might rattle him as well.”
“Fine by me,” Patel responded. “Are you ready?”
I nodded and was about to push the door open when I heard a tinny jingle. I watched as Patel slipped her phone out of her pocket.
“Hello?” she answered before walking a few steps away to take the call. I shifted impatiently. It must have been important if she was taking it right before an interrogation, and of the group’s leader no less. Still, the suspense of standing here while I waited for her to finish the call was nerve-racking.
“That was Nelson,” she murmured as she walked back over to us, her brows knitted in concern. “They think that the accident that Junior and Miranda were in wasn’t an accident at all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I snapped impatiently.
“They think it might be the work of the traffickers,” she sighed. “Apparently, the truck that hit them was the large brown kind that delivers packages. Miranda says the two of you saw one parked outside the office a few nights ago.”
“There was one,” I replied slowly. I suddenly felt guilty for having reacted so brusquely. “I even thought it was a little weird that he was still out after sundown. That is a heck of a coincidence.”
“That’s what they think, too,” Patel nodded. “Nelson wanted to warn us to be careful. It’s possible that the stateside supplier has been trailing us since before we left.”
“Well, we already knew they might be on to us,” I frowned. “That doesn’t change much for us. They’re the ones who need to be more careful.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Patel nodded, though she still seemed worried.
“Well, if nothing else,” I prompted. “It’s one more piece of information to confront Davis with. Are you ready to go in now?”
“I am,” she stated resolutely.
I pushed the door to the small interrogation room open. Davis turned to look at us slowly, a smile spreading over his face as we entered the room.
“Agent Charlie Hills,” he crooned. “And Agent Naomi Patel, was it? How nice to see you both. Please, take a seat.” He was an older man, probably in his late forties or early fifties. His head was shaved smooth, and there was a manic look in his eye that, coupled with the pleasant way he’d invited us to sit as if we were all meeting for lunch, was incredibly off-putting.
“I’ll stand,” Patel remarked coldly, moving to lean against the wall between the two of us. She wasn’t standing directly behind him like she had to intimidate Brown, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t have worked on Davis, anyway.
“You’re making a lady stand?” Davis raised an eyebrow at me as I took the seat in front of him. “How ungentlemanly of you.”
“Agent Patel is a colleague and partner,” I stated blankly. “Her gender has nothing to do with the way I treat her. Now, why don’t you tell me what it is you wanted to speak to me about so badly?”
Davis’s face cracked into a malicious grin, and I fought the urge to look away from the horrid sight.
“Tell me about your family, Agent Hills,” he jeered.
“I’d rather not,” I deadpanned.
“Oh, but that’s what I wanted to speak to you about,” he responded, the smile on his face growing more insidious. “Family is so important, is it not?
“Who were you speaking to on the phone?” I asked, ignoring his question. I refused to fall for his little mind game. “When we got to the hotel, Agent Patel heard you speaking with someone. Who was that?”
“Oh, that was just my good friend,” Davis replied. “He lives in the United States, around the Las Vegas area. That’s where you two are from, is it not? He does favors for me from time to time, and I do some for him in return. You scratch my back, and I scratch yours. You understand.”
A feeling of dread began to grow in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like where this conversation was heading. We’d just gotten a call from Nelson about how someone might have tried to kill Junior and Miranda, and now Jackson was making thinly veiled comments about being associated with someone in the US.
“Is this friend of yours someone who works for you?” I asked.
“As I said,” he smirked. “He does favors for me, and I do some for him.”
“Cut the crap,” I growled, irritated by the way he was dancing around the question. “We both know why we’re here. One of your men already sold you out as the leader of the group, so why don’t you stop beating around the bush already?”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Davis hummed. “But I am afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s strange,” Patel intoned as she pushed herself off the wall and walked over to the table. “Considering you shot at us the moment you saw us in the street. That seems like a pretty severe reaction for an innocent bystander just enjoying Carnival.”
“What can I say?” Davis sneered. “I was surprised to see two federal agents approaching me so aggressively. I will admit that my reaction was a bit dramatic, but I never meant any harm.”
“You shot a bystander,” I deadpanned, shocked by his blase attitude.
“And I deeply regret it,” Davis hung his head in mock shame.
“How did you know we were federal agents then?” Patel asked.
“I don’t understand,” Davis responded.
“You said you were shocked,” Patel continued. “About seeing two federal agents approaching you so aggressively. How did you know we were federal agents and not just a couple of tourists enjoying the festival?”
“Lucky guess,” Davis smiled, though it seemed more strained than his previous one had been.
“Of course,” Patel replied sarcastically.
The interrogation continued in this way for thirty minutes. No matter what angle
we approached him from, Davis maintained his calm exterior and dodged our questions. Finally, I reached my breaking point and pushed my chair away from the table with a loud scrape. I stood without another word and silently stalked out of the small room.
“What just happened?” Patel asked as she followed me out of the room and closed the door behind her.
“I just needed a second to compose myself,” I muttered. “He was seriously ticking me off in there. If I had to look at that stupid smirk for another second, I might have punched him.”
“He is unusually obstinate,” Patel sighed. “Usually, suspects crack by now, even the most hardened ones. It’s like no matter what we say, nothing lands.”
“There has to be some chink in his armor,” Officer Tucker suddenly interjected. “There’s no man in this world who doesn’t have some kind of weakness.”
“That’s true,” Patel agreed. “Though usually, we’d have found it by now. Reading people is a part of our jobs. Davis just seems like he’s toying with us and having fun doing it.”
I was about to respond when my phone buzzed. I slipped it out of my pocket and frowned when I saw the name flashing on the screen. Eliza was calling me. I felt fear grip me like a vice. Eliza knew that I was overseas on a mission. She wouldn’t have called me if it wasn’t important.
“What’s wrong?” Patel asked. She could probably see the apprehension in my face.
I ignored her and answered the call instead, bringing the phone up to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked and immediately had to pull the speaker away from my head. She was screaming so hysterically that I couldn’t make out what she was saying. “Eliza, stop. I can’t understand you.”
“She’s gone!” she wailed into the phone between sobs.
“What?” I asked frantically. My heart felt as if it would explode out of my chest. “Who’s gone?”
“Amber!” she cried, her voice cracking over the name. “I don’t know what happened. Dad was babysitting. There’s a huge mess, and he’s not responding, and I can’t find her anywhere.”
The edges of my vision filled with static, and my entire body felt cold. I could hear Patel saying something, but her voice sounded far away. I glanced back at Davis through the two-way glass. He seemed to be staring straight at me, that insufferable smirk glued in place.
29
Charlie
“Call Junior,” I mumbled through the ringing in my ears. “You have his number, right? Tell them what happened and have someone from the office come and get you.”
“Okay,” Eliza whimpered, her voice thick. The call ended, and I couldn’t hear anything else past the blood rushing through my ears.
“Charlie, what happened?” Patel asked me firmly. “I heard someone yelling, is everything alright?”
“They took Amber,” I replied dumbly as everything suddenly clicked into place.
“What?” Patel shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“Nelson said Junior and Miranda were hit by a delivery truck, right?”
Patel nodded slowly.
I took a deep breath. “We did see one about a week ago, right when we were starting to investigate. But that wasn’t the only time I saw one. There was one just like it when I went to visit Harry the day before we flew out. I remember thinking how difficult it must be to maneuver such a big truck through narrow mountain roads. Harry’s daughter Eliza just called me and told me that someone attacked Harry and my niece Amber is missing.”
“Oh my word,” Patel gasped. “You think it’s related to the case?”
“Of course I do!” I snapped at her. “First, we see one outside the office, Junior and Miranda get hit by one, and the same day Amber goes missing? How could it not be related?!” I was yelling now.
Patel stared at me with wide eyes. In the back of my mind, I knew it was wrong of me to take it out on her, but I couldn’t think clearly right now. I snapped my head back toward Davis, who was still smiling serenely on the other side of the glass. My legs were moving before I’d made any conscious decision, and I was through the door and rounding on Davis in an instant.
“Where is she?” I roared as I slammed my fist on the table in front of him.
“Whoever are you talking about?” Davis jeered, the smile on his face widening as he took in my enraged expression. He started to laugh, and I saw red.
“Agent Hills, I don’t--” He started to say, but he never got to finish his sentence because I was on him in an instant.
I leaped over the table and brought my fist down onto his face, and felt a sick thrill of satisfaction as I felt something crack beneath my hand. He was handcuffed and unable to defend himself. It wasn’t a fair fight, but I didn’t care right now. Somehow, he’d orchestrated the kidnapping of my niece. Even if we weren’t related by blood, Harry was like a father to me, and I considered his family to be my own.
“What did you do?!” I screamed as I shook him by the collar of his shirt. Davis bared his teeth at me in a bloody smile before spitting in my face. I punched him again, and we both fell to the ground as the force of the blow knocked him off balance. I continued to bring my fists down onto his face, desperate to wipe that malevolent smile off his face.
I felt someone grab my arm from behind just as I was about to hit him again. I shook it off, but before I could continue my attack, someone pulled me back by the back of my shirt.
“Charlie!” Patel yelled into my ear as she hauled me off of Davis. “Stop! You need to stop!”
I struggled to break free, but I could already feel the fight leaving me. Davis was lying on the ground a few feet away, still laughing and coughing up blood between chuckles.
“He needs medical attention,” Tucker stated gravely as he stood crouched over Davis.
“You need to go, right now,” Patel hissed in my ear. “Your family needs you right now. The Bermuda Police Service is going to have to conduct an internal investigation over this. If you don’t leave now, you’ll be stuck here.”
I turned to look her in the eyes. Patel was as straight-laced as they came, and the fact that she was trying to convince me to run after assaulting a suspect touched me in a weird way. I nodded and quickly left the room. I knew this wasn’t the right way to handle this, and I’d definitely have to face some consequences later, but right now, I needed to get back home.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I left the police station and called Wallace.
“Hills?” Wallace answered immediately as if he’d been expecting the call.
“Did Eliza call you?” I asked without preamble as I attempted to arrange for a taxi through an app. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” Wallace responded. “Chapman and Castillo are on their way to get her right now. The police should have gotten there by now as well.”
“Did she tell you what happened?” I asked as I finally managed to book a car. It was supposed to arrive in six minutes, which felt like an impossibly long time. “She was panicking when she called me, and I couldn’t really understand what was going on. I figured it’d be better for her to call you since you’re at least in the same country.”
“We’re still not sure about the details,” Wallace admitted. “She called Agent Chapman and told him that she’d gone to Harry’s house to pick up her daughter. When she got there, the door had been forced open. Harry was unresponsive on the ground, and she couldn’t find her daughter anywhere. Then she got a call.”
“What kind of call?” I asked. She hadn’t mentioned that during our short phone call. I glanced down at the app. Four minutes to go.
“She’d just finished calling nine-one-one,” Wallace continued. “Then she got a call from a number she didn’t recognize. It was a man’s voice, telling her that she would never see her daughter again, and that…” Wallace trailed off. His voice sounded oddly strained.
“That what?!” I barked.
“That it was your fault,” Wallace answered. “For ‘sticking your nose where it didn’t belong
.’ But listen, Hills, he was just trying to rub salt in the wound. You know you didn’t cause this, right?”
I shook with barely contained rage. I felt an intense urge to walk back into the police station and continue beating Davis. I fought to rein in my emotions. The taxi was only a minute away now. I needed to focus on getting back home.
“Hills?” Wallace called. “Charlie, are you there?”
“I’m here,” I muttered bitterly. “Of course, I know it’s not my fault.” It felt like it was, though. This had happened because I was here investigating. They’d decided to use Amber as a pawn against me, to distract me from the case.
“He said something about agents, and I think something about leverage?” That’s what Patel had said when we’d first spotted Davis outside of the hotel. That’s what he’d been speaking on the phone about. He was using a little girl as leverage against me.
“Aside from the phone call, there’s been nothing else,” Wallace stated, drawing my attention away from my thoughts and back to the conversation. “No ransom note or anything else to indicate who took her. Judging by the timing and the things he said, though, it’s extremely likely that this was the work of the trafficking group.”
“So what now?” I asked, relief flooding through me as the taxi finally pulled to a stop in front of me.
“The plane will be ready to take off the moment you get to the airport,” Wallace assured me. “We’ll keep Eliza here for the time being. I’ll call you as soon as I get any updates about Harry or anything else.”
“Okay,” I answered as I climbed into the back of the taxi and told the driver to head to the airport. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“We’ll be waiting,” Wallace replied. I ended the call. I peered out the window as we drove through the city. The sun had already gone down, but the party was still in full swing. The elaborate and colorful costumes that had seemed so cheerful just a few hours ago now seemed ghastly as they loomed over me as if they were laughing at me.
