Cincinnati, Ohio
Monday, March 18, 7:15 p.m.
Diesel almost laughed when he saw the group gathered in the Ledger office. “Just like Stone to get shot to avoid talking to all these cops,” he said.
Marcus chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Sit down,” Scarlett complained. “I’m getting a crick in my neck looking at you.”
Diesel pulled out a chair for Dani, then sat next to her. Marcus and Adam flanked Scarlett, and Deacon took the seat on Dani’s other side. The only stranger at the table was dressed in a starched white shirt and dark pants—with a clerical cassock neatly folded in front of him.
Diesel recognized him right away. “You’re the guy Stone and I saw last night when we were leaving the casino.”
“Yes,” the man said. “I’m Grant Masterson.”
He didn’t look like the photo on the website of his accounting firm. He looked a lot older. Wearier. He looked a lot like his brother.
“I’m Diesel Kennedy and this is Dr. Dani Novak.”
Grant nodded once. “My wife told me you called, Dr. Novak. My apologies, but I haven’t gotten around to calling you back. I’ve been busy.”
“I guess you have,” Dani said quietly. “You’re not a priest.”
“He used the disguise to get into Stone’s room,” Scarlett said frostily.
“Why?” Dani asked him.
Grant’s cheeks reddened. “I didn’t think they’d just let a stranger into his room in ICU. They nearly didn’t let a priest in, but Stone recognized me, too.”
Dani shook her head. “No, I mean why did you want to get into Stone’s room in the first place?”
“To give him this,” Grant said, moving the folded cassock aside to reveal a big Bible, the kind that churches set on stands or that families used for their genealogy. He lifted the cover to show that the Bible had a hole carved into the pages. In it was nestled a book bound in green leather cover with purple flowers.
“Mountain laurel,” Dani said.
“Texas mountain laurel, to be exact,” Grant said. “It was our sister’s favorite flower. She drew it on everything.” He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and lifted the book from its hiding place. “I wanted Stone to have this. I didn’t know who else to trust.”
“Why did you think you could trust him?” Diesel asked. “He told you he was a cop.”
Scarlett made a small sound of surprise. “He did what?”
“He was kidding,” Diesel said. “Being a goofball to cheer me up.”
Dani’s gaze swung from the book to Diesel’s face. “Sorry.”
He covered her thigh with his hand. “Shh. We’re done with that, right?”
“Right.” She turned back to Grant. “Why did you trust Stone?”
“I read some of his articles, both in the Ledger and when he was embedded with the troops. I read that he went to jail once because he wouldn’t give up a source. And I read that some of his Ledger investigations put some very bad people away. When I saw that he was also a victim of Scott King and all this . . . mess, I wasn’t sure what to do. But I figured he’d make sure the information got to the right people.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t go to the police,” Scarlett said.
“Because of Detective Bert Stuart,” Diesel said.
Grant stared at him in shock. “How do you know that?”
Diesel sighed. “I think we all know different pieces of this puzzle.”
“Who is Bert Stuart?” Deacon asked.
“Detective Stuart was assigned to investigate Laurel Masterson’s disappearance,” Dani said. “But he didn’t. We couldn’t even find a filed missing person report. He also didn’t investigate the roommate who conveniently said that Laurel had run away with her boyfriend. The roommate who now drives a new car and has a very nice apartment that she shares with no one.”
“She was bribed,” Scarlett said flatly. “You think Detective Stuart was, too?”
“We can’t ask him,” Diesel said, watching Grant closely. “He’s dead. Killed in a home invasion.”
Grant flinched, confirming Diesel’s suspicion that he knew a lot more of the puzzle than they did.
“And the boyfriend?” Scarlett asked.
Diesel hesitated, and Deacon rolled his eyes. “Speak freely, Diesel. We know what you do.”
“And we trust you not to abuse our trust,” Adam added.
Diesel relaxed. “The boyfriend was really a . . . supplier. Of women.”
Grant paled. “A supplier?” he whispered hoarsely.
Diesel winced, reminding himself sternly that Laurel Masterson was Grant’s sister. “Yes,” he said, gentling his normally gravelly tone as much as he could. “We don’t know all the details, but it appears that Laurel was . . . trafficked.”
Grant’s throat worked as he tried to swallow. “Oh God.” The words were half moan, half whimper. “Oh my God.”
Dani slid her hand over Grant’s, her expression concerned. “Do you need to take a break?”
Grant shook his head. “No,” he rasped. “Tell me. Please.”
Diesel sighed. “His name was Anatoly Markov. He’s also dead. Killed in a home invasion, just like Detective Stuart.”
Grant closed his eyes. “Wesley,” he whispered.
“Okay,” Scarlett said, her frost thawing. “Now I get why you didn’t go to the police. Let’s start at the beginning.”
Diesel nodded, still watching Grant with concern. “Okay. Michael Rowland witnessed his stepfather’s murder on March ninth, at the hand of a bald guy.”
“Scott King, a.k.a. Cade Kaiser,” Deacon said. “Whose birth name is Cadeyrn, by the way, which means ‘king.’ His father is Konrad, which also means ‘king.’”
“Wow,” Dani murmured. “Hubris much?”
“Much,” Deacon said with a nod. “So, Diesel, you investigated Cade Kaiser.”
“Not at the beginning. I started out by following the money, all the way through, because I knew Michael hadn’t killed his stepfather. We were worried that the big bald guy would come after Michael because he’d seen his face, so I tried to find who else would have wanted to kill the stepfather. I checked John Brewer’s finances. He was broke, had cleaned out the boys’ trust funds, and had transferred the title of the house to LJM Industries.”
Grant stiffened. “LJM are Laurel’s initials, but I’ve never heard of that company.”
“We’re pretty sure your brother created it,” Diesel said cautiously, because Grant’s head had begun to wag side to side in denial.
“That’s impossible,” Grant said. “I do his taxes. I’d have seen it.” Then he closed his eyes again. “Unless he hid it from me, like he hid everything else.”
Oh. It suddenly made sense, why Wesley Masterson had named the businesses the way he had. Leaving the clues in plain sight had been a message to his brother, in case he wasn’t able to tell Grant himself.
Because Wesley wasn’t sure he’d survive whatever it was that he was trying to do.
Beside him, Dani sucked in a quiet breath, glancing up at him from the corner of her eye. She’d gotten it, too. He gave her a slight nod, silently telling her to continue.
“We’ve been wondering why the businesses were set up the way they were, because it didn’t make sense.” Dani also kept her tone gentle, because Grant’s skin had grayed and he was taking short, shallow breaths. “Your brother created a maze of shell companies. It starts at LJM and crisscrosses with at least eighty different companies before ending at Raguel Management Services.”
“Raguel?” Grant whispered. “I don’t know him, either.”
Dani patted his hand. “Raguel was an angel of vengeance.”
“Oh.” Grant mouthed the word, his voice failing him.
“The company names describe Laurel,” Dani went on. “Her time on the lacrosse team at LaGrange High, the dance club, her figure skating, the boy bands that she loved, the fact that she went to the University of Cincinnati’s medical school and completed her first year. That she got an A-minus in Human Gross Anatomy.”
Grant’s eyes grew glassy with tears. “She was so proud of that A-minus.”
Dani smiled at him sadly. “She should have been. It’s a hard course. There were business names that made us believe she graduated from UC and lived at Scioto Hall. That narrowed down her graduating class.”
“Because Scioto Hall just opened recently after renovations,” Scarlett said. “I got my degree from UC, too. Very nice work, Dani.”
Dani gave her a quick smile of thanks before returning her attention to Grant. “There were companies called Laurels Awards & Trophies, LaGrange Lacrosse Laurels, and Laurels Lilies, Rosemary & Poppies. That gave us her first name. At first we thought they were referring to a plant or an award, but then we realized that they pointed to Laurel’s name.”
Grant cleared his throat. “Why lilies, rosemary, and poppies? Those weren’t her favorites.”
He doesn’t know that she’s dead. Grant may have suspected it, maybe even feared it, but he didn’t know. “Rosemary and poppies are for remembrance,” Diesel said quietly. “Plus there’s a company called Seaheaven 42N x 82W. Those coordinates are over Lake Erie.” He hesitated. “We figured that’s where her ashes were scattered.”
Grant recoiled as if Diesel had struck him. “She’s dead? She’s really dead? I thought she was still missing, but Wesley knew. He knew,” he repeated furiously, then blinked, sending tears streaming down his cheeks. Closing his eyes, he drew in big gulps of air as he tried to regain his composure. Marcus passed him a box of tissues, and everyone around the table waited in patient silence as he began to process his grief and rage. Finally he opened his eyes, emotionally drained. “When did Wes establish these companies?”
“The first was in January last year,” Diesel answered.
“When he discovered she was missing,” Grant said bitterly. “I was so busy with my own life then that I didn’t even realize something was wrong. My wife was pregnant with twins and had just been put on bed rest when I got the e-mail from Laurel saying she was spending the holidays with her new boyfriend. I didn’t think anything about it. I e-mailed her back and told her to have a good time. When Wesley came out from undercover and realized she was really missing, he was so . . . angry with me. And he had a right to be. If I’d bugged them to investigate sooner . . .” He sighed wearily. “But I didn’t, and I have to live with that.” He rubbed his temples. “What about the other companies? When were they established?”
“All but Raguel, Rosemary & Poppies, Seaheaven 42N x 82W, and Brothers Grim were established eleven months ago,” Diesel said, watching Grant for a sign that the date meant something to him.
Grant shook his head, frowning. “Eleven months ago? I don’t know . . .” He cut himself off, shoulders sagging. “That’s when Wes took time off for rehab. He’d had a problem for years, but when we found out that Laurel was missing, he went off the deep end. He showed up at my office last April completely wasted. Crying.” He briefly clenched his eyes shut, looking like he was in pain. “I yelled at him. Told him to pull himself together. It was the fourth or fifth time he’d shown up at my office drunk, but this time was two weeks before April fifteenth and I’d been up all night with one of the twins because my wife was sick. I was so tired . . .” He shuddered. “I lost my temper. I wish I’d listened to him.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for that,” Dani said softly. “I know you will, but you shouldn’t. Your brother could have come back when he’d sobered up to tell you what had happened.”
“Instead, he went off and . . .” He shook his head. “And the others? The poppies and Seaheaven companies?”
“They were established two months later, in June,” Dani said. “We think that’s when Wesley knew she was dead.”
New tears streamed down his cheeks. “Oh my God. All this time. He knew and he didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe because he was going for vengeance,” Dani said gently. “He was protecting you. You have a family. Your wife sounds nice. You have babies. Maybe he didn’t want to drag you into it. And he did tell you, just not up front.”
Grant met her gaze through his tears. “The companies. I would have found out when I did his taxes.”
Dani put her hand on his forearm. “We wondered why whoever set up the companies would lay it out so plainly. Anyone who took the time to unwind them would know that Laurel was gone and that someone was going for revenge. But now I can see that this was all for you, Grant. It was a code, so that you’d know what he’d done. So that you’d know where Laurel rested.”
“Because he didn’t think he’d come back to tell me himself.” Grant was openly weeping now, his head in his hands. “Oh my God. Goddamn you, Wesley.”
Diesel waited until Grant’s weeping ceased and the man had dried his eyes. “I’m glad that we know why he set up the companies the way he did, but we still have questions.”
“Lots of questions,” Deacon added quietly. “But we can take another few minutes if you need a break.”
Grant straightened his spine. “No, I’m okay. Go ahead.”
Grant was not okay, Diesel thought, but he nodded anyway. “Wesley may have set all this up as bread crumbs for you to follow, but he had the company financed very well. I thought at the beginning that John Brewer had a gambling problem, and that’s been confirmed. He needed a stake to continue gambling and put up his house. I figured that whoever established LJM was using the business to prove they were financially solvent enough to gamble for Brewer’s house. That they had a sufficient stake to get into the game. But LJM was worth a million dollars. That was real money. Where did Wesley get it?”
Grant sighed. “I got worried on Saturday. His partner said that he’d taken vacation days, but hadn’t come back. Wesley had a drinking problem before Laurel disappeared. Afterward . . . Well, he had to go to rehab. At least that’s where he said he was. I don’t know anything for sure now.” He mopped his face and blew his nose. “Anyway, when I heard he’d gone AWOL, I went to his apartment. And opened his safe. The combination was Laurel’s birthday.” He glanced at Dani. “That the companies were a message to me is consistent with all the other clues he left, leading me to this.” He patted the green leather book.
“What was in the safe?” Adam asked.
“Money. A lot of money. Five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit,” Scarlett muttered.
“That’s what I said,” Grant said numbly. “And . . . a brick of heroin.”
More heroin, Diesel thought grimly, stealing a glance at Dani only to find she was glancing at him. He gave a minute shake of his head, hoping she understood not to mention the photo from Richard’s secret database of Wesley holding the heroin. Her slight eye-roll was his answer. Of course she wouldn’t tell.
Adam whistled quietly. “That’d fund LJM nicely. Where’d he get it?”
Grant shrugged. “He’s Narcotics. Maybe he took it from a criminal. Another criminal,” he corrected himself bitterly. “There were also papers—bills he’d paid to maintain an apartment here, downtown. They were in the name of Blake Emerson.”
Dani sighed. “We’ve seen that name, but we’ll get to that.”
“The apartment is expensive,” Grant said. “He’d had the place for six months. Right around the time he established those final three companies. He was creating a persona. A high roller.”
“So you came to Cincinnati to look for him,” Dani prodded.
“Yes.” A wry smile lifted Grant’s lips. “He left me a key to the apartment in his home safe. I let myself right in.” He touched the cassock. “I found this in the closet, along with other uniforms. And I found another safe.”
“Same combo as the safe in his home in Cleveland?” Adam asked.
“Yes. This one held his detective shield, his service weapon, and his phone.”
“Same combo for the phone?” Adam asked again.
“I don’t know. I never had to put in a code. It recognized my face.”
“You look alike,” Dani commented.
“People used to think we were twins,” Grant said sadly. “I checked his calendar and found two entries, both on Friday night. The first said ‘LOTR Richard.’ The second said ‘LOTR Poker.’ So I knew that the casino was important.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “I also found an unregistered gun. The clip was missing four bullets. One was in the chamber. He’d used three.”
Diesel looked at Dani, who was holding herself too rigidly. Never play poker, baby, he thought. You’ll lose every time.
“Wesley shot Detective Stuart and the supplier—Anatoly Markov—with those bullets, didn’t he?” Scarlett asked. “Who got the third bullet?”
“A guy named Clinton Stern. He was the . . . buyer. And yes, I’ll tell you how I know,” Diesel promised. “Let Grant finish first.”
Grant exhaled heavily. “I searched the pocket of Wesley’s suit and found a matchbook for the Lady of the River. It was a special matchbook, not like the ones they give out at the bar. It had a joker card embossed in gold on the inside cover. And the date, March eighth.”
“Friday night,” Diesel murmured. “It all fits. So you went to the casino yesterday to find him?”
“No. Well, I’d hoped to find him. I went to the casino on Saturday night, looking for Richard Fischer. One of his managers told me he was the owner. I found his address and went to see him yesterday at his house.” Grant looked over at Scarlett. “That’s when you saw me on the surveillance video.”
“Who was the woman banging on his front door?” Scarlett asked. “The security tapes were just video. No audio.”
“She told me her name was Dawn Daley. D-a-l-e-y. She works at the casino, waiting tables. She went home with Richard on Friday night and they had sex. The next morning, he tossed her out and she was pissed off.”
“I could see that,” Scarlett said dryly. “Why was she banging on the door?”
“Oh.” Grant snapped his fingers. “I forgot. She left her earrings in his bedroom. I had Wes’s badge with me and . . . I might have told her I was a cop. She asked if I’d report the earrings missing and I said I would. She said they’re not valuable, but they were her mother’s.”
Scarlett smiled. “I’ll make sure she gets them back at some point.”
“Thank you. She told me that she hadn’t seen my sister. I didn’t ask if she’d seen Wes.”
“Because you might have used his badge and said you were a cop,” Scarlett said dryly. “And then?”
“She suggested I talk to Scott King. I went back last night to see him.” Grant frowned. “Hard to believe it was just last night. I was on my way in when you and Stone came out,” he said to Diesel. “After the cops came, I went back to Wesley’s apartment and went to sleep. This morning I saw that your house had been attacked, Dr. Novak. And that Stone had been shot and that Scott King was believed responsible. But that didn’t tell me what had happened to Wes, so I kept looking.”
He bit at his lip. “When we were kids, we had an old globe that had been handed down from our grandfather. Worthless, really, but it opened. Well, we opened it. At the time we were disappointed because we were sure we’d find treasure in it. I figured that if Wes really wanted me to find all this stuff, he’d hide the other important things where I could find them. The study in his apartment has a globe, so I sliced it open.”
He was caressing the book, his hand no longer gloved. He realized it and yanked his hand back. “I found this book in the globe. It’s got a column for names and a column for . . . things, all in Wes’s handwriting. One of the names is John Brewer. His name is in here twice. The first time the thing is an address. That must be the house you mentioned.”
“And the second?” Diesel asked, although he already knew.
“It says ‘Joshua.’ Wes made a note that he’d be wired.”
Dani turned to Diesel. “Wesley was going in undercover.”
Diesel nodded. “You were right.”
Scarlett tapped the table impatiently. “How did you know? Diesel, what did you find?”
“I found calendar entries on John Brewer’s computer for several of the area casinos. The most recent was Lady of the River, so I went there last night. Stone joined me. After I was mistaken for Scott King, I called Adam to let him know and we left. I went home and started searching for King. I couldn’t find him.”
“Because he’s really Cade Kaiser,” Scarlett said.
“Yes, but as Stone pointed out, he’d need to pass a background check to get a job in a casino. I found a security guard named Scott King in Indianapolis. He’d disappeared.”
“One of Cade Kaiser’s old addresses was Indianapolis,” Adam said. “He lists his current address as a house in northern Kentucky, but that house is in his father’s name. The earnings on the father’s investments are being used to pay for his nursing care. Neighbors say they haven’t seen Cade in years.”
“Where’s he living, then?” Diesel asked sharply. Because until they caught King, Michael wasn’t safe, nor was anyone around him.
“We don’t know,” Deacon answered. “We were hoping you knew.”
Diesel shook his head. He took Dani’s hand, because she’d gone pale. “Michael is safe, Dani. He and Joshua are being guarded. They’re safe.”
“I know, but . . . Kaiser’s out there somewhere.” She glanced at Grant. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive to your brother, because I know he’s still missing, but Michael is a child.”
“He’s the boy who was accused of his stepfather’s murder?” Grant asked.
“Originally,” Dani said. “But he didn’t do it.”
“Cade Kaiser is looking for him,” Grant said. “Why?”
“Because Michael can identify him.” Dani swallowed. “He’s my foster son.”
Grant’s smile was small, but sincere. “Then I understand. I have three kids of my own. I’d protect them with my life.” He abruptly stilled. “My wife and kids. They’re alone right now.”
“I contacted Cleveland PD on the way over here,” Scarlett said. “They’ve got someone watching your house.”
Grant sagged in his chair. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it to keep them safe,” Scarlett admitted. “I didn’t want your wife running, since we had no idea how you were connected to all this. But I’m glad that keeping her and your kids safe is a side benefit.” She speared Diesel with a hard look. “Continue, please. My baby will be in college by the time you finish.”
Diesel found he could still smile. “Okay. I wanted Scott King’s home address, so I . . . gained entrée to the casino’s network last night, hoping the administrator would have it.”
“‘Gained entrée.’” Scarlett shook her head. “And when you found it?”
“I was going to give it to you guys. Seriously,” Diesel insisted when Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“You would have given it to us while you were driving there yourself,” Scarlett said.
Diesel shrugged. “That’s fair. But Kaiser’s address is just a PO box. However, I found that there was a database on the casino’s server only Richard Fischer and Scott King had access to. It had columns for people and their stake.” He pulled out his cell phone and tapped some buttons. “Just texted you, Deacon, and Adam the photos I took of my screen. I didn’t download anything. I have screenshots on my laptop, so I can send you clearer copies later. You’ll see that on Friday, March first, John Brewer’s stake was his house. The following Friday, a few hours before Michael saw him murdered, his stake was ‘five-year-old boy.’”
Three phones dinged with the receipt of his text. Scarlett, Deacon, and Adam put their heads together, studying the contents. Marcus leaned in to Scarlett to see her screen. They looked at each other, then back at Diesel.
“Joshua,” Scarlett murmured, her jaw tight. “He put Joshua up as his stake.”
“Probably to get the house back,” Diesel said flatly. Even knowing that Brewer was dead, he still felt the slow burn of rage at what might have happened.
“Brewer drugged Joshua that night,” Dani said. “Michael saw him carrying Joshua from the house and he and Brewer fought. Michael hit him with the fireplace shovel, grabbed Joshua, and ran. He hid in some trees and that’s when he saw Cade Kaiser pull into the driveway. Kaiser got out, grabbed Brewer from his car. Brewer tried to pull a gun and Kaiser killed him. Kaiser drove away with Brewer in the back of his SUV, but came back later to check on Joshua.”
Grant held up his hands. “Wait. You’re saying that Cade Kaiser killed John Brewer to protect Joshua?”
“Best we can figure,” Diesel said.
Grant closed his eyes. “Did you find my brother’s body in the river?”
Diesel watched Deacon and Adam share a glance. “Did he have a tattoo or any markings?” Adam asked.
“A tattoo on his right shoulder.” Grant opened his eyes and pointed at the purple flowers that decorated the green leather book. “Like this—a Texas mountain laurel.” His shoulders sagged, defeated. “You found him?”
Adam nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Deacon added.
Grant swallowed hard, then laughed almost hysterically. “It’s ironic. My brother wanted to expose a pedophile, so he posed as one. Cade Kaiser believed he was one so he killed him.”
It was damn ironic, Diesel thought sadly.
“Ironic,” Deacon agreed, “but also what happens when people take the law into their own hands.” He shot a sharp look of warning at Diesel before turning back to Grant. “If your brother had gone through channels, we would have protected him.”
Adam and Scarlett were nodding earnestly. Marcus stared up at the ceiling, but Diesel still caught the roll of his eyes. They both knew that law enforcement’s hands were often tied by the very law they enforced. Sometimes channels were too dirty to navigate.
“Except Wesley tried that,” Diesel reminded them mildly, “but Detective Stuart was corrupt and, for reasons we might not ever know, didn’t do his duty.”
Deacon shook his head. “That might be true, but we won’t know Stuart’s reasons, because he’s dead. So is Wesley Masterson. It’s a risk of vigilantism.”
Dani cleared her throat, her gaze moving pointedly to Grant’s stricken expression. “I think we can all agree that Wesley paid a high price for taking the law into his own hands. Maybe you can have this conversation another time?”
Deacon looked at Grant and winced at the pain on the man’s face. “I’m sorry, Grant. That was insensitive of me.”
But Diesel knew that Deacon’s comments had really been aimed at Marcus and himself, because he cared about their safety. “Point taken,” Diesel murmured. He gestured to their phones. “Does the list I sent you help?”
“Absolutely,” Deacon said with a wry smile. “We know where to start looking.”
“And,” Adam added, “it matches up. We’ve identified two more of the . . . recent bodies. They’re both on this list. One offered his underage niece. The other had admitted liking underage girls.”
“Why did Cade Kaiser kill Richard Fischer when he did?” Dani asked. “This poker game has been going on for a while.”
“Maybe Joshua was the first time Cade knew that people were being trafficked,” Diesel suggested.
“Is . . .” Grant faltered, then cleared his throat. “Is Laurel on that list?”
“She is,” Diesel said gently. “But Kaiser didn’t start working at the casino until a few months after Laurel went missing. He had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
“You mentioned a Clinton Stern as the . . .” Grant swallowed. “The buyer. He’s on the list?”
“He is,” Diesel confirmed. “He’s also dead, killed in a home invasion.”
“Wesley,” Grant murmured. “I can’t say I’m sorry he did it.”
“Neither can I,” Dani told him in a whisper.
Scarlett tapped the table to get their attention. “I agree that Kaiser didn’t kill Laurel. But you do assume that he killed Richard?”
“Well, yeah,” Dani said. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Scarlett admitted. “Unfortunately, we don’t have Kaiser on the security vids from Richard’s house. The alarm system was turned off from eight twenty a.m. on Saturday through one p.m.” She glanced at Grant. “You’re not a suspect. We traced your credit cards, and you were getting gas in Cleveland when the alarm system was reactivated.”
“If Kaiser was Richard’s security manager at the riverboat, he may have had access to his home security as well,” Diesel said. “He’d probably know how to deactivate Richard’s alarm.” He rubbed his forehead. He was so tired. “That’s all I know except that I’m starving and my head is pounding like hell.”
“I’ll take you back to the safe house,” Adam said.
“We’d like to search your brother’s apartment,” Deacon told Grant. “We’ll also need to take your prints so we can eliminate them.” He pulled on a pair of gloves and slipped the green leather book into an evidence bag. “Thank you. I’m so sorry about your sister and your brother. But we appreciate the light you’ve shed. Will you be returning to Cleveland?”
“Soon,” Grant murmured. “When will you release my brother’s body?”
“As soon as the ME is finished with her exam,” Deacon promised. “I’ll ask her to conduct Wesley’s autopsy next.”
Diesel stood, feeling shaky from hunger and stress. He put his arm around Dani’s waist, relieved when she leaned into him.
“There is one more thing,” Marcus said as he helped Scarlett to her feet. “How did Wesley find out that Laurel was dead or even where to start looking?”
Everyone went still and looked at Grant.
Grant shrugged. “I don’t know. I was hoping you did.”
Diesel studied the man’s face. Grant knew something more that he wasn’t saying, but he’d shut down. The man was done. At least for the moment. But then he’d just learned that his brother and sister were dead. A man was allowed to shut down for a little while after getting news like that.
Grant dug a single key from his pants pocket. “This is the key to Wes’s apartment. I’ll sign whatever I need to so that you have permission to search. But if I don’t have to be there, I don’t want to be.”
“You don’t have to be,” Deacon said. “But we would like the opportunity to talk to you again before you go back to Cleveland—just in case we have more questions after searching your brother’s things.”
Grant’s lips curved bitterly. “So in other words, don’t leave town. I won’t.”
Cincinnati, Ohio
Monday, March 18, 10:40 p.m.
“Here.” Cade shoved a thermos full of warm water through the bars of the old pedo’s basement cell. “You can mix it with the formula.”
He’d gone to the store and paid a loitering teenager a few bucks to buy him some more antibiotic cream, some rubbing alcohol, more painkillers, Epsom salts, a few cans of baby formula, and a bag of diapers. The teenager had been so happy to get a twenty for his troubles—in advance—that he hadn’t given Cade a second look.
But he’d lingered in the store just a little too long, and when he’d come out, Cade had already second-guessed his own decision to keep the kid alive. He hadn’t been thorough with Stone O’Bannion—who according to the news hadn’t been a detective after all, the bastard—and look where it had gotten him.
Here, a virtual prisoner in the old pedo’s house, with an infected leg and a fever that had climbed over a hundred and one. Cade wasn’t a doctor, but he sure as hell knew that a fever was bad. And that the greenish pus oozing out of the wounds on his leg was likely to blame.
So he’d dragged the kid to the back of the store and put a bullet in the back of his head, listening with his stethoscope to make sure he was actually dead.
“Thank you,” Evelyn said quietly, taking the thermos. “Jimmy’s hungry.”
Cade scowled. “I know. I could hear him screaming all the way upstairs. Lucky for me, my nearest neighbor is a mile away.”
She looked down at the thermos. “What are you going to do with us?”
It was a valid question and asked respectfully, so he answered it. “I’m going to use you to get out of here once my leg is healed. You’re going to tell the press that I’m not a bad person. That I was good to you and Junior and performed a vital service to the community.” He looked around the basement. “This house? It belonged to an old pedo who’d drugged a kid and had him tied up in the back of his Toyota Sequoia.”
“The same SUV that you blew up with a hand grenade?” Evelyn asked, but it still wasn’t a disrespectful question, so he shrugged.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, but like all my plans for yesterday, it bombed abominably.” He chuckled at his pun, but Evelyn wasn’t smiling. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to need your help, but I do. The way I see it, you can cooperate and you and Junior live, or you can play the judgmental hero and watch your kid die of starvation, because nobody knows you’re here.”
She nodded once. “I have been cooperating.”
“Yes, you have. Which is why I got the damn baby formula. Which you should give to your kid before he bursts a blood vessel crying.”
She pulled an empty bottle from her diaper bag—which Cade had thoroughly searched—and scooped formula from the can, adding water from the thermos. “So this house belonged to a pedo?” she asked, shaking it hard.
“Yeah. I left the kid he’d snatched in the park for the cops to find, fed the pedo to the fishes, then came here. You know what I found?”
She swallowed. “No.”
“A body. A teenager. He was dead.” Cade pointed to the airtight room next to the cell. “In there. Suffocated. I also left his body where the cops could find him. Gave his parents closure and saved the kids in this city from a pedophile. Does that seem like something a bad guy would do?”
She shook her head. “That was decent of you.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. So when it comes time for me to run, I expect you to remember that I’m decent. I don’t hurt kids.”
Unless they’d been an eyewitness to murder, but that was different. That was self-preservation. It would have allowed him to continue serving the community by eliminating pedos and abusive bastards. But Michael had given the cops his description.
The kid had ruined everything.
And now I’m on the run for real. His face and real name on the news. Shit.
“What about him?” she asked, pointing to Andrew McNab, the interpreter.
The guy I shouldn’t have let live. The guy Cade had drugged so that he and Evelyn couldn’t cook up an escape plan. “Depends. Has he woken up yet?”
“No,” she said, casting a worried look at the man who still lay as Cade had left him. “I thought he was once, but he kind of moaned and fell back asleep. He’s been beaten badly.” Her words were stiff and awkward, as if she feared making Cade angry by accusing him of doing the beating. Good. She should be afraid. “He could die.”
“Then he does. He’s not your concern,” Cade said, and meant it. “You worry about you and Junior. If the man dies, I’ll drag him out of there.” He turned on his heel and grunted loudly when his knee buckled. He grabbed on to the cell bars to hold himself upright. Dammit, that hurt.
“I think you’re going to need something stronger for your leg,” Evelyn said softly. “Maybe an antibiotic injection.”
“I know,” he snapped, happy when she recoiled. They weren’t friends. She was his ticket out. Nothing more. “But unless you’re a doctor, you can’t help me.”
He blinked. No . . . she wasn’t a doctor. But Dani Novak was, and she ran a free clinic. Places like that stocked medicines. Antibiotics and maybe even painkillers. And it wasn’t a twenty-four-hour operation. They had to close sometime. When the staff left for the night, he’d slip in, get a few handfuls of meds, and get out.
That was a good plan. If he was still running a fever by tomorrow, he’d clean out Dani Novak’s pharmacy.