Why would Carlos have a burner phone?” Eliot sipped from his water glass. He’d already eaten his lunch, while she picked at hers.
“I don’t know. He must have been worried someone was tracing his phone.” After getting all the updates from Juan, she left the precinct, grabbed Eliot, and they went to get some Tex-Mex. Unfortunately, she could barely force any food down.
“Are they sure it was Carlos’s?”
“Yeah. He’d called his home number and checked messages.” She stabbed a piece of chicken.
“Were there any other calls on it?”
“One to a José Hernandez, but now the phone connected to that number has been shut off. They’re trying to find him. But do you know how many José Hernandezes there are? It’s like John Doe.” She ran her fork through her refried beans.
“Something will come up. You’ll get a break.”
Damn, she must be pretty pathetic if Eliot was pushing optimism on her. “Agent Miles came to see Carlos earlier.”
“Sam told me. Did Miles say anything?”
“He started talking nonsense, saying maybe it was Carlos who was the leak in the Sala case.” She looked up. Eliot seemed to chew on that information. “It’s not true.”
“I don’t think it is, but I’m trying to understand what angle Miles had for accusing Carlos.”
“To throw suspicion off himself?”
“But wouldn’t accusing Carlos just invite further investigation? If he’s hiding something, I’d think he’d want to shut down the whole idea of an FBI leak.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” She tapped her fork on her plate. “I’m afraid he’ll use the fact that Carlos has a burner phone to give credit to his story about Carlos being behind this.”
“It’s easy to throw out accusations, but they have to be proven. Aren’t the detectives looking into Agents Bara and Miles?”
She nodded. “I’m told they are. And I was told Agent Calvin refused to turn over the phone records for Carlos’s office. He said there might be confidential informant calls on there, and he won’t divulge.”
“Then he should redact those he has to, and give them the rest.”
“That’s what he’s doing. But it’s just another delay.” She exhaled. “I feel like I should be doing something. Not sitting on the sidelines.”
“You’re assisting the APD. Aren’t they keeping you abreast of everything?”
“They are. But they aren’t telling me everything,” she said.
“What about the charge on Carlos’s credit card in Willowcreek?”
“They’ve spoken with the restaurant. The check was for two people.”
“And?”
“And that’s all we got. It’s another damn delay. The waitress is on vacation. Mexico. She’s supposed to be back tomorrow. I’m going to go interview her with one of the detectives.”
She stabbed a piece of fajita chicken.
Eliot frowned. “You look exhausted. And playing with your food isn’t eating.”
“I ate some. And I am tired. Maybe that’s why I can’t think straight.” Or why every few seconds her mind would take her back to last night with Connor. Which made her feel even more guilty. Carlos is on death’s door, her sister’s killer is still on the loose, and she’s fixated on a one-night stand.
“You need to go home and rest.”
Her phone rang and she picked it up to check who the caller was, praying it was good news. But when she saw the number, she frowned.
“What?” Eliot asked.
“It’s the Black Diamond.”
“If Armand isn’t there, there’s no need for you to go in.”
She saw the steely expression in his eyes—parental protection and love. At least for tonight, she agreed with him.
“But I should still answer it.” She took the call. “Hello.”
“You need to come in,” Mr. Grimes said in lieu of hello.
Just the sound of his voice caused what little food she’d eaten to sit heavier in her stomach. “Can’t. I’m out of town.”
“How far out of town are you? I need you here by eight.”
“Can’t.”
“Look, Candy didn’t show up. I need a waitress. So get your ass—”
“I said I can’t.”
“If you value your job, you’ll—”
“Can’t.” She hung up. No way he’d fire her. He was already down one waitress.
“What?” Eliot asked.
“A waitress didn’t show up. I’m pretty sure she was pressured into having sex with Armand two nights ago. And she had bruises that I think he gave her.”
Eliot’s jaw clenched. “Pressured by who?”
“The boss.”
Eliot shook his head. “Have you told your detective this? Why haven’t they arrested that piece of scum?”
“It’s not illegal. He’s careful with his words. He doesn’t say it explicitly. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than seeing his butt thrown in jail, but right now nothing would stick. Being a douchebag isn’t illegal.”
“It should be.”
Brie gave up pretending to eat and pushed her lunch away.
The waiter came and removed the plates. When he left, Eliot asked, “How much do you know about your sister’s time here?”
“Not much. After one of the dancers said I reminded them of someone who used to work there, I asked about her. They said she was talking about going to school and that she lived with another dancer. I visited the apartment where they lived, but it flooded a month after Alma disappeared, and most everyone had moved out. I found a couple of neighbors, but all they could tell me is that three women and a baby lived there.”
“And nothing else from her time at the Black Diamond?”
“No. She only worked there a few months. Her file said she missed work one day, then quit because she had another job. When the cops interviewed her roommate, Linda Kramer, she told the cops Alma had found a new job. But she didn’t know where, or even what kind of job it was. Alma’s bank records show she deposited her last check from the Black Diamond. After that, there were only cash deposits made into her account.”
“Do you think she was doing something illegal?”
“Possibly.” Brie had considered it.
“Have you spoken with the roommate?”
Brie turned her glass. “I’ve tried. She’s one of the missing women.”
“Missing women?”
She told Eliot about how she’d been searching for ex–Black Diamond employees.
“You told the detectives this?”
“Yeah. I sent them everything I have. They’re looking into it. Even going through old files to see if anything matches.”
Brie and Eliot went back to the hospital and chatted with Tory and Sam. When visiting hours rolled around, she went in to see Carlos again. And it hurt just as much as it had before. The whiteness of the room, the beeping of the monitor, the sterile smell, it felt like an assault on her senses.
Tory kept saying how his color looked better. Brie didn’t see it, but she lied. Because she knew he was grasping at hope.
Before she left the hospital, she got a copy of her sister’s file from Connor on her email, followed by a text. Armand at Houston club.
She typed in the word—Thanks—then almost deleted it. In the end, she sent it. He didn’t have to call a friend. He didn’t have to save her cat. Then again, he didn’t have to be such a dick last night. But for her sister and for Carlos she could do this.
Now if she could just forget how good last night had been. And she wasn’t referring to the sex. It was what happened before the sex that left a dent in her heart. The empathy she’d felt for him—empathy about his dad, his mom, his partner, and the young boy he’d killed. It was that need to be understood. To understand someone. To not feel…alone.
Not like love or anything serious. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. Lust at first sight, yeah. She saw that played out in the club most nights. But that wasn’t what happened with them. Oh, she’d felt attraction, but it was that time on the sofa, sharing, talking, the not-so-alone feeling that had her peeling off her clothes.
* * *
After Brie left, Connor, Juan, and Mark all sat at their desks, reading over files, searching for a lead, a break. The financial records on the three agents had come in. Juan was combing through them, while Connor and Mark were reading over the Sala case.
Come Monday they had to interview the three agents, and they needed to know enough to question them. Know enough to catch anyone in a lie.
But Connor couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about Brie. About last night. About how awesome the sex was. About how big a piece of shit he was. Then he kept replaying what Brie had told him about her father, her sister, and her mom. Their childhoods couldn’t be more different, yet the emotional damage caused by them felt similar.
It didn’t surprise him that the only person Brie was close to was Eliot. At least growing up, he’d had his mom. She might have put God before him, but she’d cared and didn’t push raising him onto someone else.
Having been abandoned by his father, Connor knew that pain. It was easy to just slap his old man into the deadbeat-dad, or a sorry-son-of-a-bitch category, but how much more would it have hurt to know his old man had chosen another child over him. That would’ve taken the pain to a whole new level.
Frustrated with his inability to concentrate, Connor swapped out the Sala file for the Ronan one. He tapped his pencil on his desk and read about Mr. Ronan.
He looked up. “I think we need to talk to Brie’s father.”
“Why?” Mark looked up from the report.
“Besides me wanting to neuter the bastard?”
“Why do you want to neuter him?” Mark asked.
“You two didn’t pick up on the fact that Ronan abandoned Brie as a kid to go live with Alma and her mom, then had the gall to call Brie and ask her to help find the daughter he chose over her? What kind of piece-of-shit person does that?”
“I guess that’s pretty low.” Mark and Juan shared a look, as if they knew something he didn’t.
“What?” Connor asked.
“Nothing,” Mark said. “It’s just…you seem to be emotionally invested in Brie’s issues.”
“Not more than any other case.”
Juan leaned back in his chair. “Yeah it is. And calling Brie’s father out for being a terrible parent isn’t going to help this case.”
“He lied to the police. This police statement says he hadn’t heard from Alma in six months. But Brie told me that he was the one who told her to call Brie. Now, I can’t help but wonder if he knows more about Alma’s life when she went missing than he’s said. And if he knows something, then we need to know it.”
“I see your point,” Mark said. “Do you have his phone number?”
“I do. But I want to go in person.”
Mark lifted his arms over his head and stretched. “Didn’t I read he lives in Henderson?”
“Yeah.” Connor picked up a pen and rolled it between his palms.
Mark continued to stare. “It’s a two-hour drive. You think it merits that?”
“Yeah. I do,” Connor said.
“Then call him and set it up,” Mark said. “But leave your neutering tools at home.”
Connor grabbed his phone and punched in the number. No answer, but his voice mail picked up. “Hi. You reached Mr. Ronan. Looking to sell your house? Want to buy a house? Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
“Mr. Ronan, this is Detective Pierce in Anniston. It’s about your daughter’s case. If you care at all, call me back.”
When Connor hung up, he saw Mark and Juan looking at each other again. “What?”
“If you care at all?”
“He’s a piece of shit!”
Juan rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Well, which one of us is going to Willowcreek with Brie tomorrow to talk to the waitress who served Agent Olvera?”
“Billy would love to do it,” Mark said smugly.
“Stop!” Connor said.
“Stop what?” Mark feigned innocence.
“I’ll go with her,” Connor said.
“Without killing each other?” Juan asked.
Connor shot his partners the bird and they all went back to work. At least Connor tried to. His mind kept remembering walking out on Brie.
Five minutes later, Juan blurted out, “Shit!”
“Tell me that’s a good ‘shit.’ As in you’ve got something.”
“It’s a suspicious ‘shit.’”
“What?” Mark asked.
“Agent Miles made five nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar deposits into his account last year. Two were the same month the Sala case went bad. Before that, his account was overdrawn.”
“That is suspicious,” Connor said. “Isn’t ten thousand the number that requires monies be reported to the Treasury Department?”
“Yup,” Juan answered.
“Damn,” Mark said. “We need to delve deeper into Agent Miles. Look into his family, make sure he doesn’t have a rich mama, or hasn’t inherited anything lately.”
At almost five that afternoon, they hadn’t found any departed family members who could have left Agent Miles money, but he did have a rich mama. Unfortunately, Mrs. Miles was on a cruise ship and couldn’t be reached. They left a message and emailed her.
“Should we confront Miles?”
“No,” Mark said. “Let’s wait to talk to his mother. If we accuse him first, he might convince her to lie for him.”
“Someone owes me a steak dinner.” Mildred stormed into the office.
“You found something?” Mark asked.
“Tell me this doesn’t look like the same woman.” She put two pictures on Mark’s desk.
Mark leaned forward. Connor and Juan jumped up to check themselves.
Connor stared at the images. The same dark brown eye color, the same facial features. “Looks like it to me,” Connor said. “Who is this?”
“Linda Kramer. That’s the name she went by when the police interviewed her about Brie’s missing sister. But this”—she pointed to the mug shot from a file—“claims her name is Regina Berger.” Mildred’s smile beamed with pride. “I swear, if I keep helping you guys solve your cases, you’re going to have to give me a badge.”
“Wasn’t Kramer the roommate?” Mark asked.
Connor nodded and plopped down on his desk chair to type “Regina Berger” into the database. While it searched, he looked up at Mildred. “If I find her, you can order lobster with that steak.”
“Yum. I love lobster. And if I find another one, I expect someone to treat me to a pedicure. I want my toes to look pretty while I’m eating my fancy dinner.”
* * *
Connor pulled into the parking lot of a new upscale apartment complex on the swanky side of town, while Juan and Mark went back to studying the Sala case files. Mildred was searching for restaurants that served steak and lobster and had agreed to take home the rest of the files in hopes of getting pretty toes.
As Connor walked past a new Lexus and an array of other expensive cars in the parking lot, he realized whatever work Regina was doing these days, it paid a lot better than being a detective. Not only were the cars in the lot high-end, but the apartment had to cost upward of two thousand a month.
Definitely a step up, considering Regina Berger had priors that included shoplifting and a three-year-old warrant for a Class B misdemeanor for weed. Which is probably why she’d used an alias while working at the Black Diamond. But thanks to a routine traffic stop three months ago, her car registration had revealed her real name, and she was arrested.
She’d immediately hired a fancy lawyer and got off with a fine and a slap on the wrist.
Connor headed to apartment 106 and rang the bell. He could hear music inside, but no one answered.
A man in his early forties walked up to the apartment next door.
“Excuse me?” Connor asked. “Does Regina Berger live here?”
The man offered a noncommittal shrug. “A woman and her daughter live there.”
“Is she in her twenties, brunette?”
“Yeah. The mom’s got dark hair and eyes, and as you can hear, she likes her music way too loud.”
“Thanks.” Connor watched the guy walk into his apartment.
He poked the doorbell again. When that didn’t get him anywhere, he knocked. The loud music stopped. He knocked again.
“Alright already,” someone called.
The door opened and the young woman holding a phone to her ear and a wine cooler in her hand was indeed Regina Berger. Granted, the woman wearing a black skirt, red blouse, and a frown, looked a hell of a lot better than either of her mug shots.
Her eyes lifted and her frown turned to a smile.
“Regina Berger?” he asked.
“Just a minute,” she said into her phone, “I’ve got a very hot guy standing at my door.” She lowered the phone to her cheek and gave him a slow once-over, then grinned widely. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Detective Pierce with APD.” He pulled back his jacket to show his badge. It never failed. Within two seconds of showing his ID, he always knew how the talk was going to go. From her sudden loss of color, his gut said this one wasn’t going to go easy. His gut also said he’d just lost his hot status.
Damn, he hated when that happened.
He continued to stare at her, but over her shoulder he saw a few toy dolls and a baby bottle scattered on the floor.
She hung up the phone. “I took care of that warrant.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know. I’m here about another matter. Do you mind if I come in?”
“What matter?” She stayed poised in the doorway.
“A Linda Kramer matter?”
Her olive coloring paled some more.
“Because”—he pulled the mug shot from his front pocket—“she looks a lot like you.”
Her mouth thinned. “Look, I’ve got…I don’t have time for games. If you need to talk to me, you can contact my lawyer.”
“Wow. I’m here to ask a few questions and you’re wanting a lawyer. That’s not a good sign.”
“I’m not…Fine. Ask your questions and leave.”
“Did you ever use that name, Ms. Berger?”
“If there are any warrants under that name, they aren’t mine.”
“So you admit to using a fake name and Social Security card.”
“I’ll pay the taxes, if that’s what this is about.”
“Why did you lie about who you were?”
“Because I had a warrant—which I’ve since taken care of—and there was a bartender at the Black Diamond who could get you a new ID for three hundred dollars.”
“Did you share an apartment with an Alma Ronan?”
Her eyes widened. “I already spoke to the police about her disappearance.”
“We have a few more questions.”
“Well, I don’t have any more answers.”
“Can I please come in? We can talk here, or you can come down to the station.”
She still hesitated before pushing open the door. “You only have a minute. My baby needs a bottle.”
As he walked in, he almost stepped on a stuffed pink dinosaur. As nice as the place was, it could really have used a cleaning. He sat at the dining room table right off the entrance. Trying to focus on her and not on the plate of half-eaten food, which appeared to have been there for a while, he frowned.
“Care to join me?” He waited until she sat down before he spoke again. “Thank you.”
She rubbed her palms on her black skirt, as if they were sweating. What did she have to sweat about? Did she know something about Alma Ronan’s murder?
He pulled his notebook out of his coat pocket. “How long did you know Alma Ronan?”
“Not long. We worked at the Black Diamond at the same time. We were both having a hard time making ends meet so we moved in together.”
“Looks like you’re doing okay now.”
“Is that a crime?”
Her attitude was beginning to grate on him. “Depends. What kind of work do you do?”
“I work at a maid service.”
“You’re a maid?”
“I work there. I’m not a maid.”
“I see.” His gaze went back to the plates on the table.
He looked down at the pad again. “When was the last time you saw Alma?”
“I don’t know. Sometime in May. She just disappeared one day.”
He met her nervous gaze. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” She rubbed her hands on the black skirt again.
“Back in June, you told the detective that she moved out.”
“She did.” She fidgeted in her seat. “That’s what I mean by disappeared.”
Regina Berger sucked at lying. “Have you spoken with her?”
She hesitated. It was a baited question. Would she bite? “Yeah. She called not too long ago.”
“When was this?”
“A few weeks ago. I don’t remember exactly.”
Right then the sound of a child crying came from the back.
“My baby. I need to get her.”
He nodded. As soon as she took off down the hall, he phoned his office. Mark answered.
“What’s up?”
“The roommate is lying through her teeth. I’m going to bring her in.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No. And she has a baby. So I’ll need someone there to handle that.”
“I’ll get someone.”
He hung up. The crying continued. Louder. Then louder. One, two, three minutes passed. He stood up. “Regina?” he called out.
She didn’t answer.
He walked down the hall. The door at the end was open, but the crying kid appeared to be behind the closed door to his right. He moved to the door at the end and saw there was a back patio and the door was open. “Dammit!” She’d taken off. He started to run after her, but he heard the baby again. He couldn’t leave the child.
“Shit!”