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parents had struggled didn’t mean he and Holland would. They would be honest and open with each other. They would not make the same mistakes.
No way. No how.
SEVEN
Holland swept her finger across the screen to accept the call. Dax. Her guy. She was becoming that chick who grinned way too much and lost IQ points when her boyfriend walked into a room. Even her coworkers had started to rib her about it. She was more relaxed, definitely happier, and all because she had Captain Awesome in her bed—not to mention on her couch and over the dining room table. Over the last few weeks they’d pretty much made love on every surface of her apartment. And the night they’d had dinner at his mother’s place, he’d snuck her up into his old bedroom for a quickie. Not that they’d fooled anyone. His friends and Gus had been relentless in their teasing. And Judith Spencer had simply smiled and patted Holland’s hand and told her how happy she was.
“Hey, you,” she said into her phone, leaning against her car. She didn’t drive often when she was in the city, but the streetcars didn’t run out this far. She wouldn’t have taken one even if it did since she was standing in front of a prison.
“Hey, sweetheart. Did you make it all right?” Dax’s deep voice resounded over the line, every drawled syllable a reminder of the man’s slow, Southern sensuality.
All she had to do was hear his voice and she shivered on the inside. “I’m here. My appointment is in a half hour. I’m going to talk to the prison officials first. It’s strictly a courtesy. They’re used to dealing with locals. My team doesn’t come out this way often.”
Most of the prisons she dealt with were military.
“I wish you would wait until I can be there with you.”
They’d been over this more than once. “Dax, if you’d come along, I’d have to explain why. It’s easier this way, and if anyone dangerous really is watching us, it will look much less suspicious.”
Not that anything frightening or out of the ordinary had happened since the asshole on the bike. But something about this case was starting to give her a bad feeling.
“I’m the one who brought you the lead,” Dax argued.
“No, Gabe did. You don’t see him here with me.” She sighed. “Babe, I explained all of this. It’s one of those times I should go in alone. Besides, aren’t you working today?”
There was a lull on his end of the line. “Yes. Apparently they’re serious about getting this manual done, and soon. They want the new protocols in place in the next couple of weeks. Courtney is working her butt off, but there’s only so much she can do without me.”
Courtney likely stared at his butt most of the day. Jealously flared, but she tamped it down. He had a really amazing backside. She would have stared at it, too.
“I understand. You’ve already done your part. Your guys found Amber Taylor’s mom. This woman’s used so many aliases I’m not surprised we couldn’t find her. Connor has connections most law enforcement would pay a lot for. So relax and let me handle this. Did Gabe and Mad get off okay?”
“Mad surely did. My sister made sure of that,” he said grumpily.
Holland smothered a laugh. The last couple of weeks had been a revelation. Dax had spent every night at her place with the excuse that he didn’t want to hear his sister and Mad Crawford going at it. Holland kind of thought he just liked sleeping beside her. He’d practically moved in. She didn’t see him leaving because his friends had gotten on a plane to New York. “I’m glad he enjoyed his stay. I’m sure he made Gus’s pleasant as well.”
“I’m joking about Gus. She leaves for D.C. tomorrow, and I’m going to miss her.” He cleared his throat. She’d learned he did that a lot when he got emotional. “Anyway, I hope this means we have enough to really reopen the case.”
She didn’t want to give him false hope, but she was feeling optimistic. “I’m asking for the complete files. I’m going to tell my boss what I’m doing and why. Even though I can’t make it official, I think I have enough to put some of the team’s resources into it. My boss liked your father quite a bit. I think he’ll be open to a discussion. If I get NCIS involved again, I should be able to request access to your father’s former aide. He’s the one I really want to talk to.”
“But naturally he’s on assignment and his whereabouts are classified,” Dax said with a cynical bite to his tone.
Naturally. Everywhere they turned they encountered another roadblock or another detour that led to nowhere. “I think I can talk them into it if all goes well today. Especially when I show them the money trail Connor and Gabe found.”
Once they’d located Amber Taylor’s mother, finding her financial information had been simple. She’d never actually been married to Amber’s father, though Sue Carlyle used his surname as an alias for years. The woman was a known con artist and roughly three days before her daughter had been caught with the admiral on tape, Sue Carlyle deposited five thousand dollars in cash to her bank account.
Holland wanted to know where that money had come from.
“Be careful,” Dax said over the line.
“I will. Hey, it’s a prison. I’m fairly safe here.” She glanced up at the dour-looking building in front of her. It was a medium-security women’s facility. Unlike the land around it, it was gray and gloomy. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“I’ll be late, but I’ll pick us up some supper. Bye, sweetheart.”
She hung up with a sigh and turned to the task at hand. She might be able to give him the testimony or peace of mind he needed. They’d stayed up a few nights earlier making love and talking. He’d told her what he’d learned about his father. Clearly, Dax was hurt, and if she could be a balm to that ache, she would. Finding out his father hadn’t been a pedophile would definitely help ease his heavy heart.
Gathering herself, Holland entered the prison. Half an hour later, she found herself in a small interrogation room used for interviews with law enforcement and attorneys. Nothing of interest lay inside the room. Like everything about the prison, it looked stark and seemingly hopeless. The table was stainless steel, the chairs bolted to the floor. A two-way mirror lined the back, but she didn’t see why anyone would use it on her. She’d explained she was simply following up with a potential witness on a cold case.
The door opened and a slight woman entered, hauled in by a burly guard. Sue Carlyle’s face was the after photo on a poster of why not to try meth. Lined and wrinkled, cheeks sagging, she had aged far beyond her forty-eight years. The few teeth she had were black. According to the information Holland had obtained, this woman hadn’t lived an easy life. But what the hell had happened to her in the months since her daughter had become the center of a huge case?
“You going to be all right?” the guard asked Holland.
Sue shook almost uncontrollably as she sat.
Yes, she could handle the drug addict. She looked like she weighed all of ninety pounds. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
The door closed and she was left with one of the only people alive who could tell her anything about what had happened the night Admiral Spencer had fallen from grace.
“They said you wanted to see me. What’s this about?” Her gaze didn’t meet Holland’s but darted around as though scanning furiously for some kind of threat.
“I need to talk to you about your daughter.”
“She’s gone. Ain’t coming back. Ain’t none of us coming back.”
“She ran away from home.”
A snort came out of Sue’s mouth. “Sure. She ran away. Is that what you want? I already told everyone she ran.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Everyone I was supposed to, damn it. I’m tired of this shit. You got everything you wanted. Everything! But you keep sending in people to make sure you get more.”
A chill cut through Holland, clear to her bones. “Ms. Carlyle, I’m not who you think I am. I’m here to help you. I want to help find your daughter.”
A brittle laugh erupted from her chest, and she coughed as though the action hurt her in some way. “Bastards. You can’t find my daughter. Unless you remember where you buried her.”
Sue’s words shocked her. Holland leaned in. “You believe your daughter is dead?”
“I know it. Am I not supposed to say that, either? Is this some kind of test? I’m tired of you people fucking with me. I did what you asked. I took the money, and you know what? It wasn’t enough. Not even close. Do you know what that girl was worth? She could have worked and made more than that measly five thousand.”
Holland froze. She and the woman were having a definite misunderstanding and she wasn’t exactly sure how to calm Amber’s mother down enough to get a coherent story. Holland had to talk her off the ledge, convince Sue she was here to help, and hope she didn’t clam up.
“You took the money,” Holland reminded in a cold, factual tone. “You could have negotiated for more.”
Sue’s eyes narrowed before she shook her head and looked away. “I’m not talking anymore, especially to your kind. I saw what you people did to my girl. My baby. She did you a favor.”
A favor? Holland went with her gut on this hunch. “Yes, she set up the admiral nicely.”
“Don’t know nothing about that.” Sue’s lips formed a grim line. “Nothing at all. All I know now is my girl’s gone and you people sent me here.”
How did she get Sue to explain who “you people” were?
“Perhaps we could also get you out of here if you cooperate with us.”
“I don’t do nothing but cooperate.”
Holland knew she was walking a thin line now. She tried to sound as reasonable and non-threatening as possible. “I’m trying to clean up a few issues within the organization I work for. Some overly enthusiastic associates worked the front end of this operation. I need to make sure I have all the facts. Who was your contact?”
Sue stared blankly for a moment before her eyes came back into focus. Then she shook her head. “I ain’t saying nothing. I ain’t got no contact.” Tears started running down her face. “I hate you Russians. I hate you all.”
Russians? “I’m going to have to insist that we have this debrief, Carlyle. My boss wants to know all the facts before he makes a decision.”
“About what?”
“About whether or not to help you get out of this prison.” Guilt twisted her gut, but she had to have the information. “Who was your contact?”
Her gaze glazed over. “What does it matter now? I hate you all for what you did to my girl. Especially the Navy man. I hate that fucking Navy man.”
“The admiral?”
“Short little shit. Hate him.” Suddenly, she pounded her fists on the table. “Hate you all!”
She screamed then, a sound that seemed to come from deep in her soul. Then she burst into tears.
The door flew open and the guard hurried in. Sue Carlyle struggled, her eyes wild as she spewed curses, looking both angry and terrified.
The guard had her cuffed in record time. “Look who gets to visit the SHU. You’re a regular guest there, Carlyle.” The guard looked up. “Sorry. She’s very unstable. I hope you got what you wanted because she’ll be like this for days.”
A female guard came in and hauled the prisoner out.
“What’s wrong with her? Besides the obvious?”
The guard frowned. They could hear Carlyle shouting all the way down the hall. “She’s delusional. Likely due to the insane amount of drugs she’s done. She’s here for dealing, but that woman was way too interested in her own product.”
So her brain had been damaged because she’d done too much meth. Paranoia was one of the by-products of the drug. “Does she talk much?”
“Oh, Carlyle likes to tell anyone and everyone who will listen about how some Russian guy killed her baby girl and he’s coming for her, too. I don’t suppose you represent the Russian mob? Because that’s who she’s blaming.”
Holland managed a little laugh, but she was already thinking.
As she exited the prison, she was still ruminating on her bizarre conversation with Sue Carlyle and the implications. The woman wasn’t a good witness, and most lawyers would say that anything she’d uttered was unreliable and inadmissible in court. Holland sighed. It was unlikely her boss would reopen the admiral’s case based on the ramblings of an obviously insane woman. So she needed to figure out where that money had come from and why Sue thought the Russian mob was after her.
Had the admiral’s death been the result of a shakedown gone wrong? Had the plan been to blackmail him? Control him by dangling his indiscretions in his face? If so, why would Russians have targeted him, of all people? And how would a Navy man be involved? Sue couldn’t have been talking about the admiral. She’d called him a short shit. Admiral Spencer had been somewhere around six foot two.
None of this made sense. Then again, neither had Sue. Holland frowned. Maybe she was putting too much stock in the woman’s drug-riddled words.
She pulled out her keys but stopped short of her vehicle because someone stood, blocking her car door.
“Hello, Special Agent Kirk.” A nondescript man in a perfectly pressed suit nodded her way.
“Do I know you?”
“Not at all, and my name is irrelevant.”
She tucked her purse—which held her gun—closer. “It’s pretty relevant to me.”
“I merely represent another party. I know you’ll spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to find me, but I promise it’s useless. I’m merely here to reason with you. You’re getting involved in something that no longer matters.”
She wasn’t going to pretend to misunderstand. The longer she kept him talking, the more likely the security cameras dotting the parking lot and slowly sweeping every inch would pick up his face so recognition software could identify him. “It matters to the admiral’s family.”
“I’m sure it does, but they need to move on or they’ll face more loss. Greater loss. You don’t want to lose anyone, do you?” As she reached into her purse for her weapon, he shook his head. “Don’t pull that gun on me, Special Agent. I’m just here to talk, but I’m not alone.”
She turned and saw he was right. Two other big guys stood sentry on either side of the parking lot, both with their stares locked on her. They also wore impeccable suit jackets that likely concealed the weapons they were carrying.
She was outgunned. “What do you want?”
“I merely wish to explain to you that if you don’t stop this investigation, someone will get hurt. No one wants that. The admiral got into a bad situation, and while my employers regret the eventual outcome, they would prefer that the past remain there.”
“You work for the Russian mob?”
His expression never changed. He was damn good at his job. “I work for a group of people who had prior dealings with the admiral. This one went wrong.”
“You’re saying the admiral was dirty.”
“The admiral had proclivities he kept hidden. My employer indulged said proclivities from time to time. If you continue down this path, not only will you further harm the Spencer family name, but we might decide to deal with the real problem.”
“The real problem?” She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that question.
“You wouldn’t be kicking up this dust if it weren’t for Captain Spencer. He’s the one behind everything. He will be disappointed when embarrassing photographs of his father surface. That would prove detrimental to his career. If you continue to create problems, it may be detrimental to his health.”
Holland tried to hold her fear in. “If you have those photos, why not release them?”
“We never intended to release them, merely keep the images to ensure the admiral couldn’t turn on us. Someone else turned him in. I believe it was his aide. He proved to have a stronger moral code than the admiral would have liked. Do you understand?”
&n
bsp; She understood this man was threatening Dax and she didn’t like it. “The Spencers have a right to know who killed the admiral.”
He sighed. “We had no reason to kill him. Why are you looking for zebras when you hear hoofbeats? I thought they taught you Occam’s razor in school.”
“The simplest explanation is almost always correct.” Yes, that was something investigators learned. “But you’re here
