Alone in the Dark (37 page)

Ken hung up. ‘I might just have to,’ he murmured. He and Demetrius had been friends for years, but this time the man’s cockiness might have caused them irreparable damage.

If CPD and the Feds got one whiff that Demetrius had pulled the trigger on their boy, they’d stop at nothing until he was behind bars or dead. And there was no way that Ken was allowing himself to get pulled down with him. Even if that meant ending Demetrius before the Feds did.

Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 1.35
P.M.

Marcus lay on his stomach on the basement floor, shining the light under the bed. An old woman flinched at the glare, moaning again. She looked to be in her seventies, or maybe even older. She’d been beaten severely, her face covered with more cuts and bruises. Her lower lip was split, the blood dried now. The wounds he’d seen on her hands were probably defensive in nature. The thought made him ill. Who would beat an old woman?

Perhaps the same person who’d bought, owned and beaten a young woman so severely that even a seasoned cop like Scarlett had pronounced it ‘bad’.

‘Ma’am?’ Scarlett slid to her stomach, her head touching Marcus’s as she squeezed next to him under the bed. ‘My name is Detective Bishop. We’re going to get you help. Just hold on.’

‘Thank you,’ the woman whispered.

‘Who are you?’ Marcus asked her, and had to strain to hear the reply.

‘Tabby.’

‘Tabby?’ he repeated. ‘Where’s the baby, Tabby?’

A tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek, and Marcus’s heart froze. Until he heard Tabby’s barely audible words.

‘Safe. She’s safe.’ More tears flowed. ‘Not enough. Never enough.’ Her bony hand shot out and grabbed Marcus’s wrist. ‘You’re him? The man from the park?’

The basement stairs shook as several people ran down from the first floor. Marcus didn’t look over to see who was there. His focus was on the old woman. ‘Yes. How did you know about me?’

‘Tala . . .’ A great gulping breath, followed by a dry hacking cough. ‘Told me. I told her to trust you. Make them pay.’

‘Who?’

‘Nephew. His wife. Their brat. Evil, evil. Please, promise me. Make them pay.’

‘Did they do this to you?’

‘He did. Chip.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I took the baby. His baby.’

Marcus’s stomach clenched, even though he’d expected the father of Tala’s baby to be one of her abusers.

Tabby’s lips curved. ‘Malaya,’ she whispered. ‘Free now.’

‘That’s good,’ Scarlett breathed. ‘That’s very good. Where is she, ma’am?’

‘Friend. Annie. Annabelle is her name.’

‘Is she a neighbor?’ Scarlett asked.

‘No.’ More of that hacking cough, and then Tabby’s eyelids fluttered, her grip on Marcus’s wrist weakening. ‘Church,’ she whispered.

A paramedic moved into their line of vision. ‘Detective Bishop, you and the gentleman need to move.’

Marcus and Scarlett rolled to their feet as two uniformed policemen picked up the bed over Tabby’s body and moved it to a sterile tarp. The cops’ movements were directed by the same man who’d processed the scene of Tala’s murder. Meanwhile, two paramedics knelt on either side of Tabby, taking her vitals while getting her medical information. The woman’s answers came in fits and spurts.

‘I need to ask her more questions,’ Scarlett said.

One of the paramedics glanced up and shook his head. ‘Her blood pressure is so low it’s a wonder she’s still breathing.’

‘One question,’ Scarlett insisted, moving close to the stretcher where the woman had been laid. ‘Where are your nephew and his wife and daughter?’

Another smile curved Tabby’s lips, this one grimly satisfied. ‘They took them. Kicking. Screaming.’

Scarlett crouched beside the stretcher. ‘Who is “they”?’

‘I don’t know.’ The words were uttered on an agonized huff of breath, the old woman significantly paler after being moved from the floor to the stretcher. ‘Had guns.’

‘How did you end up under the bed?’ Scarlett asked. Marcus wanted to tug her to her feet to get her to leave the old woman alone. But Tabby waved her closer.

‘Chip. Shoved me . . . under the bed.’ Another cough racked her. ‘When they came.’

The paramedics lifted the stretcher. ‘Detective, we have to go. Now.’

‘Hey, Bishop,’ Deacon called from the other side of the basement. ‘Come and see this.’

Marcus didn’t ask permission. He simply followed Scarlett. Someone had turned on the lights, illuminating a spartan but clean living space. There was a tiny kitchen, a bath, three beds and three small chests of drawers. For Tala and her family? But then where was the crib?

It was a fair bit nicer than the quarters Marcus had lived in while he was in the army, but if this basement had housed Tala, it was still a prison, no matter how nice and clean it was.

‘Oh my,’ Scarlett said when she saw the trackers Deacon held. They were identical to the one Tala had worn, and both had also been sliced off their wearers. ‘This either just got very good or very bad. If they escaped along with the baby, that’s wonderful. But if they were taken by the same people who took Anders and his family by force, then they could be in even more danger than before.’

Marcus bent down to look at the cuts in the tracker straps, taking care not to touch anything. ‘I’m guessing they escaped,’ he said quietly. ‘Look at the jagged edges. They weren’t cut. They were sawed by someone without enough strength to cut with a single slice.’

‘I was thinking they’d been locked around women’s ankles,’ Deacon said. ‘They aren’t big enough to fit on a man’s ankle, unless the male was very young. So the baby escaped? That’s good news. You got a lead?’

Scarlett nodded. ‘Yeah, I do.’ She told him about Tabby and her friend from church, Annabelle.

‘She said that Chip gave her the bruises for taking the baby,’ Marcus added.

‘Why did she?’ Deacon asked, tilting his head watchfully.

‘She didn’t say, but she did say it was “not enough”.’ Marcus pointed at the trackers. ‘Maybe this Annabelle person knows where these other two are.’

‘Possibly.’ Deacon’s head tilted a fraction further. ‘Why are you here, Marcus?’

Marcus returned Deacon’s gaze, not blinking, the man’s tone rubbing him the wrong way. ‘What?’ he drawled. ‘You mean existentially?’

Deacon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.’

Marcus lifted his chin, maintaining his stare. ‘Back atcha. Oh, and I’m all right, by the way. How is that cop in the unmarked car?’

Deacon’s mouth tightened to a firm line. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘Bullet through the passenger window, through his head.’

Marcus flinched. ‘God.’ There couldn’t have been an exit wound. He’d have seen the cop’s blood on the driver’s window.

‘How did his shooter miss you?’ Deacon asked, his tone becoming so mild that it was insulting. ‘Far as we can tell from the direction of the bullet that hit Agent Spangler, the shooter would have had a clean, unobstructed shot at you standing at the back door, long before Detective Bishop found you.’

Furious, Marcus leaned forward. ‘What are you really asking me, Agent Novak?’

‘Deacon,’ Scarlett admonished sharply. ‘Come on now. And Marcus, back the hell off. God, it’s like living at home all over again. Six damn brothers fighting over every damn thing. But at least they were teenagers.
They
had an excuse.’ She blew out a breath, then pointed to Marcus’s cap. ‘That one of your cap-cams?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Marcus said brusquely, mostly embarrassed that she was so right. He was acting like a testosterone-crazed teenager. He took off the cap and put it in her outstretched hand. ‘It won’t hold much, a minute or so, but you’ll be able to see the damage to the door.’ He glanced at Deacon. ‘As for why I’m here, I came around the back because I figured if someone was home, they might actually talk to a newsman when they wouldn’t talk to a cop. I’m not under arrest, there was no crime scene, and I was well within my constitutional right to be exactly where I was.’

‘And the shooter didn’t miss Marcus,’ Scarlett said quietly. ‘We both escaped being shot because Marcus acted quickly. Someone had busted that door in before either of us got there. Probably the people who took Anders, his wife and their daughter.’

Deacon nodded stiffly. ‘That makes sense. I’m . . . sorry. Spangler – the agent who died – was a friend and I’m . . . not reacting well. I’m glad you’re not dead too. Again.’

Marcus exhaled heavily. ‘I’m sorry too, Deacon, for your loss. I figured something had to be wrong when nobody stopped me. I figured he’d come down from his car or radio someone else. Then I’d argue loudly enough that whoever was in the house would hear me and let me in, thinking I was on their side.’

‘It wasn’t the worst plan ever,’ Deacon conceded with a scowl. ‘So what do we know?’

‘Not a hell of a lot,’ Scarlett said wearily. ‘Somebody named Annabelle – who attended church with Tabby – took the baby. Who knows what happened to the other two women? And who knows who took Chip and his family?’

‘And why was Chip’s aunt was in the basement under a bed? If he beat her up, why would he hide her under the bed when they came in with guns?’ Marcus added. ‘Did she come down specifically to get the baby, or did he make her live down here too?’

Scarlett nodded. ‘That all this happened hours after Tala’s tracker was cut off her can’t be a coincidence, so we can assume these events are related. Maybe whoever took the Anderses is the trafficker who sold them Tala and her family.’

Deacon nodded. ‘Agreed. But was that person the same person who just shot at Marcus and killed Agent Spangler? And who shot Tala to begin with?’

Marcus looked around with a frown. ‘And where is the dog?’

‘Coco,’ Scarlett murmured. ‘The dog’s either not here, or it’s drugged or dead.’

The Asian man who’d processed the scene this morning joined their little group. Scarlett had called him Sergeant Tanaka, Marcus recalled.

‘We’ll search the house top to bottom, Deacon.’ Tanaka glanced at Marcus with interest. ‘You’ve had a busy day, Mr O’Bannion. I’m glad to hear you’re not hurt. Did I also hear you say that the door had been broken in?’

‘You did,’ Marcus said. ‘Someone had pressed the broken wood back together and set the door back into the frame, but it wasn’t secure. It fell off its hinges when I shouldered into it. I didn’t see any indentations in the door itself, no marks on the paint. I don’t think they used anything like a battering ram to force it open.’

‘Strong guys,’ Deacon said. ‘The Anderses didn’t leave without a fight. There are bullet holes in the living room walls. The bedroom door was also broken off its hinges.’

‘We’ll print every surface and search every corner,’ Tanaka said. ‘And we’ll check to see if any of the bullets match the one that Carrie took out of this morning’s victim.’ He sighed. ‘And Agent Spangler.’

Both Scarlett and Deacon went still for a moment. ‘He was a new father,’ Deacon said quietly. ‘His baby’s only a few months old.’

Scarlett’s eyelids lowered, and when they lifted, Marcus saw the expressionless gaze he’d seen in his office earlier. His heart clenched as he realized that once again she’d shoved her hurt deep down.

‘Why was the shooter there?’ she asked, her tone sharp and logical. ‘Was he waiting for someone to come out of the house? Was he waiting for someone to go into the house? Who? Was he on guard, trying to keep the cops out? If so, why didn’t he take any of us out in the front while we were waiting?’

‘Maybe it was
because
you were waiting,’ Marcus said. ‘He knew you didn’t have a warrant or you would have gone in. I wonder how long he’d been sitting there. Did the people who took the Anders family leave him on watch duty? Or did he come back for something?’

The three of them moved a few steps back as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher holding a deathly pale Tabby toward the basement stairs. ‘Where are you taking her?’ Scarlett asked them.

‘County,’ one of the medics said. ‘She’s unconscious now. I’ll tell them to call you when and if she wakes up.’

Marcus knew County General Hospital well. It was where he and Stone had been taken nine months before. He made a mental note to have Gayle keep in contact with their sources there, so they would also know when Tabby woke up. If she did. Marcus didn’t want to consider the fact that the old woman might die, but it seemed she’d done what she felt she needed to do. Even if it wasn’t enough, whatever that meant exactly. Although Marcus thought he might know.

The paramedics disappeared up the stairs with Tabby, and Marcus returned his gaze to Deacon, who’d picked up the thread of their conversation.

‘If the shooter came back, it might have been because there’s evidence here in the house linking Anders to his abductors,’ Deacon was saying. ‘Which could be good for us if they’re the traffickers. He saw us outside and went around the back.’

‘When did he shoot Agent Spangler?’ Marcus asked.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Deacon said. ‘He hadn’t been dead long. The ME will have to give us the time frame.’ He closed his eyes tight. ‘God. I have to tell his wife.’

Scarlett squeezed Deacon’s arm sympathetically. ‘I can do it,’ she offered.