‘Wouldn’t ICAC have found evidence of that?’ Troy asked. ‘Some indication that files had been deleted?’
‘If they’d looked,’ Decker said. ‘Why would they look, though? They hit the mother lode with what they did find. They caught him with enough porn to arrest him and have bail denied.’
There’s something here, Kate thought, frustrated. Something they were missing. She bowed her head, closed her eyes. Tried to think. ‘What was in the document files?’ she asked.
Silence was her answer, and she looked up to find everyone on the Ledger side of the table looking at each other in question. ‘Nobody opened them?’ she asked incredulously.
Heads shook. All except the bright white one sitting directly across from her.
Deacon sighed. ‘We briefly looked at each one because we were looking for clues as to the traffickers’ whereabouts. They were stories.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Dialog.’
‘Scripts?’ Decker asked hesitantly.
‘Maybe.’ Deacon looked ill. ‘I don’t know.’
Kate felt just as ill as she thought about McCord and his partner casually abusing children as though it was their right. Thinking they’d never be caught, that they could get away with it. Her anxiety began to build, the static in her mind thickening like a blizzard.
Not now. Her hands were reaching under her chair for her yarn bag before she knew it, so she went with it, clutching her knitting needles so tightly that it was a wonder they didn’t snap.
‘But why?’ Scarlett asked. ‘Why would someone remove scripts and leave actual photos?’
‘They removed videos, too,’ Diesel said. ‘There were videos. Long ones. Some were more than sixty minutes long. How did they do that? Did they hack in like I did? Did they break into his house? And how did they know? We didn’t tell them – Stone, Marcus, and I were the only ones who knew that night. Did someone in ICAC tip them off?’
No one said anything for a long moment.
‘They had to have,’ Decker said heavily. ‘The traffickers – Alice especially – blamed Marcus and Marcus alone. You were supposed to die, Marcus, nine months ago when McCord first landed in jail.’ He massaged his brow bone with his non-IV’d hand, so hard he left the skin rough and red. ‘I’m trying to remember . . . It was a conversation I overheard when I was still a bodyguard – before I got myself moved into the accounting department.’
By allowing himself to be shot, Kate thought with a sudden burst of blinding fury. Troy had passed on that little tidbit as she’d driven from the morgue. Twelve times, Troy had told her. Twelve times Decker had been shot, and once had been on purpose.
Not now. She could be angry again later. Now, Decker was speaking in fits and spurts, trying to dig up a memory, and she had to focus. She relaxed her hands, because they’d tensed, her needles frozen mid-stitch. A few deep breaths and she was once again engaged in the here and now, her hands moving fluidly, keeping the anxious side of her mind too occupied to implode. Like a hamster in a wheel, she had to keep it busy.
Run, little hamster, run.
Dammit, Kate. Listen.
A sudden rumble that vibrated the table provided the distraction she needed to rein in her racing brain, forcing herself to focus, because Adam Kimble was staring at his phone.
‘Shit,’ he muttered, then looked up. ‘ICAC is not behind in filing evidence. The detective found a record of you dropping off a hard drive, Scarlett, but the drive is not there. The storage slot where it’s supposed to be is empty. The record shows it was checked out.’
‘By whom?’ Zimmerman asked, as though he really didn’t want to know the answer.
‘By Detective Scarlett Bishop,’ Adam said grimly.
Ten
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Thursday 13 August, 5.45 P.M.
Bloody hell, Decker thought wearily, because (a) they not only had a leak in ICAC, they had an actual traitor, and (b) Scarlett Bishop had grown pale with either anger or shock. He figured it was both, with a healthy dose of panic thrown in there because the woman was imagining her career going up in flames before her very eyes.
‘But I didn’t,’ she said, her voice gone quiet.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ stated Kate, who had seemed to miraculously find her calm place in the last minute. Before that, she’d been ready to climb out of her own skin – he’d felt her anxiety coming off her in waves. Now her knitting needles were clacking rhythmically. ‘They picked you because you brought it in, and if it disappeared, you were going to have to come clean about where you got it in the first place if you wanted to make an issue of it.’
No one disputed this and Decker found himself relaxing along with Scarlett and Marcus, who’d taken Scarlett’s hand and was squeezing it hard. ‘So now what?’ Marcus asked.
Kate smiled encouragingly at the newspaperman, who’d clearly been shaken by the attempt to discredit Scarlett. ‘Nothing different than we were doing five minutes ago,’ she said. ‘We find McCord’s fucking partner and put him away forever. Knowing there’s a dirty cop in play simply gives us another avenue to pursue.’
‘They overplayed their hand, Scarlett,’ Decker said, admiring the way Kate hadn’t let them get distracted. ‘They didn’t think you’d willingly admit to working with hackers. Now they’ve given us a way to connect them to McCord’s fucking partner.’
Kate gave him a wink before dropping her gaze to the knitting in her lap, but Decker wasn’t fooled. She was completely aware of what was happening all around the table.
‘This is also what happens when you’re square with your bosses,’ Zimmerman added to Scarlett and Deacon. ‘You give these people nothing with which to blackmail you. I assume you’ve told your lieutenant, Detective Bishop?’
‘Before I came here,’ Scarlett confirmed. ‘Chain of command. Plus, just the right thing.’
‘I agree,’ Zimmerman said with a nod. He turned to Decker. ‘You were saying something about a conversation you overheard.’
Decker nodded. The distraction had given him a chance to pull his thoughts together – a real challenge the longer he remained awake. He didn’t want to admit that Dani Novak was right, but she was so right. He needed to rest. ‘It was early November, right after Halloween. Alice and her father were talking with her father’s friend.’ He grimaced, the thought leaving a bad taste in his mouth. ‘They were angry at McCord for not keeping his hands to himself and at Marcus for being a . . . a blood-sucking media leech.’ He paused, glancing at Marcus. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’ve been called worse,’ Marcus assured him.
‘They were arguing about what to do with you, Marcus. Alice was matter-of-fact. You had to go. They’d already taken care of McCord. Except they didn’t use his name or yours. They just called him “Idiot”. You were “Leech”. Alice’s father said . . .’ Decker rubbed his head again, blinking hard, and nobody moved, allowing him to think, which he appreciated. ‘He wanted you dead too. It was the friend that insisted they wait. You were in the hospital at the time. They said that you’d poked the wrong snake and it’d bitten you in the ass.’
Scarlett raised her brows. ‘Well that’s one way of putting it. Marcus saved a young woman’s life and got a bullet from a killer in the process.’
‘I know the story now.’ Decker gave the Ledger side of the table a rueful smile. ‘I read about it in your newspaper afterwards, but I didn’t know who they were talking about at the time.’ He knew that Marcus and Stone had lost their younger brother to that same killer, that the bullet Marcus had taken had nearly killed him too. ‘Anyway, being in the hospital at that point saved your life, Marcus. They figured you were out of commission and unable to do any more digging on the teacher, but that they’d watch you while you recovered to see if you intended to pursue it further. Alice said they shouldn’t worry, that she’d take care of it, and that if you did
revisit the matter, she had a well-placed friend who’d let her know. Her father asked if the friend was discreet and trustworthy and Alice said . . .’ He frowned, trying to remember the exact words, because this was important. ‘Something like “How do you think we knew to wipe his desktop? He saved our bacon.” Her father asked what this friend wanted in return. Alice didn’t say anything but both the men groaned and her father said, “I don’t want to know. Do not say another word.” I took that to mean she’d given the man sexual favors for his information.’
Zimmerman grimaced. ‘God, he must have been desperate. She was pretty enough, I guess, but talk about a praying mantis. I’m surprised she let him live afterward.’
Marcus shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘I think we have to,’ Kate said without looking up from her knitting. ‘We really know very little about Alice other than that she was a colossal bitch.’
‘You got that right,’ Scarlett muttered. ‘And that she was a gym rat. That’s how she kept an eye on Marcus.’
Decker raised his brows. He hadn’t known this.
Kate glanced up at him, gave him a nod. ‘Alice stalked him. Pretended she had a kid brother who’d been friends with the youngest O’Bannion brother.’
‘The one who was killed?’ Decker murmured, and she nodded before addressing the group.
‘We also know that she joined the gym when Marcus returned after recovering from his bullet wound. She used a fake ID and gave an address that doesn’t exist. We don’t know where she actually lived.’
‘At the compound with her father,’ Decker said, then shook his head, his memory stuttering. ‘No, that’s not right. She lived there at the end, but not at the beginning.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘I drove her home several times.’
Kate’s needles stopped clacking. ‘Really?’
He pointed at her knitting. ‘Do that, please. The sound helps me think. I think I latched onto it when I was trying to wake up the last few days in the hospital.’
She looked surprised, but complied. ‘Where did you drive her? If she kept a place of her own, perhaps we can find a lead to the men she gave favors to.’
He shook his head. ‘She never trusted me. I’d have to drop her off at different places, but if you give me a map, I can mark off the ones I remember. It was somewhere around Hyde Park, because that’s where she went when it was really cold. I figured she wouldn’t want to walk as far when it was cold.’
‘You may not have to do that,’ Novak said slowly. ‘Hold on.’ He got his laptop out of its case and started it up. ‘Listen to this – it’s part of that same recording we heard this morning, right before they talk about McCord and his partner. It’s still Alice and her father.’
‘Demetrius acts like a big stud with all his love of torture and beating people up, but he’s a whiny baby when it comes to pain. He acts like a paper cut is a double amputation.’ It was Alice’s father who had spoken, and Decker had to swallow hard against a wave of nausea, because he knew what was coming next. ‘I’ll get what I need out of him after Decker makes sure he’s not going to bleed to death.’
‘Nice.’ That was Alice.
They had gotten what they’d needed, Decker thought. But he hadn’t been able to stop the man from bleeding to death. He propped his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair and let it take the weight of his body as he pressed his fist against his lips, remembering all the blood that had followed this conversation. And the body parts Decker had cleaned up.
On the recording there was a pause. ‘You knew about the tracking?’ Alice’s father asked.
‘Yeah,’ Alice said. ‘For several months now. You stopped asking me where I was when I went on dates. Sean too.’
‘That’s why I didn’t know about you and DJ,’ he said.
Novak paused the clip. ‘Sean was their IT guy. He died with the man who shot you, Decker. Kate took them out.’
‘I know.’ Decker didn’t look at Kate. He simply focused on keeping Troy’s bland chicken in his stomach. ‘She told me.’
‘DJ is the son of Demetrius,’ Novak continued, ‘the man who procured their “assets”.’ He turned his freaky eyes on Decker, his expression unreadable. ‘We found Demetrius’s body behind the compound. I’m guessing you weren’t able to stop him from bleeding to death.’
‘No,’ Decker said quietly. ‘I tried. I wanted him to testify.’
‘It was a grisly death,’ Novak said, sounding troubled. ‘Demetrius suffered.’
Yes, he had. ‘Is there a question in there, Agent Novak?’ Decker asked, hearing his own voice slur a little. He was quickly running out of steam.
‘Deacon,’ Zimmerman admonished. ‘Where are you going with this?’
Novak frowned. ‘I know an agent undercover has to do things they don’t always want to do, and I know that Agent Davenport helped save people when he could, but he also watched a lot of people being murdered. I’m just wondering . . . Would he have let Marcus die too, if they’d decided to take him out?’
Decker met Novak’s eyes, and told him the truth. ‘I didn’t know who they were talking about in November, but I knew last week. I would have stopped it if it was humanly possible. However, if you’re asking if I would have jeopardized my cover, the answer is no. Too many other lives depended on it. Does that satisfy you, Agent Novak?’
‘No, not really,’ Novak said, although much of his hostility receded. ‘But I suppose there weren’t many good choices. I apologize for asking the question, but I needed to know.’
‘Well now you do,’ Kate snapped. ‘Play the rest of the clip so he can get out of that chair and go back to bed where he belongs. Stone, too.’ She looked to the other end of the table and sighed. Stone had gone to sleep in his wheelchair and was snoring softly. ‘Finish the tape so we can figure out what to do about this and Marcus and Diesel can take Stone home.’
Decker almost smiled. That she was concerned for him was sweet, but unnecessary. ‘I’m okay, Kate.’
‘Bullshit,’ she muttered. ‘Play the fucking clip, Deacon.’
Novak looked regretful. ‘I did apologize, Kate.’ She gestured toward his laptop, without another word. Novak hit play and Alice’s father began to speak once again.
‘It doesn’t . . . bother you? That I was tracking you?’
‘Yeah.’ Alice sounded annoyed. ‘But we knew you were worried about your leadership team, so we just left our phones behind when we didn’t want you to know where we were.’
‘How did you know for sure?’ he asked.
‘Sean hacked your phone. Took him a minute and a half.’
Novak turned off the recording. ‘We have their phones – Alice’s and her father’s. If Alice’s father tracked her phone online, we may be able to access that information from his cell phone. If Sean hacked it in a minute and a half, maybe we can too.’
‘Haven’t you tried to crack their phones?’ Scarlett asked, looking skeptical.
Novak nodded. ‘Yes, of course. But we were looking for evidence of deals and contact information – their suppliers and customers. Not the existence of tracking software.’
Decker thought it would be easier to try to triangulate an approximate location by mapping it out, and had started to say so when Agent Troy slid an old-fashioned city map in front of him.
Decker ignored Novak’s scowl to give Troy a nod of appreciation. ‘Thank y—’
‘Wait.’ Diesel abruptly reached around Marcus to the printouts of McCord’s directory that Adam had provided. ‘Let me see those.’
His movement jostled Stone, who woke up sputtering and disoriented. ‘What the hell, Diesel?’ he demanded. He gave his head a hard shake, then winced. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking at something,’ Diesel muttered as he scanned each of the printout pages, then glanced at Adam.
‘Where was McCord’s computer found?’
Adam took another stack of papers from his briefcase and began flipping through them. ‘This is the police report. “One laptop, found in the suspect’s bedroom closet, locked in lead-lined fire safe.” Why?’
Diesel pointed at the list of files from the hard drive directory. ‘Because look at the dates.’
‘They’re all within a year of McCord’s arrest,’ Scarlett said.
Diesel shook his head. ‘No. This column lists the dates the files were accessed. These are the dates the files were created. Every file was created before 2010.’
‘They’re not new victims,’ Adam said, frowning. ‘The photos I saw today . . .’ He hesitated. ‘They didn’t have a lot of clues as to time period. You know, clothing and such.’ He flipped through a few more pages and sighed. ‘The laptop didn’t even have Wi-Fi capability. Its card had been removed.’
Diesel leaned back in his chair. ‘This was likely McCord’s personal collection then. And nobody could have wiped the document files from that laptop unless they’d physically gone into his house and put their hands on it. I couldn’t have accessed that laptop, for that matter. Did he have another computer?’
‘Yes. Nothing was found on it, so it wasn’t turned over to ICAC. It’s sitting in the CPD evidence locker. According to the report, there was no evidence of tampering, though.’
Diesel scoffed. ‘Please. I never leave evidence of tampering.’
Marcus winced. ‘Um, Diesel? FBI? You don’t have to sound quite so proud.’
Diesel shrugged. ‘It’s not like I have many secrets left. Plus, it’s true. And it’ll probably be just as true if it is the same hard drive I saw and someone else did go in and wipe away any evidence of current crimes.’
‘Will you be able to tell?’ Kate asked. ‘I mean, can you tell if it’s the same hard drive you saw when you hacked that night?’
‘Yes, I’ll be able to tell. There was other stuff on it – normal stuff like tax forms and McCord’s lesson plans. Your IT specialists should be able to find evidence that something had been there, even if they can’t tell what it was. Just because the files were deleted doesn’t mean they’re completely erased, although it sounds like whoever did it might have been sophisticated enough to pull it off.’