She had met Dr Meredith Fallon the week before, but only in passing. She knew the woman was a child psychologist and very well respected by Deacon’s task force. And if she hadn’t already known that, the look on Deacon’s face at the moment would have been testament. It was admiration and . . . maybe even gratitude, which Kate didn’t understand. Yet, anyway.
‘Meredith,’ Scarlett said, surprised. ‘I didn’t know you’d be coming.’
‘I invited Dr Fallon,’ Zimmerman said. ‘Meredith, come in, sit down. I’m glad you could make it at all, considering I didn’t give you much notice this morning.’
‘Not a problem,’ Fallon said with an easy smile. ‘I was able to shift my first appointment to my partner. I’m glad you called me.’
‘Deacon recommended you for this case. Have you met Agents Coppola and Troy?’
Meredith nodded. ‘I met them briefly last week when they were interviewing the Bautista family.’ Just one of the many families victimized by the traffickers with whom Decker had been embedded. ‘The Bautistas send their regards, by the way. They were my first appointment and I stayed long enough to introduce them to my partner. They’re in good hands with Faith.’
Kate blinked in surprise at that. ‘Deacon’s fiancée works with you?’
‘She does indeed. Dr Corcoran brings a great deal of expertise in working with victims of sexual assault. I was lucky to convince her to join my practice.’
‘Which means that Faith no longer works directly with the sex offenders,’ Deacon said, his relief bare for all to see. Then one side of his mouth quirked up. ‘Which means my hair won’t go any whiter worrying that another one of her patients will try to kill her.’
Ah. That explained his gratitude, Kate thought, before delivering the punchline he’d deliberately set up. ‘D, if you went any whiter we’d all be wearing wraparound shades indoors.’
It had the desired effect, making everyone smile for another few seconds before they got into the grim reality of Decker’s CD.
Zimmerman checked his phone when it buzzed. ‘We’re waiting for one more, but Detective Kimble just texted that he’s on his way up. Set up the clip, won’t you, Deacon?’
From the corner of her eye, Kate saw Meredith Fallon stiffen. It was only a fleeting movement, and within seconds her expression was once again smilingly serene.
Troy leaned into Kate’s space again. ‘You two must have had fun together,’ he said with a hint of wistfulness, indicating Deacon, who was cueing up the CD.
‘Gotta laugh sometimes,’ Kate murmured, ‘or you start crying and can’t stop. I hope you laugh sometimes, too, because I have a feeling we’re really going to need it.’
‘It’s been a while,’ he admitted, then tilted his head toward Meredith. ‘What’s with her?’
‘Not a clue,’ Kate whispered back. ‘I’ll ask Dea—’
She was interrupted by a knock at the door and turned to see a tall, dark-haired man coming through the doorway, wearing an abashed smile and a dark suit that was dripping wet. Detective Adam Kimble and Deacon had grown up together. They were family.
‘Hi, everyone,’ Kimble said. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. One drop of rain and traffic comes to a screeching . . . halt.’ So had Kimble’s powers of speech as soon as he’d seen Meredith Fallon at the table, but he’d recovered quickly, his smile reappearing.
‘Good morning, Detective,’ Zimmerman said. ‘You haven’t missed anything. We’re about to review Agent Davenport’s audio file. Everyone, this is Adam Kimble. He’s on the MCES team with Deacon and Scarlett.’
‘Backstory?’ Troy murmured.
‘MCES is the joint task force. Major Crimes Enforcement Squad.’
Troy rolled his eyes. ‘I knew that. Backstory on Kimble.’
‘He’s Deacon’s cousin.’
Troy blinked. ‘No shit? I wouldn’t have guessed that. What else?’
Kate tried to remember more. ‘I met him last week when we took down the traffickers, but before MCES he was working Personal Crimes.’ Which was the CPD’s nice way of referring to sex crimes. ‘No clue on what’s going on between him and Dr Fallon.’
Kimble had taken off his drenched suit jacket and was giving it a little shake. ‘Where can I hang this? And maybe something to dry my head? I feel like a drowned rat.’
‘There’s a hook on the back of the door,’ Zimmerman said. ‘Paper towels on the table by the coffee. Do you know everyone, Adam?’
‘Not everyone.’ Kimble hastily scrubbed his wet head with a paper towel, then scanned the table, taking the only vacant chair, right next to Meredith. But he’d hesitated first. Just for a second, and only noticeable if one had been looking, but of course everyone present was looking.
That was the trouble with working with a bunch of cops. Everybody was trained to spot the tiniest bit of behavior. The smallest facial twitch. It made keeping your private life private a real challenge. Kate thought she did a pretty good job most of the time. God, she hoped she did. She had private shit that she did not want anyone to know. Ever.
Kimble met Troy’s eyes across the table, all business now. ‘I’m assuming you’re Agent Troy. I read about the trafficking ring you shut down last week in Cleveland.’ His eyes took on a hardened, almost angry defiance. ‘That was good work.’
Troy looked uncomfortable. ‘Thank you, but now I feel like a slacker because you did the homework and I didn’t even know the assignment.’
Kimble’s smile was wry. ‘Hey, D, looks like I get to be the straight-A student for a change,’ he said with self-deprecating humor.
Deacon looked up from his laptop with an eye roll. ‘You would have always been if you hadn’t been too busy warming the bench in the principal’s office. Boss, I’ve got this clip about as cleaned up as I can with the software I’ve got. The sound quality is still crap, but it’s ready to play. Do we need a set-up for Adam and Meredith?’
‘I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version,’ Zimmerman said, ‘and answer any specific questions you have after the clip. Agent Griffin Davenport was undercover for three years with a human trafficking ring that was initially on the Bureau’s radar for its drug trade – heroin and oxy were its bread and butter. Davenport was known to them as Gene Decker. He started out as personal security for the ring’s leadership, but realized pretty quickly that something more was going on. He wasn’t getting access to the information we needed as a bodyguard, and we were thinking of pulling him out, but then he got dinged by a bullet a few months ago – nothing as serious as his injury last week, but enough to put him on disability for a while. Griff has an actual accounting degree and luckily we’d added that in when we built his profile. He was able to convince them to assign him to assist the ring’s CPA. He’d gleaned that human trafficking was happening but wasn’t getting access to the real books because he wasn’t part of the inner circle. So he and his handler . . .’ Zimmerman faltered, closing his eyes for a few seconds. ‘Excuse me, please. Agent Symmes and I were friends.’
And Agent Symmes was dead. Kate tried to remember if Decker would have heard about that before his coma, and then realized that his handler’s body hadn’t been found at that point. I’ll have to tell him. She dreaded the thought.
Zimmerman cleared his throat and resumed. ‘Davenport and his handler had a prearranged plan for “Gene Decker” to make himself part of the inner circle, and were waiting for the right time to spring it. They got their break last week when one of the victims escaped her captors. Davenport incapacitated the ring’s head of security and his right-hand man and delivered them to the place Agent Symmes had set up. Symmes went to bring the two men in and . . . well, there was a struggle. Symmes killed them both, but was fatally injured in the process.’
Zimmerman faltered again, pain tightening his features, and he pursed his lips hard. Kate didn’t let him see her compassion bec
ause she didn’t think he’d welcome it. Instead she took up where he’d left off, giving him an opportunity to regroup.
‘Once Agent Davenport made the two men disappear,’ she said, ‘he assumed some key security responsibilities. There was apparently enough confusion in the ranks that nobody questioned him and he was able to bug the inner circle’s offices. Davenport tried to wake up yesterday morning, but he was so agitated that the doctor had to re-sedate him. When he woke this morning, one of the first things he communicated was the date and time of this clip that Deacon’s about to play.’
‘What was the first thing he said?’ Meredith asked quietly.
‘Well, he didn’t actually say anything,’ Kate said. ‘He’s still on the ventilator. He pointed to letters on a keyboard to tell us his name was Decker. Apparently it’s a nickname, so he used it as part of his cover ID.’
Zimmerman looked surprised. ‘I’ve known him for three years and I’ve always called him Griff. So did Richard Symmes.’
Kate shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a post-coma thing.’ Or maybe it was just personal. She really wanted it to be personal. ‘The last thing he typed before the nurse threw me out was “kids”.’ Everyone around the table seemed to deflate. ‘Which is why we’re all here.’
‘You’ll hear two clips,’ Deacon said, ‘both from a conversation between the leader of the ring and his daughter, Alice.’
Scarlett Bishop’s jaw went taut. ‘Bitch,’ she muttered, and no one corrected her. Alice had been arrested while trying to kill a witness. Had she succeeded, her next target would have been Scarlett’s boyfriend, Marcus.
Kate thought that Scarlett was controlling her temper admirably under the circumstances.
‘They also mention a guy named Woody McCord,’ Deacon went on. ‘McCord was arrested for possession of child pornography after an anonymous tip to the Internet Crimes Against Children hotline.’ He looked directly at his new partner when he said this and Scarlett’s jaw tightened again, but this time apprehension flickered in her eyes rather than rage.
But she didn’t say a word. Just stared back at Deacon until he sighed.
Troy nudged Kate and she shrugged. ‘No clue,’ she said, but loudly enough to be heard by the entire table. ‘We will have a clue, though, won’t we, Detective Bishop?’
Scarlett nodded once. ‘Yes. But not at this moment.’
Kate leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table, keeping her tone mild even though she was seriously pissed off. Scarlett was protecting Marcus, she was sure of it. ‘What part of “kids” is less important than whatever secret you’re keeping, Detective Bishop?’
Scarlett looked miserable. ‘Dammit, Kate. They’ve been through so much.’
Oh for God’s sake. Kate rolled her eyes, her patience strained. ‘K-I-D-S, Scarlett. The anonymous tip was from your boyfriend’s newspaper, right? Blink once for yes, twice for no.’
Scarlett didn’t blink at all. ‘I’ll get the information you need,’ she said rigidly. ‘ASAP.’
Fucking hell. Kate reined in her temper, her hands going for her knitting bag. ‘Thank you.’
Troy raised his brows in surprise when she dug her project out of the bag and began to knit furiously. ‘I remember McCord’s arrest,’ he said calmly. ‘It was news for weeks because he was also a teacher in one of the local high schools. He was found dead in his jail cell – he hanged himself. But that was almost a year ago. Why is McCord significant now?’
Scarlett’s answer was crisply professional. ‘According to McCord’s attorney, he was planning to reveal his suppliers to the DA in order to get his charges reduced from possession of child porn to pandering. He was found dead the next day. His wife was found dead of an apparent suicide a few days later. His attorney died soon thereafter in a fire. Suspected arson.’
‘So McCord most likely had help hanging himself,’ Troy said dryly.
‘That was my assumption, yes,’ Scarlett said.
Kate lifted her gaze to Scarlett’s. ‘He was found with child porn on his home computer, right? But pandering insinuates that a profit was made. He must have been willing to admit to some kind of commerce for him to believe that the DA would negotiate. Was he a pimp?’
‘I don’t know.’ Scarlett had fully regained her composure. Any indication of misery or anger was gone. ‘Maybe. But my guess was that the kiddie porn they found on his computer was for more than his personal use.’
Troy frowned. ‘You think he was selling it? That would have given him an even longer sentence than possession. Pandering wouldn’t have applied.’
‘Not unless the suppliers he was giving up were really big fish,’ Scarlett said quietly. ‘Deacon and I had already connected McCord to someone known to have purchased victims of trafficking for labor.’
‘Big fucking fish,’ Troy muttered. ‘Why haven’t I read about this? Your boyfriend’s paper printed everything else.’
Scarlett’s eyes flashed. ‘Not even close to everything else, Agent Troy.’
Zimmerman intervened. ‘We asked Mr O’Bannion to hold that information out of the Ledger and he has been very cooperative. ICAC has been reviewing the files taken from McCord’s PC nine months ago.’
Scarlett sighed wearily. ‘And McCord’s dead, so whatever commerce he may or may not have been engaged in is defunct. The threat has passed.’
Kate’s sigh was silent. Not as defunct as you think, sweetie. ‘Play the first clip, Deacon.’
‘This one is Alice speaking.’ Deacon tapped his keyboard and a faint, tinny voice emerged from the speakers, female and angry.
‘O’Bannion runs a newspaper. They investigate stuff. I shouldn’t need to draw a diagram here. He nearly brought us down nine months ago, when he exposed Woody McCord’s kiddie porn collection. If he’d dug a little deeper, he would have realized that he hadn’t even touched the tip of the iceberg with McCord.’
The clip ended and Troy whistled. ‘Okay. Got it. McCord’s significant.’
‘But he’s dead,’ Kimble said quietly, and there was something in his voice that had Kate setting her knitting down and studying his face. He was as tense as she was, she realized. And he was expending an enormous amount of personal energy to contain it.
‘And he can’t hurt kids ever again,’ Meredith said so softly that it was almost a caress.
Kimble nodded grimly. ‘Right. But he’s the tip of the iceberg. Where’s the rest?’
‘Second clip,’ Deacon said. ‘Alice and her dad. The Sean they mention was the IT guy, Alice’s half-brother.’
‘Are you still monitoring McCord’s partner?’ the man asked.
‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘He seems to be in control and to have learned from Woody’s mistakes.’
‘Has he added any assets?’
‘A few, but not from us. We’re still taking a cut of his profits, though. Not huge profits, but steady, and there’s promise for future expansion. McCord’s partner welcomed Sean’s e-commerce expertise. Locating his server offshore and teaching him about proxies was also . . . appreciated. His appreciation increased the profit trickle to a steady flow. We haven’t made personal contact in months. He knows I watch his progress, but as long as the deposits are made every month, I don’t bother him.’
The clip ended and a hush hung over the table like a dark cloud until Zimmerman cut into the silence. ‘The tip of the iceberg. And since this mystery man and McCord were partners, we can only assume these assets were the same ones that McCord was about to plea to pandering.’
‘Kids,’ Kate said grimly.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Thursday 13 August, 9.00 A.M.
‘Well, Agent Davenport?’ The doctor set the breathing tube on the tray held by his assisting nurse. ‘How does that feel? Better? Just a nod is fine.’
Fuck the nod. Decker needed to know that hi
s voice still worked. So that I can talk to Kate. ‘Like you ripped a fuckin’ tube out of my throat,’ he rasped, then coughed, which fucking hurt.
The doctor, a fifty-ish man with graying hair, a thick mustache, and gentle hands, rolled his eyes. ‘I told you a nod would be fine, but you cop types never listen. He can have ice chips,’ he said to the nurse, then pressed his stethoscope to Decker’s chest. ‘Breathe. Nice and slow.’
‘Open up,’ the nurse said, and popped an ice chip in his mouth when he obeyed.
And yeah, the ice did feel good. His throat still felt like a dozen cats had been dragged out of him, every one with their claws dug into his tracheal walls, but he could live with that. He’d had far worse.
The doctor listened and seemed satisfied with whatever he heard. Decker was just happy that it didn’t hurt his chest to draw a breath on his own. He’d be able to get up and move around now, the sooner the better. Because as soon as he could walk without falling down, he was walking out of this frickin’ hospital and going back to work.
Kids. Assets. Steady flow of profits. McCord’s partner was still operational. Not for long.
The doctor narrowed his eyes. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about, stop. Your pulse just rocketed. Unless you want the nice nurse to sedate you again?’ he asked with false sweetness.
The nurse pursed her lips, obviously as irritated with the doctor as Decker was. But she said nothing and the doctor either didn’t see her expression or ignored it. Asshole. As Kate had said that morning, you did not mess with the nurses. They could fuck you up.
Concentrating on lowering his pulse, Decker bared his teeth in an intentional parody of a smile. ‘No, Doctor.’ Dickhead. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘Good. Your chest sounds are clear. We’ll be moving you to a regular room soon.’
‘Excellent,’ Decker grunted. ‘I want out of here. I have to get back to work.’ Because . . . kids. Goddammit to hell. Breathe. Keep that pulse normal.