Fatal Exchange (14 page)

E
mily’s vision blurred as she stared at the school’s surveillance footage on the computer screen. She’d spent the last thirty minutes sitting next to Detective Rogers, going frame by frame through the video that had been taken from the time Tess left for her father’s car until Emily received the text. After seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they’d expanded the search—and the timeframe—to look for anyone who seemed out of place. But whoever had taken Tess had managed to avoid getting caught on camera.

And Tess was still missing.

Emily scooted back her chair before addressing the detective. “I need to take a short break. My eyes are crossed and my head is killing me.”

“Of course.” He nodded, his eyes still fixed on the monitor. “Take as long as you need.”

She dug a bottle of ibuprofen from her bag, then reached for her water that sat on the edge of the desk where she’d been working. Fifteen minutes ago, she’d called Jackson for an update on her sister. Avery’s blood pressure had dropped on the way to the hospital, and she was groggy from painkillers, but the doctors expected her to make a complete recovery—as long as she rested the next few days.

Emily washed down two of the capsules with a swig of water, unable to stop her smile when she thought of Jackson’s disclaimer. Convincing Avery to rest was like convincing the moon to stop rotating around the earth. She had, though, advised him not to tell Avery about Tess—not yet anyway. She knew her sister. She might be furious for initially being kept in the dark, but what she didn’t need was the added stress of knowing her daughter was in danger when there was nothing she could do about it.

“Emily?”

She looked up at Mason, who had just stepped into the front office, his leather jacket covered with a dusting of snowflakes, his expression reflecting how she felt. Cold, tired, and frustrated.

Emily bridged the distance between them, hesitant to ask the obvious question. “Did you find Tess?”

He shook his head. “Not yet, but there are some things we need to talk about.”

She caught the edge in his voice and felt her blood pressure spike. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve just finished talking to the captain.”

“And . . .”

He glanced around the office, still filled with a half-dozen law enforcement officers and school staff tracking down leads on Tess’s disappearance from their makeshift command post. “Let’s go outside. It’s more private.”

He waited for her to grab her purse before taking her hand and leading her out the front door of the school. It would be dark in a few hours, which meant it would be harder to find Tess. She might not be a cop, but even she knew that in missing person cases, time was the enemy. And at the moment, the enemy was winning.

Outside, the wind caught the edge of her coat, sweeping the afternoon chill straight through her. She shivered. She’d been able
to change out of her blood-stained outfit from when Philip had been shot, but the knee-length charcoal sweater dress and tights she’d had stashed in her room in case of emergency weren’t nearly warm enough. “You’re scaring me, Mason. What’s happened?”

“There’s a lot more involved with Tess’s abduction than we originally thought. I know you’re scared, but I need you to trust me. I need to get you somewhere safe.”

Somewhere safe? At the moment, she wasn’t sure such a place existed.

“Why? Where’s my father?”

“He’s with the captain.”

I need you to
trust Mason.

She tried to squelch the unsettled feeling spreading through her. Her father had told her to trust Mason. She felt Mason’s hands press gently against her shoulders to steady her, but the school and the grounds still swirled in the background.

“Emily, I need you to come with me.”

Trust Mason.

She was trying to, but she needed answers first. “Why?”

“We believe your life could also be in danger.”

“Who believes that?”

“The captain. Your father. Me.”

She tugged on the edges of her coat sleeves, feeling frustrated and vulnerable. “What does Tess’s disappearance have to do with me?”

“We don’t believe Eduardo’s kidnappers are behind Tess’s abduction.”

“Wait a minute.” She stopped and looked up at him. “Are you trying to tell me you think there’s another kidnapper?”

“Yes. Maybe it’s nothing more than a string of coincidences, but we can’t take any chances until we know exactly what’s going on. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She tried to read his expression, wanting to ask him if this
had become personal to him. If his concern and desire to protect her was more than the fact that he wore a badge.

“What about Tess? There has to be something we’re missing. Someone who saw something. Who walks away with a thirteen-year-old, from a crime scene with half the city’s police force in the vicinity?”

“That’s what we have to find out, but in the meantime, I promised your father I’d take you somewhere safe. Come with me, and I’ll tell you everything I know on the way.”

“I need to talk to my father.” She pulled out her phone and dialed his cell.

“You won’t get ahold of him. He’s interrogating a suspect with the captain. That’s why he sent me.”

She let it ring, but Mason was right. After three rings, her father’s phone switched to voice mail. The truth was, she was too tired to fight. She trusted her father. She was going to trust Mason as well.

He escorted her toward his unmarked vehicle on the edge of the parking lot. Right now, she should be getting ready to go home from school. A couple hours of Christmas shopping with Grace. A quiet night grading papers. Normal. Ordinary. Except nothing about today was normal.

Mason’s black, older-model Chevy pickup fit his personality. Rough around the edges. Solid. Reliable. He opened the passenger door and let her climb in. On any other day, she’d have been impressed by the chivalrous act, along with the fact that there were no fast-food wrappers lining the dashboard and no junk mail littering the floorboards. Add to that, the truck smelled like cinnamon and not Chinese takeout. She remembered Michael teasing Mason for being so clean. He’d countered that after dozens of undercover jobs and all-nighters with messy partners, having a clean car had become an obsession.

She stared out the window as they drove away from the school
and squinted. Gray clouds, swirls of white snow, tree-lined streets . . . Everything seemed out of focus.

“Tell me what’s going on, Mason.”

“First of all, the officer sent to stay with Tess while your father spoke with the captain is missing.”

Emily felt a sick feeling sweep through her. “What else?”

“Tory found video footage of Mrs. Cerda being shoved into a van this morning, a half a mile from the hotel where she works.”

“Which proves what? That she was kidnapped? That Rafael really was innocent? If someone had been manipulating him, using his mother as a way to control him, then Rafael shouldn’t have died.”

“Emily—”

“They killed him, Mason. How could that have happened?” A sick feeling flooded through her. “He was being manipulated, they knew it, but still put him in a position where he was forced to defend himself.”

“The situation’s complicated.” Mason’s hands gripped the steering wheel as he made a left turn on a green light. “After talking to the captain, I believe that the person who manipulated Rafael—and is behind Tess’s abduction—is someone inside the department.”

“Wait a minute.” His answer took her by surprise. “You’re telling me a dirty cop has taken my niece?”

“We found a bug in Avery’s office. There’s a good chance that whoever planted the bug overheard my conversation with your sister this morning. Someone is sweeping her house for a second bug right now as well.”

Emily trembled. Four months ago, someone had broken into Avery’s house. How many nights had she spent time with her sister sharing from her heart since then? To think that some stranger had been listening in sickened her.

Mason stopped at a red light and flipped on his blinker.
“While I was in the classroom with you, they were able to track down the radio transmitter on the ear bug Rafael was wearing. They found that same van two blocks east of the school. Someone
was
telling Rafael what to say. And that isn’t all they found.”

He paused, as if he were trying to give her time to process everything he was telling her.

“What else did they find?”

“Mrs. Cerda was in the van. She was bound and blindfolded so she can’t identify the man who had been in the van with her.”

“What happened to him?”

“He managed to slip away.”

Silence swept between them as he turned off onto a winding residential street where the branches of the trees met in the middle of the road. She glanced at the street sign, her frustration growing, as he pulled in parallel to the curb, turned off the motor, and turned toward her.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“It’s a safe house. This is where your father wanted you to go, but first there is one more thing you need to know. Rafael . . . he isn’t dead, Emily. He’s inside with two FBI agents.”

“What?” Emily tried to blink back the confusion. “Wait a minute. I heard the captain shoot him. Saw them carry him out in a body bag . . .”

“They faked his death for his own protection.”

“What?”

“I promise you I didn’t know anything about this while I was in the classroom with you, but the captain received information that convinced him that, one, Rafael was being manipulated, and two, if they let him walk out of that school alive, they would likely have been killed.”

She tried to let his words sink in. “So you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“I didn’t know about any of this until right before I came to get you. And the problem is, we still don’t know who all the key players are in this, which means the fewer people who know, the better. The captain agreed that you needed to know.”

She looked at him, wanting to beat her fists against his chest. “Who knows about all of this?”

“The captain. Your father. Jackson, Charlie, and one or two other officers.”

“It was a crazy plan.”

“I convinced the captain to let me tell you the truth.”

“And that’s supposed to help me feel better?” She regretted the bitterness in her voice, but the emotional roller coaster she’d been on the past few hours had spun her nerves on edge. She pressed her fingers against her temple. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it. You’ve been through a lot today.”

“Which still doesn’t give me the excuse to be snippy.”

“You have every excuse to be snippy.” His smile helped break down some of her defenses. “But for the moment, I need your help.”

“How?”

“The captain is hoping we can get some information from Rafael. They thought your being with me when I talk to him would help since you’re close to him. And you’d be safe.”

“Why did they choose Tess?”

“We don’t know yet, beyond the two-million-dollar ransom they didn’t get the first time.”

Emily closed her eyes. The back of her head throbbed. She would do anything to help find Tess, but she couldn’t simply dismiss her skepticism. “Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I keep reminding myself that Michael trusted you. Rafael trusted you, my father and even I trust you, but none of this makes sense. Why should they trust you? My sister has a paper
trail of evidence that she intends to use to put you behind bars, and she’s never kept any of it a secret.”

“The captain has had me investigating Michael’s death since the funeral.”

“But Avery doesn’t know?”

He shook his head. “We have proof that someone has been feeding her false evidence—presumably our mole. If that person finds out we’re looking for him, we could lose any advantage we currently have.”

“But you don’t know who the mole is?”

“No, but for him to have risked such a payoff, I have to believe we’re getting close.”

“So he—or she—needs that ransom money before they can disappear?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

Which would make them desperate. “What can I do?”

“We need to find out what Rafael knows.”

She tried to push aside the lingering slivers of fear that kept resurfacing. This was why she’d chosen the career path she had. She had no desire to get caught up in a game with such dangerous stakes. But neither could she turn away and do nothing.

She felt Mason’s hand close around hers, looked up at him, and caught his gaze, wishing he could promise her everything would be okay. That they would find Tess and all of this would be over.

“Will you help?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Let’s go talk to Rafael.”