Identity Unknown (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 1) (14 page)

"I know why Emily's doing this," I said to Parker. "It's payback for a friend."

I stepped away to let him look at the photo and article.

He read it, nodded, and gestured to the entire board. "It's all here. The whole story."

"It almost makes me feel sorry for her."

"Why?"

"Because she's a victim, too. I doubt she volunteered to rent out her body."

"But she didn't have to become a killer," Parker said. "She could have gone to the police."

"Could she? You yourself said the men in the Brotherhood have broad power and influence. Maybe she was afraid to go to the police."

"Then there was always the FBI. She had choices."

"She was scared and didn't know who to trust."

"Maybe. But what about what she did to you? And what about the people she killed who aren't on that list? She's wanted for multiple murders in multiple states, Kelsey. Probably multiple countries. She doesn't have a million and a half dollar bounty on her head for nothing, and contract killing isn't a profession you just fall into. That takes time, dedication and determination." He gestured to the room. "And so does building a place like this. At some point in the process, you're no longer the victim. You're the predator."

I was silent. I wasn't sure why I suddenly felt the need to defend Emily, but despite my anger at her, part of me wanted to believe she was still the person I hung out with on lonely nights. And finding out about the abuse she and her wild-haired friend had suffered helped me do just that.

But Parker was right. She was no longer a victim, and killing these men, no matter how disgusting they were, was not—and shouldn't have been—the solution.
 

There were plenty of people who could have helped her expose the Brotherhood for what it was, people who dedicated their lives to protecting girls like her. Emily had the choice to seek them out, but instead chose a different path. The wrong path. A path that had turned her into the kind of person who could target and set up an innocent woman for a murder she didn't commit. The kind of person who could fake her own death by setting fire to a motel, with no regard for its occupants—which included how many other girls?

When you're so blinded by your desire for vengeance that nothing and no one else matters, there's little hope for you.
 

You're a lost cause.

And you need to be stopped.

"Check this out," Parker said.

He was across the room now, throwing open a door. Behind it was a small closet, but there were no clothes inside. Instead, the walls were lined with guns. The kind of collection you'd see in one of those Terminator movies. Gleaming black and silver weapons carefully mounted on brackets. Pistols, rifles, knives…

"Still having doubts?" he asked.

"No," I said. "But none of this gets us any closer to finding her."

Parker gestured to the white board. "Which brings us back to Grigory Ivanov. The last name on the list."

"How does that help us? If he's some Brotherhood big shot halfway across the world, and she's going after him next, we're done."

"I know I've heard the name before," Parker said. "I just can't…"

He paused, and I could see that he was working his way through his mental file cabinet, looking for something he'd stored there.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I remember now. His name isn't Ivanov anymore. It's Ivan. Gregory Ivan. He anglicized it."

"Okay, so who is he?"

"A Ukrainian immigrant. He came to the U.S. in his mid-teens and changed the name when he registered for school. He already spoke English fluently and figured he'd get less flak if people thought he was born here."

"How do you know all this?"

"I read his bio awhile back in a law enforcement newsletter. He's a self-made guy, moved to Austin when he was twenty-one and joined the police force. And over the next three decades he worked his way up the ranks to Deputy Chief." He paused. "No wonder Tevis was afraid of the police. And it only gets worse."

"What do you mean? How?"

"Greg Ivan retired from the Austin PD last year. He's running for the state senate. That's why they wrote the article. And if he's elected, the Brotherhood will have a man right inside the corridors of power. And who knows where he'll go from there."

"Jesus," I murmured.

"My thoughts exactly."
 

I looked at him. "Then maybe what Emily's doing is a
good
thing."

Parker shook his head. "No. Not like this. And if we don't try to stop her, that makes us a party to murder."

"But what about all the lives he's ruined? All the girls like Emily and her friend?"
 

"You don't know if he's part of any of that and neither do I." He gestured to the white board. "All we have is a list written by a woman with questionable mental health. But even if the guy
is
scum, he deserves due process like anyone else."

I couldn't argue with his logic. I did, after all, work part-time for a law firm that strongly believed in the legal standard of innocent until proven guilty. We're too often willing to condemn someone based solely on an accusation and little else. And I didn't want to be one of those people any more than Parker did.

 
"So what should we do?" I asked. "Warn him?"

"And say what? Hey, Greg, we think you might be a Ukrainian mobster and someone's out to get you?"

"Okay, so what's the alternative?"

Parker turned to the bulletin board. "Like I said, the whole story is here. We just have to figure out when and where she plans to strike and stop her before she can."

"Good luck with that," I said.

"We don't have much choice."

We spent the next several minutes searching the board, checking each newspaper article for any mention of Gregory Ivan, but the clippings were all written about past events, Emily's triumphs in taking down the Brotherhood, one by one.

Frustrated, I turned and scanned the room, not sure what I was looking for. I don't know if it was serendipity or my heightened sense of awareness that drew my gaze to a trash can near her work table, but I saw a folded newspaper inside and moved to retrieve it.

"What've you got?" Parker asked as I pulled it from the can.

"I'm not sure. Might be nothing."

But I soon realized it wasn't. It was very far from nothing.

The newspaper was folded to the
Politics
section, featuring a brief article that read, in part:

CANDIDATE DEDICATES CHILDREN'S CENTER

Gregory Ivan, former Austin, Texas deputy police chief and candidate for the State Senate, will be cutting the ribbon at the newly built Raymond T. Atherton Child Protection Center.

Parker studied it over my shoulder.
 

"Wow," he said. "Nothing ironic in that, is there?"

Innocent until proven guilty
, I told myself.
Innocent until proven guilty
.

There was a photo of Ivan, a crisply dressed man in his fifties who wore a smile that had undoubtedly charmed—and disarmed—many people. If the Brotherhood needed a face to sell their corruption, this was the one to do it.

Innocent until proven guilty
…

Parker pointed to the text. "This is happening today." He checked the clock on his cell phone. "In a little less than an hour."

He turned to the work table and looked at the map of Houston spread out atop it, his gaze zeroing in on the center of the city. He tapped a circle made with a blue highlighter.
 

"There's no address in the article, but what do you bet this is it?"

"There'll be kids there," I said. "A church choir. You think she'd pick such a public event?"

"I think it's a pretty good bet, yeah. But if Ivan is mobbed up, he's well protected, and after Papanov, they're bound to be on the alert."

"So how will she do it? Someone who goes to all this trouble to hide her identity isn't gonna just walk up and shoot the guy."

He gestured to the closet. "There are a couple weapons missing in there. One of them could be a sniper rifle."

"Oh, my God, I didn't even think of that. What if she misses and one of the children get hurt?"

"I'm guessing that's a chance she's willing to take."

He moved back to the closet and removed a handgun from a bracket, checked to make sure the cartridge was full and held it out to me.

I stared at it. "I don't know the first thing about guns."

"Just point it and pull the trigger."

I hesitated, and I was sure he could see the dismay in my face.

"This is exactly why I wanted you to stay out of this," he said. "But now it's too late. That area is surrounded by buildings and she could be in any one of them. I need your eyes. But I also need you to have protection."

I hesitated another moment, then took it from him. It was heavier than it looked.

He checked the clock on his phone. "We'd better get moving. The ceremony'll be starting soon."

We left the bunker, moved through the closet and found ourselves in Emily's living room again. Parker went to the door, checked the hall, then signaled for me to follow.

When we stepped into the hallway, he started for the elevators and I grabbed his arm. "Shouldn't we take the stairs?"

"Every second counts," he said. "We can ride down to the parking garage and borrow a car. Hopefully a fast one."

We moved together to the elevator and Parker hit the
down
button. A moment later, the bell rang and the doors rolled open…

…And standing inside was Taggart.

I try, as often as I can, not to use hackneyed phrases like "all hell broke loose." But I'm human, and because I am, and because I grew up with a father who regularly peppered his speech with such cliches, I often go with what I know.

I'm not trying to win a ribbon from the purple prose society or convince some self-important literary critic that I'm worthy of praise. I'm simply trying to tell you a story.
 

And in that spirit, I just have to say it:

The moment we saw Taggart—or maybe I should say the moment he saw
us—
all hell broke loose.

He wasn't on the elevator alone. Two of the Ukrainians were with him (surprise! surprise!), and before Parker and I had time to react, guns were produced and bodies were moving. One of the Ukrainians slammed me against the wall, yanked my pistol away and pinned me there, as Taggart and the other thug took turns punching Parker and finally threw him to the floor.

"You shoulda stayed dead," Taggart told him, then pointed his pistol at Parker's temple.

"Wait! Wait!" I shouted.
 

Taggart whirled on me. "What—you wanna go first?"

"You're wasting valuable time on us. I already told you, this is a mistake. I'm not the woman you're looking for. I'm not Mia Duncan."

"You don't give up, do you?"

"She's telling you the truth," Parker said.
 

Taggart turned. "I'm supposed to believe a dead man?"

"Why would I lie? I want Duncan as bad as you do, but pinning this on Kelsey was nothing more than a move to cover her tracks. She's fooled us all."

"I don't know what angle you're playing, Zachy Boy, but if you think this is gonna—"

"Gregory Ivan," I said.

He looked at me again. "What?"

"That's who her next target is. You can check down the hall in her apartment. It's all there. In the panic room behind her closet. Her own personal command center."

"Nothing you've just said convinces me you aren't her."

"What about Anastasia Brantov? Does that name ring a bell?"

"Not in the least." He looked at the Ukrainians and they both shrugged, making it clear they'd never heard of her, either.

"That's Duncan's real name," I said. "She was brought here by the Brotherhood and worked as a sex slave, but managed to escape after she set fire to the motel they were housed in."

"Big fuckin' deal. You still aren't convincing me."

"All right, then think about this: What did the guards downstairs say when you showed up? That they thought I might be an impostor, right? Somebody posing as Natalie Tevis to gain entry to the building."

"What of it?"

"Don't you see?
Tevis
is Duncan.
Tevis
is Anastsia Brantov. Not me. And she wasn't hired by anyone, she's doing this on her own. She's targeted the Brotherhood and Gregory Ivan is next."

I could see that Taggart was trying to puzzle it out, but he looked confused.

"Just check the room," I said. "It's all there. There's even a picture of her, and a list of her greatest hits. Ivan's the only one left."

Taggart thought about this, then turned to the Ukrainian next to him, who in turn nodded to the one who was holding me. The guy let me go and went down the hall into Tevis's apartment as the second one stepped up to take over, pointing his gun at my head.

"If not truth," he said softly. "You die."

"Really? Thanks for the news flash."

I should have been shaking uncontrollably, but something inside of me refused to give into my fear. Maybe I was growing immune to being threatened. Or maybe I was too tired and numb and strung out to care that I had a gun in my face.

Whatever happened from here on out, if I managed to survive, I wouldn't come away from this the same girl I was yesterday. The girl whose biggest concern was being late for class or my feeling of inadequacy because my knob of a boyfriend had dumped me.

Those were first world problems that I could no longer be bothered with.

Then there was Parker, who had been uncharacteristically quiet as I'd made my case. Even though he was currently occupying the real estate at our feet, I'd been with him long enough to know he wasn't a guy who gave up easily. If I couldn't convince these idiots I wasn't Mia Duncan, then I had faith he'd find a way to get us out of this.

We exchanged a glance and I thought I saw reassurance in his eyes, a look that said,
Don't worry, I've got this.

And I sure as hell hoped he did.