Incriminating Evidence (12 page)

“Even the best and most highly trained FBI agents get it wrong sometime. That’s the thing about skilled criminals—they are like chameleons, able to blend in and make you think they’re something they’re not. And you have to admit, Luke learned from the best. His entire family is full of criminals. Even if he wanted to do the right thing, I imagine it was hard to see his family in a life of crime and living the high life while he was living on a cop salary barely scraping by.”

“But do you really believe that? He had the courage to step out of that life. To make his own way independent of his family, and do it at much personal danger and risk to himself. I find it hard to swallow that Luke’s that motivated by money.”

He laughed. “Jess, I think most people are motivated by money.”

“Are you?” she challenged.

“No, and you aren’t, either, but I think we are in the minority on that.”

She agreed with him and decided to let the discussion go right now. They continued to review the documents. A couple of hours went by, and Jessica realized this was going to take much longer than she’d thought. As she flipped through another stack of papers, she had to do a double take. She looked at the document closely before she said anything. She wanted to be sure of what she was seeing. After a couple of minutes, she needed another set of eyes. “Hey, Zach. Come and take a look at this.” She took the piece of paper she was analyzing and put it in front of him.

“Something is off here,” she said.

“How so?”

She pointed to the document. “I was cross-referencing this bank statement against the spreadsheet and supporting documentation that Mick provided. Look here.” She pulled the printed version of the spreadsheet out of another pile and put it beside the bank statement. “In the spreadsheet that reflects the banking records, it shows that there was a large deposit into Luke’s bank account that then got wired to an offshore bank account. But in the original bank statement there’s absolutely no record of that deposit.”

“Let me look at this,” Zach said. He put both documents in front of him and stared at them in silence for a minute. “Something doesn’t match up here.”

“Exactly. They can’t both be right.”

Zach ran his hand through his hair. “We need to look at that spreadsheet and cross-reference every entry and the supporting documents that were provided by Mick against the originals we now have in front of us.”

Three hours later and they’d gone through the exercise. But every other document matched up exactly as it should have. “I’m sorry, Zach, but doesn’t this seem strange?”

“Yes. But there could be an explanation.”

“Like someone edited these documents to make Luke look guilty.”

“That’s a stretch—don’t you think?” he asked.

“I’m not willing to rule anything out at this point.”

“It’s one discrepancy,” he said.

“Yes, but that still means that someone had to have changed the documentation that Mick provided to us.”

Her phone rang, and she picked it up.

“Ms. Hughes,” Mick said.

“Mr. Hernandez.” She knew exactly who it was and flipped it to speaker so Zach could hear.

“I understand that you didn’t heed my warning from our nice meeting at the Bay Café and were out and about poking around my daughter’s businesses.”

“And did you also hear that I was almost run down in the process?”

“I can’t say that I heard anything like that specifically. But this is a courtesy call to remind you of what you should be focusing on and that you need to be extra cautious these days.”

“I don’t like being threatened, Mr. Hernandez. I have a job to do. And if you come after me, I won’t be conducting any investigation of any sort against anyone.”

“Well, the problem is this. You know how children are. They don’t always listen to their parents. And you’re not making it very easy on me—as you know I can’t tell them what I told you. So it would be best for you to focus on the matter we discussed. I can’t make any other guarantees about your safety.”

The line went dead. She looked over at Zach. “What do you make of that?”

“Sounds like he’s trying to tell you that his kids are still after you. He put himself in a strange position because he can’t exactly tell them to lay off or they would want to know why. Since he’s trying to keep this Luke thing on the down low, it means that you’re still a target regardless of who or what you’re investigating.”

“We’re here at the safe house. I don’t have anything to worry about right now. Especially since we’ve been cut off from the Ana investigation.”

“And all the more reason to lay low and focus on the work that we can do from here. We still have tons of documents to analyze. I’ll put in a call to Brodie to let him know about the discrepancies in the financial records. I’m sure he’ll want to look at what you discovered right away. I’ll also let him know that you had contact from Mick.”

“Sounds good.” But as she looked down at the documents in front of her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

* * *

Jessica was having another vivid nightmare. Her attacker was strong—much stronger than her and she felt powerless to fight back. Why wasn’t she fighting back? She sucked in a breath of air and then woke with a start.

That’s when she realized she wasn’t dreaming. No, this was all too real. A man had his strong hands on her, and he was pulling her up out of the bed and onto her feet, dragging her across the bedroom.

Quickly processing what was happening, she let out a scream. The assailant tried to cover her mouth, but she bit down hard. He let out a foul curse, but she didn’t back down as she struggled against him. There was no way she was giving up and letting this man take her away to what would surely be certain death.

Lord, please give me strength.

How had someone gotten into the safe house? Now wasn’t the time to ask questions as she tried to fight off the intruder. She let out another bloodcurdling scream, hoping that Zach would hear and would come to her aid. In the meantime, she would use the skills she’d learned and do everything she could to at least try to neutralize her attacker.

He pushed her toward the window, and it occurred to her that he might try to throw her through the glass. Her bedroom was on the second floor. If he did, it could be a fatal fall.

It was at that point that she really regretted Zach taking the downstairs bedroom so that she would have more privacy. She wondered if he could even hear her screams.

The man pushed her hard, but she was able to maintain her footing. She delivered a hard kick to his abdomen that made him stagger backward. Now wasn’t the time to keep trying to fight him off. She started to run, and she screamed Zach’s name as loud as she could as she tore down the hallway and down the stairs.

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, Zach was racing toward her with his weapon drawn.

“There’s a man in my room,” she said.

“Stay here,” he said. He ran up the stairs, and she waited at the bottom, trying to catch her breath. She realized she was shaking and tried to calm down.

A couple of minutes later, Zach rushed back down the steps. “He must have crawled out one of the windows. No one is up there now. I cleared every room.”

She’d been as brave as she could, but she felt herself near the breaking point as Zach’s arms wrapped tightly around her. She drew strength and comfort from his warm embrace.

“I screamed, but you didn’t hear me,” she said.

“I am so sorry. The first time I heard you scream, I came running. How badly are you hurt?” He released her from the hug and looked down at her.

“More scared than hurt. I’m sure I’ll be a little bruised, but, believe me, I’ve had to deal with much worse.”

“Come on into the kitchen and have a seat. I’ll get you something to drink, and you can tell me what happened.” Gently he took her hand and led her to the table.

After she had a few sips of hot tea and had tried to calm herself down, she looked into Zach’s dark eyes. “It was another nightmare. Or so I thought. When I woke up, the man was pulling me out of the bed. He was really strong.”

“Did you see him? Can you describe him?”

“It was dark. And he had on some sort of mask so I couldn’t see his face. But he was over six feet tall and very strong. I don’t think it was the same man who attacked me in the parking lot. I believe this guy was a little bit taller. But I can’t say for sure.”

“That’s okay. Just take your time and tell me what else happened.”

“I screamed. I bit down on his hand as hard as I could. And I got in a few kicks. He was pushing me toward the window. I thought he might try to throw me out. I wasn’t sure if I would survive that or not, or whether that was his ultimate plan. When I got one solid kick in that threw him off balance, that’s when I started running down the steps.”

“Okay. Take a minute while I make some calls. I have the feeling that we’re going to be moving safe houses right away.”

“As in tonight?” She looked over at the clock in the kitchen and saw it was about two-thirty in the morning.

“Yeah. This position has obviously been compromised. We can’t take any further chances.” Zach stepped into the next room to place the calls, giving her a moment alone.

Jessica sat drinking her tea and trying to pull herself together. This last attack had rattled her even more. There had been so much physical contact. It was like she was reliving the worst aspects of her past. The only difference is that this time she didn’t just take it. She fought back.

Now was not the time to lose it. She had to pull it together. Zach was right there in the next room. She was safe. Nothing was going to happen to her. She kept reminding herself that she was no longer a defenseless child or teenager. She was a grown woman who wouldn’t back down even in the midst of an attack.

Zach walked back into the kitchen with a frown on his face. “Jess, can you pack up what you need? I’d like to be on the road as soon as we can.”

“Sure.” She stood up from kitchen table.

Zach gently took her hand. “And I know you like your space, but from now on, I’ve got to stick a lot closer.”

“I’d actually appreciate that.” Right now she needed Zach by her side.

* * *

Zach kept his eyes focused on the road in front of him but checked the rearview mirror often. Jessica had barely spoken a word since they’d gotten in the car. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about this entire situation.

Brodie had tried to calm him down on the phone, but Zach was amped up. But he didn’t want Jessica to realize that he was so concerned. She’d already been through enough, especially with the latest assault. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard her screams. He should’ve stayed in an upstairs bedroom. Yet another mistake he’d learn from, but it could’ve been a deadly one. If Jessica hadn’t fought back. If she hadn’t been trained in self-defense. Thank the Lord that she was okay. And he’d meant what he told her. She basically wasn’t going to leave his sight.

Right now he was about to make a decision. One that could end up getting him fired. But he also had thought about it nonstop since the attack, and now he should let Jessica know his plans. It wasn’t fair of him to operate without her input.

“Jess,” he said. “You up?”

“Wide-awake,” she responded.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be even more bad news?”

“It’s not like that.” He took a breath, wondering how best to explain his thought process to her. “The FBI has provided us a new safe house.”

“I get that. I assumed that’s where we’re going now.”

“It’s where we were told to go. But I’m having second thoughts.” He put it out there.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m concerned that the system has been compromised in some way. Either an actual person at the FBI working against us or some electronic tampering. Regardless, I don’t feel safe taking you to another FBI-sanctioned safe house because I fear that your location could be discovered.”

“But then where are you going to take me?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Right now I’m just driving around trying to figure out how to tell you about my plan. If you really want to go to an FBI safe house, then I will take you. I don’t want you to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

“But you think that’s not the best move?” she asked, her voice calm and even.

“I don’t. How did the intruder find us? That’s what I keep asking myself. The most plausible answers would lead one to conclude that there has been some type of security breach.”

“What did you tell Brodie?”

“He thinks I’m taking you to the new sanctioned place. That’s what he told me to do. That it was the best plan of action. But I’m worried that it’s actually not safe.”

She was silent for a minute before responding. “I agree with you. I’ve been sensing that something was off. And why take the risk? But where does this leave us with the FBI?”

“That’s the thorny part. We’d basically be going off the grid. And I would need to get a new car because this one belongs to the bureau and it can be tracked.”

“Do you feel like there’s anyone you can trust right now?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust the FBI—it’s that I worry that somehow the system has been infiltrated. And if the system is compromised, then that’s going to be a problem for us. We can’t get a rental because if someone is looking, they’ll be able to track it back to us.”

“Are there any other options?”

“I have an old college buddy who is deployed right now. He lives about a half an hour from here. I check on his house about once a month. He has a car, and he left me the keys. I know he wouldn’t mind us using it. That’s my best option. We’ll get his vehicle, you’ll drive it and I’ll follow you. Then we’ll ditch my car somewhere along the way and keep going.”

“It’s a plan.”

“And, Jess, I could be completely wrong about all of this. If I am, I might lose my job, and we might be going on a total wild-goose chase.”

“But if you’re right, you just might be saving my life. Again.”