Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (10 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

No one moved.

Sabrina finally glanced up to find Mandy staring at her like she’d just asked her to jump out the window. “I’m serious.”

Mandy shifted toward the door but barely took half a step before Strickland stopped her. “Uhhh, no,” he said, throwing an arm up to stop her progress. “Have you lost your mind?” he said, glaring at Sabrina.

“I’ll explain, but you have to trust me.
Please
,” she said.

“Trusting you rarely works out for me,” he shot back, but he dropped his arm to let Mandy pass. She stood between them, un-
moving.

“How am I supposed to sneak a well-known reporter onto an active crime scene past a room full of cops?” Mandy said, bouncing a look between her and Strickland.

“Use your imagination,” she said to Mandy, waiting for her to shut the door behind her before she turned back to Strickland.

He glared at her, cheeks and neck flushed and splotchy. “You’ve got about thirty seconds before I go after her. Talk fast.”

She told him everything that’d happened. The altercation with Croft in front of
The Sentinel
and the blackmail that followed. The red envelope in her car and his interpretation of what it said. The phone call she got at her desk telling her to come here. Every word she spoke drained a little more color out of Strickland’s face.

“He called you again?” he said, taking the steps to the window in a few strides. “What did he say
exactly
?” He flicked the curtain away from the window just a touch, studying the crowd gathered in front of the building below.

“He said to come here. To hurry. He said
she is your sister
. Called her Clio,” she said. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing Croft does.”

“He must’ve not counted on the maid finding her and calling the police so quickly. You were supposed to find her alone.” Strickland let go of the curtain and crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t like it, Vaughn. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that Croft keeps turning up, offering explanations to riddles he’s the only qualified person around to answer?”

“He’s hardly popping up out of nowhere. He’s been following me for months.” Was she really defending Croft? Strickland seemed only slightly more surprised than she was.

“Exactly. That shit isn’t normal,” Strickland said. “Asshole quit his job, so why’s he still following you? What could he possibly want from you?”

Sabrina shrugged. Until about thirty minutes ago she’d thought she knew, but then Croft said O’Shea’s name and everything went sideways. Whatever he wanted from her, it had to do with Michael. “Maybe he wants to write a book about my
harrowing fight for survival
,” she said with a smirk, earning herself a scowl from her partner.

“Don’t do that.”

“What? If I don’t joke about it, I’ll fucking cry—and you
know
how much I hate crying,” she said.

Strickland jammed his hands into his pockets and decided to ignore her attempt to waylay him. “Croft’s up to something. I can smell it … I don’t trust him.”

She gave him a shrug. “That makes two of us—but we have an arrangement. He’s too smart to bite the hand that’s gonna feed him,” she said. If she told Strickland that O’Shea was involved in whatever Croft had cooking, he’d go into DEFCON five. Not something she needed right now.

Strickland sighed and swiped a hand over his face, a clear sign that she’d won. “What about Evans? If he sees Croft, he’ll run his mouth to Mathews.”

Now was the time to tell him about her transfer. She tried to force the words out but couldn’t work them loose. “Well, then I guess we better not get caught,” she said, moving through the door to wait in the hallway for Mandy and Croft.

She watched while Evans wrapped up questioning the victim’s parents. He stood and shook the father’s hand and patted the mother’s shoulder before leading them out the door. He gave them the usual spiel about doing everything he could to bring their daughter’s murderer to justice, adding that he understood the delicate nature of the situation, given their prominence in the community. The pandering to their wealth and influence was enough to make her gag, but she said nothing. She actually felt sorry for them. The Edwards didn’t look like a high-powered super couple; they looked broken.

Evans ushered them through the door and told a uniform loitering in the hall to escort them to their car before he shut the door and turned toward her. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

She settled her shoulders against the wall and gave him a half smile. “My partner’s here. Where else would I be?”

“Back at the station, cleaning out your desk and praying like hell you can make an eight-minute mile,” Evans said, telling her what she already suspected. He knew she’d been loaned to SWAT, which meant he was Mathews’s lackey—no surprise.

He stood there for a few seconds, like he was expecting her to say something. When she didn’t, he shot her a smirk and turned toward the door, almost running into it when it swung open. “Excuse me,” he said to Mandy, holding the door open for her as she worked the wheels of the gurney she hauled across the threshold and into the foyer.

Mandy gave Evans an exasperated smile. “Thanks, Inspector,” she said, pulling the gurney into the living room to give her assistant room to swing the end of it into the hallway. Mandy shot her a panicked look and Sabrina felt her gut tighten. Less than two feet away from Evans, under a windbreaker with
coroner
splashed across the back and a matching cap tugged low on his head, was Jaxon Croft.

“Tell my partner I’m going to round up a few uniforms and get the canvass started, will ya?” Evans said, without so much as a glance at Mandy or Croft.

She pulled herself off the wall and clicked her heels. “Yes, sir,” she said, snapping off a salute that ended with her flipping him the bird.

“Cute, Vaughn. Do him a favor and pretend you give a shit about someone besides yourself and just … fade away quietly.” She didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. Strickland was loyal. As soon as he found out about her transfer, he’d see it for what it really was: her slowly being squeezed out of the department. He wouldn’t let her go without a fight—not unless she pretended it was her idea.

“Better hurry. Those doors aren’t going to knock on themselves,” she said, ignoring his comment and the fact that he was right.

Evans just shook his head and walked out the door, leaving the three of them alone.

“What’s he talking about?” Mandy said.

“Mathews had me bounced out of Homicide. Effective—” She glanced at her watch. “—three hours ago.” Sabrina settled her glare on Croft’s down-turned head, letting herself blame him for something he had nothing to do with.

“And Strickland doesn’t know?” Mandy said, her green eyes as sharp and bright as shards of glass.

“No.” Her shoulders sagged under the weight of the day. “And right now isn’t the time or place, so please—”

Mandy held up her hands, her sunny blond ponytail pulled through the back of her
coroner
ball cap, swinging as she shook her head. “I’m not grabbin’
that
cat by the tail. That’s on you,” she said, commandeering the gurney and pushing it toward her, down the hall.

Mandy looked over her shoulder at Croft. “I’ll leave you to it.” She pushed the bedroom door open, leaving the two of them alone.

Croft was standing at the mouth of the hallway, hands in the pockets of the windbreaker Mandy’d put him in. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” she said, interested in what he thought he knew.

“They’re saying the murder victim is the kid of some politician,” he said.

The corner of her mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “Careful, Croft, your reporter is showing.”

“Okay, you want to tell me why Coroner Barbie smuggled me past the yellow tape?” he said, the brim of his cap making his face hard to read.

“
In mortem, et est soror tua.”

Croft pulled his hands out of his pockets and took a look around the apartment, as if just now realizing where he was. “He killed someone? The guy who left that note in your car—he killed a woman?”

She nodded. “Are you still willing to help?”

He didn’t answer, just reached past her to push the door she guarded open. She stopped him, covering the knob with her hand, shaking her head.

“In the interest of full disclosure, I’m still not entirely convinced that you aren’t involved. Part of the reason you’re here is so that I can keep an eye on you,” she said to him, his face inches from hers. “If I find out you’ve got a part in this, I’m gonna make you very, very sorry.”

“You gonna arrest me?” The fleck of gold in his brown eyes caught the dim light of the hall, shooting burnished sparks in her direction.

Sabrina just smiled and turned the knob, pushing the door open for him. “Arrest you? No, Croft. If I find out you’re in on what was done here, I won’t arrest you. I’ll kill you.”

TWENTY-SIX

Dubai City, Dubai

There was nothing like
having diagnostics run on the dirty bomb grafted to your spine to make you feel like a shower. A long one, with plenty of soap and water hot enough to blister your skin. Michael scrubbed like he was sanding Bondo off the fender of his dad’s 1934 Ford coupe, the steam so thick he felt like he was growing gills.

He’d told Ben Miami, but he planned on heading to Colombia. There was a situation there he wanted to keep an eye on between a well-established arms dealer and his old employer, Alberto Reyes. Things were heating up between them—they were either getting ready to announce their engagement and move in together or start a full-scale turf war … and Reyes wasn’t the type to settle down.

Reyes ruled Colombia’s drug trade with a level of viciousness that made Pablo Escobar look like a kid selling chocolate bars. He was a greedy bastard—never satisfied with what he had, never willing to share if he could see a way around it.

Jorge Cordova was Europe’s premier arms dealer. Based in Spain, he made his millions supplying RPGs and AK47s to rebel upstarts, but the truth of the matter was, if it could be used to kill, Cordova sold it in bulk to anyone with the cash to make it happen.

Drugs and guns went hand in hand. Reyes would see Cordova’s operation as a valuable asset and want it for himself. And he’d burn down half of Spain to get it.

Reyes was powerful. Too powerful. The fact that he’d had a major part in Reyes’s rise topped his mile-long list of regrets. Michael had been monitoring his activities and the longer he watched, the more certain he became that he’d have to step in and put a stop—

A pounding, fast and hard, against the bathroom door ripped Michael out of his reverie. “Hey, Crying Game—you gonna spend your thirty in the shower or what?”

Michael gave the shower faucet a twist and popped the shower door open, steam pouring out after him. He whipped a towel off the bar and gave his high and tight a fast rubdown before slinging it around his hips. “I thought you left, asshole,” he said, pulling the bathroom door open and crossing the room without sparing his partner so much as a glance.

“I missed you.” Ben grinned at him before dropping his lanky frame into the nearest chair. “And I thought I’d offer to drop you in Cartagena, since I know that’s where you’re really going.” He leaned back in the chair, pulling the front legs off the floor, balancing on the back.

Michael traded the towel for jeans and pulled on a shirt. “What makes you think that’s where I’m going?”

“Because you’re a fuckin’ Boy Scout,” Ben said. “You’ve had your eye on the Cordova situation for a while now. You think you’re responsible for making Reyes into what he is.”

He slammed the dresser drawer home, the bang of it drowning out the last of Ben’s words. “I
am
responsible.”

“
Please
. Just because you were there doesn’t make it your fault,” Ben said with a shrug. “Reyes is a climber—he was gonna get to the top, with or without you.”

“Maybe,” Michael said, but he didn’t really believe it.

“Not maybe. Abso-
freakin’
-lutely. But, whatever—go to Colombia. Take Reyes’s toys and piss in his sandbox. Nothing I say is gonna change your mind anyway,” Ben said with a grin. “But at least let me give you a ride to work.”

He just shook his head. “I get on that plane with you, I wake up on the Vegas strip in a revolving bed with mirrors on the ceiling and some chick in the next room dry humping a stripper pole. No thanks.”

“That happened one time—”

Michael cut his partner a look that did its job. “No. Thanks.”

Ben dropped all four on the floor and stood. “You never spend time with me anymore.”

“Sorry, honey, daddy’s gotta work.” Michael ushered him through the door before following him into the living room.

He watched Ben shoulder his duffle. “You want some com
pany? I could come with you,” the kid said halfway to the door.

It was a tempting offer. If things got messy with Reyes, he could use the backup, but Michael just shook his head. “No. Go waste your father’s money on strippers and booze. I’ll see you in a month.”

“Okay … but if you need a spotter, call me,” Ben said, using his thumb and pinky to mimic a phone as he headed out the door.

There was a commercial flight leaving for Cartagena in a few hours. If he hurried he’d be able—

Michael’s phone rang. Retrieving it from the kitchen counter, he gave the screen a glance. He recognized the number. Not one he’d heard from in a while. Not one he’d ever expected to hear from again.

“Hello?”

“You’re a bit too hard to get a hold of these days, Mikey,” Tom said, sounding more than a little frustrated. “I’ve left about a thousand messages.”

And he’d erased them all without even listening. He hadn’t seen Tom in eight months. Not since that day at the diner when he’d been half out of his mind, looking for Sabrina and willing to do anything and kill anyone to find her. Not since he’d admitted to Tom and Carson who Sabrina really was and that he’d known the whole time.

Is it her? Is she Melissa? Please, just tell me …

Yes.

He ran a rough hand over his face. If he’d been Tom, he’d have killed him for keeping something like that from him. Why Tom felt the need to keep in touch was something he didn’t understand. “I was on a job.”

Tom rolled over him like he hadn’t said a word. “You been keeping up with the papers? The articles on Meliss—Sabrina?” Tom said. Of course he’d still think of her as Melissa. That’s who Sabrina was supposed to be. Who Tom knew her as. She was supposed to have married Tom and raised a bunch of kids while helping him run his uncle’s diner in Jessup, the town they all lived in. Instead, she’d been kidnapped and tortured by her psychotic half-brother and left for dead a thousand miles from home. Life had not turned out the way it was supposed to for any of them.

“No,” he said, and he hadn’t, although he wasn’t surprised to hear that Sabrina’s story had grabbed a headline or two.

“Well, the reporter writing most of them came here about a week ago. Asked a lot of questions about her … and then he started asking questions about you.”

Michael’s hand tightened around his cell. “What’s his name?” Michael said, heading for the elevator. If he hurried, he’d be able to catch Ben before he left.

“Croft. Jaxon Croft.”

The name rang a bell, far off in the distance. “Croft … he say what he wanted with me?”

“No. Just asked if Sabrina knew you. If you’d been involved at all in what happened between her and Wade,” Tom said.

“You the only person he talked to?” Michael wasn’t exactly Jessup’s Prodigal Son. Town pariah was more like it. If Croft was looking for someone to turn on him, he’d have his pick of blabbermouths. One in particular came to mind. “What about Carson? Croft talked to him?”

“He tried. Croft rolled up in here, started pestering my customers, so I asked him to leave before someone said too much. Things got … heated, and I punched him. Carson was there,” Tom said, sounding like just thinking of the incident made him angry all over again.

Great. There was no love lost between Jessup’s Chief of Police, Jed Carson, and him. Last time they’d seen each other Michael had put a bullet in his shoulder and threatened to torture him for information about where Wade was holding Sabrina. Carson would see it as payback to tell Croft all about it.

That’s why what Tom said next surprised the shit out of him. “Carson pulled us apart and hauled Croft off to jail and held him overnight before driving his ass back to Dallas the next day. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think Carson told him anything worth knowing—about you or anything else.”

That wasn’t good enough. He had to know for sure. If Croft was trying to connect Sabrina to him, she was in deep shit. “Give my number to Carson and tell him to call me. I need to know what he said to Croft before I decide what to do about it,” he said. Carson had always been a terrible liar. Michael would be able to tell if he’d told Croft about his involvement with Sabrina. If he had, Croft was living on borrowed time.