Truth & Lies: A Queen City Justice Novel (15 page)

“I’m undercover. That I’m an agent is ‘need to know,’ and it was deemed by those above me that you didn’t need to know.”

“Did all the women come through Dream Come True?”

“Excuse me?”

“The victims. Did they all come through Dream Come True?”

“Yes. They were all from a Croatian service called Prava Ljubav
.
”

“Did you find any connection between them and any human traffickers?”

“What?” She paused and shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

He sighed. “The reason I contacted Dream Come True was a case I was working. A Chinese girl was smuggled over here in a shipping container, held without her papers, and forced to work in a nail salon.  The traffickers threatened to kill her family if she told anyone.”

Dana’s shoulders relaxed a little. “We didn’t find anything like that, but we weren’t looking for it either.” She cleared her throat. “I’m really sorry I had to lie to you.”

“Good for you.  And now you need to leave. I’ll have my captain contact your boss about my investigation.”

Her shoulders tightened once again. “What? You do realize how ironic your self-righteous indignation is, right?”

She wasn’t wrong, which irritated him. “Get the hell out of my bed and my house and my life. You’re not welcome here anymore.” Because his feelings had far surpassed the case. And once again he’d been taken in by a liar.  You’d think that one day he’d learn.

“Deck,” she said, slowly reaching for him once more.

He shook his head. “Just go.
Please
,” he said, closer to begging than he would have liked.

“I know it probably won’t mean anything to you, but I really am sorry,” she said before walking out the bedroom door.

Deck lay back on his bed, covered his eyes with his arm, and concentrated on breathing while he listened to her pack her things in the next room.

Chapter Eleven

Wednesday, December 3—6:20 a.m.

Oakley Neighborhood, Cincinnati, Ohio

Dana didn’t even try to stanch the flow of tears as she tossed her bathroom supplies into her suitcase. She just swiped her eyes so she could see and let them fall where they would. It took surprisingly little time for her to pack everything away.

Deck still hadn’t come out of his bedroom. Suitcase in hand, she walked to his door and paused, her hand poised to knock. But what could she say? She’d already apologized. She’d explained as best she could. He hadn’t been moved by either, and she didn’t really blame him.

She’d known this would happen. It didn’t matter how she tried to rationalize it, she was still in the wrong here. Of course, he didn’t really have a moral leg to stand on, since he was doing the same thing. But she suspected he hadn’t lied about anything other than his reason for signing up in the first place.

Dana let her hand drop and turned toward the stairs with a heavy heart. Hvala whimpered at the front door. She snapped on his leash, leaving her bags on the front porch. The dog did his thing, and Dana let him back inside before she closed the door behind her and then walked home.

It was less than a mile to her Mt. Lookout neighborhood and didn’t take long to travel at all, even with her rolling bag. She let herself in her front door and walked up the flight and a half of stairs that took her to the second floor of the three-family house that she’d called home since she’d moved to town. Except, it didn’t feel nearly as homey as Deck’s half-finished firehouse. Probably because he wasn’t here.

A layer of dust covered her dining room table. The plant in the living room had given up the ghost. She should have had her upstairs neighbor water it.

Slumping in a chair in front of the bookcase in her living room, she wondered what it would take to undo the last two hours.

Probably nothing short of a time machine. Sighing, she got to her feet.

She took a shower, tied her hair back, and put on a dark navy pantsuit and a white shell blouse. There wasn’t enough makeup in the world to cover the red splotches and puffy eyes, but she did the best she could

She was at the FBI Field Office in Kenwood by eight o’clock.

Sherwood’s office was her first stop.

His new secretary was at her desk. “I need to see the boss. I’m Dana Yenichek,” she said.

“Let me just tell him you’re here,” said Sherwood’s latest assistant. She picked up her phone. “Dana Yenichek is here to see you.” She listened for a moment and then said, “You can go in.”

Dana poked her head into Sherwood’s office.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Deck Murphy figured it out. My cover was blown. He wasn’t amused.” She stated the facts with as little emotion as she could, but her voice broke on the last. “For the record, I didn’t tell him until after the cat was out of the bag. But I just want to thank you for trusting me to do this the best way I saw fit,” she said with some level of sarcasm.

His face darkened, and she realized insubordination could get her written up…or worse.

“What’s more important, this case or your pride in whether I trust your judgment?”

She sucked in a breath. She almost told him to stop being an ass, but she held her tongue. Remembering the devastated look in Deck’s eyes, she lied to her boss. “The case.”

“Then what’s the problem, Yenichek?”

She cleared her throat. “Nothing, sir.”
My heart is broken.

“You sure?”

She jerked her head in a nod.

“Turns out, he was also working a case.  Human trafficking.  His boss will contact you this morning.” She related what few details Deck had given her.

He nodded once. “I’ll talk to his captain. Go see Eric. Emilie dumped a pile of data on him last night. He’ll need help going through it all.”

“You’re the boss.”

The guys took one look at her as she entered the bull pen, and she was surrounded. “Welcome back!” … “Howdy Stranger” … “Finally decided to join us in the real work, eh?” competed in her ears with the slamming of her heart.

She took their ribbing as best she could, but she suspected she wasn’t fooling anyone.

Doc quickly steered her away from the others and over to his office. “You okay, Yenichek?” he asked.

She must look as bad as she felt.

She shrugged. “I will be.”

“You need to talk?”

She shook her head. “Not right now, but thanks.”

“You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He gently patted her shoulder with the sort of tenderness that was unexpected from a guy who had fists the size of whole chickens.

“I just need to get back to work.” She had to stop to clear her throat. “I appreciate it, though.”

He nodded knowingly, and she knew she hadn’t fooled him even a little bit.

She returned to the bull pen and stopped by Eric’s desk. “I hear you have data you need help with,” she said.

“Meet me in the war room. I’m going to get Emilie to explain some of this.”

Emilie made it there before Eric and Dana. “What are we looking at?” Dana asked.

She walked to a stack and pointed. “This is everything I could find on the eight missing girls. Some of it you’ve already seen, Dana. It was the stuff you sent back from Croatia. I did find a couple of new things that are interesting, though.”

She picked up a file folder. “Anka Pierovich and Donald Monroe petitioned for a marriage license at the Hamilton County Courthouse last July. But they never had a ceremony, and the certificate was never filed. Donald Monroe
did
, however, file a completed certificate of marriage with one Ms. Akemi Kim in September.”

“What do we know about Donald Monroe?” Dana asked.

“He works as a broker for an investment firm that handles 401K accounts, mutual funds, and the like.”

“So what’s your take?” Eric asked Emilie.

“This guy pegs my creep-o-meter.”

“Has anyone contacted him?” Dana asked.

Emilie shook her head.

Eric turned to Dana. “Know what that means?”

“We’re going to go get a few answers from the new Mr. and Mrs. Donald Monroe?” she asked hopefully.

“Eager to get out in the field?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“More than you can know.” She just wanted
something
to take her mind off the pain in her chest. Something to make her feel like she was part of this investigation again instead of sitting on her thumbs. Maybe that would be the silver lining in the little storm cloud of her life.

“Let’s go, then.” Eric looked up at the computer specialist. “Thanks for the hard work, Emilie.”

Dana echoed her thanks as well before walking back to her desk and unlocking the top drawer. She took her sidearm from within, tucked a pair of sunglasses into her hair like a headband, and stuffed a tiny wallet containing her badge, her ID, her driver’s license, a credit card, and a twenty-dollar bill into her interior breast pocket.

She and Eric picked up a car from the motor pool at the basement level. Eric drove, and she navigated as they pulled out onto Fifth Street. The morning rush hour traffic had given way to a lull that would last until eleven when the lunch rush would begin.

“The Monroes live up near Morrow,” she said. “Take the ramp for 71 North.”

“I know how to get to the highway,” he said.

She grinned at the old argument, but her mouth felt unnatural upturned. She let her face relax and rested the back of her head on the seat and concentrated on breathing.

“That was a big sigh,” Eric commented.

“Rough morning,” she said.

“This have something to do with why you’re suddenly back?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was not going to cry in front of any of her coworkers. Not even Eric. That would be the ultimate in mortification. A nightmare on the level of walking naked through one’s high school gymnasium packed for a pep rally during finals week.

“Gotcha.”

He took the Route 123 Exit off of 71, and they traveled the short distance between the highway and Morrow.

The Monroes’ house was a brick ranch with a two-car garage and haphazard flower beds that had gone to winter beige, except for some purple mums next to the door.

Eric knocked on the door, and a timid-looking Asian woman answered. “I help you?”

“We’re here to see Donald Monroe?” he said.

“Mr. Monroe not available right now,” she said with a heavy accent.

Dana tugged her badge from the interior pocket of her jacket and flipped it open. “I think he’ll make time for us,” she said.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she executed a half bow before letting them in the foyer. “I’ll get him. Wait here, please.” She scuttled away like a nervous bird.

Less than a full minute later, Donald Monroe appeared. He creeped Dana out from the first. He had dark hair and wore a shirt that was a size too small. His buttons were straining, and his open collar had a greasy ring around it. His hair was thinning significantly and he tried to hide the fact with a comb-over. His skin was pockmarked from bad acne, and his dark mustache was bristly and too long.

She tried not to wrinkle her nose in distaste as she pulled out her badge. “Mr. Monroe. I’m Special Agent Yenichek. This is Special Agent Thompson. We’re with the FBI.”

Eric opened his badge, and Monroe looked from one to the other.

“What can I do for the FBI today?” he asked, all smarm.

Dana thanked her lucky stars that she’d ended up with Deck and not some creep like this one. Of course, if she’d never met Deck, then her heart wouldn’t be broken. She wouldn’t have had to look at the anger and distrust in Deck’s eyes. And she wouldn’t have to go through the rest of her life knowing that she’d met a true man of worth whom she could have truly loved and had fucked it up beyond belief.

“We understand that you filed a marriage certificate last June with Anka Pierovich?” Eric said, bringing Dana at least somewhat back to task.

He cleared his throat as his gaze darted to his wife, and he pulled her to him, though it didn’t look as if she was actually feeling cuddly toward him. Not that Dana could blame her. “That didn’t work out.”

“Were you aware that Ms. Pierovich has disappeared?” Dana asked. She honestly
wanted
this creep to be the killer. Something about him made her skin crawl.

And she wanted to take him down and she wanted him to resist arrest. She could almost feel how his spine would feel under her knee. She almost laughed at herself.
Bloodthirsty much?

“I took her back to Dream Come True. You’ll have to ask them where she went from there.”

Dana’s eyes narrowed. “Can you tell me the exact date you…took her back?”

“Early July?”

She met Eric’s eyes, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. This guy was starting to look pretty suspicious. Maybe that whole knee-in-the-spine thing might just be possible after all.

Could he be the murderer?

“Do you know what
day
?” Dana asked, trying to pin him down.

He thought about it for a second. “It was during the week after the end of the second quarter and I think it was a Wednesday. I want to say it was before the Fourth because I took a long weekend and she wasn’t with me…” He whipped a phone from a clip on his belt. “Must have been July second.”

“Sir, can you verify your whereabouts on the Saturday evenings of August eighth, September fifteenth, October tenth, or November eighth?”

He looked at her in disbelief. “I have no idea where I was. That was months ago, for God’s sake. Do you know where
you
were on September fifteenth?”

“Investigating a brutal murder.”

That shut him up and also seemed to make him nervous. He stuck his index finger in his collar and tugged it about.

“Would you give us access to your online calendar?” Dana asked.

“Do you have a warrant?”

It had been worth a shot. Of course, now he’d delete anything incriminating off of it. She wondered how quickly she could get a warrant up here. Or if Emilie and her crew of computer geeks could unerase calendar entries.

“I got a video from her,” he said suddenly.