Cold Snap, page 33
“I bet it’s the FBI,” Linda stated thoughtfully. “Some sort of trafficking ring. That hot cowboy and his girl were undercover FBI agents who ran out of this café to take down the bad guys.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Brynn turned away from the window. “Grady would have recognized them.”
Angus huffed out a rough laugh. “There are thousands of FBI agents, Brynn.” He looked thoughtful, though. “Unless Grady is undercover, too.”
Brynn stared hard at the scene. “Why would he be undercover?”
“Grady Steel is a disgrace. Maybe they’re here to investigate him.” The mayor shot her a look full of malice.
“Grady Steel is a nice young man who has served his country well. Maybe he’s investigating white collar crimes. Corruption?” Fancy raised her silver brows in a guileless smile that fooled no one.
The mayor’s expression shut down. “He’ll find himself in jail again before the end of the day, you mark my words.”
“I don’t think so, Mayor.” Brynn turned to the man. “You seem to have forgotten I was with Grady last night, and there’s no way he killed the Quayles, so why would he end up in jail?”
The mayor raised his nose in the air. “Can’t be a coincidence he arrived the same night Milton died.”
Brynn felt sick at the implication. She shook her head to try to clear it. She wanted to kick the guy out, but at this rate she’d be banning everyone in town and her parents would have no customers left. Still, she didn’t have to listen to his sly gossip either. Not when it impugned her reputation as well as Grady’s.
The mayor wasn’t done. “He comes from bad stock—”
Fancy drew herself up on an indrawn breath. “I’ve known Grady Steel since he was a small boy and, while his father might be a poor example of humanity, the rest of his family are good people and some of the founders of this town. His bloodline has been here for centuries, and you should have a little more respect.” She wasn’t finished. “Grady Steel understandably struggled as a child because of a violent parent he didn’t choose and the tragic early death of his mother.”
The mayor opened his mouth to say something, but Fancy cut him off. “You’re quite happy to give one of his teenage partners in trouble another chance as sheriff. Why are you so afraid of Grady?”
The mayor sputtered. “I’m not afraid—”
Fancy cut him off. “Maybe it’s because he’s part of one of the world’s most elite tactical law enforcement units and doesn’t let wrongs slide.” Her sharp eyes cut to Brynn. “He was a late bloomer, but it was more than worth the wait to see what he made of himself given the slimmest of opportunities.”
Brynn smiled at the woman, understanding the seal of approval from at least one of the town elders.
“You know,” Brynn rubbed her hands together, “I have no clue what’s going on down there, but it feels like a sign. I’m sorry but we’re closing early. I can give you all to-go cups for the drinks.”
The mayor’s wife scowled, but Fancy smiled and started pulling on her coat.
“I’ll throw in a couple of chocolate brownies or a muffin each for the inconvenience.”
The mayor’s wife looked slightly mollified although her mouth was still sour. It was always sour.
Damn. Brynn didn’t want to turn out like that. Comfortably wealthy but a total bitch. She’d rather be poor and happy.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Brian,” Linda muttered under her breath.
“You three head home,” Brynn told her staff as the customers shuffled their way out of the door. “I’ve got this. Don’t forget to take your soup and goodies from out of the fridge, and I’ll see you on Thursday.”
It took another five minutes to wipe down the tables one last time and give the kitchen a final once-over. She checked the thermostat, although she could control it from her cell phone if needed.
Then she pulled on her jacket and hat and opened the fridge to grab her own food. She stopped short in surprise. Her father had forgotten to take his bag of chowder and rolls and other treats. She rolled her eyes. It was so like him.
She grabbed both packages before going out the back and onto the deck. The wind stole her breath, but the snow really wasn’t that bad yet.
People were rushing around down at the harbor, and Brynn knew something bad had happened. Maybe they’d found the person responsible for all this. Maybe it was over.
She hoped so. She really hoped so.
She was supposed to call Grady when she was done, but it was still light out, so she figured she’d quickly run this stuff over to her mom and dad first. She’d still be home hours before she’d told Grady she’d finish work. Or, if he was back at the house maybe he could come with her for the drive. The idea of him meeting her parents, even for five minutes, didn’t completely terrify her.
What was with that?
She stifled a yawn. Or maybe she’d slip into his bed and wait for him there, wearing nothing but a smile.
A girl could dream.
56
Grady dropped Murphy at the house, grabbed his vehicle, and drove to the harbor so fast the Jeep skidded on the slick roads. He pulled up to the edge of the harbor road, a hundred yards from where Milton’s boat bobbed in the water.
Grady hung his creds around his neck and, as he did so, felt a measure of peace settle over him. He didn’t have to pretend any more.
He strode past two deputies and whirled when one guy grabbed his arm. He twisted free and raised the creds to eye level.
“FBI. Touch me again and I’ll break your arm.” He stared hard into the wild eyes of one of the deputies who’d held on to him this morning as Darrell York had plowed his fist into his face.
Understanding slowly dawned and the guy stuttered, “B-but you’re not working for the FBI anymore.”
Grady allowed himself a mean smile. “I was always working for the FBI, asshole.”
He shook the guy off and strode toward Novak who stood at the mouth of the narrow alley that led to Brynn’s café. None of the guys wore breathing units so it must have been deemed safe at this distance.
Grady looked up at the café but the lights were off, save for the cheery fairy lights strung around the window.
Had Brynn closed early?
He hoped so.
He hoped she was back at the house now, safe and sound. Maybe catching some sleep because he had plans for them both as soon as he was done here tonight. Hopefully, after he’d told her the truth about why he was really here so there would be no more lies between them.
“What happened?” he asked when he was close enough not to raise his voice.
“Cowboy was at the end of the marina walkway when the woman came on deck. She caught him checking out the boat.” Novak’s brows drew together. “A car drove up around the same time. The woman spoke to Ryan and mentioned Sergei by name. Then she tossed the perfume bottle at Cowboy. It smashed on the wood, but Ryan was already in the water. Donnelly shot the suspect dead.”
Grady nodded at Donnelly, who looked pale. Taking a life could do that to a person.
“Ryan okay?” Grady asked.
“He seemed fine afterward. Was in the water before the bottle hit the dock.”
Grady nodded, relieved. The thought of losing another of his friends was gut wrenching.
“He was pretty pissed.” Donnelly’s lips were pinched.
Novak pressed his into a matching thin line. “Medic assessed him back at the hotel. His quick action saved his life.”
Donnelly looked upset. “I messed up. I was in his line of fire. He couldn’t shoot her without risking hitting me.”
“Seems to me one of you had to move, and you’re the one who had her contained.” Grady shrugged even though Ryan had come perilously close to death—assuming the perfume bottle did, indeed, contain poison and not eau de cologne. “If you feel that bad about making him go in for a dip, you can jump in when this is over.”
Her smile trembled. “Not sure I feel that bad. It looks freezing in there.”
“It is,” Grady agreed. “No one else was injured?”
“All the boats on that pier were thankfully empty. Nash checked with the hand-held radar. There was one guy on one of the fishing boats but we were able to get him off to safety in a mask and biohazard suit—as a precaution.” Novak looked up at the thick clouds. “The offshore wind and poor weather conditions worked in our favor. And thanks to Cowboy and Donnelly’s scouting yesterday, we had the neutralizing agent flown in last night and deployed it near and over the spillage. Military wants to send a unit out of Fort Detrick to work with the WMD team coming up from headquarters. They’ll likely remove all the wooden planks and probably take the boat for testing, although the Russians appear to have been living onboard without any mask or gloves, so we’re presuming it’s clean. We took samples for analysis, and the field test confirmed it was likely some form of nerve agent.”
“Lushko wanted the world to know who killed Kane if and when he found him,” said Grady.
“Or the Russians ordered the hit. Not like they’d ever admit it anyway, so their denials mean nothing.” Novak hunched his shoulders against the wind. “Maybe using Lushko gives them plausible deniability—they can say he acted alone. However it shakes out, he and his partner had a supply of deadly Russian nerve agent. Someone must be held accountable for that.”
Grady was extra glad he wasn’t a spook.
“Nash did the preliminary examination of the boat with a camera in full biohazard gear and is currently being scrubbed down in our portable decontamination unit by Keeme and Griffin, even though he didn’t detect anything onboard. The air seems to be free of the toxin. We were very, very lucky no one else was hurt today.”
Grady saw Ryan Sullivan loping down the alley.
Ryan’s hair was damp, but he was wearing dry clothes, black tactical pants, shirt, and vest, plus a dark raid jacket with FBI stenciled on the back in yellow. He was fully geared up, too. “Any word?”
Novak shook his head.
Grady looked around and caught Darrell York’s angry gaze where he stood talking to deputies on the opposite side of the harbor. “I guess the undercover part of the operation is officially over?”
Novak nodded. “Ropero and Dobson are at the hotel coordinating our next step, but this is an FBI crime scene. I’ve requested as many agents as possible from the three nearest satellite offices, assuming the weather permits travel.” He checked his wristwatch. “Lushko is in the wind. We have a make and model of the vehicle he was last seen driving, a silver Subaru Forrester sporting bullet holes in the driver and passenger doors.”
“He might be injured?”
Ryan nodded. “We did our best but shooting and swimming at the same time is hard.”
“Slacker.” Grady grinned.
“Can we trust the locals to guard the scene while we brainstorm the next move?” Novak asked him.
“Not sure we have much choice until we can get other agents down here. The possibility of a bioterrorism attack should be enough to garner their full cooperation. The Medical Examiner knows what they’re dealing with?” Grady asked.
Safety of personnel was paramount.
“Yeah. They know the drill. We double bagged the body and decontaminated between bags,” Novak replied, then strode over to ask Sheriff York for his department’s assistance.
The less Grady had to do with the guy the better. Could Darrell be working with Kane? Grady didn’t know.
Grady’s cell rang. He checked it and felt a bolt of disappointment it wasn’t Brynn. He wanted to talk to her even though he didn’t have a lot of time to explain the details. “Grady.”
It was Ropero. “Hey, those cigarette butts you picked up outside the café the night you had your head bashed in?”
Grady grunted. He’d forgotten all about them.
“One of them was Kane.”
“What?” Grady strode up the alleyway until he reached the gate where he’d been attacked. His blood was still on the ground.
Ryan followed him. Grady looked around. “He’d have had a clear view of the harbor from here.”
“The harbor and the café.” Ryan narrowed his eyes at the back of the building.
Grady felt something niggling at him. “Who do we have left on our list of suspects with safe deposit boxes?” he asked Ropero.
“Angus Hubner, Kent Callow, Allan Grogan, and Mayor Brian Gesbriecht. We haven’t found anything to definitively eliminate any of them yet.”
The café’s chef, the waitress’s husband, his sister’s father-in-law, and the town mayor. If the FBI brought any one of them in for questioning Grady’s popularity in town was going to further plummet. Not that it mattered.
“Can we get eyes on all four of them? Or warrants to set up some sort of surveillance?”
“Not sure a judge will go for surveilling all four of them on so little circumstantial evidence.” She blew out a long breath. “This storm is about to shut everything down. I think we should ask the locals to cordon off the area and leave a patrol unit there. We reconvene at the hotel and go through the data again. Maybe bring the sheriff in on the investigation but monitor him.”
“You dig up anything on him or any of the others?”
“I’m still digging. Sheriff looks clean but his daddy has those dubious financial transactions in his past.”
“He isn’t Kane though. He was first elected before Kane went AWOL.”
“Of the others, all four came to live in town after Kane disappeared. All married after Kane disappeared except for Angus Hubner, who is a bachelor.”
Grady didn’t like the fact that two of the suspects had close ties to Brynn. “I’m gonna call Brynn and check on her. She closed the café early today. I want to tell her some of the truth. It’s not as if everyone isn’t going to find out in the next thirty minutes thanks to the dead Russian woman lying in the harbor and the emergence of a bunch of FBI HRT tactical operators out of nowhere.”
“That reminds me.” Ropero’s voice dropped lower. “There’s zero activity on credit cards, cell phone, passport, tax filings, and social security after the husband disappeared two years ago. I mean zero activity.”
Grady stared toward where the dead woman’s shrouded form was slowly being covered in snow. “You think Brynn’s husband is deceased?”
“I didn’t say that, but if he’s alive he’s living deep under the radar. Deep, deep. She divorced him in absentia.” There was a long pause. “Be careful, okay.”
That Ropero thought Brynn might be involved in her husband’s death was ridiculous but then, she didn’t know Brynn the way he did.
Grady remembered Saul. “Shit, I almost forgot. I spoke to someone today who told me it was the Quayles who hit the bank. Source said they were visiting the Catfish Crossing compound yesterday afternoon. Said the Russians went walkabout on the Quayle property and one of the Quayles warned them off with a shotgun.”
“DNA came back on the unknown Quayle. He isn’t Kane, but the Russians wouldn’t know that.” Ropero spoke thoughtfully. “Who was the source of information, Brynn Webster?”
He bristled at her tone. “No. Saul Jones.” He braced himself to lie to a fellow agent and wondered if Saul was worth it. “He figured out yesterday that the Quayles robbed the bank and when he confronted them, they gave him money to buy his silence. He had a change of heart when he spoke to me about an hour ago.”
Ropero snorted. “I bet he did.”
“I persuaded him to turn himself in,” Grady conceded. “If he doesn’t, he won’t be hard to find.”
“Okay. Do we think the Russians killed the Quayles? Why?”
Grady shook his head. “No fucking idea.”
“Still doesn’t feel right, unless he chickened out of killing the woman and kid at the last minute,” Cowboy added, listening in to the conversation.
Grady shivered. Why would Kane be standing here in this spot in the recent past?
Suddenly Edith’s words came back to him.
“Hey, you know we cleared Brynn’s father based on her DNA.”
“DNA you provided,” Ropero reminded him.
He bit his lip. It felt like a betrayal of Brynn but what if…
“I spoke to Edith Bodurek about an hour ago. She told me Brynn and her father were at the bank not long before the robbery, changing documents for the business so Brynn was a signatory. Their box is on the side where the print was found.”
“Yeah?” Ropero obviously sensed the same something that was beginning to niggle at his mind.
“Brynn told me something I hadn’t realized the other day. She wasn’t born here. They moved here when she was two. Do me a favor. See if you can find out any more information about—”
“Wait. Wait. I have it.” Ropero sounded excited now. “We pulled her birth certificate as part of the deeper dive, but I hadn’t gotten to it yet. I was looking at the ex, not at her. I haven’t had time with everything happening so fast.”
She swore.
“Tell me,” Grady demanded, feeling as if he was about to get stabbed in the heart.
“Her father isn’t listed on the birth certificate.”
He frowned. That was weird. He had the horrible feeling he knew why. “Did Paul Webster adopt her?”
“Not as far as I can tell. But he definitely isn’t named… Get back here while I take a look into Paul Webster.”
“No.” Grady held Ryan’s gaze. “No. I’m going to find Brynn.”
“Grady—”
“I’m going to find Brynn. I won’t tell her about Kane. Track her phone. Then do a deep dive into the Websters.” He gave Ropero Brynn’s cell number as he strode down the alley back to his Jeep. Ryan stuck to his shoulder, also on the phone with Novak.
This was it. This was the lead they’d been waiting for, and it was his fault they’d missed it earlier. His over confidence.
“Paul Webster is Kane. I’m sure of it.”
Could he be wrong about Brynn, too? No. He didn’t believe that.
