“Detective Evans.”
“Bill, it’s Yanis. I have an issue.”
I worked with Bill when we were both with the Grand Junction PD, before he left for Denver and I left the force altogether. It takes me a few minutes to explain the situation.
“Airport limo, you say? Hold on a sec.”
I hear some muffled voices but I can’t make out what they’re saying, when he’s suddenly back on the phone.
“Brianne Graves, forty-two, thirty-five oh five North 12th Street, apartment twenty-three?”
That gnawing feeling just became a deep burning in my gut.
“Yes,” I rasp, clearing my throat before I follow up a little stronger. “Yes, that’s Bree. Where is she? Is she okay?”
“Don’t know where she is. Discovered her wallet and phone in a bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat in an airport limo found on a shoulder near Switzer’s Gulch, not far from Deer Creek. There was a pair of sunglasses in the back seat, along with what looks like a crushed cinnamon bun in a napkin.”
“Christ,” I hiss.
If she left at six twenty and the limo was found not that far from Bobby Lee’s house, it means she’s already been missing for sixteen fucking hours.
“She there on an assignment?” Bill asks and I confirm, barely able to hold on to my composure. Bill appears to pick up on it. “She someone to you? I mean other than an employee?”
“Fuck yes,” I grind out. “She’s someone to me.”
“Damn, my friend. Looks like she might be in trouble. They found the dead driver slumped over the wheel. Knife wound to the back of the neck, at the base of the skull. Body is at the medical examiner’s office, but the detectives on the case are still there with the crime scene unit.”
It takes a minute for that information to sink in, during which time Dimi walks in and takes a seat on the other side of my desk.
“If you’re suggesting what I think you are, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Not her,” I tell Bill firmly. My eyes are glued to my brother’s worried ones. I’m sure mine reflect the same.
“She wear a blade?” Bill asks gently.
“Doesn’t matter. If she had anything to do with this, you wouldn’t have found the limo or the body.” Across from me Dimi’s eyes widen. “And she definitely wouldn’t have left her bag with all her information behind. She’s smarter than that.”
“She could’ve panicked,” he suggests.
“Bree doesn’t panic,” I fire back. “Someone took her. They would’ve had to disable her, though. She wouldn’t have gone willingly. She’s highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat.”
“Driver’s license says she’s only five two.”
“And every fucking inch of her able to fight off guys twice her size. Make no mistake.”
He harrumphs, making it clear he’s not necessarily taking my word for it, but he should. Bree is a force to be reckoned with on all levels. I should know, I haven’t been able to shake her power over me for fifteen fucking years.
“I’m flying out there,” I announce.
“No flights until morning.”
“I’ll charter one.”
Dimi nods affirmatively and leaves my office. I know he’ll be on the phone making it happen before I say my goodbyes.
“Good luck with that,” he scoffs.
“Then I’ll drive. It’s four hours.”
“Fine. Call me when you get here. I’ll take you to the scene. Smooth the way for you.”
“Appreciated,” I bite off.
“Yeah, she’s somebody special,” he confirms to himself.
I don’t bother responding and hang up.
Both Lena and Dimi are on the phone in the bullpen.
“Anything?”
Dimi shakes his head.
“Not before six in the morning,” Lena shares, hanging up.
Dimas gets off the phone as well just as Jake walks in.
“What now?”
“Load up my Yukon. Arms, tactical gear, surveillance equipment. Bring everything,” I announce. “We’re driving.”
Bree
I smell Pine-Sol and laundry detergent.
I struggle to grab hold of that information as it tries to slip from me again.
Soft.
I’m lying on my side with my cheek on a pillow. There’s no pain. I can’t hear anything and my eyes won’t open. It’s like floating just below the surface of awareness. I know it’s there, I’m reaching for it, but I keep sliding down.
Now I hear something. Voices.
I make an effort to blink my eyes open but something is covering them. A blindfold?
Where am I?
The smell of clean sheets registers and locks in. I’m in a bed, on my side.
I try to move my arm, but my hands are behind my back. It feels like handcuffs.
The voices get louder. Two men approaching.
“…your incompetence. Tell me you disposed of the driver?”
“Staged it just like you instructed.”
I force the clouds from my head and remember the red-carpet event last night. Eating a burger in the back of the limo. Sue in the kitchen this morning. Walking outside, the waiting limo, the waiting driver. Maybe six feet, stocky, Ray-Ban sunglasses, graying goatee. Could’ve been bald under the chauffeur’s cap, I’m not sure.
I’m trying to recall if I heard his voice but I don’t think he ever said anything.
Then that burning in my neck. A needle? I was drugged.
I hear the sound of a door opening and force my breathing and heart rate to slow down. Better to let them think I’m still out of it.
“This is not her. Doesn’t even look like her.”
“She’s not wearing makeup. You saw her last night, all dolled up and busting out of that dress.”
“Exactly. You’re trying to tell me this is the same woman?”
“I watched her go in and watched her come out the house again. I had my eyes on her the whole time, I swear it’s her.”
“Turn her over.”
I let myself go completely slack and resist any reaction as a pair of hands roll me to my stomach. Nothing I want more than to take out the asshole pulling my yoga pants down in the back, but I know I don’t stand a chance with my responses sluggish, my hands bound, and two of them hovering over me.
The shiver is almost impossible to suppress when I feel a finger trace down my lower back and come to rest at the base of my spin.
“See that?”
“Don’t see nothing, Boss.”
Suddenly the finger is gone and I hear the familiar sound of a hammer being pulled back on a gun.
“Bobby Lee has a tattoo there, moron. It’s not her, you stupid fuck!”
There is a sound of footsteps running from the room and another set following slower.
Still, the reverberation of a gunshot is so sudden and loud, I can’t hold back the involuntary startle.
“You awake?”
The voice is much closer than I anticipated.
If one of them got shot, it means I only have one left to deal with. I just need to bide my time.
Rough hands roll me over again and I feel his hot breath on my face.
“It’s close, I’ll have to give him that…” he mumbles under his breath.