In spite of Cameron’s assurances of protection, including an ear mike, Joshua didn’t like the idea of using Donny to find and determine if Brianne Davenport had Cheryl Smith’s Ferrari.
A search of DMV records showed that the VIN number for Brianne’s Ferrari wasn’t a match for Cheryl Smith’s car. However, for the right amount of money, and with the right connections, a VIN number can be swapped for a similar car.
Without any proof that Brianne had possession of the Ferrari belonging to the murder victim, Cameron couldn’t get a court order to examine her car.
So Donny was going in.
Joshua didn’t like it one bit.
Cameron and Joshua had listened in on the phone when Donny called the winery owner under the pretense of asking her for a part-time job after school and on weekends.
While Joshua was surprised, Cameron wasn’t when she offered the teenager a job without asking about his skills, experience, or references. “When can you start?” Brianne asked.
Donny came back with the question, “What kind of work do you want me to do?”
Her laugh was husky. “I need a new gopher.”
“Gopher?” he replied. “What’s a gopher?”
“You go-for this and go-for that.” She elaborated, “You’ll be my personal assistant.”
Cameron wrote a note for Joshua to read. “Freddie? What happened?”
After setting up an appointment for Donny to meet her at the winery for an interview the next day after school, they hung up. With a wide grin, he turned around to ask them how he had done in setting up “the sting.”
While Cameron suppressed her laughter, Joshua explained, “This is not a sting. A sting is what con artists do to marks. We’re not con artists, and Brianne Davenport is not a mark.”
“Then what is this?” Donny asked.
“This is an investigation, and you’re going in undercover to collect evidence so that I can get a search warrant,” said Cameron.
Donny’s eyes brightened. “Undercover. I like that. That’s better than working a sting.” With a bounce in his step, he left the study and jogged up the stairs to his room.
Joshua dropped into the chair behind his desk. “I’m glad he likes it because I don’t. I have a bad feeling about this whole thing.”
“He’s got you and me and two state troopers watching his back,” she said. “What could go wrong?”
They met Cameron at her office at the state police barracks located in Raccoon Township in Pennsylvania. While Irving snoozed in her chair behind her desk, Cameron inserted the ear bud into Donny’s ear and gave him last minute instructions.
“We can hear everything you and Mrs. Davenport say,” she warned him.
“And do,” Joshua added from where he sat on the corner of Cameron’s desk.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Donny said, “I have a girlfriend. Mrs. Davenport is really sexy, but she’s old, too.”
“So was Mrs. Robinson.” Cameron referred to the older woman in The Graduate, a late 1960’s movie starring Anne Bancroft as an older married woman who seduces a young Dustin Hoffman into an affair.
“Who’s Mrs. Robinson?” Donny asked. “Is she another suspect? Will I get to go undercover again after this?”
“You explain it to him,” she directed Joshua before turning to the two troopers waiting for her direction. “We need to stay close with this one.”
One advantage of a stakeout in a rural area is that there are innumerable places to hide. While Donny was driving his father’s SUV up the winding drive to the estate home on the top of the hill of Davenport Wineries, Cameron was maneuvering her cruiser along a dirt road that led to an old spring house behind the estate. If there was any trouble, it was a hop over a fence and a jog through a vineyard behind the main house to the garage.
The cruiser was a loaner from the motor pool until they fumigated hers. It had been two days since the skunk attack and all she had received from the motor pool was a stuffed toy skunk left on her desk.
“Not that I expect there to be any trouble,” Cameron assured Joshua to ease his nerves. “All he has to do is ask if he can take her Ferrari for a spin. He looks under the hood when she shows it to him, which all young men like to do; and then snap a picture of the VIN number with his cell phone, and send it to me to compare with the VIN to Cheryl’s car.” She smiled. “How easy is that?”
“Can you stop talking?” Joshua was staring straight ahead to the back of the Davenport house. “The more you tell me how easy it is, the more nervous I get.” He shook his head. “I have a really bad feeling about this. What happened to Freddie?”
“He probably quit because he got tired of sleeping with an older woman . . . even if she is hot.” Cameron reached across the front of the cruiser to pat his leg. “Donny is going to be fine.”
He turned to her. His eyes narrowed to blue slits.
She pulled back her hand. “I’ll stop talking.”
“Thank you.”
When she greeted Donny, Brianne’s voice through the speaker sounded as breathlessly excited as a child seeing a long awaited birthday present come through the door. After some small talk while she showed Donny around the mansion, Brianne confessed, “I was surprised when you called me. I had heard you had a girlfriend.”
“I do,” Donny replied.
During the moment of silence, Cameron cursed into her mike. “Wrong answer, Donny. Now she thinks you really are looking for a job. Let her know that you’re willing to play the field. She has to think you’re interested in her.”
“She’s not really my girlfriend,” he backtracked. “We go out and kiss and stuff, but we still see other people.”
“What kind of stuff?” Joshua asked.
Brianne’s voice moved in closer and grew deeper. “I’m glad to hear that. You had me worried there for a minute.”
There was a long moment of silence and the sound of movement, followed by a kiss.
Cameron saw Joshua shift uncomfortably in his seat. She jerked around when she saw him pull his gun out from where he had it concealed under his jacket. Over the years of encountering one deadly case after another, Joshua learned to never be without his semi-automatic Berretta handgun within easy reach. He checked the chamber.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Shoot Brianne? All she’s doing is kissing him.”
“I’ve got a very bad feeling,” he said. “It keeps getting worse.”
“Do I have the job?” Donny asked.
She laughed. “Don’t you even want to know what I’m paying you?”
“Sure. How much?”
“Five thousand dollars a month.”
“What?” Donny and Cameron gasped in unison.
Brianne continued laughing. “Let’s get started. We’ll start in the bedroom.”
When Joshua grabbed the door handle, she grabbed his wrist. “Wait!”
“Can I see your cars first?” Donny asked with the eagerness of boyish youth. “You promised that I could drive one.”
“Yes, I did.” Brianne sounded disappointed. “Okay. They’re out in the garage. I have half a dozen beauties, and there are plenty of roads that we can turn them out on at high speed. I’ll let you take your pick. Would you like a Corvette, Porsche, Jaguar—”
“Didn’t you tell me that you had a Ferrari?”
Cameron and Joshua held their breath while waiting for her answer.
There was a silence while Brianne seemed to gauge her response. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have one.”
“I’ve always wanted to drive a Ferrari,” Donny said. “I’ve only seen pictures of them, but never have seen one up close and live.”
His excitement seemed to calm her nerves. “I guess there’s no time like the present.”
Cameron set her phone on the top of her laptop along with the VIN number they were looking for.
“All he has to do is take the picture of the VIN,” Joshua muttered. “Then he gets out of there.”
“What if she locks the garage and won’t let him out until he gives her a sample of his work?” When she saw Joshua’s deadpanned expression she said, “It’s a joke, Josh. She isn’t really going to lock him in there.”
“Are you sure about that?”
An echo in their voices indicated that they were now in the garage.
“Wow!” Donny shouted. “I’ve never seen so many fancy rides in one place, except on television.”
“Very good,” Cameron said to Donny through the mike.
“He’s not lying,” Joshua said.
“Can I check it out under the hood?” Donny asked.
“Be my guess,” Brianne replied.
They heard a pop like a hood being raised on a car. Brianne rattled off the size of the engine and other specs that would impress any car buff.
“Do you mind if I take a picture of it to show my friends?” Donny told her that his friends would never believe him otherwise.
After she had granted him permission, Cameron snatched up her phone to watch for the close-up image of the vehicle identification number on the engine of the Ferrari. “Got it.” She held up the picture to the long number she had.
“Ready to take it for—” Brianne’s invitation was cut off by a scream, followed by a shriek and grunt from Donny.
“Move in!” Cameron called out across the mike to the troopers. “It’s gone bad. Move in!”
Joshua didn’t hear her order. He was already out of the cruiser and over the fence.
By the time Cameron had cleared the fence, Joshua had turned the corner of the garage with his gun drawn. The siren from the troopers screamed while they made their way up the twisted driveway.
Joshua estimated them to be one minute out. That was one minute too long. Inside the garage, he could hear Brianne screaming and begging hysterically. He found out why when he went in through the garage door to find that Freddie had taken Donny hostage, and was holding a box cutter to his throat.
Freddie’s complexion was deathly white with dark circles around his red rimmed eyes that were wide with crazed anger.
Joshua barged in with his gun drawn and his finger on the trigger. “Drop the razor, Freddie!”
“Don’t!” Brianne screamed when he moved in on his target. “He’s going to kill him! He means it!”
“Drop it, Freddie!” Cameron yelled from behind Joshua.
“You mean like she dropped me?” Freddie hissed into Donny’s ear. “Like she’ll dump you as soon as another young beefcake looking for an older woman to show him the way crosses her path.” He cried out, “I loved you!”
Brianne shrieked.
He muttered into Donny’s ear, “Then she tossed me out like I was yesterday’s garbage. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“Hey, all I wanted was a ride in her car, man! I wasn’t look for—”
“It feels like agony!”
“So get yourself a new girl,” Donny suggested.
“I loved her!” Freddie gritted his teeth. “I’m going to save you the agony . . . and let her watch me do it.”
“No!” Brianne screamed through her tears.
“Dad!”
“I’m here, son. He’s not going to do it.” Joshua could see Donny fighting to keep the tears from his eyes. There was no way his son was going to let any of them see him cry.
“Who’s going to stop me, Daddy?” Freddie asked with a wild laugh.
“Me.”
Freddie pulled Donny in closer and pressed the blade tighter against his throat. “Do you really have the balls to take the chance of shooting your own son?”
“Somebody do something!” Brianne screamed. “He’s going to kill him.”
“Josh . . .” Cameron whispered behind him. “I’ll let you make the call.”
Joshua’s eyes met his son’s.
Donny took a deep breath.
Joshua could see Donny’s lips move. He pressed his finger against the trigger.
One.
Two.
Three.
Donny jerked to the left, away from the razor.
Joshua pulled the trigger. Advancing, he pulled it again, and again, and again.
The first bullet tore through the forearm of the arm holding the blade before hitting Freddie in the shoulder. The shot was enough to free Donny, and for him to plunge to the floor below the gunshots. The second and third bullets hit Freddie in the chest. As he fell, the fourth bullet hit him between the eyes and came out the back of his head to splatter his brains across the front of a freezer behind him.
“Are you okay?” Joshua checked Donny’s neck. There was a small cut where Freddie had the blade pressed against it.
“Someone just tried to kill me. How do you think I am?” Donny was breathing heavily, a technique he used when playing football to keep his nerves under control.
Joshua wrapped his arm around his shoulders. Warning him not to hug him there, in front of everyone, Donny shot him a look. When he felt his son tremble, he said, “Let’s go home, son.”
“Four shots fired, and four hit their targets,” Cameron reported to them. “I’m impressed with how you pulled that off.”
She saw that Brianne was already holding onto the younger of the two troopers, the more attractive of the two, for all it was worth. She was dressed in a slinky, ultra-short black dress with high heels for Donny’s job interview.