Truth & Lies: A Queen City Justice Novel (22 page)

“I was sent to the US to live with my grandparents—my father’s parents, because my mother’s parents had passed away by that point. I remember the social worker talking to me before she dropped me off…”

Even though he wasn’t prompting her for anything more, she kept talking, as if once she’d opened the floodgates, they were too difficult to shut again. He just kept listening, grateful for whatever she’d give him.

“She made it really clear that I shouldn’t tell anyone what happened. Not even my grandparents.
This is your fresh start, Draghana,
she said. I have to believe they knew at least part of what happened, but they never brought it up, and I certainly couldn’t talk about it.”

She exhaled on a whoosh. “Well that was more than you were expecting, I’d bet.”

He took one of her hands in his. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “It means… It means a lot.”

She didn’t reply, but he could tell she wanted to.

To change the subject to something less painful, Deck slid the small gift box she’d given him off the tabletop and into his hands. “So what is this?” he asked.

“Not easy to find around here,” she said. “Open it.”

He tore off the dark blue paper and opened the small box. On a bed of cotton, he found a heavy gold chain with a charm. The amulet was tiny—smaller than the size of the nail on his little finger—and depicted the bust of a man with onyx skin, gold eyes and lips, and wearing a red-and-white turban with black dots.

He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he could tell from the look on her face that it was important to her.

“It’s a traditional Croatian gift. It’s called a
Morčić
.”

“A Moor-cheech? Does it mean something?” He took the chain from the box and realized he wouldn’t be able to get it over his head. He handed it to her and stood, presenting her with his back so she could put it on him.

Her fingers brushed his as she scraped it out of his palm. Deck resisted the urge to curl his fingers around her smaller ones.

She stood close enough behind him that her breasts brushed his shoulder blades as she threaded the chain around his neck. Deck held his breath and tried to pretend his body didn’t have very serious opinions about the proximity of hers.

“It may be kind of silly, but it’s supposed to have protective powers. It’ll protect you both from past hurts and any future problems.”

She finished fastening the chain and let go, stroking her hands lightly down the tops of his shoulders.

He felt her touch all the way down to his toes. He swiveled around until he was facing her.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered as she slowly eased back.

Deck caught her by the wrist and pulled her closer. He knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. It was just that his eyes locked on to hers and he couldn’t seem to look away. Especially not after she bared her soul to him.

“Thanks,” he whispered in return just before his lips met hers.

Dana sucked in a breath as his tongue traced the seam of her lips. It didn’t take much encouragement to get her to wrap her arms around his neck, bringing her close enough that he tugged her against his chest. She just tasted so good…smelled so good…felt so good in his arms that the moment she was there, he couldn’t find it in himself to let her go.

The problem was, he knew where this could go and suspected how good it would be. He also knew he didn’t want a repeat of their morning-after.

Dana scraped her fingernails lightly over his scalp, and he felt himself weakening. Her tongue delved into his mouth to play with his. His palm found its way down to her round hips. He squeezed gently, bringing her even more tightly against him, his arousal digging into the softness of her belly.

Every second this went on made it exponentially harder to pull away. She moaned in the back of her throat and wrapped one leg around his calf.

It gave him just enough of a distraction that he ripped himself out of her arms. Dana whimpered as he did so. She was breathing hard, her eyes dark pools as she looked up into his.

“We can’t,” he whispered.

She opened her mouth as if to argue.

“I—
I
can’t,” he clarified. “Not now. Not…
yet
.”

He saw hope fill her gaze, and he recognized it as the same hope that filled him at the possibility that they could work this thing out.

He’d forgiven her for her lies. He just didn’t know how he could get past her
ability
to lie.



Date unknown, early evening.

Somewhere in Southwestern, Ohio

At the end of her rope and her hope, Anka had a life-altering epiphany. As her captor passed her dinner through the slot in the door, he spoke. “I’m taking your clothes to the laundry tomorrow. Have them ready.”

It was a conversation they had nearly weekly, so it wasn’t what he said that made this a red-letter, lightning-bolt-out-of-the-sky moment.

It was what she found after she finished eating and began to gather her clothing. The receipt from the previous week’s clothing was still affixed to one of the hangers by a safety pin. He’d removed the plastic sheeting, probably thinking, and rightly so, that she could use it to suffocate herself.

She had worked there for a couple of weeks between her fiancé dropping her off and the torture of her current life. What she learned from that experience was attention to detail. The pockets of every item were thoroughly checked. All it took was one tube of lipstick to ruin an entire batch of clothing.

She had no pens, pencils, or anything else she could write with. What she did have, however, was a register receipt—the kind that had duplicate copies, where pressure from the printing on the top copy caused the same marks to show on the second, yellow copy.

Anka’s heart began slamming inside her chest, and her hands began to shake in anticipation. For the briefest of moments, she allowed hope to fill her. To believe, if just for a second, that she might make it through this god-awful ordeal.

The receipt was small, maybe five by ten centimeters. And there was already writing in the middle of it. She flattened the receipt against the closet door, and poised the round bottom edge over the paper. She needed a short message that would have maximum impact. She struggled to find the right words in English.

Finally, she settled on
Help! I am Anka Pierovich and I am captive. Call police!

She folded the note carefully so that her message wouldn’t be obliterated when it was crammed in the bag with the rest of her clothes. She pinned the note inside of a pocket and hoped that he wouldn’t look too carefully.

As she placed her clothing in the mesh bag he’d given her, she prayed that this would work.

It just had to. She couldn’t take any more.



Friday, December 12—4:00 p.m.

Terra Haute, Indiana

“This is becoming a joke,” Rey said to Jack as they walked into the office of yet another branch of Avis.

“We have to find him one day. No one’s luck can hold out forever.”

“This guy seems luckier than most.”

“No arguments here.”

Rey stepped up to the counter, where a blonde teenager was talking on the desk phone. He didn’t even bother to wait until she was done with her conversation—something about the guy who’d just dumped her. He flipped open his badge.

“Paula, I’m going to have to call you back. The FBI is here.” She put down the phone, her eyes on Jack,
natch
.

“How can I help you?” she asked, her eyes telegraphing interest in more than why the FBI was standing in front of her.

“Special Agent Rey Rodriguez. This is my partner, Special Agent Jack Falcon.”  He whipped the picture of Michael Milton out of his pocket and set it on the counter. “Have you seen this man?”

She studied the picture, and Jack sighed, knowing this was a complete waste of time.

“Yeah. He rented a car maybe twenty minutes ago.”

Rey straightened, suddenly coming to attention. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” From the inbox under the counter, she brought out a white sheet of paper. She looked at the page on which Rey could see what appeared to be the photocopy of a driver’s license. Rey couldn’t see the details to see if it was their guy.

“Richard Keller, right?” she asked.

Rey felt his shoulders slump. “May I see that?” he asked.
Fuck.
He’d thought they had him.

She handed over the sheet of paper.

Jack peered over his shoulder. “Name’s wrong. Face is right. Fake license?”

Rey’s hope was renewed. “I need the information on this car,” he said.

The girl swiveled toward her computer and put her fingertips to the keyboard. “He rented a gold Chevy Cobalt.”

“I need the license plate.”

She read off the numbers. Jack turned to Rey, who was already on his phone. “Emilie. I need an APB.”

“I can tell you exactly where he is,” the girl said.

“Excuse me?”

“All our cars are LoJacked.” She clicked a few keys. “He’s on Route 40 heading west. He just passed Third Street.”

Rey updated Emilie.

“Can you do me a favor and stay on the phone with us while we go track this guy down?”

She smiled like she was having an adventure. “Sure. God, I can’t wait to tell Paula I helped the FBI apprehend a perp.”

Rey didn’t want to count his chickens before they hatched, but he’d
love
for her to be able to make that call to Paula. Hell, he’d be willing to call Paula himself and tell her.

“Let’s go,” Rey said. “Emilie’s contacting the Terra Haute police department. She’ll have them send a couple of black-and-whites after him.”

Rey got the number from the Avis clerk and dialed so they knew they had a connection in advance, then he and Jack made tracks for their own rental car.

The clerk stayed on the line until they caught up with the uniformed officers who’d pulled Michael Milton over and cuffed him.

“You’re a tough man to find,” Jack said. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I want my lawyer,” Milton replied.

“Call him and tell him to meet you at the FBI Field Office in Cincinnati,” Rey told him before reading him his rights. He crammed Milton in the backseat of their car with his hands still cuffed behind him, then turned the child locks on before shutting the door.

Meanwhile, Jack searched through Milton’s rental car. There was no point in dragging it into the impound lot. He’d had it for less than a half an hour. Opening the trunk, he found a suitcase, zipped up tight. In the console, Milton’s cell phone.

Nothing else. He’d have preferred a giant sign with an arrow stating:
Killer This Way
, but they had the man they’d been driving all over hell and beyond to find, and they could go home now. All in all, the day was looking up.

Jack pulled the suitcase from the trunk and turned to the uniformed officer. “See that this car gets back to Avis.”

Milton took his right to silence seriously, nodding off as soon as they pulled onto I-70 heading toward Indianapolis.  Maybe he felt relief at finally no longer being on the run.  God knew, Rey’s relief was reminding him how long it had been since he’d had a decent night’s sleep.

In less than three hours, they’d be back in Cincinnati.



Friday, December 12—8:00 p.m.

Cincinnati FBI Field Office, Kenwood Neighborhood, Cincinnati, Ohio

“My client is willing to offer information and testimony against certain individuals in exchange for immunity from any prosecution and a spot in the witness protection program.”

Rey looked over at the federal prosecutor, who nodded. “As long as he had no active role in the slayings and that the information checks out,” she said.

Milton’s attorney nodded at him.

Rey began. “How do you know John Giordano?”

“John was an associate.”

“Associate?”

Milton exhaled. “My bookie.”

“Ah. Okay. And what is your association now?”

“He…forgave some of my debts, and I gave him one of our leftover brides, who he said he was going to marry.”

“What was this woman’s name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Milton shook his head. “No. About the time he started asking for more brides, he stopped talking about her.”

Rey slid a picture of Anka Pierovich, grabbed from the video she was forced to make, in front of him. “This her?”

Milton shook his head. “No. But this girl was another leftover bride who I gave to him.”

He slid the photograph of Lucija Vukelich taken at her crime scene, identified by her family after seeing this very photo. “This her?”

All the color drained from Milton’s face. “Oh God.” He shook his head. “That’s another of my girls. I’m… I think… I’m going to be sick.”

Rey slid a plastic trash can toward him with his foot just in time for Milton to lose his dinner.
Eww
.

Very deliberately, he placed the picture of the woman found in Newport in front of him.

“Stop,
please
,” Milton said.

“What did you think was happening to these ‘leftover brides’?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t
want
to know.”

“Is. This. Her?” Rey asked between gritted teeth.

“No,” Milton whispered.

The only other woman it could be was the first one, Elena Kovać. The one who hadn’t been found until a couple of weeks after she’d been killed and left lying in the woods. Something—the coroner thought coyotes—had ripped out her throat and peeled away part of her face.

He got just a hair too much enjoyment placing that image in front of Milton, who immediately started bawling his eyes out.

“That’s her,” he choked out before his head went down on his crossed arms and he sobbed. “I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me what he did with them, and I didn’t want to know.”

Rey looked over at the US Attorney. “He’s all yours now.” Then he looked dead into the two-way mirror at where he knew Sherwood would be standing. “It’s time to get Giordano back in here.”