Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BECKETT
I glanced down at my ringing phone. It was Callahan. I had spoken to my old partner more this week than I had the entire year prior to this.
"Hello." I was just finishing my workout, so I was a little out of breath.
"Hey. I know you're off the Dunkin case, but I thought you'd want to know. Alexander's missing."
I stopped chugging my ice-cold bottle of water and set it down on the weight bench. I had called Callahan after my meeting and told him what happened. Needless to say, he wasn't happy with my predicament any more than I was.
"What do you mean missing? Has he gone underground?" If the FBI was looking hard at him––although I doubted that was the case––then maybe I could see him holing up for some time.
"Nope. The word on the street is he was kidnapped."
Something nagged me about that statement. "What do you mean kidnapped? Like an opposing family? Are people thinking now that he doesn't have an heir, it's the perfect time to take over his organization?"
I was no expert on crime families, but I did know a thing or two from working on this case for so long. Every one of Dunkin's enemies would be trying to get a piece of him now that Lex was gone.
"Or maybe a certain woman who insists his family has something to do with her best friend missing."
Shit!
It was likely Anita was the one behind Alexander's disappearance.
"You seriously think she took him?"
"You don't? And it's not like he's the first Dunkin to go missing lately. You said Mason was released, but you haven't been able to find him since. Coincidence? I'm not so sure."
I hadn't even thought about that. I assumed Mason ran away again like he did all those years ago. But was it possible Anita kidnapped him as well?
"I guess your opinion of her has changed." It wasn't a question. I knew my partner pretty damn well, and if there was one thing he taught me, it was to do the right thing.
"I never said that."
Wait…
His answer had my head spinning. So much for thinking I knew Callahan.
"Are you telling me you would condone what she's doing if she in fact did kidnap Mason and Alexander?"
Who was this guy, and what did he have to do with my old mentor? Was retirement getting to him?
"I'm saying, I've seen a lot of shit in my career.
A lot of criminals squeak by because the law protected them when it should've protected their victims. Dunkin's one of those scumbags who got off more times than he should and my gut tells me he was going to once again, so yeah, I think I would condone it.
I think if Anita's doing what we suspect, then hell yeah, I get it. "
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You always taught me to do the right thing."
"Who am I to say the right thing isn't to eliminate that asshole before he hurts someone else?"
I floundered for a few seconds. "The law?"
Yeah, that came out like a question because damn right was I questioning everything I knew and learned in that moment.
"Do you remember the St. James case?"
How could I forget? We worked that case my first year on the job, and it still haunted me to this day.
"Yeah." My voice cracked ever so slightly. We had worked our asses off to put a serial killer, whose MO was to rape little girls before dropping their bodies back off at their parents’ houses, behind bars. We got lucky that DNA was transferred to one of the victims, and we were able to match it to our suspect. Unfortunately the case hadn’t ended the way we hoped.
The guy got off because the lab tech screwed up, and the evidence was thrown out of court.
"If someone like Anita had handled the problem back then, there never would've been another victim after he’d been released from prison."
Just three weeks after St. James was released, another little girl was found raped and discarded on her front porch. The only difference was, the father had stumbled across the killer leaving the girl and killed him.
Now we had one dead little girl, who should've lived if the court had done its job, and a father sitting in prison for taking the law into his own hands. At the time, I had praised him for what he did, so how were Anita's activities any different?
"You're right."
"I know, and for someone in our line of work, that's hard to admit, but there comes a time when this job changes you. I think it's just happening a lot sooner for you."
I think he might be right. "I need to find a way to get in touch with Anita."
Callahan chuckled. "Good luck with that. Maybe ask Sylvia for advice. Clearly she did something right."
He had a good point.
Hanging up the phone, I did the only thing I could. I used every resource available to me to find the woman who didn't want to be found.
It was six agonizingly slow hours later before I sensed the change. I knew even before she entered my bedroom that Anita was in my house. I needed to figure out how she got in without setting off my security system and making a single noise.
"You know, if you gave me a way to contact you, I wouldn't have to go through such extreme measures to see you."
"The last time I was here, I told you to forget I exist. Did you think I was joking?"
A pissed-off Anita was sexy. And for some reason, she looked extra sinister this evening.
"No, I knew you were serious. I just like living on the edge.
" That was the biggest horseshit ever. Up until recently, I’d lived a very safe life.
I was just now stepping out of that comfort zone.
Honestly I wasn't sure how it was going.
"What do you want?"
I was still breathing. I took that as a win.
"Did you kidnap Mason and Alexander?"
Anita stared at me or more accurately stared through me. She didn't flinch or even move a muscle.
"No."
Somehow I didn't believe her. I couldn't explain why. She didn't have a single tell that would suggest otherwise. Thousands of hours of interviewing, and I could say without a shadow of a doubt if Anita were hooked up to a lie detector when I asked that, she would've passed with flying colors.
Yet I still didn't believe her.
"You sure? Mason was released from prison and has since disappeared. And now, I found out earlier today that Alexander is missing as well."
"Can't say I had anything to do with either of those things."
I had to give credit where credit was due. Either Anita was telling the truth, or she was a master at lying. I just had to figure out which one it was while also staying alive.
No big deal.