Chapter 4
The Leon Valley PD wasn’t equipped for murder cases. It was too small, too quiet, too normal for the level of violence they were dealing with. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Someone down the hall coughed. The coffee had been sitting too long and tasted bitter.
Coop sat at a borrowed desk, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. The evidence bag near his elbow demanded attention he wasn’t ready to give it yet. He picked up the phone and dialed Andrew Sutton, the Rangers’ senior financial investigator. He picked up on the second ring.
“Financial crimes. Sutton, here.”
“I hope you’ve got something I can use.”
A quiet pause followed, then— “I’m good too, Coop. Wife’s good. Little Eva turned three months yesterday. Thanks for asking.”
Coop rubbed a hand down his face. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep.”
“I mentioned she’s three months old, right?”
A short breath escaped him, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. Congratulations. So, what’ve you got?”
Paper shuffled on the other end.
“Wilson skimmed two-fifty from escrow over the last year. Slow bleed. Nobody noticed until an external audit.”
“Where to? A personal account?”
“Yeah. Monthly transfers. Same day every month. Same amount, but it didn’t stay there long. Then they stopped about three months ago.”
Coop straightened. “He got behind.”
“That’s my guess,” Sutton replied. “Now, the burning question. Who does he owe?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
The door opened. O’Reilly walked in with two cups of coffee. He immediately clocked the paper-wrapped box in the bag.
“What’s that?”
Coop covered the receiver. “Evidence.”
“You’re not going to open it?”
“Eventually.”
O’Reilly set a cup in front of him, muttering, “That’s not ominous at all.”
Coop grabbed gloves from the desk drawer.
Sutton kept talking in his ear. “We’re tracing the transfer accounts. They’re bouncing between intermediaries and are hard to pin down. Not impossible, but it’s going to take time.”
O’Reilly unzipped the bag. Paper crackled.
“Whoever’s behind it knows how to bury money,” Sutton added.
Coop split his attention, half listening, half watching his partner.
The twine fell away. The contents shifted, sounding wet and heavy, as O’Reilly pried open the lid.
The smell hit Coop a second later: copper, rot, and something sweet gone bad.
“Jesus Christ!” O’Reilly shot upright, his chair slamming into the file cabinet.
Sutton heard the bang. Hard not to. “What was that?”
He didn’t answer. Too focused on the finger rolling across the desk, the blue-gray skin a brutal contrast to the bright-red nail polish and the glittering diamond wedding ring.
“Coop. You still there?” Sutton asked.
He stared at the severed digit, at the clean cut through bone, and calculated the problem he hadn’t seen coming. The facts pointed in one direction, and he didn’t like where they led.
He forced his voice steady. “I know the lender.”
“How? What are you looking at?”
“A past-due notice,” Coop replied.
“For what? Getting bits and pieces isn’t helping.”
He could hear the growing frustration in Sutton’s voice, but he didn’t have time to break it down. “I’ll explain later. Gotta go.”
“No. Wait—”
The landline went dead as the receiver clattered into the cradle. Coop stood and leaned over the desk for a closer look. Not at the gruesome sight but the packaging.
“What the fuck, Coop?”
O’Reilly was looking to him for answers he didn’t have yet. Coop reached for a pencil and flipped over the small square of bloodstained paper that had slipped free of the wrapping.
PAYMENT IN FULL DUE IN 48 HOURS
NEXT MISSED DEADLINE: THE GIRL
A muscle ticked in his cheek. Forty-eight hours from when? The package could have sat in Erica’s mailbox for days. The ultimatum may have been received too late for the girl.
O’Reilly dragged a hand through his hair. “This is sick. Where did it come from? You didn’t have it when I left here last night.”
“It was delivered to 207 Sycamore.”
“Sycamore?” His partner checked his notes. “The Wilson house is 208 Sycamore.”
“Yeah. And it wasn’t mailed. No postage. Hand delivered.”
O’Reilly frowned. “How the hell does it end up in Erica Stevens’ box?”
He sat in his chair, leaning back as he sorted through it out loud.
“Kedrov wouldn’t risk the US Mail or a courier.
He’d send one of his men, most of whom are fresh off the boat.
They speak broken English and would be familiar with American addresses.
” He tapped his fingers on the armrest. “Half the houses on that street look the same in the dark, and the mailboxes are clustered.”
“They screwed up? That’s it?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Coop said. “Right message. Wrong box.”
O’Reilly let out a low whistle. “Hell of a mistake.”
“Yeah,” Coop said quietly. “And it might’ve saved the girl’s life.”
O’Reilly hesitated then said what was eating at him. “You’d think a psychic would know there was a severed finger in the box. The stench alone should have given it away.”
His sarcasm was cutting. Still shaken up from the surprise, no doubt. But it rubbed Coop the wrong way. He turned his head slowly, eyes cutting to him.
O’Reilly held up both hands. “I’m just saying. She knew a lot of other things she shouldn’t have. Why not this?”
Coop replayed Erica’s explanation of her gift. Emotion leaves a mark; trauma echoes. She had gotten nothing from Debra or the package because only someone alive would transmit to her.
O’Reilly leaned in, voice low. “What’s up with you, man? You’re acting weird about her.”
His stare narrowed further.
The kid lifted his hands again. “Sorry. It’s an honest observation. And you gotta admit, she’s either the real deal or a damn good liar.”
Coop didn’t respond. She’d gotten under his skin pretty darn quick.
Even his twenty-six-year-old partner had noticed.
He still thought of O’Reilly as a kid—probably because the man was barely older than Tasha—but eight years as a trooper before pinning on a Ranger badge had knocked the green right out of him.
But he didn’t have time to unpack whatever was arcing between him and Erica, not in the middle of a murder-and-kidnapping investigation.
He had one glimmer of hope. If she was still getting signals from Cheyenne, the girl was alive. He had no idea what clock they needed to go by, but with only shadowy impressions, a vague location, and a cat’s collar, one thing was certain: time was running out.
“There’s no signature,” O’Reilly said after reading the note.
“The drama is the signature,” he said grimly. “I suspected. Now, I’m sure. This is Kedrov’s work.”
“Alexander Kedrov? The Russian mob boss?” O’Reilly’s gaze dropped to the finger. He grimaced, shoulders tightening. “If it’s Kedrov, this is bigger than a simple homicide.”
Coop studied him for a moment. “You up for this?”
“Hell, yeah,” O’Reilly said, though the slight hitch in his voice betrayed him. He grimaced once again at the finger. “First things first. I’m not letting that thing stink up the room any longer. I’m calling forensics.”
Agitated in a way Coop hadn’t seen before, O’Reilly hurried out.
Coop contemplated his next move briefly then picked up the phone again and dialed FBI headquarters in Austin. Because, as far as Coop was concerned, there was no if about it.
When they answered, he said two words. “Organized crime.”
“One moment,” he heard, before a click.
At first, he thought he’d been cut off. A curse of annoyance was on the tip of his tongue, but generic hold music kicked in—tinny, looping, and beyond irritating.
Coop clocked the time on the display then hit the speaker button.
From his experience, the FBI didn’t know what urgency meant.
But they would have the intel he needed.
O’Reilly returned with the evidence tech in tow. While the tech photographed the finger and the packaging, O’Reilly stood back, barely breathing, as if the finger might come alive and lunge at him. Coop had to admit, the smell of decay was foul.
The kid didn’t move until it was sealed in a fresh biohazard container and carried out. Then he wasted no time grabbing latex gloves and a tub of Clorox wipes, using half the contents, as if trying to scrub the memory of it off the desk.
As he worked, he muttered, “I’m never eating lunch here again.”
Meanwhile, Coop was still on hold. The elevator music looped over and over. His impatience mounted with every cycle. He checked the time again. Eighteen minutes.
Finally, a flat, bored-sounding voice answered. “Special Agent Morgan.”
“Lieutenant Cooper. Texas Rangers out of San Antonio.”
“Just a minute.”
He heard the rustle of papers, someone murmuring in the background, then Morgan returned.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
Coop didn’t ease into it. “Give me what you have on Alexander Kedrov.”
Silence. Longer this time.
Then: “What’s he up to this time?”
“Nothing good.”
“When is he ever?” Morgan drawled. A quiet sigh followed. “He’s on our radar.”
“For what?”
“It’s a long list. It’d be easier to tell you what he’s not.
” Morgan’s tone shifted, more professional now.
“Officially, Kedrov is an international investor. Shipping logistics, warehousing, imports/exports. His company moves freight from Corpus Christi to Amarillo, including in your neck of the woods.”
“And unofficially?”
“We believe some of those containers move more than electronics and machine parts.”
“Drugs?”
“Sometimes. Also, weapons, counterfeit electronics, illegal vapes… Whatever turns a profit.”
Coop shifted, the worn vinyl creaking. “You got proof of that?”
“Not enough to stick yet.”
“What about violence?”
Morgan went quiet, weighing how much to say, even to a fellow cop. “People around Kedrov have a habit of ending up dead,” he said. “Business partners, rivals, debtors…”
“Let me guess. He’s conveniently not around while it’s going down.”
“Always somewhere else,” Morgan confirmed. “On a yacht in the Caribbean. On a ski trip in Zurich. Pick your postcard.”
“Rock-solid alibis, I’m sure.”
“Every time.”
Coop pictured Debra Wilson on her living room floor, days-old blood congealed into the carpet. Vacant stare. Left ring finger missing. “Does Kedrov lend money?”
“Does he,” Morgan grunted. “Six-figure minimums. Short terms. Usurious rates to make it worth his while. And he only lends to people who can’t go to a bank.”
“And when they miss a payment?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
Yeah. He did.
He glanced at the Wilson file. A quarter million dollars gone. A severed finger delivered like a message.
“Appreciate the background,” Coop said.
“Information’s a two-way street, Lieutenant. Tell me why you’re asking.”
“One of his borrowers missed an installment.”
Another stretch of silence.
Then Morgan’s voice dropped. “Careful, Lieutenant. If Kedrov’s involved, you’re stepping into deeper water than you think.”
“I understand. Thanks for the words of caution.”
Coop set the phone down slowly.
Ninety-nine percent sure of the players and the script. But suspicion wasn’t evidence.
Somewhere between Alexander Kedrov and Thomas Wilson, a quarter million had vanished. His instinct said, find the money. Find the girl.
He pushed away from the desk and grabbed his hat. He hated what he was thinking, but there was one person who might see something the rest of them couldn’t. And she kept surprising him.