Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Amanda had called Malone, and he’d agreed to come to Central. She and Trent had just finished briefing Malone in his office when he received a call notifying him the marshal had arrived. Soon later, there was a knock on the doorframe, and Russell Holden was standing in the opening.
He made it here fast, but he’d told Amanda when she’d called that he was still in town. She didn’t expect he’d offer full disclosure for why he was hanging around the area. What she would demand was cooperation in answering their questions about Abigail McGee.
“Come in, make yourself comfortable,” Malone told him.
Russell entered the room, his gaze taking all of them in, as he sat on a visitor chair. He didn’t say a word, and his silence burrowed under Amanda’s skin.
“As I briefly mentioned to you, Abigail McGee has come up in our investigation. We believe she may even be the reason the Archers were kidnapped.” Even after she laid that out, the marshal remained silent.
She pressed on. “We need to know why Abigail McGee is in witness protection. It could make the difference between bringing a family home alive and finding more bodies.” It sounded drastic, but as Amanda saw it, brutally accurate.
Russell flushed and clenched his jaw.
It might prompt the marshal to open up more if he saw Abigail with his own eyes. “Detective Stenson, could you…?” They discussed this beforehand, so he’d know what she was referring to.
Trent pulled out his phone, tapped on it, and showed his screen to the marshal. “That picture was taken two Saturdays ago at a coffee shop here in Woodbridge. Caffeine Café. Valerie Archer left a note on a napkin for this woman to find.”
“But that’s not just any woman, Deputy Holden. That’s Abigail McGee,” Amanda put in.
Russell’s brow furrowed, as he leaned in closer to Trent’s screen. “It can’t be.”
“Sure, she looks different,” Amanda said. “The wig for one thing, but it’s her. Abigail has been communicating with Valerie Archer for about a year using several burner phones.”
“Not possible. We would have known.” Russell settled back in his chair, and Trent pocketed his phone.
“Would you, though?” Amanda fired back, but dialed down her approach when she detected judgment in her retort.
“There’s no way anyone could watch her every move, every minute of the day.
How long has Abigail McGee been unaccounted for?
” Not an accusation, but a statement made on strong intuition and a deduction from the facts they had.
Russell took a deep breath.
Malone clasped his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “Deputy, I ask that you answer Detective Steele.”
“Seven days.”
The day the family was taken.
“We searched her home trying to get clues as to her whereabouts, but no luck,” Russell volunteered.
“That’s why when you found out we looked her up, you wanted a reason for our interest in her. How long has Abigail been sneaking out?” Abigail had met with Valerie a week before her abduction; she had to have ditched the marshals at least once before.
Russell adjusted his tie. “Just twice. A couple of Saturdays ago for a few hours. We do all we can to protect those in the system, but they need to want to help themselves.”
“If you tell us who she’s in hiding from, we might be able to save her.” That’s if we aren’t already too late… And if Abigail was tracked and executed, there was no way Amanda expected to find Valerie and Brooke alive.
“Lucas Hernandez.”
Just when she was prepared to fight for a name, he’d parted with one that sucked the breath from her lungs. “Lucas Hernandez, as in the drug kingpin?”
“The one and only.”
Trent passed Amanda a brief glance before settling his gaze on the marshal. “And why is he after Abigail?”
Amanda was grateful Trent asked. She was locked within herself, trying to calm her thoughts and heart rate.
Hernandez was responsible for the deaths of SWAT agents during a previous raid on one of his warehouses nearly a decade ago.
While a few of his men were put away, Hernandez escaped punishment.
But even more personal than that, an investigation last month led her and Trent to the man’s door.
When they left, Hernandez made a point of repeating Amanda’s full name, as if committing it to memory.
She and Trent got the feeling he believed she owed him for his cooperation in talking with them.
But if he thought he had Amanda in his pocket, he was delusional.
“Abigail overheard something she shouldn’t have.”
“When was this? Where?” Trent asked.
Russell provided a date.
“The day PWCPD raided Hernandez’s warehouse,” she said.
Russell nodded. “She was dining alone in a restaurant here in town and had gotten up to use the restroom. She passed his table and overheard Hernandez on the phone saying, ‘Kill them all.’”
Abigail’s testimony should have put Hernandez behind bars years ago. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t he in prison?”
“Unfortunately, her testimony on its own wasn’t enough to pursue charges.”
Amanda stiffened. “It sounds damning to me. His phone records could confirm who he was speaking with, the timing… Who decided her testimony wasn’t enough?”
“A judge.”
“I figured as much. What’s their name?” Hernandez had to have them in his pocket.
“Why even concern yourself with that? What’s done is done.”
“What’s done is—” She snapped her mouth shut on seeing Malone shaking his head. He wanted her to let this go, but how was she supposed to do that? “Abigail remained in the Witness Security Program. Clearly Hernandez is still seen as a threat to her.”
“Hernandez isn’t exactly a man who forgets or lets things go.”
Hernandez’s arrogant face popped into her mind from that day when she and Trent left his house.
She recalled the way her name had come off his lips.
He’d rather kill Abigail than risk the judge’s decision being overturned at some future point.
And maybe just the fact she was willing to speak out against him at all was enough to mark her for death.
The question was, had he killed her? And if he had caught up to Abigail, what did that mean for Valerie and Brooke Archer?