Chapter 24
“Okay, what’s going on?” Cormac looked at the whole crew in Krystal’s living room, beyond surprised that his siblings and their spouses or significant others were all piled in.
For a moment he wondered where the kids were. But it was Monday; of course they were in school.
“Do you want to sit down?” Krystal asked in what he thought of as her big sister tone.
And while he loved and adored her… “No. I’m in the middle of something.” And he shouldn’t be away for long.
He’d asked one of their cousins to watch out for Daniela today—Cleo lived in shades of gray and they all trusted her.
Considering she’d been trained by the government once upon a time and was a deadly weapon, Cormac knew Daniela was in safe hands.
And she blended well, so neither Daniela nor the goons her brother had sitting on her gallery would even see her.
If they did, they wouldn’t clock Cleo as a threat.
Petite and almost ethereal looking, she could disable men twice her size.
“Talk,” he added. “Now.”
Krystal shrugged and he hated the way the others all watched him, as if he was on display. He doubted that was what they intended but seriously, what the hell.
Krystal nodded at Berkley, who stepped out of the living room then rolled in a whiteboard with… “What the hell is all this?”
“It’s our crime board. I made it.” Berkley sounded very proud of that.
“Wait…what is this? Mia Ruiz? Daniela’s mom?” Obviously everyone knew who she was at this point so there was no need to hide it. “She was friends with Mom?” he whispered, staring at the slightly sepia-tinged photographs.
“Yes. Pilar recently, as in a couple days ago, filled me in on a lot about our mom. Who apparently used to rob drug dealers for fun. With your friend Daniela’s mom. This was before they had kids.” She paused. “Mostly.”
Okay, he was going to sit down. That definitely sounded like a good idea. Cormac perched on the edge of the couch closest to the whiteboard and tried to absorb all the information and pictures.
As he listened to Krystal explain what she knew, Mike patted him on the shoulder and handed him a coffee.
He took it mostly to have something to do with his hands, but drank as Krystal told him what everyone else was clearly up to date on.
Their mom had been a little wild, had run with a small crew of women, including Mia Ruiz, and quite literally robbed drug dealers.
Apparently the men of that time had underestimated the women at the parties they threw or at clubs, hadn’t thought of them as a threat as they openly talked about their crimes.
“So…they were friends once upon a time. Then they both died the same day years later? When they hadn’t had any contact for a while?” he asked once she’d finished.
“They actually had been in contact,” Krystal said.
“I literally just found this out this morning. Had to pull some old phone records for the house—this house. I won’t get into what a pain in the ass that was…
But someone from the house Mia Ruiz lived in, I’m assuming her but can’t know for certain, called our mother the morning of her murder. ”
Their mom had been murdered on a rainy night, that much they all knew.
Shot and left for dead in her Volkswagen outside a Waffle House.
At first the cops had thought the motive was robbery, but a canvasing cop had found her purse with all the money still inside in a dumpster behind the Waffle House.
Someone had killed her, taken her purse, dumped it without even taking the money.
And she’d still been wearing her jewelry, which had been worth a decent amount.
So robbery hadn’t been the motive.
The cops had never figured out who’d done it. Their dad hadn’t even been a suspect because he’d been back at the house with them. His own kids had been his alibi. He’d had no reason to kill her anyway—no affair, and he’d loved her.
He’d been a mediocre dad, but he’d certainly loved their mom. He’d fallen apart without her. “Do you know anything about Mia Ruiz’s death? Daniela says it was an accident.”
“I’m very subtly trying to get the original report. I don’t want to trigger anyone that we’re looking into it.”
Alarm punched through him. “Be careful, Krystal. If anyone discovers you’re looking into her death and they dig into who you are…
it could blow up in all our faces. If Daniela’s family thinks she’s behind this and then somehow discover that she’s working with me…
you could be in danger.” He would be too but he wasn’t worried about himself.
“This won’t come back on me.” Krystal’s tone was level. “Also, I’m bringing Peter and Levitz in on this.”
Peter was Krystal’s partner most of the time, and the only person at work she actually called by their first name for some reason.
Levitz was Dylan Levitz, a slightly younger detective with a solid record.
He’d also been the one who took Daniela’s statement after she’d killed Lebedev.
According to her, he’d been kind and handled her with kid gloves.
He’d called her a few times and she’d called back and left two messages but hadn’t heard from him since her last message.
“Okay… What can I do?” Cormac asked.
She glanced at Micah and Apollo.
“I take it you know what’s going on with Daniela?” he asked when she looked back at him.
“Yes. As far as what you can do, just keep doing it. Also, they just brought the Feds in on the Temple murder.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Grace Lee,” Micah said. “I was going to tell you,” he added, then gave him a pointed look that basically meant, I need to tell you something but not right here in front of everyone.
Okay, then. He knew of Lee from a previous investigation she’d been involved in. She seemed solid enough. “That’s good,” he said neutrally. “She’s got a good reputation.”
Krystal frowned.
As Berkley started talking about something, his phone buzzed and his adrenaline surged at the incoming text from Daniela.
An FBI agent stopped by today. She sent him a screenshot of a business card—Special Agent Grace Lee. I want to talk in person, tell you everything.
Are you okay? He needed to know that first.
Yes. I plan on working most of the day, don’t want anything to seem off. I’ll tell you this afternoon about her visit. I want to make sure she’s legit. Maybe your brother can find out?
I’ll be there soon. And she’s legit, he added because he didn’t want her to worry.
It’s fine, you don’t have to. Then she texted again, You’re sure?
Yes. Can you pull a shot of her from your internal camera system? I’ll tell you more about her in person. He waited a beat then added, I’ll see you soon. Despite what she said, he wasn’t going to leave her alone longer than necessary.
When he looked up, Micah was watching him, motioned for him to duck out.
No one was paying attention to either of them as they talked in little groups, so he slipped out and met up with Micah in the laundry room.
“I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I missed a doorbell camera in Temple’s neighborhood,” Micah said.
“What?”
Micah nodded, his expression grim. “I only know because Krystal mentioned it. She’s been in contact with Lee because of Lebedev—Lee reached out to her, then Levitz.
I don’t know if Lee knows about you and Daniela,” Micah added.
“I didn’t want to push Krystal too much.
But I’m assuming Lee doesn’t. That said, she’s got Lebedev on the doorbell camera right around Temple’s time of death.
It doesn’t show him at Temple’s place but walking on the sidewalk nearby.
Lee had a clear enough image of his face to run it through facial recognition.
Then she finds out the man from the video, Lebedev, was killed later that morning by Daniela… She’s going to talk to your woman.”
Cormac held out his phone, showed Micah Daniela’s recent text messages.
“Shit,” he muttered. “If Lee has Lebedev and Daniela on camera…”
“There’s a chance she has me and Apollo.” They’d mostly concealed their faces, but still.
“I’m sorry.” Micah looked pissed and Cormac knew it was at himself.
“Jesus man, you’re not all-seeing. It’s fine.”
“I should have caught it. Maybe it was offline at the time but still recording,” he muttered. “I should have picked up its signal.”
“No one’s blaming you for anything. Also…what the hell?” he asked quietly even though he was still processing everything he’d just learned. “All that stuff about Mom?”
“I know.” Micah rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s pretty wild that she and Daniela’s mom were friends and doing dangerous shit like that.”
“No shit.”
“Are you going to tell Daniela about this?”
“I…don’t know.” He hadn’t even gotten that far in processing everything. “I should. Yeah, I definitely should.”
“I know coincidences happen, but…” Micah trailed off.
“Yeah.” Cormac’s grim tone matched his brother’s expression.
“Mia Ruiz’s death could have been an accident.
” He’d never even thought to look at the original report because why the hell would he?
He and Daniela had lost their mothers the same year but he’d never told her the damn date of his mom’s murder.
It had been too painful to dwell on. If they’d been together when the anniversary had happened, he probably would have mentioned it but… Jesus. Their moms had died on the same day. That had to mean something, and he doubted it was good.
“Are you spiraling?” Micah asked quietly.
“Maybe. A little. Yeah.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “I thought Krystal was crazy for wanting to solve Mom’s murder. Now…” He shook his head, not sure he could even put it into words.
“Everyone’s on board. We’re going to find out what happened.”
“It’s been a lot of years.” He wanted to know the truth but he was still a realist.
“So? I bet Mia Ruiz’s death is going to end up being a murder. And if we find out who killed her, we’ll find out who killed mom.”
“Unless they’re unrelated,” he said dryly.
“Talk to Daniela. Maybe she knows something we don’t.”
“I’ll need to show her pictures.” Even thinking about it was surreal, but yeah, he needed to bring her into this. She already knew his real name. Knew his siblings’ names. He was going to bring her fully into this.
She’d always assumed her mom’s death had been an accident. And for all he knew, it had been. But what if her father had been lying to her this whole time?
Would Alexander Hill have lied to Julian as well? He was older than Daniela, would have been almost a legal adult when Mia Ruiz died. Still, Julian would have been a kid essentially.
Maybe… Okay, Cormac was spiraling and none of this mattered at all anyway.
Maybe them dying on the same day was simply a freak of nature. But even as he had the thought, his mind rejected it. No way.
And no way in hell was he letting this go now.
Even though he hated the thought of telling Daniela this, of ripping open an old wound, he knew he had to. And the truth was, losing a parent was a wound that never fully healed. From all she’d told him, her own mom had been kind and loving, just like his. She’d been taken way too soon.
If she had been murdered, she deserved justice. Both their moms did.