Back from the Brink Read online

  “You know him,” Nicole prompted.

  “I do.”

  “Is it Matthew?”

  “No, his brother,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Matthew kept pictures of his family. He has two brothers who mean a lot to him and parents who love him.” Nicole heard a wistfulness in Adelai’s voice that clearly said she did not.

  “Was this man in the military?”

  “No, but he was hoping to be. He wanted to follow in Matthew’s footsteps.”

  “Matthew was a Marine?”

  “Yes. For six years. He was a good soldier, and the military was good to him. He saw the world and took college classes.” She nodded, thinking about the man Matthew had become, perhaps, with the support of the Marines. “He was injured in Afghanistan; that’s why he left the Corps. They offered to reclassify him, but that’s not what Matthew wanted.”

  “Was it an honorable discharge?”

  “Of course.”

  “And his other brother?”

  Adelai’s eyes scanned Nicole’s uniform, snagging on the gold star pinned at her left shoulder. “He is someone like you.”

  “A police officer?”

  But Adelai shrugged.

  “Local?”

  “We moved here to be closer to his family.”

  Nicole nodded. She had gotten the bulk of what she had come for and wanted to leave something with this woman that she could count on.

  “You gave birth to a child with an American father. Your son is a United States citizen. What this means,” Nicole said, “is that your position has changed. You will be given priority citizenship. There’s paperwork involved, but there are organizations that help with that.” She caught and held the young woman’s eyes. “It means you can stop running.”

  “Matthew told me that too,” she said. “That’s why I came with you last night. Why I asked you to take me to the hospital. My son needs an American birth certificate.”

  “I’m going to need names now,” Nicole said. “You told Tandy, the midwife, that your name is Georgia Peach.”

  Adelai had the grace to color. “It isn’t, of course.”

  “But is Adelai correct?”

  She shook her head. “My first name at birth was Adila, so Adelai is close and easier to pronounce and, of course, more American sounding.”

  Nicole nodded and wrote down the spelling of the name. “And you’re surname?” Adelai had given her surname as Franks to the hospital, and it was time to connect the dots.

  The young woman cast her eyes down. “It should be Franks. It would have been.”

  Had she married the baby’s father.

  “We need your legal last name,” Nicole said.

  “Amari,” she said. She had given that to the hospital as a middle name.

  “And Matthew’s full name is Matthew Franks?”

  “Yes. Matthew Thomas Franks.”

  “And his brother, the man in the picture I showed you?”

  “James Franks. He was just eighteen.”

  Nicole made note of the GSW’s name and birth date. She thought about Matthew Franks, a decorated soldier, an honorable man with ties that bind—his loyalty to his younger brother and his love for a woman worth dying for.

  “And the other brother?”

  “Luke Franks. He’s the oldest. In his thirties, I think.”

  Luke Franks, Border Patrol agent. Nicole had been expecting that, a loose thought tumbling through her mind from the moment Adelai had told her he was someone like you.

  “Border Patrol,” Nicole said softly, with understanding.

  “Yes, it caused trouble,” Adelai said, “but he would not turn me in.”

  But it put Luke Franks in a difficult position.

  Nicole tucked her notebook in a pocket and settled her gaze on Adelai.

  “The midwife, she followed you, and the men after you, into the woods. She noticed boats on the lake. Two of them. She heard voices. I know you heard and saw things too.”

  But Adelai shook her head. “I was focused on one thing only,” she said, but Nicole pressed forward.

  “You know something,” Nicole insisted.

  “I don’t. These men have killed before and they will do it again, and you will not be able to stop them. And maybe that’s what happened to your agents. I saw the news this morning. All the busyness on the lake. Maybe they crossed paths in the night. Maybe your agents are the reason I am alive. These men were so close, right on my heels, and then they weren’t.” She looked up at Nicole. “They would not give up their mission for any small thing.”

  “How did you know they would kill you?”

  “Matthew told me, and Luke told him.”

  “Were these men Border Patrol agents?”

  If so, it was a piece that fit easily into the puzzle.

  “I think so,” she said.

  Nicole took a moment to let that sink in.

  “But you have no proof?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “And Matthew or Luke? Did they have proof?”

  “Maybe. And maybe that’s why Matthew is dead.”

  “We don’t know that,” Nicole said. “Not yet.”

  She moved Luke Franks to the top of her list. She would wait for Lars, and they would go back to the agent’s home together.

  “You didn’t see the boats on the lake, Adelai?” she prompted. “Their running lights were on.”

  “I was running blind,” she said. “Especially towards the end. I was in labor and feared for our lives. I wasn’t thinking about the lake, about finding salvation there. I was so tired, and they were so close. I heard gunfire and the scrabbling of feet and thought for sure we would die out there.”

  “Gunfire?” Nicole asked.

  “Several cracks. I was seven years old when we came here from Syria. The sound of gunfire is unmistakable. One of my earliest memories and one of the most enduring.”

  “How close?”

  She lifted her shoulders in bewilderment. “With the lake and the mountains, sound is distorted. One thing is sure, I’ve had it closer.”

  Nicole considered Adelai’s words, the vulnerability in her face. She was tired—emotionally exhausted and not much better physically.

  “You’re under guard here, until you’re discharged.” She pulled a card from her breast pocket. It had the office number on the front and Nicole’s cell number on the back. She’d also written the number of an organization that assisted refugees. “Call me if you need anything, and don’t go far. We may have more questions.”

  Adelai took the card, and Nicole said, “You may be right. Maybe you’re not safe in Blue Mesa, not until we apprehend the men responsible for James Franks’ death.”

  “The same men who broke into my home and want me dead too.”

  Nicole nodded. “You could be right about that as well.” She walked toward the door, but turned and regarded Adelai before leaving. “Don’t be too quick to discharge,” she advised. “You’re safe here, where we can keep an eye on you.”

  15

  Nicole was back in the Yukon and pulling out of the hospital parking lot when her phone rang. It was Green. She pressed a button on her steering wheel and let Bluetooth pick up the call.

  “The body of Melody Baker was recovered a few minutes ago,” he said. “Along with a bag of cash and drugs with the BP evidence tags still on them.”

  “Where?” They had stopped dragging the lake the day before. It had been a frustrating process with so many downed trees tangling in the steel hooks.

  “She washed up on the southeast shore of the lake. Just like you had thought.”

  Well, not exactly. She had spoken of the currents and natural drift and she had hoped the morning would turn up additional evidence, but they had all been thinking the same thing—bodies. There had been every chance the tide would push the bodies to shore. The sudden ice melt the night before, with the floes breaking away from the bottom of the lake, had prob
ably helped their cause, pushing Baker’s body toward land with greater propulsion. Anticipating that, Nicole had had deputies out at first light, walking the shoreline.

  “No obvious cause of death, other than exposure and drowning,” Green continued.

  Meaning the agent could have fallen overboard or jumped to her death. Accident or suicide. But Nicole’s money was on murder.

  “And the evidence?”

  “We found the satchel a short distance away. Not meant for water. It provided little protection for the contents.”

  “But the evidence tags, the BP print, it’s still legible?”

  “Clear as day. Those bags are watertight, and of course, they weren’t in the lake long.”

  “You call out MacAulay?”

  “He’s en route. Your forensics team too.”

  He’d given up his king-of-the-mountain attitude, and she wondered why.

  “No sign of Monte?”

  “None,” Green confirmed. “And at this point, I don’t expect him to turn in with the tide. No, I think Monte will surprise us all and walk away from this and maybe right over the border.”

  The distance from the BP skiff to the nearest stretch of shore had been an eighth of a mile of frigid, limb-numbing water. It wasn’t an easy shoreline to manage. Nicole had looked at the topographical maps yesterday. There were an undulating series of shallow pools and sudden drops of twelve to fifteen feet. The current pulled through these pockets and made the distance to safety deceiving. Once on land, the sandy beach was small, irregular, and strewn with rock and fallen trees. Then the geography changed once again, became thickly wooded and sloped upward. From there it was a climb of sixty or seventy yards to the road and possible help. Could Monte have done all that? Survived the swim and whatever preceded it, crossed the rugged terrain sopping wet and chilled to the bone? Even if he’d kept moving, his body would have begun shutting down. The impulses from his brain would have been sluggish.

  “I’m on my way,” she told Green, and signed off, then radioed Lars, who had stopped to interview the Embrys. “Meet me at site,” she told him. “They’ve recovered the body of Melody Baker.”

  There was a pause, and when he spoke, she heard the regret in his voice. Officer down. It would impact the morale of all who were searching and those who’d been left on the line.

  “I’m finishing up here,” he said. “ETA fifteen minutes.”

  “A surprise package too,” Nicole said. “Drugs and cash straight from the BP evidence locker, found in a satchel near the body.”

  “No shit?” he said. “Well, that’s a tidy cleanup, isn’t it?”

  “Cash and drugs, still bagged and tagged,” Nicole agreed. “Served cold.” And she didn’t like it. As Lars had said, it was too tidy. A present, gift wrapped and placed in her hands.

  “It would take more than Baker and Monte to hold our GSW down and execute,” Lars pointed out.

  “And there are five unique boot prints at the house.” She came to the only intersection in town and turned south, toward Lake Maria and the body of Agent Baker. “I spoke to Adelai,” she said.

  “You get the name of the baby daddy?”

  “I did,” she said. “And the circle tightens.” In fact, she was beginning to think all the major players were already on their game board, Monte included. “Matthew Franks.”

  “Damn, isn’t that something,” Lars said. “Related to Luke Franks, obviously.”

  “Brother,” Nicole confirmed. “And to James Franks, our GSW, also brother.”

  16

  MacAulay was already on scene, crouched beside the victim and wrapping her hands in cellophane. He had a body bag beside him, and because it was clear plastic, Nicole could see that he had already collected pieces of human extract. She had never cared for the term, but it was textbook and it helped some of them keep an emotional distance from a tragic ending. In this case, when it was someone known, even by a single or double degree of separation, it seemed offensive. Nicole tried to shake that off and focused instead on MacAulay. He looked good. The color was back in his face, and he was moving fluidly and with energy.

  She strode across the rolling grass, losing sight of MacAulay as she hit the troughs and recapturing the image of his rangy body bent over the victim as she crested the next hill.

  The current had pulled the body more than a mile from where the BP skiff had idled, then floundered, and finally capsized and sunk, she would guess at an angle of 100 to 120 degrees. That would be measured later, but it seemed to fall in with expected parameters. Drift in the lake was legendary.

  The wind lifted in cool bursts that tossed the ends of Nicole’s hair and pitched under the collar of her department shirt. The weather was a paradox, but she loved it that way. Too warm for a jacket today but occasionally cool enough that she wished she’d had one. She turned, and her gaze fell again on MacAulay. He had one failed marriage behind him—one of those fiery passions of youth, as he described it. It had lasted less than two years, had produced no children, and he had returned home from his rotation in emergency medicine one evening to find that his wife had packed up and left.

  “Those were lonely years,” he’d said of it. “For the both of us. She was right about that. Medical school is twenty-four/seven and then some.”

  End of story, his tone had said, and Nicole hadn’t pursued it further.

  She stood on the crest of the hill and watched him a moment longer. His brown hair curled at his neck, and she could tell, even from a distance, that he had decided not to shave that morning. And not the morning before either. She liked when he kept a rough stubble. His whiskers were liberally salted and a contrast to his head of hair. It gave him an edge that belied his steady, thoughtful manner and was flat-out sexy.

  “I’m glad one of us has something to smile about.”

  Lars had caught up with her and interrupted her musings. She felt her cheeks heat. She was glad the wind was cool enough that she could blame her color on it if needed.

  She turned and regarded her second-in-command. The Nordic bull. He’d earned the nickname by build and temperament. He wasn’t much taller than Nicole, but he was broad, with burly shoulders and a stubbornness that matched his smarts when in pursuit of leads and the solving of crimes. He had integrity and a similar career background as Nicole, with years rooted in big-city crime.

  “Lois Embry admitted to knowing several members of BP. Two of interest, Monte and Luke Franks,” Lars said.

  “Yeah? How did you get that out of her?”

  “I showed her pictures of both. Baker too. I told her we’re missing two agents and it’s beginning to look like they won’t be coming home.” He shrugged. “She melted a little. Enough to tap Monte’s photo and say, ‘He was a good one. A complete opposite to the other.’ She meant Franks. Said he had a hard skin and flint for a heart.”

  “And Baker?”

  But Lars shook his head. “She never saw her. Not even in passing.”

  “So they knew Adelai was a refugee?”

  “Embry claimed they didn’t talk about particulars, some truths being self-evident. When there’s a knock at the door barely into sunrise and a young woman holding a baby covered in vernix on your doorstep, you know, she said. She’s an attorney, by the way. Retired.”

  “I figured as much,” Nicole said. “Immigration?”

  “No. International law. Both her and the husband. Met in Cairo when they were working for the U.S. embassy.” He nodded toward MacAulay. “He feeling any better?”

  Nicole shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to him. Looks it, though.”

  “He came by the hospital last night.”

  That surprised her. “Did he say why?”

  “He had to collect fluids and tissue samples from the ice man and heard that we had brought Adelai in. He wanted to finish processing the placenta. Adelai was agreeable. She swabbed the inside of her mouth for comparison purposes but assured MacAulay that she had indeed given birth beside the lake. She couldn�
��t give an exact time, but together they decided on two forty-five AM.”

  Nicole nodded and began walking down the slope toward the center of activity. Lars fell into step beside her.

  “And the GSW? Did Doc start on him?”

  “Textbook,” Lars confirmed. “Adelai wasn’t open to blood comparison. She didn’t want the baby pricked for a sample.” To determine relation between the baby and the GSW. “But she did give a blood sample herself when MacAulay spoke of finding the ice man.”

  Her surprise deepened. “Why did he mention that?”

  Lars shrugged. “I asked him that too. He said we’re growing on him. Suspicions and connections. He said he doesn’t like loose ends and the bodies are piling up in his morgue. And he pointed out that both Adelai and the ice man are Syrian.”

  “But not the only two in the world.”

  “Probably not the only two passing through Blue Mesa either. But at one point they were within a mile of each other.”

  Proximity. She saw it. And MacAulay was doing his job. Exceeding expectations again.

  “He’s living up to the mantle,” Lars said.

  She agreed, then changed the subject.

  “Why do you suppose Monte isn’t wearing his parka?” she asked.

  “And Baker is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could be a number of reasons,” he said. “But I think you have a theory.”

  “I’m working on one,” she agreed. “Sounds farfetched.”

  “So try it on me.”

  “Maybe he knew he was going into the lake and discarded it,” she said. “Or he was wearing it when he went in and quickly took it off.”

  “Because it was dead weight and useless besides.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re thinking maybe he made it to shore?”