Allison Brennan - Fatal Secrets

She seemed distracted. Before Dean realized what he was doing, he reached up and lightly touched the bandage on her cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but averted her eyes.

“Why did he break into your house? Just to tell you about Jones’s body?”

“I don’t know. That was part of it. I guess you rattled him a bit last night when you told him I wanted to talk to him.” She smiled, but Dean didn’t see the humor.

“If I had known he would attack you in your own home, I’d have been there watching the place. I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry. You’re not the problem. Charlie doesn’t play by anyone else’s rules.” She turned from Dean and looked out at the river. “Did you find anything at Jones’s house?”

Dean suspected there was far more about Charlie Cammarata that Sonia wasn’t saying. She’d alluded to some of their history yesterday, but there was more, and it was eating her up. Still, now was not the time or place to ask. “Locked up tight. I have Richardson looking into getting a warrant whether or not we recover his body. Cammarata’s cabin was clean. I suspect he cleared out either right before or after the alleged murder.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Do you?”

“Yes. There was no reason for him to lie, and there’s a fresh body down there.”

“Confirmation that it’s Jones?”

“Not yet, but if the time line holds, it’s only been about six hours and the body won’t be too damaged. We should know immediately after they bring it up.” She glanced at him. “Charlie said Jones kept a coded journal documenting everything.”

“Coded?”

“He has a copy, wouldn’t give it to me, that asshole. I put an APB out on him, I have everyone looking. He’s so damn fixated on this missing girl, Ashley Fox, he can’t see the bigger picture.”

“We’ll find him.”

“Don’t be so sure. He’s good at hiding. He said he didn’t know where the girls are now, but he did know that at midnight Saturday the exchange would be made.”

“Even with Jones dead?”

“I don’t know. But if Jones isn’t there, those girls will die. My informant didn’t know when, but I’ll bet he knows where.”

“I don’t follow.”

“He’s been involved with dozens of sales. There has to be a limited number of places Jones can keep twenty to thirty young women. He gave us two places Jones no longer used as a sign of good faith, but insisted that if he said anything else, Jones would know it was him talking. We raided the two places-one an abandoned farm not far from here, another a warehouse in Stockton near the river. There was evidence that a large group of people had been there-biological matter, garbage. Vega promised to contact me when he had an exact time and place, and I’d have about four hours to set up the raid. But now I have to push him.”

“There’s a pattern,” Dean said. “Even when criminals attempt to randomize, people unknowingly create patterns.”

“If Charlie would have just given me the fucking journal, this wouldn’t be an issue! Between the FBI and ICE we could break the code in short order.”

It bothered Dean just as much. “Why is he doing this?”

“He wants to save the girl I told you about yesterday, Ashley Fox. She’s been missing for a year. A few days more isn’t going to matter for her, but it could mean the difference between more young women suffering her same fate. Dammit!”

She turned her back on him so he couldn’t see that this had gotten to her, but he hadn’t missed the pain and frustration in her expressive eyes.

“Are you certain Charlie was telling the truth about the journals?”

“Absolutely.”

“They’re not anywhere at his house,” Dean said. “We searched extensively, had Jones open his safe. But most criminal enterprises keep two sets of books-their public books and the real books.”

“Have you been to his offices? The consulting firm and the security business?”

“Someone from our office has, but only to retrieve financial data per the warrant. Not to search the establishments for journals or anything else.”

“If you can’t get another warrant, I will. We need to push hard, whether Jones is dead or not. We don’t have a lot of time. Two and a half days.”

“If the books aren’t at his businesses, then maybe one of his employees is working with him. Maintaining the second set of books.”

Dean shook his head. “His businesses are what kept him legit. When laundering money, the more people who know how it works the more risk. But I can’t figure out how Jones was doing it. His office expenses are a little high, but in line with the income he generates from his clients, which is substantial.”

“Do you have a list of his clients?”

“Of course. We didn’t have time to get to it yesterday.”

“Maybe after we’re done here and we talk to my informant, we should go back to your office and look again at his clients.” The sheriff’s boat started toward the pier. “Jones is getting money from buying and selling people, and I doubt he’s hiding it under his mattress,” Sonia said.

Dean and Sonia approached the vessel when it docked. The deputy coroner was on the boat bagging the victim. Floaters were put in clear plastic to preserve evidence and fluids, as the body decomposed much differently than it would on dry land. Then the victim was put into a body bag for transport.

Dean had a sudden realization. “I’m going at Jones all wrong,” he admitted. “I was focusing on the money trail. Ninety-five percent of the time, going backward in financial records gets you exactly what you need. But with Jones, that hadn’t been working. All his records check out. I need to spend more time looking at his clients.”

“But you said not ten minutes ago that you looked into his clients.”

“I did. They’re all legitimate businesses with no red flags on their tax filings or bank accounts. But I need to dig deeper on them like I was doing with Jones.”

Sonia frowned. “That sounds like it’s going to take hundreds of hours of manpower. We don’t have the time.”

“That’s why I need your help. You know this area. With you and Sam going through the names and addresses, I think we can narrow it down to a handful of possibilities.”

“It still sounds like a long shot.”

“Perhaps, but unless we find a safe with gold, cash, or black-market diamonds on Jones’s property, a client is the only way he can clean his money.”

Trace Anderson jumped off the rescue boat and approached them. He said, “It’s not Jones.”

“Charlie said there were two victims,” Sonia said.

“Yeah, but who the hell is the second victim?”

Sonia watched as the deputy coroner and his team carried the body from the boat to the dock. A white sheet had been draped over the gurney. Charlie’s story about the man Jones met with killing one of his own people was now far more terrifying with a body. There was a predator in town even more ruthless than Xavier Jones.

The head diver said to Trace, “We’re headed back out to see about the second possible. You coming?”

Trace looked at Sonia, and she nodded her approval. “I’m coming,” he called to the diver, then said to Sonia and Dean, “I’ll let you know as soon as we find the other body.”

“Thanks, Trace.”

The boat left, and Sonia approached the deputy coroner and introduced herself and Dean. “I need to see the victim.”

The wiry Asian man nodded and said, “I have him bagged already, but the outer bag isn’t sealed yet.” In a homicide, they locked the external body bag until the medical examiner’s office was ready to perform the autopsy; then the lock was broken and all biological and trace evidence logged.