Allison Brennan - Fatal Secrets

“But you can find out what phone number he dials, right?”

“You’re certain he’s going to call someone?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I can get the number.”

“Who’s his attorney?”

The guard looked it up. “Bernard Cline.”

“Cline? Is he a big defense lawyer or a public defender?”

“Private. Never heard of him before, never seen him in the pen.”

“Thanks.” She gave the guard her contact information. “Just let me know what number he calls and when.”

They walked out into the bright mid-morning sun. Dean said, “You rattled him.”

“Good. Sometimes you just have to shake a lot of trees before you spook a rat.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard that expression before.”

“I just made it up.”

Dean stopped walking, took Sonia’s arm, and pulled her to him. She was surprised, but then got a shy smile on her face and her incredible eyes stared at him seductively.

“I’m really beginning to like you, Agent Knight.”

She licked her lips. “I’m right there with you, Agent Hooper.”

He kissed her. He couldn’t resist those lips. “Let’s solve this case fast so we can do something fun.”

“Are FBI agents allowed to have fun?”

“Twice a year. It’s in the manual.”

“You’re on. What do you do for fun?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“You brought it up. I don’t think I know what ‘fun’ is. The last time I remember having fun was at Disneyland with my family when I was sixteen.”

“That does sound like fun. So, how about Disneyland again?”

Sonia laughed. Dean loved the sound coming from her. Sonia was passionate in everything-in her job, how she laughed, with her family, in his bed. Though technically they hadn’t made love in a bed. Yet.

“Agent Hooper, you just solved the most complex case in human trafficking. Where do you want to go? Disneyland!” She giggled and kissed him. “You’re on.”

Her phone rang and she grabbed it. “I knew he’d call someone.”

She frowned when she answered the phone. “I want to talk to you … Dammit, Charlie, this is … No! Don’t-” She slammed the phone shut. “Fuck!”

“What happened?”

“Charlie! He said he could only decipher part of Jones’s journal and left it in the main public library.”

“That’s a big library. Where?”

“Behind a book on serial killers by Harold Schechter. Let’s go-the library’s right down the street.”

Sonia:

I decoded Jones’s journal and discovered that he created a secondary code. I’m sorry, I should have given this to you earlier. I know you’ll figure it out, or know someone who can .

I lied to you the other night. I recognized one of the men who killed Jones. Sun Ling. He’s an American citizen born in Chinatown, San Francisco. He’s ruthless and has been involved in trafficking for as long as I’ve been in the business of stopping it. I don’t know who he works for now, I’ve been out of the game too long .

But he’s not in charge. He’s never in charge .

Please forgive me for everything. I’ll make it up to you. I have a favor to ask. Find Ashley Fox. I know she’s in this book somewhere. Find her and return her to her mother. Please. I’ve worked too long and hard on this to have it mean nothing. She needs to be rescued. I know you’ll save her .

I’ve always loved you, Sonia .

C.C .

Sonia sat alone in the FBI’s task force room, surrounded by humming computers and mountains of paperwork. But all she saw was Charlie’s letter.

She read and reread the letter he’d left with the journal in the main Sacramento Public Library. She was so frustrated she wanted to throttle him. Damn straight he should have given her the journal the other night. The thirty-six hours they’d lost because Charlie wanted to play the hero could mean the difference between life and death for those young Chinese women.

Dean had taken the journal to the FBI cybercrimes unit, which was also responsible for code breaking. If they didn’t think they could handle it, they’ll scan the code and send it to Quantico.

Time was running out. Jones’s killer could have moved the women, killed them, or traded them-and they’d never know. It pained Sonia to think that they’d been so close.

“Damn you, Charlie!” How dare he write I’ll always loved you . He was delusional. Or trying to manipulate her yet one more time.

Dean returned and said, “They’re working on the journal. But I should tell you that it’s sophisticated in its simplicity.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jones used random words-so it seems-that mean something to him, and there’s a pattern of sorts, but until we figure out what one of the components means, we can’t figure out any.”

“I get it.”

Dean pulled the letter from her hand. “You’ve read this enough. Don’t let him tug at your heartstrings.”

“Where is he? Why did he give this to us now? What’s he up to?”

“I would love to know the answer to those questions, but right now, Cammarata is the least of my concerns.”

He sat down at the table, comfortably poring through property records of Jones’s old clients, focusing on spreads in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Sonia was hugely frustrated that the clock was ticking and they didn’t know where the girls were. She hated sitting in an office looking at papers and maps when she wanted to be in the field.

Dean said, “Hey, did you know that two of the three good-faith locations that Vega gave you were adjacent to Rio Diablo land?”

“No,” Sonia said. “You think that means something?”

“Hmm.” Dean rose and, sleeves rolled up, marked his main wall map. She watched as he quickly added boundaries in different colors.

“What is it?” She just saw lines. They meant nothing to her.

“It’s coming together. Almost there.” He went over to another box and pulled more maps out, then traced more boundaries on his map. “What do you think?”

She stared. “I don’t-” she tilted her head. There did appear to be some pattern, but she didn’t know the relevance. “What do the different colors mean?”

He had pins and color-coded sticky notes and highlighter marks.

Dean said, “The red lines mark the Rio Diablo boundary. The blue lines are Jones’s property. Green are Omega and purple are Weber Trucking.”

She stared. “They almost connect.”

“Not exactly, more like a connect-the-dots moving from one safe zone to another.”

“I see.” And she was beginning to. “How does this help?”

“They practically give a perfect path from the Port of Stockton to the foothills with plenty of private roads to avoid major highways.” Dean pointed to the holes. “All this is owned by the Port of Stockton. And here … and here … and here I’m having ownership researched. But it’s mostly unused land. No route goes through a major town. I’m thinking that they stick to areas where they’re comfortable moving freely, where there would be minimal chance to encounter people or police.”

Sonia tilted her head back and forth. “Jones’s restaurant connects the land to the river. We already know they don’t transport their victims all the way to the Port of Stockton. The restaurant could be a temporary storage facility.”

Dean asked, “Why don’t they simply transport them directly to their final destination? Wouldn’t that minimize problems?”

“Sometimes, but when you’re dealing with a large number of victims, you want to disperse them quickly. The longer they’re in your possession, the greater the chance of being caught. If Charlie is right and they’re using small planes and helicopters to move them out of the area-”