Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

But with the camera off, Carmen — in the sweatshirt provided by her late captor — looked battered, as if her legs might give way under her at any second.

This was lost on Moreno, who soon was off in search of the sheriff or Harrow, or some other interview, with Hathaway, Arroyo, and the audio team in the star reporter’s wake. But Pall, Anderson, and Blake ringed their co-worker protectively.

“What do you need?” Pall asked her, touching her shoulder lightly, gently.

“I need,” Carmen said, trying to smile, but Pall could feel her trembling, “out of these awful clothes. Can I please get out of these awful clothes?”

“Let’s get you to the bus,” Pall said, and put a hand on her far shoulder and the other hand on her near elbow. To the others, he said: “I’ll take her — you two make sure no one bothers us.”

Uniformed officers seemed to be everywhere, directing traffic and trying to get an ambulance in for Shelton, even though everyone in the United States with a TV knew there was no real rush.

Pall and his charge reached the bus and got up inside, Jenny leading the way, and Anderson staying outside to guard the door.

Jenny had been prepared for this — which impressed Pall — and had a fresh change of clothes ready from Carmen’s own suitcase, underthings, jeans, a Juicy Couture shirt and sandals. Carmen went into the restroom, was in there a while, presumably washing up, and emerged, if not a new woman, a fresher-looking one.

Jenny led the former hostage to a chaise lounge and sat with her, while Pall brought Carmen a bottle of water, which she gulped greedily, twice, then just stopped and seemed to be letting her stomach settle. Pall sat down on the lounge opposite, sitting forward, watchfully.

The three sat in silence for several minutes, Carmen starting to sip the water again. Jenny was rubbing the woman’s arm lightly, as if letting Carmen know she was not alone. Again Pall was impressed with Jenny, whose quiet, loner demeanor seemed to be slipping away.

Finally, her eyes unblinking and almost dead-looking, Carmen said, “You know, he didn’t have to die.”

Pall blinked. “Of course he did. J.C. had no choice — the guy was about to shoot you. Harrow saved your life! We all saw what happened.”

“No, I know. J.C. saved me — I owe him my life, I really, really do. But before that? Just ten seconds before that, Shelton was going to give himself up. He’d already let loose of me. He was about to go with J.C. and be questioned. And then they took a shot at him, and everything changed.”

“In hostage situations,” Pall said, “cops make tough calls like that all the time.”

“It feels wrong,” Carmen insisted. “J.C. was talking to him. Settling him down. Bringing him over.”

“Carmen, the man was a—”

“They’d been talking about the company that was buying up the land.” Carmen’s eyes were bright now. “Harrow got him talking about the developer, the company — what was it?”

“Castano Developments,” Jenny said.

“That’s it,” Carmen said. “Shelton really wanted to talk about that company. He wanted to open up. All of the killings, they were messages. Shelton was — in his sick, sick way — trying to tell us something. Only, then somebody took that shot.”

“Sniper missed,” Pall said.

Carmen shook her head, firmly. “No reason for him to shoot. Shelton was surrendering.”

“The sniper couldn’t possibly have known that.”

“But the sheriff was nearby,” Carmen insisted, getting worked up. “ He gave the order.”

Jenny slipped an arm around her and said, “Honey, you need to rest. You’ve been through so much.”

Carmen swallowed and sighed and, finally, nodded.

“Why don’t you stretch out right here?” Jenny suggested. “Just rest and maybe even sleep a little.”

“I’d rather sit,” Carmen said.

“Well, that’s fine, too...”

“I’ve been lying down a lot lately.” She gave them a weak smile and then began to cry. Jenny had tissues ready, and Pall sat on the other side of her and was there when Carmen folded herself to him, sobbing.

Pall told Jenny, “Go ahead and go. I’ll stay with her.”

Jenny nodded. “I have some stuff I need to do anyway.”

She squeezed Carmen’s shoulder and went forward to the little office area behind the front seating.

Really, Jenny had only scratched the surface of Castano Developments, getting Harrow some key facts to use in the showdown with Shelton. But she was not one to leave stones unturned, and was anxious to get back to it.

Castano Developments, it seemed, was really little more than a shell company owned by something called Braun Realty, in turn owned by something called Marron Holdings, itself a partnered company with a firm called Brun Limited, a subsidiary of Kahverengi International, whose CEO was listed as someone named Danyal Braz.

And that was when she figured it out.

Soon she was off the bus and running. On informal guard outside the semi, Choi and Laurene saw her coming, and both wisely cleared her a path.

Within the semi, she found Harrow, sitting at a work station, his head in his hands. He heard her rush in and glanced up.

“Not now, Jenny. I need time to—”

“No time for foolishness, boss.” She fired up the computer adjacent to him and sat.

He was frowning at her. “ What did you say to me?”

She almost smiled, the implied “young lady” so strong.

“Boss — Shelton? He was right.”

“What Shelton was,” Harrow said, “was crazy.”

“No argument. But he was also right.”

Interested now, Harrow asked, “What was he right about?”

“He said the deputies were the muscle for the company that wanted to buy the land, didn’t he?”

“He did, but he also included the state police and the FBI in on the conspiracy.”

“Take a gander,” she said, pointing at the screen.

Harrow scooched his chair closer and peered at the monitor. “Danyal Braz?”

“Funny spelling, huh?” Jenny said.

She pulled up the list of the companies she’d traced to and from Castano Developments.

“Here they are,” she said, “the whole chain of shell companies, subsidiaries, and partnered companies... all run by the same man.”

She hit the print button and, when the list popped out, handed it to Harrow.

He read aloud: “Castano Developments, Braun Realty, Marron Holdings, Brun Limited, and Kahverengi International.”

“Notice anything?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harrow said. “Tongue twisters.”

“That’s because,” Jenny said, “the names are all in different languages.”

Harrow’s eyes tightened. He glanced at the list, then back at her. “Go on.”

“Castano, Braun, Marron — pronounced Mar-ón — Brun, and Kahverengi,” she said. “Castano? Italian. Braun? German, Marrón? Spanish. Brun? Portuguese. Kahverengi? Turkish. And Braz? Polish... but they all translate into English as the same word...”

“Brown,” Harrow said.

She smiled like a slightly demented pixie and nodded the same way. “The CEO of Kahverengi International is Danyal Braz — translated from Arabic and Polish, you get Daniel Brown. As in former Lebanon Sheriff Daniel Brown.”

“And that’s probably not a coincidence,” Harrow said dryly.

“My guess is,” Jenny said, “when I track down the board of directors and stockholders of Kahverengi International? There’ll be more familiar names.”

“Get on it,” Harrow said, rising. “I’ve got someone to see.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Oh! One more thing — track down the ubiquitous Daniel Brown. If he is on his way back to town, as the current sheriff says, I want him met at the city limits.”