The NightShade Forensic Files: Fracture Five (Book 2) Read online

  With the parts they'd IDd and tested, he and Eleri had confirmed that the dead body and all the parts they checked had indeed belonged to the therapist. So he turned the conversation back to the documents he was trying not to drip his burger onto.

  "Vasquez is right about Rollins’ bank records. His military benefits are still going into their joint account, and the wife is spending them."

  "How do you know it's her?" Eleri asked before spearing a spice and olive oil covered broccoli. Her own sandwich was grilled chicken on some gourmet bun. He'd quit trying to figure out her eating habits a while ago.

  "Expenses at Target, Ralphs grocery store. Vasquez managed to pull her store code and got print-outs of all her grocery purchases." He pushed a list toward her. "Look, generic diapers, canned fruit, the occasional pack of disposable sippy cups. All at the store right down the street from her condo."

  Eleri nodded and seemed to be enjoying her vegetables. Her own papers were radiating farther and farther out on the table as she worked.

  "Look," Donovan pushed another paper forward. "There are withdrawals for cash at regular intervals. Big sums. At least big for what she's living on."

  "So? Lots of people get cash." She took a delicate bite of her frilly sandwich and waited. He liked that she asked the questions, but didn't seem to expect he'd screwed it up. She was simply awaiting details. She trusted his expertise. Maybe that was why he stayed even though she sometimes said things like the 'dog' comment earlier.

  "This withdrawal is downtown." He spun the tablet he'd pulled up a city map on and pointed near the ATM address for her.

  "She can move around." Eleri watched him.

  Donovan smiled. "Not this fast." He pulled out her credit card records. "She checked out at her neighborhood grocery store—using her store card, just ten minutes earlier than the downtown withdrawal. The grocery purchase is for a decent sized cache, including milk. She probably went home and put them in the fridge."

  "So it's definitely two different people." This time Eleri grinned. "Didn't Vasquez say she canvassed the neighborhood with Cooper Rollins' picture?"

  "And no one claimed to have seen him." Donovan nodded. "So he didn't buy the groceries at the corner store. But he is taking money out of their account on a regular basis. Or someone is. He's the only one who makes sense. But . . ."

  "But none of this makes any sense yet." She pushed back from the table. "What do Cooper Rollins' therapist and his old commanding officer have to do with each other?"

  If there had been an easy answer to that, he and Eleri wouldn't be here. He was getting the impression that their division of the FBI—NightShade—wasn't called out unless the case was really tough. He wasn't sure yet if he liked that or not, and he sure didn't have an answer to Eleri's question.

  What he did have was another question. "Why doesn't Alyssa Rollins know that her husband was Special Forces?"

  This time Eleri moved forward, the last piece of her sandwich set into the Styrofoam with a thunk that said she was paying all her attention to him. "What do you mean?"

  "When we talked to her, she mentioned his time enlisted. But she said several times he was a 'specialist.' That's a rank. She seemed to think he was in Afghanistan the whole time he was enlisted. But our records say he was at Fort Benning and even in North Korea for some of it."

  She frowned. "Shit. We need to find out what she really believes. Why wouldn't she know?"

  "So he was a Ranger, then quickly promoted and trained as a Green Beret. His unit reported to the CIA's SAD—Special Activities Division," Donovan moved his finger, reading from the notes he'd put together. He didn't know all these pieces and wasn't even positive he had it right. But it was a start. "And at the end he was discharged quickly. Very quickly from what I can see. That's unusual. But that's just what I put together. What gets me is that the benefits getting deposited into their account each month are for a Specialist with nine years’ service. Not a former Ranger and medically discharged Green Beret. And Alyssa Rollins doesn’t seem to know that."

  Cooper Rollins climbed the fence. It was ten feet tall, chain link, with barbed wire at the top. Put there for the express purpose of keeping him and his kind out.

  The fencing here was still pretty, clean and silver, the links still mostly intact on this side. Ozzy had wire cutters, and he’d managed to split the razor wire in one spot on each of the four sides of fence that separated this one perfect square of dirt from the streets that defined it and the cars and people passing by. Cooper gently pushed the sharp edges apart and threw a leg over the top.

  This area of downtown L.A. was an odd mix. It housed various districts—a block or two of one kind of business or another. This particular block was bracketed by the jewelry district on one side and fabrics and textiles on the other.

  It was a new spot for the veteran group, their old fenced-in square having recently been built on. Five blocks over, it had been next to the floral district and had smelled a bit better.

  Cooper landed in the dirt with a puff of gray concrete clay rising under his boots.

  "Rollins!"

  He lifted his head at the sound and spotted Ozzy's hand up in the air. Making his way toward the man was a task completed by practice and Special Forces training.

  The tents this group slept in dotted the ground. Some were bright and new. A small blue pop-up dominated his left, an old brown version was staked too close to the corners to gain any real stability. The ground was littered with makeshift personal areas. An old mattress covered with a smattering of dirty sheets and a blanket crossed what should have been a walking path. The owner was absent, but the things weren't touched.

  Ever watchful, Cooper counted about eight people currently in the area. About forty sleeping spaces, protected from the passing business people and shoppers by the ironic chain link. Insurance companies made the property owners install it.

  Though Cooper didn't live here like most did, and though he was cleaner and better fed than them, he was welcome. Almost everyone in this particular area was ex-military. They had their own code, which included greeting Ozzy upon entry. But that's who Cooper was here to see anyway.

  A woman he'd never met sat next to the man, and Ozzy introduced her right away. "This here's Walter Reed."

  The nickname should have been funny, but was likely a nod to her prosthetic leg and hand. It didn't seem to get in her way though and she nodded at him then went back to eating some fried chicken. She would have been pretty if she were clean.

  Ozzy grinned. "Walter's MARSOC."

  Cooper felt his eyebrows rise. She'd been Marine Special Forces. He didn't know a lot about it. But that lost leg and hand made more sense. It also meant she was trained in "Unusual Combat"—something he knew more about than he wanted to.

  Not knowing what to say, Cooper only nodded.

  It was Ozzy who picked up the conversation. "You find that fracture?"

  "No. Just chatter." He'd finally gotten some of the key words he was looking for. "But it came from down here." He pointed at the ground, but meant the downtown area. He'd picked up chatter once before, but it had been closer to Alyssa and Christopher.

  He knew that shit was all around, but it didn't make his heart race as bad when it wasn't as close to the two of them.

  "Can you join up?"

  "I think so." He nodded to Ozzy. "Can you keep your ears peeled?" He gave the man some information, noting that Walter Reed was memorizing it, despite looking like she was just eating chicken and ignoring the world. He decided to address that straight up. Turning to her, he added, "If you get any of this. Send it back to me? It's important for my family."

  She gave a small nod, maybe assuming that if he was a friend of Ozzy's he was a friendly.

  "There are two women in the group that I can tell." Cooper mentioned.

  Ozzy gave a small start in surprise, but Walter didn't. Definitely MARSOC. Ozzy's reaction was the normal one. It was unusual to find women on the chatter. It made them valuable
.

  Walter's eyes narrowed as she figured out what he was doing. "Why would you join?" Her voice was harsh.

  "It's where the money is." It was all he could say.

  Walter Reed clearly couldn’t tell what he was up to, but she was suspicious and right to be so. Cooper couldn't say more—not in this tiny tent community surrounded only by chain link. Ozzy's spot was near the middle, prime territory.

  "Shit." Walter's voice was soft, disturbingly feminine through the swear.

  Following her gaze, Cooper saw the officers, a pair in blue, coming toward the block. Ducking carefully into Ozzy's tent, the three of them moved out of sight even as the others who'd been out also quickly disappeared from view.

  Inside the tent the heat became stifling. For a moment Cooper wondered how Ozzy slept in here, then he thought how much the dry heat reminded him of the Middle East. Maybe that was how.

  "Hey! We know you're in there." One of the cops called out.

  They didn't answer, but it wasn't a tense standoff. Walter re-settled herself but kept eating the chicken.

  "You have to move from here." It was half-hearted at best. The cops didn't want to move them. No one else was using the lot. And the boys in blue weren't going to climb the razor wire fence to evict people with nowhere else to go. Especially not vets.

  Case in point, Cooper heard a ratcheting noise that spiked his adrenaline. Even as he told himself he was safe—they were safe—he heard the cop take a harsh tone beyond the boundary. "Put that down, kid."

  He put it together: kid with a stick, running it along the fence.

  "I don't have to." The kid replied and the noise started again.

  Walter had quit eating her chicken. She stared at him.

  Shit. He was breathing heavily. Ozzy put his hand on Cooper’s arm, an anchor to the present. The stick on the fence, the ratcheting noise . . . it sounded like the chain that opened the fence at the edge of the compound.

  A loud crack split the air, and Cooper and Walter both jumped.

  He told himself the kid maybe broke the stick. In the back of his head he heard the cops going after the asshole. But it didn't matter that he knew it was a stick. It didn't matter that he identified the sound as matching the gate at the base when his team returned. Or what was left of his team.

  His brain looped time and when he breathed in he felt the searing heat of air on his last op. His ribs didn't want to expand because of the vest and the pack and all the weight he was carrying.

  Putting his hand to his chest to prove the packs and gear weren't there didn’t work. Cooper felt them. His fingers brushed the heavy canvas of the vest, the feel of extra ammo in the pockets, the wire to the radio he wore.

  He watched as his best friend shredded in front of him, arms each flying into the trees, hand still holding the tactical gun. One leg pinwheeled away. Cooper tasted the blood in the air.

  Cupping his hands over his ears, he breathed in short bursts and reminded himself, "It's not real, it's not real."

  But it was.

  4

  Donovan stood on one side of the chain link fence. Ugly loops of razor wire topped it, ready to slice anyone who came in contact.

  But there were people inside. People looking at him warily. Beside him, Eleri also stood gazing through the fence. He could almost hear her thinking the same thing he was: There has to be a way in. There were people inside. They didn't just materialize their way in and out. Then he thought of some of the things he'd seen at NightShade and Donovan fought a shudder.

  Inside, the people were various shades of dirty, messy, and skittish, but they all had the same bearing, the same stiff backbone.

  Soldiers.

  He could almost smell it on them. The man who picked his way across the space did so unevenly, but still ready to take all comers.

  Donovan was a nerd— a former medical examiner and current FBI agent. Given that, they should be able to take him, easily. But they'd never seen anything like him before, and they shouldn't ever.

  "Up and over." Eleri had made up her mind. Though her voice was soft, her resolve was clear.

  "I'll go first." They could only go one at a time. They'd casually checked the perimeter and found only one spot where the links had been tampered with. It wasn't clear how to get through, and the people inside could easily hold them out. So despite being counterintuitive, going over made their entrance harder to stop.

  Donovan thought he could see a split in the razor wire above, but both of them going at the same time likely meant at least one of them would get caught and that stuff was nasty. So he started the climb and was at the top in no time, holding on with his left hand and carefully pushing at the coils of wire with his right.

  There it was.

  The barbs kept getting hung up, but eventually he got them far enough apart to get safely through. Even as he swung his leg over, he could feel Eleri mounting the links below him. He was turned around, clinging to the fence, his back to the men on the ground when she passed him going up the other side.

  She didn't smile, just climbed with efficiency and determination. As Donovan hit the ground, he stepped aside and none too soon. Eleri dropped to the dirt right beside him.

  This was the way in. These guys almost all climbed in and out, as evidenced by the packed dirt square he landed on. It was about the only place not covered by tents or bedding, about the only part of any path wide enough to land on. He looked around and thought he saw two other landing squares in the opposite corners. In and out wasn't easy, but it kept them alone.

  The soldiers stared warily at the two of them. Donovan stared back, wondering if he looked like a Fed now the way these people all looked like soldiers.

  An older man came up to them. "I'm Ozzy. What can I do for you?"

  Donovan was starting to speak, but Eleri already had it going. After a disturbingly brief intro, she got to the point. "We're looking for this man. He's not in trouble, we're just hoping he can help us with a case." She'd pulled out the picture of Rollins and flashed it around.

  A side look from her kept Donovan from reaching for the additional photos he carried. Maybe she didn't want them to know that they'd researched Rollins more thoroughly than just a quick chat would warrant.

  One by one, the men and even a few women in here filed by, looking at the photo. Ozzy had said, no, he didn't know that man. Then each of the others said the same thing. Almost word for word.

  Someone needed to teach them to lie better.

  Donovan fought down an audible sigh and thanked the vets for their time. He wanted to ask if there was anything he could do, anything they could use, but he didn't. He'd been on the other side before, seen his father's pride and refusal to take anything even when it was sorely needed. For a while, he'd even developed some of that stubbornness himself.

  There was nothing else he and Eleri could do here without alienating the people they needed, so he watched as she smiled blandly and handed out her card as though these people would up and call the FBI if they saw something. Then she calmly turned and climbed the razor wire topped fence as if that were her usual MO for entry and exit.

  Donovan followed with as much aplomb as he could muster, disturbed to find he didn't do it as well as Eleri.

  She gave him a moment to fall into step as they walked away back to the bank.

  Before they went to see the vets, they'd stopped in and requested a video pull. So now it only took a few minutes for the branch manager to show them the clips he'd sorted out using the date, time, and card number from Rollins' bank records.

  Sure enough, that was him withdrawing cash. He managed to avoid a direct shot from the camera, so it wasn't proof, but the person punching the numbers and taking the cash was definitely not Alyssa Rollins.

  Aside from the fact that the branch manager was shaking in his shiny shoes over a visit from the FBI, it looked outwardly like a normal visit. They tried to leave while drawing as little attention to themselves as possible. It was only mildly succ
essful.

  Donovan had to admit that while the smells in L.A. weren't the best, the weather was pretty nice. It was seventy degrees here even though other parts of the country were already well into winter. He could wear nice shirts and pants and not sweat to death and the dry air at least didn't transmit the odors as well as humidity did.

  They hit the parking garage and climbed into the car. This time he was driving, and slid behind the wheel before starting to talk.

  "So we know he got money at that machine on at least two occasions. And there's no reason to believe the other withdrawals aren't him." Donovan hadn't wanted to ask the bank branch manager anything he didn't have to.

  "I agree. Also, he's been down there with that enclave of vets. They know him and they aren't telling." Her lips pressed together, though if it was her thoughts or the traffic that pushed that expression, he couldn't tell.

  They were only a mile, but probably twenty minutes from the rental house that was now home, when he saw a restaurant on the corner. Hungry and frustrated, he swung wide into the parking lot and handed over the keys to the valet before Eleri could comment.

  "Chili?"

  "I'm hungry." He didn't add that he was upset. It probably showed. "I'm sure they have something you'll eat."

  What they had was a menu printed like a newspaper and about as long. He wanted a beer, but—like always—they couldn't talk in public, and he couldn't get the beer to go. He was still grumpy when he walked in the front door of the little house, but at least he could talk and he had food.

  Twisting the cap from a beer he pulled from the fridge—because fuck it—he opened the containers and felt his stomach roll in anticipation of what was supposedly the second best chili in LA. He'd take it.

  Two bites later, with Eleri watching him the whole time, he started talking. "We have jack shit."

  "I know."

  "We know he makes withdrawals within about twenty-four hours of the deposit." Though even that wasn't regular, and he didn't always use the same ATM. "So we just missed him this month. That's three plus weeks to catch him if we can figure out which ATM he's going to."