Aftershock: A Donovan Nash Novel (A Donovan Nash Thriller) (11 page)

“Any place in mind?” Montero asked as she put on her seat belt.

“My house,” Lauren said, before she’d really thought it through. Technically, it was their house, and even though she’d been gone a year, these last three months with him gone made it feel more like her place than Donovan’s. “I’m assuming you know that Donovan and I are separated?”

“I knew that—Donovan and I do stay in touch—though I haven’t talked to him since he went to Montana. I guess that makes it three months or more since we last spoke.”

Lauren hadn’t known the two of them had stayed in touch and hesitated, then reminded herself this was the exact reason
she’d called Montero, so she didn’t have to filter each and every action and comment. As she drove, she caught Montero looking at her, assessing her.

“You’re what I expected—for the most part you look like a suburban housewife,” Montero said. “I know you’ve read a file or two on me, and that you know a great deal about who I am. Since I was asking for files from the FBI, I asked for yours.”

Lauren smiled at the fact that Montero was on her game. Lauren had expected no less. “And?”

“You’re far from a suburban anything. You’re part scientist, part vigilante, on any given day you’re without a doubt the smartest person in the room, and you carry a Glock. You attract men, yet intimidate them with your looks
and
your brain, and for the very same reasons, you don’t have many women friends. You’ve authored the solutions to national emergencies, and yet you deflect the credit elsewhere. I was particularly interested in a recent report, the one about France and Alaska. It was heavily redacted, but thanks to already having heard most of the story from Donovan, I was able to read between the lines. You and Eco-Watch pulled off some amazing things, yet you broke the law and were in considerable trouble with both the FBI and the CIA, weren’t you? If you’re separated from Donovan, and I’m not here to judge, why do you keep working on his behalf?”

“Being separated doesn’t mean I don’t love him.”

“What
does
it mean?” Montero asked.

“Do we have a conflict of interest? Do you have an agenda I need to know about?” Lauren asked, acting on impulse. “Have you slept with him?”

“You are direct, aren’t you? The simple answer is ‘no.’ Look, I know without a doubt why I’m here. I made Donovan a promise. Your motivation seems a little less clear. I’m just trying to understand your level of commitment and where it comes from.”

“I’m trying to help my husband and save Stephanie. The by-product of those two actions might save my marriage. So, yes, I’m pretty committed.”

“Are you prepared to use your weapon?”

Lauren glanced down at her purse wedged into the console between them. Her Glock was within easy reach. Montero was pushing buttons, the former FBI agent’s way to try to gain an advantage. She’d seen this behavior before in highly aggressive people. If nothing else, Montero was straight to the point. She understood a little more about why her husband trusted this woman. “I think we both know the answer to that question.”

“I’m not trying to create barriers,” Montero said. “I know all you think we’re doing is research, but history says it’s never that simple with you. If this turns into a fight, can I rely on you?”

Lauren swung into the driveway, opened the garage door, pulled in, and then made no move to exit the Range Rover. “Yes, you can count on me to answer force with force. Now, I have a question for you. You’ve been talking with my husband more than I have. What’s your assessment of his mental state?”

“This is just my opinion, but I’ll tell you what I told him. When his past intrudes, it pulls him back and he relives his perceived mistakes. He’s caught in some kind of loop, and, in my opinion, until he gets some kind of absolution for those perceived sins, they’ll eventually unravel him, and he won’t make it back.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Lauren opened the door and led the way into the house. She called out to let Aimee, the babysitter, know she was home. The sound of running feet told her Abigail was coming at full steam. The four-year-old blew around the corner, curly hair streaming behind her. She was clutching a sheet of paper.

“Mommy! Aimee and I drew pictures!”

“Slow down, young lady.” Lauren leaned down and caught her excited daughter around the waist and swung her up into her arms. “I thought we talked about running inside the house?”

“But, Mommy, I needed to show you my picture.”

“We have company.” Lauren stepped to the side so Abigail
could see Montero. “This is Ms. Montero. She’s helping me with some things from work.”

“Hello, Abigail,” Montero said.

“Hello,” Abigail said politely, and then quickly turned back to her mother. “I drew a picture of me and Daddy and you. See, we’re all together, just like when we made him a chocolate birthday cake.”

“Very nice,” Lauren said. She set her daughter down just as Aimee came down the hallway. “We’ll put this one up in your room. Can you and Aimee draw another one while Ms. Montero and I get started in the study? After your bath, Aimee’s going to go home, and I’ll read you a story and tuck you in to bed.”

“Nighttime snack?” Abigail asked.

“There might still be some cake. Only have a small piece, and then brush your teeth.” The moment the words left Lauren’s mouth, Abigail took off and ran toward the kitchen with Aimee in pursuit.

“Why did she draw Donovan with long hair and a beard?” Montero asked.

“When he showed up here, he hadn’t shaved or gotten a haircut the entire time he’d been in Montana.”

“Abigail looks like you, but she has Donovan’s eyes,” Montero said.

“If she looked like her father, we’d hardly know, would we?” Lauren replied with a well-intended shot to Donovan’s appearance-altering surgeries. “What we do know is she inherited his impulsive, stubborn streak, and disregard for rules.”

“Good for her. I’m a big fan of rebellion.”

“That’s what Donovan says,” Lauren replied. Abigail was Daddy’s girl, and one day she’d learn the truth about her father. Either from her parents, or God forbid, a resentful public. Lauren hoped that either way, that particular discussion was years from now. “Let’s get started.”

They settled in the study and Lauren unloaded her pistol but kept the clip in her pocket and the pistol in a drawer.

“I’d prefer to keep my weapon loaded,” Montero said.

“Then it goes in the safe,” Lauren said. “I have a four-year-old. No exceptions. I’m assuming you can load your weapon quickly if needed?”

Montero nodded as she pulled out her gun, dropped the magazine, slipped open the chamber and removed the bullet. She placed the now-empty pistol into her bag.

Lauren sat at the table and pulled out her laptop, motioning for Montero to take the seat across from her. Lauren then retrieved two bottles of water from the wet bar and, as computers booted up and papers were organized, Montero took her seat.

“Okay,” Montero began. “The latest update I received from Guatemala is that a ransom note was delivered this morning. It was flown back to Andrews Air Force Base and taken directly to the FBI lab for analysis. The kidnappers asked for three million dollars and specified they’d only wait three days. There was also a bloody fingerprint on the note. As it turns out, it’s fish blood, and it’s not Stephanie’s fingerprint, or anyone else’s in the system for that matter. My contact says the move was more than likely meant to shock. It’s a tactic the FBI behavioral psychologists suggest is an act of simple intimidation. The symbol of a bloody fingerprint is fairly common in relatively lawless regions such as Guatemala.”

“Maybe it’s where we start,” Lauren said as she opened her laptop. “Kidnappings with a bloody fingerprint on the ransom note.”

“In Central America, over the last twenty-five years, there have been three hundred eighty-one kidnappings with some variation on the theme. The FBI ran the parameters through the computers for similarities and nothing connected them together.”

“Of those, how many were in Guatemala?”

“Eighty-four,” Montero said as she handed Lauren a printout.

As Lauren scanned the numbers listed beside each country,
her phone pinged, alerting her to an e-mail. She picked it up: a message from Buck. There were attachments and she elected to access his e-mail via her laptop:

Lauren–

Found these pictures on a memory card at crime scene.

We assume they’re from Stephanie’s camera.

See what you make of them, but show them to no one.

William is still adamant about no outside help.

–Buck

“What is it?” Montero asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You need to see this.”

Lauren and Montero huddled over the laptop and wordlessly clicked through each of the pictures.

“Go back,” Montero said. “Go through them again.”

Lauren and Montero went through the images a dozen times until Lauren finally stood and began to pace. “Okay, let’s review what we think so far.”

“The men are definitely chasing the girl.”

“That makes the girl the primary target, not Stephanie,” Lauren said. “Stephanie was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Which is good,” Montero said. “It eliminates a vendetta against Stephanie or William. The kidnappers, who we know aren’t soldiers, are in it for the money. William may have made the right call. Three million and his niece is returned.”

“Except she’s seen her kidnappers. She knows what they look like. Hell, we’ve seen them. We also have no idea if they’ve figured out a memory card is missing.”

“I say we go back to the primary victim,” Montero said. “We need to look for a motive in her abduction.”

“There was a girl missing from Antigua.” Lauren sat back down at the computer.

“How long ago? What’s her deal? Where are her parents?”

“Here it is. A girl was abducted in Antigua six days ago by multiple men who shot and killed her armed escort.”

“Okay, let’s start with the girl and see what we can find out. I’m thinking not every grade-school girl in Guatemala has an armed escort. We need to know what’s up with that. Maybe we can find a motive, and, from there, perhaps a suspect.”

“Where do we start?”

“I work with six women’s shelters in Florida. Most of the women I see are there because of a husband or a boyfriend. The fights are often due to children, custody battles, child support, and the like. There’s a global network that lists missing children. We’ll start there.”

“I almost forgot about your work with at-risk women and girls,” Lauren replied offhand as Montero typed.

“I find that odd, since you donated five million dollars to the shelter. Money we desperately needed to expand.”

“That was supposed to be a secret,” Lauren said, without so much as blinking.

“You said it yourself. I’m a detective. And thank you for the donation. You helped a great many people.”

“It was a way to say thank you for all that you did for my husband,” Lauren replied. “I’m glad it worked out.”

“You’re not going to believe this. I just found her.” Montero shook her head in disbelief and then looked up from her laptop.

“What?” Lauren got up to look for herself. Pictured on the screen was, without a doubt, the girl from Stephanie’s pictures.

“She was taken eighteen months ago in Los Angeles. Kidnapped from the house she shared with her mother. The girl’s name is Marie Vargas; she’s eight years old and an American citizen. Her mother, Alicia Vargas, claims her daughter was taken by her late husband’s family, after the murder of Marie’s father, Miguel.”

“So, if what we’re reading is true, Marie was kidnapped by her father’s family after the death of her father.” Lauren moved around the table and quickly began typing into her laptop.
Moments later, Lauren was skimming an exposé that came out six months ago in the
Los Angeles Times
. The in-depth report was about children taken from the custodial parent and whisked from the country where they vanish. Even if they’re located, the situation often turns into a bureaucratic nightmare. Marie Vargas was showcased as one of the examples. “Listen to this. Marie’s grandfather, the man widely believed to have abducted his granddaughter, is not only a Mexican national, but he’s also a rich, well-placed politician.”

“What kind of politician?”

“He’s listed as the Mexican emissary to Guatemala.”

“This just got way more complicated,” Montero said as she pressed her fingers to her temples. “And far more dangerous.”

Donovan was sitting with Janie at a corner table in the hotel bar. The place was half-full, the Monday evening business travelers had begun to trickle in, and the low murmurs of surrounding conversations eclipsed the Latin music playing through the overhead speakers. Donovan had a clear field of view, wanting to spot Michael when he arrived. The
Galileo
had landed earlier, and work on the
Scimitar
interface had pushed past dinner. Michael was on his way to join them for a drink. The only news was the FBI had relayed to Buck that they’d found no solid fingerprints on the ransom note or the packaging. The next move still belonged to the kidnappers.

A slight headache and a sore throat were all that lingered from his earlier encounter with the volcano. That Janie had reacted so quickly made all the difference. When Donovan spotted Michael, he raised his hand to get his friend’s attention.

Michael walked closer, a quizzical expression crossing his face as he studied Donovan’s hair and beard. Donovan rose to greet his friend. Michael hugged Janie first, then turned to Donovan.

“Happy birthday, old man. What’s with the hippie look? It’s a little late for a midlife crisis, isn’t it?” Michael said as they gave each other a handshake and then a hug.

“I was thinking about a tattoo next,” Donovan replied, genuinely happy Michael had arrived. Their twelve-year friendship had been forged in the high-stress environment of
flying Eco-Watch jets. Donovan would, and had, trusted Michael with his life.

“You could get a tattoo of your actual birth date, you know, to remind yourself you’re fifty!” Michael replied. “All kidding aside, it’s good to see you. How are you doing?”