“She’s in the boys’ bathroom,” a woman suddenly piped up.

  Stitts stared at her for a moment, then quickly scanned the bar for the bathroom. At some point, the lights had clicked on, and he quickly found the iconic sign.

  “Agent—”

  “Fuck off,” Stitts snapped as he hurried toward the bathroom. Behind him, Stitts heard the door open and then Chief Rodriguez did his best to calm The Copper Sip’s few remaining patrons.

  His focus was singular now: find Chase.

  After slipping his FBI badge back into his pocket, he flung the door to the bathroom open so hard that it rebounded and struck him in the shoulder, effectively shoving him inside

  “FBI!”

  He could see two sets of feet below one of the stall doors and he walked directly toward it.

  “FBI!” Stitts shouted as it started to open. “You touch her, and I’ll kill you!”

  A grunt came from the stall, just as the door swung wide.

  At first, Stitts wasn’t sure what he was seeing. A woman with smoky eyeshadow and bright red lips was slumped against the toilet and a homeless man stood in her path, a sneer on his greasy face.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the man demanded.

  Stitts looked past him and at the woman.

  “Chase?” he asked, his voice faltering. “Are you—”

  It was Chase, he realized, only he’d never seen her like this before. It wasn’t just what she was wearing—a tight skirt and skimpy top—but also the expression on her face: she looked positively shocked.

  Stitts raised the gun and aimed it right between the man’s eyes.

  “Get away from her,” he ordered.

  Confusion spread across the man’s face like wildfire.

  “Get the fuck away from her!”

  Chase slid by the man with little effort. She exited the stall, her expression changing with every step.

  Shock transitioned into fury.

  “Stitts, what the hell are you doing? We almost—”

  But Stitts was drunk and blind with rage now. His hand was also shaking, and their suspect, a man who craved control, looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

  “Look, I dunno who the fuck—”

  “You took her. You kidnapped her,” Stitts hissed from between clenched teeth.

  At his side, Chase was calmly telling him to lower his weapon.

  Stitts didn’t listen.

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about. Just put the gun down, man.”

  “You took her… you were going to kill her like all the others.” His finger tensed on the trigger and Rick Griever whimpered.

  “You’re crazy… I… I…” he turned and pleaded with Chase. “Tell him! Tell him!”

  Stitts was in the process of taking another step forward and adjusting his aim when an arm slid beneath his armpit. In one smooth motion, Chief Rodriguez had successfully pried the gun from his hand.

  “Rick Griever, you’re under arrest,” the Chief said.

  Given the profile that he’d generated, Stitts expected the man to obey. But he tensed anyway; he’d been wrong before, after all.

  Part of Stitts wished that Rick protested, put up a fight, which would give him cause to escalate the situation.

  As if it hadn’t gone far enough as it was.

  But Rick Griever disappointed him by flinging his hands in the air.

  “Yeah—yeah, sure, whatever, man. Just get this crazy fuck away from me.”

  Chapter 70

  “Someone get me a napkin,” Chase barked. “Get me a damn napkin.”

  Floyd handed her one, and she aggressively wiped at first her lips, then started to work on her eyeshadow.

  “What happened? What the hell happened? I was just about to get him to talk.”

  Floyd shrugged.

  “Agent Stitts came in, demanded to know where you were and then went straight for the bar.”

  Chase looked skyward and swore loudly.

  “W-w-we tried to stop him.”

  There was a crowd building around their van, and the media couldn’t be far behind.

  So much for an undercover operation.

  “And where’s Stitts now?”

  Floyd pointed at Chief Rodriguez, who was trying to convince Stitts to get into a police car—the passenger seat, she noted.

  He should be getting in the back.

  “And Rick Griever? Where’s he?”

  Floyd moved his finger to another cop car, where she saw Agent Bellefontaine speaking to one of the officers. Rick was in the backseat, his head hung low, his hair dangling in front of his face.

  “What are you going to do with them?” Floyd asked.

  Them—not him, as in Rick, but them.

  It was clear that even Floyd, he of the calm demeanor, the unwillingness to offend, to overstep his junior status, was fed up.

  Stitts had gone too far this time. It was one thing to call her out in front of the team, it was another to barge into a public space with his gun drawn.

  “I’m gonna take them to the station,” she said, before changing her mind. “Actually, I’ve got a better idea.”

  Chase hustled across the street and signaled Chief Rodriguez. She tried best to keep her gait even, natural, but there was no denying that the drug that Rick had spiked her drink with was still present in her system. As she approached, Stitts tried to make eye contact with her, but she deliberately avoided his gaze.

  “Chief, I’ll take it from here,” she said. The Chief raised an eyebrow, forcing Chase to reiterate the command.

  She felt a pang of guilt for the man; sure, he’d asked for the FBI to come in, and he seemed to be one of only a handful of people who gave a shit about what happened to the missing girls, but he hadn’t asked for this.

  The bickering, the blatant disregard for anything that came close to resembling procedure.

  Eventually, Chief Rodriguez nodded and started to walk away, his shoulders slumped.

  “Chase, I—”

  Chase held up a finger, silencing her partner. She waited until the Chief was out of earshot, and then confronted Stitts.

  “I was undercover, you asshole. I was gonna get him to admit to taking the girls. You ruined it.”

  Stitts made a face and shook his head.

  “No, no, I saved you. That guy, he grabbed you, and he was going to—”

  Chase felt like striking him just then. Sure, over the years that they’d worked together, Stitts had annoyed her on more than one occasion. But until this moment, she’d never considered striking her partner.

  She owed him a lot—her life, plus some—but he’d gone from being a nuisance to compromising the situation.

  And her life was worth less than the lives of twenty-eight missing girls.

  It was simple mathematics.

  Chase took a deep breath and looked down at her gloved hands that were balled into fists.

  She deliberately stretched her fingers straight.

  “I had it under control. I was the one who led Rick to the bathroom, and I was going to get him to talk.”

  Stitts balked.

  “Are you high? I was—”

  That was the final straw.

  Without thinking, Chase lashed out, but not closed-fisted as she’d initially wanted to. Instead, she slapped Stitts across the face. Her glove softened the blow, but it was still forceful enough to send his head to the opposite side.

  Like some sort of demon, he slowly ratcheted his face back to center, hatred in his eyes.

  “After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me?”

  Chase stood her ground.

  “Go back to the hotel, Stitts. No, better yet, go get your shit from the hotel, go to the airport, and go home.”

  “What?” he gaped. “This is my case—my case. You don’t tell me what to do.”

  Realizing that their spat had drawn most of the crowd’s attention by now, Chase considered what they must look like, with him drunk and her dressed up like a trashy prostitute.

  She stepped forward and lowered her voice.

  “This was never your case, Stitts. It was my case from the start. It was my case the day I walked into Director Hampton’s office, and you weren’t there. When you staggered in late, hungover. Now go home.”

  “Oh really? Well, while you were with Rick, I met someone who knows about el Diablo, a hooker who slept with a police officer—”

  Chase lowered her chin to her chest and leveled an icy stare at Stitts. If her eyes could shoot lasers, she would’ve incinerated her partner long ago.

  “Go. Home.”

  Maybe it was the look, or maybe it was something in her voice. But for some reason, Stitts suddenly turned and walked away.

  Just like that. Not another word.

  Chase watched him go, and when he was finally lost in the crowd, she turned her attention to those who had gathered outside The Copper Sip.

  “Go home,” she repeated, raising her voice. “All of you, just go home.”

  Unlike Stitts, nobody listened.

  Frustrated, Chase searched for Chief Rodriguez. She found him standing beside Agent Bellefontaine and the police cruiser that held Rick Griever. Still a little wobbly, her determination was the only thing that spurred her movements.

  “What the hell—” the man started, but Chase cut him off.

  “Take Rick back to the station, put him in an interrogation room. But I don’t want a single person to talk to him,” Chase instructed. “Not a single person—not you, not a member of your team, not Agent Bellefontaine. You got that?”

  Chief Rodriguez nodded and then immediately turned to the closest officer.

  “Keys,” he ordered. The man looked confused, and the Chief held out his hand. “Keys. You can take my car, but I’m taking the suspect in.”

  Satisfied that her demands would be met, Chase raised her gaze to the crowd. She was searching for Stitts, wanting to make sure that he hadn’t changed his mind and returned.

  But her partner was gone.

  She hoped, for his sake, for all their sakes, that Stitts had taken her seriously and would find himself on a flight back to Virginia before the sun rose in the morning.

  If he didn’t, things were bound to get ugly.

  Chase shook her head, trying to come to terms with how fucked up this entire day had been, starting with waiting for Stitts outside of Sevillita, to watching him walk away from The Copper Sip, his tail between his legs.

  No, things wouldn’t get ugly if Stitts stayed in Albuquerque. They would get downright hideous.

  Chase would make sure of it.

  Chapter 71

  “You feeling all right?” Floyd asked when Chase finally made it back to the police station. “You look a little… off.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Chase replied, taking another gulp of hot coffee.

  The truth was that she didn’t quite feel normal; not yet, anyway. Whatever Rick had slipped her was powerful stuff and if she—with her ‘experience’—was feeling the effects, then she was fairly certain that the other girls didn’t have a chance.

  “Just tired.”

  Chase raised her eyes and stared at Rick Griever through the two-way mirror. With Stitts’s gun no longer trained at his forehead, the man’s demeanor had reverted back to its former state: defiant, arrogant, self-important.

  In a nutshell, he fit Stitts’s profile of the killer. But was he their man?

  Chase wasn’t sure. And now that she didn’t trust her ‘voodoo’, touching the man would bring no more clarity to the issue. Instead, she had to resort to more traditional investigative means.

  Chief Rodriguez was in the room with her, as were Floyd, Agent Bellefontaine, and Tom Cable. They were all awaiting her instructions, and all looked how Chase felt: exhausted.

  But there was still work to be done today. If there was any shred of hope that just one of the missing girls was still alive, they needed to tread lightly with Rick Griever. They also needed to be tactful, subtle, and yet, they needed answers.

  Chase sighed heavily and then addressed Chief Rodriguez.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she began, “But it’s gonna take some cooperation—everybody’s cooperation.”

  Chief Rodriguez rubbed his eyes.

  “I’m at my wit’s end here, Agent Adams. Seriously. I can’t—”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll like this,” Chase continued. “But if it’s going to work, everyone has to play their part.”

  ***

  “We’ve got a 10-58 out at Rockwell Mall,” Chief Rodriguez said as he stepped into the hallway. His voice was loud enough to command the attention of all officers within earshot. “Potential for a 10-65—highly volatile situation. Detectives Baines and Simple, I want you to ride with me. Every other available officer should be prepared to help evacuate, should it come to that.”

  Chase slipped behind the Chief and brought her phone to her ear.

  “Yeah, okay. Got it,” she said to dead air, and then lifted her eyes. “Floyd, you come with me. There’s been a development at the hospital—we need to go speak to Bea again.”

  “What about me?” Agent Bellefontaine asked.

  “The media has finally been cleared out of Sevillita. Head back there and look for Agent Workman’s vehicle.”

  This was the only part of the charade that was actually real; Agent Workman had been missing going on twenty-plus hours now, and her partner’s concern was palpable.

  Officer Price leaned out of his office to see what all the commotion was about.

  “10-58 out at Rockwell,” Chief Rodriguez repeated. “Going to need some help making sure that everyone gets out okay.”

  “What about Rick? You just going to leave him in there?” Price asked, lifting his chin toward the door to Interrogation Room 1.

  The Chief looked to Chase, who shrugged.

  “Let them stew, let him veg. He’s too hopped up right now to give us anything. When he crashes later tonight, we’ll bring him some food, see if he’ll open up then. Wanna keep an eye on him?”

  Officer Price nodded.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “All right, I’m off to visit Bea again—had the doctor administer a test to see if she’s telling the truth about not being able to remember anything about what happened before she was picked up. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

  Chase patted Office Price on the back, then exchanged a look with Chief Rodriguez, who proceeded to round up the detectives and several stray police officers.

  Chase then gestured toward the front of the station, and Floyd led the way out.

  “An hour,” she hollered over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in an hour. No one is to talk to Rick during that time, got it?”

  Chapter 72

  “Let me guess… we’re not going to the hospital, are we?” Floyd asked as he slid into the passenger seat of Chase’s rental.

  “Nope.”

  Instead of elaborating, Chase just sat in silence. That was another thing that she liked about Floyd; the man could just sit quietly without the need to fill the air with chatter.

  She waited until Chief Rodriguez and his men left the station, then just continued to sit there for another two minutes. The Chief returned, this time without the two detectives in his car. He parked beside Chase and they nodded at each other and then stepped out.

  Together the three of them made their way back inside the station, this time going around the back. Remaining silent, the Chief led them to a private office just inside the rear entrance.

  As Chief Rodriguez began fiddling with some audio equipment, Chase finally turned to Floyd and explained what they were doing. She told him about the hospital ploy, and about the ruse of leaving the station.

  “But won’t he just turn off the audio equipment in Interrogation Room 1?” Floyd asked. “I mean, he can’t be that naive, can he?”

  Chase grinned.

  “Oh, I expect he will. But that’s why I stuck a mic to him, when I patted him on the back. We getting audio on that, Chief?”

  Instead of answering, Chief Rodriguez flicked a button and a dull hiss suddenly came from one of the archaic-looking speakers. Chase listened closely and realized that she could hear the sound of someone breathing.

  “Perfect,” she said, still smiling. Finally, something that she’d planned seemed to be working out.

  “What do we do now, then?” Floyd asked.

  “Now, we wait,” Chase replied. “Now, we wait.”

  ***

  And wait they did. They waited for nearly half an hour, during which time the most interesting thing they overheard was humming of Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, followed by what seemed to be an hour-long piss.

  So far, the man made no attempt to speak to Rick Griever.

  Chase was starting to become concerned, thinking that maybe she’d confused which hospital she’d given to whom, and turned to Chief Rodriguez.

  The man’s lips were twisted in a frown, a clear indication that he was conflicted. The Chief had begrudgingly gone along with her plan, but he wasn’t happy about it.

  While Chase didn’t blame him, personal feelings had no place here.

  Stitts had remarked that their unsub was likely a man of uniform, and if someone in the Chief’s department was involved in the prostitutes’ disappearances, then this was the best way to suss them out.

  “I said I’d be gone for an hour, right?” Chase asked absently.

  Floyd nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  After listening to the breathing from the speakers for another five minutes, Chief Rodriguez cleared his throat.

  “You really think that someone in my department is involved with Rick? That together they kidnapped all those girls?”

  Chase shrugged.

  “Maybe,” she replied honestly. “You heard Agent Stitts; we’re looking for someone in a position of authority, and if there is a tandem of killers out there? One would be well established as the alpha, the other the beta.”

  “Well, Rick would definitely be the alpha, here.”

  Chase thought about being pressed close to the man in the bathroom stall, smelling his BO, his sour breath.

 

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