Hide From Evil Page 26

  She’d nearly had a heart attack when her knee pressing up had made the floor squeak and the heavy footsteps above her had frozen right above where her head was. He’d stayed there a good five seconds while Krista held her breath, half expecting him to riddle the floor with gunshots like something out of a Tarantino movie.

  But Maxwell had continued his pacing and they used the sound of his hard leather soles to muffle the sound of their slow but steady shifting. Krista held the light as Sean quickly unscrewed the vent cover and carefully laid it inside.

  The relief on his face as the cold night air washed across it was palpable, and Krista felt some of the anxiety in her body wash away along with his.

  Only to come roaring back when she saw the drop, which had to be at least twenty feet. “Do we have, like, a rope or something? Or maybe Ibarra could bring us a ladder?”

  She knew the idea was ridiculous before Sean answered. “Way too risky, and not necessary, not at this height,” Sean said as he turned his body so he aimed feet first. “I’ll go, so I can help soften your landing. Just make sure when you jump, don’t pitch forward or you’ll fall on your head. Keep your knees soft, your body relaxed, and try to land on the balls of your feet.”

  The next instant he dropped, and Krista heard him land with a soft crunch of gravel. She peeked out and saw him straighten from his crouch and brush his hands on his thighs as though he’d jumped from a park bench and not a second-story window.

  He beckoned her silently with his hand, but Krista felt her legs go all noodly. She didn’t have a fear of heights, exactly, but Sean’s whispered lesson on how to fall safely wasn’t exactly reassuring. She wouldn’t have minded an air bag or a crash mat or, hell, a bunch of clowns with a blanket stretched out to break her fall.

  Sean beckoned her again, pointed at his watch, and then at the front of the building. Right. Maxwell’s thug would be back soon with whatever hapless woman Maxwell had commandeered for the night. It went against her conscience to leave the unseen woman here with Maxwell in the mood he was in. After what they’d learned tonight, who knew what he was capable of?

  But right now, she had to stay focused on the big picture, on exposing the truth about Maxwell and nailing his ass to the wall.

  And to do that, she had to get the hell out of this warehouse.

  She turned and positioned her feet toward the opening and squirmed back until her legs dangled down the side of the building. She eased her shoulders out and looked over her shoulder, down at Sean.

  Sean was under her, arms outstretched. She could barely make out his features in the dim light, but she could see his lips move. I’ve got you, he mouthed. Trust me. She nodded and pushed back, trying to remember Sean’s instructions in midair.

  She felt his arms close around her in the split second before she landed and heard his breath whoosh out at the impact. He rolled to the side, released her, and she scrambled to her feet.

  Sean lay still on his side, his breathing labored. Krista’s stomach bottomed out. She knelt beside him and ran her hands frantically up and down his legs, ribs, neck, any part of him she could reach that she could have injured. “Sean, are you okay? Say something.”

  He rolled his head in her direction. Even in the dim light she could see his skin was so pale it was gray, and he looked like he was fighting not to throw up. “Landed wrong,” he wheezed out.

  “What did I hit? Is it your leg? Did I break something?”

  She started to roll him to his back and then remembered from CPR class that you weren’t supposed to move someone. But it wasn’t like they could call the EMTs. “Ibarra,” she whispered, tears of fear and frustration clogging her throat. “I need help. I can’t move him by myself—”

  “Just need a minute to catch my breath,” Sean interrupted. “I think I caught a knee or an elbow when she hit.”

  Ibarra’s voice crackled into her earpiece. “Racked you pretty good, huh?” Krista could hear the sympathy in his voice along with…amusement?

  “This isn’t funny! He’s really hurt. I—”

  “Kneed my balls halfway up my chest when you landed on me,” Sean whispered tightly.

  Krista’s jaw dropped in horror. “Oh God, is there anything I can do?” Her face went hot and she reached out awkwardly, stopping short as she saw Sean cupping his hands between his legs.

  Sean stared at her, one dark eyebrow cocked.

  “Yeah, Sean, why don’t you have her kiss it and make it better?”

  It was hard to tell in the dark, but she was pretty sure Sean’s face was as red as hers.

  “Let me help you up,” she said simply and rose to her feet, pulling Sean up with her.

  He rose gingerly and they skirted along the back of the warehouse and picked their way carefully through the dark until they reached the van where Ibarra had set up shop. They drove in silence back to Ibarra’s house as Krista’s brain churned on everything she’d learned tonight.

  “What kind of delivery do you think they’re waiting on?” Sean asked as they gathered in the office in Ibarra’s place.

  “Could be anything if he’s in bed with Karev,” Krista said, rubbing her eyes tiredly as Ibarra connected the hard drive with Maxwell’s files to his computer. “Drugs, weapons, people. We’ve been trying for years to get him but haven’t been able to make anything stick.”

  “I guess now we know why,” Sean said. “He’s got Maxwell in his corner, lining the right pockets—”

  Krista shook her head. “Maybe. But it feels like there’s something more than bribery going on here. Something bigger—” Her jaw-cracking yawn cut her off and brought tears to her eyes. She rose up on her tiptoes and reached for the sky, trying to work out the kinks from being stuck in the crawl space as Ibarra stared intently at his screen, fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “What?” she asked at his incomprehensible grunt. On the screen was a list of what looked like gibberish, a mishmash of meaningless letters and symbols. Ibarra didn’t answer, and to her surprise he powered off his monitor and pushed back from the desk.

  “Aren’t you going to look at his files?” Sean said around a yawn of his own.

  “Nothing we can do with them right now,” Ibarra said. “Everything’s encrypted, pretty sophisticated program.”

  “You’ll be able to get around it?” Sean asked.

  “It’ll take a few hours, but yeah,” Ibarra said, offended. “So I vote we all get some shut-eye and start fresh on this in the morning.”

  “I’m going to go over the files we got from my dad’s house one last time. See if there’s anything he worked on for Karev,” Krista said. Sean’s hand on her arm stayed her as she started for the door.

  “Get some rest. You need it. We all do.”

  She was used to pulling all nighters on her cases, sleeping at her desk for days if needed until she had what she needed. It went against every instinct to throw in the towel—even for only a few hours—with so much still hanging in the balance.

  As though he could read her mind, Sean said softly, “Whatever’s happening, it’s not going down until Tuesday. That gives us at least thirty-six hours to figure something out. This is going to be tricky, you know? We need to do whatever we can to make sure we’re firing on all cylinders.”

  She nodded. “Speaking of which, are you okay?”

  “I was fine as soon as I got in the fresh air. As long as Ibarra lets me keep the windows open, I’m cool.”

  “Good. And the other?” Krista felt her face heat and could have kicked herself. Had she really just asked about his balls?

  His teeth flashed white in a sheepish smile that sent a curl of warmth to her center. “I think I’ll recover with no permanent damage.”

  “Oh, good.” She forced the words from a mouth gone suddenly dry. She whispered a quick good night and practically flew down the hall. She took a quick shower to rinse away the dust and grime of the crawl space, brushed her teeth, and fell face first onto a pillow.

  She was as
leep within two breaths, her heightened anxiety and crippling embarrassment no match for her body’s exhaustion.

  Krista woke several hours later to find a hint of blue sky peeking through the curtains of the guest room. The clock confirmed it was after nine a.m. What day was it, she thought as she struggled to shake the cobwebs from her brain.

  Monday. Which meant that whatever delivery Maxwell and Karev had planned was happening in the next day and half. Hopefully they would find something in Maxwell’s computer files that would help them nail him before it happened.

  Or at the very least, information about what the delivery involved so they could pass the tip-off to the police.

  Wait, she reminded her addled brain, going to the police wasn’t an option. Aside from Cole, they didn’t know one hundred percent who they could trust, not just in Seattle but across the state.

  Benson. She had to call Mark. She knew Sean wouldn’t like it, but she was past the point of caring. No matter what they’d overheard between the Maxwells and Karev, until they knew who their allies were, she and Sean were still backed into a corner and unable to come out of hiding or take any action against Maxwell that might stick.

  But Prosecuting Attorney Benson had as good a line into the Seattle PD as the mayor or chief of police, maybe even better, because he had an in with the judges and politicians as well.

  She was sick of skulking around like a scared rat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that they had their target, it was time to fight back, get the truth out there once and for all. She passed the open door of the guest room Sean had claimed. The room was empty, the bed made with military precision, the only sign Sean had even slept in there was his bag at the foot of the bed.

  She heard voices from the other end of the house. The guys must be in the office. She headed that direction, making a quick detour into the kitchen for some much needed caffeine. As she got farther down the hall, the sounds coming from the office got more distinct.

  And more bizarre. The door to the office was partially open and she could hear something, but it wasn’t Sean and Ibarra talking.

  It wasn’t conversation at all but…moaning? Almost like…

  She pushed the door open. “Are you guys watching porn?”

  If it was, it wasn’t very good, because both men’s faces were set in grim lines as they stared at the computer monitor.

  “If only it were that simple,” Sean said as his shadowed gaze met hers.

  “What is it? Let me see,” she said as she came around the other side of the desk.

  “We can just give her the list,” Ibarra said as he started to move the mouse. “She doesn’t need to see—”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” she snapped. “I’m thirty years old, Ibarra. I’ve seen porn—oh my God, is that Chief Ormond?” She didn’t even feel the hot coffee sloshing over her hand as she stared transfixed at Seattle’s chief of police having sex with a woman who was definitely not his wife.

  “I think we found the source of Maxwell’s influence,” Sean said. “There are more than two dozen recordings like these. I recognize only a few of the faces—you probably know more, but as far as we can tell, Maxwell set the men up with prostitutes and recorded them having sex.”

  “Who else is in there?” Krista asked. Ibarra looked at Sean, who nodded and then opened up another window. Krista recognized Judge Terence Phillips. “That’s the judge who threw out the eyewitness testimony in Karev’s pretrial hearing,” she said, swallowing back a surge of nausea.

  She did a quick scan down the printed list of file names. Along with the chief of police, the mayor, Christ, the goddamn governor, and several high-ranking members of the police department, Krista recognized the last names of at least half a dozen judges who worked in the King County criminal court system.

  She thought she also recognized the names of some prominent businessmen and financial types. It was impossible to be sure without looking at the video footage, and she wasn’t sure she had the stomach for it.

  With a little digging, she was sure they’d discover that the names corresponded to other influential men whose scope went far beyond the city of Seattle and King County. She thought about the customs official, the one whose death corresponded with a fat deposit into one of Nate’s bank accounts. Had he refused to give in to temptation? Or was the threat of blackmail not enough to dissuade him from his investigation?

  They would never know.

  “You were right,” Sean said, pulling Krista from her spiraling thoughts. “You said that whoever was behind this was someone with a lot to lose, not just money, but reputation too. That’s not just Maxwell, but every one of the men in these videos.”

  Krista nodded and turned away from the lurid image on the screen as she scanned the second page of the list.

  M. Benson.

  She shook her head. It had to be someone else. “Show me,” she said simply. As Ibarra clicked on a file and typed in an access code, Krista could feel her heart beating from her throat to her stomach as she told herself there was no way Maxwell had footage of Prosecuting Attorney Mark Benson having sex with a prostitute.

  Her heart skipped several beats when she saw that not only did Maxwell have footage of Benson having sex with a prostitute, but that Krista recognized the woman in the video. With her short blond hair and petite stature the girl was almost fairylike.

  Stephanie, the girl called herself. And the last time Krista had seen her was in a photo taken from a crime scene, where she was crumpled on the floor like a broken doll after Nate Brewster snapped her neck.

  There was no way Benson hadn’t recognized her, hadn’t known the dead girl was the same one he had sex with.

  Krista’s breath seized in her chest and there was a roaring in her ears. She felt like someone was sitting on her ribcage, and she wondered vaguely if this is what Sean felt like when they were stuck in the crawl space together.

  She wondered if he felt this same devastating, soul-wrenching feeling when he realized his friends had betrayed him.

  Maybe he could tell her how to survive it, because right now she felt like she’d been hit with a shotgun blast. She looked down, surprised not to find herself split wide open and bleeding.

  She gripped the list in her shaking hand and tried to focus on the remaining names swimming in front of her. She struggled to keep it together, even as she felt like she was splintering into a million shards of glass. She couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not yet.

  Even the discovery that her father had worked with Nate hadn’t made her feel like this, like the earth was about to open her up and swallow her whole.

  Mark Benson was on that list. Mark Benson knew Maxwell was working with Karev. Mark Benson knew Maxwell was behind this.

  Mark was the only person who knew she planned to visit Sean.

  Her coffee cup slipped from numb fingers to shatter on the hardwood floor as she turned and left the office. She walked mindlessly on wobbly legs back to her room. She needed quiet. She needed to think but she could barely get her thoughts to form through all the questions swirling in her head.

  Had he known all along that Sean was innocent? Had he watched her, working so intensely during the trial, knowing they were going after the wrong man?

  Had he looked across the courtroom into Sean’s haunted eyes and known he was no murderer?

  Had he known Maxwell would kill her if she kept digging? He must have, because he’d tried to warn her away. He’d tried. She supposed she should be grateful for that. A small sound escaped her bloodless lips, not quite a laugh, not quite a sob.

  She saw a large shape in her peripheral vision and turned to look at Sean. Harsh lines carved his face—no doubt he was as shocked as she was by some of the names on that list. After a few seconds, she realized his mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear him through numbing dread that seemed to have dulled all of her senses.

  She shook her head and squinted. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I sa
id I know how much of a shock it must be—like I’ve said all along, I know better than just about anyone how it feels to be stabbed in the back…first your dad, and now this.”

  Krista shook her head helplessly. “My father…” There were no more words. “But Mark…” The lump in her throat swelled to the size of a grapefruit, making it hard to choke the words out. “He understood why I chose the path I did. He hired me right out of school, mentored me. I always thought of him and his wife, Rae, as the parents I was supposed to have.”

  Her eyes closed against the memories of obligatory appearance at her father and stepmother’s chilly mansion in Washington Park for holidays before she’d escape to the Bensons’ house in Medina. “I spend Christmas day at their house every year,” she said. “I went to his daughters’ high school graduations. Oh my God, his wife, the girls, they’re going to be devastated.”

  She tried but couldn’t keep the tears from slipping down her cheeks.

  “Come here,” Sean whispered.

  It was the goddamn tears that got him. The final straw that broke his vow to keep his hands off her. But he couldn’t stand to watch her cry.

  Maybe because he understood her particular brand of heartbreak so well. Or maybe because he’d spent the last twelve hours wondering what would have happened had Jack Brooks’s call not interrupted their kiss.

  Idiot, he’d called himself then and again now. But stupid or not, there was something about Krista Slater that ripped a hole in the wall he’d built around himself, making him feel like his heart was going to bleed out of his chest if he didn’t stop her from hurting.

  The tears that soaked his shirtfront were like acid on his skin, and he would do anything to ease her pain. He didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but despite all of his efforts to shut her out, Krista had worked her way inside him the way no woman ever had.

  Against all reason, she’d created a crack in his shield, one that widened with every second he spent with her.

  As he pulled her close, buried his face in her hair, and held her while she cried, he felt that all too familiar squeezing in his chest, that burning ache that told him he was starting to care way too much.