“We’re going to need backup.”
“I’ve called in the car make and license number. Uniforms will meet us at the apartment.” He handed a slip of paper to Tracy identifying Stanley’s car type and license plate number. “We check the cars parked outside the bar. If her car isn’t there, we haul ass to her apartment, unless someone calls in that they’ve spotted the car elsewhere.”
Owens drove across the Manette Bridge and took the first exit onto Wheaton Way, pulling quickly into The Bulkhead parking lot. Given the weather, there were just five cars in the parking lot, none Stanley’s. Owens exited the lot and continued toward Stanley’s apartment complex. Minutes later, he pulled into The Crow’s Nest. Patrol cars had not yet arrived.
“That’s her car.” Tracy pointed to a Chevy TrailBlazer parked in one of the spaces.
“Let’s move,” Owens said. “Patrol has to be close behind.”
Owens parked and they both pushed out of the car. Tracy looked in the back of the Chevy TrailBlazer and saw Leah Battles’s bike. “She’s here.”
They made their way toward the glass door entrance and the lobby. “What floor?” Tracy asked.
“Third,” Owens said, viewing a directory and proceeding inside. He ignored the elevator, climbing the stairs two at a time. Tracy was winded just trying to keep up.
On the third floor, Owens exited the stairwell door with his head on a swivel, searching the apartment numbers embossed on brass plates on each door. Stanley’s apartment was to the left. Owens moved quickly down the hall and stopped outside the apartment. Tracy heard voices inside, looked at Owens, and nodded.
Quietly he said, “I’ll kick it in. You go in first and to the right. I got your back.”
Tracy held her Glock muzzle up. “Ready.”
Owens kicked at the door, which was made of cheap materials. It exploded in. Tracy slid into the apartment. To the right was a kitchen. Empty. She slid two steps farther and saw Stanley and Battles holding guns on each other.
“Drop it! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”
Stanley let the gun slip from her hand onto the carpet, but Battles hesitated.
“Drop it,” Owens said.
Battles too let the gun drop.
Tracy exhaled, rising from her crouch. About to speak, she felt the barrel of John Owens’s Glock 22 press against her temple.
CHAPTER 45
One moment, and it was all over. One moment, and Tracy had arrived in time to keep Rebecca Stanley from pulling the trigger, from killing Leah Battles. She hadn’t been there the night Sarah had been abducted and she hadn’t been able to save her. Failure had a terrible way of lingering in the recesses of your mind, waiting for another opportunity to smack you with horrible pangs of guilt. But that wasn’t going to happen this time. They’d arrived in time. She’d arrived in time. Leah Battles was alive and Rebecca Stanley had dropped her gun.
And just like that, everything evaporated.
She’d been played the way a street magician played a tourist.
See this red ball? Follow the red ball. That’s all you have to do. Follow the red ball and tell me which cup the ball is under. The one in the middle? Are you sure? Of course you’re sure. You have good eyes and you watched it the whole time.
Only the game isn’t about what you can see. It’s about what you fail to see, and you failed to see the magician squish that red ball into his palm. It never even went under a cup. You couldn’t win. The game had been rigged, but your ego wouldn’t allow you to admit it, and now you’re standing in an apartment looking for the red ball that never was there. Meanwhile, the magician is holding a gun to your temple.
“You’re going to lower your arm and let the gun slip from your hand and fall onto the carpet, Detective.”
Still confused, her brain still processing what had just transpired, Tracy couldn’t move.
“I said, drop the gun.”
Tracy lowered her arm and released her finger, letting the gun slip from her grip. It hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud. Owens took a step back, but kept the gun trained on Tracy. Stanley moved forward and picked up Tracy’s weapon.
Battles looked at Tracy. There was fear in her eyes but not in her voice. “I guess you know who took the tape of Trejo.” She almost smiled when she said it.
Tracy said, “I guess you know the ethics committee is going to court-martial you.”
“Who told you?”
“Brian Cho.”
“I never liked him,” Battles said.
“And the first thing the defense attorney will request is the security tape, which we can’t have because the detective here noticed your earrings,” Owens said, his voice becoming angry. Stanley reached up with her free hand and touched the gold nubs as if just remembering them.
“Trejo was working for you,” Tracy said to Owens. She felt like one of her students—all those years ago—the ones who’d failed her chemistry exams because they hadn’t studied, and afterward still felt compelled to know the right answers to the questions, though it wasn’t going to change their grade or, in this instance, her circumstances.
“I’m a Navy man,” Owens said. “It was right there on my office wall. If you’d done your research you’d have known I was also a logistics specialist.”
“So you knew where the ships were docking overseas.”
“And I knew what could be obtained when the ship docked, how to obtain it, and how to get it on and off the ship. And from my years working narcotics I know a bit about where to sell it.”
Battles looked at Stanley. “You became addicted after the explosion in Afghanistan.”
It explained Stanley’s role, why she’d taken the tape.
“My back will give me a lifetime of torment. The pain will never go away. The doctors said I had to learn to live with it. They wouldn’t prescribe me any more pills. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in pain every hour of every day?” She noticed Battles considering the pictures on the mantel.
“My ex,” Stanley said. “He left when I started using heroin.” She seemed to be fighting back tears. “He said he wouldn’t raise a daughter with me. He said that I could either let them go or he would let the Navy know about my problem.” She appeared bleary-eyed. “Do you have any idea what that was like? What choice I had to make? Of course you don’t. You’re not even married.”
“How did you get past the drug tests and the mandatory medical exams?” Battles asked.