First Victim

When she caught sight of Brian Coughlie in the control room talking to Corwin, her heart fluttered, and her first childish instinct was to hide so that he couldn’t find her. Next, terror struck her. Following her questioning by Boldt, she suspected Coughlie’s involvement, either with the importation of illegals or even possibly the deaths and Melissa’s disappearance. It had not occurred to her that with his credentials he could gain access to the station without question. She didn’t want him here. She wanted nothing to do with him!

A moment later, he stepped into her office.

Coughlie arrived at the unscheduled meeting with McNeal hoping either to scare her into seclusion and force her to withdraw from her story, or to convince her to share the VHS videotapes that Melissa had shot from the van. Her disappearance or murder would bring the national media spotlight onto the case, and he couldn’t bear up under that kind of scrutiny. He would be discovered. He hoped at the very least to reinforce his authority and stay on top of her and of what she knew.

As directed, he sat down onto a colorful chintz couch while she lightly sponged off her cosmetics in a brightly lit mirror.

‘‘I heard about the break-in,’’ he said.

‘‘I don’t appreciate unannounced visitors. At my apartment, or here at the station.’’

‘‘I’m not here as a visitor. I’m here as a federal agent,’’ he announced. ‘‘I’m here to warn you who you’re playing with.’’

‘‘To warn me? First Klein, then my own apartment, and you’re going to warn me?’’ she asked incredulously.

‘‘Offering the reward was a mistake. Maybe you meant to punish the police by flooding them with calls—you were upset over this digital tape. But instead, you put yourself at the center of it.’’

‘‘The gloves are off.’’

‘‘I hear the first officer on the scene was LaMoia,’’ he said, restructuring his line of attack. ‘‘Let me ask you this: How does a sergeant end up the first cop on the scene at that hour of the night?’’

‘‘Meaning?’’

‘‘He should have been home in bed or downtown writing up paperwork on Klein. The police have you under surveillance. What else explains a sergeant being the first officer?’’

She processed all this and felt a sickening twist to her stomach, but she recovered quickly and maintained the offensive. She lied convincingly. ‘‘Of course they did. Following Klein, I requested twenty-four-hour protection. In a minute you’re going to tell me that you’ve been following me as well—and tapping my phones and bugging my apartment.’’

He tried to remain calm through this, but she took his blinking eyes as an indication of strained nerves. ‘‘It’s all one big conspiracy, right? The Chinese mob, or whoever’s behind this, has paid off everyone in law enforcement, and only the press is in the way of all this quietly disappearing from the public conscience. Is that about right?’’

‘‘You shouldn’t joke about such things,’’ he cautioned. ‘‘These people play tough.’’

‘‘Firsthand knowledge?’’

‘‘Absolutely.’’

‘‘Not hands-on knowledge, I hope.’’

‘‘You’re still joking? Are you aware of the size of the rock you’re attempting to roll over?’’

‘‘I’ll roll over any rock that I think is on top of Melissa. It’s too bad you don’t work for these people, because if you did I’d tell you to pass along to them to simply return Melissa. Give her back to me. She shows up alive on my doorstep and this story will tank so fast you wouldn’t believe it!’’ It seemed to her like a valid bargaining chip, one that he might even mistakenly believe.

‘‘Did they tell you about the raid on the chop shop?’’ he asked.

She stumbled. ‘‘Of course,’’ she lied again, working too long on her face. Her voice broke as she asked, ‘‘Does that mean what I think it means?’’

‘‘On the surface, it means her van was stolen and recovered, that’s all. In this city that would normally not constitute any kind of event. But given the rest of what we know, it holds all sorts of significance. I led that raid. The arrests were ours—federal. Chinese gang members, every last one. Connected to the illegals? Not that we’ll ever prove. But why did a gang-run chop shop have your friend’s van? Any guesses?’’

She couldn’t catch her breath. She tried brushing the spray out of her hair to cover her moment of paralysis. Two weeks . . .

‘‘We won’t get squat out of any of them—guaranteed. In their world you rat, you die. Inside or out, it doesn’t matter. Rules are rules.’’

She swiveled in her chair and faced him. ‘‘Suggestions?’’

‘‘We need to join forces,’’ he suggested, not answering her. ‘‘SPD can’t help you with an illegals investigation. Have you figured that out yet? This chop shop? That was ours! They couldn’t get a warrant fast enough. That’s my point. We can move way faster than they can. We can and do take all sorts of liberties they can’t. You want to tap a pay phone? That’s us. Take them weeks to get a warrant like that. You want to raid a sweatshop? Where do you think they’ll turn? Right here,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve got the probable cause and they don’t. Night and day, I’m telling you. You know what I think?’’ he asked, not allowing her a reply. ‘‘I think you and me should go into business together. We start with these videotapes and we work backward. I know that you probably think you’ve already done that, but we do this for a living! You want your friend back? We start there. That’s where we start.’’

Now she was without her usual stage makeup, and she felt that she looked much older. Her grim expression wedded with her exhaustion and grief to paint a picture of pain and impatience. She tore off the paper bib that protected her dress and crunched it into a ball that she held on to, so that her fist was tight and bloodless.

He announced, ‘‘I think you should turn the VHS tapes over to me and take a vacation. I’ll push to gain access to the digital tapes as well. You leave town for a while. Long enough for us to make it safe for you around here.’’ This, she decided, was an intentional emphasis. He was threatening her. He, too, had taken the gloves off.

‘‘And if I stay?’’

‘‘After what you’ve been through?’’ he asked. ‘‘Who can protect someone that well? You don’t know these people like I do. These gang members are worthless excuses for human beings. Ask Boldt . . . LaMoia . . . they’ll tell you the same thing. One mistake, a bullet through the back of the head. Pop!’’ He clapped his hands loudly, jangling her nerves. ‘‘That’s all. No explanation. No remorse. You want to challenge those kind of people?’’

‘‘Comes with the turf. You challenge them on a daily basis, right? You look healthy to me.’’ She met eyes with him and would not let him go. ‘‘How’s that work?’’

‘‘They smoke a federal agent and they’ll never sleep. A reporter? Your friend Melissa knows how they feel about reporters.’’

‘‘So why not use me as bait?’’ she suggested.

‘‘It isn’t done. You’re a civilian. We don’t put civilians at risk. Not ever.’’

‘‘Do you think she’s dead?’’ she asked bluntly. ‘‘If it was you running things, for instance . . . Would you have killed her by now? What would you do with her?’’

‘‘Me?’’ he blurted out.

‘‘Hypothetically,’’ she acknowledged unflinchingly.

He stared back at her, trying to read in her face what she knew.

She said, ‘‘If anything has kept her alive, it’s that they haven’t found the second digital tape. Without it firmly in hand, they’d be stupid to kill her. She’s the only one who knows where it is.’’

‘‘If there’s anything they want from her, they’ll simply torture her and get it,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘These people do not play fairly.’’

Not taking her eyes off him, ‘‘But they don’t know her, do they?’’

‘‘Don’t they?’’

‘‘Her parents were great heroes in China. They survived seven months of torture by the Mao regime. Seven months of it! They’re legends. Melissa’s family honor is at stake. Do you understand? To the Chinese, family honor is everything. She won’t talk. And then they’ll have to make a decision. Kill her, and risk never finding that tape, or wait her out. What do you think?’’

‘‘I know all about the Chinese and their families,’’ he said a little too defensively.

‘‘So if she doesn’t talk?’’ Stevie asked.