Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Page 16

  If he had been at his best, he knew he could formulate a plan, find something that would enable him to at least have a shot at finding her and keeping Dane in custody. But his mind was a muddle of half-thought-out ideas and illogical impulses. Nothing seemed to make sense. Nothing stuck long enough in his conscious thoughts to be able to hash out into any detail.

  He took out his phone and called Laka.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Cut him loose.”

  “Now? You sure?”

  “I can’t find her… I can barely think, Laka. I’m losing…”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll get her back, I swear it. I’m going to cut him loose and put some people on him. We’ll find her.”

  “Thanks,” was all he could muster to say.

  He hung up. He knew Dane wouldn’t be so stupid as to go to where Julie was being kept; he’d know he was being tailed.

  What did he want? Why give Stanton twenty-four hours? Probably just to show him who was in control.

  Stanton rolled over in the bed and stared at the wall, unable to come up with even a rudimentary idea of what he should do next.

  57

  Laka hung up with Stanton and grimaced as she opened the door to the interview room. Dane still lay on his back on the table, watching the light on the ceiling. Laka leaned against the wall and said, “He’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve this.”

  “I know he is. That’s why he needs this.”

  “He needs to have the woman he loves killed? How exactly is that helping him?”

  Dane smiled and sat up. “I’m guessing he didn’t take the full twenty-four and has asked you to let me go.”

  “Why give him twenty-four?”

  “I wanted him to see he was helpless. We need to be humbled, Detective, before any progress can be made on our souls. Jon just got humbled, and from there, he can rebuild himself into an instrument of the Lord.”

  She shook her head. “My grandma was the most religious person I knew. Completely devoted. Her entire life, she helped people, worked her fingers to the bone helping others, and she never hurt a person in her life. That’s the Lord’s work. Not what you do.”

  He rose, a smile on his face.

  “You shouldn’t have anyone follow me. It won’t help.”

  “Get outta my face before I change my mind.”

  He left, and Laka exhaled and leaned against the wall again, tilting her head up toward the ceiling as the feeling of helplessness and disgust wormed into her guts.

  Ario came up to her, shoulder-checking Dane and pushing him into the wall. Dane, the smile never leaving his face, just said, “Peace unto you, brother,” and then waited for Mackie out in the bullpen.

  Mackie came out of the interview room, stretched, looked at Laka and said, “Thanks for the nap. You need better soda, though. It’s warm.”

  “Assholes,” Ario said, standing next to her.

  “Karma’s a bitch. They’ll get theirs.”

  “I, uh, got something.” Ario took out his phone. It was the Honolulu Star, and the front page was a picture of Jon with the caption, “Cop goes rogue and enters cult.”

  “Shit, seriously? Now?”

  He shrugged. “They’re bottom-feeders. What you gonna do?”

  “I better let Jon know he’s famous.”

  Ario hesitated a second, rubbing his chin.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s not my place. He’s your partner and everything.”

  “Quit being cute. What is it?”

  “He’s lost himself in this. He went undercover without telling anyone. Without telling even you. He’s not thinkin’ right. And he looks like shit. I don’t know if he’s been hittin’ the bottle hard or what, but he’s not right in the head right now. He needs to stay outta this. And he’s kinda a fuckin’ weirdo anyway.”

  Laka took a step closer to him. “He’s the best cop I’ve ever known, and you ever talk shit about him again, me and you are gonna have a problem. Believe that.”

  He held up his hands. “Like I said, not my place.”

  As Ario walked away, Laka wanted to hit him, but she knew her anger was misplaced. She really wanted to hit Dane and Mackie. Instead she texted Stanton and let him know that the media had picked up what he’d done.

  58

  Stanton got Laka’s text letting him know the story was in the Star. He didn’t care. It was accepted that every case would leak. Some reporters—or their modern equivalent, the blog writers—would offer money or sports tickets or free hotel stays to cops for leads. Stanton expected every one of his cases to eventually get out to the press. He didn’t even bother to check the story, but he knew it’d be more difficult to do anything now. IAD would be on it quickly, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he got a call from them within the hour. When he didn’t answer, they would come looking for him.

  Stanton stepped outside and went down to the water. He sat down, his arms wrapped around his knees, and watched the waves. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this: adrift in a world that didn’t make sense to him. That he had no control over. He hung his head, then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  Dane stood there, a grin on his face. “Mind if I sit down?”

  Stanton didn’t respond, so he sat down next to him, and they watched the water awhile.

  “How’d you lose your tail?” Stanton asked.

  “I told her not to do that, but she did anyway. Dangerous gamble. Weren’t hard to lose, though. Went into the church and came out the back into another car. They can’t follow worth a shit. You might need to give them some pointers. You did pretty well that day we went to the beach. Didn’t appreciate you searching my jeep, though.”

  Stanton looked at him. “You knew I did that and still kept the masks there?”

  “Of course. I’m protected by the Lord. What do I have to fear? Besides, I wanted to pull you in. Make you think you had something to get you close. Did it work? Are we close?”

  Stanton hesitated. “I want her back, Dane. You got what you wanted; you’re out, and they probably won’t have enough to ever file charges against you. I just want her back.”

  “Sorry, compadre, but you need this. You need to reach your lowest point and then turn to God. That’s how you’ll find yourself.” He stood up. “Tell you what though, I’ll honor my word. I’ll give you that twenty-four hours. Well, twenty hours, now. You find her in twenty hours, I won’t hurt her. If you can’t, she’s got to go. She’s got to go so you can be free.”

  “She’s never hurt anyone in her life.”

  “You don’t know anyone, Jon. Not really.” He looked out over the water. “Clock’s ticking. Better start.”

  59

  Stanton jumped into his jeep and realized he didn’t know where to go or what to do. His head pounded, and he needed quiet. There was a hiking trail not far away that led to the top of a small mountain. He started the jeep and pulled away.

  As he drove, the fatigue barreled into him. It felt like a drill in his chest, pushing deeper and deeper inside of him. At some point, he realized, his body would just shut down. If he was driving when it happened, he could kill somebody.

  He got to the mountain, Kalu’ula Peak, and parked. He began the hike to the top, which he knew took about half an hour.

  As he rose in elevation, he could see the ocean to one side and the city farther out to the other. The dazzling colors of the vegetation stuck out like blankets of neon. Several times, he had to stop, squinting from the harsh sunlight.

  A few other people were on the trail, but they didn’t say hello or acknowledge him. He got to the peak and sat down, watching the city. Somewhere out there, Julie was tied up, probably in the dark, terrified and weeping, praying that he would find her.

  Stanton lifted his face to the sun, the light warming and comforting him. It felt like the water from a warm bath. As he opened his eyes, he saw someone standing in front of him. A man missing his organs, the wounds clean cut,
the remnants of his entrails spilling out.

  Stanton quickly slammed his eyes shut and lowered his head between his knees. He inhaled deeply and calmed his mind. He kept telling himself that it wasn’t real. Hallucinations happened to everyone when they reached this level of insomnia. But all of his hallucinations were of the dead—the dead followed him.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes, and there was no one there.

  Gripping his head in his hands, the anger rose in him until he couldn’t hold it, and he screamed. He screamed until his throat hurt.

  When he stopped, his vision was blurry, and his head spun. The realization came to him then that he was poison. Everyone he had ever loved, everyone close to him, had been put in danger at some point because of him. The dead followed him and put everyone else at risk. Julie was going to die because of him, not because of Dane.

  As he gained control of himself, another thought took hold: he couldn’t think clearly enough to find Julie. His only chance was to beg for her life. Maybe that’s what Dane wanted—him on his knees, at his lowest point, like he’d said, with nothing to hold on to.

  As he rose to go to the church, he saw someone walking up the path. He intended to just pass them without a word, but he noticed something odd. She was wearing shorts and a tank top with a stain. As he got closer, he saw the stain was dried blood.

  The eyes were sunken in, encased in black circles. The flesh was pale to the point of translucence, and her hair was matted from the blood caked in it.

  It was his sister.

  He fell to his knees. “No, please. Not you. Not you…”

  She approached and stood over him. He kept his head low, staring at her feet, which seemed to hover above the ground. The clothes were the last things Stanton remembered her wearing.

  “No,” he said, his voice cracking, “please…”

  He looked up at her, at the face that had haunted his dreams since childhood, the face that was etched into him. The face of the most beautiful person he had ever known, turned into a grotesque mockery of itself.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, the warmth of tears on his cheeks. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I’m sorry…”

  He reached his hand up to touch her, and the moment his fingers touched her skin, she was gone, only blue sky and grass in front of him.

  He lay down on his belly and hid his face.

  60

  When Stanton had the strength to stand, he knew why no woman in his life had ever been able to pry him from his job, no matter how much they begged. He hadn’t been close to his mother or his father, so Elizabeth was both. He could never leave because his entire existence was for her—an attempt to bring her back, knowing he never could. His entire life, he thought, was chasing a ghost.

  He stood up and looked over the ledge. The slope wasn’t steep until about forty feet down. He went right up to the ledge, staring down, wondering how long it would take for his neck to snap or his ribs to break and puncture the surrounding organs. He wondered if death would be painless.

  The sun was so bright. He stared directly at it, the light blinding him and causing whirling bubbles of color. He thought of Julie, that the last thing she’d see would be Dane’s face. And he thought of what Dane might say to her…

  The last thing Dane had said to him was that you never truly knew anybody. Would Dane say the same to her?

  Stanton stepped away from the ledge.

  You never truly knew anybody… Why had he said that?

  Both victims had been killed in places Dane had deemed to be the scenes of their crimes. Dane had taken them back to where they had committed their sins. Would he do the same to Julie? Stanton quickly scanned his memory for anything Julie might’ve said about something she’d done in her past that Dane would deem a sin, but he couldn’t think of anything. Then he realized he’d never run her criminal history or even had a decent conversation about her past with her.

  Stanton hiked down, got into his jeep, and drove back to the station.

  Once there, he went to his cubicle, avoiding eye contact with anyone else, and sat down, though a few people stared at him. As he did so, a uniform came up to him and said, “Tough break, Detective.”

  “On what?”

  “On those pieces’a shit gettin’ cut loose. Don’t sweat it, we’ll get ’em back.”

  Stanton ignored him, opened the statewide criminal database, and ran Julie’s name through. Nothing came up. He thought for a few minutes, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed her father. He answered on the second ring and seemed annoyed already.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ron, it’s Jon Stanton.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, I was just calling with a weird question.” He wasn’t about to tell him his daughter was kidnapped: there was nothing he could do, and it would just tear him apart. “Has Julie ever been in trouble?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean… I don’t know. Has she ever had any interactions with the police before we met? Maybe something that should’ve had the police called but for some reason didn’t?”

  “What the hell is this about?”

  Stanton hesitated a second. “It’s… just a form I need to fill out since we’re getting married. The force requires spouses to go through a background check. It’s not a big deal, and even if it came back with something they couldn’t do anything about it. It’s just routine bureaucracy.”

  He was silent a moment. “Seems odd.”

  “It is. It’s really annoying, but I gotta fill out this form before the wedding and don’t see anything on her background, so I just wanted to make sure there was nothing I was missing.”

  He exhaled into the phone. “Nothing, really. She’s always been good at avoiding things like that. Oh, I guess there is one thing—there was some investor that was involved in shady financing. I think she got interviewed about it, but it didn’t involve her.”

  Stanton grabbed a legal pad and a pen. “Do you know the investor’s name?”

  “Um… no, can’t think of it.”

  “Was it Gary Newbolt?”

  “That sounds right, but I honestly don’t remember.”

  “Why’d they interview her as part of that?”

  “I don’t know. I think just because they were dating.”

  Stanton was silent long enough that Ron asked, “You there?”

  “I’m here. How long did they date for?”

  “I don’t know. A year, six months. Didn’t really keep track of her love life. Look, I got things to do. Are we done?”

  “Sure, thanks, Ron.”

  Stanton hung up and leaned back in the chair. Why hadn’t she told him they had dated? Had she been involved in his financing deals and something happened? Was the money she used to start her business gotten illegally?

  Stanton quickly ran a check on Gary Newbolt and found three. One was a teenager and one was dead. The other was who he was looking for.

  Gary had two felony cases in his past; one was dismissed, and the other he was convicted of. The charges on the conviction ranged from communications fraud to money laundering.

  Stanton pulled up the probable cause statement on the case and the entry of plea form and read them. Gary Newbolt had run a Ponzi scheme.

  He had taken investors’ money for real estate development and paid them back dividends by taking the money of new investors, keeping huge chunks for himself. The prosecution pegged the restitution he owed to the victims at just under five million dollars.

  The documents didn’t list Julie’s name anywhere, so he went into the Honolulu PD database and pulled the police reports. As in most white-collar cases, the discovery was voluminous: almost eighty pages. He ran a search for her name and came up with two pages of an interview.

  She said that she and Gary were dating, and that Gary had lent her $200,000 to start a business. She had no idea where the money came from, and he had told her that it was just extra money he had lying around in an account. She knew he w
as wealthy and didn’t question it. The criminal investigator from the IRS asked her how long she had been dating Gary. Two and a half years, she’d said, and they had plans to get married.

  Stanton thought he should feel angry or at least worried that she had never revealed this to him and that she was still working with Gary, but he felt nothing. Just an emptiness and fatigue that precluded anger. Right now, he just wanted her back. They could talk about the reasons she kept this from him later.

  Maybe she had been involved more than she let on. Dane would see complicity as the same as committing the crime. But where would the crime have originated? Gary’s offices were the best bet. Stanton pulled up a separate background check for addresses and phone numbers and got his business address. He wrote it on the legal pad and decided to Google Gary to see if there were any local media stories about the scheme.

  He found several news stories in local papers, but it was the story five down in the results that interested him. “Honolulu native commits suicide over Ponzi scheme.”

  Stanton read the article. Gary had swindled a man, John Nimone, out of his life’s savings. John had also taken out a second mortgage, and they had foreclosed on his home, repossessed his automobile, and garnished his wages. His wife left him in the aftermath. He shot himself with a shotgun at two in the morning.

  Stanton quickly ran a search of John’s previous home addresses and rose to leave when he saw Laka standing behind him.

  “Where you going?”

  Before Stanton could respond, his head felt like it had spun all the way around. His vision blurred and got a shadowy edge that turned into tunnel vision. He could hear Laka saying something to him; it sounded distant.