CHAPTER 6
Sam heard her gasp and knew he had hit a nerve.
She looked across the table at him with her sad eyes. “How...how did you know about Matt and me?” she finally squeaked out.
He studied her face closely. There was no guilt there, just sadness.
“Just a feeling I got when you talked about him. Over the years my job has made me pretty good at reading people and figuring out when they’re trying to hold something back from me.”
Sarah gave him a sad looking smile and nodded. “Well, in this case you were right.” Her fingers played with the sandwich wrapper for a moment before she spoke again.
“I wasn’t really trying to hide anything from you. I just didn’t want to have to talk about it. Matt and I started dating when he first joined the firm about two years ago.”
Sam couldn’t help but notice the look on her face was full of sorrow, as if remembering a bittersweet time. He disliked having to make her rehash bad memories after all she’d gone through the last two days, but he had to know the truth – all of it. Was she aware of Matt Calvin’s dealings with the cartel? He had to know how much she knew and if she were being honest with him, and from that he would know if she could be trusted.
“Matt and I started dating regularly and things got real serious pretty quick. I was so sure he was ‘the one’, as the gals at the office called it. He sent me beautiful flowers and romantic cards, and took me to fancy restaurants. I was sure I’d found the love of my life. Then he asked me to marry him about six months into the relationship. I was ecstatic.” She laughed a bitter sounding little laugh.
It was clear that Calvin had hurt her. Badly.
“I was swept away with the idea of marriage, a wedding, having someone beside me for the rest of my life; eventually having a home of my own and a family, you know – kids, the whole dream.” He watched her hands flutter gracefully over the table as she talked.
“I’ve been alone since my parents died when I was still in college. I guess I soaked up the attention I got from Matt like a sponge. Looking back at it now, I realize I didn’t really love him – not like you should love the person you’re promising to spend the rest of your life with. But I thought I was in love with him at the time.”
Sam finished chewing the bite of sandwich in his mouth and swallowed. “So, did he love you?”
Sarah’s eyes locked with his across the table for a moment before she answered. He could see the hurt in those eyes and he could almost feel her pain.
“Obviously not. I really thought he did, but you don’t desert the person you love. After he left town, I realized he was just using me.” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he had no intention of actually marrying me. He was just playing with me and my emotions, and I was dumb enough to let him.”
He saw Sarah clench her jaw as if readying for what she was going to tell him. “The day he and Adam got into the argument I told you about earlier, Matt left the office in a rage. I’d never seen him so angry. We were supposed to meet for dinner that night at a small restaurant here in town – Bailey’s Bar and Grill. He was late, but he did finally show up so I thought everything was going to be okay between us. Then about half-way through dinner, he dropped the news that he was leaving town the next day and that the wedding was off. He never even told me he was sorry.”
She shook her head, her fingers still playing with the sandwich wrapper. “I don’t really remember much after that, but I’m pretty sure I made a scene. I know I yelled at him and then cried and begged him to reconsider and not to leave me. Obviously, what I said that night didn’t make any difference to him because he left town the next morning and I never saw him again. He left me behind to clean up the mess he’d made of my life. I had to tell all my friends the wedding was off, return my dress, cancel the arrangements for the church and the reception, and try and forget Matt Calvin ever existed.” She swiped at a lone tear rolling down her face. “It took a while.”
He heard her sniff and watched as she reached into a pocket of her jeans to pull out a tissue and wipe her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “I was just starting to feel like I might be able forget him and how much he hurt me. Now you’re telling me that because of what Matt was involved with in Florida, all my friends are dead. How am I supposed to forgive him after that?”
Sam took a swig of the cup of coffee he’d brought into the interrogation room with him. He hated to do it, but he had to keep pushing her for more information. “What exactly happened between Matt Calvin and Adam Brown, Sarah?”
She glanced over at him, as if her eyes were searching his for answers. “I’m not sure. Matt told me he was pushing Adam to start letting the practice handle more criminal law cases, but Adam told him he wasn’t interested. I thought that was what finally drove Matt to leave Herbert. I think he was very disappointed Adam was firmly against changing the practice. It was obvious to me that Matt had bigger aspirations than Brown and Associates was going to be able to provide him.”
Sam looked down at his coffee cup, running his fingers along the lip of the cup and wondered how much more he should tell her. He finally decided the only way he was going to know how much Sarah knew about Calvin’s dealing was to just keep prying the information out of her.
“Do you know if Matt ever traveled to Mexico?”
He watched as she looked across the table at him. Her eyes behind those glass lenses blinked a couple of times and he saw her hesitation before she answered.
“He did. He and his best friend from college, Brandon Joseph, went there on a vacation shortly after he joined Brown and Associates.” She paused and tilted her head a little. “Now that you mention it, he seemed different when he came back.”
“How so?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it other than he seemed more driven to succeed than before. And that’s when he started pushing Adam, trying to convince him to change the firm’s philosophy on what type of business they would accept. It was like he wanted Brown and Associates to become something it wasn’t. It was just a small town firm, and that’s all Adam Brown ever wanted it to be.”
Sam continued to watch her as she nibbled on her sandwich. He knew about Brandon Joseph. Joseph was heavily involved in money laundering and had direct ties to the cartel. Well, past tense. He had been heavily involved until he came to an early demise in a dark alley in Miami.
She looked across the table at him, her eyes never wavering from his.
“Am I suspected of being involved somehow, Agent Morgan?”
He quickly shook his head. “No, Sarah you aren’t a suspect.”
Her relief at his response was obvious and he watched as her brow wrinkled again in concentration. “So, what does this all have to do with Brown and Associates? I still don’t understand. Why were we a target?”
Sam looked at his coffee cup as he slowly placed it down on the table in front of him. She wasn’t involved in any of this. He was sure now, just by her reaction to everything he had told her so far. His business was knowing when people were lying to him, and Sarah Masters didn’t know how to lie. He made the decision right then to tell her as much as he could at this point. Her life had been irrevocably changed today and she had a right to know why.
“We may never know the truth for sure, but we have a theory that Calvin was pushing Brown and Associates to take on criminal law so he could use the practice to help defend some of the scum bags who work for the cartel. Who knows, he maybe even had plans to use the firm for money laundering. That, in addition to his close relationship to Joseph, leads us to believe he was heavily involved with the cartel, even while he was still living in Herbert. His association with the cartel was probably why he moved to Miami. We’ve been watching the law practice he went to work for down there for many years. If we could get a firm link to all this being connected, we could blow this case wide open. The hope is, when we catch whoever
did this, he will talk.”
He saw Sarah’s confused look. “I still don’t understand why the people in Mexico would harm anyone here in Herbert. We didn’t have anything to do with what Matt and his friend were doing in Miami.”
Sam suddenly realized how naïve she was. She really didn’t get it. Living here in a small town, she had no idea about how many bad people there were out there in the real world. But then again, that was why he did the job he did – so that most Americans would never have to deal with any of it and could live their lives without fear.
“Unfortunately, the scumbags in the Mexican Cartel are rather paranoid, and they didn’t have any way of being sure of that. Their knee-jerk reaction is to take out anyone and everyone who might be a threat to them and the dirty business they handle. When a person chooses to leave the organization, anyone who might be aware of the ‘business relationship’ also has to go.”
He watched her shake her head again. Matt Calvin had been a fool for getting involved with the cartel. And he was a bigger fool for the way he had treated Sarah Masters. She deserved a man who loved her and treasured her; not a man who deserted her.
Sam cleared this throat and took another sip of his now lukewarm coffee. He hadn’t told her everything about Matt Calvin’s death – or the death threat to Adam Brown and how the FBI was so positive they were related, and he probably never would. There was no reason to tell her more gruesome details than what she was already aware of. She had been through enough.
The real question now was, how was he going to give more bad news to this young woman? Sometimes he hated his job. He wished he didn’t have to tell her the rest.
“I’m afraid I have more bad news for you, Sarah.”
He watched her put her half-eaten sandwich back down on the table and look over at him, a frightened look sweeping over her face.
“This morning after we left your house, there was a fire.” The realization of what he was telling her slowly spread across her face. “I’m sorry, Sarah. Your house is gone.”
Sarah’s shoulders slumped and her sigh echoed through the room. “I was afraid you were going to tell me someone else was dead. I don’t think I could have handled that,” he heard her say in a quiet voice.
She shook her head. “My house is gone? I was only renting the house, but everything I owned was there; my car, everything.” She shook her head again as if she was having trouble taking it all in. “Oh no! Sparky, my Yorky! I’ve lost him too?” Tears started running down her cheeks. He hadn’t known there was a pet involved. That would make it even more difficult for her. In the space of twenty four hours, this poor gal had lost everything.
The he saw her head come up, and there was a spark of anger in her eyes. Good. Perhaps she was a survivor after all.
“What happened, Agent Morgan?”
Sam hesitated a moment. She had to know the truth but he sure hated to be the one to tell her. “One of my agents is at the scene checking it out, but it looks like the fire was caused by another explosion. We’re considering this to be a bombing like the one that destroyed Brown and Associates. We’re guessing it’s the same perpetrator. It looks like he attached an explosive device to the gas main at the side of your house and set it off with a timer. Just like the office explosion. If we hadn’t come to the house and brought you here…or it could have exploded while we were all still there. We were all very lucky.” He tried to keep his voice steady. She had no idea how fortunate they all had been.
But Sam knew they hadn’t been lucky. God had truly protected them.
Sarah’s tear-filled eyes grew round behind her wire rimmed glasses. Sam had always felt that if you looked into someone’s eyes, you could almost see into their soul. Her hazel colored eyes told him of sorrow and torment and way too much loss in a short period of time. He just hoped and prayed she was strong enough to hold up under the stress of the last two days.
“That must be why Sparky was so restless. He woke me up about five o’clock this morning, and when I let him out into the back yard, he kept running around and barking. Do you suppose somebody was in the other yard right then and that is why Sparky was so upset?”
He watched her eyes grow large as she processed all the information he had given her and came to the only conclusion there was. Even after just a short time with her, he knew she was smart enough to realize what this latest news meant to her.
“It was the same guy, wasn’t it -- and he was trying to kill me. I’m the only one that knows what he looks like.” Her voice sounded flat to him as she almost whispered the words.
Sam hoped and prayed she could hold up without losing it. This was a lot for a seasoned agent like him to take in. How was she going to handle it?
“That’s what we’re thinking.” Sam pulled his chair closer and turned it so he was facing her. “Sarah, I want you to know that we’re going to protect you. Once it gets dark, we’re taking you to a safe house for the night. You can stay here at the police station until then. No one is going to get to you, do you understand me? We’re going to keep you safe, I promise.”
He watched her closely as Sarah gazed at him for a few seconds, took a couple of deep breaths, swallowed hard and then slowly nodded.
Feeling that she would be okay now, he decided to get back to business. They had more to discuss.
“We got a hit when we ran the sketch through our photo recognition software. And we were able to lift a partial print off the remains of the front door handle on the office door. We got a match for that too.” He stopped talking for a moment and reached across the table to touch her hand lightly with his left hand, and pulled a photo out of his jacket pocket with his right hand and placed it on the table in front of her.
“Is this the same man who came into the office posing as a gas company repair man?”
Sarah’s face paled as she looked at the picture, and he heard her gasp. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and he watched the emotions sweep across her face as she looked down at the photo of the man who had changed her life forever.
“Yes,” she almost whispered. “That’s him.”
“You’re sure, Sarah?”
“I’m positive, Agent Morgan. I will never forget that face.”
Sam patted her hand. “Thank you. What that means is we now have an ID and know exactly who we’re looking for. His name is Paolu Manuel Manaquez. He is a well-known hit man who works for the same Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization I was telling you about earlier.” He stopped talking for a moment and let that sink in. What he wasn’t telling her was that Manaquez was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for his many alleged criminal activities, including racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering, and was thought to be responsible for several other murders. He was one bad dude; Sam would like nothing more than to catch him.
“At least now we know who and what we’re dealing with, Sarah. No more mysteries.”
He reached over and grasped her hand as she turned her tear filled eyes toward him. Her hands were cold, she was shaking and he could tell she was trying not to lose control of her emotions. If it weren’t for the need for professional propriety, Sam would have pulled her into his arms in a hug.
“We will not let him hurt you, I promise. You have to trust me, Sarah. I wouldn’t blame you for not trusting anyone at this point, but you have to trust me.”
She nodded again and he sensed the moment she had her emotions under control by the stiffening of her back.
“I understand.”
Later, after putting a call in to FBI Headquarters and consulting with Bill and Jess, Sam walked back into the interrogation room. Sarah sat quietly in the chair, staring at the empty table before her. She looked as tired as he felt. It had been a long day for all of them, but there hadn’t been one word of complaint from her. She might be petite in stature, but her heart was huge and she had a perseverance and maturity he had rarely seen in one so
young and innocent. He was very proud of her and hoped sometime in the future to be able to tell her that.
He had been an agent long enough and seen enough victims and survivors to know what was running through her head right now. She was filled with guilt because she had survived two explosions and none of her friends and co-workers had lived through one. He also knew she was going to have to go through a great deal more. He just hoped she was strong enough to withstand it all. What Sam wouldn’t tell her was what he knew for a certainty – her life would never be the way it had been before.
“Sarah,” he said gently.
She looked up at him, a faint smile on her face even though he could see the weariness in her eyes.
“I just wanted you to know we’re leaving in a little while to take you to a safe house for the night – in another town.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “I know this is hard. But I want to let you know what’s going to happen so you won’t be scared.”
She nodded.
“I appreciate that, Agent Morgan.”
A little of his heart melted when he saw how trusting her eyes were as she looked over at him. She looked like a lost little girl.
“We will wait until it’s dark and then we’ll leave. All right? You can’t stay here at the police station – or even here in Herbert.”
She nodded again.
“Agent Morgan, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can, Sarah. Anything.”
Her eyes locked on his. “What about Adam Brown’s family and the rest of the employees’ families? Are they safe? Is he going to go after them too?”
He took a deep breath. This little gal continued to amaze him. Here she was, being hunted by a madman and all she could do was worry about her friends’ families. It was obvious she had a tender heart. How many people in the same circumstances would even be thinking about the safety of their friends? Most people he knew would only be worrying about saving their own skin.
But this question he had an answer for.
“Yes. They have around the clock police protection and have had ever since the explosion. They’re safe, Sarah. Please don’t worry about them.”
She nodded and exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Agent Morgan. I’ve been worried about them. I wish I could let them know how sorry I am for their losses. It was like a family, you know? We used to get together at Christmas parties and cookouts during the summer…” She sniffed. “I won’t even be able to go to my friends’ funerals, will I?
Sam shook his head. “No, Sarah. You won’t. I’m sorry.’ He waited a moment. “Anything else?”
He watched as Sarah slowly shook her head. She seemed to be content with that piece of information – at least for now.
Sarah Masters was placing her life in their hands without even batting an eyelash, and he felt the tremendous weight of the responsibility on his shoulders.
After darkness fell, a dark colored SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the side door of the police station. Sam and the other two agents, Jess and Bill, shepherded a small figure in an oversize dark blue hooded sweatshirt into the back seat of the SUV. Within seconds, the vehicle pulled away from the curb and took off.
Sam sat in the front seat along with Bill, who was driving. He glanced back at Sarah who sat in the back seat with Jess and watched as Sarah pulled the hood off her head and tugged her long dark hair loose. She wasn’t very big and looked to him about old enough to be in high school. He knew she had to be older than that – probably her mid to late twenties. Maybe it was just the vulnerable look she had about her that made her look so young to him. Or maybe he was just getting old.
“We’re on our way,” he said, hoping to give her some sort of reassurance.
He saw her faint nod in the darkness, then turned back to the front and looked out the windshield. While he watched the road ahead appearing in the light of their headlights, he thought about their charge.
She was a quiet one. She didn’t ask a lot of questions and did pretty much whatever they asked of her without asking the “what” and “why” of everything unlike so many of the folks they’d protected over the years. Because she was a principal witness in this case, they had to keep her alive until they could catch this guy. Once she identified him and they were able to convict him and send him off to prison, she could go back to living her life. They just had to keep her alive until that happened.
Piece of cake.