Page 20

B efore she headed out to rescue Helen, only one person who knew Monica was in White Bear came to mind: Pierre.

Now that Andy knew Monica’s brake lines had been cut, and not just to cause an accident near White Bear but to give her time to travel somewhere else where she would be stranded in the wilderness and could have died of hypothermia, he was sure it had to do with the kidnapping case she’d been on.

Hating to tell her the news, he couldn’t think of any other reasonable explanation.

Monica’s light footsteps approached as she walked down the hall toward him.

“Hey, good morning. How are you feeling?” He was ready to make them breakfast, but first, he pulled her into a warm embrace and rubbed her back.

She melted against him. “Much better, thanks. I really needed that sleep. Not moving more logs with my bear strength, walking through deep snow, or moving knocked-out bodies around makes a difference.”

He kissed her cheek. “I know what you mean, and I’m so glad you’re feeling better. Would you like some coffee and breakfast?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

“How’s your hand?”

“I’ve got more movement in my thumb and hand now. It’s getting better. No more need to wrap it.”

“That’s great. What would you like for breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Waffles?”

“Eggs and bacon would be perfect.”

“Okay, I’ve got news.” He poured coffee for Monica. Then he started cooking the bacon and eggs.

She added milk and sugar to her coffee. “Do you want some too?”

“Yes, that would be great. A teaspoon of sugar and about as much milk as you have.”

“Okay. So what’s the news?”

He let out his breath in frustration. “It’s bad news. Your brake lines were definitely cut.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

“But it was cut so you could travel some distance before the brake fluid leaked out. Who knew where you were going? If you were driving around town, you could have gotten help. It makes me believe whoever did it knew you were heading out on the country road to find Denny and Helen and would have lost control of the car and been stranded. And that would mean Pierre.”

“Pierre Johnson, you’re right. I told him where I was, at the mini mart, getting gas, and then leaving to locate them.” She took a sip of her coffee. “He’s the one who knew Denny’s grandparents had the cabin where Denny might end up at.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Andy said.

“It doesn’t mean it was him for sure. If he was afraid that I would learn about the kidnapping and want to rescue Helen, why send me in that direction? Why not tell me to go somewhere else entirely, far away from where Helen would be?”

“I agree that it doesn’t make much sense, except that if you had gone in another direction, you might have had more agents available. Whoever cut your brake lines must know how far you would get. It was cut to allow you to travel way out of town.”

“Right.”

“Besides, Pierre gave you a different address than where they stayed. We just got lucky in finding where they were.” He served up the eggs and bacon.

“On the other hand, that’s the only place Pierre knew about.

He probably wouldn’t have known Denny would stay at another cabin near his grandparents’.

” She sat down with Andy at the dinner table.

“Wendell Marquart and his thugs knew where Denny and Helen were, so maybe Pierre was completely in the dark and just guessing where Denny might have taken Helen.”

“That could still be true. What bothers me is that you were targeted.” Andy bit into his bacon.

“Yeah, me too. When I’m done with breakfast, I’m going to look at my laptop. They packed it in with the stuff from my car in my bag.”

“Okay. And do some research?”

“Right. Before this, I hadn’t had time to research Denny and Helen. All I knew was that Denny had been her ex-boyfriend, and she was dating her new boyfriend, Pierre. I don’t know anything about her other than that.”

"We'll need to check the service station where you stopped to get gas. They'll have CTV cameras, and we can look them over. We can also see if whoever cut your brake lines bought anything in the store. Was there anywhere else you stopped before hitting the country road?"

“I just drove to White Bear and stopped for gas. I had only a quarter of a tank. With the bad storm upon us, I didn’t want to get stranded anywhere without gas.”

“Which almost happened anyway, only we were in a different vehicle.”

“Right.”

After they finished breakfast, Monica retrieved her laptop while Andy cleaned the kitchen. She sat down in Andy's recliner and started doing some searches.

“Do you want another cup of coffee?”

“Yeah, sure, thanks. Okay, I’m looking up more about Helen. Oh, wow, according to Facebook, she is Harvey’s sister.”

“So she’s Wendell’s cousin. They’re all involved in it, or at least knew about it.”

“Yeah, I agree.” She tried calling Pierre again, but there was still no answer.

“I still can’t get through to Pierre. What do you think is going on with him?

I would think he would be home at some point.

Although if he’s involved in the kidnapping for ransom scheme, as in he gets a cut of the money, he could have left the state already. ”

“Right. He would have taken his cut and hightailed it out of there. He wouldn’t have any need to rejoin the other conspirators. Though it might make him guilty of a conspiracy to commit fraud if he defrauded a company or individual to obtain the ransom money in the first place.”

“I agree. I’ve pulled up his car license number. We can issue a BOLO to be on the lookout for his Mercedes because he still might be a victim. Wendell and his men might have taken him hostage and disposed of him somewhere. We don’t know.” She closed her laptop.

But Andy bet that Pierre was one of the bad guys.

“Let’s go check out some security video footage at the service station to see who might have tampered with my car if it was done there.”

“I’m ready.” He grabbed their coats and carefully helped her into hers.

She was still in pain when she gingerly pushed her hand through her coat sleeve, and he could tell her back was hurting her again by the way she winced.

Once they arrived at the mini-mart service station, they went inside and asked for the security camera video.

“Sure,” the manager said. “Hey, Trooper MacMathan, we heard what a mess it was out there.”

“Yeah, lots of people were in accidents. We were looking for security video on this date when FBI Special Agent Monica O’Connell’s SUV was getting gas.”

“Right there!” the manager said. “She filled up her vehicle and then came in to buy a few things—a bottle of water, protein bars, and some jerky.”

“You were holding out on me,” Andy said to Monica.

She smiled. “I ate the jerky on the way to crash into you. Sorry.”

Andy examined the video further. “So you moved your SUV to the parking area in front of the service station there.”

“Right. I never leave my vehicle at the gas pump after I’m done in case someone needs to use the pump.”

“So you were on your phone while the gas was filling the tank.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t see anyone near your vehicle while you were getting gas.”

“No. But when I went inside the station?—”

“Someone slipped between your vehicle and a van. He didn’t get into the van, but he crouched down and disappeared,” Andy said.

“Right there. As tall and bulky as he is, he is wearing a black parka with red fur around the collar. That’s Teague, one of the men with Wendell.”

“Yeah, that’s who I thought it was. Then right there, he’s behind your vehicle and heading toward?—”

“That truck with the camper. Wendell’s truck. God. Here they were sabotaging my SUV all along, and I never had a clue.”

“And they knew you were going to Helen’s rescue because you talked with Pierre about the kidnapping.”

“Exactly.” She couldn’t believe Pierre would set her up to possibly die so that other agents would think she was handling the case until she had backup.

She got a call from one of her fellow agents. “Hey, did you get the lot of them?”

“No. I was calling to give you an update. They were long gone by the time we reached the motel, but they left a lot of handcuffs at the cabin.”

“Crap. Well, thanks!” Monica explained what had happened to them, such as disabling her car and Pierre's disappearance.

“We’ll be looking for him also,” her fellow agent said. “We’ve continually tried to catch up with him with no success.”

“Yeah, me too.” They finally ended the call, and Monica told Andy what had happened.

“Well, hell, I was afraid they might just disappear once Eloise took off with Harvey’s truck. I sure wish we could have brought them in when we had them in cuffs.”

“I know. Me too.” Then she got a call from her boss, Remington. “Yes, sir?” She put it on speakerphone so Andy could hear.

“Everything was caught on security video at the motel—you realized Harvey Marquart was a danger, warned him to put his hands up, and then he brought out a shotgun and racked it. So the finding is a justified shooting on your part. There was a question about a missing video segment for a few minutes right after he shot at you, and you ducked behind the couch.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, we were all on the edge of our seats, believing you would have been dead from the encounter or killed him, which, of course, we know didn’t happen because you managed to get him into custody. But how did that happen exactly?”

“He tripped over his own feet while coming after me, fell, and hit his head, I guess. I was hiding behind the couch, waiting for him to come around it, ready to shoot him if he tried to shoot at me again. So I didn’t see what happened when he knocked himself out.”

“And Trooper MacMathan was in the restroom the whole time? The next thing we see is him coming out and helping you with Marquart. Then you put the closed sign on the door, took Marquart to his vehicle, and confined him to the hatchback.”

She didn’t respond to the part about Andy being in the restroom. “Did the DEA agents find any more drugs at the motel?”

“Yes, and tons of money were hidden in various locations in the office, and one of the rooms that is never rented out.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, he has already been found guilty of drug trafficking and just got out of prison only six months ago.”

“So he’s on probation, had a firearm as a convicted felon, and lots more,” she said.

“Attempted murder of a law enforcement agent. Yep. I got the paperwork about you being on leave for three weeks to recuperate, but I just wanted to tell you you're not on administrative leave over the shooting.”

“Thanks. That’s a big relief.” She had worried about them learning that some of the video had been deleted, but there was no way she could explain any of that. “What about Denny and the others and the kidnapping scheme?”

“No new leads on them. We’re not sure where they’ve gone to. You don’t need to worry about the case for now. Take it easy and check back in with me when you can.”

“Thanks.” Then they ended the call, and she raised her brows at Andy.

“Hell, it sounded like I was in the restroom while you were fighting for your life!” Andy shook his head.

She chuckled. “You were my bear hero. Unfortunately, we couldn’t allow that to be seen on the video. Everyone in our world will know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”

He scoffed.

She laughed, knowing he wanted everyone to see him as a hero who had saved her in the nick of time. If he’d been coming into the hotel lobby to rescue her, that would have been one thing. But coming out of the restroom after he’d shifted and dressed like he’d missed all the action? She smiled.

“That decides it. The next venture we’re on together when it comes to taking down criminals—you wear your polar bear coat, and I’ll be on the CCTV?—”

“Getting shot at?” She laughed. “We did every version of that on our wild adventure already. So you’re planning on teaming up with me on more assignments?”

She didn’t believe that was possible unless she got another case in this area and contacted him for backup.

“I sure am. You need backup, and we still have some bad guys on the loose that I’m damned determined to catch. You’re off for three weeks, and I figure we can do some sleuthing during that time.”

“What will your boss think of that?” She hadn’t discussed it with Andy, but she figured he would have to return to work. Chasing down Denny and his gang probably wasn’t something his boss would be all right with.

“Well, I’m responsible for enforcing traffic and criminal laws on state-regulated highways and responding to emergencies involving motorists, which I was doing when the blizzard hit. Of course, I also assisted with detours and evacuations. But I have seven days off to do my own investigative work.”

“Seven days off? Well, that’s something.”

“Yeah. I worked a week on and a week off before the blizzard, but then I had to go out to rescue stranded motorists instead of being off and then ended up on a kidnapping case.”

“Okay.”

“So I got credit for having to work, and I have a full week off. If you’re resting your hand and back, we can check into this kidnapping case.”

“That means we only have a week to catch all of them.”

“Yeah, but when we do, I want to be caught on video arresting them. But first—we need to stock up on more handcuffs.”