Every Last Secret: A Riveting Kidnapping Boxset, page 17
“Well, uh, she was into some kinky stuff in the bedroom; I’ll say that much,” Crookes said. “Whether that translates into violence in the real world, I can’t say. Oh, and she used to carry a gun in her purse. Not that that’s really unusual, a lot of women do, with the way things are these days in certain parts of town.”
“Do you remember what kind of gun it was?”
“I don’t know anything about guns, Detective. Uh, it was a pretty big pistol, maybe a .45. Not the kind of small pistol you’d think a woman would carry in her purse. Oh, and I think she told me once that she did a lot of martial arts, and she was a black belt in, um, maybe taekwondo or something. She was definitely very … athletic, with a lot of energy and, um, stamina.”
“Thank you, Doctor Crookes, that’s about all I need to know,” Macy said. “Thank you for your time. And don’t forget to forward me that credit card info when you find it.”
She handed him her card and stood up. They shook hands again, but this time Crookes’s grip was short and formal; he was quite shaken up by everything Macy had told him, especially the fact that he may have been an unwitting accomplice in trafficking kidnapped children across an international border.
“Good luck, Detective,” he said softly. “I hope you catch that bitch and save the kid—and find out what happened to those other poor kids all those years ago.”
“I hope so. too, Doctor Crookes. I hope so, too,” Macy said.
She headed back to her car, and dozens of thoughts were crashing around the inside of her head. She was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was to go to the safe house where her mother and Alex were and curl up on a sofa with her little girl. It would be blissful to simply enjoy her daughter’s company and forget about all of this for a while, but there was another little girl still out there, alone and terrified and in the clutches of evil people. Macy knew that she couldn’t rest or relax until Shayna was rescued.
Still, she knew she had to get some rest after a long and tiring day. She was supposed to drive to the station and leave her car there and call a cab to take her to the safe house in order to maintain the secrecy of the location. But since this would add at least an hour of travel, she figured it would be okay to ignore procedure and simply drive straight there. It was late. The kidnappers were on the run and hardly likely to be tailing her.
Even so, as she headed over to the safe house, which was a half-hour drive, she frequently checked her rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed. There were no vehicles that seemed suspicious, and certainly, none that followed her for more than a block or two before going off in another direction. Macy was quite certain that nobody had tailed her by the time she got to the safe house. She found that it was a small but pleasant-looking house in a quiet suburb.
Just to be safe, when she got to the house, she kept driving, keeping her eyes on her rearview mirror. There were no signs of any vehicles behind her or anywhere else on the street. Even so, she circled the block three times, staring into every patch of shadow beneath every tree and in every front yard to make sure nobody was hiding and watching her.
Finally, when she was satisfied that it was safe, she parked in the driveway. As an extra precaution, she had bought a cheap car cover, which she put over her vehicle so nobody driving past could see the license plate or what kind of vehicle it was. After that, she traipsed over to the door, feeling thoroughly worn-out and exhausted.
“It’s me, Mom,” she called out after ringing the doorbell.
After a short while, her mother opened the door and let her in. “Looks like you and your friends really missed out on a big opportunity today, Macy,” her mother said. “It was all over the news, on a bunch of different channels earlier. You just can’t catch those awful kidnappers, huh?”
“They’re always one step ahead of us, it seems, Ma,” Macy said. “What did the news reports say about the house we searched?”
“Oh, they said that you guys found absolutely nothing, and that terrible woman who murdered that suspect in the hospital is on the run. They showed some pictures of her—she’s very pretty, and someone who is that pretty always gets noticed wherever she is. I’m sure you’ll catch her soon, at least.”
Macy smiled grimly. “Hopefully soon, very soon,” she said. “Despite what the news reports are saying, I’ve got one or two tricks up my sleeve. Anyway, I don’t really wanna talk about the case now. I’m pretty exhausted. Is Alex still up? I just wanna hold my daughter for a while.”
“She insisted on staying up until you got home. She’s on the sofa, watching TV.”
Macy hurried into the small living room, where Alex was sprawled out on the couch. Alex’s eyes lit up when she saw Macy, and she squealed with delight and scrambled up off the sofa to leap into her mother’s arms.
“Grandma said I had to go to bed,” Alex said, beaming out a broad grin, “but I said I can’t sleep until I’ve seen my mommy.”
“You know you have to listen to what your grandma says,” Macy said, trying to sound stern but unable to keep the cheer out of her voice and a smile off her face.
“I know, but I can’t help it if I can’t go to sleep before you kiss me goodnight!”
Macy laughed and hugged her daughter tight. “All right, you naughty little pixie,” she said, grinning. “We can stay up just a little while longer and watch some TV, okay? And how about some ice cream while we do that? I won’t tell Grandma if you don’t .…”
“Yeah, yeah, ice cream!” Alex said excitedly.
They sat up and watched some TV and had some ice cream before Alex finally went to bed. Macy was ready to collapse into bed, too, but just as she was about to take a quick shower, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and saw that it was Lopez calling. She groaned, feeling tempted to ignore the call, but she knew it was important. He and some other officers had set up secret surveillance points around Ivanov’s house and were watching like hawks for her to show up to try to sneak in to get her illicit cash.
“Talk to me, Lopez,” Macy said when she answered the call.
“We’ve got Ivanov,” Lopez whispered breathlessly. “She and Kemp have just shown up at the house!”
35
“Okay, okay,” Macy said, her heart now thumping madly in her chest, all traces of exhaustion burned away by this news. “I’m on my way. Stay on the line and tell me every move those scumbags make.” She turned on her heels, leaving the shower running, and ran out to the living room, half-dressed, to put her shoes and jacket on.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked, looking confused.
“I gotta go, Ma,” she said. “Big development with the case. The shower’s still running. Please take care of it for me.”
“Good luck, dear, and stay safe,” her mother said. “Any idea when we can expect you back?”
“I don’t know, it uh, it could be an hour, it could be tomorrow morning. I’ll text you or something.”
Without another word, she ran out to her car, ripped the cover off and climbed in. “What’s the word, Lopez?” she yelled as she started the motor up; her phone was on speakerphone.
“Kemp is waiting in the car with the motor running,” he answered. “It’s a late model Mercedes C-Class, white. Johnson’s here with me; he just ran the license plates, and they’re from one of the scrapped cars at the junkyard—no surprises there. He’s parked about a hundred yards down the street from Ivanov’s house.”
“Where’s Ivanov?” Macy asked as she reversed out of the driveway and then sped off down the street with the gas pedal pressed flat and the tires shrieking.
“She’s probably in the house by now. She jumped the fence of a yard down the street. We can’t really see where she went. We suspect she’s hopping over backyard fences to eventually get to her own backyard, so she can sneak into her place without being seen from the street.”
“All right, don’t make a move yet. If you nail her right now, Kemp might escape, and if you charge out and block his car, she might get away. I’m on my way. I should be there in ten minutes!”
“Okay, Whitfield,” Lopez said, “but if she gets back to Kemp’s car before you get here, we have to make a move. If they get into the car and take off, and we let ‘em go, then they’re gone, and we might never get the chance to catch the bastards again.”
“Understood,” Macy said. “Swoop in if she gets back to the vehicle before I get there. I gotta concentrate on driving, so I’ll talk later.”
Macy raced through the suburbs at high speed, hurtling around bends and thundering down long straights, pushing her car to the limits, occasionally breaking a hundred miles an hour in her desperate haste to get to Ivanov’s house before the sting operation went down. She left the call on so that Lopez could give her commentary as the situation played out.
“I’ve just seen a flicker of movement in her backyard,” he said. “I think she’s left the house, and I’m guessing she has the bags of cash with her.”
“Okay. I’m almost there. Two minutes away,” Macy said, clenching her jaw as she skidded through a tight curve in the street and almost lost control, momentarily surging up onto the sidewalk and plowing through a couple garbage cans.
“What the hell was that sound?” Lopez asked.
“Never mind,” Macy muttered, her heart hammering. “Just tell me where Ivanov is!”
“She’s out of sight right now, but all units are in place, ready to move the moment she does.”
“I’m almost there. I’m almost there,” Macy said, skidding through another curve with her tires howling.
“Hey, hey, slow the fuck down!” Lopez said, his voice low with urgency. “If Ivanov hears you screaming along the streets like that, she’s gonna know it’s a trap, and they’ll both bolt! Calm the fuck down and stop driving like a fuckin’ maniac!”
Macy was desperate to get there in time to intercept Ivanov, but she knew Lopez was right. The sound of a car racing through the streets with its motor roaring and tires screeching would definitely clue in the suspects to the fact that they were about to get stung. She eased her foot off the gas and slowed down to a more sedate pace.
“Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m driving like a normal person again. Two or three minutes, and I’m there.”
“All right, but if she’s in position before you get here, we’re making our move without you,” Lopez said. “This is our only chance, and we can’t blow it. When you get close, hang back. Even a car being driven normally, as if by some oblivious civilian might be enough to spook the perps.”
“Got it,” Macy said.
She got within two blocks of Ivanov’s house and slowed down to a crawl, driving very slowly along the road until she reached the corner, at which point she turned off her headlamps and began inching forward without lights.
“All right, all right,” came Lopez’s voice through the speaker of Macy’s phone. “I see her. She’s in the backyard of the house where Kemp is parked. We’re gonna move as soon as she gets into his car.”
Macy’s heart was thumping like a frantic bass drum in her chest, and she could hear her blood roaring in her ears and temples. Adrenalin was coursing through her veins, and excitement was buzzing in her core. It was almost time … almost.
“She’s climbing over the fence,” Lopez whispered. “We’re gonna get the signal to move any second now. Okay, she’s looking up and down the road. She’s definitely suspicious, but I know she can’t see us; we’re hidden well. She’s got a duffel bag. It must be full of cash. Okay, she’s checking up and down the street again. It’s like she knows something is up. Okay, okay, she’s hesitating .… This it. She’s walking over to Kemp’s car. Opening the passenger door, getting in … time to move! Go, go, go!”
Macy flicked on her lights and stomped on the gas pedal; all need for stealth had just gone out the window. What was needed now was speed and ferocity, and she had those elements in spades. She sped around the corner, her tires screaming and smoking, and saw police cruisers with their red and blue lights flashing bursting out of their positions of cover and officers with bulletproof vests and M-16s charging out from their hiding places.
Kemp floored the gas pedal of his Mercedes and hurtled down the street, but two cruisers burst out of a driveway, blocking his path. He jerked the handbrake up, pulling the car into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree skidding stop and tried to race down the street the other way, but three more police cruisers had already blocked his path. Macy sped down the road and skidded to a halt behind these three cars, adding her vehicle to the blockade.
Kemp was trapped with nowhere left to run. Dozens of heavily-armed cops had surrounded his vehicle, and they had their M-16 rifles aimed at it with their fingers on the triggers and a cold gleam in their eyes.
“Get out of the vehicle!” a gravelly-voiced sergeant bellowed through a loudspeaker. “Get out of the vehicle with your hands behind your heads. Do it now, or I swear to God we’ll light that fucking car up like a Christmas tree!”
Macy threw open her door and jumped out of her car, sprinting down the street with her pistol in her hand.
“You have five seconds to get the fuck out before we open fire!” the sergeant roared. “I will not ask you again! Get the fuck out before we put about a thousand bullets into that piece of shit!”
Ivanov and Kemp realized there was no escape, and they opened the doors and got out with their hands raised. Nearby officers immediately charged them and tackled them viciously to the ground, manhandling them as they jerked the suspects’ arms up behind their backs and slapped handcuffs around their wrists.
Kemp cursed and roared and spat at the cops, his ugly face a mask of pure rage, but Ivanov simply lay on the street with a blank look on her face as two female officers cuffed her. Macy walked over to her, aiming her pistol at Ivanov’s face. The moment their eyes met, Macy knew that this was the nurse who had been so aggressive with her in the hospital.
“You got away from me once, you bitch, but I’ve got you now,” Macy said. “Your days of kidnapping and child trafficking are over. Take a good look at the sky because it’s the last time you’ll ever see it without it having prison walls around its edges.”
Ivanov smirked at Macy. “You think it’s over, Whitfield?” she said softly. “It’s only just begun … oh yes, for you, it’s only just begun .…”
36
Macy ignored this veiled threat from Ivanov. “Where’s Shayna, and where’s Lyle?” she asked coldly, glaring at the beautiful young woman with daggers in her eyes. “Give them up, and maybe we can persuade the judge to knock a few years off the life sentence you’re going to be handed.”
“I know my rights,” Ivanov said. “I don’t have to say a damn thing to you without my lawyer present.”
“I’ll make sure to tell the judge just how uncooperative you were, then,” Macy fired back. “I’m going to find the girl and your scumbag boyfriend, whether you talk or not.” She looked around. “Search the car!” Macy said to some nearby officers. “And let’s get these assholes back to the station for processing.”
The police officers hauled Kemp and Ivanov up off the ground and dragged them over to some nearby cruisers and shoved the perps into the cars. Macy, meanwhile, helped the officers search Kemp’s car. Before even getting into the vehicle, the first thing she found was Ivanov’s iPhone, lying on the ground a few feet from the passenger door. Although the screen was locked, part of a message from Lyle was showing on the screen.
“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll get to the girl before the pigs do, and …” was all Macy could see. She knew that there was no way Ivanov would give her the screen lock code or consent to use her face or fingerprint to unlock the device. She also knew that it would be almost impossible to break into the phone without this, given how secure iPhones were.
Despite not being able to see the entirety of Lyle’s last message—which had to be a response to Ivanov’s hastily messaging him to say that she and Kemp had just been caught—there was one extremely important detail that the message had revealed: Lyle was still loose and not currently with Shayna. This meant that the little girl was on her own somewhere, and now there was a race against time to find out where she was and get to her before Lyle did.
“There’s gotta be something. There has to be a clue in here somewhere,” Macy murmured to herself as she and the other officers searched the vehicle.
The first things they found were guns, ammunition, and the duffel bag full of cash. There was also a bag of drugs, mainly methamphetamines, and the paraphernalia used to consume such drugs. The firearms consisted of an AK-47, two .45 pistols, and a TEC-9, presumably the same firearm Kemp and Lyle had used to attack Macy’s car. All of this stuff went straight into evidence bags.
Ivanov’s handbag was in the passenger footwell, and Macy took this and searched carefully through it, doing her best to stay calm and collected but feeling increasingly anxious. The clock was ticking in the background, knowing that she and Lyle were now engaged in a race, one in which he had a big head start—a race that if she lost, could end up costing the life of an innocent child.
Inside the handbag were the usual items one would expect a young, attractive woman to have: plenty of makeup, lipstick, and other cosmetic products. Her purse was also in there, along with a number of bank cards, her hospital ID badge, credit cards, and two drivers’ licenses: her real one and a fake one. The fake one, an Arizonan license, listed her name as Maria Smith. There was also a key ring with several keys on it.
Macy handed the credit cards to Lopez, who was helping her search the vehicle. “Give these credit card companies a call and see if you can find out the last few times and places these cards were used,” she said.
“Will do,” he said, taking the cards.
Macy continued to search through the handbag. She found a first aid kit, a flick knife, another two phones—burner phones, no doubt—as well as a few small sex toys, a canister of pepper spray, and some candies. There were a bunch of receipts in the bag, but Macy quickly discovered that they were mostly from supermarkets and drug stores in the area and were thus not particularly helpful in narrowing down the search for Shayna.
“Do you remember what kind of gun it was?”
“I don’t know anything about guns, Detective. Uh, it was a pretty big pistol, maybe a .45. Not the kind of small pistol you’d think a woman would carry in her purse. Oh, and I think she told me once that she did a lot of martial arts, and she was a black belt in, um, maybe taekwondo or something. She was definitely very … athletic, with a lot of energy and, um, stamina.”
“Thank you, Doctor Crookes, that’s about all I need to know,” Macy said. “Thank you for your time. And don’t forget to forward me that credit card info when you find it.”
She handed him her card and stood up. They shook hands again, but this time Crookes’s grip was short and formal; he was quite shaken up by everything Macy had told him, especially the fact that he may have been an unwitting accomplice in trafficking kidnapped children across an international border.
“Good luck, Detective,” he said softly. “I hope you catch that bitch and save the kid—and find out what happened to those other poor kids all those years ago.”
“I hope so. too, Doctor Crookes. I hope so, too,” Macy said.
She headed back to her car, and dozens of thoughts were crashing around the inside of her head. She was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was to go to the safe house where her mother and Alex were and curl up on a sofa with her little girl. It would be blissful to simply enjoy her daughter’s company and forget about all of this for a while, but there was another little girl still out there, alone and terrified and in the clutches of evil people. Macy knew that she couldn’t rest or relax until Shayna was rescued.
Still, she knew she had to get some rest after a long and tiring day. She was supposed to drive to the station and leave her car there and call a cab to take her to the safe house in order to maintain the secrecy of the location. But since this would add at least an hour of travel, she figured it would be okay to ignore procedure and simply drive straight there. It was late. The kidnappers were on the run and hardly likely to be tailing her.
Even so, as she headed over to the safe house, which was a half-hour drive, she frequently checked her rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed. There were no vehicles that seemed suspicious, and certainly, none that followed her for more than a block or two before going off in another direction. Macy was quite certain that nobody had tailed her by the time she got to the safe house. She found that it was a small but pleasant-looking house in a quiet suburb.
Just to be safe, when she got to the house, she kept driving, keeping her eyes on her rearview mirror. There were no signs of any vehicles behind her or anywhere else on the street. Even so, she circled the block three times, staring into every patch of shadow beneath every tree and in every front yard to make sure nobody was hiding and watching her.
Finally, when she was satisfied that it was safe, she parked in the driveway. As an extra precaution, she had bought a cheap car cover, which she put over her vehicle so nobody driving past could see the license plate or what kind of vehicle it was. After that, she traipsed over to the door, feeling thoroughly worn-out and exhausted.
“It’s me, Mom,” she called out after ringing the doorbell.
After a short while, her mother opened the door and let her in. “Looks like you and your friends really missed out on a big opportunity today, Macy,” her mother said. “It was all over the news, on a bunch of different channels earlier. You just can’t catch those awful kidnappers, huh?”
“They’re always one step ahead of us, it seems, Ma,” Macy said. “What did the news reports say about the house we searched?”
“Oh, they said that you guys found absolutely nothing, and that terrible woman who murdered that suspect in the hospital is on the run. They showed some pictures of her—she’s very pretty, and someone who is that pretty always gets noticed wherever she is. I’m sure you’ll catch her soon, at least.”
Macy smiled grimly. “Hopefully soon, very soon,” she said. “Despite what the news reports are saying, I’ve got one or two tricks up my sleeve. Anyway, I don’t really wanna talk about the case now. I’m pretty exhausted. Is Alex still up? I just wanna hold my daughter for a while.”
“She insisted on staying up until you got home. She’s on the sofa, watching TV.”
Macy hurried into the small living room, where Alex was sprawled out on the couch. Alex’s eyes lit up when she saw Macy, and she squealed with delight and scrambled up off the sofa to leap into her mother’s arms.
“Grandma said I had to go to bed,” Alex said, beaming out a broad grin, “but I said I can’t sleep until I’ve seen my mommy.”
“You know you have to listen to what your grandma says,” Macy said, trying to sound stern but unable to keep the cheer out of her voice and a smile off her face.
“I know, but I can’t help it if I can’t go to sleep before you kiss me goodnight!”
Macy laughed and hugged her daughter tight. “All right, you naughty little pixie,” she said, grinning. “We can stay up just a little while longer and watch some TV, okay? And how about some ice cream while we do that? I won’t tell Grandma if you don’t .…”
“Yeah, yeah, ice cream!” Alex said excitedly.
They sat up and watched some TV and had some ice cream before Alex finally went to bed. Macy was ready to collapse into bed, too, but just as she was about to take a quick shower, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and saw that it was Lopez calling. She groaned, feeling tempted to ignore the call, but she knew it was important. He and some other officers had set up secret surveillance points around Ivanov’s house and were watching like hawks for her to show up to try to sneak in to get her illicit cash.
“Talk to me, Lopez,” Macy said when she answered the call.
“We’ve got Ivanov,” Lopez whispered breathlessly. “She and Kemp have just shown up at the house!”
35
“Okay, okay,” Macy said, her heart now thumping madly in her chest, all traces of exhaustion burned away by this news. “I’m on my way. Stay on the line and tell me every move those scumbags make.” She turned on her heels, leaving the shower running, and ran out to the living room, half-dressed, to put her shoes and jacket on.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked, looking confused.
“I gotta go, Ma,” she said. “Big development with the case. The shower’s still running. Please take care of it for me.”
“Good luck, dear, and stay safe,” her mother said. “Any idea when we can expect you back?”
“I don’t know, it uh, it could be an hour, it could be tomorrow morning. I’ll text you or something.”
Without another word, she ran out to her car, ripped the cover off and climbed in. “What’s the word, Lopez?” she yelled as she started the motor up; her phone was on speakerphone.
“Kemp is waiting in the car with the motor running,” he answered. “It’s a late model Mercedes C-Class, white. Johnson’s here with me; he just ran the license plates, and they’re from one of the scrapped cars at the junkyard—no surprises there. He’s parked about a hundred yards down the street from Ivanov’s house.”
“Where’s Ivanov?” Macy asked as she reversed out of the driveway and then sped off down the street with the gas pedal pressed flat and the tires shrieking.
“She’s probably in the house by now. She jumped the fence of a yard down the street. We can’t really see where she went. We suspect she’s hopping over backyard fences to eventually get to her own backyard, so she can sneak into her place without being seen from the street.”
“All right, don’t make a move yet. If you nail her right now, Kemp might escape, and if you charge out and block his car, she might get away. I’m on my way. I should be there in ten minutes!”
“Okay, Whitfield,” Lopez said, “but if she gets back to Kemp’s car before you get here, we have to make a move. If they get into the car and take off, and we let ‘em go, then they’re gone, and we might never get the chance to catch the bastards again.”
“Understood,” Macy said. “Swoop in if she gets back to the vehicle before I get there. I gotta concentrate on driving, so I’ll talk later.”
Macy raced through the suburbs at high speed, hurtling around bends and thundering down long straights, pushing her car to the limits, occasionally breaking a hundred miles an hour in her desperate haste to get to Ivanov’s house before the sting operation went down. She left the call on so that Lopez could give her commentary as the situation played out.
“I’ve just seen a flicker of movement in her backyard,” he said. “I think she’s left the house, and I’m guessing she has the bags of cash with her.”
“Okay. I’m almost there. Two minutes away,” Macy said, clenching her jaw as she skidded through a tight curve in the street and almost lost control, momentarily surging up onto the sidewalk and plowing through a couple garbage cans.
“What the hell was that sound?” Lopez asked.
“Never mind,” Macy muttered, her heart hammering. “Just tell me where Ivanov is!”
“She’s out of sight right now, but all units are in place, ready to move the moment she does.”
“I’m almost there. I’m almost there,” Macy said, skidding through another curve with her tires howling.
“Hey, hey, slow the fuck down!” Lopez said, his voice low with urgency. “If Ivanov hears you screaming along the streets like that, she’s gonna know it’s a trap, and they’ll both bolt! Calm the fuck down and stop driving like a fuckin’ maniac!”
Macy was desperate to get there in time to intercept Ivanov, but she knew Lopez was right. The sound of a car racing through the streets with its motor roaring and tires screeching would definitely clue in the suspects to the fact that they were about to get stung. She eased her foot off the gas and slowed down to a more sedate pace.
“Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m driving like a normal person again. Two or three minutes, and I’m there.”
“All right, but if she’s in position before you get here, we’re making our move without you,” Lopez said. “This is our only chance, and we can’t blow it. When you get close, hang back. Even a car being driven normally, as if by some oblivious civilian might be enough to spook the perps.”
“Got it,” Macy said.
She got within two blocks of Ivanov’s house and slowed down to a crawl, driving very slowly along the road until she reached the corner, at which point she turned off her headlamps and began inching forward without lights.
“All right, all right,” came Lopez’s voice through the speaker of Macy’s phone. “I see her. She’s in the backyard of the house where Kemp is parked. We’re gonna move as soon as she gets into his car.”
Macy’s heart was thumping like a frantic bass drum in her chest, and she could hear her blood roaring in her ears and temples. Adrenalin was coursing through her veins, and excitement was buzzing in her core. It was almost time … almost.
“She’s climbing over the fence,” Lopez whispered. “We’re gonna get the signal to move any second now. Okay, she’s looking up and down the road. She’s definitely suspicious, but I know she can’t see us; we’re hidden well. She’s got a duffel bag. It must be full of cash. Okay, she’s checking up and down the street again. It’s like she knows something is up. Okay, okay, she’s hesitating .… This it. She’s walking over to Kemp’s car. Opening the passenger door, getting in … time to move! Go, go, go!”
Macy flicked on her lights and stomped on the gas pedal; all need for stealth had just gone out the window. What was needed now was speed and ferocity, and she had those elements in spades. She sped around the corner, her tires screaming and smoking, and saw police cruisers with their red and blue lights flashing bursting out of their positions of cover and officers with bulletproof vests and M-16s charging out from their hiding places.
Kemp floored the gas pedal of his Mercedes and hurtled down the street, but two cruisers burst out of a driveway, blocking his path. He jerked the handbrake up, pulling the car into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree skidding stop and tried to race down the street the other way, but three more police cruisers had already blocked his path. Macy sped down the road and skidded to a halt behind these three cars, adding her vehicle to the blockade.
Kemp was trapped with nowhere left to run. Dozens of heavily-armed cops had surrounded his vehicle, and they had their M-16 rifles aimed at it with their fingers on the triggers and a cold gleam in their eyes.
“Get out of the vehicle!” a gravelly-voiced sergeant bellowed through a loudspeaker. “Get out of the vehicle with your hands behind your heads. Do it now, or I swear to God we’ll light that fucking car up like a Christmas tree!”
Macy threw open her door and jumped out of her car, sprinting down the street with her pistol in her hand.
“You have five seconds to get the fuck out before we open fire!” the sergeant roared. “I will not ask you again! Get the fuck out before we put about a thousand bullets into that piece of shit!”
Ivanov and Kemp realized there was no escape, and they opened the doors and got out with their hands raised. Nearby officers immediately charged them and tackled them viciously to the ground, manhandling them as they jerked the suspects’ arms up behind their backs and slapped handcuffs around their wrists.
Kemp cursed and roared and spat at the cops, his ugly face a mask of pure rage, but Ivanov simply lay on the street with a blank look on her face as two female officers cuffed her. Macy walked over to her, aiming her pistol at Ivanov’s face. The moment their eyes met, Macy knew that this was the nurse who had been so aggressive with her in the hospital.
“You got away from me once, you bitch, but I’ve got you now,” Macy said. “Your days of kidnapping and child trafficking are over. Take a good look at the sky because it’s the last time you’ll ever see it without it having prison walls around its edges.”
Ivanov smirked at Macy. “You think it’s over, Whitfield?” she said softly. “It’s only just begun … oh yes, for you, it’s only just begun .…”
36
Macy ignored this veiled threat from Ivanov. “Where’s Shayna, and where’s Lyle?” she asked coldly, glaring at the beautiful young woman with daggers in her eyes. “Give them up, and maybe we can persuade the judge to knock a few years off the life sentence you’re going to be handed.”
“I know my rights,” Ivanov said. “I don’t have to say a damn thing to you without my lawyer present.”
“I’ll make sure to tell the judge just how uncooperative you were, then,” Macy fired back. “I’m going to find the girl and your scumbag boyfriend, whether you talk or not.” She looked around. “Search the car!” Macy said to some nearby officers. “And let’s get these assholes back to the station for processing.”
The police officers hauled Kemp and Ivanov up off the ground and dragged them over to some nearby cruisers and shoved the perps into the cars. Macy, meanwhile, helped the officers search Kemp’s car. Before even getting into the vehicle, the first thing she found was Ivanov’s iPhone, lying on the ground a few feet from the passenger door. Although the screen was locked, part of a message from Lyle was showing on the screen.
“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll get to the girl before the pigs do, and …” was all Macy could see. She knew that there was no way Ivanov would give her the screen lock code or consent to use her face or fingerprint to unlock the device. She also knew that it would be almost impossible to break into the phone without this, given how secure iPhones were.
Despite not being able to see the entirety of Lyle’s last message—which had to be a response to Ivanov’s hastily messaging him to say that she and Kemp had just been caught—there was one extremely important detail that the message had revealed: Lyle was still loose and not currently with Shayna. This meant that the little girl was on her own somewhere, and now there was a race against time to find out where she was and get to her before Lyle did.
“There’s gotta be something. There has to be a clue in here somewhere,” Macy murmured to herself as she and the other officers searched the vehicle.
The first things they found were guns, ammunition, and the duffel bag full of cash. There was also a bag of drugs, mainly methamphetamines, and the paraphernalia used to consume such drugs. The firearms consisted of an AK-47, two .45 pistols, and a TEC-9, presumably the same firearm Kemp and Lyle had used to attack Macy’s car. All of this stuff went straight into evidence bags.
Ivanov’s handbag was in the passenger footwell, and Macy took this and searched carefully through it, doing her best to stay calm and collected but feeling increasingly anxious. The clock was ticking in the background, knowing that she and Lyle were now engaged in a race, one in which he had a big head start—a race that if she lost, could end up costing the life of an innocent child.
Inside the handbag were the usual items one would expect a young, attractive woman to have: plenty of makeup, lipstick, and other cosmetic products. Her purse was also in there, along with a number of bank cards, her hospital ID badge, credit cards, and two drivers’ licenses: her real one and a fake one. The fake one, an Arizonan license, listed her name as Maria Smith. There was also a key ring with several keys on it.
Macy handed the credit cards to Lopez, who was helping her search the vehicle. “Give these credit card companies a call and see if you can find out the last few times and places these cards were used,” she said.
“Will do,” he said, taking the cards.
Macy continued to search through the handbag. She found a first aid kit, a flick knife, another two phones—burner phones, no doubt—as well as a few small sex toys, a canister of pepper spray, and some candies. There were a bunch of receipts in the bag, but Macy quickly discovered that they were mostly from supermarkets and drug stores in the area and were thus not particularly helpful in narrowing down the search for Shayna.
