Dirty Money (A Chase Adams FBI Thriller Book 5) Read online

  Stitts made a face.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s bigger than I think I’ve ever seen before. It’s… well, it’s, uh, strange, to say the least.”

  "Show the other one," Beckett instructed.

  Dr. Calderon, who seemed more intimidated by Beckett than by the FBI Agent standing at his left, quickly minimized the image and called up another one.

  It took a moment for Stitts to make sense of the image. It was grainy, of a much lower quality than the previous one.

  "Now, back when this scan was taken, the MRI technology was far more primitive. We don't have the same level of detail and Chase's brain was less developed."

  "This was taken immediately after she was abducted,” Stitts offered. “Before her… treatment."

  Dr. Calderon swallowed hard and nodded.

  "Exactly. As you can see, the area that was enlarged on the recent MRI is normal here. Now, it's entirely possible that these changes were unrelated to what happened to her back then, and they are simply a result of genetics, but it could also be—"

  "From the shock treatment,” Beckett said. “I’ve seen something like this before on MRIs from patients in mental institutions that underwent shock treatment. Usually, the enlargements are not so confined, but in Chase’s case…”

  Stitts turned to the man with the tattoos and blond hair and gaped. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more; the fact that Beckett somehow knew about her treatments, or that he was comparing her to a mental patient.

  "How do you—how did you find out?"

  Beckett shook his head.

  "Don't worry about it. But here's the weird thing; Dr. House, show him the most recent MRI."

  Dr. Calderon frowned; clearly, he was not in favor of being referred to as an enigmatic and ornery fictional TV character.

  But that was the thing about Dr. Beckett Campbell; he didn’t give a shit who you were, he was going to be himself no matter what. No slick suits or smooth talking for this man.

  And Stitts admired him for it.

  "This here is a special type of MRI, one that shows the active parts of the brain. This was given just a few days ago when Chase was almost fully lucid."

  The doctor clicked the screen and a short video started to play. In it, Stitts observed what looked like fireworks in the area the doctor had called the subcortex. After this ended, however, there looked to be a direct line of red light that moved backward, toward what looked like a gland near the base of the spine.

  "What's that? Where did the activity go?" Stitts asked, leaning forward.

  "That's the hippocampus," Dr. Calderon replied. "It serves many functions, one of the primary being episodic memory."

  Stitts blinked. They’d lost him.

  "Sure, but what does it mean?" he asked, trying hard not to sound frustrated. His head was starting to hurt and he desperately needed a cigarette.

  "Well, to be honest, we’re not sure. I think—"

  Beckett rolled his eyes.

  "Look, we can't say for sure, because there’s no precedent for this. But it looks to me like not only is the subconscious part of Chase’s brain bigger, but it's connected to her memory system. Let me put it this way: we know more about the ocean than we do the human brain. And we know nothing of the deep sea. But here's the thing, Stitts. We ran this test several times, but we only got this sort of response when I entered the room. Now, Dr. Narc over there said I wasn’t supposed to go in, but you know, I’m not much for rules. Anyway, this event—" Beckett aimed his finger at the hippocampus that was still lit up, “coincides exactly with when I touched her hand. I thought I was fucking nuts, correction, I am fucking nuts, but I thought I was more nuts. So, I repeated this experiment three times. Each time, the result was the same. It’s like… I dunno, it’s like somehow when she got fucking zapped all those years ago the wiring in her brain changed. Her subconscious grew larger and linked to her memory system.”

  Stitts swallowed hard.

  Are you gonna do that voodoo thing again, Chase? Step into the mind of the victims.

  The urge to smoke was almost overwhelming now.

  Her skill, if you could call it that, had always been their little secret. Something that Stitts had always just assumed was linked to her ability to pick up subconscious cues that others glossed over.

  But now, now that there appeared to be a scientific basis for—

  "Has Chase ever said anything to you about this? I mean, I have no idea what it must be like to have these parts of your brain linked, but has she mentioned… I dunno, that when she touches someone she feels like she shares the memories?"

  Stitts licked his lips and blinked rapidly.

  He didn't know what to say.

  “Shit, I’m just spitballing here, Stitts. I have—”

  All of a sudden, sweat broke out on his forehead.

  "Stitts? You okay?" Beckett asked, his face overcome with concern.

  "Water," Stitts croaked, reaching for the back of a chair to support his weight. "I need some water."

  Chapter 7

  Dreams were just memories that hadn't happened yet.

  At least, that's what Chase thought as the drugs that had been injected into her IV bag took over.

  Her emotions, which had previously been heightened, suddenly became numb, and she was finally able to analyze some of the facts relating to her loved ones.

  She’d found Georgina, but her sister didn't recognize her. She had a niece, but her sister had taken her when she’d run.

  Her father had committed suicide.

  Her mother was in a home.

  One of the few men in the entire world that she thought she could trust, Special Agent Jeremy Stitts, had lied to her.

  These thoughts came to her not in a deluge of emotion that she was accustomed to, nor did they incite a base reaction.

  Dr. Matteo had told Stitts that she dealt with her problems in one of three ways: she used, she fucked, or she threw herself into her work.

  The first had cost her years of her life, literally and figuratively. Chase had injected herself with every poison she’d come across, using the same drugs that she put people behind bars for selling.

  She'd fucked; Chase had slept with so many people in order to get her fix, that she’d long since lost count. She had sex with a serial killer who was hell-bent on murdering her. Chase had sex with a suspect and she tried to have sex with numerous people in positions of power.

  Chase had a husband and a son both of whom she loved dearly. She’d pushed them away.

  Now they were better off without her.

  And she’d thrown herself in her work, the only thing she’d done in her life that would qualify as remotely ‘good.’ She’d stopped a man before he killed Stitts and herself, she’d put a woman behind bars who was responsible for the murders of three women, she’d stopped a man from blowing up a hockey arena filled with twenty thousand people.

  And Chase had finally saved her sister. After all these years… not in the way that she'd hoped—it lacked a certain Hallmark reunion quality, that was for sure—but Georgina was at last free from the clutches of two men who had brainwashed her.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Chase detected moisture on her cheeks, but it was an abstract feeling and non-distinct.

  Chase couldn't do drugs anymore; the doctor had made it clear that if she did, she would die. She couldn't fuck anymore, because she was bound to contract some sort of venereal disease that couldn’t be cured with a good dose of antibiotics.

  She was left with one of two choices: live or die.

  It was as simple as that. As dichotomous a decision as there was.

  And for the first time in a long time, Chase surprised herself by leaning toward the former.

  She could work. That was good; that part of her was good. Chase was a good cop and a better FBI Agent.

  And the desire to stop murderers, rapists, kidnappers still ran strong in her.

  "I'm ready, Stitts," s
he said, or thought she said; at this point, whatever they'd given her was starting to turn her memories into dreams, or vice versa. "I'm finally ready to get well."

  Chapter 8

  "Anybody… anybody smell that?" Chase asked, looking around the room. All eyes were suddenly on her.

  In total, there were five of them at the meeting: Louisa, herself, a woman named Petrova or Petri dish or some other shit, Marissa, and Dr. Matteo.

  Somewhere just outside the doors, there were two others, Chase knew: two overweight orderlies with itchy thumbs just waiting to inject anyone who got out of hand with a cocktail of sedatives.

  Although the woman named Petri Dish annoyed the hell out of Chase on a regular basis, the fact that she visibly started sniffing made her smirk.

  "Yep… yep. I know what it is," Chase continued. "It’s bullshit. That's what I smell, bullshit."

  Dr. Matteo removed his glasses and rubbed his bald forehead.

  "Are you gonna cause trouble again today, Chase? Because if you are, I'm going to send you back to your room with Kyle and Donnie. Is that what you want?"

  The smile slid off Chase's face and she slumped back into her chair.

  She hated group session. Unlike the private sessions with Dr. Matteo, which made sense to her and seemed to be helping, the group was useless. Sitting here, listening to others talk about their crappy lives and crappier problems? How was that supposed to help? Listening to Louisa made sense because they’d shared so much, but Petri Dish and Marissa? The only thing she had in common with them was tits and a clit, and judging by the thickness of Marissa’s mustache, the latter might even be questionable.

  "Look, I don't mean to be an asshole, but how does this help, Doc? How does it help to listen to their problems? How could that possibly help me?"

  Even to her own ears, she sounded incredibly selfish and self-centered, but wasn’t that why she was here? To heal herself. She fought the urge to defend her comments by saying something like, ‘well, to be honest, I just want to do what’s best to make sure that when I leave here, I don’t kill myself by injecting carfentanyl or by sleeping with a serial killer with AIDS.’

  She chewed her lip and said nothing instead.

  Dr. Matteo ignored her. When he waved his hand above his head, he even looked a little bored.

  Chase sank deeper into her seat.

  It was like this day in and day out.

  A moment later, Kyle and Donnie were asking her to get to her feet. She'd resisted previously, of course, but that had ended poorly. The two men had been forced to physically remove her from the room. And if she fought them?

  Well, itchy trigger thumbs were bound to make an appearance.

  "Fuck this," she said out of the corner of her mouth. She rose to her feet and when Donnie reached for her arm, she pulled away from him. "I'm going, just don't touch me."

  "Thank you again for your participation, Chase," she heard Dr. Matteo call after her.

  "Is sarcasm a crucial part of your treatment strategy, Doc?” she said over her shoulder as she left the room. “Cause if so, you fucking nailed it. Congrats, douchebag.”

  Chapter 9

  "God, I wish I had something to drink," Louisa said as she wandered into Chase's room. "I mean, just one drink. A beer, a shot, something. Anything."

  Chase watched as the woman made her way to the mirror and looked at herself. She’d lost quite a bit of weight since the incident back at the trap house.

  Since Chase had saved her life.

  That had been Louisa’s rock bottom, but she’d been fortunate enough to have the means to come back to Grassroots Recovery. Chase wasn't sure what her deal with Dr. Matteo was, if it was as militant and strictly enforced as her own—If you fuck up, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred, go directly to jail—but whatever it was, she was here, and she was trying to get better.

  Chase saw a lot of herself in this woman. Despite their obvious shared experience, they both had a family and struggled with addiction.

  But while they’d shared a lot throughout their time together, it was clear by the fact that neither broached the subject that what had happened all those years ago was off limits.

  And this was fine by Chase; she could do without reliving the past.

  Live in the present.

  "I could do a drink," Chase said. "Close the door."

  Louisa pulled herself away from the mirror and then did as she was told.

  Chase lifted her mattress and then reached inside the cover as far as she could. Her fingers hit something hard, and she pulled her hand out again. In her palm were two miniatures of whiskey. She tossed one to Louisa who was so surprised that she almost dropped it.

  “Unfortunately, it’s Jameson—Irish whiskey always tastes like piss to me—but it’s all I got," Chase said as she unscrewed the cap. She air cheersed and then downed half the bottle. It had been a long while since her last drink, and she felt it; the whiskey burned all the way down. And yet it was a familiar burn. Something she was used to, something she knew well.

  It wasn't enough to take the edge off, not nearly enough, but it was… how had Louisa put it? Something.

  For several moments, during which Chase finished her bottle in silence, Louisa simply stared at her, gobsmacked.

  Then the woman shrugged and chugged her bottle in one go. When it was empty, she sighed loudly and looked around for somewhere to put the bottle.

  "Hand it to me," Chase said. "I can’t get rid of them here, Mussolini searches the trash, you know."

  Louisa grinned and handed the bottle over.

  "And the faucets, too, or so I hear."

  Chase chuckled.

  It still amazed her that Louisa and she had been reunited after all these years. It made her sad in a way; she wished that Georgina was here instead of Louisa, sharing a laugh. No, that wasn’t right; she wished she were on a tropical beach with her sister and not in a drug and alcohol recovery center.

  When she was younger, her late father had taught her about God.

  She didn’t believe in Him.

  Later in life, Stitts taught her about coincidences.

  He didn’t believe in those.

  "You okay?"

  Chase blinked and shook her head.

  "Yeah, fine."

  "You sure?”

  Chase frowned. She detested this line of questioning, and Louisa knew that.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you insist on being such an asshole during group?”

  Chase immediately stopped putting her mattress back in place and turned to Louisa.

  She had to make sure that it was actually Louisa that she’d shared a drink with and not some impostor.

  "Excuse me?"

  "We’re friends, right? I mean, after all we’ve shared… and I did save your life—"

  "—twice."

  "Yeah, twice. Well, I consider us friends now. And friends are candid with each other, right? So… why are you such an asshole in group?"

  Chase stared at Louisa for several seconds.

  It was a valid question, she supposed. And Louisa was right; she'd earned the right to ask it.

  "It's bullshit," she said, at last, looking away. "Hearing about all these people's problems. You know that girl, Petri Dish or whatever? You know what her problem is? She refuses to take any responsibility for what happened to her. Oh, I get it. She had it tough growing up, she didn’t have a daddy, blah, blah, blah. But she was the one who got in that car after drinking. Nobody forced her to. She was the one who hit that kid and then fled the scene."

  Louisa stared at her the entire time she was speaking, and it made Chase uncomfortable.

  What she was saying couldn’t be that shocking; after all, it was true.

  Thankfully, there was a knock on the door and one of the orderlies peeked in, interrupting the awkward silence.

  "Chase, Dr. Matteo has pushed your private session up an hour. He wants to see you as soon as you can."

  Chase smile
d to Louisa and rose to her feet, smoothing out her mattress one final time.

  "All right, I gotta brush my teeth.” She leaned in close. “The Gestapo can smell alcohol on your breath a mile away. I'll see you around, Louisa."