“Well said.” Bella grinned at her. “I say go for it. Campbell and I never connected that way, but I think he’s a great catch and so are you, girlfriend. He’s lucky to catch your eye—and maybe your heart over time—”
“Hmm…” Stefanie liked the sound of that. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said with a laugh.
Bella frowned. “Now, if only I can land the man of my dreams—after my ex, Jeff, turned out to be a dud—or at least someone who can hold my attention more than the blink of an eye.”
“I’m sure that will happen sooner or later,” Stefanie told her sincerely. “Look at you, you’re the complete package. What man wouldn’t want to be by your side and all that accompanies that? You just have to be willing to let someone—the one—in.”
Bella chuckled. “How poetic. You’re right, of course. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe my knight in shining armor will await me at the Annual Reston Hills Charitable Gala.”
“Maybe.” Stefanie smiled, wondering if Campbell would prove to be her own knight in shining armor when all was said and done.
Bella suddenly got to her feet, wearing an apple-red halter tankini, and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a swim.”
“Me too,” Stefanie told her with a smile. Before she could lift up, wearing a green-and-white cap-sleeve one-piece swimsuit, Bella had already dived into the pool. Stefanie followed her, jumping into the water, anxious to put her swimming skills to work.
* * *
CAMPBELL ANDGEORGINAarrived at the Braison Family compound, along with additional armed members of the Reston Hills Police Department and a K-9 unit that included drug detection canines, to execute a search warrant on the premises.
They were met at the gate by two men. One Campbellrecognized as Juan Barrientos, Kenneth Braison’s top sidekick, having encountered resistance from Barrientos during a previous encounter at the compound. The other man was African American, in his thirties and just as muscular, with black hair styled in cornrows and a Garibaldi beard.
Campbell walked up to the men, presented the search warrant and said, “Now, if you’ll kindly step aside and let us do our work, we can be in and out in no time flat.”Or longer, if we find reason to stick around for a while, he thought.
Barrientos gazed at the search warrant, glared at him and said to the other man resignedly, “Let them through.”
They both stepped aside as Campbell and Georgina led the way inside the compound, where everyone spread out, while looking specifically for any illegal drugs or weapons on the premises. Of particular interest was the presence of illegally manufactured fentanyl or IMFs, or the detection of fentanyl analogs, such as carfentanil. As well as any evidence they came upon that suggested that Mia O’Dell’s death had begun at the compound before ending in Reston Hills Park.
When Campbell approached Kenneth Braison—or actually, more the other way around—the cult leader’s forehead was creased in three places as he muttered, “You’re back again…”
“I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise,” Campbell shot back. “I told you we’d return with a search warrant, which Juan Barrientos got the first look at.” He handed the warrant to Kenneth. “Now it’s your turn.”
Kenneth barely glanced at it. He sneered at Campbell and said, “Go ahead, look wherever you like. We havenothing to hide. You won’t find anything, Detective,” he said confidently.
Campbell retorted, “We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, right,” he said mockingly.
Campbell peered at him. “Mind showing me which cabin Mia O’Dell was staying in before she died?”
“I’ll be happy to take you to it,” Kenneth replied. “I instructed everyone to leave everything as it was. Wouldn’t want you to think we’d tampered with evidence or anything.”
Yeah, I bet, Campbell thought as he followed him while directing a K-9 team to join them.
When they arrived at the cabin, Campbell asked Kenneth to wait outside as the search for evidence ensued.
To Campbell, the cabin where Mia had supposedly lived alone was almost too tidy to be believed, leading him to suspect that any potential evidence may have been tampered with. They went through the motions nonetheless, hoping to get lucky.
“Find anything?” Campbell asked the K-9 handler.
Sergeant Vivienne Olmstead, fiftysomething with auburn hair in a flip bob, tightly held the leash of her German shepherd/Belgian Malinois mix canine partner, and said ruefully, “Nothing. No drugs detected whatsoever. At least not inside the cabin.”
“All right.” Campbell was wearing nitrile gloves as he did his own search through the cabin, with its wicker furniture and standard household items—coming up empty with anything that could tie solidly to the commission of a crime.
Outside, he met up with Georgina, who had the sameresults. “We haven’t come up with any illicit drugs or illegal firearms,” she said stiffly.
Campbell frowned. “Looks like they cleared out anything that might come back to bite them,” he reasoned, similar to his previous search for drugs and drug paraphernalia that had yielded no positive results. “We’ll have to see if we can connect any outside drug traffickers to the Braison Family.”
Georgina nodded. “As well as ask around to try and learn who Mia may have been hanging out with inside or away from the compound that may have something to say about what she was up to the day she died.”
