Toxic Blonde

by David Stever

  “Now what?” he asked. “They could be shacked up all night.”

  “Right. Camera inside is what we need. Impossible without knowing where they’re going.” I called Eric.

  “PI Dude, she show up?”

  “Yeah, but we couldn’t get a picture. Listen—any way to tap his phone? If we knew the location in advance, we could put a camera in.”

  “Gotta think for a sec…I don’t know how to intercept calls, but if we got his phone somehow, I could add a mirror app where we see his text messages in real time. Need the phone, though.”

  “Do the research; we’ll see you back at the condo.”

  “Copy that, dude.”

  “Rosswell doesn’t have enough?” Mike asked. “Why can’t she file for divorce and be on with it? She accused him, and as far as we know, he didn’t deny anything.”

  “Too much money at stake with the company. Jim wants Bellamy balls deep in proof of the affair so he has no choice but to give Mary Ann all she asks for. He screwed himself while screwing the blonde. Sitting on millions with the technology, only to tie it all up in a divorce case. No wonder Ainsley was pissed.”

  “Speaking of?”

  “Tucked away, safe and sound.”

  “Nice touch with the car in the harbor.”

  “All meant to spark a reaction but she didn’t blink. She didn’t kill him so she either believes he did it himself, or Bellamy did it. Or, it’s a setup. She probably hopes he offed himself. One less loose end.”

  Mike started the Jeep but we both saw the room door open. “Hold up,” he said. “She’s back out.”

  I grabbed the camera and snapped away. Keira came out of the room, then stopped and turned as Bellamy came out in his trousers and undershirt. She was pointing a finger and yelling; he had his hands on his hips, being scolded like a child. Her voice was not loud enough for us to hear any words, but the picture spoke more than a thousand words. Trouble in paradise.

  “You got pictures now, partner,” Mike said.

  “Sure do. Thank you, Keira.” She hurried down the motel steps and into her car and sped out of the lot. I called Eric. “Our girl is on the move. Talk to me.”

  “Wow, she’s flying too. North toward the city.”

  “Leave the phone open. We’ll head that way.”

  “By the way, PI Dude, your Russian mobster goons must be on vacation. Hanging out on the beach.”

  “Eric, what did you say?”

  “Russians. The white van is at the beach.”

  “What beach?”

  “Not sure. South, past Crescent Beach.”

  My stomach dropped. “The safe house is compromised.”

  Oh Jesus, no.

  34

  It was full dark, no moon to help us. The access road was a one-lane blacktop with sand and sea grass on both sides. The closest house to Leah’s beach house was a quarter mile away and it only had a small porch light burning when we went past. We slowed, hoping to come in as silent as possible. I had a thousand questions as to how this house was compromised, but answers would come later. For now, we needed to assess and remedy the situation. On the way down, I sent three 911 messages to Emmanuel. No response.

  “Eric?”

  He was on speaker on my phone. “The van is still there. Keira’s car went off the grid, though. Just stopped blinking.”

  “She at her house?”

  “Nope. In the middle of the city, then poof. Gone.”

  “Hanging up. Do not call me or Mike. Wait for me to contact you.”

  “Copy, boss. Hey, be careful.”

  We crept along, windows down, listening for anything to clue us in to the happenings at the house. The breaking waves off to our left, the occasional croak of a frog, and the hum of the Jeep’s engine were the only sounds.

  We stopped less than two hundred yards from the house and cut the headlights. Ominous scenarios pinged through my brain. Emmanuel was a smart, intuitive soldier, not one to be caught off guard, so not answering my messages troubled me. He was either without his phone—unlikely—injured, pinned in a dire situation, or worst of all, dead.

  “Beulah?”

  Mike tapped the roll bar above his head. Beulah was the Remington 700 twelve-gauge shotgun he had his entire police career. The department gave it to him as gift when he retired. He modified the roll bar into a gun case so whenever he drove his vehicle, Beulah was with him. I opened the case and laid the gun across his lap. I gripped my Beretta and clicked off the safety. We both unhooked our seat belts.

  “Options?” Mike whispered.

  “On the right is a drainage ditch and swamp between here and the main road. The left is sand dunes to go over and then down the beach to the house.”

  “We’re already too close. Bothers me we can’t hear anything. No lights on in the house. Voices would carry in the night air.”

  “Yeah, too quiet.”

  “I’ll take the dune and send you a message when I get to the house,” Mike said.

  “Copy, partner.”

  He turned off the Jeep’s engine then—crack!—the windshield exploded and showered us in a thousand pieces of glass confetti. A second crack, and we felt the bullet whiz between us and slam into the back seat with a thud.

  “Bail…bail!”

  I went out the passenger door in a crouch and dove for the ditch on my side of the road. Mike went out his door and into the high sea grass. Two more shots exploded the quiet night and slammed into the Jeep. A hiss and then liquid trickled to the pavement. Hopefully coolant and not gas.

  Mike pumped off two blasts into the direction of the house. Ineffective, we were too far away, but it signaled me that he was okay.

  “If they have night vison, we are screwed,” he yelled.

  “I’ll give you cover first. Head for the dunes.”

  I squeezed off three shots to draw them my way and I hoped Mike took advantage. They returned fire as I dove deeper into the weeds, landing in a foot of putrid, stagnant water. The Russians were laying down fire with a high-powered rifle and the first thought through my brain was snakes. Plus, my phone was in my pocket and now under water. Buck up, Delarosa.

  Silence. Two minutes…three minutes.

  I moved from the marsh and crawled closer to the road. Now came the voices. A scream, a woman. Mary Ann?

  A man’s voice, barking orders, yelling. Doors slammed and two lights snapped on; headlights of the van put the Jeep in a spotlight. It also gave me a target. I fired two more shots toward the headlights. No luck.

  No time to try my phone. I shouted, “Mike?”

  “I’m on it.” He must have been on top of the dune.

  The van’s engine revved and it pulled out, heading our way. At thirty yards, Mike let go a barrage from the shotgun and took out the right headlight. It swerved to its left to miss the Jeep, but caught the right front and spun the Jeep around on the roadway. I emptied my clip into the engine block, but to no avail. The van disappeared into the darkness.

  Mike came down from the dune. “Holy shit.” His car was demolished. The bumper, glass, plastic, littered the black top.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Not by a long shot.”

  Mike retrieved more shells from the Jeep and reloaded the twelve-gauge. I was out of luck, my ammo gone. We took off for the house, heaving and gasping the two hundred yards, adrenaline somehow carried us.

  We stopped short of the house and came up as quiet as possible. Two decorative lights at the end of the driveway illuminated a man’s body, lying on his stomach. I used my foot to turn him over. Two bullet holes in his chest.

  “Keira’s man from Club Cuba.”

  A rustling came from the side of the house. Mike raised the shotgun. “Show yourself.” Emmanuel came out of the darkness, dragging one leg, his shirt soaked with blood, his partner, Jamal, draped over his back.

  “Johnny, we need help.”

  35

  We laid Jamal on the drive
way and tore off his T-shirt. The bullet entered high on the left side of his chest, between his heart and shoulder. Blood pumped freely through the hole and we feared he would bleed out. Mike balled up the shirt and applied pressure.

  “Did you call?” I asked.

  Emmanuel plopped to the ground and grimaced through clenched teeth. “Yes, they’re on their way.” He held his hand on his left thigh as blood seeped through his fingers and soaked his pants. He fished a Swiss Army knife out of a side cargo pocket. “Cut my shirt, make a tourniquet.”

  I did as he said and tied a strip of the cloth around his leg. “Are they gone?”

  “My fault…I don’t know how….Jesus, this hurts. Johnny, I can’t believe we didn’t see them.”

  “How many?”

  “At least four, could be more. Maybe a man down in the house. They took Mary Ann and the old guy.”

  “Brynne?”

  He shook his head. “In there, I hope not dead. I’m sorry, Johnny. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. Keep this tight on your leg. I’m going into the house. Weapon?”

  “On the deck.”

  I went up the back deck stairs, picked up his assault rifle, and entered the great room through the sliding door. No lights on in the house, except for a small one above the sink in the kitchen. “Brynne?” I called. No response.

  I thought of turning on a light but did not want to make myself a target in case the other man was still alive. A hallway led from the main room to the first-floor bedrooms, but the first door on the left opened to the library—Ainsley’s hangout. I pushed the door with the barrel of the rifle. Too dark. I held the weapon hip high, found the light switch, and clicked it on. The room was pristine, a bottle of Scotch and a glass sitting perfectly on a tray next to his book. No sign of a struggle.

  I snapped off the light and went back into the hall. A Maglite on my belt would have been handy at the moment. I made my way to the bedroom on the right and turned on the overhead light. The bed turned down, women’s clothes thrown over a wingback chair, and Brynne’s duffel bag in the corner.

  “Brynne?” Nothing.

  Men’s clothes hung in the closet of the second bedroom on the first level. Two white shirts and a pair of brown dress pants. A shaving kit sat on the dresser. Ainsley’s room. The bed undisturbed, everything neat and tidy. A little too neat and tidy for this late at night. Why was he not in bed when the attack happened?

  I went back through the center room to the staircase that lead upstairs and found a body spread dead on the steps. One of Keira’s crew, but neither of the two Russians from the Starry Night. I stepped over him and slowly went up the stairs to the second floor.

  I opened the door to the first bedroom, clicked on the light, and it appeared to be a vacant guest room. “Brynne?” No answer.

  Back to the hall and to the next room. I switched on the light. Sheets and blankets were a twisted mess on the bed, and an olive-green army duffel bag with “COLLINGSWORTH” stenciled on the side was in the corner. “Brynne?”

  “Johnny?” The voice came from the closet. I pulled the door open and found her curled in a ball on the floor. She saw me, leaped up and threw her arms around me. “Thank God…I thought I was going to die.” She wore a tight, white tank top and blue panties. “Never this scared in my life.” Her tears flowed, emotions poured out. Between heaves and sobs: “Gunshots…so loud, terrifying…is anyone hurt?”

  “Everyone’s hurt.”

  We made our way back to the first floor, stepping over the dead man on the stairs, but she was so distraught, her knees buckled and I practically carried her to her room. “Put on some clothes. Tell me what happened.”

  “Jamal, is he okay?”

  “Shot in the upper chest, ambulance on the way. What happened?”

  She pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. “I…I was in the kitchen and all of a sudden, voices shouting outside then a gunshot. I got scared and ran upstairs and hid in the closet.”

  “In Jamal’s room?”

  She hesitated, kept her eyes to the floor when she spoke. “The first room I came to...I just ran.” She grabbed a brush and started it through her hair.

  I took it from her hand and tossed it across the room.

  “No time for that now. Did you see anything? How many guys?”

  “I’m not sure…I ran and hid. Johnny, I’m sorry.”

  She threw her arms around me again but I pulled her off. “Let’s go.” She hung on to my shirt as we went through the house, back outside and down the deck stairs.

  “Where’s Mary Ann? Did they take her? Oh my God, I don’t believe this.” She spotted Jamal, Emmanuel, and the blood. Her hands covered her mouth. “Oh my God. Oh, Jesus.”

  I pushed her down on the bottom step of the stairs. “Sit there and do not say a word. You understand me?”

  She nodded and began to cry.

  Mike screamed, “Where’s the ambulance? Son of a bitch, how long does it take to get help out here? I can’t hold this forever and I think he’s going into shock.”

  I knelt beside Emmanuel and re-wrapped the tourniquet around his leg. “Hang in there, buddy.”

  “My fault, Johnny. I relaxed. I thought this was an easy gig….allowed myself to relax.”

  “We’ll talk all about that later. Right now, we need to stop the bleeding.” I turned to Brynne. “Come over here and keep this tight.”

  She ran over. “Sure, sure.” She and Emmanuel exchanged a look and he was none too happy. Enough said.

  Headlights appeared on the road. “Vehicle approaching. Not an ambulance,” I said, pulling up the rifle.

  Mike glanced up. “Oh, shit. Now what? Are they back?”

  Emmanuel craned his neck. “My guys.”

  A black Chevrolet Suburban slid to a stop in front of the driveway. The doors flew open and three men jumped out. Two carried black bags. One man went to Jamal, the other went to Emmanuel and they both began medial triage.

  The other man screamed, “Premises secure?”

  I answered, “Yes.”

  A second black SUV pulled in behind the first and two more men hopped out. One went to Jamal and assisted, the other ran into the house.

  A car door slammed.

  Leah.

  Oh, shit.

  36

  She had a gray blouse tucked sharply into black slacks, her hair pulled into a ponytail, was without makeup, and still looked like a million dollars; however, this was no time for niceties. Leah was all business. She barked orders to the men and then set her sights on me.

  “Start talking.”

  “Leah, too early…compromised…not sure what happened—”

  “Is that Mike’s Jeep up the road?”

  “We made it that far and they opened fire on us.”

  “You all right?”

  “Physically. These two need help. Emanuel said he called an ambulance.”

  “Who do you think those guys are?” She pointed to her men.

  Two small lanterns were now on the driveway to illuminate the makeshift emergency room. Mike held an IV bag above Jamal while the first tech administered a line. The second tech, a blond-haired guy named Tilghman, who I had met on another job, cut off Emmanuel’s pant leg and secured a dressing around the wound, and now tended to the gash in his head.

  “All my guys are trained in battlefield triage. You call anyone?”

  “No. We should. Two dead here.”

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Best guess, Bratva, or Russian ops.”

  “Russians? You mean from the white van?”

  I recounted the backstory on how Keira, the Russians in the white van, George Ainsley, and Mary Ann Bellamy are all connected, how I figured Ainsley was the real target, and how I cooked up his disappearance to draw a reaction from Keira.

  “She definitely reacted. Jesus, Johnny. You had Ainsley here, too. Why would you not tell me? We could have stashed them somewhere else or easily put additional men out here.” S
he walked over to Jamal, and then went to Emmanuel and grilled him for a minute. She came back to me, shaking her head. “Tell me, how was this compromised?”

  I threw up my hands. Leah jerked her head toward Brynne, who had retreated back to the bottom step of the stairs.

  “Brynne. Mrs. Bellamy’s friend. She did not want to be out here alone.”

  “Anyone else you forgot to tell me about?”

  I shook it off. I deserved it, too.

  Leah faced off to her. “Tell me what happened.”

  Brynne looked up at her.

  “Who are you?”

  Leah turned back to me with her hands parked on her hips.

  “She’s here to help. Tell her what you saw, if anything.”

  Brynne explained her version of the events, complete with tears and trembling hands.

  Leah grabbed my arm and walked me to the end of the driveway. “The skinny bitch is lying. Which one was she screwing?”

  “I don’t know if she—”

  “Which one? We don’t have time and I will find out.”

  “I found her in Jamal’s room.” I explained how we observed an argument between Keira and Bellamy earlier in the evening at the Econo Lodge, tracking the van to the safe house, and how Mike and I drove into a shower of bullets.

  She shook her head in dismay. “How was this compromised?”

  “All I can figure is someone made a call. There is no other way she could discover Mary Ann out here. I need to see their phones.”

  Mike came to us, his hands covered in blood. “Leah. Sorry, tough scene.”

  “Thank you for what you did. You saved his life.”

  “He’s lucky. Another inch lower, different story. The other guy?”

  “Hell of a slice in his thigh and a lump on his head but he’ll survive,” I said.

  “Mike, we’ll handle your car. I doubt we want locals asking questions,” she said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, thanks. I’m going inside to wash up.”

  I shooed Brynne up to her room and told her to pack her clothes and Mary Ann’s things, and bring it all down to the driveway.