Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows)

by Mell Corcoran

  “Hang on lady and gentlemen, we are lifting off.” He informed them and a second after that they were whisked away into the darkness.

  The momentary weightlessness made Lou’s stomach lurch but she knew better than to close her eyes. She fixed her gaze on the handle of the sliding door and didn’t look up even when Finn started playing tour guide over the radio. To her utter shock, no more then eight minutes later Max informed them they were coming in for touchdown and Lou couldn’t help but look out the window. Sure enough, he was already hovering over the Arcano patio where the heat signatures were detected.

  “Do we want to get out or just hang here for a while and see if your people can hear us?” Niko asked them.

  “Let me get out for just a minute.” Lou requested and Niko unfastened his restraints then opened the door.

  Lou jumped out of the helicopter and ducked down low to avoid being decapitated herself. Dillon, Vinny and Niko all followed as she jogged towards the back door of the residence. The helicopter was astonishingly quiet and as Lou walked around to the front of the house there was no doubt in her mind that Lopez and Gearhard were not going to know they were ever there.

  “Capacity for personnel is a dozen people, you bring them in to start hauling shit out, take a couple loads...” Lou walked up onto the front porch as she talked it out. “You do your business with the three wonks while the last load is being dropped off, then one last sweep in to pick everyone up and voila! Gone without a trace.”

  “I can totally see it now.” Vinny conceded.

  “All we have to do is find that helo and the owner.” Lou looked at the men. “Easy peasy right?”

  Vinny chuckled and rolled his eyes at her while Dillon and Niko just grinned. Max suddenly appeared behind Vinny, scaring the crap out of him and making everyone laugh.

  “Sorry about that, detective.” Max was grinning from ear to ear. “I hope you don’t mind but curiosity got the better of me.”

  “Did you bring a key?” Lou looked at Vinny and Dillon.

  “I had Lopez unlock it before they took their positions.” Vinny reached for the latch and opened the door. The entry lights were on allowing them to see the foyer in all it’s barren grandeur.

  “This is how you found it? Completely empty like this?” Max inquired as they all filed into the entry hall.

  “Well, there were three headless bodies laying right there, side by side.” Vinny pointed to the middle of the marble floor. Although the floor had been cleaned, they had not done a very good job. A pale smudgy stain remained where the blood had pooled. “Other than that, yeah. The place was completely vacated.”

  “Is it alright if I look around a little?” Max looked to Lou for permission.

  She had no problem with it since the scene had been cleared but she thought about it for a second. “Be my guest but don’t turn any other lights on please. I don’t want to tip off Gearhard or Lopez that we are here.”

  “Understood. I’ll only be a moment.” He sauntered off towards the interior of the house and disappeared down the hall.

  “Why would they do this?” Vinny wondered aloud. “I mean this is a buttload of work. For what purpose?”

  “Well, we know now that Boone, or whoever she is, decorated the place. Maybe she hid something and they didn’t have time to dig through everything?” Dillon suggested.

  “Or maybe they were trying to eliminate any trace of her and didn’t have time to sort through what was hers and his.” Niko offered.

  “Where did everything go?” Max asked Vinny as he returned from his exploration. “If she was as gaudy and tacky as you relayed to Niko, then this woman bought some pricy things. Was there an inventory or photographs of the place when it was furnished?” The fact that he directed his question to Vinny struck Lou as funny. She had no idea Vinny had been such a chatty Cathy with Niko. It meant he really liked him, which was a good thing for Lou.

  “Jane might have pictures. She had some of the dog.” Dillon noted.

  “Peter Taylor might have those black credit card bills still too.” Lou added. “We could track down the shops and see if we could get details on the big ticket items.”

  “I can’t see someone just destroying everything. They could have done that here with a fire like at her beach house.” Max had a very good point. “I’d look into estate auctions. See if any items pop up.”

  “You’re pretty smart there fella.” Lou grinned at him.

  “Not just a pretty face then?” He grinned back at her.

  “Oh puhleez.” Niko made a mocking gesture of sticking his finger down his own throat which made Vinny and Dillon crack up.

  “Nice.” Lou glared at them. “Let’s get moving before the sun comes up. Finn is probably asleep at the wheel.”

  “Nah, I left him playing Angry Birds on his iPhone.” Max informed her as they all headed back outside and Dillon secured the entry door.

  The night, or morning, whichever way you wanted to view it, had proven to be very productive. They had confirmed the viability of the stealth helicopter theory and thanks to Max, they had another lead to follow on the furniture. Dillon stated that he would contact Peter Taylor first thing in the morning and get to work tracking down receipts. It was a good, solid lead and they all were all pretty optimistic. Lou just wished they could get an I.D. on the fake Angela Boone so they knew who the hell she really was.

  After a round of sincere thanks, Dillon drove Lou and Vinny home, running through everything they knew thus far during the ride. It was just after 3 a.m. when they pulled up in front of Lou’s house and she was astonished the experiment had taken so little time. Right as they left the airbase, Vinny had called Lopez, then Gearhard and neither had even the slightest clue that the helicopter had landed or taken off. Gearhard, who was positioned at Jane’s house, said that she heard something but decided that it was the pool equipment humming in the back yard. She saw the steam coming off the surface of the water when she checked out the window and decided that was it.

  Lopez stated that he saw the wind pick up when the palm trees outside the master suite balcony started swaying at a good clip but wind was very common in that area. According to Lopez, everything remained normal and quiet inside for the duration of stake out. All in all the experiment was a complete success. Now they had to find the helicopter and whoever it belonged to.

  By the time Lou climbed into bed her head was aching with all the unknowns. She was so grateful Dillon had suggested she and Vinny sleep in and that he would get all the balls rolling in the morning. She didn’t even try to fake arguing with him. Still, there was the whole other situation of the way Niko had looked at him, the way Max had paused when he shook his hand. Just before she lost consciousness, Lou decided that she needed to find some alone time with candidate number eight and ask him flat out what his deal was.

  Max arrived back at his suite to find a file on his bed. He took a quick shower to get rid of the smell of jet fuel that was clinging to him like mud then got ready for bed, pausing to pour himself a cognac along the way. It wasn’t exactly the norm for bedtime reading but answers were waiting for him in that file. When he opened it he saw all the data he had requested on Salvatore Rojas and his offspring.

  Max knew Rojas had been executed in 1962 but he didn’t recall that the man was married or that he had two sons and a daughter. Having been found innocent of any wrong doing, Rojas’ family was relocated to Costa Rica and set up with a small business. The two sons found their way to Cuba several years later and vanished off the map. One of them returned to Costa Rica in 1986 to attend the funeral of his mother. He remained there and took over the family business. It was a quaint beach-side hotel that catered to a small but high end clientele. The sister, Magdalena Rojas, was only three years old when the family was relocated to Costa Rica but when her brother returned, Magdalena left and moved back to Colombia at age seventeen and was married Two years later. She gave birth to a daughter not long after the honeymoon was over. She had marri
ed Ernesto Vargas, a well known affiliate of the Jacinto drug cartel. Max only needed to think for a few seconds before he put it together. Ernesto Vargas was Carlos Vargas’ brother who just happened to be the Arcano corporate attorney.

  It seemed far too coincidental that Salvatore Rojas’ daughter had married Ernesto Vargas and as he considered, their offspring could feasibly be Angela Boone. Max flipped through the pages to locate the child’s date of birth. August 5th, 1989. That made her 23 years old, exactly the same age as Angela, the charred corpse that was sitting in the morgue. There was little else on the girl, which wasn’t too surprising as it was normal for cartel members to keep their families off the grid as much as possible. It appeared that Ernesto had sent his wife and daughter to live in Santa Marta Colombia, Magdalena to be specific which made Max laugh. Send your wife Magdalena to live in Magdalena, that way he probably couldn’t forget where he put her. Whatever the reason, their daughter, Adrianna, apparently lived her entire childhood there until her mother died in 2005. Adrianna had only just turned sixteen. With Ernesto forced to finally care for his daughter himself, Max could only imagine the sort of life she lived for those two years.

  Max needed absolute confirmation that the remains were in fact Adrianna Vargas which would prove she had been posing as Angela Boone. He needed some way of getting that information to Lou in a way that she could use it. He started sifting through all the pages and saw a sticky note tacked to the back of the file. He took a gulp of his cognac and read what he recognized as Abby’s writing.

  “I am already on it so go to sleep. The information is being sent from the hospital in Magdalena. Ernesto had his wife and daughter’s DNA kept on file for identification purposes. I presume because being married to him and having him as a father was inherently hazardous to your health.

  -Abby XO”

  Max grinned when he finished reading. It was just like her to already be on top of things. With any luck they would have what Lou needed by lunch. One last sip of cognac and Max set the glass on the night table. All things considered, it had been a good day with being able to help Lou with her case. There was still a tenuous feeling of dread with the small thread that lead to the Sanguinostri connection. He didn’t believe in coincidences so it was very likely that something bad was afoot here. As he turned off the bedside lamp and laid back in bed, Max said a silent prayer that whatever that something was, it was something that was manageable.

  In her infinite wisdom, Abby had seen fit to contact the Sanguinostri agent at the National Police regional office in Barranquilla, Colombia as soon as she caught the connection to Salvatore Rojas’ granddaughter. The agent was less than three hours away from Santa Marta and assured her that he would dig into Adrianna Vargas immediately. It was a little touchy not going through the North American Aegis Council, but it seemed like an innocuous enough request that she could take the heat if anyone got huffy with her.

  By the time she got her morning coffee, Abby had data waiting in the fax machine and the last known photograph of Adrianna Vargas was in her email inbox. She wasted no time in sending Caroline the contact information for the agent and recommended that she run the print through the National Civil Registry, or the RNEC as it was known to the locals in Colombia. Between the two, Caroline was certain to pull a legitimate identification that she could use. Hopefully, she would do it quick.

  “You want to hear something really warped?” Frank padded in to the living room of the suite that he and Abby shared and she could not help but stare at him.

  “More warped than a two-hundred year old man wearing Cookie Monster pajamas?” She peered at him over the rim of her mug.

  “What?” He looked down at himself. “Oh sure! Asks the three-hundred year old woman who collects Barbie dolls on like a creepy huge scale.” He shuffled into the kitchenette, muttering under his breath.

  “They are collector’s items!” Abby shouted at him.

  “You don’t hold fully catered tea parties for dolls you collect, Abby.” Frank snickered.

  “It was her fiftieth birthday!” She protested and decided she did not like Frank today.

  “What are you two...” Connor walked in and stopped dead in his tracks when he caught site of Frank in his pajamas. “Really?”

  Abby snorted, ending coffee shooting out her nose. Connor just rolled his eyes while Frank brought Abby a dish towel so she could clean herself up.

  “Thanks.” She said as she mopped herself dry. “Now, what were you saying about something warped?”

  Frank suddenly remembered what he was going to say when he first walked in the room. “Oh yeah! Well, from what Niko said about Arcano and Boone chick, Rojas, Vargas or whoever she is, they broke up in Costa Rica right? But they had visited there like four times or something?”

  “Right.” Abby was listening intently.

  Frank continued. “They broke up because he caught her cheating with some unknown guy, right?”

  “Right.” She repeated. “I did a little checking and the resort they stayed at all four times, is the Rojas place. You’re not saying she was screwing around with her own uncle?” Abby started to feel her skin crawling.

  “He’s saying that she was bringing Arcano back to her mother’s side of the family business.” Connor was frowning. “We need to find out if Manuel Rojas knew she was his niece or if she was working some angle on her own. For all we know he had never met her. Or, hadn’t seen her in years and with the plastic surgery, he may have not recognized her.”

  “Max will want to talk to Victor directly about that and have his Council look into it.” Abby had pushed the envelope enough already. “I’ll go ask him to handle it.” She got up and walked across the hall.

  The doors to Max’s balcony were wide open and she could see him and Niko sitting out on the terrace. It was a magnificent spring morning to say the least and the two men were laughing and enjoying coffee when Abby approached.

  “Good morning Miss LaRue.” Niko greeted her with a mischievous smile.

  Abby grinned and sat down in an empty chair. “Good morning to you as well.”

  “Want some coffee?” Max asked her.

  “No thanks, I already had enough this morning.” She would be smelling coffee for the rest of the day. “We have a little issue.”

  Max nodded in understanding. “You mean Boone taking Arcano to her family resort for their anniversary every year?”

  “You caught that too?” Abby shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Yes, and so did Lou. She called Niko about an hour ago asking him about it.” Max was not happy about the connection. “I didn’t tell you to forward a copy of the file to her.”

  Abby was a little confused. “No, not specifically but I assumed this was information you would want her to have.”

  “Why Abby?” Max furrowed his brow as he looked at her. “I found the familial match through records that you are not even allowed access to. Why do you think I would want the entire Rojas background given to Lou?” Abby’s mouth moved but no words came out. “Lou needs an identification, that is all she asked for. That was restricted information not readily available not to mention totally irrelevant to her case. I want her to get used to her position, dealing with other Principates and agents but there is a very distinct line between her as a detective and her role as Principate. She needs to learn that destination first, before you give her things like this.”

  “I understand that but this is a little daunting for her first case, don’t you think?” Abby looked at him with concern.

  “That’s what I said.” Niko groaned. “She hasn’t even been formally introduced to the other Councils yet. Making her navigate this minefield her first time out is a little cruel. Especially since we don’t know if the South American Council has screwed up or even might be involved in this mess.”

  “Precisely why giving her that data was unacceptable.” Max was clearly annoyed.

  Max and Niko had discussed all of this before Abby had arrived and w
ere still at odds over it. Niko had trained Lou on the protocols and she was going to have to jump in at some point. They had agreed they would wait until they had confirmation that Angela Boone was absolutely Adrianna Vargas before they decided on the next step to take and Max was going to honor that.

  “Whether the South American Council or Victor himself is complicit in something here is our job to investigate right now. As far as we know none of this is relevant to Lou’s case. It just muddies the waters. Once we have confirmation the woman pretending to be Boone really is Vargas, then we have cause to proceed.” Max clarified. “All we have right now is a familial match and circumstantial evidence. So we wait.”

  Abby understood his point but she was certain they were right about Boone. “Caroline will call as soon as she has confirmation.”

  The photo emailed to Abby during the night would be helpful, especially with the facial reconstruction that was being done. If the model Caroline’s team came up with resembled the picture, that would be enough for them to proceed with proper cause.

  “We need to remember this is Lou’s case. The Sheriff’s Department’s.” Max looked at both Niko and Abby sternly. “If this arrangement is going to work, we need to let Lou be Lou. She has access to the same resources you do, for the most part. She needs to figure them out and get comfortable doing so without feeling the need to call you two or Frank five times a day.”

  “She just doesn’t want to screw up!” Abby protested.

  “I understand that but we are dealing with psychological issues here!” Max got up and paced a moment before he continued. “With her indoctrination and then what happened with Albert, there is a psychological factor here. It is critical to keeping Lou who she was before we barged into her world.” Max raked his fingers through his hair as he thought carefully about how to explain himself. “Lou, before us, was not afraid of screwing up! She was the first to bust in the door, make the tough calls, consequences be damned! Everything she has been through in the past several weeks could ruin all of that if we are constantly there holding her hand through each step. If we allow her to second guess herself or to be shy about doing what she has always done, she will never get back to normal!”