by Arianna Hart
Creeping into the bedroom she carefully unpacked her clothes, and tip toed into the bathroom to grab her cosmetic bag. She noticed Jared still sleeping and debated about running the shower. He had to be exhausted after their ride yesterday he needed his rest. She took one last glance at his sleeping form, and left the room.
How convenient for her that there was another bathroom across the hall. She wanted to take a hot bath with the jets on, but decided that could wait until she had more time to relax and enjoy it. She still needed to unload the car and wanted to explore her surroundings a little bit better. Stepping into the hot shower felt wonderful, washing off yesterday’s travel dust felt even better.
Squeaky clean and wide awake, she was ready to tackle the day 15 minutes later. She pulled her hair into a sloppy bun at the back of her neck and let it do what it would. She had long since given up trying to tame it.
When she went back into the bedroom she had shared with Jared, she found him leaning against the shower waiting for the water to heat up. He had shucked his sweatpants, and was standing in nothing but a pair of boxers. The noise of the shower had masked Macayla’s arrival, and Jared stood there unaware of her eyes roaming over his large frame.
Macayla had worked very hard to put his physique in proper perspective while she was tending to him. All that work tumbled down around her like a house of cards. His body was more incredible than anything she had ever seen, in person or in the movies. The muscles of his back bulged and rippled down to a narrow waist, tight buttocks, and muscular thighs. His legs were like tree trunks, large and solid.
Apparently the shower had heated up to the desired temperature because Jared pushed his boxer shorts down and stepped into the shower. Macayla’s face flamed at the view of his naked butt, but for the world, couldn’t move a muscle to let him know she was there. Once he stepped into the shower the spell was broken, but she still stood there motionless for a few minutes more. The sight of his naked body was burned into her brain, and she didn’t know if she would ever get it out.
She didn’t know if she wanted to for that matter.
Shaking herself out of her stupor, she went into the room and put her things away. They would have to talk about what rooms they were going to move to, she was sure Jared would want the master bedroom. She quietly went to the bathroom door to pull it closed before Jared came out of the shower and gave her another show. She was feeling plenty warm now just from getting a glimpse of his bare backside, she’d have to turn down the heat in the house if she got that particular view.
By the time Jared had finished showering and changed into jeans and a shirt, Macayla had her blushes under control, and was looking at a map of the area in the living room.
“How are you doing? I heard you in the shower; I was surprised that you were up and around already. It was rough trip yesterday, I can’t believe you could even get out of bed on your own.” Macayla knew she was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“I told you I heal pretty fast. It took me a little while to get from my bed to the bathroom, but I took it slowly and it wasn’t so bad. I’m feeling a lot better actually.”
“Don’t the jeans bother your staples?” Macayla asked, eyeing his lean form in the snug jeans. Denim did wonderful things for that man.
“No, men wear their jeans on their hips, so they are below the staples. When do you think you’ll be able to take them out?”
“That depends on how swollen the area is around them. Why don’t you let me see them, and I’ll give you a prognoses.”
Macayla had Jared sit at one of the kitchen chairs so she could look at his side without him wobbling on his feet. Jared pulled his shirt out of his jeans so Macayla could get a good look at the staples. “I didn’t put any new gauze on them, I didn’t know where it was.”
“Don’t worry about it, since they aren’t bleeding anymore you won’t need a dressing. In fact, they are looking pretty good for only two and a half days. Let’s give them one more day to make sure the skin is holding, then I’ll ‘steri-strip’ you up.”
“You said something about stitches too? Where are they?”
“Inside. I used stitches that will be absorbed by your body when you heal. I had to stitch up a vein that the bullet nicked. You are incredibly lucky it wasn’t a major blood vessel or I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own. You were also lucky that the bullet didn’t have much force behind it, or you would have been dead before you ever made it to my truck.”
“What can I say? I was born under a lucky star.”
“That, or God protects drunks and fools. Are you going to tell me what happened now? We are stuck here for three weeks, and I can be really persistent when I put my mind to it. You do not want me on your case for three weeks, trust me.”
Jared looked at her and thought about her words. There was nothing he could do for three weeks. When their time was up, the information he had would end up on every front page across the country. He’d have to edit things a little, but he should be able to give her enough to keep her from nagging him for three weeks. He had little doubt she’d keep at him until she got what she wanted anyway.
“As you know, I take contract work from various sources,” Jared began.
“Some of which are even legal,” Macayla said wryly.
“All of which are legal. I went legit after Caitlyn was born. I didn’t want her God-father to be in jail or murdered if she needed me.”
“I must admit I’m shocked. That was a very far-thinking thing to do. I’m impressed.”
“Gee thanks. Does that mean I have improved my rating to ‘human’ on your scale?”
“You’re getting there. As you were saying. . . “
“Right. You know I do contract work. My last job was for the feds. They suspected something was going on in a number of banks, and they were afraid if they ordered an internal audit, it would scare off the people who were behind the scheme. They wanted someone who wouldn’t show up on the banking radar to basically audit the accounts of the biggest four banks in the country.”
“So they called you.”
“They wanted the best, and my name came up. I was able to get into the system undetected and with the help of a few financial geniuses, we figured out what was going on.”
“Which was?”
“There is a coalition, an illegal coalition, of bankers. They are the upper echelon, the very top of the banking world, and they are as crooked as your lowest pick-pocket.”
“What did they do? Aren’t there all sorts of safeguards in place so they can’t form a monopoly?”
“They didn’t form a monopoly, they instituted a program that takes half a cent a week out of every customer’s account.”
“Half a cent, who would notice that? It doesn’t even amount to much over the course of a year. That’s a quarter a year for heaven’s sake. You made them sound like the next ‘Billy the Kid’.”
“Think about it, a quarter a year from one account wouldn’t be noticed by anyone, right?”
“That’s what I just said.”
“Well think about this. Each one of these major banks has close five million customers, most with at least two accounts. Multiply forty million by twenty-five cents, then add in the fact that they have been doing this for almost five years with no one the wiser, and see what you come up with.”
Macayla did some figuring in her head. “That’s something like ten million dollars a year. Right?”
“Yup, times five years. All of it going to off shore accounts right through the internet, with no one the wiser.”
“How would anyone know? I’m probably one of their customers, and I’m really careful with money, but I wouldn’t notice twenty-six cents missing over the course of a year.”
“That’s what they were counting on. If only one bank did it, it wouldn’t have had the draw that it did. By having the four biggest banks in the country in cahoots they have more accounts to pull from. Plus, by forming the coalition, they are
all in it together, which means they can cover for one another. They also have the power to derail any attempts made that could find them out. They only reason anyone had an inkling something was going on was because of the turmoil Y2K wreaked on the banking industry.” Jared took a deep breath and thought about how much he could say without putting her in danger.
“Some sharp-eyed computer tech figured it out and notified the feds. That’s probably the only thing that kept him alive. He found a problem with one of the codes and made a note of it. The next day, the code was fixed so he didn’t say anything to the bank he was working for. When he went home he tried to figure out why it went wrong, and how it got fixed. When he figured out what it did, he knew it had to come from the top, so he sent it to the feds, who pulled him into the witness protection program, and hired me.”
“So how did you get shot? I have a hard time picturing some graying banker pulling a gun on you.”
“It wasn’t the bankers who found me out. It was the guy who wrote the program and formed the coalition, Shaun Hints. He is the king of white-collar crime. He has plenty of hired muscle to make sure his hands never get dirty.”
“I just have a hard time picturing the president of a bank getting involved in something like this. Even if he wasn’t doing the dirty work.”
“If someone told you that you could make a million dollars a year, tax free, and no one would be hurt wouldn’t you do it? All you had to do was turn over your computer to me for one night while I installed a program, then after that you wouldn’t have to know a thing.”
“It just seems hard to believe. I mean, if someone approached me like that the first question I would ask would be ‘what’s the catch?’”
“The first one was probably the hardest. Once he was able to convenience one Chief Financial Officer to let him into their system, the rest would fall in line. It always seems easier to do something you know isn’t right if someone else is doing it too. Even if they had some trepidation about it, once they got their first bank statement from the off shore account, I’m sure they found a million reasons to justify their actions.”
“That’s the other thing, these guys aren’t your bank tellers, they are the bank presidents, a million may not be chump change, but for them it isn’t anything they couldn’t earn on their own. Why take the risk?”
Jared didn’t think she’d want to hear that taking the risk was sometimes the best part of a deal. “I think it was probably the fact that it was a million, tax free that sweetened the pot. After all, they have to report all their earnings, and even if they make a million in salary the government is going to take a share. This way they got it all.”
“It’s hard to believe anyone is that greedy.”
“I don’t think they start off that way, I think it builds up over time. Anyway, the upshot is, I found the program in the four banks, I was able to trace it, and get solid evidence of the coalition. What I was not able to get was the proof of Hints involvement. We culled the weakest link from the coalition, and they are getting everything he knows in exchange for a softer sentence. In the mean time, I’m supposed to lie low until all the depositions are taken and all the I’s are dotted and T’s crossed. If something should happen to me, they don’t think they could recreate the trace, and there is a chance the whole thing could get thrown out of court. If they can get a few more confessions, they won’t need my testimony as much.”
“And they are supposed to have this whole thing wrapped up in three weeks?” Macayla asked incredulously.
“More or less. I only have to lie low until they have enough evidence to indict Hints. Once they get him, my trace goes into evidence, and it won’t matter if I’m around.”
“That’s comforting. Why didn’t they set you up in a safe house then?”
“They tried, Hints found out the location in less than 24 hours. Next we tried a boat, figuring if I was moving, I couldn’t be found. I’m pretty sure he hacked into the Coast Guard and got the boat’s identification number. That’s how I got shot. I was able to outrun their boat, but I got hit from a distance. If the boat I was in had been slower, it probably would have blown up from the bullets that hit the sides, as it was it died on the Connecticut River. Too bad, I liked having a boat.”
“What about this place? If he managed to find the other location, don’t you think this one would be as easy to find?”
“No, because it isn’t a safe house, or part of the witness protection program. It is just a house that one of Connor’s old bosses owns. He had it built out here so he could be alone, yet safe from the drug dealers he had upset over the years. The government wouldn’t build a safe house this close to a trailer park, too risky.”
“Then isn’t it too risky for you too?” Macayla asked.
“No, because Hints doesn’t know I have Connor as a contact, and Connor’s boss has no idea why he wants the use of the house. Hints might be able to find a connection between Connor and I because of our time together in the military, but we’ve never officially worked together since then. Plus, I don’t even know who owns the house, so I have no connection to the owner at all. Is it 100% safe? Probably not. Is it safe enough for three weeks? I think so. I have a feeling Hints is more worried about covering his tail than he is about trying to eliminate me at this point. He’s probably already fled to some tropical island somewhere.
Chapter Nine
Shaun Hints was sitting in his mansion on his tropical island. He sat in his office overlooking the turquoise water of the Caribbean and wasn’t soothed by its beauty. Indeed, its very calming effect seemed to mock the turmoil that was engulfing his life. The waves should be boiling and seething, just like his thoughts.
Shaun turned to his bodyguard Rocky, who was placidly standing in his accustomed spot by the door. It didn’t matter what room Shaun was in, he could look to the left of the door and there would be Rocky. There was something both reassuring, and annoying about it. Didn’t he just once want to stand near a window or something? Be that as it may, Shaun contemplated his bodyguard before speaking.
“You are sure your men checked every boat yard from Washington D.C. to Nova Scotia and back down to Florida?” Shaun asked again.
“Yes sir. There has been no boat brought in to any boat yard for repair work to fix bullet holes. There was a boat similar to the one he was seen in, but it wasn’t in for bullet holes. There are a lot of boat yards on the east coast, but we made sure we checked every one on the ocean.”
“Rocky, I sure hope you are not making excuses for the ineptitude of your men. You know how I hate excuses.”
“No sir.” The bodyguard assured him earnestly. He was a mountain of a man, six feet two inches and two hundred-fifty pounds of pure muscle, but he was terrified of his pint size boss. Shaun Hints was barely five four and weighed in at one-fifty pounds soaking wet. He had taken the concept of a Napoleon Complex to the extreme. Rocky was going to do nothing to get on his bad side if he could avoid it. He might have more brawn than brain, but he had a keen instinct for survival.
“Never mind. We will find Mr. Romero eventually. His type always seems to turn up like a bad penny. How are you doing on that other matter we were discussing?”
“Good, good sir. I’ll have the whole thing taken care of in a week or two.”
“Two weeks? What is the problem Rocky? Two weeks is much too long for this operation.”
“Well boss, you said you wanted it special, to send a message, right? These things take time to do right, I don’t like to do anything but the best for you boss.”
“You had better make sure it is very special. Two weeks is cutting it very close, those idiots in the justice department could have everything they need by then.”
“All the talk they get won’t do any good without a witness now will it, sir?” “It had better not,” Shaun growled. * * *
Macayla had finished putting away their supplies for the time being, and was waiting for Jared to finish his recon of the house when she clued in
to something he had said before.
“Hey Romero?”
“Yeah?” Jared said as he finished his survey of the available rooms.
“You said something before about a trailer park being near here. How’d you know that?”
“While you were unloading the car last night I looked at one of the maps Connor had left for us. There is a trailer park about two miles back off the paved part of the road.”
“Oh. What kind of trailer park? Like doublewides or pop-ups?”
“I think it is for summer campers. It backs up to these trees. Connor left me a note that said they have a little store there that sells a little of everything. They even have barn dances every Saturday night, complete with country western band and all the beer you can drink.”
“Gee, our own little slice of heaven.”
”What, you don’t want to go dancing with the tourists?” Jared flashed her another one of his devastating grins and Macayla felt her knees turn to water. She was supposed to be an intelligent woman, but he turned her mind to mush.
“You can’t do any dancing for quite some time anyway,” she said, trying to hide the effect he was having on her heart rate.
“Country western isn’t my thing anyway. Who knows? After three weeks we might want to get out and see other people just for the novelty of it.” ”You may have a point, but it would take an awful lot to get me to go to a barn dance, I can tell you that.”
“I agree. Now tell me, what are we going to do to keep ourselves occupied for the next three weeks?” Jared asked with a glimmer in his eye.
“Well, I can go out for day hikes, I have plenty of journals I haven’t read, and I brought along some books that I’ve been meaning to read. I plan on sleeping late, taking relaxing baths in that beautiful tub, and practicing my karate. After the third day, I’ll just have to wing it.”
She had no idea how they were going to get through three weeks in the back end of nowhere. She didn’t know how she was going to do it when she was on vacation at home, and there she had her friends, her karate studio, and her home to clean.
