Gray Wolf Security: Back Home

by Glenna Sinclair

  Rush remained standing, turned toward the door like he was hoping Anita would come back through it.

  “I’m Special Agent Michael Spencer with Rahul Rush. This conversation is being recorded.” Mike sat back and regarded Rush. “Would you mind taking a seat, Mr. Rush?”

  Rush didn’t respond.

  Mike continued as though he had. “You’ve been arrested and charged with sex trafficking and evading prosecution. We’ve also begun the process of charging you with multiple murders based on the testimony of another member of the cartel with which you were a known member, the Mahoney Cartel. Do you dispute any of this information, Mr. Rush?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. You’ve been advised that you are welcome to have a lawyer present for this interview and you’ve waived that right, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, now if you could take a seat—”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Excuse me? Did you not just tell your wife that you’d speak to us as long as we offered you protection once you are convicted and transported to a federal prison?”

  “I’ll talk. Just not to you.” Rahul turned and faced the mirror, once again gazing at it like he knew exactly who was on the other side. “I’ll only talk to her.”

  “Her who?” Mike asked, his voice filled with caution.

  “Joss Matthews.”

  Mike shook his head. “Even if Mrs. Matthews was here, we couldn’t allow you to speak to her. She’s not FBI.”

  “She’s the only one I will talk to.”

  “Mr. Rush—”

  “Do you want to know where her daughter is or not?”

  I pulled away from Carrington and nearly ran for the door. Carrington grabbed my arm.

  “You can’t do this, Joss. What if he only wants you in that room so that he can hurt you in some way?”

  “And what if he’s telling the truth? What if he knows where Aidan is and will only tell me?”

  “Joss—”

  “This is what I do, Carrington! You saw that back in Georgia. Let me do this.”

  He stared at me for what seemed like a lifetime, but must have only been a few seconds. Then he inclined his head curtly, gesturing for me to go.

  “Just…be careful.”

  Mike didn’t seem surprised when I stepped through the interrogation room door. But he, like Carrington, didn’t like it. He pushed me back out into the hall, leaving Rahul Rush alone.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t act on anything he says unless there’s an agent in the room.”

  “So stay in the room. Just stay quiet.”

  I brushed past him, ignoring the growl of protest he released under his breath.

  “Mr. Rush,” I said, striding into the room, feeling a little ridiculous since I was still wearing shorts and a peasant blouse rather than the more professional clothing I would normally wear under these circumstances. “If you’d take a seat, we could get started.”

  Rush sat immediately, leaning back in the chair with his legs spread, his jail garb taking something away from the casual, yet I’m-in-charge, attitude. He studied my face, recognition clear in his eyes.

  “You were at the port that night.”

  “I was.”

  “Didn’t know who you were then. If I had, things might have gone differently.”

  “Differently, how?”

  “I might have been able to save you a little frustration.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I could have warned you they were after your kid. Could have told you about Elizabeth and her little scheme. Could have warned you that Mahoney wasn’t going to let you off without a little blood being shed.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from jumping to the obvious conclusions that came with that final statement. “Would you have warned me?”

  He tilted his head, a slow smile touching his lips. “Probably not. Not then.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “You got to my girl.” He sat up, interlacing his fingers as he placed his hands on the table. “You told her you could keep me alive and she believes you. She doesn’t want to have that baby alone, even if it means visiting me in some federal prison every couple of weeks.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  His eyes darkened as they slowly came up to meet mine. “You and I both know that Mahoney gets what he wants no matter what precautions people take. I won’t make it to the federal pen if I talk. I won’t even make it out of this building.”

  “That’s not necessarily true, Mr. Rush,” Mike said.

  Rush ignored him.

  “I have nothing left,” Rush said slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “All I have is that woman and the child she’s carrying. That’s all that matters.”

  “What do you want from us?”

  “I want you to make sure they’re taken care of.” He sat back, lifting his arms to hold his head with his interlaced fingers as he stared up at the ceiling. “Anita has this hotel in Mexico where she always imagined the three of us would retire someday. Go down there and run the place, raise our kid running barefoot on the sand. We were real close to making it happen, we just had to deal with a few remaining loose ends, you know?”

  He looked at me again. “I want you to make sure she gets there. I want you to give her a new name, a new identity. I want you to make her disappear so that Mahoney can never find her.”

  “How do you suppose we would do that?”

  “She can help. She does things with computers that I will never understand. But she’s managed to stay off his radar this long. I just want you to allow her to continue staying off of it.” He let his eyes slide over my face. “Drop any charges you’ve got on her and let her disappear.”

  “And in exchange?”

  He sat back again, once more staring up at the ceiling. “In exchange, I’ll tell you everything I know. And, believe me, it’s a hell of a lot.”

  “Like?”

  “Like, I know where your kid is right now. And know where she’s headed. I also know how Mahoney’s been keeping tabs on you for the last few years.”

  My heart gave a jolt, but I maintained my cool exterior the best I could. “Is that right?”

  “Your friend, Ash Grayson, he has a source in the governor’s office who’s been giving him information about Mahoney’s people, right? He’s the reason you had Audra at the Red Door, right?”

  I hesitated for a brief moment, then nodded. “That’s right.”

  “How do you suppose I know that?” He winked at me. “And that’s just the beginning of what I know.”

  I glanced over at Mike.

  “Don’t ask him,” Rush broke in. “I don’t fucking trust the feds. But I know you can make this happen if you want to. You have friends, too.”

  He was right. David and Ricki could do just about anything, including wiping an arrest record from the feds’ computers. With Anita’s help, they could probably do even more than what Rush was asking for.

  “I talk to you and only you. I don’t want that asshole to fuck this up for Anita.”

  I hesitated again. Then I slowly got up and went to Mike.

  “Please,” I whispered, looking up at him as I placed a hand on his shoulder. The mirror vibrated as Carrington knocked on the glass, but I ignored him. “This is our best chance.”

  Mike glanced at Rush, then at me. “Ten minutes,” he said stiffly.

  Mike walked out of the room. I turned the thumb lock on the knob before returning to the table. Then I reached underneath and switched off the sound that allowed those in the observation room to listen in. I brushed my finger over the recorder’s button as if I was turning it off, but didn’t press it.

  We had to have some record of this.

  “Okay, Rush, it’s just you and me.”

  There was more knocking on the glass, but it stopped after a moment. And then Rush began to speak.

 
Chapter 10

  Carrington

  “You’re not seriously going to leave her alone in that room with a killer, are you? What if he tries to attack her?”

  “We’re right here, Matthews,” Mike said. “If he gets violent, it wouldn’t take but a single bullet to shatter this glass.” He touched the two-way mirror before exposing his side arm. “She’s protected. And she left the recorder on, so we’ll be able to listen to everything as soon as it’s over.”

  “But she’s alone with him.”

  “Joss is tough. How could you be married to her all this time and not know that?”

  “There’s a difference between being strong and being tough. If you knew my wife as well as you think you do, you would understand that.”

  I walked out of the room, unable to just sit there and watch without knowing what was happening, without knowing what Rush might do. I’d read about him in the paper, heard his reputation when I was in Wyoming working for Mahoney. I knew what that man was capable of and I didn’t like it. There was nothing anyone could say to make me feel comfortable with this whole ordeal.

  I walked down to the narrow lobby and kicked the vending machine when it refused to take my dollar.

  “Don’t you hate those things? Never work when you really need them to.”

  I turned to find the speaker was Anita Tyson herself, sitting in a narrow chair with her wrist handcuffed to the armrest. I studied her, looking for the monster I’d imagined since the night Aidan went missing, but she was simply a woman, an attractive woman, with the glow that often came with pregnancy.

  I took a seat beside her and sighed.

  “You’re not afraid to sit beside me? What if I were a hardened criminal?”

  I glanced at her, realizing she didn’t know who I was. She’d flown here on the same plane Joss had commandeered from Gray Wolf, but she’d been secured in the office, the pocket doors pulled closed the entire flight with a federal marshal sitting on a bench nearby. We boarded after her and deplaned before her. She must have never caught sight of me.

  That seemed odd to me. She’d taken my child. The least she could do was find out what I looked like.

  “You don’t look like a hardened criminal. Not enough tattoos.”

  She laughed. “I only have one, I’m sorry to admit. On my inner thigh.”

  “That must have been a treat for the artist.”

  She laughed again, blushing a little. “You talk to your wife that way?”

  “Only when we’re alone in the bedroom.”

  “I bet she loves it.”

  I leaned forward, stretching my back out as I reached for my ankles. When I straightened, she was studying me with open curiosity.

  “What’s it like, being married to the perfect Joss Matthews?”

  So she did know who I was.

  “Sometimes it’s perfection. Sometimes it reminds me of how flawed I really am.”

  It was an honest answer that surprised even me. Anita nodded, brushing a piece of hair away from her face as she glanced back down the corridor where the interrogation room was located.

  “I know the feeling. Sometimes Rahul scares the shit out of me, what with all the things he’s done for Mahoney. But when he’s with me…he doesn’t seem capable of those things, you know?”

  I could see that. All these years with Joss, I’d somehow managed to block out the moments when the Bazarovs invaded our security. We were at my place in Oregon—the house I sold weeks afterward to avoid the memory—and she was packing to leave me. Bazarov got into the house and took McKelty out of her bed. I was trying to negotiate with him because that’s what I did. But it wasn’t working. He was going to kill my daughter right there in front of me. And then Joss was just there and bullets were flying and people were falling.

  She took them out. Four men—not just members of a criminal organization, but the leader himsef. All armed. She took them out without hesitation.

  I couldn’t have done it.

  I pushed it to the back of my mind because that was the past, it was an unusual situation, it was…I came up with a million reasons why it didn’t matter, why that woman couldn’t be the same one I’d married and was raising two kids with. But, the truth was, that woman was my Joss. She always had been.

  She was tough. She was more capable than I’d ever given her credit for.

  She wasn’t my first wife. She wasn’t going to break if I let her down.

  I couldn’t believe I didn’t realize it earlier, years earlier even, but this revelation knocked the air out of me and I had to step outside to get some fresh air. But it was also an intense relief.

  If anyone could get Aidan back, Joss would.

  ***

  Joss was in that room for hours, sitting still as she listened to Rush talk, moving only when she asked a question. Once she got up and walked around, stretching her sore muscles, but only once. Mike and I watched all that time, both standing, neither wanting to leave long enough to locate chairs. We couldn’t hear a damn thing, but it was pretty obvious he was giving her good information. Joss wouldn’t have the patience to sit in there for long if she sensed it was all bullshit.

  The hours passed slowly. I never glanced at my watch, never looked away, but I could feel the weight of the slowly passing time on my shoulders. When she stood a second time and Rush rested his head on the table top, I thought it was just more stretching. But then she was at the door, calling for the marshal.

  Mike got to the door before me, snatching it open and rushing to her side.

  “Well?”

  “Florida,” she whispered, moving aside for the marshal who’d come to escort Rush away. “St. Petersburg.”

  “That’s where she is?”

  Joss nodded, her eyes bright for a second. “A motel on the highway called Sunlight.”

  And then she collapsed.

  I caught her and swung her up into my arms. “Get a damn paramedic!”

  Mike ran off, but Joss was shaking her head. “We have to go. We have to find our baby.”

  “You’ve done enough, darling,” I told her, brushing my lips over her forehead. “Let Mike and I take this.”

  I could see that she wanted to argue, but exhaustion took over. She closed her eyes and was out before she could muster up the strength to argue any further.

  Mike came running back down the hall, bellowing that he’d called 911.

  “Is there somewhere…?”

  He led the way to his office, looking over his shoulder every few steps. “Should have pulled her out of there sooner. I should have seen the toll it was taking.”

  “She wouldn’t have let you.”

  I lay her on the couch there in the office and knelt on the floor beside her. “Did you make the call? Is someone checking out her information?”

  Mike hesitated, looking a little confused.

  “Don’t make it all be for nothing, man!”

  He went to the phone and made a call, mumbling so that I couldn’t catch all his words. He hung up and the paramedics arrived, starting an IV to hydrate Joss. She didn’t come around, so they decided to transport her. I watched them load her onto the stretcher, torn as to what my next step should be. I knew what Joss would want me to do, but I also knew what it was I wanted.

  For once, we agreed on something.

  I tugged the cell out of my pocket and called Rose at Gray Wolf’s original compound.

  “Joss is headed to the hospital. Would you please go be with her? We’ve got a lead on Aidan that I need to go check out.”

  “Of course. Keep us informed. Be careful.”

  You had to love the Gray Wolf family. Nothing ever seemed to surprise them.

  “You’re not going with her?” Mike asked, accusation in his voice.

  “We need to find Aidan.”

  Chapter 11

  Carrington

  Thank God for private planes!

  Mike and I landed in St. Petersburg a little after midnight and were met by a man in full
tactical gear who introduced himself as Special Agent William Robbins.

  “The motel manager informed us that the woman and child checked into the motel two days ago. The woman told him they were there to visit family, but the maids told him that the two have not left the room since they arrived. We used wireless cameras to get a peek inside. The child has been asleep on the bed since we arrived.”

  “She’s breathing? She looks okay?”

  Robbins looked at me for a long second. “As far as we can tell, sir.” He cocked his head slightly. “I understand you’re the child’s father?”

  I nodded. “I am.”

  “We’ll need you to stand back during the operation, but as soon as it’s over, we’ll need you to be present to calm the child.”

  “No problem.”

  “I realize this is a very emotional ordeal, but we’ll need you to stay calm in order to keep the child calm. We can’t have her becoming hysterical while we’re dealing with the perpetrator. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “It’s not a problem.”

  “Alright.” Robbins gestured to the SUV waiting to take us to the motel. “We should head out.”

  I stared out the window as Robbins and Mike talked logistics. I wanted to be here, but I didn’t want to be involved in the details. That was Joss’s thing. I just wanted to see the place where they had my child, wanted to see the woman who’d been holding her against her will all this time. I wanted to hold my child in my arms and keep her safe the way I should have done before this happened. And I wanted to throttle the bitch who had her.

  We drove through the city and to the other end, moving into a poorer area that was populated with the kind of homes that looked as though they might have been charming once upon a time, but had lost all charm when desperation came to live there. The motel didn’t look much better than the single family homes. The roof needed to be replaced and the whole place could use a fresh layer of paint. I could only imagine what the rooms looked like.