The Cain Casey Series

by Ali Vali

  “What you doing here, hotshot?” the men behind him asked him in a heavy accent. Rick took a slight step forward when the gun was jammed harder into his back. “I asked you a question.”

  The door behind them started to open, but before the airline employee made it in, the men hauled Rick toward the bathroom close to the escalators. Anthony watched the whole time but didn’t move.

  One of the four guys checked the stalls, while another one stood at the door to prevent anyone from coming in. The guy Rick had recognized was screwing a silencer to his gun and the sight of it drove his pulse up, but he showed no outward emotion. They were probably just going to scare him a little after luckily finding him alone.

  “How you know we here, cowboy?” the little guy asked as he pressed his gun to Rick’s forehead, having to hold it at an odd angle to reach.

  “I’m picking up a bag, asshole, and I don’t really give a shit why you’re here.”

  The last guy kicked him behind the right knee, making him lose his balance and fall to his knees. “You don’t got no backup, cowboy, so be good.”

  “You need plenty of backup, don’t you, little shit?” The last word had barely left his mouth when his head exploded.

  “What in the fuck was that, Jesus?” Oscar, who’d been standing behind Rick, jumped back and reverted to Spanish. The back of Rick’s head sprayed him from head to waist, and he wiped his face and visibly shivered as his fingers found solid particles that couldn’t be blood. “This is going to bring the kind of heat Juan is paying us to avoid.”

  “Shut up and let me think and keep everybody out.” Jesus Vega took his gun apart and paced by Rick’s body. He couldn’t go back to Rodolfo after this, which made him feel sick to his stomach. “Merda,” he said as he stared into Rick’s open, dead eyes. Before Juan had been sent home, Jesus had reluctantly cut a deal with him as a way to assure his place in the future. Rodolfo was more level-headed, but he wasn’t going to live forever.

  “They’re starting to let people out,” the guy at the door said.

  “What do we do, Jesus?” Oscar asked.

  “Put him in the last stall,” Jesus ordered in Spanish. “And change clothes with him. We’ll get stopped for sure if you try to walk out like that.” He pointed to Oscar’s blood- and brain-splattered suit.

  “Somebody’s going to find him eventually, and when they trace it to us we’re dead,” Oscar said.

  “None of you are going to tell Juan what happened, so it’s not a problem. Get me?” Jesus glanced around the space, trying to remember if he’d touched anything. The others arranged Rick so he wouldn’t fall forward.

  “And get us all killed? Don’t worry,” Oscar said as he cinched Rick’s belt as tight as it would go.

  Anthony was gone when they walked out, but a crowd of people were waiting for their luggage after they’d cleared customs. The four turned toward the wall as Lou rode past them on the escalator. Jesus saw Lou glance back at them as if he’d noticed something. Lou had most probably come in because Rick wasn’t answering his cell, which they’d heard ringing and dropped in the toilet they’d sat him on.

  “Did someone claim Ross Verde’s bag?” Lou asked. He snapped his phone shut in irritation when Rick’s went to voice mail again.

  “I’ve got it right here.” The guy placed it on the counter.

  “You didn’t see a blond kid in here?” Lou punched the redial button only to get Rick’s recorded message instantly, as if the phone was now turned off.

  “Some people were leaving when I got back from my break. I called out but they went that way.” He pointed toward the men’s room.

  “Fuck,” Lou said, taking off at a run. The restroom was crowded with guys who’d gotten off the Mexico City flight. He bent down and looked under the stall doors, wanting to throw up when he saw the feet adorned only with a pair of socks. That’s what was weird about the guys on the escalator. One of them had on a suit that was way too big. The guy had stripped Rick for some reason and worn his clothes.

  Lou kicked the door of the stall in and yelled “No” so loud that most of the men headed for the exit. Rick was slumped on the seat, his eyes still open and a bullet hole in his forehead with a single line of blood coming from it.

  “Get security,” Lou screamed at the man standing next to him staring, “now.” The command got the man moving, and Lou took advantage of being alone to make a phone call. “Cain,” he said, hearing Emma and Hannah’s voices in the background. “Rick’s dead and I need you to stay put until I can figure out what’s going on. With Katlin gone I don’t need to worry about you too.”

  “How?” Cain asked.

  “Somebody shot him and stripped him in the restroom. It might’ve been random, but I did see some guys who acted hinky on the way out.” Four security guards ran in and Lou stepped away from the stall. “I’ll call you later.”

  Lou closed the phone but made no move to put it back in the holder on his belt. “You need to call the police,” he told the group as he held his hands slightly upward. He knew the pose would make his gun holster visible, but he thought it would be better to get the fact that he was armed out of the way. “It’s my friend.”

  He made no attempt to fight when the guards came forward and pushed him to the floor face down. The force they used to pull his hands back into cuffs made Lou exhale, but he stayed quiet otherwise. At least one of his captors was calling the police, and Lou took one last look at Rick as he was escorted out. The security personnel had laid him in the spot where Rick had been killed, and Lou noticed some of his blood was smeared on the front of his shirt.

  They had already compromised and contaminated the crime scene, and Lou thought he was losing valuable time dealing with such incompetence, but this wasn’t the place to flex his muscle. He didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary cuffed by the pretend-cops. He wanted to hunt down the idiots who’d done this.

  As the police arrived, Lou was escorted to a windowless room close to the customs office. They sat him in a chair, leaving his cuffs on, and only one of the guards stayed with him; the others, he was sure, were going back to take another look at the men’s room.

  “Don’t I get a phone call or something?” Lou asked.

  “We’re waiting for a unit to come pick you up, so shut up and get comfortable.”

  “I have a permit for the gun you took off me, and if you bothered to check, it hasn’t been fired recently.”

  The guard closed his eyes and sat back in his chair, evidently sure Lou wasn’t going anywhere. “You can save your innocent routine for the guys who’ll arrest you. I’m not interested.”

  Lou didn’t have a choice but to wait, so he closed his eyes as well and tried to remember anything about the guys he’d seen on the way in. He had a gut feeling they were responsible for what had happened to Rick, and he intended to find a way to ask the questions that would get Rick the payback he deserved.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Since telling Dallas good night the previous evening, Remi hadn’t thought about anything but her. At least she was still sleeping behind the closed door, or so Remi guessed, since she hadn’t heard a sound from the room all morning. She reread the first line of the lead story in the morning’s paper for the twentieth time and still didn’t have an inkling of what it said.

  She put the paper aside and decided to concentrate on the view instead. Maybe she could do that while trying to organize her jumbled brain. When the elevator doors opened, Remi was so startled she almost went for a kitchen knife. Simon and Juno lived a floor below her, and they were the only ones who occasionally popped in unexpectedly. But Dallas stood in the foyer wearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants, and judging from the perspiration running down her face, she’d been out exercising.

  “I thought you were asleep,” Remi said as she tried not to put her hand to her chest and calm her heart to a steadier pace.

  “Sorry, I checked with Simon and she let me down and came and got me so I co
uld take my morning walk. I would’ve let you know but you were still in your room, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “You shouldn’t go out this early alone,” Remi said, putting her finger up to keep Dallas from wandering off since the phone was ringing. She looked at Dallas after she picked up but didn’t say anything once she pressed it to her ear.

  When Dallas pointed in the direction of her room Remi shook her head, not wanting her to leave. “Do you have any idea who?” Remi finally said, then fell silent again and listened. “You need me to send someone out there? Call me if you change your mind.”

  “Something wrong?” Dallas asked when Remi hung up.

  “Someone killed one of Cain’s men this morning at the airport.”

  “God, that’s tragic. What happened?”

  “Whoever it was made it look like Rick got rolled and shot, but people usually don’t get mugged in an airport.”

  Dallas kept her distance and wiped her hands on her pants like she needed to dry them. “Do you need to go see Cain? I could sit with Emma if you want me to come along.”

  “You might want to stay here,” Remi said, then cleared her throat as Dallas neared.

  “I’d like to help.”

  “I know,” Remi said, and exhaled deeply, “but you might not want to get too involved in this.”

  “Why am I here, Remi? I mean really here?”

  “We’ve been over this already. You staying home isn’t a good idea right now, if Bob has some problem with you.”

  Dallas laid her hand flat on Remi’s chest and looked into her eyes as if trying to find something in them. “That doesn’t answer my question. If that’s the only reason, there are plenty of hotel rooms in this city where it would’ve taken Bob a year to find me. Why am I here?”

  “I’m not sure what answer you want, because that’s the only one I’ve got,” Remi said, dropping her gaze to Dallas’s hand. It appeared delicate against the green, heavy silk of her robe.

  “You have another one, but maybe you’re not ready to share it with me.” Dallas moved her hand up until she reached Remi’s shoulder. “But that’s okay.” She stood on tiptoe. “I’m willing to wait you out until you’re ready.” She put her hand behind Remi’s head, encouraging Remi to bend down so she could reach her lips.

  They’d kissed before, but for Remi this one was like turning the page of a book and finding out something new about the character she thought she knew. Dallas might have been an enigma, but when Remi pressed her lips to hers, she got a dose of passion and compassion all in one act. For all her doubts, Remi relaxed somewhat, because in her experience, no one could fake something like this.

  “You’re here because you need someone to stand up for you, since you can’t or won’t for whatever reason,” Remi said when they parted. Dallas opened her mouth in an almost perfect o and had taken the breath to push out whatever word she had in mind, but Remi kissed her again. “You’re here because I want to be that someone. Not because I owe it to you, or because you asked me, but because I want to.”

  She pulled away and headed toward her bedroom to get dressed, but stopped as she reached the hall. When she turned around Dallas was standing there touching her lips and appearing dazed. “If you want to, I’m sure Emma would appreciate the company. If you want to stay, that’s okay too. But promise you won’t go out alone until I know what’s going on.”

  *

  Muriel quickly made it from the parking garage to the airport with only one thing in mind. As much as what had happened to Rick upset her, she was concerned with the living, and she hadn’t been able to reach Lou since he’d hung up with Cain. She’d spent the morning calling all of their police contacts and was still in the dark.

  While she tried to find Lou, Cain had made a few calls of her own and had gotten their people back from Mississippi. Katlin was there in two hours and had volunteered to escort Muriel to the last place Lou had been, so Katlin, along with a few more men, walked with her, making almost a human cage of protection as they entered the chilly interior of the main corridor.

  “Did he say where in the building he was?” Katlin asked.

  “They were here to pick up a damn bag,” Muriel said, disgusted. “Nothing worth getting killed over.”

  “Let’s start there.”

  At the bank of escalators three police officers stood in front of a line of police crime-scene tape to keep anyone from going down. “Who’s in charge?” Muriel asked the first one who looked her way.

  “Captain Hallman, but he’s too busy to come up right now.”

  “I don’t want him to come up, I want to go down.” Muriel pointed at the escalator that someone had turned off, the steps frozen in position.

  “They’re still working the scene, so that’s not going to happen.”

  “Either you call him and get me cleared or I’ll call his boss and get the same thing, your choice.”

  “Let her down,” a man screamed from the floor beneath them. “Alone.”

  Muriel took the steps two at a time and stopped in front of Paul Hallman. He was two years from retirement, and to Muriel, he always appeared tired. “That your guy in there?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Rick worked for my cousin, Cain Casey, and he was here picking up a bag for a family member. When you’re finished with your investigation, call my office so we can arrange to pick him up and take him to the funeral home.”

  Hallman scratched his head, then tried to order his thinning hair with his fingers. “That’s mighty agreeable of you, Muriel. All the years I’ve known you, I pegged you for someone whose nails we need to shove bamboo under while we drip water on your forehead to get you to admit to your name. I do believe that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at one time.”

  “I’m feeling generous, considering the situation, but that’s not why I’m here. Our family will take care of Rick later. I’m here for Mr. Romano.”

  “Who?”

  She laughed at the way he crinkled his brow. “Don’t start playing dumb now, Paul. You’re too old for that. Lou Romano is in your custody, if I had to guess. Unless you have reason to hold him, I want him released to me.”

  “Lou’s last name is Romano?” Hallman laughed and led her to the security office. “I sure as hell didn’t know that. Never heard him called anything but Lou.”

  “Why is he still here?”

  “The guys told me he was the one who found your boy, and he volunteered to give a statement.” Hallman opened the door, and the same security guard that had put Lou in the chair still sat across from him. Lou was still cuffed. “Why in the hell didn’t you take those off, you idiot?” The guard came close to falling backward when Hallman screamed at him.

  “You okay, Lou?” Muriel asked.

  “Just great.” Lou rubbed his wrists and stood up. “Am I free to go?”

  “Did you give a statement?” Hallman asked.

  “That’s going to have to wait. I need to go to the hospital and have my hands checked out from being cuffed so tight for so long.”

  Paul nodded. “I’ll cut you some slack, but I want you in my office no later than tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have him there,” Muriel said.

  They had started to leave when Hallman’s gruff voice stopped them. “You didn’t see anything, did you, Lou?”

  “Just my friend with a bullet hole in his forehead.”

  “Let’s say I believe you for now,” Hallman said slowly. “Don’t go doing anything crazy, okay?”

  “Crazy isn’t our style,” Muriel said as she wrapped her hand around Lou’s bicep to keep him quiet.

  “I’ll see you around, then.” Paul stuck his hand out and offered it to Muriel first, then Lou.

  “Let me know if you find anything that points to who did this,” Muriel said. “Cain’s putting up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information. That should help with the investigation.”

  “I’ll pass that along, and you remember to do the same. If yo
u find something, phone me.”

  Muriel just stared at him before smiling. “I’m sure you’ll be my first call.”

  “You’re full of shit, Muriel, but I like you anyway.”

  She bowed her head slightly and just as quickly quit smiling. The cops had their job to do, and they had theirs. Whoever had killed Rick would face endless court dates or only one quick date with death. It depended on who won the footrace—Hallman or them.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “You know what this might mean, don’t you?” Cain asked Remi. She was staring at the spot where Rick had been standing just that morning. After asking Merrick earlier she knew he was twenty-six years old. At that age she’d never thought about death much, until it became such a frequent visitor.

  “The start of a war? If it is, it’d be nice to know who we’re fighting.”

  “We’re fighting the future, Remi, and for once I don’t know if we can win this fight no matter how hard we go at it.” Cain exhaled and shook her head to force herself to look away.

  “You want to give up before we even start?”

  “I’m tired, that’s all. I’ve changed because I wanted peace. I wanted to enjoy my family and my wife without some asshole constantly taking shots at me.”

  Remi placed her mug in the sink and leaned against the counter. “I can’t see you retired and knitting booties somewhere.”

  “But I can see her feeding cows somewhere for about a week,” Ross said, interrupting them. “After that, all your energy would drive you mad.”

  “Are you wondering deep down if perhaps Carol was right? Your daughter could’ve picked safer,” Cain said.

  “My daughter picked with her heart. Your life isn’t always perfect, but unlike what that guy Kyle told me, the fight seems to always come to you without you looking for it. This would be the time to get up, brush yourself off, and kick the shit out of someone.”