by Dale Mayer
She snorted. “Anything to save your sorry ass.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to get into trouble, but I’m already in trouble. The thing is, I didn’t have anything to do with that guy’s death, and I didn’t have anything to do with the kidnappings.”
“But you did know about them, so that makes you just as guilty in the eyes of the law,” Merk said.
“No, I only knew about them afterward. I didn’t have anything to do with it myself. I only heard when Carney here was bragging about it today.”
“Why would they have kept Daniel and Tammy alive?” she asked quietly. That bugged her. There had to be a reason. Because otherwise they would’ve killed them right away.
“Because the kidnappers needed their help to be sure they could access the information they stole.”
“Both of them?”
He shrugged. “Leverage for the other.”
Rebel gasped. “Now that sounds like the truth.” She glared at him, took a step toward him, her fist already forming. She reached back only to have Saul grab her hand.
He whispered to her, “As much as you might want to, and he might deserve it, we don’t want added trouble. The cops are on the way. We’ll let them handle it.”
“And if the cops are involved?”
Saul sent her a hard look. “We will believe the cops are not involved, thank you.”
She shrugged off his restraining arm. “Fine. But it’s not my fault if he accidentally trips on the way to the cop car.” She shot the prisoner a hard look and stepped back.
Saul was right, but she hated to admit it. It was one thing to beat up the man to get the information they needed. But now that he was cooperating, she didn’t have too much justification for pounding his face into the concrete. No matter how much she wanted to.
Unfortunately.
*
Saul liked these new developments. He stared at the man flat out on the parking lot. In typical Stone fashion, he’d knocked out this guy so he wouldn’t get in the way while they caught the second man. But that also meant the asshole wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.
And that was too bad. “We need to talk to the unconscious man.”
“Not happening.” Rebel groaned. “Unless you have cold water to throw in his face.”
Saul looked from one man to the other. Then he leaned over and squeezed a spot on the man’s neck.
Almost instantly the man groaned.
Saul gave a thin smile.
From beside him, Rebel said in a low tone, “Cool trick. I need to learn that one.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t always work, so it’s not something you can count on.”
She nodded. “Still I’m grateful for it right now.”
When the man opened his eyes, he stared up at Rebel and the circle of men surrounding him, confused, shocked and then angry.
“Glad to see you’re back with us,” Saul said calmly. “Now we’ll get some answers from you.”
“I’m not saying nothing.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do or not, your cohort already has,” Rebel said.
The man glared at Rebel, then twisted to see if his buddy was still around. Saul stepped in front of the one man so they couldn’t see each other. “You won’t be talking to him anytime soon.”
“I’m not talking to anybody.” He closed his eyes and lay on the ground. “I’ll have my lawyer sue you for assaulting me.”
“We’ll see how that works in the courts. Where the hell is Tammy?”
“And Daniel,” Stone said, his voice hard. He nudged the man with his foot. “I packed you over here. I’m quite happy to pack you over to that bridge beside us and drop you off the edge.”
The man’s eyes snapped open. He glared as if deliberating whether Stone was serious or not. But the look on Stone’s face made him say, “I don’t know anything.”
“You’re lying,” Saul said quietly. “We already know you picked up Tammy and Daniel.”
The man’s face twisted in disgust. “You don’t believe that snitch, do you? The boss kicked him down a peg because he was such a screw-up.”
“Well, in this case, he’ll probably get kicked down another peg for tattling on you.”
“They’ll kill him for screwing up again.”
“That’s the thing, you see? He’d do anything to save his ass.”
“What will you say to save yours?” Rebel snapped.
He glared at her. “I’m not talking to you at all, bitch.”
“Were you part of that mess in my apartment?”
Understanding whispered across his face, then he sneered. “I was looking for something.”
“Yeah, did you find it?”
His face turned suspicious. “No. But, if you have it, that might be a good bargaining tool for you.”
Saul glanced at Stone, then to Merk and Dakota. He knew what they were all thinking. It would be a bargaining chip. Too bad they didn’t have it.
The trouble was, Rebel had a mind of her own.
“And if I do, do I get Tammy back?”
“And Daniel,” Stone added.
She shrugged. “Okay, him too.”
The man on the ground gave a bark of laughter. “Nice to see you don’t like him either.”
“I care about Tammy. They care about Daniel. Between us, we want the pair of them back,” she snapped. She reached out and kicked him in the foot. “Now talk.”
He shook his head. “Nope, I want to see the key first.”
“Why would I show you anything? So you can get a message to the rest of your cohorts? So they can come after me?”
“They will anyway.”
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets as if hiding something and surreptitiously studied him watching her.
Saul understood what she was doing, but she was playing a dangerous game. He walked around to stand behind her, giving her the show of their support.
The man’s gaze rose to study the hard faces surrounding him, and he shrugged. “All I can do is tell the boss you have it. He might arrange a barter.”
“This is a risky business you’re in.”
“No, not me. You got in the middle of something you aren’t sure about. Chances are you won’t all walk away from this with your lives. Think carefully before you take this step.”
“Or we could just torture you to get the information out of you.” Rebel looked at Stone. “Did you happen to take his ID and everything else off him before you dropped him?” Stone reached into his pocket and pulled out the man’s wallet. She held out her hand. “Let’s see who he is, where he lives. We can probably run down all the places he’s been to the last week quite easily.”
“If you start playing games, they will shoot you before they ever take care of anything. They can take the key off a dead body just as easily as off a live one. Actually easier.”
The other prisoner made a strangled sound.
Seeing the understanding in their eyes, Saul realized, in their minds, this would likely only have one outcome. “We can play hardball too.”
“But all we want is Tammy and Daniel back safe and sound and to be left alone,” Rebel jumped in.
“Then you better have the goddamn key, and it better have the information on it the boss needs.”
“I have no idea what’s on it. I haven’t looked.” Rebel stood casually. She answered like a pro.
Saul admired her, but, at the same time, he was worried that she had more guts than brains.
“You have to let us go so I can arrange a meeting.”
Merk snorted. “Call your boss and arrange a meeting right now.”
Stone held out the man’s phone. “Make the call.”
He slowly sat up, reached for the phone, hit Contacts, pushed on a name and made a call. “They want to make a bargain. The two hostages for the key.”
At something the other man said, he looked up. “There are five of them here. They got the two of us surrounded.”
Saul
wished the damn thing was on Speakerphone. And he wanted the contact information off that asshole’s phone. Stone had been slow to bring the man over, so Saul didn’t know if Stone got what he could off of it. It hadn’t been on the top of their priority list, considering they still needed to grab the second man.
“One hour. Okay, we can do that.” The man tucked his phone into his pocket defiantly until Stone retrieved it. “He says one hour, back where you were earlier.”
“At the warehouse where you slit the poor man’s throat?” Rebel snapped. “Why the hell would I go back there with you?”
“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides, he was messing in something that wasn’t his business.”
“You mean, Tammy’s locket of course.”
At that comment he was oddly silent. The man glared at her. “You know too fucking much, bitch.”
She shrugged. Obviously she had hit a nerve. Maybe he would be demoted now for leaving behind evidence of Tammy that connected her to that warehouse. “Maybe. Maybe I just don’t know enough yet. That’s all right. I’ll keep digging until I do.”
“You’ll find a bullet between your eyes for all your troubles.” He shook his head and hopped to his feet. Instantly the men tensed. “We have to get down there. Otherwise our boss won’t show.”
He turned and looked around the parking lot. “Where the fuck is my car?”
Merk motioned to the other side. “It’s back there.”
“If we’re not there on time, we’re all getting a bullet.”
No doubting the man’s sincerity this time.
“We can’t just let him leave,” Rebel said. “Can you at least blow his kneecaps apart or something? So that he doesn’t take off on us?”
The man spun. “You watch it. That might just be you next time. When a deal happens, a deal happens. This is either done properly, or it doesn’t go down. You guys can follow me back to the warehouse. But, in the meantime, I’m getting into my car and driving to the rendezvous.” He glanced over at his buddy and said, “Pete, come on. Let’s get the hell out of here. You know the boss will take care of this.”
As the two men left, Saul turned to stare at the others, then asked, “She’s right. What the hell are we doing here?”
“Going to a meeting apparently,” Rebel said tiredly.
“They have Tammy and Daniel, so we can’t just let him go,” Saul reminded her.
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll do whatever we can to bring her back.” She rolled her eyes at Stone. “Yes, Daniel too. I still don’t like the idea of them heading off alone,” she muttered.
“I put a tracker on the vehicle,” Stone said. “We can find them wherever.”
“Really?” She brightened. “Did you copy his phone contacts?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head. But then he grinned. “I took pictures of them all instead.”
For the first time, her smile was genuine.
Chapter 11
Rebel let Saul drive. She trusted his driving. The other guys were in the jeep. She was so damn close to finding Tammy that she was terrified something would go wrong at the last minute. “What if they were lying?”
“Good question.” He glanced at her. “The problem is, they want the key, and we have no idea where it is.”
“I might have one here we can use as a decoy. It’ll give us a little bit of time—maybe about five minutes, if they have a laptop with them.”
She shuffled through the glove box, not finding anything. She looked through her purse, pulled out a small one. “This is one I use daily.”
No doubt what it was. “Is that it? You carry USB keys with you?”
“Often, yes. I do marketing. I often bring work home. Nothing on this is confidential. It’s all work-in-progress.”
“Good thing. We can use that to stall them—at least for a few minutes.”
He pointed to the USB key sitting in one of the cupholders. “Is that another one?”
She reached for it. “Well, it’s a USB key, but it’s not mine.”
He turned to look at her. “Whose is it?”
“It has no identifying marks on it. It’s just a generic purple plastic one.” She sank back. “Purple,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Tammy has all things in purple.”
“You think it could be hers?”
“Maybe. Why would she have left it here? By accident?”
“Or by design.”
She turned to him. “What if she did leave this for me? Or left it here for security?” She looked around the car. “But it’s hardly secure.”
“Then again it’s something people would overlook. Do you normally keep your vehicle clean?”
She nodded. “All the time. Usually weekly. I just cleaned it out a couple weeks ago, before my life got crazy. I didn’t see it then.”
“When was she last in your vehicle?”
“I’m not sure.” She cast her mind back, figuring out an answer to that question, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. She shook her head. “At least a few days before she went missing.”
“Even if you saw the key, you probably never thought anything about.”
She nodded. “I’ve done that before,” she admitted. “I wish I had my laptop with me. If you have one, we should check this out. I don’t want to give them the stuff that they want. I don’t know what this is. Maybe it’s proof somebody at the company is stealing? Or doing something criminal?”
“So maybe we’ll give them yours, and we’ll keep this one hidden somewhere safe.” He pulled out his phone and called Stone.
She looked at him. She was never a fan of phone calls and driving at the same time. Only he seemed to have no problem.
“Stone, we found the key hidden in her car. We don’t have a laptop here to check it out. Do you have one there?”
“Merk has his.”
“We need to meet up somewhere so we can figure out what’s going on here. This USB key happens to be purple, which is Tammy’s favorite color.”
“Yes, quite a few purple knickknacks were at her place. We need a decoy key to give them.”
“We have one.” Saul turned to look at Rebel. “Rebel found one in her purse.”
“Okay, good. We may need to give them the real key, but let’s copy the information off it first.”
“Do we have time?” Rebel asked. “We can’t afford to be late.”
The men quickly organized a meeting place, and Saul pulled into a parking lot—a block away from the warehouse, at the back of the grocery store—and parked off to the side. Within seconds the jeep pulled up beside him and parked. Saul and Rebel got out and walked toward the jeep. Rebel could see the laptop powering up on Stone’s lap.
Saul motioned to Rebel. “Give Stone Tammy’s key.”
“Can’t guarantee it is Tammy’s,” she said. “It just happens to not be mine.”
“Good.” Stone docked the key to the laptop and opened up a couple Excel documents. “Accounts? Beyond that it is just gibberish.”
“Well, it means something to somebody,” Saul said. “Which makes it important.”
“Right.”
Rebel watched Stone copy the contents and send it to somebody. “Who did you send it to? That’s confidential information.”
“I sent it to my boss,” Stone said quietly. “We have several accounting specialists at our place. All trustworthy. All security conscious. Someone will decipher what’s going on here. And we need to know about that so we understand what the hell kind of trouble Tammy has gotten herself into.”
“Well let’s hope by the time they figure it out, we’ve already solved the case.”
Saul checked his watch. “We can use the other key and give them just enough for them to be satisfied. We’ll keep this one so they don’t get their hands on it. We’re almost out of time. Let’s head down and make sure we arrive on the spot in time.”
“I’d rather be early,” Rebel said. “And I wish we had more me
n, just in case the bad guys come with a lot of extra manpower. We could be outnumbered.”
Saul glanced at her and smiled. “You don’t trust us,” he teased.
She shook her head. “I trust you guys. It’s them I don’t trust.” On that cryptic note, she walked over to the passenger side of her car and got in.
“She’s got a point,” Saul said.
The men nodded.
“Where is their car right now?” Merk asked.
Stone opened a different program, twisted it slightly so the others could see. “They’ve stopped at an address here,” he said. “I just contacted the detective and shared that info. He’ll get backup to us immediately. Told him what we’re doing, where we’re at and where to find the vehicle.”
“They could be making a pit stop,” Dakota said, a knowing smile on his face. “We did do a good job of scaring the crap out of them.”
“Or,” Saul said, on a more serious note, “they could have stopped in the same warehouse district but by that series of abandoned buildings.”
“Maybe a visit with the boss?” Stone asked.
“I suggest we drive by first and see,” Merk said.
“I’ll follow you.” Saul smacked the outside of the jeep. “Everybody get moving. We don’t have time to waste.” He got into the driver’s side of Rebel’s car as the jeep roared to life, reversed and headed out onto the street. He watched his vehicle go and smiled. He loved that thing.
“What’s the smile for?”
“That’s my jeep.” There was a little bit of pride in his voice. “I left it here when I initially moved to Texas.”
“How come they’re driving your jeep and not you?”
“My focus right now is on taking care of you.” In his mind, it was that simple. If he could have gotten her into the jeep with the rest of the guys, that would’ve been easier. He’d still have to take care of her then too. He smiled.
“They will damage it.”
The smile fell off his face. “That’s just a mean and cruel thought.”
She chuckled. “Can you tell me it’s never been in an accident or shot at yet?”
He shrugged. “Okay, it has been. I was hoping to drive it back to Texas this trip, but I need several days off to make the long drive. It’s been parked at my mother’s house, but I might leave it at a friend’s place when I fly out this time.”
