Her mind skipping forward; she smiled slightly, recalling that she had accompanied Brett to such a meeting, during the time that she was his second. She had half expected the rep to turn her away; women held no rank among the groups that work for The Organization.
Bolting straight up, Tori’s mind froze, oh my God! Digging in her pocket, she fumbled for the key, pulling it out and staring at it. Turning it slowly in her fingers, she recalled the room, standing next to Brett and wearing her somber disguise. Along one of the walls there stood a filing cabinet. She recalled wondering at the time what could be inside it.
Staring at the object, she continued to scour the memory, you can’t pick the lock on a file cabinet. They’re too hard; virtually impossible. Smiling to herself, you have to have the key, or a drill, to get inside. Leaping off the bed, she bolted into the front room, “I know what the key fits!”
The men of her crew were scattered about the room, shocked at her unexpected interruption. “What key?” Michael demanded calmly.
“This key,” she held it up so that they could see. “This’s what was in my jacket; the item Eli and I had to retrieve,” She grinned eagerly, ready to share. “I didn’t want you to think I was silly, going to get it…” she paused, seeing the smirk on the agent’s face, “You already told them.”
“Well, you didn’t say not to,” he defended. “And we were talking about what it might go to, but it would appear that you figured it out.” He crossed his hands into his lap, “So what does it fit?”
“A file cabinet,” she was a bit breathless at the revelation.
“A file cabinet?!?” Brett’s voice was loud. “Why th’ hell would that be -” he stopped speaking in mid-sentence, his jaw dropped slightly, “In th’ meeting rooms, with th’ reps,” he finished.
“Exactly,” she smiled at him. “The one in Miami has one. I remember seeing it when we were there.”
Standing, he shook his head, reaching to grasp the shiny object. “They all have ‘em,” his voice was low, considering all the rooms he had been in. “No one but group leaders an’ their seconds are allowed in th’ rooms, neither.” Holding the key up to the light, as if he could see through it, he grunted, “So which city does this key fit?”
“I don’t think it fits any of them. I think it goes to a box at their headquarters, where ever that is,” her eyes twinkled.
“Ok, first offs, anything important don’t gos in a filing cabinet,” Enrique input, less than diplomatically. “Important stuff goes in a safe.”
Brett released a low whistle, “There’s no safe in th’ meeting rooms. At leas’, not visible. An’ safes are heavy. File cabinets, you can move. Or bolt ‘em t’ th’ wall, if ya wants.” He blew air out through his pursed lips, running his fingers through his red curls. “I’m at a loss here.”
Michael moved in beside him to take the key. Turning it to peer at both sides, he postulated, “So Eddie got ahold of this, somehow, but Henry ended up with it. This little… thing… is the reason my brother is dead.”
Tori’s smile slowly faded, gripped by the thought that he was exactly right. Furthermore, if she had spoken up the night of their fight, and handed it over, he might not have been killed. Closing her eyes, she shuddered, recalling the way Red had held her, preventing her from trying to intervene.
His eyes shifting to meet hers, his mood was hard to read. “Here,” he held it out to her, “Keep it safe. If it meant enough to him to die for, it must be pretty important, whatever it opens and whatever is inside alike.”
“Man this is getting us no wheres,” Enrique continued his negativity.
Turning to look at him, the lines sank into Michael’s forehead, “What the hell, Enrique? You have a better plan? You have information to share? Otherwise, shut the fuck up.”
Tori stared at her mate, her mouth gaping open. “I’ve never heard you speak to anyone like that, Michael Anderson!”
Not taking his eyes off the other man, he clenched his jaw, “Well, I warned you, I’m not really the nice guy you think I am.” Turning his back on the group, he made his way out onto the porch, slamming the door behind him.
Tori reached over, slapping Enrique on the arm, “What the hell is the matter with you? Can’t you see he’s upset? Eddie murdered his brother over that key, and we’re making the progress we can make. Quit being a prick!” Reaching the door, she closed it behind her, only a bit more gently than her mate. Standing beside him, she gazed out into the afternoon sun.
“Sorry,” he apologized immediately, “I know that was uncalled for.”
“Don’t worry about it, love,” she shook her dark waves. “I know things are tough all around.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, shoving his hands into his pockets, “But it’s more than we had. I think we need to move though, within a day, two at the most. I figure we’re only staying ahead of The Organization by a narrow margin at best. I don’t like being this close to Godfry either, since they have their hooks in him.”
“Absolutely,” she whispered, sliding her hand up his back. “I’m going back inside. Join us when you feel like it.” She gave him a small smile; his creamy orbs drawing her in for a moment and causing her to long for home. Leaning forward, she tasted his lips, her nose grazing his cheek before she stepped away, closing the door much more gently this time behind her.
Eddie’s Girl
Rejoining the rest of her crew, Tori called them to order, “I’d like to have a brief meeting. We need to discuss our next move.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Enrique mocked her with a salute, still angry at their altercation.
Giving him a shake of her head, she ignored his unhappiness, “I was thinking about the Dragons. That’s how I determined what the key is for. I believe that Eddie knew where their headquarters were located, as well as some of the particulars of how they functioned.” She frowned slightly, “I also think we’re on the right track as far as the girls are concerned.”
“What we need to do is to determine how we’re going to locate the Spiders so we can eliminate them. We also need to plot the locations of the abductions on the map here, zero in on the center of The Organization. And finally, we need to devise a way to either solidify or eliminate the Contreras brothers as the head of the group.” She looked up as Michael joined them, giving him a small smile.
“I don’t think it matters who’s in charge,” he jumped into the conversation. “If we can locate them, we’ll take them out, no matter who they are.”
“True,” she nodded her agreement, “But knowing may give us further insight into formulating our plans. And since Godfry seems to think working in teams and delegating tasks helps, I’d like to give that a try.”
Lifting the bundles of pages, she held one of them out to Eli, “You’ve already spent a great deal of time on this material. What I’d like is for you and Michael to plot these on the map to see what that gets us.” Eli accepted the pages, giving the taller man a silent glare.
“You two,” she indicated Enrique and Brett, “Are on Spider detail. You know the most out of everyone here about who they are and how working for The Organization looks and feels. Come up with everything you can that will help us find that crew.”
“And finally,” she handed the remaining stack of papers to Geek, “I need you and Mason to go through these. I don’t care which, either make it definite or eliminate them, but I’m sure there’s evidence as to who’s in charge in all this… stuff. And, you have the Rolodex copies. You can pull up all of those numbers, see if you can find out who all of those people are and where to find them.”
“If we can get all of this together by tonight, we’ll be in great shape. I want to be able to leave here in the morning, regardless, and this will give us some indication of which way we should go,” she took a seat on a stool as she finished.
“I notice you’re not on a team,” Eli pointed out.
“No, this way I can move between you guys and help out where ever I’m needed,” she supplied s
moothly.
“Or, you can go get some rest,” Brett reached out, clasping her arm and practically shoving her off her seat towards the bedroom.
“What the hell?” she stammered. “Who says I need a nap?”
“I do,” he insisted. “Your ol’ man is bein’ nice about it. I have less need t’ be subtle; you look like shit. You’re exhausted, an’ you need t’ take care o’ yourself. Don’ worry about all o’ this,” he waved his hand around at the clutter; “We got our assignments an’ we’ll take care of ‘em. We’ll wake you this evenin’. Now go!” he waved her towards the back.
Standing, the girl thought she might argue, but her drooped frame was attracted to the idea of climbing into bed as if it were a magnet. “Alright,” she peered around to see they were all indicating their agreement via nods and grins. “I’ll go then. But please come and get me if you need anything.”
“No worries, baby girl. We will,” her mate took her by the hand and guided her across the floor, kissing her at the doorway before closing it.
Alone in the back room, she kicked off her boots and stretched out on top of the blankets, thinking it was silly and would probably take an hour for her head to stop spinning enough to sleep. There’s so much to do, and so many things I hadn’t put together before. In the end, her fatigue won, and she passed out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Darkness had already engulfed the tiny room when she awoke with a start, clearly several hours later. Her pulse in her throat, she could recall the terror of her nightmare and was reminded of the one she had had before in New Jersey. When Michael was gone; or hurt. Only this time, it wasn’t her mate she had been searching for.
Rising, she flicked on the light to chase away the shadows, and made her way to the bathroom that stood in the hallway, grateful that it lay between the front and back halves of the cabin, doors on each side that made it private from either direction. Washing her face with cold water, her pulse began to slow.
She hated the fact that she had dreamed of Enrique, something she had done a few times since his return. This time was worse, though; she rationalized. This time, she had been afraid of losing him, maybe because he was angry with me. Opening the door that led out to the others, she wiped the emotion from her face, “You guys let me sleep too long.”
“Naw,” Brett countered with a grin, “We got a lot done, an’ you needed th’ rest.”
“Do I still look like shit?” she demanded bluntly.
“Not so much,” he chuckled. “We made dinner and kept a plate for ya. And we’re ready t’ brief you on what we’ve come up with.” Clearing a spot for her at the table, the teams prepared to make their presentations.
She took her seat, and Michael placed her meal before her, running his fingers through her hair, “Eat what you can, love. You need your strength.” His smile looked strained, and for a moment it appeared as if he were going to say more, before he forced a larger grin and backed away.
“Ok,” he called loudly, “I think Eli and I will go first. We plotted the locations on the map, and he was right, they all fall within a certain geographic location, but we noticed something else, too. Eleven of them took place in a single spot, over the period of years.”
Tori gasped, “They all lived in the same place?”
“No, they didn’t live in the same place, they were all in the same bar. Taken from it.” Arm extended, he lay his finger on the map, where a thick cluster of red dots had been made, surrounded by others on the map. “Each dot represents an abduction. This group of girls was taken from here, one a yearish, at almost the same time. Which makes me think that perhaps the years that one wasn’t taken, one actually was, but we don’t know about them.”
Tori could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, “Girls who look like me.”
“Yes, very much like you,” Eli spoke up. “I think you are exactly right, and that’s how Eddie intended to get you inside. All he had to do was have you at the bar, at the right time, and it’s all but a given you would have been taken. Why he backed out, it’s hard to say. Except that you’re right, you were too old by the time you were ready. That and you’re too tall.”
“Too tall? What does that have to do with it?”
“You’re a good six inches taller than the next closest of the abductees. Eddie probably had no way of knowing how big you were going to get when he chose you,” her husband supplied. “I’m sure that was part of his frustration. You told me that he came back every year, upset that you hadn’t matured. I think he was more unhappy that you were still growing.”
“I see,” she curled her tongue as she considered the theory. “It’s all good then. We may still be able to use the location if we need to. If they don’t take me, they will take another girl, and that could lead us to their headquarters either way. Timing could be a factor, but at least it’s an option”
“Agreed,” the two men said almost simultaneously, casting a frown at one another afterwards.
“I guess we could go next,” Geek spoke up. “Not that we have much to report, as far as the Rolodex goes. All of the numbers checked out. They’re all agents, and they’re based out of different branches. Mason was able to verify some of them, and there didn’t appear to be any irregularities in that regard. If Godfry has been contacting The Organization, he didn’t leave their number around where we could find it.”
“And that takes us to the second part of our task,” Mason took over, “The Contreras brothers are our most likely suspects. Their father was killed by a rival group of drug lords, or so we thought, as that’s what the history in the file would indicate. However, at the same time that it happened, these two disappeared,” he indicated the pair by laying their pictures on top of the map. “Making his murder look more like an inside job.”
“At the same time, another pair of men appeared, and we do have a few pictures of them. This,” he lay a picture next to one of the brothers, “Is Rico Ramirez. See the similarities? We put it through the facial recognition database, and the system kicked it back… ninety-eight percent chance that it’s the same guy. And this,” he lay down the second photograph, “This is Ruben Ramirez. He was ninety-nine percent, and we ran the search blind. The computer pulled up the matches without us having to indicate what we suspected.”
“Wow,” Tori breathed, “I don’t think you can argue with that.”
“No, you can’t,” Mason agreed. “Unfortunately, they have kept themselves out of the spotlight since they changed their identities, and seem to be pretty normal guys. You ready for this? They own houses in El Paso and Juarez, and have nothing on their records whatsoever.”
Tori’s eyes flicked over to the map. “El Paso? The bar is in El Paso, the one that all the girls disappear from.”
“I wondered if you would notice that,” he grinned broadly, holding up an index finger. “So I have one last thing to share. Before their father was murdered, he took care of some charges for one of his sons. It seems that Pablo, aka Rico, was arrested… for abducting, raping, and beating a girl to death. Black hair, blue eyes, sixteen years old.” Tori’s gaze shot up to meet his, her chest heaving. “Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” he finished with a nod.
“No shit,” she gasped. “This’s amazing. We’ve got these guys!”
“Not yet, we haven’t,” Brett cut her off, “But we’re close.” Stepping up to the table, he swung his hand over the map. “You know as well as th’ rest of us that th’ Spiders, like all o’ th’ groups that they control, move as a pack. Here and there,” he tapped a few places on the map, “They meet with reps, who give them orders an’ they take care o’ business.”
“Yes, I know that,” Tori sighed, “What’s your point?”
“So, we wanna set a trap for ‘em,” he appeared elated.
“Set a trap for them? And how exactly are we going to do that?” she demanded.
“We marked all four o’ th’ rep locations on th’ map. I’m sure you’re
familiar with them already; Miami, Denver, LA, an’ New York. What we wanna do is attack one of ‘em. Wipe ‘em out. Plus, we can crack open that file cabinet, t’ check it out, in case it does contain anything o’ value,” he paused, allowing her to mull over his plan.
“Then we smashs whoever shows up,” Enrique growled with a rumble of laughter.
“You think it’ll be the Spiders?” she reached out, touching the green dot in New York.
“Doesn’t matter, we’re gonna kills whoever it is. And if it’s not them, we’ll either waits there for them, or heads towards the next dot; you know they’ll shows up eventually,” Enrique’s brown eyes shone.
“No,” she tapped the map, “I say we hit them all. Every location.”
“How the hells are we going to do that? There’s only sevens of us, counting the computer nerd,” he flicked his chin at Geek. “And they’re spread all across the country. I mean, there’s only fours, but there’s no way we could make it to all of them. It would take days, and they would be ready for us.”
“Not if we use the plane,” she supplied in a quiet voice. “We have a private jet, and a locker full of supplies in each of these cities.”
The room fell silent, the group stunned by the boldness of her plan. Finally, Michael spoke up, “How long would it take to carry that out? And what about our bikes? We make a loop, ending up back where we started?”
Tori nodded; her eyes fixed on the map and mentally making the trip. “We land and purchase or rent vehicles in each of the towns. We have huge cash stores at each of the locations, so we could do either. And Brett has the list of the munitions we will find in each as well. We load up what we need; we hit them and fly out. Fast. Twenty-four hours, round trip.”
She began to nod, the entire plan taking shape. “Denver is our starting point,” she pointed her finger over the map, indicating each of the stops. “Over to LA, across to New York, south to Miami, and back to Denver. There, we get on our bikes, and we head south, to El Paso.”
A New Life Series - Finisher Set Page 57
