The file had never mentioned an English accent, but nobody had gotten close enough to the man in order to confirm his identity. His entire career worked off a list of maybes.
“Mr. Vicente,” he said. “I’m looking for a way to get close to Christian Wren. Is there anything you can tell me that would help my investigation?”
The man shifted in bed, wincing as he moved. “Stop calling me that.”
Leaning forward slightly, Marcus stared directly into the electric blue eyes of a criminal. Vicente was known for drugs, prostitutes, even guns occasionally, but the jacket didn’t seem to fit the man lying half dead in this room. “Why? Isn’t that your name?”
”You’re kidding, right? Do I look Mexican?”
Marcus went on. “Nothing in this file states that you’re Mexican.” He noted the reaction spreading across the patient’s face. A scoff bubbled past cracked lips. “Now, if you’d just cooperate with us, we might be able to cut you a bit of slack.”
“I’m not Harlow Vicente.” The man laid back into the bed, closing his eyes.
“Do you have ID on you?” he asked, removing a small notebook from his jacket.
“I’ve been locked in some kind of basement for almost two decades with some kid bringing me what my captors thought was food once a day. Do you think I have ID?” His eyes fell closed as he spoke, as if he hoped the situation would disappear when he opened them once again.
Marcus scooted closer to the bed, the metal chair carving lines into the soft flooring. “Would you be willing to take a polygraph test? Be fingerprinted?”
The man chuckled slightly, wincing from the pain his broken body exerted. “Whatever.”
From the tone of the patient’s voice and the expression on his face, Marcus knew he wasn’t going to get any more information. Whoever this man was, cuffs prevented him from going anywhere. He’d let his suspect rest for the time being. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere.” Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he retrieved a business card. “Call me if you need me before then.”
The man opened his eyes slowly, ignoring the gesture altogether.
“I’ll just leave it here.” He set the card on the side table. Turning toward the door, Marcus stopped as his victim called to him.
“Agent Grant,” the man said. “I’m Daniel. Daniel Banvard.”
Marcus nodded, leaving the hospital with about as much information as he’d arrived with.
* * *
Her own personal nightmare had returned.
Her last dose for the day had been given a little over an hour ago, right after the electrotherapy session, but the sedative didn’t keep the memories at bay and she feared nothing ever would.
They came in an onslaught, drilling her down to her basic survival instincts and burying any part of herself that would let her past go. Flashes of the children she’d killed, bloodied, soulless after she’d finished with them, pounded across the back of her eyelids in time with her heartbeat. The images sped up and suddenly Adelaide couldn’t breathe.
Grasping for the light beside her bed, she tried to get ahold of herself as she turned it on. She had to remind herself those days had ended, but the memories still kept her awake at night. More recently, the faces of Scott Lively and William Roberts made her shudder.
No drug in the world would let her forget.
She’d become a monster in that damned compound and, as Adelaide lay in bed, eyes wide-open, unable to sleep, she knew no one could help save her now.
* * *
The polygraph had proven Marcus wrong. Daniel Banvard had passed the test and given a very detailed description of the man Marcus really wanted.
Now his steps echoed throughout the alley as he forced himself to run faster. His heartbeat pounded behind his ears. The taste on his tongue told him he’d gotten one step closer. He could taste victory.
Just ahead of him, Vicente looked right and left for a way out, but he had nowhere to run, nowhere he could hide again.
Marcus jumped over the trash cans and debris Vicente threw into his path and kept going. Easy. Best workout he’d had in ages. He’d been through worse in the Marines. Pushing the thought from his head, he forced himself to focus. He reached forward, only a few inches behind Vicente, and gripped the first piece of clothing he felt.
They hit the asphalt together.
Marcus didn’t miss a beat as he grabbed Vicente by the collar of his jacket and flipped him onto his back, staring down in disbelief.
Not Vicente.
His breath came out in a quick gust. He’d had him. He’d had him and he’d let him get away. “Where is he?” Marcus demanded, pulling the man closer by his collar.
The scumbag beneath him laughed. His brown and yellow teeth smiled up at Marcus as he spoke. “You’ll never find him.” He laughed again. “He’s too smart for some bullshit cop like you.”
He got up, removing his service weapon from his belt, and hauled his new suspect onto his feet. He walked him back toward the car at gunpoint and winced as he smelled something awful. He tried not to puke as they walked down the alley, but after a few moments he realized the smell came from his own jacket.
He ignored the stench, pushing his catch into the backseat of the car.
Curious faces glanced through window blinds and doors, but he wasn’t worried about them. It was what he couldn’t see that bothered him. Sooner or later Marcus would find Vicente or Vicente would find him. He only had to wait.
Pulling his cell phone from his jacket pocket, he dialed Brent.
His partner answered on the fourth ring, groggy. “What do you want?”
“Brent, I got one for you,” Marcus said.
“This vigilante shit is getting old.”
“Just meet me at the office in ten.” He caught another whiff of his clothes. “And bring me something clean to wear.”
The drive didn’t take long. He’d have the answers he needed soon, but as Marcus pulled the car over, he realized the interrogation of his new suspect would have to wait. Just outside the office, a shadow waited for him.
Vicente.
He heaved himself out of the driver’s seat, stepping back a couple feet to open the back door. “Get out.” He waited as his captive stumbled onto the pavement. Pulling the dirtbag to his feet, Marcus twisted him around, the guy’s face resting against the roof of the car.
“Get out of here.” He unlocked the cuffs. “Before I change my mind.”
His suspect didn’t hesitate, booking it down the street.
“Agent Grant, it’s nice to finally meet you.” The thick Spanish accent floated over the calm night to Marcus’s ears. Dressed in a finely made suit, his hair pulled back out of his face, shoes gleaming from the streetlights above, Vicente smiled at him coyly. “What can I do for one of California’s finest?”
Marcus looked down each side of the street for witnesses and moved around the car, closer to the man he’d been searching for. “We should take this inside,” he suggested, but had the impression that wouldn’t be an option.
Bodyguards moved from the shadows cast by the city’s skyscrapers, merging on either side of Vicente. Marcus halted in the middle of the sidewalk, itching to take them all into custody.
“No, I think right here will do just fine, Agent Grant.”
The bodyguard on Vicente’s left walked forward, his hand extended. “Wallet, please.”
“Excuse me?”
A gun appeared, aimed at Marcus’s stomach. “Identification, please.”
He did what he’d been asked, handing over his wallet.
Vicente nodded as his goon handed over the leather square, leafing through it for a moment. “You have no woman here. No children. Nothing but twenty dollars in cash, your driver’s license and a credit card. Nothing to live for, Agent Grant. That’s my first impression of you. Makes for a very dangerous man.”
“You know Christian Wren. I need you to get me in his detail,” Marcus said, uninterested in the dog-and-po
ny show.
Vicente chuckled, the laugh trickling over to him. “No one has lived long enough to get that close. Trust me, find a new case, Agent Grant. You will live longer.”
“I need you to set up a meeting. I can do the rest.”
“Why would I do such a thing, Agent Grant? Or should I just call you Marcus?” Vicente stepped closer, inches away from him. “I don’t think—”
“Marcus?” a voice called out.
Marcus turned toward their newest addition and breathed a sigh of relief.
Brent walked toward them, gun drawn, but not raised. “Everything all right here?” He stood a few feet away from them, his eyes full of suspicion.
“Fine, Agent Needle.” He turned his attention back to Vicente. “You know, I found something very interesting in your house earlier.”
Vicente hadn’t moved, his expression light and amused. “There are lots of things inside my house.”
“A man who called himself Daniel Banvard.” He studied Vicente’s expression for a moment, watching the shock fill his eyes. The cellar had been well hidden, but Marcus guessed Vicente hadn’t expected one of his own to rat him out. Just another reason why criminals shouldn’t be taking innocent children off the streets to do a man’s job.
The reaction faded as the man regained his composure. “I see, and what, may I ask, is the punishment for having a visitor stay in my home?”
Marcus chuckled and took a step back, giving himself distance if things got out of hand. “A visitor?” The smile stayed in place as he turned toward Brent. “Agent Needle, please take these men into custody for kidnapping, torture, neglect, deadly use of weapons and whatever else you can think of.”
Brent raised his gun, taking aim with one arm and removing a set of cuffs with the other. “Can do, boss.”
Vicente didn’t move, staring Marcus down. “And what if I can get you a meeting with Christian Wren? What will happen then?”
The two bodyguards grew tense, waiting for the command to resist.
“You get me in,” Marcus said, nodding, “and I’ll see that your friends here are free to go.”
“And me, Agent Grant? What will happen to me?”
“If I’m successfully planted inside Wren’s organization, I will drop the kidnapping charges.” Before Vicente could reply, he had to make something very clear. “When I’m in, I stay in, any unusual problems and I will make damn sure the only protection you’ll get is from other men in little orange jumpsuits who’ve made you their bitch. Got it?”
A small shiver seemed to buy Vicente a moment to answer. “Christian Wren and I are not good friends, Marcus. It will take some convincing on my part.” He glanced to Brent and back, nodding in confirmation. “But it can be done. I believe we have a deal.”
This was it. Marcus had gotten one step closer to finding Scott’s killer and one step closer to making Wren pay.
“Agent Grant,” Brent said, lowering his weapon. “May I have a word with you?”
He looked from Vicente to Brent and then back. “Don’t move,” he warned, stepping toward his partner.
Once they could no longer be overheard, Brent spoke. “What are you doing? The captain is going to have your ass for this.”
“Then don’t tell her.”
Brent inhaled calmly, closing his eyes. “I can’t be a part of this, man. I cross the lines here and there, but this, this is serious. I could lose my job.” He opened his eyes again, begging with his gaze for Marcus to let it go. “You don’t even have the power to grant him immunity.”
“I can do this,” he assured him. “Just buy me some time with the captain. Please. I can take him down. I turned my back on Scott, Brent. I owe him.” The words were tainted with pleading. His goal had never been so clear before and he needed Brent to understand. “I’ve got to do this.”
His partner shook his head in disbelief. “This is nuts, man. I know how close you two were, but this is nuts.”
He waited patiently for Brent to come around, to take his side in something so important.
“All right,” his colleague finally said, exhaling loudly. “I’ll buy you two weeks.”
As Marcus walked back toward Vicente he knew he owed Brent big-time, and he tried to think of ways to repay the partner who’d had his back for the past six years. This investigation would get hot before he could blink. Marcus had to keep focused and had to keep his alliances.
Scott Lively had saved his life once. Bringing his murderer to justice was the least he could do.
“We have a deal,” he exclaimed, pulling himself back to the present. “You get me in and I won’t arrest you, but you have to tell me something first.”
Vicente remained silent for a moment, visibly trying to predict what the question might be. He nodded in affirmation.
“What does Daniel Banvard have to do with this?”
A smile crossed Vicente’s lips, a patient smile, one a parent might give a child who’s been asking the same question repeatedly. Annoyed, but compliant. “That file you have on me, Agent Grant, how does it describe me?”
“Blonde, blue eyes, tattoos.”
Vicente nodded. “Do you understand now?”
Marcus waited for Vicente to explain further, but after a few moments realized he wouldn’t. “That’s it?”
“It is quite a long story, Agent Grant. One that would take a few hours to explain.”
“Then give me the short version, because without it I will walk out of here right now, taking my deal with me.” The bluff slid off his tongue easily, but Vicente didn’t seem the type to take warnings for granted. Curious as to how an Englishman ended up in Vicente’s basement, Marcus wondered how the drug lord would get himself out of the kidnapping charges if this whole thing went south.
“Daniel Banvard killed my uncle twenty-five years ago. My father, the proud man that he was, wanted repayment.” He paused. “That repayment was another life. The life of Mr. Banvard’s lover.”
He processed this tale slowly. “How did he end up in your custody?”
“Mr. Banvard wanted revenge,” Vicente continued. “He killed my father in cold blood, almost right in front of my eyes.”
“Then what?” he pushed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And then, Agent Grant, I had my revenge.”
Marcus wore his poker face, refusing to let Harlow shake his character, and took a step forward. The hair on the back of his neck bristled with the subtlety of a threat. “You trying to scare me?”
“Not at all, Agent Grant,” Vicente replied easily. “But Banvards are not easily defeated and when you see what Wren has at his side, I believe you will change your mind.”
Chapter Five
Loud music blared over the speakers of the arena, almost deafening to Marcus’s ears and making the conversation with Vicente very hard to understand. He watched Christian Wren and his selective company take their seats under the private tent just a few rows below and patiently waited for this meeting to begin.
The electric atmosphere pulsed against him in time to the music, hundreds of bodies swarming around the dirt hills in the center, calling out to the racers. The event hadn’t started yet, but Marcus wasn’t here to watch the show.
Vicente sat next to him with a manila file folder in hand, tossing it into his lap. “This is everything you need to know about Wren and his bodyguards.”
“How many?” Marcus asked. He opened the file, glancing at the black-and-white photos of three individuals.
Christian Wren made up a large portion of the stack. The photos had been taken in various locations: surrounded by guests at a party, one in the backyard pool of his home, another outside of Wren Industries.
“Does he sleep in his suit, too?” Marcus wondered aloud, but didn’t get an answer as he looked to his new informant.
The other photos consisted of two people he assumed to be Wren’s bodyguards. Glancing down to the private tent, he only spotted one subject close enough to Wren to be a bodyguar
d and searched for the other.
“This one,” Vicente said, tapping on the first photo in Marcus’s lap, “is Taigen. Age twenty-six, six feet four, one hundred and eighty pounds. He was a corpsman for the Navy, worked specifically with Marines during his enlistment, but fell into the wrong scene after his discharge. He’s been in and out of the system for robbery. Do the tattoos on his arms and neck look familiar to you?”
Marcus looked at the photos more closely. The ink had been designed into a tribal look, extending in waves and points. They pulled at his memory. He’d seen them somewhere before. “Yeah,” he answered, realizing who’d been sporting the same design. “Daniel Banvard.” As he studied the next photo, he noticed another design under the tribal ink. He brought the photo closer to his face. “You were right about the Navy.”
“Yes, but the tribal design is original.”
“Partners? Same organization?” he asked, wondering how two people could have such a unique design by coincidence.
“Daniel Banvard is Taigen’s father,” Vicente explained.
Marcus looked over in surprise, seeing the seriousness in the man’s expression. “Didn’t your father kill Daniel’s girlfriend? Did he have another woman?”
“His wife was pregnant at the time.” Vicente looked back toward the race, giving the impression no other questions would be answered on the subject.
He moved on to the remaining photos.
The last set of photos showed a woman. Petite, blonde, weighing no more than a buck fifteen tops. Beautiful in every sense of the word. Marcus searched the tent in hopes of comparing the photos with the real version, but had no such luck. With only two photos, both of which showed her with Christian Wren, he concluded she wouldn’t be important to his investigation. “She must be the main squeeze.”
“That is Adelaide,” came Vicente’s answer. “Wren’s head of security.”
“She’s a bodyguard?”
“Don’t let her fool you.” Vicente chuckled. “She is not just a bodyguard.”
No woman that small and delicate would be any use for anything other than carnal pleasure. “She would probably break a nail,” Marcus said aloud, but more to himself than to Vicente.
Let Me Out (For Me, #1) Page 5
