One Wrong Move, page 27
“Going after them.” He moved to the front door, stood to the side, gun raised, and cracked the door open.
After a moment, he moved outside. The air was thick and heavy from the storm.
Moving erratically, he positioned himself with a full view of where the shots had come from, but no one was there.
A car revved in the distance.
He raced toward the next condo, still moving erratically in case someone lingered behind. Leaning out from behind the neighbor’s condo, he caught sight of two red taillights disappearing in the distance.
■ ■ ■
A knock yanked Christian from sleep. He pulled his gun and slipped his arm out from under Andi’s back. She stirred and blinked up at him.
He held his finger to his lips as another knock sounded. He moved for the door and stood to the side, reaching for the handle.
“It’s Greyson.”
Greyson? He frowned.
What time was it? He opened the door.
Greyson stood there, his expression tight. “Sorry to wake you, but there’s something you need to hear.”
Christian stepped back so Greyson could enter. “What time is it?”
Greyson looked at his watch. “0530. Miss Andi,” he said, nodding at her on the couch as he strode inside.
“Greyson.” Andi nodded, pulling to a fully upright position.
“What’s happening?” Riley asked from the doorway before Christian had a chance to close it.
“What are you doing up?” he asked. Why was everyone else wide awake?
“I heard Greyson leave the house and saw him walking toward your place.”
“So naturally you followed.” Of course his sister did.
“Sorry I woke you,” Greyson said, resuming his pacing from earlier.
“Please sit down,” Riley said. “It’s too early in the morning for your pacing.”
He took a seat on the smaller sofa, and Riley plopped down beside him—her in a relaxed position, him ramrod straight.
Christian shut and locked the door, half expecting someone else to come walking in. He returned to the sofa where he and Andi had fallen asleep, shockingly sitting up. Though, given the little sleep they’d been functioning on, it wasn’t that surprising.
“What’s up?” he asked, curious what Greyson had found. The man could find one M&M in a two-hundred-pound tub of Skittles.
Greyson cleared his throat. “Ethan Poppin shared his cell with only two men during his incarceration.”
A surge of expectancy shot through Christian’s limbs.
“The first,” Greyson said, “was a Camden Hunter. He shared a cell with Ethan the first two years of his incarceration.”
“And then?” Christian asked, anticipation pinging through his bouncing leg. His gaze flashed over to Andi, now fully awake, her attention rapt on Greyson.
“He served the remainder of his years with a Cyrus Timal. Ethan was released three months before Cyrus.”
“What was Cyrus in for?” Riley asked.
“Armed robbery and assault. Seems he robbed two armored cars and got rough with the drivers before he was captured.” Greyson shifted, still sitting perfectly straight, but his limbs not quite as stiff.
“Armored cars aren’t easy to rob, and he managed two of them,” Christian said.
“And he’s clearly violent,” Riley chimed in. “What else did you find out?” she asked Greyson, shifting to sit sideways to face him better.
He looked over, his gaze slipping over her, and he smiled. No doubt at her Goonies Never Say Die PJs.
“Greyson?” she asked.
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “He was also tied to a missing-person’s-turned-murder case.”
They all waited silently for him to continue.
“He was living with a young woman. Police records indicate she was a thief too, knocking off a couple jewelry stores. The detective I spoke with said he figured Cyrus and her for a couple.”
“Very romantic . . . two thieves.” Riley rolled her eyes.
“When she got busted attempting a third robbery, police booked her. But the judge at her arraignment let her out on a ten-thousand-dollar bail.”
“Cheap change for a jewel thief,” Christian said. “A good one, at least.”
Greyson released a streaming exhale. “Not long after, she went missing. A year later, what remained of her body was found by two kids swimming in a lake. Someone had strapped two concrete blocks around her waist. Whoever did it knew their knots—they were still in place. Local police divers had to cut the rope to retrieve the corpse.”
“And they know it was her?”
“Any possibility of fingerprints was long gone, but they were able to match her dental records.”
“You think Cyrus killed her for getting caught?”
“The detective on the case, Jax Johnson, said it looked like a professional hit.”
“And he didn’t peg Cyrus as the murderer?” Whether it was Cyrus or not, the man who’d tried to take out Andi had no qualms about murder—and likely had been the one to kill Alex and Julia.
“No. He certainly could have put out a contract, but he was in jail at the time. Detective Johnson said Cyrus was distraught, mumbled something about a woman named Teresa. Once he got out, that’s the last they saw of Cyrus until his arrest eight years ago for the armored car heists.”
“Any idea who Teresa is?” Andi asked, taking notes at this point.
“Yup. Here comes the frightening part,” Greyson said, his voice strained.
“That wasn’t the frightening part?” Riley asked, her already big blue eyes growing wider still.
“I’m afraid not.” Greyson shifted forward.
“Then what is?” Christian asked, his muscles taut, his pulse thwacking through his ears.
“Cyrus Timal’s sister is Teresa Gutierrez. She’s the wife of drug kingpin José Gutierrez.”
“Cyrus’s brother-in-law is a drug lord?”
“I’m afraid so,” Greyson said.
“What if she’s the collector?” Andi said. “Maybe she’s amassing a heritage collection of her own. The items came from Mesoamerica.”
“Could very well be, and if that’s the case, it stands to reason,” Greyson said, getting to his feet, “they’ll flee to Mexico when this is all over.”
“If we don’t stop them first,” Christian said.
“No pressure there,” Andi said.
“What else do we know about Cyrus and Teresa?” Christian asked.
“They grew up in New Mexico. In Lordsburg,” Greyson said. “Teresa got started in crime earlier. I can’t see her juvie records, but she was arrested three times before she was nineteen.”
“Seriously?” Andi said. “Drugs?”
Greyson nodded. “The first time with her boyfriend . . . a Tomas Nelson.” Greyson set her mug shot on the table.
“Great,” Riley said.
“Then twice with a guy named Leo Hernandez.” Greyson showed them another mug shot of Teresa, along with a news article he’d found with a picture of the two. “So, as you can see, her affection for drugs started early.”
“Crazy,” Riley said.
“And there’s one more thing,” Greyson said.
“Of course there is,” Christian said. “And at this rate, I’m guessing it’s worse news still?”
Greyson inclined his head.
“Worse than a drug lord?” Riley said.
“Given the information I received, I placed a call to my friend in the DEA.”
Christian sat against the back of the couch, the stiff pillow propping him up. The man had connections everywhere. “And?” he asked.
“He said one of Gutierrez’s men, Enrique Chavez, entered the States a few days ago.”
“The man in our bathroom,” Christian said.
“Highly likely, but I’m sure we’ll have confirmation soon.”
“Whoever he is, at least one guy’s out of the picture,” Andi said, shifting to sit closer to Christian, her arm against his.
Greyson rubbed a hand across his head. “Yes, but there’s likely more.”
Christian narrowed his eyes, studying Greyson’s expression. For the first time since working with Greyson, he heard worry thick in his voice, could see it creased along his brow.
“You’re worried,” Christian said before thinking better of it in front of Andi and his sister. But it had caught him off-guard. They’d been through some serious and very dangerous cases, and Greyson had held calm and firm through them all—until now.
“Concerned,” he said. “For your and Miss Andi’s well-being.”
“Miss Andi?” Riley said. “You’re not that much older than us.”
“A decade more than you,” he said.
Riley pulled her knee to her chest. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot.”
Christian exhaled, trying to still his thudding heart. He’d been away from Ethan nearly a decade, but clearly his ex-partner’s anger burned on. The image of Ethan’s face the last night he’d seen him flashed through his mind. Ethan was furious at getting caught and blamed him, going so far as to tell the police he’d robbed the gallery with him. Thankfully, he’d had an ironclad alibi, or given his past and Ethan’s false word, it could have gone south. The fact it didn’t angered Ethan all the more.
Handcuffed and being escorted out of one of the Bureau’s interrogation rooms, Ethan’s warning he’d get Christian back all those years ago reverberated through his mind. Apparently, Ethan was holding true to his threat, but just how far was he going to take it?
SIXTY
DECKARD BUCKLED IN for their delayed trip to Boston, thanks to the shootout at Harper’s place and all that involved. Six anxious hours aboard, knowing Randy might be the one who held the information they needed, gnawed at his gut. If they were wrong about Randy, they’d have to regroup and reassess.
Please, Lord, let Randy have the answers we need. Let him be honest with us. Help us to know who is behind this, and I pray it’s not Mitch. If it is, how could I have been so wrong?
When asked who stood to gain the most from what happened in the lab, he’d been thinking promotion-wise, but when his brain stilled enough and he spent silent time in prayer, it came to him. Mitch obviously stood to gain the most from what happened in the lab that night. He stood to gain his freedom. But how? How would he have managed it all? And if it wasn’t Mitch, who was the real killer?
“You okay?” Harper asked, looking over as the plane began its taxi toward the runway.
“Yeah. Just thinking it through.”
“Yeah. I can’t get it to stop racing through my head either. I’m praying Randy has answers and is willing to tell us. Or he at least points us in the next direction to go.”
“I prayed the same except for the new direction. I should have prayed that rather than just thinking we’d be at a loss.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Let’s take it one step at a time, like you said you always work your cases.”
Normally he did, but this one had gotten personal.
“Do you think the police will have any luck finding whoever shot at us?”
“I wish I could say yes. . . .” They had nothing to go on except the casings found from their shooting position and the bullets found lodged in different places of her home.
“Yeah. That was my thought, but we can pray.”
True. God could do abundantly more than they could even ask or think. He prayed with all his soul that God would open the door they needed to walk through and that they’d survive whatever was waiting for them on the other end.
■ ■ ■
Christian rolled his aching shoulders under the hot water streaming over him. He rested his hands against the tile wall.
There’d been no point in trying to go back to sleep. Everyone was on edge after last night’s intruder.
Frustration seared through him, the hot water only serving to heat him more. Was no place safe? What had they all walked into?
A knock rapped on the door. “Christian,” Andi said, her voice rushed.
He jumped out of the shower, threw on a towel, and opened the door. “What’s wrong?” He stood there dripping.
Beet red consumed her cheeks. “Sorry. I didn’t stop to think. I . . .”
“What’s wrong?”
She swallowed, casting her gaze away, then back up to his face. “A gallery in Phoenix was hit last night.”
“Okay, I’ll get dressed and see how fast we can catch a flight.”
“Greyson’s already on it. There’s one leaving in two hours.”
Right now, two hours felt like forever. “We better pack bags. We don’t know how long we’ll be based there.”
“I was thinking the same thing. They hit a string here. They could do the same in Arizona.”
SIXTY-ONE
HARPER AND DECKARD STOOD OUTSIDE Randy Fox’s door. They’d stay all night if they had to. Sooner or later, he had to come home. They’d hoped to catch him at his work, but thanks to a very friendly receptionist, they’d learned he’d already left for the day.
“I still say she was flirting,” Harper said with a smirk as they sank to the floor.
Might as well get comfortable—who knew how long of a wait they had.
He shrugged “Ah . . .” he said, lifting his hand flat and tilting it back and forth, “maybe a little.”
“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I can see that smug grin peeking to come out. You nearly had the poor woman simpering.”
“Poor woman? Please, she was the one flirting. I was just being—”
“Charming,” she said.
So Harper thought he was charming. He smiled.
“See. There’s that grin.” She was having a good time ribbing him.
“What grin?” he said, trying to force his lips to stay still, neutral, but he was doing a terrible job at it. He liked that Harper viewed him as charming, but he honestly hadn’t been flirting with the woman. She had handled that all on her own. He’d simply remained polite and professional.
“That smile,” she said, her expression and tone jovial.
Down the hall and around the corner the elevator dinged.
They looked at each other and said, “Randy,” in unison.
Deck prayed it was him. He got to his feet, then offered Harper a hand and helped her up.
A man about their age with brown hair came walking down the hall juggling two brown paper grocery bags in his arms.
He glanced up, his gaze landing on Harper, and then did a double take.
He froze.
“Hey, Randy,” she said.
Randy dropped the bags and bolted.
“Come on, man. Don’t make me chase you,” Deckard hollered after him as he took up pursuit.
Randy sprinted around the corner and frantically pressed the elevator buttons. He looked up, saw Deckard coming for him, and dodged into the stairwell. Deckard followed. Randy rounded the first set of stairs and nearly bowled into an elderly woman wearing a leotard, leggings, and legwarmers. Trying not to take her out, Randy shifted sideways, lost his balance, and tumbled down the remaining few steps, landing in a pile on the platform.
Deckard jumped down. “Love the legwarmers,” he said to the lady, and then looked to Randy. “Look, dude. We just want to ask you a few questions. We mean you absolutely no harm.”
“That’s why you’re wearing a gun.” Randy lifted his chin.
“I’m a PI,” he said. “Required for my occupation.” He offered Randy his hand and helped him to his feet.
Randy brushed his hands off on his jeans. “A PI?” he said. “Who are you working for?”
“I’m working for Miranda Forester. Just trying to prove she wasn’t the one who botched the evidence.”
“Look, man. I’m sorry about what happened to Miranda, but I can’t go there. I talk to you and I could end up dead.”
“Dead?” Deckard frowned. “Look, whatever you say is safe with us. I won’t tie anything back to you. You obviously know Harper, so I’m going to assume you know Miranda as well.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“What happened to her wasn’t right.” She was innocent, and there was something far more sinister at play than he’d expected. He wouldn’t rest until he figured it out, and it was starting to look like Randy was the key to opening the next door of this crazy maze. “Please just talk with us. I’ll keep it in full confidence.”
“You really have no idea what you’re dealing with,” Randy said.
“Then tell us. Please.”
Randy released a shaky exhale. “Come on in the apartment, but what we discuss stays in the apartment. Deal?”
“Deal,” Deckard said. “Unless someone is in immediate danger from what you tell me. That I can’t ignore.”
“The only ones in danger are you guys if you keep at it,” Randy said in a hushed whisper, even though they were the only ones there. “The powers that be will take you out.”
Deckard arched his brows. “The powers that be?”
“In the apartment,” Randy said, leading him up the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later, Deckard and Harper sipped on cups of coffee while they waited for Randy to clean up the broken-egg mess from dropping the grocery bag and put away his perishables.
“How long have you lived here?” Deckard asked, looking about the sparsely furnished apartment.
“Awhile,” Randy said. Grabbing a cup of coffee of his own, he took a seat in the armchair facing Deckard and Harper on the couch. He took a sip, then set his mug on the windowsill beside him. “You want to know about the shirt.”
Harper lurched forward. “Yes.”
“Whoa there,” Deckard said. “Don’t want to spook the poor guy,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Right,” she whispered, easing back.
“Dude.” Randy rubbed his hands on his jeans, his knee bouncing up and down as his leg shook. “I’ve been spooked ever since.”
Deckard scooted forward on the couch, inching to the edge. “Ever since?”
“Ever since I got that call,” Randy said, lifting his mug in his wobbly hold and taking another sip. “Does anyone else know you’re here?” He looked at Harper. “Anyone from the Bureau?”
