Duane’s Determination (Broken Wheel Ranch #9)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

“NO!” Both Scott and Duane said at the same time as they raised their hands toward her in a stop motion. Laurie didn’t know if it was to tell her to stop moving, or talking, or thinking. She continued to stand there and finally Daune sighed heavily and pointed to the table for her to sit. He nodded in relief when she allowed him to help her to the chair because she’d left her cane propped against it earlier. No one seemed to notice when Ann and Manny slipped out of the room.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re probably confused, but I’m not married. I was, and it was to Scott’s sister, but my divorce became final thirteen years ago.” He looked at Scott and flipped the other man off when he sat there with a gigantic grin on his face.

“Bro, I told you to introduce me as your brother, leave out the in-law part.”

“Fine,” Duane said as he shook his head and turned back to Laurie. “I’m not married.”

“Will your ex ever interfere with your life? Like come back and make demands on you?”

“No,” both Duane and Scott said at the same time. The men exchanged looks, then they both sighed heavily

“I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m forty-eight. I met Cara in college. We married right out of college. Because I couldn’t go into the FBI until I was twenty-three.” At her scowl he nodded and gave her a small smile. “Rules. In at twenty-three, out at fifty-seven. Very rarely are there any exceptions to those rules. Anyway, after college I became a police officer until I could apply for the FBI. I was accepted and went to Virginia to training. I did extra training while there because I wanted to go into undercover work.”

“Why?” Laurie cocked her head and frowned at him.

“I don’t know, it was something I had been interested in since I was a young boy and watched a movie with undercover cops that always got the bad guy.”

“Okay,” Laurie said, and looked at Scott and they both shared a smirk.

“Anyway, this was all in LA.”

“The state or the city?”

“Oh, Los Angeles, out in California. Anyway, I did my thing in Virginia, went back to LA and was assigned to that office. While I was gone, Cara lived in our apartment, worked, and waited for me to return. Fast forward a couple of months, and she tried to get me to do something I refused to do. She even went so far as to get her friend involved. It wasn’t pretty. I’ll nut shell it for you, she wanted to quit her job and she and her friend ended up putting a false document together saying that I would pay her a certain amount of money for her to quit her job and stay home.” He shook his head and looked at Scott.

“I wasn’t there, but Duane told me that the money she wanted to be paid was less than what he made. Per pay period.”

“She kept insisting that she could take me to court to demand that money, but she didn’t want a divorce. Because I was in law enforcement, her actions, and the papers she produced smacked of extortion. I ended up taking everything to my superiors at work. I didn’t want to be accused of condoning this, and lose my job. I received my first undercover assignment at that time, and let my boss deal with it.”

“What happened?”

“It turned out the friend worked as a cleaning lady in a law office. She would steal different letterhead stationery from different law offices, then if any of her friends needed legal paperwork, she would write it up.”

“Holy crap, pardon my language, but isn’t that illegal as all hell?”

“Yes, anyway, because she was my wife, they cut Cara some slack, however, she was told if she was involved in anything illegal ever again, then they would throw the book at her.”

“You’re saying her get out of jail for free would be revoked,” she asked, and stared as the two men looked at each other, and she couldn’t read their expressions, but she knew she had stumbled onto something. “What did I miss?”

“Years passed, and I was in and out of undercover work.”

Laurie turned to look at Scott. “Where were you all this time?”

“Serving my country as a Navy SEAL. Cara is my older sister, and she always hated me, or at least tolerated me. I was closer to Duane than her.”

“I understand,” she said, and turned back to Duane. “What happened?”

“I had just come home from being undercover. I’d removed the fake facial hair, and wig at the office. I still had the old clothes on, I had ordered a pizza on the way home, and when the door rang, I thought it was the delivery.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No,” Scott said with a laugh. “It was me. Anyway, we caught up, and after the pizza was delivered, we were eating, when I asked if Cara was due home from work soon. We hadn’t seen her before then.”

“I was telling Scott I had just gotten back from an undercover assignment, and I was frustrated. I was under for three months, and we had eyes on our target, but in the last three weeks, nothing, it was like he was a figment of our imagination. We heard the key in the lock, and I naturally thought it was Cara.” He paused and shook his head.

“Was it?” Laurie asked to encourage him.

“Yeah, but imagine my surprise that as soon as the door opened, she had a guy with her, they were all over each other, and just by their actions they were headed to the bedroom.”

“Crap, what did you do?”

“I told Scott to remain seated and silent. I pulled my phone, stepped into the pantry, and made the call. When I stood back at the counter, I silenced my phone, but could still see messages. Cara and this guy were all over each other and once I got the notification that backup was in the building, I confronted her.”

“What aren’t you saying?”

“Remember that guy that disappeared off the face of the earth? He was the one with his tongue down my wife’s throat. I didn’t say anything until I knew I had help. Not that I didn’t trust Scott, and I explained it later, but that guy was a known drug dealer that was laundering money from his drug business. It turned out that Cara was the one helping him launder the money. It was a freaking mess. Thankfully I had an alibi the entire time, and there were cameras in the building and hallways of our apartment complex. I was never a suspect.”

“What happened?”

“I slapped the cuffs on the guy, it was my collar, while a female agent slapped the cuffs on Cara.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No, well, she asked me why I was home, that was it.”

“What happened next?”

“The FBI pulled her get out of jail free card, and threw the book at her. Because of her past crime of helping her friend fake being a lawyer, she had been on probation, not officially, but unofficially with the FBI. However, they still had a record on her. Because of her involvement with the drug dealer, she had no leg to stand on. What I didn’t know during the time, because I was undercover, but she had quit her job about three days after I went under. Since I had set up all the bills to be on auto pay from my account, she didn’t have to worry about bills.”

“I don’t normally swear, but damn. What happened next?”

“Scott left to go back to his base, and I dealt with the fallout. Because I was in the clear, I was able to continue my work, and I left Cara in the hands of the FBI. At first, they were going to go easy on her, but when they had proof that she was the one that contacted the people who laundered money for the scum sucker, they didn’t go easy after that.”

“Let me guess, if Cara didn’t do what she did, then the scum sucker would have piles and piles of cash lying around.”

“Exactly. It turned out there was literally a new judge on the bench and he hated drug dealers and their cronies with a passion. She gave Cara ten to fifteen with the possibility of parole after twelve.”

“Holy shit, isn’t that harsh?”

“Yes, but she wanted to set an example to anyone else who ever came before her. Cara’s case was her first one as a newly appointed judge. She does have the reputation that you don’t want to go in front of her if you aren’t guilty.”

Duane sat back and scrubbed his face hard. He looked at Laurie with a heavy sigh. “You had asked if Cara would pop up anytime soon, and I said no.”

“That’s correct.”

“Six months ago, I was told to take a desk job or retire. At that time I was three months away from my twenty-fifth year with the Bureau. I asked if I could have those three months to decide. They granted them. I came here to talk to Scott. He is the only family I have left. Anyway, as I was being told that I would not be doing field work any longer, I got a call from the Parole board at the prison. They said that Cara would be released within the next month. They stated time off for good behavior.”

“I sound like a broken record, but what happened?”

“I took a few days off, came here to see and talk with Scott, and while I was here, Erin offered me the job of head of security.” He snorted a laugh along with Scott, and shook his head. “Hell, I’m the only security, but I like it here, so I said yes. Cara was released on the day I was told, and apparently no one was there to pick her up. I served her divorce papers before she was even tried, she never liked Scott, and he was in the military, so he wasn’t at her trial. I don’t know if she ever reached out to him after she went away.”

“She didn’t. The last time I saw my sister was when she was being led away in handcuffs from the apartment.”

“When I was here, I talked extensively with Scott about what to do with Cara. He suggested to contact his parents. On my way back to LA, I drove, I stopped by to have a chat with them. Though they welcomed me, they were indifferent as to Cara’s plight.”

“What exactly was her plight?” Laurie asked as she stood, and used her cane to go to the sink. She drained the eggs, grabbed several paper towels, and a clean bowl. She came back to the table and began peeling the eggs, and was shocked when both men started to help her.

“Her plight was that no one wanted anything to do with her, and no one agreed to pick her up from the prison when she was released.”

“Do you know what she did?”

“According to prison records, she had a feeling no one would be there for her, so the night before her release, she called that drug dealer’s buddy and said she was getting out. Oh, in case I didn’t say this already, while Cara received ten to fifteen, that scum sucker received life. It turned out that some of his product was being stepped on and it caused about seven deaths.”

“What’s that mean? ‘Stepped on’?”

“The drugs were tainted with other chemicals that were supposed to enhance the high, it turned out it caused increased heart palpitations, which led to a heart attack, then ultimately death.”

“Shit, what next?” Laurie asked, and shook her head. “I feel like I’m watching a train wreck.”

“You are. It turned out the person she called was the scum sucker’s twin brother. He took over the business after the trail, but his stuff was pure, not stepped on. He said he would have someone there to pick her up. There are records showing that ten minutes after he got the call from Cara, he called the prison his brother was in. They spoke in code, that members of the FBI were familiar with. Now remember, no one knew what was happening until it was too late.” Duane studied the egg in his hand without seeing it. Laurie looked at Scott, and he winced when Laurie reached over and took the crushed egg from Duane’s fingers. She could only thank her stars the egg had been hard-boiled and not raw. She didn’t say anything, waiting for Duane to get his thoughts together. It took a couple of minutes, but he just brushed his hands off, picked up another egg and concentrated on peeling it while he continued his tale.

“As best anyone knows, Cara was picked up and taken to the twin and his base of operations. That’s all we know. We never would have found her if several informants hadn’t come forward. Apparently, the twin blamed Cara for his brother going to prison for life. He vowed at the sentencing he would get revenge on her.” Duane looked at her sadly. “As much as I fell out of love with her, and I knew that she had turned into a bad person, I never wanted any ill will done to her.”

“What happened?” Laurie asked gently as she laid her hand over his forearm. She liked that he laid his over it and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“They found her body four days later. The tox screen showed she had so many drugs in her system it was impossible for her to inject them herself. There is also the fact that she had never, ever taken drugs before. When she helped the scum sucker, it was all about the money, never the drugs.”

“She wouldn’t even take an aspirin unless absolutely necessary,” Scott said sadly as he shook his head and wrapped his arm around Julie’s waist. No one had realized she’d come home from work.

“As best we can tell, the case is still ongoing, she was picked up by the twin, taken somewhere, and beaten. She also had puncture marks between all of her toes, and beneath her fingernails. The were no contents in her stomach, except for the normal stomach acids, however, some of the drugs in her systems are known to be in pill form. Based on the tox screen, it is believed that the drugs were liquified and injected into her.”

“Don’t forget her wrists and ankles.” Scott mentioned.

“Oh, yeah, she had been restrained while they injected her with meth, coke, heroin, ecstasy, you name it, whatever drug was currently hot on the market, was in her body.” Duane shook his head. “I know I don’t sound remorseful, and I’m sorry she had to die like that, but my love for her died years ago. I don’t even feel numb about what I learned. Again, I was labeled not a suspect because I was undercover when this all went down. I was never given an exact date she would be released, I was told ‘within the next thirty days’. The case is still ongoing, and based on the evidence, the twin is in custody.”

“I’m so sorry,” Laurie said as she reached out and put a hand on Scott’s forearm as well.

“Thank you, but there’s nothing that could be done.”

Manny and Ann rejoined them then, and Julie asked what everyone was going to make for the BBQ. That gave Duane and Scott the time to shake off their sadness, and it wasn’t long before they were all peeling eggs and talking about their day as they got ready for the BBQ that would be starting in about an hour.