Renegade (Trackers #2)

Chapter One

RAVEN

When I walked into the office much later than I’d expected, Judy informed me she’d just made a fresh pot of coffee since Miguel had already polished off the first by himself .

I was headed back to our shared office space where I knew the love of my life would be, wondering how jumpy he’d be after “polishing off” six cups, albeit small ones since that’s the only size mugs we had in the office. I made a mental note that we’d have to talk about his need for so much coffee. It just wasn’t healthy, and lord only knew he was nearly eight years older than my twenty-nine. He obnoxiously dispelled the notion about his vitality when he got up and ran five miles every morning before I even got out of bed, though. Having a body like Miguel’s didn’t happen on its own, after all.

Judy’s voice stopped me halfway out of the main office to tell me a new client had called, and Miguel had already spoken to them. I nodded and went back to our office, doing my best not to skip at this turn of events. We’d only recently placed an ad advertising our services, so having a new client was nice to hear. Though I didn’t share much about our finances with Miguel due to his nervousness about money and how he thought he was sponging off me, I’d become a little concerned when our client base wasn’t growing as rapidly as I’d hoped. I had a healthy amount of savings but not having jobs at hand was slightly worrying. The two piddly jobs we’d done over the last month since our grand opening, hadn’t given us a large influx of cash, so I welcomed the news of a new client.

“Hey, babe,” I said, breezing into the office and walking over to Miguel who sat behind his desk tapping a pen on the blotter and staring at the computer screen. I bent down and pecked him on the lips as I tossed my jacket in the general direction of my desk chair, situated several feet from his.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he replied, using the nickname that always made me feel warm inside. He kissed me and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me closer as I straightened. I ran my hand over the back of his short hair and smiled at him. “We have a new client.”

He lifted my T-shirt and kissed the bare skin of my belly, trailing his lips across the puckered scar from the bullet wound in my side. Both wounds, front and back, had healed up nicely after three months, leaving only small, round scars but Miguel often reminded me they were there when he left trails from his lips behind.

The wounds didn’t hurt anymore, and his lips tickled pleasantly.

I bent and kissed the top of his head and then pulled away, dropping my T-shirt. “Tell me about this new client.” I walked over to my desk, grabbed my jacket, and hung it on a rack in the corner before sinking down into my faux-leather chair. Miguel hadn’t questioned my choice of chairs for us. They weren’t actually made of leather, but he didn’t know the difference. I just didn’t like populating my space with the skins of dead animals.

I made one exception, though. I really liked the leather jacket Miguel had produced from the pile of boxes when he finally got around to unpacking and hanging them inside the house…or rather, I really liked the way it looked on him.

Before he could say anything, Judy came bustling into the office holding out a mug of coffee. She was smiling brightly. “I told you I just made a fresh pot.”

I’d been so consumed with the thought that we had a new client, that I’d completely put the need for coffee out of my mind. I smiled when she handed it to me. She’d made it just the way I liked it but then again, we’d been working together a long time. “Thanks, Judy.” I took a sip. It was perfect. After she’d left, I turned back to Miguel. “Okay, now tell me about the client.”

“The message was from an attorney who said he was handling the estate of the late Mr. Flores.”

“Okay,” I said, taking another sip. “What does this attorney want us to do?”

“He didn’t go into a whole lot of detail. He said his client was Mrs. Flores and that a priceless piece of jewelry was missing from the estate.”

“They must be looking at a list of items from a will or some such,” I said.

“That’s probably right. I mean you’d know better than I would but there’s no doubt a list of valuables which are insured unless this is something so valuable—”

“Like the Mulberry diamond,” I said, grinning.

He returned my smile. Our first meeting had taken place while trying to retrieve just that thing. I no longer saw the incident where Miguel had tackled me as well as the thief to the ground, as something inconvenient, but instead, with great fondness. Had that reward for the recovery of the diamond not been posted by my previous employer, Miguel and I might never have met.

“I couldn’t resist,” Miguel said, finishing his thought. “Anyway, the attorney—Mr. Aston—said that a priceless piece of jewelry was missing and he wanted to hire us to recover it.”

“Good. So, where’s his office?” I picked up my phone and pulled up my map.

“They want to meet at the Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas because it’s safer,” Miguel replied.

I looked up sharply, frowning. “Safer?” I made air quotes.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Miguel replied. “First, Aston asked me if we carry guns and then he told me he wants to meet there because it’s safer. I guess they have an outdoor seating area where he thinks we won’t be overheard or whatever. He considered it safer even though my preference would have been a sturdy wall at my back.”

I was nodding. “I’ve been there several times. Great Mexican food and drinks, and yeah, they have a huge patio area that runs along the whole length of the restaurant from front to back. They have those outdoor heaters on the patio, so you can sit outside in most weather. It’s south of the 101 Freeway at Valley Circle Boulevard.” I paused, thinking about the restaurant. It had probably been five years or more since I’d been there. It was a nice place…without a fucking wall in sight.

“What’s this about the gun and the safety thing? There’s only one way in from the parking lot because they serve alcohol, and they don’t want kids walking in and out indiscriminately. There’s a guard posted who checks IDs and I was always carded when I tried to access the patio for happy hour. I’m pretty sure there’s two or maybe three doors that lead directly from the patio to the restaurant itself and if I remember, they’re always in use because the bathrooms are located inside.”

“Yeah, okay,” Miguel said. “It’s not that, though. It’s the request that we be armed. Why would he specifically ask whether we both carry guns?”

“You didn’t ask him?”

He shook his head. “He was kind of abrupt. He just set a time and the place for the meeting, and I said we’d be there. I guess we should go armed.”

I frowned deeply. “I don’t like the idea of that at all.”

“Should I have turned him down?” Miguel asked.

He was frowning. I knew he wouldn’t object if I rejected the job, but I also knew we couldn’t afford not to go meet with the attorney and his client if it meant money in our pocket. We had bills to pay. “No, we have to go.”

He nodded. “Okay, so I’m going to continue checking out whatever I can with regard to this Flores woman and her attorney. It’d be nice to be armed with that information as well as weapons. I don’t have a gun here at the office, so we’ll have to go home before the meeting anyway.”

Neither of us kept our guns at the office. I kept my brand-new Glock at home in my gun safe right beside Miguel’s. I’d bought it at his insistence when we’d started Trackers, somehow never expecting to use it except at the gun range where we’d been going every weekend for the past two months for target practice. I hated the thing. I hated the very idea of using a gun. But because we lived daily with the possibility of violence on the job, and especially after being on the receiving end of a gunshot, I knew guns were a necessary evil. Not to mention the fact that we’d been shot at while chasing down Howell Jr. I still didn’t believe in guns, but I tried to distance myself from that thinking. Miguel had taught me to think of a gun as a tool, and only that. I had to admit, it helped me sleep a little better.

I spent the next few hours going through banking records for the Flores estate. At the outset of our new business, I’d explained that Judy was an excellent skip tracer, but I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about her other skills. In short, she was excellent on the computer, accessing spaces on the dark web with ease, doing searches I wouldn’t or couldn’t have found on my own.

Because the deceased Mr. Benedict Flores was part owner of a large Indian casino out in the California desert as a member of the tribe himself, his corporate records were easy to locate. They were the ones Judy was able to access easily. As it turned out, Mr. Flores was a multi-millionaire, having half ownership not only in a casino, but multiple card rooms from California to Colorado. Gambling had made him rich, probably beyond his wildest dreams.

Then again, these were the corporate accounts.

Judy had also located an insurance policy that Mr. Flores had taken out on a great deal of very expensive jewelry, including a very rare pigeon’s blood ruby, which was insured for upward of two million dollars alone. That stone was seven carats but only half an inch across in a deep raspberry coloring, set in a platinum pendant, surrounded by large diamonds. Judy showed me several photographs of Mrs. Flores wearing the pendant at charity functions over the last six months. Judging by the photos Judy attained, Mrs. Flores was a beautiful, young woman, half her husband’s age of fifty, and the moment I saw her, I smelled a rat. I was pretty good at sussing out fraud after many years in the recovery business, and when I showed Miguel what Judy had found, he agreed.

“What other assets does she have?” Miguel asked, bending over my desk to look at the photos of the couple on the monitor.

I tapped on my keyboard. “I found multiple joint bank accounts, adding up to about a million dollars in all.”

He nodded. “Where’s the rest of it?”

I looked up at him, reading the skepticism on his face. “There has to be more, right?”

Miguel chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Of course there is. The guy owns—owned—fucking casinos and card rooms, Sunshine. So, where’s all the money?”

“Right here.” Judy walked into the office with her iPad and put it down on my desk. “He’s got over fifty million in an offshore investment account.”

Miguel whistled, smiling at Judy. “Now we’re talking.”

“Who’s the beneficiary?” I asked, sliding the iPad toward me. “The wife?”

Judy nodded. “Well, it’s being held in trust to be paid out to her in time.”

I frowned. “How much time?”

“When she turns thirty,” Judy replied.

“That’s five years from now,” I said, not overly surprised that she didn’t want to wait for a big payday. I glanced up at Miguel to see him smiling. “Boyfriend,” we said at the same time.

“That’d be my guess,” Judy said. “Either that or she’s just exceptionally impatient.”

“Trust me, Raven, she didn’t marry a man twice her age for his good looks and charity work.”

“Murder?” I asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. “Maybe.”

I turned my eyes back to the iPad. “Did you find a death certificate for Mr. Flores, Judy? Maybe there’s an innocent explanation. Fifty isn’t that old and I’d bet money there’s a clause in the will that she won’t inherit if he dies under suspicious circumstances. If true, that means the death had to be from natural causes or an easily explainable accident or something. Was he sick?”

“There was a death certificate signed by his personal physician,” Judy said, swiping the pad. The document popped up as she pointed. “According to that, Mr. Flores died of an acute M.I.”

“He had a heart attack… huh, ” Miguel said. “Well, those are easily faked if you know how to do it.”

He could have read my mind.

“That was my first thought,” Judy said. “I’m still gathering his medical records to see if he had a lengthy history of heart disease or if the heart attack was something out of the ordinary. I’ll let you know as soon as I find something. You know those are more difficult to locate because of HIPAA.”

True. “Okay.”

She checked her watch. “It’s nearly two. If you’re going to swing by the house to pick up weapons before your meeting, you’d better get going.”

When I’d told her about the weapons the attorney insisted we wear to the meeting, she’d sent me a deep frown. She had an aversion to guns, especially considering she had young kids in public school. Who could blame her? I smiled at her. Judy really was a treasure. “You’re right as always, Judy.” I glanced at Miguel. “Should we get going then?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you at the truck,” Miguel said. “I need to use the bathroom before we go.” His stomach growled loudly. “Dammit,” he grumbled. “We should have stopped for lunch before now. I’m not eating in front of a client even though we’re meeting at a restaurant. The mere smell of food in the place is gonna kill me.”

“There’s Chinese chicken salad in the fridge,” Judy said. “You can spare five minutes to eat before you go.”

Sometimes I loved her mothering. I stood up and kissed her before following Miguel into the kitchen.

MIGUEL

We ate quickly and headed home, collecting our weapons, checking in on Dolly and Angelica, petting Stanley’s sleeping head where he was curled up in her lap, before heading out to the meeting. As Raven drove, I stared out the window, feeling the weight of the Glock in my shoulder holster which was now covered by a jacket. Raven was still unaccustomed to wearing a piece and it was funny to see him reach into his own jacket more than once to ostensively make sure it was right where he’d put it. We were going to have to work on the whole incognito thing, although I was quietly proud of how good he’d become with his marksmanship over the last two months.

By the time he parked in the Sagebrush Cantina lot, I was sweating, unaccustomed to wearing a jacket, even in February. I glanced around as soon as we were out on the patio, immediately spotting a big guy hovering about fifteen feet from a back table where Tawny Flores sat with a guy dressed in a business suit. I dismissed the couple at the table and focused on the bodyguard who appeared to be watchful, unsurprised to see the bulge in his jacket. The moment he looked our way, he straightened. He was as tall as me, but wider. I would have laughed at the glare he sent our way if I wasn’t trying to look menacing myself. He stepped forward, catching Tawny’s eye and nodding in our direction.

The moment she turned, she also sat up straighter, saying something to her companion that I couldn’t hear at this distance. He swiveled in his chair to look and stood, sliding manicured hands down his elegant suit as we approached. He smiled and held out his hand as soon as we walked over.

“Mr. Mathis…Mr. Huerta?”

“Yes,” Raven replied.

I didn’t reply, answering the greeting with a short nod. My better half was politer than me.

“Gregory Aston, at your service,” he said.

Raven took his hand first. “Raven Mathis.”

“Nice to meet you,” he replied, nodding pleasantly then turning to me. “Mr. Huerta.”

“Yes. Nice to meet you.”

“Let me introduce you to my client, Mrs. Tawny Flores.” He swept out a hand to her and she acknowledged us with a tiny nod. We politely nodded back. Aston pointed to the other two chairs, deciding the bodyguard didn’t need an introduction as he moved back into the shade where he’d been before. “Please, join us.”

“Thank you,” Raven said, taking a chair as I did the same. Our backs were to the busy restaurant, but I had the bodyguard in my direct line of sight. I knew if he was the least bit decent at his job, I’d spot anything happening behind us in his expression before we were caught off guard. It was simple to covertly watch him from behind my dark glasses.

Tawny Flores was beautiful, what I could see of her. She was blonde with skin so pale, it made her look fragile. She wore enormous, black-tinted sunglasses and oddly, hid her whole face behind black lace, which she’d pulled down from a pillbox hat, making it fall almost to her chin. Her lips were lush, her cheekbones high, and her slender neck disappeared into the high collar of a very expensive black dress. The only jewelry she wore was a strand of petite, white pearls and a very, very large diamond ring on her left hand. The round stone was at least five carats, perched like a beacon of sparkling light on her long, slender ring finger. While her attire was more suited to a funeral, she was the very picture of an elegant, young widow with her black dress and hat.

Mr. Aston wore expensive threads of his own. The bespoke black suit with subtle gray pinstripes, was beautifully tailored and I had to wonder at his hourly rate. Obviously, Mrs. Flores felt more comfortable with him at her side; but they were an odd pair sitting on this Mexican restaurant’s patio which was suited more for a Cinco de Mayo celebration or a girls’ night out with bottomless schooners of margaritas. I was glad we’d eaten at the office because the untouched tortilla chips and bowls of salsa in the center of the table were more tempting than I cared to admit.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Mr. Aston said. As I’d expected he would, he spoke in a strictly business-like tone. “As I briefly told you over the phone, after Mr. Flores’ death, I conducted an inventory of his papers as well as all of his earthly possessions. This undertaking was done in preparation for the division of assets in accordance with the wishes set forth in his will.”

“Yes,” I said. “And it was during this inventory that you found a piece of jewelry missing from his collection. Did I get that right?” I noticed her fingernails brush lightly over the strand of pearls, and noted her exquisite manicure, equal to Mr. Aston’s own. I returned my eyes to the bodyguard behind them, noting how his gaze flitted between the table and the entrance to the patio, then scanned the crowd every five seconds or so. I had to admit he was good.

“Yes, that’s so,” Mr. Aston said. “The piece in question is a pendant—a rare pigeon’s blood ruby which is worth in excess of two million dollars. Mrs. Flores last saw it when she wore it to the opening of a Bel Air art gallery last summer with her husband.”

“Losing something like that must be terrible, Mrs. Flores,” Raven said.

“Yes, it’s been in my husband’s family for generations,” she said in a tremulous voice. She was either a fantastic actress or was genuinely distressed. “I do hope you can retrieve it, Mr. Mathis.”

“That’s what Mr. Huerta and I do, Mrs. Flores,” Raven replied. “You said you last saw it when you wore it to the art gallery. Where did you put it when you got home that evening?”

“Back in its box and locked in the vault in our house,” she replied.

“You put it in the vault yourself?” Raven asked.

“No. I gave the box to my husband and he locked it away along with a pair of diamond cufflinks he treasures…treasured,” she corrected shakily.

“So, when you inventoried the safe, that’s when you found the pendant missing,” Raven concluded.

“Yes,” Mr. Aston said.

“And where is the safe located in the house?”

“In our…my bedroom,” Mrs. Flores replied.

“Do you know who might have had access to it?” Raven asked.

Mrs. Flores dropped the pearls and lifted her dramatic veil high enough to remove her glasses. She had very beautiful blue eyes which tipped up at the corners. They were wet with tears. The mascara she’d put on for our meeting had run just a little, and she immediately reached for a small, black, satin clutch sitting on the table in front of her. She snapped it open and pulled out a monogramed handkerchief and compact to begin dabbing at her eyes. Raven and I patiently waited while she repaired her face before dropping her hands to her lap, cloth in hand.

“No one could access it but my husband.” At this pronouncement, she decided she needed to add to the statement. “The only way to open it was with his thumbprint, so I hardly gave it a second thought. I can’t imagine Benny would have removed the pendant. There’d be no reason to do so. The only conclusion I could come to was that we must have been burglarized.”

“That’s purely speculation, Tawny,” Mr. Aston chided before turning to us. “No evidence of a break-in was found when the police were called. They found several other pieces of jewelry still in the safe including the valuable diamond cufflinks my client told you about. Therefore, it’s my belief that Mr. Flores removed the pendant himself, perhaps to store it somewhere else, but that’s why I initiated this meeting with you. We’d like you to recover the missing item and when that happens, you’ll be paid a tidy sum.”

“Okay,” Raven said.

“Why did you ask that we come armed and why do you feel it necessary to have a bodyguard?” I asked. At the mention of bodyguard, the man looked right at me.

“Bodyguard?” Mrs. Flores asked.

I lifted my chin, acknowledging the man standing several paces off. “Your man there. You didn’t introduce him, so I figured he was your bodyguard.”

She turned and beckoned him over. “Sal, come over here.” He walked over and she swiveled to look back at us. “I’m sorry. This isn’t my bodyguard. This is Salvatore Mancuso, my—” She faltered but recovered quickly. “Sal is a family friend. He’s a little overprotective and insisted he watch the patio for anyone who may be a threat.”

I felt Raven’s foot slide over to mine and bump my shoe at the mention of a family friend which he’d clearly heard as boyfriend, the same as I had.

Salvatore reached down and took the delicate hand she’d raised to him, squeezing it and offering her a stiff smile, saying nothing. She dragged her devoted gaze away from his and looked back at us as she dropped his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Raven said.

The man nodded, his expression returning to stoic the moment he glanced back up at us.

“So, nothing else was removed from the safe and it’s your belief that you were burgled,” Raven pressed. She nodded. “But the police ruled that out.” She nodded again. Raven leaned forward, deliberately lacing his fingers together on the table. “Assuming you’re right and the police are wrong, you still haven’t explained why you thought we should come to this meeting armed. Have you been threatened?”

Mr. Aston cleared his throat, and Raven and I both turned to look at him. “Tawny—Mrs. Flores hasn’t been threatened exactly.”

“What does that mean… exactly ?” I asked. I felt like we were being toyed with and I hated it.

“Shortly before Mr. Flores’ death, he began receiving threatening letters, delivered to his office.” Mr. Aston leaned forward. “You have to understand, my client—Mr. Flores—had holdings throughout the world and he traveled a great deal of the time. By the time he was aware he’d been receiving the letters, several weeks had passed and the letters had become—” He cleared his throat again, then reached into his pocket, producing an envelope. He held it out. “Read that. It’s the last letter he received.”

Raven hesitated before taking it, and Aston spoke up. “Oh, it’s okay to touch with bare hands. My in-house investigator has already checked it for prints and there weren’t any. Whoever sent it, wore gloves. Raven nodded and took it from his hand to examine the front, holding it between us so I could read it too.

“This is your last warnin, Flores. Give the stone back or we’ll kill you.”