Chapter Fifteen
RAVEN
“Where the hell are you?” I muttered to myself as I walked through the thick crowd. It had taken me a ridiculous amount of time to find the bar only to realize afterward that there probably wasn’t one when I spotted waiters holding trays of champagne flutes weaving their way through the crowd. I’d set down my nearly full glass and with an apology, picked up a new one before walking away. I’d gone back to where I’d left Miguel with the redhead only to find them gone and with a huff, headed off to find the two of them.
When I still hadn’t found them after ten minutes, I’d stopped a passing waiter and set the full glass down on his tray of empties and headed for the gardens. I’d already searched the entirety of the huge gallery, which was hot as hell with the laughing, milling crowd, and stepped out onto the patio overlooking the gardens. It was beautiful out here, although I could still catch the wet, damp scent of burned wood and shuddered. But with one-hundred-eighty-degree views of L.A., the tall buildings of downtown twinkled with a million brightly lit windows in the distance. I jerked my head when I heard a scream, only to see a couple break apart as Miguel barged between them. He shoved the man aside, almost toppling the blonde he’d been talking to, as he spotted me.
Anger at his rudeness was instantly replaced by worry as I spotted the expression of anguished terror on his face. He was panting hard as he barreled onto the patio, gun in hand. I was moving before I realized it. I ran toward him as his head turned and he spotted me. Several emotions washed over his features, worry, surprise, and then finally relief as he rushed toward me. Someone behind me screamed and a man shouted, “He has a gun!”
People began scattering like ants in all directions as he reached me. “Raven!”
“Miguel! What’s going on? What happened?”
For a brief moment we stood there staring at each other before I launched myself at him, wrapping him up in my arms. His chest was heaving, breaths coming hard as he turned his face into my neck.
“Jesus, Sunshine,” he gasped. “I didn’t know if they hurt you. She said they would hurt you.”
I heard shouts coming from somewhere off to our left and instantly turned my head. I realized three men were running in our direction, guns raised.
“Drop the gun!” one of them shouted.
I instantly let go of Miguel and stepped back, noticing that the patio was empty of anyone other than the two of us and the three burly security guards who’d stopped twenty feet away, pistols poised to shoot us both if we moved an inch.
“Drop the gun, dirtbag!” one of the guards shouted.
Dirtbag?
Miguel held out both arms at his sides, Glock in hand as he slowly squatted to set the gun on the ground. “I’m not a threat,” he said, gingerly laying the gun on the terrace before slowly standing straight, arms still out. “I’m law enforcement.”
I started to reach into my coat to pull out my bounty hunter credentials, when one of the guys swung his gun in my direction.
“Stop!”
“I only want to show you my credentials!” I shouted.
“Raven, stop!” Miguel sounded panicked as our eyes met and I instantly put up my hands.
“Will you listen to us?” he shouted, turning back to the three men.
“Who are you?” one of the guys growled.
“I told you. We’re law enforcement…recovery agents,” Miguel replied, opting for the truth. “I have credentials in my coat pocket.” He glanced at me and nodded. “So does he.” He looked back at the men who held their guns on us. “Will you please listen?” I could hear his breathing starting to return to normal. “We’re invited guests. Find Mrs. Flores or Mr. Aston. They’ll verify what we’re saying is true.”
“Mrs. Flores is one of the artist’s patrons,” I added. “Ten minutes ago, they were talking with one of the Kennedys. Please find them.” I knew I sounded like I was pleading, but I just wanted them to put their guns away. Having three of them pointed at us was ridiculous. I watched one guy look at another.
He spoke into a headset, presumably to the control room, “Please locate Mrs. Flores.”
The guard replaced his gun in a shoulder holster, before going back into the gallery doors which were crowded with onlookers and started ushering everyone back inside. The crowd of people began excitedly firing questions at him, no doubt about who we were and what was going on. He was joined by another guard controlling the situation.
“Recovery agents? Law enforcement?” the one who seemed to be in charge said. “Bounty hunters?” He looked like he was trying to keep a straight face.
“Don’t trust them, Cal,” the other one said. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five and he’d been the one who’d called Miguel a dirtbag. I wanted to laugh at the very idea of this guy who thought he was Dirty Harry just because he had a gun pointed at Miguel. If he knew half of what Miguel had done in service to this country, he would have shat his pants.
“If one of you wants to reach into my jacket pocket, you can see my credentials,” I said calmly.
“I don’t think so,” sneered Junior.
Cal muttered something else in his headset and was joined by two more security guys.
“Let’s just wait until our employer gets here,” Miguel said disgustedly. “You’ll find out who we are then.”
“Miguel, what happened?” I asked, still holding my hands in the air as I looked over at him.
“First, tell me if you’re okay,” he said, looking me up and down, frowning a little.
“I’m fine, Miguel.”
“No one touched you? Threatened you?”
“No. I spent ten minutes walking around looking for a bar to get that Cassanova woman a damned drink but then couldn’t find you.”
“You didn’t eat anything? Drink anything?” he asked, looking me up and down again.
I shook my head. “No, babe. Not even a sip of champagne. What the hell is going on?”
“So, you’re all right?”
I dropped my hands, waving them over my body. “Like I said, I’m perfectly fine, as you can see.”
“I. Said. Don’t. Fucking. Move!”
We both eyed up the two armed men as I lifted my hands in the air again. Miguel let out a low laugh. “Are you stupid? I just told you we’re law enforcement.” He gestured at the doorway. “Your security detail is getting the woman who hired us.”
“Buddy…if you move your hands one more time, I’m gonna blow your fucking nuts off!” Junior yelled.
“Easy,” said Cal.
Several people still being ushered back by security control started clapping, clearly thinking we were there to do them harm and steal all the Getty’s art. It was ridiculous.
“Stop yelling at him,” I shouted at the ignorant pair. My arms were getting tired.
“That’s it,” the young one said. He glanced at his boss. “Can I put him in handcuffs?”
Cal nodded sharply. “Do it, Billy.”
The young kid replaced his gun in its holster, missing it the first time and having to give it a second go before the weapon found home. The second he stepped forward, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Try it and I’ll end you, dirtbag .”
The guy stopped in his tracks, nervously looking between us as Miguel started to laugh. “Dirtbag?” he asked. “End him?” He laughed some more, clearly remembering what had happened when he’d told Ned the same thing as he’d threatened to spray Miguel with pepper spray
I gave him an innocent shrug, smiling. “He started it.”
“Down on your knees!” Cal said, gesturing to the ground with his gun.
“I’m not getting on my knees!” I shouted back.
“Neither of us are,” Miguel growled. He sounded like he wanted to strangle the guy.
“What’s happening here!”
We all turned to the doorway where Mr. Aston and Mrs. Flores were exiting the gallery as the sea of bespoke suits and couture gowns parted to let them through with a security detail. I’d never been so relieved to see two people in my life, but I kept my hands high in the air as the pair crossed the patio, coming at us.
“Put those guns down!” Mrs. Flores said. “Right now! These are my guests. How dare you treat them like this?” She clipped past them on high heels as the two men looked at her with a stunned expression. She wasn’t in her widow’s weeds this time. Mrs. Tawny Flores looked like she was worth about a billion dollars; she was gorgeous in a bejeweled, black evening gown, her blonde hair curled into an elaborate chignon on top of her head, wearing a strand of black pearls and matching earrings. Her full lips were painted a cherry red, and pursed with worry. I really hoped she didn’t have anything to do with the theft of her ruby because she was the last person I wanted to see behind bars. She was a society girl, but I liked her, especially the way she was looking us over as she walked right up to us with Aston and the guard who’d gone to get him following close behind.
“Are you two okay?” she asked, as she looked up at my hands. “Please lower your hands,” she said quietly before turning and glancing over her shoulder at the guards. “These men are my guests, and I am a patron of the Getty. If you don’t want to get sued for more than you’ll ever make in your entire lives, I’d put away those guns right now.” She sounded remarkably imperious for a woman of twenty-five. I was glad for it.
“ Ah …yes, ma’am,” Cal said. “Just doing our duty, ma’am.”
Aston found his voice as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a monogrammed, silver business card case. He took out an embossed card and handed it to the head of security who had now appeared. “My name is Gregory Aston Esquire. I just want you to know how sorely we both feel about this incident and the way our guests were treated.”
Several people clapped from the doorway, and it irritated me to know that we were still out here on display. I didn’t know what had happened to terrify Miguel so badly that he’d come charging up the stairs with his gun out. He’d peppered me with tons of questions, and it set off alarm bells in my head. My lover was not exactly the kind of man who got scared for no reason and I’d seen real fear in his eyes.
“That’s really not necessary,” Miguel said, smiling at Mrs. Flores as he replaced his gun in his shoulder holster. “I suppose they were doing their jobs, but we did tell them who we were and offer to show them our identification.”
I smothered a smile behind my hand. I’d almost wanted to see Cal and his two underlings get roasted just a little longer. Everything would’ve been so much easier if they’d just let us show our identification. They’d pointed a gun at the man I loved and nearly shot him. I’d seen the gleam in the youngest one’s eyes. He’d been itching for a reason to kill Miguel. They deserved to be on the hotseat.
“That’s extremely…interesting to hear, Mr. Huerta,” Aston said, looking at the guards and then at Miguel. The lawyer’s “interest” couldn’t have been clearer if he’d shouted it from the rooftops. “I’d be happy to talk to you two about your treatment here tonight.”
“That’s fine,” I said, sending Miguel a knowing glance. He nodded.
“Like my partner said, it’s fine. I assume we’re free to get on with our night?”
“Yes, once I get a statement from you. Of course,” said the head of security who introduced himself as Steve Parker.
“I’m so sorry to hear you were disturbed,” Mrs. Flores said, once more turning her back on the three guards. “What happened?”
I looked at Miguel. “Yes, what happened?”
“I had an altercation with one of the guests that I’d met inside the gallery,” Miguel replied, as he faced Mrs. Flores. “It seems she knew about your ruby and threatened me.”
Mrs. Flores’ hand flew to her chest, looking genuinely shocked. “She threatened you?”
I felt something like a brick in the pit of my stomach.
“What happened, Mr. Huerta? How did she threaten you?”
He turned to look at me and I could see the compassion in his eyes. “She had a knife but also had a partner hiding in the thick shrubs at the bottom of the garden.”
“What makes you think so, Mr. Huerta?” Parker asked.
“I’d need permission from Mrs. Flores and Mr. Aston to discuss the details of what we’re working on for them,” I said.
She nodded, eyes wide, and I briefly explained what our situation was.
“She told me that ‘they’ expect us to give them the ruby. When I said we didn’t have it, we were only hired to recover it, she didn’t want to take no for an answer. That’s when she pulled the knife,” said Miguel.
That wasn’t all of it. “How do you know she had a partner hiding in the trees, Miguel?”
He turned to look at me with a guarded expression. I knew whatever it was had to be bad. He didn’t want to tell me.
“Miguel?”
“He had a weapon aimed at me.”
I gasped. “No!”
He nodded. “She demanded the ruby. I said we didn’t have it, and she must have believed me because she left, saying she hoped it wouldn’t be too late to save you.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. He’d deliberately run up from the garden with a gun in his hand to find me. I felt sick to my stomach knowing how close he’d come to getting shot by one of the overly enthusiastic security guards when all he’d wanted to do was get to me as soon as possible. The Getty had state of the art surveillance systems and a twenty-four-hour control room. And I wondered if there was anything on the outside surveillance cameras. But I had a feeling there would be nothing identifiable. They knew what they were doing. There were so many things Miguel was leaving out like the fact that we’d been threatened in McNulty’s stairwell. We were going to get to the bottom of this when we were alone.
“So, that’s why you had a gun in your hand which aroused my guard’s suspicions?” Parker asked.
“Yes, the threat to my partner sounded like a legitimate one and I acted on instinct, not thinking about the weapon in my hand, just running as fast as I could to make sure Raven was okay.”
Parker nodded. “Okay, that makes complete sense.” He turned to me. “Were you also threatened?”
I immediately shook my head, wanting to reassure not only Aston and Flores that I was okay, but most of all, Miguel. “Not at all. I went to get a fresh flute of champagne for the woman who’d approached us but couldn’t find the bar. It took me a long time to realize there isn’t one and that the waiters were the only ones passing out drinks. When I returned to the spot in the gallery where I’d left Miguel with her, they weren’t around, so I spent a while looking for them. Figuring they might have come out here for some air, I left the gallery. I’d just come outside when I spotted Miguel running up from the garden.”
Parker nodded. “Who is the woman? Did you know her?”
We both shook our heads. “She came up to us while we were inside the gallery and started flirting with me,” Miguel said honestly. “She fit in with the crowd. Figuring I might be able to get some information out of her, I flirted back while Raven went to find her another glass of champagne at her request. Red dress, red hair. She was wearing about a million dollars in diamonds and rubies, and I thought she might know something about your ruby. It would have been a good lead had it panned out.”
“What was her name?” Mrs. Flores asked, looking very concerned as her brows furrowed.
“She claimed to be a woman by the name of Rosina Cassanova,” Miguel replied. “But I doubt she’d use her real name.”
“She’ll be easy to find on the surveillance cameras,” Parker said, dispatching four of his guards to take a look down in the garden, although we all knew they were long gone.
“My apologies to you, Mrs. Flores, and your guests,” the head of security said as he also issued a curt, “My office. Now,” to the men who’d originally accosted us. “When we have more information, we’ll contact you.” We all exchanged details, and they left.
“Did she say anything else about my ruby?” Mrs. Flores asked, very interested now.
Miguel shook his head. “No, but she knows we’re looking for it. I don’t know how she got that information.” He let the statement hang in the air for a few seconds before going on. “Maybe she thought we’d already found it and wanted us to hand it over. It’s hard to say. Maybe she and the person with the gun wanted to send us a message.”
“Well, I’d say, we’ve got the message,” Aston said. “I’m very sorry you went through that. And just for the record, I don’t know how your involvement in the recovery got out. It didn’t come from us,” he said quickly. He turned to Mrs. Flores with a frown. “We’re doubling your security.” He looked around. “Where is Mr. Mancuso anyway?”
“Salvatore wasn’t feeling well this evening, so I came here alone,” she replied, having gone quite pale as she put a hand to her pearls. “I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Butler by skipping his installation and it never occurred to me to worry that my life might be in danger at the Getty, surrounded by so many people, Gregory.”
“Considering what happened here tonight, I’d take Mr. Aston’s advice, at least until we recover the pendant, Mrs. Flores,” Miguel said.
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She turned back to her lawyer. “Will you see to it?”
He bowed. “With haste.”
I wanted to roll my eyes. If neither of them were involved in this case, they were sure putting on a good act. My gut told me Tawny Flores was just as innocent as she looked in the disappearance of the ruby. Perhaps she was up to her eyeballs in it, but I seriously doubted she had that kind of acting ability.
She turned back to us. “Please keep yourselves safe until this is done,” she pleaded. “If anything happened, I’d feel horrible.”
I exchanged a glance with Miguel before inclining my head.
“We always take our safety seriously, ma’am,” Miguel said.
“Was there…” I hesitated. “Was there someone you wanted to introduce us to tonight, Mrs. Flores?” All I wanted to do was go home and make sure Miguel was okay.
“No, oddly enough, none of my husband’s business associates ended up making the event this evening,” she replied. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you, especially considering the terrible ordeal you both went through.”
“You couldn’t have known, Mrs. Flores,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. She covered mine in hers, looking genuinely sympathetic.
“Not that big a deal, ma’am,” Miguel reassured her as they shook hands.
After doing the same with her lawyer, the two of us headed out of the Getty, getting lots of stares as we made our way through the large museum, headed for the truck.
“Now, tell me the rest, Miguel,” I said as he slipped into the passenger seat beside me, snapping his seatbelt into place.
“There’s nothing more than I told them. I swear it, Sunshine.”
But there was something and I couldn’t stand the fact that he’d just lied to me.
“I noticed you didn’t mention the incident in McNulty’s office, and I know you haven’t told me everything.” He squirmed in his seat, and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head. “Do you know who the guy with the gun was, Miguel?”
He glanced over at me and sighed. “I wanted to wait to tell you until we got home.”
“I’m not turning on this truck until you tell me what you’re leaving out.”
He sighed again, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. His head thunked back on the headrest and he rolled his head until he was looking at me. “She said John was the one in the trees…the one pointing the gun at me. But I know she was lying. He’d never do that.”
I wanted to scream at him that he didn’t know anything about what Sutter would do. He didn’t know him at all anymore. Instead, I just nodded and reached over to pat his thigh. “Okay, baby. If you say so.”