Chapter 7 #2
She went inside, and I decided that standing outside speculating about who was or wasn’t in that car wasn’t getting me anywhere.
I took out my key fob and pushed the button to unlock the door.
I made a run for my car, and as soon as I slid into the driver’s seat, I pulled the door shut behind me and quickly pressed the switch to lock it.
I looked over at the car, and the guys inside hadn’t made a move to get out.
I let out a relieved sigh. They were probably just a couple of harmless guys, and my imagination was running wild, but who could blame me?
A little over a week ago, I’d seen someone get kidnapped in a dark alley.
That was enough to make anyone paranoid.
I put the car into drive and started to pull off. I hadn’t been kidding when I told them I planned on collapsing when I got home. I’d been on my feet for seven straight hours with no breaks, and I was exhausted.
The exit that would make it the easiest for me to hit the Cane’s drive-thru on my way home took me past where the black car was parked.
I was locked inside my vehicle, and that made me feel safe enough to drive by a little slower than normal and see if I could get a good look at the guys inside.
Unfortunately, from the back, I couldn’t make out their features.
I did memorize the tags, though, just to be safe.
I would give Officer Russo a call and give him the tag number later, just in case it was them.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for thinking to get the number until I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw them backing out of the parking spot.
Surely they weren’t going to follow me. I took a deep breath.
I had no idea how long they’d been sitting there.
They were probably just finished shopping, and it was a coincidence that they were leaving at the same time I was.
There were no cars coming, so I made a split-second decision and made a right-hand turn even though I was in the left turn lane, and sure enough, they also turned right.
Which could still be a coincidence. We were in a busy shopping area, so there were tons of places they could be headed that would mean they had to turn right.
I put on my blinker and moved into the left turn lane, keeping an eye on the traffic behind me.
The black car was a couple of cars back, but they also moved into the turn lane.
I did that a few times, basically going in a large circle, and after a series of turns, I found myself right back where I started, with the black car still behind me.
They were still a few spots back, and it was a pretty nondescript sedan, so if I hadn’t seen the license plate earlier, I probably wouldn’t have known it was the same car.
I tapped my finger nervously on the steering wheel.
Okay, decision time, Jules. You can’t lead them back to Miranda’s house, and you can’t let them follow you home.
So what to do? What to do? Then it hit me.
I knew a place that would be safe. It had plenty of cameras, lots of security, and a man who’d made me promise to call him if I was in trouble.
I figured a visit was just as good as a call, right?
Decision made, I cut through a parking lot and came out on the far side, then turned my car towards downtown. Looked like I was going to pay Three Bears Tactical a visit.
Gator
I spent all day Saturday out at the camp with Crowe planning for a group of law enforcement agents. After we’d worked together as a team the other day, I’d actually been glad when he’d asked me to come out again.
When I got back to the office, I stuck my head in Wolfe’s office.
We didn’t technically work on Saturdays, but that was the problem with living in the building where you worked.
It was easy to lose track of things like days off.
I found him and Hawk both there, discussing whether we should take on a new case.
I knew right away which one they were talking about, because Hawk had already briefed me on it the day before.
“We talking about the Ziegler job?”
“We are,” Wolfe answered.
“I know it’s a pain in the ass, but they’re willing to pay top dollar, so I think we should do it.
What do you think?” Hawk looked over at me, knowing I would agree with him.
Wolfe didn’t like it when we took overseas jobs because that put our guys too far away for us to get to them quickly if they needed help.
I understood why he felt that way, but this was a simple enough job.
One of our client’s college-age daughter was going on a two-week trip to Morocco, and he wanted someone to go with her to keep her safe. “It’s only for two weeks.”
Wolfe sighed. “I know you’re right. And I know these kinds of jobs are where the money is. Who’s up in the rotation?”
“Knox is up next.”
“Okay, send him. At least he has the right temperament to deal with a nineteen-year-old socialite. Lord knows I couldn’t do it.”
Just the thought of Wolfe trying to wrangle a teenage girl on vacation in Morocco was enough to make me laugh.
“I don’t know. I can totally see you enjoying a camel ride. You would—”
“Wolfe, is Gator in with you?” Janna’s voice came over the intercom, interrupting my thought. She manned our front desk downstairs, and she normally went through Caden, so if she was buzzing us directly, something urgent must be going on.
“I’m here, Janna.”
“I have a young man down here. His name is Julius Petros. He says someone’s following him, and he’s asking for you.”
I stood up quickly and headed for the door. “Tell him I’m on my way down.”
“Did you lock the doors?” Wolfe asked.
“I did. As soon as he said someone followed him here, I initiated first-floor lockdown.”
“Good job, Janna,” I heard Wolfe say as I rushed out of his office and hurried towards the stairs.
With things locked up downstairs, I knew Jules was safe, but I still felt the need to get there as quickly as possible. I’d agreed to let the police handle this, but if these guys had found Julius, that was done. What had been a problem for the police department had just become a problem for me.
I made it down the eight flights of stairs in no time and burst through the door into the large open entrance of our reception area. Janna was sitting behind the front desk like always, but Julius was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I sent him to the breakroom to get something to drink. I didn’t think having him stand here in front of the windows was the best choice, even if they are bulletproof.”
“There’s no such thing as—” I started automatically.
“I know. It’s resistant, not bulletproof.” She rolled her eyes. “But bulletproof sounds so much better.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that some men were following him, so he came straight here. Then he asked for you. I didn’t ask for details.”
I huffed out a breath and nodded. “And no signs of whoever was following him?”
“The monitor showed a suspicious car that made a pass through the garage. I’m sure Kat can get something off the video footage, but they didn’t stop.”
“Okay, I’m going to take him upstairs. Let’s keep the doors locked to anyone coming in until Kat is sure you’re safe down here.”
I didn’t think that anyone who knew Three Bears Tactical’s reputation would dare to enter this building, but for all we knew, these guys had no idea who we were, and I wouldn’t bet Janna’s safety on them knowing.
She nodded, and I headed for the breakroom. It was a small area off to the side with a refrigerator and microwave, a table, and a coffee pot. Julius was sitting at the table, picking at the label on a water bottle. He looked up when I entered the room and let out a relieved sigh when he saw me.
“You okay?” I asked, and he nodded.
“I’m a little shook up, but I’m okay.”
“So you say you thought guys were following you?”
“Yeah. I made a bunch of weird turns just to make sure, and they stuck with me all the way here.”
“That was really smart, and so was coming here. Now let’s go upstairs, and you can tell me the whole story. Then we can see if we can figure out who these guys are.”
I held out my hand to him, and he took it, letting me pull him up. I pulled him into a hug, and he relaxed into me. I let out a relieved breath now that I knew he was alright. “Okay, let’s get you upstairs.”
I waved at Janna as we went by to the elevators. As soon as we were on, he leaned back against the wall and let out a long breath. I reached over and pressed my thumb to the pad before pushing the button to take us to the ops center.
As soon as the elevator started moving, Julius sighed. “Fuck, that was stressful.”
“I bet it was. Most people go their whole lives without ever evading a tail.”
He let out a wry chuckle and opened his eyes. “Gator, I’ve never been most people.”
“And thank God for that, sugar.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin as the doors opened. We stepped out into what we called our operation center. There wasn’t a lot going on today, which was a good thing because that meant Kat would be able to focus on finding out who these guys were and why they were following him.
“Wow.” Julius looked around the ops center. “This is impressive.”
Sometimes I forgot just how large this area was.
The building had previously been the corporate headquarters of a home goods store, and this floor had housed the customer service call center.
It was bigger than we needed at this point, but Wolfe’s had a vision for Three Bears where we would have multiple teams out in the field and would need space for investigators and handlers for each team.
“If you think this is impressive, wait till you see Kat’s setup. She runs our IT department. She has monitors galore and every other kind of tech you can imagine. We’d be lost without her.”
I led him across the room to Kat’s work area. She looked up when she saw us and motioned to a couple of chairs. “I’m already on it. Janna alerted me to the situation.”
She pulled up a static image of a black sedan and zoomed in on the face of the guy behind the wheel. “Do you recognize this guy?”
Julius leaned forward to get a closer look. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know his name, but he was one of the guys who was out in the alley that night.”
She nodded and switched to another image. “And this one?”
Julius shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen him before.”
She pulled the first image up. “This is Ronald Digby, aka Rocco Digs.”
Julius scrunched up his face. “Ronald? Really?”
I laughed. “That’s probably why he goes by Rocco. So he’ll sound tough.”
He turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. “Really, Gator. Tell us all about how you might choose another name to sound tough.”
Kat chuckled, and I didn’t get a chance to respond because she continued with her briefing. “He has an arrest record a mile long, but no convictions, so he has someone in his corner.”
“So if he was driving the car, I guess there’s no chance it was my imagination he was following me then.” Julius let out a sigh.
“Nope. I pulled up some of the CCTV footage between your shop and here, and they were definitely following you. You did a great job evading them, though.”
She went back to her keyboard and started typing. “I also managed to get the tag number—”
“CSF one-three-two-seven,” Julius said. “I did, too.”
“Right.” Kat gave him an approving grin. “And it’s registered to a shell company called Marawood Holdings. It’s going to take some digging for me to find out more, but I’ll get there.”
“I don’t know how they found you.” Gator shook his head. “Someone must have told them who you were.”
“I don’t think so. I saw one of the guys at the wedding today.”
“What were you doing at a wedding?” he asked.
“My job, Gator. I was doing my job.”
He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “I know, I’m sorry. Tell us what you saw.”
I explained what happened to both of them, and Kat nodded along.
“That’s a good lead, Julius. Hopefully that will help us identify him.”
“Do you think that’ll help you find the boy they took?” Julius asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll send what I have to both Carmine and to Chance Kelly.”
“Chance Kelly? That’s the FBI agent you mentioned, right? Are they investigating this? Cause Officer Russo is the only person I’ve talked to.”
“They aren’t officially investigating it, but because of the stuff that happened here with Mika’s ex, he wanted to be kept updated on this just to be safe.”
“Okay.” He turned to me. “So what now? I was staying at my sister’s place, but I have a teenage niece living there. I can’t put them in danger.”
“I agree. You can stay here. Our security is top-notch.”
He looked around. “Here?”
“Well, not on this floor.” I laughed. “The ninth floor is made up of apartments where most of the Three Bears employees live. We also have a couple of empty ones that are available to use in situations like this.”
I wanted to suggest he stay with me, but he had enough to deal with right now without me taking advantage of the situation.
I saw a flash of disappointment before he took a breath and slumped down in his seat, looking exhausted. “I guess that would be okay.”
I reached over and lifted his chin, making him look at me. “Baby boy, there will be plenty of time for us to finish what we started the other night, but if they found you, I have to prioritize your safety. That has to be my focus right now, okay?”