Chapter 14
Moto had all but given up on Ben showing his face tonight at all.
For two hours, the men of HERO Force had been going over evidence in Ben’s case with Laney, and the bastard couldn’t even be bothered to join them.
Moto was livid and questioning his brother’s innocence as they went over the case against him.
He wanted to believe Ben wasn’t guilty, and he wondered if that was coloring his interpretation of the facts.
The coroner’s report was a grim and detailed explanation of a horrible death from suffocation and the physical effects of dropping a dead body almost a hundred feet onto granite boulders.
It was the kind of grizzly death that would drive a jury to convict, to want to hold someone accountable, and Moto feared his brother would be it.
Far away in the Atlanta office of HERO Force, Logan was hard at work on the case, gleaning everything he could on DeRegina’s operations and his past activity at the Port of Savannah.
They needed to know how to stop him, and looking at how he’d most recently been foiled seemed like a good place to begin.
Moto leaned over the crime scene photos as Trace used a capped pen to outline the tread of the tire track clearly defined in the mud.
“Based on the weather that night,” said Trace, “the ground would have been damp enough to leave good impressions like these. Either this is the vehicle of the person who killed the federal agent or the killer and the agent magically appeared on that cliff.”
“Could they have been on foot?” Laney asked.
Trace shook his head. “No, the ground was too soft. See this?” He rummaged for another photograph and put it on top of the pile.
“These have to be the footprints of the killer. They go from the tire tracks in the last picture to the edge, then back again, but without these drag marks alongside them.”
“Our victim,” said Moto.
“That’s right. Clues don’t get more obvious than this. Unless you’ve got kids cliff-jumping off of here, somebody went over that edge and died—our dead federal agent.”
Laney shook her head. “No cliff-jumping. It’s all boulders at the bottom. Water’s not more than five feet deep.”
A knock sounded on the hotel room door, and Razorback moved to answer it. “Those are your killer’s tracks right there, tire and shoe prints,” said Trace.
“And they don’t match Ben’s shoes and vehicle?” asked Moto.
Laney shook her head. “The shoes are three sizes too small, and the tires are from an SUV or minivan. He drives a sedan.” She sighed heavily. “The investigator says that doesn’t rule him out.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” agreed Trace. “He wouldn’t be the first perpetrator to wear uncomfortable shoes to throw police off the scent.”
“I didn’t do it,” said Ben from behind them.
Moto turned to glare at his brother. He looked bad, the side of his face swollen like he’d just lost a fight. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Ben crossed to the conference table, sat and dropped his head into his hands. “The warehouse.”
“What happened to your face?” demanded Moto.
“DeRegina’s men are watching Davina’s house!”
Moto furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to see the warehouse for myself. See if they were really going to use it to import drugs. So I went down there—”
A red haze of anger colored Moto’s vision. “Jesus Christ, Ben.”
“I had to do a walk-through. I wanted to see it with my own eyes, and they were there.”
“Who?”
“DeRegina and his men! They were unloading fifty-gallon drums and putting them in the warehouse. They found me snooping around and brought me inside. Knocked me around a bit.”
Laney gasped and covered her mouth. “Are you okay?”
“No. He knew you were back in town, Zach. He knew everything. He knew you threw the ball to the dog with Wyatt. He knew I went to see Davina tonight. They’re watching the goddamn house.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Moto.
Ben shook his head. “It gets worse. DeRegina said their first shipment is arriving tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” barked Razorback.
“He said it was supposed to dock in Georgia, but there was a problem and it’s been sitting out at sea.” Ben’s face crumpled. “He told me I did a good job getting the closing on the warehouse moved up. I was sitting there bleeding, and the dickhead told me I did a good job.”
Moto was already moving. “First things first. We need to set up a perimeter and get those motherfuckers away from Davina’s house.
Then we make a plan for tomorrow.” His Sig Sauer was holstered at his side, but he took two more firearms from a stock of weapons HERO Force had on the sideboard.
He shot a look at Laney and did a double take.
She was crouching by Ben’s side, touching his face and talking quietly.
“Ben?” His brother looked up. There was fear in his eyes, fear and something darker Moto couldn’t name. “You come to the house tonight, too. I don’t want you fending for yourself on this one.”
Ben nodded.
Of course he would come. Their family was being threatened. Ben had every right to be there, maybe more right than Moto himself.
Razorback was barking orders. “…need them safe. We can’t have them in a vulnerable position when shit goes down at the warehouse. I’ll call the feds. With DeRegina here, this could be our chance to nail him. We’ll meet you at the house. Moto, get Davina on the phone.”
“Already on it.” He held it to his ear. “Come on, pick up.” It rang several times before going to voicemail. He hung up and cursed under his breath. “No answer.” He turned to Ben. “Did he imply they were in imminent danger?”
“Not exactly.” Ben sobbed once, the stress clearly getting to him. “He said if I loved them, I should be careful.”
“Jesus Christ. Let’s go.” Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he led the way to the parking lot beneath the building.
Ben got in the passenger seat. “This is all my fault.”
Moto zipped around the curves of the parking garage, anxious to get onto the open road. “What is?”
“Everything. All of it. Mom and Dad died because of me.”
“For fuck’s sake, don’t do this now.” He paid the toll and headed for the expressway.
“I knew this job was too good to be true. I knew it wasn’t on the up-and-up. But I fucking did it anyway because I wanted the money. I wanted to be somebody.”
“There’ll be plenty of time later to beat yourself up. Right now, we’ve got to focus on protecting Davina and Wyatt.”
“I wanted her for myself. I could have told you about the baby. I could have told you she wasn’t doing well and needed help. But I wanted to play the knight in shining armor. I wanted her to depend on me.”
“Fine. You’re a terrible person. Now shut up and let me concentrate.”
“And you! You always had to be in control. You saw your opportunity to get out and you took it. You didn’t listen to Davina’s explanation of what happened between us because you wanted an excuse to leave. You were a selfish, arrogant fuck. You still are.”
Moto couldn’t believe this ridiculous conversation. “What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“Did you love her?”
“Hell yes.” The knee-jerk response and the depth of emotion that filled him were a shock to his system.
He had loved her, goddamn it. She’d been everything to him.
But the moment he turned his back on her and went away, he began telling himself a lie—a lie he could see now he’d never really believed.
“Then you were supposed to take her with you.”
Moto stared at the road whizzing by as the pieces clicked into place. The truth in his brother’s words was striking, a long-needed explanation of what had gone horribly wrong in his life. He had left here to save himself, just as surely as he’d left Davina behind, pregnant with his child.
All of Ben’s accusations—that Moto was a selfish jerk who cared only for himself—had been true. He’d convinced himself Davina had been unfaithful, when he had barely believed it himself.
The younger version of himself stood right before him, full of fault and horror at what he had done, and he longed to forgive the boy he had been, tell him everything would be okay. Warn him not to walk away from the people he’d loved.
Moto exited the expressway and turned toward Davina’s street. If he was going to get past this, there was one thing he needed to know. “Are you in love with her?”
“I was.”
Moto fumed silently as he drove, pulling into the driveway and throwing the car in park. Davina stood up from the swing on the front porch, arms folded as she walked to the railing and looked at Moto, her stare locking with his.
“But I’m not anymore,” said Ben. “She was your girl, even after you were gone. Looks like maybe she still is.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Don’t fuck it up this time, you selfish prick.”