Chapter 38
“You sure you want to do this now?” Alex’s tone is carefully neutral.
I don’t know if that annoys me or not. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?” I just ate a piece of pie, pancakes, and drank probably too much caffeine. I’m absolutely ready to confront Kade Godoy. He pulled a gun on me. And he’s got information we want.
“Normally we do more recon on a place we break into. Or at least research the subject more.”
She’s right, we do. For the most part we use our covers as corporate pilots to plant listening devices and gather information most investigators can’t, simply because of the location.
But about ten percent of the time we indulge in breaking and entering—which is more than most people do in their entire lifetimes.
All part of our jobs, and I’m okay with it.
I’ve made choices I’m not proud of (back when I was drinking especially) but I stand by most of my decisions while investigating.
Rich assholes want to steal from the people who work for them?
I’m more than okay with bending the law to make sure they get caught.
They use the law to their advantage, and more often than not they work outside it.
Which means to take them down, I’ve got to work outside it too.
None of that matters right now because the truth is I’ll cross all the lines I never thought I would to find my sister’s killer.
Forget bending, I’m breaking things in half with a sledgehammer and then setting them on fire.
“Normally we’re not working my sister’s murder case.” Did I just play that card? Why yes, I did.
Alex simply sighs and gets out of her car. I follow after her. I left the BMW at the diner after Foxe assured me it would be safe. Apparently local cops frequent the place between the early morning hours of two and four, so no one will be messing with my vehicle.
Alex pops the trunk, then pops another hidden cover and pulls out her small lockbox where she keeps her gun. I’m not bringing mine, mainly because I don’t trust myself right now. I’m too keyed up.
As she finishes up in the trunk, I glance around the quiet neighborhood. She’s parked under an overhanging oak tree about three houses down from Godoy’s place. Or his dad’s place.
I saw two neighborhood watch signs on the way in, but they were faded.
Either way, we’re both wearing wigs and toques.
Mine is a pale blonde bob and my toque is a navy blue.
I don’t normally wear blonde wigs when breaking and entering at night—they tend to stand out—but in case any cameras catch us, I want to look different from my everyday self.
Not that I think Godoy is going to report us to the cops, but I still like to cover my bases. We even changed the plates on Alex’s car for good measure.
“You ready?” she asks.
“Yep.” As ready as I’ll ever be. We looked at a couple online listings from the last time this place sold and are using it as a guide for the house layout. Not very high-tech, but we’re working with what we have.
We also have a jammer to disable any security cameras, and Alex is a magician when it comes to breaking into security systems.
It doesn’t take long to walk around the neighborhood, to sneak in from the backyard behind Godoy’s, to disable the cameras, and then for Alex to work her magic.
She takes off her toque, then slips on a balaclava that hides even her wig.
I’m not going to bother because he knows who I am.
No need for him to get a look at Alex though.
She goes in first with her weapon up, but I’m right behind her, pepper spray at the ready. Is it weird that I really want to use it on him? Probably not.
Because, again, he pulled a gun on me.
Our boots are silent along the wood floors then carpet as we move into a dimly lit hallway. We clear the laundry room, living room and kitchen before we head into another hallway. This place is small, thankfully.
Alex motions with her hand to stop before she clears what turns out to be a bathroom. Okay, so the floorplan we had is right so far.
He’s in the last bedroom, snoring, a SIG on the nightstand.
I move in fast, pluck it up and tuck it away.
He doesn’t even stir.
There’s enough outside light from the street and neighbors’ houses that we have a good view of this prick. Look at him lying there without a care in the world.
Alex nods once at me. We talked out the plan on the way here so I simply nod back.
My rage spikes and I grab for the bottom of the comforter. I yank hard as she screams, “Wake up, asshole!”
Some days, I really love my job.
Godoy shoots up, his eyes wild as he reaches for the SIG that isn’t there.
“Don’t fucking move,” Alex snarls, her weapon trained on him. She’s adopted the faintest Russian accent, enough that he’ll remember it.
And I can only imagine how terrified he must be waking up to a woman in a balaclava and another one pointing his own gun at him. Turns out it didn’t matter that I didn’t bring mine.
“Hands in the air,” I snap.
His eyes ping-pong between the two of us, but they end up landing and staying on me. “Hey, you’re—”
“The bitch you pulled a gun on today.” Technically it was yesterday but that’s just semantics.
“Look, I’m sorry—”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Alex’s voice is ice cold, her faux accent a little thicker now. “It’s your turn to listen, Kade. Can I call you that? Good,” she says before he can answer.
Not that it looks like he’s going to say anything. Nope, he’s just staring at her now, mouth hanging open.
“Nod so I understand.”
He nods.
“You pulled a weapon on my associate. That was your first mistake.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Oh, I know you are. And you’re going to be even sorrier if you don’t give us exactly what we want. And when I say exactly, I mean every little thing. We know who you are, who your parents are—I saw you visiting your mom today over in Duvall.”
He pales at that, swallows hard.
“Okay so you understand the situation you’re in, right?”
He nods again.
“Good.” Alex smiles and it’s a little terrifying with the balaclava hiding most of her face. “First question, do you know where Hannah Brown is?”
“No.” His gaze shoots to me. “I’m looking for her. I thought since you were at her place, you’d know where she is. I’m sorry I scared you—”
“You can look back at me now. Second question, or more of a statement. We know that you blackmailed countless people in the Emerald Queen Gardens neighborhood. We want names, what you blackmailed them for, and how much. Every little detail.”
He stares at Alex in horror as his situation catches up to his brain. He opens his mouth and starts to sit up more, but she waves her gun slightly.
“Nope. No moving. Not until I say so.”
He goes almost preternaturally still, but his rapid blinking makes him look manic. This guy is a thief, and while he may have pulled a weapon on me, right now he doesn’t look like a hardcore criminal. He just looks scared and small.
“We know some of the people you blackmailed, but not all. So we have a list, just not a complete one. Why am I telling you this, you might be thinking? Because I want you to know that we have some names. And if you try to get cute with us and leave some off, there’s a high probability that we’ll know.
If that happens, the men who will visit you after me…
” She lets out a low whistle. “You’ll wish for the two bitches with guns, trust me.
You’ll beg for death. And they won’t give it to you. ”
He nods now. “I’ll give you all the names. If you just let me go to my office—”
“No.” She lifts her hand, a small signal to me.
I keep his gun trained on him as I leave, then return with a pad and paper, toss the two items to him.
He reaches for them even as he says, “I have a spreadsheet—”
“Password to your laptop, then,” I say, because I grabbed this from his office.
I saw the laptop sitting on the desk. “And which files I should open.” There’s a chance he’ll give me the wrong one or something that will wipe his computer later, but with the way he’s looking at Alex right now, I think he’s too terrified to lie.
He rasps out the password and other details, his gaze solely on Alex now as she gives him what I think of as her death stare.
I leave and find the files and hate that I’m impressed by how thorough he and Hannah were.
Probably too thorough, considering these records.
They should have kept only hard copies after a certain point, then deleted everything.
His password is complex, but still. This is way too much of a paper trail.
I print everything out, then peek around inside his computer for anything else that might be useful.
Then I text Foxe and we work quickly to establish a remote connection for her to back-door in later.
I have a feeling he’s going to ditch this computer, but just in case, I want to give Foxe access to any keystrokes he makes, anyone he contacts.
(I wish we were able to do that to Ava’s computer, but hers has way too much security.)
After I finish, I set everything aside then step back into the bedroom. “I got it all. Or I better have,” I add, looking at Godoy, who still has his hands raised.
“It’s all there, I swear. We didn’t hurt anybody! Those assholes were all cheating and deserved to pay.”
Ah, justification. I’m not immune to it either, but I don’t respond. Instead I pull out zip ties and order him onto his stomach. He complies quickly.
Alex doesn’t move from her spot. “If you try anything—”
“I’m not doing shit,” he says to Alex, definitely more afraid of her than me. Which, fair. “I didn’t know you were…connected or whatever. My gun wasn’t even loaded today. I just want to find Hannah. I think she’s in trouble.”
“Why do you think that?” I ask as I step back.
He awkwardly rolls over. “Apart from the fact that she’s missing?
I…think she might have been blackmailing someone without me.
Normally our marks don’t even know she’s involved.
And they never know about me. But this guy we targeted somehow figured out that she’d left him a blackmail message.
She decided to confront him and he was really weird about it. ”
“Weird how?” I ask even though I’m pretty sure it was Marcus. Or it sounds like him.
“I dunno. He didn’t even care. Told her to release the pictures.
But she said he was really scary.” His gaze automatically flicks to Alex, then shifts back to me.
“She told me she didn’t want to do anything with the pictures, to just call this one a wash.
And she said she was done with the neighborhood.
I was kind of worried that she was going behind my back, like blackmailing someone without me. ”
“Why do you think that?” I ask.
He shrugs and it’s awkward because of the bindings.
“She was just really cagey the last couple weeks. Off. And I thought we could pull some more jobs in the neighborhood but she was adamant that she was done. She took one last contract job with the nanny agency and said after that she was starting over somewhere else.”
“What do you know about Cory Powell?” I ask him, watching his reaction more than anything.
“Who’s that?” He looks genuinely confused, which could be fake. This guy blackmails people for a living—he’s a known liar.
I glance at Alex, who takes over. “We’re leaving now and you will never speak of this again. If you call the cops—”
“I’m not calling anyone!” He looks almost offended that she could even say that.
“Even so. If you tell the cops or any of your associates about this, there will be repercussions. You’re lucky that our boss sent us instead of his normal guys.” She lowers her voice so that it’s hard to hear her.
Which makes her words even more terrifying.
And the threat works, because he nods vigorously. “I won’t say anything to anyone.”
“For your sake, I really hope that’s true.” Alex gives him a pitying look that says she thinks he’s stupid and is going to end up dead.
But we got what we came for, and all he knows—or thinks he knows—is that we have a scary boss, potentially of Russian origin. And since he works with low-level criminals, he’ll know enough to keep his mouth shut. Or he should.