Chapter Seventeen
MIGUEL
Raven slipped into a deep sleep shortly after we’d showered and climbed into bed together. I watched him for a while, letting the palm of my hand trace slowly down his smooth back. He was so beautiful and had been so brave when faced with the truth about what was happening to us although we still knew very little. We were closer to figuring it all out, but we weren’t there yet. I lay awake staring at the bedroom ceiling for a while, hands crossed behind my head, trying to piece it all together.
Raven had suggested that John may have been seeing someone else in the camp and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. It had nothing to do with the very real fact that we’d been together, or at least I thought we’d been, in the days leading up to his disappearance. If he’d formed an attachment with someone else, and the rogue faction of the CIA had found out about it, they’d have used it against him. I was now pretty sure someone had been up to no good out there in the desert, but that still didn’t answer the questions as to who…and why. Had John seen something out there and not told any of us?
The most likely thing was the one we’d discussed…that rogue operatives were secretly smuggling precious gems—and probably gold—out of the country and had somehow become separated from the booty they’d looted. Afghanistan wasn’t a wealthy country, made up of mostly nomadic tribes headed by warlords. It was primarily desert, mostly mountainous, unlike Iraq where Saddam Hussein had vast sums of money, gold, precious objects and jewels, wealth he’d siphoned from oil profits in his country.
Afghanistan did have something else, though. It shared a very long border with Iran, an oil rich country which had once been a small piece of King Darius’s massive Persian Empire. Then again, so had parts of modern-day Turkey, Pakistan, the Balkan Peninsula, and Egypt, stretching into Asia and India. The Persian Empire had been the cradle of civilization.
Though billions of Iran’s oil revenues had been frozen by the U.S. in the late 1970s, I knew the black market flourished to this day, right under the noses of the evil mullahs who’d taken power after the Shah and his family fled. Ayatollah Khomeini’s rabid followers had thrown thousands of its citizens in jail after the Iranian revolution, claiming that they were the antithesis of Islam. They’d confiscated the wealthy’s vast properties, their textiles in the form of priceless Persian rugs, but most lucrative of all, Iran’s marketplaces where jewelers and money lenders had flourished during the Shah’s regime.
And much of that wealth was still being smuggled out of Iran through Turkey on the way to the West whenever possible. Beginning in the 1980s some wealthy refugees had crossed into Afghanistan over the mountains to get to Turkey, and then on to freedom in Europe. Many refugees of Iranian-Jewish descent who had a controlling interest in the bazars had fled with what they could carry on their backs. There was a strong possibility that many of the riches they carried with them in the form of jewels had ended up in the hands of greedy Afghani warlords who were now friendly with the Taliban.
Perhaps a rogue CIA faction had ambushed a small Taliban outpost and gotten hold of a cache of jewels…or had obtained them in some other way. There were a million possibilities. I sighed, rolling over in bed with my back to Raven as he continued to sleep. I wouldn’t find the answers I so desperately sought in the middle of the night and silently got out of bed to pull on a T-shirt, socks, and sleeping pants. I picked up my tablet to bury myself in a book, before creeping out of the room and shutting the door so I wouldn’t disturb the sleeping form of my lover.
The house was dark, and I padded silently along the polished hardwood floors to the living room, looking out of the vast windows where French doors led out to the gorgeous, landscaped garden and the view of Los Angeles. Lights from the city below twinkled in an almost identical fashion as earlier in the evening, when I’d been staring at an eerily similar view. I set down my iPad and opened one of the French doors, stepping out onto the patio, breathing in the cool, late winter air filled with the scent of Angelica’s early spring paperwhites. The mild weather let me know spring was approaching. I listened to the distant hum of traffic from the streets below, wondering what the hell I was going to do. Raven was in danger and in my heart, I didn’t know how I was going to protect him.
I decided to call Mark Evans first thing in the morning. We had to meet so that I could give him Rosina Cassanova’s name. There was a strong possibility the name was fake, but the woman herself sure hadn’t been. The description of a tall, beautiful woman, natural redhead or not, working with the man we’d seen in the stairwell, might jog Mark’s memory or even Jarrett’s for that matter. I had a strong suspicion the Marine Corps sniper and I had worked in the same theater during the war, so he might even know her if Mark didn’t.
I walked to the edge of the patio, looking around and keeping alert, all throwbacks from a time when standing guard duty was a matter of life and death. And just recently with the fires. We’d been lucky where we were. I didn’t get a tingling feeling as if a sniper rifle was pointed at my head, I’d be able to feel it just as I knew I was safe in my own backyard, at least for now.
Though I was unsettled by the very real possibility that the man in the stairwell and Cassanova might know where we lived. If they were operatives of any sort with access to intelligence, finding our address would be child’s play. The one comfort I possessed was knowing that they probably wouldn’t try to do us harm until they had the Mulberry diamond and the Flores ruby in hand. After that, they’ll eliminate witnesses. If they’d wanted to kill us, they would have done it earlier, at the Getty, but Raven and I were still targets, and I hated the very idea of it.
I needed to figure out who these people were, if John was truly acting in concert with them, and take them out…John included, if it came down to it.
For the time being, I needed trained backup. I knew just who to call and swallowed hard at the very thought of it. I took one last breath of the crisp night air, wrapped my arms around my chilled midsection, and went back into the house, locking up. I started to grab the iPad, when something occurred to me.
“Better safe than sorry,” I muttered to myself before detouring to the garage where some of my things were still stored. I dug through a box, finding what I’d been looking for, and swept the house with a bug detector. When I’d assured myself no one had gotten inside the main part of the house to plant any listening devices, I replaced the box, made myself a cup of coffee, and sat in the kitchen nook with my tablet, scrolling my bookshelves for a while. When nothing grabbed my attention, I logged into Nightcrawler’s blog, smiling to myself when I saw one I hadn’t read.
Book title: The Legend of Sloppy Hollow
Author: Dennis Simon
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Small Town Horror/Fiction
Review/rating by Nightcrawler: DNF 2 stars
Synopsis:
The story of a hoarder living in a small southern town
My review:
When will I learn? Some days, dear readers, I must confess to being totally out of my depth when choosing my next book to review. This confessed first-time author sent me his work of art (that’s what good ol’ Dennis calls it), promising the whole series if I would be so generous to give him an honest review. After slogging through it, I really doubt I’ll be asking for book two.
When I say slogging, please take that quite literally. The protagonist of the book lives at the bottom of a creek bed which routinely floods, wiping out his home every spring when the snows melt. Why he decided to live here is baffling since he’s made his home in one of the most idyllic small towns I could imagine. I can only think it was because he was attempting to hide from town residents whom he steals odds and ends from. His joy at finding a used tongue depressor was riveting, I tell you. I’ll repost a passage from the novel so that you can share in my wonder.
“Our town set (sic) at the bottom of a mountain, surrounded by the most beutifal (sic) foresst (sic) you ever did sea (sic). A crik (sic) ran threw (sic) it, turnin’ everytin (sic) grean (sic) on the rivirbed (sic). At nite (sic) I’d go about my stocking (sic).”
PUHLEEZE Kill me now.
Though not the first unedited “work of art” I’ve ever read, The Legend of Sloppy Hollow, really took the cake. However, there was one bright spot in the book. I don’t like to give away endings even though this one came in the middle. (I know, right?) So, this is your spoiler alert.
At some point the hoarder—of tongue depressors and other detritus—hears hoofbeats and looks up to see a headless hoarseman (sic) who swoops down and slices off his head.
Maybe I should have given Simon’s book 10 stars.
I chuckled, shut down my tablet, and drank the last of my coffee before joining Raven in what had only too recently become our bed.
RAVEN
I woke up feeling slightly hung over the next morning. Though I hadn’t even taken more than a sip of champagne at the museum, my head felt muddled when I first opened my eyes but the warm body beside me in bed made me realize Miguel had gotten at least some sleep. I’d felt him tossing and turning in bed shortly after we’d turned in last night, eventually feeling him roll away from me and get out of bed. I’d fallen back to sleep immediately, mostly because I was totally wrung out and emotionally exhausted.
I eased out of bed, not wanting to disturb him, and grabbed my phone after dressing in a favorite pair of loose jeans, socks, and a tee. I petted Stanley who looked up and meowed in protest from his perch on top of the short cat tree in our bedroom. Sure enough, as soon as I opened the door to our room, he ran out after me, probably waiting for at least one of his humans to care whether he died of starvation or not.
The doors to both Dolly’s room and Nana’s were still closed and I bit my lip, really hoping that they’d both slept through the powerful fucking I’d gotten last night. My ass was protesting big time as I knew it would, but it only brought a smile to my face. Miguel had needed to get out of his head after the fright he’d gotten and I…well, I’d just loved giving in to him. I enjoyed every way we made love, even if it was a hard pounding pinned against our bedroom door.
I walked to the kitchen and made coffee before opening a can of cat food and pouring some dry food into Stanley’s bowls. By the time I finished feeding him and giving him a fresh bowl of water, the coffee was ready. I filled my cup and sat down with my phone. After scrolling through my messages and texts, returning anything pertinent, I sent a message to Judy, telling her we’d be in later. I needed to tell her what’d happened when we’d visited Mark since we’d yet to do that and also, what had happened last night. I made a mental note that we needed to follow up with Mark since planting the seed with him and asking for his help.
By the time Miguel strolled into the kitchen a half hour later, I’d finished one cup of coffee and was ready for another. He looked delightfully bed tossed with a dark growth of stubble which had grown out overnight, dressed much like I was. I slid out of the nook and walked over to him, wrapping him up in my arms, and lifting my face for a kiss. I didn’t have to wait long as his mouth covered mine. He tasted like toothpaste. I smiled at him as he broke the kiss.
“Good morning, babe.”
“Hey, Sunshine. How’re you this morning?” He didn’t wait for an answer before releasing me and heading straight for the coffee. I followed him with my empty cup.
“I’m good. How’d you sleep?” I asked, though, I already knew the answer.
“Tossed and turned for a while. I got up and went out to the backyard to look at the stars before finally settling down.” He filled our cups as I retrieved the half and half, pouring some in my coffee. I grabbed a box of bran muffins we’d picked up at Trader Joes and set them on the table as I slid into the booth. I adored our cozy little eating nook with red Naugahyde seats and padded backs. It wasn’t large enough for more than four people who liked each other a whole lot, but it made me feel close to my nana who’d designed it when she’d remodeled some parts of the house after inheriting it. I watched Miguel reach into the box of muffins and take one, holding it out to me.
I smiled at him. “Thank you.” I began peeling the paper wrapping off the bottom as he grabbed one for himself.
“You get some rest?” he asked around a mouthful of muffin.
I nodded, chewing my own bite. I sipped my coffee to help it go down. I wasn’t a big eater of anything sweet, so the low sugar content in the bran muffins was just right along with strong coffee which filled me with energy.
“What’s on the menu for today?” I asked. “I was thinking we should call Mark E—”
I stopped myself from what I was about to say as something occurred to me. Since the Cassanova woman had been at the event last night, there was a strong possibility she’d been following our movements, maybe knowing where we lived. I didn’t think there was a way for anyone to have gotten inside the house to plant a bug, but they’d figured out where we’d both be somehow. When I frowned, Miguel raised a brow.
“What is it? Why’d you stop talking?”
“Bugs,” I mouthed.
Something dawned over his features, and he shook his head. “Not a problem,” he said before sliding out of the booth. I shut my mouth as I watched him walk to the door leading out to our garage and open it. I had no idea what he was doing. Then it slowly dawned on me. Boxes he’d brought with him from his old apartment was still out there. My suspicions were confirmed when he walked back in with a small, black box in his hand. “I swept the kitchen and living room when I couldn’t sleep last night. There are no bugs. I’ll sweep the rest of the house and the trucks after the women get up.”
I relaxed back against the cushion, relieved as hell that we weren’t being spied on. I wanted to be able to talk to Miguel and know no one was listening. Even though it seemed improbable that anyone had gotten into the house unobserved by either Dolly or us, I decided that perhaps I’d been lax in thinking we were totally secure. He slid back into the seat across from me, putting the bug detector on the table. I picked it up and examined it from all angles. It wasn’t the first one I’d seen but it was good that he’d thought about it. I set it down and glanced up at him, tapping it.
“Does this mean you don’t think Cassanova and the man in the trees have been spying on us long enough to plant a bug?”
“Not necessarily,” he said, hedging. “But if they’re operatives—CIA or not—it wouldn’t have been hard for them to figure out where we’d be last night…or where you lived for that matter, Raven.” He held out his hand and I reached across the table to take it, squeezing his fingers. “We need to assume they’re watching at all times and take precautions.”
I felt a stone settle in my belly. “Does that mean you think my nana is in danger? Or Dolly? What would happen if someone broke into the house? Tried to harm them?” I looked around. Neither of them could fight off a trained operative. Hell, neither of them could fight off anyone determined enough to get in here and hurt them. Miguel’s face had gone white as a sheet. I replayed the words in my head and with a heavy heart, realized what I’d said. I wanted to kick myself. “Oh, Jesus, Miguel. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He shook his head. “It’s okay, Raven.” The pain in his features was devastating. “Sometimes I can go for days without thinking about my parents.” He broke eye contact and gazed down at the tabletop. “It happened a long time ago.” He looked up. “And Cassidy and Mike were right. I was just a kid. If I would have come home from football practice one hour earlier and stumbled upon someone killing them or…even…beating my mom—” His eyes got watery as he choked on the words.
I got up from the table and went to him, wrapping both arms around his head as I pulled him against me. He buried his face in my shirt as I bent and kissed his head. He held me for a few seconds before lifting his face. He wasn’t crying, just determined.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I brushed my fingers through his dark hair. He caught my hand, squeezing it hard for a few seconds before letting me go. I moved back into my spot and sat down, facing him.
His face was somber as he cleared his throat and leaned forward to speak quietly. “We’re not going to let anything happen to our family, Raven. Do you understand me?”
I stared at him, hearing the determination in his words, unable to breathe when I realized Miguel thought of my nana and Dolly as family. I nodded, afraid I’d start blubbering if I tried to speak.
“Good. Now, go on. What were you going to say?”
I took a deep breath. “I was going to say we haven’t heard from Mark. We should call and update him with what happened last night.” I hesitated before going on. “And I think…I think you should tell him about what she said…how she knew some information which could only have come from John.”
He nodded, still stoic, which was almost scary. He sighed. “That’s what was keeping me up last night, Raven. I had the same thoughts about Mark by the way. I was going to wait to talk to you about it until you woke up, though.”
“Call him now then. He won’t be able to talk about it over the phone, but we should go over to his place.”
“No,” he said immediately. “We need to go someplace where we can be sure we aren’t being followed, where no one can hear us talk through the walls.”
What he was saying suddenly dawned on me. “Oh, you mean with parabolic mics?”
He smirked in the most adorable way. “Look at you, Raven. Tell me, what do you know about parabolic mics?”
I sat back, folding my arms across my chest. “What? I watch old episodes of Burn Notice .”
He chuckled. “You are so not Michael Weston, Super Spy.”
I laughed. “I like it when you call me Super Spy.” I got serious.
He sat back wearing an equally humorless expression. This really wasn’t a laughing matter. “Well, you were right about the parabolic mics. If they followed us to Mark’s place, it wouldn’t matter whether we were in his townhouse or not. All they’d have to do is park out in front and aim a mic at the house. They’d be able to hear us through the walls with strong enough equipment. We have to assume they know about our other visit to Mark’s since I think they’ve been following us for a while. They probably already know he’s been helping us but just in case, we need to set up a meeting with Mark and get him and his family some protection.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be hard, what with the people he keeps in his orbit at all times.” Something in his expression told me he wasn’t telling me everything on his mind.
“You’re right but just in case, I’ll call him now.” I picked up my phone which was lying on the table.
“Don’t talk about anything over the phone, Raven.”
I sent an extremely annoyed eyeroll across the table at him, before hitting the button and waited for Mark to pick up.
“Hello?”
I cleared my throat. “ Ah , Mark? This is Raven.” I paused before going on, not sure if I should use my last name. “ Ah , Raven Mathis.”
“Yes, Raven. I was going to call you today.”
I looked up sharply, focusing my gaze on Miguel.
“Well, good. We… ah , Miguel and I, wanted to get together with you. Would that be okay?”
“Sure. Would you like to stop by the house this morning?”
I frowned at Miguel. “Stop by…your place?” Miguel shook his head. “No, we’d like to meet…somewhere else.”
“That’s fine. Just let me know where and when,” Mark said.
“Okay…will do.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Okay then. How about ten?”
“Ten would be fine, Raven. I look forward to seeing both of you.”
“See you then,” I said before hanging up. I glanced at Miguel who’d started scrolling on his phone. “Where can we meet him that’ll be secure? And what if someone follows us?”
He glanced up with a smile on his face. He turned his phone to face me so I could see the listing he’d Googled while I was talking.
“Really?” I asked, reading the screen.
“Really.” He sounded very sure, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before.