Chapter 4
4
T heresa watched the changes on Marco's face as he read the cryptic note. She took a deep breath and swallowed the fear in her throat.
"It's a crime syndicate I exposed."
Marco's eyebrows shot up. She noticed the perspiration beaded up on his chest, and his forehead and realized he'd been jogging. Her heart constricted slightly as the world came more into focus. She'd been thinking only of herself this morning as she took the note from her windshield. They'd been close last night, which meant, they knew where she was.
"Exposed how?"
She swallowed. "Should we go inside and get out of the sun?"
Marco nodded. "Let's get your things in the car first."
He immediately picked up the totes and set them in the back of her SUV. She picked up her suitcase and put it in the backseat.
He closed the hatch on her SUV and she closed and locked the door. She moved toward the house and felt Marco follow her. Inside she pulled a pitcher of water from the refrigerator and poured them each a glass. She turned to see Marco watching her. He looked incredible. As always. But she'd have to imprint his image in her head because she'd have to go soon.
She carried their waters to the table and nodded for him to sit. She put the water pitcher back into the refrigerator and glanced out of the window above the sink.
Moving to the table, she looked into Marco's eyes. He was watching her closely and a sizzle ran down her spine, but it wasn't a good sizzle. It was a warning. What if he was sent here to get to her? He was also fairly new in town.
A knot grew in her throat, and she stood frozen trying to decide if she should run.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
Her eyes widened and her fingers shook slightly. "How do..."
He shook his head. "I have the ability to sense things. It's served me well over the years."
She nodded slightly but still remained where she'd been standing.
He nodded to her. "Sit. Tell me what's going on."
Her eyes darted to her chair at the table. Taking a deep breath, she moved woodenly to the chair and sat at the very edge of it in case she had to run. She didn't think he was here to harm her. He would have done it by now. But shaking that initial fear was getting harder to do the closer they got to her.
He was patient. He sat still, waiting for her to tell him what was going on. The longer he sat, the more nervous she became. She reached forward to pick up her glass of water, but her hand shook, and she fisted it instead.
"You followed me home last night." She stated.
She'd watched in her mirror and saw him turn off his headlights and sit in his truck.
"I thought you might be in danger. Or at least some trouble since you didn't seem happy about the texts."
"You were out there for hours."
He merely nodded.
She swallowed to wet her throat. It didn't work, so she picked up her glass. She took a long drink of the cold water and set her half-empty glass on the table. She glanced at Marco's glass. The perspiration on the outside beaded up and slowly dripped to the table. She stared at it for a while then took a deep breath.
His voice was low when he finally responded. "Yes."
"Did you see..."
She felt for the note she'd had in her pocket and realized she hadn't gotten it back from Marco. He dropped it on the table in between them. "No. And I'm mad at myself for not waiting around a bit longer. I may have seen who did it."
Her heart beat faster. "They're dangerous."
"Who are they?"
She swallowed again and took a deep breath. "The Celtic Crime Family. I wrote an exposé on them last year. I'd spent an entire year gathering data and intel. I followed employees. I found some of the wives and followed them. I knew they were laundering money for government agencies that had gone to the dark side. I get so mad when the government won't help people who actually need it, because of corruption. My tax dollars...your tax dollars...that's not supposed to be used for their personal gain. But they were doing it. Celtic was instrumental in getting several congressmen installed in their positions. I followed the money trail. I traced some of it back to the President of the United States. Money was moved and laundered through shell companies. They used laundromats, restaurants, bars, commercial real estate and apartment buildings. I followed some of the residents of the apartments. On the books, the apartments are rented for three thousand a month. One of the residents worked at a fast-food restaurant. No way he made that kind of money. I watched him. Chatted him up. Got his trust. He told me he only paid five hundred dollars a month for the great apartment."
Marco's jaw twitched. But he waited. Apparently waiting was his forte.
"I asked if they had any openings and he said he'd ask. Then he stopped working at that place. When I went to his apartment, I found he'd moved out."
Her fingers shook again. "I don't know what happened to him. I've worried about it since then."
"It wasn't your fault, whatever happened to him."
"But I was a fake. I pretended to need an apartment and to be his friend."
"That's what investigative reporting is sometimes."
She took a deep breath. "I know. I've just felt terrible, because he didn't deserve for anything bad to happen to him."
"You don't know that it did."
She swallowed. "Yeah. So, anyway. I wrote my story, and it exposed a lot of dirt in the government, but it also exposed the Celtic Crime Syndicate. I named names. Within hours of the story breaking, I was threatened. My apartment was broken into while I was at work. My car was keyed. My boss told me to get out of town and lay low until she felt it was safe to come back. She helped me get out of the building and she sent someone to my place with me to help pack my things."
"How would you decide it was safe?"
"No threats. No phone calls."
Marco nodded. "Now the peace you've found here is shattered."
"They've found me."
"But haven't tried to harm you."
"Not yet. Which is strange. But I think they know I have more dirt on them and they want it before they harm me."
Marco leaned forward. "Do you?"
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her fingers shook again. She tried to speak but her voice wouldn't come. She merely nodded.