Chapter Ten
“T wo o’clock, brown hair, jeans ,” Ty clipped under his breath.
I strode toward the guy arguing with the security guard at the front desk.
“I’m telling you,” he protested, “I’m Genevieve Jenkins’s husband. I got a call and rushed out before I could grab my wallet. I don’t have my ID. I need to see my wife .”
“I’m sorry, sir, but without ID, we can’t let you in to see anyone. I suggest you go home and get your identification,” the security guard said with a bored expression.
Ty flanked me as I stepped up behind the asshole. “Mr. Jenkins.” I pressed the barrel of my gun against his kidney so he would know I meant business. “We need to speak to you about Mrs. Jenkins’s accident.”
The prick went ramrod straight as the color drained from his face. “Ye-ah, okay.”
The guard behind the desk took in my suit and Ty’s Luna and Associates uniform of a black polo and black cargo pants. “I wasn’t notified there was an issue with this patient.”
Ty answered him before I could. “The detective can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” he lied before glaring at the asshole impersonating Genevieve’s husband. “Take a walk with us, Mr. Jenkins.”
I didn’t give the prick a chance to say no. Still holding my gun against his kidney, I put my hand on his shoulder and walked him out of the sliding front doors of the ER just as Luna pulled up in a company SUV.
Hopping out of the Escalade, André Luna didn’t even blink at the situation as he walked around the front of the SUV.
Ty smirked. “Impressive timing.”
“Seconds matter.” Luna opened the rear passenger door for me.
I shoved the prick inside, and he panicked. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”
Getting in after him, no longer concerned about the reach of the hospital’s security cameras, I aimed my gun at his head. “You don’t have a choice.” Without taking my eyes off him, I issued Ty an order. “Go back inside and stay with her. Make sure no one else gets near her.”
Ty chuckled. “Including her actual husband?”
“Husband?” Luna asked.
“Why would I want to go inside and miss all the fun?” Standing in the open passenger door, Ty pulled his gun out and casually checked the magazine. “I’ve got at least half a dozen bullets I can waste on this fuck.”
“Okay, okay, I lied!” The prick impersonating Genevieve’s husband threw his hands up and vomited words. “I’m not her husband. I don’t even know her. They told me to do this. I’ve never even met her. You can let me go. I won’t say anything. I promise. I promise! ”
Ty holstered his gun. “Fucking pussy.”
Luna swore in Spanish, then told Ty to get his ass back inside the hospital.
I ignored them both. Putting the barrel of my gun against the prick’s forehead, I dropped my voice to a lethal warning. “You have two choices. Tell me who put you up to this, or you die.”
The asshole shook. “I-I swear. I don’t know!”
“Start talking,” I demanded.
“For real, I don’t know. I’m just a barback. I was leaving work and these guys approached me. They showed me a picture of a redhead and offered me five hundred bucks to walk into the emergency room, say I was this chick’s husband, and ask to see her.”
My jaw ticked. “And then what?”
Looking guilty as fuck, his voice got quiet. “I was supposed to tell her not to talk to the cops.” He swallowed and shrugged. “But you know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Well… like, follow it up with an or else .”
My nostrils flared. “That’s it?”
He raised his hands higher. “Yeah, yeah, I swear.”
Luna’s hand landed on my shoulder. “What’d they look like?”
“I don’t know, man. I really don’t. It was dark behind the club where I work, and they were wearing sweatshirts with the hoods up.” He glanced at Luna. “I swear I don’t know who they were. They gave me the money and followed me to the hospital. They said they would know if I did what I was supposed to, and I better not burn them and chicken out because they knew where I worked. After they watched me walk in and go to the front desk, they slowly pulled away. That was the last I saw of them.”
“What make and model vehicle?” Luna asked.
“I don’t know,” the prick whined. “A big black SUV, one that looked like this one.”
Luna’s hand squeezed my shoulder, wordlessly telling me to stand down.
I didn’t. I was thinking.
The asshole kept talking. “Five hundred bucks is a lot, man. I have to work a week to make that.”
Luna muttered grow a pair in Spanish before dropping his hand from my shoulder and using the key fob to unlock the Escalade’s doors. “Get the fuck out of here.”
The guy scrambled for the door and shoved it open, practically falling out. Once on his feet, he slammed the door shut and took off.
Luna crossed his arms as he watched the prick run toward the parking lot. “I don’t fucking like that they knew which hospital and that they’ve got a picture of her.”
No shit. I holstered my gun and got out of the SUV. “She pulled the mask off one of the carjackers, and her purse was in the SUV. They’ve got her ID.”
“ Madre de Dios .” Luna sighed as he scanned the hospital parking lot. “If they figure out who you are, we’ll have an even bigger problem.” He looked at me. “They won’t just try to kill her, they’ll come after her for a K and R first just because she was seen with you. Then they’ll kill her.”
“She’s married, and her husband sure as hell doesn’t have a flush bank account.” He looked like he barely had a pot to piss in.
Luna’s expression shifted in a nanosecond. “Ty wasn’t bullshitting?”
“No. Didn’t find that in your background check?” Luna had run her background for the job we were on last night with her client.
Luna frowned. “Actually, no, not that I recall.”
Fucking great. “Anything pertinent you want to share with me about her before I go back inside?”
Luna studied me a beat, then he nodded slowly, as if everything suddenly made sense. “She didn’t tell you she was hitched.”
“Nope.”
“Damn.” He drew the word out. “Well, as far as her background, she’s an event planner. We’re not talking high-profile clients, but we’re not talking kids’ birthday parties either. Art openings like the one last night, fundraisers, an occasional wedding, personal milestone parties, shit like that. There was nothing else in her profile that stood out except that she was a foster kid, came up in the system, and never got adopted. She aged out at eighteen.”
She didn’t have a family? “Jesus.” Despite her lying to me, I felt like even more of an asshole for taking her out and letting her get fucking injured.
“Yeah, rough life. All right, walk me through what happened at Mel’s.”
“It started out as a single carjacker with a triangle tattoo on his inner wrist.”
“Fucking Tres Angulos gang.” Luna muttered a curse in Spanish. “This isn’t their usual MO.”
No, it wasn’t. “I’m surprised they didn’t just shoot us and take the SUV.”
“There was a lot of foot traffic in that parking lot when I got there, and even more witnesses in the diner. It was dark, but there was a clear sight line from the booths at the window to where you’d parked. Maybe the Tres Angulos have graduated to smart crime.” His gaze drifting across the parking lot, Luna watched two hospital employees walk toward their cars. “At any rate, I’ll ask around. I have a few connections in that world. Tell me the rest of it.”
“I took down the original carjacker and three more showed up. Before I could get her safely inside the vehicle, the original perp made a play and threw her down. I took my eyes off the perp at my back for half a second as she went down, and he used the in. Pistol whipped me.” I should’ve shot them all.
Luna frowned. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I clipped.
“Gracias a Dios.”
I didn’t say shit. I’d left faith behind a long time ago. Tonight only reaffirmed that decision.
As if sensing my mood, Luna clapped me on the shoulder. “Four armed unpredictable gangbangers at close range isn’t good odds, amigo. You kept yourself and the chica from getting shot. You did good.”
Bullshit. “No, I didn’t.” I could’ve taken them all.
Marine to Marine, he read my thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking, and maybe you could’ve gotten four kill shots off before one hit her. But I also know you’re smart as fuck and those odds were never in your favor. There’s valor in protecting a life, not your ego.”
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck where that asshole had hit me. I knew he was right, but it didn’t change the fact that she was in a hospital bed. “I’m going back inside. Ty has a gun I got off one of them. Maybe the serial number will turn up something.”
“I’ll run it, but don’t hold your breath.”
“Copy. Any update on the recovery of the vehicle?” I was kicking myself even more now for not letting her retrieve her purse.
“Not yet. I sent the new hire, Preston, to northwest Miami, to the area we last tracked it. Which, now that I know the Tres Angulos are behind this, the location makes sense. Preston will canvas the area, see what he can find out. But if their last known location was actually here at the hospital, they could be anywhere by now.”
“How did they disable the tracking device on the Escalade? I thought you hid them.”
Luna shrugged. “I do, but apparently they figured out where it was. Hell, maybe they simply burned the vehicle by now.”
“You don’t burn an armored Escalade. You sell it.” In parts if you had to.
“Never said criminals were smart.”
“They’re smarter than us right now if we can’t find them.” I turned to go.
“You asked her out,” Luna mused.
Pausing, I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Your point?” I’d been off the clock, and the job had been over. I didn’t break any company rules.
“How long you worked for me?”
It was a rhetorical question. Luna knew every detail about every single one of his employees by heart. He retained information like no one I’d ever met. I didn’t bother answering.
“Been a while, amigo.” He paused. “Never seen you ask a woman out before.”
“I don’t broadcast my personal life.”
Luna chuckled. “No, you sure don’t.” His expression sobered. “According to your paycheck you work sixty-hour weeks, but we both know it’s more than that. Not much room for a personal life in all that.”
I didn’t deny it.
He nodded once. “She must be special.”
She was a walking train wreck. She talked too much, she overshared, and she dropped everything. She didn’t listen to instructions, and her hazel-eyed gaze more often than not looked at me with childlike curiosity instead of womanly seduction. She drove me insane.
Nothing about her was anything I’d ever wanted or needed, but all I could think about was having her thick hair wrapped around my hand as I made her submit.
Except she’d lied to me.
She had a goddamn husband, and that was a line I’d sworn to myself I would never, ever cross. I wasn’t going to be like my asshole father. I swore to myself in high school when I first caught him cheating on my mother that I wasn’t going to ever pull that shit. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to wreck another marriage by taking another man’s wife. My mother put up with my father, and she was still with him, but that didn’t change the fact that I hated him.
“She’s married,” I reminded Luna before shutting down the conversation. “I’m going back inside. I need to get her out of here before the carjackers send someone else after her.”
Luna nodded. “Take her to one of the client apartments. She can stay there until we resolve this bullshit.”
Luna and Associates had a few apartments on the floors above the offices for this exact reason. It was a secure building, and we could control who got in or out. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem dropping a client in one of them, except she was injured. “She has a grade two concussion.”
Luna read between the lines. “So stay with her.”
I scowled. Staying with her at a company apartment under the microscope of every ex-Marine who worked for Luna was out of the question.
Luna chuckled. “I didn’t say fuck her, amigo. I said stay with her.” He got behind the wheel of the Escalade.
I resisted the urge to flip him off.
He grinned. “I heard that.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Like a fucking fool, I was already contemplating taking her to my place.
“You didn’t have to. Despite you never saying shit, I can read you like a book.” Luna gave me a knowing look then switched gears. “After Preston does his recon, I’ll have him check her apartment and pick up a few of her things while he’s there. He’ll notice if anyone’s sitting on the place.”
I wasn’t sure Preston would notice a damn thing, the guy was seriously off, but I was out of choices for now. Reaching in my pocket and grabbing her keys, I handed them to Luna. Then I sealed my fate. “Have him bring her stuff to my place.”
“Copy that.” Luna didn’t comment on the change in location, but his expression sobered. “For real, you got this? They already found her once, you want more backup? Ty’s been on all night. He’ll get you two home, but then Preston can sit on your place after he gets her stuff.”
I didn’t think anyone would come back tonight. Then again, I wasn’t expecting them to show up at the hospital either. I didn’t trust Preston as far as I could throw him, the guy was cagey as hell, but Luna had hired him, so for now, I was letting it go. “Fine on Preston.” Even though I knew they were long gone, I scanned the parking lot, looking for any of those carjacking assholes. “You know if they wanted her dead, they would’ve sent one of their own, and they sure as hell wouldn’t have sent a warning.”
“Not many places are harder to get a clean shot at someone than a hospital. There’s security cameras and witnesses everywhere. The warning could’ve been a precursor.” He cranked the engine and threw the SUV into gear. “But that still doesn’t change the fact they found her once already, and that’s too close for my comfort.”
“Agree.” Which was why I wasn’t going to let her go back to her place until we found these assholes. “I need one more favor.” I grabbed my wallet. “Can you get her a new phone and tablet? Set the phone up with her number?” I held out a credit card.
“Done, but put that shit away.”
“Take it out of my pay then.” I didn’t need monetary favors.
“All the overtime I don’t pay you?” Luna scoffed, but then he winked. “Least I can do is hook up your woman.”
I leveled him with a look. “She’s not mine.”
“Maybe not yet.” He grinned. “I give it twenty-four hours at your place.”
I changed the subject before I unleashed my self-hatred on him. “What did the police say?”
Luna sobered. “What could they say? I grew up with the beat officers who showed up. They know who I am. I told them I’d take care of my own business and find my vehicle long before they would.”
Christ. “Is there anyone you don’t know in this town?”
He faked being offended. “You calling my city a town?”
I wasn’t impressed. I grew up hearing my father tell us he owned Miami every time he brokered a new real estate deal. “It’s fifty-six-point-six square miles of backfilled swamp land.” I knew the exact size because my father also told us with every other breath—when he wasn’t cheating on my mother—how much of that square footage he owned. “Call it what you want.” In truth, south Florida didn’t belong to anyone. “It’s one good hurricane away from being swamp land again.”
“Cold-hearted, Savatier.” Smiling, Luna shook his head. “Cold-hearted.”
“The truth hurts.” I wasn’t talking about Miami.
Luna’s smile dropped. “Amen.”
I walked back into the hospital.