Chapter 25
25
“We’ve got a problem,” Gideon said on the second meeting six days after Mateo got home from Charleston. Every man in the room was on edge. It had now been four weeks since the bombing of Gideon’s house. The Lainey lead had turned into nothing. The one lead they had regarding Ely Roberts had turned into nothing, especially after Christina Higgins’ body was found washed up on the shore of the Elizabeth River.
That left Ephram Brady, Hick’s little brother Lloyd who they still didn’t have a handle on, Amanda Melton that Brax was pretty sure he had pinpointed, and Ivan Sykes who Linc still had to update everyone on.
“What’s the problem?” Jase’s voice boomed loudly in Kostya’s living room. God, Gideon really needed to get his house rebuilt soon. Kostya’s place was nice, but just too small to contain so many big men.
“Linc is going to tell you. I’ll put him on speaker.”
“What’s the problem?” Jase practically yelled again. Out of all of them, everybody knew Jase was having the hardest time being separated from his family.
“I tracked down one of the nurses who took care of Ivan after Decker International put him on disability. This is before Ivan fired them all. She actually stuck around off the books. She admitted to having a relationship with him until he became too dependent on the opioids he was taking for the pain. She tried to get him help, but he refused. That was when she bailed.” Brax continued. “She’s kept in touch with him through an email address, and I gave it to Gideon.”
Everybody turned to look at Gideon. “I was able to hack that email account, but he’s only ever used it to communicate with her.”
“So, it’s a dead end,” Mateo said bitterly.
“Not really,” Linc continued. “I asked the nurse to send him an email asking to meet for old time's sake, basically promising sex. I figured that would get him to respond, and it did. Gideon was able to figure out his IP address and find where he was emailing from.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Jase roared.
“It was a Starbucks in Annapolis.”
“Motherfucker.” Mateo jumped up from the ottoman he’d been sitting on.
“Calm down. We don’t know that anything is wrong,” Kostya said. “As a matter of fact, this might just mean he’s scheduling a meeting with his contact at Lionel Security and Trust Bank. If you’re right, Mateo, and Lainey isn’t their contact, we’ll know soon enough.”
“God dammit, how often do I have to tell all of you, Lainey is innocent? If Frank Sykes’ psycho son is in Annapolis, then Lainey’s life is in danger!”
“Hold up, you need to hear about Amanda. Brax is going to report on her, too,” Kostya ordered. “Now sit back down.”
Mateo stayed standing. “What?”
Kostya turned to Mateo’s friend. “Braxton?”
“Amanda entered the US five weeks ago. She flew into LAX, from France. She then took a plane to DFW.”
“Was Dallas her final destination?” Jase asked.
Brax shook his head. “She flew into Virginia two days before Gideon’s house blew up.”
“So, she’s in charge of the Kraken,” Kostya said.
Mateo could give one good shit about Amanda.
“How do you know this, Braxton?” Kostya asked.
“I have a contact who works at Interpol,” Braxton explained. “They used their facial recognition software and provided her current passport information. She’s traveling under the name of Alice Law.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
Braxton shook his head. “She hasn’t used any planes since she flew into Norfolk. No credit cards under the name of Alice Law have been used, nor has a driver’s license been reported.”
“Gideon, is there any way that you can isolate the time that Ivan was using the Starbucks’ IP address and see other emails that were being used during that time period?” Mateo asked.
Gideon looked over at Jada. She shrugged. “It’s definitely worth a shot. It’ll take a while. We won’t have anything for at least twenty-four hours, but it’s a good thought.”
“I’ve got to go.” Mateo headed for the door.
“Mateo, we don’t have a plan. I don’t want you going off half-cocked.” Kostya said.
“You all will come up with a plan. I’m going to visit my girlfriend.”
He moved to the hallway, and Jase stood in his way.
“The lieutenant told you to stay.”
Mateo looked Jase in the eye. “If this were Bonnie, would you stay?”
Jase stared at him for six seconds, then stepped aside. Mateo was not surprised when Braxton followed him out the door.
“You better not be trying to talk me out of this,” Mateo said as he jogged to his truck.
“Fuck no. I’m here as your wingman.”
“Good.”
When she finally opened her eyes after being tased, she was in her dining room. The pretty light fixture that she was so happy to have found was smashed on the floor. Her dining room table had been shoved up against the wall, and her chairs were tossed in a pile in her living room. She was hanging from where her light fixture used to be, her hands duct taped together. Her mouth was duct taped shut.
The crazy florist was grinning up at her. There was a man at her kitchen island taking apples and oranges out of her fruit bowl and putting them into one of her pretty pillowcases.
Lainey looked around the room and saw no sign of Xena. Maybe she ran away and was hiding in her doggie bed.
Please God, let her be hiding.
“You stole our money,” the blonde woman said.
Lainey shook her head.
“Yes, you did. And we want it back. It’s really simple. Tell us where you’ve hidden it, tell us how to get it, and we might let you live. Do you understand?”
Lainey shook her head wildly, her hair flying around and stinging her face.
The woman looked over her shoulder at the man. “It’s a pity. We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”
“I like the hard way.” The man grinned. He tied a knot in the pillowcase where the fruit was bundled, then, with the rest of the free material, he swung it around. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
“You don’t get to play today, Ivan.”
He frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m the one who gets information. Not you.”
“Ah, but she’s more delicate, and if you do the swinging, you’ll bust her up inside and we’ll never get our answers. If I do the swinging, she’ll just be in a lot of pain, and probably won’t bleed out before we have a chance to find out what we need to know.”
Lainey couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Wait a minute. Did you put apples in this thing?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” Ivan shrugged.
“You dumbass. Those are too hard. We need oranges, or grapefruit. They have some give.” Lainey watched as he untied his knot and took out the three apples. He re-tied the pillowcase and shoved it at the woman. “Here.”
Lainey trembled.
“Are you going to tell me where the money is?”
Lainey nodded vigorously. She had no idea what the wench was talking about, but she needed to stay healthy. Now she understood what Matt had been talking about. These were the terrorists. The clackling or something. But it was all going to be okay, because she knew down to her bones that Matt would rescue her. Now she needed to stall for time.
“You know what, sweetheart? I don’t believe you. I think you’re scared, and you’d lie to me right now. What I need to do is tenderize you a bit, and then I’ll get your cooperation. I’ll try to stay away from major organs as best I can. I want you to last for a bit.”
The woman took one end of the pillowcase and swung it backwards, then brought it forward, and it landed on Lainey’s hip. Lainey screamed behind her gag.
“Oh, that’s nice,” the woman said. “That looked like it hurt. Let’s do that again.” She pulled back the pillowcase and hit Lainey’s upper thigh, and Lainey screamed a second time. Once again, it sounded like a muffled gurgle.
“Oh yes, this is fun,” the woman smiled. She looked over her shoulder at Ivan. “No wonder you wanted to do this.”
She turned back to Lainey. “You’re going to end up telling me everything you know, right down to what you got on your first birthday.” She took another swing. This one hit Lainey in her stomach.
Lainey didn’t know how long it took, but finally, her fondest wish came true, and she passed out.