Chapter 26
26
“What’s your plan of attack?” Brax asked as they sped along the streets until they got to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel that would spit them out toward the peninsula.
“I don’t have one,” Mateo admitted. “I’m just headed for Lainey’s condo.”
“Is it like yours, or does it have someone manning the front desk?”
“Someone is manning the front desk, but he’s barely awake most of the time. Anyone could get past him. But Lainey told both shifts I was on her approved list.”
“Sounds good. Are you loaded up?” Brax asked as he motioned toward the toolchest in the back of Mateo’s truck.
“Damn right I am, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to walk in with rifles without causing a stir.”
“Pistols?”
“And knives.”
“Try calling her,” Brax suggested. “Or has she blocked you?”
“Amazingly she hasn’t.” For the first time in the last three hours, Mateo felt a grin forming.
“So, there’s still hope,” Braxton said.
“That’s been my take.” Mateo took his phone out of the side pocket of his cargo pants and handed it to Brax. “She’s number one on my speed dial.”
“I thought after our time together at Gideon’s place, I was number one. I’m hurt,” Braxton teased.
“Shut the fuck up and dial her number.”
Braxton put it on speaker and even over the rumble of his old Dodge truck, Mateo could hear Lainey’s honeyed accent as she told the caller to leave a message. He yanked the phone out of Brax’s hand.
“Lainey, this is important. Yeah, I need to grovel again. Yeah, I need you to believe I love you. But this is a matter of life and death. Call me, mí amor. Call me.”
He handed the phone back to Brax. “Text her, will you? I don’t want you saying the I love you part. That has to come from me. But the life and death part. Text her that part.”
“Gotcha.”
They were silent for the next two hours, until Mateo had to stop for gas. The truck was not really known for having good gas mileage.
“I’m going to go grab some water and whatever. Is there anything specific you want?” Brax asked as he jumped out of the passenger seat.
Mateo shook his head and willed the gasoline to flow faster.
When they got back on the highway again, Braxton’s phone rang.
“It’s Gideon,” he said as he picked up. “I’ve got you on speaker,” Brax told Gideon. “We’re about ninety minutes outside of Annapolis, right?” Braxton glanced at Mateo.
“Seventy,” he muttered as he pressed harder on the gas pedal.
“We’re seventy minutes outside of Annapolis unless we get pulled over or crash. What do you have?”
“Mateo’s idea paid off, faster than we thought,” Gideon said. “We were able to nail down another e-mail address that Ivan was using. Amanda’s been banging on Ivan to track down a missing payment. Apparently, they finally tracked down that the client deposited their payment into Lionel who then converted it to cryptocurrency,” Gideon explained.
“After that, Ivan found that half of the currency was correctly dispersed into smaller amounts and deposited into the accounts of other Kraken members throughout the world, as planned. The final problem was that the remaining half never made it into the Grand Cayman Island account. Amanda’s account. Ivan’s been in charge of figuring out why not.”
“Gideon, if you now fucking think that my woman is stealing from the Kraken, I’m going to make it so you and Jada will never be able to have sex again. Am I making myself clear?” Mateo practically yelled.
He heard both Gideon and Jada laughing.
“He doesn’t think that, Mateo. I promise.” Jada said. “We’re really thinking that there was some kind of glitch with the transaction, or somebody in the Grand Cayman bank is trying to pull a fast one. Lainey’s in the clear as far as we’re concerned.”
“And?” Mateo prompted.
“And we’ve got to find out where she is as soon as possible,” Gideon said. “I’ve checked with the bank. She hasn’t been in all week. She apparently has the flu.”
“I know that,” Mateo said. “Since I was stuck on base, I called Mr. and Mrs. Morrison across the hall and asked them to report on her status. She’s been out walking Xena every day. But hell, I left a message for them yesterday, and they haven’t gotten back to me. I know Saturday is their bridge night.”
“Bridge?” Jada asked.
“It’s a card game,” Gideon explained.
“I’ll call right now, but they might be at church,” Mateo said.
“By the way, Kostya and Jase left fifteen minutes after you did. So, hold your horses before rushing into anything.”
Mateo sat up straighter in his driver’s seat. “They did?”
“Mateo, yeah, we always like the black and white truth, but we always have our brothers’ backs. You should know that.”
Braxton chuckled. “What are they driving?”
“Jase’s Mustang. I’d say they’re going to be passing you pretty soon.”
“They don’t even know which way we took to get to Annapolis,” Mateo scoffed.
Jada laughed. “If you don’t think Gideon has a tracking device on everyone’s vehicle, you’re deranged.”
Mateo felt a headache coming on.
“Gotta go,” he muttered. “Hang up,” he told Braxton.
Braxton stopped the call. “You okay?” he asked.
“Too much laughter. Lainey’s in trouble. I can just feel it.”
“We don’t know for sure,” Braxton said.
He had Braxton call the Morrisons but it went to their answering machine. Of course they didn’t have cell phones.
Mateo pressed down harder on the accelerator.
How long had it been since she’d opened the door? Lainey watched as the two of them were now sitting down across from her at her dining room table, eating chicken parmesan and gnocchi with bruschetta and sparkling water from her wine glasses.
“You keep looking at our water glasses,” the unhinged harpy said as she poured more water into her glass. “Are you thirsty?”
It had been Friday when she’d opened the door, right? Or was it Saturday?
Was today Sunday?
She watched as the beautiful fall of liquid poured into the glass with a smooth swishing sound. Then she heard a snap and crackle of the sparkling bubbles. The blonde, who she now knew as Amanda, set down the green bottle and slowly picked up her glass and swirled the precious liquid around.
Lainey watched as she brought the glass to her lips and took a sip. A second sip. A third sip. She watched her throat work as she swallowed down the water.
How many hours? How many days had it been since Lainey had had something to drink? Did she open the door on Friday or Saturday? Why wasn’t her brain working? Her head drifted forward but was then yanked back by the duct tape sticking it to the back of her dining room chair.
“Please” she moaned, praying they would understand her.
“Please.”
Amanda laughed as she picked up a piece of bruschetta. “Are you ready to tell us what you did with our money?”
Lainey carefully nodded her head, trying not to hurt herself, but still she felt some of her hair being torn out of her scalp.
“Ivan,” Amanda said as she turned to the man. “You know something?”
He shook his head as he continued to eat his meal.
“I think I believe her. I think she is ready to tell us the truth.”
“Great,” he said as he continued to eat.
If she could just get some water she could think. She just needed to stall for some time. Matt would come. She knew he would. Matt would come and save her, she just needed to stay alive.
“Ivan, you need to go take off her gag.”
“She’s going to make noise. They always make noise when you yank off the duct tape. It rips off their skin.”
“Dammit, do I have to do everything?!”
Amanda picked up one of Lainey’s good white linen napkins and touched it to her lips, then got up from the table and walked around to where Lainey was duct taped to her chair. She tilted Lainey’s chin up.
“Damn, it looks like it’s on there pretty good.”
All Lainey could think about was how the paint came off the wall when Matt tore off the duct tape on top of the extension cord.
“I know you don’t want me to kill your crippled dog, so you won’t scream when I eventually take off your gag. But I’m thinking you’re not going to be able to help it if I just yank this off.” She dug her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and her fingers flew across the screen.
“Google knows all. Got it.”
“You got olive oil?” she asked Lainey.
Lainey carefully nodded.
“Then we’re in business.”
The blonde eventually came back with a cloth, a bowl of warm water, and the olive oil. “This is going to hurt somewhat, but if I use the oil to loosen the adhesive, then it shouldn’t be too bad, and you might still have lips by the time we’re done.”
Lainey zoned out while Amanda used the oil to remove the duct tape. Having Amanda touch her made her skin crawl.
Crack!
Lainey’s cheek stung where Amanda smacked her, and her eyes went wide. “What?!”
“You weren’t paying attention. You weren’t listening to me. I said, are you ready to talk now?”
“Yes.” Lainey knew she said yes, but it was so raspy even she couldn’t understand it.
“Make sense!” Amanda said as she held up her hand as if to slap her again.
“Water.” Again, the word was indecipherable.
“Jesus, I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re saying.”
“She said water,” Ivan said with his mouth full, then continued to chew.
“Oh yeah, your throat’s probably dry.”
Lainey tasted copper and her lips were on fire. Guess olive oil didn’t work after all.
“Open your mouth, you stupid bitch.”
Huh?
She felt water trickling into her mouth, mixing with the blood. She opened her mouth and tried to gulp.
“Now you’re being stupid. You’re going to throw up if you drink too fast.”
The water stopped coming, and Lainey opened her eyes. Oh yeah, the blonde woman. Amanda.
“Are you ready to talk now?”
Lainey nodded, and fire went through her scalp. Oh yeah, her hair was duct taped to the back of the chair.
Crack!
Her head whipped sideways from the blow.
“Are you ready to talk now?
Lainey bit her lip and whimpered. What was she supposed to talk about?
Money. Oh yeah, money.
“You want to know about the deposit that came in from India, right?”
“There you go. Now you remember.” Amanda turned to the man who was now eating some kind of dessert. “Did you hear that, Ivan? The bitch remembers what we’ve been talking about.”
“It came from a textile plant,” Lainey said.
“Good girl. Keep going.”
“It was in our bank for six weeks, before we exchanged it into cryptocurrency.”
“Yes, and you divided half of the money into eighths and deposited them into eight different accounts.”
Lainey started coughing. She couldn’t stop. It went on and on and on.
Crack!
Lainey still coughed.
“Give her some more water,” Ivan said.
Amanda grabbed her chin, forced her jaw open, and poured water down Lainey’s throat. “Drink, you stupid bitch.”
Lainey tried to drink, but the coughing wouldn’t stop. She needed to lean forward to spit out the phlegm.
“Ivan, give me your knife.”
Oh God, this is it. Matt isn’t going to get here in time.
Ivan reached down under the table then came up with a huge knife. He leaned across the table and stabbed it into the wood. “There.”
Lainey continued to cough.
“You couldn’t have just brought it around to me?” Amanda asked as she pulled it out of the table.
“No.” Ivan pulled another dessert out of the take-out bag and started eating.
Amanda went behind Lainey.
“Stay still.” But Lainey couldn’t as the coughing continued.
I’m not going to cry. I refuse to give the bitch the satisfaction.
She felt her hair being pulled. More hair ripped from her scalp.
“Ow,” she mumbled.
Then her head was free. She bent over and spit out the phlegm that had been tickling her throat.
“That’s just gross.” Amanda said.
Lainey was only sad that she hadn’t thought about spitting on the bitch.
At least her cough had stopped.
“Water.” Lainey begged.
Amanda put the glass up to Lainey’s lips and she sipped slowly.
“Now talk.”
“I transferred the money into the Grand Cayman account that was listed on the file.”
“You did not,” the man said. “It never arrived. You stole it.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t steal it. I transferred it.”
“What was the account number?”
“I don’t remember account numbers, they’re too long. All I remember is that it was given to me by a co-worker and because I had trouble reading a number, I had to call the bank down at the island.”
Amanda jabbed the knife into the table right in front of Amanda. “Do you mean to tell me this is nothing but an accident? We’ve lost thirty-five million dollars because of a fucking typo?”
“Get it back,” Ivan said as he took another bite of tiramisu.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Well, you’re going to try. Tomorrow you’re going to go into the bank and talk to whatever idiot you talked to in the Cayman Islands and explain the mistake and get them to put it into the right account.”
That wouldn’t work in a million years.
“Okay,” Lainey said. “I just have to talk to the same man I talked to last time.”
“You’re going to have to clean her up.” Ivan said to Amanda.
“Bullshit. I’m leaving her like this until tomorrow morning,”
“All right, but if she pisses because you gave her water, I’m going to make you clean that up.” Ivan pointed his fork at Amanda. “There is no way I want to be smelling that. It’s bad enough that we have the dogshit smell coming from the back bedroom. I told you we should have killed that thing.”
“And I told you, we needed that pup for leverage, to keep this bitch from screaming.”
“Whatever.”
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” Amanda asked.
Lainey nodded.