Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rex
“His name is Barry Milligan,” Jack said. “Affiliated with some sort of Irish gang here in the city.”
Sitting on the leather sofa in the Guard’s den, I took a sip of coffee then said, “We have Irish mob here? Thought they were all back on the East Coast.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, “some have apparently seen a market here and are trying to expand, though I don’t think they’re very well organized. Can’t compete with the other gangs we have here.”
“How did you find this out?” I asked. “I’m supposed to be the detective here.”
Jack grinned. “I was a detective too, remember. Not even a private one.”
“LAPD, baby,” Briggs said.
“I was LAPD too,” I reminded them.
“Long ago,” Ace said.
“Gentlemen, are we going to measure dicks or get on with this?” Matteo asked.
We all laughed. Waving my hand at Jack, I said, “By all means, please proceed.”
He hit the clicker in his hand, and a picture came up on the giant TV that hung on the wall. The guy now looking at us through a mugshot had bleached blond hair cropped close to the scalp.
“Who is Slim Shady up there?” I asked.
“None other than good ol’ Barry Milligan,” Jack replied.
“He wasn’t one of the guys at Horror Nights.”
“Correct. Those were some of his lackeys. Somehow, even an idiot like this has lackeys.” Jack shrugged.
“Anyway, our contacts in the LAPD tell us those assholes from last night aren’t talking.
But we’ve learned enough about Barry and his organization to know he specializes in loansharking.
Combine that with the talk last night about wanting their money and all that, and I would bet that?—”
“Kira’s ex-boss, Lila Merriman, borrowed a lot of money from him that she didn’t pay back,” I finished.
“Yep. Check this out.” Jack hit the clicker again and Lila’s Instagram filled the screen. There were various poses of her with lavish, fancy—and very expensive—things and having costly experiences. “Takes a lot of money to do this kind of stuff.”
“This makes sense,” I said, standing slowly, careful not to spill any of my coffee. “When Kira told me about everything last night, she told me Lila just suddenly went to Europe without any warning. If she was in debt to some nasty people and couldn’t pay them back?—”
“Then why not run off to Europe?” Kendrick said.
“Exactly,” I replied.
I turned it all over in my mind and then said, “All right. I need to reach out to this guy and?—”
My phone buzzed.
“Excuse me.”
Fishing it out of my jeans, I looked at the screen and saw Athena’s name.
“What’s up, Athena? You’re on speaker with me and the Guard.”
Her reply was urgent. “It’s Kira. She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes. I believe she’s about to do something dangerous. I think she’s meeting with those guys—whoever tried to attack her last night.”
I exchanged looks with the other men and then looked back down at the phone in my hand. “What did she say?”
It was Trish’s voice we heard next. “Uncle Rex, she told me that she was sad that she put you and everyone else in danger and she was going to fix this and make it right. She contacted some guy named Barry on her old boss’s phone and then, well… eh, she borrowed your car.”
“What?”
Images of Veronica being smashed to bits or even just wrecked—okay, or scratched—flooded my mind and I felt my blood pressure skyrocket through the roof.
But that wasn’t important right now. There were way bigger concerns. The car could be replaced; my babygirl couldn’t be.
“Trish, honey, did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Did she give any clue at all?”
“Nothing, Uncle Rex. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, honey. You’re a good girl for telling us this.”
“She asked me not to.”
“You did the right thing. Let me talk to Auntie again, please.”
A moment later, Athena’s voice said, “Rex, I’m so worried.”
“I know. Me, too. But we’ll find her. I don’t suppose she left any sort of clue behind.”
“I searched her room. Nothing.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
The call ended and I sighed.
“Does your car have a tracker on it?” Jack asked.
“Veronica was built in 1954. There’s no tracker.”
He nodded. “I was afraid of that.”
“I’m on it,” Kendrick said.
He was now sitting at the computer that was in an alcove at one end of the room, typing quickly on the keyboard.
“You probably don’t want to know this,” he continued. “But we’ve hacked into the LAPD’s system. We can pull up any traffic cam in the city’s network. And I can enter specific parameters. A common car like a Honda Civic would be difficult to find, because there are so many. But?—”
Hope rose in my chest. “A 1954 Buick Skylark would be easy to find!”
“Yep.”
“I’m glad she stole my car,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to spank her bottom for all of this. But I’m glad she took it.”
I was telling the truth too.
That little girl was in for one heck of a butt-busting. Later.
After I saved her.