Chapter 24
“So, we’re back where we started,” Hayes said, hands on his hips as he examined the evidence they’d assembled and wondered what they had overlooked.
Beckett had gone into full detective mode, frowning with concentration as he industriously taped printouts to the wall. He hadn’t gone so far as to use a red string to connect the dots, but it had been a close call.
“There’s nothing in that place,” Matthew insisted once again. “The factory recycles old, used materials and produces new doors, windows, and hardware. It’s nothing illegal. My uncle probably uses the Serbians because they’re cheap labour and already on the payroll in New York.”
“What about the coffins?” Beckett asked, tapping his index against the cartoon image of an old fashioned coffin he’d printed off the Internet.
“What about the coffins?” Matthew repeated, thoroughly puzzled by the question. “We already knew about them. I told you—Mario’s obsessed with not aging. He puts stock in the paranormal—that’s simply an eccentric millionaire spending money on ridiculous shit.”
“But why was that armored truck left unlocked? If the artifacts themselves are worth something to him—why wouldn’t he secure them?” Hayes asked impatiently.
Beckett couldn’t figure out what Hayes was up to. He knew it was bugging him, but he wasn’t sure why. Except that Hayes was so fixated on the security issues, there had to be something worth pursuing or Hayes wouldn’t act like this.
“I don’t know, Agent Monroe, maybe because it was parked in a highly secure location!”
“No,” Hayes said, shaking his head. “I’m not buying it.”
Matthew started to say something in response when he was interrupted.
“It has a basement,” Adeline observed.
“At the bottom of it? Yeah, we’ve established that,” Beckett said, running a hand over his face. He was beyond tired of running around with no idea of what they were supposed to be looking for.
“No, you moron! The factory, it has a basement,” she said, lounging casually in her desk chair, snacking on chips. Nickel—predictably—was sprawled comfortably in her lap.
Matthew frowned at her, looking increasingly annoyed with all of them.
“Yes, of course it does. That’s where we store the waste until it gets picked up,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“No—you’re not listening. The factory has a condemned basement. Beneath the existing foundation.” She turned one of her monitors towards them. She’d pulled up the blueprints of the building, except they weren’t the same ones Beckett had printed out and pinned to the wall.
“Those aren’t—” Matthew stuttered to an abrupt halt, looking back and forth between both sets of plans.
“Those are the blueprints the city has,” she said, waving her hand at the wall. “These are the original blueprints prepared at the start of the reconstruction. Since they condemned that area, they removed that section when drawing up the final plans.”
“Why?” Beckett asked.
“Common practice. The official blueprints make rescues easier for first responders,” Hayes said.
Beckett was mystified as to how in the hell Hayes knew obscure stuff like that.
“Okay—” Beckett said hesitantly. “So, there’s a condemned basement in a factory where they make windows and doors—” he said, hoping to get the ball rolling. “What am I missing?”
Hayes took a step closer to the computer screen, eyes narrowed in concentration as he studied the condemned section of the blueprints.
“Your uncle is an eccentric millionaire,” Hayes said, thinking aloud to help him organize all the key points and understand precisely how those facts were connected.
There was something on Hayes’ mind, something that he needed to work through. Beckett was confident he would succeed because he’d seen his central processing unit of a boyfriend work his magic before and it was amazing to watch him action.
“He buys priceless artifacts linked to the occult and has them shipped in the same containers as trashed doors and windows? But then—he doesn’t let them share a truck.
He custom builds an armored vehicle to keep them safe while transporting them.
Yet, they end up in the same place. Am I crazy or does that make no sense? ”
“We don’t know that the coffins ever went inside the factory,” Matthew pointed out, though he didn’t sound nearly as argumentative as he had when the discussion first started.
“No—but what if their contents did—what if that’s why the truck was unlocked? Because it was empty.”
Beckett could see the glimmer of excitement in Hayes’ eyes getting brighter, but he didn’t understand why, or what had caused it.
“What d’you mean empty? The truck was full.” Beckett was stumped.
“With coffins—yeah. But what if the coffins are just shipping containers. What if they’re a distraction—something an eccentric millionaire can safely and confidently, with no fear of reprisal, write on a shipping label. What if it’s the contents that he’s guarding in those armored trucks.”
“The contents?” Matthew asked wonderingly, like he was slowly coming around to understanding Hayes’ point of view.
“You thought he was interested in human trafficking for the money, but did he ever actually say that?” Hayes asked, whirling towards Matthew so suddenly he took a step back.
“Well, no—but—”
“And you figured that the girl who died escaped from where they were keeping her and that was the appeal of working with your uncle—he could house them in different places. But what if it’s not housing them that’s difficult, but transporting them is?”
“H, I’m not following—” Beckett said, trying to get him to slow down so he could see the big picture.
“I need to talk to Franklin,” Hayes said, voice sharp and commanding. He was vibrating with intensity. Beckett couldn’t recall ever seeing him like that.
“What are you thinking?” Beckett asked, because while he thought he understood what Hayes was getting at—all of this seemed extremely bizarre, even for them.
“Not until I speak with your brother—I want—” he swallowed, and Beckett saw his hands bunch into tight fists like he did when he needed to keep them from visibly shaking. “I need all of you to hear my entire theory at the same time—and then you can tell me I’m crazy if I’m wrong.”
Beckett automatically reached for Hayes’ right hand to reassure him.
Hayes looked relieved and gratified for Beckett’s support as they laced their fingers together.
“Alright,” Beckett agreed. “Let’s go piss off some US Marshals then.”
They didn’t call ahead. They drove straight to Franklin’s safehouse and parked three streets down.
Then—they fucking walked right up to the bungalow protected by the US Marshals.
Beckett rapped his knuckles sharply against the front door twice and called out, “Trick or treat! Let me see my brother or I’ll moon the security camera. ”
Within a matter of seconds, they were flanked by two US Marshals with guns drawn and pointed at their heads.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the same badass agent from the other night snarled—the Green Beret. He was royally pissed to have three idiots standing on the safehouse’s porch in the middle of the night.
“We know—but we just miss him soooo much,” Beckett whined, further irritating the US Marshal.
“Ten minutes,” Hayes said. “That’s all we need. After that we’ll leave.”
“And why would I give you that?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled that Hayes would ever expect him to agree in this lifetime.
“Because he must be driving you absolutely crazy by now—and ten minutes might be enough to get us the proof the FBI needs to release him—and thus, allow you to go home,” Hayes said.
Asshole Green Beret paused for a few seconds, his eyes flickering between Beckett and Hayes, weighing the merits of their comments.
He looked at Matthew, frowning the entire time, and Hayes prepared himself to argue the necessity of his presence.
Finally, the Marshal sighed and reluctantly lowered his weapon.
“We’ll have to burn this place anyway,” he said, because well, yeah—Hayes could see the need for that since they’d had brought a civilian with them to their ultra-secret safehouse.
They were ushered inside without any further fanfare.
Beckett’s brother had obviously not been expecting company.
He was sprawled out on the couch, head tilted against the arm rest, unshaven, his hair a complete mess.
He was wearing a stretched out black t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants that couldn’t hide the fact that he’d lost weight since last their last visit.
He looked up in surprise as they entered the room, tripping over his own feet to get to them.
And then—well, he suddenly noticed Matthew standing behind Hayes.
Part of Hayes had been skeptical all along about their whole love story. They were such self-involved men that it had been difficult to picture them together. Suddenly, it wasn’t so hard anymore.
“Matthew—” Franklin said, before crossing the room in three long strides. He wrapped his arms completely around Matthew. Although several inches shorter than the mob prince, Franklin somehow managed to look bigger than Matthew as he hugged him tightly.
Hayes eased closer to Beckett, closely observing his boyfriend’s reaction for clues of how he felt about this Hallmark moment. But Beckett’s expression was unreadable.
“Told you I’d come for you,” Matthew said as he wrapped his arms around his lover’s waist. They pulled back briefly, staring into each other’s eyes before diving into a passionate, desperate kiss.
Beckett lost whatever sense of decorum he might have had, making a series of increasingly disgusting retching sounds. The reunited lovers ignored him as they finally separated.
“You smell like Doritos,” Matthew remarked, scrunching his nose.
“Yes, well—” Franklin replied with a quick shrug, looking sheepish.
Hayes hated to admit he liked watching Franklin squirm with embarrassment.
“Is it done? Is your uncle behind bars?” he asked, suddenly realising what their presence might mean. Matthew shook his head.