for people who have their shit together.
—TRUE FACT
I rushed over to Targé and wandered to the diaper aisle. No Marika. Or, well, no woman with a baby. Garrett had described her to me, but I’d never seen her. They were probably already gone. I had no idea how I was going to get DNA off them. The baby wouldn’t be a problem. I could swab his bottle while Mommy wasn’t looking. But how would I ever get hers?
This was going to get messy; I could tell.
I walked the entire store three times before giving up. I didn’t want to summon Angel to help. He needed some time. Surely I could handle hunting down one mother and a baby without him. Or not. I’d missed them, or so I thought. As I headed out of the store, I spotted a dark blond woman with a baby in the store’s tiny cafeteria. She was drinking a soda and reading a book as the baby nursed a bottle in his stroller.
I walked up and ordered a coffee, chancing the occasional glance over my shoulder. She was a very pretty woman, and yet for some reason not what I figured Garrett would go for. She just looked like a mom. Probably because she had a baby. Maybe that was what was throwing me. Imagining Swopes in a domestic capacity was a little more than my brain could handle.
She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear as I sat in a booth across from her. Clearly a woman of good taste, she was reading a historical romance. I loved historical romances. And contemporary romances. And paranormal romances. And young adult romances. Pretty much anything in front of the word
romance
would do it for me.
“Is that good?” I asked her, referring to her book with a nod when she glanced at me.
“Oh, yeah, it is.” She closed it and offered me a better view.
“It looks awesome. I love that genre.”
She turned to her son when he cooed at her. “Me, too.”
“And your baby is adorable.”
A brilliant smile brightened her face. “Thank you.”
I rose a couple of inches for a better view into the stroller. Garrett had been right. Her son was clearly multiracial. I wanted a better peek at his eyes and was just about to ask for one when the store manager walked over to her.
“Hey, little guy,” he said, pretending to steal the boy’s bottle until he laughed. Then the man turned to me, and the resemblance to Garrett Swopes was uncanny. Dark skin. Silvery eyes. “Hello,” he said, tipping an invisible hat before kissing Marika on her cheek and sitting down with his family.
* * *
I called Garrett on the way home. “So, I just saw your ex and her adorable baby. Clearly you are not the father.”
He was not amused. “Did you get the samples?” he asked.
“No, I did not. It’s going to be a little difficult to just walk up and swab her baby’s mouth. And even more awkward when I start swabbing hers. What am I going to say, Swopes? ‘Excuse me while I take a DNA sample for my paranoid friend’?”
“Did you even look at him?”
“I did,” I said, “and I agree. He is multiracial and has your eyes, but guess what.”
“What?”
“So does her boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Yep. Her boyfriend looks very much like you. As in, same skin tone, same eye color, same facial features. Do you have a brother you never told me about?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that baby is her boyfriend’s.”
“Charles, you did not see the way she looked at me that day. He’s mine—I know it.”
If anyone could read people, it was Garrett Swopes. “Okay, what if you are right? Then what? She clearly has a thing for guys with dark skin and sexy silvery eyes.”
“But what if there’s more to it than that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but the way she looked at me, Charles. Like she was scared to death I’d make the connection. How did she seem with him?”
“Fine. I mean they seemed tight. I didn’t sense any stress coming off her when he walked up. They looked really happy, in fact.”
“Something’s not right. I know it. You’re not off the hook.”
“Seriously?” I whined. “I still have to get their DNA?”
“Yes. And sooner rather than later. Now I’m even more curious about what she was hiding.”
“Maybe she was hiding the fact that she finds you paranoid and delusional.”
“I don’t think so. That wasn’t the vibe I picked up on.”
“I’m sending you a vibe right now. Are you getting it?”
“That’s not nice, Charles,” he said before hanging up.
I’d never had to steal someone’s DNA before, but I was sure I would suck at it. He was going to have to give me a damn good reason for taking such a risk.
* * *
Before I got too close to home, my phone rang again. It was Agent Carson.
I answered excitedly. “Well?” I asked, hoping for good news.
“Meet us at the Crossroads Motel in half an hour.”
“What? You’re keeping her in that dive?”
“No, we’re meeting you in that dive. Do you really think I’d reveal the location of the safe house?”
“Oh, okay. Never mind. I’ll be there.”
When I pulled up to the Crossroads, Agent Carson got out of a parked SUV. “We are risking a lot, here, Davidson. If Emily doesn’t testify tomorrow morning, Phillip Brinkman walks.”
“I understand,” I said, pretending to be working toward the same goal, the successful prosecution of Emily’s boyfriend.
We walked up the stairs to room 217. Carson used the key. I was half expecting a secret knock or a password or something. Nope. She just used the key. It was all rather anticlimactic.
As we sat around the table, Emily explained what happened through a sea of unending tears. I sat stunned, completely impressed. The girl could lie. I wondered if she’d taken any acting classes.
“He just got so mad,” she said, sniffing into a tissue. “I think he forgot I was there. He was mad at one of his men and he beat him to death with a tire iron while his other men just stood around and watched. Don’t get me wrong. I could tell they were very uncomfortable, wondering if they were next. Something went wrong with a shipment, he said, and he just lost it. I’ve— I’ve never seen him like that.”
I fought the urge to applaud.
After using every pleading word in my repertoire, I finally convinced Agent Carson to let me speak to Emily alone. She was not happy about it, and I got the feeling Emily wasn’t either.
“Look, Emily, I spoke to Phillip. I know what’s really going on.”
She didn’t trust me. Her gaze darted to the door, toward the FBI agents on the other side of it, as though wondering if I were setting her up somehow.
“They say they have someone from my inner circle and are holding her hostage. Everyone is present and accounted for, but I can’t take the risk.”
“We didn’t know what else to do. They will kill him, Ms. Davidson.”
“I know, hon. You’re very brave for doing this. For risking your life for your boyfriend.”
“I love him, Charley. He’s a screwup, but he’s my screwup. He never thought it would come to this.”
“I understand, but if it’s found out that you lied under oath—”
“I’m not worried about me.”
“Well, that makes one of us. Can you stall?” I asked her. “Can you just hold out, don’t testify tomorrow, but don’t back out. Just—” I didn’t have a clue what to tell her.
“Get sick?” she asked. “Because if I’m sick, I can’t testify, right?”
That was perfect, but would they buy that? “It would have to be both severe and completely believable.”
One corner of her mouth twisted up into a smirk. “Trust me, it will be both. I have an excellent gag reflex.”
I nodded. If her puking-on-demand skills were anything like her acting skills, she’d nail it. “Okay, if you think you can get away with it, do it. Just try very hard not to get on that stand tomorrow without recanting anything just yet. If my plan works, you won’t have to testify at all, and we can tell the FBI that you had to do it. I’ll try to get you out of any charges.”
“I’m not worried about me,” she said again, and I realized just how much she loved Brinkman. “I can handle anything they throw at me. Just get Phillip out of this. I want him alive and well. That’s all I care about.”
“You’re a good person, Emily.”
She shook her head. “No, he is. He just got in over his head, said yes to the wrong people. But he is a very good person inside.”
“I understand. The wrong people can be very persuasive like that.”
* * *
Now that Emily had bought me some time, surely I could get some kind of evidence on the Mendozas without endangering her or Phillip Brinkman.
“Did you find anything on that case I asked you to look into?” Agent Carson asked as she walked me to Misery.
I didn’t know what to tell her. How much to reveal, considering Reyes’s insistence that I stay out of it. “You said your dad thought there was something iffy about that case.”
“Yes, he did.”
“I think your dad had incredible instincts.”
She stopped and gave me her full attention. “What did you find out?”
“I’m still working on it, but can you just check into one thing?”
“Sure.”
“Can you find out more about their son now? When and where they had him?”
“Why?” she asked, suspicion knitting her brows.
“I’m not sure. I just think it’s very odd that he looks absolutely nothing like either one of them.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.”
* * *
I’d parked across the street from the Crossroads and waited. Agent Carson left a few minutes after I did with Emily Michaels surrounded by no less than three men in suits. I appreciated that she trusted me enough to let me meet with her star witness, especially when the woman’s life was in danger. But now that I’d seen Emily, I was certain I could pass for her from a distance. I just needed a blond wig and some really big sunglasses.
The way I saw it, if we took Emily out of the equation, if her testimony was no longer needed, both she and Phillip would be safe. But in order to do that, I would have to get some kind of confession on tape. Some hard-core incriminating evidence that would convince the DA he didn’t need Emily’s testimony, nor did he need to prosecute her for making a false statement. She was trying to save Phillip, after all. He was willing to go to prison for a very long time to get out of his life of crime. Would that hold any weight with the DA? Would he take that into consideration when charging him with money laundering for a known crime family? He would almost surely want Phillip to testify, and that was the whole point. He simply couldn’t, not without placing his ex-wife and children in terrible danger. Crime bosses didn’t see the world through the same eyes as the rest of the world. They saw it and everyone in it as a means to an end, the end being wealth and power.
I went to the front desk of the motel and told them I’d lost my key to room 217. Getting another one didn’t take too much finagling, once I showed them my PI license. Most people had no idea it meant next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now I just needed to get Garrett over there to wire me up and have Reyes on standby. When Mendoza contacted me, I would be ready.
I hurried back to my apartment for supplies and to begin the initial setup of my ingenious plan. I called Cookie on the way, making sure she was ready for phase two of said plan. Once I got to my apartment, I put the battery back in my regular phone, took a seat at my kitchen table, and waited for Cookie’s call.
* * *
I parked Misery across the street from the Crossroads Motel at a medical clinic and started toward the room the FBI had conveniently paid for clad in a large sweater, a blond wig, and dark sunglasses. If the Mendozas were listening when Cookie called pretending to be Special Agent Carson, or Sack, as I’d called her several times throughout the conversation, they would believe that Emily Michaels was being held in room 217.
Garrett would show up soon, dressed in a suit. He would play my FBI protector when Mendoza’s men showed up. It was a dangerous role, one he’d not only agreed to but insisted upon playing. I figured if we were going to work together, he should probably get used to the idea of my being used as bait. It just worked so well so much of the time. Reyes wasn’t at the restaurant when I’d called over there, and he wasn’t picking up his cell, but I figured whatever situation I got myself into, I could summon him in a heartbeat. As long as I wasn’t concussed or drugged or bleeding out so profusely I couldn’t focus. It would probably take hours for Mendoza to gather his forces and execute a plan.
I’d just put my foot on the first rung of the stairs when a car screeched to a halt behind me. Alarm spiked and dumped adrenaline. It was too soon. I’d only just called, and Garrett wasn’t there yet. But sure enough, a man got out and encouraged me rather roughly to get into the car with them.
That was how I found myself in the back of a dark sedan, wondering if they thought I was Emily or not, and wondering as well if being Emily or just plain old Charley would be more dangerous in this situation.
The plan had been to lure Mendoza’s men to the hotel, capture them, then get them to turn against their boss. So far, my plan wasn’t going precisely according to specs, but all hope was not lost. I still had a supernatural nigh fiancé with a hair trigger and a penchant for severing spines I could call upon should the situation demand. I could do this.
“Would you remove that ridiculous wig,” a man with a heavy Mexican accent said to me. I had no idea who. My sunglasses were so dark and the windows of the sedan had been tinted, so it was impossible to see. But I could tell as the tires screeched beneath me that I was facing the wrong direction.
We were in a stretched car with two backseats facing each other when someone ripped off my wig and glasses. It was very uncalled for. I could only assume the man sitting across from me was Mendoza himself. It surprised me that he would come in person.
“That was a nice try, Ms. Davison,” he said as he clipped the end of a cigar.
He wore a white suit, impeccably tailored, and yet he didn’t look at home in it at all. He was overweight and wore enough gold to require an armored car service to sport him about town. He was like cheap cologne on a billionaire. He didn’t belong. Everything about him screamed cliché, like he’d taken his cues from ’80s movies about Colombian drug lords.