Bad Faith (Mason Ashford Thriller Series Book 1)

by Nick Stevens

  Mason bit into the sandwich. “Can’t trust a cop with debt.” He remembered enduring the process to get his security clearance as a newly minted Army counterintelligence specialist. Investigators interviewed his teachers, going as far back as elementary school. Neighbors got visits from bored men in suits. They even culled his father’s financial history, which couldn’t have been much to read.

  As Mason learned, getting the clearance was trivial. Keeping it presented the challenge. Messy divorces, infidelity, and mounting debt resulted in a suspended clearance. Clearances were hard to get and easy to lose.

  “That’s right. Couldn’t fire his ass because the union protected him. I heard he got assigned to transportation, or something just as awful. Then one day, all was forgiven, and he’s back working cases.”

  “Somebody paid his debt?”

  Sal shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe a rich uncle died and left him a fortune. Maybe some asshole paid it off to put Ross’ fat ass in his or her pocket.”

  “It’s probably the rich uncle story. Seems legit.”

  Laughing harder than she should, Sal’s eyes locked with Mason’s. Her face softened in the moment. Mason wanted to pull her lips to his. Sal let her eyes close a fraction. Leaning in, his right hand reached out for her.

  A deep bark sounded from the driver's side window, startling both of them into their seats. The owner offered a terse apology, crouching for a closer look.

  Mason shifted, his eyes following the man as the dog dragged its handler down the sidewalk. Convinced the man was on his way, Mason turned back, finding Sal laughing hysterically in the driver's seat.

  Mason attempted a redeeming smile. “You’re unimpressed by my charm?”

  He watched Sal pace her breaths as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You have the worst luck, Mr. Ashford.”

  The stress of the last few hours broke loose inside Mason. Sal was right about his rotten luck.

  Pulling herself together, Sal picked up the thread from before Mason’s interrupted try at intimacy. She spoke to the steering wheel. “And if Detective Ross is interested in you, that’s bad news for you. That guy’s dirty.”

  Mason nodded. “That’s why I need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “What’s our plan? Sit here until somebody leaves the house and follow them? That could take days. That’s time we don’t have.”

  Again, Mason knew Sal was right. She wasn’t a stranger to investigations. Checking his watch, a titanium Bertucci his father gave him when he left for basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Mason reached for his phone.

  “In seventeen minutes, I’m calling Borisov. We need to know more about Ms. Kaine. He can make that happen.”

  Sal checked the clock on the driver’s console. Four forty-three in the morning. “Your judge friend is an early riser?”

  “Not at all, but I figure it’s civil to give him until five. We’ll see what he can tell us. Since we don’t have a choice, we’ll act on whatever information we get first.”

  Chapter 17

  Borisov answered the phone after the first ring. “Mason. I assume you have either good or terrible news.”

  Mason attempted to sound cheerful. “Hi, judge. Did I wake you?”

  “Not this morning. Idaho saw fit to visit me tonight.”

  The Chief Justice’s flat tone told Mason everything he needed. After his rescue, the judge endured surgery after surgery to restore his mangled hand. His kidnappers thought it poetic to destroy his gavel hand since he’d used it to send their brothers, fathers, and sons to prison for life.

  In the hospital, Borisov insisted he share a room with Mason, who also needed a fair bit of attention from the doctors. Multiple lacerations topped the list, followed by extensive reconstructive shoulder surgery.

  Like Borisov, Idaho haunted Mason years later. He still awoke covered in sweat more often than he admitted.

  “I know the feeling, judge.”

  “I’m sure you do, deputy. I’m sure this isn’t a social call. What can I do for you?”

  Over ten minutes, Mason briefed Borisov on the investigation and where it led. He omitted the parts that could implicate Borisov, but concluded with their current location outside Bethany Kaine’s house.

  “We need your clerks to dig into her as far as they can. She’s the only lead we have on Chloe, and we don’t know anything about her.”

  Mason heard a sheet of paper snap out of a drawer on the other end of the phone. He recited the name again, then the make, model, and license plate of every car nearby. He finished with the address of Bethany’s townhouse.

  Borisov grunted. “Why didn’t you just call a real estate agent?”

  “I tried, but none were open at five in the morning on a Wednesday. Hard to find good help these days.”

  Another grunt. “I’ll put one of my clerks on it. I know just the person to ask.”

  She’d been on her feet for hours. Her legs and lower back ached. She felt blisters forming inside her gloves.

  The stack of bricks at the end of the table stood taller than her.

  Chloe waved the heat gun over another loose package. She’d lost count of how many she’d sealed. Her exhausted mind wandered. She thought about her father for the first time in days, and about Jasper.

  What’s a Jasper?

  She yelped as the plastic glove singed against her thumb as the heat gun melted it. The gun clattered against the floor as the sound bounced around the room.

  “What’s the problem?” Aaron called out from behind his clipboard.

  Holding up her hand for him to see, Chloe whispered, “I burned my hand.”

  “Go get a new glove from the front door and get back here.”

  Holding her injured hand, Chloe retreated from the room and walked back to the entrance. Pulling off the damaged glove, the angry skin underneath grew red and raised. A crop of blisters covered the rest of her hand.

  Aaron’s shouting from down the hall jolted her into action. Snatching two new gloves from the box, she drove her hands into them.

  The door beside her opened.

  “Hello there. Is that..? Chloe?” Paul stared at her, absently reaching for a mask and gloves.

  “Yes.” She avoided his gaze. “Hello.”

  “Welcome, sister. Busy night. How’d you get roped into this?”

  “Aaron asked me to help.” She lied.

  Laughing behind the mask, Paul pushed her ahead of him. “He can be quite persuasive. Let’s get back to work.”

  Chloe busied herself sealing bag after bag. As more hours passed, she noticed sunlight coming through the frosted windows located high on the wall.

  The pile of bags to seal dwindled to nothing. The tables beside her overflowed with sealed bricks of powder.

  She overheard Paul speaking to Aaron. “Take her back to the cabin and have Diana come to my residence. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  “Of course.”

  The sun rose above the horizon as Aaron and Chloe marched back to the cramped cabin. Chloe shivered against the brisk morning, her light dress doing little to keep her warm.

  Reaching the door, Aaron said, “When you go back inside, send Diana out. Father Paul wants to speak with her at his place. You stay here.”

  She nodded to the giant. “I will.” Bolting for the door, she slammed it behind her. Turning, she collapsed from a vicious open-hand slap.

  “Where have you been?” A fraught Diana stood over her. “I woke up hours ago, and you weren’t here. Do you know what kind of trouble we could be in?”

  Clutching her face, Chloe shook her head.

  “I’m responsible for you, and you left. This is bad. Really bad.” She paced in circles.

  Over the last day, Chloe’s feelings for Diana ranged from sympathetic to pitiful, sometimes bordering on friendly. Sometimes. Diana’s assault fueled a rage Chloe didn’t know she had.

  “Father Paul wants to see you. Aaron is here. He’s here to take you.”

  Diana’s fl
ushed features drained in the cabin’s thin light. “He… he is?”

  “That’s what he said. Should I tell him you’re not going?”

  “No! Of course I’m going.”

  Bounding to a small chest at the foot of her bed, she dug through dress after dress, settling on a pale yellow. Stripping off her nightshirt, Chloe saw fresh lashes scabbing across Diana’s back and buttocks. They added to the dozens of angry scars marking her body.

  As the straw-colored dress cascaded over her body, Diana turned to Chloe. “How do I look? Do you think Father Paul will like it?”

  Chloe watched Diana’s hands shake. Her anger dissolved, replaced by fear. Diana feared Paul, just as Chloe did. Standing, Chloe combed Diana’s hair back with her fingers. Diana pulled the red headband back into her hair.

  “I think he’ll adore it. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  Bethany woke to pain lancing her right side. Glancing around her familiar bedroom, the hours of sleep surprised her. The two oxycodone she’d taken numbed the pain for a few hours. Craning her neck, she checked the phone resting in its charging cradle. It was just after nine in the morning.

  No rush, she thought. She had hours to get back to the camp. Or compound, as Paul called it.

  Pushing aside the lush duvet covering her, she realized she’d slept in her clothes. Bethany pressed a tentative hand against her belly. She didn’t know what to check for. She was a failed law student, after all. Not pre-med.

  Her abdomen was sore, but the flesh still gave. It wasn’t rigid or hot. Somehow that reassured her.

  Mustering her courage, Bethany tried to sit up in bed. An electric shock sent her back to the sheets. A flash of sweat appeared on her face, beading and running into her hair.

  “Okay,” she said to the empty room, “I have to deal with these ribs.”

  She reached out to the nightstand for the amber pill bottle. The phone fell to the carpet in her frantic search. A fingertip grazed the rim of something plastic, knocking it forward. Guided by touch and sound, she found the bottle. Extracting a single oxycodone, she swallowed it dry.

  “I’ll let that kick in.”

  Bethany’s own snoring woke her an hour later. With the pain in her side reduced to a dull ache, she clawed her way out of bed. Stumbling into the shower fully dressed, she let the water run over her for twenty minutes before stripping off her designer clothes and scrubbing herself pink.

  Emerging from the steaming bathroom thirty minutes later, Bethany dug through her closet. Finding a thick roll of compression bandage saved after a skiing accident from years before, she let the towel drop to the floor. Wrapping the bandage tight around her damaged ribs, she secured it with two metal clips.

  The sturdy bandage prevented her from taking deep breaths, but it pushed the unbearable pain into manageable discomfort. She’d be fine as long as she didn’t have to run. Or move.

  Drying her hair and pulling it into a simple ponytail, Bethany dressed in a navy Gucci jumpsuit. She loved how the flared pants highlighted her height, while the wide belt accentuated her narrow waist. It also masked the layers of compression bandage holding her together.

  Her fingers lingered over a pair of pink heels before choosing a pair of leopard print flats. Heading back to the bedroom, she pulled a stainless-steel revolver out of a hat box stored under her bed and dropped it into the floral print purse she’d chosen.

  Inspecting herself before the full-length mirror, she practiced pulling the pistol from the purse. Holding the gun on the figure in the mirror, she remembered watching Charlie’s Angels reruns with her mom, the tiny color television resting on a cheap aluminum folding table. Bethany always wanted to be Farrah Fawcett, with her California looks and golden hair.

  Bethany convinced herself her mother died the day she left home for greener pastures, far from the rusting trailer park.

  She hadn’t thought about her mother in ages. Max used that memory like a weapon. Her fingers played with her phone, debating looking her up after years of silence. Thinking better of it, she stashed the phone in her purse.

  Bethany wasn’t an angel. Paul wasn’t Charlie. She’d come to terms with who she was along ago. It paid for a life she couldn’t imagine when she wasted away in that trailer.

  Dropping the bottle of pills into the purse next to the pistol, she snatched her car keys and locked the door of the townhouse behind her.

  Chapter 18

  Sal watched the townhouse door swing open. The clock on the dashboard read eleven thirty-seven. The woman Sal knew as Bethany Kaine stalked her way to the street where she climbed into a black-on-black Range Rover. Sal didn’t see a limp or any bruising in the few seconds it took Bethany to cover the short distance.

  Nudging Mason awake, she started the Honda. The fuel gauge showed a quarter of a tank, giving them a range of about a hundred miles. Her gut told her she wouldn’t be driving far.

  Mason wiped the sleep from his face. He started moving his shoulder in small circles in the cramped car, trying to massage the pain away.

  “She doesn’t look injured. Walked right out of the house and down to the car. Never broke stride,” Sal said to a groggy Mason.

  “Really? When I saw her last night, she hobbled down the sidewalk.”

  Mason checked his phone for any messages from the Chief Justice. Seeing nothing new, he resigned himself to following the black Range Rover.

  “What I can’t figure out,” Mason said, more to himself than Sal, “is where she’s getting her money. Nobody going to work around noon hops into a car worth a hundred grand.” He motioned to the luxury SUV as it rolled through a four-way stop as other drivers blared their car horns.

  Sal glanced at Mason. “Why do you know how much these things cost?”

  “It’s part of my job at Gridlock. Working security isn’t about breaking up fights and tossing people out. It’s about getting the money in. Somebody rolls up in a Range Rover Sport, that’s like fifty grand rolling off the lot. Maybe more if they’re pushing the options packages. That’s nobody special. Roll up in a car worth a hundred grand or more, and you are somebody that’ll spend a lot of money, and you’re bringing an entourage. What’s the point of having that kind of money if you can show off to your friends?”

  “That’s deep, Mason. I never imagined you as a social scientist. You should write a book.”

  “Clay, my boss, says that too. He even bought me a box of crayons to get started.”

  Sal laughed. “Well, you should’ve seen what Ms. Kaine was wearing when she left. It was like a navy jumpsuit. Probably Dolce. Must’ve been worth a couple grand. The purse alone had to be three months’ rent.”

  “You sound jealous, Sal.”

  “A part of me is.”

  Mason remembered Laurel stopping in front of the Gucci store on their long walk home on Sunday morning. The memory felt older than just a few days ago.

  Sal settled into traffic, letting the SUV hold the leftmost lane. She sat in the middle lane, staying five to six cars back. “As party tricks go, being the price guy sounds boring,” Sal snipped, waving a middle finger at a driver blocking her lane change.

  Mason knew the frustration of following another car. Keeping the target vehicle in sight while navigating traffic, without tipping off your quarry, took every ounce of the driver’s concentration. Looking at the GPS navigation on the Honda’s dash, he saw a thick line of red marking slowed traffic ahead. That should make things easier, he thought. On cue, Sal eased off the gas and slowed as a wall of brake lights glowed in front of them.

  Mason’s phone rang an hour into tailing the black Range Rover. He didn’t recognize the digits behind the 202 prefix for Washington D.C. He accepted the call, launching a gruff greeting to the caller.

  Undeterred, the voice on the phone launched into her own greeting. “Hello, this is Ashley Thompson from the United States Supreme Court calling for Mason Ashford.”

  “Hi Ashley. This is Mason.”

  “Mr. Ashford-”r />
  “Call me Mason.”

  “Mason. I’m a clerk for Chief Justice Borisov. He said you needed some help getting background information on someone, a Miss Bethany Anne Kaine.”

  Mason put the phone on speaker. “That’s right. Do you have anything for me?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. The car provided the key. It’s not hers. It’s leased to a holding company called PE Holdings LLC, incorporated in Delaware. I called a friend and asked him to run the license plate, which turned up the leasing agreement.”

  “Great. Do you have an address?”

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

  Mason felt his chances of finding Chloe slipping away. “Ashley, it’s been a long week and it’s only Wednesday. Maybe you can skip to the good part?”

  “Yes, sir. Since Delaware allows companies to incorporate anonymously, the address is a mail drop at an office there. The same address is the headquarters for over a hundred thousand companies.”

  “This doesn’t sound like the good part.”

  Ashley’s voice clipped at the interruption. “I’m getting to that. PE Holdings has been around for a long, long time. I found records going back to 2006 in the Panama Papers leak from a few years ago.”

  Sal jumped in from the driver seat. “Hey, I read about that. Massive document leak from a legal firm in Panama, right?”

  Ashley continued. “Correct. Over eleven million documents leaked, giving the world a peek behind the curtain of shell companies and how the wealthy structured things to stay wealthy. The documents are in a public database you can search, so I did.”

  Mason opened his mouth, but Sal put her hand on his and shook her head.

  “I found PE Holdings LLC in that database, and it shares addresses with an import-export company called MaryMex Holdings LLC. One address is the same Delaware address as before, but another looks like it’s in Maryland, in the middle of nowhere.”