Love, Money, and Lies

by Olivia Saxton

  ****

  They had broken off into small groups once they realized that Margo could have gone three different directions. Bruce, Alec, Blanchette, Tully, and Vic had made their way to the water sound.

  Then they heard a blood-curdling scream that felt like three hundred needles going through Bruce’s veins.

  “Shit!” Bruce yelled and started running.

  Everyone started running behind him.

  Bruce was in time to see Margo plunge into the water.

  They surrounded the pool, expecting her to come up. When she did, they would finally have her.

  “Something is wrong,” Vic said seriously. “She should have come up by now.”

  “Can she swim?” Tully asked.

  “Yeah,” Alec answered. Margo and Bruce had gone to Alec and Lana’s a while back for a small cookout, and Margo had swum in the pool with Lacey and Corey. Before they ate, Lacey, Margo, Bruce, Alec, and Corey had raced in the pool. They hadn’t stood a chance with Margo.

  “You’re right. Something is wrong,” Bruce said in a shaky tone. He unhooked and whipped off his vest and dropped his gun holster.

  “What are you doing? God knows what’s in that water,” Blanchette said.

  “We do know, sir. Margo St. John,” Bruce said as he kicked off his shoes.

  Alec started taking off his vest. “We can’t leave her to drown.”

  Bruce didn’t wait — he jumped in feet first. The pool was deep. He started swimming downward. He felt the rush of water behind him. It had to have been Alec jumping in. Bruce saw something from the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see blonde strands waving around. He quickly swam over to her. Bubbles left his lips when he realized she wasn’t moving. Bruce grabbed her by the waist. Alec swam over and grabbed the other side of her. Together, they quickly swam to the top.

  Alec and Bruce both gasped in air when they reached the surface. Margo was limp in their arms.

  “Over here!” Blanchette yelled and reached out his hand.

  Bruce grabbed Blanchette’s hand and got out of the water while Alec held Margo up. Tully and Bruce reached out for her.

  “What the hell is in that bag?” Tully asked in a strained voice as he pulled. “It makes her heavier than what she is.”

  “I radioed for someone to get an ambulance,” Vic said as he held his shot gun and watched the horrific scene.

  Blanchette helped Alec out of the water as Bruce and Tully frantically got the sack from around her. Bruce laid her down on the grass, pinched her nose, and placed his mouth over hers. Then he pumped on her chest three times as he said, “Damn it, don’t you die on me!”

  Chapter 45

  The last thing she remembered was coughing and Bruce’s wet face before everything went black. Now she was staring at white walls and lying in a hospital bed with one of her wrists handcuffed to the rails.

  She looked over to see a nurse who was looking at a machine that beeped every now and again. Then the nurse looked at her. “Oh good, you’re awake. You were out for a while. How do you feel?” she asked with a Mexican accent. She had dark hair that was in a ponytail, and she wore blue scrubs.

  “Like crap,” Margo answered bluntly and hoarsely.

  The side of the nurse’s mouth kicked up. “I’m not surprised. You still have a little water in your lungs. You won’t be able to leave until we get that cleared up. I’ll let them know that you’re awake.”

  “When you say them, I take it you mean the authorities?”

  “Si,” she said solemnly. “But I overheard a few of them talking. Maybe it will make you feel better to know that you did give them a run for their money.”

  If she didn’t feel like a sack of rotten potatoes, she would have smiled at that. But she just shrugged. This was it. The end of the line. There was no way out of this one. Margo was going down. There was a part of her that wished she died in that water. It would have been better than going to federal prison and seeing the look of disappointment in Bruce’s eyes.

  ****

  Blanchette, Tully, Bruce, Alec, Vic, and David York were in the waiting room at the hospital. David York was the assistant special agent in charge from Dallas. Bruce had been slowly pacing like a lion since they had arrived forty minutes ago. Now that Margo was in custody, two US Marshalls were guarding her door.

  A doctor came into the room. He had dark hair and olive skin. “Gentlemen,” he began as he approached. “Senora St. John still has some water in her lungs, so we’ll have to keep her for another day or so. It won’t be safe for her to travel until we get it cleared up.”

  York groaned with annoyance. “All right. I guess we can’t do anything about that. Can we speak to her now?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow her to have any visitors. The stress might jeopardize her recovery,” the doctor said.

  “She’s a fugitive,” York stated sarcastically. “She has to talk to us eventually.”

  “And she will, later,” the doctor said. “But, for right now, she needs peace and quiet. They’ll be plenty of time for talk later.”

  “We’ll still need to keep a guard at the door,” York said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t care how sick she is.”

  “That will be fine as long as she is not put under unnecessary stress – for the time being,” the doctor said and walked away.

  York sighed. “This could take a day or two. Now that we have her in custody, you guys can go back to Tampa. My supervisor and I appreciate the work you’ve done on this thing.”

  “Well, thank you very much, but we’re not leaving until she is back in the States,” Blanchette said. “My supervisor wouldn’t hear of it.”

  York nodded. “I know Rolls. He is thorough. I’m surprised that he didn’t come along for this thing. But I’m not going to say no to the extra help. We should keep two guys here at all times anyway. We only have four Marshalls with us. They’ve got to sleep sometime. Perhaps we can get more leads as to where the other two went. They can only get so far within this amount of time.”

  “Two guys per shift sounds fine,” Blanchette said.

  Blanchette and York gave their orders to who was going to take first watch for six hours. Bruce wasn’t even mentioned. Granted, a couple of other agents from Dallas weren’t mentioned either, but he couldn’t help but take offense to it.

  When they got to the hotel and got settled in their rooms, Bruce showered and changed into regular streets clothes. There was a knock on his door. He thought it was Alec, but when he opened the door, it was Blanchette.

  “Hey, I was going to come see you,” Bruce said and stepped aside to let him in.

  “I’m sure you were,” Blanchette said as he crossed the threshold. He had changed into a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. “I guess you wanted to ask me why I didn’t put you on watch duty.”

  Bruce closed the door. “Yes. Did you think I would . . . compromise myself if I had a turn on watch?” That’s the only reason why Blanchette would choose the others over him and Alec.

  “No,” he answered simply. “I did it that way because you and Alec had exhausted yourselves pulling Margo out of the water, and,” he stressed the last word, “you and I need everything we’ve got to figure out a way to get her transferred back to Tampa.”

  Bruce’s eyebrow cocked up at the last statement. “Why do you care where she is taken?”

  “Don’t you? You know those Dallas boys will throw the book at her no matter what she tells them. They are mad as hell in Texas over that robbery. Margo and her friends made them look like fools. One thing about Texans, they got a lot of pride, and they don’t take likely to having it hurt.”

  Bruce knew that better than anybody. He was born and raised Texan. “I agree she’s better off in Tampa, but . . . I was just wondering why you would help her.”

  Blanchette shrugged as he gave Bruce a half grin. “Sometimes I like seeing a happy ending.”

  Bruce scoffed. “I don’t know how this is going to end happily. I . . . I
was in love with a thief and a hacker. She lied to me about everything.”

  “She lied to you about what she did for a living, but it seems like she told you the truth about everything else. And what is this was in love line? I saw your face when they loaded her in the ambulance. It looked like you were about to get in with her. Don’t act like you don’t care about her.”

  Bruce sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. I . . . It’s like I never knew her at all. And we’re just talking about the robbery. We haven’t touched on her shooting a man in cold blood. There was no weapon found next to Aaron Stokes’s body, so it wasn’t self-defense.”

  “People make mistakes, Styles, and that includes women,” Blanchette said as he sat down next to him. “As men, we automatically want to brush a woman off when they make a mistake, but when we make a mistake, we expect to be forgiven. And as far as the shooting, we don’t know what happened in that hotel room. Aaron might have been attacking her . . . threatened her with a knife. Don’t jump to any conclusions until you hear her side.”

  Bruce blew out. “I do want to believe the best, and I tried to during this whole thing, but every time a piece of news came in . . . it wasn’t good,” he confessed.

  Blanchette patted his knee. “We can go back and forth about this for an hour, but I think our time is better spent strategizing how we are going to get the justice department to let us take her back to Tampa.”

  Bruce nodded.

  There was over half a million dollars in Margo’s bag along with a heavy laptop and fake IDs for an alias, Natasha Miller. A gun was found in Margo’s pocket. Without performing ballistics, they weren’t sure if that was the gun used to kill Aaron Stokes. All Bruce could do was listen to Blanchette’s plan, go along with it, and hoped that it worked.

  Chapter 46

  US attorney for Middle District of Florida Trent Michaels and US attorney for Northern District of Texas Lawrence Osborne had gone back and forth about who had rights to the case. Margo’s attorney, Deidre Underwood, had gotten into the fray and argued that Margo should be taken back to Tampa. In the end, Deidre had petitioned the court to let a federal judge decide. Since the Federal Reserve was a federal institution with locations all over the country, the judge stated that the crime was committed against the bank as a whole. Plus, the judge had noted that Margo had been in Tampa when she hacked the Federal Reserve, so it was Tampa’s case to deal with.

  On day four, US Marshalls had escorted Margo back to Florida. A bail hearing had been held the same day. Bail was denied because the judge saw her as a flight risk. That was just as well for Margo because she had nowhere to go if she had been let out on bail. Plus, the FBI had confiscated her bag of money, so she couldn’t pay it without exposing her numbered accounts.

  They had placed her in a private holding cell from other prisoners because she was a prisoner of the federal government and considered a special case. Her first night at the jail had been pretty depressing and scary. Now that she was in jail herself, she understood why some prisoners had thoughts of suicide. It was hard being locked up with no hope of getting out. A person’s freedom to do what they wanted was taken away like they never had it to begin with. There was nothing in her cell but a sink, a toilet, a hard bed, and four bare walls. She was alone with her thoughts, and that was a bad thing. Reflecting on what she had done, what could she have done differently, and how she had ended up there was about to drive her crazy.

  Margo nearly jumped for joy when a guard came by and told her that her attorney was there to see her. The guard handcuffed her wrists and ankles and escorted her to a room with a table and two chairs.

  Deidre had been her attorney for her divorce from Frank. Margo trusted her, and she was the best attorney she knew. Deidre’s hair was pinned up in a French twist. She wore very little makeup, and she always wore pant suits.

  The guard waited for Margo to sit down before leaving them alone.

  “You look horrible,” Deidre stated flatly.

  Margo’s mouth twisted. She didn’t need to be told that. She hadn’t been able to brush her hair or shower since she had gotten there. “Thank you,” she replied sarcastically.

  “Sorry. I’m trying to get Trent Michaels to cut you a plea deal, but he’s being tough on the negotiations. His stance is that the FBI knows how the crimes of SunBeam Savings and Loan and the Federal Reserve had been committed. Is there anything you have that will convince him to give you immunity?”

  She believed she did, but she didn’t know if she should take the chance of admitting it. But she wasn’t sure if she could be a snitch like that even to save her own behind. “What are my chances if we go to trial?”

  “Not good,” Deidre stated. “When you were caught, you had a half a million dollars on you, a fake ID, a burner phone, a gun, a wig, and a laptop. Even though ballistics on the gun has proven that you didn’t kill Aaron Stokes, being found with those items implies guilt.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t have physical proof that I was in on the robbery. What they have is circumstantial right?”

  “Not exactly. One of the people who helped you rob SunBeam turned you in to save his own bacon. Local vice caught him dealing drugs.”

  Morris. Damn.

  “Well, they don’t have physical evidence of the Federal Reserve Bank heist.” Margo knew that for a fact. She had dosed the computers at the factory with gasoline herself. The evidence was toast. Even the laptop that she used to transfer funds in Cancun at the last minute was clean. She had erased the hard drive of everything but the operating system.

  “Perhaps not, but they definitely got you on SunBeam. The guy who turned you in will testify in court exactly how the crime happened. That alone will get you up to twenty years in federal prison. So I’ll ask you again, do you have a carrot big enough for me to dangle in front of Trent for him to consider giving you immunity?”

  Margo frowned. She didn’t want to do it even though Anthony had every intention of killing her, and Bobbi was thinking about turning on her. “I do know things, but . . .”

  Deidre leaned back in the chair with exhaustion. “If you tell what you know about . . . whatever, will it put your life in danger?”

  Margo considered the question. She wasn’t sure. Morris was still walking around free, and he might be peeved if she turned his cousin in for past crimes she had committed with him. “I’m not sure. The guy who had considered killing me is on the run, but he has family who . . . might not be the type of people to turn on.”

  “You need to tell me flat out who these people are.”

  “The person you are talking about that turned on me is Morris Mandel. I did . . . jobs with his cousin Anthony. Even though Anthony is on the run, Morris might retaliate.”

  “I doubt it. If something happens to you, Morris may as well leave his DNA at the scene. He ratted out his own cousin to get out of a jam to save himself. He’s not going to mess that up to come after you. It would be suicide.”

  Margo nodded. “I can see your point.”

  “But we can request protective custody until the other two are caught as a precaution. So? The information you got?”

  She exhaled.

  “Margo, do you understand the situation you are in?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “These people turned on you, too. You had to run because you believed they were going to kill you. You don’t owe them anything,” Deidre stated sternly.

  Margo swallowed. Deidre had a point. If Anthony hadn’t gone off half-cocked, she wouldn’t be in a filthy jail wearing an itchy jumpsuit.

  ****

  Bruce was in his office writing up a report to turn in to Blanchette when Trent Michaels walked into his office.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” Trent asked.

  “Sure.”

  He closed the door. Standing at five-foot-six, Trent moussed over to a chair and sat down. He had light blond hair and was average build. His black suit was well cut and looked like it was made from expe
nsive material. “You know I fought for the Federal Reserve case because I wanted it, right? Not because you and Blanchette convinced me.”

  “Yeah,” Bruce said as he sat back in his chair. He wondered where Trent was going with this.

  “I overheard some things,” he began. “I don’t know all the details, but I can’t show St. John any special treatment on this as a favor to you. The case is too big.”

  Bruce licked his lips. He had known Trent since he had moved to Tampa years ago. Back then, Trent worked for the Tampa City Prosecutor’s Office. They used to hang out here and there.

  “You understand, right?”

  He did, but he didn’t like it. However, he nodded his head, nonetheless. He hadn’t seen Margo since the US Marshalls escorted her from the Mexican hospital to the plane. He had stood afar at the airport, watching a woman he had confessed his love to walking in chains and a jumpsuit. He believed she should be brought to justice, but he didn’t think the book should be thrown at her either.

  Trent’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me for a minute,” he said and answered the phone. He was quiet for a minute before a rueful smile formed on his lips. “Speak of the devil. How can I help you, Ms. Underwood?”

  Underwood. That was the last name of Margo’s attorney. Bruce looked at his computer screen like he was reading something, but he was actually eavesdropping.

  “Well, unless she has something that is bigger than her–” Trent stopped short. A minute went by before he spoke again. “Well . . . that is something,” he chopped out. “Let me . . . think it over, and I’ll get back to you. Goodbye.” He clicked off.

  “Nothing wrong, I hope,” Bruce said as nonchalantly as he could.

  Trent snorted. “Please, you were listening. It seems like Ms. St. John knows enough to catch at least one of her cohorts and has information on other crimes that have been committed during the last five years.”