Caballo Security Box Set

by Camilla Blake

  I turned when he said that. “You think we should give these people what they want? What if they kill Valerie the second they get their hot little hands on the money?”

  “They’ve never committed a violent crime,” the fed said almost conversationally. “We don’t think they will resort to violence now.”

  “That’s not good enough!” I turned to Jake. “Are you really going to fall for this crap?”

  “If the FBI thinks it’s the best thing to do, who am I to argue?”

  “This is bullshit!”

  I turned and walked out of the room, leaving them thinking I was totally outraged. I should be given an Oscar for that performance!

  “Will you give me a ride to my place?” I asked one of four uniformed cops standing outside the house. They looked at each other like they weren’t sure what they were allowed to do. “It’s not far from here.”

  Finally, one nodded and gestured for me to follow him to his patrol car.

  Just a few more hours. It’d all be over in just a few hours.

  TJ was waiting for me at my condo. I thanked the cop and rushed inside, barely able to hold in the laughter that had been bubbling up in my chest.

  “Well?” TJ asked.

  “They’re doing it!”

  He laughed, throwing his arms around me and lifting me off my feet, dancing in the wide entryway like we were a couple of kids who’d just gotten our way for the first time ever. I kissed him, always unable to resist those thick, full lips of his.

  “The moment he wires the money, we’re out of here!”

  “Well, fairly soon,” I said, brushing a piece of hair out of TJ’s face. “We have to wire some of the money to Angela.”

  “Why? We’re the ones who took all the risks! We’re the ones who came up with a plan and executed it.”

  “She’s my friend. And she didn’t turn me in when she found it was me taking the money from GME.”

  “Yeah, because she was too busy pocketing the blackmail money she forced you to hand over.”

  “We were partners. It was a mutually beneficial thing.”

  “She blackmailed you, Scott. You know she did.”

  I untangled myself from TJ’s arms and went into the living room, threw myself down on the sofa. “I’ve explained this to you over and over again. She found out what I was doing and she could have turned me in, but she didn’t. She helped me cover it up. It was her idea to have Damon sign all the expense sheets, her idea to use the clinics to cover up the losses.”

  “Yeah, what a brilliant idea that was! If you weren’t shortchanging the funds going to the clinics, you might have been able to keep siphoning off the money from GME for years more. But they noticed the deficit and complained, then someone went to the Attorney General.”

  “That might have been a mistake, but the expense sheets make it look like Damon did it all. That’s why he’s in jail, not us.”

  “Not you, you mean.”

  I waved my hand in the air, accepting the clarification. “Whatever. But I owe Angela this money. She’s counting on it to get herself out of the country, just like we’re doing.”

  “Maybe Angela deserves to stay here. Let her go to jail.”

  “If I do that, she’ll tell the feds what I did.”

  “So? We’ll be in Mozambique by then.”

  I sighed, studying TJ as he stood there in the doorway, glaring down at me like I was a cockroach crawling across his lunch. “It’s twelve million dollars, babe. We can stand to give away a couple million.”

  “Fine,” he muttered. “A couple million. But that’s it.”

  I smiled, jumping to my feet to give him a hug. “Thank you, baby.”

  He took my face between his hands and gave me a hard kiss on the lips. “Go watch for the transfer. I’m going upstairs to shower.”

  “Can’t I come join you?”

  “When the money’s here, you can shower with me as often as you wish. Until then, we don’t have time for fun.” He walked off, not bothering to look back at me.

  I went into the kitchen and took a beer from the fridge, swallowing half of it in one big chug. My computer was in the office, a small room tucked under the stairs. I could hear the shower go on upstairs as I settled in my office chair and booted the thing up. It was an older model—something else to chalk up to the reduction in funds Jake had been giving me—so it took it a few minutes to reach the desktop. The Internet was faster, but it seemed like everything was taking such a long time today. I had to put in my password three times. Finally, the account came up, an account in the Caymans that TJ and I had opened specifically for the deposit of the ransom money.

  The account was empty at the moment, just the few thousand we’d put into it as the initial deposit. I refreshed the page over and over, waiting for the deposit to appear. After ten minutes, I was beginning to worry. But then… there it was!

  “Yes!” I cried, bouncing in the chair. “It’s here, baby!” I ran out of the office to call up the stairs. “We’re millionaires!”

  There was no answer from upstairs.

  I went back to the office, assuming TJ didn’t hear me because he was still in the shower. I began digging through the drawers, tossing things into the shredder that I didn’t want anyone to see after I was gone. As I worked, I glanced at the computer. My heart stopped for a second. The money was gone.

  I refreshed the page. Still gone.

  I refreshed again, shaking the mouse like it would make it work better. It didn’t.

  Not only were the millions gone, the few thousand weren’t there anymore, either.

  I snatched up the phone and dialed the bank. Some sweet-voiced woman answered just as an explosion rocked the condo.

  “Scott Powell! You’re under arrest!”

  Chapter 24

  Valerie

  I insisted on being there.

  Ox sat beside me on a low stool in the utility van, looking respectfully away from me as we both listened to the conversations taking place in Scott’s condo. I closed my eyes as TJ confirmed everything Leesa had apparently long suspected. I’d gone over it in my mind again and again over the past twelve hours, putting together little things I’d noticed but not really understood over the past few months. Now I did. Now that I was caught up in the middle of it.

  “What now?”

  Ox glanced at me before tapping the monitor in front of us. I could see a quiet neighborhood, a few cars parked along the street, a woman walking her baby, an old man sitting on his front porch.

  “We’ve got a dozen cops positioned strategically around the neighborhood. As soon as they get the word, they’ll go in and get him.”

  I nodded, my vision swimming a little as my mind filled with an image of Scott in handcuffs. And then there was TJ. It had never occurred to me that TJ might be involved in all this.

  “Did you know about TJ?”

  Ox wouldn’t look at me for a moment, his eyes stuck on the video. “We had our suspicions.”

  “When did you know?”

  He glanced at me, guilt written in all the lines on his face. “Before Mexico.” He sat up a little. “Part of our planning process involves background checks on everyone involved and some surveillance. One of our operatives got pictures of TJ slipping in and out of this condo during the night a few times. That led to a search of his bank accounts and his other financial records. It became apparent he’s been a part of Scott’s scheme at GME for a few months.”

  “How did you know about GME?”

  “Leesa had her suspicions. She pointed us in the right direction.” He looked away for a second. “That’s why she hired us in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Leesa Powell has been our client for six months. She originally came to us about the embezzlement at GME. It wasn’t until we’d told her about TJ that she asked us to watch over you when you went to Mexico.”

  “Then she knew this was a possibility.”

  “Then Alejandro Rami
rez called Oliver and told him that his old crew down in Mexico had been hired to kidnap you.”

  I nodded, my eyes moving to the monitor. I knew Oliver was out there somewhere, watching the condo with the rest of the cops and operatives who were working on this case. I was a little afraid for him, aware that a felony conviction didn’t allow him to carry a gun.

  “How is he allowed to work for you?” I asked. “If he can’t carry a gun…”

  “Oliver is co-owner of Caballo. In that capacity, he doesn’t require some of the licensing that the others do. As long as he doesn’t carry, he’s okay.”

  “But he could get hurt.”

  “My guess is when this is done he’ll go back to building his house.”

  “His house?”

  Ox nodded, chuckling a little under his breath. “He bought a piece of land outside of San Antonio years ago. He’s been living on it since he got out of jail, staying in a makeshift cabin and building a house right in the center of the property.”

  “By himself?”

  “He calls it therapy.”

  “How can he afford to do that? Does he work?”

  Ox shook his head. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Between our father’s very generous life insurance policy and the wrongful death lawsuit,for our sister, we’re pretty comfortable. Not quite up to your father’s level, but close enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Before he could answer, someone called out over the radio. “We’ve got one coming out the second-floor window!”

  Ox and I both turned our attention to the monitor. Sure enough, TJ was coming out the bedroom window. He tossed a heavy bag onto the ground and carefully walked across the covered patio before jumping down to the ground himself. Then he grabbed the bag and made a run for it.

  He didn’t get far. The woman pushing her baby along the sidewalk pulled a gun and ordered him to the ground. A second later, Akker Mills arrived, jerking TJ backward with one hand on his shoulder. TJ immediately hit the ground so hard that there was no air in his lungs to cry out. By the time he could make a sound, they had him cuffed and in the back of a police cruiser.

  Not even a full minute later, the police captain running the official side of things gave the order to enter the house. As I watched, a line of cops dressed in flak vests burst through the front door. Not five minutes later, they came out with Scott in cuffs, his head hung down in shame.

  Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched.

  ***

  “He cheated me!” Scott balled like a baby, his head down on the smooth metal table. “He took the money. He was going to leave me and take it all!”

  I shook my head. “Who cares?” I whispered under my breath.

  “Tell me what happened the day Valerie disappeared,” the cop said to Scott. “Who took her?”

  Scott sighed, sitting up, his face red and blotchy from the tears. “TJ made the chloroform in the clinic, said it was the quickest, easiest way to do it. He didn’t want to use any drugs from the clinic in case the relief doctor noticed something missing. Then he was the one to use it on her because none of the rest of us knew how much we could safely spray on her.”

  I closed my eyes, a nausea washing over me.

  “I’ve heard enough,” I said.

  Ox touched the small of my back and escorted me out of the observation room. “Oliver’s helping wrap things up at Scott’s place. But I can call him and have him come to drive you home.”

  “I’d like that.”

  But before we’d taken a step, my father called my name. I turned and became a child again, running into his arms. I’d never been so relieved to see anyone in all my life! We held each other for so long that people were having to walk around us to get up and down the hallway. When I finally pulled away, his face was as blotchy and puffy as Scott’s had been.

  Leesa was standing half a dozen yards behind him, watching with a sad, wistful look on her face. I went to her, wrapped my arms around her neck.

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  She began to cry. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I don’t know why he did this, don’t understand how he could.”

  “Neither do I. But it’s not your fault.”

  “That’s true, darling,” my father said, joining our embrace. “All that matters is that the three of us are still here, still healthy. We’ll face this together, too.”

  We stood there for a long time. When I turned around, Ox was gone. It was okay. It was time to go home and draw in a few breaths. There was time for everything else later.

  Chapter 25

  Oliver

  Three weeks later…

  I lifted the two-by-four and pushed it into place between the two four-by-fours, slipping a nail from the bunch between my lips to press up against the wood, adjusting my hold so that I could wield the hammer, slam the sucker home. Three more nails and I stepped back to take a look. One down, half a dozen more to go.

  “It’s beginning to resemble something like a house.”

  I turned, watched as Ox walked in his expensive Italian loafers through the dust and weeds that would one day be my beautiful front lawn. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I turned back around, grabbing another two-by-four.

  “I’ve got your paycheck for the Powell-Cole case.”

  “Keep it. I don’t want it.”

  “You put in ten days of work, Ollie. You earned it.”

  “It’s not like I need it.”

  “Neither of us need it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not ours to accept.”

  I just shook my head, pressing a nail against the soft wood and positioning the hammer for another pounding.

  “You did a damn fine job on that case, Ollie. I think you’re a natural at it.”

  “I only did it for Alejandro. I owed him.”

  “So you honor your debts to prisoners, but you don’t honor them with your own brother?”

  “I don’t owe you anything, Ox.”

  “Yeah, you do. You owe me two years. You owe me the brother I worked side by side with for two years. You owe me the relationship we once had. You owe me the truth!”

  I tossed my hammer, watching as it clattered across the concrete slab I was building my house on. “You know the truth!”

  “Yeah. But I want to hear it from your mouth.”

  I shook my head. “There was an accident. A boy died. That’s the only truth anyone needs to know.”

  “Why are you protecting her? Do you really think it’s helping her? It’s not.”

  “It wasn’t about her.”

  “We both know it was.”

  I stared at him, my big brother in his fancy suit, his hair carefully combed to one side on the top of his head, the sides perfectly sheared to follow the natural pattern of growth. He looked like one of those businessmen who’re always mentoring people on those reality shows, the kind of guy who comes off not just knowledgeable but conceited, too.

  “I don’t want to have this discussion again. We’ve gone over it again and again.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that the prosecutor doesn’t think you did it, either? He told me that if you’d just go down there and tell him the truth, he’ll have your conviction overturned.”

  “What’s the point now? I’ve already served my time.”

  “You’re a felon, Ollie. Don’t you understand what that’s going to mean in the future? You can’t vote, you can’t own a gun; you won’t even be able to get a job if you get tired of building this damn house! Why do that to yourself if it’s not necessary? You can’t protect her forever.”

  “No, I can’t. But I also can’t take back what’s done.”

  Ox sighed, turning slightly away from me. “Have you seen her recently?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, me neither. She’s on a bender. Hasn’t been back to the house in a week.”

  “Good. Maybe she’ll forget where she lives. She’s already
forgotten she has two other kids.”

  Ox made a sound at that, but he didn’t disagree.

  Our mother was an alcoholic. She’d lost herself in the bottle the night our sister—a beautiful, independent, feisty seven-year-old—drowned in a neighbor’s pool. It was an accident. She was at a birthday party and somehow got her long hair pulled into one of those filter things on the side of the pool and just couldn’t get free. By the time someone noticed, she’d been fighting for more than three minutes. They tried CPR, but her heart had already given up from lack of oxygen.

  Mom came home from the hospital and opened a bottle of vodka a student had given her some years before as a thank-you gift. She’d been lost in that bottle ever since.

  “Come back to work, Ollie. If you won’t fight for yourself, the least you could do is help me fight for our business.”

  “I thought things were good at Caballo.”

  “They are. They were. There’s been…” Ox shook his head. “There are issues. I could really use your help with them.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to go back there, to go back to that life. So much has changed.”

  “I need you there, Ollie. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

  I knew that was true. Ox didn’t ask for anything unless it was really important to him.

  “Let me think about it for a few days.”

  He seemed reluctant to accept that. But he nodded, coming to me to shove the envelope he’d been holding in the pocket of my T-shirt. “You know where to find me.”

  He walked away and I turned back to the frame of my house, my eyes moving almost lovingly over her lines. I touched the envelope, feeling almost dirty for taking money for protecting Valerie. I hadn’t heard from her since the day Scott and TJ were arrested. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. I’d probably never hear from her again. But I didn’t regret what had happened. It was good to connect to another human being like that again. It’d changed my perspective for the first time in a long time. It had offered me some hope that maybe I’d be able to live something like a normal life again.