Just as he thought, Delgano loved to talk. William’s technique wasn’t going to work on him because Gano and Jarvis were the type of men who would automatically defy an authoritative figure.
“I said this before, but you look very familiar,” Gano added. “From the first time I saw your picture, I thought that. I just can’t put my finger on it, you know?”
Desmond shrugged. “I grew up in Jamaica.”
Delgano’s eyes widened in surprise. “Jamaica? Eh eh. Which part?”
“Trelawny.”
His eyes opened even larger. “Small world, I tell you. Look at us. Two little runts from the islands doing big things in the States.”
Desmond cupped his chin in his hand. “Can’t say that I’m anything like you though, Gano.”
“How so?”
“Look, I’m not going to act like I didn’t come in here for information.”
Gano shifted in his chair. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know where Larke is.”
“The woman? That’s it?”
Desmond let a beat pass before he responded. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Bullshit,” Desmond immediately came back. Gano sucked air through his teeth and diverted his gaze to the wall on his right.
“You’re not getting out of this,” Desmond explained. “You have so many charges against you right now that you’ll never see the light of day again.”
Gano shrugged, and fell silent again. Desmond curbed his frustration and stood, moving to the far corner of the room to lean against the wall.
“But you already knew that,” he told Delgano. “You knew from the jump that if someone caught a whiff of you and Jarvis’ scent, you would be taking the fall for him.”
The way his ear twitched told Desmond that he’d gotten his attention.
“You knew,” Desmond continued, “that Eddie had all of this set up to be tied to you. The warehouse in Jamaica, 90-North, all of his business operations…plain as day, they all belong to Delgano Richards.”
William’s eyebrows came together. “What’s he doing?”
“Let him work,” Doug advised, holding up a hand.
Gano shook his head fervently. “That’s a lie.”
“Oh okay.” Desmond reclaimed the seat across from Delgano. “Then tell me this. How did the federal government get a hold of your birth certificate?”
Gano thought for a second before responding. “If I was born here, it would be one of the easiest things to find.”
Desmond stroked his chin and nodded.
“True.” He motioned towards the glass and Doug entered with a yellow envelope. “But here’s the thing. This envelope was delivered to FBI headquarters three days before you even popped up on the radar as a suspect. Larke and I were still in St. Thomas when this envelope was dropped off and Larke is the only reason your name even came up in the first place.”
Gano’s eyes narrowed.
“And look at this. Details of the exact date and time you would be at the airstrip. By any chance did you know that the same G5 that was waiting to pick you up had been seized by the federal government? Eddie didn’t tell you that he no longer had possession of that asset?”
Desmond pretended to skim the papers, then exchanged a dubious glance with Doug.
“I mean, it’s possible that he didn’t know,” Doug added, taking a seat next to Desmond. “He and Eddie were exchanging communication by snail mail being sent between a post office box registered to a Clarence Garvey in Jamaica, and the residence of Carol Garvey, Clarence’s niece, in Largo, Maryland. Funny thing is, Carol died what, two years ago? Maybe Jarvis would have told him about the jet if he wasn’t in lockup.”
Desmond tilted his head to the side as though he was considering Doug’s alternative explanation.
“Possibly. But still, this anonymous birth certificate—”
“He is going to defile your woman,” Gano suddenly interrupted. Both Desmond and Doug turned to look at him.
“I don’t know where he took her,” he continued with an edge of disappointment to his voice. “But he told me about the things that he would do to her if he ever got his hands on her. The way that he would restrain her with leather so tight that it would slice into her tender skin. Strap her legs to either end of a bed post, wide open so that she couldn’t refuse him. And then he would degrade her by sullying her supple flesh. Damage her to the point that life seeped from her broken body. Women carry a lot of their power between their legs without even knowing it. They give so much power to their sex.”
A muscle throbbed in Desmond’s forearm that Doug closely monitored.
“Then when he is done with her,” Gano continued, “when he is sure that he has reduced her to a barren, empty, and lifeless vessel, he will kill her. Slowly. Painfully. Almost endlessly.”
Doug didn’t move quickly enough to stop the fist that landed against Gano’s jaw. Gano hadn’t seen the strike coming and failed to brace himself for the impact, so he went flying out of his chair and onto the hard linoleum floor. Desmond was already around the table by the time Gano fell and picked him up by his collar before forcing him into the concrete wall behind them. One hand found its way around Gano’s neck and his fury traveled through his body and straight to the fingers that threatened to crush Gano’s windpipe.
Doug rushed over to try to tug Desmond’s hand away from Gano’s neck to no avail. Gano felt his head begin to go faint and his vision blurred. He’d gotten so used to being in charge of everything, having everyone follow his every command, that he failed to realize that he’d never truly been exposed to the prospect of dying. And what would he be dying for? He thought that he’d be dying for his brother, the only family that he’d ever known, but just like that, Eddie had betrayed him. The worst part was, he’d expected Eddie to betray him. He would have never done the same to Eddie, but was it because he was playing the role of the naïve little brother? The entire operation, the entire scheme, had been Eddie’s idea from the start and like always, he was willing to go along with whatever Eddie had suggested. All this time he’d assumed that they were both taking advantage of the fools that worked for them, but he never realized that he was also a fool. Eddie didn’t see him as a brother. He saw him as an associate. Disposable.
William rushed into the room and tugged on Desmond’s arm until Gano was released from his grasp. Gasping for air, the large man slumped to the floor. He glanced up at Desmond standing over him.
“Now I know where I remember you from,” he squeezed out, his throat aching. William helped him back to his chair, and even though William didn’t completely agree with Desmond’s tactics, at least it got Gano talking.
“I remember now,” Gano reiterated. He closed his eyes and searched his mind for the memory. He remembered the woman with the bruises that had spoken to Eddie’s mother through the gate. In the back, there’d been a little boy peering out the window. He couldn’t have been more than three years old at the time.
Desmond remained against the wall positive that if he got any closer, he’d kill Gano instantly the next time around.
“Did your parents live in a big white house in St. Andrew?” Gano asked.
Desmond unclenched his jaw. “Why does that matter?”
“If you answer the question, I will tell you where she is.”
“Thought you didn’t know,” Desmond accused, moving towards him again. William blocked his path.
“I might know something,” Gano answered. “Tell me, did your parents live in a big white house in St. Andrew?”
All eyes landed on Desmond.
“Yes,” he gruffly answered.
That was all the confirmation that Gano needed. Standing in front of him was the son of the man who had started it all. The seed of the man that had turned Eddie into what he was today. Betrayal or not, if he brought this man to Eddie, he was sure that he’d get something in return. That Eddie would find a way to get him out of this mess. Th
is wasn’t how it was going to end for him. He wasn’t going to rot the rest of his life away in some American prison.
“I answered your question, now talk,” Desmond threatened. “When I’m really ready to kill you, trust me, these two won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Gano glanced between the three men. Out of the four men in the room, he was only the largest by girth. He, Desmond, and the blonde man all stood on the same height with Agent Wright falling about a head shorter. Although his girth gave him an advantage, the mere fact that he was weaponless and handcuffed left him powerless in a room full of armed men. The look in Desmond’s eyes also told him that he wasn’t bluffing.
“He talked a few times about this log house that he liked to go to. He said that it was about three hours away from Milwaukee and he went there whenever he needed to clear his head.”
Doug pulled out a pen. “Three hours in which direction?”
“I don’t know,” Gano answered. “You don’t have a map? Go three hours in all directions and when you come to a secluded place, that is probably it.”
Every word that came out of Gano’s mouth felt like sandpaper across Desmond’s skin. At that point, if it weren’t for the fact that Gano was the only person that might know where Larke was located, he would have killed him already.
Suddenly, a second agent burst into the room. “We might have something,” he breathlessly announced. “The defense attorney’s widow just got a call from a friend of hers that lives in a town called Birch Creek, Wisconsin. They own a cabin up there and the friend, noticing that the lights were on, called Mrs. Croft to see if she wanted to get together thinking she was in town. Mrs. Croft thought it was unusual because no one was supposed to be up there, and called us.”
Desmond moved across the room. “Birch Creek, where is it?”
“It’s about a three hour drive north of here,” the agent answered.
“Let’s go,” Desmond ordered. “And pick him up. He’s coming with us.”
William and the second agent picked Gano up from the floor, but before they exited the room, Desmond stood face to face with him.
“If we drive up there and she’s not there, believe me when I say that I will leave you there to rot while these three gentlemen turn their backs. They need Jarvis. I don’t. All I need is an alibi.”
Then he was out the door with Doug on his heels, William guiding Gano close behind.
Chapter Thirteen
Dark, billowing clouds cloaked the faint glimmer of moonlight in the sky, and casted an eerie darkness on the space surrounding the log cabin. Doug and Desmond sat in the front of a tinted black SUV, Doug with a pair of binoculars to his face as he scoured the premises for any signs of movement. There were no lights on in the front of the house, however Desmond wasn’t going to turn back until he’d fully searched the interior and checked through each nook and cranny to ensure Jarvis hadn’t stuffed pieces of Larke into them.
His stomach turned.
As much as he despised those intrusive thoughts, he had to accept that they were still a possibility. Larke had eluded Eddie for too long for him not to be upset enough to kill her on the spot. But, in order to keep his sanity, Desmond willed himself to believe that Eddie had been the kind of kid that liked to play with his chewing gum between his fingers before he threw it away.
Gano and William were seated in the back, their attention equally as focused on the house. He’d had his doubts before, but now that they were right outside, Gano could sense that Eddie was inside the cabin. The immense structure’s architectural beauty was something that Eddie would have admired, and it reminded him of a house that had stood by itself way up in the mountains in Jamaica that Eddie used to point to and say would one day be his.
“I don’t see anything,” Doug whispered, changing the zoom on his binoculars. “None of the lights are on. There’s no movement. There’s nothing.”
Desmond continued to look over the house. “That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t. It took us close to three hours to get up here. Anything could have happened between when the neighbor saw the lights and now.”
“Yeah, anything,” Gano grumbled, alluding to the fact that Larke might have already been killed. Desmond lifted his arm to connect his elbow with the center of the man’s forehead, but William put up his hand to block his path.
“I still think we should call for backup,” Desmond suggested.
“On an empty house?” William asked. “The agency doesn’t have the resources of your private agency, Harding. I’m not calling anyone until we’re sure that there’s a reason.”
Desmond ignored him and put his hand on the door handle.
“What are you doing?” Doug asked.
“I’m going to get a closer look.”
Doug held up his binoculars. “And what do you think I’m doing?”
“You and I both know that there’s only so much that those things will show you.”
“But they keep you alive too,” Doug asserted. “You know what? Go ahead and run in there without knowing what we’re dealing with. Obviously, you have learned nothing about Jarvis this entire time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had active landmines strategically placed around the premises.”
Ignoring his plea, Desmond pushed the front door open. “And since when has that ever been a problem?”
He grabbed a shotgun from the back before creeping across the street to hide behind a giant elm that sat in the middle of the yard next door. Doug blew out a frustrated gust of air before leaving the vehicle and joining Desmond on the grass.
“No offense, Harding, but if you don’t tone it down with these ‘acts of defiance,’ you’re going to get yourself killed one day.”
Desmond cocked the shotgun. “Words to live by.”
They stealthily moved across the neighbor’s yard and hopped the fence partitioning off the front of the cabin with the wooded backyard. They then moved deeper into the woods until they were crouched behind a row of trees that stood directly behind the defense attorney’s cabin. Desmond spotted a soft flickering light in one of the windows and the illumination looked as though it was coming from a candle sitting on top of a structure right beneath the glass.
“And we have light,” Doug announced. “And it’s candlelight. So, I guess we do have someone in there.”
He raised the binoculars once again. Although he could see a shadow moving around in the room, he couldn’t make out if the figure was Jarvis. It also didn’t help that there were no outdoor lights to assist them, and the wooded area rose up into an awkward slant populated by dozens of tall trees.
“I can make out a body,” he whispered. “Someone’s in the room, but I can’t tell if it’s Jarvis.”
He handed the binoculars to Desmond. Having never come face to face with Jarvis, Desmond used what memory of him he had walking in and out of the courtroom to compare to the shadow that paced every few seconds across the window. From what he gathered about Eddie, the man was calculated and precise and any deviation from his plan was reason for termination of the product, activity, or person. He wouldn’t be the type to pace aimlessly across a room as though ruminating on something.
“I don’t think it’s him,” Desmond concluded. “I don’t think he would stand in front of the only lit window of his hiding place. This place is tied to his attorney, so I’m pretty sure that he knows we’d eventually end up here, just not tonight.”
Doug raised both brows. “You think we can catch him off guard?”
“I’m not sure,” Desmond honestly replied. “And that’s the tricky part.”
They continued to watch the shadow for a few more moments to see if it did anything else, but eventually the candle was blown out and the figure disappeared. A few minutes later, the lights came on in the kitchen and through the back sliding doors, they made out Dr. Lindholm.
“The doc’s here?” Doug asked, surprised. “I figured Jarvis would have done away with him by now. You know, tie up loose ends.”
Desmond shrugged. “I would think so too. I mean, he’d only keep him around if he thought he was useful, but now with their scheme blown wide open, what else could he possibly need him for?”
The doctor turned and they noticed that he had a phone to his ear.
“Do you think Jarvis might be ill?” Doug asked.
“Mentally? Yes,” Desmond answered. “But physically, I don’t think so.”
A loud crack erupted in the air in the direction of the SUV. Dr. Lindholm’s head shot up in reaction to the noise and he shut off the kitchen lights before disappearing from sight. There was another loud crack, and both Doug and Desmond knew the sound almost too well. It was the sound of a bullet sizzling through the air before it exploded against the stillness of the night.
Doug detached a radio from his hip. “Will, is everything okay?”
There was dead silence for about five seconds before Will came through.
“Somehow, he grabbed my gun and shot me,” He forced out. “Gano is on foot and running towards the house.”
“Hold on, buddy,” Doug insisted. “We’ll be around to help you out.”
William groaned. “No, no, it’s okay. We lost the element of surprise. You guys have to go in. I’ll radio for backup.”
“Are you sure, man?” Desmond asked.
“Don’t pretend to be concerned, Harding. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
Knowing that they were on borrowed time, Desmond and Doug split up, both each taking an entrance to the cabin. The sound of blood rushing through Desmond’s ears drowned out the chirps and cries of the wildlife that resonated through the trees. He neared the entrance to the sliding doors where they’d spotted the doctor.
Flattening himself against the wall at the edge of the sliding doors, he sucked in a deep breath. The sound of more gunshots ricocheted through the air and he expended a few rounds in the glass door, pulled it open and quietly slipped inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Desmond kept his back against the main wall of the kitchen as he looked out into blackness that he guessed was the living room. Running his hand along a wall, he found a light switch and flipped it on. As his eyes focused, he gave the kitchen another look over. Neither the doctor nor the phone that he’d been using were anywhere to be found.
In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... Page 22