FRAUD: A Romantic Suspense Novel

by R. C. Stephens

  “I don’t exactly know what’s involved with bath duty but I can help. I won’t leave the bloke hanging.” I grinned.

  She forced a smile. I tried to convince myself that whatever irked her was none of my business. She was my cousin’s wife, and it could very well be a personal problem and nothing to do with Natalia.

  She closed the door and I hung out with the kids in the backyard. My anxiety rose with each passing minute; ten minutes suddenly felt like a lifetime. With my nerves on edge, I guided the children into the house after nine minutes.

  “Upstairs, to the bath,” I called out.

  “You say bath funny.” Althea grinned up at me.

  “Oh really. And how do you say bath then?” I asked, trying to accentuate the ‘a’ the way the Americans do.

  “You’re funny.” She giggled. I gave her a little tickle as we went upstairs.

  “Hey, mate.” I placed April down and she waddled to her dad.

  “I’ll clean April first then we can pop Althea in with her. Tell Lewis to shower in my bathroom,” he said. Althea giggled.

  “What? Your daddy says it just like me.”

  She shook her head, “Daddy says it more like me.”

  She had a point. Daddy had been living in America much longer. His accent wasn’t as pronounced as mine.

  “Can you play in your room a moment, Luv?” I asked Althea.

  I wanted Shay alone to somehow ask him about Natalia without him losing his cool on me. Althea ran off and I looked behind my shoulder to see Lewis playing with some soldier figures on his bedroom floor.

  “Would you know if Natalia is all right, mate?” I tried to use my most nonchalant tone.

  His dark brows drew together and a deep crease formed between his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just need to know. Without the questions.” I winced, knowing what I asked sounded sketchy. Natalia was a married woman and his wife’s best friend, yet over the years she had become important to me.

  “Immy went over to check on her,” he answered, and my heart skipped a few beats.

  “Why would she need checking on?” I asked, my heart racing when I tried to keep my tone even.

  “It’s not a good time to talk about right now,” he whispered. “Lewis is in the other room. He and Lily are quite close. I don’t want him to worry.”

  I swiped a hand over my mouth. That didn’t sound good. I was on my last nerve. I knelt beside him as he soaped up April’s hair. She was sitting in a special seat to support her.

  “I know you told me to stay away from her. We haven’t done anything inappropriate, but she is an important person to me. If she’s in trouble I need to know,” I whispered softly, ensuring none of the children heard. I also didn’t want them to sense my nerves.

  Shay gave me an assessing look, and he pinched his lips together in contemplation. “Something happened. Immy doesn’t know what. She saw her in the carpool line this afternoon, and she couldn’t talk. She was a mess. Wanted to cry. Immy is very worried.”

  “Is it safe that she went there by herself?” I asked, my voice below a whisper.

  Shay’s dark eyes filled with fear. “Why wouldn’t it be safe? I know Mark isn’t the most friendly bloke. He’s just anti-social, not dangerous.”

  The wheels in my mind turned. I’d had enough training in personality assessments, life, and the Royal Navy to know something was way off with Natalia’s husband. The man had secrets. But I didn’t know the extent or meaning of them.

  “Why do you have that look on your face?” Shay snapped me from a daze.

  “What . . . nothing. All is good, mate.” I smiled. It was fake. “Would you mind if I left you for a wee bit?” I stood and turned out of the bathroom.

  “Get back here, you wanker. What is going on in that head of yours?” he shouted.

  I turned back. “Relax, I’ll make sure Lewis gets in the shower. I’ll send Althea your way then I’m heading out.”

  Shay’s eyes narrowed on me.

  “All’s good cousin, relax.” I did everything I said I would and left.

  What the fuck was I doing? I couldn’t just go over to her house and knock on her door and tell her husband I wanted to check on her. My blood boiled beneath my skin as I recalled Immy’s behavior tonight at dinner. She seemed distraught, which meant Natalia was in trouble. What could have happened in the eight hours since I spoke to her? She seemed so calm and peaceful at the hotel, at peace with the decision she made to leave her husband . . . my mind was rolling with negative thoughts. I had visions of him hurting her physically or telling her he didn’t want a divorce. I knew he fucked with her head. I took a deep breath as my compact rental car sped above the allowed limits.

  She was probably just upset about the divorce. I couldn’t let my imagination run away with me. Problem was my imagination was colorful and vivid, the result of living a fucked-up life and seeing pretty much everything from the vermin that sold drugs on the street corners of my neighborhood, to prostitutes, and the evils of war. My mind was still a dark place to be.

  I was a few minutes away from her neighborhood without a game plan. I reminded myself I wasn’t in the desert on a mission, trying to gather intel, but I had already planned how to sneak into her backyard and see for myself if she was okay.

  Breathe Hayes, breathe. I was irrational now. I pulled the car into a gas station and ran my hands roughly up and down my face. I hadn’t even kissed the woman, and I wanted her like I needed air. The need to protect her overwhelmed me. Reality crashed down on me as I realized how fucking useless I was. Well, not completely. I did have connections with MI5, the British equivalent of the FBI, since some of my mates from the Royal Navy were employed there.

  What was I thinking? I felt fucking crazy . . . what would I say to William? Gee, I have a lady friend in some trouble, and I need intel on her husband. Fuck. This was fucking insane. I sifted through my contacts anyway, scanning my list until William’s name came up. I quickly calculated that it was after one in the morning in the UK, but I was too worked up to give a fuck.

  After three rings he picked up the phone, only there was an electronic beat pulsing in the background.

  “William,” I shouted. “It’s Hayes.”

  “You bloody wanker. Where the hell are you?” he asked. I hadn’t been in touch in over a year.

  “America.”

  “That’s right. Fuck. You a doctor now?”

  I laughed. “Almost.” I was the only one from my unit who had chosen that path. Some of my mates were police officers, MI5, and MI6, and some had moved to America to join the FBI. Will knew me well enough; I’d told him about my past. Every sordid detail. We’re close enough that I could ask him for a ridiculous favor.

  “I need information.”

  He bursted into laughter. It sounded demonic over the pulsing beat in the background.

  “I need information on someone,” I repeated, knowing I sounded nuts.

  “What, a patient of yours involved in international crime?” He guffawed.

  “Huh! No actually a lady friend of mine is possibly in some trouble, or maybe not. I’m not sure.” I swiped my hand over the stubble lining my jaw, realizing part of my anxiety was stemming from rubbish Fernando mentioned a few times at the soup kitchen. A man who suffers from multiple personalities. Still I couldn’t ignore things he’d said over the years.

  “Hayes Taylor has fallen for a woman. I don’t believe it.” He snickered since I had a reputation of not settling down.

  “Yeah, well, not exactly. She’s married.” I cringed at those words. “We aren’t together.”

  “Sure, whatever it is you got to tell yourself so you can sleep at night.” He chuckled deep and throaty.

  Being MI5 meant he had to brush his morals aside; it wasn’t beneath the job to have sex with a target.

  “Will, please. I need you to check on the Lopez family for me. They live in LA: the father is Fernando Lopez, the eldest brother I think is named Rafael,
and another brother is named . . .” I tried to jog my memory from things Fernando had mentioned over the years.

  “Mario,” Will said into the phone, and my blood turned cold.

  “Why the fuck do you know that?” I snapped.

  “Hayes, it’s better if you call Nathan. You know he’s FBI. He’d have better information than I do. I’m working deep cover on a case now. I haven’t been following the drug trade right now.”

  “Excuse me!” I spluttered. Drug Trade? “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Oh shit, man. I assumed you knew. I mean the reason for your call . . .” Static interrupted the call.

  “Will.” I shouted. Come on, fuck. “Will, please. Tell me what you know,” I pled.

  “Gringo is in the house,” he answered, and the line went dead.

  My heart galloped in my chest. A part of me wanted to think that Will was fucking high and didn’t know what he was talking about, only he did, and this was more messed up than I ever imagined.

  I left the gas station and drove back to my cousin’s house. I had to make contact with Nathan. But Nathan and I weren’t close. Why the hell would he give me intel?

  By the time I arrived back on Shay’s driveway, I figured I needed to convince Nathan that I could somehow help him regarding whatever was going on with Mark’s family. Before I could do that, I had to tail Mark and find out what he was all about. Considering I only planned to stay in Florida two weeks it was going to be damn hard.

  Chapter Thirty

  Hayes

  I waited in the house for Immy to return home so I could ask her how Natalia was doing. My body was on edge with too much adrenaline as I replayed Will’s words to me. The telly blared in the background when Immy walked through the door. I snapped to my feet and put my fingers through my rumpled hair, immediately noticing she looked worn out.

  “Uh, how’s Natalia?” I mumbled. “Shay mentioned you went over there.” I shrugged my shoulders, aiming for nonchalance, but she saw right through me.

  Her eyes narrowed on me before she sighed. “I don’t know. She was acting completely normal, but something is wrong. When I saw her in the carpool this afternoon, she was a mess. I’ve never seen her like that before. When I dropped by this evening, she was alarmed to see me at first. And then she started acting normal.” She said normal like there was something wrong with it.

  “Why do you think that is? Can you think of anything that might have upset her?”

  “I’ve been wracking my brain the entire time. I watched her heat dinner for Mark when he came home. He was perfectly pleasant. But when Natalia came to pour me a cup of tea, I noticed her hand was shaking. What would cause a person to shake like that?” She tilted her head to the side.

  I knew what caused a person to hide the shakes: fear, nerves. Unfortunately, I was trained in torture techniques, a necessary evil in war.

  Shay came down the stairs.

  “Hello, Luv.” He reached an arm around her, and she melted into his side. “Everything good with Natalia?”

  She shook her head. “Something was off.”

  My cousin eyed me suspiciously. I hadn’t seen him since I returned. I gave him an innocent glare.

  “I just stepped out for gas and came home.” It was partially true. I did park at the gas station for a while.

  “Maybe she and Mark had a fight, and she’s upset. It’s normal for couples to fight at times.” He smiled down to her warmly.

  “You’re probably right.” She patted his chest then turned to me. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” I answered. They went to their room and I went to mine. I needed to get some sleep if I was going to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn and follow Mark around. That statement didn’t seem as crazy in my head now that William confirmed the Lopez family was somehow involved with drugs. I hadn’t seen that one coming, although if I thought about all the nutty things Fernando alluded to since I met him, that wasn’t far off. I had just taken his rants as the mumblings of an unstable man. I was clearly off the mark.

  My alarm clock woke me at five a.m. Natalia had mentioned Mark woke up early, usually before she did, and I didn’t want to miss him.

  I drove to her house and parked my midnight blue compact rental down the street. While I had time to kill waiting, I did some searches on the Lopez family in LA. Nothing came up.

  At seven, I watched Mark leave his driveway in his old van. I let him pass the stoplight before I was on his tail. Natalia mentioned he was a real estate agent. I had anticipated him heading to a real estate office somewhere in the neighborhood, only he got on the freeway. I remained a few cars behind. It didn’t take long for me to see we were headed downtown. After exiting the freeway and heading toward Ocean Drive, he stopped in front of an apartment building, parked his car, and walked toward one of the apartments. The place had only two floors, and I watched him take the stairs and knock on someone’s door. A tall man with wild dark hair answered the door and shut it behind them, blocking my view.

  I should have brought binoculars, dammit. Not that I owned a pair. The windows to the apartment were completely covered. I bought myself a cappuccino and a sugary Italian cookie at a shop a few doors down and took a seat at the table, facing the apartment building. It took two hours for Mark to leave the apartment. He hadn’t entered with any bags and left with empty hands. I watched him get into his car and tailed him north toward North Miami Beach. I’d forgotten how tedious things could be when following someone, the patience required to remain inconspicuous.

  I followed Mark closer to the neighborhood he lived in and watched him enter a real estate office. I couldn’t believe I was following him, but how could I not? I wondered if William was possibly bullshitting me about Mark’s family being involved with drugs, but how did he know his other brother’s name? It also dawned on me that Mario was a popular Mexican name. I didn’t know what to believe. I remembered Natalia said he’d lied to her about some things, but that didn’t mean he was involved in the drug trade. Four hours later we were back on the freeway, headed in the same direction as this morning.

  My uncertainty about the whole drug issue was building, so I took a deep breath and called Nathan. He lived in New York the last time I saw him, and the only reason I saw him was because my mate Benjamin had come to town to visit, and he insisted we see Nathan. Nathan barely spoke the entire night because he was a man of few words. Benjamin felt obligated to see him because he’d saved his life on a mission and that was something you never forgot.

  After the first ring, his curt and annoyed voice came through the line. “Hello,” he snapped. Just as I remembered him.

  “Nathan. Hi. It’s Hayes Taylor. Remember me?” I rolled my eyes at my poor attempt at what, humor?

  “Hayes Taylor, what can I do for you?” His British accent was completely gone, but his proper way of addressing people was not.

  “Here’s the thing,” I began, knowing I needed to cut to the chase quick. “I need some information on someone. I have a friend that may be in trouble.”

  “You’re calling because you want me to use the resources at my disposal for your personal gain?”

  “Well, you always did tell it like it is.” I laughed. “Not exactly, Nathan. I think I may be able to help you out too, but first I need you to check on a Lopez family in LA. Brother is Rafael, another brother . . .” I paused as Mark took a quick exit off the highway. I veered to the right, having to weave through a few cars. “Sorry, man, the other brother is Mario and another brother, Mark, lives in Miami, Florida.

  “Okay and let’s say I check these guys out. What then?” he asked curtly.

  “Well, if they are significant to the FBI, I can help you gain intel on them,” I said, realizing I was in my final year of a PhD program and had little time to be a informant, but I also needed Natalia safe. No matter what would happened between us, she was special to me.

  “I see. Can I call you back at this number, Hayes?” His deep baritone boomed thr
ough the phone.

  “Yes, please do,” I answered, and the line went dead. In the meantime, Mark had parked outside a club. I parked a ways down and slid down in my seat slightly. He nodded to a bouncer out front and went straight in. The place looked posh. I entered the name of the club into a search engine to see what kind of club it was. No, that couldn’t be . . . why would Mark be going into a gay club in the middle of the afternoon? The place didn’t look busy. I couldn’t slip in unsuspected. Fuck. I sat in the car a good half hour, questioning my sanity. What was I going to achieve by following Mark? I came to Florida to soak up the sun, not stakeout some shady husband. William could have seriously made up all that shit about Mark’s family involved with drugs because he was a sarcastic and slightly sadistic wanker.

  After leaving the club, I followed Mark back to the same apartment he stopped at that morning. How did this guy work in real estate? He hadn’t met with a client all day. I went back to the Italian café and ate a large veal sandwich. A few hours later, Mark still hadn’t left the apartment.

  At eight p.m. he finally walked out of the apartment. His suit barely had a wrinkle in it when he got back into his old van. I followed him until he reached his neighborhood. I didn’t follow him onto his street because I didn’t want him to notice my car, but I figured he was heading home.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Natalia

  Christmas Eve

  “Can you at least try to smile?” Mark asked, standing behind me as I sat on a chair in front of my makeup table and applied eyeliner. It was if he’d forgotten about his threats or that I was still here because of them.

  “Unhappy people don’t smile,” I deadpanned. Fighting with him was no use. I’d been wracking my brain the last week, trying to find a peaceful way out of my marriage. There was no solution that wouldn’t end in war, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs.

  “It’s Christmas Eve, lighten up, would you? I don’t want the kids to think you’re the Grinch, and I don’t need that friend of yours snooping around anymore either. Put on a damn smile, Nat, and let’s get this evening over with.” He did up the last button on his shirt then went to the bathroom where he splashed some cologne on the sides of his jaw. Watching him made me cringe, but at least he was willing to spend Christmas Eve with Immy and Shay. Truth was the kids were on his case when he suggested we do something different this year, and he conceded to their whining.