Secure Location

by Beverly Long

  Meg opened the door. Charlotte sat at her desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, a telephone in the other. She looked at Meg, then at Cruz, and told the person that she’d have to return the call. She put down the telephone with a soft thud.

  “Good morning, Charlotte,” Meg said. She took a deep breath. “I wanted to introduce you to Cruz. Cruz Montoya. My ex-husband. Cruz, this is Charlotte Anderson.”

  To Charlotte’s credit, she showed almost no reaction to learning that her boss had been married but had never mentioned it. Perhaps her lip quivered just a little and her eyes widened but other than that, she was the perfect example of professional control, as always. “Mr. Montoya,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Cruz is a police officer in Chicago and has been in contact with Detective Myers regarding the incidents.” Meg shifted her attention to Cruz. “Charlotte is aware of the telephone call, the note and the damage to my car and apartment.” She deliberately didn’t mention the River Walk shove and was grateful when Cruz didn’t, either.

  “Charlotte pulled together the list of names that you reviewed,” Meg added.

  “Thanks,” Cruz said. “Security Officer Tim Burtiss is going to be sitting outside the door. He’s going to need to know who is expected. Can you work with him on that?”

  “Of course. Anything to keep Meg safe.”

  “Great. Here’s my cell number in case you need to reach me.” He reached for a yellow sticky pad on Charlotte’s desk and scribbled down the number. He turned to leave and Meg followed him. Tim Burtiss stood up again.

  Cruz nodded at him. “Charlotte will touch base with you on who is expected today. Nobody else gets past you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t let her leave. If she tries to, tackle her,” Cruz added.

  The young officer looked at Meg and the tips of his ears got pink.

  “He’s kidding,” she said.

  “Only a little,” Cruz responded. He turned toward her. “Be smart, Meg. Please.”

  She was going to be in her office with a guard. Cruz was the one who was going to be out, asking questions, maybe making people uncomfortable. He was the one who needed to be careful. She put her arm out, touched his shoulder.

  He jerked back.

  Had he felt the heat? The spark of connection? “Right back at ya,” she said, knowing it was lame. But the need to touch, the need to hold him tight, was almost overbearing.

  He nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She watched him walk away.

  “Promise?” she whispered so quietly that even Officer Burtiss couldn’t have heard her.

  Chapter Five

  Cruz ate an egg-and-potato burrito and used his smart phone to research A Hand Up. Meg might be convinced that the jailbirds had no reason to harm her but Cruz had been putting scum away for enough years that he didn’t have as much faith.

  He found a contact number, made the call, and worked his way up the chain of command until he was talking to the head honcho, Beatrice Classen. He introduced himself as Meg’s husband.

  “I didn’t realize that Meg was married,” she said.

  He thought about correcting her but decided it might work against him. “I need to talk with you about some problems that Meg has been having.”

  He went on to explain about her car and apartment and the recent incident at the River Walk. When he suggested that he was concerned about former prisoners working at the hotel, Beatrice did two things in quick succession. She expressed her concern over Meg’s safety and vehemently denied that her clients had anything to do with it.

  He hadn’t expected her to do anything else. She’d probably worked hard to get businesses to sign on to employing those recently released from jail. A business might be willing to write a check to support the program but to actually get them to agree to offering up a job, that was probably a tougher sell. Beatrice no doubt didn’t want some husband coming along and spoiling things.

  “Mr. Montoya, I’d be happy to assist in any way that I could,” she said.

  “I’d like to review their files,” Cruz said. “And see a photo ID.”

  “It’s sort of a bad day. We’re getting ready for our banquet. I need to be at the LaMadra Hotel most of the day. I was just getting ready to leave my office.”

  He wasn’t waiting. “I’ll meet you at LaMadra in a half hour,” he said.

  The woman paused. “I suppose I can bring the files with me,” she said finally, clearly resigned to the fact that this was one more thing she was going to have to squeeze into her day.

  Cruz finished his breakfast, had another cup of coffee, and headed for the hotel.

  The place was even bigger than the BJM, with more glass and shiny steel. He asked a woman at the front desk where the A Hand Up banquet was being held that night and she pointed him toward the elevators. “Fourth floor,” she said.

  He walked into the ballroom. Employees were setting up tables, arranging chairs, testing a sound system. Everybody ignored him, which really pissed him off. Not only because it was wasting his time but more important, it meant that any weirdo could come in and nobody would notice.

  Cruz watched to see who might be in charge. There was a guy with a clipboard who seemed pretty intent upon barking out orders. Cruz tapped him on the shoulder. “Beatrice Classen?” he asked.

  The guy pointed to the head table, where a woman wearing a bright pink sweat suit was jawing on some poor guy about the fact that the head table needed a skirt. As he got closer, it became apparent that the problem was that it needed to be ivory, not white.

  “Ms. Classen?” he inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Cruz Montoya,” he said.

  Her hair was thin and had lots of static electricity, making pieces stick out as if she’d poked her finger in a light socket. She probably weighed in at about two-fifty, making her almost as round as she was tall. “I have your information right here,” she said, pointing at a manila folder on the table.

  He leafed through the photos. One Hispanic, one black and two white men. He studied the white men. They were full poses, not just head shots. “This guy looks pretty tall. You know his height?” he asked, holding up one.

  “Well, everyone is tall compared to me, Mr. Montoya. However, I did hear him mention once that he was six-six.”

  Cruz set it aside and picked up the other photo. “Tell me about this guy.”

  “Oscar Warren. He was part of the first rotation so he hasn’t been at the hotel for several months.”

  “What was he in prison for?”

  “Aggravated arson. He set his girlfriend’s apartment on fire after he found her in bed with another woman.”

  Another woman. It had been a punch when Meg had left him to follow another man across the country. Would it be better or worse if the woman you loved suddenly switched teams? Maybe he was pissed off at all women now, hated the whole breed. “Have you seen him since he ended his assignment at Meg’s hotel?”

  “Of course. We arranged for his second rotation. He’s at a food pantry, on Fourth and Taylor.”

  “I appreciate you showing me these,” Cruz said.

  “I was sorry to hear about Meg’s trouble. But I know that none of these men were involved. Clients of our program are vetted very carefully and none of them want to do something foolish and end up back in prison.”

  He looked around the room. “Looks as if it’s going to be a nice event. Did people have to buy tickets in advance?”

  “Yes. We sold tickets at multiple locations around town as well as online. I was thrilled when we sold out days ago.”

  Tickets in advance. That was good. It meant that bad guys, on a whim, a dare, or a meth high couldn’t decide to walk in and start causing trouble. But given that there were multiple access points, Meg’s tormentor simply would have needed to plan ahead a bit to have a good seat, one with a clear view of the stage.

  “When will Meg give her speech?”

  “We
’ll have dinner first, then the awards presentation to both participants in the program and to business leaders who have helped keep the program alive. Then Meg’s speech will close out the event.” She studied him. “I was sure that I’d told Meg she could bring a guest.”

  “You did,” he said. “But I thought I was going to have to work. I just found out this morning that I’m free.”

  Beatrice’s eyes sparkled. “You know, Mr. Montoya, we still have one available seat at the head table. It would be a wonderful surprise for Meg.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that but after last night, there was no way he intended to let Meg go to an evening event without protection. Slater could no doubt be convinced to keep a security officer with her. Jerk might even volunteer for duty himself.

  Not a chance that Cruz was going to let that happen.

  “That would be great,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

  * * *

  CRUZ DROVE TO the food pantry. He found Oscar unpacking cans of peaches. The man was the right height and weight and he was throwing around the heavy cases of canned fruit with ease.

  Good arm strength, Meg had said.

  “Mr. Warren,” Cruz said. “I’m Detective Cruz Montoya and I’m investigating a series of incidents that have occurred at or near the BJM Hotel.” He didn’t want to show too much of his hand too soon.

  The man shifted his weight from foot to foot. He seemed nervous. Given that he’d recently done time, Cruz realized that just having a cop want to chat might be enough to raise the blood pressure.

  “I haven’t worked at the hotel for months,” he said.

  “I know that. Where were you last night around nine?”

  “Home.”

  “Anybody there with you?”

  The man shook his head. “I live alone,” he said.

  “What about yesterday morning?”

  “I was here, working.”

  “Anybody verify that?” Cruz asked.

  The man pointed to a woman wearing blue jeans and a gray T-shirt. “Tracy runs the place. She was here, too.”

  He was working for a woman. Maybe he wasn’t too bent out of shape.

  It took Tracy less than five minutes to verify that Oscar had indeed been working the previous day. She showed Cruz a handwritten time sheet. “I got in early yesterday, about six. Oscar came in at his regular time.”

  Cruz glanced at the sheet and saw that Oscar started work shortly after eight. Cruz would have much preferred that the time records were from a time clock with an automatic time stamp, rather than handwritten. He could have trusted them more. Still, it was a small place. Tracy probably had a handle on when her employees arrived.

  Meg had said that she’d left her condo around seven. That wouldn’t have given him much time to trash the place. Plus somehow between her arrival at work and noon, he’d have had to get over to the hotel, bang up her car and plant the bad fish.

  “He was here the whole day?” Cruz asked.

  Tracy nodded. “All day. He did have to run out midmorning. We got an unexpected contribution from one of the big grocery stores in town. They had a bunch of canned goods that were coming up on their expiration date. The need in this community is pretty great so we wanted to get it picked up and sorted, then distributed as quickly as possible.”

  “Where is the grocery store?”

  The woman walked over to a large map that was tacked to a cork bulletin board. “Here,” she said.

  Cruz looked at the map, figured out where the hotel was in relation to the grocery store and realized that the two were less than fifteen blocks apart. “How long was he gone?”

  Now Tracy was looking at him oddly. “Less than an hour. Is something wrong, Detective?” she asked. “This is a small place, with very few employees. We don’t want any trouble.”

  If the guy was telling the truth, Cruz was close to screwing up any hopes of him keeping this particular job. “No. Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

  Cruz nodded at Oscar as he left the building. The man didn’t respond.

  Cruz got in his car and started driving toward the grocery store. Once inside, Cruz gave a woman at the service counter his business card and she went off to look for the manager. Cruz waited impatiently.

  The manager was a young black man dressed in a white shirt, dark pants and a tie. His head was totally shaved and it reminded Cruz that he should get a haircut. The man shook Cruz’s hand. “Detective Montoya,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m attempting to verify the time that a pickup was made at your store yesterday. A man came from the food pantry and got some canned goods.”

  “We can check. We log that kind of activity.” The young man led him through the store, back to the dock area. There were big trucks and it smelled like diesel fuel. It was hot in comparison to the air-conditioned store.

  The manager pulled a clipboard off a hook and ran his finger across a line. “He arrived at nine-thirty and left here at ten-ten.”

  With travel time, that would have given him very little time to get to Meg’s car. Impossible? No. But not likely if Tracy’s memory was correct.

  “Thank you,” he said. He returned to his car and immediately opened the file for the employees who had been terminated by the hotel within the past year. He plugged the first address into his GPS.

  He found Mason Hawkins at home. The neighborhood was middle-class, with small ranch-style homes. None of them had garages and most had cars parked in the driveway or in front, along the street.

  There were no vehicles in Hawkins’s driveway. An old white van, with its front tires beached on the curb, sat in front, halfway between Hawkins’s house and the neighbor’s.

  Cruz knocked on the wooden door and waited a full minute before it slowly swung open. Hawkins wore boxer shorts, black socks and a cardigan sweater that zipped up the front. His hair was dirty and he was holding an open bag of potato chips.

  Cruz noted it all but he wasn’t overly interested in the trappings. A man could change his wardrobe, alter his appearance and even take on a different persona. He couldn’t change his physical size as easily. And Hawkins was close enough to five-ten, one-sixty, that Cruz stayed interested. He took stock of Hawkins’s thigh muscles and saw that they didn’t scream slacker in the same way his outfit did.

  “Yes?” Hawkins said.

  “I’m Cruz Montoya.” The man showed no reaction to Cruz’s name. That didn’t sway Cruz one way or the other. If Hawkins was behind last night’s push, he probably knew that Meg’s ex-husband was in town and he’d had plenty of time to prepare for a visit from him or the cops.

  “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” Hawkins said and tried to swing the door shut.

  Cruz put his foot out, stopping the momentum. “You used to work at the BJM Hotel.”

  The man glared at him. “I can’t imagine what business that is of yours,” he said. Hawkins was trying for tough but it wasn’t working. He’d flinched when Cruz had said the hotel’s name.

  Cruz leaned forward, getting in Hawkins’s face. He wasn’t conducting an investigation. He didn’t need to hold his cards close. Myers would kick his ass if he found out about the visit. The detective’s primary motivation would be to gather enough evidence to prosecute someone for the crimes that had been committed; Cruz’s interest was more personal—he simply wanted it to stop before it got more violent and Meg got hurt.

  “Oh, it’s definitely my business,” he said, his voice low. “I care about Meg Montoya. And if I was to find out that you had any intent of causing her even a minute of distress, I would be pissed off. Got that? Really pissed off. Then I become your worst nightmare.”

  Hawkins’s hand, the one holding the potato chip bag, was shaking. The plastic crinkled. “I gave BJM eight years of my life. They paid me lousy and wasted my talent. I’ve got a master’s degree in accounting and I was paying monthly invoices and processing payroll. A high school graduate could have done it.
They owed me.”

  “Not my issue,” Cruz said. “Meg Montoya is my concern.”

  “I’ve got nothing against her. Her boss, that’s another story. He’s a jerk. Said he was doing me a favor by not pressing charges. I’m about to lose my house and I can’t find another job, not without a reference from the place I worked for eight years. I might be better off in jail.”

  “Guys like you don’t do well in jail. You’re dessert after a big meal.” Cruz could tell that Hawkins got the drift by the look in the man’s eyes. He figured it wasn’t the first time he’d reflected upon what his life might be like in prison. That was undoubtedly why he was writing monthly checks to BJM.

  Cruz leaned forward. “If I find out that you’re lying to me, I’m going to come back here and strangle you with one of your black socks. Do we have an understanding?”

  “I just want to get on with my life,” Hawkins said. He moved to close the door and this time, Cruz let him.

  He walked down the sidewalk back to his rental car. Hawkins was bitter and thoroughly convinced that he’d been screwed. That was enough to keep him on the short list of suspects. But even if he wouldn’t admit it, he had to know that he was lucky that BJM hadn’t pressed charges. Would he be stupid enough to do something else that could land him in jail?

  Cruz didn’t know. But he thought he’d gotten his point across. Now he needed to keep working his list of suspects.

  He used the GPS in his car and realized that Troy Blakely’s apartment was within fifteen minutes of Hawkins’s house. When he got there, he quickly realized that finding this guy might not be quite so easy.

  None of the inhabitants at the rat hole of a building in downtown San Antonio had ever heard of Troy Blakely. It took Cruz another two hours to track down the landlord who confirmed that he’d never rented to anyone by that name.

  Which meant that he’d falsified his address on his employment paperwork. There was no good reason to do that.

  Chapter Six

  He called Meg. The phone was picked up on the second ring. “Meg Montoya’s office. Charlotte speaking.”