by Claire Adams
“Maybe that was his mother’s maiden name or something. I really don’t know what you’re trying to get at here, Brandon. Carlos said you’d try to protect your money at all costs. This document was in our files. It should have been executed, and I should have received ten percent of your company when you sold it.”
“Rose, listen to what you’re saying. When we divorced, was I even thinking about selling my company? No, I loved my work. You even complained that I worked too much. Carlos faked this document. You have to know that.”
“I don’t know what’s true right now.”
“Okay, let me show you this,” I said as I pulled more evidence out of my folder. “Carlos went to my girlfriend’s work and pretended to work for the Securities Exchange Commission. He said that he was investigating me. He had a man hack into my credit cards and then gain access to my bank to freeze all my accounts.
“I believe he intends to blackmail me with this legal document. If I sign this, he will unfreeze my accounts. If I don’t, I will spend months fighting with the bank trying to have access to my money.”
“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He asked me to come and have you sign it. He didn’t want to be involved.”
“Or he thought by making you come do it, then it wouldn’t place the legal blame on him?”
She was silent, and I gave her the time to process what was going on. I couldn’t pretend to understand the hurt she felt at that moment. I had only felt hurt for a few hours when I thought Del had something to do with freezing my account. But the evidence was piling up against Carlos and soon Rose would have to believe he wasn’t the man he said he was.
“Well, he works for the government. I’ve seen his identification,” she said stubbornly. “Maybe he does work for the SEC.”
“Rose, you and I both know he doesn’t work for them. What else is going on? What else has been unusual that you’ve been ignoring? Because you know I would have given you anything you wanted when we divorced. I paid for the house, gave you alimony, I’d give you another million dollars this second if you said you needed it.”
She broke down crying as she looked from the legal papers to me. We might have been broken as a couple, but she knew me; Rose knew me better than almost any other person in the world. She knew I would never have tried to trick her out of money.
“I don’t know why I believed it…” she sobbed. “He was so convincing. What do I do now?”
“Well, there is something else I should tell you,” I pulled a picture out of the file of the big neck guy, Antonio. “Have you met this man?”
“No, who is he?” she asked.
“From what we’ve been able to find, it sounds like this is Antonio Ramirez, Carlos’ brother. He just finished serving a very long prison sentence for murder.”
“Is he going to kill us?” She sounded panicked.
“No, I don’t think so. He did come to my house and threaten me, though, so I don’t think you should be around Carlos. We are filling the police in on what has happened so far, but I’m not sure they will be much help. My investigator and I are trying to figure out a way to catch Carlos red-handed so we have the proof that is needed to send him and his brother to jail.”
“He’s not going to go to jail if he works for the federal government.”
“Rose, I don’t think he does,” I said. “I think his relationship with you and that story is all a lie. I think he connected with you because he planned on stealing from me.”
“Of course you do, Brandon!” she said angrily. “Why on earth would a guy like him and a girl like me be together? Maybe he was right. Maybe you really do still love me and you’ll say anything necessary to get me back?”
“I do love you, Rose, I’ll never deny that. But our time together is over. We can’t go back to those happy days and together, all we think about is Noah and how much we miss him. We are both moving on and that’s good,” I said.
“You know in your heart that I wouldn’t be telling you all of this unless it was true. You know me, Rose. How hard do I research every business deal before making it happen? Real evidence, remember, I always said I needed hard evidence that a company was stable before I’d buy it. It’s the same here. I made sure there was real evidence before I came to you.”
“I’ve slept with him, Brandon. I’ve loved him.”
Her hands began to shake as the tears continued to flow. It was a lot for her to take in all at once. The man she had loved and shared her bed with was a fraud and only using her for the money she could get access to.
“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“He listened to my stories of Noah. He comforted me. He has access to all my money. Everything.”
Suddenly, I got worried for Rose and her financial safety. If he had the ability to gain access to my accounts, he certainly had the ability to drain her of all her money.
“You need to take his name off of everything and have new cards issued. Get a post office box and have everything sent there. Go to the bank first thing on Monday and get it all done.”
“That mess with your bank account when I met you down there... I had to use that account because my account went negative. My account never goes negative, so I asked Carlos and he said he had to buy things for the wedding. Oh, Brandon, he’s probably wiped out all my accounts. I wasn’t even paying attention.”
“We will figure it out; don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Let’s just figure out how to catch this guy. For the time being, I don’t want you going back home. He’s dangerous and so is his brother.”
“If I don’t go home, he will know something is up. I need to go back if we are going to catch him.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“In case you forgot, I’m an adult and make my own decisions. Call me when you have a plan. I’m going home, and I’m making sure my life is protected.”
Rose stood up and gave me a hug before she turned to leave. I knew I couldn’t stop her, and I wouldn’t try. She had a lot at stake and was a strong woman. If she insisted on going home, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“I’m going to call you later tonight. We will catch him,” I said as I ran after her.
“You do what you can, but I’m going to do what I can, too.”
“Deal.”
I hurried back over to my attorney’s office to meet with the guys and fill them in on everything. We really needed to come up with a plan to catch Carlos. I had a feeling he was already starting to suspect something was going on and would jet out of town at the first sign of real trouble.
We had him where we wanted him. So far, Carlos had to feel like he had the upper hand. His plan was working. Rose had come to me with the papers; Del had been afraid to talk to me because she thought I was a criminal. Now, it was just a matter of figuring out how to get the solid proof of what he was doing.
If we were going to catch him red-handed, there couldn’t be a question about his motive. I wasn’t about to do all this work just to have him tell the police that he really did find that legal document and I really owed Rose the money. We needed the proof that he’d broken into the online system with Dating the Rich, the proof he had frozen my accounts, and the proof he’d been breaking into my house looking for something.
“So how are we going to get the proof we need?” I asked everyone when I arrived back at Dick’s.
“I think you need to use Del and Rose,” Josh said.
“Hell, no! Why would I use them?”
“He trusts Rose and he thinks Del is angry with you and believes you are a criminal. You can use those relationships to get him to confess.”
“I don’t see how? And, I’m not putting the two most important women in my life in danger.”
“They are already in danger, Brandon,” Billy said flatly. “Rose has the man in her home, and Carlos knows how much Del means to you. He went after your relationship with Del because he knew it would hurt the most. Don’t fool yourself – she’s
already in danger.”
His words hit me like ice water as the realization of what he was saying washed over me. I’d left Del at her house without any security. What if Carlos found out we were getting close to figuring everything out? He certainly was going to use Del to force my hand, I just knew it.
“I’ve got to go find Del.”
“No, we need to make a plan. You can use her to contact Carlos and say she has more information. She’s your best asset in possibly taking him down.”
“I won’t put her in danger!”
“Let’s call her and talk about it calmly. She’s an adult. Let her decide for herself if she’d like to be involved or not. You want to catch this guy, don’t you? You don’t want him running off with all your money, right?”
“Of course, I want to catch him.”
“Then, call Delilah and let’s figure this out.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Delilah
“I’m helping, that’s all there is to it. I’ll be right down.”
Brandon didn’t sound all that happy to be asking for my help in dealing with Carlos, but I was more than happy to have something to do that was useful. I felt horrible about my role in giving Carlos and his brother access to Brandon’s credit card information. This was my opportunity to fix things, or at least help out a little.
When I thought about Antonio and the pure size of his arms, I knew he and Carlos were capable of hurting me, Brandon, and anyone else. I liked the plan the guys had come up with and was pretty confident it was going to work. The biggest thing was that we needed to make sure Carlos didn’t get a whiff of what we were doing. If he got spooked, then he was going to freak out and none of us knew how that would turn out.
I arrived at the lawyer’s office and found it filled with everyone who was involved. Brandon took the time to introduce us all and I got to meet Rose face-to-face again, but this time things were a lot different.
“And, this is Rose; you two met the other day. Rose, this is my girlfriend, Delilah,” Brandon introduced me.
Instead of simply being his friend, I had now been introduced as his girlfriend. It felt like the right introduction, and I couldn’t wait for this mess to be figured out so we could get back to our boring dating life. I wasn’t meant for all this excitement. The danger and adrenaline had me literally shaking as I sat at the table with everyone and we went over the plan.
“It’s nice to have everyone here. I did call the Los Angeles Police to see if we could involve them, but it doesn’t look like we will be getting their help very quickly – apparently, they are very under-staffed and this isn’t a murder. So, for the time being, it’s just this rowdy group,” Billy said. “I’ve worked with Brandon and we have given a basic timetable of what’s going to happen and who needs to do each task. Let’s look it over and see where there are holes and what areas we might need to change.”
“Thank you all for your help. I know this is scary and dangerous, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you all sticking in here with me,” Brandon said sincerely.
We spent the whole morning going through the plan over and over. The guys didn’t seem to trust that Rose and I knew our parts, but we did. I even found myself rolling my eyes with Rose when they asked if we needed them to go over our parts one more time.
“We got it, guys!” she snapped at them. “Now, I need to get home before Carlos gets suspicious. I’ll be ready tomorrow when it’s my time. I promise.”
“I’ve got my part, too. I’ll call Carlos right at nine in the morning from my office. This is going to work. We got our parts,” I said as I grabbed Rose by the hand. “You men just make sure and get what you need so it can all be over.”
By the next morning, I was sitting at my desk and going over the plan again and again in my head. As much as I’d tried to be confident in front of the guys, I was still really nervous and wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull it off.
I liked to act, I had loved it in high school and college, but it was much scarier when the acting could result in you being murdered. Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic, but with Carlos and Antonio’s history, we were rightfully a little worried.
“What’s wrong with you this morning?” Mattie asked as she hung up with a customer. “You look like shit.”
“Wow, I love you, too.”
“Seriously, are you sick? Maybe you should go home; I don’t want you getting me sick. You know I’m going out with that Josh guy at the end of the week. He was really funny and he’s not at all like Markus.”
“I’m not sick.”
Though, I really did feel pretty sick. The stress of thinking about what I needed to do and worrying about it all was really taking a toll on me. I couldn’t wait until my part of the whole thing was over. Only a few more minutes, and I’d be able to make my call. My job would be over and the next person would take over in our plan.
“You know, I think I stayed with Markus because I didn’t think there were other good guys out there. How weird is that? I actually thought he was a good guy, but after talking to Josh, I can see what a really good guy is and I just can’t believe I thought like that,” Mattie rambled on as I pretended to listen.
“You were so right about Markus. He was only in it for himself. He didn’t care about me and he certainly wasn’t going to stop flirting with women for me. I feel like I was blind and now I can see. I know that’s really a cheesy line, but I actually feel like that.”
“Oh, that’s good,” I said. “I’m glad you two are going out. I’m feeling all right; I’ll tough it out for a bit. I just didn’t sleep very well. I’m just going to try and get this work done before I decide if I’m going to head home early. I might need to get a little sleep.”
The truth was I hadn’t slept well since Saturday when I had Brandon at my house. The last couple of days, I’d been up worried that someone was going to break in and hurt Connor and me. Brandon had hired a security company to patrol my house and installed an alarm, but it just made me more nervous because I thought someone was breaking in at every noise that happened outside.
I watched the clock closely and when it hit nine, I hurried off to one of the empty conference rooms and called Carlos. My hand was shaking as I held the card he had given me in my hand and tried to remember everything I was supposed to tell him. This was it: it was my time to shine. I felt ready to give it my all and I knew just what I was going to say.
Once I finished telling Carlos my part of things, he was going to go to Rose and try to convince her he found a new legal paper. Or something like that; I wasn’t positive on the rest of the plan, only on what I was supposed to do.
“Hello, this is Delilah Hunter. You asked me about Brandon Baker the other day,” I said as I tried to control the fear in my voice.
My hands continued to shake, and I felt like I couldn’t get a full breath in as the nerves took a hold of me. I was really glad I could talk to Carlos on the phone and didn’t have to be right in front of him. It would have been impossible to convince him what I was saying was the truth if he could see just how nervous I was.
“Oh, yes. How can I help you?”
“Um, I remembered something about the stocks he was buying. I was watching the news and saw that TM Entertainment just went public. Brandon was buying a lot of shares of that; I think he might even own the company.”
“Oh, really? Well, that is totally illegal if he was doing that before the company went public. I’m going to come down to your office, so we can talk about it.”
“No, it’s okay. That’s all I know.”
I didn’t want Carlos coming to my office. The whole reason I’d agreed to help out was because I could do it over the phone instead of having to see him in person. He sounded very dangerous, and I certainly didn’t want to be in a room alone with him. I couldn’t let him come to my office.
“I’ll be there shortly and you can tell me what you know. I prefer to do my investigations and questioning in person. It’
s easier to tell if someone is telling me the truth.”
Carlos hung up, and I started to freak out. We hadn’t planned on him coming to my office. I was simply supposed to make him think there was more money out there and that Brandon might have actually been committing fraud.
I felt my chest compress as I tried to catch my breath and couldn’t get my lungs to fill up. Carlos was going to come to my work, and he would see that I was lying to him. He’d hurt me for sure, or he’d have his brother hurt me. My head felt light and I thought I might pass out from the lack of oxygen.
My hands shook as I dialed Brandon’s number. It felt like I couldn’t break as the panic rushed through me and I sat down to try and focus myself. My fingers continued to tremble and the room felt smaller and smaller as I waited for him to answer the phone.
“He… um… he says he’s coming here,” I said as tears took over and the adrenaline made my whole body shake.
I didn’t want to cry. I really was trying to be brave, but the emotion of the whole situation had taken over and I couldn’t control myself. This wasn’t how things were supposed to have happened. I had controlled my fear to make the phone call, but there was no way I could keep my fear in check with Carlos standing right in front of me. I was doomed and I knew it.
“I’ve got you on speaker here,” Brandon said and I could hear everyone in the background. “What do you guys think?”
“He probably just wants to see what else she knows, but we should have someone there to keep an eye on her,” Billy said. “Guys like him think they know what they are doing, but he doesn’t. She should be able to tell him the same story, and he’ll take it and run with it.”
“What happened with getting the police evolved?” Dick asked.
“I’ve got a buddy who’s on the force; he’s working on it,” Billy added. “I think he’ll get someone on the case, it is just going to take him some time.