The Wrong Side of Dead sj-2

by Jordan Dane

  “Is this another convincing argument for me to join the team?” She grinned and grabbed the lock device for closer inspection. “’Cause I’m a girl who likes toys.”

  “Whatever works, Beckett.” Alexa raised an eyebrow. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Luís Dante had followed the blue van from the nursing home, nearly losing the woman as he maintained a safe distance. Now, as she slowed to park on a deserted street, he doused his headlights and pulled into the shadows a few blocks down and kept watch with binoculars.

  Another vehicle pulled behind the van, coming off a side street. A blond woman joined her, dressed in dark clothing and carrying a bag. Luís had no idea what the women were doing, especially at this time of night. Businesses were closed, and there were no bars on the street that he could see. And when they didn’t get out of the van right away, his suspicious nature kicked into high gear.

  “¿Qué estas pensando, chica? ¿Y quién es tu amiga?” he muttered, wondering what was on her mind and who the other woman was. He made a note of the license tag for the second car and hit the speed dial on his phone.

  When his cop friend answered, he said, “Hey, Frankie, I got another tag. You got time to run it?”

  “Yeah, give it to me.”

  He read the tag and waited on hold while his friend pulled up the record, but when Frankie didn’t come back with a quick answer, he knew something was up. He lit a fresh cigarette, expecting to wait, but the women got out of the van and headed across the street on foot. As they disappeared around a corner, he lost sight of them at an intersection. From where he was parked, he couldn’t see where they went.

  “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath, blowing smoke through his nose.

  He had a decision to make. Would he stay put and wait for them to return or would he follow to find out what they were up to? Curiosity won out. With the phone to his ear, he got out of his car and flicked his cigarette to the curb. He locked his vehicle and followed the women. Using binoculars that he carried on a strap around his neck, he could watch them from a distance.

  Luís crept to the intersection and peered around the corner, spying them at the secured gate to a storage complex. If they were accessing a unit, why would they park far away? And what was so important this time of night?

  Something didn’t add up. Under his shirt, he felt for the Glock 19 that he kept in a holster on his belt. But when his friend came back on the line, he stopped short of pulling his weapon.

  “Looks like your car is a rental,” Frankie said. “But the ID of the driver came up a dead end. The only time I’ve ever seen this is with the feds. CIA, NSA, whatever. What are you into, Luís?”

  “I have no idea, but when I do, I’ll call you,” he replied, lowering his voice.

  “Watch your ass, mi amigo.”

  “Later, bro.”

  Luís ended the call and tucked the cell phone in his pocket. He held up the binoculars and followed the movements of the women, knowing he’d have to get closer. He headed down the block to cross the street without being noticed and after he got to the other side, he pulled his weapon.

  Curiosity definitely had him by the throat. And he couldn’t fault his client for that.

  On foot, Jess crossed the street and followed Alexa, sticking close to the shadows. They didn’t want to drive onto the property using her van or the rental car and take the chance a bystander might remember the vehicle. As they got closer to the storage complex, her companion pulled gear from her knapsack and got to work, employing the devices she’d brought with her.

  “I’ve taken out the video cams.” Alexa stashed her countersurveillance gear and retrieved the keycard equipment, a simple-looking black-box device with electronic leads. “Once we get inside, we’ll need to move. We won’t have much time.”

  Alexa attached the gear to the numbered keycard pad located on a brick pillar at the main drive-through entrance. When the black box flashed a green light, she opened the secured gate in one slick move, operating with practiced efficiency. The metal electronic gate slid to one side, rattling a pulley chain as it moved. It would stay open for a while, but sensors would allow it to close behind them.

  “Look for unit number 168,” the blonde said.

  The rows were well numbered, and it didn’t take long to find Jason Burke’s unit. It was large enough to have a door as well as a small loading bay. The larger door looked like a residential garage with either remote-control access or a manual locking lever. They’d have no way of knowing until they got inside. To maintain their privacy, Alexa went to work on the smaller door’s keycard lock.

  In seconds, they were inside. Nothing but pitch black.

  With the door to Jason Burke’s storage unit closed behind them, it might have been tempting to flip on the overhead light for better visibility. But Jess reached into her pocket and retrieved her flashlight, pleased to see Alexa had instinctively done the same. By using flashlights, they wouldn’t risk having the brighter overhead lighting shine under the bottom of the storage doors, a dead giveaway they were inside.

  Jess raised her hand and cast her beam into the darkness. She heard Alexa move and saw her flashlight cut through inky black. With her body silhouetted in pale light, Jess could track her movements in the dark. Their flashlight beams landed on boxes and reflected off glass and chrome. It didn’t take long to assess what they’d found. Large cardboard boxes were stacked amidst furniture pieces and electronic equipment.

  “This could be his personal property,” Jess began, speaking in a hushed tone. “But since when does he need this many big-screen TVs?”

  She didn’t expect an answer. According to what Alexa had learned about Jason Burke, he was a construction worker by trade, at least on paper. If he operated another legitimate business on the side, as sole owner or a partner, he wasn’t reporting it to the IRS.

  “I’d bet money Burke’s got a stash of stolen goods here, but we’re going to need proof.” Alexa wedged herself behind a TV monitor and directed her light to the back of the console for a better look. She took out a pen and paper and jotted something down. “I’m taking serial numbers. I’ll cross-reference them to police reports…see what turns up.”

  “If Burke is a middleman for stolen property, you think he’d kill to protect his little enterprise?” Jess asked. “I mean, I’ve seen people kill for less, but he’s not exactly rolling in high-end merchandise or dealing in volume?”

  “We still don’t have all the pieces to this puzzle, but maybe knowing more about his inventory will help.” Alexa took down more serial numbers. After a few minutes, she hoisted the knapsack over her back, and said, “You seen enough?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good theory about what’s going on here,” she whispered. “Let’s clear out.”

  Standing near the exit, they both turned off their flashlights before opening the door. Once again they were in total darkness. Alexa cracked open the door to peer out. When she did, a sliver of light filtered into the unit. Without a word, she nodded, and they both stepped into the night air. They wouldn’t be in the clear until they got off the premises. She kept her eyes alert for any sign of movement.

  But when Alexa held up her hand and stopped, Jess did too. She had faith in the woman’s instincts.

  “Saw something. I think we’re being watched,” the blonde whispered, slinging her knapsack over her shoulder and pulling her weapon. “The gate’s sensors should let you out without a keycard. And I’ll reset the video cams when I can. Meet you back at the van. Be careful.”

  Jess gripped her Colt Python, keeping it at her side. When she turned to see where Alexa had gone, the woman was nowhere in sight, and she was alone. Normally, she would have stayed in the shadows, covering her own backside, but there was another way to play this.

  Divide and conquer. If someone lurked in the dark, she would either divert attention while her new ally circled behind, or she’d make herself a sitting duck. Trust had never come easy.
How much faith did she have in Alexa?

  Jess winced. “Time to find out,” she whispered.

  Luís had seen enough to know the two women had broken into the storage complex using high-tech gear. But while he’d been on the move to get closer, they must have ducked into one of the units. And he couldn’t be sure which one.

  He’d lost them.

  Why they had chosen to break in while on foot had baffled him. If they intended to make a haul, why not load up the van? With a firm grip on his gun, he moved through the shadows and peered down each storage row, looking for the women. All he could do now was hang outside the fence and wait.

  But on his second pass along the perimeter, he got caught.

  Instinct had cautioned him to stop—too little, too late. He ducked behind a pillar and crouched low. The women had appeared out of nowhere. They emerged from the shadows as he crossed a section of fence, his body silhouetted by a streetlamp.

  He wasn’t sure what they might have seen, but he couldn’t take any chances. He stayed low and moved back the way he had come, hoping to make it to his car. But when he gaped over his shoulder, he spotted only one of the women—the one who drove the van. They had split up.

  His gut reflex told him that meant trouble.

  “Shit,” he muttered. Turning a corner, he jogged down an alley, taking the long way back to his car. His bad luck might have cost him the advantage of being the anonymous watcher. And if he didn’t move quickly, trailing the woman in the van wouldn’t be an option either.

  Alexa had seen movement from the corner of her eye and reacted. After leaving Jessie, she’d scaled the wrought-iron fence and dropped to the sidewalk on the other side. Listening to the sounds of the night, she crouched in the dark and waited. Her eyes peered through the murky black, looking for any sign of movement.

  When she sensed it was time, she crossed the street and ducked into an alley. She hunkered near a wall and listened. In the narrow, bricked passageway, sound reverberated off the walls and carried in the night. She closed her eyes to focus on every noise. When she’d slowed her heart and listened with her whole being, she finally heard the crunch of gravel underfoot and the steady footfalls of someone running.

  And like a predator, she followed.

  Still panting, Luís crouched behind a fence of corrugated metal and peered through slats. He shifted his gaze to split his attention between his vehicle, parked close by, and the woman who sat in the van down the road. After he’d made it back, he fought the urge to unlock his car and jump inside, waiting for the unaccounted-for female to show at the van.

  But something had stopped him. He sensed a presence more than he saw or heard one.

  Growing up streetwise on the streets of Chicago had honed his skills, and he knew when to lay low. He’d cut a wide swath back to his car, feeling his way through a maze of alleyways, unsure where he was going.

  But now something didn’t feel right. And it didn’t take long for him to understand why.

  One of the women emerged from the shadows a half block down. He slowed his breaths, trying not to give himself away. It looked as if she’d been waiting for him to make a mistake, thinking he was home free. There were other cars parked on the street. She had no way of knowing he was hiding nearby or that the dark blue Chevy Impala was his. All he had to do was be patient and wait her out.

  But now she moved toward the spot where he hid. She didn’t make a sound as she crept closer. And under the bluish haze of moonlight, he caught the glint of her gun and froze. ¡Ay, Dios mío! Would he have to defend himself…and could he shoot a woman to do it? Resisting the impulse to move, he took a deep breath and gripped his weapon as sweat trickled down his spine. What had he gotten himself into?

  Earning bonus money meant nothing if he wasn’t alive to spend it.

  CHAPTER 21

  Alexa sensed she was being watched, but nothing gave her any indication where she should look. And time played a part in her decision to move on.

  She might already be too late.

  The shutdown of the surveillance video at the storage complex had run its course, and the security company responsible might have dispatched a patrol car to check the outage. She kept her eyes alert, watching for any signs of movement on the street as she retrieved the countersurveillance device from her knapsack, the one that had jammed the video signal. She was close enough to bring the video cams back online and worked the controls to get it done. When she looked up again, she gazed down the street to see the murky silhouette of Jessie in the van, waiting.

  If someone had been watching them, the few cars parked nearby had the best vantage point. But something caught her eye.

  By a dark Chevy Impala, the butt of a cigarette was still lit. It had burned down, leaving a long snake of ash with a spiral of smoke drifting into the still night air. Someone had lit up and changed their mind in a hurry, tossing the discarded cigarette to the ground. With a faint smile on her face, she made a note of the license tags for the cars parked along the street and headed toward Jessie.

  When she got back to her rental car, she ditched her knapsack in the backseat and slipped her gun into a holster she carried at the small of her back. The streets looked quiet, with no security patrols in sight. She headed for the van and opened the passenger door to lean inside and update Jessie.

  “I didn’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have company.” She told her about the cigarette butt and the license tags she’d acquired from the cars parked behind them.

  “The Surgeon General was right,” Jessie said without a smile. “Smoking can be hazardous to your health.” She looked tired, and Alexa could see she was hurting. Deep-rooted pain from a beating wasn’t easy to mask.

  “Keep your eyes on the rearview mirror going home,” Alexa advised. “Play it safe. Whoever it is is real cagey.”

  Jessie nodded, but Alexa reached across the passenger seat and grabbed her arm to make her point more clear. “Get some sleep. I got a feeling we’re both gonna need it.”

  Sitting behind the wheel of the rental car, she watched the van pull from the curb and waited with her eyes on the rearview mirror to see if anyone darted for the cars parked down the street. After giving Jessie a good head start, she pulled away and hit the gas.

  By tomorrow, she’d know who owned those vehicles. And she hoped one of the names would stand out as a clear winner for her undivided attention.

  Late afternoon

  A dark, gloomy day was taking shape, with storm clouds gathering. Even burrowed under the covers of her bed, Jess knew this, but she hadn’t arrived at this conclusion by psychic powers. She heard the rumble of distant thunder. And her room was as dark as night, even though she had a general idea what time of day it was.

  “Great,” she whispered. “Just what I need.” Thunder made her edgy.

  She flipped on a lamp and looked at her alarm clock. Nearly four o’clock, later than she thought. She’d have only a few hours before she’d stock up for another night of surveillance and hit the road once rush hour died.

  After pulling an all-nighter between her stakeout of the nursing home and her criminal romp with Alexa, Jess had slept a few restless hours, still feeling the aftereffects of the beating. But since her mind wouldn’t turn off, she got dressed and grabbed some coffee while she checked for e-mails from her new partner in crime, Alexa. Good as her word, the woman had sent the electronic file for Beladi’s assets, an expansive list that would take time to review.

  And she had sent an e-mail with another interesting follow-up to last night.

  Dark Blue sedan, Chevy Impala—registered to a private investigator named Luís Dante. I think he’s our stalker, but won’t know until I talk to him. Be on the lookout.

  “Yeah, right. You’re gonna ‘talk’ to him?” She chuckled, reading between the lines of Alexa’s e-mail.

  But why would a PI be tailing her? The face of Nadir Beladi flashed through her mind in answer to her question, sending a prickle down
her spine. It had to be him. She’d have to be more careful. The last thing she needed was another psychopath finding out where she lived.

  Jess downloaded the financial file on Beladi and had started the printing process when her cell phone rang. She checked out the phone display before answering and recognized the number.

  “Hey, Sam. What’s up?”

  “I wanted to let you know we had to kick Jason Burke loose. He lawyered up, and we didn’t get enough from him for an arrest. Wish I had better news.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Jess had been thinking about how she’d tell Sam what they had found in Burke’s storage unit. It would have been nice if the timing of her tip had been different, and Alexa could have confirmed the man was in possession of stolen goods by actual serial numbers, but with Burke a free man, things had changed.

  “I just got an e-mail from Alexa. Burke had some noteworthy items on the financials she dug up.” Jess knew she’d have to be careful about how much to tell Sam.

  Harper needed the cops to find another viable candidate in Mandy’s murder. And it seemed a plausible scenario that the girl could have found out about Burke’s side business and tried blackmailing him. Yet telling Sam outright about her break-in at Burke’s storage unit would not only put her friend in the middle and compromise her job, it would taint any evidence the cops might acquire as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Anything the police found, as a result of being tipped from the break-in, would be inadmissible in court.

  She’d have to find a way to guide Sam’s efforts without saying that she and Alexa had already laid eyes on what looked to be stolen goods.

  “Burke had a safe-deposit box and paid for an upscale storage unit using automatic withdrawals from his bank. I figured you could get a warrant to take a peek. Maybe Mandy caught him in a side business he wasn’t reporting to the IRS, something the cops might see as motive.”

  “You got an address on his storage?”