Chapter 13
Ron called that night asking if I wanted to take a road trip up to Montreal for his weekend. I told him I had to work, but he did talk me into dinner and a concert Tuesday evening. To give myself an out, I said it was tentative, and I’d call if I had to work late.
As much as Wil got me going, I considered Ron a safer choice. Stable job, always going to be there, and he treated me well. Even though he was nice to look at, I didn’t feel as though I was competing with every woman in the room when I was with him. Some women are crazy. I could imagine some witch trying to take me out hoping to get her chance with Wil.
Being with Wil was like playing with a live volcano. He’d shown his volatility the evening before. I wasn’t afraid he’d get violent, but we could easily push each other past limits I wasn’t sure I was comfortable passing. I’d never been into pain, but I discovered bruises that morning I didn’t remember getting. Some of them were due to being manhandled with that super-stiff corset on, but not all of them.
My thoughts turned to Diane Sheridan. I figured the woman was smart. If she made that plane reservation as a diversion, she was really smart. I wondered if she hung back and watched that fiasco at the airport, or if she was heading in a completely different direction under an assumed name while I danced with the mob assassins.
I rode up to her house in York, a considerably nicer neighborhood than where her brother lived. It didn’t appear anyone was home, but I expected that. She lived near a golf course, and the homes were nestled into the woods. I slipped into the trees, blurred my image, and approached her property. A car with two men in it was parked down the street, but they didn’t see me.
My townhouse was too large for one person, and her house was easily three times as large. I wondered if she used the pool in the backyard, or if it was there for looks.
I scouted the place, disabled the alarm system, then drew my pistol, picked the backdoor lock, and entered the house. After searching all the rooms, it became evident to me that she had packed for a trip. In the master bedroom, some clothes were lying out on the bed, and an empty suitcase stood by the door. A closet in one of the spare bedrooms had luggage in it, with room for additional suitcases that weren’t there.
The computer in her study was password protected. I shut it down, opened the computer’s case, replaced a chip with one of mine, then booted it up again. I found her bank account records, including a couple of accounts under pseudonyms I hadn’t found before. One of them was the funnel for the funds coming in. I traced it back and decided the source was another fake. Someone did a good job setting that up.
Otherwise, her email was clean. I didn’t find any spreadsheets or accounts that kept track of her finances. It didn’t appear she used the computer much. Out of curiosity, I clicked on a vid file.
I recognized her bedroom immediately. Oh, my. I wouldn’t have thought the good doctor would have a camera in her bedroom.
Leaving the computer, I ran up to her bedroom and searched until I found the two cameras installed there. I pulled the storage chips out of the cameras and took them downstairs.
Back at the computer, I plugged in the chips and transferred their files, then I started watching the vids again.
At first, I was interested in her partner, but after a while, I started paying attention to their conversation. I checked the file length, and realized the vid was hours long. Diane and her friend were using luvdaze. Altogether, she had thirty-two vid files on the computer, plus the two I retrieved from her bedroom. A quick examination revealed that except for two vids, they all starred the same guy.
The two exceptions were interesting. One guy with a white Mohawk looked like one of the gangbangers I’d seen through the drone camera at the place where Fred bought the drugs for me when I played Jasmine. The other guy was the only one in the vids who insisted on turning out the lights. I guessed he must have been shy, or he suspected the cameras.
The filenames were curious. The dates I understood. Something tickled at the back of my mind, and I opened my bag to find the notebook I took from the lab. When I compared the dates in the notebook to the dates on the vid files, I realized Diane and her beau had been testing her brother’s creations. The filenames were comprised of dates, batch numbers, and dosages. Interesting.
Checking the files I retrieved from the cameras, I realized she was editing the vid from the two cameras to create her final files. Different people had different pleasures, but watching myself roll around naked had never appealed to me.
I didn’t recognize the man. Diane was forty, and he was around the same age. I knew from her public records she was five feet five inches tall. In the nude, her body looked as though she worked out or used that swimming pool. He was a head taller and in decent shape, rather handsome with collar-length blond hair. It might have been the drugs, but he certainly had stamina.
I downloaded everything from her computer, including the vids, to a chip and put it in my bag, then checked out the rest of the house.
Official records showed she owned two cars. I found the sports car in the garage, but the four-wheel-drive was missing. I even did a quick tour of the backyard, seeking a fresh grave, but found nothing. In spite of all the effort, the whereabouts of Diane Sheridan eluded me. I couldn’t find a single clue as to where she might have gone. Other than Vancouver, her vacations and other trips over the past few years had been all over the world, and never to the same place twice.
Getting ready to go, I saw that the car parked down the street was still there. I went out the back door, rearmed the alarm, and retrieved my motorcycle. As I rode past, I took a picture of the car’s license plate, then I went home.
The Chamber’s database gave me the owner of the car sitting at Diane Sheridan’s house, and also told me he worked for one of Alonzo Donofrio’s businesses. Wil had left a message that the dead men at the airport worked for the same Donofrio business. The manager of the business was Alonzo’s wife’s cousin, the same one identified by the drone video at the gangbanger drug house.
That tied everything up in a nice, neat package. The only problem was that the package didn’t connect to anything. I still didn’t have the lab, the kingpin, or the distribution network. I had the people with the original idea, one of whom was dead and the other was on the run. I had Fred the schlub and Shannon the druggie sex fiend. I had one tiny branch of the mob.
I couldn’t paint a picture. I couldn’t even figure out where all the puzzle pieces fit, and the drugs continued to flow.
So, I did what I could. I took a shower and dressed to meet Ron. It took more than makeup to hide the bruises Wil had left on my jaw and my lips. I hated using illusion when I might be staying at Ron’s overnight. The illusions didn’t hold when I fell asleep.
“What kind of job are you working on?” Ron asked as soon as we sat down.
I opened my menu and thought about his question. I was a good liar, but I tried to avoid telling lies by avoiding certain topics, such as my work.
“It’s a contract for the Chamber of Commerce.”
“Doing what?”
I caught myself grinding my teeth, lowered my menu, and asked, “Where’s the waiter? I’m thirsty.”
“He’s coming. You didn’t answer my question.”
“It’s an investigation. I can’t really get into it. Client confidentiality.”
“Oh.”
The waiter came and we ordered a bottle of wine. I was ready to order dinner, but Ron wasn’t.
“What kind of investigations do you do? I don’t mean right now, but in general. You said you do security assessments, but you didn’t say anything about investigations.”
I put my menu down and caught his eyes. “Ron, I don’t mean to be crabby, but I like going out with you because it takes my mind off work. I had a frustrating, unproductive day, and I’d prefer not to think about it, or talk about it.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The rest of the evening went that way, with him irritatin
g the hell out of me, turning me into a real bitch. The concert didn’t help. The music was great—very soothing and relaxing—and I fell asleep. That precipitated an argument, of course.
That was why it surprised me that he wanted me to go home with him. Feeling a little guilty for ruining his evening, I agreed. That was a mistake. When I kissed him, I discovered the bruising of my lips had a functional disadvantage as well as a cosmetic one.
For the first time, I didn’t stay the night. I told him I had an early meeting and took off as soon as I could.
I dreamed I was running through the airport. The entire place was empty, but someone was chasing me. I had my pistol in my hand, and men in suits and dark glasses kept jumping out of the cross corridors, stepping through doors, or appearing in one of the vacant shops, and aiming silenced pistols at me. I shot each of them first, but I kept expecting to feel a bullet from one I didn’t see in time. The whole dream felt like being trapped inside a video game.
I woke up sweating and realized I’d forgotten to turn on the air conditioning when I came home and fell into bed. As hot as my bedroom was, I didn’t think it had anything to do with dreaming about the men at the airport. I never had such dreams, not even after my first kill.
As I ate breakfast, I realized what bothered me, what caused the dreams. It wasn’t guilt, it was fear. I’d taken out two of Alonzo’s boys. I didn’t think anyone could ever tie me to them, but my investigation of luvdaze seemed to be going down a path that led to the Donofrio family. Before I took any more steps in that direction, I decided I should check my footing.
“Dad?” I said when he answered the phone. “I need to talk to you. Are you available this morning?”
“Sure, come on over. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“Yeah, just finished. About an hour?”
I showered and dressed, then walked over to his house. He was expecting me and opened the door so I didn’t have to go through the full range of security unlocks.
He led me to the kitchen table and poured coffee for both of us. He gets the best coffee flown in from South America and Africa.
“So, what’s the problem?” he asked.
“This Chamber investigation I’m working on. Some of the leads point to Donofrio.” I told him about the murders at Sheridan’s house and lab, and Alonzo’s wife’s cousin at the gangbanger’s drug house.
He pursed his mouth and said, “And why are you coming to me, instead of taking a long vacation in Switzerland until all this blows over?”
“The whole setup feels amateurish. Vincent said the same thing when I took him some drugs to analyze. Can you imagine Alonzo using slum gangs for anything other than toilet paper?”
“Hmmm. Go on.”
“I’m thinking that some of his boys got entrepreneurial on the side, and this isn’t his at all. But I want to make sure before I pursue something that might clip someone close to him. Do you think you could reach out to him? Tell him I respect him and value his goodwill, and if luvdaze is one of his businesses, I’ll back off.”
“How will you get out of the contract with the Chamber?”
“I’ll tell Blaine that he doesn’t have enough money for me to go against the mob. The Chamber can do that if they want to, but I’m just an indie. I don’t have any protection. If Blaine can’t accept that, I can probably live with it. If Alonzo gets pissed at me, I don’t think living will be one of my options.”
Dad gave me one of his lopsided grins. “I’m glad you’re using your head. I agree, and I doubt Blaine would push you. You’ve already helped him find the source of the drugs. But the hits on the professor and the lab push this thing to another level. I think the distribution of the drugs is something he can figure out without you.”
“So do I, but if I’m not crossing Alonzo, I wouldn’t mind getting paid as long as possible.”
He laughed. “Okay, I’ll go see Alonzo today. Lay low until I get back to you.”
I hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.”
Taking Dad’s advice, I spent the day on the computer and ordered a pizza online for dinner. I set up alerts on all of Diane Sheridan’s accounts. She had to spend money sooner or later.
I took the clearest image I could find of the man in her sex tapes and set a match search on him in the Chamber’s database.
Then I began an analysis on the distribution outside of the Toronto area. I sent Wil an email asking him to give me everything the Chamber had on luvdaze in Buffalo, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas. Within an hour, he transmitted a batch of files to me.
Atlanta didn’t have any information. If the drug was there, it wasn’t causing enough of a problem to raise the Chamber’s interest. I worked through the other cities. As I’d guessed, the closer the city was to Toronto, the earlier it reported issues with luvdaze.
Dallas was the anomaly. As far as I could tell, luvdaze hit Dallas at the same time it hit Buffalo and Ottawa. Maybe even earlier. The first reports of overdoses in Dallas showed an already thriving market for the drug. I remembered the club I’d been to in Dallas. The most recent reports were even more confusing. The supply of the drug had dried up.
The Chamber’s office in Dallas had grown concerned about luvdaze just as they had in Toronto, but over the past few weeks, they reported the drug was increasingly difficult to find. In fact, the decline in supply to Dallas correlated with a rise in supply to Calgary and Edmonton, almost as though the drug was being diverted from one destination to the others.
Dad came by in the late afternoon, just before I resigned myself to ordering another pizza. He was dressed in a tailored charcoal three-piece suit and drove his power chair up the stairs onto the porch.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Always. You want to go out?”
He gave me one of his teasing smiles. “As long as I’m dressed up, I thought I’d take my favorite girl out to dinner.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean I should put on something more presentable?”
He took in my tank top and leggings. “If you’re comfortable at The Frenchman’s Daughter dressed like that, I’ll take you.”
“Can you wait half an hour?”
“Of course.”
I ran upstairs, took a quick shower, and pulled on a dress he gave me for my birthday the year before. The halter-topped gold lamé evening gown always made me feel like I was in an old vid.
We took his car to the restaurant that billed its cuisine as ‘country French’. The men in my life were treating me well. I made a note to start exercising a little more so I wouldn’t have to buy new clothes.
“Did you get in to see Alonzo?” I asked after we were seated.
“Yes, and he was very curious as to why you were concerned. You know that Donofrio avoids the drug trade.”
“I remember. That’s why I had my suspicions some of his people were involved in this without his sanction.”
“And you were right. Alonzo wanted to know if you had any names.”
“Only one, and it’s rather sensitive.”
“Oh?”
“Jimmy Alderette.” Alderette was a first cousin of Alonzo’s wife.
Dad set down his wine glass and leaned back in his chair. “That is interesting. Either the young man is very entrepreneurial, or very stupid. Actually, there probably isn’t a difference. If Alonzo thought Jimmy was capable, he’d give him more responsibility, where he’d earn more money.” He twirled his finger, indicating that I could follow the thought to its logical conclusion, and reached for his glass again.
“Yes, well, a Chamber drone followed him from a known gang drug house. And I recognized the two men I took out at the airport from one time when I was at Alonzo’s at the same time Jimmy was.”
He choked on his wine. “You did what at the airport?”
“I assumed they were there to hit our mark, just as they did her brother. I want her alive so I can talk to her. So,
I took care of that conflict of interest before they recognized me and things got nasty.”
“Couldn’t you just change your appearance?”
“In front of my contact from the Chamber? Let him know what I am?”
Dad shook his head. “My God, Libby, be careful.”
“I’m trying, Dad. I can count, and there are bodies piling up all over the place. This case is as convoluted as a romance serial written by three different people.”
We passed The Pinnacle on our way home. I was in the mood to go out and do things, but I was a bit shy about asking my father to take me to a meat market bar. Dad dropped me off at my place, and as soon as he drove off, I called a robotaxi.
As soon as I walked into the club, Paul spotted me and gave a wolf whistle.
“Wow, Libby. What’s the occasion?”
“Dinner with my father. He bought me the dress, so I figure he likes seeing me in it.”
“Femme fatale deluxe,” Paul said. “You look great.”
I hadn’t really thought about it, but I was a bit overdressed for that club. To hell with it. “Give me something I’ll like in a fancy glass. Might as well stoke the image.”
He laughed. When he brought me a drink in a martini glass, he said, “Your boyfriend is here.”
“Boyfriend?”
“The bad boy with the tats and the earring.”
“Oh, Ron. Really?” A thought struck me. “Is he in here a lot?”
Paul shrugged. “Three or four nights a week.”
“And he always leaves alone?”
He choked and tried to cover it up by coughing. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that. I took my drink and climbed the stairs to the mezzanine. The way I was dressed fit in better at that level. The fancy people sat up there, and an extra charge kept the riff-raff down below. Since I knew all the bouncers and didn’t pay any of the entrance charges anyway, I didn’t care.
Chameleon Assassin (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 1) Page 13