AT Stake (An Alex Troutt Thriller, Book 7) (Redemption Thriller Series 19)

by John W. Mefford

  She rubbed her eyes and yawned. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You need to get to sleep.”

  She got off the couch and walked a few steps. “Once Nick gets out of the hospital, can all of our new friends move to Austin and live with us?”

  In our apartment? I was learning that kids had a simple way of seeing the world sometimes; it was adorable. “They might be able to visit sometime. Did you know that Alex grew up on the Texas coast?”

  Her eyes got wide. “So she likes the ocean? Maybe they could join us for vacation. But only if Erin comes too.”

  “Why wouldn’t she go on vacation with everyone else?”

  “Don’t you know, Dad? When kids get older, they really don’t want to be with adults. It’s kind of boring.”

  I was reminded to ask more about those hair-brushing conversations that she and Erin had. I nodded. “Well, not every kid thinks the same thing. And even then, people change. I just know it’s good to be open-minded.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m not going to do that to you, okay?”

  I winked. “Love you.”

  “Love you more!” She scampered up the stairs.

  I went back to the laptop screen—the cursor moved. There is a God.

  One more thing. I checked the spreadsheet I’d created. It was still intact and saved. “Hallelujah.”

  Using the information Alex had forwarded me, I’d divided the casualty list into two main categories: deceased and injured. From there, I used my access to a website for licensed private investigators, tracersinfo.com, to capture everything I could about that person. When they sent Alex the file, there were eight dead and ninety-four injured. I wondered how many would move from the injured column to the deceased column.

  We all hoped that Nick would not be one of them. I cracked my knuckles and got back to work.

  14

  Ozzie

  My body twitched, and I startled to wakefulness. I had fallen asleep while working.

  But why is my ear wet?

  As I touched my ear—it was also quite cold—I turned and saw Alex standing behind me, a smirk on her face. “Did you—?”

  “You were drooling,” she said, sipping from a mug. “So I had to do something to get you to wake up.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after six in the morning. I’m about to take Luke to basketball practice.”

  I smacked my lips—yep, I’d been asleep for a while. I could feel a burn in my eyes. I saw the laptop on the couch next to me, Pumpkin still curled up against a pillow. I stretched and felt a tug on my gut—when in the hell would this knife wound completely heal?

  “I started going through the casualty list last night,” I said, standing up. “Didn’t get very far. Maybe we want to divide and conquer today, unless you’ve been able to figure out how to get more information from Randy and his task force.”

  “Nothing yet,” she said, huffing out a breath. “I’ll check in later, see if I can squeeze anything out of him or someone close to him.”

  She told me about her visit with Nick last night.

  “Do we know how he’s—”

  “I already traded text messages with Stan this morning. No change, which means Nick is holding his own.”

  I could see the longing on her face for good news. I didn’t want to add doubt to the situation. “Good to hear.”

  Luke hopped into the living room. “Ready to go, Mom?”

  She was mid-sip with her coffee.

  “I’m taking you to practice today, Luke.” It was Ezzy, walking in from the kitchen.

  Alex flipped around. “Ezzy, why are you up so early? You need your rest.”

  Ezzy clutched her purse against her body. “How many times have I taken the kids to practices or a friend’s house or whatever? I’m perfectly capable.”

  “I know about your recent issues. We need to get you back in to see the doctor so he can review your medication.”

  Ezzy lifted her chin. “I’m an adult, Alex. My health is not perfect, but it’s very manageable. I’m quite comfortable doing what I normally do around this house. Nothing has changed.”

  Before Alex could respond, Mackenzie ran into the living room. “Can I go?”

  “Of course you can,” Ezzy said, a smile on her face. “And when we get back, I’ll work with you on your English and history lessons.”

  I’d been homeschooling Mackenzie ever since we’d been in Boston. “I can do it, Ezzy.”

  “You and Alex are busy with important things, life-and-death things. I’d love to sit down and dive into some schooling. How about you, Mackenzie?”

  “Sure. I’m game.”

  Alex and I looked at each other. “I guess we’ve been replaced,” I said with a wink.

  Alex gave me flat eyes. I could tell that she wanted to say more, to dictate to Ezzy how things should be. But that wasn’t going to happen, not in Ezzy’s current state of mind.

  The kids and Ezzy headed for the back door. She said something on her way out. I looked to Alex and touched my ear.

  “Need a tissue?” she asked.

  I explained that I hadn’t heard Ezzy’s comment.

  “Oh, sorry. Forgot about your… Anyway, she just said she was planning a big homemade Guatemalan dinner.”

  “Ezzy’s cooking is out of this world.”

  Alex palmed the coffee mug, shaking her head. “She’s going to have to face reality. She can’t keep doing everything she did before. And she needs to pay more attention to the signals.”

  Perhaps Nick lying in a hospital bed clinging to life only added to Alex’s anxiety over anything health related. I got it. “I think she’ll come around, Alex. Just need to give her some time to envision her new life. Right now, she doesn’t want to give anything up. I think she sees that as putting one foot in the grave.”

  “Maybe.”

  I rubbed a hand across my face. “I need to take a quick shower, and then we can dive into the data. Sound good? Well, I need a cup of coffee after the shower to kick-start my brain.” I headed for the stairs.

  “Hey, you’ve been cooped up in this house for weeks. How about getting out of here?”

  I rotated one of my arms like the hand of a clock—a routine I often carried out prior to a long swim. Damn, I couldn’t wait until I could start working out every day. “As Mackenzie said, I’m game. More than game.”

  An hour later, we walked into Vito’s Coffee Shop in downtown Salem. I ordered this new extra-large size of coffee, a Trenta. Alex went with the Tall. As we waited in line, I picked up a foreign scent, nothing I’d smelled before in a coffee shop. She explained to me that Vito’s used to be a pizzeria, but Vito envisioned a lot more profit in selling overpriced coffee and snacks than pizza. So, he made the switch.

  My keen sense of smell—another benefit, I suppose, to not hearing well.

  We set up in the corner away from the noise. She had her FBI-issued laptop. I was working off the hand-me-down.

  I showed her my spreadsheet.

  “How did you get all that information on those people?” she asked.

  “Well, I’m only about twelve people in. I started with the deceased. I have access to these PI databases. It’s amazing how much information is out there, if you have the right access.”

  She tapped her laptop. “Want to see who can knock out the next twenty the quickest? Then we’ll start analyzing the data. That’s where I hope we’ll find something.”

  I started clicking away. After a few minutes, I asked, “So, what are you hoping to gain from this exercise?”

  “It’s part of the process.”

  Process. Her brow was furrowed, so I did my thing while chugging my coffee. The caffeine gave me that boost of energy I needed, and my clicking and typing speeds showed it.

  “Done,” I said as I pushed up to my feet.

  “You little…” She bit her lip before calling me a name. All in fun, of course. I hit the restroom—the coffee went right through me—and when I
got back, she was munching on an egg sandwich and staring at her phone.

  I plopped down in my chair. “Hey, shouldn’t the winner get the prize?” She picked up a napkin. Under it was another egg sandwich.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure,” she said with little gusto. I wondered why.

  “Did you hear something from Stan or Antonio?” I opened the wrapper and took my first bite.

  “No, nothing like that.” She brought her phone to her chin and looked past me. I followed her gaze to the front door of the coffee shop.

  “Expecting anyone to show up?”

  She sighed. “Just answers.”

  “I know what you mean. The fact you’re getting nothing out of Randy’s team… I mean, this ‘process,’ as you call it, seems like digging through sand, looking for that one granule that will lead us to bad guys. I don’t know. It’s just…well, this could take a while.”

  “I’m not even talking about what we’re doing here,” she said, a hand on her computer. She looked like she was about to continue, but she didn’t.

  It had to be Nick. “Hope and patience, Alex. I’m not real good at either myself. But I have this feeling it will work out.”

  Her eyes shifted from me to the door and then back to me again. “It’s something else?”

  “It’s crazy that I’m even thinking about it. I mean, the bombings, thinking Erin might have been…you know, and then Nick being injured and maybe on the verge of…” She pursed her lips and then continued. “I keep thinking about Brad.”

  “That’s not a good thing?”

  “Something has changed. Or I’ve changed. Or maybe he’s changed. I don’t know, it’s just…” She let her hands drop to the table as she shook her head.

  Well, I didn’t see that coming.

  “We’ve made a mess of your life, Alex. Nothing is normal for you right now. Mackenzie and I can get a hotel until this whole JustWin investigation wraps up and we’re given the green light to go back to Austin.”

  She sat up. “No, Ozzie. That’s just not the case. In fact, having you guys around has been fun and reminds me of the connection I had with the kids prior to the teenage gremlins invading their bodies.” She tried to smile but never quite got there. “I just feel like Brad and I aren’t as connected as we used to be. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded, but my first reaction to her words was jealousy. I’d give anything to have Nicole alive, to work through the knots of everyday relationship issues. Damn, you never really know how lucky you have it until it’s all taken away.

  “Wait…” She closed her eyes for a moment. “How could I be so clueless, Ozzie? You just lost your wife, and then you had to fight everyone in your path to figure out who was behind her murder. I’m so sorry.”

  I held up my hand. “No worries. From the little I’ve been around you and Brad, you guys seem to have something special. I know that doesn’t mean a whole lot, but you’ve been together…what, two years?”

  She pushed a loose strand of blond hair out of her face. “It’s not like we’re married, though.”

  “Are you looking for a reason not to be attached?”

  She toyed with her phone for a moment. “I know it seems like it, but I’m just trying to figure out my weird feelings.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. I didn’t want to nudge her one way or the other, especially when she was under so much stress. “Our age difference is not a small thing,” she said. “I used to almost take pride in it, but now I wonder. He might be looking at life differently. Or…at younger women.” She bit her lip and kept her eyes on the table.

  “You think he’s cheating on you?”

  “No, not really. Just my insecurity, I suppose. That, and a few more wrinkles around my eyes.”

  “You have pretty eyes, Alex.”

  She looked up at me and batted her lashes, giggling. “Why, thank you. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hitting on me. But I know better.”

  “Good thing. I just know this, Alex. I realized probably too late that I should have cherished my time with Nicole, way more than I did. Every moment counts, because we don’t know when fate will step in and take it all away. So, all this other garbage—”

  “Is just garbage,” she finished for me. “That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  I shrugged. “If he’s the one for you, that doesn’t mean there won’t be rough patches. I’m the king of rough patches. But once you take away—”

  “The garbage. I’m rolling with you,” she said.

  “Right. Take that away, and what do you have?”

  She seemed to think about it some more. “It’s kind of funny in a strange way. I was frustrated about him being late to the race yesterday. When he got there, I thought I saw him checking out two girls half my age who could have been on the cover of Fitness magazine. Turns out, he’d spotted a backpack that was just sitting there and found its owner. It just goes to show, I might be paranoid.” She touched her forehead. “Hell, maybe I’m starting to go through menopause.”

  I tried not to laugh. “You’re not my mom.”

  “I’m almost old enough to be.”

  A thought scampered to the front of my mind. It must have showed.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “When we were talking to Maya, and she was trying to mess with our heads by bringing up the blood and gore from the explosions…”

  “Yeah. She’s way out there, Oz. That’s pretty obvious.”

  “I know she was getting this news from some source, but the way she was reveling in it… She wasn’t really convincing us that she wasn’t involved in the bombing. She kind of left the door open, at least enough to make us think it was possible for her to be involved. At least that’s how it came across to me.”

  “That’s why I offered her that plea deal. If she’s involved, and she’s sane, she’ll take it. In fact, we need to check in later this afternoon to see if she’s finally decided to admit her role in this thing. If so, then we’ve already found our grain of sand.” Her eyes perked up as she said that last part.

  “Maybe.” I looked off into the distance and thought about it some more.

  She snapped her fingers to draw my attention back her way. “You don’t agree with what I said?”

  “I don’t know. She just seems very manipulative.”

  “I think that’s how she’s wired, Ozzie. She was, after all, trying to get you in bed…in the middle of a prison hospital.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  She was quiet.

  “I think she might just be playing us. I remembered something last night when I was half-watching the news.”

  “Before you started drooling.”

  “Yeah, before that.” I leaned in closer. “ATF found traces of acetone peroxide in her apartment. They believe she was in the process of making a TATP bomb.”

  “The Mother of Satan,” she said, recalling the nickname given that type of bomb.

  “Right. The same ones used in countless other terrorist attacks across the world.”

  “So, you’re thinking she was just toying with us when she started talking about the nails and shrapnel doing all that damage?”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I don’t think she has anything to do with the actual bombings.”

  “Damn, I hope you’re wrong.” She stood up. “But I don’t feel like sitting on my hands. Let’s start visiting the families of the victims.”

  “Part of the process?”

  “Now you’re thinking like an FBI agent.”

  15

  Alex

  Of the eight confirmed dead, seven were runners in the race, one a volunteer working at an aid station. Twelve others were in critical condition at area hospitals, so we knew the number of dead could rise. I only hoped that Nick wouldn’t be number nine.

  We’d already visited the home of a runner—a mom of two preschool kids who had previously survived a plane crash as a college student.
That sad irony—of living through that tragedy, yet dying while running a race on a beautiful April day—was all her husband and friends could talk about when they weren’t crying their eyes out.

  Our second visit was to the family of a Boston College student. The victim not only volunteered to help at one of the aid stations but was also a Big Brother to troubled kids in inner-city Boston. His parents were, not surprisingly, distraught. They’d both emigrated from Kenya, hoping to be able to raise their family away from the famine, wars, diseases, and crime. They sobbed most of the time we were there. Aside from asking some basic questions, all we could do was offer our condolences.

  So, essentially, we’d learned nothing in our first two visits. I was beginning to think this approach was a waste of time, the wounds far too fresh for the family and friends to offer much insight.

  We were near the home of the next person on the list—Salvatore Alvarado. Ozzie directed us to an address in Weston, which was sixteen miles west of Boston and considered one of the nicer suburbs in the northeast—yes, not just Boston, but the entire region. The brakes on my car squealed as I pulled to a stop in front of a wrought-iron gate. “Oz, tell me we have the wrong house. Or should I say ‘estate’?”

  “Actually, I just pulled up the county record on the home of Salvatore and Angelia Alvarado. Yeah, ‘estate’ is a much better term.”

  I could see multiple peaks of the home above the trees that lined a winding, tiled driveway. “I didn’t know there were castles in the area,” I said, turning into the driveway.

  “If twenty thousand square feet constitutes a castle, then, yes, there is at least one castle in Boston.”

  “Damn.”

  “But there’s more to this place than just seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms.”

  I glanced at Ozzie with a raised eyebrow. He held up a finger and kept going. “It’s a six-acre lot with more than two hundred trees.”

  “They counted them?”

  He nodded. “Apparently. Also, there’s a tennis court, a heated swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen, fire pit, two waterfalls, and a carriage house.”