Safe in Her Bodyguard's Arms, page 15
But these other people? No way.
He wasn’t sure if Aaron had been working with the guy in the suit or if he had been arrested by the guy in the suit, an undercover cop. He should have asked Obie if she remembered what day it was that those photos were taken.
The group moved on after the leader, the bald man in the front, heard from someone via his earpiece.
Damn. These weren’t just regular law enforcement and with equipment like that they had the look of some kind of elite team.
He wasn’t sure that the team would be working with the cartel but he didn’t rule it out either. As soon as they were clear and he felt it was safe, he motioned for her to move.
“Why didn’t you let them know we were here? They looked like cops to me,” she said, keeping her voice low and still moving cautiously as she led the way out of their cover.
“They look like an elite team. The kind that is hired by someone with a lot of money. I’d say ex–law enforcement. We don’t know who sent them. It could be the cartel. They have money,” Xander said.
“Or maybe your boss sent them,” she said.
Definitely not. As much as they worked with law enforcement a lot in their gigs, Van didn’t like working with mercenaries. And other private firms were technically his competitors. “He didn’t.”
“I’m tired, Xander. If those men can get us back to civilization I wouldn’t mind taking a chance. I mean you have your gun... Sorry, I just realized I was thinking if they weren’t on our side you could handle them. You’re probably tired too.”
“I am. If I thought there was a chance they were clean I might have taken the risk. But the truth is I don’t know enough to risk it. Do you remember the photos of your shop and Aaron?”
She licked her dry lips and nodded before digging in her bag for her lip balm. “What about them?”
“Do you recall if they were taken on the day he was arrested?”
She considered his question as she found her lip balm and put it on. “I don’t think so. Actually it looked like one of the first few days that Aaron started working for us. Why?”
“Just trying to rule out the possibility of him working with an agency or of them trying to turn him,” Xander said. “But I don’t think that can be done.”
“Sorry I’m not more help. And for pinching you. You told me that your job is to keep me safe and you’re doing that. I should have trusted you.”
He almost smiled. She might have been ticked while they’d been hiding, but now that she was out of the water and on dry ground, she was being fair. He wished for the thousandth time she hadn’t been dragged into this mess. But she was making the best of it.
“You should have. But it’s okay. Even I wasn’t sure if we should make contact,” he said. “I’m never going to take any action that puts you in direct danger.”
“Thanks for that. Would you have confronted them if you’d been alone?” she asked as they started walking again toward West Lake.
“Yes.”
There was no question in his mind that he would have used whatever means necessary to get information and get out of the swamp. “But I probably would have panicked the first time I saw that croc and gotten bit. So might not have been as tough on my own as you’re thinking.”
She shook her head as she adjusted the shoulder strap of her cross-body bag. “You would be. I don’t think you would have disturbed the croc. You’re too calm for that.”
He wished he could really lay claim to the calmness she thought she saw in him. Doing a different job in any other part of the world might have allowed him the chance. But he was winging it with Obie, and it was training and skills and her knowledge of the swamp that was keeping them one step ahead of the cartel and this new player who was after them.
It was partially just dumb luck. But then again, Van always said Xander made his own luck.
He would keep Obie safe and deliver her to Van, and then he was going to start talking to the different parties and get the information he needed to solve this puzzle.
Chapter 15
Obie was hot as they continued walking through the swamp. Neither of them talked, but if Xander’s mind was anything like hers then the silence wasn’t restful. She couldn’t help thinking about a third party being involved. What was Aaron into? It had been hard enough to swallow the drug cartel connection, but this seemed to be growing larger.
She couldn’t help remembering that her father had been doing a hush-hush investigation when he’d been killed. Officer Wade had told them that he didn’t trust the higher-ups.
All of which hadn’t really meant much to her at the time. She’d been bereft with grief and not really concerned about her dad’s workplace drama. But now she had to wonder if uncovering these memories was helping her make connections between law enforcement and the cartel. What part did Aaron play in it all?
She wanted to ask Xander his opinion, but she hesitated, knowing in her heart that she wanted to find something that would connect the cartel to her parents’ deaths. Xander would be honest with her if she was pushing for something that wasn’t there.
When they got to the east side of West Lake, she filled his water filtrating bottle while he got out the pack-raft.
“Do you think that the cartel could have ties to law enforcement?” she said, trying for casual and totally failing.
“Uh, maybe. Where’s this coming from?”
She shrugged as she put the top back on the water bottle. “Was just thinking about those people we saw... I mean you said they looked like former cops but what if the cartel had guys in law enforcement?”
The more she expressed this theory out loud, the more holes she saw in it. Why would other cops kill her folks when they also saw the cartel as an issue? Unless they were corrupt? Her mind swirled with uncertainty. “Never mind.”
The pack-raft self-inflated and Xander turned to face her. “I’m not ruling it out at all. I think you might be on to something. When I called in the first time, Lee mentioned our descriptions had already been given to the cops and they were pretty darned accurate. I’m not sure someone watching from a window would have been that good.”
“So the cartel gave our information to the cops,” she said out loud. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Do you think that’s what Aaron found out?”
“Possibly. That would mean that he’d be in real danger. Maybe they aren’t sure he has what he mentioned having.”
“The actual names?”
“Yeah. And other details. Names from a prisoner aren’t enough—he needs evidence.”
She wasn’t surprised to hear that. “Maybe the encrypted files have it.”
“Maybe. I can try another call to Van and see where the team is. I wouldn’t mind a pickup out of the swamp,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” she agreed. He moved away to make his call and she took her phone out of the drybag, putting her SIM in so she could check for missed calls and emails. She had two voice mails, which she listened to. One was a hang-up from an unknown number. The second was from Crispin Tallman’s office warning her to be cautious and to go to the nearest police station for her own protection. A shiver went down her spine. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she wasn’t as reassured hearing from the DA’s office this time. The message’s tone was measured but unsettling.
She disconnected the call as Xander walked back to her side.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking voice mails and then emails. I have to let Hilda know I’ll be out again today,” she said. “Tallman’s office warned me to be careful who I trust and go to the cops for my own safety.”
“We can discuss it after you take the SIM card out of your phone again. I want to limit the time you are on it.”
“Why?” she asked as she texted Hilda she wasn’t going to be in the office. Hilda immediately messaged back asking if she was okay.
Yes. Hope to be back to work tomorrow. Watch out for yourself and the staff. Aaron was into some dangerous stuff.
Thanks for the warning. We will. Stay safe. Xoxox
She hearted Hilda’s last message and then turned her phone off and removed the SIM. She turned to Xander, who looked relieved as she put both items back into the drybag. “Did your team have any info for you?”
“First tell me what the district attorney’s office said. Also, did you call them back?” he asked.
“No, just listened to the voice mail. They just said that I was in danger and to go to the cops so they could keep me safe,” she said. “It wasn’t Crispin but one of his assistants.”
“Okay. Well, that fits a little bit with what Van told me. He hasn’t been able to speak to Tallman at all. His office has strongly suggested that I turn myself in and bring you to safety. Van says as of right now they haven’t been able to crack the encrypted files. But they are hopeful it will be by the end of day.”
“We could just go to the jail and ask Aaron to open it,” Obie said.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’d tell them to f themselves.”
“Maybe. I warned Hilda.”
“I also asked Van to send someone over and he’s sending Luna and Rick. They’ll keep your coworkers safe and be on alert if anyone shows up there,” Xander said.
Well, that seemed like a lot of good information. Why didn’t that make her feel any better? Probably because they still didn’t know what exactly was going on.
“I wish I understood this,” she said.
“Me too. There is definitely more to this than Aaron let on when he contacted me and asked for a favor. I’m not sure if he is part of it or just stumbled on to it.”
“What it?”
“Law enforcement. I think you’re right about that. The way the information about us has been disseminated so quickly. The fact that the photos we saw were clearly surveillance photos. I think we’ve only scratched the surface of the danger that Aaron is in and that we are now involved in too.”
* * *
Rowing across West Lake wasn’t bad. It was hotter than it had been the day before, and Obie was quieter today. She was still trying to figure out things that she might have missed when she’d been younger, before her parents had died.
He wanted to help her, and he really needed the distraction. Their safety was still uncertain, especially while the identity of who was working for the cartel, and how far they were willing to go to silence Obie and him, remained obscured. “Tell me more about what you remember before your parents died. Was there anyone new hanging around?”
She continued to row, but her hands tightened on the oar.
“I was so busy with school that I wasn’t really paying attention,” she said. “Officer Wade was coming to our house a lot more and he and Daddy would close the door to the study to talk.”
He was surprised to hear they had a study. “I guess I shouldn’t have, but I assumed you lived in a more bare-bones house in the swamp. This area isn’t known for having that kind of luxury.”
“Ha. Mama had standards and Daddy built her dream home on the land they bought. It’s cheap to live where others only see trouble. It abutted the swamp and spread out for acres behind the house. But it was large, made of wood and glass.”
Some of the tension that was almost always present in her dissipated when she spoke that home. He knew she was going through rooms in her mind because that was what he did when he let his thoughts drift back to his own childhood. He could clearly remember the room he’d shared with Aaron, the twin beds on either side of the room, the student desks at the end of their beds and the walls covered in posters.
Both of them had been huge comic book fans and gamers. So whenever an anticipated game was released, they’d go down and buy the posters and put them up. He had stopped gaming for years because it was so closely tied to his brothers. But Kenji played Halo and had challenged Xander to try to best him. So he had started playing again.
He shook off those thoughts and forced his mind back to the puzzle he wanted to solve. “Who was Officer Wade?”
“I’m not sure. He wasn’t a deputy at the sheriff’s office because they were all called deputy. Daddy just introduced him and said they were working together.”
Interesting. So law enforcement but not local. “You made the connection to the cartel. Was that because you heard your father mention it?”
“Oh yeah, and he and Mama had a fight about them. She said something like ‘La Familia Sanchez cartel is going to cost you your own family. Let it be.’”
She’d slipped into a deep Southern accent when she’d spoke her mother’s words. “What did your father say?”
“Be easy. He used to do that all the time. Tell us to breathe and that everything would be okay,” she said, her tone tightening again. “Guess he was wrong that time.”
Maybe. So the mom was worried and there was a new “cop” at her house all the time. He wished she’d been older so she might remember more. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was enough to prove that he needed to dig deeper. When they stopped for another break he was going to have Lee dig into Officer Wade.
“Did you ever hear Wade’s first name?” he asked.
“No. I think Gator knew it. He kept in touch with Wade for a few months after we moved to Aunt Karen’s. We both thought that it wasn’t an accident. There was no way Daddy would have taken the airboat out without a thorough check and he would have noticed the small hole in the intake pipe.”
“That was the cause? What happened exactly?”
“There was a spark from the engine and the fan on the airport flamed it and the boat caught on fire. The report said it was instantaneous and there was not time for Mama and Daddy to jump overboard.”
Her tone implied she wasn’t buying that either. “What do you think?”
“That they were killed and then someone made it look like an accident. Gator thought Daddy had evidence that involved officers who worked for him and the cartel. But no one was listening to two teenage kids even if they had respected our daddy.”
“So then you got sent to live with your aunt, your bother kept in touch with Wade and then what happened to him?”
She pulled her oar out of the water and leaned forward. “He left. It was two weeks before his eighteenth birthday. So the cops and Aunt Karen looked for him for a little while but then he was an adult so they stopped.”
“What about you?”
“I knew they wouldn’t find him. Gator told me he’d had enough of Aunt Karen and he was going back to the swamp. He wanted me to go with him...but I said no.”
“Do you wish you’d gone?” he asked. It had nothing to do with solving the puzzle of her parents’ deaths but it would help him in the picture he was creating of Obie in his head.
She shrugged but didn’t say anything.
There was something about looking into the past and almost wishing you would have made a different choice. But he was self-aware enough to realize he wouldn’t have made different choices. He had the feeling that Obie was in the same place.
She might wish she’d gone with Gator, but she knew that she never would have. She chose to move forward with her life. That didn’t mean she’d forgotten her parents, but she’d been strong enough to know that she couldn’t go back. That there was nothing for her there.
He respected that. Hell, each new thing he learned about her made him like her more.
* * *
Until this moment, she had forgotten Officer Wade wasn’t with the sheriff’s office. Talking with Xander about the past continued to unlock these pieces of her memory. And the shoulders of the man she’d seen the back of in that photo with Aaron...could they be Officer Wade’s?
But without knowing who he worked for, she felt like she was spinning her wheels. “Do you think Wade was talking to Aaron?”
“Perhaps.”
She pulled her oar out of the water again and turned to face him, so frustrated. “Can you just give me a yes or no answer?”
“No,” he said and for a moment she thought he might be teasing her. “I want to but we don’t have enough information.”
“I get it. When do you think we will?” she asked.
“We might have to go and talk to Aaron.”
She had been wondering if that was the case. He was the one who’d dropped them in his mess and he was probably the only one who could figure it out. “He told me to take the card to the district attorney’s office. I’m not going to ask if you think that means they might be working together. I’m pretty sure you’ll say maybe.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
She shook her head, tempted to rock the raft and tip him into the lake. He was being so frustrating. But it was a distraction from the endless rowing and her thoughts bouncing between the present threat and the past. She wished she could remember more of those weeks from the time Officer Wade showed up until her parents had died. But she’d had a crush on a new boy and holed up in her room journaling. It had been the beginning of junior year and she hadn’t been interested in her father’s work.
“If it is Officer Wade and Aaron is in jail...maybe he’s the one we should be looking into,” she said.
“I agree. I’m going to ask my team to investigate him. Right now we are coming up with a lot of possibilities and any of them are viable but until we know more, they are just theories. I know you want answers. Heck, I would like them too. But for now getting you to safety is where the focus needs to be.”
“Yeah, I get it. I mean I think we are doing everything we can to get safely to the marina.”
“We are. And talking about different things that occur to us is a good exercise. It helps to see patterns the other one might not see. Like the one you made with Wade. That’s a solid connection. Too bad you lost touch with him.”
