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“Raven, give Lincoln a minute to explain,” Miguel chided.
“You’re right.” I looked back at Snow. “Sorry, Lincoln, go on.” I paid attention to the two people on the screen as Noah began.
“I asked Lincoln to bring in the laptop so we could show you a live feed,” he said.
I could hear birdsong and a whirring sound as the camera—a security camera if I had to guess—slowly panned the long, red dirt road from one side to the other, showing off lush, dense jungle foliage. When the screen switched to a view looking into what appeared to be a residence, I knew whoever lived there had to be worth tons of money. The house itself was as rich as anything I’d ever seen in the movies or TV, because you couldn’t find palatial mansions built to look like old-school, tropical plantation houses on every block.
The structure was painted completely white, set back behind an enormous fountain of three white dolphins. The sculpture of dolphins shooting water through their mouths high into the air and then landing in a round pool was impressive, but the rolling lawns put the houses we’d seen in Beverly Hills to shame. What struck me most, beyond the beauty of the flowers, the bromeliads, the lush landscaping, and palm trees, was the sight of armed guard patrols. In the live feed, I counted no less than twenty patrolling the lush grounds.
“Where’s that?” Miguel said. “What are we looking at?”
“That is what multi million dollars in casino money buys you in the Cayman Islands.”
“That belongs…belonged to Benedict Flores?” Miguel asked.
“It used to,” Special Agent Burgess said.
My heart sank. “Let me take a guess.”
Miguel looked at me. “What? You think this is in the hands of the Sanchez Cartel.”
“It is now,” Judy said, minimizing the screen to a small box as she and SA Burgess came back onto the screen. I noted the small figures of guards continued moving around, confirming we were still live.
“What does that mean…now?” Miguel asked. “And how did we get this footage?”
Judy snorted and shot up a hand as Noah turned to give her a high-five.
“I hate you both,” Miguel grumbled.
“We’ve been digging into the cartel, Benedict Flores, and the fifty million dollars ever since we talked the other day,” Cassidy said. “We figured we’d start our search with Judy’s help because you guys told Mike and me that she’s the one who found the Cayman Islands account.”
“Wait. Are you saying that Flores used to own this mansion and that after he died, the head of the Sanchez Cartel just showed up and moved in?” Miguel asked.
I looked at him. “How’d you get all that?”
He nodded and pointed to his head. “Brain hurt but still functioning.”
I swatted his arm. “Brat.” I flicked a glance at Lincoln. “So, the head of the cartel—what’s his name?”
“Oscar Castillo,” Lincoln replied.
“Right. So, Oscar Castillo is holed up in the Cayman Islands all by himself and surrounded by a million armed guards,” I said. “Well, this just gets worse and worse.”
“He’s not alone,” Damon Thorne said.
“Who’s he with?” I asked, dreading the answer.
Max opened the folder which had been lying on the table when I first walked in this morning. He pulled out several photos, and I gasped.
“That’s Gregory Aston, Brian Leopard, and Trevor, Leopard’s boyfriend.” I looked up. “What are they doing there with the cartel dude?”
“Oscar Castillo,” Lincoln said.
“Right. What are the attorney and our clients doing with Castillo?” I asked.
“Hopefully not dying,” Thorne said. “Because that would be a real shame.”
Chapter Twelve