Page 33 of For Life
Technically, Ant was a witness, and the shooting had been related to their kidnapping, so I was skating the truth. I was looking into known criminal locations for the only witness, exactly as mypartnerhad suggested. I could have said I was looking for Ant, but I didn’t want to say their name and remind the captain of their disappearance.
He nodded at my explanation, looking behind me at my computer. There were images of buildings owned by the Russians and Italians, and notes on known associates. Nothing outside of the scope of this case. Still, it made me nervous and I moved to clean things up. I had a list to keep working on, and I didn’t want to chance Matlock showing up.
“So are you back to work again or do you need more time off?”
It was touching that my boss cared, his usually gruff demeanor softened. And my guilt grew. There was also the fact I was going to quit. Soon.
“Actually, I’m going to go make sure things are good,” my words were vague on purpose, hoping he didn’t ask any probing questions. “See you tomorrow, Captain.”
“Let me know if you can’t make it.”
Captain Brown clapped me on the shoulder and squeezed. He was one of the good ones, and I hoped he would be on my side when I turned Matlock in.
First, I had to find Ant.
My phone buzzed in my pocket when I was about to grab my helmet. Jefferson getting back to me. “Hey, man, any updates?”
“Yeah,” his low, deep voice came through as a sigh, “can you meet me at Shepherd’s place?”
I’d called Jefferson before leaving the mountains, since I couldn’t trust that other cops weren’t going to defend Matlock. He was ex-military and I knew he could handle a gun. I’d seen it first hand when Shepherd and Roman’s partner was being stalked. I didn’t know Jefferson Flores well, but he was on the side of saving Ant, so I trusted him enough to help.
“Sure, I can be there in twenty or less.”
He hung up and I looked at the black helmet in my hand. The worry of fellow cops backing Matlock up with the Blue Wall of silence also extended to a fear of being tracked. I couldn’t know if they found us at the cabin by tracking my motorcycle. I could walk.
It was almost midnight when I was buzzed in at the apartment, taking the stairs two at a time until I got to the loft. Jefferson was there, along with Shepherd and Roman, but I was surprised to see Felix and Maksim as well.
“Good, you’re here,” Felix waved a dismissive hand, “Fill us in, now, Roman.”
Without more than a cursory glance from his screen, Roman talked while still typing. “You guys met up with Giogio ‘George’ Greco, and I looked into his claims.”
“What did he say?” I paced in front of the couch where Roman was holding court.
“We met up with him thinking he was in league with Ivanna, hoping to get Greco on our side,” Felix answered for him, “but instead we found out he wanted Ivanna dead for killing his cousin.”
“And, Ivanna thinks they’re working with him,” Maksim added, “but Greco is really with us. He showed up thinking we were with her, and we thought the same. We wanted to do anything to avoid being blamed for his cousin’s death, so once we convinced him it wasn’t a sanctioned hit, Greco was on our side. He doesn’t want a war anymore than we do. The Italians are also going legit, neither side wants a fight.”
“So what are we going to do next?” Shepherd asked, the first I’d heard them speak from the spot next to Roman. “Do we have a plan to find Ant?”
“I’ve got a short list of locations we need to scope out,” I pulled the handwritten pages from my jeans. “Roman, can you narrow this down further somehow?”
“Yes, digitally and maybe we can split them up?” Roman took the papers and looked them over, “And when we find the most likely one where they’re holding Ant, I have something for you.”
“For me?”
Roman nodded and pointed at a small, nondescript box on the coffee table I hadn’t noticed. “If you want to catch these guys on camera and put them away for good.”
Opening the brown box, with no clue to the contents, I found black wires and was still confused. A small paper fell out and I stopped to pick it up before reading,Micro HD Camera with Audio.
It was similar to the one I wore on duty, but smaller, made to fit in a button-hole. I wanted to catch these guys, and make sure Matlock could never be a cop again, but I also knew the laws. I set the box back down.
“How about this? I’ll wear my uniform and body camera, which means anything I record can be used in court with no permission needed,” Roman started to argue but I cut him off, “and whoever goes into the building with me can use the one you bought to protect themself.”
This seemed to placate Roman’s need to use his shiny new gadget, and he moved on to narrowing our search. Felix gave invaluable insight about their cousin, and Jefferson provided tactical ideas. Shepherd, and July when he woke, made us all coffee and snacks. We dwindled the list down to three most likely places that Ivanna might use to make it look like the Italians were starting a war.
“I don’t think it would be in San Francisco,” Felix said from where they sat, painting their nails, “She knows I have a tight grip on the city and don’t allow this kind of thing to go on anymore.”
The cop in me was appalled by the bratva leader being so open about the reach of the Kiselovs. I had to remind myself that Felix didn’t want them to be a crime family any more. And that I would do almost anything to find Ant and stop Matlock.