Page 44 of Guarding Grace (Hawk Security #2)

Terry

Lucas was waiting, arms folded over his chest, as Winston parked us in the garage under Hawk. The boss’s expression was as cold as I’d ever seen it.

Joe had the hood up on Lucas’s Cayenne.

I exited the car with Rudi in tow and handed him over to Lucas.

“Mr. Sanchez,” Lucas said. “You and I are going to have a very honest talk.

“But I don’t know nuthin’,” Rudi protested.

“In that case…” Lucas pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call Tony Russo and claim the reward for finding the man who stole from him.”

Rudi went white as a sheet. “Hold on. That wasn’t me.”

Lucas shrugged. “Tell it to him. I hear he takes special guests out on his boat to swim in the ocean.”

We’d all read the story in the Times about when one of Tony’s rival’s shoes had turned up in a shark’s stomach. Horrible . I’d faced bullets, but there was something about being eaten by an animal that elicited a primal fear.

“No. You can’t.”

Lucas grabbed Rudi. “I can and I will if I think you’re holding a single thing back.”

“I’ll tell you everything. You just gotta let me go. ”

“Right,” Lucas agreed. He looked at Winston. “Which of the rooms is ready to use?”

I’d seen this skit make more than one tough guy pee himself.

“Number one,” Winston answered. “They’re still trying to get all the brain matter off the walls of number two.”

Rudi looked ready to barf.

“Let’s go,” Lucas said as he towed Rudi off. “If you pee on my carpet, I’m going to be very upset.”

Winston pulled the silver case from the car. “What do we do with this briefcase bomb in the meantime?”

“Get that thing outta here,” Joe yelled. “How dare you bring a fuckin’ bomb into my garage?”

Lucas looked back. “The terrace is probably the safest place for it.”

That made sense—a blast on the terrace would do a lot less damage than one under the building.

“My money’s on Lucas getting the truth out of him,” I said after the pair turned the corner.

Winston shook his head. “No way am I taking that bet.”

“Hey,” Joe yelled. “Will you guys stop jabberin’ and get that fuckin’ bomb outta my garage?”

I let Winston carry it. I’d seen the effects of too many IEDs to want to be anywhere near explosives.

I felt better once the case was headed for the terrace, but something still didn’t feel right, so I strode to holding room one and opened the door without knocking. “Boss, I should be doing this. He put my woman in danger.”

The boss turned, and his dark eyes drilled into mine. “You think so?”

No man had ever scared me until I met Lucas Hawk. Anyone who wasn’t scared of him had shit for brains. “Yes, sir,” I answered without hesitation. The responsibility should be mine. “He put my woman in danger. I should get revenge.”

Rudi shrank in his seat.

Lucas scooted his chair back and stood. “I see your point. Keep in mind, if he barfs, it had better be in the bucket, or the cleanup is on you.”

“Copy that,” I said, taking the chair he’d vacated.

Rudi glanced down at the plastic bucket by his feet. “I swear,” he started, even before the door closed after Lucas.

“Shut up.” I let him stew for a few seconds.

Rudi squinted at me. “So you’re the good cop?”

I laughed. “You’ve been watching too much TV. This is the real world. I’m the bad cop.” I took out my knife and unfolded it. “He’s the worse cop.”

Rudi swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

I leaned forward. “Put your hand on the table.” It was an old oak piece I’d fashioned with numerous gouges and dark stains.

“What?”

“You heard me. Hand on the table.”

He complied. “Why?”

“Because a wrong answer is going to cost you a finger.”

He threw up into the bucket, right on cue.

While he did that, I refolded the knife and put it away. I’d made my point. “Now, start from the beginning and take it slow. How did this go down?”

Rudi wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Elliot and I had been talking a while about getting together enough money to go down to this place my family has in Colombia.”

I nodded. That part at least matched Elliot’s story.

“Elliot heard there was a big courier gig coming up.”

I got up and grabbed a pad of paper from the corner table. “How big?”

“Ten million?”

That matched what Russo had said he’d told everybody, although he’d admitted to Lucas and me that the real number was twenty million. “Go on.”

“Elliot said this was our chance.”

I returned to the table and wrote the ten-mil number down. “It was Elliot’s idea?”

“Of course. Except it was really Paulo’s idea to do it. But Elliot got the case and decided to do Paulo’s idea himself.”

“Who’s Paulo?”

“The dude who was assigned to make the delivery. At least that’s what I heard. He was the one who thought of it.”

“And you just went along for the ride?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The hesitation in his voice prompted me to bring out my knife again.

Rudi’s eyes went wide. “Okay, okay. I mean, I agreed that it sounded like a good idea—a lot of fucking money.”

I put the knife down, still closed. “How did a fuckup like Elliot end up doing such a big delivery?”

Rudi smirked. “He and Paulo went out the night before. The morning of the job, Paulo calls in sick with food poisoning.” He snickered. “Pretty unlucky for Paulo, huh? ”

I nodded. “Meaning Elliot took his place to get his hands on the case?”

He nodded.

“You willingly participated?”

“For that much, sure.”

“How did you figure to get into the case?”

His face lit up. “That was the easy part. Elliot brought one of them home with him one night. It had been opened, so I took a look at how it was wired. They did a good job of gluing a mass of crossed trip wires on the inside so you couldn’t cut into it.

Cut one of them and—” His hands went up in the air. “Kaboom.”

“You said it was easy.”

“Okay. They had the left-hand lock rigged so the right combination deactivated the circuit. But if you tried the clasp without the right combination…” He cocked his head. “Not good.”

“Kaboom,” I suggested.

“Uh-huh. But…” He raised a finger. “They left the right-hand one alone, which meant I could try all the combinations on that side, and only try the left one when I had figured out the combination.” He smiled broadly. “I was almost there when you guys came along.”

“What if they set the two sides to different combinations?”

His face dropped. “Oh…”

He hadn’t thought of that.

“What were you going to do with the merchandise? Pawn it?”

“That’s the cool part. Elliot went to the buyer and offered to sell it to him for half.”

“Five million?” I wrote the number down.

“See? It’s perfect. Marku gets whatever it is for half price, and we get paid five mil for snatching it for him.”

Rudi had no idea what was really inside and didn’t care.

“Marku already paid Russo half the money,” I pointed out.

“He’d get his money back, and we’d be long gone to Colombia.”

He was a moron if he thought it was that simple.

“Where’s Elliot?”

“I don’t know. I was supposed to stay hidden where even Elliot didn’t know where I was. I’m supposed to call him when I get it open, and he’ll take it to Mr. Marku.”

Calling the gangster Mr. Marku made him sound like a simple businessman who would uphold his end of a deal, which I doubted.

“What’s to keep Marku from killing you two and getting it for free?”

Rudi’s mouth dropped open.

I shook my head. He wasn’t cut out for dealing with mobsters .

Retrieving his phone from my pocket, I opened it. It was a burner without even a PIN code, and the only contact was E . I closed the device and stood.

“I can go now?” Rudi asked hopefully.

“No.”

“But—”

“I’m the bad cop, remember?”

I locked the room on my way out. Upstairs, I joined Lucas in his office.

Winston followed me in, and I gave them both the story Rudi had spun for me.

“Hey, Jordy?” Lucas called after I finished.

“Yeah?” came his voice from around the corner.

“Call Duke back in. We have a line on Elliot.”

“How does this tie into the hit squad yesterday?” Winston asked.

Lucas steepled his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe Russo got tired of waiting and went after Elliot as a warning to his other couriers. Since I can’t prove he hired that crew, he can claim he didn’t violate our agreement.”

It sounded tenuous to me, but possible. “It still could have been Marku. And those guys are still out there.”

Lucas nodded. “At least we now have the case and can get our hands on Elliot, which is all we need to get Grace off Russo’s radar.”

I spoke up. “The toad might deserve it, but I don’t think Grace will want us to hand over Elliot.”

“That’s one way to go,” Lucas commented. “Or we could send Elliot back to Russo with the case and it’s up to him to convince Tony he got ripped off by his roommate, and it took a few days to track him down and get it back.”

“Send the roommate down to Colombia, and that has a chance of working.”

I pushed again in Grace’s interest. “He is a pretty accomplished liar, but I don’t like the odds.”

“Unless you have a better idea, I’ll call Marku and Russo to tell them we found the case, and I’ll hand it over to Russo tomorrow,” Lucas said. “That should at least take the Houston team off the board for now.”

“Sounds good.” I very much liked the idea of not having a professional hit squad around.

Grac e

Constance sat in the corner of my office, much less intrusive than Terry had ever managed to be.

Peyton knocked once and poked her head in. “Don’t forget, after lunch you’re due at the Garcias’ for their measurements, and the four-oh-five is backed up.”

Constance stood. “She’s not going anywhere.” The ex-Secret Service agent might be short, but when she wanted to be authoritative, she had the in-charge voice down pat.

“But we talked about this yesterday.” Peyton pointed her argument at me. “She insisted on having you involved, remember?”

I did remember, but after the shootout on the street outside our building yesterday, I was done arguing with my bodyguards. This time I allowed my business to take a backseat to my personal desires. “Sorry, it looks like I’m grounded.”

“Okay,” Peyton said, drawing out the word. “I’ll cancel it.”

I shook my head. “Don’t cancel. Send Marci with Paul. I’ll apologize later.” If we lost this sale, so be it.

“You got it,” Peyton said and left.

When the door closed, Constance retook her seat. “I know our rules can feel stifling, but it’s necessary. Terry and the guys are working the search hard. You’ll be done with us soon enough.”

“I hope so. These people and their families depend on me.” Then I asked a question I’d always avoided with Constance. “What was it like protecting the First Lady?”

She sat back in her chair. “Boring when she was at the White House, which was most of the time, and very long days when she took a trip.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not for a minute. Lucas is the best boss anyone could want in this kind of business, and the guys are great.”

I checked my watch and tapped it. “It’s time for me to make a few customer calls, if you don’t mind.”

She rose. “I’ll be right outside with Zane.”

Before I could start my first call, my phone rang. My heart sped up when I saw that it was Terry. “Hi. I miss you, Rambo.” It was a silly thing to say, but it was the truest I could be.

“Kitten, I miss you too. Look, we found Rudi and the shipment that Elliot lost.”

“Really?” I squeaked. “That’s great, right?” Finally, a light at the end of this terrible tunnel. “And Elliot? ”

“We haven’t caught him yet, but having the case to give back to Russo means this is almost over for you.”

I took in a huge breath. “So I can go out?” Warmth flowed over me as I envisioned myself walking to Starbucks in the sunshine without a bodyguard.

“Not so fast, Tiger. Not until Lucas gets agreements from the bad guys that everything is settled. I gotta go now. Stay safe.”

It wasn’t as good a sendoff as love you , but I wasn’t sure we were there yet, so I mirrored his words. “You stay safe too.” With the craziness behind us, we’d soon have a moment to talk.

After lunch, I had just finished a customer follow-up when my cellphone rang. The screen read unknown number , but Mrs. Fletcher had said her husband was going to call me. “Hello?” I answered cheerily.

“Don’t move,” the cold male voice said. “I can see you. Your pretty little girl, Marci, will die if you try to alert that short lady or your other guard dog.” His voice was pure evil.

A chill ran down my spine as I heard sobbing in the background. Quickly, I swiveled my chair to look out the window. The asshole had to be in one of the taller buildings around us, if he could see into my office.

“I see you looking for me. That’s good. Stay facing the window.” Mr. Evil added a sinister laugh. “I have a knife to pretty Marci’s face. Say hi, girl.”

My heart lodged in my throat when I heard Marci whimper in the background, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“If you phone anyone, I slit her throat. I can see into your office. If you try to write a note or send a message, I slit her throat. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded. “Please don’t hurt her.” Marci’s innocent face was all I could think of.

“Follow my instructions exactly, and she’ll be just fine. Otherwise I’ll cut her again and again so you can hear her scream as she bleeds out.” Mr. Evil laughed.

Sadistic fuck. I shifted the phone to my non-trembling hand and whispered, “What do you want?”

“Put your phone on silent—we don’t want any noise calling attention to you—and do exactly as I say.”