Page 14 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

The firefighter swung his gun toward Ramon. Swanson screamed, but Ramon couldn’t worry about anything else. He slammed his shoulder into Drew Chamberlain, pushing him against the inside of the open door. The gun went off, hopefully exploding away from any innocent bystanders.

Sound he couldn’t decipher rushed through his ears. Ramon shifted his grip on the gun and punched Drew Chamberlain in the face.

It barely dazed the guy. Running on so much adrenaline that it was like trying to take down a rhino.

Ramon slammed an uppercut into the man’s ribs. In the second after that happened, when Drew started to bend over, Ramon slammed his forehead into the roof of Swanson’s car.

The firefighter slumped to the ground beside the Mercedes.

An older man rushed over, dressed in jeans and work boots with a jacket over his T-shirt and a dusty ball cap on his head. “The police are on their way.”

Ramon nodded. “Thanks.” He slid his gun into the back of his belt and flipped his jacket over it, disguising it from view.

If no one happened to mention that he had been carrying it, then the weapon would stay out of sight.

The important thing here was that a first responder had shown up with a gun and tried to attack another man.

It would probably be written off as a road rage incident, given the fact that the crash had preceded Drew rushing over and attacking the doctor.

Would the responding officers ignore the bag of evidence on the back seat that clearly implicated Drew in a kidnapping and murder, or would the whole thing be pushed under the rug? Nothing but a myth.

“Are you good, Doctor?”

Swanson pressed his hand against his tie, still wide-eyed and with a look of shock on his face. “I’m okay. Thanks to you.”

Ramon tipped his head to the side. “We’ll get someone here to take a look at you.”

A police patrol car turned onto the street, forcing the backed-up traffic to pull off to the side.

One of the two officers who climbed out began to direct traffic around the incident, while the other came over to Swanson.

Ramon backed up, keeping an eye on Drew and listening to the beginning of their conversation.

What he wanted to do was slip away. He tried to leave, but he only got a couple of steps before the police officer looked at him. Waved him back over. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

Ramon stopped walking.

The officer glanced at the street behind him, over Ramon’s shoulder. “The EMTs can take this guy away, and then we will get them to check you out before they leave.”

Swanson explained about the crash and the fact Drew had run over with the gun he pointed out. One that had slid under the car. But he didn’t say anything about the evidence in the back seat, except to say who he was and where he was going.

The officer crouched and put a set of handcuffs on Drew Chamberlain. Probably a good idea.

“Pioneer Forensics?” When Swanson nodded in answer to the officer’s question, the guy said, “I’ve heard you guys do good work.”

Swanson climbed out of the car, holding on to the roof as he stepped over Chamberlain’s body. “We do what we can. And that evidence needs to be with me at all times.”

Ramon figured the officer understood chain of evidence, but it never hurts to be reminded.

Swanson didn’t mention the name of the unconscious firefighter on the ground or any connection to Drew Chamberlain.

Even though, when he discovered the DNA, he had likely seen the man’s photo.

He must have recognized his attacker. But for some reason, he deemed it unimportant to mention right now that he knew exactly who this man was.

Or the fact it was no random attack.

Swanson took another step and started to sway. Ramon grasped his elbows. “You good, Doc?”

The other man cleared his throat and smoothed down his tie. Before he could say anything, the officer came over. “You guys know each other?”

EMTs lifted the unconscious man onto a stretcher.

Ramon turned to the officer. “Doctor Swanson has had a long and distinguished career as a medical examiner. I’m a private investigator.

We hired Pioneer Forensics to process some evidence for a case, and Swanson coordinated with the police department for us.

It has to do with the missing young women. ”

Swanson said, “That’s what the evidence in my back seat relates to. A new lead for your police department to follow.” He nodded at the officer.

Before he could ask, Ramon said, “I had reason to believe the doctor here might be in danger transporting evidence at this time of night, over to wherever the department keeps all that.”

Swanson glanced at him. “And thank goodness you did, considering what happened.” He even shivered, which Ramon thought might be a little much but probably wasn’t altogether fake. “That man tried to kill me.”

“Did he say anything?” the officer asked, thumbs in his belt. “Or give you any impression that this was about the evidence in your back seat?”

Swanson shook his head.

“I’m going to radio this in and get the investigating detectives here to take the evidence.” He shot Swanson a look. “If this is really a lead in the case, they’ll want to take care of it personally and not run the risk of it falling into someone else’s hands.”

He wandered off, speaking into his radio.

“If you’re good,” Ramon said to the doctor, “I’m going to take this moment to duck away and see if I can get out of here without them catching me.

The last thing I need is them dragging me into an interrogation room to ask me what my part is in all of this.

Another girl was kidnapped tonight; that’s how I knew to follow Drew. My colleague and I saw it happen.”

“Another kidnapping?” Swanson’s eyes widened.

Ramon nodded. “I need to go make sure she gets back home.”

He jogged to his car, climbed in, and ignored the police officers, making a U-turn and hitting the gas past all the backed-up traffic.

In the rearview mirror, he saw one of the cops run into the middle of the street and wave his arms. Ramon didn’t go back or even slow down.

Probably at some point, he would have to sit down with local police and explain everything, but with Zeyla as the only one watching out for that girl, he didn’t want to leave her for too long.

She didn’t need to go up against the man holding that young woman alone. None of them did, not when working in pairs meant they had backup.

Ramon slowed and stopped for a red light. The app on his phone told him Zeyla’s location, indicating she was still at the same house. He used his dash screen to call Maizie’s number.

“Zeyla filled me in on what’s going on.”

“Homework tonight?” he asked.

“Nope,” Maizie said. “Which is good because I managed to get into the flash drive before the motel exploded. I have copies of everything from it. I’ve been going through all the files with Stairns so that we know what we’re talking about when we explain to you what was on there.”

“Why don’t you give me the highlights?” He pulled into the neighborhood where Zeyla was.

“Mostly, it’s schematics for a military installation. All the buildings and underground rooms that were constructed over the years, adding to the footprint.”

“Any idea where it is?”

If the base was in the hands of the military, that wouldn’t make much sense. Why would Milo Hargrove believe that it had anything to do with the Count of Shadows? He’d known that was who Zeyla was looking for.

“We have an idea about that. It was actually shut down and might have been sold privately.”

“Find it.”

Maizie chuckled. “Don’t you have a young woman to save?”

“I’ve been waiting for leads for a couple of days now and suddenly all this lands in our laps? It’s not a coincidence.” All he had to do was keep Miguel from killing Zeyla.

Not something that was easy to do under normal circumstances. But it was hard to protect against what you never saw coming.

His mind wanted to wrestle with the issue of why Miguel had done the things that he’d done. But what was the point? The task at hand would be completed far more effectively if he simply focused on what they needed to do.

Save the victim, take down the bad guy.

“I see Zeyla.” He pulled over to the side of the road, and she climbed in the passenger seat.

Through the car speakers, Maizie said, “The police dispatched a patrol car to the location you reported in. They’ve contacted the girl’s parents.”

“What’s her name?” Ramon asked.

“Isabella Sanchez.”

Zeyla glanced at him. “We need to get her back to them.”

“We will,” Ramon said. “But it gets us nothing that will help us take down the Count if we don’t let them pass her off to the next person.”

“You’re the one who gets to explain to her parents why we chose to do that.”

Maizie said, “You guys want me to get Stairns to tell you what he would do? Maybe he can break the stalemate.”

“It’s not a stalemate.” Because they were going to do what Ramon decided.

“We know there is only one of them in there. Are you really going to sit here and let him do whatever he wants to her?”

Ramon squeezed his eyes shut, but all he saw was the pictures Miguel had shown him. That traitor, and the innocent baby he she had been carrying. Good and evil all wrapped up in one person.

Could they somehow rescue the girl and get the information they needed at the same time?

Subduing the man and rescuing the young woman meant they could continue the ruse in the morning. Pretend as if he was still delivering the girl to whoever was expecting her.

He glanced aside at Zeyla. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course.”

“Even if it means being bait? Getting yourself kidnapped again?” He needed to know how far she was willing to go just to rescue someone. Could she face all of her fears in one go and stare down everything she was afraid of?

She grasped the door handle. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He heard it in her tone and saw it in her movements when she climbed out of the car. Entirely too much of that facade, so brittle it was about to shatter.

“I guess we’re going to save a girl.”

Maizie said, “Let me know how it goes. Bye.”

The call ended.

Ramon climbed out of the car and jogged after Zeyla. “We need some kind of plan.”

“Agreed.” She drew a gun of her own, considerably larger caliber than his. “So the plan is to take down the bad guy and rescue the girl.”

“With the addition of going as long as possible without him even knowing we’re there.”

See? They could come up with a plan. They were practically partners at this point.

“I can be stealthy.” She glanced at him, suspicion in her gaze. “You don’t think I can be stealthy?”

Ramon ignored that comment and tipped his head to the side. “Let’s sneak into the neighbor’s yard and climb the fence so we can get a look from the rear. There might be a better way in back there.”

Zeyla led the way into the shadows.

The place they both knew best.

But this time, it was lit with the hope that together they would save a life tonight.