Page 20 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)

CHAPTER

TWENTY

“That guy was about to kill me. He left his friends unconscious in that alley down there.” Ramon couldn’t wave and didn’t have the energy to figure out how to do it.

He leaned against the hood of a state police tactical vehicle.

“Are you seriously telling me he’s some kind of confidential informant? ”

The detective nodded. “He’s been working his way into the group for months. Waiting for the moment the boss showed up here, and we could catch him in the same place they’re…displaying these girls.” He shuddered.

“You went down there?” Ramon wanted to be sick. In fact, he got a little lightheaded. He needed to ask this guy about Miguel and whether Zeyla’s body had been recovered. “I need a phone.”

“Not so fast.” The detective shook his head.

Ramon carefully blew air out of his mouth, trying to ease the nauseous feeling. “I need to see a doctor.”

“The chopper is on its way.”

“Good,” Ramon said. “I can ask them if they found my friend.”

“The woman that was with you?” He looked around. “I figured she was here somewhere.”

Ramon explained what had happened with the fake, or dirty, Special Agent Alvarez, Miguel, and Zeyla. How Miguel had only been impersonating an FBI agent and going with him had cost Zeyla her life. “Do you have Swanson in custody?”

“The state guys are going nuts at what is downstairs, gawking at the ‘displays.’ But they’ll get forensics in and real medical examiners that work for us, and we’ll get the victims taken care of so their families can lay them to rest.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Fine.” He shook his head. “They’re still looking for him.”

Ramon pushed off the truck and nearly fell over.

“Easy.” The detective pushed against his shoulder. “Maybe stay where you are.”

“Or you’re gonna arrest me? That confidential informant of yours has known about this place for how long? And you’re only here now?”

“Like he said, we needed to tie Swanson to the location.”

“If you can find him.” Ramon didn’t want to know how many secret entrances and exits this place had.

Swanson probably left as soon as the mercenaries walked away with Ramon, and the police might never catch up to him.

“You suspected he was part of it, and yet you let him work on evidence connected to the case? He’s the one who cut up those girls! ”

“Take a breath, yeah?” The detective shook his head. “You’re the one who took the evidence to him.”

Ramon said, “I’m the one who found the latest victim. She’s safe because of me and my partner.”

“Is this because you wanna get paid? That takes paperwork we haven’t done, and there’s no reward as far as I’m aware.”

“I don’t want money.” He’d been minutes from being killed—or so he’d thought at the time. Now, it felt as if he had a new lease on life. A fresh start. “I just want to walk away.”

“Might be hard with your leg all swollen like that.”

Someone cleared their throat. A tall man, probably mid-sixties, wearing the green uniform of an army general.

All those colored bars on his chest. Patch on his left shoulder.

Stars on his lapels. The name badge on the left side had Schnell written on it.

His dark hair was threaded with gray, and he was at least six-two.

“Major General Schnell.” The detective held out his hand, then shifted like he changed his mind. As if he didn’t know what to do to show respect to this man. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

“This is my base, Detective.”

He cleared his throat. “Of course, sir.”

The general looked at Ramon. “I’ll give you that ride to the hospital. Probably faster than waiting for Life Flight.”

Was Ramon supposed to turn down a military guy who was used to giving orders? He was trying to reconcile what was happening still, but things just weren’t adding up. “I want to know what happens with Swanson.”

The detective handed over his card. “Call later, after you get checked out.”

“Find him.” Ramon motioned with his chin toward the building Swanson had walked him through. “Those young women deserve better than this. They deserve justice.”

The detective nodded. “I’ve been eating, sleeping, and breathing this case for over a year. It’s going to get closed.”

Ramon pushed off the car and walked with the general over to his SUV. A uniformed underling opened the back door for them.

“After you,” Schnell said, waving at the back seat.

Ramon grabbed the handle at the top of the door and pulled himself up onto the seat. All he wanted to do right now was close his eyes and maybe shed a couple of tears. Later, he could figure out what just happened.

The car jerked, pulling away from the spot where they’d parked. Ramon opened his eyes. “Thanks for the ride.”

The general had his phone out. He lifted it to his ear. After a second, he said, “It’s me.” Pause. “Turn yourself in, Swanson.” He slipped the phone into the seat pocket in front of him.

Ramon stared hard at the guy.

The general leaned back in his seat, relaxed like this was any other day.

“Swanson is a scapegoat?” Ramon had lost the ability to assimilate any more information or handle any more pivots today.

“Doctor Swanson is as culpable as anyone else involved in this. I assure you that justice will be done. The media will get their juicy story, and everyone will be satisfied when Swanson goes to prison for life.”

“That isn’t what I call justice.” Ramon wasn’t so sure that was true. “What’s your culpability?”

General Schnell smirked.

“You’re the Count of Shadows.”

His smirk morphed into laughter. “I’ve always liked that name. Makes me sound mysterious.”

“So, you’re the one organizing that display back there? Your men capture young women, Swanson fixes them up, and what? You and your friends go see the displays.”

“We listen, and we don’t judge.”

“Yeah, you can forget that.” Ramon was going to hardcore judge this guy. “The person responsible is you, and you think you’ve gotten away with it.”

“Haven’t I?” Schnell lifted his hands. “Swanson will go down for the whole operation because the confidential informant will testify he was the one who gave the orders. It’s over.”

“You’re packing up shop? Did the heat get too bad. Someone slipped up and drew too much attention?”

“All things must come to an end.”

“Including me?”

The general smirked. “So quick to die. I thought you and Zeyla were looking for me?”

Ramon assessed him. Zeyla thought this man might be Kenna Banbury’s father, but Ramon didn’t know what to think. “Was she recovered?”

If this guy was keeping tabs on them this closely, maybe he knew what Ramon needed to know.

The general sighed. “Wouldn’t you know, when the rescuers showed up to find her, she was nowhere. Almost as if someone else got there first.” He lifted a hand, palm up, then let it drop back to his knee. The guy driving looked in the rearview—he was listening to everything they were saying.

A guy like this, working for a general so entrenched with Dominatus , had to be part of them just like his boss. He was certainly no innocent bystander.

“So you have no idea where she is. You shut down the operation.” Ramon paused, his stuttering thoughts picking up steam. “Now, you’ve got me with you. Why’s that? It’s not like you see a guy like me as a threat.”

Unless…

“You want Zeyla to come to you.”

“She’ll come to you .”

“You’re counting on it, aren’t you?” Ramon leaned his head back against the seat, because it felt far too heavy to keep holding it up.

This guy wanted a confrontation with Zeyla, so he’d taken Ramon, assuming she’d come to get him.

Which presumed—perhaps falsely—that she was alive and able-bodied enough to do that.

She’d fallen down that cliff, and when he looked, she’d appeared dead. She was probably getting medical care right now—which was what he should be doing.

“She isn’t coming.” Ramon couldn’t see any way that she would be here.

He was in the car, and he felt like he was barely here. All he had the strength to do was close his eyes and try to sigh out some of the pain in his left side from his broken arm and the swollen thigh that guy had kicked. Some confidential informant that guy was. What a joke.

Ramon wanted another go with the guy, maybe in a dark alley somewhere when Ramon was back to full speed.

Things would end differently this time.

“She’ll come. I know her far better than I know you, which is why I took measures to ensure she would be here.”

Ramon glanced over at the guy. “She’s never met you. You don’t know her.”

“She only thinks we’ve never met.”

Ramon didn’t like the sound of that at all.

The car slowed. Ramon glanced out the front windshield and saw an SUV parked across a four-way stop.

The road was empty except for them and the car waiting for them.

There was nowhere to hide in the fields around the intersection.

A run-down house on one corner didn’t look like it had been occupied in decades. Even the trees were bare and sad.

“Friends of yours?” They surely weren’t driving up to an ambush Schnell knew was coming. Ramon couldn’t see how Zeyla might be well enough to show up here, given everything.

“Other way around, Mr. Santiago.”

The car stopped.

Out the front window, he spotted a guy in tactical clothing. The man climbed out of the front seat and opened the rear door. He dragged Zeyla out by the elbow.

“Didn’t I say she’d be here?” Schnell waited for his driver to open the rear door, and then he climbed out.

Ramon tried the handle on his side, but it was locked. He couldn’t get out unless he went the same way the general had gone. When the door started to close, Ramon dove over there and wedged himself in the door. He shoved against it and forced his way out but put the wrong leg down first.

It gave out, and he collapsed onto the ground.

“Ramon!”

The sound of Zeyla screaming his name rang through his head. He planted his good hand on the ground and tried to get up.

Someone grabbed his elbow and hauled him to his feet. The driver’s face swam in front of him. The guy said nothing. He just dragged Ramon to the front of the SUV.

General Schnell walked ahead of them, toward the man holding on to Zeyla.

She glared at the Count of Shadows, a graze on her forehead and dried blood in her hair. But she was alive. “Let him go!”

“Whether I do that or not,” the general said, “is entirely up to you.”

She didn’t look at Ramon, or struggle, but he could see the conflict in her eyes. The look of defeat in the face of impossible odds.

The general said, “He goes free. If you come with me.”