Page 103

CHAPTER 12

SLEEP? THAT WAS all very well for Eduardo to say. I barely slept a wink that night. After a lengthy phone call to Nate where I updated him on the situation and found him as incredulous as me, I spent hours in my silver room tossing and turning.

Yes, silver.

After my flippant comment to Eduardo many years ago, he proudly showed me the room he’d redecorated just for me on my next visit. Everything was silver. Silver sheets, silver tiles in the bathroom, matt silver wardrobe with glossy silver accents. He’d even found a silver television. The room had been made-over several times since, usually when he had a change of wife, but the overwhelming theme was still freaking silver. I’d tried so hard to pretend I loved it.

I was still blinking from the glare coming off the furnishings when Nate arrived in the morning. A uniformed butler led him out onto the terrace where I was sitting with Eduardo, soaking up the first of the morning’s rays. Nate eyed up the older man with suspicion, but Eduardo acted oblivious, greeting him with a handshake like they were old friends then offering him some pastries.

“They’re Emmy’s favourites. My chef makes them especially for her.”

Nate perched on a dainty wrought iron chair and picked up one of the tiny morsels, clutching it between thumb and forefinger as if he wasn’t quite sure whether it was safe to eat.

“It won’t poison you,” I told him, popping another one into my mouth.

He chewed his pastry slowly before a smile spread over his face.

“You’re right; these are good.” He helped himself to a couple more.

“So, about the whole Black/Carlos thing. Any ideas?”

“I’ve been racking my brain. I’m certain Black didn’t know he had a brother, if that’s what Carlos is, and looking at the photo of Carlos, I agree he’s Black’s double. But I didn’t meet Black until three months after his parents died in that car crash, so I never saw the relationship between them firsthand. It was still pretty raw for him. If anyone brought up the accident, he shut down. Even years later, he never wanted to talk about them, not really. Did he ever say much to you?”

I shook my head. “Not about the accident. Occasionally he mentioned his life growing up. His mother doted on him, but he found it a bit stifling sometimes. His dad was pushy, I think, but fair. He was determined his son would make something of himself, not just sit around like a spoiled rich kid.”

“Yeah, Black said he never dished out money.”

“He made Black work for everything, but that left him with a lot of respect for his dad. That’s why he followed in his footsteps into special forces.”

“That’s more or less what I got too.”

I sighed. “So how do we find out more? His only living relative is Miriam, and I’d rather pull out my own toenails with pliers than ask her for information. I doubt she knows much anyway—I got the impression from Black that his father hated her as much as everyone else does.”

Nate stared off into space for a minute, pondering. “When he first joined the Navy, Black used to speak to one man. An old colleague of his father’s. I think he was the one who pulled strings for Black to get into the Navy in the first place, even though he was technically too young. He might be worth tracking down.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Arthur Stapleton.”

“Black used to go and see him from time to time, and I tagged along occasionally. Arthur’s old now, and I’m not sure his mind’s what it once was.”

“You game for a visit?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t like I had any better ideas.

“Where is he? Do you know?”

“In a retirement home in Maryland. He wanted to be near his daughter. Sloane will have the exact address—Black used to have her send gifts on the holidays.”

“We’ll see what these guys come up with today, and if things aren’t moving, we’ll go back and talk to Arthur.”

Eduardo sent out anyone available to dig up whatever they could on Hector Ramos and his sons, Nate started digging through Blackwood’s contacts, and I asked Mack to look at things from her end as well. By midmorning, information started coming in.

Hector Ramos’s name cropped up a number of times in DEA reports, which confirmed Eduardo’s opinion that he wasn’t a nice man. His rise up the ranks had been relatively recent. Until he murdered his boss seven years ago and took over his operation, he’d been floating on the periphery.

We’d found little mention of Carlos, but Hector’s other son, Diego, appeared to be even more vicious than his father. According to the Colombian authorities, Diego had been single-handedly responsible for the murder of over a hundred people, including a handful in the States. At the bottom of the list of his known acquaintances were the names of the men who’d killed Black.

We had to be on the right track, didn’t we?

I became more certain of Hector Ramos’s guilt when Luke sent over a police report from the previous year. The cops suspected two of his henchmen had blown up a rival’s car with an RPG on the outskirts of Cali. Sound familiar?

Mack dredged up more photos of Carlos, and blimey, he looked like Black. He had a beard in every picture so I couldn’t see the shape of his jaw, but the top half of his face was identical. My mind started wandering. What if Black got killed in a case of mistaken identity? Anyone seeing one without the other could be confused.

Then a crazy seed of hope sprouted in my chest. What if I’d been mistaken? What if Carlos had been in the car and not Black?

That stupid notion lasted about half an hour, until Marco returned in the early afternoon bursting with news.

“I talked with an office assistant who works for Ramos’s lawyer. He told me everything I wanted to know for a couple of grams.”

Good to hear the barter system was alive and snorting in Cali. “And?”

“The lawyer visits the estate every month to meet with Carlos. Always Carlos. The lawyer never speaks to anyone else because there’s some sort of written agreement that says he’s not allowed to. Carlos deals with the finance and legal sides of his family’s business and insists that all meetings are held at his home.”

“When was the most recent meeting?”

“Last Wednesday, out at the compound, as usual.”

The last ember of hope in me fizzled out when Marco threw that bucket of water, and I struggled to keep my face neutral as he continued. I was not about to cry in front of him.

“My guy overheard the lawyer say Carlos is sharp as a tack. He’s made some good investments over the years. A lot of the money is locked away, but Carlos has been releasing cash each month for a while now. The year before last, it was the other way around. He invested for the long term back then.”

“Things change in the murky world of finance.” Luckily my own portfolio was well balanced. “At least we know Carlos has been around recently.”

“Yes, it seems that way. I will speak to more people this evening.”

I felt bad for not doing more to help, but I was out of my depth here in Colombia. Kind of numb too. Just when I thought the pain of Black’s death was starting to fade, a new revelation popped up and punched me in the face.

And as the sun began to set, Sebastien brought information as well.

“I tracked down a chemist who used to work for Ramos.”

“Used to? He got out alive?”

“Only because he has terminal cancer. He’s on his death bed now, which is probably the only reason he agreed to speak to me.”

I felt a flicker of guilt for disturbing a dying man, but I tamped it down. Needs must.

“What did he say about the levamisole?”

“Hector was very fond of it. Insisted it went in everything. The man worked for Ramos for almost a decade, poor guy.” Seb shook his head in disbelief. “He said Hector was closer to Diego. Treated him like the son he was, whereas Hector rarely saw Carlos and when he did, he ordered Carlos around like any other employee.”

“Interesting family dynamic.”

“Isn’t it? Why would he favour one son over the other?”

That was a question neither of us could answer. Seb hoped to have more news over the coming days, but he didn’t want to arouse suspicions with his questions, so progress wasn’t going to be as fast as we’d like.

A fact I bemoaned to Nate in my room that evening.

“I just wish there was more we could do.”

“Itchy trigger finger?”

“Something like that.”

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey, Ems.” He took a sip of the fancy drink Eduardo’s butler had made him. “I’ll admit, Eduardo isn’t the threat I thought he’d be.”

“I hate to say I told you so, but I did.”

I couldn’t help grinning, because who doesn’t like being right? Nate only glared at me. Ouch.

“How about you stay here and work with the Garcias, and I’ll coordinate things in the States? I can stop off in Maryland on the way home to visit Arthur and see if he’s able to shed any light on Black’s childhood.”

“You know I’m going to kill Ramos, right?”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” Nate slung an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “And if it wasn’t you, it would be me.”

So I stayed in Colombia. After all, I was dead, and what better way to enjoy the afterlife than with good food and sunshine? It had the added advantage that if Ramos began to suspect I wasn’t as lifeless as I made out, Eduardo’s hacienda was the last place he’d imagine me hanging out.

When we told Eduardo of our plans, he just nodded. “You realise if we continue down this path, we will be starting a war?”

“No, Eduardo, we won’t be starting a war. Ramos already started the war when he came out of nowhere and killed my husband. We’ll be finishing a war.”

“Good answer, my angel.”