Chapter 8
Logan had just picked up his phone to call Avery and let her know they were on their way when it rang. He looked at the readout.
“Speak of the devil. It’s Avery. Hold on. Yeah, boss. What’s up? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We just left the marina. No, nothing doing on the boats but Gary’s still on my radar. And Angel’s keeping an eye out on the scene. How about running a check on him? Uh-huh. Okay. Timing is great. We were just on our way, anyway.”
Devon looked over at him. “Is it bad news?”
“Not necessarily. They’ve found a few things digging through your father’s history and she has some questions.”
“My father?” Her muscles tensed. “What did they find?”
“Don’t know yet, but let’s not borrow trouble until we have to. I told her I’d bring you right over.” He slid a glance at her. “Take a breath. Try to relax.”
“So Avery didn’t give you even a little hint of what she wanted?”
“You heard this end of the conversation. Short and to the point. But we’ll be there in just a few minutes and you can find out.”
Devon had never been to the Vigilance offices, but then she’d never had a reason to. Whenever she’d seen Avery it had always been with Sheri. They’d meet at Fresh Roasted, the coffee shop with the mouthwatering pastries, or the Orange Blossom, a great restaurant for lunches. Or sometimes drinks and dinner at the Driftwood. She realized with a shock that the only socializing she’d done was coffee or meals with these two women. Sometimes one or two of their friends would join them but it wasn’t as if she’d made an effort to create a social circle here. She considered herself damn lucky to have connected with these two women.
Logan reached over, took one of her hands, and squeezed it. “Just remember. Whatever Vigilance came up with is better than not knowing anything at all. Right?”
“I’m sure you’re right. I still can’t get my head around the fact my father could be involved in something dangerous.”
“Let’s just wait and hear what Avery has to say.”
Instead of continuing on to Seacliff Road, he turned right onto a long narrow road that looked carved into a forested area. Thickets of trees lined both sides, the same kind of trees that grew on the bay side of Seacliff Road. Just as she wondered where the hell they were going, they came into a clearing, and she just stared. In the center of the clearing was a house with distinctive Key West architecture, painted white with a gabled roof and a wide front porch. Land that she hadn’t even known existed stretched away behind it and to one side was a long two-story building that looked new. She wondered if they had cameras and sensors set up all the way in from the highway.
“Come on.” Logan took her elbow and guided her up to the porch, where he tapped some numbers into an electronic keypad. “We can’t tell other people how to be secure if we don’t do it to ourselves. Look up.” He pointed to the coach lights. “Cameras.”
She shook her head as they stepped into a short, enclosed foyer. Logan pressed his thumb against a metal plate on the inner door and it swung open.
“Wow.” She looked up at Logan. “You weren’t kidding about taking your own security seriously.”
“We have to.” Avery came from an office to her left. “We have very high-profile clients.”
Devon looked around, hoping her jaw hadn’t dropped.
“I can’t believe a place like this exists in a sleepy little town like Arrowhead Bay.”
Avery laughed. “This town isn’t as sleepy as you think it is. Our offices used to be in upstate New York, not far from the city, on property about as big as this. But the winters kept getting colder and I discovered being close to the Big Apple didn’t give me any advantage. When my sister took the job as police chief here, she talked me into coming to visit and here we are.”
“Not nearly as cold,” Devon joked.
Avery nodded. “But security is still our number one priority. Almost everything we’re involved in requires the utmost secrecy. For example, we don’t want a stranger wandering in here while we’re doing a complex electronic search on your father and his activities for the past ten years.”
Devon stared at the other woman. “The past ten years?”
Avery nodded. “We may have to go back further, but we’ll start with this chunk of time and see what we find. Logan told you I had some questions?”
She nodded. “But what, exactly, are you looking for? What is it you want to know?”
Logan wrapped his fingers around her elbow and urged her to follow Avery. “We hope to find out when and where he went off the rails, so we have to examine everything. It could have been some event that happened even twenty-five years ago that just came back to haunt him. But trust me, there’s something that happened that led to this whole mess.”
“Happens all the time,” Avery told her. “Come on. Before we head to my office I’ll show you the flight deck. People always get a kick out of it.”
She frowned. “Flight deck?”
Logan laughed. “It certainly looks like one.”
They were right. The room they took her into was probably forty by forty and filled with enough computers and monitors and screens to run the Starship Enterprise. A large semicircular desk, its surface dotted with keyboards, faced all the screens. Two people sat at the double console, their fingers moving over multiple keyboards, their eyes darting from screen to screen so fast Devon wondered how they remembered what they were doing.
Outlines of maps filled two of the largest screens, each one populated with a series of winking dots.
“Our active assignments,” Avery explained. “We keep constant track of them. We have a daily report of activities and locations. If any of that changes without notice, we get ready to move a team into action.”
Devon gave a nervous little laugh. “Sounds like you’re planning for a war.”
Avery nodded without smiling. “Sometimes that’s just what it is, depending on who the client is.” She pointed to a floor-to-ceiling row of smaller screens, each of them with photos of what looked like houses and yards. “These are the locations where we monitor security systems. We don’t have eyes on them all the time, although we do regular checks. But if an alarm sounds, we can go right to the monitor and see what’s happening.”
Devon tried not to let her jaw drop or her astonishment show. She’d certainly seen enough movies and television shows with high-tech private security firms. But seeing it in the so-called flesh astounded her.
“If you look at that setup over there”—she pointed to a station in the corner where a man in a T-shirt and jeans was monitoring four screens at the same time—“that’s Del. He’s working on cracking the code on your father’s phone. Like a lot of people, your father probably wasn’t aware that even if a phone is wiped, the information can still be retrieved with the right software. But you still have to break the code and this is more complex than usual. He must have done a lot of research to set it up.”
“Still can’t get into it?” Logan asked.
Avery shook her head. “But we will. The code hasn’t been written that Del can’t break sooner or later. We’re just hoping for sooner. But we’re not waiting, of course. We’re already into Cole International records, looking for anything in the past five years that jiggles the radar.”
She took Devon’s elbow and nudged her toward one side of the room where a woman sat at a desk with—count ’em—four computer screens and a stack of external hard drives.
“This is Ginger Brody. If it’s out there in the Ethernet, Ginger can find it.”
The woman looked like an elf. Devon was sure she wasn’t more than five feet tall, if that. She had curly red hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and the greenest eyes Devon had ever seen. She was dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt with the legend “Don’t give me a Command, I byte.” She looked about twelve.
Ginger hit the Save button on her keyboard and pushed out of her chair.
“Hi.” She held out her hand to Devon. “Nice to put a face with my research.” She grinned, then hopped into her chair again. In seconds her fingers were again flying over the keyboard.
“What’s upstairs?” Devon asked. “Or is that classified?”
Avery chuckled. “To the right of the staircase are suites for the agents when they have to stay here. They don’t all live in Arrowhead Bay but they come here for training and to be briefed on assignments.” She glanced at Logan and grinned. “Mr. Marine here is the only one with no permanent residence. He lives here.”
Devon’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head, his face expressionless. “Haven’t found a place I like yet well enough to buy.”
“The entire floor to the left,” Avery went on, “is my living quarters.”
“You never get away from these guys,” Devon said.
She laughed. “More like they can’t get away from me. The other building out there is a combination gym and weight room, with a climbing wall, rappelling ropes, and plenty of space to practice hand-to-hand combat. Beyond that is the shooting range.”
“That’s why you have it so far from town.”
Avery nodded. “I didn’t think people would like guns going off in their backyards.”
“I guess I never thought about what goes into being a bodyguard.”
“Protective agent,” Avery corrected her. “Floats better with our clients. Let’s head to my office. We’ll have coffee and see what’s what.”
As they walked out of what Devon wanted to call Space Station Central, she nearly bumped into a tall woman carrying a coffee mug.
“Oh. Sorry.” The woman flashed a grin and held the mug up in the air to avoid spills. “Guess I was concentrating too hard. Did I spill?”
Avery chuckled. “Sam’s always concentrating. That’s what makes her such a good agent. Devon, meet Samantha Quenel. Sam.”
So Vigilance had female agents, too. Devon studied the woman. She was tall, maybe five ten, and lean without being skinny. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and she wore jeans and a black T-shirt with a V on the sleeve. She wore no makeup and didn’t look like she needed it. Devon almost hated her on sight.
“I do have a tendency to plow into people.” Sam gave her an apologetic grin. Then she shifted her gaze back to Avery. “Anything you need me for? We wrapped that last one a week early so I’m at loose ends.”
Avery laughed. “Did you ever hear the word vacation?”
“I’m waiting for the man of my dreams to take me on one.” She grinned but Devon had the feeling she wasn’t joking.
“Maybe. Just hang loose and we’ll see.”
Sam nodded and headed into the room, and Avery led them down the hall to her office.
Devon had expected a utilitarian office space, with basic furniture, tiled floor, and nothing on the walls. Everything else in the place seemed to be stripped down. She was shocked to find hardwood flooring, a woven area rug, and furniture with a Spanish flavor. Colorful prints brightened the walls, and in one corner a tall schefflera plant ruled over the room.
Avery saw the look on Devon’s face and grinned. “It’s my hideaway. Of necessity, everything else is bare essentials. I need warmth and color when I work.”
She fixed them coffee, using mugs with the Vigilance logo. Devon took a sip of hers, hoping the hot liquid would soothe her nerves.
“Okay, you said you were on the way here.” Avery looked from one to the other. “What’s up?”
Logan told her about the incident on Lady Hannah, including a bare-bones description of the kid.
“Well, damn.” Avery idly played with a pen on her desk. “That opens a lot more possibilities without giving us any answers.”
“Someone’s pulling the strings,” Logan said, “and I don’t think it’s the two idiots that ran Devon off the road.”
“You’re right,” Avery agreed. “Someone with brains is pulling strings and we need to know who and why.”
“If it’s dirty, please tell me it’s Alford and Bodine. There’s something off there. They were there to hassle Devon, which is weird. If they’re attorneys in her father’s corporation, I’d think they’d be there to offer her their help. Instead they all but accused her father of doing something illegal and suggested she was covering it up.”
“I checked into them as you asked.” Avery smiled at him, picked up her tablet, and tapped the screen. “I was getting ready to send this to you. Listen up. Guess where they cut their teeth as attorneys, learning the ropes?”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Devon asked.
“I’m sorry, but probably not. They cut their teeth working for a law firm in Arizona whose biggest client is—wait for it—Cruz Moreno.”
Devon frowned. “Who’s that?”
“No one good,” Logan muttered.
Avery set her tablet down. “Cruz Moreno is the head of one of the biggest drug cartels in Mexico. They operate internationally.”
“And how in hell,” Logan asked, “did they get hired at Cole International with that on their record?”
“Please.” She made a face. “Anybody can create a resume. I’m sure whoever answered any inquiries gave them a glowing recommendation. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pellegrino was the one who brought them in. The report I have for you, unfortunately, is going to explain that.”
“How?” Devon demanded. “What do you mean?”
Logan touched her cheek, the contact somehow soothing. “Let’s hear the report.” He looked at Avery. “Alford and Bodine are still in town,” Logan told her.
Avery nodded. “They are, and staying at the B and B.”
“And checking out the scene around the boats,” Logan said. “You keeping Angel on the docks?”
“Yes. He’s good at picking up gossip.”
“I have a feeling Devon’s in real danger until we get at the truth,” Logan said. “If Cole’s alive and not dead, and he’s somehow mixed up with Moreno, someone could take it in their head to use her as leverage.”
“Which is why you’ll protect her as if she were the Queen of England.”
He grinned. “Better than.”
Oh, yes, Devon thought. Definitely better than.
“Also,” he went on, “Gary at Bayside Marina is hiding something for sure. But for whatever reason, he didn’t like me so I’ll get diddly squat. Send someone else to shake him up.”
Avery made a note on her tablet. “Duly noted.” She looked at Devon. “First let me say how sorry I am that this has happened to you. We want to do everything we can to help find out what happened to your father.”
“I appreciate that.” Devon rubbed her temples, trying to stave off the headache blooming again. “So what have you found on the search you did on him and Cole International? Anything that will help me with this?”
The look Avery gave her was heavily tinged with sympathy. “Nothing that’s going to make you happy. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t look good.”
Devon’s head was beginning to feel like someone was pounding anvils inside. “Just—tell me what it is. At least I’ll know what I’m facing if and when we find him.”
Avery swiped to a page on her tablet. “In a situation like this it’s always about the money. Follow the money is the golden rule, so that’s where we started, with Cole International, the big money machine. We’re just at the beginning but I want to fill in some blanks.”
“Like?”
“There’s just no good way to say this. Were you aware that your father had some financial difficulties a few years ago?”
Devon wet her lips. “Vaguely, but not the details. Cash crunch, he told me. He was very worried about it for a while. But I thought that was all straightened out. He got a private investor.”
“Did he ever tell you who that was?”
“No, but it must have really helped.” Devon dug back into her mind trying to remember. “That’s when he decided to move down here, buy that land, and build that huge house. Is that important?”
“Just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. So you’re saying that when he moved down here, you got the sense everything had been fixed?”
“Yes.” Devon nodded her head, then decided that was a bad idea. The anvils were still clanging away. “He seemed a little more relaxed. Not quite as edgy. He said he needed to get away from Tampa and the house he and my mother lived in for so long. And he was tired of the city. I think he just needed the change. Losing her nearly destroyed him.”
“That kind of loss can be devastating,” Avery agreed.
“I was pretty sure the financial problems had been solved because he was relaxed again and taking some time to enjoy life. I even went sailing with him a few times.”
“When you visited, did he introduce you to people?”
“A few.” She wrinkled her forehead, trying to search her memory. “We usually had lunch at the Driftwood. That’s where I first met Cash Breeland. The others came later.”
“Okay.” Logan’s voice was soothing. “Just think for a minute. When did you notice a change in him again?”
Devon took a long swallow of her coffee, trying to straighten out her brain.
“Maybe about a year and a half ago. Now that I think of it, he was on edge a lot. Again.”
Avery leaned forward. “Did he say anything to you?”
“Not much. When I asked what was wrong, he said just a little business problem he was wrestling with. He was sure he’d figure out a way to handle it. He’d always solved problems before so I had no reason to question him. I just tried to give him space. I didn’t want him to shut off again like he did before he got the investor.”
“You know his company was built with companies, not a specific product, right?”
“Excuse me?” Devon was confused. She hadn’t ever really known a lot about her father’s business. When he was first growing it, she’d of course been way too young to understand. As she got older she hadn’t been all that interested. Teenage stuff was followed by college stuff and followed by her first two jobs and finally setting up her own business. For that she’d approached Graham to ask his advice, and he’d sent her to his attorney. She’d thought it strange at the time that he didn’t sit down and discuss the ins and outs with her, but her mother smoothed it over by saying he had great demands on his time.
“It means,” Logan said, “that he started out buying a company. Then another company became available for sale and he had the cash to acquire it. Then the next one, and pretty soon he’d laid the foundation for Cole International.” He looked at Avery. “That right, boss?”
She nodded. “The problem with doing it that way is if one division falters, it can bring down the entire corporation unless it’s handled properly. Four years ago when he had those money troubles, he was on the verge of having to dump a lot of the unprofitable subsidiaries. That would have greatly decreased the overall value of Cole International.”
“God! That would have killed him. That corporation was his lifeblood. He always said it was a testament to what you could do with no money but a lot of grit and determination. If he lost it, well, you can imagine.”
The pounding inside her skull got louder. She closed her eyes and tried to will the pain away.
“Here, Devon. Take this.”
She opened her eyes to see Avery standing there holding a glass of water and three tablets.
“Acetaminophen. Take them. If you rub your temples any harder, you’ll have holes in the sides of your head.”
She popped the tablets in her mouth and drank almost the entire glass of water. “Thank you. That should help. It’s just turning into a bitch of a day.”
And it started so nicely.
“Back to your father.” Avery settled behind her desk again. “The red ink explains why he was so desperate. The infusion of cash from the private investor allowed him to pull those subsidiaries out of the red and before long they were all showing strong profits.”
“What else?” Devon asked. “I can tell by your tone of voice there’s something wrong here.”
“We know the money was filtered through a company called SMX.” Avery cleared her throat. “I had one of our agents who happened to be in the area check on it. I’m sorry, but it’s nothing more than a one-room office, manned by a woman whose sole job is to monitor the computer and answer the phone. It’s just a shell corporation.”
“But that’s absurd.” Devon swallowed. “If everything was being funneled through this shell corporation, where did the cash come from in the first place?”
Avery set her tablet on the desk and leaned forward.
“Our point exactly. I’m betting the answer will be our friend, Cruz Moreno. It’s even possible that Pellegrino was the one who set it all up to begin with. He was vice president for corporate finance, right?”
“Yes.” Devon had the feeling she’d suddenly landed on a very slippery slope. She tried to take another sip of the coffee to steady her nerves, but the liquid had gone cold so she set it on the little table next to her chair.
“Moreno needed a place to clean his money from the sale of drugs and guns. Make it grow even more. Cole International was tailor made for him.”
Devon thought she might faint.
“Drugs? Guns? My father?” She swallowed. Hard. The coffee she’d managed to get down threatened to roll back up from her stomach. “That—that he was involved in those things? God.”
She was damn glad she’d taken the pills from Avery. Otherwise her head might have exploded.
“Drugs seem the biggest and more logical possibility,” Logan said.
“So you’re saying the money came from Moreno?” Devon asked.
Logan nodded. “Remember the men who waylaid you on the highway? The one who spoke had a Spanish accent.”
Devon curled her hands into fists in her lap, holding herself together by a thread. She couldn’t fathom that her father was in bed with a drug dealer. That he’d accepted money from him.
Avery leaned forward. “It’s a good bet your father has every bit of data on the cartel on those hard drives, information that could crucify them. It was his protection and he let them know it. That’s what everyone is looking for.”
“Of course! You’re absolutely right. You think Alford and Bodine were sent by Moreno to get it?”
“That, and I’m sure there’s stuff on there about them, too.”
A chill raced along her spine.
“And then,” Logan added, “it becomes a question of just how Cole International got into financial hot water to begin with. And whether it was your father who somehow dragged them into it or they did the dragging.”
Devon pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I never even thought he might have been set up. But then, why would I?”
“We still don’t know who Cruz’s money man is,” Avery reminded them. “If it was Pellegrino, how and why was he killed? Was it Alford? Bodine? As attorneys, they’d be in a prime situation to broker deals. Or someone we don’t even know?
“We’re going to figure it out,” Avery assured her, “and find the right threads to pull. I promise you. That’s what we’re doing.” She slid a glance at Logan. “Let’s wrap it up for now. Go home.” She grinned. “Have a drink.” Then her face sobered. “And Devon, write down everything you can think of. Even the smallest detail can be a help. Computers can give us all the raw data we want, but only you can give us an idea of his physical and mental state.”
“I’ll do what I can. I have to have some answers here and find out where he’s gone.”
Avery came out from behind the desk. “Take her home, Logan. She’s had two days that would wreck anyone. Make her get some rest. The minute I have anything to add to this I’ll call you.”
“Good idea.” He tugged Devon out of the chair. “I think a nap might be just what’s ordered now.”
“I’m not sure I can sleep,” she mumbled.
“Hold on.” Avery went to a cupboard against the wall, took something out, and handed it to Logan. “Peppermint tea bags. They do wonders for anything that ails you, including a bad case of nerves.” She winked at Devon. “And if all else fails, have that drink.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Logan assured her.
Devon noticed Avery raised an eyebrow when Logan put an arm around her to lead her out of the office. If he didn’t care, she guessed she didn’t either. Right now, all she wanted was to get out of here.
“Do you want someone following you back to the house?” Avery asked.
Devon’s stomach cramped. “You think they’ll be waiting out there again for us?”
“Anything is possible. Well, Logan?”
“No. I’m prepared for them this time. Remember, my car is bulletproof. Theirs isn’t.”
“Okay. Make her get some rest,” Avery repeated, as she ushered them to the front door. “Sleep, Logan. Sleep.”
Devon caught the edge to Avery’s voice. If she discerned something going on between the two of them, would she replace Logan? She’d somehow have to make sure that didn’t happen. Even in such a short time something very intense was building between them. Crazy as it sounded, she didn’t want to let go of it.
Then they were in his truck, heading back to the house, and she clung to his hand holding hers like it was the only lifeline out there.