Deadly Adventure (Hardy Brothers Security Book 19) (17 page)

“
Y
ou don’t have
to stay here.” Mandy glanced up from behind her office desk the next morning and flashed James an encouraging smile. “I’m okay. I’m perfectly safe. Sven is already in the courtroom.”

“I know,” James said, returning the smile. “I want to talk to the judge first, though.”

“James, that’s really not necessary,” Mandy said. “He’ll recognize Sven. He’ll …understand. He always does.”

“He’s a god amongst men,” James said, smirking. “Ally says she’s a goddess amongst men. Apparently we’re surrounded.”

“Cute,” Mandy said. “I can tell you’re antsy to look for Jesse, though. You don’t need to babysit me.”

“I don’t consider it babysitting, wife,” James said. “I consider it protecting my heart.”

“Oh, well, that was doubly cute.” An adorable grin lit up Mandy’s face. “That was just the cutest thing ever.”

“I try,” James said, glancing toward the open door when he heard footsteps. “Judge MacIntosh, thank you for making time to see me.” James hopped to his feet and extended his hand. “You’re going to wish you’d never met me before this is all said and done, though.”

MacIntosh chuckled hollowly. “I very much doubt that,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on first. Then we’ll get to the wishing and hoping.”

“That sounds practical,” James said. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“You have twenty minutes.”

James launched into the tale, abbreviating as much as possible. When he was done, the judge exhaled heavily and shook his head.

“I don’t understand how you keep finding trouble, young lady,” MacIntosh said, his eyes flashing. “I guess it’s more apt to say that it keeps finding you. Still … this is unbelievable.”

“It’s my fault,” James said. “I brought Jesse into our lives. Don’t take it out on Mandy. Don’t be angry with her. Take it out on me.”

“James, your willingness to jump on grenades – real or imaginary – to protect your wife is a thing of beauty,” MacIntosh said. “I’m not angry. None of this is your fault. It’s certainly not Mandy’s fault.”

“Some of this
is
my fault,” James clarified. “I didn’t listen to my inner danger alarm when it told me something was off. I certainly didn’t listen to my heart when it told me to spend more time with Mandy. I could’ve prevented some of this.”

“But you couldn’t have prevented all of it,” MacIntosh supplied. “Life is full of sinkholes, son. So far you’re ahead of the game. What’s your plan?”

“We think Jesse might go after Mandy,” James said. “He might want to use her as a bargaining chip. We think it’s more likely, though, that he’ll go to my house when he thinks Mandy is at work and I’m at the office. That’s what we’re counting on.”

“Okay,” MacIntosh said. “Even if you were ninety-nine percent sure Jesse was going after your computer, you still wouldn’t leave Mandy unwatched. Are you planning on sitting in the courtroom?”

“No.”

“Because Jesse would recognize you,” MacIntosh surmised, figuring things out quickly on his own. “You need someone Jesse won’t recognize. I’m guessing that means one of Peter Marconi’s men is already in my courtroom.”

James swallowed hard. “Sven is. I never told Jesse about our relationship with Peter. If he does show up here, Sven will have the upper hand.”

“Why not just leave Mandy locked in her office and keep her out of the courtroom?” MacIntosh suggested. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”

“I don’t know,” James answered honestly. “I’m worried that Jesse is going to realize we’re onto him and run. Then we’ll never catch him and he’ll be a threat to my wife forever.

“Right now he thinks I’m angry about him telling Mandy I was cheating on her,” he continued. “He thinks I’m begging her to stay with me and I’m whipped.”

MacIntosh smirked as he shifted his eyes to Mandy. “What do you think about that?”

“James would never cheat on me,” Mandy replied.

“That’s a given,” MacIntosh said. “Do you think he’s whipped?”

Mandy opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.

“Wise choice, my dear,” MacIntosh said, snorting when he saw the dark look on James’ face. “Son, whipped is a state of mind. You love your wife and aren’t afraid to admit it. That’s a hero in my book. If it makes you whipped in an inferior man’s book, that’s on him.

“I think you’re approaching this correctly,” he continued. “Between Sven and the courtroom deputy, Jesse would have to be an idiot to approach Mandy. She’ll be quite safe here.”

“She’d better be,” James said, winking at his wife. “I’m kind of fond of her.”

“And whipped,” Mandy added.

“Cute, wife,” James said, brushing a quick kiss against her mouth before extending his hand toward the judge. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for my family. Thank you for loving my wife and looking out for her, especially when I can’t.”

“Something tells me that you’ll always look out for your wife,” MacIntosh said. “Your methods may vary depending on the situation, though. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“
W
HAT
do we have
?” James asked, striding into his office and fixing his co-workers with a determined look. “I want Jesse, and I want him today.”

“Wow. You reminded me of a movie star the way you did that,” Grady teased.

“After we get Jesse I’m going to beat you,” James warned. “Seriously, what do we have?”

“We have cameras on your house and we’re watching,” Finn replied calmly.

“That’s it?”

“It’s not even nine yet, James,” Jake chided. “We have all day. Jesse might not have wanted to risk approaching your house right after you left to drop Mandy off in case you returned home instead of coming here.”

“You swept this place for bugs, right?”

“Duh!” Grady made an exaggerated face and mimed hitting himself on the side of the head. “That’s the first thing we did. Jesse didn’t plant anything. He probably didn’t think he would need to go that far.”

“My guess is he thought he would swoop in and get your money one of those first two nights,” Jake said. “He’s probably becoming increasingly frustrated and that’s why he’s acting out of sorts and going after Mandy.”

“I don’t care what his rationale is,” James spat. “That’s my wife and I’m going to kill him.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Finn asked, serious. “Do you want Mandy to blame herself for a second death?”

James balked. “Why would Mandy blame herself?”

“Because you wouldn’t even be considering killing Jesse if he hadn’t gone after her,” Grady answered. “Mandy has been through enough. We need to catch Jesse and lock him up. I’m not ruling out killing him if we have no other choice, but don’t put Mandy through another round of doubt. She’ll blame herself. You know that.”

James did know that. It plagued him. “I don’t want to hurt her, but … Jesse could’ve done something awful to her while I was passed out under the same roof.”

“That’s your stuff,” Grady pointed out. “Mandy wasn’t afraid of that. Looking back now, Mandy isn’t worked up about what might have been. You are. Don’t kill Jesse to make yourself feel better. Arrest him to make Mandy feel better.”

“I’ll think about it,” James muttered, rubbing his chin. “What else do we have?”

“Peter has put feelers out,” Grady replied. “They’re trying to track Jesse down through street rumors, but so far they’ve got nothing.”

“Jesse knows how to hide,” James said. “He’s good at his job. That’s why I wanted him working here. What about his background?”

“Well, that’s another matter entirely,” Finn said. “We’ve done some checking and it seems Jesse has a slight gambling problem.”

“Define slight.”

“He’s more than a million in debt,” Finn said. “We didn’t run a background check on him like we would on anyone else starting a job here because he was your friend. The information was all right there had we bothered to do our job.”

“That’s on me,” James said. “I didn’t think it was necessary, even though I made it a hard and fast rule when I started this place. We checked Jake out and he helped us save Mandy and Ally. How could I be so stupid?”

“We can’t go back in time and undo it,” Jake said. “We have to move forward, not look back.”

James sucked in a cleansing breath and forced himself to relax. “Tell me about the gambling.”

“It started about three years ago,” Finn said. “He started playing blackjack and then moved on to high-stakes poker. He won at first and made quite a bit of money. Then he started losing … and badly.”

“He probably got a taste for it and figured if he won once he could do it again,” James mused.

“Yeah, that would be my guess,” Finn agreed. “The problem is he exhausted his savings and started getting loans. After a year, no legitimate lender would touch him.”

“That must mean he started going to illegitimate places,” Grady said. “I wonder if the leg breakers are nicer in London.”

“They’re probably just more polite,” Jake said. “If he’s a million in debt on paper, that must mean he’s got a lot more hidden debt.”

“And that’s enough to make a man desperate,” Finn said. “When James showed up in London and was doing well, Jesse must have seen him as a mark.”

“Maybe not,” Grady said. “What if Jesse was going to ask James for a loan? I mean he went out of his way to set up that fake purse snatching to save Mandy for a reason. Maybe he wanted to butter James up and thought Mandy was the way to do it.”

“Mandy is the one thing James would pay to keep safe,” Finn said. “Maybe the original plan changed when James offered him a job. James said Jesse kept trying to get Mandy to leave the two of them alone. He probably wanted to ask for the loan when he didn’t have an audience.”

“That’s a possibility,” James said. “I offered him a job instead. He seemed legitimately surprised. That still doesn’t explain the stolen identities, though.”

“I read a story in a local London newspaper a few days ago,” Finn said. “There’s some big scam over there where tourists are being targeted, but the thieves wait until they’ve returned home before using the identities. That’s exactly what happened to James and Mandy.”

“So?” James didn’t understand where his brother was heading with that particular tidbit.

“So maybe Jesse did the work to steal your identities and handed them over to whoever he is working with knowing that most people wouldn’t return to the scene of the crime and instead let local authorities handle it,” Finn said. “Then he saved Mandy because he was going to hit you up for a loan on top of everything else. When you offered him the job, that’s when he saw the bigger opportunity.”

“I think Finn is onto something here,” Grady said. “Jesse works security. That means he’s privy to a lot of private information for affluent foreigners. He’s probably been running this scam to help pay off his gambling debts for months.

“When he realized how much you’re really worth he probably came up with another plan,” he continued. “You offered him a job and he showed up out of the blue. He left a position he held for a long time without giving it any thought. That should’ve been a red flag.”

“I didn’t see that flag because Mandy told me she was convinced Jesse was sad and lonely in London and I wanted to help him,” James said. “I didn’t question him showing up because I thought Mandy was right.”

“Yes, you always think Mandy is right,” Grady said, pinching James’ cheek and giving it a good jiggle. “You’re so in love with your little genius.”

James jerked his cheek away and scorched Grady with a harsh look. “I really am going to beat you when all of this is behind us.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Grady said.

“What about known associates?” Jake asked, still intent on the case despite Grady’s shenanigans. “Does Jesse have a police record?”

“He’s got a few instances,” Finn replied. “He’s been arrested for a few bar brawls, but I figured that was probably a regular thing for a guy like him. There’s one report of cops breaking up a fight between two guys in suits and Jesse, but Jesse refused to press charges even though he was the one attacked.”

“They were probably there to collect money,” Jake said.

James nodded. “That makes sense. Anything else?”

“There is one photo of a local couple who have ties to illegal gambling and money laundering, but that’s it,” Finn said.

“Let’s see it.”

Finn turned the screen and everyone narrowed their eyes to make out the couple in the grainy photograph. “No one has seen these guys hanging around, have they?”

“I haven’t,” Grady said. “They look like the Keatons from
Family Ties
.”

“They do kind of look like the Keatons,” Finn said, chuckling.

“Son of a … .” James’ mouth dropped open as he realized who he was looking at.

“Do you recognize them?” Grady asked.

James nodded. “I do. This just got a heck of a lot more interesting.”

“
D
O
YOU
have your court appearance slip?” Mandy smiled at the man standing in front of her. He had an expectant look on his face and she was almost sure she recognized him from somewhere, but she couldn’t place exactly where.

“I think I must’ve lost it,” the man said, flashing a charming grin. “Perhaps we can go back to your office and look on your computer there? I think that will be the easiest way to find it.”

It was a weird request and the clipped way the man delivered it threw Mandy for a loop. “Do I know you?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

Mandy wasn’t convinced and she took the opportunity to glance around the man’s slight shoulders, briefly locking gazes with Sven before scanning the crowd. That’s when she did recognize a familiar face. “Becky?”

The woman sitting in the front aisle shifted her attention to Mandy. Instead of the warm smile she expected, Mandy found an icy glare and her heart plummeted. Something very wrong was going on here. Becky Cameron was the woman she met at Stonehenge the day she visited. She’d been just as excited about the exhibit as Mandy – or at least she acted that way. Mandy was beginning to think that “acted” was the operative word.