Find Me Maggie (5 page)

My fingers itched to pop my battery back in my phone and call Super Agent. He’d swarm the place and arrest Kostya’s goons and Miguel. The only wrench in that plan was that I didn’t know what orders Kostya had given his guys. They might just shoot Miguel to satisfy Kostya’s revenge before trying to escape.

“What makes you think they’re going to move him
alive
?” I asked, spitting out a piece of fingernail. I’d chewed my nails to nubs over my idiotic brother. Waiting was not my best skill.

“Kostya won’t kill him until he sees him and says what he needs to say. It’s an old- school kind of thing that’s going to work in our favor.”

“They could just pack him onto a plane and we’ll never get our chance.”

He made a scoffing noise. “It would be really hard to explain a tied-up man to airline staff if you’re not the police, and Kostya’s too cheap to pay for private. They’ll drive him back down to Arizona.”

What he said had a certain kind of logic to it—frustrating and aggravating logic—but logic nonetheless.

It was full dark before anything stirred near cabin 23. But it wasn’t the Hail Mary we needed. It was more like the makings of complete and total fuck-up.

Chapter Six

Helpful Rebecca-of-the-front-office strolled up to the cabin, no doubt wondering why Sergei hadn’t shown for their little get-to-know-you-so-I-can-get-in-your-pants chat.

I punched Sergei in the arm. “Your girlfriend is here looking for you, lover. You’d better go head her off before she knocks—shit! Too late. Actually…this might be the break we’ve been waiting for. You go talk to Rebecca and distract Ivan. I’ll see if I can go in through the back and sneak Miguel out.”

He slipped a knife out of his boot. “Need this?”

I pulled my much-bigger knife out of my bra and rolled my eyes at him. Switching off the overhead light, I opened the car door, then ran behind the cabins, ducking under windows, until I got to Miguel’s cabin. Slipping the lock pick into the keyhole I began working on the lock. Bingo.

“Rebecca!” Sergei shouted.

I heard her say something in return. Ivan said something I couldn’t understand.

This was my cue. I kept low as I slowly opened the back door. Sergei was talking to Ivan and the other goon in Russian at the front of the cabin, probably feeding them some bullshit line. I found Miguel tied to a chair in the kitchen.

His head popped up when he saw me, surprise parting his lips, but he was smart enough not to make a sound. I quickly cut his bonds and then signaled for him to follow me back out the way I’d come. He nearly fell on his face when he tried to stand up.

“My legs are asleep,” he whispered.

I checked over my shoulder. Sergei still had them occupied out front, but not for much longer. Grabbing Miguel’s arm, I slung it around my neck and helped him stand. We made slow progress, but soon we were behind the cabins, headed for the car.

“Faster,” I told him in a low voice. “We’re almost there.”

I was grateful for the darkness as I shoved Miguel into the backseat and then went around to the driver’s side. Sergei had left the keys so I could grab Miguel and then swing around front to pick him up.

“Stay down,” I told Miguel as I started the car. “I’ll tell you when to get up.”

“Thank God you got here when you did. Kostya was due any minute.”

Sure enough, just as we passed cabin number 23 and the little group standing around out front, we also passed Kostya in a car headed in the opposite direction.

I hit the accelerator, skidding around a corner and out the front gate of the campground. I was going so fast I almost missed the look of shock on Sergei’s face as I waved goodbye. This was not part of our pact. We always met up if separated. My wave let him know that I was leaving his double-crossing ass here with Rebecca and his crazy-assed uncle.

By the time I hit the highway, we were going about forty miles an hour above the speed limit. I was sure Kostya and his goons had seen me, so I wanted to put as much distance between us as possible.

Miguel sat up and clicked his seatbelt on. “That was awesome, sis. Just like the old da—hey!”

I reached back and hit him. I kept on hitting him as best as I could with one hand on the wheel, nearly swerving into the next lane. “That was not awesome.”
Slap.
“I can’t believe I’m related to you.”
Slap, slap.
“You’re such a fucking idiot.”
Slap, slap, slap.

He tried to dodge me, but he was so big I landed more smacks than I missed.

“Jesus, stop! Goddamn it, Maggie. You’re as bad as Mom.”

That earned him three more whacks. “You think I wanted to fly up here to save your sorry ass with Sergei as a chaperone? I’m out of vacation days so this is coming out of my sick pay, and I was planning on using them for a trip to Mexico. I can’t believe you were dumb enough to cheat Kostya out of two and a half million fucking dollars. What were you thinking?” I hit him once more to drive the message home.

“I didn’t take Kostya’s money.”

“Right. And I’m not Queen of My-Brother’s-a-Fucking-Idiot-Ville.”

“I swear to God, Maggie. I didn’t steal his money. Sergei did.”

And suddenly it all made sense. Sergei must’ve said something to Kostya back at the restaurant to get himself in on the hunt for Miguel and then played it off as Kostya’s romantic side. Add to it his willingness to help me find Miguel and get him away from Kostya’s goons. There was only one reason why. He wanted to find out how much Miguel knew and then he’d get rid of Miguel himself.

“Are you shitting me? Because
I
swear to God, Miguel, that if you’re lying to me I’m going to mule-kick your nuts so far up into your head they’ll replace your eyeballs.”

“Jesus, you’re such a bitch.”

“I don’t like being played…by you or Kostya or Sergei. Now tell me what the fuck happened with Kostya’s money before I turn this car around and deliver you right into his lap.”

Miguel laid it all out. Sergei was the one behind the Ponzi scheme. He’d gotten his uncle to invest a butt-load of cash and then fixed the books so it looked like Miguel had taken off with the money.

“Only I’m smarter than Sergei thinks,” Miguel said.

I highly doubted that. Sergei had counted on the fact that Miguel had built a reputation for fucked-up deals and less-than-honest business practices. From the beginning I’d wondered why Sergei would go into business with my brother. Now I knew. He needed a fall guy and Miguel was practically perfect in every single way.

My gut burned, thinking about how I’d nearly broken down in front of Sergei. He’d played on my sympathies and sentimentality. And I’d let him. There was more than one idiotic Castro sibling in this car.

“I found the offshore bank account where Sergei hid the money,” Miguel continued. “I have the account number. He doesn’t know I found it. I took off, trying to buy some time so I could hack into the bank account and get Kostya’s money back. Then Ivan and Andrei showed up and I was out of time.”

“Instead of going to the police?” I couldn’t believe this guy had procreated. Just what the world needed…more Miguels. I pulled the car over. “Get in the front seat.”

“You’re not going to drive off as soon as I get out of the car, are you?”

“You have ten seconds…ten…nine…”

He quickly climbed out of the back and into the front and we were once again speeding down the highway. I continued up Highway 101 to the 5 Freeway heading north back up to Eugene and the airport. As everyone would expect.

And then it hit me.

Oh, damn. I resisted the urge to smack myself in the forehead. I was so dumb. I’d played right into Sergei’s scheme.

My escape with Miguel had gone off without a hitch. Pretty much right on cue. Looking back, I realized everything that had happened since I’d approached Sergei’s club had fallen together almost as though things were going according to plan. Sergei had been too complicit and too cooperative from the start, helping me find Miguel. He wasn’t exactly the helpful sort. I’d been so focused on my own feelings in that club that I hadn’t seen what was right in front of me. Sergei hadn’t been surprised. He’d been triumphant. I’d come to him exactly the way he’d planned.

The shit Miguel and I were in was so much deeper than I’d imagined. Whatever Sergei’s end game was, I was somehow a part of it. I needed to come up with something to throw a major wrench in the works.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I asked again. This all could’ve been avoided if he’d just gone to the cops in the first place.

“Why would I go to the police?”

I punched him in the arm. “To save yourself from being killed, ya dumbass.”

“Hey! I didn’t move up here just so you could get in a better shot.”

“You have no idea what I’ve been through in the last two days because of you. I went to see fucking Sergei, for God’s sake.” My vision got all watery, which pissed me off even more. “And you could’ve been killed.”

“Aw, jeez, Maggie. You’re not going to cry, are you? Shit. I’m sorry.” He put his arm around me and laid his head on my shoulder.

I swiped at my eyes, trying to see the road. It hadn’t really hit me until this moment—with him here safe beside me—just how bad things could’ve turned out, how bad they could still be. And it was more than the blame my mother would crash down on top of my head. I’d miss the big dumb oaf.

“I thought I could work things out on my own,” he said quietly. “My name’s on all the documents. This was supposed to be my big break into legit business. I’d even gotten a couple of clients on my own. Of course Sergei took all their money too so all that’s down the shitter.” His sigh was full of regret and defeat. “Even if we can get the money back, the cops are already looking at me, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no way to get that Fed you’re sleeping with to take care of that for me, is there?”

“He might’ve been able to help if you’d gone to him instead of running off. Seriously, dude.
What were you thinking
?”

He sat up in his seat. “I wasn’t.”

“Well then thank God one of us finally is.”

Before I’d left with Sergei, I’d filled Super Agent in on our plan to get Miguel back. He’d added a twist—I was supposed to meet agents from the Portland FBI office in Eugene and deliver Miguel. But with my sudden realization about Sergei I knew I couldn’t follow Super Agent’s plan exactly the way he’d laid it out. Knowing how Sergei’s mind worked, I had no doubt he’d planted some kind of listening device in my apartment. It’s what I would’ve done.

And if he had indeed bugged my apartment, he not only knew about Super Agent’s plan, he knew I’d planned to double-cross him from the start. Which meant he probably had guys in position to nab us before we could get to the outskirts of Eugene. I was going to have to think way outside the box to stay one step ahead of Sergei and still deliver Miguel to Super Agent as promised.

The one thing that had driven Sergei nuts when we were together was his inability to control and predict me.

He was going to fucking
hate
what I was about to do next.

I pulled off the freeway and into a busy shopping center.

“Get out,” I told Miguel. “And pick out a new car for us.” I was sure Sergei had put some kind of tracking device on this one.

My brother was a genius at a few things. Breaking into and hot-wiring cars was one of them. And also, apparently, was knocking up his girlfriend. He was going to be in for a shock when he finally talked to Alice.

He chose an older-model Ford and worked his magic. I said goodbye to my probation. Jacking a car would get me a cell right alongside my brother. There was no way Super Agent could gloss this one over, especially since I was no longer following his plan. And grand theft auto hadn’t ever been part of our deal. I was looking at time for this for sure, plus the suspended eight-month sentence for that other little thing I’d done that had gotten me probation in the first place.

But I’d rescued my brother from Kostya and Sergei. He was alive. I’d do that and more for him. Sheesh. The things I did for my family.

In less than five minutes we were back on the freeway, this time headed south toward California. I’d dumped out my purse and selected a few things to take with me, like my lipstick, ID, a credit card and all my cash. That was me, traveling light and avoiding capture. Damn it! I really liked that purse too.

The FBI was dying to know what Miguel knew about Kostya. Super Agent was going to get a big ole hard-on when he heard about Sergei’s involvement…and the bank account with all that lovely Ponzi cash in it. He might just sport enough wood to try to broker a deal for Miguel.

But I wasn’t about to tell Miguel any of this. He’d go along a lot easier with the shit scared out of him than if he went into it thinking everything would be smoothed over for him.

We wouldn’t be in the clear until I handed over Miguel to the FBI. If I could ever get him delivered. The only thing that would’ve made this trip worse was if my mother was in the car with us. I counted that as the one of the two things that had gone right for me this week. The other being finally getting to see Super Agent naked again. Naked!

It was a good thing I had such excellent recall because it was looking more and more likely that the only thing I’d have of Super Agent was a memory.