Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) (5 page)

“Or?”

“You’ll be the next one skydiving from a plane.”

“Jack, for fuck’s sake,” Mullen growled, stepping in between the two men.

That was the good part of not being under the direct command of the FBI, DEA, CIA, or NSA. Jack didn’t have to obey anyone there. And they knew it.

“Hensen, leave us,” Mullen ordered, then turned to Jack after the detective walked away. “And you, calm the fuck down, will you?”

Jack didn’t look at the special agent, his gaze back on Elle. “I’m calm.”

“You know that under the National Defense Authorization Act we can keep her for as long as we want? And Hensen’s idea of using her as bait has its merit. We spread rumors about a witness, drop her name, and we just sit back and wait for Maldonado’s goons to appear. Or better yet, we put a microphone on her, make her contact Maldonado to blackmail him, and get him to admit his involvement in the killings. Risky, but she would have to go along with it, seeing as she’s facing major jail time for the airport stunt.”

“No fucking way.”

He knew what happened to bait. Bait was expendable, and they never came to good ends. At best, Elle would have to enter the witness protection program. If she was refusing protective custody, he didn’t want to think how she would react to that. “You owe me a lot of favors, and I’m calling this one in. You find a way of arresting Maldonado that doesn’t involve her life going down the drain.”

The detective’s lips thinned. “Jack, you, more than anyone, know how difficult it is to pin anything on this guy. Maldonado is extremely dangerous. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—”

“Not up for discussion. You won’t use her as bait. You keep her name under wraps. I don’t want anyone outside the investigation to know about her existence. Use her info to build your case. She didn’t have to tell you squat about Aalto boarding her plane, yet she did, even knowing it was going to mean trouble for her. You cut her some slack.” He’d wanted to get Maldonado for years; more now that the scumbag had relocated to Florida, but all the witnesses had the nasty habit of ending up dead. He wasn’t risking it.

“Let’s start with finding a link between Maldonado and Aalto.” Maldonado was a well-known narco and Aalto an old-school Republican obsessed with kicking out illegal aliens and cutting back on immigration and foreign import of goods. Why would Aalto agree to a meeting?

“So far we haven’t found one. His secretary knew nothing about the trip and there wasn’t a single reference on his agenda.”

No shit. Trips to Cuba for a cigar were off the record, which explained why Aalto had been sneaking around at the airport and no one at his office knew about it. Or maybe they did, but considering their political views, they weren’t going to admit to Aalto traveling to Cuba, much less in company of a well-known criminal.

“Someone at his office must have known. Men like Aalto and Maldonado do not talk without intermediaries. What about the bodyguards? What do we have on them?”

“Emiliano Ramírez and Jonathan Escudero.”

“Isn’t Ramírez Maldonado’s cousin?”

Mullen nodded. “Escudero has a niece with a drug habit and a rap sheet. As soon as he’s back on American soil, we’ll turn up the heat on him; let’s see if we can get him to snitch on his boss.”

Jack didn’t know which kind of trouble the niece was in, but it sure had to be a shitload of it for her uncle to risk crossing Maldonado.

“Get your men to pick up the girl. That should encourage Escudero to talk. What about the autopsy?” Maybe they’d get lucky and the coroner would find something.

Mullen cocked his left eyebrow. “Don’t get your hopes up. They had to scrape the body off the pavement with a shovel. After a car had run over it.”

Jesus Christ.

“We can’t let her walk out of here,” Mullen insisted. “Protective custody is the best solution.”

“I’ll watch over her.”

“Maldonado has long-reaching arms. He’ll find her in Boston.”

“Not if he doesn’t know she exists. Did you make every trace of her disappear in the reports?”

Mullen nodded. “The officer that first interrogated her at the scene was a rookie and got so nervous when she mentioned Maldonado that he didn’t fill out the paperwork. And we have restricted the access to her. No one knows about her.”

“Keep it that way until she has to testify.”

Jack just hoped Mullen found a way to get Maldonado that didn’t involve her taking the stand. Testifying against him was a sure death sentence. That, or enter the witness protection program and look over her shoulder forever.

Mullen stared at him, undecided.

“I will not back down on this.”

After a long, tense second, Mullen sighed. “Get her out of here and to Boston before I change my mind.” Shaking his head, he walked away. Then he stopped and turned around. “And, Jack? I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Jack hoped the same.

He opened the door and moved toward her quietly. Careful not to wake her, he took off his jacket and covered her up.

Fat chance. At the slight contact she jerked and blinked twice at him, disoriented. “You’re here. I thought I’d been having a nightmare.”

“Seriously, pet, what the fuck? You come to Florida for a short visit and you have to cross one of the worse criminals in the state?”

“How did you know? You stalking me?”

As if.

She gestured outside. “Did they send you in to arrest me?”

He ignored her snarky question. She’d find out soon enough that he was nobody’s errand boy. “Do you have any fucking idea how illegal what you did is?”

He could see his harsh tone was making her confrontational, but there was nothing he could do about it. She made him tense in the best of circumstances. Fucking tense. And this wasn’t anywhere near the best of circumstances.

“Which part, exactly?” Elle asked. “Because everyone around here seems to forget I came forward and helped them with Aalto’s murder.”

“You entered an international airport with a false ID. What were you thinking?”

She pursed her lips. “I beg your pardon; the ID wasn’t false. It wasn’t mine, which is a different matter. Be more precise when you scold me.”

Always the last word. Fucking attitude.

It looked like she’d gotten some rest, because the part with her hugging him tight and keeping her mouth shut was over.

“Impersonating someone else and entering an airport and its restricted areas under false pretenses and with someone else’s ID is a federal offense. Ten to fifteen in a maximum-security prison. Is that precise enough for you?”

“You lecturing me about obeying the law? That’s rich, coming from someone who does what you do for a living.”

And more deflecting. She was worse than Ronnie. “Don’t fuck with me, pet.”

“Don’t call me pet.” Elle held his stare defiantly but in the end gave up. “Marlene’s sister was getting married. Their relationship had always been rocky. She didn’t want to miss the wedding and her jackass boss wouldn’t give her the day off. This was an emergency.”

Her eyes went somber at the mention of her friend. Her lips trembled as she spoke. “I need to call her family. Find out when’s the funeral. I need to—”

“Family’s been notified and you’re not going to the funeral. Too risky. We have to leave Florida ASAP.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “We? What do you mean we?”

“It’s me or protective custody. You choose.” Although there wasn’t much choice to make, because if she went the protective-custody route, which he doubted very much, he would be supervising that too.

His behavior sure as hell hadn’t ingratiated him with Hensen, but he hoped he’d made his position clear. Anything to do with Elle would have to go through him first.

And God help Hensen if he tried to intimidate her again or upset her in any way.

His words must have sunk in, for she was shaking her head. “No, no, no, no,” she chanted, trying to stand up. He grabbed her by her arms. “There must be another—”

“This is fucking serious, pet. And fucking dangerous. Hensen is an asshole, but he’s right about one thing: you’re in a world of trouble, and the only way you’re walking out of here and going back to Boston to something resembling a normal life is with me watching your back. Mullen and his team will try to build a case and get solid evidence. In the meantime, I will make sure nothing happens to you.” And would pull her into hiding the second he thought she was in danger or if the investigation had been compromised. Not that he was going to tell her this last part. She would freak out.

“You watching my back is a very bad idea,” she said. “We’ll drive each other crazy.”

No shit. He couldn’t agree more.

She’d been driving him crazy since the first day they met. Close proximity was only going to make matters worse.

“And what are we going to say about why you’re with me? I don’t want anyone in Boston to find out about this.”

“Good luck with that, pet. By now the whole Eternal Sun knows you’ve been at the police station for over twenty-four hours.” As a matter of fact, there were two grandmothers in the lobby being very vocal about getting to see Elle. “That means everyone close to you in Boston knows. The Bowens too.” He hadn’t gotten any phone calls yet, but those were coming, he was sure.

Elle grimaced. “They will get overprotective. I can’t handle that.”

“I’ll take care of them. I’ll get them off your back.”

Her snort was dry. “And who’s going to get you off my back?”

“Until this situation is resolved, no one. And I do not have the patience all the males around you have. I won’t treat you with kid gloves. You will do what I say when I say it. Stay where I put you.”

“Or?”

“You don’t want to find out.”

“You don’t intimidate me,” she said, looking him straight in face.

“Good. I hate when women start trembling and sobbing. Too messy. Let’s go pack your things and get moving. Now.” He stood up, waiting for her to follow suit.

She sighed. “That tone is not going to go down well with me, Borg.”

“Which tone?”

“The obey-me-or-else tone, the one that demands servitude. Doing things on command is not a skill I’ve acquired or have any interest in acquiring,” she explained, but nevertheless she got up and headed for the door.

He trailed her, surprised as all fuck that she was actually obeying. Obviously, she was still in shock. It wouldn’t last, he knew, but he’d take any reprieve he could get.

Chapter Four

One of the advantages of having Jack shadowing her was the wide berth that everyone gave them, even at the Eternal Sun. She hadn’t seen that rambunctious bunch that restrained since…ever, really.

“What’s taking so long?” Jack asked, barging into her bedroom after inspecting the whole apartment, bodyguard-style. He scanned the bags scattered all around, the vein at his temple pulsing. “How the fuck can you have so much shit? You only came for a couple of days.”

“It’s not for me,” Elle said, piling the bags into several already overstuffed suitcases and then sitting on one to attempt to zip it. “They are filled with things for Jonah and Lizzie. We should be grateful that this crowd watches shopping channels and bought vacuum bags. Otherwise, we would have three times this much.”

Getting out of the police station had done a world of good for her. She was still freaked out, but at least now she could breathe and think more clearly. And she had things to do. She did much better with things to do.

Marcel, one of the Eternal Sun instructors, knocked on the door. “Sweetheart, they’re waiting for you. You coming?”

Elle smiled. “I’ll be there in five.” At Jack’s fulminating glare, Elle explained after Marcel left, “Zumba class for seniors. Just half an hour and we’ll be done.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “We do not have time for Zumba classes.”

“Too bad, because I promised.”

“Don’t give a shit.”

Elle inhaled deeply. She wanted to disappear from Florida too, but she wasn’t going to let Mullen, Maldonado, or Jack mess her life up more than they already had. But picking a fight with The Borg wouldn’t improve matters. “It’s just half an hour. You heard what Hensen said. Maldonado is not in the US, and even if he was, I doubt he would have any business in a senior community, watching grannies dance.”

“Unnecessary risks are not acceptable.”

She looked into the ceiling, praying for patience. “Listen, I truly appreciate you getting me out of the police station, don’t misunderstand me, but don’t you think you’re exaggerating?”

“No. I told you. It’s me or protective custody. Or jail.”

“Jeez, can I have a minute to think about it? Because jail isn’t sounding so bad anymore.”

“Smart-ass,” she thought she heard him grumble.

She hurried to the common area, where her faithful crowd was already gathered. Violet and Rita were in first row, with Mr. Nicholson standing by his wife, not looking that thrilled. “Okay, folks. Ready to shake it?” she asked, jumping to the stage and then connecting her cell to the sound system. “We’ll start with merengue. Get our hips loose.”

After that came a little of salsa and a rather mild version of reggaeton.

She could see Jack glowering at her, losing his patience. Tough shit. She’d promised a senior Zumba class and she wasn’t going to disappoint them. Besides, contrary to popular belief, old people had sharp memories.

“Now we get a partner,” she said, while Marcel approached.

Apparently seeing Marcel bumping hips with her was too much for him, because Jack stalked toward her, then suddenly she was airborne and perched over his shoulder; all she could see was Jack’s ass.

“You are done. I told you we didn’t have time for this,” he growled, compounding the fiasco by slapping her behind while she thrashed.

As she was being carried away she lifted her gaze in time to see Mr. Nicholson shaking his head at his wife and lifting his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, there’s no way I can do that.”

* * * *

“You’re shitting me,” Jack grumbled, glaring at Elle clawing the armrest of her seat on the plane. “You scared of flying?”

She shook her head. “No.” At his incredulous look she added, “A bit.”