As soon as it went silent again, I nudged Marcus. He opened the door a little more and peeked out before pushing it open and stepping into the hallway. I quickly followed him out and then shut the door, reengaging the door lock so no one could get into the panic room.
We hurried down the hallway toward the study door. I started to slow down when we reached it, but much to my surprise, Marcus barreled right in, gun in hand.
I pulled my gun and followed him in, only to be slammed into as a man across the room shot Marcus, forcing him back into me. I grappled to grab him and keep him on his feet, but Marcus slumped in my arms. Thank god he was wearing a tactical vest. He’d bruise, but he’d live.
Low malevolent laughter came from across the room.
I felt a chill go down my spine when I looked up and immediately recognized the man standing there with a gun in his hand. I slowly lowered Marcus to the floor and then stood up, moving a couple of steps away from him to keep him out of the line of fire.
“Eben Juarez, aren’t you supposed to be in prison?” I asked. I took another step as I glanced around the room, trying to spot Lyn. “Oh, wait, your name is actually Victor Cruz, isn’t it? Or is it Viggo Marcus? Anton Gambino?” I pressed my hand to my chest as I gasped dramatically. “Oh, I know, it’s Eduardo Salazar.”
The man cocked a single eyebrow. “If I’d know how intelligent you were, I would have added that into your bio. I could have easily made three million dollars.”
“What? Two million dollars wasn’t enough for you?”
“Not hardly.” The man chuckled before tilting his head and giving me an inquisitive look. “What is it about you that fascinates people so much?”
How the hell would I know?
“I’m special like that.”
“Maybe.” Eben rubbed one finger along his jaw line. “It is a mystery.”
“What is a mystery is how you got out of prison,” I stated. “We’ve already found several prison guards with questionable finances, and I’m betting that you might have had something to do with that.”
Juarez started clapping. “Very good.” He waved his hand toward the storyboard. “I’ve seen what you’ve done, and I must say I am impressed. You’ve gotten almost everything right.”
“Oh?” I glanced at the storyboard. “I think we were pretty spot-on. What did we miss?”
“You were right that I tortured and killed Agent Marc Decker, but he was in on the money laundering. I tortured him because he wouldn’t tell me where my money was transferred to.”
“Oh.” I waved a dismissive hand. “I had it moved to a private account only I know about.” I shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. Besides, that Alex SeRoy guy was an idiot. I kept telling him that I needed cooling fans so the computer didn’t overheat, but he tried to get by with some fan that was probably from World War II.”
“Yes, I was informed.”
I stroked my hand down my still injured cheek. “Besides, he hit me.”
“He has been reprimanded.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Kill him, too?”
Juarez flashed his pearly white teeth at me. “Yes.”
It was so weird that we were having a casual conversation when there was such killing intent in the room. On the up side, this wasn’t the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me.
Elephant smashing my car still won.
“Mind if I write that down and add it to the storyboard?”
Juarez waved his hand toward the wall. “Go ahead.”
I quickly wrote it on a sticky note and then stuck it to the board. I decided to go ahead and string some yarn between Juarez’s name and the sticky note I’d just added, plus one leading to Agent Decker.
I turned to look at the man. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Did you really think pretending to be Carlos Gambino’s son was going to work?” That one had always mystified me. I mean, how does someone pretend to be someone else’s kid? Especially an alleged mobster?
