A smattering of “Yeah” and “That’s right” indicated some of the others in the room agreed with Ace’s sentiment. John just chuckled and took another drink of beer.
“Well, according to Trixie, the mob is still involved,” Jack stated. “At least, she thinks so. Has the evidence to prove it, too.”
The room was silent now, with all eyes on Jack.
He nodded. “That’s right. She thinks the whole company is just a front. They’re laundering money, skimming some off the top, and doing lots of other shady things. Once she realized it, she started putting documents and things away. Stuff she can use to sink ‘em.”
“That’s great!” Matteo said. “So, we can keep her safe until the FBI builds a case. Seems easy enough.”
He must have read the look on Jack’s face, because he sighed and then said, “Let me guess, it’s not going to be that easy.”
Jack flashed him a wry grin. “Come on, Matteo. You were a cop long enough to know it’s never that easy.”
The others laughed and agreed.
It wasn’t just cops who understood that, John thought. The same was true battling flames and traffic accidents and rescuing people off cliffs and…
“The evidence she needs is locked up in a storage unit. Back in Vegas. She doesn’t think they know where it is. I tend to agree with her. If they did, they’d probably just destroy it and leave her alone for now. After all, then it would just be her word against theirs. But with all this effort they’re putting into reaching her… that tells me they don’t know where these documents are,” Jack continued.
Hearing this, John was fighting mad once again. He knew what those assholes would do to Trixie if they got their hands on her: they’d torture her until they extracted the information they wanted, then they’d kill her and toss her body away like garbage.
That. Wasn’t. Going. To. Happen.
No one would lay a hand on her. Ever.
To ensure that, he needed to understand where the breakdown came tonight. Clearly, she wasn’t as safe as she thought she’d be in Los Angeles.
“How did they know where she was staying?” he asked.
Jack turned his smile to him. “Good question. Especially from a firefighter.”
The other guys laughed. John chuckled, too.
He was used to the inter-departmental rivalry. Cops ribbed firefighters. The LAFD ribbed the LAPD right back. It was all part of the fun.
“Well, being as how none of you have asked yet, I figured I’d do your job for you.”
“Oh man! Shots fired!” Kendrick said with a laugh. “I love it.”
After laughing, Jack explained. “Our best guess is that she wasn’t as discreet coming to Los Angeles as she thought she was. It’s a six-hour drive from here to Vegas. Lots of long stretches of desert between here and there. But she isn’t trained to look for tails. No offense to Trixie but following her probably wouldn’t be hard. Even if she thought she was watching for someone.”
John had assumed the same thing. He wasn’t exactly adept at looking for tails. But firemen didn’t have to be. It had been covered some in his Army days. They mostly traveled in armored convoys, though. This was spy-type stuff they were talking about now.
Or the criminal underworld, like gangsters in Vegas.
“So, at some point, they’d trailed her to her hotel,” Jack continued.
“But we heard the story. They knew what floor she was on and, presumably, what room she was in,” Ace said. “I know they didn’t follow us inside the hotel when we dropped her off earlier.”
Isaiah scratched his jaw. “I know that hotel. You have to have to scan your keycard to go up to any floor on that elevator. And to go down, except the ground floor. So how did they get ahold of a card?”
Everyone looked at each other, exchanging puzzled glances.
John didn’t have any answers, either.
They all sipped their drinks for a few moments before Jack said, “You said one of the guys chasing her was an ex-cop, John?”
He nodded. “Todd Stark.”
