?ω?ω?ω?
A shadowy figure slipped noiselessly across the dark room of the cheap motel room in St. Petersburg, scarcely glancing at the two bodies lying on the floor, and listened cautiously at the door. Hearing voices in the hallway, the figure stopped moving, waiting for the moment he could slip out of the room, unseen.
It was almost over. After tonight, everything would behis. No more pretending. No more goddamn babysitting. No more sharing the spoils of his hard work with fucking idiots who didn’t deserve them.Hewas The Salesman.Hewas the one who found the marks and hooked them on the line, luring them with promises of possibilities and opportunities. The rest of them had done nothing but get in his way.
There had been hope for one of them once, a thought that a permanent partnership between just the two of them would be possible after they had shaken off the dead wood. Until, out of the blue, he’d found out he had been bent over and fucked up the ass in a deceit he had foolishly never seen coming. Whoever the mysterious ‘Cherry’had been, he owed her for exposing the duplicity that could have sunk him before he knew what hit him.It was just as well, he speculated, still listening with his ear pressed against the door. How much worse would it have been if he’d gotten rid of the idiots so he and the turncoat could formtheir new partnership, only to findhimselfrobbed blind, a bullet in his head in the end.No, thank you.
Now, he only had one more thing left to do before the muscle he’d hired would lift the microbrewery assets and deliver them to their prearranged disposal locations while he “disappeared” into the sunset. Killing women wasn’t exactly high on his priority list, but Brooke Marino had far outlived her usefulness and was the last stumbling block to his escaping unscathed. Lying in wait for her at Cask & Canvas—because he knew she would go there to look for the artwork she had left at the microbrewery—he could take care of her, then inform his hired muscle it was open season on APS and Infinity Security associates.
Hearing silence, then slowly opening the motel room door, he peered through the open crack. Seeing the hallway was deserted, he slipped out, pulling the door shut behind him, and started walking briskly down the corridor toward the stairs. Maybe he would take a vacation after this, somewhere out of the country where he could spend a few weeks in the lap of luxury—Michelin-starred food, booze, women, and a high-end gaming establishment—until it was time for him to plan his next grift.
For now, however, he had a date with a troublesome gray-eyed blonde, who would soon cease to be a problem for him in every single way possible. And then…thenhe would finally befree.
Chapter 26
“Nothing in the file cabinet. Nothing in the desk drawers. Nothing on top of the desk. Someone needs to fucking clean because this place is disgusting.” Brooke huffed as she brushed the dust off her jeans and stood up. “I’d say maybe I should be looking for a thumb drive, but Kilgore was a paranoid son of a bitch. I’m positive nothing was stored electronically. We’re talking about manually typed or written pages that will have some heft and bulk to them, though. It’s not going to be a small packet of information, which narrows down the possible options for concealment. Where would you store something like that ‘in plain sight’ in a place like this if you didn’t want it to be found?”
She glanced around the office once again. “It has to be in here somewhere.Hasto. But I’m running out of ideas on where to search.”
“Brooke.” Indi was staring at the file cabinet. “Hand me your penlight, then pull out the file drawers again, one at a time, but look on the underside of each drawer when you do. My Spidey-sense just went off. Start at the bottom and work your way up.”
Kneeling in front of the file cabinet, Brooke opened the bottom drawer with Indi training the beam of light on it. “I’ll have to slide my hand underneath and feel because I can’t see the bottom. The drawer is too close to the floor.” Hooking her hand around the side of the drawer, Brooke wiggled her hand and fingers down the side, then maneuvered her hand under the drawer until she could touch the bottom. Her eyes widened. “Fuck my life, Indi, something’s there.” Pulling her hand out and shutting the drawer, she then opened the drawer that was second to the bottom and did the same thing. “Holy shit.Jackpot. It feels like a folder or something has been taped to the bottom.”
“No time to fuck around, girl. Take everything off the top, then tip the file cabinet onto its side. We can switch places if you want, and I’ll do it, but I want someone’s eyes on the front door at all times.”
“I got it.” Brooke cleaned off the top of the file cabinet, then grasped the sides. “I guess yelling ‘Timber!’ wouldn’t be advisable, huh?”
“You’re a nut. Be careful.”
Brooke gripped the cabinet sides while she guided it over as far as she could before letting go, the cabinet hitting the floor with a resounding crash. “Shit, that was loud.” Squatting down and opening one of the drawers, the cabinet lying on its side, Brooke could see a manila folder taped to the underside in the weak illumination. “I’ll be damned.” There were four file folders in total, each of which had been secured to the bottom of a drawer with duct tape, which Brooke quickly ripped off. “Let’s see what that skanky son of a bitch has been up to,” she said after standing up with the folders and moving to the desk.
Clearing off a space by pushing the clutter to the side, Brooke plopped the file folders down on the desktop, then took the penlight back from India before opening the first one. Picking up the top piece of paper, she held it under the penlight beam so she could scan it, then frowned. “This is a list with a bunch of doctors and their contact information. Facility name, address, phone number, fax number, email.” She looked at the second sheet of paper, running the light over it. “Pharmaceutical company reps withtheircontact information.” Flipping through the rest of the papers, scanning each one, she said, “It looks like it’sallcontact information. Biotech company reps, funeral directors, medical school contacts, research facilities. What the—”
She opened the second file folder, which was much thicker, and riffled through the papers in there, setting the penlight down and angling it so a weak wash of light played over the folder. Her face paled. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she whispered, looking at what they had found. “Indi, there are a ton of names recorded in this folder, all of them deceased individuals according to the notes. There is a notation next to each deceased’s name that includes the date their remains were delivered, where they were delivered, how they were ‘processed’—harvested for parts or sold as a whole cadaver—and how much the remains sold for. Oh, myGod.”
“Are the records in alphabetical order?”
“They are, as far as I can tell.”
“Do me a favor and tell me if you can locate an Erma Oppenheimer.”
There was silence for a couple of minutes while Brooke searched. “Found her. Erma Oppenheimer, age eighty-seven, sold as a whole cadaver to a medical research facility earlier this year. Apparently, Ms. Erma had been suffering from middle-stage Alzheimer’s disease and chronic arthritis when she died.” She bit her lip, her gray eyes filling with compassion. “This is Marion’s mom, isn’t it? Fuck, Indi. I amsosorry.”
Although still her usual quiet self, a scary energy had started radiating from the Infinity operative. “Not your fault, honey, but I appreciate you. I suspect, however, it’s probably a good thing Mr. Kilgore is no longer with us because that may have changed in short order if he were still breathing.” Brooke snorted, her compassionate expression shifting rapidly to antipathy.
“Let’s bundle everything up so we can get out of here and head back to APS.” Indi had shifted her focus back to the front door. “That way, we can take our time looking through all the information we found. I’m still hoping to find the place where Kilgore stashed Marion’s money and assets, but the answer tothat may lie back in Tallahassee, not here in the Tampa area. One thing at a time, though. I truly doubt you’re going to find anything else in this office, but looking around once more after you’ve packed up will give you peace of mind. Just make it fast.”
As Indi continued to monitor the front entrance, Brooke closed and stacked the thick file folders, then grabbed a discarded canvas messenger bag to slide them into. When she was done, she handed the bag to Indi before quickly but thoroughly going through the papers and piles of clutter in the entire office a final time. “Looks like nothing else,” she said, setting the penlight aside and taking the messenger bag back from the Infinity operative. “I think that’s everything.”
Pulling the bag over her head before sliding her left arm through the straps and settling it on her left hip, Brooke clicked off the penlight, leaving them in the gloom of the dim nighttime illumination. The graphic artist pushed the mini penlight into the back pocket of her jeans next to her phone. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.” Indi nodded as Brooke began to move toward the office door.
Abruptly, India’s hand whipped in a “Stop!” motion. Brooke halted immediately, squinting in the dimness, as she caught the shadows of Indi’s suddenly ominous face. The operative’s lavender eyes narrowed as she cocked her head and listened intently, crouching down swiftly as she gestured at Brooke to do the same.
“Don’t panic. But we’ve got company.”
?ω?ω?ω?
Blake checked her phone for the thousandth time. “Nothing. Why aren’t they back yet? I expected them back thirty minutes ago. Neither Shae nor Dani has heard from India either.” A curl of annoyance laced her voice. “If those two have been fuckingaround and lost track of time, my woman is about to find out what punishment spankings are for. I realize she would have never worried us deliberately, but apparently she needs a little refresher course on the rules.”
