“Okay.” Landon watched as he headed back to the lake to join the other diver still underwater. Until proven otherwise, Landon had to believe that his CI was still on land—if not buried six feet under somewhere.
* * *
AFTER WORK,LANDON HEADED HOME.He had a mind to stop by unannounced at what used to be his house but thought better of the impulse. Raquelle had enough on her plate right now than to be forced to rehash reminiscences with the man who divorced her. Or was it more the other way around?
Whatever the case, he wanted to try and work his wayback into her life in a way that they both felt comfortable with. She needed time to come to terms with Eddie’s disappearance, one way or the other.So do I, Landon thought, gazing ahead at the traffic. To say nothing of her learning that he had put himself in the unenviable position of being a CI by his own poor choices.
There would be time to get beyond the disappointments and regrets, whichever way the pendulum swung regarding someone who was once his brother-in-law.
And his ex-wife.
Landon drove into the parking garage of his condominium on Hampton Street in downtown Columbia. He parked alongside his off-duty personal vehicle, an autumn-green metallic Subaru Outback.
After taking the elevator up, Landon went inside the two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath condo that he had leased six months ago. It had an open concept with maple hardwood floors, high ceilings, and vinyl windows. There was a spacious living room and dining room, with barnwood furniture and a chef’s kitchen with quartz countertops. Not that he did much cooking, having no one to feed but himself these days. Maybe that could change.
He went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of beer from the French-door refrigerator and opened it, taking a swig. Moving back inside the living room, he gazed at the wood acoustic guitar that was leaning against a rustic microfiber accent chair. It was the same guitar he owned when he first met Raquelle. She used to love watching him play some country, blues, easy-listening songs, you name it. Just as he was riveted whenever she played the piano with the skill of a classical pianist. Together, they made sweet music in more ways than one.
Till the music died, seemingly before they ever knew what hit them.
Restarting it together would be a dream come true.
Or were some dreams simply out of reach with the baggage of time gone by?
Landon took another sip of the beer, then walked toward the sliding glass door to the balcony and gazed out. It offered a nice view of the downtown area. That was great, but it was not half as nice as what he saw outside from the vantage point of the house he once shared with Raquelle. When the marriage ended, he didn’t hesitate for even a moment to turn over the property to her lock, stock, and barrel. He saw no reason to take away something special that they both had wanted. Even if he would no longer be around to enjoy it. He owed Raquelle that much. And probably a lot more.
If the opportunity ever arises to try and make it up to her, I’ll take it, Landon told himself, tasting more beer.
In the meantime, there was the major issue of her brother missing, his prized boat totally destroyed. The big question remained as to whether or not he had been killed by someone who discovered he was helping the feds and was determined to stop him dead in his tracks.
Landon pondered this as he finished off the beer and then headed upstairs to take a shower before having something to eat.
Chapter Four
The following morning, Landon stood in a conference room at the Bureau’s field office on Caughman Farm Lane. He was holding an Art Crime Team briefing on the situation pertaining to Eddie and the investigation underway. Sitting in brown PU leather chairs around a black rectangle table were Katie Kitagawa and Special Agent in Charge Shannon Whitfield. Forty-five, long-legged and shapely, with blue eyes and a sandy-colored jellyfish blunt haircut, she was on her second round of running the FBI Columbian field office after being transferred back there seven months ago from the FBI field office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Standing was Special Agent Zach Fajardo, who worked within the Transnational Organized Crime division. Hispanic, short, and solidly built, and on his second marriage, he was pushing forty but looked younger, with black hair in a fade crew cut, brown eyes, and a chevron mustache. His focus was primarily on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO provisions, criminally and civilly, of the laws pertaining to TOC groups and individuals.
Lifting a stylus pen to the large multi-touch monitor, Landon wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matteras he put Eddie’s picture on the screen and said in a serious tone, “Eddie Jernigan is my CHS.” No reason to reiterate their relationship by marriage as his onetime brother-in-law. “Yesterday, Jernigan’s Crest Savannah 250 SLSC pontoon boat was blown up at the Knotter Marina. According to the ATF explosives officer, Chelsea Furillo, an IED was used to carry out the attack. Eddie wasn’t on the boat when the explosion occurred, but he’s missing. A search by divers in the lake came up empty. But Eddie’s apartment was ransacked, indicating that whoever set off the bomb remotely was also looking for something, likely incriminating—and they may or may not have found it.”
Shannon clasped her hands and asked, “And you think this is related to your investigation?”
“I’m pretty sure it is,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Prior to the bombing, Eddie left me a voicemail, indicating that he was certain they were onto him as my CI and believed that he was in trouble on the boat. By the time I got there, it was on fire—what was left of it—and Eddie was nowhere to be found.” Landon took a breath. “His personal and burner cell phones have gone dead,” he added, definitely no pun intended, even if the eerie parallels to Eddie’s absence went without saying.
Katie leaned forward and asked, “What about the person spotted fleeing the scene, seemingly in a hurry?”
“Definitely a person of interest,” Landon told her candidly and put an image on the monitor. “A surveillance camera picked up the unsub near the marina store. Can’t get a good read on him, with a hood over the head and half facing away from the camera—we’re trying to line this up with other video footage—but we believe the suspect is a tall white male with black or brown hair, probablyin his thirties or forties. And he may be driving a white Hyundai Santa Fe SUV or a silver Honda Accord. A BOLO has been issued for both vehicles.”
“Any word on Jernigan’s vehicle?” Shannon asked interestedly.
“Yeah.” Landon’s inflection dropped an octave as he switched images on the monitor. “Eddie’s white Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron was picked up by a Flock camera an hour after the explosion as it crossed Eighth Street and Ropper Road. The license plate reader couldn’t make out the driver, which may or may not have been Jernigan. The car was found abandoned near a farmhouse three miles away. Witnesses reported an adult man wearing a hoodie running away from the scene, but no positive identification has been made.”
“So, if Jernigan was the driver,” Zach put forth, “then he may have hitched a ride with someone else. Or stolen another car to get away.”
He shook his head to both suggestions. “There are no reports of any stolen vehicles in the area,” he pointed out, while keeping an open mind that the unidentified driver could have been Raquelle’s brother. “Eddie’s vehicle is being examined for DNA and dusted for prints. As far as hitching a ride, I doubt that he was making a concerted effort to drag someone else into this.”Definitely not Raquelle, Landon told himself, as Eddie had apparently made no attempt to contact her since he went missing. It was as though he was unable to—more than unwilling to—which concerned Landon in and of itself. “I also can’t rule out that Eddie could have been kidnapped and is being held against his will in either seeking to gain intel from him or as a bargaining chip down the line…”
Shannon asked, “So, where do things stand in the investigation, with the CI strangely absent from the picture—dead or alive, abducted or not—as it relates to the case?”
Landon had anticipated the question and contemplated a response. “The case is still continuing and moving in the right direction,” he said levelly. “Eddie was supplying useful intel in building a solid case against forty-seven-year-old art dealer Ivan Pimentel.” Landon put the image of the suspect on the screen. He had an oval face, blue eyes, and bleached hair in a long quiff and a Van Dyke beard. “Pimentel has a number of art galleries throughout South Carolina, including several in and around Columbia, one in Charleston, another in Summerville. He also owns a gallery in Miami, Florida, and another in London, England. We believe that Pimentel is using the art galleries to buy and sell both stolen and forged works of Native American art and laundering the significant proceeds from it, while defrauding some unsuspected buyers and working hand in hand with others knowingly. His criminal enterprise has international ties in conspiring with others to commit art and cultural property crimes.”
