He looked just as startled to see her as well.“Miss Grant, this is an unexpected surprise.”
Burt stepped in behind her; she saw the glint of the gun in his hand from the overhead light.
“You’re supposed to be on the west side.”
Miles sat back in his chair, an evil grin crossing his face, not at all seeming to care there was a gun aimed at him.“And why would think that?Do you have my phone bugged or perhaps just my office?”
He knew he had been bugged.The meeting on the west side had been a ruse.Barry was walking into a trap.She had to warn him.Mac reached for her phone only to realize it had gotten destroyed by the sea water, and she hadn’t memorized Barry’s number.
“Why?Why go through all of this?”
“Because you and your friend are becoming a problem with my business.I tried warning you, multiple times.”He pushed up from his desk.“But you wouldn’t listen.”
“Steb movig,” Burt warned, his gun following Miles’s movements.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Miles said confidently.“You need me alive to confess to my supposed crimes.”
“It’s not supposed.I have proof.”
“The agreement with Carver?Yes, I know.It seems it wasn’t just my office you had bugged, but my computer as well.”Miles tsked.“You know with one little touch of a button, all of that evidence goes away, and Carver is left hanging out to dry.”
So, Miles didn’t know Carver was in custody yet; she could use that knowledge to advantage.“You don’t worry about him talking when he’s found?”
“He has to be found first, and there has to be a connection.The files will be destroyed momentarily, and no one can prove my involvement.”
“Except if the backups are discovered?”
“Backups?What makes you think I have backups?”Shit, was he bluffing?Was what was on his computer all he had?
“You’re going to throw your business partner under the bus like that?”
“I can always find another business partner to make me wealthy.Fishermen in these parts are a dime a dozen, and many are eager to make a dollar.”He grinned.
“How could you?”Mac shook her head in disgust at him.
“How could I what?”he countered, raising one eyebrow in mock question.
“You’re already a rich man, why do this?”
“Not that you would know anything about this, but when you’re rich, Miss Grant, you can never have enough.”
“At the price of selling a living thing?You’re no better than a human trafficker.”
“Please, they’re fish.They don’t know anything,” Miles remarked without feeling.He didn’t care he was selling animals to the highest bidder.They were just a commodity to him.
“What are you doing with the sharks?”
“Sharks?”He looked baffled.“I’m not doing anything with sharks.”
“He’s not, I am,” said a new voice from behind them.
Mac turned around and came face-to-barrel with a gun.“Oh shit.”She looked up at the person holding it and knew she was dead.
Chapter 40
Barry stayed low in the brush, watching Miles wait for his business partner.Barry didn’t see the guards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by.He checked the time on his watch.The meeting should have started already, so where was the buyer?
Barry wiped the sweat from his brow, and his mind shifted to Mac.He wondered if she was getting worried about him.He hadn’t said when he was coming back.It was later than he’d thought it was going to be.Was she still angry at him for following Miles instead of going after the boat?
