“He was here two nights ago with another man I didn’t recognize, but all they did was sit and watch the strippers, have a few drinks, and leave.”
“Pull up footage of who he was here with please.” I nod at the laptop, and she runs her fingers across the keyboard, accessing the footage I want to see.
“What about the tunnels? What did you discover?” I ask the boys while she does that.
“We had men explore them in either direction. One leads directly to a warehouse at the docks, but it was empty with a few signs of occasional vagrant inhabitants and nothing else suspicious. Even the office was wiped clean.” Sam frowns. “Which in itself is suspicious. Unused warehouses are usually filthy with dust and debris, but this one was kind of immaculate, like they don’t want fingerprints left behind.”
“Hmm,” I hum. “What about in the other direction?”
“That was more interesting, but no less of a dead end. That tunnel branches out farther down and leads to four separate locations. One is caved in and useless, but the other three were more interesting. One leads to a private airfield on theoutskirts of Suncity. We did some surveillance, but didn’t notice anyone who would trip alarms. There’s a full-time mechanic and grounds person as well as a manager. I’ve had someone sitting on it, logging all the tail numbers of planes that arrive and depart, and watching for any suspicious activity, but so far, it’s been a dead end. Nothing to note.” Dean sounds resigned.
“What about the other two?” I ask.
“One leads to the rail yards. We tried to have someone watch them too, but there are too many security guards, and they kept chasing our guys off. There is a surveillance system, but our tech guys have been having trouble hacking into it, and there is nowhere to hide in the tunnels, so we haven’t been able to have anyone watching them,” Sam explains. “I think this is probably the route where they are bringing in the merchandise. It would be easy to smuggle people in railcars and pay authorities to look the other way.”
“Did we get cameras installed in the tunnels like I asked? Ones that are motion activated and will send an alert if anything happens? Is there anywhere in the tunnels to stash the merchandise? Do you think they know we know the tunnels are there now?” I fire question after question, my brain trying to compute everything they shared.
“Yes, but they haven’t been activated yet,” Sam confirms.
Lacey frowns. “Lorenzo asked me where Candy and Melissa were the other night. I told him they disappeared after stealing money from the safe and clearing out the stash of drugs from the office. I acted like they better run as fast as they could, because you were pissed and calling for their heads.”
“That was quick thinking and a good idea,” I say appreciatively, pleased with her initiative. “How did he react?”
“He lost his shit. He picked up his glass and launched it at the wall, but the gentleman with him quickly got him to calm down. I couldn’t hear what he said, but Lorenzo calmed, and I didn’tspeak to them again. One of the other waitresses dealt with them. I asked her if he questioned her, but she said he didn’t. Nobody else knows what happened except for Joe and Bill, and they are loyal. I would say it’s probably safe to assume they don’t know that you know about the tunnels.”
Some of the tension in my body eases. “Okay, what about the last tunnel? Where does that go?”
The two guys exchange a look, and I feel the tension in my body return. “What?” I demand.
“It comes up in the warehouse under your place,” Sam says, and I feel my eyes widen with shock.
“Seriously?” I ask him, and he nods. I look over at Sage to see his reaction, but he looks as surprised as I am. It’s obviously news to him too, and I’m relieved it wasn’t a secret he kept from me.
“Yeah. I’m guessing they used them to transport goods in your grandfather’s time, or maybe even before that. Did you know it was there?”
I shake my head. “No, and Dad never mentioned it to me. I wonder if Gio knows it’s there.” Damn it. I have been avoiding him, but now I’m going to have to sit down and ask him about it, which will lead to more questions from him—questions he should already know the answer to, but it’s his own fault he doesn’t know. I sigh. “I’ll ask Gio when I see him tonight. He may have more information, but at least we know the merchandise isn’t coming from that tunnel. You will have to show me where it is so I can make sure it’s secure. I don’t like that there is another way into our place I had no idea about, but I bet Lorenzo does, and whoever he has told makes it a serious security breach.”
“We need to get someone to close it. Do we have anyone on the books who is a contractor?” I ask them. They would have a better idea about who has the skills we need.
“Do we want to block it up? It would be another escape option if we needed it,” Sage suggests.
“I don’t like the idea that people can access it from the other side, especially because our enemies know about the tunnels. I’m surprised we haven’t been breached yet, to be honest, not that they could get up to the house without the code, but they could have hijacked any of our shipments.”
“Or destroyed my grow house.” Sage shudders. “We need to get it fixed today.” He sounds panicked, more worried about his plants than our lives, and it makes me smile. Leave it to Sage to prioritize like that.
“Oh, speaking of drugs… Someone tried to breach the new warehouse, but the chemist hit the lockdown button and sealed it up until our security could chase off the intruders. Head of security believes it was a group of teenagers looking for a little bit of fun, not knowing what the warehouse is or who owns it.”
The new warehouse is back in Banebridge because Sage didn’t want it to be too far away in case he ever had to spend some time there. It looks like an unassuming building from the outside with excellent defense on the inside. Much like our house, it can go into lockdown if a breach is ever attempted.
Sage sits up straighter, his body tight with tension. “Is Anthony okay?”
I don’t particularly like our new chemist. He’s a fucking weasel who’s always sucking up to me, and it feels disingenuous, like he’s giving me lip service, but Sage seems to like him, or at least he admires his skills.
“He was shaken but fine. I think it would be a good idea just to show your face, though, and remind everyone who is in charge.” Sam sounds concerned, and I latch onto it.
“What’s wrong? What has you worried?”
“I may be wrong, but when we were there earlier this week, I thought I saw a batch of ecstasy with a different stamp on it, not the butterfly that Sage uses.”
