Dangerous Lines (7 page)

****

“He’s hired our guy,” Shawn told them late the next
morning during their phone check in.

“Who’d we stick in for the job?” Vincent asked
,
kicking his legs out under the kitchen table they were
sitting at for the call.

“Adam,” Shawn named one of the C&M bodyguards.
“He had most of the resume that was wanted anyway, and with a bit of tweaking
from Denise, became the perfect candidate. He had to go through six interviews.
Never saw another living soul
either,
which means we
don’t know who’s also working on this for Moreau. Adam told me that he received
a text with instructions, showed up to a building he was buzzed into, and then
more directions to the office. In the office he spoke to someone over a
speakerphone, the person on the other end using some form of voice distortion
so he can’t be sure if it was a man, or a woman. He was pretty damn sure he was
being taped.”

“Why do you say that?” Vincent asked.

“He told me that on one of the questions, he hadn’t
verbally responded, but rolled his eyes. The person on the other end of the
line replied like they were right there in the room.”

“What’s the price tag?” Rhonda asked.

“Damn, good to hear your voice again, Ro,” Shawn
said with a laugh. “It’s sitting at two and a half million.”

“Fuck me,” Vincent muttered. “That’s a lot of coin
for someone that doesn’t know anything to be brought in.”

“I know. Moreau wants her brought in alive too. He
didn’t specify the
condition, just that
she had to be
breathing and capable of answering questions. He did mention to Adam that the
last guy had been a little zealous in his questioning, and made it hard to get
anything from her. I’m guessing he figures she got medical care and can talk
now.”

“There are other ways to get information out of
someone,” Vincent said quietly. He shot her a worried look, he didn’t like the
idea of anyone hurting her that way, or any way for that matter.

Rhonda must have figured out his thoughts. She
reached out to grip his hand and squeezed it tight. Flipping his hand over, he
held hers as he took a slow breath.

“We’re not going to let it get to that point,”
Shawn said. “We now have someone on the inside again, which is damn good. I
just wish we had someone closer to Moreau to get the raw info instead of this
filtered shit.”

“We might not be right next to him, but at least we
have something
,“
Vincent said. “Unfortunately, we
still have to figure out what the fuck he thinks Ro knows that’s so damaging to
him,
he’s put a bounty out on her.”

“Any ideas on what you might know, Rhonda?” Shawn
asked.

“No, I’m
trying,
Shawn,
but I have nothing.”

“Shit. Well, keep thinking on it,” he told her. “I
have to go, I’ll check in with you in a couple of days unless something breaks
at this end.”

“Thanks, Shawn,” Vincent said softly. Hanging up
the phone he looked to her. “We need to go through everything, start to finish,
and figure out what you might have heard, or seen.”

She made a face but nodded slowly.

“Go and get comfortable, I’m going to grab the
recorder. We need to get this down so that we can ensure there are no holes in
any of it.” He stood, pulling her gently up from her seat. “After that, you and
I are going to talk,” he said, a warning really.

“About what?” she asked, her voice husky as she
stared up at him.

“About us.”
He appreciated the “O” she made with her lips. Smiling, he pressed a
kiss to her forehead. “Grab a drink; I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Leaving her in the kitchen, he went to his room.
When he re-entered the living room she was sitting on the sofa, her feet tucked
up under her, and a glass of something with ice in hand.

“I grabbed you some water.”

“Thank you,” he said. Easing down next to her on
the couch he cracked the water bottle open and took a drink. After setting it
aside he pulled out the recorder. “Okay, so we’re going to start from the
beginning. First interview through to the day he grabbed you. I want you to go
slow, describe the people you saw, the places you were at, anything you heard.
Stop whenever you need to. This is going to be hard on your jaw, but it needs
to be done. Somewhere in those days you were around Moreau, you saw or
overheard something that makes you his number one target.”

“Right.”
Rhonda shifted on
the sofa, leaning against him, and gave a nod. “Let’s do this.”

He started the recorder and slipped his arm around
her shoulders.

Over the next hour she described everything to him.
Conversations, places, and people.
When she had
finished, he turned the recorder off to give her a moment to relax. He had
questions. Quite a few, truth
be
told. Vincent just
didn’t know if she had any of the answers.

Stroking a hand across her hair, he rested his chin
on her head. He’d tried to pick out one defining moment, one incident, anything
at all that would explain why Moreau was after her. He couldn’t, though. There
didn’t appear to be any reason for the man’s sudden anger toward her.
No reason for him hunting her down.
No fucking reason for a
two and a half million dollar bounty to be on her head.

Nothing about this made any sense at all.
Which made it all the more mystifying and frustrating for him.
He was missing something. They both were. Moreau wasn’t the sort of man to tip
his hand before he had to.

Rhonda moved, leaning away from him slightly.
“You’re frowning, Vincent. What’s going on in your head?”

“Everything you told me says there should be no
reason for Moreau to suspect you. You were playing your part perfectly, keeping
your head down and gathering
intel
. So why the fuck
did
he
suddenly grab you?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

Drawing her back to him, Vincent rubbed his hand up
and down her arm. Her skin was so damn soft, so touchable, and made him wonder
if the rest of her was as soft. He turned the recorder back on and set it on
his thigh. “How was Moreau behaving the last day, before he grabbed you?”

“The same as always.
He had his morning meeting with those of us in security. After it was
done, we left his office with the details of the day. He asked Donny to stay
behind. I was the last one out of the room so I shut the door behind us all
before heading to grab my gear.”

“Did you see anything as you shut the door?”

“Vincent, I told you everything.”

“Okay, but maybe you don’t realize you saw it.
Close your eyes for a second, Rhonda.” He waited for her to do as he’d asked.
“Good. Now, you’re leaving the office when Moreau calls out to Donny and asks
him to stay behind. Do you look around?”

She was chewing on her bottom lip as she nodded.
“Yeah.
I glanced back when he called out to Donny, who was
right behind me. Donny nodded to Moreau, looked to me and said to go ahead,
he’d be along in a moment. I kept going to the door, stopped to pull it shut,
and then went for my stuff.”

“When you were pulling the door shut, where were
Donny and Moreau? Were they talking at that moment? What were they doing?”

“Moreau was in front of his desk, arms crossed over
his chest and Donny was right in front of him. Moreau was saying something,”
she said slowly.

“What was he saying, Ro?”

“Is everything in place? He asked Donny if
everything was in place.”

“In place for what?”
Vincent asked.

“I don’t know. Donny said it was all set. Moreau
reminded him that nothing could go wrong. Said something about it being the
first
steps, that
everything had to be perfect. Then I
had the doors shut and didn’t hear anything more.”

“Okay, okay,” he nodded. He didn’t think that was
it. It was too innocuous to be what set Moreau off. Besides that, he would have
seen her still there, so he wouldn’t have said anything incriminating.
Which he hadn’t, given what she’d just told him.

“After you geared up and left the house, your first
stop was where?”

“We went to his office first. He went in with Donny
to get some papers. They were gone maybe ten minutes, not much longer. They
came back out and got in the vehicle. After that we went to a restaurant he is
renovating. A couple of us on the security detail went in with him. He talked
to the contractor, went over some of the plans, made a couple of minor
alterations because some materials weren’t available for his time frame, and we
left.”

“No arguments or anything like that with the
contractor?”

“No, nothing,” Rhonda said. “They were joking
around a bit before they got down to business. It was all on the up and up. I
was close enough to hear, but really wasn’t paying them much attention once
they started to talk about the pros and cons of marble. I was leaning on a half
wall that splits the entry from the main dining room. They were maybe six feet
from me at a table they were using to roll out all the plans.”

“I’m assuming there were some workers in there
too.”

“Yeah, I saw three doing the floors for the main
area. Cutting the wood and laying it in place. There were another couple in the
kitchen, doing some mudding, I’d guess. Another was up a ladder working on the
wiring over the bar area. I could hear more saws being used but I couldn’t see
anyone else.”

Well, shit, that sounded completely boring. “Where
did you go after the restaurant?”

“Like I said, we headed over to one of the
warehouses. I can’t remember which one, though. I think it was one of the ones
in the middle of the group he’d bought, but honestly, I can’t be sure. I was
watching out the window, keeping an eye on a group of kids, hoodlums really.
They were acting suspicious and I was sure I’d spotted a weapon. I pointed them
out to one of the other security guys with us, and he radioed up to Donny in
the lead vehicle. We were told to keep an eye on them but leave them be unless
they made a move for Moreau.
Which they didn’t.”

“All right.
So you reach the warehouse, you get out of the vehicles and head
inside. Are you still keeping an eye on the kids?”

“Yeah, I watched them as I walked to the warehouse
door. Probably why I’m not sure which one we went into. As soon as I cleared
the doorway I looked around. There was a table in the middle of the space,
sitting on a big ass carpet, expensive I’d say. It had chairs all around it,
like you’d see in a conference room. At a guess I’d say Moreau was preparing
for a meeting of some sort. He was talking to a man as I entered, the man
looked nervous, was sweating and playing with his cuffs. Donny was at Moreau’s
back, his back to me too, as Moreau spoke with the guy.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No.” Rhonda didn’t sound
sure,
her next words confirmed the suspicion. “At least, I don’t think so. Fuck,
maybe.”

“We need to get you to talk to a sketch artist,” he
said. “See if we can’t figure out who that guy was. What else happened?”

“They talked for a while. The guy was twitchy,
which had a lot of us on the security detail watching him closely. We couldn’t
hear anything though, their voices were too low, and they were in the middle of
the warehouse while we were by the doors and windows.”

Vincent frowned as he thought about it. Then an
idea hit him, his gut clenching tight. “Maybe it wasn’t what you saw. Maybe it
was someone that recognized you.”

Chapter
Nine

“The twitchy guy,” Rhonda whispered. Shit, she
hadn’t thought of that. Maybe the guy did know her from somewhere. Fuck! Had
the little shit blown her cover? Was that why Moreau had been so intent on
figuring out who she worked for?

“It fits,” Vincent was saying. “Now all we have to
do is figure out who he is, and how the hell he knows you. If we can figure
that out, maybe we can find something to nail Moreau with.”

She gave a nod, only half listening to him as she
tried to remember the guy.
Desperate to remember where she
could have possibly seen him.
The entire day had been innocuous.
Boring, even.
It was the only time she’d seen anyone that
had paid her any amount of attention beyond a quick dismissive glance.

“Ro?
Rhonda?” Vincent was
squeezing her shoulder lightly. “Hey, you okay?”

“What?” Shaking away her thoughts, since nothing
was coming to her anyway, she looked at him. “Yeah, no, I’m good. Sorry. I need
to get my hands on my case files. If he was ever a part of any of them, even
peripherally, I’d have a note in there.”

He didn’t look happy at that. She understood why
too. They’d have to go back to the city to get them, since only she or her boss
could sign them out once they were closed and filed. Well, anyone on the case
could sign them out, but she didn’t want to drag anyone else into this mess.