Abducted: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller (10 page)

Chapter 18

Wednesday Evening

I went out to my rental car
and drove away, just in case they were watching. I drove back into town and
found a cheap motel. It was midnight. I did some stretching exercises to loosen
up and then did some pushups to work my chest and shoulders. I was making
progress with my physical conditioning but wasn’t back to my pre-shooting
condition. The speed and power weren’t coming back as fast as I thought they
would. I did some shadow boxing, working on several different combinations. I
didn't know what was going to happen later. What ever it was, I needed to be
loose. I also needed to work off some excess nervous energy.

I looked up the Peek-A-Boo
club online. It closed at two. At one thirty, I drove back out to the club and
parked off the road far enough away that I wouldn’t be noticed, but close
enough so I could see the parking lot and watch as people left the club after
it closed.

At two, several men came out,
got in their vehicles and drove away. In a few minutes, five girls came out.
None of them was Gretchen. They, too, got in their vehicles and left. There were
only three vehicles left: a Ford F150, a Yukon, and a Toyota Rav4.

In twenty minutes, Gretchen
came out, accompanied by two men. One of them was the big bouncer who
challenged me earlier; the other was a smaller man.

We were out in the country
and there was no one else around. I needed to get to them before they reached
their vehicles. I started my car and drove into the dirt parking lot. They were
standing near the back of the pickup. I got out of my car and took a couple of
steps toward them. The big guy was on the left, closest to me.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I'm
wondering if you can help me.”

Just as the big guy
recognized me, I landed a right hook on his jaw and he went down. Pain shot
through the right side of my chest. The smaller guy reached behind him. He was
going for a gun. Because he was twisting to his right to reach behind him, he
was off balance. I kicked him in the groin. He doubled over and I threw a hard
left at his jaw that put him down. The big guy was trying to get up and I hit
him again with my left. He went down and was out. Gretchen had frozen for the
couple of seconds it took to put the two men down, but then she tried to run.
She was fast, but I was faster. I caught her by her left arm and hauled her
back to me.

“I have no desire to hurt,” I
said, holding tightly to her arm. “But one way or the other, you're going to
talk to me.”

I hauled her around to the
passenger side of my car and put her in. I pulled my .357 and pointed it at
her. “Don't move.” I closed the door and hurried around to the driver’s side,
got in, closed the door. I holstered my gun, started the car, and drove out of
the lot.

“Where are you taking me?”
Gretchen asked.

“Not far. Just down the road
a ways so we can talk.”

There was a dirt road to the
right. I turned. There was a stand of trees. I pulled in among them. The road
was deserted. But if anyone did happen to drive by, they wouldn’t be able to
see us.

I turned in the seat and
looked at Gretchen. There was only a little moonlight, so I could not see here
eyes as clearly as I would have liked.

“Monday morning,” I said, “Monica
was taken from her apartment. Did you have anything to do with it?”

“No.”

“Convince me.”

“I was here.”

“You could have hired someone
to do it.”

“I just got out of prison a
couple of months ago,” she said. “I'm a bartender at a strip club. I don't have
the money to hire anyone to do something like that.”

“You're driving a nice little
Toyota,” I said.

“It's used. Got a hundred
thousand miles on it. My parents gave me five hundred dollars for the down
payment. I have no credit, so the interest on the loan is almost fifteen
percent. I live paycheck to paycheck. My food budget is the tips I make.”

“But if you had the
money ...
?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You claimed that Captain
Nolan manufactured evidence and ruined your life.”

“I was innocent. I wasn't
selling drugs. I was raped. She went out and found evidence that got me
convicted for something I didn't do.”

“If Monica found evidence of
something, the evidence was there to find. She didn't manufacture it.”

“I know,” she said forcefully,
angrily.

I looked at her.

“I know,” she repeated, her
voice softening and trailing off. “I had ten years to go over it. And I did. I
went over it again and again. It was Hanks.”

“Captain Cody Hanks. The man
you say raped you.”

“He did rape me. And then he
planted evidence and paid witnesses. What Captain Nolan did was find the
evidence Hanks planted.”

“But there was no evidence
that the evidence had been planted,” I said.

“No.”

“And when did you experience
this epiphany?” I asked.

She shook her head and
shrugged. “Couple of years ago.”

“So you no longer blame
Monica Nolan.”

“No. I realized she was
simply doing her job. She was gathering data and interviewing people and
reporting the results. It was Hanks who ruined my career and my life.”

I couldn't see her eyes as
clearly as I would have liked, but I believed her.

“So why wouldn't you talk to
me earlier?”

“Because I didn't want to.
Okay? I had nothing to do with her disappearance. I’m sorry if something bad
has happened to her, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. I'm trying to
put the past behind me and start over. I didn't want to think about being raped
or about spending ten years in prison for something I didn't do. I didn't want
to talk about it.”

“Well, when your friends back
there come to, you can explain that to them. If you had talked to me earlier, I
wouldn't have had to hurt them. I don’t like having to hurt people.”

I started the car and drove
Gretchen back to the club, pulling in next to her car.

“This is a joint
investigation between the FBI and the LAPD. I'm working with both agencies.
Calling the local police on me for roughing up your friends, even if the local
guys can find me, will be a waste of time.”

She shook her head. “There
won't be any cops,” she said, as she got out.

As I pulled out of the
parking lot, Gretchen knelt to check each of the men lying in the dirt.

Chapter 19

Thursday Morning

It was seven thirty a.m. I
had landed in L.A. and was just climbing into my Jeep when Frank called.

“Not disturbing your beauty
sleep am I?” he said.

“Hardly,” I said. “I just had
a wonderful two hour nap on a flight back from Provost.”

“Get anything worthwhile?”

“No.”

“Well, try this on for size.
The driver of the Escalade.
Name was Jorge Betancourt. Used
to work for Security Specialists.”

“Pipestone,” I said.

“Uh-huh. I had Branch look
into the company. See what was going on with it since Pipestone's death.”

“And?” I said as I started
the Wrangler.

“Mrs. Pipestone inherited the
company and is reorganizing it.”

“Really?”

“Branch interviewed her. She
says she didn't know her husband was selling drugs. But says the security
aspect of the company is a much needed and legitimate service that she can
continue to provide.”

“And about the driver?” I
asked, as I backed out of my parking space.

“Says she didn't know him and
has no idea why he would do what he did.”

“Of course.”

“Not much else Branch can do.
You might want to take a closer look.”

“Thanks, Frank.”

I went home and cleaned up,
stopped for breakfast, and got to the office just after Mildred. Wilson was
exuberant in his greeting. Mildred wanted to know what I had discovered in
Utah. It didn't take long to tell her that part. The part about getting the
note from whoever took Monica took more time.

“You think there will be more
notes?” Mildred asked.

“There might be. Watch for
them. If another comes and I'm not here, call me.”

She said she would. Then she
said, “Jake, I know you know this, but if whoever took Monica is trying to pull
you in, his ultimate goal is to get you.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“I've just gotten you broken
in,” she said. “I don't want to have to train a new boss. Be careful.”

I couldn’t help smiling.
“Careful is my middle name,” I said.

“I heard your middle name was
Cupcake.”

“That's my other middle name,
and you shouldn't be talking to the people who know about that. They're a bad
influence on little old ladies.”

“Who you calling a lady,
buster?”

I checked my email and did
just enough office work to be able to claim that I do actually run a business.
Wilson knew that I was getting ready to leave and was anxious to go with me. I
had to remind him that it was too hot for him to wait in the car, so he'd have
to stay with Mildred. I told him I'd see him later. He woofed softly at me,
gave me a lick on the side of my face, and went to his pillow. I was thankful
he was a patient friend. I gave him a cookie.

I walked into Alex's office a
little after ten.

“Learn anything in Provost?”
he asked.

“Two things. One, that
Gretchen Petersen didn't have anything to do with Monica's disappearance, and
two, that my chest is still a long way from being back to normal.”

“You have to hit somebody?”

“I don't know if I had to or
not, but I did. It hurt.”

“More time at the gym,” Alex
said.

“Sure. With all the spare
time I have. Get any forensics back on the note?”

“Yeah. Only fingerprints on
it were yours and postal employees. Paper and envelope could have been bought
anywhere.”

“Anything on our three
friends in the Escalade?”

“Two of the guys were not in
the system.
Probably recent immigrants.
The driver was
in the system. Guy named Jorge Betancourt. We're looking into him.”

“Really? That's all you've
got so far?”

He looked at me with
anticipation. “Yeah. Why? What have you got?”

“Betancourt used to work for
Security Specialists.”

“Pipestone.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Frank's people find that?”
Alex asked.

“LAPD's making the FBI
look
bad.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“There's more.”

“What?”

I told him about Mrs.
Pipestone's plan to restructure and reopen Security Specialists and her claim
that she did not know Jorge Betancourt and had no knowledge of the shooting.

Alex said, “So, I take it
we're going to pay a visit to the recently widowed Mrs. Pipestone.”

“Mrs. Rachel Pipestone, to be
exact. On Patton Drive in North Hills.”

“Isn't that near where you
shot Pipestone?”

“About five miles.”

“He liked to keep things
close to home, huh?”

“Apparently,” I said.

“Frank give you anything on
her background?”

“No.”

“Well, let's see if she's in
the system.”

Alex entered her information.
Her data came up.

“Hmm,” Alex mused. “Rachel
Pipestone, previously known as Rachel Perez, is the daughter of Carlos Perez,
the number two guy in the Ramos Cartel.”

I thought about that for a
moment. “Be interesting,” I said, “if we could find a connection between Rachel
Pipestone and Benito Esposito.”

“That would be interesting,”
Alex said. “I'll get some people on that while we pay her a visit.”

Alex dialed an extension and
asked an agent named Diane to see if she could find a connection between Rachel
Pipestone and Esposito, either senior or junior.”

He hung up and we were out
the door.

Chapter 20

Thursday Morning and Afternoon

The hot wind of the day
before had subsided and it was just hot. The drive to North Hills took
thirty-five minutes. It was not yet noon when we arrived. The Pipestone house
was a ranch style that looked like it might be three thousand square feet—not
all that big, actually, for a wealthy drug dealer. Pipestone must have been
trying to keep a low profile. A circular drive cut through the manicured lawn.
A multicolored rose garden that ran the length of the front of the house added
color and texture to the otherwise bland sand-colored California stucco. We
pulled into the circular drive and stopped in front of the front door.

Alex knocked and a chunky
middle-aged Latina in a maid's uniform answered the door. Alex held up his ID. “Mrs.
Pipestone, please.”

She shook her head and said, “I'm
sorry, but Mrs. Pipestone is not here. She is still mourning the death of Mr.
Pipestone and has gone to Mexico to visit with her family.” Her English was
flawless.

“Mexico,” Alex said.

“Yes.”

“When is she expected back?”

“I do not believe her return
has been scheduled.”

“Where in Mexico did she go?”

“Puebla. She is flying into
Mexico City and then driving to Puebla. I made the travel arrangements for her
myself. She left this morning.”

“And she has family in
Puebla?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. “You've
been very helpful.”

She waited until we had
stepped away from the door before closing it.
Very polite.

“You buying any of that?”
Alex asked as we pulled out of the driveway.

“She may be in Mexico,” I
said. “But I doubt she's in mourning. Branch interviewed her yesterday. Kind of
a sudden departure.”

It was lunchtime, so we
stopped at a Burger King and ate. After I downed my Whopper, I called Frank.

“Frank, Jake.”

“Had time to follow-up on Rachel
Pipestone?” he asked.

“Alex and I were just there.
Apparently, after Branch talked with her yesterday, she decided that she needed
to visit relatives in Mexico so she could mourn her dead husband. Left this
morning. She's in Puebla. Or at least, that's where she's supposed to be. Can
you have Branch check the flight manifests and see if she actually traveled?”

“Sure thing,” he said. “What
are you thinking?”

“Her husband worked for
Esposito, Senior. Her father's the number-two guy in the Ramos cartel. Between
husband and daddy, what are the odds she's not up to her eyeballs in the drug
business?”

“And if she is,” Frank said, “
she
probably didn't appreciate you and Monica disrupting the
flow of income.”

“And right after the LAPD
questions her about Jorge Betancourt and the assassination attempt, she decides
to go to Mexico.”

“We need to dig deeper into
Esposito, Junior, too, don't we?” Frank said.

“I think so.”

“I'll have Branch focus on
that end of it.”

I clicked off and Alex said, “So
Frank and his people are going to see whether or not Rachel Pipestone did, in
fact, travel to Mexico, and if there is an ongoing connection between Pipestone
and Esposito.”

“Frees us up to focus on
other things,” I said.

Before Alex could reply, my
phone rang. It was Mildred.

“Another note came in the
mail,” she said.

“What does it say?”

“I haven't opened it.”

“Go ahead, and tell me what
it says?”

I could hear her opening the
envelope and taking the note out. “It's hand written in block letters. All
capitals. It's a question. It says,

HER
SINS OR YOURS?”

“Her sins or yours?”

“That's it.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “We'll
be by in a little while to get it.”

Alex said, “Another note?”

“A question,” I said, “Her sins
or yours?”

“As in, did I take her
because of her sins or because of yours?”

“That'd be my first
interpretation of it.”

“So maybe instead of looking
into Monica's past for who might be looking for payback, we should be looking
into your past.”

“Apparently,” I said,
disgusted with myself for not thinking of it sooner.
Brilliant,
Mr. High IQ.

Alex must have seen what I
was thinking. “Jake,” he said, “you couldn't have known. Don't beat yourself up
over it.”

“I should have at least
considered it.”

“Well, we can consider it
now. Shall we start digging through your files?”

“Sure,” I said.

As we got into Alex's car, I
noticed a dark blue Tahoe with three guys in it sitting across the street. As
Alex pulled out of the Burger King lot, the Tahoe fell in behind us, five cars
back.

“Make a couple of turns,” I
said.

Alex glanced in his mirror. “We
pick up a tail?”

“May have. Dark blue Tahoe
five cars back.”

“Got it.”

Alex turned right. So did the
Tahoe. He turned left. The Tahoe kept its distance, but it also turned left.
Alex drove straight for a while. So did the Tahoe. He turned left again and the
Tahoe followed.

“Yeah,” I said. “We got a
tail.”

“Casual or aggressive?” Alex
said.

I thought about it. “Aggressive.
Maybe we can catch them off guard.”

“You got it,” Alex said, as
he spun the wheel and hit the gas, making a quick, tight U-turn, heading back
toward the Tahoe. Before they knew what was happening, Alex nosed his car up
very close to theirs. They were boxed in with nowhere to go. We came out of
Alex’s car with guns drawn. Three Asian men in
their
twenties raised their hands and sat very still. Traffic stopped. No one honked.

“Hands on your head,” Alex
shouted. “All of you.”

They complied.

“Now, you in the backseat, get
out. Slowly.”

He did.

Alex pointed his gun at him. “Take
two steps toward me.”

The young man obeyed.

I watched the two in the car.
They kept their eyes on me.

“On the ground,” Alex said to
his man.

Once the young man was on the
ground, Alex cuffed him. The guy had a Glock 21 stuck in the waistband of his slacks.

“Now, very slowly, get up and
walk to the rear door of my car.”

The young man complied,
having an easier time of it than most would have, and Alex put him in the back
seat and closed and locked the door.

“Your turn,” Alex called to
me.

I ran the same routine on the
other two while Alex called the local cops. By the time I had the third guy
cuffed and in the back seat, a squad car had arrived. My guys were also armed.
Alex's vehicle was not set up for prisoner transport, so he had the local police
transport the three men to the FBI offices where they were fingerprinted and
questioned. Oddly enough, they had nothing to say.

“We can hold them on a
weapon’s charge,” Alex said. “They’ll deny they were following us and we can’t
prove they were. Not going to get much out of this.”

“I know. But let’s keep them
out of circulation as long as we can.”

I called Norman Hanson.

“Jake Badger,” Norman said.
“How can I help you?”

“Just wondering if you've had
time to ask around about who might have sent the shooters.”

“I have. And no one seems to
know anything.”

“What does that mean?”

“Probably that they were
in-house people. They worked for whoever sent them.”

“Is it likely that whoever
had three Latinos would also have three Asians guys on their payroll?”

“It would be very uncommon
for one organization to have a multicultural staff.”

“Three Asian guys followed us
this afternoon.”

“Us
being ...
?”

“FBI Agent Watson and myself,”
I said. “They were armed, but we surprised them. They didn't have an
opportunity to resist.”

“I'm glad Alex was with you.”

“You know Alex?”

“We met at the hospital after
your surgery.”

“Ah.”

“I don't know who's sending
the assassins, Jake. But if
both teams were sent by the same
person
, two teams within a couple of days, his intent is serious. You
need to be careful.”

“I agree. Thanks, Norman.”

“You're welcome. Jake, if you
need some extra firepower, people who won't be as concerned about legal
procedures as your law enforcement friends, I've got a couple of guys you can
borrow. They’re quite good.”

As odd as it seemed, even to
me, his suggestion was not entirely without merit. Depending on what developed,
a couple of shooters who would not be concerned with trivia such as legality
might come in handy.

“I'll keep that
in mind, Norman.”