The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) (12 page)

When the elevator stopped on the twenty-fifth floor, Tom and a few others got off. He looked up and down the hall, and his eyes fell on someone he recognized from the academy, Nathan Briggs. Nathan had gained plenty of weight since Tom had seen him a year ago. Gone were the neat haircut and rippling muscles. In their place were a huge gut, long, tousled hair and a double chin.

A few steps behind, Tom followed Nathan into the large conference room where the meeting was to be held. The men and women present all wore well-pressed suits. Tom looked down at his own slightly rumpled one and ran his hands across the breast and sleeves. When a woman smiled at him, he put his hands down and smiled back.

Her jet-black hair fell past her shoulders, and her white blouse exposed ample cleavage. Her rear almost protruded through her tight-fitting skirt, such was its size. Oozing sex appeal, she certainly didn’t look like the typical FBI agent. She looked more like the sort of exotic dancer one would see in Miami.

She walked toward him, her smile now a grin. He looked at her left hand and saw gold around her ring finger.
Damn
,
married
.

“Hi, I’m Emma Green,” she said in a strong British accent. She eyed his suit.

“I know, right?” he said, laughing.

She edged closer, ran her hand over his sleeves and looked up at him. “It’s not that bad.” He glanced around the room. Most of the people spoke of targets, budgets and the drug industry. He gazed at the woman. “I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be at a bar right now.”

She laughed loudly. “What would you have?”

He looked at her questioningly.

“At the bar. What would you have at the bar?”

“Oh.” He laughed, his head tilting back. “I guess it would have to be a Ketel One Martini with a twist.” He restrained himself from licking his lips.

She nodded, holding his gaze. He started to say more but noticed Wheeler approaching them. The deputy director’s blond hair was much thinner in front than he remembered, his face more gaunt. Tom stepped forward and extended his right hand.

Wheeler shook his hand firmly. “Tom, it’s been too long.” He glanced at Emma. “I see you two have already met.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “We were just ... He cleared his throat. “Yeah, we’ve met.”

“Good, ’cause she’s going to be your new partner.”

Tom wanted to thank Wheeler profusely but thought better of it. “That won’t be a problem, sir.”

“Good. Antonio Cabrera will be arriving in a few minutes, and I want you two to handle his interview.” Wheeler walked out to the corridor. Tom and Emma followed him.

“Interview, sir?” Emma said. “What are we bringing him in for?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just make him uncomfortable. I really don’t care if you go over the police’s questions word for word. Let’s just take a few hours off his day.” Wheeler glanced at Tom. “A word?”

Tom nodded.

“I’ll go down and wait for them,” Emma said.

“I’ll be right there,” Tom shouted as she made her way toward the elevators.

Wheeler waited for the elevator to leave. “How’s everything at home?” he asked Tom.

“It’s not great.”

“I know. Jenny called.”

“I didn’t think it would be this hard. It’s all happening so quickly, you know?”

“It can’t be easy. You have a child together.” Wheeler put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “You just hang in there.” He turned around and walked back into the conference room.

***

Tom took the elevator to the eighth floor but didn’t see Emma. He walked through two glass doors and looked around. A number of people walked into and out of rooms, most wearing suits. He walked toward a young woman in a gray suit, seated and reading a magazine. The woman told him that Agent Green had already led Antonio Cabrera to the last interrogation room on the left, pointing down a long corridor.

He thanked her and walked toward two other glass doors, sniffing continuously. To his left stood two young men in sharp black suits with their arms folded. He studied them for a few seconds. Both men were relatively tall, at least six-foot. One had a clean-shaven, exceptionally smooth head. The other had slicked-back dark hair that shone in the light, a double cleft and extremely thin eyebrows.

The bald man walked toward him. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

Tom’s face tightened and he edged forward.

“Is there a problem?” the man repeated.

The other man had also noticed him now and was moving toward him. Tom felt a hand grab hold of his wrist. Before turning, he recognized the smell of musk and vanilla—Emma’s perfume. He smiled at her until he noticed the scowl on her face. He turned back toward the men to see that they had backed off.

“Where have you been?” she said. “I’ve been waiting.” She didn’t give him an opportunity to answer before leading him down the corridor.

“So who were those two sweethearts?”

Emma managed a thin smile. “I saw you were getting acquainted in your own way.”

His tone hardened. “Who were they?”

“Only Antonio’s trigger men, known on the streets as
ejecutors
, his enforcers.”

“Rico Martinez and—”

“Fernando Sastre. I see you’ve been doing your homework.”

“Up all night.” He laughed. “It’s a pretty big file. The Dominguez Family sure has a lot of history.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“You okay? You’ve been doing that a lot.”

“I’m fine!”

They continued down the corridor until Emma stopped in front of a medium-size interrogation room with glass doors. The two large security guards outside stepped aside for them, but Tom kept her from entering while he studied the two men seated inside. One was burly and dressed in a gray suit and black tie. His dark hair reminded him of a Latin bullfighter, as did the tattoo of a bull on his neck. He immediately recognized Antonio. The second man was skinny and scrawny and wore a black pinstripe suit. He was writing on a sheet of paper.

Tom looked at Emma. “What do we know about his lawyer?”

“Dominic Fortune. Experienced and has rarely lost a case. He’s represented some of the most corrupt rouge traders on Wall Street as well as many in The Dominguez Organization and many drug offenders in New York. They say that he teaches them what to say and what not to say, even going so far as to show them how to launder their money.”

“Perhaps we should be arresting him. You know what I say about drug dealers’ lawyers?”

“What?”

“They’re the real brains of the outfit. The No. 1 rule of catching a criminal: Stop the people who hide their money and you stop them.”

Emma shook her head. “If only it were that easy.” She pushed the door open and walked in, Tom close behind her.

Antonio looked up at her and smiled, but he frowned when he noticed Tom. “So Lara Croft needs a bodyguard. What’s all this anyway? The police have already cleared me.”

“I haven’t cleared you,” Tom hissed.

“Uh-oh, what’s this?” Antonio said. “We have a dog in the house.” He looked at Emma. “You calm your pit bull down or I’m out of here.”

Tom slammed his hand on the table. “Just you try that, pal.” He straightened up after noticing sweat dripping on the table.

Antonio leaned forward and studied him. “Oh, man, are you okay?” A thin smile covered his face. “I can’t lie, my friend, you look bad. Your eyes are like a few junkies I know. You look like you need a fix and quick.” He laughed coarsely, and Dominic sniggered. “Say the word and I’ll hook you up with someone who’s into that kind of thing.”

Tom noticed Emma watching him closely. He leaned toward Antonio. “We ask the questions here and you’ll answer them. Have you got that?”

“Oh,” Antonio said, pulling away, “a serious man. Okay. I can play your game. Ask me whatever you like.”

Tom sat across from Antonio. They glared at each other for a few seconds before Emma started speaking. She explained that the cameras in the room would record the session, which would be copied to a DVD-ROM that would be made available to them on request. After ensuring that both Antonio and Dominic understood everything, she started the recording.

“The time is now 10:30 a.m., the twentieth of April 2010,” she said. “Interview commencing.”

Emma started the questioning. She asked Antonio about the relationship he’d had with Penélope, how often they’d argued, whether he had ever been violent with her and a series of other domestically oriented questions. After hearing Antonio describe himself as the perfect boyfriend, she moved on to the events of the night she died.

“So when were you aware that Penélope would be going out that night?”

“I knew since the day before,” Antonio said with a smile.

“Did she make it a regular thing, going to clubs like that?” Tom asked.

“And what do you know about doing anything, junkie?” Tom glared at him. “I can only see you staying in, feeling sorry for yourself and maybe jerking off.” He looked at Emma. “Do me a favor and fuck his brains out, please.” He laughed. “Maybe then he would learn what it’s like to be a real man.”

Tom coughed and clenched his right hand. How he wanted to reach over and plant his fists in Antonio’s face. “You can say whatever you like about me, but you won’t be leaving here until you give us what we want.” He rose and slammed both hands on the table. “Now answer the question.”

Antonio leaned back and started to answer, but just then a short stocky man walked into the room. “You’ve got a phone call, Agent Saddle. It’s urgent.”

Tom nodded. “Have you got this?” he whispered to Emma.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Antonio said, “I’ll keep her warm for you.” He sniggered.

Tom gave him a long angry stare and walked out. He took a cell phone from the stocky man and heard the voice of his ex-wife at the other end of the line. “What’s wrong, Jenny? You sound weird.”

“It’s Robbie. He’s been suspended from school again.”

He sighed. “What’s he done this time?”

“He got in a fight. The other boy needed three stitches.”

Fuck. What’s wrong with that kid?
“Fine, I’ll talk to him when I get there later.”

“You always say that and you never do. You keep encouraging him to watch all that nonsense on TV. All that mixed martial arts. Now he thinks he’s some kind of gladiator. When will you start being his father rather than his best friend?”

“I don’t have time for this, Jenny. I’m in the middle of something.”

“It’s always something with you. He’s your son, or have you forgotten that?”

Tom took a deep breath. “Why don’t you get Jacob to talk to him? He’s already replaced me in your bed.” He hung up and leaned against the wall, both hands on his head.

He walked back to the interrogation room ten minutes later to find Emma turning the camera off. He stopped in the corridor, and Antonio and his lawyer rose and walked out the door as Emma held it open for them. Antonio glared at Tom as he passed him.

Tom called out to him a moment later, and Antonio stopped and turned toward him.

“I read your file,” Tom said. “You’ve done so many filthy things and gotten away with them. Murder. Assault. You name it, you’ve done it. Why don’t you do the right thing now and tell us what really happened? Don’t you at least want a chance at redemption?”

Antonio smiled and walked toward Tom. The two security guards charged forward, but Emma motioned them back. The
comisionado
stopped a feet from Tom. “I’ll tell you something I’ve learned from my life: Redemption is for the weak, my friend. The strong keep sinning.” He smiled and walked back down the hall with his lawyer.

Tom faced Emma and smacked the glass with his hand. As they entered the interrogation room again, Emma dismissed the guards.

“About what Antonio said to you back there,” Emma said.

Tom waved his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he hissed.

“Relax. I was just going to say that you shouldn’t let him get under your skin. I know his type. They say and do anything to frustrate people coming after them.”

“I... Tom rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry for shouting.”

“Forget it. It’s nothing.”

He took a deep breath and stared through the glass door.

“What’re you thinking?”

“Why do you think Wheeler asked us to bring him in? I mean, what was the point of that? For him to continue gloating? That wasn’t a shakedown. He was in control of that interrogation the whole time.”

“Then we move on. We find viable evidence and use it. For all we know, he could be innocent.”

“And you believe that? That man’s a thug. Did we even read the same file?”

“I’m just saying that there’s more to this than we know.” She walked toward the door, but Tom stopped her.

“So what did he have to say for himself?”

“Exactly what he told the police. Penélope came home, they argued and she left. The eyewitnesses have all backed up his story.”

He frowned at the ceiling and folded his arms. “It’s still too convenient that every camera in that building happened to be down for three days, one of them being the day of the murder.”

“I agree. But we have nothing to suggest he had anything to do with that. And with no one able to confirm a body leaving his apartment that morning, it will be hard to build a case against him.”

Tom folded his arms and contemplated their situation for a moment before following Emma out of the room.

***

Rico held the car door open for Antonio, who shook Dominic’s hand before the lawyer drove off in a Mercedes stretch limousine. “Speak to our guys in the bureau and see what you can find out about an Agent Tom Saddle,” Antonio said quietly to Rico before getting in. He paused to check his phone before continuing. “I want to know everything.”

Rico nodded and shut the door behind his boss, and Fernando drove him away. Standing directly across from the FBI building, Rico folded his arms, deep in thought. Then he called his girlfriend, Marie.

“Hi, baby,” she said.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Just doing my yoga.”

Rico smiled. “Pick out a dress. We’re going out tonight.”

The other end of the phone was silent for a moment. “What’s the occasion?”