The Secret Brokers (25 page)

“Gwen, don’t do this. Don’t walk away angry.”

She backed away from him. “I’m not angry. I just feel silly, I guess. I forgot about who you are for a moment. I’m sorry.” She gave him a curt nod of the head. “I understand the situation completely, Dallas. I’m under no romantic delusions about us.”

“I don’t want you—”

“Let’s just leave it where it is, shall we?” she interrupted. “No false words of praise or heartfelt feelings of regret.” She turned from him. “I’ll just go and pack,” she said over her shoulder as she headed down the hallway.

Dallas went back to
the
sink and poured out his coffee. His eyes caught sight of his reflection in the stainless walk-in refrigerator across the room. He felt a sudden wave of revulsion for the man he saw before him. After Nicci, he thought he could return to this life, but as he looked at the tall, lean man with the cold eyes staring back at him, he realized that he wasn’t the same anymore. Dallas was no longer immune from his emotions, and he wondered if he could ever be the same cold bastard he used to be. Turning away from his image, he started across the kitchen. The first assignment after Nicci was probably going to be the toughest. It would be easier next time. And that was the mantra he repeated to himself as he headed up the stairs to his bedroom.

***

When they pulled into Gwen’s front gate the sun was just setting below the horizon. The red, orange, and blue in the expansive sky above welcomed them back to the open country.

Dallas had not even put the car into park before Gwen was out the passenger side door of the Mercedes and across the clearing to the red barn. He toyed with the idea of going after her, but then he had to remind himself that the job was done. On the passenger seat next to him, Dallas spied Gwen’s purse. He turned to make sure Gwen was still walking toward the barn, then he reached for her purse and started going through it. He pulled the Glock out and put the gun on the seat next to him. After he pulled out her wallet and keys, he began going through the little compartments that always seemed to fill a woman’s purse.

Then through the growing darkness, he heard a piercing scream coming from the barn.

Dallas grabbed the Glock and bolted from the car.

As he cautiously stepped through the front barn doors, he heard Gwen crying from one of the stalls. He lifted the gun and made his way down the dark aisle, hugging the stall doors as he went.

When he reached her stall, he saw Rotolo lying dead on the ground

“Those bastards,” Gwen growled from the corner of the stall. “I told them what to do before we left. I explained everything he needed. He should still be alive. It’s as if they never lifted a finger to care
for
him.” She emerged from the shadows and came up to his side.

Dallas quickly scanned the stall. The animal had no food in his feed bucket or hay in his hay net, and his water bucket was bone dry.

“Where are those grooms supposed to be staying?”

She pointed up to the loft above them. “There’s a small apartment up there. I made sure they had everything they needed.”

Dallas felt an uneasy tingle creep up his spine. “Gwen, I heard your scream in my car on the other side of the clearing. If those two grooms are here, why didn’t they come running?” Dallas felt his adrenalin kick in. “I need you to show me how to get up to that apartment.”

“There’s a back stairway through the tack room,” she informed him

He took his cell phone from his pocket. “You hold on to this in case we need to call for help. Let’s just go upstairs and see if these two guys are even here.”

“You think they might have just left?”

“I sure hope so,” he replied while reaching for her hand.

He pulled Gwen from the stall, staying low as he stepped into the aisle.

Gwen followed behind him as he made his way down the aisle to the tack room. Once they were inside the darkened tack room, the smell of oiled leather mixed with the musty aroma of sweat soaked saddle blankets irritated Dallas’s nose. As he took in the walls filled with saddles, bridles and halters, he felt Gwen tug on his arm. She pointed to a narrow door located next to an old refrigerator in the corner of the room.

“The stairs are behind that door,” she told him.

Dallas went to the door and gently opened it. He turned to Gwen. “I want you to stay right behind me. Don’t go running into the room, or doing anything foolish. Let me assess the situation and stay low to the ground. Understood?”

Gwen nodded.

Dallas slowly climbed the narrow stairway, making sure Gwen was following close behind. When they came to the top of the stairs, Dallas found a wooden door. He checked the doorknob, but the door was already slightly ajar. Nudging the door open with the Glock, Dallas stepped inside.

Dallas could hear Gwen’s heavy breathing behind him as he moved deeper into the apartment. The fading light from outside permeated the two large windows in front of him, allowing Dallas to get a better view of the layout of the room. There were bunk beds to his left, a sink, refrigerator, and small stove to his right. In the center of the room he could make out a couch and coffee table. As he approached the couch, Dallas saw something hanging down from the top of one of the bunk beds. He realized, as he got closer to the beds, that the object was, in fact, a human arm. On the top bunk he found the bodies of two young men. It became readily apparent that both men had been pretty badly beaten and then shot in the back of the head.

Gwen cursed behind him.

Dallas went back to her side. “Someone was probably trying to get information out of them before they were killed,” he analyzed.

“Do you think Robertson sent someone here looking for me?”

He shook his head. “Brewster was working for Robertson. He would have told him where you were.”

“So who did this?”

“I honestly don’t know.” He took her hand. “Let’s go back to the house and I’ll call Lance.”

“What about the police?” she questioned.

“Robertson may have gotten to the local police. The only person I can trust is Lance Beauvoir.” He took her hand. “Let’s get out of here,” he said and led her back to the entrance.

They made their way down the stairs and out into the barn aisle. Gwen wanted to stop and check on the other horses as they went, but Dallas urged her forward.

“We have to worry about keeping ourselves alive right now, Gwen,” he asserted as he dragged her from the barn.

While crossing the clearing from the barn to the house, Dallas felt a sudden, sharp sense of apprehension cut across his gut. Something was wrong with this picture. Who would have come looking for Gwen other than Robertson’s people? Then Dallas remembered what Carl Bordonaro had told him about his associates and how anxious they were to discover what Gwen knew.

Together, Gwen and Dallas warily climbed the front porch steps to Gwen’s Acadian cottage. The house appeared dark and empty. Dallas wondered what other surprises would be waiting for them inside.

As he placed Gwen’s key in the front lock, Dallas found the door was already open.

He turned to Gwen. “No matter what, stay behind me.”

Dallas gently kicked the door open as he held the Glock at the ready in his hand. He crept in the door first, surveyed the living room, and his apprehension quickly escalated. The room had been turned upside down. Pictures had been torn off the walls, furniture had been cut open, and foam stuffing covered the floor. Books were tossed about and even the runner of carpeting on the stairs had been torn away.

When Gwen came in behind him, she gasped. “Oh, my God!”

Dallas placed his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s make a sweep of the house.”

Every room from her study to the two bedrooms upstairs had been ransacked. They had even gone through the contents of her refrigerator, tossing all of the food to the floor and leaving it there to rot. That was where they found Lawrence, lying on the kitchen counter gnawing on some chicken bones.

Gwen picked up Lawrence and hugged him to her chest. “What in the hell where they looking for?”

Dallas said nothing as he placed the Glock on the beige kitchen counter. He knew what they were looking for, but he couldn’t tell Gwen without compromising his assignment.

Dallas took his cell phone out of Gwen’s blue jeans pocket and dialed Lance’s number.

When Lance answered the phone, Dallas heard music and other voices in the background.

“You get a flight?” Lance asked.

“Where are you?” Dallas inquired, turning away from Gwen.

“Party. Why?”

“Gwen’s house has been ransacked, and I’ve got two dead grooms in the apartment above her barn. They were beaten up pretty badly before someone put bullets into the backs of their heads,” Dallas angrily informed him.

“Let me go outside,” Lance said in a hushed tone of voice.

Dallas waited as he heard the music and background noise dissipate. “All right, go ahead,” Lance instructed.

“This was professional. They went through the mattresses on the beds, the stuffing in the sofa and chairs, and even pulled everything out of the refrigerator and freezer. Very thorough.”

“Just get in the car and get the hell out of there,” Lance advised. “I
’ll
get a hold of our mutual friend and call you back with further instructions.”

Dallas hung up the phone. “We have got to go,” he told her as he put his cell phone back in the front pocket of his jeans.

“I’m not leaving!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got to see to the horses. God knows when they were fed or had water.”

Dallas picked up the Glock from the counter. “We don’t have time for that.”

She handed Lawrence to him. “All I need is fifteen minutes to throw them some hay, feed, and make sure they have water.”

Dallas repositioned the heavy cat in his arms. “And what am I supposed to do with the snorer?”

“Put him in the car. He’s coming with us.”

Dallas held the large tomcat up in his hands. “He can stay and hunt mice, like a normal cat,” he argued. “I don’t know where we are going and if—”

“We’re going to Ed’s house,” she insisted, cutting him off. “I won’t go anywhere else. We’ll sleep there and in the morning figure out what to do.”

“I’m waiting for Lance to call me back. He’s going to talk to Carl about—”

“Screw Carl Bordonaro!” she shouted.

Dallas sighed. “Gwen, it’s not that easy to just ignore the man’s wishes. He’s very powerful and can help protect you.”

Gwen marched toward the kitchen door, tripping over food and broken dishes as she went. “Carl will do as I wish, for once. He owes me and my father.”

Dallas left Lawrence in the house and followed Gwen to the barn. He allowed her enough time to check each and every horse, water them, load up their hay nets, and feed buckets. Twenty minutes later she turned to Dallas.

“They have enough to get them through the night,” she stated as she headed toward the entrance.

Once she reached the red barn doors, she turned off the overhead lights, and shut the large doors closed. She walked ahead of Dallas as they made their way across the clearing to his Mercedes.

“Let me get Lawrence and then we can go,” she said, walking toward the house.

Just as she hit the porch steps, his cell phone rang. He looked up at her. “Hurry up,” he called out behind her.

Gwen waved her hand at him as she headed inside of the house.

“Yeah, Lance,” Dallas said as he answered his cell phone.

“Our friend has some men heading to her farm as we speak. They’ll clean up her place and remove the bodies. In the meantime, he suggested you take Gwen to her father’s.”

“That’s good. She’s insisting on going there,” Dallas reported.

Lance was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. “Our friend believes his associates are getting impatient for the information you collected. You’re to give it to me on the way to the airport in the morning. There’s an eleven o’ clock flight to New York. A ticket will be waiting for you at the American Airlines counter.”

A sudden chill overtook Dallas. “I understand. I’ll see you in the morning.” Without waiting for a reply, Dallas hung up his cell phone.

Gwen appeared on the front porch with a large blue cat carrier in her hand. Lawrence meowed loudly from inside of the carrier.

“Little bastard fought with me about getting in this thing.” She held up the cat carrier.

“People are on the way to clean up the mess in the apartment and in your house. We are to go to your father’s for the time being,” he explained to her.

“Glad to hear it.” She climbed down the porch steps to the car. “In the morning, you can drive me back here to check on the horses.”

Dallas nodded. “Sure,” he agreed, not wanting to tell her the truth. He figured there was no point in sharing his plans with her anymore. After tomorrow, he would never see Gwen Marsh again.

When Dallas parked his Mercedes in front of Ed Pioth’s Garden District home, he eagerly scanned the house and surrounding street for any sign of Carl’s men. A few moments later a short, bald, bulky man dressed in an ill-fitting suit appeared on the front porch. As Dallas got out of the car, the man came down the walkway to greet him.