Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24), Dale Mayer [read an ebook week .TXT] 📗

an officer of the law, so I have full authority to check your ID.” He pulled it out and realized a fair bit of identification was inside—all in his name. Bonaparte walked over to the table and quickly laid them all out and took photos. He was just behind both of the men’s backs, so they couldn’t see what he was doing.

He checked the rest and found nothing of interest except a note, a little piece of paper, with a series of numbers, like a phone number. He quickly took a photo of that too. He sent it to Levi. Bonaparte’s best guess was that this was probably Daddy Gapone’s untraceable number, but Levi would confirm that later. Johnny also had several thousand dollars on him. Bonaparte whistled at that. “Wow, think you’re rich, huh?” He put all the IDs back inside the wallet and walked over to pop it into the guy’s back pocket.

“If that money is missing,” he said, “I’ll have your badge.”

“I don’t really care,” he said. “Rich assholes like you are no threat to me.” The guy just glared, but he was powerless to do anything. Bonaparte grabbed the guy’s phone next, where he flicked through his Contacts. Bonaparte noted a few before handing it back.

Walking over to Henry, the second guy, Bonaparte went through the same process. This one didn’t even bother to protest. But, then again, there wasn’t much in his possession. When Bonaparte was finished, he put the wallet back in the kid’s pocket. As soon as Angela came back down, he could tell something was wrong by the odd expression on her face.

Immediately the two men started yelling and complaining about Bonaparte to Angela. She looked at him, one eyebrow raised. He shrugged and said, “I’ve got copies of their IDs. We’ll need to figure out what’s going on here.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Isabel said, quietly at her side.

He looked at her and smiled. “So you won’t mind showing me your ID then.”

She was startled and immediately turned to Angela. “Angela’s known me all her life.”

“Then you won’t object to me taking a look inside your wallet then, will you?”

Isabel hesitated, and he wondered at that and tilted his head to look at her inquiringly. She looked back at the other two men and over at him and then back at Angela. Isabel gave a small headshake, which shot Angela’s eyebrows straight up. Then Isabel said, “Fine.”

Bonaparte took a quick look at her ID and photographed it, before handing it back to her.

Angela motioned to Bonaparte. “We need to take these two into the station.” He nodded, then walked over, picked up the one by the shirt and put him on his feet. Bonaparte did it so fast and in such a smooth move that the guy didn’t have a chance to do anything but squawk. Bonaparte did the same with the second one, then led them out to the truck, where he buckled them into the back seat. He turned on the engine and waited for Angela to join him.

He watched the two women, discussing something on the front steps. Judging by their body language, they were both definitely unhappy. He wished he’d had a chance to check into Isabel’s background, but instead he texted her DL now to Levi. She was connected to these two losers, so Angela’s best friend was now a whole different story. Angela hopped into the truck, and they drove back to the station.

“I want a lawyer,” the one man said.

She nodded. “You’ll get yours,” she said. “In the meantime you can park your butt in jail, until I can sort out the paperwork.”

“I don’t want to go to jail,” Henry sniveled.

“Well, that’s where you’re headed, and, at the rate you’re going, you could be there on a permanent basis,” Bonaparte said in exasperation. “These guys you’ve signed up with are bad news, so that’s what you get.”

Henry went quiet at that. But intermittent checks in the rearview mirror revealed a young man who kept looking over at the other guy, clearly wondering if Johnny would say something to get them out of this. Little did the kid know that he was just roadkill, as far as these guys were concerned. A lot of people used young punks, like Henry, to build themselves up. Having somebody on hand to push around and to bark orders at made people like Johnny feel like they were doing something special. They just used these kids for information and for local access. And that’s likely what this was all about.

All Bonaparte knew for sure was that something was going on here, and it was likely about the properties, since that’s what these brothers were well-known for. So why didn’t anybody know more about it? As soon as they got to the station, he marched the two guys inside the office and waited at her side for Angela to do the paperwork.

That was something he couldn’t really help her with, unless she asked him to and provided some information. So, in the meantime, he sent a message to Levi, asking for info on any local councilmen on the boards for the town’s property development or at the county level or any connection like that which could explain why these guys were all over the locals. As far as Bonaparte was concerned, something had to be going through, something being approved, or something that nobody else knew about.

Levi immediately called him back. “That’s a hell of a thought,” he said on the phone. “And a good one.”

Taking several steps back into another room, Bonaparte spoke in a quiet voice, keeping an eye on the prisoners all the while. “Well, somebody knows something, and they’re trying to get a jump on it, before anybody else finds out.”

“But that also could mean that it’s not been approved.”

“It could even be that it hasn’t come up for approval yet. If they’re playing a long game, it could be something that they know will go through eventually,