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

“Nothing’s ever fast,” she said. “These two have tentacles that seem to be really far-reaching.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean, when something happens to them, and they’re made an example of, the rest of the family won’t cut their losses. They’re only popular while they’re making money for the family.”

“That’s true enough,” she muttered. “They also don’t have any children of their own.”

“That’s a good thing,” he said. “Then we won’t be leaving any children fatherless.” His hard tone left absolutely nothing for her to misunderstand.

“Are you really planning on killing them?”

He gave her a flat stare. “No,” he said, frowning. “Absolutely not. I’m not planning anything. Yet. But, believe me, if they’re looking to pressure me, threaten me, or take out any more old folks who happen to own property, that’s something they’ll have to go through me for.”

“I don’t imagine very much gets through you,” she said, with a laugh.

“Not in a very long time,” he said, with a smile. “But then my size can be a bit of a deterrent.”

“You think?” she said. “I’m six foot. How tall are you?”

“Six-seven,” he said, with a broad smile.

She smiled. “Not too many guys your height around here.”

“Nope,” he said, “you could even wear heels, and I’d still tower over you.”

She laughed at that. “I love to wear heels on a date,” she said. “But my dates don’t usually like it because it puts me over their heads.”

“Just guys who are insecure,” he said comfortably.

She smiled. “And that’s not you, is it?”

“Nope,” he said. “I had one marriage that was great, until it wasn’t, and it took me a long time to work off the anger and frustration I was left with. I don’t necessarily consider myself a prize, just a good person who, as Levi would say, always tries to land on the side of right.”

“And that’s pretty hard to argue with,” she said, as she smiled. “But back to this. I’m not exactly sure what you can do for a week or two. I was just hoping for a bit of backup to see how we can get through this.”

“But do you have some deadline here?” he asked.

She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you said for a week or two.”

“Right, and of course you have other things you need to do too, right?”

He frowned. “That’s not why I’m asking,” he said. “I won’t leave to go off and do something else without taking care of your problem here. I’m just trying to see if some deadline is involved, from the bad guys’ perspective or yours. Do you have any reason to think you’ll see an end to this in the next week or two?” He watched as she frowned, looked down at her papers, and shuffled them around aimlessly.

“No,” she said, finally looking up. “I don’t have an end plan because I don’t really have a game plan at all.”

“Well, first let’s gather information.”

“Okay, what information would you like?” she asked, with a ghost of a smile.

“Have you done any tracking on their bank accounts?”

One eyebrow twitched, and she smiled. “A little,” she said. “I’m not as tech-savvy as a lot of Levi’s crew, but I haven’t been in this job without learning something.”

“Can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Take that part over?”

“If you know how, then please, yes, jump right in.”

“Let’s track down the bank accounts first,” he said, “and tax records, although legally we’d need something to drive that investigation—although it might be better to get Levi to look into that. We’ll take a peek at what we might be looking at and do a full run on their banking. If we can get the feds involved,” he said, “that’ll change things entirely.”

She settled back and said, “What do you need to do in order to dig out that information?”

He gave her a ghost of a smile. “Well, if I don’t have to tell you, then you can’t be held liable later.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is it legal? Will it stand up in court?”

“If Levi or I find something,” he said, “then we can track down proof that will stand up in court.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess I don’t have much choice really, do I?”

“Not a lot, no,” he said. “But, first, I want you to take a ride with me and show me where these properties are. I’ll have a better feel of the area, once I actually see it.”

She looked at him in surprise but willingly stood up. “Okay. Most of them are scattered about. But the two deaths that hold the most promise for pinning this on these brothers involves three tracts that connect. Still, I don’t know what that’ll show you,” she said slowly.

“It’ll tell me a lot about who they are,” he said. “Come on. It will do you some good to get out of here.”

“That’s true,” she said, with a wistful smile. She walked out to the front and said, “Lana, we’re heading out for a drive. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

The friendly receptionist looked up, smiled, and nodded.

As they walked out, he said, “Does Lana do much to lighten your load?”

Immediately Angela shook her head. “Nope, she doesn’t. But she’s almost as iconic at the place as I am.”

“In other words, she’s part of the status quo, and you don’t mess with it.”

“Yep,” she said. “She greets the people, handles the routine administrative tasks, the phones, the mail, some filing, simple stuff like that.”

“Well, we all need that too,” he said. He unlocked the truck and opened up the passenger door for her, then walked around to the driver’s side. When she still hadn’t gotten in, he looked over the roof at her and asked, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

She gave a headshake, hopped in, and slammed the door shut.

He got in himself and looked at her. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said, but a puzzled note was in her voice.

“That no sounded