Treacherous Intent. Camy Tang

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       TWO

      He’d just put an innocent woman in danger.

      No, it was even worse than that. He’d put two innocent women in danger.

      The fact that Liam had practically delivered Elisabeth to those men on a silver platter filled him with guilt as police officers swarmed around the women’s shelter. Some of the residents were outside now, looking fearfully at the broken front door, while police officers ranged around the property, going in and out of the house through side doors.

      An ambulance had pulled up front and the injured security guard, Bill, was being patched up from where his shoulder had been grazed. The older security guard was giving Bill an earful about his foolhardy actions.

      Detective Carter of the Sonoma Police Department had just arrived. Liam had worked with the man several times over the past few months, contracted by the Sonoma police to track people down.

      “Did you catch any of the men who drove away?” he asked Detective Carter as the officer approached.

      He shook his head, his thinning red-gold hair glinting in the sunlight. “Officer Fong happened to be nearby when the security guards hit their direct signal to dispatch, but the four cars split up as soon as they left the driveway. Officer Fong followed one of them but lost the car.”

      Elisabeth sighed. “I guess it was too much to hope that we got a couple of them for questioning.”

      “You don’t know who they were?” Detective Carter asked.

      She shook her head. “I think they were Filipino. The leader spoke in Tagalog to his men.”

      “What exactly did they want?” Detective Carter asked.

      “They demanded that we turn over one of my clients,” Elisabeth said.

      “What client?”

      “She told me her name was Joslyn Flores.”

      “A few days ago, a woman who called herself Patricia hired me to find her sister, Joslyn Bautista,” Liam said. “She’d disappeared a few weeks ago, and her ‘sister’ was worried.”

      “Nothing about it seemed unusual?” Detective Carter asked.

      Liam grimaced. The detective had often praised Liam’s gut instincts, but they seemed to have failed him this time. “She seemed sincere. It was a little unusual when she paid the deposit in cash, but she said it was because she didn’t want her husband to know because he didn’t believe Joslyn was missing. I ran a cursory background check on her and she seemed to be who she said she was. The records showed that Patricia’s last name had been Bautista before she’d married Henry Santos, and her sister, Joslyn, lived with them in Los Angeles.”

      “I know Joslyn didn’t have any sisters,” Elisabeth said. “When I was training her to go off grid, she had to be honest with me about any relatives she might run into. I saw her face. She wasn’t lying to me when she said she didn’t have siblings.”

      “I should have dug deeper. A hacker could have created a credible background for Patricia,” Liam said. “Patricia said that Joslyn may have been traveling under a different last name. I followed a few leads that pointed to Ms. Aday.” Liam nodded to Elisabeth. “That’s why I came here today, to ask her if she’d helped Joslyn.”

      “Did you tell Patricia you were coming here today?” Detective Carter asked.

      “No. When I was driving here, I thought I might have been tailed but I couldn’t be sure. The men came in four cars, so they might have traded off tailing me.”

      “Hiring a hacker and using a four-car tail?” Detective Carter frowned. “This isn’t some small operation. These guys are organized and have money.”

      Liam told him about speaking to Elisabeth and being interrupted by the man at the front door who claimed he was with Liam. “The guard let slip that I was with Elisabeth. He mentioned her by name.” If only he’d been a second faster, he could have prevented that guard from saying anything.

      Detective Carter looked sharply at them both. “So if he didn’t know who you’d come to see, he does now.”

      Liam explained about the man shooting the door and rushing in, about Bill jumping him and Liam struggling with him. It had been a lot harder than he’d expected because his injured shoulder had flared up. He rubbed it, still feeling the ache.

      Detective Carter noticed. “Your shoulder still okay?”

      “It’s fine.”