Page 45 of Undercover
Alec
My phone dinged right as I’d almost finished with all the financial reports that’d finally, finally hit my inbox. I let it sit for a minute, needing to get through the last of it.
Dave’s hadn’t shown anything out of the ordinary, just as it hadn’t the first time we’d checked him out when we started looking at Middleton Marine.
But Whipley’s. The dirt on him would’ve overflowed a landfill. Gambling, high-interest loans, unpaid credit cards…every red flag you could possibly want, if you were looking for someone who might turn to drug smuggling as a way out of his ever-deepening financial hole. I wished we’d investigated him sooner, but we’d focused on the company owners, not on the employees. That had been a mistake, but at least getting a warrant for his yacht wouldn’t be challenging, given the match between photos, the evidence suggesting other connections to Middleton Marine, and his personal finances.
I snatched up my phone. That had probably been Gabe messaging me. I’d need to put him off somehow, no matter how many promises I’d made to come by for lunch. Saturday or not, my bone-deep longing to fall back in bed with him and make him smile and laugh and come notwithstanding, I had a job to do.
I opened his message.
Going to the factory to see Dave. Called me all worked up. He didn’t tell you about me getting kicked out. Why did you lie? Call me ASAP.
It took a second for that to sink in, with all of its ramifications. He knew I’d lied to him. Dave, at the factory. He’d gone too.
My blood ran cold. Fuck, had I been completely wrong to assume Whipley had to be my perp? Would Dave hurt his own brother? Lots of people would. I saw it all the damn time, in my line of work.
It could be something else. Dave might’ve needed Gabe’s help with something legitimate, like…some kind of document relating to a family trust, for example, that might need both brothers’ signatures.
Right. On a Saturday at the factory, not a Monday morning at the family lawyers’ office. With Dave calling ‘all worked up.’
I punched the button to call back. It rang, meaning Gabe’s phone was on, but he didn’t pick up. I hung up on his voicemail and called back. Same thing.
Fuck, what now? He might be on his way already, but couldn’t he fire off a one-word text? Pull over and answer, since he’d demanded I call him back right away? Or hell, even answer while he drove. I might be law enforcement, but I’d leave the hands-free ticketing to the locals.
I dialed another number as I shrugged into my holster and jacket, grabbed my badge and keys, and pelted down the motel stairs.
“Brickell,” said the gruff voice of my BPD liaison.
At least someone knew how to answer the damn phone. “I need a couple of backup units at the Middleton Marine factory out on Shelburne Point. I’m on my way out there now. Can you coordinate with the locals over there? I think there might be a situation…”
I filled him in briefly, switching over to the car’s hands-free as I backed out of the motel lot.
“Hang on a minute,” he said, and I heard him telling someone else in the background to call the Shelburne PD. “All right. What do we tell them? You think there may be a hostage situation? Because I doubt they have anyone trained in that. They definitely don’t have a SWAT unit. We’re happy to loan one, but we need to mobilize them.”
I hesitated. Gabe might be in danger.
On the other hand, calling out a SWAT team because my sort-of boyfriend might be having a heated argument with his brother—which would be how AD Kyle would see it—seemed a little disproportionate. And likely to get me sent to Anchorage after all.
“Just a couple of units of regular PD,” I said at last. “And that might even be overkill.”
“You got it. They’ll meet you there. Low profile?”
“Yeah, please. No lights and sirens. If we do have a situation, I’d like to have the element of surprise.”
Brickell agreed and hung up, and I stepped on the gas.
It took a full twenty-five minutes from the motel to Middleton Marine. I calculated in my head as I drove. If Gabe had already been in the car when I called, then he’d have a five-minute head start, plus the extra five minutes my motel’s distance from the factory tacked onto my ETA.
Ten minutes. A lot could happen in ten minutes.
Ten minutes turned into fifteen, as a heavily-laden farm truck pulled out in front of me and promptly slowed down to twenty miles an hour. I peered at it. Rhubarb. The fucking thing was full of rhubarb, possibly destined to be made into freaky ice-cream flavors.
Christ, I really hoped I’d get the chance to buy Gabe another round of inedibly weird ice cream.
The truck finally, finally took another turn, and I screeched past in a way that’d probably have the driver throwing curses at my back—or would have in New York, anyway. Who knew in Vermont.
At last I pulled up to the factory, parking by the side of the road just outside the parking lot. A large tree would hopefully screen me from the windows of the upstairs offices, and I’d stopped far enough away that the sound of the engine wouldn’t have penetrated the building.
