Page 26 of The Perfect Kiss
Hearing Delilah’s voice was bittersweet. I hated hearing the sadness in her tone. It killed me that things had to turn out this way. I should have been the one at the old warehouse that day. Maybe I would be dead instead of my brother. Rui would have known what to do. Thankfully, I was smart enough to know that Gwen would tell Cross where my brother kept her. I was furious that she betrayed me the way she did by helping Reyna escape. With absolute certainty, I knew who I could trust and who I couldn’t. If Gwen got in the way of my plan, she would need to be eliminated. Eliminating her broke my heart, but it was necessary if I wanted to stay alive.
Even though my new abode could easily be torn down, someone had the manners to tap at the make-shift door made out of particleboard. “Mr. McCall, everything is confirmed. It is time to go.”
Relief passed over me when Hugo’s friend Spade greeted me. I moved toward the door and pushed it out of the way. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to see him. “Thank God. I thought something went wrong.”
“No, sir. Everything is going as planned. Nice disguise, sir.”
I wasn’t sure if he was sarcastic or if he was genuine in his compliment. I looked like an eighty-year-old man with the gray wig I wore under my knit hat and the unkept beard pasted on my face. It was an excellent disguise and did what it intended to do.
When I rose to my feet, Spade led me toward the back of the college near the loading area. Waiting in the parking lot was a blue van with the words ‘Betty’s Pastries’painted on the side. It looked very legit, and I would bet that if Cross’s reliable hacker ran the plates, they would be traced back to the shop owner.
I climbed inside the back of the van and remained out of sight. Spade confidently drove—fittingly playing the part of an employee by wearing a polo shirt with the Betty’s Pastries logo. Samantha had done a stellar job in covering all the bases. I didn’t doubt that she found the ideal place where Delilah and I could be together, out of sight.
“So, Spade, any idea where this place is that Samantha found?” For the last four days, I hadn’t had a decent conversation with anyone. And when I did, all they wanted was money for liquor or drugs. It hadn’t mattered that they hadn’t eaten in two days.
“Yes, sir. It’s near the loading docks in Savannah. You might as well relax. We will be there in about four hours. Once we are outside of Atlanta, there will be another vehicle waiting for us.”
Savannah would be the last place that Cross would come looking for me. If he continued to believe that I was still in Atlanta, he would have no reason to look elsewhere. Maybe I should thank Gwen for telling him where Rui’s hideout was. But there was still Delilah. I knew Samantha had everything under control, but I needed to know that Delilah would be safe. “What about Delilah? Where is Samantha taking her?”
“She has a plan in place for Mrs. McCall as well. Samantha will be meeting Hugo where we stole the sedan. She’ll take her back to The Regency, where another car will be waiting. Hugo should be back at the hotel by then, ready to pick up Mrs. McCall. We have taken every precaution possible. Hugo will drive to the meeting place where the other car will be waiting for us.”
“And Cross. What if he uses his resources to find us?” Patton was the best hacker alive. If I had to guess, he was already hacking into the city’s street cams to track us.
“Samantha already thought about that too. We know that Cross has already accessed the security footage from the hotel. Given the location of the hotel's security cameras, there was no way we could prevent him from getting a visual of Mrs. McCall and me. We have to assume that this Patton guy has hacked into the city’s system and tracked the sedan to the alley where Hugo met Samantha. It’s simple, really. Hugo will put the original plates back on the sedan. When the owner of the sedan gets off work, Cross and his men will be none the wiser. As far as they know, it is Hugo leaving. They will have no reason to watch the street cam at that location knowing Hugo left. Hugo will notify Samantha when the owner of the sedan is long gone so she can head back to the hotel with Mrs. McCall. We only had a short window to make this plan work. The rest, you know.”
With Spade’s explanation, I got the reassurance I needed. It was a complicated plan, but an excellent one. Samantha thought of every possible loophole. By the time Cross figured out what was going on, his head would be spinning. If Samantha’s plan worked to get me out of Atlanta, maybe she could come up with a foolproof plan to get my diamonds back.
~22~
Davian
Just as we suspected, there was every indication that Salko’s hideout had recently been occupied. If we had found out about this place earlier, we might have avoided what took place at the old warehouse and Reyna’s kidnapping.
This side of the warehouse was a far cry from the side we just left. It was pristine with waxed floors, polished chrome support beams, and fixtures. There were two vehicles parked inside that were equally spotless. I pulled out my phone and took several shots of the vehicles and the plates. I was certain the plates would be registered to one of Salko’s bogus companies, but it was worth checking them out anyway.
As we explored the warehouse, Axe called out, “Over here, guys. There’s a freight elevator.”
All of us headed toward Axe, and he was already lifting the heavy metal gate that gave us access to the elevator’s platform. There were only four buttons to push and five of us. With only three other floors to search, Axe decided to go alone on the second floor while Mitch and Tyler searched the third, and Stone and I took the fourth.
When the freight elevator came to a stop on the fourth floor, Stone pushed the heavy metal gate upward until it stayed put. I didn’t know what to expect, but if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought we stepped onto the entrance of an exclusive hotel’s penthouse suite. The entrance floor was covered in black marble, which contrasted with the beige painted walls. Black lacquer coated the double doors, with the doorknobs brushed silver.
It didn’t surprise me to find the door locked when I turned the knob. Stone was right behind me to assist in opening the door. Pulling out the tools he needed to pick the lock, Stone went to work. Within seconds, he pushed open the door and entered first. His hand was on his gun, which was holstered at his side. I, on the other hand, held my gun firmly in front of me. My eyes were focused, and my ears tuned to any sounds.Salko had outdone himself, I thought as I looked around. It was just too bad that he wasn’t alive any longer to enjoy what he made of this place. It was open and spacious. The living area blended with the kitchen, and other than the bedroom and the bathroom, each corner of the large space was viewable from any point.
Stone was heading up the stairs cast in glass and iron when I heard someone enter through the door. With my gun drawn, I pointed it toward the door. Axe was standing in the doorway with his eyes on me. “Do you mind putting that thing down?”
Lowering my gun, I sighed with relief. “Sorry, Axe. Next time let me know you're coming up. Did you come up with anything on the second floor?”
“Not really. Just a bunch of beds and a couple of bathrooms with showers. If I had to guess, it was a shelter of some sort. Maybe for Salko’s men.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him to keep his men close. He needed all the protection he could get. With him dead, I wonder where they are now and how many there were?”
“There were ten beds,” Axe began. “My guess is at least ten of them.”
“Makes sense. If only we knew who they were.” It would have been nice to know, but close to impossible to find out.
I had barely placed my foot on the first step when Stone was on his way down. His rugged expression didn’t indicate if he had found anything. Axe and I backed away from the stairs and waited for Stone.
“There’s nothing up there but a bedroom with a connecting bathroom,” Stone offered as he came down the stairs. “The bed is unmade, and the tub was full of water. The water was cold, so it had been in there for a while,” he added.
