Page 42 of Marked for Danger

“What about the wife?” Kim asked. “If she knew what the husband was up to—”

“Oh, she knew,” Izzy confirmed. “But they had a lot of powerful friends and even more money. Their team of lawyers would’ve put O.J.’s dream team to shame while Olly had to put his life in the hands of an overworked, underpaid public defender who did the bare minimum to qualify as having giving his client a full and fair defense.”

“So you get sent off to prison for defending your sister from a rapist while the actual offender and the woman who covered for him walk away free and clear.”

“What can I say?” Olly’s lips curved in a sarcastic smirk. “I’ve led one helluva charmed life.”

Grady looked directly in the man’s eyes and prayed he could see the sincerity behind his words as he said, “Thank you.”

Confused by the sentiment, Olly’s dark brows turned inward. “Why are you thanking me?”

“You sacrificed your freedom for the sake of your sister. That’s damn honorable, and I for one am grateful for what you did.”

The others joined in with their own version of the same, but soon the supportive words died down and Izzy spoke up again.

“I shared this with all of you because I wanted to make sure you understood the kind of man my brother really is. He’s never been into drugs, has had no run-ins with the law, either before or after that awful night, and he sure as hell isn’t in bed with Dante Valdez.”

“Boss said you drive delivery trucks for him?” Jacobs asked from his place across the table.

Olly nodded. “I do, but that’s not why I’m really there.”

“What do you mean?” Declan inquired.

Looking at his sister, Olly waited until Izzy gave him a nod before revealing his true motive behind getting a job with Valdez. And what the man shared surprised everyone in the room.

Chapter 9

All eyes were on Olly as they waited to hear the man’s true motive for agreeing to work for a man as crooked as Dante Valdez.

“The last time I was in the city, I met a woman. Her name is Rose Goodwin and, at the time, she was twenty-eight. Rose and I had a lot in common…both loners. Both have records. Our relationship was purely platonic, but I grew to care about her very much.”

“Where is Rose now?” Grady looked to the other man and waited.

“That’s the thing. No one knows.”

“You’ve been out of Denver, what…two years?” Declan pointed out. “Isn’t it possible Rose moved away from the area like you did?”

“No.” Olly shook his head with confidence. “I tracked down her best friend who still lives here. She told me Rose was doing really well. Had her own place and was excited because she’d just gotten hired on as a hostess at some fancy Mexican restaurant here in town.”

And just like that, it all came full circle.

“Let me guess.” Grady shifted in his chair. “The name of the restaurant is Los Cocina.”

Olly nodded. “I started asking around. Turns out, there have been half-a-dozen women, ages spanning from seventeen to thirty-four, who were employed by that same restaurant and are now missing.”

“Olly also found out there are seven other young women who worked at some of Valdez’s other businesses here in town who, after they were ‘promoted’ to a spot at the restaurant, are now also missing.”

“That’s it, then.” Grady looked at his boss. “The restaurant has to be the key.”

Riedell nodded, his hands resting low on his denim-clad hips. “I agree. That’s where our focus needs to be.” To the team he said, “Let’s start poking around. See what we can find out about these missing women. Maybe we can find something down that avenue that can get us a warrant to search.”

“If Valdez is using Los Cocina as a front, there has to be something there we can use.”

“But the FBI already said they suspected Valdez of using the restaurant as a front for his trafficking business,” Izzy pointed out. “If they haven’t been able to find anything useful by now, then how—”

“The Feds are held by a much tighter leash than we are,” Riedell explained.

“Not to mention, they’ve been looking into it as the big-picture type of investigation,” Kim pointed out. “It’s quite possible for them to have done a thorough investigation based off of what they had available at the time.”

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