Angel Tormented (The Louisiangel Series Book 3) (26 page)

“What for?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Okay, I deserve that,” she said, although
she did look upset. “It’s nothing new, and I’m not apologizing for something
we’re about to do: I owe you a huge apology for pretty much everything up to
this point. We abandoned the House and Michael is gone.”

“Michael’s not gone because you left. Even
if you’d stayed, he still wouldn’t have let you join us,” I pointed out.

“No, but we could have been helping you
and Cupid out, instead of relying on the angels, not that I’m complaining about
them,” she hurriedly added before I could correct her. “They really did do a
good job with the food last night, and the convent is a lot cleaner than I
expected, so I know they’re more than capable of doing the chores.”

“I wish they would believe that
themselves,” I sighed. “They bring a whole new level to ‘self-confidence
issues’.”

Veronica looked back to the building, as
though she couldn’t meet my gaze. “I think I owe them an apology too.”

I frowned. “I wasn’t implying anything.”

“You don’t need to. Considering it’s not
our job to pass judgment on mankind, it’s not stopped us spending millennia
doing it to our own kind.” She turned back to me then, her eyes bright. “You
did a really good job last night. That was the first time I’ve ever known us to
take orders and not complain.” She frowned, briefly. “That’s not completely
true. You didn’t really give any orders – just requests. Even Michael has never
spoken to us like that.”

“That can’t be true either,” I said.

Veronica shook her head. “Michael never
treated us like were equals. Not that I would expect him to – he was in charge
of the House, and he was one of Heaven’s highest ranking angels – we have a
hierarchy for a reason. But you don’t see that.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I was a
human first. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if you’re the cleaning lady
or the CEO – you still get treated with the same level of respect until you’re
a douchebag to me.”

“Either way, it’s not gone unnoticed.
Joshua’s coming,” Veronica suddenly announced. “I’ll leave you, but I just
wanted you to know you’re going to make a good lead for the House.”

Then she was gone.

“Is everything okay?” Joshua asked as he
slipped in. He let out a groan and turned the engine on. “I need these bruises
to go,” he complained as the air conditioning kicked in. He was once again in a
turtleneck; despite the fact the temperature was once again bordering on 100F.
When I awoke this morning, all trace of injury was gone. Joshua’s bruises were
just starting to take on a shade of green. I couldn’t even wear a turtleneck in
sympathy. At least I didn’t need to ask him to warm the car up when he set it
to arctic temperatures. “The whole team was making fun of me.”

“They’re probably jealous that you make
that look good,” I grinned at him.

“You think?” he returned with a smirk.

“You know,” I retorted.

Although he was rolling his sleeves up,
Joshua was looking happier. “I spoke to Missing Person’s about Alexander Ramsey
Senior. Apparently, his son was his only next of kin, and vice versa. His wife
killed herself about twelve years ago.”

“What do they think happened to him?” I
asked, carefully.

“No movement in his accounts, but the IRS
was starting an investigation against him and his company. They were set to
come in next Monday.”

“Do you think that’s why what’s happening
tonight is happening tonight?” I asked.

“I do. They think that Ramsey got wind of
it and used his shipping connections to get out of the country. Depending on
what country he went to, it’s reasonable to say that’s why his accounts hadn’t
been touched – they think he’s on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Or at
least, they did, until I told them about Alex Junior,” Joshua explained.
“Either way, if Missing Person’s knew, there’s a very good chance that Asmodeus
does too.”

We returned to A. R. International. There
were only a handful of cars there today, but it was the same lady on reception
when we walked in. “You’re back,” she said, looking worried.

“I apologize for yesterday, ma’am,” said
Joshua, calmly. “We hadn’t been informed of Mr. Ramsey Senior’s disappearance.
Unfortunately, his son was found murdered yesterday morning and it looks like
he was either coming from, or going to work.”

“Little Alexander?” the woman gasped, her
hands covering her mouth. “How awful.”

“I’m sorry to deliver the bad news. Is
there anyone we could talk to so we can verify his work pattern?” Joshua
continued, sympathetically.

The woman frowned. “His manager, Ryan,
isn’t in work until this evening, but the other shift manager might know. Just
a moment.” She reached for something behind the desk. It was a small radio.
“Earl, it’s Sandra. Are you receiving?”

“Go ahead, Sandra.”

“Can you come to reception? There are some
police officers who need to speak to you about Alexander.”

“Just let me get this carton secured. I’ll
be about twenty minutes.”

It was closer to thirty minutes when Earl,
a short man, maybe in his late forties, appeared. He was trying to wipe away some
of the grime and sweat that covered his face as he walked in. “How can I help
you, detectives?”

“Earl…?” Joshua asked as a hand was
offered.

“Cook. Earl Cook. Sandra said you needed
to speak to me?” he clarified as they shook hands.

“I have some bad news about Alexander
Ramsey Junior,” Joshua said.

Earl nodded. “I thought you might when he
didn’t turn up for his shift last night.”

“He was found murdered yesterday morning,”
Joshua confirmed. “If you’re feeling up to it, I need to ask you some
questions.” Earl nodded. “It looked like Alexander-”

“Junior,” Earl corrected him. “He’s
Junior.”

“Junior,” Joshua amended himself. “It
looked like Junior was either on his way to or from work.”

“Yesterday morning? Yes, he’s got the
night shifts this week,” Earl confirmed. “Tonight is the last night, then a few
days off before switching to days.”

“And what time do the night shifts
finish?”

“We do twelve hour shifts: six until six.”

“Do you know if Junior had any enemies?” I
asked.

Earl stared at me, taking his time before
answering. “He didn’t discuss that with me.”

“Is there anyone he might have had that
conversation with?” Joshua asked.

“Maybe Juan or Chris?” Earl shrugged. “I
can get Sandra to provide you with their contact details.”

“Were you working last night?” I asked
suddenly. “You said he didn’t show up.”

“I’m D-Shift. We’re running opposite to
B-Shift, so I found out when I was giving their manager the handover. And
before you ask, after leaving here yesterday, I had a late dinner with my
family, then spent the whole night in bed. My wife can verify that,” Earl responded,
defensively.

“You said Sandra could provide us with a
contact list?” Joshua quickly asked. We waited for Sandra to print out the
information, and then left her and Earl. “You were direct with him,” Joshua
noted. “Did you pick up on something?”

I shook my head. “Not in an angelic
sense,” I told him. “I thought he was a bit weird when he said he didn’t
discuss any enemies of Junior’s. Oh!” I exclaimed. “That list! Is there a
Madeleine Sophie on it?”

Joshua looked, scanning it over, and then
shook his head. “Only one woman on the list, but as far as I can remember, it
doesn’t match any of the names from Asmodeus’ calendar.”

He handed it over and I checked. “No, not
a match.” I leaned back against the car, staring out at the river. From where
this building was located, it offered a view of the river, the Mississippi’s
brown waters visible between stacks of shipping containers. “Perhaps Junior’s
murder is one of those weird coincidences and it’s not directly related to
what’s happening here tonight. We should see if anyone else has managed to
uncover-”

“Stella!” Joshua blurted out.

“Who is Stella and why would we want her
uncovered? Why are you thinking about uncovering a woman?” I asked, carefully.

He looked confused, but his attention was
on something in front of him. He pointed and I looked, expecting to see a woman
walking past, but there was nothing but a boat in the distance. “The container
ship,” he said, still pointing.

I looked out to the water. I just caught
the back end of the ship before it disappeared from view… and the name painted
in white on its back end.
Stella
. “The boat is called Stella?”

Joshua turned to me, nodding. “It’s a
ship, not a boat, but yes.”

“Is it named after someone you know?” I
asked, really not getting his excitement. “Or do you go ship spotting in your
spare time?” I knew train spotting was a thing, so maybe ship spotting was too?
Either way, he was getting far too excited about a boat – sorry, a
ship
.

“Madeline Sophie?” he said, rolling his
eyes at me. “What if those names in his diary are names of ships?”

My eyes went wide. “That’s genius!”

“I’m not just a pretty face, darlin’,” he
beamed.

“I never thought you were,” I assured him.

“Good,” he said. “Now let’s get back to
that convent so I can get in some air conditioning.”

* * *

“We think the women’s names are ships,”
Joshua explained to Cupid and Leon a short time later. “We went via the Harbor
Master and they’re going to email over a list of all the ships that passed
through the Port of New Orleans in the last six months.”

“Did you ask about Madeleine Sophie?”
Cupid asked.

“Due in tonight at eight o’clock,” I
grinned. “We know where, we know when, and we know how.”

“We might be able to find out what,” Leon
said, pulling out his phone. “I’ve worked with the Harbor Police several times
now. It’s amazing how many people think that throwing a body or evidence in the
river will dispose of it for them,” he explained as he scrolled through his
phone and dialed. “Joey, it’s Leon… how are you doing…? Look, I need a favor – there’s
a ship coming in tonight. Can you tell me what the cargo is?” There was a large
pause. “Yeah, that’s fine, but you need to be discreet… Joey, there was nothing
discreet about that!” Leon laughed and hung up. “He’s going to call me back.”

“Can we trust him?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Leon, simply.

“What are you thinking?” Joshua asked,
folding his arms.

“What if we could stop the boat from
docking?” I suggested. “Maybe get everyone evacuated off it – I guess maybe
someone could start a small fire? It would hopefully get everyone off who
wasn’t one of the Fallen.”

“Then what?” Cupid asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. How many
cherubs would it take to empty the ship?”

“That wouldn’t work,” Cupid sighed. “It
would take a couple of hours maybe, and people would start to notice when the
containers started to disappear.”

“I don’t think we need to stop the ship,”
Leon said slowly. “I could probably get the ship delayed long enough for some
of us to get onboard to look around, but given the times Asmodeus had down in
his diary, I’d bet his containers would be the first to be unloaded: it would
take all night to get everything off.”

“What we need is a delay in those items
leaving the port. We need to know if they’re getting loaded onto a train, or
straight onto the back of a truck,” Joshua said.

Leon nodded. “Let me call Joey back and
see what I can find out.” He stepped out of the room.

Before he could return, Garret and
Veronica appeared. “Is Asmodeus on the move?” I asked her.

“No, Garret has something to say,” Veronica
declared, barely listening to what I had asked. She was fuming. “Tell them.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is,”
Garret actually whined.

“It’s breaking and entering!” Veronica
yelled, stamping her foot.

“You broke into somewhere?” Joshua asked.

Garret glared at him. “You couldn’t arrest
me, even if you wanted to.”

“Arresting you is really not what I want
to do when I see you,” Joshua snapped. Even though he wasn’t alone in that sentiment,
I sank into a chair, rubbing at my temples. How did parents do it? Forget that,
how did
teachers
do it?

“What’s all the shouting?” Leon asked,
hurrying back into the room. “Oh, the children are back.”

“We’re not children,” both Veronica and
Garret objected.

Could have fooled me.

“Well you’re certainly acting like
children,” Leon pointed out. “So unless you want to calm down and act like an
adult, you can leave the room and let the adults talk.”

Damnit, they listened.

“Last night I entered the Ramsey Shipping
offices,” Garret said. “But there was no
breaking
in.”

“Just because you can get yourself in and
out faster than a person can blink doesn’t mean it’s not classed as breaking
and entering,” Joshua hurriedly pointed out.

“I told you so,” Veronica sniped at
Garret.

“Whatever!” Garret shrugged. “If you don’t
like it, I just won’t share the information. See if I care.”

I was about to say something, when I
noticed Leon was looking on the floor for something. “Have you lost something?”
I asked him.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just
looking for the pacifiers these two spat out.”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it.
When I looked at the two cherubs and saw their mortified expressions, I just
laughed harder. Eventually, I calmed myself down, though not before wiping the
tears from my eyes. Who knew Leon had such sass? “I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“But that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. Your daughter must love you.”

Leon smiled. “I spoke to Joey again. He’s
got the cargo manifesto for the Madeleine Sophie and it is only registering
electronics from China. It’s arriving via the Panama Canal, which isn’t
completely unusual, but raw materials tend to be shipped in over finished
goods: it’s nothing that is raising alarms with Harbor Patrol. Either way, the
breakdown of what’s going where once it’s been unloaded is up to the shipping
company. That information is not shared with him.”

“Until you interrupted me, I was going to
say that I had that information,” Garret jumped in.

“What did you find out?” Joshua asked,
when it was evident that Garret wasn’t going to just share that information.

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“Garret, stop being an idiot and please
just share with us whatever information you got,” I sighed, wearily.

“The Madeleine Sophie has 4080 containers
on it. The majority are staying on it – the Port of New Orleans is just a stop
along the way. Most of the containers coming off are split up in fairly big
chunks between different companies. There are fifteen that have single
container orders.”

“So we need to work out which one is
Asmodeus’,” I said. “That makes it a lot easier.”

Garret pulled a sheet of paper from his
pocket, opening it out and holding it up. It looked like a delivery note of
some kind. “Seven Princes Limited.”

“Does the ego of these guys have no
limit?” I said, mouth gaping in disbelief.

Leon peered at the paper. “We have a
container number and onward bound instructions: it’s getting loaded onto a
truck and taken to Georgia.”

“Not if we get to it first,” I said.

“We should go get kitted up,” Joshua said
to Leon. I shot him a look, but he shook his head.

“Can’t blame a guardian angel for trying,”
I sighed.

* * *

We waited until the cover of darkness to
go to the port. The night shift had started an hour prior to our arrival. Even
though I knew they were going to be unloading part of the cargo ship and it
would take them most of the night, I had been holding onto the hope that there
would be less people about. The area was also well lit.

My sword was tucked into my jeans, the
handle already accessible, but my main weapon was my bow. Both Cupid and I had
taken high vantage points. He was on an unused crane at the far side of the
dock, while I was a bit lower down. He’d dropped me off on top of a stack of
three containers with Joshua. The way they were stacked meant that we’d be able
to get down relatively easily, but our current position had us lying on our
stomachs.

I was glad the sun had set at this point,
because the metal was still warm. Beside me, Joshua had finally ditched the
turtleneck for a black t-shirt, but he was now wearing a bulletproof vest, and
I could see from the sweat beading at his temples that he was still hot. I had
suggested he could be cooler by staying at the convent, but he had ignored me.

Okay, I’d said I wouldn’t physically try
to stop him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make suggestions to the
contrary when I could.

“That looks like it,” Joshua suddenly
whispered. He’d been watching the water, but as soon as he had spoken, he had
picked up his binoculars. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

I looked out to the water. Almost parallel
to the dock was a boat. No, ship was definitely the right word: a boat implied
something small, like the little tugs rushing out to meet it. This ship was
enormous and the closer it got, the bigger it got.

Whenever I’d seen the ships passing along
the Mississippi, they’d always been in the center of the river. I knew they
were big, but I’d seriously underestimated the size. No wonder it took all
night to unload one. The other thing I’d never noticed was how they docked. I
guess I had been imagining them driving (sailing?) up to the side of the dock,
but it turned out the little tug boats were there to push it in. Who knew?! I
was pretty disappointed that I wasn’t going to see them unload it, especially
when these weird four-legged crane things started driving up.