Deep Cover (11 page)

CHAPTER 13

S
elena Hernandez sipped at her caramel skim milk latte, smiling faintly at the delicate foam art swirled at the top. She savored the full-bodied flavor of the hearty roast, enjoying the simple pleasure of an excellent cup of coffee.

If only life’s problems were so easily solved with a hot beverage.

Her lunch date was officially late.

She abhorred tardiness. Being unable to manage one’s time was a sign of a messy mind.

If only it weren’t her twin brother holding her up.

Mateo walked into the café and found her immediately. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and took his seat.

“You’re late,” she said unnecessarily. Mateo didn’t care about being punctual, but Selena enjoyed pointing out that she knew he was purposefully needling her. “Please tell me you have a good reason for wasting my time, brother dear.”

“Charming as always,” Mateo said with an engaging smile. Mateo was quite handsome—
debonair
might even be the word—but he was a smug asshole when it suited him. “Did you order my latte, as well?”

“Of course,” she answered, moving to pull a spreadsheet free from her satchel. She settled her glasses on top of her nose and started reading. “A shipment from our friends in China was waylaid in Customs. We will not be able to get the necessary help to make the scheduled timeline, which puts us in a significant bind, as you can imagine.”

“Straight to the point, sister? Do you ever take a moment to enjoy a fine day? Breathe the salty air and let it invigorate your soul?”

“I don’t have time for that nonsense,” Selena answered with a short smile. “Besides, you do enough of that for the two of us.”

“A workaholic to the core. How did we share the same womb for nine months?”

“I’m sure I did all the work then, too,” Selena retorted, returning to the subject. “We’re going to need to find a new distributor if we cannot get our product out of Customs.”

“I’ve already told you I have a new distributor lined up. I know you think I do nothing all day but comb my hair and get facials, but I actually had a meeting with a particularly eager new potential partner who already has an established pipeline.”

Impressed, Selena said, “Is that so? And when did this happen?”

“When you were off in the Caribbean last week, entertaining those dreadful women you insist on calling friends.”

Selena waved off Mateo’s comment. “Friend is a loose interpretation. I like to think of them as useful and potentially profitable acquaintances.”

“However you choose to classify them.”

Selena chuckled, but it was time to speak of serious things.

“We do have a problem. Something that requires immediate attention.”

“A bigger problem than our distribution issue?”

“The latest batch is not promising.”

Mateo appeared shocked. “What happened?”

“The chemists aren’t sure. All we know is that it’s dangerous.”

Selena knew she didn’t have to say much more. Mateo swore under his breath. “This new batch was supposed to correct that problem.”

“Well, it didn’t. And now we have a mess to clean up.”

“Just dump the evidence in a drum and drop it off as chemical by-product. We pay for the service. No one will ask questions.”

“You are too cavalier and it’s going to end up biting us both in the ass.”

“And you worry too much. Thank God for all the Botox you put in your face otherwise you’d be Wrinkle City. You need to relax. Everything will work out.”

Bless his heart, the idiot
. Mateo didn’t understand the full implications of what was happening. “We’ve already attracted attention.”

Becoming serious, Mateo said, “I’ll find out who is on this task force and make them go away.”

“If you’d been more careful with the shipment manifest, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Mateo scowled. “Careful, sister. I am not to blame for this latest development. But I’ll handle it.”

“No. I will handle it.”

Selena had always been the stronger of the two, a fact their father used to lament, saying it wasn’t natural for a female to be so headstrong.

But Selena had inherited her father’s sharp mind and cutthroat disposition, whereas Mateo had inherited their mother’s love for fine things and fun parties.

“You don’t think I will succeed?”

“I love you, brother, but some things you are not cut out for.”

“Now you sound like Father.”

Selena reached over and patted her brother’s hand. “My apologies,
mijo
. I did not mean to bring up bad memories. However, too much lies in the balance. I will not trust that it is done properly unless I do it myself. That is my flaw, not yours.”

Mateo sighed. “Sister, you’re ever, as always, the smarter of the two of us. What can I say? Whatever you have in mind I am sure will work.”

Selena smiled, satisfied. “In the meantime, I need you to follow up with the new distributor. We have a timeline to keep and investors to keep happy.” She grabbed her purse and prepared to leave, surprising Mateo.

“Aren’t we having lunch?”

“Sorry, my schedule is packed. Perhaps if you’d arrived on time...”

Selena rose and tossed a few bills onto the table before pressing a kiss on her brother’s cheek and exiting the small café.

A woman’s work was never done.

* * *

Shaine, Marcus, Poppy and Victoria all gathered at headquarters to compare notes. Victoria was the first to start the conversation.

“Since Ramirez isn’t coming, we need to clear the air,” she said, shocking Shaine. “The elephant in the room is that you left your mics on and we heard everything between you two that night.”

But Poppy surprised him more when she said, “Yes, it’s true. Shaine and I withheld that we had history because we didn’t feel it was relevant to the case. I’ve already informed Ramirez and now it’s no longer a secret we need to hide. As long as we remain professional, everything should be fine.”

“Why’d you tell her?” Shaine asked, irritated that Poppy took matters in her own hands. “You could’ve discussed this with me first. It affects me, too.”

“I overheard a conversation Ramirez was having with Hobbs about her misgivings about us as a team and I decided to put her fears to rest.”

“You could’ve let me handle it,” Shaine growled. “Your gamble could’ve cost us the case.”

“And how were you going to handle it? Lie? That would’ve made things worse,” Poppy returned coolly. “I took action. It worked out. Deal with it.”

Shaine knew now was not the time to hash this out. Poppy was right in that since things had worked out, it was best to leave it be, but he was still pissed.

He turned to Victoria and Marcus. “So the question remains, do either of you have a problem with the fact that Jones and I have history?”

“If it doesn’t affect your ability to close this case, I couldn’t give a crap,” Victoria answered, looking to Marcus. “Your turn.”

Marcus shared a look with Poppy. “I trust you. If you say there’s nothing to worry about, I’ll go with that.”

“Thank you, Marcus,” Poppy murmured, nodding to Victoria, as well. “I promise we can be professional.”

“Glad that’s over with,” Shaine grumbled. “Can we get back on point?”

“Happily,” Poppy said.

“Good,” Shaine said. “Since Capri didn’t have any family who was interested in her well-being, I think we should ask the people she hung around with. Someone has to know what Capri was into. The other night, I was actually invited to the warehouse by a friend of Capri’s. Her name was Carly but I didn’t get her last name. Unfortunately, she wrote her name and number on my palm and that’s already gone.”

Poppy jumped in. “I might be able to help with that. Maybe Big Jane knows who Carly is. She seemed soft on Capri.”

“Good idea,” Marcus agreed, and Poppy added another tidbit.

“Another thing, Capri had said something to me on the drive over to the party about Raquel. Something had gone down between Raquel and another dancer, but Capri wouldn’t elaborate. She just said that I should stay away from her, saying that Raquel was dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” Shaine asked.

Poppy wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. But I’ve had dealings with Raquel and the woman is a nightmare. Not that Brandi is much better, but at least Brandi isn’t so openly hostile. Raquel has a permanent chip on her shoulder.”

Poppy looked to Marcus. “I want you to run a background on Raquel and see what you can come up with. I want to know why she has a scorpion tattoo on her back. It might be related to our target or could be completely coincidental. But we won’t know unless we dig.”

Shaine approved of the plan, liking Poppy’s direction. “And I’ll try to find Carly. Hopefully Big Jane knows who she is. Something tells me that there’s a tight circle surrounding the Bliss operation. Someone has to know something.”

Poppy remembered something else. “Another thing, Big Jane mentioned something about Brandi and Capri’s relationship that seemed worth digging into. Big Jane implied that Brandi bullied Capri frequently.”

“Do you think it’s more jealousy?” Victoria asked.

Poppy wasn’t sure. “I’ve seen jealousy between these girls but this seemed deeper.”

“I’ll run a check on Big Jane and see what comes out on her.”

Both Shaine and Poppy nodded in agreement.

Shaine recapped, “So here’s the deal, we’re still no closer to finding out who El Escorpion is and we have a dead girl. We need to broaden our search beyond Lit because I really don’t believe they wouldn’t be so stupid as to mess where they eat.”

Shaine added, “Angelo had mentioned bringing me into a business proposition but he hasn’t said anything since. I don’t know if he’s gotten cold feet or he’s just distracted. I don’t know the guy well enough to know if this is normal or if I should be concerned.”

“Maybe bring it up?” Victoria suggested, but Shaine shook his head.

“I don’t want to seem overeager. Besides, if he is our guy then I don’t want to do anything to spook him. Right now, I think he trusts me and I want to keep it that way.”

“We can check out Grind and Tank but I think Lit is our best chance,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “I believe Angelo’s our guy. He fits the profile. Slick, smart and hungry. The guy has ambition. See if there’s anything we can pull out of his background to use as leverage. We’ll have Miami PD run his prints and see if anything shakes out. Even if we can get him into custody to shake him up, that might be enough to make him make a mistake. Right now he’s too comfortable, too secure in his own safety. Whoever El Escorpion is, they must be pretty damn powerful.”

Victoria pulled some documentation. “I did some research on my own, widening the search. I came across something in a customs report that flagged my interest.”

“What is it?” Shaine asked, reading the document. “It looks like a bunch of pharmaceutical chemicals.”

“Exactly. And they were headed to a pharmaceutical company right here in Miami—Amerine Labs. However, none of those drugs listed are on the manifest for that company. All companies dealing with this type of chemical compound must report what they’re using it for.”

“And what happened to the shipment?” Marcus asked.

Victoria shrugged. “Nothing. No one has come forward to claim it. The name on the packaging is a dummy name. The address doesn’t exist. Whoever was coming for that shipment disappeared with the wind.”

“Then I guess it’s time to make a trip to Amerine Labs to talk with whoever may have ordered the chemicals.”

Poppy frowned. “Don’t you think it’s a little stupid of whoever ordered the shipment to put it in the name of the pharmaceutical company? That’s way too easy to track down.”

“What if they’ve been doing this for quite a while and it always passed under the radar? They’d have no reason to feel insecure or nervous until now.”

“True. If that’s the case it could mean that the pharmaceutical company itself is dirty.”

“Or, it could mean that someone within the company is dirty and is using the company as a front.”

So many variables. So many alternate and completely viable conclusions.

Shaine mused quietly, “I can’t shake the feeling that Capri was killed for a reason. The girl wasn’t afraid of anything. She was too young and too dumb to realize that she was in danger. But I think she knew too much and whoever did this to her knew that one slip on Capri’s part could bring everything tumbling down. Basically, she was a liability.”

Poppy agreed, saying, “That makes sense. Capri brought me to the party and secured the Bliss.”

Victoria said, “And what if that was done purposefully? So that if any questions arose there was plausible deniability. And now she’s dead, so no one can be asking her any questions about where the Bliss came from.”

But Poppy didn’t agree. “But I know where the Bliss came from. It came from DJ Raven. I saw him give it to her.”

“DJ Raven is likely a lower level dealer. Chances are he has no idea who he’s getting his product from. However, let’s bring him in and shake him up. Maybe if we squeeze hard enough something interesting will pop out,” Marcus suggested, seeming as if he would enjoy that interrogation.

Shaine nodded. Maybe there weren’t so many dead ends, after all. “So while you’re chasing down the Raven angle, I’m going to find Carly. Poppy is going to talk with Big Jane and Victoria is going to find more information on where that customs shipment originated from.”

Victoria and Marcus nodded and scooped up their paperwork, leaving Shaine and Poppy behind. It was important that none of them left at the same time, so Poppy and Shaine agreed to hang back.

But that also meant that they were alone together, which was intensely uncomfortable.

“How are Sawyer and Silas?” Poppy asked, making conversation.

Ah, his favorite
. Small talk. “They’re good. Sawyer is in the white-collar crime division chasing down identity thieves and Silas is working in the child abduction division. But I haven’t seen either since Christmas. Things have been pretty busy for all of us.” He waited a beat then asked, “How are your parents?”

“Same judgmental pair. Still colossally disappointed in my choices. Good times.”