Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (16 page)

The smell of fresh paint still made her sad. This time, Lauren couldn’t lie to herself. Ryder wasn’t coming back. He had the ‘I walk alone’ thing down to an art form. Fine by her. He could work alone, live alone, and love alone. She didn’t need a man to be whole. Lauren’s hand shook as dialed Debi. “Can you come pick me up?”

Debi paused. “Everything okay?”

A knot formed in her throat. “Peachy. Just—” She cleared her throat. “Just pick me up. And bring the tip jar off my dresser.”

“
Where are you?”

In hell.
Lauren grabbed the notepad from beside the bed and recited the address. Debi promised to get there soon, then rang off. Lauren took her shower, brushed her teeth, fixed her hair, and locked the pain in the pit of her heart. In the mirror, she avoided her own gaze as she brushed mascara on her lashes. No, it wasn’t avoidance. She was not, under any circumstances, crying today.

After she dressed in yesterday’s clothes—skinny jeans, tall boots, and Ryder’s leather—she flipped open the curtains. The sun’s glare reflected off the deserted parking lot. Light stabbed through her eyes to lodge a dagger in the brain. She blinked several times to adjust to the brightness and felt the answering throb around her eye. Her body was battered, and her soul echoed like a hollow tomb.

Before she had time to turn into a raving lunatic, Debi’s little economy car pulled into the lot. The bright orange VW was too cheery, so Lauren pulled on sunglasses to dim the reflection. The large frames covered the purple and black bruises rimming her eyes. She buckled into her seat before looking over at her friend. “Let’s go spend the money in my tip jar.”

“
I thought you were saving that money for a rainy day.”

“
Honey, it’s pouring.”

Debi put the car into reverse. “That’s how it is?”

“
Yep.”

As they left the motel, Lauren didn’t look back.

Ryder watched Smythe go about his morning routine. The realtor didn’t know his days as head-asshole were numbered. So Ryder and Rose watched, took notes, and waited. This part of any operation sucked. Especially when they didn’t know what the hell they were looking for. Ryder sipped coffee from a lidded to-go cup. The stale brew burnt his taste buds.

A breeze blew through the open passenger window, keeping the temperatures low in the cab of Rose’s pickup. The radio was off, but traffic kept the silence from becoming awkward. Rose hadn’t said a word since Ryder had rousted him from sleep at zero-dark-thirty. “What did you find out from the owners of the meth house?”

“
Spoke to the wife. She didn’t know it was a meth house.”

“
Figured as much. Did they know Smythe?”

“
Oh yeah, she couldn’t wait to burn his ass. She—” Rose yanked his sunglasses off and tossed them on the dash. “What I know specifically is that she and her husband were separated. Husband took off with a bimbo—her words—leaving her with a kid and a mortgage. She was working with a lawyer on a divorce when Smythe told her the bank was foreclosing. Lawyer said it was a done deal and recommended she move out so they didn’t evict her.”

“
And?”

“
And she didn’t have anywhere to go. Stay-at-home mom, deadbeat dad.”

Ryder’s gut clenched. “I’m not going to like the next part.”

“
Nope.” A muscle flexed in Rose’s jaw. “She said she worked a deal with Smythe to stay in the house another two months before he evicted her.”

“
She slept with him to keep the house,” Ryder guessed.

“
She never said what she did, but given what he tried with Lauren, and the fact that this woman hated Smythe more than her ex, I’d say that’s a good bet.”

“
Sonofabitch.” Rage rode his body like a wild stallion. “Smythe needs to pay.”

“
We can go to the cops with what we know.” Rose grimaced even as he said the words.

“
Right. Because we’re on such good terms with cops.” Ryder had spent too many hours with the sheriff after Madigan’s suicide. They questioned his service record, and then questioned and impugned his name thanks to the Section Eight discharge courtesy of the Army. No one doubted Madigan’s suicide, but the bloody mess upstairs was another question. The time of death was hours before the showdown and Ryder wouldn’t give an alibi. He wouldn’t bring Lauren into his mess. It was obvious what had happened but the sheriff had some serious media attention on the problem. Madigan was dead, and there were still unanswered questions. Ryder became the poster child for PTSD, and the Army didn’t help because they’d declared him mentally unfit for duty.

The sheriff wanted to keep him the full seventy-two hours, but Rose had broken protocol and came to bail him out. Gave Ryder an alibi, and the sheriff had ungraciously let him go. If it ended there, maybe it would go away, but he’d been at the scene of Gault’s episode, another fucking minute too late.

“
There’s more.” Rose pulled his laptop from the backpack on the seat.

“
Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“
The call to the homeowner triggered more questions, so I did some digging. When I couldn’t get the information myself, I called Craft.”

“
Fuck.” Craft was communications. Tech, computers, and all around geek. “I told you to leave the team out of it.”

“
Craft has the skills to get into secure files.”

“
That sounds illegal.”

“
We need information, Ry. Any way we can get it.”

Ryder took another sip of the bitter and now cold coffee. The door they were watching opened after an hour of nothing. Smythe walked out with a woman half his age. He wore a gray suit with a bolo tie and a three hundred dollar pair of shit kickers. He plopped a cowboy hat on his head that no cowboy would be caught wearing. Dead or otherwise. As they crossed the sidewalk, Smythe put a hand on the small of the woman’s back, and then lower as they walked to his car. He held the door open for the woman, and when she hesitated, her stride hitched, Smythe leaned down to whisper in her ear. She nodded and dropped into the passenger seat.

“
Ballsy motherfucker. A hundred bucks says that woman has a house in foreclosure.”

“
No bet.” Rose shoved the laptop in the backpack before starting the engine. “I’d want to nail this prick even if he hadn’t messed with your wife.”

Anger rose and Ryder shoved it down. He coated his veins in ice as they followed the car to a nearby seafood restaurant. “We’re going in.”

“
I thought we were on surveillance.”

“
We are. We’re surveilling this motherfucker up close.”

Rose parked the truck on the street within sight of Smythe’s car. “At the risk of beating a dead horse, going inside is a mistake.”

“
Then park your ass outside. I’m watching this fucker in action.”

Rose shook his head sadly. “You’re off the reservation, son.”

If he was, he’d own it. The image of Smythe’s slimy old-man hands on Lauren churned like battery acid. The need for retribution flowed through his veins as they crossed the street and got a table near the booth where Smythe was putting the moves on a redhead. They ordered before either spoke again.

“
You have your head screwed on well enough to finish the briefing?”

Ryder tracked Smythe’s every move in his peripheral vision. “What did Craft find?”

“
The pattern goes back three or four years. Before that, Smythe was a no-account realtor with an office above a pawnshop. He specialized in HUD repos.”

Ryder took a drink of sweet tea. “Not much money in repos.”

“
Nope, and our boy likes to eat well.” He gestured at the menu prices. “Out of nowhere, he moves to an office on the better end of town. The thing is, he’s still dealing in repos and foreclosures.”

“
But?”

“
There’s a six- to eight-month lag between the time the homeowners move out and the final foreclosure paperwork.”

In the dim corner booth, Smythe poured the woman another glass of wine.

Ryder watched in sick fascination. There was nothing attractive about Smythe. He was skinny and gray. Even in the dim light, his skin was sallow, and a faded bruise rimmed both eyes. “I think Lauren really did break his nose.”

“
Good on her.”

Yeah, his wife was tough. But she shouldn’t need to defend herself. That was his job and he’d failed. He pulled out his phone and sent her a text.

Need me to bring lunch?

Her reply pinged back before he set the phone down.

No.

Well, shit, her pissy mood came through loud and clear. As the waitress set his salad in front of him, Ryder dialed Lauren’s phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Definitely pissed. Ryder focused on the slimy realtor in the corner. Keeping an eye on Smythe was worth her anger. He’d make it up to her tonight. Ryder ran with the logic, because if he let his emotions take control, he’d kill Smythe without regret. “He’s kicking out families and setting up meth houses. They work for six months while the bank foreclosure goes through the system, and they pack up and move to a new location before anyone knows what they’ve done.”

“
The houses are all in decent neighborhoods. Not one has shown up on the police radar, at least not that Craft could find.”

“
Smart plan for an asshole. Any commonalities?”

The waitress brought their meals. Ryder bit into his po’boy and waited for Rose to answer. Rose took his time chewing on fish and chips while the dirtbag across the room moved closer to the woman. Even the extra wine he plied her with couldn’t keep the grimace off her face.

“
Let me guess. All females. All alone.”

“
That’s one.”

They ate in silence for long minutes while Ryder beat himself up, because Rose didn’t and Lauren wouldn’t. Ryder had fucked up. He’d left Lauren alone. He wouldn’t, couldn’t do it again. “I assume you had Craft check my records at the mortgage company. Did any of my payments show up?”

Rose swallowed the last of his fish. “No, but they didn’t go directly to Smythe’s deposits either. But, uh, that’s not all.”

“
Jesus, did you sleep? What more could you get in the middle of the night?”

“
I slept. Craft worked his magic. After interviewing the lady with the meth house, I followed a hunch. There’s one more commonality, and you’re not going to like it.”

“
Nothing here to like. Spill it.”

“
All the women were in the middle of divorces.”

“
Not Lauren.” Ryder’s response was instant and visceral. He’d take down the courthouse before he let her divorce him. It was too final.

Rose ran his tongue over his teeth as if he were cleaning a bad taste from his mouth. “Here’s the thing. She did go to a lawyer. The same lawyer the meth house lady used. The same one she likely did,” Rose said, gesturing across the room.

Ryder pushed his plate back. “What the fuck?”

The people in the neighboring table looked over, their gazes wary. For the first time, Ryder realized he and Rose didn’t fit into the lunch crowd of men in suits talking business. They were blue jeans and t-shirts in a world of suits and ties.

“
Calm your ass.” Rose grabbed Ryder’s arm to lock him into place. “Lauren only visited the lawyer once. No paperwork was filed.”

“
When?” It shouldn’t matter.

“
About a month after Madigan.”

When he’d turned off his phone. He’d done it to protect her. So he wasn’t tempted to call her, because he’d needed to hear her voice more than he needed food or shelter. Hell, at the time, he had been camping in North Texas trying to get a lead on Gault. “I want copies of the lawyer’s file on Lauren.”

“
Ry, rolling around in the details is a bad idea.”