Midnight Promises (24 page)

“Party last night?” Frederick asked, keeping his tone light.

Jorge grunted. He was sitting in Alfonso’s chair, forearms on the surface of the Chippendale table that had served Alfonso as his main desk. A satchel sat next to Jorge’s right hand. As Frederick walked closer he could see that Jorge was keeping himself upright by his arms on the table. Frederick checked Jorge’s eyes, overly bright with pinpoint pupils. Christ, the man was wasted.

Jorge was going to talk business stoned out of his mind.

With an inner sigh, Frederick felt a pang of pity for himself pulse through his system. He’d earned a lot of money off the Gutierrez machine and now it was coming to a close. Like most good things, he supposed.

“So,” Frederick said, sitting down on one of Chantal’s antique chairs, noting with a repressed shudder that the seat cushion was stained. He couldn’t bear to think of what might have caused the stain. “Here I am for my monthly report.”

He’d had a not-unpleasant monthly appointment with Alfonso, to deliver ongoing reports. Frederick was the Gutierrez family’s computer expert and the confidential conduit for communication with the various international…dealers Alfonso had business with. Alfonso owned two hotels, three nightclubs and four restaurants in Florida, which, being Alfonso, were exceedingly well run and turned a tidy profit.

But they were fronts for what earned Alfonso the real money—drugs, prostitution, people trafficking. All activities Alfonso managed at a remove with Frederick’s help. He never got his hands dirty, directing everything via secure computer, which was Frederick’s lookout. Vast amounts of money exchanged hands via bitcoins on the darknet, and every month Frederick visited Alfonso, he was treated to a superb brandy while delivering his report, and watched as 25K was deposited in his account in the Caymans.

Everyone was happy.

Since Alfonso’s death, the businesses, legal and otherwise, had been going to hell. Very quickly. Frederick would have left long ago if it weren’t for the fact that Jorge was desperately looking for Anne Lowell, Chantal’s daughter, Alfonso’s stepdaughter. Right after Chantal and Alfonso’s wedding, Anne had fled from her family, disliking everything about her mother’s new household. Anne had come from an upper crust family in Boston and hadn’t mixed well, to put it mildly.

She’d been gone years before Frederick’s association with Alfonso, and no one would have given Anne Lowell a moment’s thought if it weren’t for the fact that Chantal had died an hour after Alfonso, as his main heir. And then Anne had been Chantal’s main heir.

So she had inherited most of the estate, the above-ground one anyway, and Jorge had gone wild. Alfonso’s brother had sent his only son up to Miami to learn the business, and Jorge thought he had it made for life. But Alfonso soon understood his nephew’s weaknesses and had made sure to leave everything to Chantal. Who would probably have wisely put Frederick in charge.

Alfonso had never said a word to Frederick about his succession. Alfonso had been a very healthy self-disciplined fifty-year-old and Frederick had looked forward to many more years of happy association with an empire efficiently run by Alfonso. But that happy scenario had come to a crashing halt when a drugged-up teen slammed straight into Alfonso’s Porsche.

Frederick often wondered whether the teen had been hopped up on Alfonso’s product. Alfonso had had a great sense of irony and would have appreciated it.

Frederick had been sorry for Alfonso but above all, sorry for himself. Alfonso’s death had put a serious crimp in Frederick’s plan to sock away five million in the Caymans before forty.

“Give me your report,” Jorge said sullenly, slurring the words. With a sigh, Frederick complied, knowing that Jorge understood one word in ten. Concepts such as bitcoins, Tor, arbitrage, currency conversion flew right over his head.

Only one thing mattered to Jorge—Anne Lowell.

Jorge had somehow got it into his head that if Anne Lowell died, everything would become his. Magical thinking, of course. Anne Lowell would certainly never leave anything to Jorge in a will. Jorge had no concept of the legal issues pertaining to estates and succession. Somewhere in his drug-addled mind, a dead Anne Lowell equaled a magical return to prosperity.

Frederick did nothing to disabuse him of the notion. An obsessed Jorge was going to pay the monthly retainer forever, though he had no clue how to do that online. It was strictly cash, in a satchel. Frederick had upped his price to 50K a month and had stopped looking very hard. He’d found Anne Lowell. Twice. It wasn’t his fault Jorge was an idiot.

In college, majoring in computer programming, Frederick had had to take a course in creative writing and had been unexpectedly good at it. He loved movies and often thought he had the makings of a decent scriptwriter in him. Lately he’d been observing Jorge and his antics, thinking he could turn the situation into one of those tragicomic TV series everyone loved so much, like
Breaking Bad
.

Jorge and his minions trying to be crime lords, but fucking everything up. Frederick even had a title for the series.
Code Name:
Moron
.

It was so annoying, being paid in cash. The bills were probably all laced with cocaine. Jorge pushed the satchel of cash over to him and then fixed baleful bloodshot eyes on Frederick. “You find the bitch yet?”

“I’ve found her twice for you,” Frederick said, as he’d said many times before. “And both times your goons botched it.”

Either she was very, very clever or very, very lucky. Twice they’d killed the wrong girl. Now she’d completely disappeared.

And he’d stopped prioritizing her. Let Jorge stew in his juices.

Jorge pounded a fist on the desktop. He was sweating like a pig. The side of his fist left a sweatprint. “Find that bitch! Find her now!” Jorge’s attempt at being tough was beyond pitiful. “I’ll give you a bonus if you find her before May 1.”

Yeah
,
right.

Still, something was very wrong. Frederick had heard rumors that Jorge was deep in the hole with some very bad guys. Alfonso had left some well-run businesses but Jorge was crapping all over everything around him. He couldn’t get it out of his head that finding Anne Lowell and killing her would—poof!—make all his troubles disappear.

Jorge was a cretin who wanted to run with the big boys and was in way over his head. Not that Frederick gave a fuck. He planned on cashing in 50K a month until someone smoked Jorge.

A dead Anne Lowell was not going to solve any of Jorge’s problems. But Frederick wasn’t about to say that.

Frederick would find Anne Lowell again, sooner or later, though he wasn’t putting any effort into it. Who cared? As long as he was being paid, Frederick would keep at it on a low-level priority basis. Nobody could hide forever in a country with fifty million surveillance cameras.

Pity. Anne Lowell was, by all accounts, a charming, kind young woman who didn’t deserve getting whacked by a lowlife like Jorge.

But hey.

Copyright ©2015 by Lisa Marie Rice

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.
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