Bait the devil, p.13
Bait the Devil, page 13
Those secrets and Caleb’s own personal mission had put him in this spot.
Caleb checked his watch. It was midmorning. Vivian Montgomery had entered the building a few hours earlier. If Revach’s men were going to make a move, it wasn’t going to be during the daytime hours.
A few people walked along the sidewalk, but most did not linger or dawdle. The heat drove people inside. Caleb didn’t mind it. It was comforting. A reminder of his childhood and his years spent in the Corps during his multiple tours.
The female jogger caught his attention. No one jogged this time of the day.
Caleb pressed his binoculars to his face and zeroed on the jogger. She’d done an admirable job of blending in with the Western woman’s ideals of what she should wear to run in this heat. Big red flag was the slight hamsa tattoo on her right shoulder, exposed because of the revealing tank top she wore.
Caleb tossed the binoculars onto the seat next to him and started the truck. He’d leave Vivian Montgomery’s security to Eriksson’s men. Caleb had bigger fish to fry.
He trailed the jogger for several blocks. She met up with male in a manbun and a substantial beard who was wearing a folksy artist getup, a white tee smeared with charcoal, khakis held up by black suspenders, and flip-flops. He was set up by a café with an eye-rolling cutesy name, his easel loaded with a huge sketch pad.
Caleb parked his old beater on the opposite side of the street, among the sleek and shiny of Boise’s upper echelons. From the side-view and rearview mirrors, he observed the brief exchange between jogger and artist.
Information exchanged, the jogger went on her way—no doubt circling back to stake out from the opposite side of Montgomery’s law firm, wearing a whole new disguise. It’s what Caleb would have done.
The artist closed his sketch pad and broke down the easel. Once he had his gear stowed, he went inside the café. Caleb admired the genius of this location for criminal activity. Nothing about it screamed dark, scary, and deadly. The café was quaint, the neighborhood trendy, and the people ignorant. A far cry different than the places most criminal organizations liked to set up shop.
A good place to ply a bit of the trade.
The beauty of these old pickups was the room inside the cab for the driver. Caleb exchanged his hoodie for the faded and dirty army jacket that smelled of two-month-old body odor. In the mirror, he did a bang-up job of disheveling his long hair and beard and smudged dirt from the truck floorboard across his face, hands, and in his hair. A wad of chewing tobacco tucked in his mouth to scum up his teeth and gums pulled off the last touch. Satisfied with looking like a broken-down homeless vet, he grabbed up the ratty duffel he kept for such purposes.
Armed with the Beretta, he eased out of the pickup and locked it. He pocketed the keys and hiked along the sidewalk opposite the café. As he passed people walking along, he played the panhandler. As predicted, most wrinkled their noses at his stench and ignored him. One guy decided to be a self-described savior and urged Caleb to come with him to a place where he could get his life turned around. Caleb was finally able to wash his hands clean of the dick by hacking up the tobacco wad on his white canvas shoes. Disgusted, the man stormed off.
Free to get back to his mission, Caleb made his way through the light traffic to the same side of the street as the café. He was about three blocks down and sufficiently distanced from his truck. He kept up the panhandling gig, keeping on alert for any outlying watchers for Revach’s or Hassin’s people.
Reaching the café, he did what every good panhandler in need of a drink did, and using the duffel as a seat, he set up shop near the entrance under the shade of the canvas awning. Each new customer that came through, he begged for some change. With each attempt, he got wide-eyed and disgusted expressions.
He’d been there maybe fifteen minutes when he noticed the blurry edges to his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut and tucked his chin to his chest to stave off the inevitable blackout. After a few seconds, he tested his efforts with a peek. No blurriness, no headache. Good.
The café door opened and this time an employee stepped outside.
“Dude, you need to pack up and move on,” the young guy said.
Caleb peered up in a drunken manner. “Huh?”
The kid moved closer. “You need to leave. We have customers complaining.”
“Fuck,” Caleb moaned. “I just needed a rest.”
“Do it somewhere else.” The sour expression on the kid’s face was priceless, and he backed away.
Old BO for the win.
“Could I get a bottled water? It’s hot out here.”
“You gonna pay for it?” the kid demanded from a distance.
Caleb frowned and glanced down at himself, then at the disgusted employee. “It’s water, man.”
“Just leave.”
Caleb groaned. “Fine.” He exaggerated his struggle to stand and kicked out his bum leg for effect as he reached down awkwardly to pick up his duffel.
The playacting did soften the kid’s features, but it did nothing to make him rethink punting Caleb to the curb. He hobbled back the way he came, peeking over his shoulder to catch the kid watching him. Once Caleb rounded the primly trimmed bushes boarding the edge of the café’s property, he stopped, gave it a few seconds, then checked. The kid was gone, back inside the café.
Caleb pushed the leaves aside and spotted a courtyard with unoccupied tables. Too hot for the patrons to sit outside. And no windows along the building wall to see in or out. Perfect place to sneak in and do a bit of recon.
He slipped through a break in the bushes, dumped his duffel and the stinky jacket on the ground between the shrubbery, and entered the courtyard. Staying low and cautious, he circumvented the bricked patio and headed for the alley between the building and line of shrubs. The alley led to a narrow back street wide enough for just one vehicle to come down, be it a garbage truck or a delivery van. Jutting out from the back of the business was a set of stairs with pipe-style railing and a slight docking area. The swing-style doors were closed, keeping the hot summer air out. The rest of the back alley was clear.
Caleb doubled back to check his blind spots, found himself still in the clear, and then quietly climbed the steps, keeping his attention on the doors. He made the dock without incident.
The doors were not fully closed. Drawing his Beretta, he inched up to the door. He paused every few steps and strained to listen.
The RPG blast had not only taken half a leg and left him riddled with scars and shrapnel, it had also ruined his hearing. Being a whole man made him a fucking top-notch Marine, but he had other skills that had appealed to the Corps. His uncanny intuition had saved his ass in more situations than he cared to count. His fellow Marines had always teased him about being too jumpy or having weird Spidey-like senses. Caleb chalked it up to being a product of the life he’d been dealt. One had to be aware when an abusive foster parent was about to throw a slap or a punch.
It had failed him once. And once was one too many.
He eased up to the door left ajar and listened inside. Quiet. Slowly, he pushed the door inward and followed it. Inside, he eased the door shut to the near exact position it had been in when he entered.
The café’s cool storage was dimly lit and rife with freshly roasted coffee beans. It took Caleb’s vision far too long to adjust to the dimness. Retinal damage in both eyes from the blast had left him with a form of night blindness. He would have to be careful. To this day, he still marveled at how well he’d faked his physical for Eriksson’s task force. Long overdue justice had a way of fueling your needs.
Slowly, Caleb made his way through the shelves of dried goods and burlap bags of coffee beans, heading for a large square of light ahead. The source of that light came through large viewing windows in a pair of swinging doors dividing the main dining area from the storage.
The hiss of an espresso machine mingled with light jazz and the chatter of patrons. He could not let things go south with innocents nearby. Caleb came to the end of the shelves and followed another pool of light to a single door.
The door swung open. Caleb darted behind a pile of empty burlap sacks and crouched down. Manbun emerged from the room, turned off the light, and headed for the doors to the café. There was a burst of light as he pushed into the café, then it was gone as the doors slapped shut.
Caleb waited a few seconds for his eyes to readjust from the dramatic change in light, but the spots wouldn’t fade, and the darkness encroached. Through the haze, he heard the amplified beating of his pulse. Damn it, not now.
He took deep breaths, felt his equilibrium return, and then left the safety of the pile. Before he left, he would see what was in the back room. Follman had risked a lot to have Caleb taken out by sending in low-level thugs to do what Yonatan Hassin was better trained to do, because Caleb had discovered Follman’s off-the-books activities. If he was marked to die for Eriksson’s stupid-ass operation, then he damn well deserved to have the smoking gun to bust open this whole dirty scheme. Caleb would see to the end of Follman’s existence. It was the lifelong vow he would cash in.
He inched closer to the backroom, keeping an eye on the door into the café, and trying to find a better hiding spot. This close to the front of the business, there was no cramped hole for him to crawl into. If someone came through the café doors, he would be exposed.
Another wave of spots crossed his vision. The wave turned into a flood of darkness, and Caleb stumbled. He bumped a shelf, froze at the slight rattle of stainless-steel utensils. He couldn’t see a blasted thing and now his head was pounding. He had to get out of here before he passed out.
There was a break in the dark cloud, and he turned to get out. He was passing the café door when it flew open and slammed into his face. Jolted by the force, he staggered back, losing his balance on his prosthetic leg. His good leg buckled, and Caleb hit the floor hard.
He hadn’t even gotten his bearings when he was hauled upward and flung into the brick interior wall. The force of his head hitting the wall sent sparks flying across his vision. He tried to get his arms up to defend himself, but his assailant slammed his head into the wall again, and again, and again.
The sparks fizzled out. Caleb stopped feeling.
Darkness engulfed him.
Chapter Nineteen
Despite Larrabee’s warning and advisement, Vivian came to the office. She’d spent the prior day holed up working at her apartment, mulling over Cade Porter’s—or should she be calling him Caleb Podolsky?—reasons for breaking into her apartment and where Hal Jones might have run off to.
She’d also taken a deep dive into Caleb’s actual file that Dot and T.J. had left in her care. The man Caleb Podolsky was had been heavily influenced by the child Caleb’s life, but there were reports missing, like his actual foster care history. Vivian made a few calls to some people she knew in Las Vegas and was able to access Caleb’s full juvenile records. Except the Las Vegas courts would only allow the records to be sent to her office.
As for Hal, without knowing enough about the other lawyer, Vivian’s ideas petered out. She’d need an insider into Hal’s personal life in order to give Larrabee a better understanding on how to find the man. Vivian knew the perfect person to get her that information. Charley Ash. But for some reason, the man was nowhere to be found.
His paralegal informed Vivian he hadn’t seen or spoken to Charley since the day before. The same day he’d passed off the files on Cade Porter/Caleb Podolsky to Vivian. She pressed the paralegal about Charley’s routine and whether it was usual for him to be unaccounted for during an extended period of time when he wasn’t in the middle of a trial. The para told her it was, in fact, customary, because he and Hal Jones loved to play hooky now and again to visit a local golf course.
Except this time, Hal Jones was purposely hiding. Charley had no reason to be out. Far as Vivian was aware, no one outside of herself, Dot, and T.J. knew about Charley’s involvement with the Cade Porter and Hal Jones situation.
Vivian tried to focus on a few of her upcoming cases and wait to see if the man showed up. She struggled to remain on task. Cade Porter’s unexpected visit to her apartment and his menacing presence had left her more rattled than she cared to admit. Another reason to not be in her apartment. If the man could sneak in despite all her security measures, she was doomed if someone with more ill intent were to try.
At half past ten, Loren dropped by her office unannounced.
“Vivian, this was left for you, and Meredith gave it to me,” he said as he entered her office with a thick file in hand. “Are you doing okay?”
She took the file, glanced at it, saw the words Las Vegas, and then returned her attention to Loren. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you didn’t come in yesterday. Got me a bit worried, what with all this hoopla going on with Hal and whatnot.”
“Loren, I’m fully capable of handling things if they get hairy. You don’t need to worry about me. I was just taking a day for myself, which I haven’t done in I can’t remember when.”
His gaze flicked down to the file lying on her desk. “What’s that all about?”
She gave him a placating smile. “Just some light reading I need to do for another case.” She tilted her head. “Why did Meredith give it to you? And how did she get it?”
“Common procedure. If a file from an out-of-state court gets sent here, Meredith is the one to process it so we can keep track. I don’t know why she gave it to me.”
A little voice in the back of Vivian’s head whispered to her. Something about Loren’s reasoning was not right. Even if he’d read through Caleb’s juvenile records, he’d have no idea what it was all about.
“Well.” Loren clapped his hands. “If you’re sure you’re doing just fine?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then, I’ll leave you to your light reading.”
“Thank you for bringing it to me.”
He gave her a wide shit-eating grin. “My pleasure.”
Once he’d gone, Vivian stared at the closed door. Something was off with him. As long as she’d been a lawyer in this firm, she’d not once seen Loren just visit any of the nonpartnered attorneys. He kept to his domain, and all conversations were done in his office. And he’d never deliver a case file—that was beneath him. It was legwork for paralegals and secretaries.
Whatever. She had better things to do than pick apart Loren McLaughlin.
Vivian began her methodic research on Caleb Podolsky’s childhood.
By half past eleven, she gave up waiting on Charley. She’d pay him a visit. First, she stopped Charley’s paralegal again on the way out.
“Which golf course did Charley and Hal go to?” she asked.
The para removed his fashionably red reading glasses, tapped the curved part of an earpiece against his lips, and hmmmed. “I think they went to all of them in the city. But Charley had too many trials coming up to take time to play golf. I doubt he’s on the course today.”
“Would he be at home?”
The para shrugged. “Maybe. I do know he ritually goes to the YMCA to swim every morning. He and Hal were jocks back in the day and like to keep up the image.”
Vivian eyed the man. “Why does that not surprise me?”
Shrugging again, the para put on his glasses and resumed his work. Vivian left the firm with Charley’s address in hand.
The drive to his place was a short one. He didn’t live far from the firm.
Charley’s townhouse was a prime bachelor paradise. No families here. Her persistent knocking and hailing his Ring camera went unanswered.
Her summoning did bring forth the next-door neighbor. One very pissed off, very disheveled blonde in a skimpy blue silk nightie and matching robe.
“Do you mind,” she grumbled. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Sorry.” Not really. “I’m a colleague of Charley’s and I need to speak to him. Would you happen to know if he’s home?”
The blonde squinted at Vivian. “What kind of colleague?”
“The lawyer kind. Do you happen to know if he’s home or not?”
A noncommittal one-shoulder shrug was the answer. The blonde crossed her arms, pushing up her breasts, and tilted her head in that way unsecure women did when they sensed competition to their territory.
Charley, I hope to God you didn’t sleep with this woman. Or maybe he hadn’t and that was the issue.
Vivian put on her best compromising lawyer smile. “Do you know Charley well?”
“As well as a neighbor should.”
“If you’re trying to sleep during the day, what is it that you do, ma’am? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do mind, and it’s none of your business.”
Vivian nodded. “Then I’ll leave you to get back to your sleep.” She stepped down from the small portico.
“Like that’s going to happen.”
Vivian ignored the parting shot and made her way along the sidewalk back to her parked car.
“He was here early this morning.”
Vivian stopped and turned. The blonde had moved to the edge of her own portico and gripped the support post for the angled roof.
“I passed him going into my place as he was leaving. I think he likes to go to the Y and swim.”
“What time was this?” Vivian asked.
The blonde bobbed her head back and forth. “Between five and six. He doesn’t usually come back after his swim. I think he goes to the office afterward.”
How the neighbor knew this, Vivian wasn’t about to ask. Her suspicion that something had transpired between Charley and his neighbor was further confirmed when the blonde hugged herself.
“Did something happen to him?” she asked, then proceeded to gnaw on her lips.
“Why would you ask that?”
