Laszlo Read online

  “Who knows? I’ll run a trace on it and see what happened. I presume you still have the license plate, etc.?”

  Laszlo repeated it. Apparently he’d memorized the number. Then he gave the model. “It was stolen five days ago.”

  The cops nodded. They were busy taking down notes.

  At that point, one of the officers started asking her more questions, and she realized she was having her statement taken. At least she hoped so. “I’m supposed to go to the station this morning at ten to sign a statement I gave already. These two guys seem to think this is all related. I don’t know that it is, but I hope so, in a way. I don’t really want to think I’m up against two sets of assholes who are unrelated.”

  Carson glanced at her and said, “Explain.”

  But he didn’t sound terribly surprised, so she didn’t know how much back history he knew already. Still, if she was going through with this, she needed to at least make sure she told him as much as she could. Especially considering the issue had escalated. So, as clearly as she could, she explained what had happened to her up until now.

  “If you talk to Officer Charter at the station,” she said, “he’s supposed to have my statement ready for me to sign today.”

  “I’m not sure if that’ll happen,” Carson said quietly. “He was in a car accident two days ago.”

  The air in the room electrified.

  Laszlo stood, walked to the kitchen and leaned against the counter of the sink. “Was it an accident?”

  Carson looked at him. “Without this incident, we would have thought so. But are you suggesting that potentially the same people who sent these two after her might have killed a cop or might have gone after a cop?” His voice was hard, curt, but Laszlo’s nod had him swearing softly. “It’s not that we don’t care about what happens to you,” he said by way of apology to Minx, “but to go after a cop completely changes the game. Though I’d doubt it at this point. There are enough victims connected to this killer that we don’t need another one, especially a cop.”

  “I hope the cop is okay, but he hadn’t been too helpful,” she admitted. “He did, in a way, not so much as try to talk me out of filing the report, but he wanted me to be sure I was prepared to go through with this because he said it could get ugly.”

  “It can get ugly once you start smearing names and bringing up sexual harassment charges. But they generally aren’t deadly. Although I don’t know this person you’re accusing. I don’t even know the office where you work,” Carson said. “So I can’t see how any of this got so ugly this fast. It doesn’t make any sense. Obviously he could face loss of pride, his job and his career, and might also cost him his life savings defending himself in court. To him, that might be enough to go to these lengths, but he’s not a famous politician. He’s not a huge businessman or I’d know his name and his face already.”

  She shook her head. “That’s why I wasn’t thinking this would be much of a big deal. Something else must be going on, or he just doesn’t like being crossed.”

  “Which you already know he doesn’t,” Laszlo reminded her. “You got shunted off to a job in a different office entirely, basically demoted.”

  “He had the power to do that?” Officer Everett asked.

  “He’s very well-loved at the office,” she said shortly. “I imagine a lot of people would do things either for him or on behalf of him.”

  The two cops nodded. “We’ll take these two to the station and see what they say.” As they brought the two men to their feet, Carson asked them, “Do you have anything to say?”

  “No.”

  The second man just glared at them.

  He nodded. “No problem.”

  “I’ll forward the strangler’s taped confession and the email with the hit ordered on Minx,” Laszlo told Carson.

  “Don’t forget about the middleman,” Geir said. “These two men were hired to do this, but there was a man in between them and whoever wanted her killed.”

  “And, of course, they haven’t shared the handler’s name?”

  “The name Bill Fenders came up, but neither are talking.”

  “No, of course not. It’s also likely a fake name. I’ll get a statement written up.” He glanced at his watch and shook his head. “It’s probably cutting it a little too close to get it ready by the time you come down at ten this morning. But I might be able to squeeze you in, and we can get it done at the same time.”

  “If you could, that would be great. I’m taking a stress leave day as it is. But I won’t get too many free days before it starts counting against my work record and adds to the fuel of me not deserving to have a job here at all,” she said caustically.

  “Understood.” With that the two cops moved the two bound men forward in front of them.

  Geir and Laszlo stepped in to help. They apparently wanted to make sure the cops got the men safely out of here.

  Self-consciously, but needing to see the men taken away, Minx followed the group outside to the cop car and waited until they were secured in the back of the cruiser. As she stepped beside Laszlo, she asked, “Are they safe like that?”

  “You notice the cops didn’t untie their arms, right?”

  She nodded. “I guess they can’t do a whole lot then, can they?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The question is whether anybody’s watching your place, looking for an update, and will be unhappy with these men and do something about it.”

  She spun and looked at him. “Are you talking about potentially taking these men out?”

  “It depends. I don’t know what’s going on. That they would make an attempt like this surprises me. It could also be the handler interpreted the instructions in a different way. It could be a blanket statement—take care of her. Our strangler interpreted it as killing you, and these guys were going about it in their usual fashion.”

  “It kind of sucks that anybody can turn around and just say, Take her out. I want to remove this problem, so make sure she doesn’t come back again. It pisses me off even more.” Her voice sounded tired. “You know? Just when you think you’ve left the gutter, you realize the gutter never leaves you.”

  “Sometimes you do the best you can, and life doesn’t cooperate, but that doesn’t mean you give up. It’s very important you keep going as planned. Walk the high road until the low road can’t jump up and grab you anymore.”

  “I thought I had,” she said quietly. “I thought I’d done everything. When I went to the cops, I did so for justice, not just for me but for the others.” She shook her head. “And look what happened.”

  “But you’re alive, and you’re safe,” Geir reminded her. “Although, until we get a hold of the middleman and potentially the man who placed the order, we can’t guarantee there won’t be a second attempt.”

  “I was afraid you would say that.” She spun on her heels and walked back inside.

  Instead of saying anything to the men as they came in, she headed straight to the bathroom and had a long hot shower. She didn’t even know what to say. It was too much like having that scummy world of her childhood back again.

  As she let the hot water pour over her head, she wondered if she would ever escape her history. When she was done, she stepped out and dried off. In the bedroom, she got dressed for the day. Whether she liked it or not, a new day had begun.

  Laszlo walked back in behind Minx, watching as she headed to her bedroom and closed the door. He glanced around the small kitchen and then took a look at Geir. “I guess more coffee?” he asked with a laconic smile.

  Geir shrugged. “Sure. But I need food.”

  Laszlo nodded. “So do I. Maybe when she’s dressed, we’ll head out to a restaurant, get breakfast, then go on to the police station.” He walked to the cupboard and checked for more coffee. There was just enough to make another pot. Deciding he’d rather buy a pound of coffee for her later, as long as it meant he could have more now, he measured and set up another pot. It was a small pot, so it would give them each
at least one cup, but, after that, they would find another solution.

  When it was done, and they were sitting down with their laptops open, coffee beside them, he said, “It’s this Bill guy we need.”

  “I hear you. I’m forwarding all the information we took off both cell phones to Erick. It’s up to him to decide who it is who’ll help us get through that information.”

  “It’s their boss we need information on first. It almost sounds like some kind of a new industry I hadn’t heard about.”

  Geir lifted his gaze off the laptop. “Right? I was thinking of that when we had the hit man. Because he had a middleman as well. As if there is a boss supplying the labor—specialized labor. Hit men, thugs, safe crackers, who knows what else.”

  Laszlo stared at him and frowned. “Handler is the term Minx used.”

  The two men studied each other for a long moment. “No, of course they wouldn’t be,” Laszlo answered his own question. But inside he wondered. Finally he gave a shake of his head. “No, that would be foolish. At the same time, since when did this industry pop up?”

  “Times are changing. Since the advent of the internet, everything’s digital, everything’s online, everything’s anonymous. Somebody like a handler who could pass out jobs to the right people with the right skill set, he’d be invaluable. I’ve heard of the dark web. I don’t know how to access it, but I wonder if any of our people can?”

  Laszlo shrugged but sent a quick text to Levi and Mason.

  “It’s a new name for the old job—middleman,” Geir said. “But, because of the global world today, he could be anywhere. Chances are he’s not in any Western country. He’ll just have connections. As in how he found these guys.”

  “Unless we have two people in between. One big-time handler overseeing smaller handlers in multiple countries who all have men available.”

  Geir nodded. “But the more lines there are in between, the more the message gets blurred. And how would this guy, Andrew, Minx’s supervisor, know how to contact anyone?”

  “It sounds like he’s a bit of a bully anyway. And we all know bullies know other bullies. And anybody in the criminal element, or somebody who’s got that definition of what women are supposed to be used for, could easily have a reputation in the sexual world. Maybe he’s used prostitutes? Maybe he’s had charges against him in the past? Who knows?”

  “True enough. There’s got to be something. It’ll take one of the criminal elements to tell us about that,” Geir said. “Anybody you know?”

  Laszlo settled back into his chair, thrumming his fingers on the tabletop. “I don’t have any connections. Do you?”

  Geir shook his head. “No. At least I don’t think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I had a couple buddies in college. They were very skilled at evading the law and getting exactly what they wanted. But I don’t know exactly how far down this path they went.”

  “We might be better off seeing if Levi has any contacts. Or Mason, for that matter. Although their contacts would be more aboveboard.”

  “Levi could also have someone local here. If the two men aren’t talking at the station this morning, and we can’t get this Bill guy to say anything, we need to find somebody in the same industry who will have a talk with us.”

  “In order to do that, we’ll need some leverage to make them talk.”

  “Or you can ask Agnes,” Minx said, leaning against the doorway. Her arms were across her chest, her damp hair curling and soaking into her shirt. She studied the two men. “Made yourself at home, I see.”

  “I’d rather buy you a new pound of coffee than do without right now,” Laszlo confessed. “And sorry for taking liberties, but I wasn’t sure how long you would be in there.”

  “Ten minutes,” she said, walking over to the coffeepot. “A good thing you noticed we’re out of coffee. I’d have been pissed if I woke up tomorrow, and there wasn’t any.”

  Relieved she didn’t appear bothered, he watched as she put on a second pot of coffee. The small pot was empty after one round. “What did you mean about talking to Agnes?” Laszlo asked.

  “Agnes and Bart have one foot on either side of the law. They believe in it, but they help a lot of people who are on the wrong side of it. In order to help those people, they have had an awful lot of connections. It doesn’t mean they’ll know anybody higher up or in big business, but they might very well know where you could start.”

  The men nodded. “Do they serve anything else but burgers?”

  She laughed. “You’ve never had their breakfast?” Then she shook her head. “Of course you haven’t. You just arrived in town. Well, in that case, since I don’t have any food, certainly not enough to feed the three of us, I suggest we go there for breakfast. You can talk to them. Then we’ll head on over to the station afterward.” She flipped a chair around, so she sat backward and studied both of them. “That is, if anybody is coming to the station with me?”

  “I am,” Laszlo said. “No way you’ll keep me away.”

  She turned to glance at Geir. “And what will you do?”

  “I’ll be there, but I’ll be in the background. Hopefully you’ll never see me. But I’ll know exactly what goes on.” He gave her a slow smile. “That’s my specialty.”

  “Being a ghost?”

  He nodded approvingly. “Almost. But even ghosts have needs. And breakfast will do nicely. As long as it’s not another burger.”

  “You didn’t like the burger?” she asked. “I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t love them.”

  “I can’t eat that much at one time, and heavy fat is still not something my system can handle.” He stood up and excused himself, going to the washroom.

  She turned an inquiring glance at Laszlo.

  In a quiet voice he said, “In the accident Geir lost a large portion of his intestine, part of his stomach, his spleen and part of his liver.”

  Her face blanched. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”

  “I wouldn’t consider remembering something like that as anything you should do. Geir wouldn’t appreciate it. But, when it comes to food, his system can’t handle the same food or the same quantity as the rest of us can.”

  “Still, I’m sorry. He’s a nice man. He’s been a huge help to me. I wouldn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. So we can go somewhere else if you prefer?”

  “I can handle whatever Agnes throws at me for breakfast. It was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. I almost got to finish off Geir’s burger for him too.”

  “Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll get part of his breakfast. Their portions are huge.”

  “In that case I wouldn’t need to eat for the rest of the day,” he declared.

  “Did you find anything useful while I was in the shower?”

  “We’re sending off the information we gathered from the men’s phones. What we’re trying to do is figure out how to get information on his handler.”

  She nodded. “I’d say I would have known some people from the wrong side of life too, but I worked hard to get up and away from it.”

  “We’re also trying to figure out where Lance is, see if we can talk to him.”

  Her gaze lifted. “Good luck with that. I haven’t heard tell of him in years.”

  Laszlo nodded. “I haven’t seen anything in the news in over seven years.”

  “So, either the family succeeded in hushing him up and keeping him out of trouble, or he doesn’t live in the country anymore. Or he isn’t alive anymore. Given his lifestyle, any of the above could be true.”

  “And I still haven’t found the creeper, JoJo aka Poppy.”

  “Did you check the jails? He was a pedophile, no doubt about it.”

  He studied her. “You’re right. I didn’t even think to check on that.” He sent an email to Erick, telling him about the suggestion. “I’d feel better if he was in jail. But I’m not sure anybody would have reported him.”

  “It’s hard to say. Mouse’s mo
ther sure as hell wouldn’t. Mouse wouldn’t. But I doubt those were the only two people in his sick world.”

  “Would Lance know about him?”

  “Hell yes. But I don’t think they would have been close. Lance was always jealous of Poppy because Mouse talked about him in such loving terms.”

  Laszlo had trouble with that. He didn’t care what kind of a loving relationship it was, it was hard to imagine an older man like that taking advantage of a young boy and the young boy still caring. But then that boy had been starved for love for so long, maybe anybody who reached out with a gentle caring hand looked wonderful.

  Geir returned and sat back down. He tapped out another note to Erick and sent that off. “Erick will be busy all day keeping tabs on this one.”

  “I was thinking about that. The weapons dealer with the hidden cache in Afghanistan. We never heard from him, did we?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t know if Erick has though, and Erick, I think, said he would contact him.”

  “And what does a weapons dealer in Afghanistan have to do with this nightmare?” Minx asked. “I don’t have anything to do with your problem.”

  Laszlo looked at her with a soft gaze. “You’re so right. Somehow all of this in our heads was gelling, but you’re right. Whoever was after you is not connected to us. So, these guys, even though they have a handler, won’t necessarily be running in the same circle as our guys. We’re just remembering loose threads we need to tie off.”

  “Does that mean you must return to Afghanistan?” She shook her head. “I can’t say that would be anyplace I’d want to go.”

  “I’m not sure we have to go. We met somebody over there who thought we were after his weapons cache. We thought he had something to do with our accident. The end result was, he disappeared safely. We got out of there with our lives and with a friend who had been kidnapped and also with a woman who had been slated for delivery to a man’s door for three days of fun times against her will.” At Minx’ soft gasp, Laszlo nodded grimly. “We’ve had quite the month or so. The bits of intel we’ve found along the way are what sent us back to Mouse. We’re trying to figure out if we were targeted, but, considering only Mouse died in the accident, maybe he’d been the target. And hence we came here to start at the beginning and to see what Mouse’s childhood had been like.”