Chapter 14
As the sun rose to highlight another hot Miami day, Michael ran along the nearly deserted boardwalk. A man stumbled a half block ahead of him, his back arched and head raised, gasping for air as if he'd been running for awhile, and Michael smiled at his luck. Jeremy had been nearly impossible to find the past couple of days. He wasn't at work, home, or the country club, or any number of places he frequented in his normal life. Thanks to some intel from a friend of Sam's, there was a chance that Michael would find him here doing a morning workout. It was a long shot, but there he was.
Jeremy slowed and stopped, bending over, his chest heaving. When Michael closed the distance, he noted the beads of sweat that dripped from the man's face to the wood, creating dark little craters in the light dusting of sand.
"Hey, you okay," Michael asked, feigning concern as he stopped beside him.
"Yeah... just... just gotta catch my breath." Jeremy gasped out, pressed his hand into his side, cringing. "I, uh, guess this is why... I'm out here. Trying to get back into shape." He grinned and carefully stood.
Michael mirrored the expression, all the while he wanted to do nothing more than throttle the guy. He couldn't understand how the man could walk, or run, around as if nothing was wrong, while his wife still recovered from the strong pain killer disguised as sleeping pills. He held out a hand. "The name's Pete. Pete Carter. It's nice to not be the only guy out here first thing in the morning."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." He accepted Michael's hand and shook it. "Jeremy. Jeremy... Brooks." He returned his hand to press into his side.
"You better walk that off. Come on," Michael said as he gently grabbed his arm and led him down the boardwalk, farther away from the increasing morning traffic through the park. "This humidity is a killer, isn't it?"
"Yep. So, Pete, you don't sound like you're from around here."
"Nope, I'm from New York, the Big Apple. I got transferred down here, and now I'm makin' the best of things, you know?"
Jeremy nodded. "What do you do?"
"Contract work." Michael turned to gauge Jeremy's reaction. "It varies. One week I'll be guarding some rich lady's pooch, and the next... I'm takin' a bat to somebody's kneecap." He grinned. "I never get bored."
"People hire you to... to hit someone?" He looked incredulous.
"You didn't hear it from me, not exactly," Michael replied with a smile. "Why?"
"I..." Jeremy hesitated. "I need some help with my wife, I mean, my soon to be ex-wife. At first I just wanted her to get scared and go through with the divorce, but then my attorney reminded me about the pre-nup."
"Man, those things cause more trouble than they're worth, although I love 'em, 'cause it gives me a lot of business." He grinned.
"Really! My company has made me a lot of money, but she owns half of it thanks to that dumb piece of paper. I want it all. After all, I'm the one who did all the work to make it what it is! Why should I share it?"
Michael nodded. "That's understandable. So, what are you sayin'? You want your wife to, uh, disappear?"
"No, too much chance of her showing up later." Through clenched teeth, Jeremy said, "I want her dead. Do you do that kind of thing?"
"Sure. You want it to look like an accident?"
"I want it to look like someone was stalking her. I've already got this guy, this guy I hired before who screwed things up. I want it to look like he's the one who did it, and then the heat's off me. Understand?"
Michael understood perfectly, and it was all he could do to control himself. He stopped in a place that was remote where they could talk without being disturbed. He still spoke softly. "I can do this, but I don't come cheap."
"Whatever you want. I'm at the end of my rope here."
"Let's meet here again this afternoon. I have another meeting, but I really wanna help you out with your situation. We'll talk and come up with a plan together. I'll need details, like what's her schedule, you know, her habits. It'll make things easier."
"No problem. How about at one? Right here."
"I'll be here, Mr. Brooks." He pulled out his wallet from his shorts pocket and handed him a business card.
"Alright." Jeremy smiled, took the card, and shook his hand again, then turned back the way they came.
As soon as Jeremy was out of earshot, Michael got on his phone. "Sam."
"Yeah, Mike."
"I just made contact with Bradley. Your intel was good, I found him exactly where your friend said he'd be."
"That's great. So where is he now?"
"He's heading back to his car. Are you anywhere near the park?" He began his trek to the parking lot. Jeremy was too far ahead to hear him.
"Just pulling into the lot right now." Michael heard a woman's voice in the background. "Yeah, that's his car, hon. Oh, sorry, not you, Mike!" He chuckled. "I was talking to Gina."
"Of course." Michael smiled. "Are you planting a tracker?"
"Gina's got it. So, did he bite on your offer?"
"Yeah, he's interested. It was far too easy, Sam. Either he's really scared and stupid, or he's going to test me. Either way, I want to be prepared. I want to know where he is until our meeting."
"That information you'll have." The car door slammed. "Okay, we're out of here. Looks like the signal is coming in strong, so now we can keep an eye on our murderous friend."
"I have an appointment with him at one, same place I just met him. I want you and Gina there to back me up, so we'll show up about a half hour early to get in place. Park in the lot south of where you are now."
"Alrighty, we'll be there at twelve thirty. Right now, we're headed back to the FBI offices."
"Be careful, Sam." Michael teased, after hearing about the first visit.
"Yeah, right." He laughed. "Gina did a quick lift of some prints from the door handle of Jeremy's car, so we'll take those over there and see if they match with our evidence. We'll see you later, if I don't talk to you first."
"See you later, Sam." Michael put his phone back into his pocket and started running to the parking lot. He spotted Jeremy still walking, and when he passed, he noticed the man was on the phone. He pretended not to know Michael, and Michael returned the courtesy. Bradley may not have been the sharpest guy when it came to covert activity, but he appeared to have a little sense. One in the afternoon would come fast, and Michael had a lot of prep work to do.
He stopped at the spot where he first met Jeremy. It was a little early for Sam and Gina's arrival, so he spent the time scoping out the area, a sparsely traveled section of boardwalk on the south end of the park near the light house. He'd had many meetings along this stretch in the past because of its remoteness. Most park visitors took a different route to the light house, one that involved driving through the park. Just beyond the dunes covered with tall grass, he heard a car pull into the parking lot. Two doors slammed. Most likely it was his friends. Just in case, he looked around for his possible exit options if needed.
The grasses swayed in the breeze and he heard the additional swish of bodies passing through it. Right on time, Sam and Gina appeared through the wall of green and shuffled down the dune to meet him on the boardwalk.
"Hey, Mikey," Sam greeted him. "Lookin' sharp." He took in the gray pinstriped suit.
"Very nice," Gina added with an appreciative smile. "You look very... New York mobbish."
"Good. That's what I want to portray. I want Jeremy to think he's buying a real pro who will make his problem go away and leave him clear."
"Once he makes the deal with you, then what?" Gina asked. "Will you come up with a strategy where he has to help you do the job?"
"No, it'll be more like I want him to take control of the job. I'll ask him to be there so he can see that it's done, but then something will happen, and he'll have to either do it himself or chicken out and realize that Nancy's never going away."
"Why do I have this feeling that blanks and blood packs are going to be involved," Sam asked, a disgusted look on his face. "I hate fake blood!"
"Oh, like the real stuff is any better?" Gina quirked an eyebrow at him, a hint of a smile on her face.
"You know what I mean, Gi."
"Yes, Sam, we're probably going to need blood packs. Fi can help us with that."
"Yeah. She had a blast, no pun intended, the last time we used them." He turned and surveyed the area. "Looks like our best bet for being obscure is up on the dune."
"I figured that would be the case." Gina said. "Glad I changed clothes." She wore a light tan sleeveless top with light olive colored cotton shorts.
Sam wore what was for him an understated hawaiian shirt with khaki pants. "I'll just make sure I'm well hidden."
"How did things go with the prints from the car," Michael asked.
"We got a match on the key, but not the paint brush." Sam answered. "The good news, sort of, is that the prints on the brush match the guy Jeremy hired. Messing up the house was probably phase two of the plan. Unfortunately, it doesn't link Jeremy to the crime."
Michael handed Sam a small recording device. "I'm wearing a wire, so we may not need proof right now. For the moment I'll take a confession, and then we build a case around it."
"Okay." Sam checked the time. "Gi, we better get up there and get ready for Jeremy to show up." He took her hand. "Good luck, Mike."
"Thanks."
Sam and Gina climbed the tall dune and disappeared over the ridge just as Michael saw Jeremy walking toward him. He stood waiting with hands clasped in front of him. He shrugged away a couple beads of perspiration that ran down his back, reminding him again why he preferred to not wear suits in Miami, especially when accompanied with a buttoned up shirt and confining tie. But he had to look the part. He blew out a breath of air, swallowed in an effort to slightly loosen the tie, and nodded at Jeremy.
"You came," Michael said. "I wasn't sure if you would or not. You know, I took a risk approaching you like that and giving you my card, but you looked like a guy who really needed my help."
"I do." Jeremy nodded. "I let this other guy handle things, but nothing worked. He called her incessantly, left things on her door step, trashed the place when she was in the hospital."
Michael pretended to be shocked. "She's in the hospital?"
"Yeah. This guy broke into her house and replaced her sleeping pills with something. He guaranteed it would kill her if she took only a couple. Well, somehow she wound up in the hospital, they saved her, and now I'm back to square one." Jeremy held out a sheet of paper. "This is her usual schedule, although once she's released, I don't know what's going to happen."
"I can find that out. Don't worry about it." Michael studied the paper. "Do you want to be there to make sure it's done right? I have a lot of clients who do, gives them a sense of closure."
"I hadn't really thought about it, but... I want to make sure it's done this time, finished." Jeremy nodded. "Yeah, I want to be there."
"Okay. I'll just bet that as soon as she's released from the hospital, she'll go into hiding. So I got a friend who can get me the information on where she'll be. As soon as she's there, I'll let you know, and we'll go in with guns blazing. No more messing around."
"We?" Jeremy gulped.
"Me and my friends." Michael grimaced at how the thought of witnessing, let alone participating, in murdering his wife face to face was too much for him to handle. Jeremy was truly a despicable man. "It looks like she does a lot of charity work with the homeless. We can probably capitalize on that, get her in a bad part of town. We'll make it look like some kind of gang thing, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Whatever. Just figure out how to do it and get it over with! Then I can drop all this mess with the divorce." Jeremy looked around, his hands shifting inside his pockets. "Look, I've got to get back to the office. Call me when you get this arranged, okay?" He handed him a business card.
"In a day or so, I should have it worked out. It all depends on when your wife gets out of the hospital."
"Okay." Jeremy backed up a few steps. "If you can pull this off, I'll pay you a hundred grand."
"That's a very fair offer, Mr. Brooks. I'll be in touch."
Jeremy turned on his expensive loafer and hurried back to the parking lot. Michael watched him walk away, and when he turned toward the lot, he signaled to Sam and Gina that it was clear. They hurried down the dune and stood with him.
"Man, my skin was crawling up there. I had to check to make sure it wasn't sand fleas," Gina said. "But it was the things he was saying. Talk about a scumbag!"
"I thought I was going to have to restrain you," Sam declared as he looked down at the scowl still on her face.
"If you hadn't had a good grip on my hand, I might have rushed down here and let him have it." She hugged herself and shook her head. "When can we put together our plan? The sooner that guy goes down, the better."
"Patience, Gina."
"I'm sorry, Michael, patience was never one of my strong points, and when there are people like him running around, I have even less of it." She let out a breath. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should step back from this and let you guys handle it." Without warning, Gina turned around and trotted up the dune.
"Sam, what's going on?"
"I don't know, Mike. I'm as much in the dark as you are." They watched her disappear over the top.
"If she gets involved, you better make sure she's ready to do this without letting her emotions get in the way."
"I'm all over that. Believe me. Let me know when we're ready to prepare. If we have to, maybe we can get Fi involved and Gina can watch Amani." He turned away and started for the dune. "Just call me when you're ready. In the meantime, I'll work on her and find out what's going on, and maybe I can get her head in the game before this all goes down."
"Okay. I'll keep in touch."
Gina didn't say anything when Sam got into the driver's seat and drove them out of the park. He was about to say something to get the conversation started, but his phone rang. Torn between the silence and seeing the name on the screen, he opted to answer. Maybe after he was done with the phone call, he'd know what to say. "Hi, Maddie. I was just with Mike, and..."
"I wasn't calling about him, Sam. I heard that things have been getting serious between you and Gina, that woman you brought to the wedding."
He silently wondered who told her that. Fi, it had to be! "Yes, they have, Maddie." He snuck a glance at the woman beside him and smiled. "So?"
"I want you to bring her here for dinner tonight!"
"Uh, dinner, huh. Well, yeah, sure, we can do that." He noticed that Gina turned her head, her attention on him and questions in her eyes.
"Oh good! I'm making meat loaf. She's not a vegetarian or anything, is she?"
Sam's mouth tipped up. "No, she's not."
"Great! See you at six?"
"We'll be there. Are Mike and Fi coming, too?"
"No, Michael said he and Fi had a 'date night', and they have a sitter for Amani." She let out a breathy sound. "Whatever. That's okay, we'll have a great time! See you at six, Sam!"
"Yeah, see you at six, Maddie." He let out a breath and met Gina's eyes briefly. "We've been invited to Mike's mom's house for dinner. Just the two of us."
Gina's eyebrow rose. "That's strange."
"Not really. She's thinks of me as family, not just one of Mike's friends. She heard about you and me, probably from Fi, and now she wants to give you the third degree."
"We met at the wedding, if I remember correctly. Nice lady," Gina said.
"She wants to get to know you better, I'm sure. Don't worry about it, she's harmless. Her meat loaf on the other hand, that might be lethal." Gina laughed, and whatever had been bothering her earlier was swept away. But Sam still remembered. "Before then, I want us to talk about what happened back at the dunes."
Gina sobered and turned her attention out the window. "I figured that was coming. Let's go to the beach."
"That's exactly where I was headed." He smiled at her. They'd been together long enough for him to know that when Gina needed to talk heart to heart, the calming rhythm of the surf was like a balm for whatever upset her and made it easier to discuss things.