ESCANTA: A James Thomas Novel (The James Thomas Series Book 1) (18 page)

James watched the live camera footage as Mak stood before the jury. “These are photographs of the injuries sustained by Ms. Nelson. Eleven broken ribs, right and left arm fractures, a broken jaw, collarbone fractures, rib and pelvic fractures, ligature marks on her throat and fractured cartilage in her neck, a deep laceration on her thigh, bruising and laceration of her cervix, bruising of her abdomen and, finally, a ruptured spleen.” Mak unhurriedly shuffled the evidence photographs through her hands, one by one as she stated the injuries, and then handed them to the juror in front of her.

She turned back to the man under oath. She leaned one arm against the juror stand, and rested the other on her hip. She appeared to hold the man’s gaze. “You barely left an inch of her untouched, did you?”

“Objection!”

“Does it make you feel powerful to beat a woman beyond recognition—?”

Mak’s voice was strong and confident, the disgust as clear as a blue sky, and she didn’t give any indication that she was nervous or worried about the trial. James found himself smiling as he watched her.

“Objection!”

“Mrs. Ashwood, watch yourself,” the judge said, and then advised Mr. Bassetti not to answer.

Mak walked toward Mr. Bassetti—slow, stalking steps. She stood right in front of him, and James witnessed the change in his body language—a subtle leaning back, a tight drawing of his shoulders. She was intimidating him, and it was clear he didn’t like it.

“Mr. Bassetti, you’re a proud man, aren’t you? A man who has become very successful, and very powerful. And the more powerful you became, the more careless you became. You thought you were invincible, so imagine your surprise when you discovered Ms. Nelson had been quietly taping you, quietly documenting your every move.” Mak leaned in. “Imagine, your favorite girl, the one you had given so much to, turned on you and you had no idea. She betrayed you, gave your secrets to others. She knew you would kill her if you found out, so she made sure she wasn’t the only one who knew.”

“She was a whore, not a mastermind,” Mr. Bassetti said.

“A whore? That’s a very degrading term, Mr. Bassetti,” Mak said.

“She degraded herself!”

“Did she? Is that how you justified beating the last breath out of her? Did she deserve to die?” Mak said, raising her voice.

“Yes, she’s a whore that deserved to die!” Mr. Bassetti spat out in a heated exchange. “But I didn’t kill her, Mrs. Ashwood.”

“I don’t believe you. I think she was a threat to your ego, to your empire built on crime and violence. She made a fool of you, and you punished her for it!”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn. No further questions, Your Honor,” Mak said, staring at Mr. Bassetti.

She was brilliant. A perfect blend of sweet and evil that had captured the entire courtroom. Even James found himself leaning toward the computer, drawn to the screen. There was one major problem, though: Mak was humiliating this man, and like Ms. Nelson and her friends, it would be a miracle if they didn’t punish her too.

James watched as Mak went back to her seat. He wanted to tell her he was proud of her but he’d promised himself from now on he’d treat her just like any other client—he’d engage with her as little as possible.

He packed up the laptop and listened for Deacon’s cue to come through his earwig. He was in an office they had secured within the courthouse, close enough to get to her if needed. Samuel had already advised there was a media storm outside, which concerned James.

“Moving,”
Deacon said.

James counted to ten, and then stepped out into the hallway. His coordination with Deacon was seamless, and he walked directly behind them, hidden by the cluster of people between them. James had instructed Cami to keep Mak moving and to get her straight into the car. It sounded logical, and easy, but in reality when there were that many people waiting to get a comment or photograph of her, it was far from either. Deacon lagged behind and fell into pace beside James, and they exited the building, waiting behind the columns for Mak’s car to leave. Their car then pulled up, and they followed the first car back to Mak’s office. Timing was everything, and so far they hadn’t made a mistake.

The rest of the evening was uneventful and when Mak was back in her apartment at Thomas Security, James went to see Samuel for his daily update.

“I found something today, something you’re not going to like,” Samuel said as James sat down, eyeing the late-night dinner spread on the table. He took a box of noodles.

“Keep talking,” James said.

“I’ve been working on who might’ve slipped Mak that note. You have to book online for those classes, and one of the women didn’t check out. The studio has a security system, but it only monitors the door and stairwell. I was able to get a picture of each person entering, though, and check the identification against the list of names. This is her,” Samuel said, loading a woman’s photograph on the screen. “I was then able to track her on some CCTV footage leaving the studio. She was walking, probably home, when she got into a white car six blocks from the studio. Unfortunately I can’t get a clear read on the plate. Since she got into that car, I haven’t been able to find any further movement of her—no credit card transactions, no mobile calls, nothing. And then this evening, I got a database hit—her roommate reported her missing about an hour ago.”

James groaned. “Do you think they paid her to give Mak the note, and then took her to prevent her from talking?”

“That’s exactly what I think happened,” Samuel said. “I can’t find anything else at this stage, but I believe we can be absolutely certain that these guys aren’t going to play nice. I would be surprised if that young lady isn’t already dead.

“I’ve got some other news, too. Shall I continue?” Samuel asked.

James raised his eyebrows—Samuel had certainly had a productive day. “Please do.”

“This is about you. The four Escanta guys you killed in Hungary. Well, you only killed three, but the fourth is dead because of you, so we’ll just include him in this,” Samuel said, getting to the point at a pace that was annoying James but he said nothing. “I set up a code to track any correlating data from their cell phones, credit card transactions, airplane tickets, etc. I got a hit this morning. In the past three years, all of them have stayed at the Docoss Hotel in London. It’s a legit, swanky hotel but I’m wondering if it’s a favorite of the Escanta boys for a reason? Perhaps they have an arrangement with management? I’m sorting through financial records, but you know how these things go…groups like Escanta don’t usually pay via traceable means so I doubt I’m going to find anything. I think you might need to make a reservation and have a friendly chat to the manager.” Samuel sat down, apparently done with his revelations.

James knew that Samuel was right, and that he should go, but he didn’t want to leave Mak right now. “It’s going to have to wait,” he said.

Samuel tapped his hands on the table. “I thought you might say that. I don’t have any other leads, James. These guys are careful, so damn careful. We’re not going to get many chances like this.”

James had never in his life hesitated to follow a lead, but her case was heating up and it could erupt at any time. “The hotel isn’t going anywhere.”

“Perhaps not, but management could. The one person who knows something could disappear if we leave it too long. There is also a chance it’s already too late.” Samuel shrugged his shoulders.

“Her trial will finish soon. These guys are kidnapping and likely murdering anyone who might incriminate them, so I can’t leave right now. We’ll wait it out a few weeks. Get a list of all of the staff and known associates and run reports on them. At least if they disappear I’ll have something to work from,” James said, and then added, “if they’re not dead by the time I get to them.”

“All right, I’ll work on it,” Samuel said, looking over the remaining dinner options.

“Anything else?” James asked.

Samuel looked both amused and offended. “What? That wasn’t good enough for you? Do you think I’m special and get thirty hours in a day or something?”

James cracked a smile. “Hey, I’m just checking—no need to be so touchy.”

“Sometimes you boys think I can work miracles. You drive like
maniacs
, which takes me hours of video editing to cover up, and then you expect me to have answers for all your questions a few days later…geez, I don’t know,” Samuel said with a glint of humor in his eyes.

“Maniacs,”
James repeated, chuckling to himself. Mak had yet to see the definition of a maniac. “At least that’s better than being told you’re irritating,” James said, just to get a laugh out of Samuel—it worked.

“Did you look through the list of apartments I sent you?” Samuel asked.

James shook his head. “I’ll do it tonight.”

“You’re going to have to think about an explanation for the rent—she’s going to know she can’t afford such an apartment. I’ve been watching our footage of her in the courtroom. She’s very good. She should be working in the private sector—she’d be earning at least five times what she is now. But I understand why she chose the path she did.”

Mak’s morals and beliefs came before income, and James admired that. A lot of people will do just about anything for money. Some might assume he’d made that choice but oddly enough he’d done some terrible things for very little money. Military and agency wages weren’t high and he’d made all of his money since starting Thomas Security—it was an unbelievably lucrative business model.

“I was thinking of telling her that, due to the number of clients we’ve rented apartments for, we get a subsidized rate. Do you think that’ll fly?” James said, smirking.

Samuel’s lips wiggled from side to side as he thought it through. “Questionable. But I don’t know what else you can tell her. Just prepare yourself for a barrage of questions. Do you think she was like that as a child? She must have driven her parents mad!”

“Do you know what surprises me? Her husband managed to live a lie, right under her nose. Was she either not paying any attention to him, or was he just a brilliant liar?” James said, thinking aloud.

“That is interesting. Both, maybe?”

“Any follow-up on his actions abroad?” James asked.

“No, but I haven’t had time to look into it much further. I didn’t think it was a priority,” Samuel said.

“It’s not, I’m just interested to see what that guy was up to.” Part of him wanted to see what her husband had been up to, and the other didn’t—sometimes you were better off not knowing. “I’m worried about that money, though.”

“Why? It’s been sitting there for years,” Samuel said casually.

“Exactly. Someone with dirty hands paid that money to him, and people with dirty hands know how to find money. It’s sitting in bank accounts in his name. How come it hasn’t been moved? It would be easy to do, right?” James finished the last of his noodles and tucked the flaps of the box back in before he threw it into the trash.

“It would be easy for me to do,” Samuel said pointedly. “But not necessarily easy for someone else.”

“I still think it’s odd that it hasn’t been touched. Criminals like their money, they love it, and they’ll take any chance possible to get back a bad debt.”

Samuel sat quietly for a moment. “They surely can’t be waiting for her to claim it. It’s been years, and we know how impatient criminals are.”

“Mm, I don’t know what to make of it other than it doesn’t make sense.” Nothing was making sense to James today, and that worried him. He wasn’t a worrier—thoughtful, yes, but not a worrier. He dealt with problems as they arose, piece by piece. But he found himself worried about Mak. Initially he’d thought that it was because she was so unable to protect herself, unlike Deacon and Cami. But Samuel was probably the most vulnerable of all due to his skillset and James didn’t worry about him—although his unusual lifestyle made that all the more possible.

Samuel never left Thomas Security. Never. He had everything delivered and for fresh air and his daily dose of vitamin D he went out into one of the courtyards for a period of time each day. James had once gently reminded him that the building wasn’t a prison and he was free to come and go but, for whatever reason, he liked to stay inside. And that solved James’ problem of protecting him, so he didn’t argue about it. Samuel was a truly weird genius.

“On another note completely,” Samuel said, “I bought you some more shares this morning. Well, I bought Patrick some shares.”

James laughed. In the financial world, James Thomas was Patrick McCormack. Patrick owned the majority of his cash and assets.

“I think it will turn out to be a very profitable buy,” Samuel said with a wink.

Samuel also doubled as his investment banker. James didn’t ask questions on Samuel’s methods for selecting and purchasing stocks, but he had yet to pick a loser—at least of the purchases he intended to make money on. Some shares he bought intending to lose money so that his trading activities wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention—Samuel took insider trading to a whole new level.

“Thank you, Samuel,” James said, chuckling. “I can go shopping now.”

Samuel laughed as he stood and tidied up the remnants of dinner. James helped him and when the desk was clear and the table wiped down, they closed up Samuel’s office.

Samuel lived in the apartment next to the one Mak was staying in. James said goodbye from the elevator and then continued up one floor.

He took a long, hot shower, and then turned in for the night. He would need his sleep, because tomorrow had a different plan for him.

Twenty-four hours. It was the time Mak estimated was left in the trial. And then any period of time it might take the jury to reach a verdict. Had she done enough? Had she pressed the witnesses hard enough? Had she missed a fact, or a piece of evidence? Her mind spun like an amusement park ride and she couldn’t get it to stop. This was it—the chance for the victims and their families to get justice—and the responsibility sat heavily on her shoulders.

But even with all the angst in her mind, there was hope, and pride, too. She could possibly pull this off. She could win and she could give justice to those who had paid the ultimate price, and for their families whose hearts were still bleeding. And she could say ‘fuck you’ to all the doubters.