Vortex (SAI Book 1) (7 page)

“Was it true love?”

“No. We pretty much fizzled out after that. I spent most of the summer out at the horse farm, and he fell for his neighbor, Gina Monroe. They were a hot item all through sixth grade.” Sitting up, she pulled her robe tighter. “Are you mean to me because you like me? You hinted at something the other day, and I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

Rubbing his hand over his face, he let out a sigh. “Vivi, I don’t have relationships. And I know that you’re a woman who does. So it doesn’t much matter if I like you or not. Whatever feelings are being stirred up inside me are never going to do either one of us any good. So, I think I’ll just leave them buried where they are.”

Twisting the end of her hair, she studied the big handsome man across from her and felt her stomach drop. It somehow felt like a missed opportunity. Which was ludicrous. Who wanted an
opportunit
y with someone who had no personality? “All right, then.” Standing, she patted his shoulder. “There’s plenty of food in the fridge. Help yourself. I’m going to get ready for my date. Wyatt is picking me up at seven.”

“You can’t go on a date when you’re in danger,” he yelled.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him. “You better start doing a better job of stomping down those feeling you have; otherwise, neither one of us is going to survive this.” Twirling around, she called over her shoulder, “I’m going out with a federal agent, and he promised to keep me safe.”

“Who is going to keep you safe from him?” he called.

“No one…I hope.” She moved through the patio doors and laughed.

CHAPTER FIVE

Joel sat with Gideon at the kitchen table, and they drank beer and shared a pizza. When the detective had called earlier and suggested they meet, he agreed right away. His specialty didn’t include solving crimes. He could go into hostile territory and pull out a hostage with a hundred people after him and succeed with his eyes closed. But solving a crime like this was outside his wheelhouse. “Thanks for meeting me here. I have to finish up the system tonight while Vivi is on her ‘date’.”

“How in the hell did you let that happen, man? You and your guys show up, and they decide it’s time to break up the widows’ club.”

“I guess it’s our magic touch,” Joel replied.

Taking another slice of pizza out of the box, Gideon devoured it quickly. “When Vivi came back to town last year, I did my best to be a good friend. I even tried to see if there was anything left between us.”

“How did that go?” Joel asked.

“We will be good friends for the rest of our lives, but she shut me down hard on anything else. I understood. Mostly.”

The sound of high heels clattered against the wood floors as Vivi made her way into the kitchen. Joel tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see, but he did a piss-poor job. When he swiveled around and Vivi came into view, he almost fell off his chair.
Lord have mercy.
It was true, she was going to torture him. Vivi stood before him in a formfitting, pale pink dress that left nothing to the imagination. It was tasteful, but her curves were shown off beautifully by the fabric that draped against her body. Her long chestnut-brown hair lay against her shoulders in soft waves, and her warm hazel eyes stared at him. Dr. Vivi DuMond was a fucking knockout…and she was going out with another man. How had he screwed up so spectacularly?
What a shit show
.

Gideon stood up and held out his hands. “Let me see you, girl. My God, you’re not going to show that poor Fed any mercy.” When she put her hands in his, he twirled her around and whistled. “You better behave tonight.”

“Oh, poo. I always behave. When do I get to stop behaving?” Sliding her hand onto her hip, she studied Gideon and winked. “I believe the last time I didn’t was when you talked me into losing my good name to you when we were sophomores.”

Gideon’s eyes roamed all over her body and he grinned like a wolf. “It was the best thing I ever did. Those memories of the two us still keep me warm at night.” Winking, he sat down and took a sip of his beer and wiped his brow.

“Always the charmer, Gideon. I love that about you.”

There was only so much that Joel could take, so he interrupted the cozy walk down memory lane. “Where is Wyatt taking you this evening?”

“I think he’s taking me to Antoine’s. He’s not real familiar with Louisiana cooking, so I thought it would be a good way for him to try it out.” Sliding into a chair at the table, she opened her small bag and gazed inside.

“Do you have cab money, Vivi?” Gideon pulled his wallet out and handed her forty dollars. “Just because he’s a Fed doesn’t mean that he knows how to behave with a proper Southern woman.”

Patting his hand, she smiled. “My goodness, you’re sweet.”

Interrupting the little tête–à–tête, Joel took her phone and programmed in his number. “You call me, Vivi, and I will come and get you. Maybe I’ll just go and hang out in the bar and make sure that everything goes okay.”

Laughing, she looked at both men. “I feel like I’m in high school and my two brothers are giving me advice. The next thing I’m going to hear is:
Nothin’ good happens after midnight. The only things open are bars and legs, and you don’t need to be in either one of them
.”

“I heard that from my daddy more times than I can count.” Gideon laughed.

“Seriously, Vivi. I’ll go sit in the bar. We don’t know anything about this guy.” Joel crossed his arms and studied the breathtaking woman before him. There had to be a way to stop this date. He just needed to figure it out in the next sixty seconds.

“I will not have a chaperone on the first date that I’ve had in three years.” The doorbell echoed through the house, and Vivi stood. “Prince Charming has arrived. You all sit here. Wyatt doesn’t need to know that I keep company with the likes of you two.” She waved her finger between the two of them and scrunched up her eyes. “Behave.”

The sound of her heels clicking filled the silence. When she laughed and greeted her visitor, Joel felt sick to his stomach. “I hate Wyatt,” Joel said to himself.

Gideon smirked and slid another piece of pizza onto his plate. “If you’re interested, I suggest you do something about it. Now that the girls are closing the widows’ club, it’s every man for himself. And I can tell you, there will be a long line for each one of them. So don’t sulk and give her a hard time if you’re not willing to do something about how you feel. Which, by the way, is obvious to everyone.” Standing, he then walked over to the bar cart in the corner of the kitchen and studied Vivi’s selection. “I think we need some bourbon.”

“No bourbon for me. I’m going to stick with beer. Who knows? She may be calling me for a ride home,” Joel replied.

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.” Gideon laughed. “So tell me about this little business you have down in Florida.” He poured them each a generous shot and returned to the table.

Joel pushed the glass away and took a sip of his beer. He was still recovering from the other night with Uncle Buck. “Our company provides executive protection, security plans, and policies for companies, specialized security training programs, crisis-and-emergency-management planning, high-risk-travel planning and coordination, maritime security for commercial and private clients, and military leadership and tactical training.”

“So, you handle the easy stuff,” Gideon replied.

“Yeah, nothing too complicated. Everyone in my group is a former SOF operator. Most of the men in my office are from the Teams. They all have a ton of experience. I’ve discovered the more times you’ve experienced danger, the better able you are to slow it down. And my team excels in dangerous situations.” Tipping back in the chair, he shrugged. “Protecting the girls and making sure the clinic is secure is easy. The hard part is figuring out who is doing it and why. Fortunately, that’s your job.”

Taking a sip of the dark amber liquid in his glass, Gideon stared at the floor. “Having two federal agencies involved is guaranteed to screw this up. They each have their own agendas, and that means they’re not going to share information. I’ve seen this shit before, and it hardly ever goes down well. All I care about is what is happening in this city and how I can prevent it from happening again. My takeaway from the meeting was that we have two national crime groups that are interested in our corner of the world. We haven’t seen a lot of this in the past. I hate like hell to think this is what we have to look forward to.”

Closing the pizza box, Joel thought about a case that they had been on last year. “We worked security for a mid-level bureaucrat from Mexico last year when he was in Florida speaking on the growing gang wars in his country. He spoke about the increasing ‘cooperation’ or ‘partnerships’ that neighborhood-based gangs are creating with national street gangs. If they can create an alliance that can increase their power and thus their access to money, then they will. Maybe that’s what’s happening here.”

“It seems probable. We saw that a year after Katrina. Many of the gangs from the ninth ward were relocated to Houston. Several of them created alliances when they were there and came back better armed and connected. The 39ers were a result of the G-Strip and 3NG gangs coming back to town and not having a neighborhood to operate out of. Theirs was gone after the hurricane, so they were spread all over the city. They had to do something to survive. The group that was formed became deadly, until we took out enough of the top leadership.”

“Does the problem ever get solved?”

“Not really, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t keep trying.” Rubbing his finger on top of his glass, he shook his head. “There are days that I want to give up, but I don’t. The damn carnage is endless. One of the guys I work with is a retired marine, and he said that sometimes what he sees on the streets reminds him of Falluja. It’s that bad.”

Joel shook his head and crossed his arms. “I spent fifteen years abroad for the most part in hellholes, and I often wondered why people who pretty much had every opportunity available to them decided to behave like people who had none.” Holding his hand up, he went on. “I know there are all kinds of arguments about how everyone here doesn’t have the same opportunities, and I agree. But compared to the rest of the world, they do.”

“I hear you, man. But none of the people who are living the neighborhoods and involved in gang life see their life very differently than someone who lives in a war-torn country. What they see every day on their corners is like war to them. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care or want to walk far enough to see that there are other possibilities.”

“That is true all over the world.” Joel took a sip of the bourbon and immediately put it down. There was no need to go down that road again. “So what is your take on what’s happening in Algiers?”

“I think the local bangers posted something on social media and caught the attention of a larger crew. Maybe someone made an offer that the local guys couldn’t refuse.”

“How would they connect?” Joel asked.

“Social media is how it all happens. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, to name a few. Street gangs have advanced on pace with technology, as members exploit mechanisms that afford anonymity and instant communication. There are recruitment wrap videos all over YouTube. All you have to do is look.”

“So how do you solve something like this?”

“Keep tapping on the low-level guys until they give you the next in line, and so on and so on. See if we can gather info with all the surveillance we have out there and, God willing, catch a couple of breaks.”

“So why did both men found in the clinic have Vivi’s picture and home address on their phones?”

“That, my friend, is the million-dollar question, and one I intend to answer. I would’ve sent her out of town if you weren’t here protecting here. Quite frankly, that’s the thing that scares the shit out of me.”

“Me too,” Joel mumbled to himself. The idea of what was out there threatening Vivi and the girls made him uncomfortable. The fact that she was on a date without protection tonight was fucking crazy. He had a feeling that old Wyatt was only paying attention to the beautiful woman in front of him and not potential threats. It didn’t matter if he was a trained agent or not.

“I can see your wheels spinning, and I suggest you stop them. Vivi will never forgive you or, most importantly, trust you if you show up at the restaurant.”

“Shit. Was I that obvious?”

“It was all over your face. You must suck at poker.”

“I’m a great poker player. Something about Vivi has me all screwed up, and it’s messing with my regular mojo.”

“Well, you should figure out what it is, because her life is in your hands.”

“I know…” Scrubbing his hand down his face, he thought about Francie and then Vivi. Gideon was right. He needed to figure it out.

***

Joel checked his watch for the thousandth time as he sat in front of the TV watching some old movie. It was 12:42, and there was no way that she needed to be out so late. Standing, he then walked to the front room and looked out the window…again. He’d turned on every light in the front and had the place lit up. It would take a brave man to kiss a woman in those conditions on a first date, and he was praying that Wyatt wasn’t the exception to the rule. A pair of headlights came down the quiet street, so Joel moved quickly away from the window. Hustling, he moved back to the family room, lay on the couch, and thought about closing his eyes. He decided not to, because Vivi was a smart woman and she would figure it out. Car doors slammed, and he let out a breath. About damn time.

Fifteen minutes passed, and he was about to jump out of his skin. There was no way that Vivi was kissing Wyatt. No fucking way. The front door opened, and he lay back and tried to appear relaxed. He heard the click of her heels again and knew that he had to do something. Because there was no way he was going to sit here and watch a parade of men woo the woman who had him so tied up. This was like BUD/S: assume success and never let another option enter your mind.