Her reflection now showed a different woman, still upset but focused. Ronni was right—hellfire burned in her eyes. She was no longer riddled with anxiety. She was her old self once more—bold, brave, confident.
She opened the door and nodded at the other woman. “All right, let’s go figure out how to rescue my sister.”
Ten
By 0300 hours, they were all yawning and had gone over every possible scenario their tired brains could conceive of. Marcher had never given up the location he’d held Mia at, and they were no closer to figuring it out.
Malachi watched her from the corner of his eye, noting she’d returned from the bathroom with renewed vigor and determination, but that had long faded, exhaustion getting the best of her.
Dupé had flooded Bobby’s inbox with reports ranging from traffic cams and possible newly recruited QG members, to intelligence reports concerning the many and varied businesses Damon Marcher had set up, run, and or taken over in the ten-plus years he’d been scheming and building his empire. Lots of shell corporations the Bureau still hadn’t completely sorted out, and plenty of foreign companies they couldn’t access.
The average citizen had known little to nothing about him, even with his legitimate companies. Still, he’d gathered secrets on every politician, CEO, and celebrity he could and used it to blackmail plenty of them. And as he quietly disposed of his enemies on the street and grew his international enterprises, he made sure he had numerous police officers, judges, and San Diego’s movers and shakers under his thumb.
Marcher had no dirt on Amber Livingston, and she’d held out against his threats of personal harm, according to all reports. She’d made it clear when she took office that she would not cave to anyone’s demands and would make it a priority to weed people like him, and his encroaching organization, out of the city.
It had nearly cost her Mia.
“The mayor received a lot of threats. One to harm her sister in a note with an undisclosed email address on May seventeenth may have been from Marcher.” Bobby hit a couple keys on his laptop, sending a scan of the note to everybody’s cells. “It’s possible he had an undercover asset in the mayor’s staff.”
“My sister picked her advisors and staff personally. They all loved her.” But Mia blanched as she read the note, her eyes going over and over the last sentence. “‘If you refuse to cooperate, the cub dies.’ Why do you think the writer is talking about me?”
“Marcher saw anyone in position, including himself, as a lion,” Sam explained. “Top of the food chain in the wild. He referred to his own men as cubs. It fits.”
“Why am I just seeing this now?” Her voice shook. Malachi wanted to reach for her. She glanced at Bobby, then around the circle. “No one ever showed this to me, or told me about it, after I was rescued.”
Sam cleared her throat. “From my understanding, the mayor instructed the agents on the case not to share upsetting details.”
Mia paled again. “But I deserved to know.”
Malachi could no longer resist and touched her arm. “You did. Maybe Amber intended to tell you eventually, but never found the right moment.”
Ronni nodded in agreement. “Marcher was an asshole and a powerful one. We’ve got King, Lopez, and Damon’s son, Newt, wanting to step into his shoes now. It takes a lot to keep an empire like his running. That group should have better things to do than kidnap the mayor for what appears to be revenge.”
Malachi scrubbed a hand over his face. “What other agenda would they have?”
Mann kicked back in his seat, yawning toward the ceiling. “It smells like a set up to me.”
“Setting up who?” Harris asked. It sounded like a challenge, but then, didn’t most things when they came from the Taskforce leader?
Mann rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “If I were Jam King and I thought I could outsmart the Feds, take out Newt Marcher, and establish myself as the next boss in town, what better way than to throw the Feds into chaos than searching for the mayor? Meantime, I serve her up to Newt for revenge on his father, as well as showing my rivals I’m willing to take on anyone to lock in my place as the new leader of the Quattro gang.”
Mia glanced at Malachi. “But he’s going back to prison, right? Even if he gets what the FBI needs to arrest Newt, he’s just the carrot on the end of the stick.”
“Only if we catch him,” Harris grumbled.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Mann closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s got a tracker, but those can be manipulated. If he dodges the Feds, we’ll never catch him. Damon excelled at keeping multiple identities well guarded. He had layers and layers of security, for both his legitimate and illegitimate businesses. All King has to do is tap into that, establish himself on the street, and most of the old members who are still walking free will be back in action before any of us can spit.”
Harris tapped a thumb against the table, his gaze on his coffee cup. “He’ll probably spend most of his time out of the country, somewhere with soft extradition laws, and he’ll run the companies remotely.”
Mia put her face in her hands. Malachi could feel her disheartenment. Ladybug whined and Malachi patted Mia’s leg. “How about we take a break and reconvene in a while? We could all use some fresh air.”
Harris glanced over, sizing up Mia. “Cahill’s right. Meet back here at 0800 hours. We’ll come back to the drawing board. Bobby? Continue checking through traffic cam footage to see if we can find a trail for those SUVs. Thomas, walk Ronni through possible places Marcher had his disposal buildings located. I’ll keep Dupé informed of our progress.”
Mia didn’t so much as budge. “I want to stay. There has to be something I can do.”
Sam tossed down her pen. “There really isn’t, and I wish there was. I’ll look through aerial photos of the city to see if anything pops up for potential disposal places. I’m not ruling out the other possibilities we initially came up with—the florists and the butcher shops. Maybe even funeral homes—they certainly fit the bill. Joe can help me dig for any in the area that might have been owned by Marcher’s shell corporations. We’ll also look for places with walk-in size coolers and loading docks.”
