Treacherous Intent Read online

  “Well, we’re here with Debra and Ryan, so you won’t need to worry about them.”

  “Thanks, bro.” There was relief and warmth in Brady’s voice.

  “Brady, when you’re ready to go home—”

  “I’ll try to come home early, and I’ll ask a security guard to walk me to my car. I’ll be careful.”

  When Liam hung up, she blurted, “You’re really close with your family.”

  A glow came into his dark blue eyes. “I guess so. We drive each other crazy, but we’re always there for each other.” He regarded her for a moment, and it was as if he saw inside her. “Are you close to your family?”

  She looked away. “No.” Her voice came out snappish, and she regretted it. He had only asked an innocent question after all. She added in a softer tone, “I’m an only child. My mother died when I was sixteen, and...I was never close to my father. If I have any extended family, I don’t know about them.”

  Liam’s brow wrinkled. “You never looked?”

  “I looked up my mother’s family, but couldn’t access the records in the Philippines.” She hadn’t bothered to try to find her father’s family.

  “I’m sorry.” He looked stricken. “I’m always so annoyed by my family, I’ve never thought about...not having anyone.”

  She didn’t want his pity. She needed to be strong, because she’d learned the hard way that it was the way to survive. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. Desperate to change the subject, she looked around. “Where should I set up?”

  Liam ended up seated at Brady’s desk while Elisabeth sat at a small circular table in the corner of the office. She opened her laptop. “So here’s the question of the day: Why do the Tumibays want Joslyn?”

  Liam leaned back in Brady’s leather chair. “They might want her simply because they know the Bagsics want her. They could get leverage with the Bagsics if they have Joslyn, knowing Tomas would give up a lot to have her. But that Tumibay also knew about the shipping container that Tomas lost. What does that have to do with Joslyn and the murder?”

  “And how did a San Francisco gang find out about a Bagsic shipping container in L.A.? Maybe these are two unrelated things, but they’re both tied to Tomas.”

  “You think Tomas might be after Joslyn for something to do with the shipping container rather than because of the murder?”

  She shrugged. “It’s possible. They sent in a cleaner to the murder scene, and apparently they have a lawyer who has gotten gang members off from murder charges in the past. They don’t seem to have much to worry about in terms of the murder, so why all this effort to find Joslyn?”

  “I’ll look for the ship and the shipping container,” Liam said. “I think you said it was called the Pansit?”

  “That’s what the Bagsic at the club said. I’ll look up that Tumibay gang member who attacked us, Lamar Garcia.”

  The first time they’d been working side by side like this, at her apartment, she’d been distracted by the fact that he was there in her personal space, at her dining room table. He had made her nervous.

  Now their working together made her feel like part of a team. There were moments she felt that way when she worked with some staff at the shelter or when she was contracting with law enforcement. But this was different. She felt like a vital part of a whole. It made her feel needed in a way she hadn’t felt before.

  And it was because of Liam, because he respected her. Because he was almost someone she could trust.

  “I’ve got nothing.” Liam threw down the pen he’d been using to take notes and flung himself against the back of the chair. “There’s no record of a ship called the Pansit ever docking in the Port of Los Angeles.”

  She was surprised. He’d been on the phone, making calls down to L.A., and she had assumed he’d find out something. “They might have found a way to keep it off the records.”

  Liam rubbed his hand across his face. “Some of the skip tracers I know wouldn’t hesitate to break a few laws to find out. And I have to admit, the more frustrated I get, the more tempted I am to bend some rules.”

  She could hear the frustration in his voice, and at the same time, there was a noble quality to it. “But you won’t do it.”

  “But I won’t do it.”

  She respected that about him. She paused, then asked, “What keeps you from doing it?”

  He didn’t answer her right away. Finally he said, in a halting voice, “I know God wouldn’t want me to. I don’t want to disappoint Him.”

  She’d known he was a Christian, but she’d never heard him speak of God like this before. “Do you really think God cares about something so insignificant as finding a ship from the Philippines?”

  “It’s not insignificant to us. And yes, I do think He cares.”

  “Then I think that there are more important things that He should care about.” Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended, but she couldn’t help it. She thought about the loss and pain and betrayal in her life. Where had God been then? Why hadn’t He considered it significant enough to save her?

  “He cares about those, too.” Liam’s blue gaze was steady on her face, not self-righteous or judgmental, but kind. He was certainly different from other Christians she’d known.

  She was embarrassed at how she’d lashed out at his faith. What had he ever done to her to deserve that kind of derision? “It’s just that...you make it sound like you and God are best buds. It’s strange to me.” And why couldn’t God have been best buds with her? Was there something wrong with her? Was it because she hadn’t made good choices in her life? Was she being punished?

  She sighed. What was she doing, inferring some deep theology from Liam’s innocent words?

  “He is my best bud,” Liam said slowly. “It’s what it’s supposed to mean to be a Christian.”

  “Not to any of the other Christians I’ve known.”

  “Well, Christians aren’t perfect. If they were, they wouldn’t need God.”

  That hadn’t really occurred to her. The conversation was getting uncomfortable. She made it a policy not to talk about religion with people, mostly because she didn’t want to think about religion herself. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I think I found Joslyn’s connection to the Tumibays.”

  Liam took the change in conversation in stride. “Oh?”

  “I found several pictures of Lamar Garcia on social media. He posed in a few photos at a party with a guy named Daniel. But what’s interesting is that in a different photo at the same party, Daniel is posing with a girl named Faye Torres. It looks like they’re dating. Faye’s name sounded familiar, so I looked at my notes on Joslyn. Faye is Joslyn’s cousin.”

  “Joslyn was dating a Bagsic and her cousin is dating a Tumibay? What are the odds of that?”

  “I think that Tomas pursued Joslyn—I don’t think she actively wanted to date a gang member. Faye, on the other hand, looks like she’s been wanting to be involved with the Tumibays for a while. From what I could find on her, she looks like she attended a lot of parties with other Tumibays and flirted around before meeting Daniel.”

  “Why would she want to do that?” Liam looked faintly disgusted.

  Elisabeth shrugged. “Some women like the power associated with gang members. Their confidence makes them attractive.”

  “Do we know that Joslyn would go to her cousin for help? What if they weren’t close?”

  “They were close enough.” Elisabeth clicked back to the photo of Joslyn at her workplace. “Do you see this user who commented, Fairydust9437? That’s Faye. I saw her use it on another website. She wrote here, ‘Nice photo, Joslyn! Is that Tomas? Wow, he’s a cutie.’”

  “So she knew Joslyn was dating a Bagsic. If Joslyn was betrayed by her boyfriend, I could see her jumping ship to another gang for protection, especially if her cousin had ties to it.”

  “But then why didn’t Joslyn stay with Tumibays? Why are the Tumibays after her now?”

  Liam’s face grew dark. “Even if she s
aid she wanted to align herself with them, the Tumibays might be ruthless enough that they’d turn around and sell her back to the Bagsics. She could have run from them to protect herself.”

  “And obviously Faye doesn’t know where Joslyn is, or they wouldn’t have needed to question me.”

  “We can’t question Faye about Joslyn, either. There’s too big a risk that she’d betray us to her boyfriend’s gang.”

  At that moment, Debra appeared in the doorway, her face white. “You have to do something.”

  “What is it?” Liam rose to his feet. Elisabeth also stood.

  Debra pointed toward the back of the house. “I was washing dishes at the sink, and I saw... I just saw two strange men sneak into the backyard.”

  TEN

  At Debra’s words, Liam’s entire body shocked to life. “Debra, go through the house and shut off the lights.” He grabbed his firearm from his laptop case.

  Liam headed for the kitchen and snapped off the light. There was a window at the sink, but there was also a large window in a breakfast nook, opposite the table. He positioned himself beside the larger window and peeked out.

  Dusk was falling—he hadn’t realized it was so late. However, the Christmas lights he’d noticed earlier gave off a soft glow.

  Elisabeth came up behind him so silently that he didn’t realize she was there until she spoke. “Are there men out there?” She also had her gun, her body tense as she positioned herself on the other side of the window and looked out. “I don’t see them.”

  “Where’s Debra?”

  “I told her to take Ryan into the study and hide under the desk.”

  They watched the backyard, and Liam’s eyes gradually became accustomed to the dimness. They waited, and Liam was about to give up when he suddenly saw a shadow move between two fir trees.

  “There are people out there,” Elisabeth whispered. “I’ll call 9-1-1. I didn’t want to do it earlier in case it was a false alarm.”

  She grabbed the phone in the kitchen and made the call. Liam only listened with half an ear as he scanned the backyard for any more movement. Switching off all the house lights must have alerted the intruders because they weren’t making any moves toward the house.

  Elisabeth came back to the window. “We only have to hold them off until the police arrive.”

  “Brady’s house is on the edge of Geyserville, so if there aren’t any cruisers nearby, it might take some time.”

  “Does the house have a security alarm? Maybe if we set it, the noise will scare them off.”

  Liam shook his head. His brother hadn’t gotten around to getting an alarm system yet.

  “How do you want to do this?” she asked.

  “If I was going to approach the house, I could use the trees as cover until I reached the edge of the patio, then make a run for the side door. Or I could run across the lawn to the other side, then take cover in the bushes, which would hide me almost all the way to the sliding glass door at that corner of the house.”

  “So we wait to see what they do? How many are there?”

  “As far as I can tell, only two. If they split up, I’ll take the sliding glass door, you take the side door. It’s in the laundry room.” The laundry room had several spaces where a small figure could hide in wait. He wouldn’t fit in those places, but she could.

  She nodded. Then she holstered her gun. “We shouldn’t use our firearms.”

  Because of the danger of stray bullets for Debra and Ryan. He grabbed one of Debra’s kitchen knives and she took a cast-iron skillet.

  They waited, watching the backyard. The minutes ticked by. Each one felt like an hour. Liam forced his heart rate to slow, become steady. Finally, they saw one man dart across the exposed area of the lawn while a shadow moved between the trees toward the side door. They were splitting up.

  Liam hurried to the living room, avoiding the windows so the men outside wouldn’t see him. Hopefully he could take care of the man there quickly so he could help Elisabeth with the other one.

  Or maybe she’d take care of her attacker first and come to Liam’s rescue. He wished he’d seen her when she’d fought Lamar Garcia at the gas station, but he’d heard her describe breaking his arm when the police officer took her statement.

  He hid in the shadows of the living room, with a clear view of the sliding glass door, but unseen from outside. He didn’t have long to wait before a man’s figure appeared. He studied the glass door, then laid something on the ground—his gun. He grabbed the door handle and gave a powerful jerk. The first time didn’t work, since the sliding glass door was relatively new and tight in the frame, but his second attempt lifted the door off the track so that he could drag it open.

  He was still unarmed.

  Liam rushed forward and tackled him, hurtling them both out onto the flagstone patio. They hit the stone with a jaw-clacking thud, and he lost his knife.

  The man lashed out at Liam. He was quick and wiry. Liam blocked an elbow to his head and managed a solid blow to the man’s torso that made his attacker pause.

  Liam rose onto his knees and rained a hail of punches to the man’s head. He blocked the first few, but then his defense started to sag as Liam’s attacks connected with his head.

  And then suddenly a heavy body crashed into him, sending Liam flying sideways. His head bounced hard off the flagstones, making stars explode in his vision.

  There was a third man.

  The weight across his torso and legs indicated a man who was heavier than Liam, but the attacker was also slower. Liam kicked out with a leg and connected with the man’s thigh, then rolled away, trying to still his spinning head. The third man grabbed at his legs, holding him on the ground. Liam struggled and tried to kick again, but the man’s meaty hands held him fast.

  So he crunched up into a sitting position and swung at the man’s unprotected head. He couldn’t see well in the dimness, but his fists landed on a fleshy cheek, an ear, his nose, and smashed into the man’s mouth. The man let go of Liam and rolled away.

  Liam sprang to his feet, but froze when a voice said, “Hold it right there.”

  The smaller man held his gun pointed at Liam. He recognized him now as Lamar Garcia, the man from the gas station, in the leather jacket and with the fishhook scar on his face. However, Liam didn’t recognize the larger man, who got clumsily to his feet. He was a mountain of a man, with wide shoulders, beefy arms and a barrel torso.

  “You said it was only the woman and the baby home,” the larger man said to his partner, his voice deep and sulky with accusation.

  “I checked the garage,” Garcia snapped. “They must have parked somewhere else.”

  But the advantage of surprise hadn’t done Liam much good. How long before the police arrived? Liam had thought they’d want to capture him and ask him questions, but the man held the gun at him, face tense. He looked as if he was going to shoot. Would he risk the neighbors hearing the gunshot?

  Liam stared down the barrel of the gun. The man was close; he wouldn’t miss. And then Liam felt a wave of peace wash over him. The situation was in God’s hands, not his.

  He exhaled slowly, and somehow knew he would be okay.

  “Freeze!” It was Elisabeth’s voice.

  Liam turned and saw her coming from around the side of the house. Her hair was wild around her head, but her hands were steady as she aimed her firearm at the two men. “Drop the gun.” She must have taken out the other attacker.

  “Drop yours or I’ll shoot him,” Garcia said, his hand steady as he held his gun.

  There was a wavering in her determined face.

  “Don’t think about me,” Liam told her. “Just don’t let them get away.”

  And then he heard it—the faint wail of a police siren.

  “Drop the gun,” Elisabeth repeated.

  This time, it was Garcia who wavered.

  “Come on!” a man’s voice shouted behind Elisabeth, and she spun around. The man she had taken out at the side door must h
ave come to, because he staggered around the corner, but he yelped and jumped back when he saw Elisabeth pointing her gun at him.

  “Let’s go,” the big man said to Garcia.

  “The police aren’t here yet. She’s right there—”

  “We have to go or the car’ll be trapped in the driveway.” The large man turned and ran around the side of the house, heading toward the front. Elisabeth’s attacker followed him.

  Garcia shot Liam an angry, frustrated look, then he also turned and ran.

  Liam raced after him.

  Garcia turned and fired back a wild gunshot. Liam ducked and swerved, taking cover behind the corner of the house. He peeked around before pursuing the men.

  He saw headlights swing across the front of the house, illuminating the trees that lined the driveway. The police already? But there were no flashing lights and he could still hear the sirens at a distance.

  And then he realized. Brady.

  He hadn’t told Brady not to come home.

  “Brady!” His shout scraped against his throat.

  “Hey!” It was his brother’s voice.

  Liam turned the corner of the house in time to see Brady throw himself at Garcia as he ran past. The two flew farther down the driveway, rolling on the ground, and Liam saw the man’s gun go flying.

  Brady had been a wrestler in high school, and recently he’d been going to the mixed martial arts gym with Liam. He grappled with the man with powerful arms and landed a few punches to the man’s side.

  Liam had almost reached them when Garcia slashed out and Brady jerked backward with a cry. The faint light glinted gray off the blade of a knife.

  “Brady!” Liam ran to where his brother lay curled on the ground. He spared only a glance for Garcia as he fled into the gang’s getaway car.

  The sirens were coming closer, but they wouldn’t arrive before the men had exited Brady’s long driveway.

  Liam knelt in front of his brother. Seconds later, Elisabeth appeared at his side.

  “Brady, are you all right?”