“Next are Wade, Jack, and Axel,” Vince added. “Except for Axel, the others are the founders of Ranger Shield Security, along with me.”
I nodded to all of them.
“This is my dad’s Army buddy, Ray Delacruz. He spent two decades working counterterrorism for the Army at Fort Hood in Texas until he switched over to work for a bodyguard servicesteam and then retired last year,” Vince continued. “We asked him to come in because his specialty is infiltration. Dad and I figured if anyone could help us figure out how this son of a bitch broke in, it would be Ray.”
After years of nagging, my buddy Chase Jackson had finally convinced me to retire from the military and join him at the bodyguard services company he and his wife Sadie had opened in Fort Hood
It was actually a branch of her uncle’s company, but Chase and Sadie ran it. Once I’d hit my twenty-year mark in service, I’d retired and joined his team for a decade before fully retiring.
“I make no guarantees, but I’m happy to help,” I replied. “Walk me through what you’ve got so far and the basics of the burglary.”
“We don’t think this was random,” Vince said cautiously. “The alarm system was not cut. It was deactivated. Someone either knew the code ahead of time or knew how to override it, because the panel was used and unarmed as if it were one of us.”
An insider definitely could be the culprit, but there were other ways to work around an alarm system to unarm it and not raise red flags.
“They also knew where every single camera was and either turned them off or avoided them,” Jack said. “While some of those cameras are out in the open and very obvious, two of them were hidden very well, so someone had to know they were there in order to avoid them.”
“I thought you said you had one camera that did catch something?” I asked, remembering the few details Frank had given me.
“I didn’t realize my manager had hidden one behind the bar,” Wade said. “Without that one, we would have had no idea someone had actually broken into the pub.”
Wait. What had he just said?
I held up my hand to stop him. “Did you say the pub was robbed? As in the pub next door?”
Vince nodded in confirmation, and my brain did a quick recall of my conversation with Frank yesterday morning.
“You told meyour son’s businesswas robbed, not the business next door,” I said to Frank.
I watched as Frank started to reply but was cut off by Vince.
“We own the bar too. We own this entire building, actually. Wade’s uncle used to own this building and ran the Watering Hole for thirty years. He leased out the space that is now Ranger Shield to other businesses, and he also owned the two floors above us. When he retired, we bought the entire building from him, including the pub.”
“The woman who used to help my uncle run the place does most of the heavy lifting still so we can focus on the security business,” Wade added. “Her name is Tammy. We’ll have you meet with her a little later.”
Oh, shit.
This just got a lot more complicated.
A mumbled curse slipped from my mouth. “So, the employees who work at the pub are also considered your employees.”
This time Archer chimed in, slowly, as if sensing there was a more complicated reason I was asking. “Yes. Why?”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “I came by the bar last night when I got in. I knew it was late, but I figured I could walk around the building and get the lay of the land for a bit, especially at night since that’s when you said the burglary took place. Then, realizing I was hungry, I went into the bar.”
I sighed and wiped my hand over my face. “At the risk of you finding out eventually and needing this whole investigation on the up and up, I met someone, and things progressed. I sleptwith your bartender last night. In my defense, you didn’t say the bar was robbed, or I never would have gone there.”
Instantly, all eyes moved to the man at the end of the table.
“You slept with Axel?” Vince and Wade asked at the same time.
Axel choked on his drink as I replied.
“No. I slept with Tammy.”
Murmured curses could be heard round the table, while Frank laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Vince asked him.
