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“There’s a lot of incentive to build a crime business. And like any industry, the participants network. They look for mutually beneficial arrangements. Doesn’t mean it’s being orchestrated by a cabal.”
“Hmmm.” Her low rumble sounds like a purr. I close my eyes, reveling in this closeness. “Maybe.”
Conjecture is pointless. “You know, you missed the update earlier. We’re now a part of Operation CalTan. Cross-agency task force. Arrow’s involved. I met with Ryan this morning. He debriefed me.”
“Ryan? And Aunt Alex?”
“He didn’t mention Alex. They busted two DEA agents who were accomplices with a drug smuggling enterprise, and one of them is now an informant.”
“Is Rafael’s distribution network compromised?”
“We don’t know that yet. The Toros have added additional entry points into the US. He might just be looking to expand his back-end operations.”
“Coming to you as a money launderer, right?”
“That’s the expectation. The hope. Went to my new offices today. We’re set up and ready for business. Have you heard anything from Gemma?”
“No.” Her thigh shifts. Her smooth, silky skin rubs up and down over my leg. “I plan to reach out…give it a couple of days but send her something along the lines of we’re back home and I’m bored and what is she up to. You know, that kind of thing.”
I cup her full ass and caress her curves. “You’re bored?”
“Well, you know, I am a housewife.” She raises her head and gives me a cheeky grin.
I roll her onto her back. My fingers explore, roaming her soft skin and seductive curves. “If my wife is bored, I think I’ve got to do something about that. Don’t you?”
“Like what?” There’s a flush across her skin and an amused look in her eye.
“Well, since there’s no urgency this time around, I think I’m going to start with my mouth, tasting every delectable inch of you.”
CHAPTER25
SOPHIA
The last two domestic weeks have left me with far too much time. Each morning, Fisher and I wake early for a grueling run or weight routine, then he leaves for the faux office and I settle into my home office.
Given my CIA workload is light at the moment, I’ve been able to devote more time to my side project. Killington’s release reignited my never-ending research. I spend my days mapping connections and following up on every surveillance report within my reach.
At night, Fisher and I play the role of newlyweds. If anyone is watching us, they’re getting quite the show. Any fears I once harbored that I might be sexually ambivalent are a thing of the past.
I’ve met up with Aunt Alex twice. But I follow all the recommended precautions. I once met a retired FBI agent who said he spent twelve years undercover with the mafia and would go home at night to his wife and kids. In twelve years, his two worlds never overlapped, even though geographically they were around thirty minutes driving distance apart. If he could do it in Boston, then I can do it in Santa Barbara, or at least, that’s the argument I pitched to Fisher.
Gemma has yet to respond to my texts. Pegasus, the system we use for surveillance, shows the number hasn’t been used since she left Canada.
Rafael hasn’t been in touch with Fisher, but Ivan swung by the brokerage offices. Given he’s spent his time Stateside in Los Angeles, we believe he came up specifically to check out Fisher’s brokerage on behalf of Rafael. But we could be wrong. He claimed he had business in the area, and surveillance picked him up on CTV near the marina.
My home office overlooks rolling hills dotted with homes, roads, and palm trees. The navy blue stretch of ocean is far off near the horizon, broken only by the occasional splash of white. The arid, sandy earth surrounding the house changes in color based on the location of the sun, transforming throughout the day from shades of rusty browns to terracotta.
There’s a quiet to the house. Yes, I fill the time with research and analysis, but there’s time in the lengthy days to reflect. My thoughts often stray to Killington.
I’ve always suspected the bastard raped me; therefore, his confession didn’t warrant me losing my cool. I should’ve capitalized on his admission. But my emotions overpowered reason, and I threw away what could’ve been a fruitful interrogation.
Failure or not, I recorded our meeting, and I’ve played the tape repeatedly. “Follow the money.” I get that. A derivative of “follow the money” is “follow the connections.” I’ve spent hours reviewing photographs from the CIA, FBI, and social media.
Wayne Killington worked with the Morales cartel. When he got busted, we had nothing to go after them. That fall, my dad got looped into the gun smuggling arrangement Killington coordinated. They were using luxury yachts, privately owned by different parties to avoid suspicion, to smuggle guns into Mexico and drugs back into the US. The DEA and FBI were involved in that bust, and it led to fracturing the Morales cartel distribution network. The cartel weakened over the years, competitors strengthened, and it’s no longer considered one of the major Mexican cartels.
Several employees within Sullivan Arms, my family’s gun manufacturing business, got busted in that sting and they are serving time. But my dad always said they were lower-level people. My uncle should’ve been arrested too.
But my uncle was a smart man, and they didn’t have anything concrete to tie the gun smuggling to him. He faced charges for hiring a hitman to kill my dad, but he also hired phenomenal lawyers. His case never saw the inside of a courtroom, thanks to delays. Cancer took him before his case was ever heard.
