Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I look around to make sure that Juno Reyes is now gone.
She is.
“So… Why the hell were you guys interviewing a local artist?”
“That’s it?” Daniela shakes her head. “No hi, how are you, Daniela? I’m sorry for being a dick, Daniela?”
She’s right.
“And more importantly than that,” she continues, “how is Eagle? How is your father? You really want to start with an interrogation?”
“I am sorry. I was…” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Forget it. There’s no excuse. It doesn’t matter what I was thinking, what I was going through. I shouldn’t have treated you badly. I shouldn’t treat anyone badly, but especially not you.” I pause a moment. “And Eagle and my dad are the same. No improvement.”
She steps toward me. “I’m sorry.”
I sigh. “Dani, I’m the one who’s sorry. Please.”
She nods. “I know. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, but thanks for saying it is.” I squeeze her hand. “I’ll do better.”
“I know,” she says softly.
“Now…
“Right. Juno Reyes.” She draws in a breath. “Because she’s the niece of the man who may be the person who’s threatening me. Sending those gifts. I mentioned him when you showed me Juno’s painting. He’s a man who works for the Colombian legislature. Hernando Reyes.”
“What?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Yeah,” Robin says, joining us as Vinnie heads toward his car.
“And you’re helping with this?” I ask.
“Yeah. So is Vinnie. He had to take a call.”
“So this Hernando Reyes…” I say.
Daniela swallows. “He was one of the men who…”
“Jesus Christ.” I clench my hands into fists.
I’m furious. So full of rage at this Reyes, whoever the fuck he is.
But I force myself to calm down. I don’t know if this is all germane to what I’m doing, but we need to figure out if the searches are related.
“Hawk, you okay?” Robin asks.
“Do I look okay?”
“No,” she says. “That’s why I asked.”
I rub at my forehead. “I’m going to try to compartmentalize this. Despite the fact that I want to go find Juno Reyes and find out where her uncle is and then go throttle him into next week.”
“Hawk, please…” Daniela says.
“Yes, all right.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath before continuing. “I was just meeting with some people as well.”
“Who?” Robin asks.
“Do you remember one of Dad’s old personal assistants? Ted Tucker?”
She purses her lips. “No, not really. Dad had a lot of assistants over the years.”
“This was a really nice guy. I used to play Monopoly with him?”
“Oh, right,” Robin says. “I do remember you playing Monopoly with one of dad’s employees. But then it just stopped.”
“Yeah,” I say. “There are some things you don’t know, Robbie.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Ted Tucker disappeared. But…” I look around. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this here.”
“Hawk, what are you getting at?” I ask.
I can’t go any further into detail about Ted. Robin obviously doesn’t remember him, and my siblings never knew why I went to the hospital when I was twelve. I’m not even sure my mother knows. My father took me himself, told my mother I had fallen or something. Told them some lie about the doctors not wanting to risk infection, so no one else could come see me.
I was always amazed that my mother bought all of that. If it had been Falcon or Eagle…
Nope. Not going there right now.
“Yeah, he disappeared,” I say. “And Dad seemed very suspicious of Ted the entire time he worked for him.”
“I’m so sorry about your friend,” she says.
“Don’t worry about that.” I wave my hands. “It was years ago, but I recently ran into Ted’s two brothers who said he did a lot of volunteer work in Colombia when he was younger.”
Daniela widens her eyes. “Oh my God. You think that he might’ve been one of the men who…”
I shake my head. “No. This would’ve been over fifteen years ago, and you were only a toddler then. Plus, I just found out that Ted was gay, so he wouldn’t have been interested in your services.”
She nods.
“But there might be a connection between Ted and your father.”
She bites her lip. “I suppose there could be. But there are a lot of people in Colombia, Hawk, and I don’t think my father would’ve been interested in a volunteer worker. He didn’t associate with the poor and downtrodden, and I can’t imagine that there would’ve been any interaction between the two of them.”
“I would’ve never thought so either,” I say. “But there was something about Ted that my father deemed untrustworthy. And that makes me think that maybe Ted wasn’t who I thought he was. Maybe he was doing volunteer work in Colombia as a cover.”
Vinnie rejoins us then, and I retell what I just told the women about Ted.
He nods. “I’ll look into it. I can hack better than anyone. I’ll see if there’s any connection between Ted Tucker and Jacinto Agudelo. Or maybe either one of them and Hernando Reyes.”