“We think the fire was retaliation for me working on Mary Louise’s case, right? I was threatened by Cinnamon Man, who specifically mentioned her name on the same day Mary Louise was attacked. Mary Louise dropped it, but I kept pushing. You got her moved to a new facility where she’d be safer and got Allen protection. I kept digging. So someone decided to let us know they weren’t happy by setting fire to the library while I was in it.”
Her recap of the situation was raising my already dangerously high blood pressure. “What’s the connection? Why would a sociopath crime boss in DC care about a wrongfully convicted female prisoner?”
Sloane bit her lip. “What if it’s the prison?” She handed me a sheet of paper. “Fraus Correctional Center is a private prison owned by a corporation called Civic Group, which is owned by two other corporations. Which then made me think about all your sneaky underhandedness hiding grants and donations in entities named after cherry trees. And while I was thinking about your sneakiness, this one caught my eye.” She tapped the page above the words Rex Management. “Rex is Latin for king,” she explained.
“Which Hugo fancies himself to be,” I mused, following her drift.
“Exactly,” Sloane said, beaming at me. “So I did a search for other private prisons in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina and found three more facilities owned by Civic Group. All rundown. All with overcrowding and understaffing complaints. But all providing profits to Civic Group and its owners. I can’t tell what kind of profit we’re talking, but each place has a contract with the government providing them money for each inmate housed. The more people in the facility, the higher the profits.”
“When I threatened to have Duncan Hugo moved to another facility, he panicked,” I recalled, scanning Sloane’s research. “He said he wouldn’t be safe.”
“Was it one of these three?” she asked, rising to her knees in excitement.
I pointed to Lucrum. “That’s the one.”
Sloane threw her arms around my neck. “I knew it! I did good, didn’t I? Two-time convicted felon Anthony Freaking Hugo is part owner of four private correctional facilities. That’s got to be seriously illegal.”
“Not to mention the fact that he can have anyone in one of those prisons eliminated if necessary,” I pointed out.
Sloane pulled back, looking horrified. “Holy shit.”
“This is good, Pix. Really good,” I said, giving her a squeeze.
She cupped my face in her hands. “Take him down, big guy.”
I gave her a hard kiss on the mouth and deposited her on top of her research. “Pasture!” I snapped at the hacker.
She looked up and pointed at herself. “Me?”
Sloane leaned in. “I think you mean Prairie.”
“Right. Prairie. That’s what I said. Stop what you’re doing, and give me everything you can on Rex Management and Civic Group.”
I gave Sloane’s shoulder a squeeze as I dialed Special Agent Idler.
“It’s 4:00 a.m. This better be fucking good,” she rasped.
“How soon can you put a team together to drag Hugo into the nearest cell?”
I hadn’t slept or showered in thirty-six hours, but Anthony Hugo looked worse than I did, I thought smugly as I took the chair across from him.
Gone were the slick suit and the diamond pinkie ring, and in their place, he wore a baggy orange jumpsuit that only made him look more sallow.
“You come here to gloat?” he demanded as the guard cuffed him to the table with a satisfying snap. “Because I’ll be out of here within a day. They can’t keep me.”
“Ah, but they can,” I said, leaning back on the metal chair. “I just came from Special Agent Idler’s office.”
“That bitch will be the first to go.” He sneered cagily. “Well, maybe the second after your little blond girlfriend.”
“Here’s the thing about that, Anthony. These are just the beginning of your charges. The other officers in your little Rex Management have all been arrested. Coincidentally, they’re also most of your inner circle. And they’re singing like their lives depend on it. The feds have already talked to a dozen of your crew serving sentences in your facilities, and they’ve confessed to an astonishing number of crimes, including assaults and murder. Most of them weren’t afraid of pointing the finger at who gave the orders now that you’re behind bars, especially after they were promised deals and sentence reductions.”
Anthony went even paler.
“You listen to me, you son of a fucking bitch—”
“No,” I said stonily. “It’s your turn to listen. In less than two days, I’ve dismantled every piece of your business. Everything you worked for your entire life. It’s all gone. Your assets are frozen. Your men are sitting in interrogation rooms around the city. Including the ones you had dump Felix Metzer in the Potomac. You have nothing left. Do you know why that is?”
“Fuck you.”
“Wrong answer. I took everything from you because you tried to take from me. You threatened my family. No one walks away from that.”
“I’ll get to you. And when I do, I’ll finish the job I started with that list your police chief friend was on. I’ll take out every single one of the people you love, and then I’ll make you bleed.”
I smirked. “Good luck with that.”
“You think seein’ your friend pumped full of lead and that library fire were bad? I’m just getting started. I’ll come for you personally. I got guys watching you and that FBI bitch. One call from me and you’re both dead like Metzer. No one crosses me.”
I stood up and buttoned my suit jacket. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. That FBI bitch had your ‘guys’ arrested yesterday. Third strike for quite a few of them, which made them surprisingly cooperative. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have someplace I need to be.”
I strolled out of the room and left his snarled threats behind me.
“Tell me everything!” Sloane pounced the second I opened my front door. “Does he know he’s cooked? Did he threaten you? Did you laugh in his face? Is there surveillance footage of him freaking out that I could watch?”
She was wearing pajama pants with palm fronds on them and a tight black tank top. Her hair was damp from a shower, and her eyes were sparkling.
Something warm and bright expanded in my chest. It felt like I’d swallowed the sun.
I gripped her wrist, bent at the waist, and tossed her neatly over my shoulder.
“You two are free to go,” I said to Lina and Grace, who had been on Sloane guard duty for the last twenty-four hours.
“Woo-hoo!” Grace said.
“Have fun, kids,” Lina called as I carried Sloane down the hall to the bedroom.
I tossed her on the bed, making her laugh. “You’re awfully frisky for a man who hasn’t slept in two days.”
“Ruining the life of a bad guy does that to me,” I teased, stripping off my jacket and tie.
“My hero.”
The words from her did strange things to my insides. And I knew I’d treasure them just like every “attaboy” I’d earned from her father.
Sloane crawled higher up the bed and propped herself on the new mound of pillows I’d had delivered. She patted the spot next to her. “Come tell me all about it, big guy, and then we’ll get naked and do naughty things to each other.”
I made it a quarter of my way through my retelling of Hugo’s arrest before I passed out with Sloane in my arms and proceeded to sleep the sleep of a hero for the next ten hours.
44
It’s Not about Drawer Space
Sloane
Stef: Flowers and champagne are too cliché, right?
Me: Too cliché for what?
Stef: For asking a man to move in with me.
Me: I’m honored that you’d come to me for your grand gesture advice.
Stef: Naomi is too much of a romantic, and Lina wouldn’t know romance if it bit her in her delectable ass. So I’m asking you. Advise me already. Too much or not enough?
Me: It depends on the rest of the setup. Is this an intimate-conversation-over-wine-and-homemade-pasta-or-whatever-your-talented-gay-hands-make thing? Or is this an announcement-with-fireworks-and-a-marching-band-in-front-of-the-entire-town thing?
Stef: I see I’ve come to the wrong person. I should have asked a straight dude.