Welcome to book fifteen in the Operation Quickline series. Christmas may be Lisa Wycherly’s favorite time of the year, but then Sid’s shocking encounter with an old friend gets them embroiled in one messy case. With Lisa’s nephew spiraling out of control, it’s looking like a not-so-merry holiday. You can read the latest chapter here, and follow the whole series here.
It almost felt a little strange not having Darby at the breakfast table that morning. Or maybe the three of us were just feeling the events of the night before. Nonetheless, Nick headed out for school in good time, and Sid and I were left to look at each other.
“Which section do you want?” Sid asked as he folded up the front section of the newspaper and grabbed the second.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m too worried about Darby to care.”
He sighed. “The problem is it’s his choice. However you, or even I, may feel about the morality of it, it is his choice.”
“You’re right. That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“That, sadly, doesn’t matter.”
Later that morning, Angelique called me.
“We had a great time yesterday, as always.”
“Yeah.” I sighed deeply. “It didn’t end that well on the family side. Nothing I want to talk about.”
“Ouch. Okay. I’ve got something for you, though. Can we do lunch?”
I sighed. “Sure. Why not?”
What Ange had was the police report on Stan Ford’s accident and death. She understood when I wanted to get back home to go over it with Sid. She had to get back to work quickly, anyway. It was Monday and her busy day.
At the house, Sid and I took turns reading the report as we sat in the office. The brakes on Stan’s car had been tampered with sometime between five o’clock, when Stan had left the car dealership where he’d worked, and ten o’clock, when he’d left the bar, then had the accident. He was over the legal limit on alcohol and had been speeding when the brakes failed.
“Sid, did you see this?” I turned the file on the crack between our desks so that Sid could see it right side up and pointed to the spot. “Special Agent Peter Venkt was on the scene and told the investigating officer to not only check for tampering but suggested that Louis Renfrew might have had reason to kill Ford.”
“Huh. It was getting close to seven when Loser showed that night, and according to this, the bar was not that far away from the airport. It’s just barely possible Loser did.”
“Not unless he’s developed a transporter beam,” I said. “Nick and I saw him around five-thirty, quarter to six. Well, he saw us and thought Nick was you, at first.”
“Which means Cobb and pals didn’t know that Loser was meeting us that evening, and yet by last Monday, we all had recon vehicles watching us.” Sid glared at the report. “And why kill Stan? It seems like they were trying to set Loser up for it, but why didn’t they make sure Loser was in the Bay Area before they did it that way?”
“How did they even find out about us?” I asked. “Unless Louis is walking the fence.”
In other words, acting as a double agent.
“Well, that office had been broken into before we got to it.” Sid sighed and made a face. “And we know Cobb and his pals were watching it somehow because they harassed Frank and Esther.”
We looked at each other, utterly puzzled. Then Mae called.
“Mama and I are going over to the Glendale Galleria,” she said. “Do you want to come?”
I looked at my watch. “I’d like to, but can’t. I’ve got a meeting tonight at seven and I’m behind on my reading. How are you doing?”
Mae sighed. “Fine, I guess. Neil had a little talk with Darby last night. Mama’s surprisingly okay. She agrees with Sy that this sort of thing is to be expected, especially given the pressure Darby’s been getting. We’re just going to have to brace ourselves after Thursday’s concert. I think Darby gets it that we’re worried about him getting hurt. Anyway, since sitting around brooding about it won’t help, Mama wants to go to the Beverly Center sometime. You know, as a distraction. Are you done with classes yet?”
“Finished last week. We can go tomorrow, maybe have the rest of the crew meet us there?”
“Sounds good. We can meet for lunch.”
“Sure.” I named a restaurant, and Mae agreed. “When are Mama and Daddy coming over here?”
“After the concert on Thursday. Is that okay?”
I made a face. Sid, sitting across from me at his desk, lifted an eyebrow.
“Thursday?” I said. Sid shrugged and gestured to indicate my parents might as well come that day as any. “That should be okay.”
I hung up and looked at Sid. “This is not a good time for them to be staying here.”
“We’ve had to juggle it before.”
Nick showed up at three, grinning like Alfred E. Neuman.
“Good day, honey?” I asked as he came into the office and kissed me, then kissed the top of Sid’s head.
“Yep.” He stopped. “Um, Darby and I patched things up, too. He’s got a lot bothering him.”
“We know, son,” said Sid.
“Anyway, he wants to come over after lessons today and practice with you for Thursday.” Nick smiled weakly. “Is that okay?”
Sid smiled. “Of course, it is, and he can stay over, too, if he wants.”
“Cool. I think I’m going to drive us tomorrow. Carpooling is better for the environment, you know.”
“Better get on your homework,” I said, pulling Quackenbush open. “Oh, and there’s a trip to Beverly Center in the works for tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll call Darby at the music school.” Nick left the office.
Darby showed up at five-thirty reasonably contrite. I lit the second candle on the Advent wreath, we ate dinner, and opened Christmas cards. Sid told the boys that he and Tom were going out that night. I reminded them that I had a liturgy meeting and would probably go out with Frank and Esther afterward. The only problem was that Nick noticed that I was wearing my black break-in pants and a light pink Oxford shirt.
I got up to go at twenty to seven, hurrying to the office to get my purse, and put into it a disassembled high-powered rifle, an automatic .45mm pistol, and plenty of ammo. Nick caught me.
“You’re working tonight?” he asked.
I sighed. “Yes, but that’s what we do, sweetie.” I slung the purse over my shoulder, then went over and put my hand on his cheek. “It will be alright.”
“Is Dad working, too?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I’ll buzz you when we get in, but it will probably be late. Why don’t you get back on your reading?”
He made a face. I went out to the garage. I hated it when Nick worried about us, but there wasn’t any way around it. As Nick often reminded us, he’d rather be with us and worried than living with one of his rather odious relatives on his mother’s side. We’d had the occasional interaction with them over the years, but the visits only reconfirmed that there was a reason why Rachel Flaherty, his birth mother, had been such a witch.
Sid and I sometimes toyed with the idea of leaving our side business, but there were three problems. One was that retiring was seldom an option in our biz. Once you were in, you were in for life, one of the reasons we’d been training Nick. The other was that Sid and I didn’t want to leave the business. And, finally, we were beginning to get the impression that Nick was going to worry no matter what we did. Nick just seemed to worry a lot, and our leaving the business wasn’t going to change that.
The liturgy meeting went by quickly. It was mostly about getting the church changed over from Advent decorations for the morning masses on Christmas Eve to the Christmas decorations for midnight mass that night. Esther headed home to meet Kathy and Jesse and take care of Keshon while Kathy and Jesse helped me. Frank came with me to act as look-out in the industrial park where the warehouse was. I parked a ways down, quickly assembled my rifle, and pulled it over my shoulder. Frank stayed near my car. It was getting perilously close to nine-thirty. Kathy was waiting for me in the bushes. Jesse was already on the roof. We looked in through the glass front door. The building was in darkness.
I knew Louis and the guys would be going in the back. Kathy silently and quickly got the lock picked on the front door, and we slid inside the building. A dark hallway led between several blackened offices into the cavernous space beyond. In the dim light, I could see the four walls lined with shelves and several pallets of wire-bound boxes scattered around the floor in the center of the room. In my ear, I heard shushing and whispers. The guys had arrived.
“Little Red, Red Sky,” said Jesse’s voice. “I’m in position on the roof. Big Red and company are entering the building.”
Kathy and I moved quietly and slowly, but we saw movement at the back of the warehouse just as the door started to open. We ducked behind the nearest pallet. I gestured her over to the next pallet over, and she ran.
I could see the silhouettes of Tom, Sid, and Wallace against the light over the door outside. Sid dove first, and the others scrambled for a couple of pallets just as the flare and cracks of gunshots went off. I could see three men in the far corner across from the door. I let off a couple shots from the rifle, then ducked.
“Where’s Loser?” Tom yelped.
I wanted to know that, too. The lights burst on, and the men in the corner recoiled. They were all wearing night vision goggles.
Tom gasped. “Let’s get out of here!”
Wallace raised a handgun and fired at the pallet in the corner, then shot toward me and Kathy. Sid yanked him down.
“Big Red,” I muttered. “You’re a little too cool. This is supposedly the first time you’ve been under fire in twenty years.”
The guys scrambled out of the warehouse, but the lights situation left Kathy and me in a bit of a pickle. I started firing at the far corner as Kathy ran for the front of the building. I saw one of the guys there fall over. It looked like Venkt, and he had a wound in his shoulder.
“Red Sky, Red Dawn, Little Red,” said Frank. “It sounds like we’ve got company coming.”
“They were waiting for us!” Sid was yelling, liberally adding curse words. “Loser, what did you get us into?”
Kathy angled into the doorway and took up firing with her pistol as I ran in that direction. We slammed the doorway shut and ran for the office and out of the building. I ditched the rifle in the front office. I always wear gloves in that kind of situation, so that wasn’t going to be an issue.
Kathy scrambled out the front door, and we slid through the bushes to where my car was.
“Red Team,” I gasped. “Red Sky and I are clear. Evacuate now!”
“Red Team,” came Jesse’s voice. “I am at the rendezvous and leaving.”
“Company coming in from Laurel Canyon to the south, Red Dawn,” said Frank. “Come get me and we’ll head out.”
I nodded at Kathy, and we took off our masks and gloves, then opened our black hooded sweatshirts. It was getting chilly, so we thought it would look more conspicuous if we took them off. We both had light-colored shirts on underneath, so we didn’t look like we’d been breaking in anywhere.
I wasn’t sure where Sid and the guys had gotten off to, but didn’t hear anything from Sid to indicate that they’d been held up by the cops. Kathy and I somehow avoided the parade of police cars whizzing into the industrial park, lights flaring. We could still hear Sid and Tom yelling at Louis, but couldn’t tell what they were saying.
“Good job, Red Team,” I said, hoping that Frank could hear me. “Let’s rendezvous at the Gate.”
Or Frank and Esther’s duplex in West Hollywood. Esther’s code name was Red Gate, and Frank’s was Red Door.
Esther was not thrilled to hear what had happened.
“It’s a good thing we were there, though,” I said. “It was clearly a trap. The question is, who set it?”
“I don’t have anything yet,” said Kathy. “Although Esther did get me some of the bank files.”
She picked up her sleeping son, and I couldn’t help smiling.
“He looks so cute that way,” I said.
Kathy smiled at the toddler. “He is a good boy. Okay, full of himself, yes. But he’ll settle down. Jesse did, according to his mother.”
Jesse rolled his eyes but kissed Kathy on the side of her head. “Come on. We’d better get home before he wakes up.”
Sid’s Voice –
Lisa generally calls it Divine Intervention. I was not up to calling it that, but I was so glad when I saw that faint glint in the far corner of the warehouse.
We’d ridden over there in two cars, Wallace’s and Tom’s. Ange got left in Tom’s car to monitor the conversation we were hoping to have. I was wired, but not on the same frequency as Ange, and it didn’t show through my sweater and sport coat. I could hear Lisa and Kathy getting into position at the front of the warehouse.
Wallace was sweating like a horse. The beads on his forehead glinted in the dim light as we walked to the warehouse’s back door. It didn’t make sense right away. It was chilly that night. I figured he was nervous and couldn’t blame him. Tom was calm, though I do not know why.
The plan was that Loser and I were supposed to go in last. Loser got the door open, and I got pushed in ahead of everyone. Wallace and Tom came after, and that’s when I caught that tiny glint of something moving in a place where it wasn’t supposed to be. I didn’t wait. I dove for cover, and it’s a good thing I did because the firing started quickly.
Then the lights went on. I couldn’t believe it when Wallace got up and started firing back. I yanked him down when he got off a shot toward Lisa and Kathy. Then Lisa reminded me that this was not a normal event. It was a good reminder because I looked a lot cooler than I felt. Lisa and Kathy returned fire on the guys in the corner, and Venkt went down with a hole in his shoulder. That had to have been Lisa. She usually aims for the shoulder and gets it.
Frank’s voice broke in that the cops were coming, and I got out of there as fast as I could, as did the others. When I ran into Loser outside the warehouse, I let him have it.
“It wasn’t me!” Loser yelled back. “If anyone, it was you.”
“Shit,” Tom gasped. “Let’s get out of here.”
We ran for Tom’s car.
“Where’s Wallace?” I asked as Loser and I got into the back seat.
“He ran off,” said Tom. “Like we should have.”
Tom drove slowly out of the industrial park as several police cars blazed in. I thought I saw Jesse driving Frank out, too.
“So, what happened?” Angelique asked, her face white. “All I heard was gunfire.”
“Damn it,” I groaned. “It was a trap. They were waiting for us.”
“I know,” Loser snapped and turned on me. “So, when did you tell the Feds about it?”
“I didn’t!”
“He didn’t, Loser,” Tom yelled from the front. “It doesn’t even make sense that he would.”
“Unless he wanted to sell me out to those bastards.” Loser folded his arms across his chest, then looked at me. “The first thing you did was dive for cover. It was as if you knew they were going to be there.”
“I saw something reflecting.” I swallowed and tried to remember how Lisa acted scared. Oh, yeah, she let herself be scared. I took a couple of breaths and let myself feel the fear. “I didn’t know what it was, but it shouldn’t have been there. And then the shooting started.”
“Shit,” Tom said. “You panicked, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t panic!” I glared at him, then shut my eyes. “Look. It’s been twenty years. It’s taken that long to get used to the idea that people aren’t shooting at me all the time. And then this happens, and I didn’t have my sidearm. I didn’t have a rifle. Fuck. I don’t want to carry again.”
Loser looked at me speculatively, then glared out the window. “You might want to start. All of you might want to.” He looked at Ange. “Is it possible that you let it out about tonight’s operation?”
Ange turned and glared at him. “You don’t know what I know, shithead, but I will tell you right now, one thing I do know is how to keep a secret. And who’s to say you didn’t set this up? Maybe you’re the bad guy here.”
“It wasn’t my idea to bring you guys into this.” Loser stopped suddenly.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “I know who set us up. I don’t think he wanted to. But he was expecting trouble.”
Tom glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Wallace?”
“Why would he do that?” Loser asked.
“If what’s-his-name and his pals leaned on him,” I said. “Maybe he got scared. You know, he did suggest that we try to be nice to them.”
“So,” said Tom. “Do we trust him again or not?”
“Why not?” I said. “We’re trusting Loser.”
“I take exception to that,” Loser grumbled.
“And I don’t give a fuck,” I said. “There is nothing that has gone right since you showed up. Stan got murdered and the cops wanted to know about you.”
“I was being set up.”
I glared at him. “And how do we know that?”
“We do know that.” Ange stared straight out the front window of the car. “I have a copy of the police report on Stan’s accident. Louis is solidly alibied for the sabotage on the car. But Peter Venkt was on the scene, talking to the cops.”
Which I, of course, already knew, and I suspected Tom did, too.
Loser shook his head. “Fuck. They’re onto me.”
“No shit.” I looked at him. “How could that possibly be a surprise?”
Loser didn’t answer, which was probably just as well. By that point, I was ready to take his head off and didn’t have to pretend.
When we got back to Tom and Ange’s place in Culver City, Loser headed out.
“You okay, Sid?” Tom asked. The good thing about Tom being in recovery is that he gets the whole past trauma thing.
“I don’t know,” I said, being honest.
I said the same thing to Lisa when I got home that night, and she asked me the same question.
“I just seem to be getting more and more pissed at the bastard every time I come up against him,” I told her as I took my contacts out for the night.
“I don’t think tonight was his fault,” she said, smiling weakly. “I mean, it was a mess.”
“It was a clusterfuck. No two ways about it. Those guys were waiting for us. I’m just glad you and Kathy were there to distract them.”
“Someone on your side was shooting, too. Was it Louis?”
“No. Wallace. Who knew he carries?”
“He’s not very good.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. My sweet, sweet Lisa is an incredible dead shot.
“Oh, Ange called just before you got home,” she said. “Peter Venkt is in the hospital, but likely to live. The other two flashed their badges and weren’t arrested, even though the warehouse is, apparently, stacked to the brim with evidence in various cases.”
“Or evidence that’s been skimmed from other cases and is being sold.”
She nodded. “Probably.”
I took a deep breath and let it go.
“My beloved and darling Lisapet.” I turned to her, feeling myself leap to life as I did. “I just want to put tonight out of my mind for the time being and remind myself what is truly important to me, which is you, and why the only thing I want to do right now is make intense, passionate love with you.”
She smiled and walked up to me, then kissed the inside of my left wrist. Oh, shit, that still gets to me. She didn’t say anything more until we were both spent and sleepy, and then she thanked me as she always does after lovemaking, and I thanked her.
Loser, that fuck, had no idea just how lucky he was that she was in my life.
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.