Collateral 2 (Debt Collection) Read online

“Motivate them,” Besian replied, his tone cool but his meaning dark.

  Not wanting to show his distaste for the violence implied, Ben schooled his features and simply nodded. “Yes, boss.”

  “Don’t,” Besian warned. “You’re still part of this family. You have your girl. I gave you my blessing, but that blessing doesn’t absolve you from your obligations to the family. You’re an enforcer, Ben. You’re my enforcer.”

  “I know exactly what I am,” Ben replied. “I’ve always done my job, and I don’t plan to stop now.”

  “But?”

  “But I have to go to a wedding tomorrow night, and I don’t want to embarrass Aston by showing up with a black eye or busted knuckles.”

  Besian frowned. “What wedding?”

  “Her dad’s best friend is getting married again. It’s his fourth wife or something like that,” Ben said. “He’s like an uncle to her. He’s running the company until she’s ready to take over. They’re very close.”

  “I wanted you to work the poker tournament tomorrow night. We need extra security.”

  “I can’t. I promised her I would be there.”

  After an uncomfortably long moment, Besian said, “Fine. Go.”

  “I wasn’t asking your permission.”

  “Careful, Ben,” Besian warned. “We’re family, but I’m your boss.” Signaling the end of their discussion, Besian gestured for him to leave. “I’ll be at the new club later. Find me.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Irritated but not at all surprised by Besian’s attitude, Ben left the bookstore. He had one leg slung over his bike when Besian poked his head out the door of the bookstore and shouted, “Get a haircut before the wedding!”

  Ben waved to acknowledge the order. He ran his fingers through his admittedly shaggy hair before pulling on his helmet. Maybe the boss had a point. This wedding was a high-class affair.

  Deciding he would squeeze in a visit to the barber shop, he headed straight to the territory controlled by Diego Reyes. He hadn’t been joking earlier that morning when he told Aston about the Reyes brothers. They were exactly as he’d described.

  Although they controlled almost a quarter of Houston’s underworld, they still lived with their grandmother and younger sister in the same house where they had been raised. It was a modest ranch the brothers had renovated and remodeled throughout the years. When Ben parked on the street out front, he noticed the fence had been freshly painted and the roof looked newly replaced. There roses blooming on the bushes and the grass was green and lush.

  Diego’s grandmother sat on her front porch with a cup of coffee and her sleek black cat nestled on her nap. He climbed off his bike and walked over to the gate. Smiling at her, he greeted, “Buenos dias, señora. Puedo hablar con Diego?”

  “Benito!” She greeted him with a toothy smile and flicked her fingers to beckon him inside the yard. “You haven’t visited in months, mijo.”

  “I’ve been busy, senora,” he explained apologetically and closed the gate behind him. She likely knew the real reason he hadn’t come to visit. He and Diego had been friends since kindergarten, but they had grown apart because of their ties to competing crime families. With all of the recent trouble with the cartel and the Hermanos street gang, it had been safer for Ben to stay away from the Reyes brothers. “How have you been?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said with a wave of her hand. With an amused smile, she asked, “How is Aston?”

  “She’s good.” He was saved from a deeper interrogation by the appearance of a familiar face at the front door. “Diego.”

  “Ben.” Diego opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. He smiled at his grandmother and bent down to kiss her cheek. “Is this mocoso bothering you?”

  “Benito could never bother me.” She laughed as she rose to her feet, coffee in one hand and her lazy, sleepy cat in the other. “Take your jacket when you leave. It’s going to rain later.”

  “Your knees?” Diego asked with concern.

  “I’ll be fine.” She patted his chest and glanced back at Ben. “It was good to see you, mijo. You’re always welcome in our house.”

  “It was good to see you, senora.”

  Diego held the door for his grandmother and waited until she was safely inside to turn toward Ben with a frown. “You could have called first.”

  “I could have.”

  Diego leaned back against the wall. “Is this about the robbery?”

  “Yes. I’m just looking for information. You have a lot of eyes and ears on the streets now. I figured if anyone was going to have information…”

  “I haven’t heard anything that can help you, Ben. We have no idea who hit your crew. Hell, I don’t know anyone stupid enough to steal from Besian. You’d have to be crazy to steal from someone who likes to chop off fingers.”

  “Someone was crazy enough to do it.”

  Diego shook his head. “There’s no way it’s anyone we know. None of the crews in town would dare. It’s got to be someone outside our circle of friends.”

  Ben concurred. “Would have been easier to handle if it was someone running in our world.”

  Diego nodded in agreement. “We’re ramping up our own security for obvious reasons. If someone had big enough balls to steal Besian’s cash, they might be brave enough to try for ours.”

  “Let’s hope not.” Ben extended his hand, and Diego shook it. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too, Ben.” Diego let go. “We should get together sometime. You can bring Aston to one of my clubs.”

  “Your aunt would love it if we had a chaperone,” he joked.

  Diego laughed. “Believe me. I’ve heard all about you and your bad influence on her precious little Aston.” His expression turned more serious. “Tia Nina loves Aston like her own kid. She’s been with the family since Aston was born. She cares about her, and she will not hesitate to send us after you.”

  “Duly noted,” Ben said with a nod. Backing away, he said, “I’ll see you around, Diego.”

  “Stay safe, Ben.”

  “You, too.”

  With his first contact crossed off his list, Ben slung his leg over his bike and pulled his helmet into place. The bike roared to life beneath him. Only seven more to go…

  Chapter Three

  “Aston, there’s a detective waiting for you in the conference room.”

  Taken aback by Betty’s unusual greeting, I lowered my sunglasses and tucked them into my handbag. “A detective? Here to see me?”

  Betty glanced anxiously at the conference room located just off the front reception of the accounting and finance floor. “He was waiting when I got here. I put him in the conference room and gave him coffee. I didn’t want him alone at your desk. I thought he might snoop.”

  “Thank you, Betty.” Worried something had happened to Ben, I walked quickly toward the conference room, knocked on the closed door and stepped inside. Putting on my best professional smile, I greeted the man standing on the other side of the room. “Hello. Betty said you wanted to speak with me?”

  “Miss McNeil, I’m Detective Shaw.” He shifted his coffee cup to the other hand before offering a handshake. Tall and broad shouldered, he looked like a linebacker but had a genuine smile that put me at ease.

  “Aston is fine,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. Gesturing to the table, I took a seat and waited for him to sit. “What can I do for you this morning?”

  Please, please, don’t let it be Ben.

  “I’m here to ask you some questions about your brother,” Detective Shaw explained as he took a small notebook and a pen from the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

  “Calvin is my stepbrother,” I said on reflex. The thought of him being a blood relative sickened me. I wanted absolutely no connections to him, not in life and certainly not in death.

  “Right. Sorry.” He clicked the pen twice before scribbling on his notebook. “When was the last time you saw Calvin?”

  The night he tried to kill me.


  “It’s been a few weeks,” I answered vaguely. “We aren’t close so we don’t have much contact.”

  “I read his juvenile records,” Detective Shaw said, his eyes gentle. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to spend much time with him.”

  “He is a difficult person,” I agreed, silently reminding myself to talk about him as if he were still alive. “Is he in trouble?”

  “He might be,” the detective replied. “He was involved in some shady financial business and quite a few of his associates have gone missing.”

  “Missing? Like…dead?”

  “It’s possible.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a sheet of paper with photos printed on it. “Do you recognize any of these men?”

  I pulled the wrinkled sheet of paper closer and studied the faces printed on it. There didn’t seem to a common thread among any of the men on it. Young. Old. Latino. White. Asian. “I don’t recognize any of them.”

  “You sure?”

  Wondering if I was supposed to recognize someone on the page, I gave it a closer look. There was one face that looked vaguely familiar. “This guy maybe.” I tapped the photo of a smiling man in a collared shirt. “I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere.”

  “He’s married to one of your coworkers.”

  “I must have seen him at one of our holiday parties or the Fourth of July picnic,” I murmured, trying to place him. “What’s his name?”

  “Gary Metcalf.”

  “Metcalf? Oh! Margie’s husband! Yeah. I’ve met him once? Maybe twice? He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “He is,” Detective Shaw said. “I think he may have gotten in over his head.”

  “With Calvin?” I tried to piece together the few clues the detective had given me. “I don’t see how their paths would have crossed.”

  “We think they got to know each other over some real estate deals.” He tucked the sheet of photos back in his pocket. “Do you know where Calvin has been living? We checked his last known address, but he was evicted from the penthouse three weeks ago.”

  “I have no idea where he is,” I answered, telling the absolute truth. Whatever happened to Calvin after Ben’s friend dragged him out of my house was a mystery to me.

  “Does he travel often?”

  “He does.”

  “To Asia?”

  “Yes, actually,” I confirmed, thinking of all the trips he had taken there over the years.”

  “He spends a lot of time in Macau and Hong Kong. Any reason he likes those areas?”

  “If I had to guess? Gambling.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He got into a mess there a few years ago. Back when his mom was alive,” I clarified. “My dad and stepmom had to fly out in the middle of the night to handle it. I knew better than to ask any questions so I’m not sure of the details.”

  “Do you know if he has access to money? Bank accounts? Safety deposit boxes? Stocks? Things he could sell?”

  “He has an inheritance. How much of it he has left? I couldn’t tell you.”

  “How much was in the inheritance?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Millions?”

  “Yes. Less than ten,” I added, thinking of the financial paperwork I had come across after my father’s death. “His mother left him some life insurance policies, some stock and a few pieces of commercial real estate. As far as I know, he liquidated everything in the trust when he gained control.”

  As I answered the detective’s questions, I started to piece things together for myself. Real estate. Was that how he had met Gary Metcalf? Had Gary been involved in selling the real estate?

  “Well, if he’s been evicted, I’m going to guess that he’s flat broke,” the deputy reasoned. “Could he come to you for money?”

  “He could,” I said carefully.

  “But?”

  “He won’t.”

  “Because?”

  “Because he knows I’m not going to give him a dime,” I explained.

  “And this place?” He gestured around the room. “Could Calvin get money from here?”

  “No. This was my father’s business, and he was very careful to exclude Calvin from every part of it.”

  “The Limestone Group.” He grabbed one of the brochures in the center of the conference table and thumbed through it. “What exactly is a private equity firm? It’s investments, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You buy businesses?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “And you make money off of that?”

  “We take money from investors and buy businesses that are struggling but have untapped value. We fix them up, hold onto them for a few years and then sell them at a profit.”

  “Can’t be that easy,” he said, a knowing gleam in his eye.

  “No, it’s definitely not,” I agreed. “Sometimes we get the analysis wrong and buy into something that is unsalvageable. At that point, the firm puts the business into bankruptcy as quickly as possible and tries to squeeze whatever money we can out of it.”

  “And the workers?”

  They get shafted. I couldn’t say that, of course. “We provide the workers with training and access to employment firms to help them find new jobs. We have a very successful track record in securing employment for former employees of businesses we’ve closed.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said in an unbelieving tone.

  I shrugged. “That’s the company line.”

  “I bet it is,” he grumbled and returned the brochure to its stack. “Do you have locations overseas?”

  “Europe.”

  He gave me an expectant look. “Specifically?”

  “London is the headquarters of our branch there. It’s called StrateCore. It provides logistics and planning and office spaces for various companies in the Euro zone. There’s a new branch opening in Belgium soon.”

  “But nothing in Asia?”

  “Offices? No. We have investments in Asia, and we sold a small stake in the firm to the CIC. That’s the extent of our Asian presence.”

  “CIC?”

  “It’s the sovereign wealth fund for China.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “And what do you do here?”

  “I’m a junior analyst. Very junior,” I emphasized. “I’m still working on my master’s degree.”

  “On the job training is the best way to get a handle on any profession,” he said. “We train our detectives that way. Work your way up from the bottom, you know? It makes for better investigators.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “Where are you going to school?”

  “U of H,” I answered, wondering why he was suddenly so interested in what I did.

  “The evening program? My kid is thinking about it for his MBA.”

  “It’s a good program. I’m very happy with the pace and content.” I decided to keep my answers a bit more professional, just in case. I didn’t want to slip up and make a mistake.

  The detective flipped to the back of his notebook and removed a business card. He slid it toward me. “If you happen to hear from Calvin, please contact me as soon as possible. It’s better if you don’t let him know you’ve spoken to me.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.” I took the card and slipped it into my purse.

  “And please don’t say anything to your coworker, Mrs. Metcalfe,” he asked. “This was a private conversation, and I’d like to keep it that way. For her safety,” he added, pinning me in place with a heavy look.

  “My lips are sealed.” The last thing I wanted was for Margie to get hurt. She had only just come back from maternity leave for her baby boy Elliot and didn’t need any added stress.

  “You might not want to tell your boyfriend I was here either,” he suggested.

  Confused, I frowned at him. “Why in the world would I hide this from Ben?”

  Detective Shaw held my gaze for a moment. He seemed to be trying to get a read on me. Was he trying
to decide if I was really that naïve? “You know what he does, don’t you?”

  “Ben is a small business owner. He’s a mechanic. That’s what he does.”

  He narrowed his eyes a fraction, but I cut him off before he could say anything else. Glancing at my watch, I made a face. “I’m sorry, but I have an appointment scheduled. Can I walk you out?”

  “No need.” He stood and held out his hand. “It was nice to meet you, Miss McNeil.”

  “And you, Detective Shaw.”

  I led him out of the conference room and watched him get on the elevator. After the doors closed, Betty turned to me with a worried expression. “Is everything okay, hon?”

  “He just wanted to ask some questions about Calvin.”

  “Of course.” Betty rolled her eyes. Then, leaning closer, she added, “You know there was another investigator here yesterday. She came in after you left for class. She was looking for Margie.”

  “Margie? Why?” My heart skipped in my chest. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the two of us had been questioned just hours apart.

  Betty shrugged. “She didn’t say. They went into Margie’s office for a few minutes. After the agent left, Margie rushed out of here like her hair was on fire.”

  “Agent? Not a detective?”

  “The lady flashed a badge from the FBI!” Betty exclaimed in a stage whisper.

  “Why would the FBI be investigating Margie?” My stomach clenched. Was the whole firm under investigation?

  “No, no, no,” Betty assured me. “I think it has to something to do with Gary.”

  “Gary?”

  “Her husband.”

  “I know he’s her husband. I meant—why would the FBI be investigating him? Isn’t he in real estate?”

  “He handles investment property funds. Something to do with 1031 exchanges,” she added offhandedly. “I heard Margie calling him before the elevator doors closed. She was crying and yelling.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Men,” Betty said with a sigh. “They’re all trouble.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that. “Sometimes, it’s the fun kind, though.”

  She laughed and patted my back before answering the ringing phone. I gave her a little wave and made my way to my desk. Although I had embraced the firm’s decision to get rid of cubicles and open up the main areas of each floor, I suddenly found the lack of privacy irritating.