Page 56 of Love Me Carefully
Chapter Twelve
“We already conferred with the authorities in Kingston. This guy here,” Jeff pointed to a picture on the bulletin board in his office, “he’s the head man, Rohan Bernal. He’s been controlling the shipment and sale of massive amounts of marijuana between the U.S. and Jamaica for about fifteen years now.”
Jeff paused and held up a hand before Terrell could speak. “I know you’re thinking that marijuana is legal in some states so what’s the big deal. But large unregulated shipments like this are still illegal, especially when they’re not earmarked for any specific state-run dispensaries.”
“You mean it’s always gonna be illegal when Uncle Sam’s not gettin’ his cut.” Terrell cursed. “And you’ve known this for fifteen years and you haven’t caught him yet?” He stood in front of the bulletin board and looked at the pyramid of pictures the FBI had assembled. He didn’t see Donald’s picture anywhere.
“It’s taken ten years to build up enough information to finally arrest him, Mr. Pierce,” Jeff said with a grim look.
“You can call me Terrell, since we’ll be working together.” Terrell turned to face the agent and waited for his argument. He’d been in his office for about an hour now, going back and forth about the pros and cons of him going to Jamaica to get his mother.
“Terrell, you have to understand that this is a very delicate situation. I can’t just let a civilian walk into a carefully planned operation and start shaking things up.” Moving to his desk, Jeff sat down. More importantly, he didn’t want this civilian messing up the case he’d spent years building.
“My mother is also a civilian. I just want her safe. I won’t bother Donald or whatever investigation you have going on. I just want to bring my mother home.”
“I understand,” Jeff began. And he did, even though he doubted Terrell would agree. For a brief second he entertained the idea of telling Terrell everything. Maybe then the man would relax and let him do his job. But he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t take the chance that anything else would go wrong at this point. It was bad enough Donald had disappeared on him. Any more shake-ups and his case would quickly go down the tubes. That he couldn’t have.
“Do you? Do you really understand?” Slamming his fist down onto Jeff’s desk, Terrell leaned over so he was closer to Jeff’s face. “This is my mother we’re talking about here! What would you do if it were your mother, or your wife, or someone you loved? Would you sit on your hands and hope that everything turned out right or would you go and make things right yourself?”
Jeff stared at the man for a moment. His eyes were wild, and the veins in his hands pumped with the anger and outrage soaring through his body. He knew the feeling, knew it all too well. Just as he knew that he couldn’t stop Terrell Pierce. Unless he handcuffed him to a chair and locked him in a closet, Terrell would be on the next thing smoking to Jamaica. The only thing he could do was stall him.
“Alright, look, if you’re gonna go down there we need to put some sort of game plan in place. You can’t just go waltzing around on foreign soil playing rent-a-cop. The native criminals will sense you without a doubt. I’m coming with you. And we’ll go by boat.”
“But flying’s faster. I don’t want my mother alone with him any longer than need be,” Terrell argued.
“As I explained to you before, Mr. Pierce, I really don’t think she’s under any duress. Despite what you think you know, we don’t have any evidence that Donald Douglas is a violent man.”
“But the people he has dealings with, can you say the same about them?”
Jeff shook his head, truthfully. “No, I can’t.”
“Exactly,” Terrell said grimly.
“That’s why we’re going to follow their same route to Jamaica. We’ll take the same cruise, and investigate each stop that boat makes. For all we know, they could’ve gotten off at one of the other ports and not be in the Montego Bay area at all.” Despite his words, Jeff had already checked this out and now knew Donald’s precise location. A few of his top men were already on their way there. He’d originally planned to stay put a day or two longer, but, staring at Terrell now, he figured things were likely to get worse if he waited.
“Thank you, Agent Tobias.” Terrell held out his hand in gratitude.
“Don’t thank me yet. Things could get pretty hairy once we get down there. And call me Jeff. We’ll be spending a lot of time together in the next week or so.” Gripping the man’s outstretched hand, Jeff prayed he wouldn’t regret this decision.
* * *
“Girl you’ve gotten yourself in the middle of one crazy love triangle.” Nikki sat on the couch rolling her eyes after hearing all about Leah’s night in the basement with Terrell.
“Tell me about it.” Leah folded her legs beneath her at the other end of the couch.
“So where does Leon fit in all this?”
Dropping her head on the back of the sofa, Leah sighed, letting out a whoosh of breath. “He doesn’t. I tried to tell him that the last time I saw him. I don’t know why he’s calling me now.”
“You said he told you he’d wait. And you didn’t exactly tell him not to.”
“Nik, you’re not helping,” Leah whined.
“Sure I am. An hour ago you were about to carry little Terrell right off into your bedroom and I stopped you.” Nikki sat up on the sofa, pushing the half-eaten carton of pizza out of her way. “Wait a minute. You’re not stressing over Leon at all. You’re sitting here all uptight because of what happened between you and Terrell.”
Leah groaned. “I just told you something happened—actually I told you exactly what happened. Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh, I was listening, all right. You got your thing off in the basement of Donald’s house. So what? Only it’s not ‘so what’ to you, is it? That wasn’t a ‘farewell, it’s been nice, catch you later’ kiss I walked in on, was it?”
