The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(20)

Uncle Karl’s eye twitches for a second, then he drops his head into his hands. I brace myself for his temper and a barrage of grief.

Instead he quietly says, “I’m so fucking stupid. I’m so, so fucking stupid.”

“What do you know?”

He inhales and sits up, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why anyone would be after you. I swear.”

“What about Stacey? Is there a reason she would have come looking for me?”

Karl thinks about this. “She probably knew you were a cop.”

“She probably knew a lot of cops,” I reply.

“Yeah, but I think she looked up to you.”

“Me? She hardly even knew me.”

“You don’t know how people see you from afar. I talked about you. Believe it or not, I was proud of you. I even put your academy graduation photo on my cell wall.”

“That must have gone over well.”

“You’d be surprised. Guys congratulated me.” He wipes his eyes. “Don’t get mad. But I told them you were my daughter.”

“What?” I’m not mad, but I thought Karl would’ve been embarrassed to have a cop daughter.

“You’re your mom and dad’s kid through and through, but I like to think some of the good stuff came from Uncle Karl. It . . . it makes me feel like one percent less of an asshole. Maybe Stacey heard me talking about you. I did it a lot.” He shrugs, then says, “Maybe . . . Oh, I don’t know.”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe she got into trouble and figured she could go to you because of that.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Uncle Karl glances at the door and lowers his voice. “The Mendez money.”

Mendez is the name of a cartel that’s been making the news in the last year or so, since the feds arrested a South Florida attorney trying to lock down their money.

Jason Bonaventure. That’s the attorney they arrested. That’s who Cardiff was talking about with Solar.

As I recall, the charges were dropped, and Bonaventure filed a huge lawsuit. His Palm Beach island estate was all over the news because the feds were digging holes and trying to search for records or something.

“What about the Mendez money?” I ask.

“It’s missing. Over half a billion dollars. You might remember, the feds were trying really hard to find it. A week ago, one of Bonaventure’s attorneys serving time in here got a visit from some lawyer from Colombia.”

“And?”

Karl shrugs. “I don’t know. It was a big deal to some of the folks in here. They say there are more cartel captains in Miami right now than in South America. Something’s up.”

“Something? What does that mean?”

“The money’s still missing.”

“It was already missing. That’s why Bonaventure went free.”

“I’m not talking about the feds looking for it. I’m talking about the cartel. Now they’re going ballistic.”

“What does Stacey have to do with all this?”

“Maybe she overheard something. Have you talked to her father?”

“No. I can’t even get a text through.”

Karl lowers his head. “That means they already got him.”

“Got him? Like he’s dead?”

“That’s probably why they went after Stacey. They thought she knew something.”

“And she came looking for me.”

He nods. “Catfish . . . you need to take Jackie and get out of here. If these people think you have anything to do with this . . .” His voice trails off, and his eyes drift toward the small window near the top of the wall. “Damn it.”

“I can’t just run.”

“Do it for Jackie. Forget your McPherson pride.”

My anxiety starts to build. “These people have private jets and attorneys around the world. Where would I go? What would I do?”

He makes a violent shrug as he thinks about my predicament. “And you can’t go to the cops.”

“What? It’s not like we have your reputation,” I reply.

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. The Mendez cartel is deep. The reason Bonaventure got away was because he was tipped off.”

“Someone in law enforcement?”

“Someone? A lot of someones. Assholes like George Solar and all the other crooks.”

I don’t mention that I saw Solar yesterday. I’m still hoping I can get some useful intel out of my uncle.

“So, you think Winston is dead.”

“Definitely.”

“Anybody else I could talk to?”

“They would have gotten to everyone by now,” he replies.

“That’s not good enough. I need a name. Someone who knows Winston.”

He thinks about this for a moment. “Raul Tiago.”

“Who is that?”

“Peruvian kid. He worked for Winston. I think he and Stacey were . . . um, seeing each other. Chances are he’s dead or back in Peru. If not, maybe him.”

That’s the thinnest of leads. I came here hoping for a simple answer, and now it turns out things are far more complicated and dire than I realized.

I’ve gone from worrying about a lone psychopath coming after me to an entire cartel with thousands of hired guns and cops.