Chapter 34

Winnie spent hours and hours debriefing Regina about Hussein and the two other men threatening her father back in Chicago. A pattern started to appear, if you connected the dots just so. They would identify a company that was ripe for plundering, manipulate the stock price by some means, then use the instability to collapse the stock, winning on two counts.

The first win was by taking huge profits off the stock plunge, and the second was by weakening it and the overall American stock market by pulling down important providers of things the defense industry needs.

By using people like Regina's father who worked around large pension funds, with large of cash they could pilfer it, and then put it back long before auditors would know it moved. When they noticed anything, it would have the veneer of a typical stock buy/sell, and no one would be the wiser. If her father could move massive chunks of cash to facilitate short term buying of stock, and the transaction could be started and concluded quickly, he would be at minimal risk of discovery.

The real problem occurred when he failed to cave to their demands. That put them at risk two ways. The first risk was the transaction. The second, much bigger risk came from the possibility of the man tipping off authorities. When you look at it from that perspective they would have had to kill him to remain safely anonymous. That poor girl was an orphan because of a tramp for a mother and those slime-balls.

It suddenly hit me that the universe was using me, again. Regina was in trouble, and the universe moved things about so I'd come along and rescue her, only to discover that the men I was trying to put in their grave had killed her father trying to gain funds to finance the scam they were currently pitching to me! Regina had moved onto my boat, and was moving into our bed, because the universe wanted me to save her.

Really...

It was the universe or Karma that brought Hussein and Massoud to us, and Karma was about to become a real bitch.

The Judge absorbed all of what Winnie and I shared, along with everything his team gleaned off the surveillance system. His immediate advice, was that his advice would be forthcoming, and to continue as agreed, until he told us otherwise. That was fine with me as long we were extraordinarily careful about protecting Regina.

Colleen and Jim had tracked down all the pertinent information about Regina's mother, and she was about to take a plea deal and be sentenced to between seven and ten years in a California prison, but expected to do only three. The harshness was due to her long and varied arrest record. That put her out of the picture, as far as being an immediate threat to Regina.

The other bit of news that caught my attention was the police report of her father's killing. He was walking to his car, following a pretty typical meeting as go-between for the Mayor's office, when, according to the two witnesses, he was attacked from behind by a man dressed all in black, who whipped out a very small caliber pistol and shot him in the back of the head.

That would make it an execution style slaying, not a mugging. According to Regina, the officers that notified her about her father specifically said he was the victim of a mugging, which meant someone got to them and changed their story.

That was a place for our investigators to begin.

When Jim and Colleen finished chatting with us, we talked to Beth Ann, Millie, and Rebecca, in turn, and everyone wanted to know when we'd be home.

"We'll be done here, when we're done here," was all I had to offer. "I can't talk about it, other than to say that you would be proud of what we're doing if you knew."

Regina spent another night in our bed. She cuddled up against Winnie, probably seeking comfort, security, and the closeness of another human being that wasn't out to hurt her. I was up first and into the shower almost immediately. Regina joined me long before Winnie. That had to be intentional on Winnie's part, so I went with it, hugging Regina and kissing her hungry mouth, but refusing to be more aggressive than that.

She pouted when it was clear that was the extent of our playtime but smiled when I told her that I thought she was one of the sexiest young women I had ever laid eyes on.

Winnie joined us after it was clear that nothing more than a little closeness was happening today.

She came in and almost knocked me out with a kiss that curled my toes, and set Mr. Johnson on fire. Regina was temporarily forgotten, as Winnie received all of my attention for a little while.

When we were dry, I discovered the Judge had called, and I hadn't heard his distinctive ring, so I took the special phone to the safe room and returned his call.

"About time you pulled your ass out of bed and called me back," was how he came on the line.

"Yes, sir," I replied, calmly. "How can I help you, sir?"

"You can help me by taking Hussein up on his offer to partner in the stock deal. It is a big military supplier, and they need cash in the worst way. Go ahead and put up half a billion dollars for half the profit, and let our attorneys put together a contract that protects the money.

"We are not going to lose it to those two camel humping, goat sucking killers.

"I don't think I was supposed to say that, so forget all about it. I spend far too much time chasing Muslim terrorists and sometimes forget to separate the good from the bad. They're the bad, so let's get the deal done, and deal with them in our special way, after."

He hung up and I related his orders to Winnie, who took it all with a grain of sand.

She won the, Stating-the-Obvious, award when she said, "Things are changing all the time. I'll believe it when I see them hand over a billion dollars in profits to us. Until then ... let's just say, 'I'll see it when I see it.'"

Regina came looking for us and announced that she had a girl problem and needed someone to take her to the pharmacy. Winnie looked at me like it was all my fault and I looked appropriately clueless, but got the picture and called Edward for a ride. We were gone and back before Winnie even finished her morning routine. When we met her coming into the master stateroom salon, we were all three ready for a good breakfast, which the chef had anticipated.

Our breakfast was amazing!

It was really better than amazing, but that was the only word that I could conjure up, with my stomach singing love songs to the chef so loud. The ladies seemed as smitten with our meal as I was, and we lavished praise on the cook and his staff of two. You would think that after working for us for over a week, they'd all be experienced at our eccentricities, but he was stunned when I gave him a twenty percent raise for his marvelous work.