Deadly Dreams (21 page)

She recalled the case. She also recalled the link hadn’t been discovered until after they’d caught the offender. But she wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to bounce the details of the case off the most brilliant forensic mind in the country either.

Nearly twenty minutes later, her boss was regarding her with a slight smile. “Sounds like you’ve settled back into the job without much problem.”

Tension shot through her muscles. She sipped from the glass, welcoming the liquor’s scalding slide down her suddenly tight throat. “I’m not at the forefront of this. And it’s early days yet.”

“Any more dreams?”

“One.” She used the tip of her nail to draw an imaginary line down the back of the glass. “Pretty much the same as the first.”

“They’re back. And they’ll come whether you’re involved in the work or not. They always did.” The words were inexorable. Irrefutable.

And true.

Although it was difficult to meet that laser blue gaze, she forced herself to do so. “I’m dealing. Taking it a day at a time.”

“That’s all anyone can ask for. Isn’t it, Adam?”

But Paulie’s not so subtle remark was lost on their boss. His glass made a small sound as he set it against the counter. Then he reached into his suit jacket to withdraw something, which he extended toward her. “You’ll need this.”

Her slight gasp mingled with Paulie’s exasperated, “Shit, Adam.” She barely heard him. Her mind was frozen. Her eyes rooted on the gun he held out to her. The one she’d handed in, via a third party, along with the resignation he’d chosen to ignore.

“You know my rule. None of my operatives work unarmed. I got a permit issued in your name the day I spoke to the chief.”

She made no move toward it. Couldn’t have forced herself to if she wanted. She hadn’t touched her weapon since—

She tried to swallow. Felt like she was drowning.

Adam set the weapon on the counter next to her. She could feel its nearness, as if it radiated a human heat.

“I can’t even pick it up,” she managed.

His good eye glinted. “You’ll have to, won’t you? At least to put it away.” Downing the rest of the liquor, he set the glass on the counter in a gesture of finality. “I’ll be in touch.”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t respond to Paulie’s last commiserating look before he followed his boss from the kitchen. Out the back door.

Her attention was rooted on the weapon. The black Beretta 90 nine millimeter was nestled snugly in its leather shoulder harness. It was just a gun. The emotions attached to the sight of it had nothing to it with the weapon.

And everything to do with the memory of the greatest failure in her life.

“You push too hard.”

They were the first words Paulie had spoken since they’d left Risa. He’d been silent as they made their way across two narrow yards to the car left on the other side of the block. Adam hated having to rely more heavily on the cane to support his leg across the uneven ground. Despised even more being forced to dodge and hide from the assassin who’d targeted him.

So his voice revealed all his frustration when he answered shortly, “I know my people.”

He waited for Paulie to disengage the high-security alarm before easing into the front seat of the car. Pulling the door shut, he waited. The man wasn’t done. And until he was, the subject wouldn’t be closed. They enjoyed something more than an employer-employee relationship. They’d been friends well before he’d stolen the man away from the forensic accounting department at the bureau. Their fates had been entwined since one life-altering decision eight years ago.

Adam still didn’t know if he should feel grateful to the man for the path he’d chosen that day. He only knew they were on the path together.

“She’s not ready. That’s clear. You have a bad habit of not hearing what people are saying to you if it’s not what you want to hear.”

“It’s what they don’t say that I listen to. And she won’t ever be ready unless she’s pushed.”

Paulie shook his head as he started the car. “She’s strong. She’ll get there on her own.”

“Not until she drops the load of guilt she’s hauling around with her. It’ll factor into every decision. Color every response. I know my people,” he repeated, settling back into the luxurious leather of the town car. Before hiring someone on, he familiarized himself with every facet of their background. Observed them in their line of work. Many people looked fit on paper, but psychologically were a poor match for the demands of his company. It wasn’t enough to know their lives inside and out. He made sure he walked around inside their minds before offering them a job. He didn’t think he’d made a mistake in hiring yet.

And he didn’t want to be wrong about Marisa Chandler.

“She’s not you.” Paulie had an uncanny and damned annoying habit of reading his mind at times. “People deal with trauma in their own way. You can’t dictate the road posts to their recovery.”

“She’s strong. And I’m not dictating,” he countered. “I’m just handing her a map.” He pulled out his cell and checked for the one message that would keep them in Philadelphia another night. When he didn’t find it, he muttered a curse.

Paulie nosed the car down the street and checked in his mirror to be sure the vehicle with their security detail followed. “Our guy didn’t take the bait?”

“It was a stupid plan,” muttered Adam. And one he’d only succumbed to under pressure.

“It was worth a shot,” the other man corrected. In conjunction with four different city police departments, and the bureau that seemed only too eager to jump into the mix, Adam’s would-be assassin had been identified. Tyler Jennings had been raised in Philadelphia and should have felt comfortable making a move here.

He
should
have fallen for the look alike masquerading at the Ritz, while Adam and Paulie stayed at a much more modest nearby hotel. The fact that he hadn’t, when they had proof that he’d followed Adam to the city was troubling.

“He’s smart,” he said grudgingly. The man would have to be to have evaded law enforcement in four cities so far.

“And tenacious. He won’t give up.” Paulie slanted a glance at him. “His name still doesn’t ring a bell?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know him. Hadn’t even heard of him until we made the ID a couple days ago.” There was no reason he should have. He’d put away his share of men just like Jennings over the years, and there were always more to take their place. Men without scruples who sold their services to the highest bidder.

He didn’t care about Jennings. The man was just a tool. Adam wanted whoever had hired him.

“I still think this is tied somehow to the Mulder kidnapping you worked with Kellan and Macy last winter in Colorado.”

Because this was familiar territory, Adam leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eye. “There’s no proof of that.”

“It was during that time that we started getting hacking attempts into our financials,” Paulie said doggedly. They were driving down a street edged in neon. To his credit, he gave barely a glance at a sign giving directions to a casino.

“Which the new fire wall you constructed took care of.”

“Well, of course.” He shrugged without modesty. “But the attempts on your life started almost immediately after that case. Makes me wonder if Castillo might have been telling the truth about LeCroix’s son being alive. About him maybe wanting revenge for you killing his father.”

“Enrique Castillo is a miserable self-serving child-trafficker. He blames me for his life sentence. Anything he’d say is suspect. And John LeCroix was hardly the last man I’ve been in contact with who wants me dead.” Although to be sure, the man had come a damn sight closer to succeeding than most.

Broodingly, he fingered the scar on his throat. He almost preferred LeCroix’s methods. At least he could fight back against an enemy he could see. He had a feeling he was going to run out of patience with this current game long before Jennings did.

Nate glanced up as Risa pushed into the office, then stared. “You look . . . tired,” he amended when her eyes slitted. “Late night last night?”

“I stayed up awhile working on the profile,” she said brusquely.

He had enough experience with female moods to gauge hers at a notch past dangerous. And enough wisdom to keep his mouth shut, accordingly.

She set her computer case on her desk and unzipped the side pocket to withdraw the file folder. Turning, she tossed it on his desk. “Keep in mind it’s an evolving document. It’ll change as we have more details on the case.”

“I’m familiar with profiles.” His tone was mild. He was becoming something of an expert of treading with caution. Living with Kristin recently was like serving as tiger bait. He never knew when one false move would have her pouncing.

The hell of it was, Tucker was starting to pick up on the undercurrents, and his behavior had taken a turn for the worse. Bedtime last night had surpassed battle status and taken on the elements of a full-fledged war. By the end of the night Kristin and her son were both in tears, and the old cravings had returned full force. Nate would have smoked a rolled-up newspaper if he could have figured a way to get nicotine in it first.

“There’s coffee.” He felt a need to point it out and hoped it’d have the same effect on her it’d had on him when he came in.

“Ah. Bless Darrell.” She got up and headed to the pot he’d filched from the staff room. He opened his mouth to warn her. Shut it again.

She poured a cup and carried it back to her desk before taking a healthy swallow. Her sputtering cough had him grinning. “It’s Darrell’s day off. Flo made this.”

She aimed a hard stared his way. “You might have told me that sooner.”

“I might have.” He hid his grin by tucking his head down and unrolling the map on his desk. “But you didn’t take as big a taste as I did and misery loves company.”

Risa grimaced and took another sip, more cautiously this time. “Well, if nothing else, it should clear the fog out of my head this morning.”

“And then some.”

“I took a look at the LUDs last night.”

He raised his brows. “I have a team combing through the phone records already. No calls to duplicate numbers have been placed or received.”

“Couldn’t sleep, remember?” Despite the words, her tone was slightly less caustic than it’d been earlier. Caffeine was a good jumpstart. And Flo’s coffee was high octane. “Did your guys mention that all three victims received a call from a public phone in the last month?”

He lifted a shoulder, unimpressed. “Informants use public phones all the time. They didn’t come from the same number.” Couldn’t have, or the detectives would have caught it.

“No.” She put her coffee down and took out a thick green binder. He recognized it as the one she was keeping her case file in. “But they did all come in on the same date. All within a half hour of each other, in fact.”

Letting the edges of the map roll back, he looked instead at the page in the binder she was indicating. “Okay, this one went out to Roland Parker and the number is identified as being located inside Hanley’s Market on the sixteen hundred block of Post. But fifteen minutes later someone placed a call from this number”—she riffled a few pages before finding her spot—“which is identified as a phone booth on the corner of Collins and One Ninetieth, to Patrick Christiansen.” She waited, but whatever she was getting at escaped him. “Collins and One Ninetieth is three blocks away from Parker’s home address.”

He studied her. “You think Parker placed the call.”

“Twelve minutes later Tull received a call from a public phone located inside Joe’s Tavern.” She hitched her hip on the corner of his desk to stab the page emphatically. “Everyone uses informants, yeah, I get that, although mine all seemed to have cells even before I did. But this isn’t coincidence. It can’t be. I don’t know what it means, but it’s a link.”