Exit Strategy (35 page)

Velasquez rubs the back of his neck in consternation. “How the fuck did my men miss this?”

“That’s neither here nor there now. Let’s do some research before we confront Aimee about this in the light of day.” Tristan looks at his watch. “That’s only about three hours from now.”

Velasquez disappears into the closet and comes out in slacks, buttoning up his shirt. Tristan heads out of the guestroom, Velasquez hot on his heels to the makeshift command center in his home office.

The night-shift “watchers,” as Tristan has dubbed them, are scanning all the monitors from the various video cameras, making sure Keisha and his family are safe. They also account for the whereabouts of the suspects. If the photos are to be believed, they’ll be adding an additional suspect to their number now.

“I’ll research Aimee’s background, concentrating on possible siblings and her birth mother. You can handle all the high-tech, high-clearance info sharing with your friends at Quantico,” Tristan says.

He plants himself in front of one of the powerful laptops his IT staff has outfitted to his specifications. It has the fastest processor available and—courtesy of an expert hacker—access to systems the rest of the world can only dream of.

Velasquez takes the other laptop and connects to face-recognition software that only the feds should rightly have access to and loads the photos of their person of interest.

A couple of hours later, Tristan gets a hit from the backdoor of the Texas adoption registry. He remembers having located Aimee’s adoptive parents years ago, but that was the extent of his search. She hadn’t been interested in finding her birth mother then, because she was still fairly bitter that she’d been given up in the first place. Sometimes birth parents mistakenly believe they’re providing their child a better life with two parents. In Aimee’s case, the all-American family façade had been a nightmare.

“Bingo,” Tristan says. “Aimee’s birth mother is Deidra J. Styles. I have her last known address here. Velasquez, hire a PI in Corpus Christi. See if he can locate this woman.”

“I’m on it,” Velasquez says.

Tristan knows it’s likely too early to go strolling into Aimee’s condo, so he retreats to his bedroom to take a much-needed shower and decompress.

As the jets hit his weary frame, he can’t even conjure up a hard-on, he’s so tired. However, he thinks of Keisha as he kneads his sore muscles and scrubs away the fatigue of several days without the required amount of sleep. He knows she probably hates him right now, this being the fourth week without any contact. The information they’ve just learned is promising, though. If someone related to Aimee is behind the threats, perhaps he can resolve that and continue the surveillance of McCaskill until he slips up. Surely the bastard won’t try anything with Keisha now, especially if it becomes common knowledge she’s with Tristan again.

God, he hates that she’s only concentrating on the gossip and doesn’t remember his promises to her. Although he understands why, since she’d poured her heart out to him on the very same day he took up company with an ex-sub. Keisha, like any rational human being, believed what she saw rather than what she’d been told. And who can blame her?

Now, she’s burying herself in her work. Many nights when he needs a fix, he pours over video of her at the studio, composing, singing, or working with her artists, pushing them to do their best work. He sees the sadness under the surface of her gorgeous face because he knows her too well, and it kills him to know that he played an integral part in putting that sadness there.

Tristan grabs a towel off the rack and buffs his body almost too roughly. Damn it, he’s eager to get Keisha back, to make her understand why he did what he did, so she won’t continue to hate him for savaging her heart the way he did. However, he’ll not only have to convince Keisha of his motives, he’ll have to win Clara Lee’s trust back, too. The pastor will forgive him easily, but Clara Lee and Keisha will be tough sells, and rightfully so.

Tristan sits on the chaise in his bedroom. His intentions are to wait another thirty minutes before he goes down to Aimee’s to talk to her about the latest development. He also needs to pick her brain in earnest about her birth mother. There has to be some connection to Aimee with this new person of interest.  However, his body betrays him once he’s still, and, he falls asleep.

He smells food before he hears his name being called, persistently. “Mr. White? Mr. White?”

Tristan lifts his eyelids lift reluctantly. Mrs. Naven removes her hand from his shoulder where she’s no doubt been shaking him. His sleep was so deep and sound there was a delay in the stimuli he felt until his eyes were completely open.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven.”

He jumps up off the chaise. “I’ve got to go see Aimee.”

“Not before you eat this food I made for you. You haven’t eaten a proper meal in days.” She motions toward the tray on the table next to him.

It smells delicious, and all he has to do is remove the cover from the dish and eat his fill. He is hungry, after all, but there’s still so much to do.

Mrs. Naven ignores his indecision and gets straight to the point. “You won’t be doing yourself, or Ms. Beale, any good by getting sick because you’re not eating right. If you’re going to find who’s behind all this foolishness, you’ve got to be in your best shape.”

She’s right, and even though he hasn’t told her everything, she’s a smart enough woman to figure out what he’s doing, what with all the security and surveillance equipment set up in the condo now.

“Now sit back down and eat.” She’s not taking no for an answer, and it reminds him of his mother. He grins sheepishly and sits back down.

The day seems almost normal with Mrs. Naven puttering over his food, placing everything just so in front of him. After a few bites, he feels himself becoming reenergized by the nutrients in this feast of a brunch his housekeeper has prepared.

Mrs. Naven leaves when she’s satisfied he’ll do this meal justice. He’s drinking the last bit of coffee when Velasquez bursts into the room.

Tristan looks up in surprise and says good-naturedly, “There is a social convention called a knock that you probably should exercise, Velasquez.”

“Sorry, sir, but there’s been a development.”

“What’s that?”

“Ms. Beale was discussing a health matter with her roommate that I’m sure you’ll want to know about.”

Tristan stands so abruptly he doesn’t check the distance to the table when he’s putting his empty coffee cup away, and the cup and saucer clatter onto the Persian rug. “What is it?”

“She discovered a lump while showering this morning.”

Tristan’s heart feels as if it’s about to explode, and his brain checks out. When he comes to, he does not remember falling across the antique tray table, breaking it and scattering all the dishes to the floor.

~*~

It takes Velasquez, Dr. Sandoval, and the two security staff on duty in their makeshift command room to stop Tristan from jumping into his car and going to check on Keisha.

An hour later, Carlos has to restrain him on his own.

“If you go to her now, that will negate all the work we have in place, and it will be even more difficult to get to this point again,” Velasquez says while holding him in a headlock. Tristan is strong and has a few moves, but Velasquez is a former Special Forces operative, and Tristan can’t get purchase. The bulkier Velasquez keeps getting the drop on him.

He should be thankful he’s hired the best, but right now he wishes he could outmaneuver him.

“Okay, okay. Just—just let me go. I’m fine.” His security chief releases him, and he shakes off the fatigue of being restrained, then pats his pockets.

There’s more than one way to contact Keisha.

“Looking for this?” Velasquez says, holding Tristan’s phone up with two fingers. The man he hired to protect everything he holds dear is flaunting it in Tristan’s face that he’s being detained in his own home with no way of contacting anyone in the outside world. This loss of control freaks Tristan the fuck out and he rushes Carlos like a man with a death wish.

Tristan meets Carlos’s right hook, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes.

“You’ll thank me later,” Velasquez says, and it’s lights-out again.

Tristan dreams that he’s visiting Keisha at the hospital. Oddly, it reminds him of the hospital his mother frequented when she was fighting her battle with cancer. Keisha is asleep, her gorgeous natural curls splayed on the white hospital pillow.

He strides to the bed where she lies sleeping and takes her hand. Her hazel eyes open and lock with his, and tears begin to slip from the corners of them. He can’t take it, and the next thing he knows, he’s in the tiny hospital bed with her, holding her in his arms.

“Oh, Keisha. Thank God you’re going to be all right. Please forgive me for staying away. We can buy you another pair of breasts, but not another you.”

Tristan awakes with a start, his own eyes wet with tears, and his head throbbing like a jackhammer is opening up his skull. Then he remembers. Velasquez hit him to keep him from going to Keisha and ruining their plans.

Keisha found a lump. It’d happened like that with his mother and her mother, too. There is no way he’s going to let her go through this alone. Fuck the goddamned stalker. Fuck Byron McCaskill. Hell, he’ll hire a goddamned hit man if he has to and take all the suspects out. He has to see Keisha through this, and he’ll fire Velasquez in the process, if necessary.

He walks briskly to the bathroom and refreshes himself. No amount of pampering can reduce the swollen knot on the side of his head where Carlos had clocked him, though. He takes a couple of Advil and then strides purposefully into the command center. Velasquez is hunched over the shoulders of his men, watching something on the screen with interest. He looks up at Tristan briefly and beckons him over.

“Take a look at this, sir. This guy in a wheelchair is at Aimee Gabriel’s door.”

Tristan waves him off. “Oh, that’s probably Timothy Stiers. Aimee’s friend.”

“Oh,” Velasquez says. “Well... he’s all bundled up like it’s winter, but it’s May.”

“It’s normal for people with spinal cord injuries to not be able to regulate their body temperature,” Tristan says. “Poor guy.”

“Wait!” Velasquez says. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

“Roll that back.” The watcher rolls back the video feed back. “Look at his hands.”

“What the fuck?” Tristan says. “Stiers didn’t have fingernails that nice the last time he visited Aimee.”

“Enhance,” Velasquez says.

The face of the Stiers lookalike becomes clear.

“That’s our goddamned, POI.” Velasquez draws his gun. He takes off. Tristan is abreast of him, and the two-man security team brings up the rear.

At the elevator, Velasquez halts their progress before they all bundle onto it. “Okay, you two,” he says, and points to his men. “Go down the stairs off the kitchen to the back exit of Ms. Gabriel’s condo in case the perp tries to get away. Tristan and I will go to the front entrance on the elevator.”

He pulls a smaller handgun from the ever-present holster under his jacket and hands it to Tristan. “Try not to shoot me or Ms. Gabriel, sir,” he says with a wink.

The team heads to the kitchen, and Tristan enters the elevator with Carlos. “I
should
shoot your ass for hitting me.”

“It was just a means to an end.”

“Yeah, right. I think you’ve been wanting to do that for quite some time.”

“Who, me?”

Tristan picks up the phone and dials Mrs. Hathaway to request entry when the elevator stops. Her voice comes over the intercom after the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Hathaway, this is Tristan White. Buzz me in. I need to speak to Aimee.”

“Eh... She has a guest right now.”

“I don’t care if she’s entertaining the pope. Let me in now.”

“Y-yes, sir.” The woman sounds flustered, but Tristan doesn’t give a damn at the moment. Someone masquerading as Timothy Stiers is in the condo with Aimee, and he needs to know if she’s unaware of what’s going on, or if she’s in on this plot to get even with him.

The elevator doors slide open, and they enter the space with guns drawn, protecting each other’s backs, not sure if the perp is armed or not.

Mrs. Hathaway enters the foyer, smoothing her ever-present chignon, and is startled to see the guns.

“Oh, for heavens—”

“Where’s the woman in the wheelchair?” Tristan barks.

“W-what woman? Mr. Stiers came to see Ms. Aimee.”

“I’m only going to ask you once more, Mrs. Hathaway. Where. Is. The.
Woman!
”

“Nursie!” Aimee calls for Mrs. Hathaway, while simultaneously, they hear footsteps running through the dining room toward the rear entrance off the kitchen.