Secrets of the Dead (6 page)

One moment he was lying still. The next he was a blur of motion. He sat up and pulled her down on top of him in a smooth movement, one arm around her throat, a hand clapped over her mouth. With his free hand he held a gun at her temple. For a moment shock and fear shut down her body’s responses. A silent scream welled inside her. Went unuttered. A second ticked by. Two. Then a well-trained sense of self-preservation kicked in.

She bit down hard on the hand covering her mouth and rammed her elbow against his chest with all her might.

“Dammit!” She was flipped to her back, pinned in place on the mattress by the full weight of his body stretched out over hers. It took a sluggish moment for him to make sense of the scene. He blinked. “Eve.”

“Very astute, Captain Obvious,” she snapped. “Your powers of observation are truly exemplary.” Her body heaved under his. “Get
off
me!”

“Right.” He shoved the gun under his pillow and rolled to the side. Since she certainly wasn’t going to scrabble over his body—his partially
nude
body—to get off the bed, she scooted toward the wall, putting as much distance between them as possible.

“Sorry about that.” He jammed his free hand through his hair. “But I didn’t expect…that is…dammit. This probably isn’t a great idea. I mean…I’m sure lots of guys would find you attractive. In a pint-size high school cheerleader type of way. But with the two of us working together…not smart. Sex clouds the senses. I think we can both agree that we need to keep our wits during this thing.”

Eve gaped at him, her mind sorting through the carelessly offensive remarks. Somehow, coming upon her uncomfortable earlier musings about him, high school cheerleader seemed the most insulting. “I know sixty-seven different ways to call you a jackass.” She slapped the now wrinkled sheet of paper against his bare chest, tempted to pin it there with her knife. “None of them do you justice.”

“What’s this?” He smoothed it out, squinting at it in the shadows.

“The reason I came in here. That, and my overpowering and yes—thanks for the clarification—unrequited state of lust.” She turned on her cell so he could read by the light provided by the screen.

Mr. Gallagher,

I apologize for my assistant’s over-enthusiasm this afternoon. He has been properly disciplined. I hope you will still consider listening to my business proposition. I will be available to discuss it over lunch tomorrow, 11:30 in the dining room of the Latifma Hotel on Fourth and Prospect.

Your humble servant.

His reaction was swift. “Shit. I mean…” He shot her a look. “This…” He shook the paper, “…is good news. At least it can be if Raiker has time to check out the location for the meet. The rest…” He went silent and a part of Eve was gratified by the pained expression on his face. “Ah…I’m going to blame that on a brain muddled by sleep fog.”

As apologies went, his didn’t go far enough. Still stinging from his earlier remarks, her tone was caustic. “Uh-huh.” Another woman might find him sort of harmlessly adorable, with his hair all mussed and one cheek still bearing a crease from his pillow. Ten minutes ago, she might have thought the same.

Of course that was before the man had, in the space of a second held her immobilized with a gun to her temple. Had outraged her with his awkward refusal of a sexual encounter she hadn’t even offered. The second act felt more insulting than the first.

Eve eyed him warily. His shoulders were much too broad to be considered harmless. And his torso was roped with muscle his clothes did a good job of hiding from the world. And she…she was spending way too much time contemplating a half nude man who had, intentionally or not, just disparaged her. Jackass.

“A little odd, isn’t it, that it isn’t signed?”

He shrugged. “We’ll get a name soon enough.” He was silent for a moment, studying the message. “Your humble servant. That sounds Asian, doesn’t it? Chinese? Japanese?”

“Or someone attempting to sound that way.” Linguistically speaking, there was little of value in the message. If the author was bi-lingual, he or she had a good grasp of English. Declan reached for his cell, which was setting on a small nightstand next to the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Texting Raiker the details of the meet. Hopefully by tomorrow he can get us a scouting report of…” He consulted the message again. “…the Latifma Hotel on Fourth and Prospect.”

Concern shoved aside her irritation with him. “I’m still a bit leery of using cell phones to communicate, even if they did come from Raiker’s labs. Nothing is untraceable.”

“These are.” He was already bent over his phone typing a message.

“That’s impossible. The technology doesn’t exist.” This much she was sure of.

“He has an innovation lab that works on select contracts for…those in charge of the military. Believe me, every new bit of technology that lands in civilian hands, the military has had for at least a decade.”

The Pentagon he meant. There was no Scottish Gaelic word for it so he was careful enough to avoid speaking the word aloud. She was fascinated in spite of herself. Moving over to sit beside him on the edge of the bed, she asked, “But how do they work?”

Finally he raised his head to look at her. “I’m not going to bore you with talk of cryptographic algorithm options and transmission security functions. Suffice it to say, any messages that are sent or received are encrypted for secure transmission and decrypted for the receiver. Anything deleted from the phone is not recoverable, except back at the lab where the scientists can do unimaginable things to retrieve it. Can I finish this?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Be my guest.” Obviously he wasn’t a multi-tasker.

Moments later he straightened, set the cell down and looked at the message in his hand again. “How long ago did you find this?”

“It was passed under the door about six minutes ago. I…it took me about thirty seconds to pry myself from the couch. I brought it right in here.”

His gaze sharpened. “You were awake when it was delivered?”

She couldn’t resist needling him. “Yes, sleep was impossible. I was tossing and turning in a turmoil of longing for you.”

His elbow nudge nearly knocked her from the bed. “Okay, I deserve that.”

“You really really do.”

Her sweet tone didn’t seem to fool him. “You’re a bit of a smartass. Who would have guessed?” He leaned forward to look out the open door of the room toward the couch. Then toward the door. “Did you hear anybody out there before it was delivered?”

Memory of the chill that had overtaken her at the time was too easily summoned. “I thought I did. A slight sound of a footstep outside the door. Not much more than that.” But enough to strike fear in her heart when that paper was slipped inside the apartment.

“Okay. They would have cased us thoroughly before approaching us today, so of course they’d know where we were staying. And security at this dump is a joke.” He stifled a yawn. “I think it’s best if we trade places. You take the bed and I’ll take the couch.”

“It’s at least four inches too short for you.” Anything longer wouldn’t have fit against the wall it sat against.

“I’ll manage.” He stood and she was grateful to see that he was wearing a pair of gym shorts. He collected his cell and, thankfully, the gun from beneath his pillow and padded from the room.

Eve contemplated the bed. One pillow still bore a slight indentation from his head. The other looked as if it had been pounded into submission. “What should I do if I get lonely?” she called. As he’d mentioned, he really deserved a bit of razzing.

“Use your phone. Talk to Siri. Or whatever the Android equivalent is.”

She grinned at that. “Okay. But don’t blame me if my lecherous dreams have me sleepwalking and coming out there to ravish you.”

His voice sounded a little grim. “We’re going to declare a statute of limitations on that episode. Any remarks about it are confined to the next hour. Tomorrow it’s off limits, got it?”

She waited a full five minutes before singing the chorus to Simply Irresistible.

His response wasn’t long in coming. “Shut up, Eve.”

Grinning, she stretched out on the bed and made herself comfortable. And before she fell asleep she congratulated herself for not agreeing to that statute of limitations.

Chapter 4

“Why are we
going to a bank?”

An hour and a half before their lunch date with the mysterious messenger, Declan ushered Eve into the lobby of Citizen’s Home Bank of DC. “Ostensibly this is the bank that is handling the foreclosure on our fictional home. It’s also the place where Raiker is storing a computer we can use to securely communicate with him.”

His tone was a little brusquer than he’d meant it to be, a byproduct of too little sleep and tinge of leftover discomfort from last night. A couple of mugs of coffee hadn’t been able to completely alleviate the effects of either. Nor had they cleared his brain enough to figure out why his first conscious reaction to being awakened by her last night was to assume she’d had sex on the mind.

Jaw clenching, his step quickened. He hadn’t thought of her that way. Not once. Declan could be exceedingly single-minded on the job and sex—or the lack of it—had never even occurred. And this woman wouldn’t have starred in an X-rated dream in any case. He liked his women stacked, long-legged and independent, in that order. He was well aware that he harbored a white knight mentality stemming from an innate protective instinct that could wreak havoc if he let it. Coming to the rescue of his assorted family members was time consuming and exhausting. He didn’t welcome emotional upheaval in his personal life. Which was one of the reasons he’d so far skirted marriage the way others avoided quicksand.

But something had planted a steamy mental image of the diminutive Eve, with her wide blue eyes and tousled gold curls squarely in his subconscious and recognition of the fact had him feeling just a bit edgy. A little surly. He was a man who prized control. Relinquishing it, whether due to sleep or hormones, was unacceptable.

His hand on the bank’s polished beveled door handle, he heard a small sound and realized the woman at his side was humming beneath her breath. Declan stared hard at her. The wind had raked careless fingers through the casual waves she’d tamed her curls into. Her expression was guileless. If she’d suffered any ill effects from too little sleep and leftover embarrassment, it certainly didn’t show.

Yanking the door open, he waited for her to enter. Of course, she wasn’t the one who’d been embarrassed. Recalling the sarcastic remarks she’d aimed his way, she also wasn’t completely defenseless. Not for the first time Declan was reminded that he really knew very little about the woman who was—like it or not—his partner for at least a few more days.

They’d no more stepped into the lobby before they were greeted by a tall, deeply tanned man sporting a mane of white hair and an exquisitely cut Brioni suit. Declan’s grandfather favored the same tailor. “Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher.” His handshake was firm. “Bank president Irving Baltes. I’ll be handling your affairs. Please.” He gestured for them to precede him. “Let’s go where we can be private.”

Declan took off his gloves and shoved them in his coat pocket as he and Eve walked across the lobby and down a hallway where Baltes showed them into a room lined with rows of safe deposit boxes. Unlike similar rooms he’d seen in the past, the bottom row in this one was comprised of boxes the size of small safes.

Once the door was shut behind him, the man lost his previously grave expression. His face was wreathed in a smile. “Mr. Raiker sent me excellent likenesses of you two. I must say, I’m gratified to have the chance to repay him in some small way.” He went to one of the larger security boxes in the bottom row, unlocked it and withdrew a laptop, which he handed to Declan. “I’ll show you to a place where you can be undisturbed.” The key he gave to Eve. “When you’re finished, just return it. Feel free to come as often as necessary.” They followed him to an adjoining private transaction room where he left them alone, closing the door after him as he departed.

“Well.” Eve stared at the door he’d disappeared through. “Makes you sort of wonder what Adam Raiker did to elicit such gratitude.”

Declan lost no time sitting down at the long table and powering up the laptop. “Baltes was alerted to irregularities in the banks’ finances three years ago. Discretion is the name of the game when it comes to financial institutions.” He tapped in a sequence of letters, numbers and symbols with dizzying speed. Passwords, most likely. “Adam was hired by the bank board to bring in a team of forensic accountants each night to find where the money was going. They eventually nailed the chief financial officer for embezzling over four million dollars.”

Her eyes widened. “Four million buys a lot of gratitude.”

“Four million buys a lot of everything.” He tapped a few more keys and sat back in his chair. Eve looked from him to the still dark screen.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Me, I assume.” Adam Raiker appeared on the screen, seated in a darkened room. The background was shrouded in shadows. Declan knew that would be by design.

“Miss Larrison. I hope Gallagher has been treating you well.”

It was as if he’d snatched Declan’s brief mental aberration of the night before from the depths of his memory. With a mischievous glance at Declan, Eve said in a judicious voice, “For the most part. Other than this overwhelming hunger I seem to have acquired…”

“Eve…” He growled the warning.

“What?” She was all innocence. “You didn’t feed me breakfast.”

“Feed the poor woman, Gallagher. It’s not like you don’t have an expense account.”

“Wait until you see it.” Declan’s gaze when it met hers promised retribution. “She eats enough to keep a small village alive for a week.” And she apparently had no clear understanding of the term “statute of limitations.”

“Let’s hope the dining room in the Latifma Hotel is up to your standards. I found nothing about the quality of the food there, but the hotel itself has had a colorful history.”

“By any chance are the owners of Asian descent?”

“Not currently, no. A group of Pakistani investors own it, and apparently some of their people run it. But it’s had a colorful history. Twenty-five years ago a Malaysian by the name of Rizqi bin Osman bought it. Seven years ago ICE raided the hotel, busting a drug operation and a prostitution ring peopled mainly with illegal immigrants. Before he could be scooped up, bin Osman fled the country. There’s been no police activity at the property in the time since. Here’s where you’ll be going.”

Declan studied the photos Adam held up that depicted an aging structure in pale brick. The inside lobby was well kept. It looked like a moderately priced establishment. “It seems to cater mostly to foreign businessman, but there are certainly American guests there,” Raiker continued. The next picture showed a rather unremarkable dining room. And then there were several shots of the exits of the building. “I’ve emailed you the blueprints of the hotel so you’re not walking into the place cold.”

“That might come in handy,” Declan muttered. “Right now we have no way of knowing if the location was chosen at random or whether our mystery messenger has a connection there.

“We’ll know soon enough.” Adam was back on screen. “I’ll have a couple stationed in the dining room while you’re there. They’ll take photos of your host and we’ll run him through various international databases.”

He nodded. “And we’ll let you know just what his business proposition entails.” He was clear on the parameters of the assignment. Adrenaline began to fire in his veins. And he was more than ready to get the waiting over and the mission underway.

Never one to linger over conversation, Raiker was nonetheless silent for a moment, as if choosing his next words carefully. “Some information has come to light that lead me to believe that neither Jaid nor I is the motivation behind Royce’s kidnapping.”

Declan paused a beat as he digested the new information. “What’s that leave? If not money or revenge we’re back to square one.”

“The motivation is Royce himself.” Raiker’s expression went fierce. “This information is need-to-know only. Jaid…adopted him when he was a few weeks old. She knows nothing about his parentage. But we have reason to believe the attempted kidnapping somehow stems from the mystery surrounding his birth.”

“Surely she has details about where he came from. There have to be social workers who were involved. Birth records…”

“It’s complicated.” Adam’s terse reply stemmed Eve’s flow of words. “And the only person we know of who had all the facts has been dead for nine years.”

“Taking the secret to the grave,” she murmured.

The words were dramatic but true enough, Declan realized. It would have been easier to track someone who sought revenge, or even hoped to gain leverage over Jaid or Adam by snatching their son. Unraveling a mystery nearly a decade old might prove to be a bit more challenging.

“This information actually gives us a head start,” Adam said. “We already know Royce was the target, if not why. It’s up to you to get us answers.”

“And also to lead them into a trap in which they incriminate themselves.”

Raiker inclined his head. “Any details you might acquire about the criminal activity these people may be involved in will have to be shared with the authorities. So it would behoove us to gather facts as quickly as we can.”

“In case one of the alphabet agencies swoops in and changes the focus of the investigation.” Declan reached into his coat and withdrew a hand towel he’d wrapped around the weapon he’d taken off their would-be kidnapper. He held it up to the screen. “If I leave this gun here with the computer, can someone fetch it to run it for prints? I took it off one of the guys who tried to abduct us yesterday. Who knows, we might get lucky.”

“An agent will come for it. I left you something else in the safe besides the computer.”

Eve and Declan looked at each other before she got up and opened the door to cross to the safe. Her narrow skirt made crouching somewhat difficult, but she withdrew a small lightweight pouch and brought it back to the table in the adjoining room. From the bag she took out what looked like an MP3 player and earphones. “I hope there’s no country music on this.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Raiker said. “It does have a switch that allows it play music. But it also acts as a receiver. There should be a small listening device in the pouch, as well.” Reaching into the bag, Eve took out a small clear plastic box. Inside it was a tiny silver square item.

“Nice,” she said admiringly, turning it over to peer at it closer. “But it’s not cell phone activated?” Her words had Declan sliding her a careful look before leaning over to examine it himself.

“It’s a new prototype and virtually undetectable. Voice activated and fully charged. The receiver allows you to listen in without drawing undue attention, since there might be interested parties nearby. No distance limitations. It’ll work for seventy-two hours on standby, with at least twenty hours of usage time. That should be more than enough. But…” Raiker’s face went grim. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances. FBI agent Stillions got the warrant and I just sent it along in case an opportunity presented itself. And I’ll let you know if we get a hit on the photos taken today. Until then watch your back.” The screen abruptly went black.

“Well. That was an unceremonious sign off.”

Declan didn’t answer. He was opening the email Raiker had sent and studying the blueprint of the hotel.

“Dining room is left of center on the lobby floor.” He tapped the indicated space on the screen. “Note the exits. The hallway to the restrooms is here.” He traced the space with his index finger. “That’s likely to be the only way out of the hotel that doesn’t lead back into the lobby.”

“There should be a door leading outside from the kitchen. Likely toward an alley or the back of the building. They’d need a place to put their waste and Dumpsters are usually hidden in less public places.”

He glanced at her, a slight smile on his face. “Trust you to think of the kitchen.” Checking the blueprint again, he said, “It wouldn’t be considered a public exit, but yeah, here’s a door.” He surveyed the screen before closing out of the email and then tapping in a series of code that wiped the computer screen completely clean. “It’s likely to be a very low-key first meeting. An offer might not be made until later.” Despite the matter-of-fact words he couldn’t deny the kick in his pulse. Their assignment had just broadened in scope. Identifying the people responsible for Royce’s kidnapping attempt was as crucial as was learning the circumstances of the boy’s birth.

“The message mentioned a business proposition,” Eve pointed out reasonably. “They’ve waited ten and a half weeks. I think they’ll be in more of a hurry than you imagine.”

“Either way, the meet will be perfectly safe. Raiker will have another couple of people in there as back up if things go wrong. I’m not expecting that they will.”

Her brows rose. “Excellent news, but I don’t require handholding. Let’s do this.”

Closing the laptop, he sat for a moment surveying her. “You sounded familiar with the workings of listening devices.”

Because he was watching so closely he noted the way her expression subtly altered. Those blue eyes widened just a bit, perfecting the mask of innocence. “Trust is sometimes a commodity in short supply in the State Department, especially with emissaries from opaque regimes.” She didn’t flinch under his regard.

Plausible, of course. And yet…something about the woman didn’t add up. He gave a mental headshake and pulled out his cell to check the time. His efforts would be better spent preparing for the upcoming meeting. He’d already devoted way too much time considering the incongruities of Eve Larrison.

His chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back. “We’ve got time if we hurry.”

She rose and fell in step beside him as he started for the door of the transaction room. “Time to get a look at where those hotel exits lead?”

“You read my mind.”

_______

“Those two Latino
gentlemen in the cheap suits.”

It was Eve’s third guess in the past ten minutes. And just like her other two predictions, Declan made no attempt to turn around and look at the people she indicated.