Take the Key and Lock Her Up (39 page)

He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. He’s got just as many properties as me,
plus a few I don’t know of, I’m sure. We’d have to have some kind of clue just to
figure out where to look. Assuming he’s not in a hotel or someplace like that. Assuming
one of the three is our guy, not Gage, we still have to figure out the most logical
search area or it will take too long. Meanwhile, Kelly is being held and probably
tortured.”

She pulled the computer chair close to the board while Devlin brought one of the dining-room
chairs in to sit beside her. They reviewed everything on the board over and over but
still couldn’t narrow the list down to who and where.

“What about the ex-cons, including Brad Robinson?” Devlin asked. “Tuck seemed to think
Robinson was the key when he talked about him back at the ambulance.”

She straightened in her chair. “You’re right. I need to e-mail Tuck again.”

“That’s not what I—”

“—meant, I know. I can ask him to check visitor logs for those ex-cons from when they
were in prison, see if the same name comes up on any of them. Makes sense that if
someone coordinated them all together, they would have visited at least a couple of
them and made them some kind of deal for when they were paroled. Or maybe a guard
or warden was bribed as part of the deal. I’m not ignoring any possibility.”

“Fine. E-mail him. Do what you have to do.” He stood and crossed to the doorway.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m hungry. I’ll see if I can scare us up some sandwiches.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

She opened her e-mail again and typed her request for Tuck to get everything he could
from the prison records for Robinson and the other ex-cons, focusing on visitor logs.
Since IDs could be faked, especially by someone who worked for EXIT and probably did
that kind of thing routinely, she added a request for pictures of the visitors if
possible. Years ago, that might have been a difficult request, but she knew prison
records were digitized now. Pulling a picture of the visitors who’d signed in to see
each of her target ex-cons shouldn’t be that difficult. She was about to click
SEND
but hesitated. Ex-cons. There were a lot of them involved in this case—the one Devlin
had killed after they saved Hawley, Robinson, his three partners in crime. What about
the men who’d broken into the bunker? Devlin hadn’t recognized any of them. Could
they be ex-cons too?

Why would an enforcer—a trained assassin—use so many far less trained and less competent
people to help him? Devlin had said they’d been sent to “soften them up,” which she
supposed would make sense if the enforcer pulling their strings was busy or not close
enough to go after the target. Or maybe the appeal was that the convicts couldn’t
easily be traced back to the person who’d given them orders. Someone at EXIT was obviously
very comfortable using criminals as their personal thugs.

As if they’d been doing it for a long time.

Her fingers hovered over the keys. Devlin wouldn’t want her to do this. He wouldn’t
want her to reopen old wounds. But, as often happened while she worked a case, little
things began to dig at her and dig at her until they were flashing inside her mind
like big neon signs. Which usually meant she was on to something.

She glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway. It was clear. Devlin must still
be in the kitchen. She turned back to the computer and added one more name to her
e-mail.
Click.
For better or worse, the e-mail had been sent.

“Emily.”

She jumped in her chair, blinking in surprise to see Devlin right behind her.

He grinned and set a plate of sandwiches on the computer desk. “Didn’t mean to startle
you.” He set two bottles of water on the desk and crossed the room to grab the dining-room
chair he’d brought in earlier.

By the time he was back, Emily had composed herself again. But guilt still ate at
her. Had she done the right thing? Was she prying into something that would hurt Devlin
if he ever found out? Or was she actually on to something big, something that could
change everything?

“You okay?” Devlin took a bite of one of the ham-and-cheese sandwiches.

“Um, yeah. Just a bit frazzled, I guess.” She gave him a weak smile and grabbed a
sandwich for herself, taking a big bite to discourage any further questions.

Devlin looked past her at the computer screen, his brow furrowing.

Emily turned to see what he was looking at. The autopsy photos, zoomed in on the odd
cross-shaped bruises on Nancy and Hawley.

“Sorry.” She quickly minimized the picture of Nancy.

Devlin didn’t say anything, but the rest of the time they ate he seemed preoccupied.

Once they were finished eating, Devlin crossed to the whiteboard again to study the
lists they’d made.

Emily clicked her e-mail, unsurprised that Tuck had already responded. He was a good
detective, really good, and retrieving information from the prison’s records would
be easy-peasy for him, especially if he called in a favor or two. She opened the e-mail
and started to scroll down to see what he’d sent her, but the e-mail was long, with
lots of pictures pasted below. She scrolled back up to read what he’d written.

“Dev?” She looked over her shoulder.

“Hmm?” He was standing on the other side of the room, hands on hips, looking at the
whiteboard, as if the answers would come to him if he just stared hard enough.

“Does the name Joe Harper mean anything to you?”

He stiffened and slowly turned around to face her. “Why?”

Just one word, short, clipped, uttered in a voice so quiet she’d barely heard him,
with a lethal undertone that sent shivers skittering down her spine.

She swallowed nervously and reminded herself she wasn’t his mark or his enemy.
Thank God
. “It’s in Tuck’s e-mail. Joe Harper is the one name on the prison visitor logs that’s
common to all of our convicts.”

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. He began pacing the room, every muscle tight and wound
like a spring ready to explode.

“Devlin? Is Joe Harper an alias? What does it mean?”

He stopped a few feet away from her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Years
ago, Gage bought some land north of town that Nancy nicknamed Jackson’s Island because
it’s surrounded by woods and perched in the middle of a sea of grass, reminding her
of an island.”

“Jackson’s Island. Like in
Huckleberry Finn
?”

“Exactly. Nancy was fascinated by that story and took to calling Gage by one of the
character’s names—Joe Harper.”

Emily listened to the whole story, including the part about how Kelly and Ace had
teased Gage mercilessly about his new nickname.

“By the time Nancy grew tired of calling him that,” Devlin said, “Gage had gotten
used to it and even thought it was funny. The few times we were on missions together,
he used it as his alias, as a joke.” He shook his head. “I never thought he would
hurt Nancy.”

“What about the others on the list? Could they know about this Joe Harper thing?”

“No. They never knew that story.” He looked past her at the computer screen, then
froze. “What the hell is
that?
”

Emily turned around to see what he was talking about. Beneath the body of Tuck’s e-mail
was a picture of a black stretch limousine. The rear door was open. Inside, a man
with a beard and mustache appeared to be making room for another man who was getting
into the vehicle.

“I’m not sure. I asked Tuck to send me pictures—”

“Of the man who killed Arianna?” The bitterness in his voice whipped against her like
icy needles.

She sucked in a breath and turned around. “I’m so sorry, I—”

“Why did you do it? To satisfy your morbid curiosity? To see if I was telling the
truth about what happened to her?”

The accusation in his eyes did little to mask the pain underneath.

“Devlin, please. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, or check up on you, or anything like
that. I had a hunch about the case. I know it sounds lame, but someone connected to
you in this current case uses ex-cons as helpers, and then I got to thinking that
an ex-con was connected to you in another way, through Arianna. It just seemed . . .
I don’t know, like too many coincidences, so I asked Tuck—”

“To look into my past?”

“What? No, no. I just asked him to pull any information he could find on the man who
. . . killed her.
Not
out of morbid curiosity. I had a . . .” She flushed hot beneath his scrutiny, words
failing her.

“You might as well tell me all of it,” he said. “There’s no point in stopping now.
You had a what?”

She cleared her throat. “A theory,” she whispered. “I’m sure there’s nothing to it.
It’s stupid, really, I just . . .” She laughed awkwardly. “I thought it was odd that
you’d refused to join EXIT so you could be with Arianna, and then an ex-con came along
and killed her. More or less removing any obstacles. And then you . . . signed up.”

The silence stretched between them, like an invisible barrier driving them farther
and farther apart.

“Scroll down,” he said. “Tell me where that picture was taken. And when.”

Relieved to have something to do that didn’t involve him glaring at her, she clicked
the mouse and scrolled a little farther down to see what Tuck said about the picture.

“It’s a prison photo, showing him leaving the day he was paroled.” According to the
date of the photograph, three days later the man getting into the limousine would
rape and murder Devlin’s fiancée.

Suddenly, he leaned past her and grabbed the mouse. He clicked the zoom button and
enlarged the photo until it took up almost the entire screen.

“Why are you . . .” She stared at the image of the man inside the car, the one smiling
at Arianna’s future killer. “My God, isn’t that—”

“Gage,” he spat, his voice dripping venom. He whirled around and strode out of the
room.

Emily collapsed back in her chair. Usually, she felt a sense of victory and pride
when her hunches panned out. Today, she felt none of that. It nearly killed her not
to go to him. But she sensed he needed a few moments alone to deal with the feelings
of anger, grief, and betrayal he must be going through. His best friend had arranged
for his fiancée’s murder, all so he could use the carrot of killing her murderer to
convince Devlin to join EXIT. And now, for reasons known only to himself, Gage had
constructed an elaborate plan to frame Devlin for his own crimes. Why?

There should have been a feeling of closure once she’d solved the case. But instead,
she felt only . . . confusion. As if there was more to this that they hadn’t considered.

A loud squeak sounded from the garage. The garage door was opening. It was too early
for their homeowner to return. Wasn’t it? Then what—

Devlin!
She jumped up from her chair and ran from the room through the family room to the
garage. She shoved the door open just in time to see the back of their stolen SUV
barreling down the street. With Devlin at the wheel.

He’d left her.

The blood drained from her face. She didn’t have to ask what he was doing. She knew.
He was going after Gage to save Kelly and avenge the woman he’d loved, the woman he
obviously still loved. He’d left her behind because . . . why? He was angry with her?
No, he was too noble when it came to people he considered “innocents.” He’d left her
here to protect her, so she wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire between him and Gage.
Well, who was supposed to protect
him
, to watch his back? She stomped her foot in frustration and headed back inside the
house to the office.

She sat down in the computer chair, not sure what to do next. Stay here and wait for
Devlin to return? What if the owner of the house came home before Devlin got back?
If he
was
coming back.

The phone on the computer desk suddenly rang, making her jump. She pressed her hand
against her chest, half-convinced her heart was about to burst through her ribs. It
rang two more times before the answering machine clicked on and an unfamiliar voice
told the caller to leave a message at the beep.

“Emily, pick up.”

Devlin? How had he known what number to call? Had he written it down while he was
in the office, before she’d woken up? For that matter, how had he even gotten a phone
to make the call? No, she didn’t want to know the answer to that. He’d probably lifted
it from some unsuspecting teen walking down the sidewalk.

“Emily?”

She grabbed the phone. “Devlin, what are you doing? Come back and take me with you.”

“Not a chance. I want you there, safe, while I . . . take care of what needs to be
taken care of. Don’t leave and don’t call anyone.” The line clicked.

“Devlin? Devlin!” She pulled the phone away and looked at the display on the machine.
He’d hung up. She tried the callback feature on the phone, but he didn’t answer. He’d
probably already destroyed the phone.

She shook her head while she erased the caller ID information before she even stopped
to think about it. What was happening to her that the first thing she thought of was
to destroy evidence and cover her tracks?

She sat at the computer again to finish reading Tuck’s e-mail. When she scrolled down
to the bottom, she saw another picture Tuck had sent—the one used in the visitor badge
by Joe Harper. Except that the first name was spelled differently than Tuck had typed
it. The name on the badge read
Jo
Harper.

Emily’s eyes widened. She jumped up and ran to the stack of dossiers. She tore through
them, looking for one in particular. In the back of her mind, she realized Arianna’s
picture wasn’t with the dossiers anymore. Devlin must have pocketed it after making
love to her and going into the office. She shook off her resentment and fanned the
dossiers out more until she found the one she was looking for, the picture that matched
the one on the prison ID badge.