Tell Me No Spies (14 page)

“I was. I turned
forty-seven a couple of months ago. Time gets on.”

“Who are you? Stop
lying to me.”

I sank my aching head
into my hands. Time for a new tack. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was
just pretending to be Aydan. I’d like to talk about her,
though.”

“Why?” Her suspicious
glare might have been more effective if it hadn’t been directed
over my right shoulder.

“I’m a friend of hers…
her mother’s,” I corrected myself. “My daughter goes to school with
Aydan.”

“Oh.” She subsided
onto the pillows.

“Have you ever met
that man who visits Aydan to do some kind of tests? I think his
name is Sam Kraus.”

“Santa Claus.” Minnie
chuckled. “She calls him Santa Claus. I can’t imagine why. She’s
old enough to know there’s no such thing, and he’s a skinny little
runt.”

“Do you know what the
tests are for?”

“I haven’t a clue.
Gordon says the child is gifted, whatever that means. I was shocked
when he stopped farming to take that government job. He says he’s
making sure Aydan has a future. What’s wrong with being a farmer’s
wife? I’d love to be a farmer’s wife. I can’t imagine what I was
thinking, marrying a Navy man.”

“What do you suppose
he meant… means by Aydan’s future?”

“I’m sure I don’t
know. But he dotes on that child. He takes her everywhere with him,
and never lets her out of his sight. And do you know…” She leaned
forward confidentially. “He taught her to shoot a gun. A gun! Can
you imagine? What is the world coming to?”

“Why would he do
that?”

“Heaven only
knows.”

“Minnie, do you
remember when Nola died?” I held my breath.

“Heavens, yes, it was
just last year. What a terrible thing. That poor child, left
without a mother. And it nearly killed Gordon, too. I honestly
think he would have taken his own life if he didn’t have Aydan to
take care of.”

I managed to speak
around the thickness in my throat. “What happened?”

“A car accident. She
drove off the road, and the car exploded when it hit an embankment.
Her body was burned beyond recognition.” She wiped her eyes
delicately. “So terribly sad.”

“Did anybody see what
happened?

“No, there was a
driver several miles behind her, but by the time he arrived, the
car was completely in flames.” She squinted at me. “Who did you say
you were?”

“A friend of
Nola’s.”

“Oh, yes. Nola. What a
lovely woman. So sad.”

“Do you remember when
Gordon died?”

“Gordon isn’t dead.
You must be thinking of Gordon Senior, dear.”

I massaged my aching
temples. “I guess I was. Sorry. What is Gordon doing these
days?”

“He’s still working
for the government.”

“What does he do?”

“Something with the
Department of Agriculture, he says. Frankly, I have my doubts.” She
leaned forward again, her blind eyes alight. “I would never spread
gossip, but… I believe he may be doing something… unsavoury.”

My heart sped up.
Finally, I was getting somewhere. “Unsavoury, how?”

“I’m sure I don’t
know. I wouldn’t spread rumours.” Something about the prim set of
her mouth made me think she sure as hell would. I’d known Aunt
Minnie for a long time.

I leaned forward to
whisper. “I heard he wasn’t really working for the Department of
Agriculture at all.”

Minnie leaned avidly
in my direction. “He’s not!”

“Really!” I didn’t
have to feign breathless interest. “What’s he doing?”

“I think he’s a
smuggler!”

Shit. Now she was just
making things up. I tried to hide my disappointment.

“Really? Why?”

“I caught him
unpacking his briefcase one day when he’d been away on what he
called ‘business’.” She paused dramatically. “There was a gun in
his briefcase! Why would he need that if he wasn’t doing something
shady?”

A very good question
indeed.

I started as the nurse
bustled into the room without knocking. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have
to ask you to end your visit now. Minnie tires easily, and we have
to get her to the dining room.” She briskly unfolded the wheelchair
from the corner of the room and wheeled it next to the bed. “Come
on, dearie, let’s take you to the toidy, and then we’ll go for
din-din.”

Gag me.

I fled.

I sucked in the fresh
air with relief when I finally stepped out of the gloomy reception
area and into the sunshine. Sinking down on a bench next to the
door, I dropped my backpack between my feet so I could massage my
temples with both hands. All that effort for a few dubious shreds
of gossip.

What the hell was I
going to do now? If the information I needed still existed at all,
it was probably only accessible through the Sirius network. That
was eight hundred miles away, and I seriously doubted I’d be
welcomed back with open arms.

I jerked upright at
the sound of approaching feet and let out a long breath when I
realized who it was. “Dave! I thought you were leaving.”

He sat on the bench
beside me and surveyed my face. “Didn’t go well?”

“No.”

I sank my head into my
hands again and replayed what I knew. Dad had carried a gun. On
‘business’. Protecting my future. And he’d died of a heart attack,
just like my husband Robert. But that had been ten years ago.
Surely it was coincidence. Mom killed in a fiery car crash, her
body unidentifiable. Cars don’t just catch fire and explode when
they hit something. That only happens in the movies. And Uncle
Roger had died of a heart attack, too…

No, now I was just
reaching. Lots of people die of heart attacks. Please, God, tell me
I’m just reaching.

I shook myself and sat
up straight. I still had boxes of Dad’s old farm records and
business papers I’d never had the heart to go through. I’d need to
go home and dig through them to see if they contained any
clues.

But before I did that,
I needed to know if Kane was on my trail. By now he might have
questioned Nichele and told her I was missing. She probably
would’ve heard from Dante, too. I winced. Try not to think about
that.

Maybe Nichele could
tell me what was going on, pump Kane for information in the guise
of a concerned friend…

Dave’s voice
interrupted my cogitations. “What now?”

“Now, I make a phone
call.”

Dave loitered outside
the booth while I dialled Nichele’s business line, thankful for her
toll-free number.

“Nichele Brown.”

For a change, I passed
up the chance to tease her about the crisp business voice she
adopted for her stable of well-heeled clients. I cut to the chase
instead.

“Nichele, it’s
Aydan.”

“Hold on.”

“Wait!”

Too late. Vapid
on-hold music warbled in my ear.

Seconds later, she was
back, whispering into the phone. “Aydan, I’ve been trying and
trying to call you. Where are you?”

“In the wind.
Nichele-”

“Aydan, you’ve got to
help me, I’m in so much trouble!” Coldness squeezed my heart.
Nichele never admitted she was in trouble.

“What’s wrong?”

“James.”

“Oh, God. What is
it?”

“Aydan, he’s going to
kill me.” Her voice came out in a whimper, and fear flooded me.
Nichele never whimpered.

“Call the police,
Nichele. Right away!”

“I can’t. He’ll kill
me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “He must have hacked into my
laptop when I took him home. And then he hit me when I confronted
him…”

“Goddammit, Nichele,
run! Get out of there.”

“I can’t. He’s
watching me. He followed me to work today…”

Silence on the line
made my heart skip a beat. “Nichele!” I hissed. “Nichele, are you
okay?”

When she spoke again,
it was in a rapid whisper. “He’s drained all my clients’ assets
into an offshore account and set it up to look like I did it. I saw
more transfers today, and I bet he’s laundering money through
there, too. I’ll go to jail if it comes to light. And he swore he’d
kill me if I went to the police. Aydan, I’m so screwed!”

“Hang on, Nichele.
We’ll figure it out. Just keep doing as he says. Stay safe. It’ll
be okay.”

“Don’t tell anybody!
Promise you won’t tell a soul! If James finds out I told…”

“I won’t tell anybody,
Nichele. We can fix this. It’ll be okay,” I lied, trying to sound
confident.

“But, Aydan, where are
you? What are we going to do?”

“We’ll figure it out.
I’m coming. Just hang on. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Her voice was
a tiny squeak.

I hung up and beat my
head against the side of the phone booth. It took a moment before I
realized Dave was talking to me. “Jane! Jane, what’s wrong?”

I looked into his
worried face and gulped. “Dave, I need to ask you a huge
favour.”

Back in the truck,
Dave continued the argument we’d begun on the sidewalk. “That’s
nuts. You just got away.”

“I know, but she’s my
best friend, and he’s a dangerous sonuvabitch. He said he’d kill
her, and I believe it.”

“And your ex will kill
you.”

“My ex looks like
Mother Theresa next to this guy. I’ve got to get back to
Calgary.”

“And do what?” Dave
demanded. “This is dangerous. Call the police. That’s what they’re
there for.”

“Dave, he’ll kill her
if the police go anywhere near her. And they wouldn’t do anything
about this anyway. If it was a violent crime in progress or
something, they’d respond, but this’ll just go through their tips
line. Just another thing they might get around to checking out in
their spare time between real calls.”

“Call them anyway,” he
argued. “Let them decide.”

“I don’t dare. And I
kind of… can’t… anyway.”

If Kane was looking
for me, he’d have alerted the police. I really didn’t want to draw
attention to myself at the moment, and I really didn’t want to take
a chance on endangering Nichele. I racked my brain for a better
solution.

A fast-moving black
car caught my eye as I stared out the windshield, and adrenaline
shot through me. I twisted in the seat to see another black ghost
car speeding toward us from the opposite direction.

“Shit!” I dove into
the sleeper and huddled on the bench.

Dave’s gaze bounced
between the action outside and my face. “Thought you said you
weren’t running from the cops.”

“Those aren’t
cops.”

“Stay back there.” The
big diesel rumbled to life, and he pulled away slowly. “Two guys
checking out that phone booth and looking around,” he reported. He
guided the truck around a corner and slowed. “Road block. Get
inside the bathroom. Wait’ll I give you the all-clear.”

I ducked into the tiny
bathroom as the truck stopped. I could hear Dave’s side of the
conversation, but the voice from outside was blurred by the rumble
of the engine.

“Nope. No, I’d
remember her.”

“Yeah? Jeez, you
wouldn’t think so.”

“Nope.”

“…’Kay, will do.
Thanks.”

The truck began to
move again. After several minutes of driving and a lot of turns,
the movement stopped and the driver’s door slammed. The cab rocked
as Dave climbed down. I heard the thump and clink of chains from
behind the sleeper, and then movement and the sound of the driver’s
door indicated Dave’s return.

“You can come out
now.”

I opened the door
cautiously, and my heart plummeted at the sight of Dave’s hard
face. A heavy iron bar slapped against his palm.

“So, Aydan Kelly,
let’s talk,” he said.

“Dave, I’m sorry,
I-”

“They said they were
cops. They said you were armed and dangerous,” he interrupted. The
bar described a short arc into his palm again.

I blew out a long
breath, attempting calm while my heart tried to escape through my
chest. “I’m armed. Not dangerous. Especially not to you.”

“Show me your weapon.”
His knuckles whitened on the bar as I reached down. “Slow.”

I carefully grasped
the denim just below my knee and pulled up the leg of my jeans. His
face paled at the sight of the small gun snuggled in its holster at
my ankle.

“Hand it over.”

I let the pant leg
slide down and straightened slowly. “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do
that.”

“Then we got a
problem.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed
the quaver in my voice. “You have to decide if you’re going to beat
the shit out of me or not. Because I won’t fight back. I won’t
shoot you.”

“Bull.” He stepped
closer and shifted to a two-handed grip on the end of the bar.
“They said you killed four men. And injured two others.”

My knees threatened to
give way, and I tried to hold my voice steady. “That’s true,
but-”

I barely had time to
dodge the blow. The bar glanced off my upflung arm and slammed into
the door frame beside me. Thank God it was too tight a space for
him to get a good backswing. The pain dropped me to my knees.

“It’s not the whole
story!” I hugged my arm and gazed up at his tense face through
watering eyes. “Dave, please!”

I jerked back and
toppled against the wall as the bar whistled by again. “Dave,
please, just let me go!”

He stood with his feet
planted apart, blocking my escape. The bar shook in his hands as he
glared down at me, panting. “You got a gun. You just gonna let me
beat you up?”

“No, I’m going to beg
you to stop and try to get away. But I won’t hurt you.”

I cradled my damaged
arm, pain shooting up to my shoulder. God, maybe it was broken. I
blinked away tears and tried again. My voice came out ragged and
desperate. “Please, Dave.”

“You just said you
killed four guys.”

“Will you let me
explain?”

The muscles rippled in
his forearms as he shifted his white-knuckled grasp on the iron.
“Talk.”