Caught

by Tessa Vidal

  “I wonder how often anyone enters that vault. Maybe there's a way it could have been removed and replaced by a fake.”

  She studied the side of my face. We both knew I wasn't talking about the Bahia Emerald. “Look. Los Angeles PD doesn't allow just anyone to waltz in and out of the evidence vault. Not even FBI.”

  “Remind me,” I said slowly. “I think it's all right for me to ask this question because I'm pretty sure you already testified about it in open court.”

  She shot me a wary glance. “Phrase it very carefully, Clary.”

  “Is there lab-grown synthetic alexandrite?”

  “Yes.” She bit the word off short.

  “How good was Yukon's fake? Was it made of actual lab-grown stuff?” Every news report on the case made a big deal about alexandrite's special property of being able to change color from a rich merlot indoors to a deep woodsy blue outdoors. Most counterfeits made of cheaper color-change stones like lab-grown sapphires never got the shade of blue right.

  “The stone set in Yukon's collar was the real deal.” Ronnie recognized a leading question when she heard one, and she was shutting down.

  Hell. I still had to ask. “All right, but is it possible Patsee was set up? Somebody else could have switched the stone. Just because she made a match for Yukon, it doesn't mean she was planning a scam from the get-go.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Clarissa. Nobody else is waltzing up to a dog that size to swap out his collar. Patsee Easton switched the alexandrite. And nobody switched the Bahia Emerald.”

  Somebody switched the DeWitte Beryl, though.

  Was it you, Ronnie?

  It had to be you.

  And I can't let myself forget it. Not even for a minute.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ronnie

  Sierra Blanca, Texas. A high plateau in the Chihuahuan Desert surrounded by dusty mountains.

  The motel was a ring of five detached cabins built in the dawn of the road-trip era and rarely updated since. In the interest of privacy, we'd been assigned to the back cabin most distant from the road, although none of the others appeared to be rented. I stood in the open door to watch Clary and Yukon disappear around a bend in the scrubby landscape. After the drive, he was eager for his walk.

  Road-tripping with a large dog landed you in some interesting places. At least, it was reasonably cool at this elevation. Maybe later we'd be able to turn off that bone-rattling window unit.

  Walking around the grounds, I soon located the old picnic table in a spot that would catch the afternoon sun. A cheap plastic hummingbird feeder dangled from a standing hook set in the center of a cheesy rock garden. Unenthusiastic red and yellow flowers grew in chipped terracotta pots at the hook's feet.

  As if.

  A hummingbird zipped by, stopping first at the flowers, then the feeder. Even an FBI agent isn't always right.

  Another day gone, and what had I really learned about Clarissa Stanton?

  She had a lot of questions about gemstone scams, but that wasn't too weird, since answering questions about gemstone scams was my whole reason for being included on this trip. Her questions were intelligent, so she wasn't trying to play stupid airhead actress. She didn't really probe that far into the Easton case, no more than anybody else would have probed.

  Damn it all. She seemed so genuine.

  Of course, that was her whole job. An actor who couldn't seem real rarely had much of a future.

  I sat at the picnic table and drummed my fingers on the weathered wood. A pink stain spread across the sky in the west.

  I shouldn't have allowed myself to fool around with a potential suspect. Oh, I knew damn good and well what Matt wanted. He couldn't specifically direct me to get physically involved with Clarissa, but he didn't expect agents to play by the rule-book when they went undercover to break open a stone-laundering operation. And he knew what was likely to happen when he put me alone in a motel room with a beautiful actor.

  It wasn't such an unpleasant assignment.

  Insinuate my way into her life. Find out what and who she was really up to. And she always had the option to say no. She was the one who asked for me.

  This wasn't real undercover work. Not when she knew exactly who I was.

  Fuck. Was it possible she wasn't up to anything nefarious? Was it really?

  Maybe this whole trip was a wild goose chase. Maybe all the FBI would get out of it was a thank-you in the closing credits.

  Matt wouldn't be delighted if I didn't get some dirt on Clarissa Stanton.

  But I wasn't here to delight Matt Dauphin. I was here to get the truth.

  Twilight. The evening was already getting chilly. Time to set out the picnic supplies we'd picked up at a big box store off the interstate earlier in the afternoon. With a snap of the wrist, I spread the crisp new tablecloth over the old wooden table. It took a single match to light the twenty-hour candle in its cheerful green tin.

  The flame danced, and so did a flicker of motion in the shadows.

  “Clary?” I hadn't meant to call her that, but sometimes it slipped out.

  Silence. Stillness.

  “Is somebody there?”

  A tall figure emerged from the shadows, her face lit from beneath by the glow from my candle. At first, I couldn't quite register what― who― I was seeing. She was too out of place.

  “Bailey? What the almighty fuck?”

  “Nice to run into you too, Ronnie.” She opened her arms as if to invite me into a hug.

  I folded my own arms across my chest and stepped back.

  She was dressed down in her softest, oldest pair of jeans, the ones with a familiar rip at her left knee. Her button-down western shirt was new, maybe something she'd picked up at a tourist trap along the way.

  Her arms dropped. We glared at each other.

  “How?” I asked. “You've been following me?”

  “Matt kept me updated.”

  “What the hell is he doing, sharing FBI intelligence with LAPD?”

  “I made a compelling argument that we have a mutual interest in sharing information on this particular case.”

  “No, no, no, no, no. This isn't even any kind of case. It's a movie consult.”

  She looked entertained. I'm glad somebody was. “How does Clint feel about that? I was under the impression he worked pretty damn hard to make movie consults his job.”

  “This director wanted a female agent.”

  “This director? Or this actress?”

  This was some bullshit. Matt should have known better. We were definitely going to have a come-to-Jesus when I got back to LA.

  As for Bailey herself, she had a classic case of not knowing what she wanted until it was gone.

  “I don't understand you,” I said. “If you'd spent half this much time worrying about what I was doing when we were together, we'd still be together. But it's too late now. We're over. We've been over.”

  “The script leaked.” She tossed a blue folder onto the picnic table.

  “You did not drive a thousand miles to deliver a script. There's this thing called email.”

  “I thought you might find it interesting.”

  “I doubt it. I'm going to see the actual thing being filmed. Not sure why I'd need all the spoilers and plot points spelled out for me in advance.”

  “Did you know the director plans to borrow the actual Ademar Emerald from the Smithsonian for when he films the heist sequences?”

  “Of course I knew that. All Hollywood knows how Keller operates.” One of Claus Keller's previous hits featured two gym bags full of hundred-dollar bills. He'd somehow arranged to borrow actual currency from one of the largest banks in Los Angeles for the purpose. The hike in the production's insurance costs was written off as a necessary evil.

  “Stars behave in a heightened way when they're handling actual cash,” he said. “They walk different, they talk different. Money changes everything.”

  Maybe. Or maybe he just needed to hire actors who knew how
to fake it better.

  “Someone's going to try to swap those stones.” Bailey was excited. The candle flame dancing in her eyes made her look downright manic. “And LAPD wants in on the collar. The original conspiracy was cooked up in Hollywood. We deserve to be included in this case. SAC Dauphin and I had a nice, long talk.”

  “No, no, no, no, no. You are way out of your jurisdiction here, Bailey. You are not inveigling your way into my collar. LAPD is not taking the credit for my work. Besides, there may not even be a collar. The director and the star didn't invite FBI onto the set because they're planning to steal the stones.” The words tasted false in my mouth. And yet they made so much sense. A fresh wave of doubt assailed me.

  Matt and I were operating under the assumption Clary wanted me close to help her gain access to FBI insider knowledge. The whole, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” bullshit. Movie people thought like that. And criminals watched the movies too. They understood the concept.

  Still, asking me to ride along with her seemed like an unnecessary complication. Why involve me at all if she intended to steal the emerald?

  My head was spinning. For a minute, I doubted everyone. Even my Special Agent in Charge.

  Why had Matt really sent me out here? Was he trying to get me out of the way of something?

  There was something wrong with this case. Maybe something wrong with a lot of recent cases.

  Was it possible someone in law enforcement was involved in the gemstone frauds? If so, wouldn't that person want me well out of the way?

  Oh, Matt.

  He was the one who sent me out here. And now he'd sent Bailey out here. He'd taken the FBI and LAPD Robbery-Homicide off the scene in Los Angeles with one deft move.

  Bailey waved a hand in front of my face. “Hey, you with me, girl?”

  I shook off the moment of paranoia. If I couldn't trust my SAC, I couldn't trust anybody. Besides, we'd made a decent team for several years, and we'd brought down plenty of evildoers. He was solid. I'd bet my reputation on it.

  Hell, maybe I was betting my reputation on it.

  As for Bailey, she was here because Bailey couldn't let our relationship slip out of its final misery. “No,” I said slowly. “The fact is, I'm not with you. Because we're over. I don't even want to know how you convinced your chief and my SAC to let you chase me out here, but you've crossed a line. Go home.”

  “Fourteen years, Ronnie. Fourteen fucking years.”

  “And you took me for granted for thirteen years and six months of them.” I tried to soften my tone. “Look, babe. We gave it a good try, but we're just no good together. There's no magic.”

  “And you think you'll find magic with...” She flapped her hand at me. “A movie star.”

  “I'm not trying to find magic with a movie star.”

  “Still lying to yourself, Ronnie. After all these years. You've been dazzled by Hollywood all along. How's a regular girl supposed to compete?”

  “Nobody's asking you to compete. I'm asking you to let me go.”

  We both went silent at the same moment. A sweet but unsteady voice was singing along the trail. But the flicker of the candle drew them in our direction anyway.

  “Hey.” Clary started to call out. And then she stopped cold in her tracks, Yukon instantly stopping at her side. Her eyes went wide.

  She'd recognized Bailey. Of course, she had. The arresting officer. The person Malory Maine first met on the worst day of her life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Clary

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  What was she doing there? Was I busted? Was she here to tell Ronnie that I was the missing Malory Maine?

  Had she already told her?

  The muscles in Yukon's shoulders bunched, and I rubbed his ears for reassurance.

  It's all right, boy. It's all right.

  But it wasn't. Lieutenant Bailey Flowers of LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division, and― by some strange coincidence, Veronica Rales's long-time partner― was the last person who should have shown up by Ronnie's side at a picnic table outside a micro-village in far West Texas.

  Yukon remained alert, just in case I changed my mind.

  Hell, I almost wished I could. But siccing my dog on LAPD wasn't going to win me any points. Besides, Flowers wasn't here as a police officer. We were too many states away from her jurisdiction. She was here to catch up with the ex-girlfriend.

  Ex-girlfriend?

  Maybe not anymore. The report from my investigators had a lot to say about their on-again, off-again relationship. Maybe Ronnie decided she didn't want to give up the woman if it meant losing the house. Or maybe she really couldn't break off their complicated relationship.

  Because Ronnie must have called Flowers. How else had Flowers found me?

  More than that, Ronnie must have been keeping in touch with her so-called ex all along. LAPD wasn't about to fly out a private plane to drop off one of their officers in the middle of nowhere. And there sure as hell wasn't any commercial air traffic here.

  She'd driven out here. And somebody told her exactly where the fuck she needed to go.

  I wanted nothing better than to march right up to that picnic table to demand an explanation, but I couldn't risk it. If Flowers hadn't recognized me, every second spent with the two of them together increased the odds of triggering somebody's memory of that long-ago night.

  Breathe.

  Bailey Flowers doesn't know my real name. She couldn't have told Ronnie anything.

  Nobody knows.

  Play it cool.

  “Sorry.” My voice was ice. “Didn't realize you were busy.”

  “Clary!”

  I turned on my heel, and Yukon turned with me. Coyotes howled in the distance. He paused in mid-spin.

  “It's all right,” I repeated. “They're way out there.”

  The real dangers were a lot closer.

  Too restless to head directly to the cabin, I walked him toward the front of the motel where the cars were parked. The owner's battered pickup truck, my Cadillac Fleetwood, and a silver Lexus hybrid with California plates.

  Like I thought.

  Bailey Fucking Flowers's personal car. She'd driven all the way out here. That was a lot of miles if she didn't have a lot of motivation.

  I felt kicked in the stomach.

  Moments later, Yukon and I were marching inside the cabin, the door reverberating where I slammed it behind me. He snuggled his face against my side, making it clear he was concerned.

  “It's people stuff.” I snuggled him back. “It's all right, boy. You did fine.”

  His tail beat on the thin carpet. His fluffy body felt warm and strong against mine.

  This is a good thing, I told myself. A good reminder to be careful.

  We had fun last night, but Ronnie was playing you to get you off your game. Don't let it go to your head.

  I was the one who was supposed to be setting the trap.

  The one who was supposed to be cold and unemotional.

  The one who had a plan.

  Damn it, though. The way her tongue squirmed up the hollow of my inner thigh...

  Yukon loved being hugged. His tail thumped harder.

  Why did I feel such a stab of loneliness?

  I'd always been alone. It was nothing new. Not really. I had to keep everyone at a distance if I wanted to build a career in Hollywood.

  At least now I had my loyal dog.

  “It's you and me, baby. We're at the top, and nobody's dragging us back down. Nobody.”

  An indeterminate amount of time passed. What the hell were the two of them doing? Eating, laughing, plotting? Thinking about all the fun they'd have once I was in prison for their crimes?

  Yes, their crimes. Bailey Flowers must be in on it. I'd thought Ronnie's accomplice must be Johannes DeWitte, but maybe she'd used the old man too. She came out way ahead after the collapse of his business. The training and references he'd given her were of inestimable value when she applied for a job wit
h the FBI.

  Something tickled at the back of my brain. The tip-of-the-tongue sensation of almost, but not quite, figuring something out.

  My subconscious knew something. But my conscious mind couldn't seem to reach it.

  Maybe I could play Bailey and Ronnie off against each other. Work a wedge between the two thieves.

  Ronnie hadn't ever recognized me, even up close. Bailey probably wouldn't either.

  The thought of creating some intricate mind-fuck of a triangle just made me tired. I didn't want to share. If I had to go back to a lonely life of one-night stands, I'd rather do it with a series of forgettable strangers.

  After I tucked Yukon into his doggy bed, I headed for the small bathroom to fix my face. The mirror was flecked with black spots where the silver was coming off, and the single light bulb was sixty watts of unflattering yellow that had to be turned on and off by pulling a metal string. Ugh. I splashed my face with cold water and reached for the caffeine-infused eye cream.

  The front door rattled open. Showtime. I tossed my tumble of red curls over my shoulder as I sashayed back into the bedroom.

  “Where's your friend?” I asked.

  Ronnie looked more haggard than I expected. “She isn't a friend.”

  Liar, liar.

  “She's um, from a messenger service in LA.”

  Pants on fire. “Uh huh. A messenger service that delivers to Sierra Blanca, West Texas.” I pronounced every syllable with care, so we could both hear how ridiculous it sounded.

  Since there was no other available surface, Ronnie tossed a folder on the double bed. “She delivered a copy of your script.”

  “She could have emailed that. Assuming it really is the script.” Who leaked to LAPD? And why? Unable to contain my curiosity, I picked up the folder and rifled through it. Even a cursory look was enough to see it was an early version. “Huh. Why is this even important? And why would they give it to you?”

  She shrugged. “You presumably have a script already.”

  “You gonna tell me what this is really all about? Who that really is? Because this smells like an excuse.” I tossed my hair again and tilted my head back.