His gaze trapped hers and shifted from tense with impatience to an openness that surprised her. Carlos leaned against the wall. “Okay, start with explaining the address the card was sent to.”
Licking her dry lips, Gabrielle dove in. “It was sent to my father, Louis Saxe IV, who lives in Versailles and is president of the National Assembly in France.”
Gotthard interjected, “Correct. A powerful position in their government and he is well respected.”
Gabrielle hoped that would be enough to stop them from searching further into her background.
“How much does he know about all of this?” Rae asked.
“Nothing.” Gabrielle needed them to believe her on this point. “No one in the Saxe family knows about the Mirage or anything I’ve done.”
“Miss Sex, huh? Fits you.” The darkly handsome Korbin grinned at his play on her French pronunciation of Saxe. Like Carlos, he was of Latin decent and similar in size, but Korbin’s facial structure made her think he was a mix of Mexican and Anglo, whereas Carlos had sharper angles…more South American.
Korbin gave her such a smoldering look she stiffened.
“Cut it out,” Carlos snapped.
When Korbin smiled at him with a bit of taunt in his expression, Carlos sent back a warning glare that was deadly.
What was that all about?
“Besides, you haven’t reached the R’s yet,” Rae said to Korbin with a tongue so sharp she could draw blood.
Gabrielle tried to keep up with all the pointed comments and narrowed glances flying.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” Korbin said, the full power of his charm directed at Rae now. He broke out a rascal’s smile that had to stop women in their tracks.
“What are the R’s?” Gabrielle asked.
“Back to the postcard.” Carlos ignored her question and pinned Gabrielle with a no-nonsense stare. “Why did it take you so long to send the first message?”
What had made her think his eyes had ever been a warm brown earlier? Mr. Nice had evaporated. The black look Carlos gave her boiled with the fury of a midnight storm on the sea.
Things had been going good. What had riled him?
“I received the card two days ago, or maybe it’s three by now…I have no idea what time it is.” Gabrielle swiped loose hair off her face. “Anyhow, my friend had no way to find me other than sending the card to my father’s home in Versailles. He has my mail forwarded to my address in London that then sends it to a mail center in Peachtree City. That’s why it took so long to get to me. My friend was careful, addressing it only to Gabrielle with no last name. That way if the card was intercepted with the ‘gibberish,’ as you put it, most people would assume Gabrielle was someone on my father’s staff. My friend did not include a return address so I have no idea where to find her.”
Gotthard asked, “Why didn’t you tell us about the Anguis trying to kidnap Mandy when you sent the first message? If we’d known sooner, we probably could have caught them before they reached France.”
“I didn’t know the Anguis were the kidnappers when I sent the first message,” Gabrielle answered carefully. She couldn’t share her South American contacts on the Anguis family with any of these people, no matter what they threatened. Innocent Venezuelans only trying to help her rid the world of the Anguis murderers would be in jeopardy.
“You didn’t answer his question,” Carlos pressed.
“Because all I knew from the card was that Mandy would be kidnapped in South America.” Gabrielle chose her words carefully. “I didn’t find out that Anguis was behind the kidnapping until I did some research with resources in South America. And please don’t ask who because I don’t have their names, we contact each other electronically through an elaborate system.” Fairly close to the truth.
Carlos tapped fingers against his upper arm. No expression as if he contemplated how to squeeze more out of her.
Gabrielle ran her fingers into her hair, knocking her twisted bob loose. The plastic clamp bounced on the floor. Long strands tumbled across her shoulders when she squatted down to pick up the clasp and shove it into her pants pocket.
“I’m not some kind of trained personnel like the rest of you,” Gabrielle muttered, trying to figure out what would get through to this stubborn lot. “If you want me to admit I’m intimidated by all of you, fine, I admit it. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’re obviously the ones who helped Mandy, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say I believe you’re working with the right side of the law. In exchange, I wish you’d show me the same courtesy. If I prove to you the text on the card is in code, will you believe I’m trying to be honest with you and I’m not a threat to the United States?”
She kept her gaze on the table, refusing to meet eyes watching her like silent predators ready for the kill.
The postcard from Linette slid onto the table surface into her view guided by Carlos’s fingers.
A tiny victory. Gabrielle was not ready to sing hallelujah, but this was a start. Her chest muscles relaxed with the quick shot of relief.
Gabrielle explained, “My friend and I wrote the code first in ancient Latin. We then reversed the sequential alignment, deleting the first letter of the first word, the second letter of the second word, and so on through five words when there were an appropriate number of letters. We changed the code halfway through to Italian. Numbers corresponded to days of the week and colors-”
“Are you serious?” Gotthard stared at her in either disbelief or amazement.
Gabrielle prayed it wasn’t lack of belief or she’d never get out of this place. “Yes, I am serious. I’ll read off the code and interpret each word so you can follow the translation.”
A noise came out of Hunter that was a cross between a snort of derision and a chuckle that said This should be good.
Gabrielle’s burst of confidence pushed her to lean forward so she could look around Rae and speak to Hunter. She smiled first. “If you can’t keep up, take notes.”
Hunter mirrored her smile with a confident one of his own and said in a gentleman’s voice, “If you fail to prove it’s a bona fide code, you’ll be headed for a cell buried so deep in our containment facility you’ll never see daylight again.”
Gabrielle swallowed her cockiness at that.
She hadn’t used the complicated code in a long time. Carlos and his team-had to be a team-clearly had access to extensive equipment. Anyone capable of deciphering a code would not accept her version if she made one mistake in the convoluted steps she and Linette had created just for the purpose of making it impossible to break.
She leaned back in her seat, studied the words, then went for it, reading slowly, stopping to answer questions from Gotthard, Rae, and Korbin, then moving along. She hit a rhythm on the second line, feeling comfortable.
At least she was fine until she caught Carlos staring at her with a warm appraising gaze. Gabrielle lost her place.
Everyone glanced up at her verbal stumble.
“Pardon me,” she said. “I’ll start the last sentence over.” She gritted her teeth over the flush of heat that rushed through her, then didn’t pause until she’d finished.
“Assessment?” Carlos issued that order to the room.
“It’s a code,” Rae answered.
“I’m sold.” Korbin winked at Gabrielle, the scoundrel.
“One hell of a code,” Gotthard muttered, admiration flooding his words.
Everyone turned to Hunter, who arched a beautiful male eyebrow and said, “I stand corrected. Impressive.”
Gabrielle released a pent-up breath, ready to relax until Carlos asked her, “What did your friend mean by ‘I am bound by the fratelli’?”
“I don’t know,” she replied quickly.
Gotthard stopped typing and became stone still, along with the rest of the room.
“Fratelli is Italian for ‘brotherhood,’ but that’s not a code, for heaven’s sake,” Gabrielle added.
“Y
ou’re sure you don’t know anything more?” A lock of black hair fingered Carlos’s smooth brow now drawn tight with lines of question.
He still didn’t believe she was telling the truth.
“Really, that’s it.” Gabrielle wondered at the grim faces. What exactly was this fratelli?
“How are the Anguis tied to all of this?” Korbin asked.
“What do you mean?” Gabrielle wanted a more specific question before she said much about them. She glanced at Carlos, who seemed to have pulled back inside himself.
He was a study of ruthless control.
She sensed more than saw the entire room focus expectant gazes on Carlos, who leaned the palms of his hands on the table inches away from her.
Those perfectly formed lips parted when he said, “Don’t. Be. Coy. You have no allies in this room at the moment. Our team just risked their lives on a tip from you without even knowing who you were or if they were walking into a trap. If you hope to leave here, then you need to be more forthcoming.”
She jerked back as if slapped by the deadly tone.
No one had talked to her in that way, threatening her outright, since her miserable excuse for an ex-husband had played her like a fool. She’d spent too many nights alone, frustrated over having no life and no family because of the ax both her ex and Durand Anguis dangled over her head. All that frustration rolled into one large knot of anger.
She slapped a hand on the table, then fisted her fingers. “I’ve been very damned forthcoming. I’ve risked my life to help put away criminals. What do I know about the Anguis? They’re a bunch of murdering bastards driven by money and power. Why hasn’t your organization done anything about them?”
Carlos stood away from the table. A muscle in his neck pulsed. He stared at her for a long moment, then his chest expanded with a slow breath. That tight control hid whatever he was thinking.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but demanding. “Give me the name of the person who sent you the card.”
She’d put this off as long as she could. “My friend is Linette Tassone, and we attended the École d’Ascension in Carcassonne, France, at the same time. We shared a dorm room and common study interests. Like me, she had a knack for computers.” Gabrielle noticed Gotthard typing. Taking her statement? “When I graduated, I went on to receive a degree in computer science in the UK, then I decided to search for Linette. That’s when I found out about her…death, but I always questioned the story of her disappearance and now I feel justified.”
“What story?” Carlos asked.
“Linette’s father said she’d run away and had taken up with a bunch of degenerates. He said her stupid actions got her killed, but he didn’t tell me more. I was shocked and eighteen when I made the trip to see her family, too young to press her father for details.”
“Why don’t you believe him?” Rae asked.
Gabrielle waved her hands in exasperation. “First of all, Linette would never have defied her father because she was terrified of him and an obedient child. Second, she was so shy it took us three months of seeing each other every day to finally speak, and I spoke first. Third, Linette was far from stupid. She was brilliant. And, fourth, she would never have just disappeared without saying a word to me.”
“So what do you think happened?” Carlos watched her as though he judged every word, trying to come up with a verdict.
“I don’t know,” Gabrielle admitted quietly. “I didn’t so much accept what her father had said as I finally accepted that Linette was gone forever after years of searching for her. But now I believe something happened to her she couldn’t avoid, like she was kidnapped or coerced to go somewhere. I just can’t figure out the grave in the family plot with her headstone or her father’s story. If Linette isn’t dead, then who did he bury?” She sent that last question to Carlos, who didn’t show any reaction, so Gabrielle went on.
“Anyhow, I had planned to work somewhere until-” She took a deep breath; the strain of the last few days and now having people pry into her private life weighed her down emotionally. “Until I married Roberto. After our divorce, I was attacked and decided to work from my home.” Hiding like a criminal after he’d first terrified her with his fists. She’d been ready to divorce and then imprison him until he explained how he’d publicly smear her and her family’s name, which would have destroyed her father, who was at the time in a tight campaign for his new position. Roberto had secretly filmed her the few times she’d shared his bed and manipulated the video to something so degrading she got nauseous just thinking about the copy he’d given her.
Her father’s career would be destroyed and her stepsisters would live under a cloud of shame by association to her. So she’d agreed to Roberto’s terms, which painted him as the victim of a loveless marriage who divorced her.
If only conceding her pride had ended it all. She suspected the enormous insurance policy Roberto carried on her listing him as the beneficiary was the motivation for the attacks, but if she went after him, he’d turn on her family.
As it was, he was content to either wait on her to die or only make attempts that appeared as accidents and could not be traced to him.
“I picked up on an odd posting on a Web site message board and realized it had to be some sort of code,” she continued, explaining why she was in hiding beyond fear of Roberto. “I was shocked at what I learned when I broke the code. I watched the posts for a couple weeks, trying to decide if it was someone playing or seriously planning an attack on a flight from Heathrow to Wales-”
“The prime minister’s flight that was diverted in ’99?” Gotthard had stopped typing.
She slowly nodded her head.
“MI5 picked up posts from the terrorists that tipped them off-” Gotthard’s words died when she shook her head.
“I figured no one would believe me if I just called up to tell them, and I didn’t want to become the target of terrorists. So I set up a network to send e-mails with enough markers to alert MI5. If I have to, I can quote the text in each e-mail. I began using an alias to protect myself after that.”
She paused, hoping for some words of understanding. None. “I started looking for information then since the Internet was such an easy place for criminals to maintain contact and pass plans. When I found things that might affect a country’s security, I then had to find a way to get this information to worthy intelligence groups.” She gave Carlos a peeved glance. “Someone who would have shown more respect to an informant.”
Carlos lifted an eyebrow in a don’t-get-snippy look.
She shrugged. “I didn’t want the information to land in the wrong hands. If you believe I’m Mirage, then you should know how much I’ve helped in the Middle East.”
Guarded looks passed around the room.
“Why do you think Linette didn’t include her return address?” Gotthard asked Gabrielle.
“She’s probably worried that I might try to find her and land in the same place she’s in or get into some kind of trouble hunting her down.” Which was exactly what Gabrielle had been contemplating, but these people didn’t need that information. “I think she’s a prisoner somewhere and it has something to do with that fratelli reference.” She didn’t want these people thinking Linette was a criminal.
Carlos paused his tapping fingers. “What about your resources in South America. How did you find them?”
“In a chat room for an underground operation in South America that is part of an organized watchdog group, for lack of a better description. They want to rid their country of the drug lords, which may not be a realistic goal, but at least they are doing something. I created a communication path with someone there in a way that would not lead anyone to me in case it was a trap.”
Gabrielle would share all she could, but not a word about how the Anguis were responsible for her mother’s death. She’d kept the secret safe for the first few years in deference to her father’s demand. But now she had to keep it secret to protect her own life.
Who knew where the information from this room would go after this meeting? If Durand Anguis learned the whole story and couldn’t find her, he’d go after her family.
She rubbed her tired eyes, thinking. “I don’t know what to say that will convince you, but I’ve risked my neck to help intelligence agencies and now you, even though I don’t know who or what you are. I’d never heard of Mandy before getting the postcard.”
“Guest arriving,” the mechanical voice announced again.
All eyes turned to the flat screen where a silver Lamborghini entered the gate.
“Who’s that?” Gabrielle asked, nibbling on her fingernail.
“The boss.” Rae tapped her pen on the table. “You said Linette disappeared while you were at school. What did everyone say about her missing?”
“Nothing really. It wasn’t that unusual.” Gabrielle stopped fidgeting with her fingernail, swiped a hand over her hair, and explained, “Linette wasn’t in class one day. When I went to our room to check on her, all her possessions were gone. I asked questions, but no one would tell me anything, not even her family’s address so I could write her. The school is very strict. They don’t tolerate being questioned.”
“Wait,” Carlos said, staring over her head in concentration. “You said nothing really happened when Linette went missing and that it wasn’t that unusual? Did you mean it wasn’t unusual for Linette or for others to go missing?”
Footsteps approached from the top of the stairs.
“Others,” Gabrielle answered, keeping her eyes on the stairwell. “Students dropped out all the time without notice.”
When another towering hunk in a leather motorcycle jacket entered, the room came to attention. He was maybe late thirties and wore jeans in a way any woman would appreciate. Just as imposing as the rest of this bunch with his dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and blue eyes so intense she felt as though he expected her to give up her secrets with a look.
Carlos took a seat beside Gotthard.
“Gabrielle, I’m Joe,” the new man said politely, before he addressed the others in the room. “Hell of a jump you made. Good job. Gotthard has kept me posted on this morning’s conversation and running a deep profile on Gabrielle, cross-checking her story.”
Whispered Lies Page 15