“There’s an FBI field office in Minneapolis. I need to know everything you’ve uncovered regarding Quetech Industries.”
A tiny flame of hope ignited within her. “Then you believe I’m innocent?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
The tiny flame sputtered and died. “I have an impeccable reputation. That should count for something.”
“You were running, Beth,” he said. “Under an assumed name. What am I supposed to think? In my line of work, actions speak louder than words.”
Despite the warmth of the dining car, she shivered. The evidence she’d sent to the FBI this evening took on an even greater importance. She wasn’t simply being morally courageous by turning over what she knew; that email might be the key to keeping herself out of prison.
She fiddled with the edge of her plate. “Quetech was laundering money for Cayman Holdings through several shell accounts. The system was ingenious. I would never have caught the transactions if I hadn’t seen something similar two years before. They’d changed the name of the shell corporation, but the address was the same. An empty office in an industrial park.”
“You remembered an address two years after the fact?”
“The name of the street was my middle name, and it just stuck in my head.”
He reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a small notebook and a pen. “Then working at Quetech was just a coincidence?”
He jotted down a few notes, and she pictured Timothy’s ink-stained sleeves. Pen and paper. A throwback to another generation.
“An awful coincidence,” she said. “As soon as I saw the name, I should have walked away. But I couldn’t. Timothy was dead because I hadn’t acted before.” Her dad had never backed down from a dangerous choice, and she couldn’t disappoint him. “I owed it to him to see this through.”
“You never considered catching a little action of your own? You could have gotten paid a lot of money to look the other way.”
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
“Mark 8:36.” He grunted. “Yeah. I went to Bible school, too. Do you have any proof of these transactions?”
“I sent an email with everything the FBI needs to trace the payments to the Chicago field office. It’s time-stamped for delayed delivery. It’ll be there first thing Tuesday morning after the holiday. Everything you need is in that email.”
His pen skipped over the page. “To a general account, or did you address the email to someone specific?”
“An agent named Stephen Keel. Timothy had worked with him before.”
Corbin glanced up. “Do you have access to the information now?”
“No.”
The pen stilled. “Where is it?”
“I sent a list of the transactions and the monetary amounts from a private email account and used the Quetech computer.”
“Can you recreate it from memory?”
“Some. Not all. There are account numbers. I can’t remember them all. Without those numbers, you’ll be looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“You sent the email from a work computer.” He tapped his pen against the notebook. “Which means any ghosted information is still at Quetech.” He jotted another note. “Why not simply walk out with the information on a flash drive?”
“Because I needed to buy some time. I didn’t want anyone to track me. If I left the ghosted information on my home computer, there’d be a trace. If I had the files on a flash drive and they caught me, I’d have no insurance. They’d take the drive and kill me.”
“You needed the delay to catch a train and assume a new identity.” He lifted an eyebrow. “They found you, anyway. How?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t know. I was careful. At least I thought I was.”
Not careful enough. Corbin had been on to her from the beginning, after all. Then again, for all she knew, he’d been tracking her for the past two years. Either way, the case against her didn’t look good. She’d been linked to Cayman Holdings on two occasions. She’d purchased a false identity from a couple of her dad’s former informants, and she’d attempted to disappear. Everything pointed to her guilt.
Corbin retrieved his phone and typed something. “What about the account you used to send the email? There should be a copy in the Sent folder.”
“I’m not a complete idiot.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t use a regular email account. I used an encrypted service called No Going Back. The emails are time stamped.”
“A private service?” He grimaced. “Can you access the information?”
“No. That’s the whole point. Once the email is time stamped for delivery, there’s no going back. According to the website, it’s primarily used for relationship breakups and deathbed confessions. I needed a delay that was untraceable.”
The idea had seemed inspired at the time, giving her a chance to run. Except now she had no way to prove her innocence until the email was delivered. As it stood, she could just as easily be covering her tracks as turning over relevant information. Her fraudulent identity made the optics appear even worse. Three days suddenly seemed like a very long time.
“You’re telling me people send deathbed messages before they die.” Corbin rested his elbow on the table and splayed his hands. “That doesn’t make any sense. How is someone supposed to know when they’re going to die?”
“The system emails the sender at predesignated intervals. If you don’t reply with a receipt of confirmation, they assume you’re deceased and automatically send the correspondence.”
He rolled his eyes. “There’s no possible way that can ever go wrong.” Corbin pushed her plate closer to her. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll feel better if you eat something,” he said, a softness in his voice she hadn’t heard before. “Try.”
“I know my situation doesn’t look good.” She plucked at the lettuce edging her sandwich. “I needed a few days to disappear. I needed a way to send the information from Quetech without leaving an obvious trail. I knew they’d find out about me sooner or later, but I was counting on later in order to survive.”
“Then you should have contacted the authorities.”
“That didn’t work out too well for Timothy.”
“We don’t know who killed Timothy. We don’t know who else he was involved with.”
Her lips pursed, she clenched her fists. “Don’t you dare say anything against Timothy. He was a good man. An honest man. He didn’t have to protect me, but he did, and it cost him his life. He had a family. People who loved him. He doesn’t deserve someone like you questioning his integrity.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought guilt flitted across his features. “I’m not questioning your friend’s integrity, but I have to examine all the possibilities.”
She pressed her fist against her mouth. He didn’t care about Timothy any more than he cared about her. She was a means to end, not a person. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her hand.
“What now?” she asked.
“We wait until Tuesday,” Corbin said. “And we ensure your email arrives safe and sound. I’d rather have the information now, but we’d need a warrant.” He scrolled through the screens on his phone, then typed something with his thumbs. “It appears that No Going Back is located offshore. Without jurisdiction, a warrant takes even longer. Which means we lay low and wait for your initial email. If the information is sound, we’ll protect you.”
“You can’t hold me.” Panic straightened her vertebrae. “You can’t prove I’ve done anything wrong.”
His expression turned grim, and her stomach dropped.
“In cases of terrorism, the department is allotted a generous amount of leeway.”
Her vision swam. “Terrorism?”
&nbs
p; “I will do whatever I have to do to prevent another Boston Marathon.”
“I didn’t know...” She’d have handled everything differently. She’d thought she was dealing with a drug runner, not a terrorist. Her head throbbed. It was too late now. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Yes. You will.” Corbin offered a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And for the next three days, you and I are going to be inseparable.”
Her shoulders slumped. She’d tried, and she’d failed. That email was supposed to be her insurance, not her death sentence.
* * *
Just past midnight, Corbin knocked on Beth’s roomette. The FBI had balked at taking jurisdiction of Beth until they knew for certain the context of the email, which left him in a holding pattern. If what she said was true—that she’d turned over an email with the evidence—then she had nothing to worry about. If what she said was a lie, and she’d been working with Quetech all along to launder the money, she’d face the consequences of her actions. The outcome was out of his hands. Either way, they were stuck together for the next three days.
An eternity considering his conflicted feelings for her. Without any evidence, he was flying solo. The attack in the garage had only gotten him so much leeway on handling the witness. He’d called in a welfare check at his house, but the car was gone and the police hadn’t noticed anything suspicous. Maybe Ruth was taking her neighborhood watch duties too seriously.
Beth slid open the pocket door, looking sleepy and delightfully tousled. Her hair cascaded down her back and her leaf-green eyes blinked in droopy confusion. She appeared petite and vulnerable in the dimly lit, narrow corridor. He thought of Timothy Swan and hesitated. She was his witness. His responsibility. This time was different, though. As long as she came through with the evidence, she’d have protection.
“What time is it?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
At least one of them had gotten some sleep. “Midnight. Grab your stuff. This is our stop.”
Though he’d confiscated her phone, he’d kept a close watch on her for the past few hours. He stood a better chance of living to a ripe old age if he maintained a healthy suspicion. He hadn’t given her an opportunity to contact anyone else.
She tossed him a grumpy scowl. “Be right out.”
“I thought accountants were morning people.”
“It’s not the morning. It’s the middle of the night.”
The door slammed in his face, and he stifled a grin. There was something oddly intimate in seeing her without the usual polite filters in place.
True to her word, she reappeared moments later. She’d caught her hair in a ponytail and slung her backpack over one shoulder. He urged her ahead of him, his attention sharp.
They made their way down the narrow staircase and into the chill Minnesota evening. An enclosed walkway separated the train from the depot, and their footsteps echoed through the space. He surveyed the half-dozen passengers who emerged with them into the vaulted lobby but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
The train had arrived early, making up time for the earlier delay. To his surprise, there appeared to be an FBI agent lounging against the ticket counter, a half-read newspaper in his hand. Had the Feds changed their mind about the jurisdiction?
The agent studied his phone before checking the crowd. No doubt comparing them to a photograph. The man caught sight of Beth and pocketed the device. He was definitely here for her. Corbin’s annoyance flared. Someone should have notified him. Had new information come to light?
The agent strode toward them.
Corbin resisted an eye roll. The field agent had the same nondescript look as most FBI agents. His hair and eyes were brown, his build average. His face was clean-shaven, and his cargo pants crisp. The academy must stamp them out in a factory. He’d even dressed in an identifying windbreaker. If he turned, he’d reveal large letters spelling FBI across the back of his jacket.
He was beefy but not exactly fit. One of those men who used to be able to spend an hour in the gym three times a week to maintain his fitness and hadn’t realized he was aging out of the routine.
The agent approached them and flashed his identification. “I’m Agent Smith. Are you Elizabeth Greenwood?”
She glanced between the two men. “I, uh, I am. Yes.”
“I’m here to take you in for questioning. Come with me, ma’am.”
Corbin’s scalp tingled. Something didn’t feel right. “I’ll be going with her.”
“You can call your boyfriend later,” Agent Smith said to Beth. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Greenwood.”
Corbin’s pulse jumped.
Agent Smith didn’t know Corbin’s identity. If the Feds had been informed of Beth’s arrival, they’d be aware there was an accompanying agent from Homeland Security.
This man was no FBI agent.
FOUR
“Wait, w-what?” Beth stuttered.
Corbin wrapped his arm around her waist and gave a squeeze. “She’s not going anywhere without me.”
The two men stared each other down, each taking the other’s measure.
“Suit yourself,” Agent Smith replied without breaking eye contact.
Corbin studied the agent’s clothing. The cargo pants and boots were better suited to tactical gear than questioning an accountant. He took a closer look at the jacket. The sleeves were marked with the usual insignia, but the edge of the B curled upward on the left arm. His nerve endings vibrated. Government-issued jackets were made better. That jacket had been bought off the internet—a cut-rate costume knockoff.
Corbin broke eye contact and cataloged his surroundings. An elderly security guard dozed behind a kiosk near the front desk. No help there.
“I want a lawyer,” Corbin demanded. “You can’t do this.”
“You can call a lawyer when we get to the office.” The agent flipped back the edges of his jacket, revealing his holstered gun. “Don’t make any trouble. It won’t go well for you.”
“All right. But at least tell me what this is all about.”
“Ask your girlfriend. Now start walking.”
The man didn’t see him as a threat, or he’d have refused Corbin’s request outright. An advantage, given the circumstances.
Corbin leaned away from Beth. “What’s this all about, honey?”
Her bewilderment was genuine, a fact he’d use in their favor.
“It’s, u-uh...” she stuttered. “It’s probably just something to do with work.”
“I hope they’re paying you overtime.” He chuckled. Hoping she’d forgive him later, he planted a kiss on her temple and whispered, “Ask to use the restroom.”
Beth pivoted on her heel and raised her voice, “I need to stop in the restroom.”
The impostor agent shook his head. “We’re behind schedule already.”
Corbin shrugged. “Then another delay won’t matter.”
“I won’t take long.” Beth danced from foot to foot. “I’ll hurry.”
“Don’t be a jerk, man,” Corbin volunteered before the man could speak.
“Fine.”
As they crossed the lobby, Corbin tucked her against his side and nuzzled the top of her head. “Look up. There are cameras. Make sure they get a good view of us.”
If something went south, at least there’d be evidence they’d arrived at the station.
The fraudulent agent trailed behind them. The man pulled his phone from his pocket and typed.
Using the distraction, Corbin sped up their pace. “When we turn the corner, don’t go into the restroom. Keep walking straight out the front door, and don’t look back.”
She turned her wide, frightened gaze on him. “What’s going on? Why does he think you’re my boyfriend?”
A bleary-eyed, uniformed train employee holding a phone to his ear strode tow
ard them, a cup of coffee in his opposite hand. Corbin nudged his arm. The cup teetered, and hot liquid spilled over the edge. The employee yelped and dropped his cup.
Corbin muttered an apology.
He spun Beth toward him, cupping her face. “I don’t care what the back of his jacket says, that’s not an FBI agent.”
He glanced behind him. The fraudulent agent skidded through the puddle and went down hard on his hip. Muttering a string of curses directed at the employee, he pushed upright.
“Where should I go?” Beth asked, keeping her gaze fixed forward. “How will we find each other again?”
“I’ll meet you,” Corbin said, recalling the last time he’d visited the city. “There’s a bar called Alary’s on Seventh Street between Jackson and Robert. It’s about six blocks north and west of here.” No other businesses would be open at midnight. “If I’m not there in twenty minutes, call the police and tell them everything you know.”
He slipped her phone into the trash. A memory from the parking garage flashed in his head. The navy coat, the dark ball cap, the flash of yellow. Not a Bears cap. The yellowing lettering spelled FBI. Fake agents. And they’d followed them. Why hadn’t they snatched her in Chicago when she set out on foot? Why wait until now?
Corbin retraced their steps. Even the small amount of residual pepper spray in his car had been distracting, and Beth had saturated at least one of the two assailants’ clothing. No one could drive very far in that condition, let alone stroll through the crowd at the station. He’d have to clean up first. Maybe the second man had stayed behind, he wasn’t visible here. The delay had allowed Beth to safely board the train. The pepper spray had saved her twice.
“Are you sure I should just leave?” she whispered harshly. “What about you?”
She seemed genuinely concerned, and he studied her face. For now, he’d assume she wasn’t lying. She knew well enough the men she’d tangled with earlier were dangerous.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m sorry about having to pretend back there.”
No Safe Place Page 5