by Cara Summers
On the second landing, she purposely missed a step and stumbled, lurching hard against the railing.
He snaked one arm around her neck, dragged her against him and squeezed hard. “You ever been shot in the gut?” He jabbed the gun into her waist. “I’ve seen men bleed out that way in Iraq. I can place a bullet where the pain will be excruciating.”
Then he tightened the arm he had around her throat. Her vision grayed, but she managed to slip her hand into her pocket and press a number that would speed dial T.D. He’d take care of Jonah. But if she didn’t find a way to delay the guy, he’d have her in the van and away from the building before T.D. could do a thing to help her.
When Tank finally released her so she could pull in a breath, she gripped the railing hard and let her knees sag.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“I need…a minute…here.” She sagged harder against the railing and dragged in a ragged breath. Ego and temper. Those were his weak spots. She had to use them. Fast.
JONAH LIFTED HIS HEAD and opened his eyes. Pain spiked at his temple and the room spun once before he could focus on the details. The one that struck him first was the plump cat perched on the back of the couch.
Flash. That’s what Cilla had called her. She hadn’t been in the room when they’d arrived, and the window behind her hadn’t been open. Just the pane had been broken.
Panic joined the pain as he got to his feet. “Cilla?”
No response.
How long had he been out? Long enough for whoever had hit him to get Cilla.
Flash shot out through the window and landed gracefully on the railing. When he reached the sill, he leaned out and followed the direction of the cat’s gaze.
For a moment, his heart stopped. Two landings below, Cilla leaned against the railing and a man the size of a small Mack truck stood a few feet away. He had a gun aimed at her.
He wanted to call out, get the man’s attention on him, but he knew Cilla well enough now to be certain that she’d use the distraction to attack. And while he’d seen some of her moves and knew she had skill and strength, the man was huge, the space was small and they were still two stories off the ground.
A sound had him whirling to see T.D. standing in the open doorway of the apartment.
Jonah put a finger to his lips, then motioned him to the window and pointed. He didn’t have to say much to fill in T.D. The man with the gun aimed at Cilla spoke volumes.
“Distraction,” T.D. whispered.
“First, I want to get out there and move closer,” Jonah whispered back. “Once I’m close enough, crank on the sound system again.”
T.D. nodded, and Jonah very carefully ducked low and moved one leg out onto the fire escape.
“I CAN SEE YOU’RE A LOT smarter than your two employees,” Cilla said, spacing her words and keeping her voice raspy. “But your partner is the one with the real brainpower.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re here. And he’s not.”
“So? This is what I’m good at.”
“And he’s good at staying out of sight. He’s the one who takes care of sending the little green boxes, right?”
“Yeah. He’s good at strategy and planning. I’m good at the actual combat.”
“And it’s always the combat people who put their lives on the line. Your partner doesn’t even deliver the boxes in person. He’s a ghost, but you’ve been spotted. The camera at the garage where you planted the bomb this morning got a good shot of your face, an even better one of your license plate. I’m surprised the police haven’t picked you up yet.”
His grin was quick and crooked, the swagger in his tone clear. “Because I’m too smart for them. I changed the license plates.”
“How about your name? I sure hope you’ve got a second ID up your sleeve.”
Something in his eyes told her she’d hit the nail on the head.
“But no one knows who your so-called partner is.” She sent him a pitying smile. “He’s smoke.”
“I know who he is.”
She could see she had him thinking now. Just then she caught a blur of movement above and saw Jonah climb out onto the fire escape.
And Tank still had the gun.
Ready or not, she had to make her move now. No space to use her foot.
He started at the sudden blare of music. She fisted the hand she’d kept on the railing and rammed it hard against his gun hand.
The exploding bullet made her ears ring, but the gun sailed away, and he took a quick step back. Ducking her head, she sprang forward and bulldozed into him with enough force to send him back against the wall of the building. The impact had pain singing from her shoulder and down her arm.
He didn’t even grunt. Instead, he yelled, “Bitch!”
Even as she jumped back onto the balls of her feet, footsteps thundered on the stairs above them. Before she could aim a kick at his groin, he rushed her, grabbing her shoulders and lifting her off her feet.
Then she was suddenly dangling feetfirst over the railing, and the only thing preventing her from falling like a rock were the ham-size hands gripping her shoulders.
For a split second, they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye. His gleamed with fury. She didn’t struggle, letting her arms hang loose.
“Told you I’d toss you over.” He bit out the words, then pulled his hands away.
She grabbed for the railing and caught it with one hand. The wrong hand, she decided as the pain started singing again in her shoulder. But she held on and wrapped the fingers of her other hand around an iron post.
When she glanced up, she saw he had his fist raised, ready to hammer it down hard on her hand. Mentally, she prepared for the fall. Hit, tuck and roll.
Then there was a blur of movement. Flash landed on his shoulder and went for his face.
The man’s scream pierced the night as his hands flew upward and he whirled. Off balance, he lurched against the railing, then pitched over and dropped.
When Jonah heard the sound of the body hitting the cement, his heart leaped to his throat and stayed. Not Cilla, he told himself. She was still clinging to the railing. He rounded the last landing and took the steps three at a time, jumping over the cat on the last one. Then he gripped her wrist with both hands. “Got you.”
“Let me help.” T.D. leaned over the railing and grabbed her other wrist.
Jonah’s heart was still pounding in his throat as together they hauled Cilla up until she could get her leg securely over the railing. Then he pulled her into his arms and simply held on. Until his legs began to tremble. Lowering himself to one of the stairs, he shifted her onto his lap.
“I’ll check on the scumbag.” T.D. started down the next flight of steps.
Overhead, “Angels We Have Heard on High” blasted into the cold night air while feelings poured through him—he couldn’t even begin to name them all. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel them for years. Not since that night he’d stood in the small prayer garden with Father Mike and railed at the statue to bring his father back so that he could kill him.
Everything, he thought. He’d nearly lost everything that mattered to him. Again.
When Cilla stirred in his arms, he managed to take one steady breath.
She tipped back her head and met his eyes. “Are you all right? I saw the blood on your head, but I couldn’t afford to keep him in the apartment. His temper was too volatile.”
“You think?” He framed her face with his hands and allowed himself to take one desperate kiss. Mine, he thought. And this time the word hummed in his blood until it settled in his heart.
He drew back just far enough to lay his forehead on hers. “You scared me, Cilla.”
“Back at you.”
Maybe, in a hundred years or so, he’d get the image of her hanging over the edge of the railing out of his mind. A few hundred more and he might rid himself of that feeling that he wasn’t going to be on time. Right now, all he could do was hold on.
“There are d
efinitely two of them in on this,” Cilla said. “Tank isn’t an employee. He claims to be a partner. We need to get a name from him.”
“This guy needs an ambulance,” T.D. called up.
Rising, Jonah set Cilla on her feet, keeping one arm around her as they moved to the railing.
Tank was lying faceup on the cement and T.D. was pulling out his cell phone. “He’s breathing, but he hit his head in the fall and he’s bleeding like a pig.”
Overhead the music segued into “We Need a Little Christmas.” Flash leaped up to the railing next to Jonah.
Jonah ran a hand over the cat. “You do good work, Flash.”
Above them, the music went suddenly silent. Mrs. Ortiz poked her head out the window of Cilla’s apartment. Flash jumped down and settled in between Jonah’s and Cilla’s legs.
“I’ve warned you about that music, Ms. Michaels. I’m going to have to call the landlord.”
Cilla hissed, “She’s in my apartment—she’ll see the cat food, the toys. I’m so busted.”
“A tank with a gun doesn’t bother you, but your landlady does.” Then he turned to call up the stairs. “There was an intruder in the apartment. Ms. Michaels is calling the police.”
“Right. Finelli.” Cilla pulled out her cell.
“The police?” Mrs. Ortiz sounded shocked.
Stooping down, Jonah lifted up Flash and settled her into the crook of his arm.
“The intruder had a gun and he would have gotten away if it hadn’t been for the intervention of this cat,” he called up. “Must live in the alley back here.”
Cilla shifted her gaze from him to the cat and muttered, “She never lets me pick her up.”
“An intruder, you say?” Now the landlady sounded horrified. “This is a safe neighborhood.”
“I’m sure you’ll want to inform the landlord,” Jonah said.
“Yes. Of course. I’ll do that right away. And the police are coming?”
“They’re on their way,” Cilla assured her.
When Mrs. Ortiz’s head disappeared, Jonah murmured, “Distraction works wonders.”
Down in the alley, T.D. muffled a laugh. “The two of you go on up,” he said. “I’ll babysit the trash until the police get here.”
14
IT WAS NEARLY NINE O’CLOCK before Cilla and Jonah entered his apartment above Pleasures. They might have been delayed even longer, but once Finelli had taken their statements, he’d allowed her some time to pack what she needed. Then he’d personally escorted them to T.D.’s limo and ordered them to go into lockdown at Jonah’s place. He’d call them there with any updates or new questions.
The EMTs who’d arrived with the ambulance hadn’t been able to report much on the injured man’s condition except that he was unconscious and might have fractured his skull. Finelli had tracked down a name from the set of Colorado license plates that he’d found inside the van. It matched the registration of the van, which belonged to a Paul Michael Anderson. Finelli had also sent two uniforms to the hospital with Anderson.
So they had a name now, but not much else. And ever since they’d arrived at his apartment, she and Jonah had been on their cells or on a wide-screen conference call with Gabe.
She had to award Jonah’s apartment kudos for pacing room. No walls marred the long expanse of honeycolored parquet floors. Lovely arched windows ran the length of one wall and offered a cushioned window seat and a distant view of the bay. You had to love a place where you could sit and just stare out at the water and think. Flash had settled in one of the window seats for a while after they’d arrived. But when Jonah had moved to his desk to work, she’d decided to curl up at his feet.
Cilla swept her gaze over the space again. When she’d been here the first time, her mind had been on business. But even then she’d noticed the economical way the apartment was designed. At the far end a marble counter blocked off a galley-size kitchen. The balconied loft space above held two bedrooms and two baths.
In the center of the apartment, a comfortable-looking U-shaped couch sat in front of a brick fireplace and a large flat-screened TV. Closer to the entrance was the office space Jonah was using now with its state-of-the-art equipment. Across from it was a steel-and-glass conference table that could also be used for dining.
She sank down on a chair at the conference table. The room-service waiter had claimed it was a woman who’d given him the gift bag to deliver, but he’d been short on details. Mark Gibbons was checking out Paul Michael Anderson, and David Santos’s summation of December 2005 in San Francisco was that babies had been born, old people had died, but there didn’t seem to be anything that could be related to the St. Francis Center for Boys, or Jonah. So far, Gabe hadn’t found any more than that in Denver. His fiancée, Nicola Guthrie, was checking into FBI records.
In short, they were still spinning their wheels, and the clock was ticking.
During their conference call with Gabe, it had been Jonah who’d asked what his friend had been able to find out about his father, and Gabe had offered to send what he had, but he’d warned them that it was a series of dead ends.
Basically, Darrell Stone had ceased to exist shortly after he’d last visited Jonah and his mother in Denver. Gabe had been able to trace him to Texas and then to Phoenix. But after that, there was no credit card trail, no evidence of anyone using that social security number ever again. And there was no death certificate, either. Nothing.
Jonah had decided to try to trace his father prior to the last time he’d visited his family, and he’d been at it for quite a while. Flash still lay curled at his feet.
As she leaned toward him, he glanced up. “I don’t think I’m going to find my father.”
“Do you think he must be dead?”
“There’s no death certificate under that name. I’ve located a birth certificate for Darrell Jonah Stone, and I have death certificates for his parents, who died when he was eighteen. But I haven’t been able to find much else. Gabe was able to dig up information on his credit card transactions after he left that last time twenty years ago, so I dug a little deeper, but I can’t find records of his using that card anywhere but in the Denver area.”
“So what did he use during the times when he was away from you and your mom?” Cilla asked.
“Good question. But I found something even more interesting. His Colorado driver’s license and his car registrations only date back thirty years. I can’t find any previous registration or license under that name from any other state. Even more interesting is the fact that his social security number was also issued thirty years ago. According to the birth certificate, Darrell Stone would be fifty-eight now.”
As she turned the information over in her mind, she got up and began to pace in the small space between Jonah’s desk and the conference table. “Thirty years ago. That’s about the time when he would have met your mother at that party and it was love at first sight.”
“That’s right.”
She turned and met his eyes. “What do you make of it?”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “One theory I’m entertaining is he created enough of an identity for himself to be able to get a marriage license and live in Denver as Darrell Stone, but during the times he was away, he lived as someone else.”
“Why would he do that?”
“That’s the big question. He said he worked for the government.”
Cilla studied him for a moment. She knew that Jonah had recently worked with Gabe and their friend Nash Fortune to find and reunite a family living in the Witness Protection Program. She had been providing security for part of that family when she’d met Jonah at the Fortune Mansion in Denver that first day. “You’re not thinking witness protection.”
He shook his head. “No. If you’re in the Witness Protection Program, you have to stay put or they kick you out. It’s possible he was a bigamist. Maybe he had a family here and another one somewhere else. There are men like that.”
> “But they usually don’t stop juggling the families and living multiple lives until someone discovers the bigamy. And they usually get outed and prosecuted. So why didn’t you hear about it? Or why didn’t he come back and try to explain?”
“There’s always the chance that he was telling the truth. He did work top-security jobs for the government and for some reason he wanted to keep his marriage and his family a secret. But even that theory doesn’t answer why he didn’t come back.”
Something tightened around her heart, and she walked to him and took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry that I opened up this whole can of worms for you.”
“I’m not sorry. I thought I’d stopped being angry at my father years ago, but I think I just buried it. And not trying to find him was a good way to keep that anger buried. But now I’m curious.”
“If he was using two identities, it could be that there’s a death certificate, just not under Darrell Stone.”
“I know.” He smiled.
She saw the light in his eyes and felt a little tingle along her nerve endings. “But you don’t think he’s dead, do you?”
“No.”
She pulled a chair from the conference table and sat down across from his desk. “Talk to me.”
“It’s just a feeling that’s been growing since you prodded me into looking for him. Lord knows, I’ve wanted him to be dead.” He put his hands on his face, rubbed his eyes. “You know, I once prayed that I would find my father, but it was so I could kill him.”
“How old were you?”
“I was thirteen and I’d bounced through a couple of foster homes, run away a couple of times. A judge who’d gotten tired of seeing me in her court sentenced me to a year of going to the St. Francis Center every day after school and on Saturdays. She threatened—no, promised me that if I didn’t give my foster home and the center at least a year, she’d send me away to a juvenile detention facility. I saw in her eyes that she meant it.
“But I was still so angry. There was this statue of St. Francis in a little prayer garden. It was close to Christmas during the first year I was going to the center. I liked Father Mike and I was getting to know Nash and Gabe. But Father Mike could sense my anger. On Christmas Eve, he took me to the statue of St. Francis. He told me that I should say the prayer in my heart, to ask for something that I really wanted. So I did. I shouted the prayer out loud. I prayed to St. Francis to bring my father back to me so that I could kill him. All I could think of was that Christmas when we’d waited and waited for him. And I wanted him to be dead for leaving my mother and me.”