Undercover Lover

by Kylie Brant

  The other man’s hand tightened around the doorknob. After a long moment he shut the door again. Facing Sully, he said, “Say what you have to say, then, and get the hell out. You think I’m afraid of you? A burned-out street narc? I only wonder how the DEA can tell the difference between you and the men you investigate.”

  Sully gave a slight smile. He’d figured that Robinson had discovered his job with the DEA, as well as his cover, and the man had just confirmed it. With his contacts in the district attorney’s office, it wouldn’t have been difficult. “You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you, Carter?” His smile faded as he ground his cigarette out on the polished-oak desktop. “Makes a person wonder just how you’d explain to any interested parties just why you went looking for that information.” His next words were cold and deadly. “Information you had no authorized reason to access in the first place.”

  Carter gave him a superior look and leaned casually against the door. “You’re an incredibly slow learner, Sullivan. That doesn’t come as a complete surprise, you understand, but I did give you credit for having a bit more imagination. You can’t begin to comprehend the contacts I have at my disposal. Or just how much damage I could do with the information I acquire.”

  Sully surveyed him silently for a moment. The man had to be desperate to pull a stunt as stupid as this one. Ambition did that to a man, he supposed. Made him deaf and blind to everything but his goal.

  Leaning forward, he picked up a sleek silver letter opener that was lying on the desk. Holding the tip of the blade in his fingers, he flipped it up in a quick spiral, and then caught it again. He repeated the action absently, all the while staring at Robinson.

  “Exactly what did you hope to gain by going to Ellie last night?” he asked, with real curiosity lacing the words.

  The man shrugged. “Apparently Elizabeth has already shared the gist of our discussion with you. I hadn’t counted on that,” he mused. “I knew better than to expect that she’d actually believe what I told her about you. She’s hopelessly naive. But I did think the little martyr would agree to my plan to spare her dear friend—” he sneered the words “—any trouble. She gave me more difficulty than I’d anticipated. She’s changed.”

  “Yes,” Sully murmured, thinking of the inner strength Ellie had slowly rebuilt. “She has.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Robinson’s fingers played a quick tattoo against one pant leg. “She’ll still cooperate.”

  The letter opener flew in a dizzying arc between Sully’s hands. “How do you figure?”

  “Why, you’ll encourage her to do so, of course.” Robinson’s smile was smug. “Because otherwise I’ll tell her about the job you’ve taken such pains to keep from her. You could say that’s my ace in the hole. Not that Elizabeth is a snob, far from it. But she does set an ingenuous store by honesty, doesn’t she?”

  Sully sent the letter opener spinning, then snatched it out of the air. Robinson’s words struck a chord he wished he could deny. Yes, honesty was important to Ellie, but the truth wasn’t going to come from this man. When the time came, Sully would tell her himself. And somehow he’d make her understand why it had taken him so long to share the truth with her. Somewhere he’d find the words.

  Carter made a show of glancing at the slim gold watch on his wrist. “You’ve wasted enough of my time, Sullivan. Get out. Just make sure you and my ex-wife do exactly as you’re told, and I’ll keep your secret. Maybe.”

  His last word was strangled in his throat as the letter opener flew through the air and lodged in the wooden doorframe six inches from his ear. Robinson’s gaze slid sideways and regarded the still-vibrating missile, the color draining from his face.

  “I don’t think that’s the way we’re going to play this, Carter,” Sully said sotto voce. “I never have responded well to threats. And I’m afraid where you’re concerned, I have a long list of grievances.” Regret tinged his next words. “But, although nothing would give me greater pleasure than beating the hell out of you, this time I played by your rules.” He cocked his head consideringly. “Of course, I changed them some.”

  Robinson finally tore his gaze away from the letter opener and looked at the man before him. “You’re crazy.” His voice was dazed. “You really are a madman if you think I’ll let you get away with this.”

  Sully was on his feet and looming over him with a speed that made the other man blink. “You’re not listening, Carter, and you’re going to want to listen, because I’m only going to explain the rules once. Ready? You won’t contact Ellie again. No calls, no more visits, no more information leaks. Pretty easy rules, really, but just in case you have trouble remembering them, I took the precaution of having a little talk with Postal before you came in this morning.”

  The remaining color in Carter’s face slowly drained. “Marvin Postal? Why would you do that?”

  “Ellie told me everything, remember? And our district attorney was very interested in your plans for replacing him.” Sully shook his head in mock wonder. “Those political types are paranoid as hell, aren’t they? I’m afraid your popularity factor in this office was zero by the time our conversation was over. I’ll be surprised if your boss doesn’t have you back arguing the purse-snatching cases after this.”

  “I can talk to Postal. I’ll convince him—”

  “You’ll try. But that press you’ve been receiving will do most of the convincing, I think. Something tells me you’re going to be way too busy to bother Ellie or me again. But if you ever do forget the rules, I can always drop a hint to Postal about your digging into confidential DEA personnel files.” His grin was wolfish. “You could say that’s my ace in the hole.”

  With both hands on Robinson’s shoulders, he moved the man aside and opened the door. Before he passed through it, he stopped and turned back to Robinson. “Oh, and by the way, I met your... associate while I was waiting for you.” He closed one eyelid in an insulting wink. “That woman sure does look like she’d know her way around your briefs.”

  Sully shifted in his seat, trying yet again to find a comfortable position for his legs. He’d never get used to flying. He didn’t mind the idea of being inside several tons of steel hurtling through the air, miles above land. But he disliked the closed-in feeling, the seats mere inches apart.

  And right now he wasn’t all that thrilled with the amount of time it gave him to think. It had been easy to keep the disturbing memories at bay while he’d attended to countless details. He’d taken leave from work, and contacted Conrad to let him know he’d be out of touch for a couple of days. Then, once he’d taken care of Robinson, he’d had to call Ted.

  He hadn’t looked forward to the man’s reaction, but the agency had to know about any threat to the investigation, even if Sully did think his visit with Robinson had put an end to it.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Ted had croaked into the phone. “You’re telling me a two-year investigation might go down the tubes because of a jealous husband?”

  “Ex-husband,” Sully had corrected. “The woman is an old friend of mine, and I helped her out. For some reason Robinson has never been my biggest fan.”

  “Imagine that.” In the silence that had stretched, Sully had visualized Ted whipping off his thin gold rims and polishing them with his customary fussy care.

  “Well, it sounds like you contained the worst of the damage,” he’d finally said grudgingly. “I’m going to let O’Shea know about it and see what he has to say. Is this the same woman Lowrey mentioned?”

  “I don’t know. What did Lowrey say?”

  “He said you were hung up on some woman you had living beside you. If that’s the case...”

  Sully had taken a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Lowrey needs to do better research.”

  But Ted bad pressed on. “You don’t think there’s a problem?”

  Lowrey would have a hell of a lot to answer for the next time Sully met with him, but he didn’t think that was what Ted was referring to. “There’s
no problem,” he’d replied. And that had been the end of the conversation.

  He slanted a gaze at the “problem” in the seat next to his. Ellie had her face turned toward the window, seemingly fascinated by the clouds below. He hadn’t been able to shake her from the idea of accompanying him. He’d told her bluntly and more than once that she wasn’t welcome. But the lady could resemble a velvet bulldozer when she had her mind set on something. She’d made plans quickly aloud. She had time off coming, she’d said. She’d call Nathan and tell him not to expect her until Monday. That would give them a long weekend to make arrangements for his mother. When he’d flatly rejected her help, she’d seemed to let the matter drop.

  And today she’d been waiting for him at the airport.

  He’d tried logic, then icy silence. Neither had changed her mind. Sometimes when he encountered that quiet determination of hers, he felt like he’d been ambushed. She was normally so sweet natured it was always surprising to bump up against her will.

  Six months ago he would have cheered at any sign that she was regaining her old spirit, but not in this instance. The idea of having Ellie along when he brought this bitter, ugly chapter of his life to a close was violently distasteful. He’d been raised, for lack of a better word, alone—had found the filthy streets outside his home a slight improvement over what went on inside it. He hadn’t wanted her to guess the origin of the darkness that was always a heartbeat away, that some days felt like it could swallow him whole.

  He settled back into his seat, his gaze brooding. He’d never tried to explain where he’d come from; he knew too well how much the boy had shaped the man. Now she’d see for herself, and he didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.

  He may have inadvertently found the surest means to convince Ellie to stay a safe distance from him. The muscle in his jaw went taut. Somehow the thought wasn’t as satisfying as it should have been.

  Elizabeth scurried to match her steps to Sully’s long strides. He opened the back door of the taxi he had waiting, and she slid into the back seat. He followed her in, and gave the driver the address to the Jacksonville County Hospital. Then he’d settled into the corner of the seat and gazed out the window.

  He’d been taciturn the entire trip, and seemed to get more so by the minute. They’d taken the time to unload their luggage at the hotel he’d booked. She’d expected an argument from him when she’d announced her intention of accompanying him to the hospital, where his mother’s body was being held, but it had elicited little more than a terse nod.

  She watched him from the corner of her eye. He seemed shrouded in solitude. He may as well have been alone in the vehicle; she was effectively shut out. She’d often damned that ability of his even as she’d wondered at his need to develop it. If she let him, he’d completely cut himself off from her. She wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  Sliding closer, she slipped her hand in his larger palm, where it lay unmoving on one hard thigh. He stiffened, but didn’t turn to look at her. She laced her fingers through his. Although he tensed at her touch, he didn’t pull away, and she felt a small measure of satisfaction.

  The driver pulled up in front of the hospital, and raised his gaze to the rearview mirror. “You gonna be long or you want I should wait?”

  “Wait,” Sully answered tersely. The word seemed to be aimed at both the driver and herself. He opened the door and got out.

  “I could come in with you,” Elizabeth said hesitantly. She saw the way his fingers clenched on top of the car door, saw the subtle shift of muscles in his back as they tightened in response to her words.

  Steeling herself for a rebuff, she was surprised when he said, without looking at her, “Yeah, okay then. C’mon.”

  She waited quietly at his side while he talked to the elderly woman at the front desk, who then went to fetch a nurse. A young man in his twenties with thinning dark hair and an unsuccessful attempt at a goatee introduced himself, and then they were led down a quiet, tiled hallway. The man stopped in front of a steel door and pushed it open.

  “You’ll have to positively ID the body before I can release it,” the man said. Consulting a piece of paper in his hand, he went to one to the squares that lined the walls and opened it, pulling out a gurney. He folded the sheet back, and Elizabeth swallowed a gasp.

  The woman lying on the gurney bore no resemblance to her son. Hair that had once been blond was liberally streaked with gray. Her skin hung slack on prominent bones, as if the flesh inside had been wasted away. Elizabeth’s gaze lowered, then fixed. Faded, thin marks traced down the woman’s arms, and across her chest. Needle tracks.

  Sully’s voice seemed to come from a distance. “Yeah. That’s my mother.”

  The nurse handed a clipboard and pen to him. “I’ll need her name for the record, sir, and your signature verifying that you identified the body and gave us permission to release it.”

  He jotted down the information and scrawled his signature on the line indicated, then handed the clipboard back to the man.

  “And where would you like us to release the body to?” the nurse inquired next.

  Taking note of Sully’s blank look, the man went on kindly, “If you’re unfamiliar with the area, I can get you a list of funeral homes in the city.”

  Sully nodded, and he and Elizabeth followed the man out of the morgue and back down the hallway. After selecting a funeral home from the list the man found for him, there were other papers to sign. A lone plastic bag was offered to Sully, containing his mother’s personal effects.

  Without looking inside it, Sully grasped it in one hand. “I’ll need to know the home address she gave you when she was admitted.”

  The man looked puzzled. “You don’t have it?”

  Elizabeth watched Sully go rigid. “Not her current one, no.”

  Shuffling some papers, the nurse bent and wrote the address down on a piece of notepaper and handed it to Sully. He turned abruptly and headed for the doors, not waiting to see if Elizabeth followed. This time she had to jog to keep up with him, and was slightly out of breath by the time she slid in the taxi.

  She allowed the silence to settle as they rode to the address the nurse had written for them. She didn’t reach out to him this time—not because she didn’t want, need, to comfort him. But because she knew her touch wouldn’t be welcomed, knew that Sully was teetering on the edge of a dark, jagged precipice. The man at the hospital hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss, or at least, nothing more than a grieving relative. But if he’d looked at Sully, really looked at him, how could he have missed the terrible rage in his eyes, the way it seemed to come off him in waves? She didn’t know who or what the rage was directed at, but she promised herself that before the day was over he would tell her.

  Staring out the window, she watched as the buildings and neighborhoods gradually slid into deterioration. The houses got smaller, more ramshackle. The buildings grew more run-down. Taggers had spread their graffiti on every available surface. Trash littered the sidewalks, and derelicts sprawled against the buildings. There were no children in sight, if one discounted the small groups of toughs dotting the street corners. Occasionally one of them would gaze at the taxi as it went by with sullen defiance. None of them looked older than teenagers, but the look in their eyes was one of aged hopelessness.

  Their cabbie was visibly nervous by the time they arrived at the address. “I’m not gonna be able to wait this time,” he muttered, his gaze darting to either side. “This neighborhood just ain’t safe, ya know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” It was the first word Sully had spoken and it was without inflection. He took some bills from his pocket and handed them to the man. The door had barely closed in back of them when the taxi squealed away.

  An old woman sat in their path, peering up at them between dirty, stringy bangs. “Got some money? I need me some money. Ya got some? How ‘bout it?” Elizabeth started when the woman tugged at her purse. “How ’bout it, lady. Ya got some money?”
>
  Sully reached around and released the woman’s grasp. He steered Elizabeth around the woman, who continued to mutter behind them, and up the crumbling brick stoop.

  The lock on the front door had long been broken. They entered the building, and Sully pounded on the first door to the right. It opened only a crack. “Whaddya want?” The voice was wavering, querulous.

  “Landlord.”

  A gnarled finger pointed across the hall, then the door slammed shut again. They crossed the hallway, and Sully rapped on the door. “I need to see the landlord.”

  A woman in a dirty flowered housecoat appeared in the doorway. Fingers as thick as sausages were clutched around a shedding Siamese cat. Eying them both suspiciously, she asked, “You cops?”

  “No. I’m here for Marcy Sullivan’s things.”

  She took her time looking him up and down. “She dead then?” He nodded, and the woman swore. “Owed me two months’ rent, she did. Coulda let that apartment half a dozen times, but always she said she was gonna get me the money. Well, she ain’t gonna get me the money, now, is she?” The cat meowed a protest as the woman’s clasp grew tighter.

  “How much?”

  At Sully’s question, the woman’s face went from angry to sly. Looking them both over carefully once again, she said, “I get four hundred dollars a month, so that’d be eight hundred to call it even.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest hotly. From what she’d seen of it, the entire building should be condemned. And the thought of the old biddy trying to take advantage of Sully, especially now, had protectiveness rising. Before she could speak, Sully moved a step closer to the woman.

  “How much?”

  The words were the same, the voice still expressionless, but the woman darted a look at his face and swallowed visibly. Retreating a couple of steps she muttered, “Two hundred a month.”

  He reached into his pocket, drew out his wallet, and handed her some bills. She fumbled with something inside the door, and gave him a key. “Room 401. Top floor. Just leave the key inside when you leave.” She stepped back inside her apartment and slammed the door.