The receptionist shot her a dubious look, but Nadia held the gaze. “Try me.”
Apparently, it wasn’t a call the receptionist was willing to make on her own. She pressed a button on her phone and then turned her back to Nadia. Her voice was a murmur, but the word handcuffs rang loud and clear. After several moments of silence, the receptionist swung her chair back around, replacing the handset on its cradle.
“Mr. Dexter will see you. Just around to the right and down the hall. His assistant will meet you and escort you to Mr. Dexter’s office.”
Dale moved to walk with her, stopping when Nadia held up a hand. “You need to stay here. I’ll be fine.”
Dale shook his head. “I don’t know. Ryan wouldn’t want me to leave you alone.”
“There are dozens of people working on this floor.” At his still less-than-convinced expression, she added, “If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, you have my permission to snowplow through whoever may be foolish enough to try and stop you and come find me, okay?”
He wasn’t happy about it, but he took a seat in the reception area.
Nadia followed the receptionist’s instructions. A lithe blonde met Nadia halfway down the hall, her pretty face marred by lips pursed as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.
“Mr. Dexter is a very busy and important man. He can only spare a few minutes.”
Nadia marched toward the corner office, its large wooden door adorned with a plaque marking it as Mike’s. “I won’t need more than a few minutes for the business I have to take care of.”
Nadia reached for the door handle, turning it and pushing into Mike’s office without waiting for the assistant to announce her. The assistant bounded in behind her, apologizing for Nadia having barged in.
“It’s all right, Portia. Miss Shelton and I go way back.”
Portia shot one long glare at Nadia before backing from the room, closing the door as she left.
“I guess I can hardly complain, seeing as how I’ve made more than one unannounced trip to your office. What can I do for you, Nadia? You ready to sign on the dotted line?”
“I’ve been busy running a successful hotel chain, so maybe I missed the news. Has hell frozen over?”
Mike frowned. “If you aren’t here for business, why are you here?”
“I’m here for business, but it has nothing to do with the hotels. I want you to drop the assault charges against Ryan West.”
Mike laughed. “Now, why would I do that?”
“Because you assaulted me first. Ryan was protecting me.”
“Oh, come now,” Mike leaned back in his chair, his mouth drawing to one side.
“You may fancy yourself Don Draper, but it isn’t 1950, and grabbing a woman and kissing her is a crime. I’ve already let Detective Parsmons know I’d be stopping by this afternoon.”
Mike blew a raspberry. “You can’t prove anything. Nobody will believe your jailbird bodyguard. But, look, I’m a reasonable man. Sell Shelton Hotels to Aurora, and I’ll drop the charges. I’ll even throw in the VP position for you like I offered.” He flashed a cocksure grin.
Nadia placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward. “They don’t have to believe him. My brand-new security system caught it all on tape. I wonder what the board will think about their president being arrested for assaulting the CEO of the company they’re trying to acquire?”
Mike’s grin morphed into a scowl. “I don’t believe you.”
Nadia smiled, stepping back from his desk. “Fine.” She shrugged, pulling her cell phone from her purse and turning to leave the office. “I’ll just give Detective Parsmons a call on my way out. Let him know I’m on my way to the police station.”
Nadia reached for the door with one hand and lifted the phone to her ear with the other.
“Wait,” Mike called out before she crossed the threshold.
Nadia held up her index finger. “One second, Mike. I’m on a call.”
“Hang up the phone,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
Nadia disconnected the call, not moving from the doorway. “We have a deal?”
Mike glowered, but she just waited, doing her best to remain expressionless. After a long moment, he spoke. “We have a deal.”
“Great. Let’s go. We have an appointment with Detective Parsmons, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
* * *
NADIA PRACTICALLY BOUNCED back into her office, with Dale trailing her.
Olivia looked up from the file she read. “Hey, you’re back. I thought your errand would take longer.”
“I got Mike to drop the charges against Ryan.”
Olivia’s eyes went wide. “You did? How?”
“I used his own dirty tactics against him. I threatened to press charges against him for grabbing me in my office the other day. No matter how much Mike’s made for Aurora, the board isn’t going to look the other way if I decide to press charges for his assault on me.”
“So a bit of blackmail?”
Nadia narrowed her eyes at Olivia, but a smile played at her mouth.
Olivia raised her hands. “Hey, I’m here for it. I never liked Mike anyway.”
“Did I miss anything?”
“No, but I’m glad you’re back. There’s some kind of problem in the kitchen, and a guest demanding to speak with you.”
Nadia noticed Dale’s eyes sharpen at Olivia’s words.
“Mrs. O’Sullivan in 137. She’s been a hassle since her arrival last night.”
“A hassle how?” Dale asked, standing.
“The usual persnickety guest. The room we put her in last night was on too high a floor and not near an exit. The remote was missing in the room we moved her to this morning, and the temperature wouldn’t set correctly. Now there’s something wrong with the bathroom.” Olivia rolled her eyes.
Dale relaxed.
“Why does she want to see me?” Nadia asked.
“Well, she requested to see the manager, but I can’t find Stephen.”
Nadia frowned. “Maybe he stepped out for a smoke.”
Smoking wasn’t allowed inside, obviously, and although she couldn’t ban employees from smoking altogether, she’d stressed that employees who smoked should not return to work with cigarette smell lingering on their clothes. Most of the smokers hung out outside for a bit after finishing their cigarette to allow the smell to dissipate.
Nadia sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”
Olivia smiled. “Great. Maybe getting a private audience with the owner will get her to chill out.”
“Ha. We should be so lucky.” Dealing with crabby, demanding and even rude guests was just part of being in the hospitality business. Nadia had learned how to deal with them without letting them get to her long ago.
Nadia stowed her purse, and Dale followed her out of the office suite.
The hotel had a handful of rooms on the first floor, tucked away from the noise of the conference rooms and the lobby.
Room 137 was the last room in the hall and next to an emergency exit leading out into a small alleyway.
Moments after Nadia’s knock, a petite woman with gray hair pulled back into a chignon opened the door.
Nadia smiled down at the woman, extending her hand. “Mrs. O’Sullivan, I’m Nadia Shelton. I understand you haven’t been having the most pleasant stay, and I wanted to see what I could do to change that.”
The woman took Nadia’s hand and frowned at Dale. “That’s an understatement. I’d always heard good things about this hotel chain, but obviously those reviews can’t be trusted,” Mrs. O’Sullivan complained in a high-pitched voice.
Nadia pushed down her annoyance with the woman. “I understand we’ve already switched your rooms once. Is this room not more to your liking?”
“It most certainly is not. The sink is broken. How
am I expected to get a good night’s sleep with an incessant drip, drip, drip? Come see.”
Mrs. O’Sullivan stepped away from the door and disappeared into the bathroom. Nadia hesitated for a moment, shooting a glance at Dale before stepping into the room. The bathroom was to the right of the room’s door, across from the closet, its wood-slatted doors closed.
Mrs. O’Sullivan stood at the center of the bathroom, prattling on about the dripping sink. Dale followed Nadia into the room, letting the door close behind him but stopping outside the bathroom.
Nadia reached for the faucet, seeing the problem immediately. She pushed the handle backward a fraction, and the dripping ceased.
Annoyance swelled within her, but Mrs. O’Sullivan hadn’t stopped complaining long enough to allow anyone else to get a word in.
Nadia glanced over her shoulder at Dale, catching his exasperated expression before keying in on the now-open closet door and the black-clad man stepping from it.
Dale must have noticed the change in her expression. He turned, but not before the man’s hand shot out. A cracking sound rang through the room as the large black stick in the man’s hand made contact with the side of Dale’s head.
Dale dropped to the ground, blood seeping from his wound.
Nadia stepped back as something hard was shoved in her side.
“Keep your mouth shut, and you’ll be just fine.” The high pitch was gone, replaced by a far more menacing tone.
The man from the closet stuck his head out into the hall. “It’s clear. Let’s go.”
The woman dug the gun into Nadia’s side. “Move.”
Nadia followed the man into the hall, Mrs. O’Sullivan—or whoever the woman was—falling in step behind. Nadia glanced down the hall, hoping someone would glimpse what was going on.
As if reading her mind, the woman spoke. “I’d hurry if I was you. Having a guest shot in your hotel would probably be bad for business.”
The man pushed the emergency door open. The alarm that should have sounded was mute.
A black SUV waited in the alley.
The man opened the back door. “Get in.”
Nadia hesitated, calculating the likelihood of getting past her two abductors and making it to the end of the alley. The odds were not with her.
The man stepped toward her. “Get. In. Now.”
Nadia turned, lifting herself into the back seat. As she did, an excruciating pain burst at the back of her head and radiated forward. Then everything went black.
Chapter Nineteen
The small conference room at West was crowded when Ryan entered. He’d dispatched an operative to the safe house to babysit Nate. Now, Shawn sat at the rectangular conference table talking to Eugene. On the other side of the room, Gideon and a dark-skinned beauty with closely cropped natural hair appeared to be facing off. Gideon, his arms crossed over his large chest, stood silently stoic, as the woman, no doubt Gideon’s FBI-agent friend, read him the riot act in whispered tones. Gideon’s unaffected countenance seemed to increase the woman’s annoyance.
Ryan raised an eyebrow, making a mental note to delve into that relationship when things settled down.
“You want to tell me what the Sam Hill you think you’re doing?”
Ryan turned toward the conference door.
Detective Parsmons stood, hands on his hips, his mouth curled into a snarl.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Detective, and we’ll get started.” Ryan waived Parsmons to the table.
Gideon and the woman with him took the hint and headed for chairs next to Shawn. Gideon pulled out a chair for the woman, earning another eyebrow raise from Ryan.
“Get started on what?” Parsmons snarled, moving to the table and sitting heavily in a chair. Ryan took the chair next to Parsmons. “You call me and say Nathan Shelton is alive and well, and then insist I beat it down to your offices. If Shelton is alive, where is he?” Parsmons pointed across the table. “And what is the fed doing here?”
“Agent Johnson is here to help.” Gideon’s face showed no emotion, but his voice carried a clear warning.
Detective Parsmons narrowed his eyes at Gideon, but he wisely shut up.
Ryan made introductions around the table before getting down to the business at hand. “As you all know now, Nathan Shelton is alive.” He quickly summarized how he and Nadia discovered Nate’s duplicity, Erik Jackson’s part in the scheme, and their trip to Richmond to pick up Nate.
“Where is Shelton now?” Parsmons asked.
“We’ve got him in one of our safe houses.” Ryan cut Parsmons off when the detective started to object. “We’ve got a man with him. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I hate to agree with Detective Parsmons,” Agent Johnson said, “but why not just hand Shelton over to the cops?”
“Because we work for Nadia Shelton,” Shawn said, jumping into the conversation. “And our client is worried that her brother won’t be safe in custody.”
“Maybe she’ll feel differently after I have her locked up for aiding and abetting fraud, harboring a fugitive and anything else I can get the district attorney to throw at her. How about that?” Parsmons said, rising.
Ryan ignored the anger bubbling in his stomach. “Sit down, Detective. Miss Shelton isn’t trying to keep her brother from you. She’s trying to keep him from Lincoln Smith.”
Ryan explained that the reason Nathan Shelton faked his death was to get clear of a business deal he’d been involved in with the mobster that had gone south.
“We asked you here, Detective Parsmons, because we have a plan. But we’ll need the NYPD to buy in. And the FBI,” Ryan said.
Parsmons crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t promise anything, but let’s hear it.”
Ryan looked across the table at Agent Johnson. “It’s well-known that the FBI has been trying to track down Smith for a while.”
Agent Johnson nodded.
“Smith has given Nadia forty-eight hours to turn over Nate.” Ryan looked from Agent Johnson to Detective Parsmons. “We’re proposing a sting operation. We let Smith think we’re turning over Nate—”
“But the feds are there for him,” Parsmons interrupted. “What does the NYPD get out of this?”
“Nate Shelton,” Ryan replied. “Miss Shelton understands that her brother broke the law and won’t be able to just walk away from that without suffering the consequences. She simply doesn’t think the consequences should include being brutally murdered by a mobster.”
Parsmons seemed to consider what Ryan said. “And how do you envision this going down?”
Shawn leaned forward, steepling his hands on the table. “That’s still up in the air somewhat. Actually, a lot.”
“As the FBI knows well, Smith is elusive. We don’t have a way to contact him, so we have to wait for him to reach out. It’s doubtful he’ll go for any plan we suggest.”
“He definitely won’t.” Agent Johnson shook her head. “Smith hasn’t evaded capture this long by being careless. He’ll want to control all aspects of Shelton’s handoff.”
“We know, and we’ll just have to go with that. Eugene is the best at communications. Since we have to be flexible if this has a chance of working, I wanted him in on the plans from the start. We’ll need to be in constant contact with each other.”
Eugene flipped the cover open on the tablet in front of him and began tapping the screen. “That’s not a problem. We’ve got everything we need here, and I can run a centralized command center remotely if we need to.”
Detective Parsmons threw up a hand. “Hang on. The NYPD hasn’t agreed to anything yet.”
“You have a better idea?” Ryan asked.
Parsmons glared for a long moment before turning to Agent Johnson. “Is the FBI on board with this?”
Agent Johnson shrugged. “Officially, no. I’m not here.
Unofficially, we want Smith.”
“In other words, the FBI is happy to take the credit, but if this whole thing goes south, you know nothing about it,” Parsmons spat.
Agent Johnson touched her nose before pointing at Parsmons.
“I’ll ask again. Any of you have a better idea? Because I just don’t see it.” Ryan looked at each of the faces around the table.
“You could just hand Shelton over to the NYPD. Let the feds worry about Smith,” Parsmons offered.
“I don’t think that would be in the NYPD’s best interests, Detective,” Agent Johnson interjected. “This is the best chance the FBI has had at getting its hands on Smith, and I think my superiors will agree that it’s worth a shot. If the NYPD doesn’t agree, I’m sure we can find a few federal crimes Nate Shelton’s escapade violated.”
Agent Johnson’s implication was clear; the NYPD would get on board or be pushed out of the way.
Detective Parsmons glowered.
Ryan held up his hands to quell the interagency war threatening to break out. “Okay, I’m sure Agent Johnson and Detective Parsmons have to run this plan up their chains of command. Why don’t you two do that? Gideon can show you to empty offices if you need privacy, and we’ll reconvene shortly.”
They all rose, and Gideon led the agent and the detective from the room. Eugene left after them to amass the equipment he thought they’d need for the operation.
Shawn circled the table, stopping beside Ryan. “What are the chances of this working?”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know. Not great. There’s too much we can’t plan for. But our first priority is protecting Nadia.” Ryan held his brother’s gaze. “No matter what.”
Shawn paused a moment, then nodded. “No matter what.”
“Good. I’ll call her now. I want her back at the safe house before all this goes down.” Ryan punched the speed dial number for Nadia. “Who knows what Smith will do.”
The phone rang four times before connecting to voice mail. He left a short message for Nadia to call him as soon as possible.
“She might be in a meeting or something. I’ll try Dale,” Shawn offered.
Pursuit of the Truth Page 17