by Rachel Grant
“I’ve been instructed to turn over my notes to FBI Agent—” He pulled out a notebook and glance at the page. “Kaha’i Palea, in Honolulu. He, in turn, will pass the information to the local FBI without revealing who conducted the interview.”
Curt smiled. “After we reach DC, you can talk to the local agents directly. But since you’ve brought us a car, no one can know you’ve helped us until she’s inside a safe house in DC.”
“Aren’t you being a little extreme, sir? It’s my understanding that the chief suspect is her ex-boyfriend, who by all accounts was obsessed with her.” The man again checked his notebook. “The victim, Eric Fuller, was in a very public fight with the suspect ten months ago. And, according to witness statements, the two men fought over Ms. Garrett. Right now this looks like simple domestic violence.”
MARA DROPPED HER fork as the food she’d been savoring turned bitter in her mouth. Curt leaned toward Palazzolo and spoke in a low but menacing tone. “You can believe whatever you want, Mr. Palazzolo, but your boss assured me she’d conceal the fact her office aided us until after we are safely in DC.”
Curt Dominick in protective mode was a sight to behold.
Palazzolo leaned away and looked as though he would slide to the floor given the opportunity. “Absolutely, sir.” He cleared his throat and sat upright again. “But it’s my job to question her.”
Curt’s nod was as clipped as his name. “Proceed.”
Mara told the assistant US attorney about her broken engagement and the humiliation of realizing Evan had been paid to date her. As she spoke she pushed her food around on her plate, no longer hungry. A sip of cold coffee indicated the interview had taken far too long. “We should hit the road,” she said.
Curt nodded. He dropped cash on the table, and Palazzolo led the way out of the restaurant and to a white SUV parked in the corner of the lot. “The SUV is property of the Tucson office.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope. “The keys and ten thousand dollars, cash.”
Mara startled at the large sum but supposed at this point they needed to be prepared for anything.
“I’ll make sure the money and vehicle are returned to your office immediately upon our arrival in DC,” Curt said, tucking the envelope into his own breast pocket.
“One last item,” Palazzolo said. He pulled a handgun from his pocket. He slid the weapon open in a practiced movement, showing the chamber was empty, then handed over the gun, grip first, before producing a bullet magazine. “I understand you are trained to use a Glock.”
Curt nodded and took the clip, tucking it in his pants pocket, while the gun had gone into his jacket.
Palazzolo turned to her. “My boss wanted me to pass on a message to you, Ms. Garrett. Her father fought in World War II. He came home, but many didn’t. Her father often wished the MIAs could be found and properly buried, and she wanted me to thank you for the work you do.”
After his earlier assessment and dismissive attitude toward the danger she was in, his change in demeanor surprised her. She smiled and tilted her head to see his face, but the morning sun hit her in the eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Palazzolo.”
The man ducked his head. “Be safe,” he said and left them.
Strangely energized, she plucked the keys from Curt’s hand. “I’m driving first shift.” She circled the vehicle to the driver’s door. They had a car, money, a weapon, and nothing but open road between here and DC. This was the closest thing to freedom she’d felt in months.
Curt remained on the pavement, staring at her with the strangest look on his face. “Stop dawdling and get in,” she said. “Maybe we can make it to Oklahoma City by midnight.”
He shook his head as though to clear it and circled the vehicle.
HE WAS LOSING his mind. He had to be.
What was happening to him? One moment he was collecting cash and a gun from an assistant US attorney—a bizarre occurrence all by itself—and the next he’d been ensnared as the morning sun glinted off Mara’s blond hair, her blue eyes warmed with pleasure, and that elusive, charming dimple peeked over the horizon of her smile.
He’d spent the entire interview with Palazzolo adding up the facts and trying to decide if the theory Evan pursued her out of jealousy had merit. Only to have her once again take his hardened, suspicious heart and shatter it to dust with a radiant smile.
It wasn’t just the smile, it was the deep-seated pride she took in the work she did. He’d met so many frauds in his line of work, men and women who ran charitable foundations not for the cause but for the accolades. Mara was the real deal. Her work meant something to her.
As a man devoted to his profession, he respected that.
How was it possible? How could he be falling for her?
Helpless, hopeless, he wrenched open the door and slid into the passenger seat. Mara put the vehicle in reverse. In his mind, he stopped her by cupping her face between his hands and kissing her. It would be a swift, hot kiss. He’d slide his tongue between her lips, drink in her shocked gasp and warm response. But he couldn’t. It was only a possibility in an alternate universe. One in which she wasn’t a witness and he wasn’t The Shark.
In this reality, she backed out of the space with smooth efficiency, and in minutes they were on the interstate. Curt glanced at his watch, then pulled out the prepaid cell phone and called Aurora, who should be midway through lunch recess. After she answered, he asked, “Did you get the warrant to trace the money in Garrett’s account?”
Mara stiffened beside him, but she’d known about this warrant. “Yes. The money was easy to trace—no laundering even attempted.”
“Where did the money originate?”
“Dear old Uncle Andrew.”
Curt closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She’d been shocked. She hadn’t known about the money. He repeated these phrases over and over again, hating how much he wanted to believe them. He’d never wanted to believe in anyone before. In his world, everyone was a potential suspect and individuals were ruled out based on evidence. He’d never cared which way the evidence cut, so long as it led to someone he could prosecute.
But today, right now, he didn’t want to believe the woman he was risking everything to protect—even his role as lead prosecutor in her uncle’s trial—had taken a payoff from his defendant.
He had to look at all the facts, no matter how distasteful. What did she have besides a few dots on her belly to back up her smallpox-bomb story?
“There’s more,” Aurora said. “Some of the money left her account before we could put a freeze on it.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand went to Jeannie Fuller’s account.”
Cold gripped him in the gut. “She’s been with me and hasn’t had access to her account at all.” Had she? He’d showered on the boat and again in the motel. She could have completed a transfer using the cell phone.
“You know how easy it is to set transfers up ahead of time.”
“Three months ahead of time?” he asked.
“What’s going on?” Mara asked. Her knuckles tightened on the steering wheel again.
He shook his head and shifted in his seat. Into the phone, he said, “Forward the information to the Arizona FBI, all of it.”
“Already done.” Aurora paused. “Curt, as your co-counsel, I need to know something before we put Garrett on the stand. Are you involved with her?”
He closed his eyes. He’d known she’d ask this. “No.” A kiss wasn’t a relationship.
“Don’t split hairs with me. We don’t need a Clinton-like denial to bite us in the ass.”
He ground a palm into his forehead, hating everything about this conversation. He’d like to keep something private, hold precious one morsel of the elation he’d experienced when his control had vaporized, replaced with the need to taste her, touch her, and brand himself with her energy. “When she takes the stand, you’ll question her, not me.”
Aurora sighed. “Be careful. She coul
d be trying to help her uncle by getting you disbarred. Half a million bucks for your disbarment is a small price to pay for a wealthy man facing prison.”
He’d only be disbarred if he slept with her. Extenuating circumstances made the kiss explicable, even excusable. But still, he felt like a nineteen-year-old boy with his hands in the pants of a seventeen-year-old piece of jailbait. On the surface, harmless and consensual, but legally, a big fucking mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A HUNDRED MILES outside Tucson, they stopped at a discount department store for snacks, clothing, a car cell phone charger, and more minutes for the phone. In and out of the store in record time, Mara had purchased comfy yoga pants and T-shirts for the drive—the sum total of her belongings since the jet had taken off with her duffle bag inside.
She’d fared better than Curt, though; his laptop and case files would reach DC long before he would. He spent hours on the phone, consulting with his co-counsel when she was on break from jury selection, and the rest of the time, it sounded like he spoke to another assistant US attorney who was managing the office in his absence.
If the one-sided conversation she heard was any indication, the man had a stunning workload. How on earth had he found the time to build a case against her uncle?
Driving felt futile, each mile only a tiny step closer to their eventual goal. Curt needed to get to the trial, and she… What was she heading towards?
She was supposed to testify and have a conversation with a few of the president’s top security people. But then what? Would she be set adrift, or would she be protected?
Why was Evan hunting her? Was it possible that he was—as he’d always claimed—devastated by her accusations and rejection and had gone off the deep end? Was there any merit to the jilted-lover scenario?
She’d always known his feelings had been real. She’d never have fallen for him if there hadn’t been genuine emotion—a true relationship—between them. But she’d been disgusted by the catalyst for that relationship—the urging of his father to seduce her—and appalled by the payoffs he’d gladly taken for succeeding.
He’d assaulted her when she’d dumped him. That alone argued for domestic violence. But Assistant US Attorney Palazzolo hadn’t known about the smallpox bomb, and his accusations fell flat when that was taken into consideration.
Curt was silent in the passenger seat, a rare moment when he wasn’t managing someone two thousand miles away, so she asked the question that bugged her most. “What on earth would Raptor do with a smallpox bomb?”
“A: reverse engineer it and make more. B: use it to stir up fear. C: sell copies to the highest bidder. Or D: all of the above.”
Cold fear invaded her belly. Since it hadn’t occurred to her that the bomb could have left North Korea, the harm Raptor could do with it hadn’t penetrated. “What do you mean, stir up fear?”
“Americans will spend a lot of money on the military when they’re afraid. Between Raptor’s military training grounds and the national and international private security side of the business, they’d make a killing off a good old blame-it-on-terrorists patriotism-inducing scare.”
“How long do you think it would take to reverse engineer a smallpox bomb? They’ve had two months already.”
“I don’t know.” The side of his fist hit his knee. “And I have no clue who to trust. People could be infected already. How many days after exposure before you showed the first symptoms?”
“Eleven days.” She paused. “Isn’t there someone we can call?”
“Just saying the word smallpox on a cell phone can get the conversation flagged. Homeland Security has bots that scan the airwaves. If Raptor has hooked into their system, they could use that to get a lock on our location.”
“What about the friend you called to get us the Talon & Drake jet, Lee Scott? Isn’t he a technology security guy? Can he encrypt our calls?”
Curt’s body went rigid. “Lee?” He paused, then said, “Mara, that’s brilliant. I’ve been hoping for a lead on which Raptor facility is the most likely to have the technology to replicate the bomb. Lee can research that for us.”
She smiled, knowing in her gut they were on the right track, but all the while wondering what this meant for her uncle. Uncle Andrew wasn’t greedy. Human lives weren’t worth less than government contracts to him. No. This had to be the brainchild of Evan and his vulture of a father.
IT TOOK LEE a few hours to set up the encryption on the prepaid cell phone. The only problem was the security was only effective for calls between equally secured numbers. Meaning calls to Lee were safe, but a call to the president’s chief of staff, who utilized different security, was out.
Curt told Lee about Raptor and the smallpox bomb.
“Have you listened to the news today?” Lee asked, his voice full of alarm.
“No.”
“A congresswoman from Virginia proposed a new bill that would change the definition of the types of operations that can be conducted by private security companies. They would have the ability to act with military force but without government oversight. It may even redefine them as domestic first responders.”
“Does it stand a chance in hell?” Curt asked.
“There is support. Private military and security is a lot cheaper and everyone is looking for ways to cut the federal budget. But it’s by no means an easy sell. Unless of course, we have an act of terrorism on American soil to scare the hell out of everyone.”
Curt swore. “Lee, I want to know every piece of land that son of a bitch Robert Beck owns—not just the parcels owned by Raptor. But only search public databases.” He didn’t need any illegal hacking to mar this investigation. Given the nature of mercenary work and the top-secret contracts Raptor already held, it was going to be damn hard to convince a judge to give him a search warrant.
“I’ll also search under Evan Beck. Do you want a search on Andrew Stevens as well?”
Curt glanced sideways at the woman driving the car. Her faith in her uncle remained strong, which pissed him off no end. She was a smart woman, and she was being pigheaded. “No need. I have that information already. Call me if you find anything.”
BY TWO IN the morning Central Time, they’d put Oklahoma City far behind them. With at least eighteen hours of driving time remaining, there was no way they’d reach the trial before jury selection and opening arguments were completed the following day.
They’d taken turns napping while the other drove, although Mara had only pretended to sleep. It was hard to let her guard down after months in captivity. But even so, she felt strangely wired, wide-awake and yet hypnotized by the monotonous flashes of reflective lane-marker bumps. The road went on forever into the darkness, yet it felt as if the inside of the SUV was all that really existed. They were the only two people in the world.
“Talk to me, Mara. I’m tired.”
She twisted in her seat and faced him. “What do you want to talk about?”
“JPAC. Deployments. Your uncle’s surprise visits to Vietnam, the Philippines, and Egypt.”
“Subtle, Dominick.”
“I’m Dominick now?”
“It’s better than calling you The Shark.”
He cut her a glance with an indignant smile. “You call me The Shark one more time and I will spank you.”
“Kinky. I’m not so much into spanking, but I suppose you could convince me.”
Curt shifted in the driver’s seat, and she hoped she’d caused a painful tightening of his slacks at the crotch. His voice came out husky. “We can negotiate that when the trial is over.”
He wanted to fool around with her after the trial? It was hard to believe they could get involved, but for the first time since this crazy journey started, she could imagine…something. “Negotiate, or plea bargain?” she asked.
He grinned. “Depends on what you have in mind.”
“Why don’t we just go tit for tat?”
“As long as you provide the ti—”
She held up a hand to stop him. He was obviously feeling plucky at this hour. “Funny, but I’m talking about now. Tell me why Palea asked questions about my mail, and I’ll tell you about my uncle and JPAC.”
“Palea found an envelope. Someone mailed something to you from South Korea the day after you were arrested.”
“What do you think it was?”
“It’s tit time. Tell me about your uncle’s visit to Vietnam.”
“He was still vice president then and had about six months left in office.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“He spent more time with Evan than he did with me. Tat. Why would anyone mail something to my address from South Korea?”
“I think Roddy screwed up and hoped to save himself. Maybe he sent the original pages from your field notebook, before Jeannie changed it. Proof things weren’t kosher.”
She frowned. “Do you think Roddy was supposed to kill me that day?”
Curt squeezed her knee. “I don’t know. If you’d disappeared, how would the North Korean government have reacted? Would they have let JPAC leave or detained everyone? I think Roddy needed to get you to the Joint Security Area and raise a fuss about your safety. JPAC would probably have been ejected—which would have allowed Evan to smuggle out the bomb.”
The green glow of the dashboard lights revealed the tightness of Curt’s mouth. “Unfortunately, we still can’t prove Raptor is behind anything. My actions, my evidence, are bound by law. Theirs are not.”
“They blew up a jet.”
“If we can’t prove Evan was following orders, Raptor will get away with it.”
The acid in her stomach churned. “They’re going to blame it all on Evan—and on me, for dating him.”
“Your turn. Tell me about the time your uncle visited you in Egypt.”
“Why?” Exasperation and frustration made her voice harsh. “He was no longer vice president when he came to Egypt! What does it matter?”