by Meryl Sawyer
“Miami-Dade Medical Center.”
She asked, “How is Ariel doing?”
“She’s at a friend’s home. I’m not at the hospital. I’m next door getting coffee so I can stay awake through the night in case Tina wakes up.”
The vehemence in his voice astonished Devon. He was angry and frightened, she decided. He was venting his emotions on her. Usually Steve was as sentimental as Attila the Hun. Until this moment, she had never realized how much he truly loved her sister. He was terrified Tina would die.
“Don’t be angry with me,” she said gently. “I’m as upset as you are.”
“You caused this,” he shot back. “Tina goes around all the time preoccupied because she’s worried about you. She stepped off the curb without looking.”
There wasn’t any point arguing with him. “Please tell her to hang in there. I’m coming. And tell her I love her.”
She hung up the telephone without waiting for a response. No doubt, Steve would have told her to butt out. They didn’t need her.
CHAD STOOD at the Ala Wai Marina’s pay phone and waited for Danson’s call. Depending on what the informant had learned, Chad would have to make a decision. Or he could wait three years until Albert was paroled and decide then. Three years was a long time. The wise guy could get killed in prison, contract a fatal disease, or change his mind about Devon.
While he waited, Chad trained the DARPA gadget on a boat leaving the pleasure craft harbor. It still didn’t register any humans on the vessel even though Chad could clearly see people.
The phone rang and he picked it up. “Hello.”
“You owe me,” Danson said. “I sent one of the federal prosecutors to talk to Nathan Albert. Prisoners are always looking for ways to knock time off their sentences. I thought Albert would be more likely to talk to him than some lowlife con he considered beneath him.”
“Good thinking.”
“How well have you checked up on Devon Summers?”
The fine hairs across the back of his neck stood at attention. “The facts I checked were verified. Why?”
“Albert claims he doesn’t know her. Said he had a long-time girlfriend in Chicago who came to see him every week. The visitor’s log confirmed this. I checked with the attorney who prosecuted the case, and he said she was in court every day. She lived with Albert in a penthouse on Lakeshore Drive. She’s staying there now.”
The truth hit him like a knockout punch. Devon had lied. She’d thrown enough bullshit at him to bury the island. And he’d fallen for it.
Anger slithering through his veins like venom, he asked, “Any clue who she is? What she’s up to?”
“Good question. She does have a work history in Chicago. She paid into Social Security until last year, which shows no payments.”
“That’s when she claimed to have been working in Portland under another name.”
“I’d be very careful. My guess is Devon Summers is there to kill you and get the device you’re testing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAD STORMED ACROSS the street to Aloha’s offices. “Where’s Devon?”
At the sound of his voice Zach romped up to him to be petted. Chad didn’t have time. He intended to get the truth out of Devon. No more lies.
Shelby arched one eyebrow and shook her head. “I don’t, like, know.”
“She must have told you something.” He could see his angry voice was alarming Shelby, but he didn’t care.
“She asked if I could, like, watch Zach for a couple of hours.”
He grabbed the telephone on Devon’s desk and punched in her cell number. It rang until voice mail picked up. He slammed down the receiver.
“No idea where she might have gone? What if you needed to get in touch with her?”
“Why would I, like, need to get in touch? She could call me.”
Reasoning with Shelby was like explaining tax-exempt bonds to the homeless. “If she comes back, don’t tell her I’m looking for her, but call me on my cell.”
The airhead’s doubtful expression told him that she’d grown closer to Devon than he’d thought.
“Don’t tell. It’s a surprise.”
She giggled. “Waay cool.”
“A big surprise.” He stalked toward the office door.
“Oh, I forgot. Just before Devon left. She, like, got a phone call on her cell.”
He spun around. “Do you happen to recall what she said?”
“Um.” Shelby thought a moment. “Not much. I think she asked, where or maybe when. She left, like, right away.”
Puzzled, he said, “Thanks. Don’t forget about the surprise.”
He hurried out the door and rushed over to his office. His cell phone was on his desk. Devon might have left him a message on his cell or office voice mail. She had no reason to think he’d discovered her pack of lies.
Frowning, Ane was guarding the office like a bouncer.
“Any calls?”
“A couple. Nothing important. I put the messages on your desk.”
He went to his desk and checked the messages. Nothing from Devon. Nothing on his voice mail, either. Nothing on e-mail.
He hated to ask Ane, because she’d warned him Devon was pilikia—trouble. “Did you see Devon leave Eddie’s office?” From her desk, Ane had a direct view of Aloha’s front door.
She glared at him for a long moment, then replied in a voice as flat as old beer. “Let her go. Like Pele, she’ll vanish.”
He grabbed his cell and left the office, telling Ane to call him if she needed him. He didn’t tell her to contact him should Devon return. He knew she wouldn’t.
He should have listened to Ane and Keke. Their woman’s intuition was stronger than his sixth sense. Devon Summers was pilikia. But now he was involved, and he was just plain too stubborn to quit. Aw, hell. It wasn’t about being pig-headed. He was crazy about Devon.
Chad hopped in his Porsche to go to his place for his Special Ops bag, then to Devon’s apartment. He doubted she was there, but he intended to search the place. Surely he could find some clue about who she really was.
He gunned the powerful engine and ripped out of his parking space behind the building, thinking. Danson believed Devon intended to kill him, but Chad had his doubts. If she was after the DARPA gadget, now safely stowed in his trouser pocket, she’d had plenty of opportunities to try to get it. She carried a Sig Saur in her purse for self-protection, she claimed. She could have held the gun to his head, demanded the device, then killed him.
Why hadn’t she? For the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out. He was missing something here. What? He thought it over, but it still didn’t make sense. The answer had to be in her apartment.
DEVON STOOD in front of the locker she kept at the Aliiolani Bus Station. The facility was a bit run-down, but had an authentic, non-touristy feel to it lacking in other parts of Honolulu. It was a hub for day-workers who couldn’t afford to live in Honolulu or even its less expensive suburbs. They lived “up country” and took buses to their jobs in the city.
She had left a small suitcase, a wig, clothes, phony ID—and cash in the locker. Santa Fe had taught her to be prepared to run in an instant. She’d been lucky that Romero had cash on him and a car. This time she had her own money—and a plan.
Devon knew her plan was fraught with risks. She needed to get to Miami, see her sister and return to Honolulu before Warren realized she’d left the city. She figured he wouldn’t call her too often, if he thought she was with Chad. If he did, Warren wouldn’t have any way of knowing where she was. Should she sound a little far away, he would assume the cell connection to Kauai wasn’t so good. The outer islands didn’t have as many cell towers and reception in some areas was iffy.
If Warren discovered she’d left the island for any reason—especially to return to a “danger zone”—a place where a WITSEC protectee had family or friends, it would be a “security violation.” She would be immediately expelled from the program.
&nb
sp; She would be on her own.
Devon had to take the chance. Nothing on earth would be worth letting her sister die without telling Tina that she was the best sister in the whole world. And how much she loved her.
She glanced around the bus station to make sure no one was watching as she slipped the Sig Saur and her Devon Summers ID into the locker. She would have to get another gun in Miami—just in case. She didn’t think Rutherford and Ames were after her, but she had to be careful.
Once her things were safely inside the locker, she closed the door and inserted a week’s worth of quarters. That was as much as the machine would take. She needed to return within the week or the locker attendant would open the locker and remove her things.
It was Thursday afternoon. She wouldn’t be in Miami until tomorrow. If all went according to plan, she would return on Sunday. She would have seen her sister, and WITSEC wouldn’t know she’d left.
In the station’s rest room, she changed into navy-blue board shorts and a baby-blue T-shirt that exposed her midriff. She loaded her two cell phones and new ID into a straw bag. She tucked her long hair up into the cap of a wig with short brown curls that appeared to have been styled with an egg beater.
Her reflection in the cracked mirror pleased her. “A tourist returning from a week in paradise.”
She took the clothes she’d been wearing and put them in the locker with the other things. Checking her watch, she saw she had time to get to the travel agency to pay in cash for the ticket she’d booked over the telephone. She could pick up a few last minute items and make the necessary calls.
Lying had become second nature to her, but calling Chad now with yet another fabricated story bothered Devon. Could she do it without sounding so flustered Chad would know she was lying? She decided to put it off until she’d picked up the ticket and things.
And she needed to say goodbye to Zach—in case she didn’t make it back.
CHAD PARKED THE PORSCHE on the street behind Devon’s apartment. He got out of the car and walked around to the back of the building. Devon’s parking place wasn’t occupied. He tried her cell phone again. Voice mail picked up, but he didn’t bother leaving a message.
Had she gone to meet someone? Who?
He’d always enjoyed a good mystery, but not now. Not when he was so crazy about a woman. He thought about the moon shining down on the pillow, her hair fanned out across his pillow, the light filtering through the palms into his bedroom. The dewy look of her skin after they’d made love.
Devon had taken advantage of his feelings, pretending to care for him. It was all an act. She wanted something, either from him or…who knew? But her elaborate attempt to hide the truth indicated this was serious…maybe criminal.
You’re about to commit a crime, he warned himself. Sure, he’d killed men, stolen military equipment and God-only-knows-what during the Gulf War when he’d been with Delta Force behind enemy lines.
This was different. He would have a helluva hard time explaining breaking into Devon Summers’s apartment. He could end up in jail, his SAP/SARS security clearance revoked, his family publicly humiliated. It could even mean time in prison.
He’d weighed all these factors on his way out to the house to get his Special Ops bag. It contained a lot of special military equipment. Most of it was legal, but impossible to obtain. He’d gotten it through connections after he’d left the service and had gone to work testing for DARPA.
One item—the device he was going to use now—was illegal. A Lockaide was supposed to be available only to law enforcement for use in special drug bust cases where it was necessary to gain entrance to a building quickly without alerting the tenants.
He obtained it through military connections, thinking he might need it in his underwater forensic work. Often boats or cars submerged underwater had trunks or compartments with locks that needed to be opened quickly. He’d used it several times while working for the HPD.
He walked into the courtyard, shaded from the street by a scarlet bougainvillea, and glanced around. Hiphop music drifted out from the apartment across from Devon’s. Everyone else seemed to be at work.
He knocked at her door and waited. Knocked again. He pulled the gunlike Lockaide out of his trouser pocket. The muzzle was a long pick. He inserted it into the lock and squeezed. With a clink, the lock released.
Chad stepped inside and pocketed the Lockaide. He looked around, taking a mental inventory of the room. There was a poster of Diamond Head on one wall and several small inexpensive prints on the other. A vase with a hibiscus—the state’s flower—was on the coffee table.
No personal photographs anywhere. She’d spoken fondly of a sister and a niece, but there weren’t any photos of them. Or anyone.
Actually there was nothing personal here unless he counted a bowl with Zach’s name on it. That was the place to start. Look for memorabilia. It told a lot about a person.
He rifled through the credenza. Underwear, T-shirts and shorts. No photos or trophies or commemorative plaques or newspaper clippings. He didn’t find any personal letters or greeting cards, either.
The kitchen held almost nothing except food and dishes. One drawer had a rent receipt along with a few coupons for cleaners and a pet groomer called Pawsitively Perfect.
The bathroom had towels and toiletries. Devon had far fewer cosmetics than his sisters, but money was tight, and Devon didn’t wear much makeup.
That left the closet. Just clothes. He took the time to search pockets for notes or business cards. One had a cleaning receipt. There were a few purses and a hat. None of them revealed anything about the mysterious Devon Summers.
In the corner were the boxes she’d unloaded from the van that night. Some had been filled with the clothes he’d seen when he’d first visited. He expected to find more clothes. He opened the first box and discovered books and computer disks. The other boxes had even more books and more disks.
The disks had labels on them with small neat handwriting. He sorted through them but couldn’t tell what they were without putting them into his computer.
He turned to the books. They were on statistics and accounting. Some of them looked like very advanced accounting—way beyond anything Chad could do. No wonder Devon whipped through Eddie’s files and completed a sophisticated analysis of his business in one day.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered under his breath.
Devon might have been working as a wedding planner, but she had an impressive financial background. Why would she hide it? Didn’t make sense. Hell, nothing about this woman made sense.
He decided to check the flyleaf of every book. People often wrote their names or put bookplates there. He opened each one. Nothing.
He went back through them and shook each one in case a bookmark or business card or something had been stuck in one. The third book had a small slip of paper from what must have been an office pad.
From the desk of Samantha Robbins
Who in hell was Samantha Robbins? A friend? A colleague? Could it be Devon’s real name?
He stared at it and tried to decide how old the paper was. It seemed new, but then it had been sandwiched between the pages of a book and hadn’t oxidized. This apartment had yielded far fewer clues than he’d expected.
He’d known he was going to have to confront Devon and hear what she had to say, but he’d wanted to have some ammo in case she lied again. Now he’d lowered his personal standards and had broken the law. For nothing.
The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out, heading for the door. “Yes?” he said, his voice low.
“It’s me, Shelby.”
“What’s happening?” He peeked outside and saw the coast was clear. He slipped out of Samantha’s apartment. “Did Devon call?”
“Well, no. Not exactly.” The airhead was whispering. “Devon’s here. She’s taken Zach, like, outside to do his business. I wasn’t sure if I should call.”
Swear to God, Shelby couldn’t tell chicken salad
from chicken shit. “You did the right thing. Go out there and stall her. I’m on my way.” Chad clicked the end button and sprinted toward his car.
He was halfway back to his office when his cell phone rang again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t, like, stop Devon. She’s left.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Sorta.”
“Where?”
“She said to tell Eddie her friend is sick. She’ll be back when we open next week.”
Chad thought about her apartment. It didn’t seem as if she’d packed. But he could be wrong. So far everything he’d thought about this woman had been wrong.
“Devon said you and Rory would take care of Zach.”
“Sure. Did she say or do anything else? Anything at all?”
“Well…I went to talk to her the way you said. She, like, had tears in her eyes. I heard her telling Zach that she’d never forget him.”
Shit.
She wasn’t coming back. She’d had tears in her eyes because she was saying goodbye to the dog she was crazy about.
“How long ago did she leave?”
“Aaaah….I’m not sure exactly. I had to take a call.”
“More than five minutes?”
“I—I guess.”
He phoned Ane. “Any calls?”
There was a long pause that he didn’t like. “A message on your voice mail.”
“Thanks. Would you transfer me to voice mail?”
A second later Devon’s voice came on the line. “Hi, it’s me, sweetie. Something’s come up. Remember my friend who had to leave Chicago because Nate’s men beat her up? Well, I found out she’s sick. I need to go see her. I should be back Sunday…probably late.” She sighed softly, the way she often did. “I love you.”
The line went dead and Chad nearly threw the cell phone out the window. She’d never told him she loved him. What crap! Why say it now when she knew she wasn’t coming back?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BROCK STOOD in the Grand Ballroom of the Adam’s Mark Hotel in St. Louis, where the reception for the auto show was being held. He nodded to a few of the Gull Wing owners he knew from previous car shows. Normally he would have shot the bull with them, but not tonight.