by Sylvie Kurtz
“Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been a great help.” He turned to Kingsley. “Are we set?”
“Give me a test buzz.” While he dialed Kiki’s number on his cell phone, he explained to her how the machine worked. Five minutes later, they were out the door and back in the SUV.
“What was that all about?” she asked as Sebastian roared down the quiet residential road. A headache took up residence at her temple and seemed determined to hammer itself a home.
“Crooked cop.” He ground out the words as if they weren’t worth their weight in spit. “No wonder Sutton wanted this boxed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The investigation officially belonged to the FBI. If they found out the dead marshal was dirty, they’d make sure the news hit the media. That would not make Sutton’s day. The Service has a hard enough time getting the respect it deserves without having a dirty marshal paraded all over the media. Case closed. No exposure.”
“How do you know he’s dirty?”
“I don’t. Yet.”
“We found Greco’s name in Weld’s computer,” Kingsley said. “I copied his hard drive. I should have more information soon.”
Could be nothing. Could be everything. “So what do we do now?”
Sebastian merged onto the highway. “We don’t do anything.”
“You’re not going to follow through?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She was smart enough to realize he was planning to leave her behind as he tracked the next piece of evidence. And she was also smart enough not to mention that she wasn’t planning on playing the meek and mild wife and obeying him blindly. She concentrated on the snowy scenery that seemed to turn Route 101 into a postcard, and tried not to dwell on the strange tremor in her right hand.
When they reached the Aerie, Sebastian caught Kingsley’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Find me everything you can on Greco. And get me the paperwork I need to make this legal.”
“Make what legal?” Liv asked, caught in the crosscurrent of his and Kingsley’s common ground. Kingsley gathered his equipment and hurried inside without answering.
The engine revved under Sebastian’s impatient foot. “Why don’t you go in? I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Her headache pounded in answer, and she massaged one temple. “I don’t think so.”
He was looking for an excuse to cut her loose—just as he’d done with Olivia.
“Liv—”
“You don’t scare me.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I should.”
“You don’t have to become one of them to do your job.”
His gaze found hers and held it, showing her all the hard edges his work had sculpted. “How else am I going to find them?”
Deep in the dark of his eyes, she spied the flicker of vulnerability, a scrap of fear so raw she wanted to reach for him, hold him and tell him everything would be all right. “You can’t catch them all.”
His gaze snapped back to the windshield. “I have to try.”
Loss hummed between them.
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
Though she yearned to touch him, the new bond they’d started to forge last night was too fragile. She didn’t want to risk breaking it. Hands folded primly in her lap, she looked ahead as if the car were already moving. She could not let him shut her out. She’d already given up too many parts of herself. “So where are we going?”
Sebastian growled out a curse, but threw the transmission in gear. “A small town with the appropriate name of Hemlock, Massachusetts.”
NESTLED IN A RING of evergreens, Greco’s home outside the small town of Hemlock had Sebastian whistling in appreciation. The brown contemporary sat on 2.5 acres—far enough from town to shield Greco from curious onlookers, but close enough to get a six-pack of beer at the convenience store should he run low. A curving lane offered privacy and protection. Peeking through the garage window, Sebastian saw a screaming red ’vette and space for the Blazer Greco had died in. A snow thrower and a ride-on lawn mower shared another bay with a speedboat tarped for winter, a couple of Wave Runners, a couple of dirt bikes and a couple of snowmobiles.
“Lots of expensive toys,” Liv said beside him.
“Even for a bachelor with no dependents, these add up to more than he can afford on a marshal’s salary.” Just like all the scum he chased, Greco must have thought himself invincible. He’d died intestate, making his list of assets a public record.
“Maybe he was independently wealthy.”
“Not according to his file. His father drives a truck. His mother works on a factory assembly line.” The parents stood to inherit their son’s assets, but the court had placed an interesting notation on Greco’s probate paperwork. An Alan Verani claimed that he should inherit Greco’s goods because of an oral contract they had. Sebastian headed toward the house.
Liv caught up to him. “Maybe the roommate is wealthy.”
“According to Kingsley, Mr. Verani is currently unemployed and his bank account doesn’t have enough to keep a dog in kibbles.”
As they reached the ornate front door, she looked at him and smiled. “Should I play the bad cop this time?”
He couldn’t help it; he laughed. “You couldn’t play a bad cop if you tried.”
“Is that a dare?”
He gave her a quick kiss. “No, it’s the truth. Let’s see if Mr. Verani is home.”
Knowing the world at its worst hurt. Having Liv share this evil with him hurt even more. He’d done everything he could to make her world as safe and as beautiful as he could by keeping work and home completely apart. Out in the field, he wanted results and took plenty of legal latitude when he tracked his targets. Because he’d always put the Service ahead of himself, he’d never had to worry about the consequences of breaking the law to catch a fugitive.
He’d done a lot of good. More than most people dreamed of.
Now, having violated both the Service’s unspoken code and his own, he would have to bear whatever fallout came of this alone. He was doing what he had to do. But if Liv got hurt because of him, he’d never forgive himself. Having her grow a stubborn streak was not making the situation any easier for him.
“You’re to stay behind me. Is that understood?”
Placing both hands together, she gave a small bow. “Yes, Sebastian-san, two steps behind.”
“This isn’t a joking matter, Liv. I don’t want you hurt.” He crushed the doorbell with his thumb. Inside the chimes jingled a melody. Low barks exploded somewhere at the back of the house and grew closer.
“I’m not planning on letting myself get hurt.”
“You don’t have any experience with this type of people. They go by their own laws.” His knowledge had come at a price—one he didn’t want her to pay.
“You’re right. I have no experience. It’s all been wiped from my memory. I need to understand why.”
She was like this because of him. He owed her answers. He just wished she’d let him find them on his own. “Stay behind me.”
The barks vibrated against the stained-glass panel on the front door. Nails scratched at the wood. A bass voice yelled at the dog to shut up.
The door opened a crack. Dog slobber splotched the toe of Sebastian’s boot. Five feet higher, a dark eye glared at him. “What do you want?”
“A look inside Sean Greco’s home.” He held up the warrant on which he’d forged a judge’s signature. Kingsley was at work getting him the real thing, but right now, time was of the essence. If the bluff worked, it would buy them a couple of hours.
The dark eye narrowed. “Sean’s dead.” Verani then told Sebastian exactly what he could do with his request and tried to slam shut the door.
Sebastian’s steel-toed boot held it open. “We can do this my way or the hard way. Either way, I get to take a peek inside. Want me to call in the local cops?”
The dark eye became a slit oozing with disdain. “The
re’s no reason why he should’ve been tortured like that. No reason why you should torture me now.”
“I’m trying to find out why he was killed. I’m going to make sure whoever did this to him pays for it.”
The door jerked open. With a vicious growl, the bulldog sank its teeth into Sebastian’s pant leg, tearing holes in the wool blend. Sebastian ignored the beast and walked in as if a fifty-five pound, brown and buff, muscle-bound miniature weight lifter didn’t impair him.
With Verani—who was a human version of the dog—on one side, Liv on the other and the dog still attached to his leg, Sebastian made his way through the house. With its vaulted ceiling, fully equipped kitchen, top-of-the-line game room, fireplace in the master suite and sunken, oversized whirlpool tub in the bath, this was definitely a show-place. Someone had dropped big bucks to decorate the place, turning it into a designer’s idea of what macho should look like. Interesting, too, was the fact that, of all the nine rooms in the house, only one was a bedroom. How close were Greco and Verani?
He walked into a room decorated with hunter-green plaid wallpaper and burgundy hunting prints. “Is this Sean’s office?”
“It was.” The short, squat man got a little teary. Sebastian silently swore.
“How close were you and Sean?”
The round black eyes gleamed with tears. “As close as brothers. I loved him.”
No wonder Sutton was passing bricks. Not only did he have two dead marshals to worry about, he had to deal with the fact that one of the dead agents was possibly dirty and gay. The Feebs would love nothing better than to tag the Service with something like this. Blowback of the worst kind.
The dog lost his taste for wool and went to sniff Olivia’s shoes. When she scratched him behind the ears, he turned into a pathetic mooch, begging for more.
Sebastian looked over the desk, the drawers and the open agenda book. He saw nothing out of the ordinary—calculator, pens, rubber bands, a pad of Post-it notes, a handful of matchbooks. He flipped through the files in the wood cabinet—bills, mortgage papers, bank statements, investment statements, insurance records. Then he opened the closet door. “Bingo!”
Crammed into the space were boxes of folders, tape, pencils, paper clips, ink cartridges, reams of paper—enough stuff to last Greco a lifetime. And all the boxes were labeled “USMS.”
“Just like Kiki’s apartment,” Liv said, still petting the dog.
“Yeah.” Sebastian turned to Verani. “Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Verani?”
“What for?” Verani’s tone of voice had the bulldog scrabbling away from Liv and setting his sights on Sebastian. The dog seemed to choke on his own tongue as he tried for a cross between a growl and a bark.
“We need to have a little talk.” Sebastian patted the wing chair, but Verani ignored him.
“I don’t have to say anything to you.” Verani started to leave. Sebastian blocked his way. “We can do it here or I can haul you in for obstructing justice.”
Bared teeth aimed at Sebastian’s leg, the bulldog snarled. So did Verani. “Then haul.”
Sebastian had to keep the whole situation cool and calm. The last thing he wanted was to have the incident turn. Watching Liv out of the corner of his eye, he speared Verani with his most cutting glare and reached for hand-cuffs. The bulldog snagged the pants and tugged, growling all the while.
“We’re on your side,” Liv, ever the good cop, said. “We’re trying to find out who murdered your friend.”
Verani studied her, then shifted his gaze to the nails of one of his hands. “Right.”
“How did you meet Greco?” Following Liv’s lead and ignoring the dog shredding his pants, Sebastian adopted a more relaxed pose.
Verani crossed his arms, beefing up his torso to appear bigger than he was. “At a club where we both go.” Make something of it, his attitude said. The dog’s growl seconded the scorn.
Sebastian didn’t care which way Greco bent. What he wanted to understand was why a good cop had turned bad.
“Tell me about it.” Liv sat on the desk’s corner. When Verani saw no judgment on her face, he opened like a spigot. The story of love and betrayal seemed to tranquilize the dog. He let go of Sebastian’s pant leg, plopped on top of his boots and snored.
“It’s your own kind that turned him,” Verani said, spearing Sebastian with a narrowed gaze. “If you hadn’t made life so difficult for him, then he wouldn’t have had to get his payback.”
During a raid, one of the fugitives had recognized Greco from the club and fingered him as gay. From that time on, being part of any USMS operation had turned to hell on earth for Greco. As if his choice of lifestyle was a threat to their masculinity. Anger led to skimming part of the take on a bust involving drugs. During one of his investigations, Greco had come in contact with Weld, a petty thief into fencing. Stealing from the USMS, Greco had discovered, was easy. And he’d soothed his wounds—real and imagined—in the balm of the luxuries the goods he stole from them bought him.
“Let’s go,” Sebastian said.
“Where?”
“If you’re telling the truth, then you have nothing to worry about.”
Sebastian took Verani to a private polygraph analyst and paid cash for the test. It wasn’t that polys were reliable, but Sutton would want some corroboration of Verani’s story. Doing the poly back channel gave Sutton the option of burying it.
Verani passed the test with flying colors.
Somehow all this—Olivia’s accident, Kershaw’s escape, Greco and Carmichael’s murders, Greco’s greed and anger—all fit together. But Sebastian still wasn’t sure how. There were too many blanks between the chunks of evidence.
Sebastian dropped Verani back home. He had barely gotten on the highway to head to the Aerie when he noticed that Liv had fallen asleep. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her. Paula would cut him to pieces for tiring her out. But he’d seen the thrill glow in Liv’s eyes. He’d felt the adrenaline flow through her blood as they uncovered evidence. She’d tasted a bit of his life. Even swimming in this cesspool hadn’t seemed to detract her. He hadn’t expected such strength in her.
And he could not deny her this discovery of her strength, even if he knew it meant she would outgrow her need for him. He’d already taken too much from her.
They were crossing into New Hampshire when the first hit came in on the trap-and-trace.
Chapter Thirteen
The first time Nelson Weld called home, he used his cell phone. All Kingsley could tell Sebastian was that Weld was west of the Mississippi. Sebastian had the number disconnected.
The next evening, Weld called from a pay phone and reversed the charges. Kingsley located him at a bar in Denver.
Denver—Grand Central Station for fugitives. From there, he could head to the northwest, California, Canada or Mexico. All options were open—depending on which way the wind blew and how skittish he got.
“We’ve got a visual on him,” Skyralov said after Sebastian had passed on the information. Music drummed a pagan beat in the background. “He’s crying in his beer at the bar. Want us to have a little talk with him?”
“Better coordinate with the local office.” Sebastian didn’t want to jeopardize Reed and Skyralov’s careers just because his own gut couldn’t digest the meal of sugared lies placed in front of him. “And the Feebs.”
“I could have him singing in no time.”
Sebastian had no doubt Skyralov could deliver on that promise, but he didn’t want to burn all his bridges with Sutton. When all this was over, Sebastian still needed his job. So did Skyralov. “Let’s go by the book on this one.”
THE USUALLY GRACEFUL and confident Liv seemed to turn into a klutz overnight. She’d dropped both her glass of orange juice and her teacup at breakfast. Her hand had missed her fork several times. Her right foot seemed to catch on shadows, and she’d tripped down the stairs as they’d gone to the office. If Sebastian hadn’t caught her, he hated to think how she migh
t have hurt herself. And her memory seemed to grow fuzzier by the hour. How often had he caught her rubbing an invisible ache at her temple since they’d woken up? Had he allowed her to do too much? Was his weakness in giving in to her responsible for her worsening condition? While Cari had Liv distracted upstairs, Sebastian called Dr. Iverson, her neurologist.
“Slow, jerky or uncontrolled movements are normal for the type of injury your wife sustained,” Dr. Iverson said.
Sebastian frowned. “But she seems to have no muscle strength on the right side.”
“The hemiparesis should improve with time.”
Sebastian picked up the pen on the desk and doodled question marks across the blotter. “She seems to be getting headaches more frequently, too.”
“It’s only been ten days since her accident. You can’t expect her brain injury to heal completely in such a short time. She may look normal, but her brain took quite a beating.”
In those ten days—was it only ten days? It felt like a lifetime since her car had run off the road—she’d become a whole different person. Strong. Independent. Courageous. She was handling adversity like a winner. In the process, he’d forgotten how truly fragile her situation was. He’d gotten used to the changes in her. To the soft steel of her strength. Liked it, even. And he hated himself for wanting Olivia to retain Liv’s boldness. He flicked the pen away. “She was doing so well.”
“Is she still taking her medication?”
“Every day.”
“If you’re worried,” Dr. Iverson said grudgingly, “I can take a look at her.”
Sebastian heaved a sigh of relief. “Yes, I’d like that.”
“Bring her in tomorrow and we’ll run some tests.” Sebastian heard the flip of pages. “I have a cancellation at 10:15.”
“We’ll be there.”
BALANCING THE COMPUTER on his knees in a fast food can, the stench of a urinal cake assaulting his nose, he pounded the keys, looking for Okie. He didn’t like being played. Didn’t Okie think he’d find out? All this for nothing? No, he refused to accept the game ended here.