by Donna Hill
Claudia pressed her lips together and nodded. “Well, come on. You don’t want to keep Jean waiting.”
“Will I see you before I go?”
“I’ll be down in the front room working on some reports.”
“Okay. And, Claudia, don’t worry about Savannah. Promise?”
“Promise,” she said, not at all convincingly.
Danielle tapped on Jean’s door.
“Come in, Danielle.”
This lady really gave her the willies. She came in and closed the door behind her.
“Please have a seat. We have a lot to go over, and I want you to be clear about everything before you leave.”
“This is the envelope that was given to Savannah. As you can see, it still has the seal on it. The reason being that once the envelope is opened, the information dissolves within the hour.”
Danielle wanted to laugh. It sounded like something Mr. Phelps would say to one of his Mission: Impossible agents. But she was sure that Jean wouldn’t appreciate the humor.
“I’m not sure how much Savannah may or may not have told you, but the assignment is to infiltrate an elite identity theft ring. They have amassed a fortune by taking over the lives of unsuspecting people. They’ve gained property, bank accounts, credit cards. We know that their base is in New York, but we need them to lead us to the ringleaders.” She paused, folded her hands and looked Danielle hard in the eyes. “There’s one catch. This assignment is twofold, the government’s half and ours.”
“Ours?”
“Several of the victims have come to me personally. They…can’t go to the authorities. They can’t afford to have their backgrounds investigated should this hit the news. Am I clear?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good.” She slid the envelope across the table. “The list is inside, with all of the information you need to get started.” She went into her desk drawer and pulled out a shiny new PDA. It looked simple enough, but Danielle knew that it would be her lifeline. Jean passed the PDA to Danielle. “The Cartel is at your disposal. I’ll expect regular updates. Be sure to review the CD that came with your kit.”
“I did, but I will again,” she said.
“Any questions?”
“I thought TLC worked within the law. Why are you working with people who don’t want to prosecute?”
Jean lifted her chin. “Sometimes in this business we have to do things…that are not sanctioned. And sometimes we do things for friends.” She held Danielle’s gaze. “If you have any reservations, now is the time to tell me.”
Danielle looked at the envelope and the PDA, then at Jean. She thought about Nick.
“I can do this,” she said finally.
“Good.” Jean stood up. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.” She got up, took the envelope and PDA and put them in her oversize purse, then turned and walked out.
When she got down to the first floor, Claudia was in the sitting room, going over a stack of papers. She looked up when Danielle crossed the doorway.
“All done?”
“Yep.” She joined Claudia on the antique lounge chair. Now that she’d officially gotten the assignment, she felt she could broach the question that had been plaguing her. “Claudia, I have to ask you…I mean, I know that Bernard goes to the spa across the street. He’s somehow teamed up with Nick. How do you keep him from finding out about this place?”
Claudia’s glance darted away for an instant. “Bernard is very understanding. And I keep up with his schedule and plan my activities accordingly.”
Danielle absorbed the information. “I guess it will be a bit easier now,” Danielle said, “but when I was leaving here the other night, I ran right into Nick, and I’d seen Bernard earlier. I was a nervous wreck.”
“I know, Savannah told me. You’ll simply have to be careful, Dani. They must never know.”
Danielle nodded. “Well, thanks for the advice. I need to get going. Nick will be wondering what happened to me.”
“You take care, sweetheart,” Claudia said, walking Danielle to the door. “And you know if you need anything, I’m here to help in any way that I can.”
“Thanks.” She gave a shaky smile. “I’m going to need it.”
Danielle headed back home, eager to review the contents of the envelope. Identity theft, she thought. Of all the assignments to get, she landed the one thing she’d been battling with her entire life—identity.
Although hers hadn’t been “stolen,” she’d always battled with who she was. But even more pressing in her mind was who the people were who couldn’t go to the police.
Curiosity was gnawing at her, but she knew that she had a short window to review the material before the ink dissolved. She couldn’t risk pulling over and tearing the envelope open before she was someplace private and quiet.
Then she thought about the library on 136th Street. She could have all the privacy and quiet she needed. She made the turn and drove toward Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 136th Street.
She parked in the lot across the street and hopped out. Once inside, she found one of the computer tables that also had Internet access. Her privacy was afforded by the two short partitions on either side of the desk where she sat.
Her fingers shook as she took the envelope from her bag. She looked around, took a deep breath and lifted the seal. Slowly she pulled the pages out of the envelope.
For the next hour she went over the material. Each of the eight pages highlighted the victims, providing details of all their personal information and the degree to which they’d been violated. The names weren’t familiar, but the level to which they’d been taken advantage of was mind-boggling.
Their computers had been hacked and all of their personal information accessed: passwords, banking information and credit-card numbers. In two of the cases, victims reported that though they’d never been to the Caribbean or to Europe, there were massive charges to their credit cards to prove they’d traveled there, along with airline manifest lists showing that they’d been on flights they’d never taken. Which meant that not only their finances were accessed, but also who they were. Somewhere, these people were actually posing as the victims, complete with driver’s licenses, birth certificates and passports.
Danielle keyed all the victims’ names into her PDA, along with contact information, then saved it with a pass code, as she’d been instructed. Although all the information in her PDA was encrypted, it didn’t hurt to take that one extra step, Jasmine had advised during her training.
The most disturbing were the victims who refused to go to the authorities. And when it registered who they were, Danielle immediately knew why.
One was Doris and Richard Matlock. He was the CEO of Empress Oil, one of the largest distributors of oil in the United States, with connections in the Middle East.
The other was Leslie Davenport, head of the Davenport Foundation, which was responsible for overseeing more than fifty charity and nonprofit organizations in New York.
Danielle leaned back in the chair, stunned. This was major. When she’d read stories about identity theft, she’d never comprehended the magnitude of how it could devastate people’s lives. It was disturbing that people wanted to hide the fact that they’d been duped.
She put those pages aside and began to go over the information that had been gathered to date. It was clear that the central headquarters was headed by someone inside New York City and that there were several levels of people involved—from the top man or woman to the actual thieves themselves. It was also clear that at some point the victims must have come in contact with the thieves either in their daily lives or through business.
There was a short list of possible places to start. Whoever was behind this was highly skilled technologically and could move in and out of elite circles without being questioned. What struck her as most chilling was that these people, whoever they were, actually masqueraded as the victims in public places and were able to get away with it.
&n
bsp; She made some additional notes in her PDA, then continued to read the backup information.
There was a paragraph about a man who’d been on the watch list for about six months, but they could never tie him to anything. They believed he was high up in the chain of command and were certain that the name he was using was false. Bernard Hassell.
Danielle stopped breathing. She blinked several times, rubbed her eyes and read the name again. It had to be wrong, she thought, as her head began to pound. “There must be a million Bernard Hassells,” she sputtered nervously.
She read on and the information gave her a link to a photograph. With shaky fingers she picked up her PDA and after several attempts was able to finally key in the link information. Her heart pounded and her stomach rose and fell as she waited for the image to appear. She was sure that there was some kind of mistake and her own vivid imagination was simply in overdrive. To think that the Bernard she knew and the one in this file were the same person was ridiculous.
The image began to unfold on the sixteen-inch-wide screen.
Danielle’s loud gasp turned several curious heads in her direction. The last thing she needed was to draw attention to herself. She focused on the images and information on the screen.
She covered her mouth in shocked disbelief. Bernard Hassell, Claudia’s fiancé, Savannah’s potential stepfather and now Nick’s new buddy, stared back at her.
Chapter 10
Danielle sat there unable to move. She sat there for so long—staring at the image and trying to slow down her racing thoughts—that when she pulled herself together, she noticed that the ink on the pages was beginning to lighten. The first page was already blank.
She didn’t even care. She felt ill. What was she going to do? How in good conscience could she not tell Claudia? Or Savannah or Nick?
But what if the information was wrong? she reasoned. That was possible. Maybe it only appeared that Bernard was someone involved. Innocent people are implicated in things all the time.
Her gut told her something else entirely. And that was that Jean Armstrong didn’t make mistakes—not a mistake like this one—which meant that she already knew about Claudia and Bernard…like she knew about everything.
What really made her stomach turn was the fact that Jean had planned to give this assignment to Savannah. How was she supposed to handle this information when it related to her own mother?
My God, Jean, what kind of bitch are you?
Anger flushed through her system. Now they were messing with her friends, her surrogate family. That made it all very personal.
She snatched up the now blank pages, stuffed them into her bag, turned off her PDA and dropped it inside as well. All she could see was red, and she knew she needed to get to her car and calm down so that she could think and work out a plan.
The trouble was, as much as Jean told her that the Cartel resources were available to her and she could always use one of the members for assistance, that, too, was a bunch of crap. How? How could she possibly bring in any of the members on something so sensitive? She’d never want any of them to know that Claudia was involved with someone who was being investigated in a major series of crimes.
After sliding into the driver’s seat, she slammed her fist against the steering wheel, but she was so angry she barely registered the shock of pain that jetted up her arm.
Danielle lowered her head onto the wheel and took in long, deep breaths. She had to be clearheaded. She couldn’t overreact and allow her feelings to make mistakes for her.
She looked up. First things first—go home to her man. Then she’d take one step at a time.
When she got back to her apartment, Nick was on his way out.
“Hey, babe. I’m heading out for a few.” He slung his knapsack over his right shoulder. He turned and actually focused on her. His brow wrinkled. “You okay? You look like you ate something bad.” He walked over to her.
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “I was hoping we could spend the afternoon together,” she said, feeling the need to be with and hold on to something real.
“Wow. I figured you’d be gone for a while. I decided to get a jump on the JCPenney project. I’m going with Mark to scout out some locations.” He cupped her chin. “I promise, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He leaned down and kissed her, giving her just a little bit of tongue.
Danielle suddenly clung to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck and inhaled his scent.
“I swear, I won’t be more than two hours,” he said lightly. He leaned back, looked down at her and lifted her chin with the tip of his finger. His eyes ran back and forth across her face. “Then I’m all yours, okay?”
She nodded, not daring to speak over the knot in her throat.
“Be back before you know it.” He pecked her lips one last time, then headed out.
Danielle released a long, heavy sigh and aimlessly wandered through the apartment, trying to line up her thoughts. She finally plopped down on the living-room couch, her long legs splayed out in front of her. She folded her arms across her stomach and stared across the room at a piece of art by Budson, an Atlanta-based artist, that hung on the far wall.
It was the photograph of a man and woman intertwined on what looked like a couch. But their bodies were so intricately coupled that it was hard to determine where one began and the other ended.
How appropriate that she would have a picture where the identities in the portrait were marred by illusion.
There’d been moments on the drive home that she’d begun to believe she was the wrong person for this assignment. But in examining the portrait and her life, she thought, who better than she to uncover those who pretend to be something they aren’t?
Hadn’t she been pretending all her life, allowing her looks—her silky hair and exotic features—to gain her access to people and places she wouldn’t have otherwise had access to? It was so much easier in life to go through the open doors rather than having to knock them down. She’d never had to stand up for a cause in her life. She didn’t have to. Those ugly things in the world didn’t apply to her. She was above it all, moving through life in that privileged circle of acceptance. She’d gotten so good at it that she’d forgotten she wasn’t really one of the chosen ones. That was until she looked at a family portrait, the picture of her father, dark as a moonless night and her mother light as a brand-new day, with ink-colored hair that met the rise of her behind.
For years the stares from strangers made her secretly ashamed of her father’s blackness, his coarse hair, wide nose and thick lips. And she hated the taunts her classmates tossed at her about her father’s strong ethnic features.
Every guy she’d dated since high school had been white or Hispanic or a light-skinned black with “good hair.” All practices and beliefs that had been unconsciously ingrained in her from her grandmother—things she’d been unable to shake all these years.
That was the ugliness that stalked her thoughts and emotions day in and day out. She rested her head back against the cushion of the couch and closed her eyes. It was the shadow that hovered around her heart when it came to Nick and her feelings for him.
Was she with him because he fit the image she’d imposed on herself years ago, or did she really care for him? Or worse, did she care for him only because of his appearance and not for who he was?
She hadn’t seen her parents in years, and she felt the always present ache in her heart. Only her closest friends—Mia and Savannah—even knew who her parents were.
In college, the girls had always teased her about her choice in men, dating only the white or pretty boys. But to this day, neither Mia nor Savannah knew the terror that lurked in her heart about one day settling down and having a child that looked like her dad. A child who would grow up in a world that valued looks over substance. A child who would be teased by classmates and would begin to devalue themselves, and the vicious cycle would continue.
She’d
never forget the time she was walking into the apartment building where they lived when she was about twelve. The downstairs neighbors were in the hallway talking when she came in from school.
“Hi, Mrs. Walker, Ms. Daisy.”
“Hi. Looking beautiful as always,” Mrs. Walker said.
“Had a good day at school?” Ms. Daisy asked.
“Yep.” She started up the steps and was on the next landing putting her key in the door to her apartment when their voices floated up to her.
“Her father is going to have some time keeping the boys away when she gets to dating age,” Danielle heard Mrs. Walker say.
“All he has to do is show that ugly black face and scare them away!”
They laughed as if that was the best joke.
“I swear that child’s mama must have been drunk when she laid down with that man.”
“Chile is lucky she looks like her mama…”
And she had been “lucky” that she looked like her mother. It had given her a free pass in life. She never had to do much more than smile. Even her business was an outgrowth of all the self-hatred that she had about herself and who she was. What did she choose for a career? Photographing beautiful people and beautiful clothes, creating images that no one could ever live up to.
Knowing that about herself made her sick. She might be able to deceive others but never herself. The truth was evident each time she looked in the mirror. She was a fake. Just like the people she had to go after. She had to do this. She had to, not only for the victims but for herself.
Danielle sniffed hard and realized she was crying. She swiped away at the tears with the back of her hand just as the phone rang, and went to the kitchen to get it. She cleared her throat.
“Hello.”
“You could sound more enthused to hear from me!”
Danielle’s sour mood quickly elevated.
“Mia! Girl, how are you? Are you home?”
“On my way. I just landed at JFK. We’re pulling up to the gate.”