by Debra Webb
She should just let him take it from here.
“I think we have a tail.”
She craned her neck to check out the vehicle coming upon their car’s rear bumper entirely too fast.
“I think you’re—”
Her words stalled as she recognized the other driver’s intent. “He’s going to—”
The car rammed into their rear bumper.
Chapter Eight
Chicago, 10:00 a.m.
“Please, sit down, Ian.” Victoria settled on her sofa, but her nerves were anything but. Ian had news or he wouldn’t have arrived at her home on a Sunday morning.
Ian lowered his tall frame onto the sofa. His dark eyes showed the weariness of the past week. With Lucas, her greatly missed husband, still out of pocket, Ian felt personally responsible for Victoria’s and Jamie’s safety. Ian had been with her at the Colby Agency the longest. Her son, Jim, and his wife, Tasha, trusted Ian implicitly. He would want Ian in charge of his daughter’s safety.
Jamie was in the den watching a movie with Merrilee Walters, the newest member of the Colby Agency staff. Jamie had taken to the young woman immediately. A former schoolteacher, Merri loved children. Jamie was fiercely intrigued by the fact that Merri was deaf. She didn’t precisely understand the lipreading concept quite yet, but she loved learning to sign.
“Simon is following up on the leads related to the Blackstone Firm,” Ian began.
The Blackstone Firm had traditionally been the Colby Agency’s strongest competition. Robert Blackstone had been a fine man who’d built a firm based on integrity. After his death, three years ago, his son had decided that fame and fortune would be the foundation of the firm. Integrity had gone out the proverbial window.
“I,” Ian continued, “have been attempting to track down J.T.”
The idea that J.T. was still missing concerned Victoria greatly. The longer the lack of communication continued, the higher the risk that his life was at stake. “Still no word from him?”
“I’m afraid not. However, there is a development.”
Victoria braced herself. Judging by Ian’s tone, the news was not good.
“While reviewing his personal files, hard copy as well as electronic, we’ve discovered a numbered account for a bank in Grand Cayman. There appears to be a very large sum of money in the account. The account is fairly new, with a rather large deposit made about two months ago. Since there is no known legitimate source for the income, not to mention the account itself raises a red flag, there is reason for concern.”
“How large?” Victoria was not prepared to judge J.T. on this evidence. She knew him too well. If an overseas account containing a large sum of money was connected to his name, it was either a mistake or a lifetime’s savings. Perhaps an insurance residual from his father’s death.
“Half a million.” J.T.’s family was wealthy by no means. To have amassed such a sum…it simply wasn’t possible. There had to be another explanation.
“What about insurance?” Victoria offered. “His father’s death may have provided a large insurance benefit.”
“That’s the first possibility I checked,” Ian explained. “The sum was minimal.”
Victoria squared her shoulders. “Any additional findings?” Ian was a brilliant investigator. There was no need for her to question his findings. He would not stop until he had the real story.
“None yet. There’s been no activity on any of J.T.’s credit cards or his ATM card. His cell phone has been turned off, so the attempt to track his whereabouts that way was futile. His vehicle remains untouched.”
Victoria prayed he was not dead. Having to pass along the news that he was missing had been hard enough on his mother. She’d lost her husband, J.T.’s father, only last year. Victoria knew all too well that emotional burden. She wasn’t sure his mother could survive losing J.T., too.
“Contact me the moment you learn anything new,” Victoria urged.
“Of course.” Ian stood. “Jane will replace Merrilee at seven.”
“Thank you, Ian.” Victoria rose and saw him to the door. “I’m certain your children are missing their father.” Ian had worked around the clock for the past several days. He would not rest until the threat to Victoria was neutralized. Yet, he and his wife, Nicole, had two lovely children, he was needed at home, too.
“Nicole has things under control,” he assured Victoria. He hesitated before leaving. “I’ll continue to rotate two investigators on exterior security duty in six-hour shifts. We’ll keep the interior security on twelve hours.”
Victoria nodded. It was easier on Jamie if the changing faces inside were limited to two within a twenty-four-hour period. Both Merrilee Walters and Jane Sutton were good with the child. Jane had grown up in a large family and loved playing games with Jamie.
Again, Ian hesitated.
“Is there something more?” Victoria had never known him to be less than blunt with whatever was on his mind. But he seemed reluctant to some degree today. The hesitation sent her anxiety to an even higher level.
“A name from Jim’s past has surfaced in this puzzling mix.”
A trickling of fear made Victoria’s pulse skip erratically. Whatever the name, it would not be good. Jim’s past was littered with unsavory characters. She searched Ian’s eyes for some measure of the gravity of this disclosure. “What name?”
“Bear in mind,” Ian said carefully, “that the connection we’ve discovered appears to be only in the vaguest of terms. But I could not ignore the marker. Particularly this one.”
“The name, Ian,” Victoria prompted. “What is the name?”
“Errol Leberman.”
Impossible. “Leberman is dead.” Victoria’s voice sounded empty…cold. Her chest felt the same. There had to be a mistake. The only other logical conclusion was that someone was using the name to get to Victoria.
It worked.
Leberman had been the archenemy of her first husband, James Colby. He had murdered her first husband and had abducted and brutalized their son in ways that still haunted her. The bastard had been twisted and pure evil.
“I’m certain,” Ian assured, “this is a ruse to confuse the investigation. But I cannot ignore the possibility that someone close to him has decided to take up the cause.”
“Do whatever you have to,” Victoria agreed, her head starting to spin.
“I would strongly recommend that you attempt to contact Lucas again. He should be made aware of this development.”
Leberman had tried to destroy everything Victoria loved. His goal had been to wipe out the Colby Agency and all that it stood for.
But he’d failed.
He was dead.
Victoria had insisted on confirming that fact with her own eyes.
But his evil deeds and that sinister name lived on, it appeared.
Chapter Nine
J.T. wrestled the car back under control.
“He’s coming again!”
As J.T. braced for a second assault, Eve dug into her bag for her Glock.
“If they wanted us dead,” J.T. warned, “we would likely already be that way.”
“You think?” Eve released her seat belt and turned to level an aim out the rear window.
He’d been analyzing the recent run-in. Whoever these guys were, they hadn’t worked too hard at terminating their targets. “Those shots the other night went pretty wide. Five guys shooting and no one gets a hit? Doesn’t sound like the kind of professionals I know.”
“What about the guy who ambushed you at your house?” Eve grabbed hold of the headrest to brace herself. “Here they come.”
The sedan rammed their rear bumper a second time, harder this time. The car jolted forward and careened dangerously on the curvy road.
J.T. wrangled back control and floored the accelerator.
“He whacked me on the head,” J.T. said in answer to her question. “He didn’t shoot me. He could’ve done far worse.”
“He damned sure wo
uld’ve shot me,” Eve argued.
“Maybe he needs me alive.”
“Whatever.” She wasn’t ready to agree. “Let’s just lose these guys, okay?”
“Let’s.” J.T. wasn’t familiar with the area, so he allowed Eve to make the decisions on directions.
“Take the next right.”
“You might want to buckle up.” He waited until the last possible moment and hit the brakes hard, then made an even harder right.
The sedan, close on their tail, missed the turn entirely.
Eve slid back into her seat and fastened her seat belt. “The next left. There’s a long, curvy stretch after that. Very little traffic. If you keep it floored, they won’t catch up.”
He took the left, scarcely slowing down at all. The tires squealed. The rear of the car fishtailed. He straightened it out and rammed the accelerator.
The car lunged forward, the momentum pressing his back into the seat.
“Still clear.” Eve kept an eye on the side mirror so J.T. could focus on the road.
The speedometer topped out; he kept pushing the vehicle. If he was lucky, no wildlife would pop up on the side of the road and make a last-minute dash across. There was no way he could make a sudden stop without risking flipping the vehicle.
The terrain was deserted, so he wasn’t concerned with any unexpected traffic.
“Take the next left and we’ll take the back roads to Crystal Lake.”
J.T. slowed as much as he dared and skidded into the turn. Eve braced her feet against the dash.
Five minutes later they remained in the clear.
They’d lost them.
“You’re certain there’s no chance they can track us back to the cabin?”
“I’m certain. They were likely watching the Jamison place and hoping we would show up there.”
Made sense. J.T. couldn’t deny the plausibility of her theory any longer. The situation damned sure appeared to be related to his work at the insurance agency.
He’d been gone from Gold Coast Life several months. Strange that he was only learning now that there had been a problem.
J.T. HAD DECIDED EN ROUTE that he would contact Victoria as soon as they arrived back at the cabin. Eve would just have to deal with it. Victoria would be worried. His mother would be worried.
Maybe Eve had no one in her life to answer to, but that wasn’t the case for him.
She unlocked the cabin’s front door. “We need to make a list of as many of the high payouts made by your company over the past couple of years as you can recall.” She went inside and tossed her bag onto the sofa. “We can interview the beneficiaries the way we did Mr. Jamison and see if there’s a pattern of fraud.”
J.T. closed the door behind him. He’d already come to that same conclusion. “There are eight that I specifically recall as being seven figures.”
“You remember any of the names?” She ran her fingers through that gorgeous hair and started pacing. “We can track them down pretty quickly if the names aren’t too common.”
“The first thing we do is set some boundaries.”
She stopped her pacing. “I thought we’d already done that.”
“The company’s client list is privileged information. I’ll need to do that part on my own.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Her hands went to her hips, drawing his attention there.
He hated that he could recall every square inch of her toned body. Long legs, narrow hips, narrower waist and those breasts. Amazing.
“Are you listening to me?”
Whatever she’d said he’d missed entirely. “I’m sorry, what?”
She executed an about-face and started pacing again. “Those guys tried to kill me once already for interfering in their plan to—” she threw her arms up to show her frustration “—do whatever to you. So don’t even pretend I’m not a part of this. I’m in this up to my eyeballs! There’s no backing up now.”
J.T. swallowed back the arguments, forcing the words that needed to be said to the tip of his tongue. “It would likely be in your best interest to proceed with your plans to leave. You’ve been paid for your services, right? There’s no reason for you to stay.”
Fury flashed in those blue eyes. “Wow. The way you put that, I could be a hooker.”
He hadn’t meant it that way. “I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she snarled. “Yes, I was paid by the man who hired me. Yes, I should be out of here by now. But I was trying to save your ass.” Her eyes glittered with the mounting fury. “I have my reasons for seeing this through.”
“And I appreciate that.” He frowned. “I think. But this has nothing to do with you. I can take it from here. If I need backup, I have the Colby Agency.”
“You are serious.” She stamped toward him. “They know I double-crossed them. Now they’ll want me, too. Not to mention that puts a serious black mark on my professional reputation.”
Both were true. Damn it. He didn’t want her…here. With him. She was too much of a distraction. The situation was only going to get more dangerous. The more he learned and the longer he evaded the enemy, the more desperate the enemy would become.
This was going to get ugly in a hurry.
She would be in jeopardy right alongside him, and that would put him in an awkward position.
“Frankly,” he chose his words carefully, “your reputation is of little concern to me. However—” he held up a hand when she would have blasted him “—your actions have put you at risk, and that is a concern.”
“Gee,” she tossed back, “it’s so comforting to know that my actions—which, by the way, were tailored to save your ass—are of a concern to you.”
This was getting them nowhere. “I have to check in with the agency.”
She shook her head firmly from side to side. “No way. We talked about that already.”
“I trust the Colby Agency.” He wasn’t negotiating this point. “In the unlikely event someone is monitoring the calls in and out of the agency, I’ll use extreme caution in discussing our circumstances. But I am making the call.”
She ripped her cell phone from her back pocket and thrust it at him. “Fine. Make the call.”
As if that hadn’t made her feelings on the matter perfectly clear, she stamped out of the cabin, swearing under her breath.
J.T. put a call in to Victoria’s direct line. She would likely be at home, but the call would be transferred to her home phone or her cell. Victoria Colby-Camp was never out of touch to her staff.
When she answered, J.T. cut right to the chase. He gave her the condensed version. She was relieved to hear from him. There had been a few new developments in the situation with the abduction attempt of her granddaughter but nothing substantial.
As dangerous as his situation, the one with Jamie was terrifying. He knew Victoria’s history. Having that kind of horror strike twice in one’s life was too much for anyone to bear.
“J.T., Ian discovered unsettling evidence at your home.”
Surprised by her words, he asked, “What kind of evidence?”
“A numbered account at a Cayman bank containing half a million dollars.”
If she’d said they’d found a golden egg in his refrigerator, he wouldn’t have been more surprised. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Half a mil? In an account with his name on it? Yeah, right. “Maybe I won a lottery I don’t know about.”
“I was certain that would be your response. It appears someone is laying out a carefully constructed setup with your name on it.”
“At this point,” J.T. admitted, “I would have said Arenas was setting me up to cover for his own crimes. But he’s dead, so, it’s definitely not him.” He’d mulled over the other possibilities, but not one stood out for him. He’d worked with those people for years, respected every one of them. Including Arenas.
“Ian is attempting to trace the account’s origin. We’ll look into Arenas’s death. And Paula Jamison’s. Will t
hat help?”
“Yes.” Relief surged. “That would be very helpful. I don’t have my cell, but you can reach me at this number.” He rattled off the number.
“How is Eve?”
The question had him peering out the front window. She was leaning against her car, smoking a cigarette. He frowned. She didn’t smoke.
What the hell did he know?
“She’s…” How did he answer that question? “She’s not the Eve I thought I knew.”
“Are any of us really who others think we are?” J.T.’s brow tugged into a frown. “This is more than that.” He understood what Victoria was trying to say, but he couldn’t swallow in such an easy pill what Eve had done to him.
“Think about it, J.T. We all show others what we want them to see. Our speech patterns—our entire behavior changes with each audience. Family, friends, colleagues…we have different personas for each situation. Isn’t that a form of deception on some level?”
“Maybe.” He braced his arm on the window frame and rubbed at the frown etched across his forehead. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Don’t think,” Victoria countered. “Not when it comes to affairs of the heart. The heart and the brain have very little in common. Trust your instincts the same way you did when you fell in love with Eve.”
That wasn’t the advice he’d wanted to hear. But coming from Victoria it merited contemplation.
He ended the call with a promise to keep her informed of his moves. Victoria had been like an aunt to him. She’d always been there for his family, particularly after his father had died.
He watched as Eve threw the cigarette down and glared at the cabin door.
Might as well put her out of her misery.
He walked to the door and opened it. Their gazes met. For an instant he couldn’t move. He could only look into those eyes.
“Did you give her our location?” J.T. shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and moved to the steps. He sat down on the top one. “No. She didn’t ask. She trusts me.”
Eve rolled her eyes.
“So, you smoke?” How many other things did he not know?