by Karen Rose
‘What are you doing here, little J?’ he asked, tickling the boy’s ribs.
But no giggles ensued. Just a sober-faced little boy, who reached out and grabbed Thorne’s cheeks. ‘To see you.’ Dark blue eyes studied him with an uncharacteristic concern. ‘Still hurt?’
Lucy sidled up next to them, Wynnie on her hip. ‘He knows you were in the hospital yesterday. He was worried. We told him you were okay, but he needed to see for himself.’ She kissed her son’s soft cheek. ‘You’ve seen him now, Jeremiah, so it’s time to go back downstairs with Taylor.’
Frederick’s adopted daughter left his side to approach, arms outstretched. She transferred Wynnie to her own hip, then smiled down at Jeremiah. ‘Come on, kid. Ford’s got Legos downstairs. Let’s go play.’
Those were evidently magic words, because Jeremiah wriggled out of Thorne’s arms. ‘Down.’ Then, at his mother’s raised brows, he added, ‘Please.’
Thorne set him down, wishing he could go downstairs and play too. He wished all of these people had gathered for a party rather than for his sorry ass. But they had gathered for him, so he shoved away his longing for Legos and straightened. ‘Thank you, Taylor. And thank you for sending me that photo of Jazzie. That was nice of you.’
Clay’s biological daughter smiled. She always looked like him, but when she smiled, the resemblance was enough to make a person blink. ‘I heard that whatever you did to help her has caused you trouble. I’m sorry for that, but I still appreciate that you did it. So does Jazzie. Every so often we get that magic moment when she smiles and . . . forgets what happened to her. You gave her that chance, so . . . thank you.’
Thorne swallowed hard. Knowing that a little girl was alive and happy made whatever happened to him personally worth it. He only hoped he hadn’t doomed his dearest friends in the process. ‘Thanks, Taylor.’
With a nod, Taylor held out a hand for Jeremiah. ‘Let’s go, pumpkin.’ To the rest of the room she said, ‘I’ll take him downstairs to Ford and then come back for the others.’
‘The others’ were the two infants in the room. Paige and Stevie had given birth within months of each other, so Taylor and Ford would have their hands full. Literally.
Clay pointed the new arrivals toward the food. ‘Help yourselves. We’re ready to begin whenever you are.’
A few minutes later, the four of them had found chairs in the Maynards’ homey living room – where another large flat-screen security monitor hung on one wall. ‘How many rooms have monitors?’ Thorne asked Clay.
‘All of them. I take my family’s safety very seriously.’
Thorne nodded, wondering if Gwyn, Phil and Jamie might be safer here. Without me. But he bit back the question, because Gwyn was giving him a warning look, almost as if she were reading his mind. Instead, he studied the faces of the people in the room. No one looked angry or put out.
Two faces stood out, having not been with them the night before. Clay’s IT manager, Alec Vaughn, sat on the floor, a sleek computer on his lap. The young man frowned at the screen, his fingers alternating between being still and flying over the keyboard. He had a reputation as something of a wunderkind in the hacking world. Thorne was happy to see him there.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I asked Alec to join us,’ Clay murmured. ‘I have him running some searches for us.’
‘It’s fine with me,’ Thorne told him, because his attention was already focused on the only other person who hadn’t been with them the evening before.
JD Fitzpatrick sat next to Lucy on one of the loveseats, his arm protectively around her shoulders.
He caught Thorne’s questioning gaze and gave him a sober shrug. ‘I’m officially on vacation. Lucy could become a target – which is not your fault. That doesn’t change the danger, though. I’m here as a private civilian through the duration.’
Thorne was well aware that wasn’t how it worked, but he said nothing. Nothing he could have said would’ve made a difference anyway. JD was immovable and he was relieved to see it.
He clapped his hands. ‘So. Who’s leading this clusterfuck?’
Chuckles rippled through the room, and Frederick raised his hand. ‘I guess that’d be me. Before we debrief everything we’ve discovered since last night, I think we need to understand about Tavilla. What is the threat level?’
Thorne took out his phone and checked his messages. Still nothing. ‘I don’t know. I sent a message to my contact inside Tavilla’s organization while we were driving here, but I haven’t heard back. I got a message from him last night saying that all was quiet and that no one wished me ill. Now . . . I have to wonder if he’s all right.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Frederick pressed.
Thorne forced his mouth into a small smile. ‘What makes you think I’m going to do anything?’
Everyone in the room scoffed in unison.
‘Give us a break, Thorne,’ Sam said from the sofa where Ruby sat on his lap. ‘We’re not stupid.’
Thorne sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have hired you if you had been. I don’t hire fools.’
‘Fuck,’ Paige muttered. ‘He’s flattering us now. Which means he’s going straight to his contact’s house when he’s done here. Luckily I know where that is.’
Frederick’s head tilted in interest. ‘You do? How?’
Of course Paige had figured it out. Goddammit, the woman was smart. Thorne sighed. Which was why I sought her out in the first place.
‘I hired her to track him once, after one of our meetings,’ Thorne admitted, still unwilling to give up and acknowledge his plans. Not because he didn’t trust the others with the information, but because he didn’t want to put targets on their backs. Because they would insist on accompanying him, and if this was Tavilla’s work . . . he was not a man one wanted to make angry. ‘I wanted to know who I was dealing with before I got in too deep.’
‘And?’ Jamie pressed. ‘What did you find, Paige?’
She shrugged. ‘His address. That’s all I was asked to find. I didn’t even know who the guy was at the time.’
‘You didn’t ask?’ Gwyn asked, sounding incredulous.
Paige looked amused. ‘No. I was hired by a client to find a specific piece of information. Found it. Job done.’
‘When did you know it was his contact you’d followed?’ Jamie asked, genuinely curious.
‘Just now,’ Paige said with a smirk.
‘And you’ll take us there?’ Gwyn pressed, clearly not amused.
Paige shook her head. ‘No way in hell am I taking you there. But I will accompany Thorne, should he require assistance of a personal security nature.’
‘I do not need assistance,’ Thorne growled. ‘And I sure as hell don’t need a bodyguard. I’m going to wait to hear from him before I do anything.’
‘And if you don’t?’ JD asked quietly. ‘Then what?’
‘Then I’ll see.’
Everyone shook their heads. ‘No way, Thorne,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll follow you if we have to.’
Thorne rubbed his eyes. ‘Let’s see what happens. I sent him a message and I will wait. For now, let’s debrief, because it’s still possible this has nothing to do with Tavilla and everything to do with Patricia Segal.’
It was clear that nobody believed him. Shit. This was the downside of associating with smart people. They could cut through BS like a hot knife through butter.
Still, he was grateful to have every single one of them on his side. ‘Sam? What did you find out about the bar?’
Frederick gave Thorne a side-eye, obviously unhappy that he hadn’t answered his question and silently promising that the matter was not dropped. Still, he nodded at Sam. ‘Go ahead, Sam.’
Sam shifted Ruby off his lap so that he could reach for his computer bag. ‘Basically, Barney, the owner of the bar where Thorne was lured, wasn’t there that night. He’
d been given four tickets to see the Orioles. Right behind the dugout. The gift was anonymous, the tickets in an envelope thumbtacked to his office door. Just said, “Thanks, boss.” Barney figured it was from his employees and went to the game. His employees have since denied giving him the tickets.’
‘Which would have been too expensive for them anyway, most likely,’ Thorne murmured. ‘Four tickets behind the dugout would run you a grand, easily, and that’s if you could get your hands on them to begin with.’
‘Irresistible lure,’ Jamie agreed, because he was also an O’s fan and had box seats. ‘Did Barney save the envelope?’
‘No,’ Sam said. ‘He felt awful when he heard about what happened to Thorne. He was pissed that his place had been used that way, that he’d been manipulated. Immediately gave me the security tapes from Saturday night, but they were all conveniently blacked out. Not one usable image.’
‘Of course,’ Thorne muttered. ‘Did Barney give this info to the cops?’
Sam shook his head. ‘He said some asshole cop named Brickman showed up, swaggering around like he owned the joint. He didn’t tell him diddly. But he said he would if a nicer cop showed and if Thorne said it was okay.’
‘Tell him it’s fine to spill,’ Thorne said, almost smiling, because that sounded like Barney.
‘I will. Now, after I left Barney’s, I went door to door along that road, asking other businesses for their tapes. Most of the folks were receptive, especially because Barney wrote me a note saying “Help this guy.”’
Thorne did smile now. ‘Did you get anything good?’
Sam inclined his head. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I’ve been sitting here going through the files while we waited for you to get here. A liquor store caught your Audi. It drove by as it left the bar, but no other cars followed. You can see the vague outline of two people in the front seats. Neither was as tall as you. I know how much space there is between the roof and your hard head.’
‘Thanks,’ Thorne muttered.
‘Any time, boss. These guys were a good four to six inches shorter. So, still tall. There’s no sign of you. I’m betting you were knocked out, on the floor of the backseat or in the cargo hold. The car passed at twelve forty.’ He brought the image up on his laptop and turned it so that everyone could see the screen. It was exactly as he’d described.
It gave Thorne an odd feeling in the pit of his gut to know he’d been unconscious at that point. And that Patricia Segal would have still been alive.
‘So you were drugged then already,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve heard through the grapevine that the ME confirmed my TOD estimate for Patricia based on the lack of rigor.’ Which either meant she’d heard it from the current ME, or that she’d peeked at the autopsy report. ‘She hadn’t been dead more than four hours before Gwyn found the two of you.’
Alec Vaughn looked up from his laptop. ‘Can you give me those files, Sam? I’ll see if I can clean up the video at all. Maybe we can get descriptions on the driver and his sidekick.’
Sam dug in his computer bag and tossed Alec a thumb drive. ‘They’re all there.’
Alec caught it with one hand. ‘Thanks.’ He bent back down to his laptop, seeming to tune them out again.
‘I passed around a photo of Patricia at Barney’s,’ Sam went on. ‘Nobody had seen her there, so I’m thinking she was brought to your house from somewhere else or transferred to your vehicle somewhere along the way, because your security video shows only your Audi being driven into the garage.’
Thorne sat up straighter. ‘You got my home security videos?’
‘Well, not from the DVR in your house,’ Sam said. ‘The whole unit was gone. But they hadn’t counted on your cameras uploading video to the off-site server. When they arrived, there were at least three people sitting upright in the vehicle.’ Again he brought the image up on his laptop and turned it to show the group. All three faces were covered with ski masks. They hadn’t been taking any chances.
Sam pointed at the screen. ‘There’s a shadow here that could be the top of a woman’s head. No sign of you, Thorne, so I’m still betting you were in the cargo hold.’
‘That’s how they got into my house,’ Thorne said, that odd feeling in the pit of his gut growing exponentially. How simple it had been for them. I locked up, but didn’t set my alarm, he thought, wanting to bang his own head into a wall. ‘How did they exit?’
‘Here,’ Sam said. ‘It was at one ten on Sunday morning.’ He played the video, in which Thorne’s Audi could be seen exiting the garage, backing out of the driveway, then driving away. He fast-forwarded. ‘It comes back five minutes later and there’s just the one guy driving. He stays in the house for two hours.’
Thorne winced. ‘He was there that long? No telling what he was doing.’
‘Drinking your bourbon, mostly,’ Sam said. ‘One of your back porch cameras provides a partial view of your kitchen. He comes in periodically to have a swig. Always has the damn mask on, though.’
‘Why?’ Phil asked. ‘If they believed they’d disconnected the security cameras, why cover his face?’
‘He probably worried that Thorne would wake up,’ Gwyn said quietly. She looked as freaked out as he felt. Probably because she knew what it felt like to have a killer walking freely through her home. ‘They gave him a lot more GHB than they needed to. They were overcompensating.’
‘Because if he woke up, he’d kill whoever was messin’ with him,’ Ruby concluded, her tone matter-of-fact. She snapped her fingers. ‘Like that.’
Thorne wanted to point out once again that he was right there, listening, but he didn’t. The thought that this man had moved around so freely – in my home – was truly unsettling. ‘He changed his clothes at some point,’ he pointed out instead. ‘His T-shirt is dark there and it was white before.’ His stomach roiled, telling him that the sandwich waiting on his plate was no longer welcome. ‘He probably did that after he killed Patricia.’
‘Probably,’ JD concurred, but he looked troubled, and that bothered Thorne more.
Phil frowned. ‘But . . . the video still clears Thorne, right? It shows these men going into and out of his home. Shows this man’ – he pointed to the screen – ‘there for two hours.’
JD shook his head, and now Thorne understood what troubled him. And . . . yeah. It was a problem.
He hoped his voice was steady. He didn’t want to frighten Phil any more by showing his own fear. ‘I’m not visible in any of these videos. Nothing shows me drugged and unconscious at this point. The police or the prosecutor could still say that I was there, directing the whole thing. That I paid those thugs to bring Patricia to me and that I killed her. And then OD’d on GHB out of remorse or a desire to kill myself or something. The time when I was dosed is really just a guess. These videos don’t exonerate me, I’m afraid.’
JD’s expression said he’d nailed it. Damn.
Phil paled. ‘Goddammit, Thorne.’
‘Hold on,’ Sam rumbled, giving Phil an encouraging smile. ‘I wasn’t finished. We do have video of you leaving your house. It was before you got the phone call luring you to Barney’s, though.’
Thorne felt his cheeks heat. Oh, right. He’d actually forgotten about that. Forgotten that he’d been read the riot act by Lucy and was going to the club to come clean to Gwyn about his role in her canceled dates. ‘I was going to the club. Our club. I got the call shortly after I’d left the house.’
Lucy lifted her brows at him. ‘Really?’
His cheeks flamed hotter. ‘Really,’ he mumbled.
Gwyn’s eyes flashed with sudden understanding, and damned if her cheeks didn’t heat too. ‘All right,’ she conceded.
Sam was giving them all an appraising look, one side of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. ‘All right,’ he echoed. ‘After I viewed all this video, I went back to the liquor store’s tapes and rewound another hour�
��s worth of footage. And got this.’ Once more he turned his laptop to show them. Thorne’s car was racing past, headed toward Barney’s Bar. ‘You drove away from your house and to the bar, but you’re not shown returning. Yet you were found in your bed, so you can argue that you were unconscious the whole time.’
Phil shuddered visibly, glancing over at Thorne with raw relief in his eyes before turning to Sam. ‘Thank you, Sam. We appreciate it.’
Sam’s smile was gentle. ‘We’re going to get through this,’ he promised, then pulled up a grainy photo showing the lower two thirds of a man’s face. ‘This isn’t a clear picture of Thorne, but this is how tall he sits in his car. You can see it in the video taken as he leaves his house earlier. So we don’t have a perfect alibi for you, Thorne, but it does support your story. That’s all I’ve got for now.’
‘That’s a lot,’ Frederick praised. ‘I’ll go next.’ He told them how he’d found Bernice Brown and how frightened she’d been. And how she’d thanked Thorne for being willing to come to help her even though she’d been used to lure him. ‘Then I met with the friend she told me about, the one who’d gotten a call from a Detective Hooper – who, by the way, does not exist. The “detective” was asking her questions about her friend’s whereabouts and her attorney. The friend, Sally Brewster, felt uneasy and hung up. She gave me the number, which was providential,’ he finished grimly.
Thorne could feel Frederick’s fear. It was palpable even from across the room. ‘Why? What happened?’
Clay gave Frederick a sympathetic look. ‘Someone messaged Julie from the same number to try to get her to give them her home address.’
New dread – more new dread – settled on Thorne’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
Frederick shook his head. ‘We are not going there, Thorne. Miss Brewster, Bernice Brown’s friend, had messaged her first and Julie gave her our home phone number.’
‘What? Why?’ Gwyn demanded.
‘Because she was scared and she wanted to check me out. I’m grateful, actually. I didn’t realize that Julie was so connected into the Internet. I didn’t realize a lot of things about Julie,’ he added ruefully. ‘The point is, we know someone has used that number at least twice, once to try to find Bernice Brown, and once to try to find – presumably – me.’