by Jeanne Adams
“You want to pretend it never happened?” She was incredulous. “Even if we did,” she said, trying to pull away, “we still have too much between us. Your job, my job. Dav. No, you were right, Gates. We don’t belong together.” Her heart was breaking as she said it, but he’d been right too. It was for the best.
He sighed and pulled her tight for a moment, then let her go so he could sit back down in the chair. His care, his deliberate bracing on the arms of the chair so he could lower his body down, was a reminder of his wounds.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. I can’t argue too much.” He pointed at his side where the bandages made a lump under his casual shirt. “But I’d like to pretend I wasn’t the biggest ass this side of Texas.”
They stared at one another, and thoughts, scenarios, plans, and jumbles of ideas crowded together in Ana’s mind. It was so mixed up and chaotic that she could hardly think.
“Will you promise me one thing?” he asked, reaching for her hand again, taking it.
“Maybe,” she said, feeling the fine quiver of tension through his fingers where they gripped her.
“If you won’t pretend it never happened, will you at least pretend it wasn’t as bad?” He sighed. Smiling, he finally let go of her hand. “That’s better than your throwing something at my head. Or shooting me.”
“Either of those options can still be arranged,” she muttered, torn between laughing at his pathetic attempt to make peace, and her own desperate desire to throw herself into his arms. God, she was such an idiot to fall for someone like him, someone unattainable, someone out of her league.
“I’ll bet,” he murmured. He took her hand again, rubbed it with his thumb. “I’m not saying it will work, Ana. I’m not saying we’re right for each other, but I’m saying we’re good for each other.”
“Gates,” she protested softly, wanting to plead with him not to torture her, not to make her think she could be with him, when she knew it was impossible.
“Gates, Ana,” Dav said, urgency ringing in his voice as he strode through the double doors. They sprang apart like guilty children, both turning to see him. His face was grim.
“Pretzky just called—she and the other two agents are diverting to White Plains. She said to get up there ASAP.”
He turned to Gates. “You’re not up for this, Gates. Don’t argue with me. Keep working on what we’ve got here. There’s something that ties it all together. We’ll stay in touch by phone.”
“But—” Gates tried to rise, but the pain and the confrontation with Ana had taken too much out of him, and he sank back into the chair.
“Stay,” Ana agreed with Dav. “I’ll take this with me,” she pointed at her laptop, “and send back all the data I have. I think my cell’s charged enough for now—we’ll stay in constant touch. We need you here. You can make this work.” She pointed at the computers, nodded toward the walls.
How strange that after all these years of being the one left behind, she was going and doing it to someone else.
“Ana,” Gates said, but then he seemed to make a decision. “You’re right. Both of you.”
“Thank you, Gates,” she said, giving him a hard, fast kiss on the mouth. “Dav, you ready to go?”
“The car’s waiting,” he answered, giving Gates an approving look before he pivoted on his heel and was out the door.
“Good,” she said, gathering her purse, briefcase, phone, and laptop. “I’ll patch in once I get to the car.”
“I’ll be here,” Gates said, resigned as possible to being left behind.
Ana headed for the door at a run. She’d nearly reached it when Gates called her name. Dav went on as she turned, walking backward into the foyer. She could see Dav was already in the elevator, the doors held open for her.
“What?” she said.
“I love you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ana let the doors close behind them. The elevator began its descent.
He’d said it first. No one had ever said it first. What the hell did that mean? Did it matter? What was she supposed to do with I love you?
“Ana?” Dav touched her arm. “We know it’s White Plains, which is north of here, north of the main part of New York City, but we’re going to need a more specific direction than that.”
“We’ll get it. Once we get in the car, I’ll call Pretzky, and we’ll triangulate.”
“Good.”
Pretzky was in highly pissed mode when Ana connected with her. The car was headed north, weaving in and through traffic with professional skill, but Ana was getting her ears pinned back.
“What the hell are you doing, Burton? You’ve been incommunicado for five hours. I need a report, Agent.”
“Sorry. Here’s the situation,” Ana said, focusing on the information rather than the apology as she booted up her laptop, shoving the Wi-Fi data card into place and watching as it searched for a signal. “McGuire got hit again, but he said he was okay. I can’t reach him though. I’ve had e-mails out the wazoo, but I haven’t gotten to go through them yet. My cell’s been offline. The battery died.”
Dav motioned to get her attention, holding up a cell. “You’re on speaker with Gates,” he mouthed.
She nodded, but kept talking. “McGuire is the only one who can connect Hines with the whole deal. From what I have, there’s no connection. Far as we know, Hines is just off the grid, on vacation.”
“After emptying his house and cleaning out his financial accounts,” Pretzky said sarcastically. “Right.”
“Yeah, but it’s McGuire’s word against Hines at this point. All the other evidence that he might have some tie to the case is circumstantial.” A thought occurred to her, and she flipped pages on her yellow pad.
“Hence the hit on McGuire,” Pretzky said, oblivious to Ana’s mental change of direction.
“Wait, there might be something,” Ana said as she opened files and switched programs. “My guess is that the galleries, especially Prometheus, Moroni, and Artful Walls, all shipped through this New York shipping house at one point or another.” She kept searching for the info she needed.
“Let me guess,” Pretzky snarked. “It’s in White Plains. Why am I not surprised? This guy your TJ’s been after, according to the case numbers, corresponds to your shipper in White Plains. I guess this whole case has ties to Rome, after all.”
“Right in one, Special Agent,” Ana grated, irked to hear it said aloud. “Hang on.” She entered her passcodes and watched the e-mail open up. “I got a ton of e-mails here.”
“Personal time later, Agent.”
Stung, Ana said, “They’re from TJ, Pretzky.”
Silence hummed for a moment. “Read ’em and call me back.”
The cell’s speakerphone crackled, and Gates’s voice broke the thick silence. “Did Prometheus ship through this company? What’s the company name?”
“Gold Ark, or D’Or Shipping.” She spelled the latter for him. “I think Jack D’Onofrio might be connected as well.”
“D’Onofrio? From San Francisco?”
“Yeah, call it coincidence, but he was at the gallery. He’s a New Yorker but doesn’t operate in New York. He bought a lot of art at the same time as the frauds, but he’s not on my list for any frauds.”
“Got it. I’ll cross-reference it. What kind of data did you dig out of that search we put together?” he asked.
“The shipper’s name, the connection with Miami, some additional phone numbers that we’ve got someone else running.”
“Your mole get his hands on that data?”
“No, but he’s compromised all the original paperwork. It’s going to be tough to pin anything on Hines unless we can connect him with the attempts on McGuire.”
Her phone rang. It was McGuire. “Hang on,” she said, and picked up the call.
“You catch that bastard yet, Burton?” McGuire growled. “I’m good, but even I got to sleep.”
“Not yet, McGuire, but
we’re headed to shut down the shipper. We’re thinking that’s the source.”
“What? Burrows?” McGuire said. “You got my e-mail?”
“Who’s Burrows?” she said, scanning through her e-mail for one from McGuire.
“Guy who owned the shipping company back in the day. I dug out my private notes, the ones I didn’t give Hines. Burrows was a young guy. Ambitious, slick. We couldn’t connect him though. He was small-time in New York. You got something?”
She wasn’t going to go into the methodology of the search she and Gates had devised, so she gave him the shorthand. “Computer search turned up a connection to the shipper from every gallery. It was buried, but it was there.”
“There was a shipper in Cali that was a person of interest too, at the time. It’s in the notes.”
“Saw that.” She switched from e-mail to the files she’d scanned in. “You found less there, right? Our search didn’t point that way.”
“Point, no point,” McGuire groused. “I’m telling you that guy was up to his fancy ass in it, but we couldn’t make the connection. He was smug as shit, but we had nuthin’.”
She scanned the file for a name. Too much stuff. “What’s the name in Cali?”
“Sam Drake, Drake Shipping,” McGuire fired back. “He’s an asshole, but cool and cocky.”
“Drake. Drake Shipping. Drake Yountz. I knew he was connected. Hang on, McGuire. Gates—” She picked up the other phone, waited for him to answer. “Run Drake Yountz and Sam Drake into your program. Reference this address—” She read the old Drake Shipping address out of the file. “And Yountz’s new business too.”
“Got it.”
She opened her connection to the secure Agency search engine and ran Yountz, Drake; Yountz, Sam; and Drake, Samuel.
“Thanks, McGuire,” Ana said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Yeah, yeah, you keep sayin’ that. Do it for once,” the older man groused.
Ana was about to hang up when another thought occurred. “Wait, McGuire?” When he came back on, she asked, “What did Hines use when he was targeting, for sharpshooting?”
“A Tikka T3 Tactical, but he could use a Remington. He liked a Mossberg for close-in work. Why?”
“I’m thinking he’s the one who took a shot at me,” she said.
“Well, hell,” McGuire said.
“Yeah, that’s what I think,” she said, still scrolling through data. “I’ll catch ya later.”
“You bet,” McGuire tersely agreed.
“Okay,” she began, then realized she was talking to dead air. “Sorry,” she muttered, apologizing to the retired agent, even though he’d already hung up.
“Got something,” Gates’s voice called from the other phone. Dav stopped what he was doing on his computer to listen as well. “I heard you say Burrows. Connection between Burrows Shipping and D’Or Shipping. Seems D’Or and Gold Ark bought all the Burrows warehouses about five years ago, lock, stock, and contents. The owner is listed as Jack Santini, married to Rita Gandolpho Santini.”
“Holy shit,” Ana cursed, hearing the Gandolpho name. She might be focused on international work, but no one in law enforcement was ignorant of the Gandolpho name. “He’s mixed up with some bad people.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling,” Gates said. “Small world, since I know a couple of the Gandolpho grandsons. I served with Max Hopespring in Iraq. Get this,” Gates continued, skimming past the comment he’d made. Ana wanted to stop him, ask about the Gandolpho connection, but he was plowing on with more important data. “Seems Mr. Santini has a partner, the owner of Gold Ark, one Jack Bates.”
“Wait,” Dav said, tapping his computer, opening a file. “Carrie mentioned that she shipped with someone named Bates. Said he was supposed to be at the gallery opening. She said he was vetted by…” He looked at Ana. “By the CIA. She said she knew her paintings were safe going through Bates because he’d been cleared by the CIA.”
“Hang on.” Ana entered Jack Bates in the secure search field, hit SEND. Data scrolled up.
“Hines?” Gates asked, and she heard keys clicking.
“Yeah. Jack Bates, aka Jack Burrows, cleared by one Agent David Wayne Hines.”
“Bates is Burrows?” Gates clarified, and more keys tapped.
“Yes. And Burrows sold out to Santini.”
“What pops on Bates now?” he asked, and she could still hear keys flicking. “Anything on your database?”
“Bates is listed for some petty stuff, an alias of Jack Burrows. Let me search that,” she said, entering it and hitting SEARCH. “Dav, call Carrie. Ask her about Bates, get everything she knows. See if she’s ever heard of Jack Burrows or Jack D’Or,” she added, seeing another alias pop up. “Or if she remembers Jack D’Onofrio handling shipping instead of magazines.”
“Ana? I’ve got a wedding announcement from last year,” Gates said. “Jack Bates marries Gillian Keriasus, in Powhatan, New Jersey.”
“Jeez, could this get any more complicated?” she complained. “What’s it say about him?”
“Owner of Gold Ark Shipping, Bates is a graduate of…” He read the whole announcement, but she heard more clicking as he turned up more data.
“You realize you met this guy, right?” she asked Gates. “This is Jen’s date, Millionaire Jack. Jack D’Onofrio.”
“He’s got two wives already and he’s dating your friend? What is this guy doing?”
“Being slime,” she said, reminding him of their earlier conversation.
“Yeah, I get that. What I meant was, what the hell is he doing messin’ around with one of the Gandolphos? If they find out he’s screwing around on his wife—” he started.
“Which one?” Ana asked sourly.
“I’m betting the Keriasus family would feel the same way, over in Jersey,” Gates answered. “But I was talking about the Gandolpho family. They are not known for their collective sense of humor on this sort of thing.”
She heard Dav saying, “Carrie, it’s Dav,” as he made his call. His tone of voice was like a billboard saying I WANT CARRIE.
A beep from her computer signaled her search had info.
“Oh, man. It just got even more complicated,” she muttered.
“Dav, Agent,” Damon called from the front. “We’re on the outskirts of town. I need to know where we’re going.”
“Hang on, Damon,” she called, ignoring the urgent e-mails, the pinging searches, and the notice of text and voice mail messages. Lord, could anything else beep? “Cancel, cancel,” she muttered, dialing Pretzky.
“What?” Pretzky answered.
“We’re at White Plains. Where do we meet you?”
“Rodehouse Inn, north and west of town. Get off at Highway One-Twenty north,” she said, taking them up the split toward the University. “It’s the exit three miles beyond the city limits, near the airport. I’ve told the locals to expect you.”
“Got it. Damon, you get that?”
“On our way, Agent,” he called back.
“TJ…” Ana tuned into the conversation on the phone. “Is he OK?”
“I’m sorry, Burton. Michaels is dead. His computers are in tiny pieces. I’ve called in some of our people to sweep the room too, follow up with the New York State Crime Scene people. It’s a mess.”
“No!” Ana shook her head, eyes filling with tears. “God, no.”
When she could see again, the winking notice of e-mail waiting caught her eye.
E-mail. TJ.
A Greek family and an Italian family.
Bates and Burrows. Keriasus wedding.
Santini and Bates. The Gandolpho family.
“Oh. My. God.” She dropped the phone, disconnecting Pretzky, and opened her e-mail. Scrolling down, she found them. Seven e-mails from TJ, seven e-mails she’d ignored.
“Carrie says—” Dav began, but she held up her hand, intent on reading.
She was so focused, so silent, he prodded her again.
“Ana, what is it?” Dav
asked, more insistently.
“Oh, my God. It’s all here. All of it. TJ. He spelled it all out…” Her voice broke. She couldn’t go on. TJ had spelled it all out in his e-mails, firing off one after another in hopes they’d get through, get her the data.
“Ana?” Gates called out. “Ana I have something on D’Onofrio, alias Burrows, alias Bates. Property in White Plains at—” He rattled off an address. She saw Dav write it down. “Ana?”
“Hang on, Gates, she’s got something big,” Dav murmured. Turning into his own phone, he spoke. “Thanks, Carrie. Yes. I think it is. I’ll let you know.”
Dav hung up, and shifted over to rest a hand on Ana’s shoulder. “Ana-aki, what is it?”
She turned to look at him, saw her own stricken face reflected in the window beyond him. “It’s TJ. My friend. He’d been sending me these translations, something he was working on. I thought it was just another favor for a friend, you know?” She shook her head, dazed. “Instead, he’s been trying to make sure I didn’t take the fall for Rome.”
“This would be what prompted the Inquiry?” Dav said. “It was Rome?” he urged when she sat silent.
“Yeah,” she said wearily. “I had this data, I checked it, I dug out more. I found the chinks in this group that was planning to bomb the Italian court, the Corte Costituzionale,” she said, remembering the thrill of finding the keys to the conspiracy hidden in the data. “I sent the team out with that data, but it was wrong.”
“Wrong?” Dav questioned. She heard Gates draw in a breath to speak so she hurried on.
“It was wrong. One part of the data had been altered, just one. But that put the team I was working with in jeopardy. TJ was one of the agents who survived, but two others were killed apprehending the bombers.”
“That’s why you were on cold cases, why you were on suspension.” Gates made it a statement, not a question.
“Yeah. I was cleared yesterday, in DC. Thanks to TJ’s efforts to prove the data had been altered, to find out who changed it.”
Dav squeezed her shoulder. “I know this is tough, Ana-aki. You must be strong, for your friend. This is TJ, this is the one who is dead in White Plains, yes?”