by Shirl Henke
“Now, why is it that I think it isn’t just consideration for your friend that makes you want to make your calls from downstairs?” he asked.
“You could listen in,” she said.
“You’re gonna use your cell, not Roberto’s phone, Sam, so I can’t listen in.”
She pointed her finger at him as if it were a gun. “Gotcha.”
He turned back to his laptop when she headed toward the creaking steps.
“That’s right, Christine “Kit” Steele. British. Is she by any chance a laundress by trade?” Sam asked Patowski as she sat munching on a chunk of smoked sausage.
He was cranky as usual after being awakened only an hour after he’d hit the hay. “Ain’t you the chipper one,” he grunted.
She could imagine him sitting on the side of a rumpled bed in his underwear, a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, as he jotted down everything Tess had told them about Alexi and his father. Then again, maybe he slept in the altogether. No, don’t go there, Ballanger. The thought of that scrawny pale flab made her wince.
“I can only tell you she’s under investigation. Does lots of hopping around from here to the Caymans and back, so it’s part of what Gomez is working on.”
“The widow wants to trust her, thinks the old man might have treated her bad enough that she’d turn on him. Maybe was forcing her to do some illegal stuff.”
Patowski snorted an obscenity and coughed over the phone. “Right, and Nikolai Benko took a stroll off that dock after shooting himself in the back of the head.” He paused, then asked, “You wouldn’t know anything about two dead Ruskies. Usta work for old Nikki. Beach PD found them in the hall of your boyfriend’s condo earlier tonight.”
Sam knew he knew. Sighing, she said, “They were the same goons who tried to kill us out west.”
“And of course, you couldn’t stick around to explain any of that to the local authorities.”
“We’d be in the slammer and where would that leave Tess and her family?”
“The way you draw shooters like a magnet, probably a hell of a lot better off,” he snapped.
“Cover for us, Pat. You owe me that much. Please?” She nearly choked on the last word.
He cursed again and muttered, “For now, but you’d better keep your boyfriend’s butt out of this or I’ll roast it and your own sweet ass over slow coals.” Then he slammed down the receiver.
She held her cell away from her ear. “No need to break the damn thing, Patty, sheesh,” she said, closing it.
Down in the Gables, Tess Renkov lay staring at the ceiling in her hotel room. She’d tried to sleep for several hours and barely dozed before visions of her family awakened her. She imagined she could hear Tiff and Mellie sobbing and Jenny trying to comfort them, Steve pleading with his grandpa to let him see them and being sternly refused.
Then she thought of Nancy. What if she found out from Mikhail where Steve was? She started to sweat and grow dizzy. Sitting up, Tess swung her feet onto the cool tile floor, pacing and trying to remember exactly what Alexi had said that day he and his father had fought. Something about “a clear channel straight to Pribluda.” At first she’d thought it meant somewhere along the Intracoastal where he and Benko might’ve arranged to meet.
Then suddenly it hit her. She was almost certain, remembering the day before he and his father had their fight. “He’d been on his cigarette boat, working on…” Tess made a dash for the cell in her handbag and punched in Matt’s number. It rang and rang. No one answered. Dread seized her. What if Mikhail had found Matt and Sam?
She had no one else to turn to…unless she took a desperate chance and contacted Kit Steele. “No, I’ll wait and try again in an hour,” she said, rubbing her icy hands over her arms and hugging herself.
Matt sat at his laptop, studying the printout his friend from the state insurance board had just sent. It paid to have sources in the capital, especially when they owed you favors. He’d kept Mel O’Donnell from going down with his boss when he broke a story about kickbacks on health and life insurance bids in the department last year. “Very interesting…but not funny,” he muttered, his gaze narrowing on the printout.
Sam had been half dozing on the top bunk, her cell clutched in her hand, waiting for Frobisher and Patowski to call back. She turned on her side and hung her head over the bed rail. “What did you find out?” she asked, suppressing a yawn. So much for Cuban coffee. After spending the last days the way she had, a caffeine addict like her couldn’t stay awake even if she injected the stuff directly into her carotid arteries.
“Guess who took out that three-million-buck policy on Alexi Renkov,” he said.
“I give, who?”
“Alexi Renkov,” Matt said thoughtfully.
“You mean our boy may have set up a phony murder scam to implicate his wife? That would mean—”
“Maybe he isn’t dead?”
“But the autopsy—how could the M.E. make a mistake like that?”
Granger shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to find out.”
“Let me put the cops on this one. My pal at Miami-Dade will be hot to find that creep hiding in some sand trap.”
“I don’t know if I’d trust them with this until we know more,” he said, still suspicious of her police contacts.
As they argued, neither one noticed the encrypted cell phone Tess had given Matt that lay on the cluttered table where he’d emptied the pockets of his bloody pants before showering and changing. During his tackle of Vassily, it had been damaged, but he had not used it and did not know it was no longer functioning.
Tess tried again. And again. Finally, as the sun barely began creeping up on the Atlantic, she made a decision. Her clothes were wrinkled and she looked haggard, but Kit Steele wouldn’t care once Tess told her what was going on. If anyone could find out where Steve and the others were, it would be Kit.
In minutes she was outside the hotel flagging down a cab. “Take me to Indian Creek Village. Yes, I have a pass card to get on the island,” she replied when the wizened little driver eyed her quizzically.
She couldn’t blame him. After all, people who lived on such an exclusive private island did not normally stay in Holiday Inns.
Chapter 16
Sam was still arguing with Matt when her cell beeped. She picked it up, recognizing Ethan Frobisher’s number—only because he allowed his number to be shown, she knew. He could trace anybody electronically and block anyone from finding him. Sometimes it creeped her out. “Hey, Fro, sweetie, what have you got for me?”
“Kinda weird and it took me a while. Sorry about that. Usually I can get this kind of stuff in half an hour, but it didn’t make sense. Still doesn’t.”
“Tell me what you found and I’ll sort it out,” Sam said with a sudden premonition.
“Well, the call to the Renkov home on Indian Creek was made from another phone owned by—”
“Alexi Renkov?” she volunteered.
“Hey, you already knew.” He sounded disappointed, just like when she’d turned him down when he asked her to the junior-high prom at St. Stan’s. Before she hung up with him, Sam praised his genius, which always made Ethan feel good. One of these days when she visited her family, she’d have to look him up and take him out for a beer. They could talk about old times and get blasted at the Sam Adams Tap Room. Except Ethan didn’t drink. Oh, well, he could have a Shirley Temple—if Burt Manion, Uncle Dec’s best friend who ran the joint, knew how to make one. She sure as hell didn’t.
Sam turned to Matt who was watching her intently. “Was that what I think it was?”
“Yeah. I think our pal Alexi has erased himself. Wanna bet it has something to do with the turf war between his pappy and Little Odessa?”
“I don’t make sucker bets,” he said, considering the ramifications. “The whole equation changes if young Renkov is still a player, you should pardon my pun.”
She winced. “Jon Stewart you’re not. I gotta call Patowski. We’re in over our
heads, Matt.”
He threw up his hands. “Go for it.”
She nodded and picked up her cell, which had gone dead because she’d forgotten to plug it in since this whole mess had started back in San Diego. Pretending that it was working, she went downstairs and used Roberto’s phone. Sam wasn’t about to admit to such a careless mistake.
Pat had obviously given up all hope of getting any sleep and went to his office. He answered on the first ring, his voice as gravelly as usual but alert this time. Still cranky as hell, though. “You on a secure line?” he asked.
“None safer. I’m in Little Havana with an old friend. Believe me, no one taps his line.”
The sergeant got crankier when she explained what they had just found out.
“Are you saying you already knew Alexi might still be alive?” she asked, incredulously. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were supposed to be driving Mr. Daisy back to bean land, not snooping in Miami. That damned newsman ought to be locked in a rubber room on Beacon Hill by now,” he said. “It’s what you were hired to do.”
“No way could I stop Matt from getting involved after what happened in California. He feels responsible for Tess and her family.”
Pat cursed. “Only because he led the whole shebang of Ruskies directly to them. This isn’t your job, Sam. It’s mine and the fibbies’.”
“If he could find them, so could the mob and you know it. The FBI and Miami-Dade PD were the ones who couldn’t, admit it, Patty. You used him as a stalking horse then. You can use him—and me—now.”
“Don’t call me Patty, dammit,” he snapped. “I’m not a Mick.”
“No, you’re a Polack. So what’s Special Agent Gomez’s excuse for being dumb?” she shot back, her short Irish fuse ignited. Usually she and Patowski traded ethnic insults as casually as yuppies chatted about mocha espresso versus skim-milk lattes. She relented with a sigh. “Okay, it’s been a long night. Let’s agree to work together from here on, okay? Granger won’t run his story until this whole mess is wrapped up. We have access to some sources you can’t use,” she added to remind him about Kit Steele.
“Between the two women, they know most of the places Mikhail might stash his prisoners. I can scam my way inside. You know I’m good at this. It’s what I do for a living, for crying out loud. Just let me work for a few hours.”
Grumbling, he agreed, giving her what they had on Alexi. “Gomez ran the same check on insurance records and came up with the golden boy’s policy trick, framing his wife. Made us suspicious, so we got a court order for the phone records. I won’t ask how you got ’em.”
“Good thinking,” she said succinctly.
“The body in the car matched his dental records, but those can be substituted. We’re checking that now. The DNA is trickier, harder to switch, but not impossible.”
“If the body is a close blood relative?” she asked.
“Who? Nobody was missing when his car exploded.”
“What if Alexi had some other kin back in the motherland he lured over here?” she asked, thinking out loud.
“That’s awfully long-range planning for a playboy like Alexi.” Pat sounded dubious. “But we’ll check it out.”
“Yeah, he took out that insurance policy, didn’t he? With a fortune from the New York mob, he could sit on a beach somewhere surrounded by bimbos. Tess takes the fall for his fake death and Mikhail’s organization loses big-time to Little Odessa. He’s out from under daddy’s very big thumb. Let me put Granger on that angle. He’s got sources all over the place.” Matt had a personal stake in this one, and now so did she, although she’d never admit it to Patowski.
“Look, just because you’re boffing the guy doesn’t mean I have to trust him—or you.”
“I am not having a relationship with a man I was hired to snatch,” she said adamantly. “It’s a violation of professional ethics.” At least the last part was true.
“If I didn’t know how much coin that old lady was paying you, I’d never believe you. Keep me posted on what you find out,” he added gruffly.
“I will if you will,” she said. The line went dead. She fished her cell out of her pocket, intending to charge it. But then she heard Matt stomping down the steps into the shop. He had a cold, hard gleam in his eyes that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight out. He hadn’t looked like this since he’d come at Yuri and Vassily with that gooseneck pipe.
“Your cell’s dead,” he said conversationally.
“You listened in on the upstairs phone.” She tried for indignation, failed miserably. “Look, Matt, I can explain.”
“I think your cop friend already explained things pretty well. This was a setup from the get-go to keep me on ice until the local cops and FBI made their case against Renkov while keeping the CIA in the dark. My aunt was suckered into paying your exorbitant fees and I was suckered into believing you gave a damn about Tess and her family.” And me. He didn’t have to say that. He knew she knew it, damn her soul.
“You’re wrong, Matt. It only started that way.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Once I got hold of the guns, you had to try another tack, so you convinced her to hire you as my bodyguard. I wonder if she knows bodyguards screw the guys they’re supposed to guard.” He tried for a sneer but it came out more a grimace. Damn your mercenary little soul, Samantha Ballanger!
Sam deflated. He was too mad to reason with. She couldn’t blame him. “I’m sorry, Matt. I never should’ve become emotionally involved with—”
“Ah, but you aren’t—remember what you just told your copper. ‘No relationship.’ Nice touch with the ‘professional ethics’ shtick. Lady, you wouldn’t recognize professional ethics if they were emblazoned across Key Biscayne in neon letters!”
He turned around and took the steps two at a time. She quickly followed, hoping their yelling hadn’t awakened Roberto. If it had, Roberto was too discreet to open his door. She watched as Matt packed up his notes and laptop. “Where are you going?” she asked in a small voice.
“To pick up Tess and figure out how to rescue her family. I got them into this mess. I’ll get them out. No help from you needed, Ms. Bodyguard.”
“Matt—”
“Sorry about your deal with my aunt. Maybe you can bill her for the hours we spent on the road. Maybe not. The old broad’s pretty savvy.”
She watched him leave. This was even worse than her last day on active duty with Miami-Dade Homicide. A rookie blew a clean takedown with Patowski and their team. The kid turned the blame on her and it stuck. Everyone knew she was a hotdog. After a brief Internal Affairs investigation, she was kicked off the force. Pat suspected Graham of lying and tried to prove it but Sam, who had trained the kid, wouldn’t turn on him.
Watching her career go up in flames had hurt, but not nearly as much as losing Matt Granger. Sam grabbed her fanny pack and took off after him. It was daybreak in Little Havana and everyone was driving in their usual “suicide salsa” style, rushing to work. Not a cab to be had. He started trudging west on Calle Ocho. Sam quickly retrieved her Charger from the back and followed him for a couple of blocks, watching him try unsuccessfully to hitch a ride.
No sane woman—or man, for that matter—would give an unshaven, disheveled six-foot-six stranger a ride. She let him walk off the worst of his temper, then pulled up alongside him. His long legs ate up the pavement pretty fast, but people in Miami never believed in cruising below sixty mph on city streets. The beeps were deafening but she ignored them, yelling out to him over the din, “You figure on walking to Coral Gables?”
He didn’t answer but lengthened his stride even more until the press of people on the sidewalk began to slow him down. Fresh flower and fruit vendors, shopkeepers and bakery deliverymen ducked the big guy carrying an armload of paper and a laptop.
“Come on, Matt, no matter how you feel about me, you need my wheels—and my connections. We can help Tess together a hell of a lot better than workin
g against each other.”
“And, you get paid. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, I won’t. Now, get in.”
He considered giving her the finger, but in spite of his bruised ego and an achy area somewhere in his chest, he knew she was right about helping Tess. Muttering an expletive, he yanked open the passenger door and climbed inside, then pulled out the encrypted cell Tess had given him. He started punching in numbers before he realized it wasn’t working.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, weaving expertly through the mad rush of traffic toward Tess’s hotel.
“Damned phone’s dead. Cracked on the back,” he said, turning it over. “Must’ve done it in when I tackled Vassily. We landed pretty hard.”
Sam had hers plugged in the charger on the console but it wouldn’t work for another quarter hour or so at best. “We’ll be in the Gables before I can call,” she explained, speeding up even more, which minimalized the beeping behind her.
“I think I left my old cell at Roberto’s place,” he said, angry with himself now as much as with her. Almost.
When they reached Tess’s room, the maid was cleaning it. Tess was nowhere to be seen. A clerk downstairs indicated that she’d called a cab and taken off an hour ago.
“Where the hell could she have gone?” he asked, pacing across the lobby.
“Maybe she got a call from Steve?” Sam suggested but didn’t believe it herself. Then it hit her—and him—at the same time. “Kit Steele!” they both said at once.
In rush hour they made amazingly good time heading north on I-95 and cutting over the Kennedy Causeway to thread their way toward Kit Steele’s exclusive address in Indian Creek Village. The only problem was that it was a private island and security was impossibly tight. No one without a pass card could get inside unless a homeowner vouched for them.
As Sam drove, Matt pored over what he’d learned about the woman who was probably a money laundress for Mikhail Renkov, even if an unwilling one. “I only hope her guess about this dame was right,” he said. “Steele might figure to score points with her boss by turning Tess over to him.”