Pain ricocheted across his forehead and he deliberately relaxed his jammed eyebrows. The curse that erupted from between his clenched teeth came out as an unintelligible growl. He concentrated on his calming-breath technique until the pain eased.
He turned toward her, his left arm across the steering wheel. “I get that you’d like to clear your dad, even that you’d like your mom to have his pension. Makes you a good daughter and all that. But it doesn’t explain why you’re risking your life after all this time. You have a good job. Nobody looks at you crosswise. Your life’ll go on pretty much lah-di-dah if we walk away now. Why are you nearly as desperate as me? What’s your stake, really? Worried Quincy Marton was dirty after all?”
From staring out the windshield at the expanse of green suburban lawns, she spun on him. Her brows shot up and her mouth turned down. Pain filled her eyes as twin flags of crimson blotched her cheeks. “Never. Dad’s innocent. I know it.”
He thought about her anguish at breaking the law about entering Falco’s house. About her drive for perfection, her eagerness to please, her almost forced optimism. “Because if you find out he’s guilty, that makes you dirty too?”
“No. How could you say that?” She sniffed away the welling tears.
“You keep trying to be perfect. Why, unless you have some big transgression to hide? You can’t be blamed for what your father might’ve done.”
“What are you, a shrink?”
“I just want to understand why you need so bad to clear him? Will it clear you?”
“Frak it, I don’t know! Maybe. Yes. I’m not perfect. Growing up, the times I messed up… the disappointment in his eyes, in his voice… If Dad’s character wasn’t as strong as I think, maybe there’s something tainted in me too.” She blew her nose on the tissue he handed her. Once she’d calmed, she raised somber reddened eyes. “He was scrupulously honest in everything, but he didn’t believe a criminal could change. He always said, ‘Once a crook, always a crook.’ “
Cort’s whole life, he’d had to struggle with his conscience. When Leon wanted to teach him burglary skills. When Leon portrayed his capers as glamorous escapades like in the movies. When Leon and he exchanged secret notes in the stone wall. No wonder Marton’s slip from grace, if he did conspire with Leon, came as such a shock to her.
“So that must mean if he screwed up once—taking a bribe from the Jeweler—he must’ve been a crook all along,” he said. “Then what chance does that give you?” Or me.
“Something like that. I don’t know anymore.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and looked in her bag for more.
He handed her the box of tissues from behind the seat. “Think about it. I grew up with a thief for a father. Not just any thief, but world-class. Leon ate, drank, and slept larceny.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—but you paid for your crime. I’m sorry.”
“Shh, we’re cool. I gave in to Leon that one time, and no matter I’ve done my time, it made me a crook in the eyes of the world. The world can shove it. Prison counselor told me my scars will remind me where I’ve been but I don’t have to let them dictate where I’m going.” He told himself that every day.
Eyes soft with affection, she touched an index finger to the dimpled scar on his cheek. “That’s pretty profound.”
“I hope so. People face choices every day, choices where they can do the right thing or the selfish thing or the impulsive thing. Everybody’s flawed. Sometimes we give in to the wrong impulse. It’s human to be flawed. You’re human.” He was human. God help him, he’d fight the family legacy running through his veins.
His time in stir had shown him true evil existed. He hoped the people they were up against now were merely flawed, greedy humans and not evil, but after two murders and the assault on Mara, doubts outweighed the hope.
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I’m not sure you’re right. But okay for now. Like in AA, I’m Mara and I’m flawed. Today I will not commit a crime.”
He whooped a laugh. Before he could do a U-turn to their original conversation, she grabbed his shirt collar and pulled down his head for a hard kiss that was like swallowing sunshine. A hot wave of longing swept through him. Dizzy and drunk on her taste, he nearly yanked her across the console again, but she pulled back.
“You’re not getting rid of me.” A cream-lapping-cat smile curved her lips. “Some people won’t open up to that tough mug of yours. You need my sweet, innocent face to help open doors. Without my full participation, you won’t have my tech support. Who knows what new barriers you’ll run into? Without me, you could crash.”
“Mara, I promised to help you prove your dad’s innocence and my word is good. It would kill me if you got hurt.”
“I appreciate that but I’m in all the way.”
“You know we may find nothing about your dad—nothing either way. If we do find evidence against him, can you face that truth?”
She lowered her gaze and chewed her lower lip. When she looked up, her eyes were clear with determination. “I want the truth.”
He knew when he was beat. He held up his hands in surrender. “All right. We’re good to go. But with two provisions.”
“What now?” She huffed a sigh of exasperation.
“The bad guys, whichever bunch they are, know what we know. Have what we have.”
“Except for your ring piece.”
“Except for that, and my knowledge of how Leon’s mind worked. I want to keep it that way. Somebody’s on the same trail we are. We need no leaks about our plans. From here on out, we tell nobody what we’re doing. No e-mails, no phone calls, zip.”
“Cassie,” Mara said, twisting in her seat. “I hate keeping her in the dark. She worries so. She won’t tell anyone.”
“Maybe not. But whoever followed us knows where she lives. The less she knows, the safer she is. We don’t tell the FBI or your sister.”
“Trust no one.”
“The motto I live by. You took the words right out of my mouth.” How the hell was he going to keep her safe?
“And I’m going in that house with you.” She jumped out of the truck and jogged across the street.
Back where they started, he stopped her from entering ahead of him. “I got a second provision. If you insist on seeing this through, you have to put up with me being protective.”
She grinned and blew him a kiss. “Oooh, that just makes me hot, Mr. Caveman.”
Shaking his head, he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Bet I won’t need the security decoder.”
Casting an anxious glance over her shoulder, she hurried in behind him.
No red or green light on the security panel beside the door. Dark. Disabled.
No sounds in the house other than the hum of the refrigerator. When his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he saw they’d entered the dining area of a great room. To their right was the kitchen, before them, toward the front of the house, the living room.
Everything, everywhere a junk heap.
Chapter 12
The upheaval in Mara’s apartment couldn’t compare with the destruction wrought in Falco’s house. Furniture overturned, smashed, and shredded. Holes gouged in the walls and flooring. In the kitchen nook, the refrigerator stood open. Its light spilled onto the tile floor, littered with broken food containers and dishes. The stench of rotting food choked him.
Mara’s hands flew to her throat. “Why did they do this?”
“Something pissed them off big time. I’m hoping it’s because they found squat.”
His New Balance sneakers crunched pottery shards and dried flowers into the carpet as he wandered through the mess. His heart dropped to the soles of his feet. Why didn’t he visit Falco early on? Maybe he could’ve prevented his death. And this. He dropped onto a straight-backed chair, the only piece of furniture untouched.
Mara picked up a bent silver picture frame. The cracked glass distorted the portrait of Falco’s grown daughter. He’d have to c
all Isabella. If he could figure out what to say.
“Centaur? The gang Devlin described?”
Not the colonel or his men. They’d have no reason to search this house. “Centaur. An accomplice. The Gramornian agent. Take your pick. But my bet’s on Centaur.”
“Then they could have Falco’s ring piece.”
If Centaur or anyone they didn’t know about had one of the ring pieces, they were dead in the water. “Or they ran amok because they didn’t find it.” He stood and crossed to where she stood at the edge of the slashed and stained carpet. “Falco was smart. He wouldn’t choose an obvious place to hide something so important.”
“But where could we begin in all this mess?” She spread her arms in demonstration.
“Looks like the house has a basement. First place to check.”
“Where should I look? Upstairs?” She glanced at the stairs with trepidation.
“We should stay together.”
“I understand the safety issue, but I’m here. Now let me help.” She folded her arms.
“Okay, but let me clear the upstairs first.” Before she could argue, he bounded up the stairs and checked each room. “Nobody in the closets or under the beds. Go for it.”
“Maybe he has a computer that’ll tell us something.”
Once she waved him away, he located the basement door in the kitchen. At the bottom of the wooden plank steps he found a large, unfinished space. In one corner, Falco had installed weight-lifting equipment and a treadmill. Everywhere else more evidence of the search littered the floor.
He remembered Falco as an orderly man, methodical. He would’ve hated this mess. That made the thief not unlike Mara. He smiled.
He picked his way through a litter of paint cans and overturned storage boxes to a workbench where tools hung against their outlines on bead-board paneling. The searcher had moved along, emptying every container and drawer as he went. He’d dumped out a toolbox onto the bench. Mixed in with innocuous items like wrenches, odd bits of copper piping, and vise grip pliers were the tools of Falco’s trade—a bump key, padlock shims, a keybit.
A crash from upstairs brought up his head so fast he nearly cracked his skull on a low beam. Mara? “What the hell!”
***
Mara found the bed neatly made in the master suite, shirts draped on doorknobs, but no socks on the floor or toothpaste tube open on the sink. No evidence of a search. Only the normality of a male living alone. A neat male.
In the other bedroom a laptop sat on a small desk beside an all-in-one printer. A man like Falco would have the computer password protected. Maybe they could take time for her to tease out the password.
Downstairs, glass shattered with a deafening crash.
A startled shriek tore from her throat. Cort! She turned and raced to the stairs.
From farther below came, “What the hell!”
His exclamation reassured her but curiosity propelled her downstairs. She stopped at the edge of the living room carpet. She barely heard him pounding up the basement steps as she stared at new destruction.
The picture window’s vertical shades shook from the blow, clattering against the wood frame. Glistening slivers added to the carpet debris. A soft-ball-size rock rolled to a stop on the littered carpet.
Cort arrived from the basement at the same time.
“Why would someone do that? What for?” Mara started to step away from him.
He pulled her back. “Don’t. Let’s get out of here.”
Another object whizzed through the broken window. More glass splintered, followed by the acrid odor of gasoline. He tucked her behind him, sheltering her with his body.
A fireball erupted in a cloud of black smoke.
***
Her heart was still pounding like a Thoroughbred down the stretch at Pimlico when Cort’s truck sped down Queen’s Chapel Road. Neither of them saw the vehicle or the thrower. A Molotov cocktail, he’d told her as they fled the burning house. Whatever the blasted thing was called, it exploded into fire like a bomb.
Sirens screaming in the distance reverberated inside her and spread outward from her chest. Her stomach rolled as the tremors radiated into her arms and legs. When she felt her legs, then her feet and each toe quiver, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her trembling arms tight around them. If she let go, she would fly into a million pieces like the window. Her teeth chattered, and she lowered her forehead to her knees. She would not throw up.
The truck pulled over and stopped on the roadside. She felt herself hauled over the console and onto Cort’s lap. He cuddled her under his chin and held her as if he knew her state.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe,” he murmured into her hair. “Hey, I’m shaking too. Nobody ever threw one of those things at me before either.”
She started to push at his arms. But she wanted him to hold her. Resistance was useless and childish. Letting the tears come, she gripped the knit of his Henley and buried her face against his solid chest. Her tears and tremors eased and she savored the feel of his strong arms around her, the new-wood smell he always carried on his skin, and the rumble of his voice as he murmured unintelligible words of consolation.
When she felt more rational, almost normal, enough to let go of him and sit up, she leaned back and looked into his shadowed face. He’d put himself in front of her when that thing exploded. “You were in front. Were you burned?”
“Sweetheart, holding you like this would make any man all right. I’m fine. You okay?”
She tried and failed to keep the flush from her cheeks. “I’m okay now. Thanks.”
“Long as you’re sure,” he said, his expression neutral as he helped her back to her seat.
She was sure of nothing. He hadn’t caressed her. He hadn’t kissed her. He’d only held her while she recovered, despite the hard ridge pressing against her bottom. She wasn’t feeling bold enough to thank him for his restraint. Besides, being on his lap like that made her want to throw her restraint out the window and do the wild thing with him.
Whoa. To cover her confusion, she dug tissues from her purse and wiped the tear-streaked makeup from her ravaged eyes. “Damn, this day’s hard on my mascara.”
He turned the key in the ignition. “What now?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy. I want to see the gem collection at the National Museum of Natural History. If people are going to throw bombs at me, I want to see for myself the scene of the crime. You’d probably prefer not to go back there.”
Staring at his hands on the wheel, he mulled her idea over, then lifted one shoulder. “I’d prefer if the museum was never the scene of a crime. But it’s past time I see the gem gallery.”
His shoulders tightened, but he’d suck it up. Yeah, no problem passing through security, having suspicious guards stare at him, through him. He nosed the Silverado back into traffic.
“I think whoever trashed the house was covering their tracks. They weren’t trying to kill us. We were parked across the street. They probably didn’t know we were there,” he said. “If it’s any comfort.”
“What do you think?” Her tremors seemed to have dissipated but her gaze was still stark with fear. “And we’ve lost our chance to search for Falco’s ring piece.”
“But if our competition didn’t find it, they lost out too.” He couldn’t hide the bitter disappointment in his tone. “If Falco had one.”
“He did have a laptop. But I didn’t have time to check it out. And it’s too late now. But no ransacking upstairs. All neat and organized.”
“Systematic search in the basement.” Something about that scene bugged him.
“The police and FBI could’ve overlooked the ring piece but our competition knows what they’re after,” she said, drawing in a quick breath. “What if Centaur or another one of Leon’s accomplices has Falco’s ring piece?”
“If it’s an accomplice, he could have two now.” His voice sank like his spirits.
Mara slumped in her s
eat.
If some son of a bitch got away with the crown jewels, Kaplan would think Cort lied about the puzzle ring. He’d have no way to find the stash, no way to prove his cooperation. The FBI would have no grounds to arrest him, but they could make his life a living hell.
With her guidance, he drove to a parking garage near the Federal Trade Commission, where he took the last parking spot in the far corner. They walked without talking to the museum’s Constitution Avenue entrance.
As they approached the tall glass doors, Cort felt his shoulder muscles bunch. Again. Mara looked up, studying him. Hell, his tight face probably announced he expected to be pulled aside by guards and frisked. Or worse, arrested. He could get through this. This was a museum, not a fucking prison.
At the security stop, a table and metal-detector portal, the uniformed guard’s bored gaze passed over them. “You folks enjoy the exhibits. We close in thirty-five minutes.”
No frisk after all. Cort willed the muscles to unknot, the iceberg in his gut to thaw. Mara reached for his hand and squeezed as they sauntered through the Ocean Hall, scattered with tourists and school groups. Everywhere around them, voices reverberated against the hard surfaces of the structure.
Cort led Mara past a poker-faced guard to the wide marble staircase. A glance at her beautiful face, still pinched and pale, clamped his chest. They were facing more danger than he’d imagined when he began. He hated dragging her into it.
He checked behind them before he spoke. “The Gramornian crown jewels were taken from the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals.” They climbed away from the milling crowd.
“You know all about it. No surprise. Tell me more.”
“What I know about the place I learned from research while I was in prison.”
“Because you never got inside that night.”
He nodded. “I came here that spring with a bunch of guys from college but we mostly goofed around in the dinosaur section.”
“I toured the museum with my eighth grade class.” Her heels clicked on the hard floor. “All I remember seeing in this gallery is the Hope Diamond. I read it’s been reset. An updated design meant to show it off better.”
Ring of Truth (Devlin Security Force Book 2) Page 11