Lost But Not Forgotten

by Roz Denny Fox

  “He’s accusing you of extortion,” Mitch replied, tightening his grip on her shoulder. “Listen,” he said, glaring at the agents. “I’m sure you checked my credentials and Ethan Knight’s. We’re prepared to vouch for her. So is Pat Malone, retired Flagstaff P.D.”

  “You’ve seen what happened to that guy, and you still trust her?” Eloy shook his head. “Bad things happen when she’s around. I hope you’re watching your back, Valetti.”

  “My back is fine. Why don’t you and Hall quit spinning your wheels here and round up Turpin and Capputo? And this time, hang on to them long enough to get a few names out of them.”

  The two agents looked disgruntled. Finally Hall muttered, “They’re guilty as sin. We’ve got a good man on their tail. I didn’t want to tell you this, but they paid Malone a second visit. Worked him over good. Lucky for Ms. Malone, she’d gone out to the pharmacy.”

  “Dammit! How…” Mitch doubled a fist.

  Gillian swayed, and grabbed Mitch’s arms. “My God, no! How did they find him? Is…Patrick badly injured?”

  “He’ll live. Don’t ask to see him. We’ve got him stashed, and have a man on him around the clock. As to how they found him, we’re not sure yet.”

  Mitch thrust out a pugnacious jaw. “Ethan said you’d arrive here tomorrow afternoon. I’m guessing the reason you’re early is because they forced Malone to tell them where Gilly’s staying. When were you planning to let us know?”

  “We weren’t. Damn, I hate dealing with know-it-all ex-cops. Eloy and I are going to stake this place out tight. If either or both of those bastards show up, they’re goners, all right?”

  “Yeah, all right—if they don’t get past you,” Mitch said with some sarcasm.

  Gillian jumped to her feet and paced the room, wringing her hands. “Why are they doing this? If they have the connections we think they do, they must know the police stripped my car and didn’t find a key. Mitch, you said one of them searched my large suitcase. They even went back and tore up my apartment. Mitch and I double-checked the small bag I have. And they shredded my purse. Maybe Daryl planned to put the key in my luggage. He didn’t. I swear I don’t know anything about his client or where he might have hidden…whatever he hid.” Covering her face, she started to cry quietly.

  “Get out,” Mitch ordered. “There’s a limit to how far you can go in grilling an innocent citizen.”

  “We’ll leave after we’ve had a look at that bag she’s talking about. Eloy and I agree the car was clean and also the apartment. Knight’s wife didn’t want to tell us anything. Reading between the lines, we figured out that Mrs. McGrath is pretty possessive of one suitcase.”

  “She’s not Mrs. McGrath. You heard her say she’s divorced.” Mitch wheeled to face the two agents.

  “Show them the case, Mitch.” Gillian blotted her tear-streaked cheeks, but tried not to speak in a teary voice. “Lord knows, no one wants that key to turn up more than I do.”

  Mitch didn’t like it, but he complied with Gilly’s request. He went into the bedroom and returned a moment later, carrying the compact case. “Careful,” he growled when Bob Hall jerked it out of his hands.

  “My God,” the older man exclaimed, springing back as the lid popped open. “If this is your idea of a joke, Valetti, it’s not very funny.”

  Gillian elbowed her way into the circle of men. “Daryl and I lost a child,” she told them solemnly. “He knew, I’m sure, that I’d never agree to leave my only memories behind. We went through a terrible period. He didn’t handle my grief very well. Packing this case was good and decent of Daryl. Look as much as you need to, but don’t sully his intentions.”

  “No, ma’am.” Instead, Agent Hall asked Gillian to empty out the contents of the case. Then he and Kevin Eloy felt under the lining, as had she and Mitch. Hall also pried up the metal corners that held the suitcase binding in place.

  The younger agent gingerly lifted the quilt and examined each square. The little dress escaped, since there wasn’t so much as a hem wide enough to hide a key.

  Bob Hall nudged the pewter urn with the tip of his index finger. Sounding uncomfortable, he muttered, “Any way McGrath might have dropped a key inside? Is this the original urn? It couldn’t be a duplicate to throw us off, could it?”

  Gillian snatched back the urn, reverently holding it against her breast. “Daryl was preoccupied with his business and he was a workaholic. But he wasn’t a cold-blooded man. He’d never do something as horrid as that. Besides, I saw him take this from my closet shelf. It’s only in B-grade movies that ashes are kept on the mantel,” she said scathingly.

  The agents—and Mitch, too—seemed thoroughly cowed. Mitch because he’d placed the container on his mantel, hoping it’d somehow help him connect with the owner. He half suspected that in some mysterious way it had ultimately brought him and Gilly together.

  “Maybe they snuffed your ex before he had a chance to hide the key in your things, Mrs. McGrath—er, Gillian. The trick will be to convince the folks who are worried about it that the evidence Daryl gathered has ended up in our hands.”

  “How can I convince them of anything?” Gillian wondered aloud as she carefully replaced baby Katie’s things and again closed the lid.

  “That’s our job,” Hall assured her, hitching up his belt. “Eloy and I are going out in the parking lot to hunker down. If those bastards show up here and try to get away with a B and E like they did at your apartment in Desert City, we’ll nail their scruffy hides. If you two leave the condo, Mitch, give us a high sign of some kind. We’ll keep one man here and the other will shadow you.”

  Mitch agreed halfheartedly as he escorted the agents to the door. He wished his mind wasn’t so fuzzy from lack of sleep. Something that had just happened here was nudging his cop’s instincts. Like Ethan, he’d developed an internal method of mentally sifting through clues that weren’t really clues. When his sixth sense kicked in, it rarely gave him peace until he’d ferreted out what troubled him. Sleep might interrupt the process—but then again, sometimes he woke up with answers. All he knew was that right now, it was three-thirty in the morning. This was the third night in a row he’d been short on shut-eye.

  Still, he took care to lock the front door and check the glass patio door and kitchen windows before he wrapped his arms around Gilly again. “Sweetheart, I know you feel steamrollered by those jerks. But I’m beat and you must be, too. Let’s go back to bed for a couple of hours. Then we can sit down and sort everything out over breakfast.”

  She slid her arms around Mitch’s waist and hugged him fiercely. “What if Turpin and Capputo turn up? How can you sleep, Mitch?”

  “You let Hall, Eloy and me see to stuff like that. Besides, you heard them say they have a tail on those guys.” Mitch kissed her, soft and fast at first, but he kept it up and grew more serious until she went limp in his arms.

  Feeling victorious, Mitch bundled her up and carried her to bed. “We’ll stay dressed. Guarantees we’ll sleep that way instead of…well, you know. Plus, we’ll be prepared if we need to dash out for any reason. Not that we will,” he hastened to add.

  She agreed and curled tightly against his side, listening to his heartbeat. When his breathing changed to steady and slow, Gillian eased away and sat up.

  Mitch believed in her. He’d given her nothing but love and support. He’d already been injured badly; he didn’t deserve to end up like poor Patrick Malone.

  Standing silent a moment, she gazed lovingly on his sleeping form. Even after she’d bent and dropped a last kiss on his lips, she hadn’t fully decided what she was going to do. However, as she slipped out of the bedroom, ideas began to tumble inside her head.

  What if she talked with Hall and Eloy and prevailed on them to let her contact Capputo and his sidekick? Then she could explain face-to-face that she wasn’t privy to anything Daryl might have known. She’d be able to assure them their secrets would remain safe. In turn, she’d ask only to be left alone. The agents could swoo
p in and pick them up afterward if they thought they could hold them.

  The plan seemed so logical her heart began to sing. She took time to scribble Mitch a note and she left it by the coffeepot. Taking her little case to give to the agents for safekeeping, Gillian unlatched the door and quietly stepped out.

  Her breath locked in her throat as two burly figures rose out of the gloom and pounced on her. One grabbed her around the waist. The other wrenched the suitcase from her hand and clapped a gloved hand over her mouth to stifle her scream.

  At first she thought it was Hall and Eloy. But Gilly soon realized these intruders were bulkier and dressed not in suits but black jackets and dark caps pulled low over their foreheads. Unless she missed her guess, she’d just met Turpin and Capputo.

  She’d wanted to meet with them, but on her terms and with FBI backup. Fright pumped adrenaline into her veins. She bit the man covering her mouth and managed one piercing scream before he swore and regained the upper hand.

  Gilly saw lights pop on in the condominium to the right of theirs. She did her level best to slump and make herself harder to drag as she heard feet pounding in the parking lot below.

  When shots rang out and thudded into the door at her back, she was so scared Mitch would come barreling out and get hit, she stopped fighting and let the men pull her along the access landing and down a dark stairwell. In a way, this was the opportunity she sought, Gillian told herself desperately. Her chance to explain that she was no threat to their boss.

  Apparently, she wouldn’t get that chance soon. Cringing, Gilly prayed every time the thug holding her shot over her head. She wanted them far away from Mitch. That was why she let them shove her into the back seat of a car without resisting. She opened her mouth to speak as the engine roared and the car squealed out of the lot. There was a loud crack, followed by a burst of light and pain slicing through her head. Another shot shattered the side window of the car and that was the last thing Gillian heard.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GROGGY AND disoriented from having fallen so deeply asleep, Mitch roused from a pleasant dream. Pitching upright, he thought he’d heard gunfire. Damn! He had. Rolling off the bed, he stopped to see if the sound had disturbed Gillian. His blood chilled. Her side of the bed was empty. Shouting her name, he charged into the living room. Seeing the door standing ajar made his stomach drop. More awake now, he lunged and yanked it fully open in time to see Bob Hall kneel down at the railing. With two hands wrapped firmly around his nine millimeter, he shot at a big sedan speeding out of the lot. The left side window of the car exploded. Glass flew everywhere.

  The agent was good with a weapon, Mitch had to give him that.

  “Where the hell were you, Valetti?” Hall shouted, adding a few other choice words as he lumbered to his feet and his partner stepped into a pool of light below.

  “Hold your fire, Bob,” Eloy yelled. “The suckers got away.”

  “I’m gonna follow them.” Bob slammed his flat palm down on the balustrade. “Get up here, Kevin. Knock on doors and flash your badge. Dean Lucas can stay in Sedona and deal with the local cops, since he’s the idiot who lost Capputo and Turpin and let them sneak in here under our noses. Valetti, you come with me.”

  “Where?” Mitch demanded. “What the hell is going on? Where’s—”

  “Shut up and shake a leg if you want to help me track the bastards who walked off with Noelle McGrath.”

  “Walked off with…what?” Mitch loped after the heavyset agent. Grabbing his elbow, Mitch pulled the agent up short.

  “Capputo and Turpin waltzed in and took your woman.” Hall shrugged Mitch off. “The way it looked to me at first, I thought she met them at the door. But for a while she seemed to be fighting them off, so I’ll reserve judgment as to whether it was a put-up job or the real McCoy.”

  Stunned and battling a suddenly queasy stomach, Mitch limped down the steps beside Hall. He jumped into the agent’s car without a word. After they’d roared off in the direction taken by the sedan, he collected his reeling brain enough to say through clenched teeth, “Gilly did not cook up a deal with those SOBs. I’m willing to stake my life on it.”

  “Let’s hope it won’t come to that, Valetti.” Bob Hall sounded grim. Neither man spoke thereafter. At least not to each other. Hall got on his radio and got in touch with other agents on the case. Mitch knew they were so far behind the dark sedan that only a visual sighting by another agent or one of a network of local cops would allow them to tail it. Closing his eyes, he massaged his forehead and asked for divine intervention. He begged whoever or whatever was out there to let him find Gillian. He had to tell her he’d fallen in love with her. He wished he’d done that already. So she wouldn’t feel alone and afraid….

  As the darkness turned pink in the early dawn, they got their first break. “Good news?” Mitch asked, sliding to the edge of his seat when Hall uttered into his cell phone, “About damn time.”

  “Just a minute, Valetti. Get somebody on it, Leroy. Find out if that plane filed a flight plan. If not, hand those call letters to the FAA so they can tell us what state registered the aircraft. We’ll meet you at the Flagstaff airport in…say, fifteen minutes?”

  “Flagstaff? You think they’re flying her out of Flag?”

  “Yeah. I may have to revise my report on Dean Lucas. He botched tailing Capputo, but he alerted agents in Flag and Bullhead City to be on the lookout for the sedan. Leroy Madison tailed ’em to the Flagstaff airport. They dumped the car and he saw them hustle McGrath into a light plane. One we know was used more than once for drug trafficking.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Mitch said, slapping his right fist into his left hand. “Can you step on it, Hall?”

  “Relax, Valetti. I can always feel when a net’s closing in. My gut says we’re inches from wrapping this baby up.”

  “That’s it. The baby. Man, oh man, that’s it.” Mitch whirled to face Hall, straining his seat belt. “That’s it!”

  “What’s it? What are you talking about, Valetti?”

  “The key! We’ve been looking for a regular key. The truth’s been in front of us all along.”

  “Spill it!”

  “Baby Katie’s urn. Well, not the urn exactly. The date carved on it. I’ll bet my bottom dollar Daryl McGrath has a safe either at his home or his office programmed to open using the baby’s date of birth. In this case, the code is also her date of death,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  “I don’t know, Valetti….”

  “Gilly said her ex made up number games all the time. Doesn’t it stand to reason he’d do something clever like that? I mean, last night Gilly all but said it surprised her that Daryl was kind enough to pack that suitcase. He wasn’t being kind at all. He was being cagy.”

  “You could be absolutely on target, Valetti,” Hall said thoughtfully. “Okay…here’s the deal. I’m willing to play your hunch. Say, do you remember the date? If so, I’ll phone ahead and have the Bureau send a team of agents to check out McGrath’s home and office.”

  Mitch hesitated.

  “Oh, crap. Can’t you remember the damned date?”

  “I know what the numbers are. But I’ll only give them to you if you make me a promise.”

  “Anything! We’re running out of time here,” Hall said, sounding impatient.

  “I want your word, Bob. If I’m right, promise you’ll let me use the information as a bargaining tool to get Gilly out of their clutches alive.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Sorry, the numbers stay in my head.” He paused. “You can do it. Question is, will you? Look, even if Capputo and Turpin ran me they’d only learn I’m an ex-Desert City cop. They won’t have any idea I’m tied to the feds. Nor will Gilly guess we’re working together.”

  “That’s true. All right, I’ll give my word. But if you blow this case, Valetti, your ass is grass.”

  Mitch only smiled. “The number is 11-18-00. Finding the safe is up to your
men. I doubt it’ll be sitting out in the open.”

  “If a safe exists, I guarantee we’ll find it,” Bob muttered fiercely.

  THE CAR in which she’d been thrown sped along the country roads. Despite the jolting ride, Gillian didn’t come around for some time. Feeling oozed into her body a little at a time. Her toes tingled, then she felt blood flow into her hands and arms. She expected to open her eyes and see Mitch lying beside her. When she raised her eyelids, pain slammed through her head, convincing her to shut them again. It was in that split second that memory returned. As nausea overtook her, she thought she’d be sick. She needed every ounce of concentration to keep the awful taste of bile confined to the back of her throat.

  When her head finally stopped spinning and her breathing steadied, she cautiously opened her eyes. One of the ugliest men she’d ever seen stared back.

  “She’s wakin’ up, Foss. Want me to bop her again?”

  “Just if she tries to scream or pull any funny stuff.”

  “I won’t.” Gillian’s voice sounded scratchy. “Wh-ere am I?” She realized the man peering down at her was seated, while she lay on a bumpy floor. The back of a car, she decided based on the rumble and sway beneath her.

  “Never you mind, Mrs. McGrath. Our boss will ask the questions. You save your breath.”

  Gillian tried to move, but discovered her arms were bound in front of her and her legs had been taped at the ankles. “What happened to my suitcase?” Growing panicky, she tried to wiggle into a sitting position. The pain ripping through her head had her flopping back again with a groan.

  “I said no questions.” The man with the fat ugly face shoved her down with an equally fleshy hand.

  Gillian’s head struck the floor. Darkness rolled over her in waves, and she tasted blood where her teeth had clamped down and split her lip.

  “Take it easy, Lenny. The boss said he wants her in one piece. Only way we’re gonna find that key.”