Cleopatra's Necklace (Devlin Security Force Book 3)

by Vaughan, Susan

  Once she’d amassed all available intel about the uncle and family, she sent off the info to Devlin’s cell phone. That was a couple hours ago. Time enough for him to phone Canada and devise a plan. Her boss was a decisive kind of guy, never one to dither. So she’d stuck around, expecting him to need more. Sure enough, he’d just called Max. She grinned as she entered the inner sanctum.

  “Thanks for staying,” Max said from their boss’s massive desk. The big Texan lounged in the leather chair, one foot in a western boot and the cast-encased leg on an upholstered side chair. “Devlin said to send apologies to Cort.”

  “Not a problem. Cort went to Roanoke to deliver a desk.” She sank onto a chair and sipped her tea.

  “His custom furniture has really taken off since he moved out of the Maine woods.”

  “He’s advertising now. Mr. Devlin ordering a new conference table and promoting the business hasn’t hurt either.” She smiled with pleasure at Cort’s success. “You said Mr. Devlin needs more information. Research?”

  “More than research,” Max said. “A probe. Urgent and maybe dicey.” He raised an eyebrow as if waiting for her reaction.

  Here was her chance to find out more. “I’ve never known him to handle a case personally. This Cleo Chandler must be pretty important to him.”

  “I got nada on that.” Max’s expression was as carefully bland as Devlin’s would’ve been if she’d had the temerity to ask him. Heaven forbid a guy would ever ask, not that the boss would give even Max a straight answer.

  She sighed, resigned to ignorance. “Okay, what’s this spy mission?”

  “Apparently this Mimi Ingram took a day off from her Med cruise to pay a visit to Cleo. The Canadian cousin and Cleo look a lot alike.”

  Mara’s eyes snapped wide. “The crooks shot the wrong woman.”

  “Give the woman a kewpie doll. We doubt the shooters know that yet. She has all Chandler’s documents. Hers are missing. Devlin thinks Cleo’s masquerading as her cousin on the cruise ship. First, verify whether Mimi Ingram returned to the Norwegian Emerald.”

  “Meaning Cleo.” Mara nodded as she tapped notes into her tablet.

  “If that checks out, arrange for Devlin to board as a passenger when they dock in Palermo, Sicily, on Sunday. If they’re full up, find a way to boot someone off the ship. I don’t care how you manage this, just do it. Discreetly.”

  “You don’t care how I do it?”

  Max’s brows beetled. “Those were Devlin’s words.”

  “Orders from above. Thank goodness. Glad we don’t have to worry about a coup.” She jerked her head toward the leg cast. “How much longer you have to drag that around?”

  “Another damn month. Kate may kick me to the curb before that.”

  “Growling at her, are you? How’d you say you broke the leg?”

  “I didn’t.” He shooed her toward the door. “Devlin needs that A-sap.”

  She snapped a salute and clicked her heels together, not terribly effective with sneakers.

  Max stretched out with his hands stacked behind his head and a master-of-the-universe smile on his face. “Hey, y’all, maybe this head-honcho job isn’t so bad after all.”

  ***

  Munich, Germany

  “Your computer program is not installed. Is this man playing you?” Marco Zervas bit out the words. He looked around the airport sports bar. Nobody was paying him or his men any attention. Saturday evening and travelers were weary.

  “Don’t think so, sir. Bloke’s not much with computers. I ’ave to lead ’im by the nose. He’ll do it though. The money’s set ’im up.” Hawkins hunched over his laptop, his wire-rim glasses propped on top his head. He murmured to himself as his fingers flew over the keys.

  On Zervas’s other side, Nedik rolled his eyes at the tech’s absorption in his work. He picked up his beer stein and returned to watching the airport crowd.

  Zervas caught the Fraulein’s eye and ordered another beer. A stopover at this airport without a few German brews was unthinkable. And allowed him a detour to throw the Interpol-led task force off his scent.

  When the waitress brought his beer, he wiped the rim with a napkin, then slugged down a healthy swallow. They’d never find him now he’d changed his appearance and his passport. The impregnable security at the villa would protect him from intruders, real or digital. He could run his operations from there without concern for the fucking task farce.

  They and Devlin Security Force had recovered more of his Cleopatra Tomb Exhibit haul. Their damned snoops intercepted his envoys en route to his buyers. He couldn’t allow them to recover the necklace. Shit, he wished he’d never heard of the thing. Or of Ahmed Yousef. But no matter. He would prevail.

  Hawkins looked up, settling his glasses on his long, thin nose. “Guv, are you certain about this hacking job?”

  “What, having doubts about your abilities, your so-called Hawk Tool?”

  The Brit straightened his Ichabod-Crane body. “None at all. It’s the best utility for this job. Does it all. Enumeration, scanning, root privileges—”

  “Fucking spare me the geek jargon,” Zervas said. He glared at Hawkins. “If not the technical issue, what?”

  “Spying in this system is bloody risky. Their tech department people are no slouches. But if you insist on it, let me do this remotely without the bloody mole. The wanker might do something stupid afterward and get caught.”

  “Doesn’t matter as long as it’s afterward.” That was his plan. They’d learn then who took down the company, destroyed its reputation. “You had your say. Now do what I pay you for. And while you’re online with our mole, ask him where his boss is.”

  He returned to his beer and Hawkins to his computer.

  DSF operatives had hounded Centaur all summer, getting closer and closer. They had to be stopped. He had to take down the company, screw Thomas Devlin himself, before DSF ruined his business. The hacking had to work.

  The waitress delivered his pork schnitzel and roast potatoes. The sauce’s rich aroma made his mouth water. He eyed Nedik’s sausages with disdain. None of those Kraut stuffed cases for him. Who knew what was actually in those things? Germans were generally fastidious but he couldn’t ignore that e-coli breakout a few years ago. He took no chances. He wiped his utensils with a sanitary wipe before testing his schnitzel. Cooked through. Good. Satisfied, he sliced off a piece.

  Watching Hawkins click away on his keyboard, Zervas drank beer, savored a bite of the tender pork. Glass clinked as the waitress delivered beers to a neighboring table.

  The geek looked up. “Mole says Devlin won’t be in for a few days. Odd, he says, because the boss never takes vacations. Gossip is it’s a hush-hush job about a woman.”

  Zervas’s mouth tightened. He set down his stein. Could the task force have made the connection? Devlin would jump on any mention of Cleopatra’s necklace.

  His heart strummed an erratic beat. He’d lived with hate for so long, he’d learned to contain the rage bubbling like lava. Perhaps there would be a showdown over the necklace. Perfect. He couldn’t fucking wait.

  He prided himself on keeping his voice even, modulated. “Find out where Thomas Devlin went.”

  ***

  Venice, Italy

  When Thomas stepped from the hotel elevator into the lobby, Bruno Castelli was waiting. Lucas’s description was on the mark. GQ looks and dressed for the part in a hand-tailored suit. Lucas had vouched for his credentials and ability. But how much would the detective cooperate on Cleo’s safety?

  “Commissario Castelli.” He shook the man’s hand. “Thank you for meeting me. You must have better things to do on a Saturday evening.”

  Castelli dismissed the apology with a shrug and a smile. “A major case like this one commands my attention on weekends as well. I need to make headway before your government puts pressure on my director. As for better things, my fiancée dines with her grandmother this evening.” He spoke English with little accent.

  “Wi
ll you join me for a drink?” The hotel’s bar probably wasn’t the best place, but he didn’t know this area near the hospital well enough to suggest another.

  Castelli’s gaze assessed what passed for a bar in the boutique hotel. Scarcely big enough for the four customers already seated in the gloom, it promised no privacy. “Perhaps later. Let us go for a walk.”

  They made their way through narrow streets via a series of doglegs. As they turned onto the Fondamenta Nuove, a wide paved embankment, a sailboat and a rowboat passed each other in the deep channel. The calm water gleamed silver in the lowering sun. Across the canal, cypress trees marked the Venice cemetery on the island of San Michele.

  “I suspect you have discovered by now that the injured woman isn’t Cleo Chandler,” Thomas said, hoping his up-front approach would earn him points. And trust.

  Castelli’s glance was sharp. “How do you know this?”

  “I’m an old family friend. There are... small differences. I knew she wasn’t Cleo.” Before his brain, his body had known, not responding to her the way he’d reacted to Cleo from the day she stopped being a pesky kid and became all female. And too fascinating for his good. Or hers.

  “You are right, signore.” Castelli tucked his hands in his suit-jacket pockets. “Fingerprints on objects in the purse and on the mobile phone do not match those of the victim. Interpol has vouched for your reputation and that of your company. Before I share information from an on-going police investigation, what is it you want from me?”

  Two twenty-somethings walking a German shepherd approached from the other direction. The women whispered together, hips swaying in their short skirts more noticeably the closer they came. Thomas’s face warmed before he realized they were smiling at cover-boy Castelli, not at a man more than a decade their senior, the age difference between him and Cleo. He needed to remember that when he found her.

  After the women passed, he said, “I know where Cleo has gone. I want assurance I can reach her and protect her before you reveal the identity confusion to the press. And to the bad guys.”

  “I can make no promises. Signorina Chandler is connected to two cases of murder. She is a suspect.”

  “Witness, yes, but no murderer. I believe she’s the one who first called the police about Moreau’s death, and then the emergency number about the second shooting. She’s the reason that woman in the hospital bed is still alive.” He had no proof, only supposition. He shouldn’t have come across with such vehemence, dammit. “And Moreau? Do you think she shot him too?”

  The detective’s thin smile revealed nothing. “Too soon to say. We found blood at the foot of the stairs leading to his studio. Signs of a search inside. Clues in the flat where he expired indicate Signorina Chandler left in a hurry. Both victims were shot by the same nine millimeter. No witnesses to either shooting, except probably the signorina. No indication anyone else was there outside the jewelry shop. Perhaps the women argued. If I could question the signorina...” He let his words hang in space, like Cleo’s life.

  Thomas forced calm into his voice. “Right. Once I’ve arranged for her safety, I’ll make her available for questioning.”

  “But you will not tell me her location.”

  Thomas kept his expression neutral while he waited out the detective.

  After a moment, Castelli spoke. “On her Facebook page, we found posts between her and Mimi Ingram, and her mobile showed recent calls to her. But whenever I ring the number, it is out of service.” He raised an eyebrow.

  Not unlike Thomas’s attempts to reach his sister. But he was no longer worried. Much. Dr. Olsen had said she was working her regular shift, so she was just ignoring him. Sometimes space was good, the doc had suggested. Maybe.

  He waited to respond to Castelli until they’d passed two men chatting at a gas station. Fumes feathered the salt air as a man filled the tank in his water taxi. Castelli had seen the necklace on the Facebook page. Every police officer in Europe knew about the theft.

  Before Thomas could speak, the detective stepped in. “The necklace. Is it the one stolen in July, the ancient piece unearthed in Cleopatra’s tomb?”

  “Or a copy made by René Moreau aka Farris Pandareos.” He doubted Cleo had any idea she might’ve worn the real deal. She might be a little wild but never dishonest. Always open. Sometimes too open. If she was still the Cleo he used to know.

  “Your security company was in charge of the transfer from the U.S. to the museum in Paris,” Castelli said, sympathy, not accusation in his voice.

  “To my great embarrassment. And the reason my company is cooperating with the Centaur Task Force. We believe Centaur is involved. You can understand the other reason I want this resolved.” He didn’t need to explain. Several thefts in Venice in the past few years had alerted Castelli’s office to Centaur’s dealings.

  They reached the end of the fondamenta at a wide opening between the banks.

  “This is la Sacca della Misericordia,” Castelli said, gesturing toward a line of moored boats. “It translates as ‘Bag of Mercy.’ Not a descriptive or elegant name, merely a small basin separating islands and used for major transportation and a marina.”

  Dusk was falling in royal shades of purple and gold. The water flowed out toward Murano. In the distance along that cluster of isles housing Venice’s glass factories, lights blinked on and details blurred to silhouettes.

  After a moment enjoying the view, the two men turned and retraced their steps.

  “And Mimi Ingram?” the detective asked.

  Castelli would learn the truth as soon as Mimi’s mother arrived for now Thomas intended to withhold a key fact. “Mimi Ingram is Cleo Chandler’s cousin. I learned from Cleo’s father that he has a brother he hasn’t seen for fifty years.”

  “A very long time. A family argument?”

  Thomas nodded, pondering the history of that turbulent time. “Over the war in Viet Nam. Cleo’s father Horace joined the navy. His brother Milton was a conscientious objector who left the U.S. for Canada. They haven’t spoken since, and Horace didn’t know where Milton lived.”

  “But you do?”

  “My personnel are top notch, Commissario. My researcher discovered him, now Milton Ingram, in Toronto. He was an attorney with Amnesty International.”

  “Was?”

  “Unfortunately he died a year ago in a helicopter crash. His wife and teenage sons still live in the family home.” As Thomas remembered telling the wife about Mimi being shot, his throat tightened. “This afternoon I spoke to his widow.”

  “I don’t envy you that conversation. I dislike delivering bad news.”

  “She’ll arrive here in a couple days. She needs time to make arrangements for the boys.”

  “And did she know how Mimi Ingram came to be in Venice?”

  “When her father died, Mimi found information about the Chandlers in her father’s papers. He’d kept track of them, although his brother didn’t. When she saw she had a cousin nearly the same age, she did her own search, found Cleo on Facebook. Mimi traveled to Venice so the cousins could meet. I have no idea how the shooting happened but I believe she was mistaken for Cleo.”

  “Because the man or men who shot Moreau think Signorina Chandler knows where the necklace is. She may or may not know, but she left behind her purse and she may have taken her cousin’s, along with her identity.”

  “I don’t want to endanger Mimi Ingram. Lucas Del Rio will remain here to guard her.” Thomas had a feeling the only way to remove Lucas from her side was to blast him loose with an RPG. “But I need a day, two at the most, to secure Cleo.”

  Castelli’s gaze dropped to the paving stones. He ran a thumbnail across his teeth. “I can give you a day or until Signora Ingram arrives, whichever is sooner. That is all.”

  Thomas could breathe again. “Thank you, Commissario. It should be enough time. After that it won’t matter whether Centaur knows where Cleo was hiding.”

  “They may already know, my friend.”

&nbs
p; The warning had his brows crunching. “What do you mean?”

  “My crime scene people confiscated a laptop computer from the flat she and Moreau shared. The hard drive was missing.”

  Chapter 6

  Shipboard

  “THIS ROOM SAFE totally baffled me.” Cleo batted her eyelashes, channeling the ditzy babe her dad thought she was. “Thank you so much, Erik.”

  His cheeks flushed. He looked tough and his bulk filled the doorway but, jeez, he had to be barely out of his teens. And naïve, thank you very much.

  “Anytime, madame. Just call the security office and I’ll be here.” His color went from pink to crimson and he actually winked.

  Great, she’d accomplished too much. He was hitting on her. From now on she’d have to avoid the guy.

  In a move she suspected was an attempt at swagger, he nearly dropped the digital gizmo that had opened her safe. Mimi’s safe.

  Twin waves of grief and guilt rolled through her, wobbling her pulse and her smile. “Sure. Cool.” For support, she yanked open the door, held onto the handle. “I think I have the hang of the thing now.”

  Grinning, he backed into the corridor.

  She managed a smile as she pushed the door shut. She slipped Mimi’s plastic ID from her pocket. Like the Canadian passport, the all-purpose shipboard card read Marie Ingram, not the nickname Mimi.

  Marie. Their mutual grandmother, a wispy but steadfast woman with a pouf of reddish-gray hair. Her hand clutched Grandma Marie’s locket before she realized it. She had died when Cleo was twelve, leaving her the locket, but Mimi had never met her or known she had a grandmother with the same name. Or maybe she had known.

  She was Cleopatra Marie Chandler, and Mimi was Marie—What? The driver’s license in Mimi’s backpack listed her as Marie L. Ingram. Louise? Linda? Lydia? Tears burned Cleo’s eyes. She swallowed and leaned her forehead against the cool metal door and forced down the emotion.

  She had to be Mimi, behave like Mimi—capable and organized, like Cleo should be. The dummy act had served its purpose with Security Eric, but she didn’t like how natural the charade felt. Or was she just feeling sorry for herself?