by Jo Leigh
Angie looked at Ryan, just as he looked at her. He seemed as surprised as she was.
“Was there a ticket for Tonya?” Ryan asked, jerking his gaze back to Palmer.
“Yes.”
“So she still hasn’t broken the news,” Angie said. “Do we have any more intel on that business of hers? Is it a real thing, or a ruse or what?”
“Vegas has tails on all four of them.” Gordon looked pointedly at Angie and Ryan. “We’re all waiting on the text, which has to be coming soon. They’re not going to want to leave without their nest egg. I’d expect to hear from them no later than the weekend.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair. “Since Ebsen doesn’t have access to multimillion-dollar art, we know they’re going to ask for cash. So how do they expect to get the money out of the country?”
“If the blackmailer is Ira working alone, he may need to clear up his debts.” Jeannie’s gaze went to Ryan, then turned to Angie.
Brian leaned in. “If it’s Tonya’s game, she could be keeping the cash to help open up her business here, but that could also mean we won’t necessarily hear so quickly.”
Ryan nodded. “Marcus has some tricks up his sleeve. I’m not sure what, but he has some power issues. That milquetoast persona he’s got going doesn’t quite cover the rage. It wouldn’t shock me to find out he’s behind everything.”
“Marcus?” Jeannie asked. “He’s probably too busy with his call girls.”
“Expensive call girls.” Angie glanced quickly at Jeannie, but switched over to focus on Brian instead. Jeannie had looked...off. But Angie couldn’t think about that right now. “This woman must have charged a couple of grand. We have no idea how often Marcus indulges. It could be nightly, for all we know.”
“Yeah, but according to Tonya the family knows about his hooker hobby. Which could mean they’re all involved with the blackmail.”
Angie shook her head. “Maybe everything comes down to Delilah, and she’s just so good at blackmail and manipulation that she didn’t leave us any breadcrumbs. She looks squeaky clean and that could mean she’s smarter than all of them put together. Which could explain why Tonya changed her ticket. A last-minute escape attempt.”
That set up a few minutes of chatter around the table. Not Angie, though. She was still caught up in trying to figure out what was going on with Jeannie. Had Ryan told her what had happened? Did Jeannie blame her for having sex while on the case?
Angie thought about her conversation with Liz. They’d talked for over two hours the night before. Liz had been furious at Ryan on Angie’s behalf, which was nice, even though none of it was Ryan’s fault. Liz had tried to convince Angie to talk to Ryan, to clear the air, but there was nothing to clear. He’d made his stand, and she’d known from the start that this was the most likely outcome. What was she supposed to say, “No fair, you were supposed to have changed for me?”
The thought swamped her with shame, but thankfully, Gordon brought the meeting to order again.
“Everyone got copies of the reports from Angie and Ryan? I want to go over the conclusions, see if we’ve missed anything. Then I want each of you to get the two of them caught up. Paula, why don’t you start us off reading page one.”
Perversely Angie found herself turning to Ryan instead of Paula. He was looking down at the papers in front of him, and he seemed unnaturally still. Also, his chair was upright. Ryan liked to swagger even when he sat, well, leaned back. His hands weren’t moving at all. Normally he was a fiddler. No nearby pen was safe from his fingers, rubber bands were particular favorites and he’d bent more paperclips per meeting than anyone she’d ever seen. But there he was, head bowed, motionless, as if his vitality had flown the coop and left his body behind.
Watching him made her uneasy, and if she’d been sitting next to him she might have touched the back of his hand or rubbed his shoulder with her own. Despite everything. It was too much like looking at an imposter, and she didn’t care for it. The squeeze of tension in her chest swelled as she tried again to understand how things had fallen apart so drastically in such a short period of time.
She should have looked away. She meant nothing to him, and in return, she should do herself a favor and feel nothing for him.
His eyes closed. Slowly, as if he had to think about what he was going to do. Then his head swiveled toward her until he was staring right at her. The expression on his face was neutral. Almost. Because his gaze made her stop breathing, made her lean back in her chair. Made everyone else in the room seem to disappear.
She couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Only that it wasn’t about their report, or even about the case. All she knew for sure was that he’d lied to her. Whatever was going on between them, the thirty-four minutes and their night together hadn’t all been an act.
* * *
MIDWAY THROUGH SALLY’S overview of the Intimate At Last financials, Ryan’s phone rang. The sound brought everything to a standstill even though it wasn’t particularly loud. Everyone present knew that particular ring tone was Ebsen’s.
He pulled it out of his pocket. It was too soon for a blackmail text. But then nothing about this case had gone as expected. The blocked number told him it was the text they’d been waiting for. He knew from the interviews with the victims that they wouldn’t be able to trace the call, that it would be routed and rerouted in a convoluted trail that ended somewhere in Romania. He clicked View Now.
Dear Mr. Ebsen: If you wish to continue your very pleasant life with your beautiful wife, with your expensive car and your many elegant vacations, you will be at Du Par’s on Ventura Boulevard tomorrow night at 12:00 a.m. You will be alone, you will not be wearing a wire, and you will have with you $500,000.00 in cash, in hundreds, in unmarked bills with no dye pack and no tracers and no bugs and no hint that anyone, including the police, has been alerted. You will sit at the counter with a suitcase beside you. You will order coffee and you will not look around. If you do, your wife will receive every photo and every text and every email that is on your cell phone and computer. The suitcase will be taken. You will remain at the diner until 1:30 a.m. You may then return to your delightful life.
He nodded, so that the room understood this was the text. This was the ball in play. But there were still photo attachments to be looked at.
He began the slideshow. There was Ebsen’s ex-mistress. Next was a photo of breasts. Nice ones that hadn’t actually belonged to the woman who was pictured as his lover. She was a Special Agent out of the San Diego office, matter of fact.
Then came a series of pictures of emails and texts. From Ebsen to Roxanne, from her to Ebsen, deleted emails and deleted texts. He looked up, met Gordon’s eye. “Well, we were right about them cloning the SIM card and the laptop.”
“Let’s hear it,” Palmer said.
Ryan clicked back on the original message and as he read, half the people in the room took every word down.
“That’s awfully smug,” Jeannie said.
Angie nodded. “Sure. They’ve already gotten away with it. We have no idea how many times. This transaction is a done deal. It could be from any one of them or all of them.”
“All right,” Palmer said, looking his version of pleased. “We know the timeline. We’ll have the money ready. This is going precisely to plan.”
“Whoever’s running the pickup can’t get back to Vegas by plane that late.” Ryan looked over at Angie, a reflex, but one he’d have to curb if he didn’t want to get jolted out of his thoughts. “I doubt there are any trains. So, they’ll be driving. Unless the blackmailers are also in L.A.”
“We’re following the money,” Angie said, but Ryan kept his gaze on Palmer. “They don’t have the tech to discover our bugs, so we can wait it out until it changes hands.”
“Are we absolutely sure the Vegas team has to take the bust?” Ryan had been okay with the deal up until about two minutes ago. “We did do all the heavy lifting.”
Palmer’s pleased smile disappeared. “It will
show up in your files as a joint operation. Don’t sweat it. We all know what everyone did for this sting.” He looked right at Ryan as he spoke, then at Angie.
Ryan hoped to God that Palmer didn’t know everything that happened, but he nodded at his boss, anyway. At least the hand-off would be up to him. He couldn’t wait to see who was going to show up to take the cash.
* * *
“WHAT’S GOING ON?”
Angie wasn’t using Skype, so she couldn’t see Liz’s face, but she could picture her friend perfectly. Worried, mostly because of how wrecked Angie had been last night. Probably because Angie couldn’t keep up any kind of facade with Liz even over the phone. “I’m sorry. It’s been insane. I’m on a stakeout. Well, actually, I’m a block and a half away from the surveillance van in my car at the moment. I just wanted to touch base.”
“I wish you’d reconsider talking to Ryan.”
“I’m thinking about it. He’s been gone all day, acting out a day in the life of Ryan Ebsen. Being at work without him felt weird.”
“In what way?”
“Damn it, I missed him. I can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t believe it was all an act. We connected, I’m sure of it. The thing is, I’m positive that he knows all that, too. He just doesn’t like that he’d gotten involved. Especially with someone at work. So this feeling, this boulder in my chest, it’s all my problem, not Ryan’s. It hurts like fire, Liz. It just gets worse and worse.”
“Oh, boy.” Liz’s voice was softer, careful. “Angie, honey. I think you went and fell in love with the guy.”
Angie closed her eyes and willed herself not to let the sudden hot tears fall. “I didn’t.”
“Right.” Liz sighed. “The good news is, it won’t actually kill you. The bad news is, you’ll kind of wish it would.”
It took a minute of the heel of her palms pressed against her closed eyes, but Angie won the fight. No tear dropped. Only the penny. But if this was love, she wanted nothing to do with it.
“I’ve got to get back to the van. Ryan should be coming soon.”
“Good luck,” Liz said. “You know I think you should still talk to him. Outside of work.”
“Goodbye, Liz. Thank you.” Angie put her cell in her jacket pocket, locked up the car and walked back to the surveillance van, which had been parked down the street from DuPar’s diner. It smelled like a men’s locker room. Which wasn’t the bad part. There were four other people in the van with her that all had very defined tasks. She was a guest, and therefore, she wasn’t allowed to complain that she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear and technically shouldn’t even speak.
So she tucked herself into the corner and waited till Ryan Ebsen’s red Ferrari came into view. Their team was in place, with backups and hidden cameras using new stealth tech, and the wired money and cars that would physically follow the cash to see where it ended up.
She refused to think of anything but the stakeout and the money transfer. Every time something personal popped up, she squashed it like a cockroach. This moment would justify everything that had happened to her since they’d been assigned this case. It would make up for being in the most awkward and ultimately painful situation of her life. She’d be damned if she was going to miss a second of it on some insane emotional idiocy.
“He’s on the Boulevard,” Max said. He was their electronics guy, the one who’d come up with the nontraceable cash tag. “Everyone stand by.”
Angie took him at his word and stood, as cramped as it was. All she wanted was for this night to be over. For the case to be turned over to the Vegas office. And for Ryan to be safe. Even though he wasn’t the kind of man for her. Despite the fact that it was likely that she’d become more attached than was wise to the part he’d played instead of the man himself.
The truth was, he didn’t love her. He didn’t love her.
There was nothing to be gained by talking it out with him. She still stood by the decision she’d made this morning to put in for a transfer to Cyber Crimes. Just in case the D.C. job fell through, of course. She’d covered her bases, given herself a backup exit strategy. No matter what happened, she wasn’t going to spend any more time working in the same office as Ryan. Not if she could help it.
“He’s here.” Max’s voice was calm and low, but the words constricted Angie’s chest, and she maneuvered herself so she could see one of the monitors.
That car was captivating, but it couldn’t hold a candle to Ryan himself. God, he looked nervous. Of course. He was a consummate actor deep in his character.
He carried the suitcase with him into the brightly lit diner. The cameras they’d put in place an hour after the text showed every seat in the house. Particularly at the counter. But no one turned to look at him.
He ended up taking a stool to the far right, where there were the fewest customers. He put the case next to his feet, as ordered. An agonizing twelve minutes later, a tall blonde walked through the front door.
“I’ll be damned,” Angie muttered.
Everyone in the van looked at her.
“It’s Marcus,” she said, her gaze glued to the woman. “I mean, he’s in on it. She’s got to be one of his call girls. Clever.”
The blonde didn’t even bother to sit down. She just picked up the suitcase and walked straight through to the back entrance, where the exterior camera showed her getting behind the wheel of a white Chrysler. A moment later, she took off into the night.
By the time Ryan left the building at exactly one-thirty, the Ferrari was gone.
17
IT TOOK FOREVER TO GET HOME. He’d had to go to the house they’d set up as belonging to the Ebsen’s first, then sneak off super-spy style in Jeannie’s minivan. By the time she dropped Ryan back at his apartment, he was more exhausted than he could ever remember. It felt as if he hadn’t slept in years, not days, and now that the adrenaline had worked through his system, he was running on fumes.
That didn’t seem to matter to his beleaguered brain. As he stripped for bed, letting his clothes drop at his feet, he replayed every word Jeannie had said to him on the longest drive of his life. He’d confessed his sins, and she’d put him through hell for it. Truth was, he didn’t mind. It wasn’t half of what he deserved. The only thing he took exception to was Jeannie’s advice to talk it out with Angie.
What Jeannie didn’t know was that he’d already thought of that. The number of imagined conversations he’d attempted must have been in the dozens, each one falling flat or worse, making him want to wring his own neck.
They all began with, “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
The bed beckoned, but there was still one thing he had to do. Booting up his laptop took forever and made him very aware that it was damn cold wearing just his boxers on his metal desk chair, but doing anything about it was out of the question. One click opened a new document and he started typing. Once he got going he realized the short message he’d envisioned wouldn’t be sufficient so he kept on until he’d said everything he’d needed to. Literally dizzy with fatigue, he copied the text and found the two, no three, contacts for his email. Then he pasted his note, saved everything, shut off the machine and somehow made it back to the bed. And sleep.
* * *
DEPUTY DIRECTOR LEONARD had arrived at ten that morning, although Angie hadn’t seen him. She supposed he was being personally filled in on the success of their mission by A.D. Palmer. Rumor had it Leonard was going to stay on for a while, probably to conduct interviews.
Angie wasn’t fussed. The only thing worrying her was that it was almost noon and Ryan hadn’t made it in to the office. She wasn’t pining away for him. The opposite was true, in fact. She needed to prepare herself to see him. To get her thoughts in order as she ruthlessly shoved her feelings to a dark, small box in the back of her mind.
Not knowing when to expect him was messing with her timing. The last thing she needed today was that kind of distraction.
The Vegas team had taken over once the white Chrysler had
crossed into Nevada. The go-between had gone to a very expensive high-rise condo just off the Strip, which was immediately put under surveillance. She hadn’t left again.
Despite Angie’s realization that the woman had to be one of Marcus’s call girls, all the staff of Intimate At Last were being watched. Each of them had been seen at least once during the morning, but no one had left their homes.
Her office phone rang, and it was the Deputy Director’s assistant, asking her to come to the third floor temporary office. She popped a mint as she went to the elevator, amazed at how calm she felt. At least about this.
On three, the elevator doors opened. Ryan stood directly in front of her. It took her so by surprise that Ryan had to block the doors from closing.
“You’ve been here all morning?” she asked.
“An hour.” They traded places, but he kept the elevator stalled.
She had questions, but the director was waiting, so... “It went great last night.”
“I heard you were in the van.”
She nodded, then motioned with her chin toward the director’s temporary office down the hall. “I have to...”
“Yeah,” he said, looking as if he wanted to say more. Instead, he moved back in the car, letting the doors close.
The walk to Leonard’s office wasn’t nearly long enough. But she managed to settle, to get back some of her calm before she tapped on the door.
She took the offered cup of tea just to have something to hold on to. Of course, she’d met Leonard before, but she doubted he remembered her.
“Congratulations on a job very well done,” he said, gesturing for her to sit in the guest chair.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Not just for your software program, but for stepping into a very delicate situation.”
She nodded, smiled, took a sip of tea that really needed some sugar. “Thank you,” she repeated. God, how she hated interviews.