The Black List

by Robin Burcell

  “The boyfriend who’s in jail?”

  “Right. So, I let her. Only she took off with my ATM card. Guess I probably should have changed the PIN when she moved out.”

  “I’m assuming you called the bank?”

  “I did. She used it for cash at the market about a block from her house.”

  They drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, through San Francisco, then on to San Mateo, and he pulled into a subdivision of houses that had to be worth a small fortune, parking at the end of the street. Carillo pointed to the last house on the block.

  “That’s Sheila’s house?” Sydney asked.

  “It is.”

  “What is this guy? The CEO for the charity?”

  “No. Apparently the charity owns the property. Isn’t it nice to know when you donate money, it’s being spent wisely? They lent it out to him.”

  “Nice. And here we thought working for the Feds was cush, because we got paid holidays. So what are you planning to do?”

  “Find Sheila and talk some sense into her head. She doesn’t have to save every stray that wanders into her fold.”

  “That what you were? One of her strays?”

  “Except I couldn’t be saved.” Carillo cruised up the hill, stopped in front of her house. A white BMW convertible was parked in the driveway. “Well, her car’s there,” he said. “Can’t wait to hear what she has to say.”

  The two walked up to the door and Carillo rang the bell. No answer. He looked in the leaded decorative glass of the door, then pulled out his cell phone and called her. “Still not answering. Something’s up. This is too weird, even for Sheila.” He headed to the side gate, opening it to allow Sydney to enter first. “I think we could jimmy one of the dining room windows back here. These are nice and low. Easy to climb in.”

  “How sure are you about this?”

  “I’m not sure about anything. Sheila’s a ditz, no doubt about it, but she seemed genuinely upset last night.” He took a pocketknife and slid it into the window, popping it open. “I told her these windows were crap and that she should secure them better. But no. She didn’t want to waste the money when they were only going to be here until the divorce was final and she got her claws on my condo.”

  “So what are you trying to say? She’s a gold-digging stray saver? Which is going to sound so good when we get picked up for felony breaking and entering.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.” Carillo drew his gun, sat, then straddled the window ledge, one foot inside, one outside. “Besides. I hear the water running upstairs. She’s probably in the shower.”

  “That’ll go over good in divorce court,” she said, drawing her own weapon, then following him in. “We’re the FBI, your honor. Breaking into estranged wives’ houses while they shower is what we do.”

  Everything looked neat and tidy, she thought, as they walked through the kitchen toward the living room. No sign of a struggle or any trouble.

  Carillo stopped. Listened. “Definitely coming from the second floor. Which maybe explains why she didn’t answer her phone.” He holstered his weapon, appearing much more relaxed now that they knew she wasn’t lying dead somewhere with a knife-wielding suspect standing over her.

  They started toward the stairs. Carillo stopped when he saw Sheila’s purse on a table in the hall. He reached in, pulled out her wallet, found his ATM card, and shoved it in his pocket. She was surprised he didn’t take the two hundred bucks Sheila had withdrawn from his account along with it.

  The upper story consisted of four rooms—two unfurnished bedrooms, an empty bathroom, and the master bedroom, where the sound of running water seemed to originate. He and Sydney stood on either side of the closed double doors that led inside. Carillo, his free hand on the doorknob, looked at Sydney. She nodded and he unlatched it, then used his foot to push it open. They peeked in. The room appeared unoccupied, the bed neatly made. Two doors on the far wall, both closed, faced them as they entered. A thin strip of light reflected beneath the door on the left, undoubtedly the bathroom. The other, she assumed, was the closet.

  “Time to find out what’s going on,” he said.

  “Sure you don’t want to wait until she’s done?”

  “If I thought she wouldn’t run off, yeah.” He crossed the room, his footfall silent on the off-white carpet.

  Sydney hung back, fairly certain that Sheila was not going to like that her soon-to-be-ex was about to burst in while she was showering, especially with a spectator in the room.

  He opened the door, then pointed for Sydney to enter.

  “Me?” she whispered.

  “You think I’m going in there?”

  “You’re married.”

  “By a technicality.”

  “You are so going to owe me.” She gave him a look, then pushed the door open the rest of the way, the hot, moist air hitting her face as she stepped in. She stared at the steamed-up glass enclosure. Empty.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “There’s no one here.”

  “What?”

  He pushed past her, moved inside, opened the glass door. “Where is she?”

  Sydney glanced out into the bedroom. “A better question is why is she hiding from you?”

  “Because she stole my ATM card.”

  At which time they both looked over at the closet, still closed.

  He and Sydney flanked it. “Sheila?” he called out.

  Sheila, however, was not in the closet. She was under the bed, poking her head out from beneath the bed skirt and looking imminently relieved when she saw Sydney and Carillo standing there.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “I’m sorry!” she said, crawling out. “I thought you were them.”

  “Them who?”

  “I told you last night. The ones after Trip.”

  “Isn’t he in jail?” Sydney asked.

  Sheila sat on the bed, her hand to her chest as she took a deep breath. “He got out this morning.”

  “And what?” Carillo asked. “You needed my ATM card to welcome him home?”

  “No,” she said, turning an angry glance his way. “I needed it so they couldn’t trace my movements and find me, thereby finding him. Don’t you think it’s odd that they dropped the charges right after they learned I asked you to look into it? Like they knew you’d find out they were setting him up?”

  “Great. He’s out. So where is he, then?”

  “In hiding.”

  “Hiding? Under the bed with you?”

  “My God, Tony. What part of this don’t you get?”

  “The part where you go sneaking off and don’t answer your goddamned phone so I think you’re lying dead somewhere.”

  “You mean you actually care what happens to me?”

  “Finish your goddamned story so I can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Fine. I heard a car pull up and looked out my bedroom window, expecting to see the maid’s car, but saw yours instead. I freaked.”

  “Because you saw my car, the same one I’ve been driving every day for the past year?”

  “No. Because, A, my maid has been coming here for six months at seven-thirty in the morning and has never been late until today, and, B, I wasn’t expecting you. Naturally I thought you were the guys after Trip, so I hid. Happy?”

  “Ecstatic. So what now?”

  “Now I pack a few days of clothes and go to meet him. And then we need to get a hotel or something so they don’t find us. I don’t suppose you’d let me use your credit card?”

  Sydney, trying to ease Carillo’s frustration, asked, “What makes you think someone’s after you?”

  “Trip. He told me.”

  “Why does he think this?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. I only know that he’s too scared to come to the house.”

  “And yet,” Carillo said, “he had no problem sending you here?”

  “He’d be furious if he thought I was here. He thinks I’m at your house.”
/>   “He just went up a few notches in my book.”

  “So I can use your credit card?”

  “Tell you what, Sheila. Assuming any of this is true, I’ll follow you to your hotel, pay the bill, then sit down with Trip and get to the bottom of it.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “If it will bring me peace for an afternoon, yes.”

  She got up off the bed, put her arms around him. “Thank you, Tony.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Get your things together. Sydney and I will wait for you downstairs.”

  He and Sydney walked out, and he closed the door behind him.

  “You buying that?” Sydney asked.

  “I think she watches too much TV.”

  “At least Trip’s off the hook for embezzlement.”

  “What more could a prospective wife ask for?” Carillo said as he and Sydney started down the stairs.

  The doorbell rang and they heard Sheila call out, “It’s probably the maid. She’s got a key.”

  “She gets a maid, I get the bill,” Carillo muttered as someone turned a key in the lock, then opened the door.

  A small woman in dark clothing stood there, shoving something in her pocket before turning around to pick up a caddy filled with cleaning supplies. She straightened and looked right at them, her eyebrows shooting up, not in fear, but in inquiry. “Are you Trip?” she asked, focusing on Carillo.

  Carillo froze. “How long did Sheila say her maid worked here?”

  “Six months,” Sydney answered.

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than Sydney saw the woman reach into the caddy, pulling out a black semiauto.

  Before the woman’s gun cleared the bucket, Sydney drew and fired. She heard Carillo’s almost simultaneous shots. The woman fell back, looking surprised as the bucket and gun clattered to the floor. The two agents approached, keeping their weapons trained on her. Carillo opened the door, looked outside, checking for more suspects. Sydney kicked the woman’s gun away and it went sliding.

  Sheila, hearing the gunshots, ran out of her bedroom, stood at the top of the stairs, then screamed.

  She sank to her knees. “Oh my God . . .”

  “I take it that’s not your maid?” Carillo asked.

  She shook her head. And when she recovered, said, “Now do you believe me?”

  Sydney took out her phone to call 911. As she punched in the numbers then put the phone to her ear, Carillo said, “Guess we better find out what happened to the real maid.”

  She looked at Carillo. “This is not how I wanted to spend my Christmas vacation.”

  3

  Sydney walked up the driveway after Carillo dropped her off that evening, and she stared at the two-story gray and white house of her childhood, with the ivy growing up the side, its twisting trunk as thick as a tree. An ancient oak stood on either side of the yard, moonlight filtering through the branches. Tiny white Christmas lights twinkled in the bushes that bordered the front porch as though fireflies hovered over them. She loved this house, the one constant in her life that didn’t change. It didn’t matter where she lived or where her job took her. This was home, and she walked up to the steps and sat, not yet ready to go inside.

  Although the curtains were closed, she knew her mother, stepfather, and Angie were sitting inside, laughing, being a family. It was what she thought of when feeling overwhelmed. It brought her comfort and gave her strength.

  Why then was it having the opposite effect as she sat there now?

  She glanced at the envelope Carillo had given her in the car and knew why. She’d left California partly because of these numbers, moved all the way across the country so her work wouldn’t bleed over into her personal life. And here she was, letting it happen again. Sure it was Carillo’s wife this time, but she’d interrupted her holiday visit with her family, and suddenly become embroiled in a murder investigation that meant she and Carillo were now on administrative leave until the facts were sorted through. Worse was that any chance of a simple, peaceful vacation was now going to be ruined because of the constant phone calls from the investigators who would undoubtedly find one more question to ask, one more detail that needed to be outlined. That was the primary reason she cut short her trip, deciding to return back to Washington, D.C., tomorrow. She didn’t want to subject her family to having to hear any of it.

  “Hey.”

  She looked over, saw Carillo standing in the driveway. “I thought you’d left.”

  “You were looking a little lost. And I guess my conscience got to me. Like you said, not how you pictured your Christmas vacation.”

  She shrugged, then let out a sigh. “Not so much that as my mother is going to be . . . disappointed. It’s bad enough that I’m late, but I’m trying to figure out how to even tell her. Sorry I missed dinner, but had to knock off an assassin who mistook Carillo for his wife’s boyfriend.”

  “I dunno. Sounds good to me.”

  “Yeah, if you’re describing the plot to a movie, maybe. Not when you hate everything about your daughter’s job.”

  “Angie would like it.”

  Sydney smiled at the thought. “Definitely.”

  They sat there in silence for several minutes, just staring out at the moon-dappled lawn. After a moment Carillo said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Not good.”

  “Sheila mentioned that some guy in Washington, D.C., could back up Trip’s story. Maybe shed a little light on what’s going on—” He stopped, pulled his phone from his belt, looked at the screen. “Text from Doc. They found the real maid in a Dumpster behind her apartment complex.”

  “You think Trip’s innocent?”

  “I have no friggin’ idea. But I can sure as hell tell you that if I have to spend the next several days on administrative leave because of something he did, I want to know exactly what I’m suffering for.”

  “If I had to guess, someone’s pissed about Trip stealing a bunch of money. Maybe it’ll be a lesson for Sheila to quit taking in strays.”

  “I wish that’s all it was,” Carillo said. “I get the feeling that Sheila’s so besotted with this idiot, she’s going to get dragged down with him. And since it involves my wife, I’m not about to trust just anybody looking into the case. I don’t think they realize how squirrelly she can be.”

  “You know they’re not going to let you investigate your own wife’s case.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I’ve been thinking, you know, maybe you could give Griffin or Tex a call. Ask them to check out this Dorian Rose guy Sheila was talking about. She says he can verify Trip’s story.”

  “Why them?”

  “One, because they’re in D.C. Two, because I’d like to get the opinion of someone I trust, not some poor schmuck who was low man on the totem pole and got stuck on-call over Christmas vacation. Three, I’d like it kept below the radar.”

  If anyone had the means to interview someone and keep it below the radar, ensuring that Carillo’s name never came to light—especially if something went awry—Zachary Griffin and James “Tex” Dalton could. The pair worked black ops for a covert government agency called ATLAS, based in Washington, D.C. “I don’t know. This is not exactly their thing.”

  The front door opened and Sydney’s mom poked her head out. “You’re home. I thought I heard someone out here.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Sydney said, tucking the envelope with the BICTT numbers beneath her arms. Her mother, unfortunately, was overly inquisitive when it came to her professional life. “Yeah. We’re, uh, just going over a few things.”

  “Well, hurry. We’re holding dinner for you.”

  She closed the door, and Sydney waited a few moments, making sure that her mom wasn’t about to pop back out again before she started talking about Carillo’s case. “They’re pretty strict over there, Carillo. It’s got to be a national security threat before they get involved. I know they’re going to say let the locals handle it.”

  “Just a call, Syd. What can
it hurt?”

  What could it hurt? The fact that she was here in California, and Zachary Griffin, the man she wanted a relationship with, was in Washington, D.C. After the last operation they’d worked, she thought for sure there was something more there. She’d even called and left a voice mail, wishing him a merry Christmas, and yet, he hadn’t called back.

  As much as she wanted to call again, she didn’t want to seem desperate, and now Carillo wanted her to call . . .

  Sydney took a breath, realized she was being selfish. Maybe it was Carillo’s wife and not him, but if anyone owed Carillo, she knew that she did. She eyed the envelope in her hand. Back when she was looking into her father’s murder, when she’d found these numbers, Carillo had been the one person in her life who stood by her, helped her when she needed him.

  She wasn’t about to forget that.

  “I’ll call in the morning before I leave for the airport. They’re likely to be in a better mood if I don’t wake them from a sound sleep.”

  4

  Zachary Griffin tossed his bag onto the floor, then placed the tiny white box on the desk, eyeing the mountain of paperwork that had piled up in his absence. He’d been in Mexico over Christmas, had just gotten back, in fact.

  Tex walked in just then, saw the box. “What’d you get me?”

  “Same thing as I did last year,” Griffin said. “Nothing.”

  “How was the mission?”

  “I’ve had better.”

  “No success?”

  “If there are any terrorists entering through the route that informant laid out for us, good luck to them. Marco and I spent Christmas night hiding beneath a bridge while a couple drug cartels battled it out above us. The only thing traveling on that route is drugs and guns. Unfortunately there are a dozen routes we weren’t able to check out, so we have to hope the border agents are on their toes. We know they’re coming in that way. What would be nice is to know the names they’re using to enter the country with.”

  “Let’s hope the next team is more successful.”

  “I see you’re not volunteering.”

  “Blond,” Tex said, tugging at his hair. “Sticks out like a sore thumb. If you’re not too jet-lagged to go out, I could use you for a quick contact.”