by Fiona Brand
When he’d initially read Rina’s file, like the other agents involved, he had wondered just how innocent she could be when she was married to Lopez. For a while the surveillance team had run a book on whether she was innocent or guilty, but after watching her for a few weeks, the joking attitude had begun to bug him. He’d come to the conclusion that she might be living with Lopez, but nothing about Rina Morell was cut and dried. For a while he had wondered if her detachment was caused by some kind of medication, but after checking her medical files and finding that the only medication she took was an occasional codeine-based product for headaches, he’d had to change his mindset.
In his spare time he had dug through every recorded piece of information he could find about her. Her psychological reports and school records had proved the most interesting. Her IQ was way higher than average, bordering on genius, she had the same photographic memory Esther had had, and she had been categorized as gifted with painting.
When Morell’s assets had been impounded, he had made a trip to the house at Seacliff in San Francisco to take a look. He wasn’t a psychologist or a criminal profiler, he just went on the facts, but when he’d stepped into her old room and had found a closet full of paintings, Rina had come into abrupt focus.
When he’d studied the canvases, he’d experienced the same feeling he got when he stepped out onto open prairie. Looking at what she had painted as a ten-year-old child, he had understood her on a level that had nothing to do with profiles or medical reports. The things that had been done to a child capable of that kind of creativity and insight had made him feel sick.
Over the past few months of researching her background, the picture of what had actually happened, as opposed to what had been visible on the surface, had become clear. Rina had been blinded in the accident that had killed her mother, then virtually imprisoned while Lopez had waited for Rina’s memory to return so he could get his money back. Just over two years ago, he had stepped in and married her to make sure no one else could slide in under the wire and get the information if she did begin to remember. When he had her isolated from Cesar and any other family and friends, Lopez had attempted to reproduce the trauma that had caused the amnesia in an attempt to get the account numbers.
Rina’s escape into WitSec had left a lot of loose ends dangling for Lopez. Aside from the fact that her testimony would put him behind bars for life, he knew she had recovered her sight. In theory, with the blocks in her mind dissolving, she was closer to remembering than she ever had been—just when she had slipped from his grasp. The fact that he had taken the risk of putting a price on her head—a move that could expose him—demonstrated just how badly Lopez wanted her back.
JT pulled in at a gas station, filled up and bought coffee and painkillers. Before driving out, he booted up the computer, punched in his PIN and accessed the GPS system. He waited while the system searched. Seconds later he had his signal.
Swallowing a couple of painkillers, he chased them down with a mouthful of coffee and turned back onto the highway.
Rina checked into a seedy motel in the Tenderloin, a run-down section of San Francisco just west of Union Square filled with budget accommodations, bars and an eclectic mix of cheap cafés. She signed the register using a fake name, paid in advance with cash, and when the clerk asked for ID, she slid two twenties across the counter. As she tucked change into her purse, she noted the time on the clock behind the reception desk. Six p.m. It had taken her almost twenty-four hours to reach San Francisco.
After she and Baby had caught the bus in Beaumont, following the advice of the driver, she had gotten off at a shopping center near the airport. The shopping center was open twenty-four hours, and she’d found everything she’d needed there: coffee, food and a rental car. Asking the bus driver for advice had been a risk, but she had been aware that the driver would be questioned, anyway, and it was highly unlikely he would forget a blind passenger with a Seeing Eye dog boarding an almost empty bus after dark. To put Marlow, JT and anyone else making inquiries off the scent, she had told him she was catching a flight to Dallas.
She’d stayed on the Beaumont Highway all the way to East Houston, then pulled in at the first motel with a vacancy sign. After snatching a few hours’ sleep, she and Baby had gotten back on the road, but instead of heading for Dallas and its busy air terminal, she had driven to San Antonio and caught a flight out from there.
Flying at all had been risky, but she hadn’t been able to afford the time driving to the West Coast would take. She had minimized the risk by using her credit card to pay for a flight to L.A. When the flight had gone, she had paid cash for a second flight that was boarding, this time to San Jose. As extra insurance, she had worn a dark blond wig she’d bought in Houston and Baby was checked on as pet cargo. That way she had been able to board and exit the flight as an unaccompanied passenger, not the woman and Seeing Eye dog combination the authorities, and Slater, were looking for.
A phone call before she boarded the flight to a kennel in San Jose had provided the solution of what to do with Baby when she reached San Francisco. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight, but together they were too visible. For an extra fee, the couple that ran the kennels had agreed to collect Baby from the airport. Rina had paid ahead for a month’s stay, nonrefundable, with the rider that she would collect him within a week. When they had requested contact details, she had provided a friend’s address and phone number in San Diego. If she didn’t survive the trip, Elena would make sure that Baby was cared for.
Now that she was just hours away from Eureka, her plan was simple. Once she located Radcliff’s place, she intended to call Bayard and tell him she and Baby had been taken hostage and were being held there. The fact that she had gotten to a phone at all would make her call suspect, but that was exactly what Taylor had managed to do, so the idea was plausible. In any case, Rina planned to terminate the conversation before questions could be asked, leave the line to Bayard open, and plant the phone on the boundary of Radcliff’s property. With any luck, Bayard would jump at the bait and whoever it was who had been sabotaging the FBI busts wouldn’t have time to compromise this one.
She had tossed up simply calling Bayard from San Francisco, but she couldn’t risk the fact that he might be able to locate the origin of the call whether it was a cell phone or a landline. The fact that she was asking him to invade a senator’s residence, an action that could put his job on the line if she was wrong, added to the need for her to be physically close to Radcliff’s address so that at least that part of the call would be validated.
After unpacking in her room, she walked toward Union Square. She needed to buy a number of items, including clothing. One of the things Esther had taught her was that if she dressed right for an occasion, she was more likely to get what she wanted, and with less fuss. In this case, she needed a more formal outfit that would help her blend in with the business community, and she couldn’t buy those clothes from any of the shops she had used to frequent. She had never been that well known in San Francisco, courtesy of her blindness, but she was known. Reclusive or not, the fact that she was Cesar Morell’s only child had always guaranteed that.
The mall she finally settled on had a clutch of mid-range boutiques and, according to the site map, an Internet café, which was her other requirement.
Before she drove to Eureka she intended to retrieve the contents of Esther’s safe-deposit box; she couldn’t risk leaving that particular job incomplete, in case she didn’t make it back.
According to the FBI, if Esther had compiled evidence against Alex, they had never found it. Knowing how meticulous her mother had been, Rina was certain she would have collected evidence and stored it in a place Alex couldn’t reach. She was equally certain that was what the safe-deposit box held.
She needed to find out about the protocol for accessing the safe-deposit box before she walked into the bank. By now there would be an APB out on her. She would only get one chance at retrieving the contents o
f the box and she didn’t want to be turned away because she lacked the right documentation.
The Internet café, situated centrally in the mall, was easy to find. After a brief tussle with an unfamiliar mail program, Rina was online. She accessed the Web site of the bank she needed to research, and saw that the bank was a subsidiary of the Swiss bank Esther had used to work for, Bessel Holt.
The guidelines for safe-deposit boxes were straightforward. When you rented one, you rented space in the bank vault. The person renting the box, and anyone else they wanted to have access, had to sign a card. Every time the box was opened, the signature was compared with the signatures on the card. It took two keys to open the box, one held by the owner of the box, the other held by the bank. The bank didn’t keep a copy of the owner’s key, so if that was lost, the box would have to be drilled open. In the event that the person who rented the box died and there was no other signatory, a death certificate and a power of attorney were required.
That explained why Esther had placed the power of attorney in with the key. The only thing she hadn’t been able to supply was the death certificate.
When a copy of the deposit box information had printed out, Rina did a search on Senator Radcliff. A string of news articles came up. She struck gold with an older magazine article about Radcliff’s ex-model wife and their award-winning designer home. The article had been published before his recent election to the Senate, but even so, the magazine had been careful, not allowing any detail of the house plan itself to be published and only photographing tantalizing glimpses of the exterior and the interior decorating. However, the names of both the architect and the interior designer were supplied. Rina hit the print button on the article, then terminated the session.
An hour later she had everything she needed: the pages she’d printed and something to wear. The low-key beige pantsuit, cream camisole, beige shoes and matching handbag were classic. Combined with her jewelry, the outfit would look much more expensive than it had been. She also bought a new watch, perfume and makeup.
By the time she unlocked the door on her motel unit, she was exhausted and hungry. With all the shopping she’d done, she hadn’t thought to get food. In the end, she settled for a pizza delivered by a franchise that had an outlet in the small shopping center that backed on to the motel. When she had eaten, she hung her new clothes in the bathroom so the creases would smooth out while she showered.
Just before she drifted off to sleep, she set the alarm on her clock. First thing in the morning, she needed to pay a visit to Carlton and Sykes, the Morell family solicitor. Directly after that, she’d head to the bank, then Radcliff’s interior designer. She had considered visiting his architect instead, but the likelihood that an architect would let her look at the plans of the senator’s house was remote; they would be very conscious of his need for security. The interior designer, with the emphasis on paint schemes and furniture, was a better bet.
She needed to be out of town before ten if she could manage it. Time was tight; Marlow would be looking for her, and so would JT and Bayard. By now, with the bogus flight to L.A. turning up empty, they would have discovered she had taken a second flight to San Jose Municipal and would be searching the San Francisco area.
She stared at the light strip of skin on her wrist where her watch had been. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that cutting that link with JT could mean she would never see him again. After the night they had spent together, the thought was hard to accept, but there hadn’t been any other way. JT had his agenda, and she had hers.
When it was all over—if she was still alive—she would have time to rethink. She knew his name, she knew a little about his family, but her only real reference point was the CIA. It wasn’t much of a basis for a relationship. She wasn’t sure if she could see herself phoning Langley and asking for the number of the agent who had been working her case.
She turned off the bedside lamp, the absence of light soothing. Maybe JT had no idea that she was tired of being observed and judged, while everyone else got on with their lives, uninterrupted. She was just a part of their job. Destroying that last link had been liberating—for the first time in her life she was out on her own—but it hadn’t stopped the ache of loneliness. And it hadn’t stopped her wanting him back.
She was certain he would find her, eventually, even without the transmitter. If he had broken WitSec’s security once, he could break it again. Nothing had been said between them, nothing confirmed, but when it came to men and women, she had an idea that JT was as uncomplicated as he was about his work. The day she had received her driver’s license was a case in point.
If he still wanted her, he would have to work for it.
Twenty-Eight
At 9:00 a.m. the following morning, Rina strolled into Carlton and Sykes. When she made her request the receptionist gave her a startled look. After a flustered moment, she asked Rina to wait while she checked to see if either of the partners was available. Neither Henry Carlton nor Richard Sykes usually saw clients without an appointment, but in this case…
Seconds later, Rina was shown into Henry Carlton’s office. Rina had never seen him, but his voice was recognizable and he knew her well enough. He had been handling her family’s affairs for as long as she could remember, and he was likely to be handling them in perpetuity. Cesar’s assets and accounts had been frozen, pending the outcome of an investigation into his links with the Chavez cartel. Apart from the more serious criminal charges, the side issues of money laundering and tax evasion were likely to tie up the estate for years.
Within a matter of minutes she had a copy of Esther’s death certificate. Instead of catching a cab, she walked a block to the bank, which was situated on California Street.
Bracing herself against the scrutiny of the security cameras, she stepped through the doors into the cool, air-conditioned interior. The reception area was spacious and minimalist in design. Contemporary works of art dotted neutral walls, and large panels of frosted glass screened a number of cubicles where people could be glimpsed working at desks. The effect, apart from the security cameras, which sprouted from the corners of walls and gleamed from behind lush arrangements of potted plants, was soothing and serene.
Hooking the strap of her purse more firmly over her shoulder, Rina continued toward the information desk. A pretty dark-haired woman glanced up and smiled.
Rina made her request. Seconds later, she entered an interview room, took a chair and waited while a bank officer, who had introduced herself as Melinda, collected the relevant file. Seconds later, Melinda took the chair opposite her.
She opened the file, and the pleasant expression on her face slipped. After Cesar’s death, the Morell name was high-profile enough that recognition was guaranteed. “The box is owned by Esther Morell.”
“That’s right. She was my mother.”
Just saying the words touched an unexpected chord. When the memorial service for Esther had been conducted, she had still been recovering in hospital and had been excluded from the final rites. She had never gotten to say goodbye, or to even talk about Esther, because Cesar had refused to let her mention Esther’s name. The reasons behind Cesar’s behavior were now clear, but twenty-two years ago they hadn’t been. To the ten-year-old child she had been it had felt like Esther hadn’t so much died as ceased to exist.
But she had existed. No amount of skullduggery on Alex’s part, or Cesar burying his head in the sand, could change that. Esther had been her mother, and after years of limbo, it was a relief to publicly state that fact.
She produced the death certificate and the power of attorney. The woman looked a little disconcerted as she read through the documents and made notes on the file. Rina felt shaky herself.
Melinda smiled. “Wait here. I’ll get the bank’s key, then take you into the vault.”
Minutes later, battling an eerie sense of stepping into a role that had once been played by Esther, Rina was cleared through security and stepped into the v
ault. Melinda walked along the rows of numbered steel boxes and selected one. She laid the box on a table, which was set to one side of the room, inserted her key and withdrew it. She indicated the security guard standing just outside the door. “When you want to leave, Joe will ring through to me, and I’ll take you back to reception.”
With fingers that weren’t quite steady, Rina slid the key into the second lock, turned it and opened the box.
A manila envelope lay on top of a sheaf of papers. She glanced in the envelope; her heart thumped hard in her chest. It was filled with cash, neat bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills. There had to be upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-two years ago, that had been a great deal of money. Today it was still a substantial amount.
Closing the envelope, she lifted out the stack of papers and skimmed over a few pages. They were copies of bank records, sheets and sheets of transactions, some listed under Alex’s name, most for a Michael Vitali. A penned note on one of the sheets made her go cold inside.
Michael Vitali/Miguel Perez.
Los Mendez.
In the weeks after she had been moved out of Winton she had researched the Chavez cartel, obsessively reading anything and everything she could find. One of the most brutal and publicized events had been the massacre at Los Mendez.
Included in the papers were financial reports for a number of companies and a handwritten précis outlining the paper trail Alex and Vitali had used to exert pressure on the Morell Group. With Esther’s banking background, she would have known what to look for, and she had obviously found it.
Another much smaller envelope was in the bottom of the box. The envelope contained a cassette, and suddenly the connection to the past was immediate and visceral.
Heavy traffic. Fog everywhere, rolling in, wreathing the traffic lights.
“Lopez is a problem, isn’t he?”
Esther’s gaze was sharp. “What do you mean?”