Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6
Page 27
She raced around and found the door she’d been hoping to locate. The door had a bright yellow and black sign warning to not exit that way.
Probably because of the hideous alarm that triggered the minute she shoved it open.
Sirens cried in the distance, getting louder as police headed for the mall.
Her heart tried to fight its way out of her chest. She shoved the tube inside her hoodie and looked around, trying to choose the best direction, but the sirens sounded as if they were coming from everywhere.
Tires squealed and a muscle car came roaring up on her right.
Dingo slid the GTO to a stop with the passenger door in front of her and yelled, “Get in!”
She was inside and pulling the door shut when he hit the accelerator.
“Are you hurt?” Dingo asked.
“Few bruises. I’ll survive.”
“Don’t do that again. Scared the shit out of me.”
“I was following directions.”
Dingo shifted a wry look her way, telling her that he knew she’d only followed his orders once the guy with the cylinder ran in the same direction.
He slowed the GTO’s speed, motoring out the back parking lot as if they weren’t part of the fiasco going on inside the mall. The police hadn’t figured out to block the exits yet, but they would soon.
Valene heard raspy breathing behind her.
She turned to find Geoffrey, and she had a bone the size of Texas to pick with the man, but one look at his pasty skin and the way he trembled toned back her anger. Shock probably gave him the chills. She thought about pulling off her hoodie to give him, but that would expose the tube she had tucked against her right arm to hide the bulge. Once things calmed down, she wouldn’t fool Dingo with that placement.
She offered to Geoffrey, “If Dingo’s okay with the heat, I’ll turn it on to warm you up.”
Geoffrey tossed a look of disdain at her and talked around the shudders racking his body. “Leave the heater off. I don’t want anything from you. Ever.”
He was going to be that way, huh?
In that case, she had something to get off her chest, too. “Why did you go to meet this guy without saying a word to Henri? I was supposed to negotiate the scroll exchange.”
Geoffrey bared his teeth, tarnishing his pretty looks. “You ruined everything. The scroll is lost to us now. Raul will never meet with me again. You caused me to fail. This is all your fault.”
Dingo pulled onto the interstate into light afternoon traffic. He lifted a warning gaze to the rearview mirror and told Geoffrey, “Let’s get something clear right now. She actually saved your life. There was a third party waiting nearby to take the scroll from you and he wouldn’t be giving you a lift home. That level of muscle works for some very nasty people who expect him to deal with loose ends without leaving a bloody trail.”
Geoffrey twisted his face into a pitiful grimace and argued, “If that’s the case, then you saved me, because she abandoned both of us to do what she always does ... racing after the next big deal.” He had no problem glowering at Valene. “But you blew it this time or you’d be waving the scroll in front of me, showing off how you got it without having to give up anything. I’ve heard about your phenomenal skills when it comes to hunting something down and negotiating, but I still don’t see what Henri ever saw in you.”
After that verbal slap, he turned to look out the window in sulk mode.
Dingo looked over at her and she could see the question in his face. “Want me to drop him at the next exit to make his own way home?”
Geoffrey looked at Dingo and his lip trembled.
Valene said, “No. I promised Henri we’d bring him back safe.”
Dingo gave her an if-you-say-so shrug. “What happened to the guy with the tube?”
“He was faster than I expected.” She gave a little shake of her head that she hoped Dingo took to mean she came up empty-handed.
The rest of the ride was made in silence, which allowed her to consider how she was going to move forward. If she opened this cylinder and the Galileo scroll was inside, she’d give Geoffrey a chance to redeem his miserable butt by certifying it. But she couldn’t do that until Dingo was out of the picture, because the only valid reason she could find for his interest in her client Smith was if Dingo’s people had been informed of the theft and were trying to return the scroll.
Which might mean that Orion Hunters had infiltrated Dingo’s people and he didn’t know it. If that had happened, the hunters were pulling strings to get the scroll found for their own benefit. Dingo wouldn’t be a part of that willingly, but he just might be trusting the wrong people without knowing it.
What other reason would he have for wanting information on Smith?
Dingo made a quick stop at a gas station because she asked, claiming her bladder wouldn’t survive the bumper-to-bumper traffic they’d be stuck in on the way back to Pasadena.
She kept expecting LAPD to come roaring up with lights flashing every minute that passed, but they reached Henri’s shop without getting stopped.
Geoffrey barely allowed Dingo to park before he leaped out of the car and strode ahead of Valene and Dingo.
She’d gotten two steps inside the shop when Henri shouted at the sight of Geoffrey and rushed to hug him. Geoffrey was mumbling an apology for losing the scroll and that he almost had it in his hands, and if Valene hadn’t interfered ... then he babbled about having shots fired at him and almost dying.
Henri glared at Valene over Geoffrey’s shoulder.
When Geoffrey’s string of woes tapered off, Henri stepped out of Geoffrey’s grasp to address Valene. “Someone shot at him. You never said a word about this being dangerous.”
She took a step. “It wouldn’t have been, Henri, if–”
“The police are after him.” Henri pointed at Dingo who didn’t flinch at that news. “His face is all over the news.”
That’s because Dingo had given her his hoodie to protect her identity. She’d deal with that in a minute, but first she needed to know how bad this was. “Did they mention Geoffrey on the news?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Okay, good.” Her relief at one person being safe was short-lived.
“No, this is not good!” Henri shouted. He sliced his hand through the air. “I’m done with your devil-may-care attitude! You go too far this time. Leave! I’m done with all of this. Do not call me. We have no reason to do business anymore.”
Taking a bullet to her chest would have to hurt less than hearing him say he never wanted to see her again, and she knew that was exactly what Henri meant.
She stood there, torn between begging Henri not to walk away again and wanting to rail at Geoffrey for destroying the fragile friendship she and Henri had been mending.
She refused to cry, but holding back was a strain.
Not here. Not now.
She wouldn’t give Geoffrey that satisfaction.
Dingo made a move and she knew it would precipitate an angry exchange of words, but this wasn’t his fight.
Besides, she had to get him somewhere safe.
What a mess she’d gotten Dingo into.
Unable to talk past the knot in her throat, she put a hand on his arm and turned away to leave. He stayed planted. Moving a tree would be easier.
She avoided looking at Henri’s face, not wanting her last view of him to be yet another that was angry and hurt. When he’d ended their marriage, he’d been considerate and polite, but now he believed she’d put the person he loved at risk.
A part of her understood, but that didn’t make the pain any easier to handle. She squeezed Dingo’s thick arm and managed to whisper, “Please don’t.”
He turned and fell into step with her when she continued outside.
She’d lost Henri.
The minute she handed over the scroll to Smith without telling Dingo, she’d lose Dingo, too. Henri might hate her at this point, but she still owed him for all he’d invested financially
and personally on this project, and her father still needed treatment.
Dingo told her to trust him to do his job finding Geoffrey and she had.
She wanted to tell him to trust her to do her job, but with Navarro looking for her, an empty-handed thief running lose and Dingo a wanted man, she had to unload the scroll as quickly as possible and without involving Dingo.
During the gas station break, she’d checked and even with her limited knowledge of the scroll, she could tell the ancient parchment appeared genuine and Galileo’s signature looked like the ones she’d seen over and over. Her niggle of worry came from knowing people like Geoffrey were skilled in creating masterpiece copies.
If not for what she’d just gone through to get this scroll, she’d be less certain. Raul, as Geoffrey called the guy, had reacted to her dig about being a priest and acted as if he ran with the most important item in his world.
Thankfully, the tube was lightweight aluminum, airtight and waterproof.
Charlie hadn’t called back after she’d texted him. Dingo had said not to call anyone, but she needed to find Smith fast, unless Smith really could find her first.
Then she’d have to sneak away from Dingo, which meant her being the one to leave him this time without a word of goodbye and no way to tell him. Once she was out of his hands he’d have to use his amazing skills and vanish for real.
Chapter 35
Dingo couldn’t drive around Los Angeles until dark while he thought, but neither did he want to go all the way back to the safe house he’d taken Valene to earlier. Sabrina might have sent someone there to watch for him by now.
He’d motor around until he found a store big enough that he wouldn’t stand out when he entered. He’d put a knit skullcap over his hair until he got a chance to cut it, and shoved on a pair of aviator sunglasses. Valene had looked into his bag, asking if he had any rabbits in there.
He spared her a quick look, but she was too focused on talking quietly into his cell phone to notice which way they were going.
She’d gotten a call from the facility where she’d put her dad, and he’d given her his phone to make the call back.
He had a plan and hoped he ran into no roadblocks.
With Navarro’s group on the prowl, no idea what that incident in the mall had shaken loose, law enforcement after him–that was going to piss off Sabrina to no end–and no timeline or target for the other assassinations, Dingo had to get answers now.
Valene had said Navarro found her name in Aram’s phone.
Navarro had killed Aram, but not because of the scroll. Navarro hadn’t known about it until Aram told him. Why had Aram been killed?
The tattoos on the shooter at the charity event said Orion Hunters were committing the assassinations. If he took the evidence at face value, that at least was clear.
Satan’s Garden Club and the Orion Hunters were connected, which might mean Navarro was also involved with the hits.
If that was the case, then Navarro might be contracting hits for Rikker, but that made no sense if Rikker was killing the Orion Hunter assassins.
Nick said the Orion Hunters were after an artifact. The scroll Valene had? Is that what Rikker was paying her to find?
Based on that, Navarro, the Orion Hunters and Rikker were all after the scroll that Valene had in her possession.
Not that she’d admitted as much.
She’d had a bulge under the hoodie when he picked her up outside the mall exit and hadn’t fooled him one bit when she asked for a pit stop on the way to Henri’s.
She’d returned to the car with the hoodie off and wadded up, but the wad had been in a distinctive shape. She had the cylinder and the way she was hiding it meant the cylinder held something of value.
She was key to figuring out this mess.
Valene wouldn’t be happy when he pinned her down, but if she had the scroll, she’d disappear the first chance she got to find her client, aka Rikker, because Dingo hadn’t told her she was working for an international felon.
He couldn’t tell Valene without betraying Sabrina and the team’s trust.
Valene was speaking softly. “You’re sure that’s the only change in his condition and he doesn’t need to go to the hospital?” she asked someone on the other end of her call. She nodded to no one in particular and said, “Please tell him I called and I’ll be by soon. And call me at this number if anything changes.” She paused. “I know you will, but please make sure everyone knows. Thanks.”
She dropped his phone into the cup holder in the console and rubbed her eyes, then looked around. “Where are we going?”
“The only place no one knows to look for either of us. We’ve got maybe an hour and a half until sunset.”
It took her a minute then she said, “Our cove.”
Those two words held sweet memories for him. He hated to go to their spot on El Matador Beach, but he was on short time and might have to disappear altogether now.
He needed a place he felt relatively sure no one would be waiting to ambush or arrest them.
She rallied a smile, but it took effort. Henri had hurt her. Her fingers twisted in the folds of the hoodie she clutched in her lap. “What are we going to do about the police looking for you?”
“I’ll figure out something by daylight,” he said, rather than give her an inkling of what he might have to do. He put on his blinker and pulled off Highway 101. “We need to get a few things from Wal-Mart. Blanket, electric light, food, scissors ... ”
She’d grabbed a piece of paper and jotted notes as he finished the list. “I’ll go in. No one is looking for me.”
He hesitated to agree.
“No one knows us out here,” she argued against his silence.
“Okay, but you’re in and out in twenty minutes or I’m coming in.”
“That’s not enough time.”
He pulled alongside the front entrance and fished out enough cash for anything she’d buy. “Twenty minutes starting now.”
Snatching up the money, she opened the door with the hoodie in hand.
“Leave it, Valene. You’ll be faster.”
She stalled, thinking, and he saved her the effort of wondering. “I know you have the scroll. I’m not going to take it from you. I swear on what honor I possess that I’ll be here when you come out. I wouldn’t leave you alone out here.”
Totally flummoxed, she dropped the hoodie bunch on the floorboard, grabbed her purse and rushed into the store, but managed a last quick look over her shoulder.
While she was inside the store, Dingo used his cell phone, since it couldn’t be traced, to contact Nick who answered, “What?”
“It’s me,” Dingo said just in case anyone was close enough to hear the conversation.
Nick said, “Hold on.” Then the sound of a door closed. Nick asked, “Looking for a way out of town?”
Dingo’s kind of team member. One who got right to the point. He said, “No. Well, not yet. I’m working on an angle that might mean a connection between the killings.”
“Have you told Sabrina that?”
“She doesn’t listen so good when Gage is the room.”
“He’s not here.”
Hmm. Dingo wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Why?”
“Have no idea other than a lot of loud cursing went on right after you left. I passed Gage leaving as I walked into the conference room. Sabrina didn’t say a word about you, but she did say she’d shoot anyone who got in our way, including CIA agents.”
Dingo wasn’t in any position to revel over Gage leaving with his own nuts in a vice. “You mentioned at the end of the meeting that the hunters were looking for a specific artifact. What is it?”
“A scroll.”
Some days it sucked to be right. “Do you know anything about Rikker being in California?”
“Nothing’s been mentioned.”
That screwed Dingo telling Nick about Rikker. That damn Gage was interfering with this operation.
Sabrina m
ight want to shoot Gage, but she clearly wasn’t sharing anything until she decided she had no other choice. Dingo might give Sabrina reason to make that choice if he convinced Valene to give up what she knew.
Not if, but when.
Dingo asked, “Where are we with the initials? Anything firm on a new location and target?”
“Not yet. We’ve got three major events going on in LA over the next two days. Nothing that pings with any of the three sets of initials, but we’re spreading out resources to cover all three events.”
“What’s your gut telling you?”
“My gut tells me a lot of things, but I’m waiting on intel from a friend.”
“The same one who told you about the scroll?”
“Yes.”
Dingo thought back a month ago when Nick was laid up in the hospital after taking rounds in his chest. He’d come up with crucial intel then. “Would this be the same informant who fed you information on the North Korean physicists and the Orion Hunter attack on the aquifer?”
“Yes.”
Dingo didn’t wait for more. Nick’s mind ran nonstop, but he only said what he felt someone needed to know at the moment. “Did Sabrina mention anything about Valene Eklund?”
“Yes.”
See? Getting information out of Nick was possible. You just had to ask the right questions. “Such as?”
“She’s the woman you contacted the last time we were in LA. Eklund is being watched by the FBI and may be connected to Satan’s Garden Club and the Orion Hunters.”
“She’s not, but I don’t expect you to choose a side.”
Nick said, “I make up my mind as the plan unfolds and it so happens my informant believes Eklund could be a pawn in all this. My informant thinks Eklund might have been pulled in because of getting on someone’s radar after finding the Orion Hunter doctor in Chinatown for us.”
Dingo cursed hard. He’d had a bad feeling about that. Just another confirmation that he was bad news for Valene. “Have you told Sabrina what your informant says about Valene?”
“Not yet. Sabrina’s not particularly receptive on that topic right now and it’s only speculation on my informant’s part at this point.”