Beneath the Surface

by Meredith Fletcher

  The bars and taverns would stay filled with political and military aides and employees until the small hours of the morning. The city’s nightlife was one of the most active in the country. Newspapers, magazines and Web sites were dedicated to the topic in an effort to keep everyone up to date regarding entertainment.

  “Half a block up on the right,” Allison said. “The lot there has a lockbox, not a human operator.”

  That was good. No one on duty meant no eyewitnesses later. Rafe didn’t worry about being identified himself, but Shannon Connor was way too high-profile.

  “I’ll have the car taken care of,” Allison went on. “After you walk away from it, someone will pick it up. That car will never be seen again.”

  Rafe was impressed.

  “I have a lot of friends,” Allison said.

  And it was spooky how she seemed to read his mind. He wondered if she knew how irritated he was at being left so far in the dark.

  “I’ll tell you more as soon as I get you in a safe spot,” Allison went on.

  Rafe almost laughed, but he figured that Shannon would think she’d crawled into the car with a crazy man. That wasn’t exactly the impression he wanted to make.

  “I’m going to need you to sit with her a little longer,” Allison said.

  “Where are we going?” Shannon asked.

  “To get rid of the car.” Rafe signaled and made the turn onto the lot. “Unless you want investigators to find your fingerprints in here and come ask you a lot of questions.” He glanced at her.

  “No,” she replied.

  During the last few minutes he’d found looking at her easier and easier to do. Shannon Connor was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. Her long blond hair was currently a tangled mess, but it gave her a wild, untamed look that threatened to take his breath away. Her blue eyes seemed to drink him in every time she looked at him. Even wearing disheveled clothing, her figure was striking.

  Keep your mind on the job, he told himself. But he was acutely aware of how long it had been since he’d met a woman who intrigued him.

  In Jacksonville there had been a steady buffet of women with which to lose hours, evenings and even whole weekends. All of them had been fun to be around, and many of them had possessed personalities that were interesting.

  But when he’d first laid eyes on Shannon Connor, Rafe had been aware of a deepening interest that normally didn’t seize him just from looking at someone of the opposite sex. Having Allison hold back information about the woman had made Shannon even more intriguing.

  The fact that she hadn’t continued running, that she’d come back when he’d asked, had created even more curiosity.

  Unfortunately he’d bought further into the idea of taking responsibility for her, as well. That had been a drawback in his work performance that more than one supervisor had noted. And ultimately it had been that trait—becoming a little more involved than he should have—that had gotten him caught in North Korea.

  This situation was starting to feel uncomfortably close to that business.

  “This lot is full,” Shannon said.

  Rafe had to agree that things looked pretty hopeless. The bars and nightclubs got slammed on most nights, and tonight was Friday.

  “There’s a parking space two rows ahead and on the right,” Allison said.

  Rafe glanced around and spotted the camera at the back of the large lot. That could be a problem.

  “Don’t worry about the camera,” Allison said. “I’ve already got that under control. It’s going to experience technical difficulties that will wipe the night’s digital recording starting one hour ago.”

  Rafe smiled at that.

  “What’s so funny?” Shannon asked.

  Rafe pointed at the parking space. “We got lucky.” He pulled into the space and started to get out.

  Shannon unfastened her seat belt and started to get out, as well.

  “Give me a minute, okay?” Rafe asked.

  Suspicion darkened Shannon’s features. “Why?”

  “I’ve got to make a call.”

  “To whom?”

  “Someone who wants to know that you’re safe.”

  “I generally know all of those people.”

  Rafe ran a hand over his face. His whiskers felt rough. “Please.”

  “Being polite doesn’t always get you what you want.”

  In spite of his best efforts, Rafe let a little of his anger show. The pain in his knee had increased and showed definite signs of staying around for a while. “Saying please beats the hell out of getting a roll of duct tape out of the back of the car and restraining you.” He smiled when he said that.

  Shannon blinked at him in surprise. “You’d do that?”

  “At this point, yes.”

  She folded her arms. “What happened to the knight in shining armor who saved me and asked me to get in the car?”

  “Rescuing you is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”

  “I didn’t know I needed to be rescued.”

  Rafe snorted and shook his head. “You’re a television reporter, lady. Not exactly in league with guys like Vincent Drago.”

  “I’ve interviewed serial killers and terrorists,” Shannon argued.

  “While they were pointing a gun at you?” Rafe struggled to remain polite. He couldn’t believe she could be so pushy after nearly getting killed. Most women would be basket cases.

  But that’s one of the reasons you find her so…interesting, he told himself. And you definitely have no business being interested.

  “Not exactly,” she admitted.

  “Well, that’s exactly the kind of thing that’s going on here.”

  “Drago’s dead. You killed him.”

  Rafe sighed. He didn’t know how she’d made saving her suddenly sound like a crime against society. But she had. “Yes, I did. But he might not be the only person involved.”

  “Do you know that for certain?”

  “Look,” Rafe said sharply, “I don’t know what your business with Drago was. The person I’m doing a favor for hasn’t told me much more than you have.” He meant that for Allison. “I’m working at a deficit here and I’m not happy about it. But I’m really, really trying to make the best of it. Okay?” He tried the smile again.

  Shannon didn’t look convinced. “All right,” she replied grudgingly. “You just want me to stay in the car?”

  “That would be great. In fact, if we get out of this alive, I’ll buy you dinner.” Rafe slid out of the car. He needed answers and he was going to have to put pressure on Allison to get them.

  Chapter 6

  D id he just ask me out? Shannon couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that he would have said what he did—and she couldn’t believe she’d be thinking about taking him seriously.

  She stared through the cracked driver’s-side window at the man’s retreating back. He walked straight for the metal payment boxes. She had to admit that it was a hell of a sexy walk. The limp just added more flavor.

  Thinking about sitting down to dinner with him consumed Shannon’s thoughts for a moment. Then she got angry because he obviously didn’t think she was safe on her own.

  Or maybe that was just an act to scare her or lull her into a false sense of security. Once she got to thinking in that direction, it took no time at all to turn her suspicions into paranoia, because she had to admit that she didn’t know if she was safe.

  But would he really take his time about killing her if that was what he meant to do?

  Get that thought out of your mind. Focus. You’re a reporter. An uncoverer of truth. And—even if you’re at the eye of the storm—this is an incredible story.

  She couldn’t help wondering if the man had been brought to Drago because of business of his own or if it had been her business that had brought him there. Creating a timeline of events usually provided the backbone of the story.

  The man’s arrival at the bar could have been
circumstantial—as well as fortuitous. Except that he knew her name. That hadn’t been by lucky coincidence.

  The question was whether the man had been at the bar because of her or because of Drago.

  Shannon looked through the bullet-pocked windshield at her rescuer. There was a pay phone by the payment center. The man lifted the handset and stood so that he was between her and sight of the keypad.

  Careful, aren’t you?

  While he was occupied with his secret phone call, Shannon decided to do some snooping. She took her iPhone from her pocket and brought up the camera function. The screen pulsed brightly, but a quick glance at the man at the phone assured her he was still occupied.

  The screen showed the image of the floor and her feet. She noticed how dirty her feet were, and that only reminded her of the Christian Louboutin glitter sling-backs she’d left in the bar. Those shoes had cost seven hundred dollars.

  They’d been her birthday present to herself when she’d turned thirty, two years ago. She’d just broken up with Perry Jacobs, who had—at one time—been Tory Patton’s boyfriend. Shannon hadn’t really been after Perry, but she hadn’t wanted Tory to be happy after what Tory had done to her at Athena Academy.

  Of course, now Tory was currently married to Bennington Forsythe, of the Forsythes, who had been one of the most eligible bachelors in the history of eligible bachelors. She’d even secured her place among that family by delivering the first grandchild back in March.

  That was another example of the bad luck that had plagued Shannon. Not that she would have ended up with Ben Forsythe, but that she had cleared the runway for that relationship by deep-sixing Tory’s relationship with Perry Jacobs.

  Some days, life sucked.

  Shannon opened the glove compartment and took out the documents inside. As she’d hoped, rental papers lay neatly folded inside. She took them out and started taking pictures.

  As soon as she had a picture taken, she e-mailed it to one of the data dumps she used to keep story research. Then she moved on to the next.

  Rafe leaned a hip on the metal security boxes where he was supposed to pay. He didn’t pay, though. There would have been fingerprints on the bill. He held the handset of the pay phone.

  “You with me?” he asked as he kept himself between the pay phone and Shannon’s line of sight.

  “Yes,” Allison replied over the earwig. The phone was only a cover.

  “You’re going to have to level with me. I can’t keep operating in the dark here. You’re going to get Shannon—or me or both of us—killed. Either tell me what’s going on or I’m going to walk away from this.” Limp away, Rafe corrected himself. He tried to find a comfortable position for his knee.

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Try me.” Rafe attempted to sound as if he would really do that.

  “That’s not how you do things,” Allison told him. “The reason I asked you to do this favor was because I knew you’d stick. No matter how bad it got.”

  She had him there. Rafe blew out his breath. “Look, you wanted me to be there tonight to lend a hand if it came to that. I did. I lent considerably more than a hand. I may have left what remains of my career scattered over that street back there. I just want to know enough to know that she’s going to be safe.”

  Allison was quiet for a moment.

  Rafe thought maybe he’d lost the connection or that she’d hung up on him. Thinking that way wasn’t pleasant. It raised the abandonment issues he’d gone through during his stay in the North Korean prison.

  Finally, in a subdued voice, Allison said, “I don’t know what all is involved.”

  Rafe shifted again, striving in vain to get comfortable. He wished he’d brought the pain pills now. He hadn’t expected—he hadn’t known what to expect with regard to the physical demands of the job.

  He also wanted a drink to wash the stink of fresh death out of his system. It had been over three years since he’d had to kill a man.

  “Tell me what you know.” Rafe shifted around till he caught the reflection of the Taurus.

  Shannon kept moving around. Occasionally a light flashed inside the car. Even though he knew it meant she was taking pictures of the false identification Allison had arranged for him to use while he was in Washington, D.C., he had to grin. Even scared out of her wits and in over her head, the woman was definitely a schemer.

  “Some of this is personal,” Allison said.

  “I knew it was personal when you called me a few days ago,” Rafe said.

  Allison hesitated.

  “C’mon,” Rafe coaxed. “You’ve run ops before. You’ve worked with me before. You know I don’t tell everything I know and you know I don’t ask for info I don’t need.”

  “I know.” Allison took a deep breath. “Do you remember anything about the kidnappings that took place at an all-girls school called Athena Academy? It’s located outside of Phoenix.”

  Rafe vaguely did, but he listened as Allison told him an edited version of what had happened. Both of them knew he wasn’t getting all of the truth.

  Allison had been involved in the investigation into the kidnappings, but on a tangential level. Rafe hadn’t known how dangerous things had become in Kestonia at the time. But the girls had been safely returned.

  “Shannon Connor was involved with that,” Rafe said. He’d seen Shannon before, but the story and the possible conflict with Kestonia had been so big that he’d paid attention all those months ago. He’d known the NSA—and Allison—had been all over it. He just hadn’t known Allison would be doubly interested.

  “Shannon was there,” Allison agreed. “But I wondered how she got the information she had.”

  “Was there any reason to be suspicious of her presence? It was a big story. There were a lot of reporters there. I followed the story on all the major networks.” Rafe had figured he’d have surely been cleared through Medical at that time. But it hadn’t happened.

  “There was no reason then, but Shannon’s continued to pop up while this thing has played out.”

  “What thing?”

  Allison hesitated. Rafe could almost hear her thoughts bumping into each other. He watched the reflection of Shannon still taking pictures.

  “When we dug into the Kestonia thing,” Allison said, “other information surfaced.”

  “What information?”

  “About my mother’s murder. There was more to it than we thought.”

  When she’d finished taking pictures of all the rental car’s documentation, Shannon put everything back in the glove compartment. Guilt stung her. She didn’t feel completely comfortable about invading the man’s privacy.

  He invaded yours, she told herself. He knew you were in danger. She sighed. So what? He’s guilty for coming to save you?

  Hi. My name is Robert—at least, according to the rental agreement, that was his name—and I’ll be your rescuer this evening.

  To which she could only counter, Hi. I’m Shannon Connor. I’m going to snoop into your life and expose you to the world. All because you seem totally at ease killing bad guys and driving away from a confrontation with the police. Oh, and you have a thing for rescuing damsels in distress.

  Not that she was a damsel in distress.

  Her role didn’t feel as good as the one of rescuer. But reporting was what paid her bills. She glanced at him, still talking at the phone. She couldn’t help wondering what could be taking so long.

  An idea popped into her head. She looked at the steering wheel. As she’d thought, dark smudges showed on the wheel. If there hadn’t been a lot of ambient light from the nearby bars and clubs, she wouldn’t have been able to see them.

  She opened the glove compartment again. In addition to a road flare and a city map, there was also a Scotch tape dispenser. That had to have been from a previous renter. Or maybe Robert had a thing for tape. After all, he claimed to have duct tape in the car’s trunk.

  Over the years Shannon had interviewed a lot of people. Som
e of them hated her and some of them loved her, but she’d always paid attention to the stories that she’d covered. The best ones had always touched her emotionally and taught her something.

  Only a few weeks ago she’d interviewed one of the New York City Police Department’s crime-scene investigators. They’d done a special on how a crime scene could be processed in times of emergency with household items. Shannon couldn’t remember all of it.

  Thankfully she didn’t have to. This was easy. She reached into the glove compartment and removed the Scotch tape. After a quick glance to check on Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious, she pulled off a two-inch piece of tape.

  She studied the steering wheel and found the clearest fingerprint on the surface that she could find. Delicately she laid the tape over the fingerprint. It was only wide enough to cover about half of the print. She cut off another strip and laid it partially over the first, then pressed it into place over the print. It took a third strip to completely cover the loops and whorls.

  Then she took three more strips and crosshatched them over the first three, thickening the “lifting” medium, which was what the crime-scene investigator had called it. After another quick glance, she peeled the lifting medium from the steering wheel. She laid it on its back on the dash. Meticulously she laid three tape strips over the fingerprint to seal it, then three more to reinforce it.

  When she picked up the lifted print and examined it, she felt satisfied. There, trapped between the layers of tape, was the fingerprint.

  Okay, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious—or Robert or whoever you are—I’ll be willing to bet I know who you really are by morning.

  That was one of the perks of working for ABS. American Broadcasting Studios had inroads to information all over the world.

  Shannon slid the lifted fingerprint into a storage compartment in her iPhone’s protective case. For the first time in days she felt as if she was about to deal with the truth she’d been looking for in Kestonia, Puerto Isla and Cape Town, South Africa.

  When she had it, she knew she was finally going to be able to unveil all the secrets that had been hidden for so long at Athena Academy. If those secrets tied into genetic research, as her mysterious information broker had intimated on several occasions, the school would finally be destroyed once and for all.