Love On the Run

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Cassi was right, and Jared felt relief. He believed the woman wasn’t Laranda, but the likeness was uncanny. “Maybe this will break through her shell. Funny thing is, I think she really believes she’s Laranda.”

  “Giorgio half believes it himself.” Cassi refolded the paper.

  “What do you suppose that bit about going in with Laranda meant?” Jared asked. “That makes it sound as though she’ll be there.”

  “It’s spooky. You’re sure you saw her cremated?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then maybe it’s just another show like the one with this woman.”

  Jared frowned. “I don’t like it. She tried to kill us once. I think she’s trying again.”

  “Maybe we should talk to Taggart.” Her hesitancy showed she didn’t like the idea.

  “To see if he can tell us anything? It might be worth a shot.”

  They waited to be let outside the glass doors, where Taggart awaited them curiously. “Well?”

  Cassi handed him the note with more than a little reluctance. Taggart read it before passing it to Jared. “Do you make anything of it?” Jared asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But I do know some fancy highbrow lawyer brought Donelli a package from Laranda Garrettson. Maybe there is something inside to explain it all. I’ll do some snooping.”

  “What do you suppose is in Laranda’s treasure?” Cassi asked.

  “Paintings and other fine art,” Taggart said without hesitation. “Stolen or bought on the underground. One is rumored to be a Vincent Van Gogh worth forty million dollars. And there is apparently much more involved. Garrettson was a master at swindling and stealing. She did it her whole life.”

  Jared whistled. “No wonder the Donellis are so interested.”

  “With these funds, they’ll be at the top, especially with Holbrooke out of the way.” Before they arrived at the outer door, Taggert paused. “By the way, while you were in getting the note, the FBI came inside. I talked to their man and told him to hold off a bit. With that thing on Cassi, there’s nothing much we can do now anyway. I’ll get another message to them when the coast is clear. Now that we know where the art is stashed, there isn’t such a big hurry. This is going to be the biggest sting the world has ever known. We might as well get it right.”

  They walked calmly out to the van. Jared immediately handed the note to the woman, but Giorgio intercepted it. He read it as quickly as Taggart had before placing it in the woman’s outstretched hand.

  “Isn’t that your handwriting, Laranda?” Jared asked with a mocking voice.

  She hesitated. “Of course it is.” Her hand went briefly to her head as she turned and faced the front, ignoring him.

  “I wonder why you put it in the bank.” Jared pushed as hard as he dared. “Don’t you remember the address? Why did we need to go in and get it?”

  She turned toward him again. “Shut up. I have my reasons.”

  Giorgio waved his gun. “That’s enough. You heard the lady. Just do as you’re told.”

  Jared felt it wise to keep quiet for now, but he would bring it up again as soon as he could. Why did the real Laranda want this woman with them? Who was she?

  “We did what you want, now take this thing off.” Cassi held up her wrist to Giorgio, and Jared watched with relief as he removed the strap. For a moment, he had forgotten the drug and Cassi’s danger.

  Stupid, he told himself. If something had happened to Cassi, it would have been his fault. He wished for the millionth time that he had never met Laranda Garrettson. Of course that might mean he would never have met Cassi, either. Jared let out a long sigh.

  Taggart started away from the curb, and Jared saw several other cars also pull into traffic. Was Fred or another FBI agent in one of those cars? Or could Taggart be trusted at all?

  * * *

  NICOLAS DONELLI CALLED A MEETING with Giorgio and Taggart in his makeshift den in the rented house. “Okay, so now we know where the paintings are.”

  “Then what do we need them for?” Giorgio asked, referring to the Landines.

  Nicolas stifled his anger, reminding himself that Giorgio was still young. “This entire thing has been engineered by Laranda Garrettson,” he explained. “What if we had gotten rid of the Landines earlier? We would never have learned the whereabouts of this treasure. I doubt we’ll be able to get in safely without the Landines. I wouldn’t put it past Garrettson to destroy all the art if we don’t do exactly as she has planned.”

  “So what do we do now?” Taggart asked.

  Nicolas studied the man who had risen so quickly in his organization. He was obedient as well as intelligent—something you didn’t often find in an underling. It had been Taggart’s idea to set the car bomb in England, a stunt that had almost worked. “Giorgio, Taggart, you will go in with the reporter and the Landines. There, Garrettson’s whole plan will be revealed to you. You will follow the directions given inside to the letter. I want absolutely no variation whatsoever. Do you understand?” The others nodded.

  “When do we go in?” Giorgio asked.

  “Tomorrow afternoon.” Nicolas reached into a box sitting on the wooden desk whose flaws bothered him more than he would admit. Why hadn’t the owner bought quality furniture? They certainly charged enough for rent. His hand came out of the box with a gas mask. “Inside the building is a vault. Garrettson did say in her notes that you must use these when you are allowed to go into the vault.” He paused for effect. “Then we clean out, load up the van, and go.”

  “What happens to the Landines?” asked a silky voice from the doorway.

  Nicolas started. “How did you get here?”

  Brooke walked farther into the room. “You have the nerve to ask? I am in charge here, and don’t you forget it.”

  Fury fell over Nicolas in waves, but he forced a smile. “Of course, my dear. As for the Landines, I’m sure that you will take care of them.”

  “I don’t think she should go,” Giorgio said.

  “I am going, make no mistake.” Brooke held up a pistol. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see Jared get what he deserves.”

  “She’s supposed to go inside,” Nicolas said with a pleasantness he didn’t feel. “I’m sure she’ll be all right.” Of course, he didn’t know or care what would happen to Brooke as long as the art treasures were intact. Garrettson’s note said for the Landines to go inside with “me”—and that meant Brooke.

  “Only you three will go in with the Landines. The boys will be outside with the van. I’ll be waiting for you with the others on the plane. Don’t be late.”

  Giorgio nodded and Brooke smiled. She really was beautiful. But too much of a danger to his nephew.

  “If you two will excuse me,” Nicolas said, “I have to talk to Taggart about other matters.”

  Giorgio took Brooke’s arm and they left, looking for all the world like two young people in love. Nicolas watched them with barely hidden disgust. The moment the door was closed, he turned to Taggart. “They are too close. She has to be taken care of once the treasure is secure.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “No.” Nicolas raised his hand. “I want Giorgio to be responsible.” He paced the room. “I had the doctor put a couple of phrases into her brain during her programming. One will make her attack Giorgio.”

  “Attack him?”

  “Yes. Of course, I want you to make sure she doesn’t hurt him, but that he feels threatened enough to kill her. Perhaps make sure her gun is unloaded. How you work it doesn’t matter. I trust you can do it.” Nicolas wrote on a paper. “Here’s the code in case you need it.”

  Taggart glanced at it before putting it in his pocket. “About the FBI.”

  Nicolas looked up. “They’re here?”

  “Yes. I talked to one of their London agents at the bank. I don’t know how they found us, but they have. I didn’t give them any information, but I hinted a lot. They’ll hold off until they get my word. By then it will be too late.”
<
br />   Nicolas smiled. “How fortunate they picked you to infiltrate my organization—especially when you were already on my payroll.”

  Taggart gave him an answering grin. “I volunteered for the job. I even get extra pay.”

  Nicolas put his hand on Taggart’s shoulder. “This deal is going to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “I don’t know. I can dream pretty big.”

  Nicolas laughed and slapped his back. “You’ll see. Just one of those paintings is worth forty million dollars. And I bet there is a lot more worth the effort. Rumor has it that Garrettson played Big Tommy and many others for fools and sucked away their assets. Now they’ll be ours.” He moved around the cheap desk and sat in the chair.

  Taggart faced him from the other side, placing both hands on the desk. “What I don’t get is why we need that reporter at all. Why the elaborate hoax about whether or not Garrettson is still alive?”

  “Ah, the question I’ve been expecting, but no one has asked until now.” Nicolas himself had asked the question from the first. And now Taggart, but not Giorgio. Too bad Taggart wasn’t his nephew. He had the natural instincts of a mob boss. At least he would be around to keep Giorgio in line. A good right-hand man could make up for the faults in the boy until he learned.

  “I was curious about that myself, but the bottom line is that I don’t know. In the papers Garrettson left me, she was very specific. She told me that to vary one bit would mean failure, and I believe her. Take that envelope she prepared for Holbrooke. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t crossing me, but had I opened it I would have suffered his fate. And at the bank today, as hard as it was to capture them, we needed both the Landines alive to find the stash. So I’m playing along. If she wants to pretend to be in the midst of this, so be it. I’m sure the reason will present itself. But I’ve no doubt that without the reporter we won’t get our money. Meanwhile, the FBI is confused about whether or not Laranda Garrettson is really dead. By now they know a woman is using her passport, and when it’s over, our reporter friend will be left to blame. That’s another reason it’s so important that she doesn’t make it. As the saying goes, dead people tell no tales. We’ll get off without so much as a hand slap, and that alone is enough for me to go along with the ruse. It’s very amusing, don’t you think? The real Garrettson would be content.”

  Taggart nodded his agreement. “Just leave everything to me.”

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Nicolas said. “I think perhaps it’s a good idea if we also arrange a little show for your FBI friends—one that gets them a little confused tomorrow. They can’t have many men here to begin with.”

  Taggart’s slow grin covered his face. “Divide and conquer? What do you have in mind?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MONDAY PASSED WITHOUT WORD FROM their captors. Cassi and Jared were brought food by a shy Portuguese maid who appeared to speak no English. They were let out in the garden for an hour in the evening, under guard. Cassi was hoping to see Taggart, to ask him about the FBI, but he didn’t appear. They did see the woman posing as Laranda in a window on the upper floor. She gazed out at them briefly before turning away. Cassi wondered what she was thinking. Did she hate them as completely as the real Laranda had? Maybe it made no difference. If Laranda was behind the whole thing, as Taggart had implied, the outcome would be the same. Cassi shivered, though the air in the garden was warm.

  “Fred’s close,” Jared said, putting his arm around her.

  “I hope Sampson’s holding up okay. This has to be hard on him.”

  The night came, and still they were told nothing. They didn’t dare discuss their situation or hopes for fear of being overheard, though they couldn’t find a trace of a camera or bugs in the room. Either they were hidden well, or the Laranda imposter had been lying. Cassi and Jared slept in the same bed, cuddled together under the blankets. No one disturbed them.

  In the morning, the house bustled with activity. Sounds came from all over, unfamiliar sounds they hadn’t heard before. They waited. At noon they were served a light lunch, and then Taggart appeared. “We’ll be leaving now. Just play along. I’m going too, so don’t worry.”

  Cassi felt better, despite her continued distrust of the man. After all, he was doing his job, which included more than seeing that she and Jared were safe. Once they were finished, Giorgio Donelli and hopefully his uncle would be put behind bars for a long time.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter what we wear this time,” Jared said, looking down at his wrinkled blue pants from the day before. Cassi also still wore the long flowered skirt and blouse she had been given.

  “No. Not important,” Taggart said.

  He led them to the white van in the small garage. Cassi didn’t have a chance to spot any cars parked outside the house, though she doubted Fred would be conspicuous about his surveillance. But he would be there, especially now that he was in contact with Taggart. Even now their escape could be planned.

  Once again the Laranda imposter and Giorgio were present in the van, but the two Portuguese men had been replaced by three American guards. This must be too important to risk to outsiders, Cassi thought. Or maybe their backup had arrived to replace the men killed in the cabin. Her heart pounded in her ears. It’ll be over soon.

  “Get down until I say,” Giorgio said.

  Bent over in her seat, Cassi pondered the command. She wondered if it meant they suspected the house was being watched and didn’t want prying eyes to see them leave. How had they found out about the FBI?

  They drove for nearly an hour before they arrived at their destination. Cassi watched as they passed picturesque houses and rolling hills. Such a peaceful, beautiful country, but once again Laranda had violated it. The very trees and bushes seemed to scream betrayal.

  At last they arrived in Algueirão and searched out the address of what appeared to be a large apartment building. Taggart parked the white van across the street. Giorgio, dressed in a black jacket, made a show of putting his gun in the pocket. “Easy now,” he warned. He helped the woman posing as Laranda from the van. Cassi noticed that she didn’t have her purse with her. Had she left it in the van? Or back at the house because it hadn’t matched her sleek red suit? Cassi tried to see past the red fishnet veil that now obscured the woman’s features, but saw nothing new. She hoped Fred had been able to follow them.

  Taggart donned a bulky backpack before joining them on the street. The three other guards leaned against the van, watching them. One lit a cigarette, as though they knew they would be waiting for some time.

  The group crossed the street and paused in front of the building. “Over there,” Jared said to Cassi, pointing to a plaque by the door. “It’s a church of some sort.”

  From the outside, it appeared that half of the building’s bottom floor was being used to hold meetings. Cassi knew the practice was common where there wasn’t enough membership or funds for a large constructed chapel, but the fact that Laranda had chosen a place used as a church was unsettling.

  “I don’t like this,” Cassi whispered.

  Taggart and Giorgio didn’t stop in front of the door leading to the church but continued to another door a few feet away. “Here it is,” Taggart said. “What now? Do we ring the bell?”

  Giorgio lifted his hand and rang. For a long while nothing happened, and he shifted his feet nervously. Feeling eyes on her, Cassi turned toward the woman, but she wasn’t watching Cassi. Her gaze was fixed on Jared. Cassi wished she could see her full expression.

  Abruptly, a short man opened the door. His tiny jet-black eyes darted from one to the other, saying nothing. He started to shut the door again but paused when he spotted the woman behind Giorgio. “Ah, it is you.” He ducked his head in deference. “I did all that you say. I no let anyone inside.”

  He waited, but the woman said nothing. “Is it you?” he asked, apparently becoming unsure.

  Giorgio snorted impatiently. “We need to get inside.”

  The little
man shook his head. Before Taggart or Giorgio could react, he pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Giorgio. “I make sure it is her, and then I turn off the trap. You come in first and boom, everything all gone.”

  “I think he’s serious,” Taggart said. “Laranda, why don’t you take off your hat and show him it’s you? We don’t want your treasure going up in flames, do we?”

  Laranda pushed past Giorgio. “Relax,” she said in a silky voice. “Of course it’s me.”

  The dark little man in front of them lowered the gun slightly. “Let me see. Excuse me, my lady, but that is your order, not mine.”

  She removed her hat and veil. Cassi blinked, startled to see that the woman really was Laranda, or perhaps her twin sister. She glanced at Jared only to see the same dismay on his face.

  “No,” he whispered. “It can’t be. The cheekbones. They’re not quite right. But someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to make it appear to be Laranda.”

  Cassi couldn’t be sure if there was doubt in his voice.

  The little man ducked his head again and opened the door to let them in. “I will do the codes.” He laid his gun carelessly on a short table in the middle of the small room and went to a large pad of numbers and letters near a door on the opposite side. Rapidly, he punched in a very long code, keeping an eye on the small screen above it.

  Cassi examined the room in which they stood. It held a bed, a television, a couch, a tiny refrigerator, and a place to cook. Basically everything a person needed to live. How long had this odd little man stayed here, watching over Laranda’s treasures?

  He finished at the keyboard and turned to the Laranda imposter. “Senhora Garrettson, I go now to my family. My father’s debt is paid, yes?”

  She nodded, but Giorgio stopped him. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “But the lady promised. It was our deal. I watch and let only her inside.”

  “Let him go,” said the woman.

  “No.”

  “I am in charge. Let him go.” The voice was sharp like a dagger. “I promised.”

  “Do you always fulfill your promises?” Giorgio’s voice taunted. “I haven’t seen any of it.” Cassi sensed his frustration. Apparently, things were not going well in their relationship.