Accomplice

by Kristi Lea

  Thompson signed. “I’m afraid your tip won’t be enough for a grand jury. Brandon Kingsbury himself has a solid alibi during the robbery.”

  Noah nodded. “So he hired a thug. Have you gotten anywhere on the few fingerprints you managed to lift?”

  “Not really. There were all just partials, and all badly smudged. I was really hopeful about one—nearly half of a thumb on a door leading to the kitchen. But that was a dead end—a perfect match to one of the household catering staff, so that one was legit. Whoever the thief was knew what he was doing.”

  “If I think of anything, I will let you know.”

  After exchanging a firm handshake, Noah stood up to leave. At the door to Thompson’s tiny office, he paused and stifled a yawn. Something nagged at him, but he was exhausted from the night’s business to sort it out. He had one hand on the doorknob when the other man called him back.

  “I almost forgot. Did your partner tell you that someone attempted to steal the second necklace as well?”

  Noah’s heart clenched in his chest as he turned back to gape. Surely Cole hadn’t told Thompson about the other copy and the encrypted data?

  The man chuckled. “Obviously not. It took some digging, but we located the original Hearst Diamonds. The antiques. They are safe in a vault in a museum in London. After you and Cole sent us the insurance paperwork detailing that the stolen set was a copy, we were able to trace the history of the real ones. Charles Kingsbury bought them years ago from a private collector and gifted them to his last wife, Jessica. They apparently had the copy made at that time, though we haven’t had any luck locating the jeweler. Jessica Kingsbury then quietly donated the original antique necklace to the museum.”

  Noah let his pent-up breath out and muttered, “She never told me that.”

  Thompson quirked one eyebrow at him and continued, “The necklace has a long and sordid history—was owned by various dukes and even a queen or two over the centuries. A prince gifted it to his mistress once. And someone died in a duel because of it.

  “The museum is renovating the wing where the jewels are normally displayed, so they were stowed in their vault. Someone broke into the construction site, smashed open a bunch of empty cases, apparently taking nothing. The curator heard of the robbery over here on the news and made the connection, and called.”

  “Did they ever catch the perp?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I’ve already made contact with someone in Scotland Yard to compare notes. Just sent them our fingerprint analysis this morning.” He glanced at his watch. “Er, yesterday morning. I will give you and Cole a call if we turn up any leads.”

  ***

  The cold night breeze whipped Jessica’s short hair around for only a moment before Earlin shoved a pillowcase over her head and yanked her from the back of the van.

  Los Angeles. Even gagged and blindfolded, she recognizing the smell of her home city. Smog and salt, a thin waft of something garlicky, a tease of tropical fruit, all among a backdrop of the rotten-egg sulphur of a place where too many humans had lived too close together for too long.

  Her kidnapper’s hands were rough, sweaty, unkind as he half-dragged, half-shoved her into a building, across a terracotta tile floor, and into a dark room. From somewhere outside the room, she could make out hushed whisper and the clomping of heavy feet while Earlin sat her on a bare mattress and bound her hands behind her with plastic. There was at least a third person in the house, if not more.

  Without a word, Earlin finished his work and left her alone, shutting a door behind her. She sat still for what felt like a long time, trying to make out the voices and words. Her heart raced every time footsteps approached, but no one opened the door. After a while, the commotion seemed to die down, and her captors quit talking.

  Earlin had left the cloth over her head, but with her hands tied behind her, she couldn’t simply take it off. Her breath had dampened the inside of the cloth, and the fabric clung to her nostrils. The cloth gag kept her from getting a deep breath through her mouth. Her lungs protested. She fought to control her panic.

  She had to get the thing off her head. Now.

  With her heart racing and her breath coming in stifled gasps, she worked the fabric with her chin and head, bending over to shake it free from her face. When at last it fell to the floor, Jess sat up and took a deep breath of cool air. The effort left her dizzy and stars clouded her vision.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Finally her vision cleared, and the panic slowed to the slow, hollow fear she had felt since she first saw the van door open in St. Louis.

  She sat in a bedroom of a house, with a small high window fitted with iron scroll bars. A sliver of yellow light from a streetlight pierced the darkness, illuminating only fragments of the room. Tile floors. Plaster walls. Two doors—one that must lead back the way she came, and another that could be a bathroom or a closet. The only furniture in the room was the stark metal bedframe with the bare mattress on which she sat.

  There was nothing else. No tools. No sharp edges to break her bindings. Even if she could get free, she would never get past Earlin and Harry and their weapons.

  She could scream her head off and hope the house had neighbors.

  Her mouth felt sticky and dry around the gag. Her stomach churned with an ache that was half hunger, half nausea. Her shoulders protested the binding, and the plastic ties bit into her wrists. She wriggled back and pulled her legs up, then tried to stretch out and conserve what strength she had left.

  Dozing was difficult, with no pillow to rest her head on and no way to curl an arm up to support her head, but doze she did.

  The heavy banging of doors and footsteps echoing through the rooms beyond her door startled her awake. The light outside had brightened to the smoky gray of early dawn. It wasn’t bright, but it revealed walls painted a syrupy marigold and an old glass light fixture in the center of the ceiling. The light switched on, casting the room in a glaring brightness that made her wince.

  She sat up as the door opened and a middle-sized man with a shining bald head and a hefty paunch walked in. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing beefy hands, and leather straps from a shoulder gun holster dug into his arms, wrinkling the shirt around his armpits.

  “You’re a lying bitch.” He spat the words at her.

  Jess waited, gagged and motionless. He looked vaguely familiar, but with her brain fogged from hunger and exhaustion, she couldn’t place the man.

  The man yelled back over his shoulder, “Harry, get in here and take that thing off her mouth. I can’t have a decent conversation with someone who can’t talk.”

  Harry ambled in, rubbing at his belly like a man who had just woken up from a deep sleep. He knelt on the bed next to Jessica, dipping the mattress so low that she fell into him. She recoiled. He smelled like stale smoke and beer and bitter sweat.

  “Easy, little girl. I’ll take care of you,” Harry crooned, as he carefully untied the cloth from behind her head. He smoothed her hair down and let his fingers linger on the tops of his shoulders.

  Jess shivered in revulsion at the unwanted touch as she spat out the loosened gag.

  “Now out,” ground out the bald man.

  Harry gave her what he must have meant as a reassuring rub on the back and then rushed back out as the other man shut the door behind him.

  He curled his lip upwards in a sneer. “You should know that I don’t normally make deals with filth like yourself. Criminals belong behind bars or dead, not in a position to cut a deal.”

  Bound and captive, she didn’t think she had much to bargain with. She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer, wetting them as best she could with a sticky tongue.

  “Don’t fuck with me, you whore. Out with it.” The man strode forward until he was just inches from where Jess sat.

  She had to crank her neck upwards to see the man’s face.

  A vein throbbed at one of his temples.

  Her voice cracked as she tried
to speak for the first time in days. “I don’t know what you want.” The words came out as more of a whisper that ended in a cough.

  “Like hell you don’t. You might be a good enough actress to fool those idiots back in the living room, but I know the truth. You didn’t turn anything over to the FBI. Not information, not your necklace. And we sure as hell didn’t offer you protection.”

  She lifter her chin a notch. “What..what makes you so sure?”

  His eyes glittered with self-righteous anger and distaste as he looked down on her. “Don’t you know who I am? Noah Grayson works for me.”

  She recoiled as bits of his spittle hit her face. “I don’t understand.”

  “Then I will say this in small words so that you do understand. Where is your necklace? Tell me, or you are dead.”

  Jess drew in a shuddering breath and tried to remember what Noah had said about his boss. Not much, really. “I told Tallie the truth. I gave one necklace to Noah. The other one was stolen from my house. If Noah really works for you, then you would know he was investigating the robbery.”

  “The FBI doesn’t do robberies, bitch. Noah was working on a blackmail case. You and your husband extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from my friend, Senator Wilson. We had enough evidence for a grand jury. All we needed was to haul your round little ass into custody.”

  Jessica frowned. “Why waste your time with having me kidnapped? Why not just arrest me?”

  “Because.” He spat on the ground by her feet. “After your sugar daddy kicked the bucket, you picked up where he left off. New secrets, new demands.”

  She shook her head in denial. He grabbed her by the shirt and hauled her up until she was staring into the man’s florid face. She recoiled from his hot breath.

  “Wilson can’t risk a trial this time. We must destroy that necklace. Tell me where it is or you’re dead.”

  If that was all true, she was dead no matter what. “I didn’t do it. I swear. I don’t have the second necklace. Find the thief and you’ll find the blackmailer.”

  He shoved her back down on the bed and stalked toward the door. He paused, hand on the knob and considered her. “You better hope your lover boy has them both, or you are both dead.”

  Chapter 21

  The first thing Noah did when he got home was to get rid of the awful silver pants. He swallowed a couple of ibuprofen to help clear his pounding head and his throbbing sore arm and showered off the stench of nightclub and anxious sweat. The sun was peeking out over the horizon when he finally crawled into bed.

  He couldn’t have slept more than two hours before his cell phone woke him. He managed only slightly better than a croak, “Hello.”

  “If you want to see Jessica alive again, listen carefully.”

  Noah bolted upright in bed, his heart hammering and his mind racing. As he answered, he flicked through the icons on his phone, looking for an app that he had never had a chance to use. “Who is this?”

  “Doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is this: I have Jessica and you have something I want. Bring the necklace to me this afternoon by two. If you bring any of your FBI pals, she dies. If you are late, she dies. If you try anything funny, she dies.”

  Noah grabbed the closest paper he could find, a carryout menu. Cradling the phone on his shoulder, he scrambled out of bed in search of a pen, while he cleared his mind to focus on every detail of the caller—voice, accent, word choice. “I don’t have the necklace.”

  “You’re lying. And if you lie to me…” The voice trailed off.

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard you. Then she’s dead. How do I know you aren’t the one lying? Let me talk to her.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s still pretty tired from the drive from St. Louis. She doesn’t look so good either. The new hair cut doesn’t suit her.” The man paused to allow the words to sink in. “Be there.”

  Noah scribbled down the address. “Any other rules?”

  “The usual. No weapons. No backup. No phoning a friend. My men are watching you now, so don’t think you can go visit the cops or the feds. Try it and she dies. Oh, and by the way, sorry about the problem tracing my phone. You didn’t think I’d be stupid enough to allow that, did you?”

  The connection severed, and Noah looked down at the screen. Sure enough, the phone tracing app he had tried to use had failed, blocked by the caller. It took inside knowledge of the department-issued phones to be able to do that.

  The thought of Jessica, at the mercy of an unknown kidnapper, made his blood run cold. He should never have left her alone. He should never have let her go.

  His options were limited. The caller knew enough about Jessica to be telling the truth. And enough insider knowledge of the FBI to block the tracer. But he obviously didn’t know that Noah and Cole had given the necklace to Cole’s contact at the CIA. That meant that Cole was probably not involved in the plot, which was a huge relief. But he didn’t dare call his partner’s regular phone. There was no way to know what was bugged and what wasn’t.

  He glanced through the mini blind slats on his front window. The same car that had followed him to the club last night was parked half a block down. It was a fairly nondescript four-door sedan. Nothing fancy except for the deep tint to the windows. But even that was nothing unusual in the southern California sunshine.

  He glanced at the clock. Nine thirty. He had a little over four hours and an address on the outskirts of the city where he might or might not find Jessica alive. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do it with an entourage.

  He slipped a pair of jeans up over boxer-clad hips, and pulled a t-shirt over his bare chest. From a drawer he withdrew his gun and checked to make sure it was loaded.

  It was the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, and his working-class neighborhood of tiny brick houses was nearly deserted. Across the street, a tricycle sat idle behind a low chain link fence, but inside the house he couldn’t see any movement. He inched out his back door to the alley behind and crept to the end of the block where he could loop around behind the parked car. With any luck, his stalker wouldn’t bother looking back until it was too late.

  The mid-morning sun was hot on Noah’s head and sweat trickled down his back as he maneuvered towards his quarry. He cut to the next block, then doubled back by way of Mrs. Ramirez’s yard. She was elderly and half-deaf, but her side yard had a tall evergreen hedge that would shield him from view of the watcher until he was practically at the car’s back bumper. If any of his Mrs. Ramirez’s endless nephews or grandsons happened to be visiting and spotted him, they would either call the cops themselves or come out wielding a shotgun. He wasn’t sure which reaction would be more helpful at this point.

  He peeked around the bush. The silhouette of one head was visible in the front seat of the car. He palmed his gun and checked the safety, then hopped out onto the curb, knocking on the side of the car as he hurried to the driver’s door to see who waited inside.

  Tony’s surprised face greeted Noah from the business end of his revolver. He was alone in the car, a super-sized soda sweating in the cup holder, and a crushed fast food bag discarded in the passenger seat.

  The security guard lifted two beefy hands in the air and nodded his chin toward the door handle. Carefully Noah reached down to open it, keeping his gun trained on the man.

  “Well played, Grayson. I didn’t even see you coming.” Tony shook his head, half a grin on his face. “You can put the gun down. I’m not gonna shoot back.”

  Noah lowered it a touch but made no move closer to the car. “Why are you following me?”

  “You’d better get in before one of your neighbors starts asking questions. Like the lady in the house over there,” he jerked his head back towards Mrs. Ramirez’s place. “One of them kids of hers picked her up an hour ago, and there’s no tellin’ when they’ll be back.”

  Noah lifted an eyebrow and searched the man’s face for any signs of dishonesty. Tony wore the same bland expression that he always did. Impossible t
o read.

  “Look,” the man said, his voice growing impatient. “If I was gonna shoot you, I woulda gone in your house when you were asleep and done it. Or just shot you from here. Don’t be stupid. We’re on the same side here.”

  Noah chanced a look across the street. His bedroom window faced the front, and from this angle, he could make out a clear silhouette of his bedside lamp, and the edge of the pillow where he’d been snoring not twenty minutes ago. Man had a point. If Tony was any sort of a marksman, Noah would already be dead.

  It was a damned good thing he was on friendly terms with all of his neighbors.

  With a sigh, Noah tucked the gun into his back holster and got in on the passenger side. His nose wrinkled at the smell of stale French fries and sweat. The car was an odd choice for Tony, whose shoulders seemed to overflow the driver’s seat and loom over Noah in the passenger one. “I’m in. Are you going to tell me why you are watching me? I thought you’d still be on vacation in the Caymans’

  “I’m not watching you, Grayson. My job is to watch Mrs. Kingsbury, and she’s been missing for a while.”

  Noah raised his eyebrows. “No shit. Funny, I thought that is exactly what your team’s little stunt with the plane and the look-alike in the red wig was all about.”

  Tony grunted. “She was supposed to check in. She always checks in.”

  That was news. Noah’s stomach flipped over. “Does she do this a lot? Send a decoy off on vacation while she disappears?”

  Tony looked unhappy. “Not like this time. Lindsay said not to worry, that no one needed to know details. She’s been pretty shaken up since the robbery—Mrs. Kingsbury that is. And well, I thought…”

  “You thought what?”

  “I kind of hoped she might be with you. It was pretty obvious that she liked you and, well, I guess I hoped she was somewhere safe. I’ve been watching you for a couple of days. I know she’s not here. But if I can’t look over her, at least I could make sure you were doin’ okay.”