Deadly Intent

by Kylie Brant

  He didn’t shift his attention from shuffling papers. “I have no doubt of that.”

  “Then why . . .”

  “It’s not my file I want to compare yours to,” he said, raising his head to glance at her. “It’s Travis’s.”

  It took a moment for comprehension to filter in. With it, came disbelief. “You stole Travis’s file?”

  His expression went pained. “ ‘Stole’ sounds so judgmental. It was more sleight of hand.”

  “But how . . .” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, where a headache was beginning to drill behind her eyes. “Why would you take a chance like that?”

  He shrugged and went back to the papers in his lap. “What chance? If the files are identical, he’ll never know. If they’re not, he still probably won’t realize it right away. And what’s Whitman going to do, admit he had two different sets of files prepared? There’s no risk, and if I’m right, we access valuable details they’re trying to keep from us. Now will you bring that file over here?”

  Woodenly, she retrieved it from the dresser. Then paused. Damned if she was climbing on that bed with him. Let him think what he wanted. She crossed to the chair and dragged it over to the bedside. It was heavy. Not surprisingly, he didn’t offer to help.

  Sitting down, she opened the expandable file and withdrew a set of folders. Flipping through them quickly, she noted that they were in some semblance of order. “We’ve got interviews of employees in folder one.” Closing it, she opened the next. “More of the family members and business associates in two.” She shifted those to the bottom of the pile before looking at the third and scanning the pages inside. “Inventory of the girl’s bedroom; evidence bagged by the crime scene evidence recovery unit.” His silence was starting to get on her nerves. “The fifth deals with our discoveries at Hubbard’s home.” She flipped through the remaining files without a clear idea of what she should be searching for, then looked at him.

  “Now let’s switch.” He handed her a bundle of files that—thanks to his rummaging—were much less organized than the stack she exchanged with him. But as soon as she took it from him, she recognized a difference.

  “These are heavier.”

  “No shit. That’s because the files are thicker.” He looked up long enough to give her a tight smile. “The files are thicker because . . .”

  “Travis was given information that we weren’t.” Disbelief gave away quickly to a burn of anger. “This is exactly what Raiker warned Whitman about.”

  “And so did Mulder,” he reminded her.

  She shouldn’t be shocked, but the realization infuriated her nonetheless. This sort of behavior was all too familiar. She’d had detectives try to cut her out of the loop on an investigation before. They usually came around once they saw what she brought to the case.

  But they didn’t have time wait for Whitman to start making nice. Ellie Mulder had been missing nearly forty-eight hours. They had nothing of substance to go on yet. And the CBI assistant director wanted to play turf games. “Bugger him,” she muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “You’re making a mess of things.” Macy got up and went to her laptop case and unzipped the side pocket for some highlighted tabs and colored pens. “Let’s use the floor. Two separate arrays for the files. We’ll go through them page by page and flag those that are different.”

  Walking swiftly back to the chair, she grabbed the file he’d handed her earlier and headed to an expanse of carpet beyond the footboard of the bed.

  “I like a woman who takes charge.”

  His quip didn’t lighten her dark mood. “Then you’re going to love the next few hours.”

  “ My back is killing me,” Kell complained, working his shoulders. “I’m going to need a massage. And since it was your idea to sit on the floor . . .”

  “Quit being a baby.” Macy didn’t bother to look up from the notes she was scribbling. She’d started a list of the information that had been included in Travis’s file and absent from her own. “Whitman’s a piece of work. Why would he even bother keeping this from us? It’s not like he’s got any major breaks here.” The sheets that had been marked CONFIDENTIAL across the top had been found only in Travis’s file.

  “Which means he’s just being a dick.” Kell stretched hugely, one arm nearly smacking her. “He’s doing it because he can, and maybe to jab at Raiker some.”

  “Well, we can’t be sure he won’t give Adam a modified file, too, so I’m going to make copies of the pages when I’m done here.” Besides her laptop, she’d brought a combination scanner/copier. She’d need it when—if—a ransom note arrived.

  “What’s the point? We have Travis’s copy of the file. All modesty aside—”

  “As if you had any,” she muttered.

  “—I’ll have no problem getting my hands on his copy each time we’re updated. No use making extra work for yourself.”

  “The point,” she informed him, finally raising her gaze to fix it on him, “is that you’re going to switch the files back tomorrow morning.”

  He stopped rubbing his neck to stare at her. “Why would I do that?”

  Macy set the pen down to enumerate on her fingers. “Because number one, you can’t be sure Whitman won’t have some private communications with Travis, in which he refers to information that will not be included in the file you left with him. And two, there’s no reason to raise suspicions if you don’t have to. We hold the upper hand as long as Whitman doesn’t suspect we know what he’s pulling. And three, if we get caught with the wrong file in our possession, CBI will just guard the case details even more closely.”

  “Double the chances of getting caught if you’re intent on switching the files back every morning,” he muttered. But she could tell from his expression that he hadn’t rejected her logic outright.

  “We have the advantage as long as Whitman doesn’t realize that we know what he’s up to.” She shifted her attention back to her notes. “That might come in handy later.”

  “Very devious.” She could feel him studying her. “And surprising, coming from you.”

  “Devious was switching the files in the first place.” She shot him a glance then. “How did you know Travis’s file had more information in it just by sight? The number of file folders is the same as mine. It’s just the number of pages that differ.”

  “Superior observation skills.” When her eyes narrowed, he shrugged. “And years of experience. I was making a pretty good living at sixteen targeting corporate types to follow into coffee shops and swiping their bags or briefcases.” He got up and wandered over to the bowl she’d placed on the table, helping himself to an apple.

  Gaping at him, Macy was at loss for words. “You . . . stole things? For a living?”

  He took a big bite, then chewed, plainly unconcerned with his admission. “Technically, I made my living selling the bags back. So that’s not actually stealing at all.”

  “No, it’s extortion.” Mind still reeling, she studied him. At sixteen she’d been enrolled in an all-girls school in London. And he’d been well on his way to a life of crime. She wondered if he’d acquired his affinity for locks in that same period.

  His eyes glinted. “We can’t all be raised in castles, Duchess.”

  “I wasn’t . . .” She stopped. Her homes may not have been castles, but it was safe to guess that they had far more in common with the Mulder estate than Kell’s childhood home. “With that kind of background, how’d you end up working for Adam?”

  He finished the apple and three-pointed it into the trash can by the dresser. “He recruited me. We go way back.”

  “Way . . .” Her eyes widened. “You stole from Adam Raiker?” The thought positively boggled the mind. Trying to do the mental math, she guessed, “When he was in the bureau?” He would have been dangerous, even a decade and a half earlier. “You didn’t have very good instincts, did you?”

  Kell’s grin was lopsided. “I was usually pretty good at pegging
cops, but Raiker didn’t look like one. More like a ruthless corporate raider type. I think it was the clothes that threw me.”

  She nodded. Raiker was a clotheshorse. The suit Mulder had been dressed in when they’d met probably hadn’t been pricier than any of the ones her boss normally wore.

  “Anyway, I picked out him and another suit and followed them inside. I cultivated a real clean look. Sort of preppie, though I hated the type. But fewer people suspected someone who looked the part. I’d targeted Raiker’s buddy, but the way things were positioned, couldn’t get to his bag. So I decided to grab up Adam’s.” Amazingly, from the expression on his face, the memory was a good one. “The boss is fast as a snake. Nearly broke my arm.”

  She was trying and failing to imagine the scene. Fascinated, she gave up all pretense of working. “So you failed.”

  “Nope. The companion—who I later discovered was a lawyer—finally figured out what was going on and tried to help. Just balled things up. I was able to shove Adam into the other guy and they got tangled up and went down. I skipped with the briefcase.”

  “And then you tried to blackmail him?”

  He winced imperceptibly. “You have such an ugly view of the world, Macy. Using the information inside the case, I contacted him and offered to negotiate its return. He had a few choice words for me but refused to give me any money. I hung up, figured I’d let him stew a while, and in the meantime, I started going through the contents. And was blown away. It was a case file on a string of murders in DC. I recognized a few names . . .” He broke off when her expression grew incredulous. “I knew people, okay? On the street. Some of the ‘businessmen’ on the street corners. We worked the same neighborhood.”

  She stared at the man as if she’d never seen him before. And she hadn’t. Not like this. The rare glimpse into his background was the last thing she would have imagined for him.

  He padded back across the room toward her and sat down again, this time using the foot of the bed as a backrest. “So anyway, the next time I called him, I was more careful. It had occurred to me that pissing off an FBI agent could do serious damage to my ability to conduct business, so I struck a deal. I offered to help put them in touch with some of the people they were looking for.”

  “For free.”

  He looked pained at the suggestion. “Please. I was a businessman. My fee would be for my assistance, rather than for the return of the file. Raiker agreed, and with my help, he was eventually able to solve twelve homicides in the area. He also saw to it that I served six months in juvie.” His expression went wry. “He was never the forgiving sort, even back then.”

  Macy leaned forward on her desk. She’d figure he fabricated the entire thing—he wasn’t above it—if it didn’t have a ring of truth. “So years later when he started his own company, he thought of the young thief—excuse me,” she corrected, at his swift look, “businessman, and thought his company wouldn’t be complete without you, so he tracked you down again.”

  “Didn’t need to track me down. Adam’s been in my life, one way or another, since I was sixteen. Before I joined Raiker Forensics, I put several years in on the Baltimore PD, the last few as detective.”

  She turned back to her work, although her mind was still full of the revelations he’d made. There was more to the story than what he’d told her. A lot more. And she was slightly bothered by the degree of fascination it elicited. She didn’t want to know any more about Kellan Burke.

  The little she did know—intimately—still haunted her.

  Reaching for another tagged sheet, she began skimming it.

  “Where’d you work before joining Raiker’s agency?”

  Her attention splintered when she realized what she was reading. Lab reports. And Whitman hadn’t mentioned a word about them.

  Distracted, she managed, “BII.” Apparently at least one task had been expedited by the state crime lab.

  “Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation? Funny. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a California girl.”

  She jammed the sheet in his hands. “Look at this.”

  Obediently he took the sheet and scanned it. “Son of a bitch. They identified the latents left in the girl’s room and the one next door.”

  “I suppose all they really did was match the fingerprint records Mulder had on file for his employees, and those for the family themselves.” There were still unidentified prints on the sheet that hadn’t yet been run through AFIS. “But look here.” She leaned over to point to the section in question.

  A partial thumbprint found inside the closet in the room next to the girl’s had been positively matched to Nick Hubbard.

  Chapter 5

  “I don’t get it.” Macy looked both excited and puzzled. “Why would Whitman want to hide the fact that Hubbard has been positively linked to the kidnapping?”

  “Because he doesn’t want Mulder to know yet. Hubbard is Mulder’s employee. His involvement in the girl’s disappearance doesn’t exonerate the family. Just the opposite. And Whitman thinks we’re a direct line to Mulder. Or at least he isn’t taking any chances that we might be.”

  Kell pushed away from the bed to crowd closer to her. “What else do you have there?”

  She shrugged him away irritably. “You’ve seen what I have. The bank account records were in Travis’s file but not ours. So were the LUDs from Hubbard’s cell and landline phones. These lab results. And what looks like the beginning of a comprehensive background check on Stephen and Althea Mulder.” She leaned forward to snatch up the report in question. And to her chagrin, he didn’t move away, as ordered. Instead he chose to read over her shoulder.

  That was a habit she invariably found annoying. It was doubly so with Kell. At least she told herself that’s what she was feeling. Her galloping pulse and jittery stomach made it impossible to concentrate.

  She scooted away. “You have personal-space issues.”

  His smile was slow and wicked. “Do I make you nervous?”

  Because she had no response—an all too frequent problem in his presence—she chose to ignore his remark. Scanning the page quickly, she flipped the page. “Mulder has opened up his financials to them. It would take a handful of forensic accountants to work that lead alone. But from the looks of things, he could buy a couple third-world countries without making a dent in his money.”

  Falling into silence, she looked through a few more pages. After a couple minutes, she said, “There are also the beginnings of reports on the lawyer—Alden. And it looks like they’ve made a good start digging on every employee on this estate.”

  “Alden was here the day she was taken,” he recalled. “So were Lance Spencer and Tessa Amundson. They’d have to find some link between any of them and Hubbard.” He fell silent, but she could tell his mind was racing. “Whitman probably has an ulterior motive in putting us onto him. Hubbard’s a direct line to the girl. Hard to believe he doesn’t want a whole CBI team following up on him.”

  “He’s trying to keep us away from the Mulders as much as possible.” Macy was surprised the realization hadn’t hit her before. “Probably afraid we’ll collude with them. Pass along information.” The agent’s doubt of their integrity burned anew.

  Kell nodded. “His distrust of us actually puts us in a better position on this case. Hubbard is key to solving it.”

  “We’re in a better position because of the switch you made with Travis,” she admitted.

  He cocked a brow. “Glad to hear you approve.” He got up lazily and stretched before ambling over to put his shoes on. “’Cuz you’re going to switch the files back in the morning.”

  Her head snapped up. “What? No. I can’t.”

  “Sure you can.” To listen to his encouraging tone, one would think he was giving a pep talk to a Little Leaguer. “He’s going to get suspicious if I’m always arranging ways to get him to put his folder down. You’re a female. You can bring a whole different aspect to things.”

  Her mind had gone blank. Scram
bling to her feet, she hurried after him as he headed for the door. “I’m not good at things like that.”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  “No!” Panicked, she lowered her voice. “Wait.” He turned, one hand on the knob, his expression quizzical. “Um . . . let’s talk about this. Maybe I could help you. I could . . . distract him somehow and you could make the switch.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Wear something low-cut. Bat your lashes at him. You know.” He fluttered his hands in a feminine gesture that under other circumstances would have amused her. “Use your wiles.”

  When he would have pulled open the door, she grabbed for his shirt to yank him to a halt. “Burke,” she hissed desperately, all sense of self-preservation gone. “I don’t have wiles.”

  He looked at her then, really looked at her. And she could tell he was about to say something she’d have to make him regret. But then the expression on his face changed. His pale green eyes glinted with something very different than humor.

  Macy swallowed. For the first time she realized how close they were standing. But for the life of her, she couldn’t move away. His gaze was arrowed on her mouth. Nervously, she moistened her lips, then caught her breath when she saw the muscle jump in his clenched jaw. She couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d wanted to see him regard her with any expression other than amusement.

  Heat flared in her belly when she read what was on his face. Desire. An emotion she couldn’t—wouldn’t—return.

  His lips looked firm. And somehow closer than before. Tiny tendrils of fire zinged through her veins. The breath strangled in her throat. His headed dipped imperceptibly.

  Then he stopped, as if pulled back by an invisible wire. His jaw clenched. It seemed to take him a moment to fight for control. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered. “Take it from me. You’ve got wiles.”