The Bliss Factor

by Penny McCall

  “But you agree there’s someone else involved.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t say. Yet.”

  Rae studied his face, and she didn’t like what she saw. “You’re not telling me the truth.”

  “I don’t know what the truth is,” Conn said. “Not all of it anyway.”

  “Then I suggest we find out.”

  “We?”

  She huffed out a breath. “You don’t think I’m going to sit back while my parents are up to their necks in trouble.”

  “Whatever is going on, it’s getting serious. I can’t keep an eye on you and wrap this mess up at the same time.”

  Rae pushed to her feet. “Let me make it easy for you. I’m not your problem.”

  “I got you into this.”

  “My parents got me into this.”

  “The op is heating up,” Conn said, slowly and clearly.

  “If you think being deliberately patronizing is going to put me off, guess again.”

  “You’re being bullheaded. Harry and his friends have gone from fists to guns in the space of a week.”

  “I know. I was there. They may come off as Stooges, but if they were trying to kill us, we’d be dead. Look, there’s no point in arguing,” she said when Conn tried to do just that. “I’ll take the Airstream back, you follow me in the car.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we find my parents and get some answers.”

  “Don’t you think I tried that already?”

  She met his eyes. “I didn’t.”

  RAE BACKED THE AIRSTREAM INTO THE SAME SPOT it had occupied before she’d borrowed it, and okay, it took her three tries, but she had to give her parents credit. They were right there, waiting for her, along with a really attractive, dangerous-looking man. A man who was dressed as a tourist, but had FBI written all over him. Thanks to Conn, she recognized it now.

  Her mother climbed into the old rattletrap of a pickup they used to haul the trailer from place to place. Her father came around to the driver’s window, already open thanks to the lack of air-conditioning. Conn and the stranger stayed where they were.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Rae said.

  “Give us a chance to explain, Sunny—”

  “Stop.” Rae shoved both hands through her hair, scooping it up and jamming in a clip she dug from her purse. “I only want to know one thing. If you knew Conn was an FBI agent on a mission, a man who is completely wrong for me, why did you keep shoving me at him?”

  “I thought it was the best way to make you run in the other direction. But we didn’t know he was FBI.”

  Rae gave her mother a look.

  “We knew he was hiding something,” Nelson put in, “but who here isn’t? We knew he wouldn’t hurt you, but your mother was only trying to protect you.”

  “When will you stop treating me like a child?”

  “You’ll always be my child.”

  “I’m your daughter,” Rae said. “Your growndaughter. There’s a difference.”

  She reached for the door handle, but for once her father wasn’t standing aside.

  “Sunny,” he said quietly, putting his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not the kind of woman who runs away when things get tough.”

  Rae laughed, but it was harsh and humorless. “I’m exactly that kind of woman. I ran away when I was eighteen.”

  “You stepped out on your own.”

  “Did I? I wonder how much of that was bravery and how much was manipulation.”

  Nelson shook his head. “I’ve never been disappointed in you before now,” he said. And he walked away.

  Later, Rae knew, that would devastate her, but at the moment she was too angry to be moved by it.

  Then again, her face wasn’t wet because of Conn.

  chapter 23

  CONN LEFT RAE AND HER PARENTS TO THEIR FAMILY moment. He decided it was a good sign that he didn’t hear any yelling. But then, they hadn’t gotten to him yet.

  Trip wandered over and stood at his right side. Conn took a step to the left.

  Trip snorted out a laugh. “You’re probably going to need a friend.”

  “In this line of work?”

  “This is just a job,” Trip said.

  “It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle.”

  “Only for as long as you want it to be.”

  “Maybe you should get some ugly glasses and a couch, and hang out a shingle.”

  “I could definitely come up with some new approaches to anger management. Probably not court sanctioned, though.”

  Nelson walked away from the pickup, looking like death warmed over. A minute later Annie jumped out of the front seat, digging her phone out of her skirt pocket. Rae exited the driver’s door and came around the front of the pickup, heading straight for Conn.

  “Hold that thought,” he said to Trip. Anger management was definitely going to be an issue.

  “I know that look,” he said to Rae when she planted herself in front of him. “Your mind is made up.”

  “Yep.”

  “I could take her off your hands,” Trip offered Conn.

  “It’ll take more than a couch and a line of bullshit to survive her,” Conn said.

  “Don’t spare my feelings just because I’m standing right here,” Rae said, and when Trip turned to her, she popped up an eyebrow, daring him to comment.

  “On second thought,” he said, “you’re on your own, Larkin. Besides, Mike reached out. Puff MacArthur is getting out of jail tomorrow. Since you have this under control, I have an urge to make his acquaintance.”

  “Lucius ‘Puff of Smoke’ MacArthur? He must be in his sixties by now.”

  “And he’s sitting on the location of a cache of stolen loot.”

  “He spent the last twenty-five years incarcerated with the worst criminals in the country, and none of them could convince him to give it up. Not to mention every local, state, and federal law enforcement officer will want to close this case.”

  Trip grinned, and it was diabolical. “None of them are me.” And he took off.

  “No ego there,” Rae said, watching Trip walk off toward the parking lot. “Maybe you should go with him, teach him how to pretend to be something he’s not.”

  “He already knows.”

  She snorted softly. “It’s probably required training for you people.”

  “It’s more of a prerequisite for employment.”

  “They’re making a lot of movies in Michigan now. Tax breaks. You should stick around, see where your talents take you. Better pay and less gunfire—okay, you’d be a puffed up, muscle-bound action hero, but at least the bad guys would be shooting blanks, and you’d always get to win.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Not even close.”

  “We have other things to talk about,” Conn said. “All of us, and unless I miss my guess, your mom is calling your dad.”

  Rae let her chin drop to her chest, just for a second or two, so mentally exhausted and emotionally wrung out all she could think about was walking away. She wanted to lose herself in crowds of people who had nothing more earth-shattering on their minds than enjoying an Indian summer.

  But she wasn’t going to put this behind her by running away from it. Her father was right about that much.

  Nelson must not have gone far because he walked back into the clearing next to the Airstream, Annie holding his hand.

  Rae teared up immediately. “Dad I—”

  Nelson folded her into a hug. “I should be the one apologizing to you,” he said. “I had no right to say you were a disappointment, considering what we’ve gotten you into.”

  “Let’s just figure out what to do next. Okay?”

  Annie wiped away her tears, laughing as Nelson hugged her hard, rocking her a little and saying, “It’ll be all right.”

  Conn reached out and drew Rae back against him, rubbing her shoulders.

  She pulled away. “Somebody f
ill me in,” she said, an invitation that clearly wasn’t meant for him since she established a safe distance from him, both physically and visually, keeping her eyes on her parents.

  “I had just figured out your parents were involved when I was hit over the head,” Conn said.

  “Don’t look at us,” Annie said.

  “It had to be Harry,” Rae said.

  Annie looked confused. “Harry? We don’t know any Harry.”

  Rae stepped in front of her father. “Dad? Care to tell me the truth?”

  Conn knew exactly why she was challenging her father, but he stood back and let her handle it because Nelson was no match for his daughter. Hell, Conn admitted, neither was he.

  “All right,” Nelson said, taking exactly two seconds to cave in. “We’ll never get out of this if we don’t tell you what’s going on. Although I’m not sure I understand how we got involved in the first place.”

  “We were coerced,” Annie snapped.

  “Start at the beginning,” Conn said, “the first time you were contacted.”

  “It was about a year and a half ago, after the faire in North Carolina. You remember it, Sunny.”

  “Raleigh,” she said. “What happened?”

  “We do know Harry. He approached us . . . He asked—”

  “He beat around the bush,” Annie put in, “and when we figured out what he was suggesting and turned him down, he started making threats against our friends.”

  “Annie wanted to call a meeting and tell everyone what was going on, let them decide for themselves. Harry said if we spilled the beans, they’d pick a target at random, and we’d never see it coming. And if we still didn’t cooperate—” Nelson folded his wife’s hand into his. “—Annie would be next. We held him off while we tried to figure a way out, but then Dill Pickle Sally’s brakes went out on the road between St. Louis and Minneapolis, and she’d just had them fixed. Thank heaven it was a nice, straight stretch of road or who knows what might have happened. Harry called us right after . . .” Nelson shook himself a little as he put aside the frightening memory. And got defensive. “It’s just making a little money. The U.S. government prints up a new batch whenever it suits them. Hell, it’s not even backed by any real assets anymore, so why should they be in charge?”

  Rae flicked a glance at Conn. He could see she wanted to answer that question, but she kept her head in the game.

  “They never threatened Rae, right?”

  “They don’t know about Sunny,” Annie said. “That’s why we sent you off with her, remember? So you’d be safe until you got your memory back.”

  Conn knew that, but at the time it hadn’t made an impression. He hadn’t known about the operation, let alone who he was. Now it bothered him. “A daughter is a pretty big detail to miss. The kind of people who are usually behind this sort of crime don’t make mistakes like that.”

  “The kind of people?” Rae asked. “Are you talking about the mafia?”

  Annie went white. “There’s mafia in Detroit?”

  “There’s mafia in every big city,” Conn said. “Harry’s last name is Mosconi. No criminal record but my bet would be that Harry isn’t made yet, so he probably hasn’t hit the grid before now. If this is his big play, he won’t let anything or anyone stand in his way.”

  The Blisses were quiet, absorbing that awful thought.

  “He’s definitely up to something,” Nelson finally said.

  “They used to ask for a new batch of ink every couple of months. Two weeks ago they told us to prepare twice the usual amount. They want it before we leave Holly Grove.”

  Conn didn’t even have to think about what that meant. He’d made a mess of things, but there was hope because, like all crooks, greed got ’em every time. “They’re going to shut down the operation, after one last big push.”

  “What’s the chance they’ll leave witnesses behind?” Nelson asked.

  “None.”

  Nelson sank down to the ground, waving his wife and daughter off when they tried to help him.

  “You okay?” Conn asked.

  “Yeah.” He held his hand out and let Conn pull him to his feet. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Don’t. They would have made any threat or promise it took to get you on board. You were doomed the moment they decided you’d be useful.”

  “That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. How would they even know about us?”

  Conn shrugged. “Can’t say. But it’s ingenious. Find a group of nonconformists who are a community, but also tend to be wary of each other and untrusting of authority. This group also happens to have the set of skills necessary to make the ink, to engrave the plates, and to print the money. Thousands of people go through these Renaissance festivals so the money gets spread out quickly, and in a different city every few days or weeks, which means the authorities waste time looking for the source after it’s already moved on.”

  “What about the paper?” Rae asked him. “You didn’t mention the paper.”

  “They probably have a line on the paper. I doubt there’s anyone here who could make it—”

  “Nelson could.”

  “I’m sure you’re good,” Conn said to him, “but there’s a watermark and a security thread running through the paper. Get either one of those wrong and the whole thing is a bust.”

  “And you think it’s the mafia?”

  “Who else could pull it off? The key for them is keeping all the pieces of the operation ignorant of one another. They threaten you each individually with whatever is most precious to you, and you’re alone. You can’t get together, get that safety-in-numbers bravado thing going, and mess up their operation. Like I said, pretty damn tight, and the mafia has the expertise and experience to know just how to handle this kind of operation.”

  “Great,” Rae said, “if you’re done admiring the mastermind, can we focus on how to catch him?”

  “Or her,” Annie said. “Women are just as capable as men . . .”

  “Not really the time for a feminist speech, Mom.” Not to mention the mafia wasn’t really an equal opportunity employer.

  Annie smiled crookedly. “Gotta get it in while I can.”

  “Where’s your optimism?” Rae asked her.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this one.”

  Rae looked to Conn for some reassurance. He couldn’t give her any. “Let’s stop the counterfeiters and worry about the rest later.”

  If everyone was alive. Conn had a pretty good idea he wasn’t the only one thinking that. The minute they started rocking the boat, this thing was going to heat up, big-time.

  “The first thing we have to do . . .” Nelson said to Conn.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Rae said. “They may not have known about me when this started, but they do now.”

  “They don’t know you’re our daughter,” Annie said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Even if they don’t know she’s your daughter,” Conn said, “they know she’s involved.”

  “Because of us.” This time it was Annie who sat, although she chose the picnic table bench. “Oh, Sunny, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She looked at Conn, and whatever else was going on in her head, at least he could see she had no regrets.

  Considering what they faced, it was small consolation. Her parents he needed; they were cogs in the counterfeiting wheel, and if they disappeared all hell would break loose, not to mention he couldn’t discover the other participants without them. Rae was superfluous. He should put her in protective custody. She talked big, but he knew Trip could handle her.

  The sorry truth was he didn’t feel comfortable letting Rae out of his sight. It was a mistake. A big one. He couldn’t afford the distraction. And then there was the problem she had with following instructions. But there was no way he’d shake her loose—and before that warm, fuzzy feeling blooming around his breastbone got too big for its britches, he reminded himself that her moti
vations didn’t include him. She wanted to be there for her parents.

  Conn could respect that. But it was damned inconvenient, and it would be hell keeping her safe and watching his own back at the same time. And Rae wasn’t the only one who needed his protection. He’d gone into this op thinking the Renaissance nuts were the bad guys—and they weren’t all that bad, even if they were breaking the law. But there was a real bad guy out there, and he—or she—had them by the short hairs. If Conn didn’t do his job right somebody was going to get hurt, maybe killed.

  And it would be on him.

  “The paper isn’t in play,” he said, shaking off the fear.

  If you can’t control it, don’t let it control you. “We know where the ink is coming from, that just leaves the plates and the printing press. Of the two, the plates are the important piece. The operation can be shut down any second, but if we get our hands on the plates, someone will talk to save themselves. Even then it’s just the word of a bunch of—”

  “The word you’re looking for is kooks,” Annie said.

  “—people who don’t conform and probably have police records anyway.”

  “Except you’re not a kook,” Nelson pointed out. “You’re FBI.”

  “Which is why they’ll have to kill me to pull it off.”

  Rae’s expression went even grimmer. “We have to get our hands on the plates, before Harry and Joe figure out what we’re up to and beat us to them. If they haven’t already.”

  chapter 24

  “SO, WHERE’S THE MAP?”

  “Map?” Rae traded a look with her parents, but since Conn had directed the question to her, she wound up going back to him for the explanation. And then it hit her. “The map!” She thunked herself on the forehead and ran into the trailer.

  She came back, brandishing the map they’d found in Conn’s tent. “Is this what you were looking for in my car?”

  “And your house, and your files. And then I tried to recreate it, but some of it’s gone—” He rapped his knuckles on the side of his head. “—for good, I think.”

  “It was in the pocket of the jeans I borrowed from my mom,” Rae said, “but you couldn’t just ask for it, right? I mean, that would have meant telling me the truth about your memory coming back, and why you’re here.”