With a quick glance at the door, she scrambled out of bed, went for her purse, and dug out her phone. Then she typed the message into her notes verbatim as fast as she could.
Not to be paranoid or anything, but whatever this was, she wanted to check it out herself. No need to let Finn know she’d even seen it.
He was a stud in bed: there was no getting around that. He was also protective, considerate, and kind. She liked him. Maybe more than liked him. Maybe way more than liked him.
Trust him? She wanted to. She could tell him the whole sorry story, ask him about his picture on Jeff’s cell phone, ask him what the text message meant, promise that if he told her everything she would tell him everything, too, and see how that went.
Of course, if it went wrong, it was going to go wrong bad.
Alternatively, she could keep her mouth shut and practice some due diligence.
Still thinking about it, she thrust her phone back into her purse, returned the other phone to the drawer, and crawled back into bed.
Which was where she was when he returned. He came in from the hall, closing and locking the door quietly behind him. Without turning on the light, he walked into the bedroom, moving as silently as a shadow. Feigning sleep, her eyes opening to the merest of slits, she watched as he set his gun down on the bedside table, then pulled off his shirt and dropped his pants. Being careful not to disturb her, he slipped into bed beside her. Lying on his side so that, she guessed, he wouldn’t touch and accidentally wake her, he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Riley, on the other hand, lay awake for a long time. Finally, when the lightening of the room told her that dawn was breaking outside, she crept out of bed. Glancing back at Finn, she saw the gleam of his eyes, and realized he was looking at her.
Damn.
She’d figured him for a light sleeper. It was one reason she hadn’t gotten up sooner.
“Bathroom,” she said, and he inclined his head and closed his eyes.
She picked up her purse on the way, and took it with her.
It wouldn’t hurt to exercise a little due diligence.
Getting the information she was after proved to be surprisingly easy. Advanced Google Search was a miraculous thing. Five minutes later, she was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet staring down at the results of her inquiry: a figurative fist to the gut encapsulated on a tiny cell phone screen.
She wasn’t sure which emotion was uppermost: hurt, shock, or rage.
ID# 0045386 took her to a government web site, where a little further sleuthing brought up a picture of the badge of John F. Bradley, Special Ops, CIA.
The photo on the badge was of Finn.
After staring at the thing for a while, she finally managed to get her head around it, then went back over everything he’d said and done from the time she’d first run naked into his arms, and came to a conclusion.
Bottom line: he was a lying SOB.
Other bottom line: Trust R Not Us.
* * *
TWO SATELLITE trucks complete with TV crews were set up outside the prison’s front entrance when they arrived. Finn cursed when he saw them. It was possible that their presence had nothing to do with George, but not likely. Finn’s best guess was that they were there to get a story on yesterday’s stabbing of the disgraced former billionaire, and Riley was going to show up right smack in the middle of it.
There was nothing to be done about it. Canceling was not an option. His only consolation was that she would be driving right on past them, with only the single stop at the gate before she was inside and completely out of their reach. The reporters wouldn’t be able to talk to her. They might not even spot her. Unless somebody had tipped them off, they wouldn’t be expecting her, and she wasn’t in her own car.
Of course, women who looked like Riley were kind of hard to miss.
“I’ll be waiting right here when you get done,” Finn told Riley as he got out of the Acura’s passenger seat into the steam bath that was this particular morning in southern Oklahoma. At just past nine thirty, the sun was already climbing the cloudless sky. Last night’s thunderheads might never have existed. “Come straight back.”
The arrangement was that he’d wait for her in the small coffee-and-doughnut shop in the seedy strip mall directly across the road from the prison’s front entrance.
“All right.” She nodded agreement, looking out through the windshield at the prison across the way rather than at him, her hands tight around the steering wheel. If she was tired, it didn’t show. She looked beautiful, as always, with her red hair waving around her face and a businesslike smoke-gray dress, sleeveless and knee-length, showing off her kickass shape. But there was something remote about her expression that didn’t quite jibe with his expectations. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting—well, he did; in his experience women tended to be all kissy-face and possessive on mornings after the night before, especially a night before like she’d had—but Riley wasn’t it.
She’d been polite. She’d even returned the kiss he’d dropped on her right before they left the hotel room with an appropriate degree of heat. But she’d hopped out of bed fast—no cuddling, nothing like that—and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door, showering alone. He’d showered while she’d done her hair and makeup, and then while he’d gotten dressed she’d gone back into the bathroom to get dressed in private. Not that big a deal, but, again, not what he’d expected. After that she’d gone with him to get breakfast, and listened to his instructions about what to do inside the prison and what information she needed to get from George without arguing or smarting off or telling him to stuff it, which from anyone else he would have expected as a matter of course, but from her, not so much.
It was possible that she was keyed up about meeting George, and worried about her chances of getting the information they needed. He knew she was terrified for Emma.
But he didn’t think any of those things was it.
He had the feeling that whatever was bothering her was personal, that it involved him. He didn’t want to ask her if something was wrong, didn’t want to push it, until after she’d talked to George. If she could find out where the money was, his life got so much easier in every way. He could say everything he needed to say to Riley then.
A text message had come in during the night, letting him know that somebody might have figured out that he was on the job here. That wasn’t good. If it became known that CIA Special Ops had an interest in the missing money, all kinds of awkward questions might start getting asked.
Fortunately, his people were the best in the world at tracking down and dealing with potential security breaches.
Finn closed the door, smacked a hand down on top of the car to let her know she should go, and stepped back. Riley drove away.
Mack H. Alford Correctional Center was a collection of two-story gray concrete structures with a couple of low red-brick buildings out in front. It was a big, medium-security complex surrounded by tall fences topped with loops of razor wire. Square guard towers rose at intervals near the fences. In those complexes, although he couldn’t see them, would be a couple of armed guards. From where Finn stood, sunglasses in place as he watched Riley heading toward the complex, what he could see were acres of parking lot, dozens of cars, some activity as people went in and out of buildings. The one thing about orange prison uniforms was they showed up like beacons amidst all that gray.
He watched the Acura drive across the road, past the TV trucks—no problem, thank God; they didn’t appear to recognize her—and up to the front gate, watched it stop while Riley got checked off the list by the guard, then watched her drive on in and park. He watched Riley get out and walk inside the visitors’ center.
The only part of the short journey where she’d been at physical risk was from the point where she’d let him out to the moment she’d driven through the prison gates. And he’d been close enough that entire time to intervene if needed.
Now, t
hough, she was out of sight. Some activity in the shopping center, but no one observing him particularly as far as he could tell, Finn concluded after giving his surroundings a quick but thorough survey. Turning away from the coffee-and-doughnut shop—it was called Auntie Sue’s—he walked to the dark blue van with Hall’s Plumbing emblazoned in bold white letters on the sides.
Bax must have seen him coming, because the back door swung open as he approached.
“Yo,” Finn said by way of greeting, and climbed in. He glanced around and, as Bax closed the door behind him, took in the array of computer monitors, all with various views from the prison’s front gate to different points inside. “These all live feeds?”
“Yep.” Bax sat back down in the chair he’d vacated to get the door.
Finn took the other vacant chair and settled in to watch Riley walk through a metal detector, then hand over her purse to be searched.
— CHAPTER —
TWENTY-EIGHT
The smell was what hit Riley first. As she walked into the hospital ward, she was assaulted by a pungent mix of aromas that included urine, vomit, and some kind of strong disinfectant, like Lysol. The walls were cement block, painted pale gray. The floor was concrete, also gray. Big, barred windows let in plenty of light. Men lay in metal-framed hospital beds beneath thin blue blankets. Two orderlies or male nurses, she didn’t know which, in blue scrubs tended to patients. A guard sat in a plastic chair against the far wall. The big guard who had escorted her from the visitors’ center was just ahead of her as he led her through an aisle between rows of beds. He was as tall as Finn but paunchy, with a sallow, acne-scarred face. His name was Kevin Brown, and he was a sergeant: it said so on his plastic name tag.
Riley was so tense her jaw ached, and that’s when she realized she was clenching it. She had to consciously force herself to relax.
“Prett-eee lad-eee,” one of the patients crooned upon catching sight of her.
“Hey, baby, do me, do me, do me, do me, do me.”
“Come on over here.”
Wolf whistle.
The guards paid no attention to the catcalls that followed her. Riley ignored them, too. She’d already been told that George had been put in a private room for his own safety, and when Brown stopped in front of a closed door with a guard sitting in another plastic chair beside it, Riley assumed this was that room.
She was right.
“Knock on the door when you’re ready to come out, Mrs. Cowan,” Brown said, as the other guard stood up and pushed open the door for her. That’s when she understood that while she was in the room with George the door would be locked from the outside.
Of course. It was a prison, after all.
Riley nodded, and walked into the room. It was small and, like the ward itself, mostly gray. The shade had been pulled down over the single window blocking any view of the outside, but still there was plenty of light, both natural and from the overhead fixture, which was on. The smell was not as pronounced in here, possibly because this small room was cooler than the ward.
As the door closed behind her, her gaze immediately went to the man in the bed. The last time she’d seen George, she’d been in a courtroom sitting with Margaret, Emma, and Jeff as George, having just been sentenced to seventy-five years in prison, was handcuffed and led away. Margaret and Emma had been in tears, and Jeff had been white and sick with distress over his father’s fate. The pillar that the other three leaned on, Riley had been angry at George then for causing them all so much pain, and she had expected to be even more angry now.
But she didn’t feel angry.
The man in the bed barely resembled George. The burly bully with the perpetual tan and the carefully kept mane of black hair was gone. In his place was a thin, pale old man with age spots and dry lips and gray hair cut so short he might as well have been bald. He wore a blue hospital gown with some kind of print on it. An IV was in his arm, he was hooked up to a monitor that stood next to the IV stand beside the bed and beeped intermittently, and his right hand was bandaged. A blue blanket covered him to midchest.
“Hello, George,” Riley greeted him.
George said, “They told me you were coming to see me. Why you? Where’s Margaret? What do you want?”
His voice was thinner than before, and it had a rasp. But the attitude: that was the George she knew.
“Margaret couldn’t come. She’s fine, by the way, thanks for asking.” Riley advanced to stand beside the bed. She could feel her old dislike for him bubbling to the surface. George looked up at her, his expression unwelcoming. His eyes were small and blue. Faded now. But still cold.
He was a shell of his former self. She did not feel sorry for him.
“You’ve heard about Jeff.” Her tone didn’t make it a question, because she was sure he had. What she wanted to know was, did he feel any guilt? Any remorse? Any awareness that Jeff would be alive right now if it wasn’t for him?
Her anger was back, building up inside like a rising tide.
“They told me.” If he felt any emotion at all, he wasn’t showing it. “So if that’s what you’re here about, you can just go away.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. She’d thought to break it to him gently, but . . . mean old man. Jeff’s words. Remembering, Riley felt a shiver of grief pierce the anger.
“Emma’s been kidnapped.” She laid it on the line, flatly, and watched his face. It seemed to freeze. His eyes were suddenly riveted to hers. “The kidnappers told me I should ask you where the money is. If you don’t tell me, they’re going to kill her.”
For a moment he simply stared at her. Then his mouth opened and began to work, like a fish out of water gulping air. His left hand—the uninjured one—fisted in the sheet.
“Eh-eh-Emma,” he stuttered. He licked his lips. His head moved from side to side, a negative gesture. His body twitched. His eyes filled with horror. “Not Emma. Oh, no, not Emma. Not like Jeff.”
“Where’s the money? For Emma’s sake, you need to tell me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t.”
He almost sounded pitiful. Riley almost felt sorry for him. But see, the thing was, she knew he knew where the money was. She knew that he could tell her about Emma’s painting, and the little black book, and how to access those accounts.
She knew he could save Emma if he wanted to.
Sweet Emma was the one person she’d always thought George truly loved.
Her anger turned to rage. She leaned over the bed, leaned closer to him, her eyes boring into his. “I know it isn’t all lost like you’ve been saying. You can save Emma, George. All you have to do is tell me where the money is.”
He made a sound of distress.
“It’s gone,” he said, and she knew then that she would despise him forever. “All gone.” He covered his eyes with his hand.
“It’s not,” Riley hissed at him, and stopped, because there was no point. He was exactly what he had always been, and she didn’t need his help anyway.
George’s hand dropped away from his eyes. He looked at her, and she saw he had tears brimming. “I made a deal with the devil. He came to me, and I did it. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know. If I could take it back I would, but I can’t.”
That made her frown at him. “George—”
“I can’t,” he repeated, and began to sob. “Jeff didn’t kill himself. They killed him. I tried to fix this and they killed him. And now they’ve got Emma. And there’s nothing I can do.”
George shut his eyes, drew a deep, shuddering breath.
Riley stared at him as her heart began to pound. Maybe he would tell her this, and maybe it would be enough to help find Emma. Her hand found his, closed around the cold dry fingers urgently. “Who are they? Do you know? If you do, tell me. They’ve got Emma.”
George opened his eyes. But instead of looking at her, he looked at the door. “Guard!” he yelled. “We’re through.”
“George, if you know something, you have to tell me.
”
He looked at her then. His eyes were full of tears.
“Go away,” he said, then looked at the door again and screamed, “Guard!”
“Jeff deserved better than you,” Riley said with quiet ferociousness as the door opened behind her. “Emma and Margaret do, too.”
“Get her out of here,” George cried to the guard who now stood in the open doorway. “We’re through here! We’re through.”
Riley didn’t even say good-bye. Hating him so much she felt sick with it, she turned and walked out the door.
* * *
“WELL, HELL, there goes that.” As Riley walked out of George’s room, Finn leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his neck in frustration. In the tight confines of the van, that meant his head was almost touching the opposite wall. Ordinarily he would never have said it aloud, but he’d gotten caught up in Riley’s emotion, in the naked pain in her voice and her face, as he’d watched her trying to get the information they needed out of George. He’d damned well felt some of that emotion, which said way more than he wanted to think about at the moment about the state of his own emotions where Riley was concerned. One more topic to be pursued later; for now he had to concentrate on getting the job he’d been put on the ground to do done. Which meant, clearly, that he was going to have to go down a new path, because George either really didn’t know or wasn’t giving up the whereabouts of the money.
Riley had seemed to think he knew. Or else she was a hell of an actress, putting it all out there as she fought with Emma’s father for a means of saving Emma.
When he got her back, they were going to have a talk. About trust, and all that.
“Now what do we do?” Bax was watching Riley’s return progress through the prison, too.
“Your people got any fresh leads on Emma?” Finn asked. Riley’s visit to George having been a bust, Finn wanted to get as much of a handle on the Emma situation as he could before Riley rejoined him, upset about having failed. If the girl couldn’t be found before the kidnappers called Riley, maybe the best thing to do would be to fake it, lie and claim George had told them the whereabouts of the money. They could try to arrange an ambush.
Hush Page 28