Deep Cover

by Rachel Butler

  “I doubt anyone could, not even Davis.” Sonny Yates chuckled. “Or Daniels. Christ, he was chief of police here in Savannah, too. No wonder he used Damon as his front guy.”

  “Did you ever meet him when he was chief in Savannah?”

  “Nah. I make it a point not to hang out with cops. They tend to be pretty narrow-minded about this right-and-wrong business.” He chuckled again. “Though, obviously, there are exceptions to the rule.”

  Thank God, Tony wasn’t one of the exceptions, Selena thought, sparing just a moment to miss him. On a normal day, he would get off work soon, go home, and show up at her doorstep shortly after. This not being a normal day, she had no clue when she would see him again. “How is business in Savannah?”

  “The usual. A few problems. Nothing we can’t handle.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Nothing much. We had a boat go missing a few weeks ago. We handled it, though, and got the cargo back.”

  He spoke so casually, as if he’d done nothing more than fire the crew. A shiver crept through Selena. She knew other people’s lives meant nothing to William and Long, and apparently, Yates, but the ease with which they could kill still made her blood run cold.

  “That’s good. Very good.” Her voice sounded shaky, so she drew a breath and hurried on. “I’d like to meet with you, Mr. Yates. You have the honor of being the first person I’m inviting to my home.”

  “I am honored,” he said, and sounded it. “But I can’t leave Savannah right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be bad for business to get called in to see the boss right now.” When she remained silent, he patiently continued. “When your own employees start stealing from you, you have to make an example of them, and you have to look damned strong while doing it. If word gets out that the boss has demanded my presence right after something like this, people are going to start thinking I’m in trouble, and it won’t matter that I’m not. It’ll undermine my authority.” His voice softened and turned steely at the same time. “I don’t let anything undermine my authority. If you want to see me anytime soon, you’ll have to come here.”

  Selena glanced at Robinette, fairly certain he wouldn’t like what she was about to say, but that didn’t deter her. “All right. We’ll be in touch with the details, Mr. Yates. Until then.”

  After hanging up, she clasped her hands in her lap. “Pack your bags, gentlemen, Ms. Gentry. It appears we’re going to Savannah.”

  Gentry and Jamieson exchanged glances before they both looked at Robinette. He was very still, almost managing an unaffected look . . . but not quite. She might as well make it easy for him to say what he needed to say. She shifted her gaze to the others. “Mr. Jamieson, why don’t you get Mr. Long settled in the guesthouse? Ms. Gentry can help.”

  “Uh . . . yeah . . . sure.” Jamieson scraped back his chair and got to his feet. The others left without a word.

  Hands still folded, Selena listened to their footsteps receding. A moment later, she thought she heard the kitchen door close, though more likely, two floors away, it was just her imagination.

  Finally, Robinette pushed away from the wall where he’d leaned. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled to the far end of the table, pushing in Jamieson’s chair, closing Gentry’s magazine, straightening Long’s chair. “Go to Savannah. You think it’s that easy?”

  “People travel there every day.”

  “One of the reasons we’re using this house is because it’s relatively easy to secure. We have our people inside and out. We have surveillance. We have backup just a phone call away. If we go to Savannah, we’ll have to stay in a hotel. There will be civilians around. We’ll be on Yates’s turf. Security will be a problem.”

  She smiled tightly. “Handling problems is your job, isn’t it?”

  Color flared in his cheeks. “Making decisions is my job, too.”

  “Yates refused to leave Savannah. Was I supposed to ask him to hold on while I asked my employees what I should do? That would certainly convince him that I’m capable of running this organization, wouldn’t it?” She held his gaze, but naturally he didn’t reply. “Assuming we all go, that’s five people. Not a big deal.”

  “Five . . . have you not noticed the three shifts of guards working the gates? This is a major investigation. There are plenty of people besides us involved. It’s not a simple matter of getting on a plane. I’ll have to arrange private transportation. I’ll have to clear it for Long to make the trip. I’ll have to find a place for us to stay and set up security and surveillance at that end. You’re not going to be nearly as safe there as you are here. We’ll have to account for that, as well.”

  She stood up, fingertips resting on the tabletop. “So arrange. Clear it. Account for it.”

  The color spread from his cheeks to flush his entire face. “Look, Ms. McCaffrey, regardless of what the bad guys think, you work for me—”

  “I’m working with you,” she disagreed, parroting Long. “And what the bad guys think is all that really matters, isn’t it? You tell me to act as if I’m a drug lord, as if I’m now truly running this venture. Well, Mr. Robinette, I have to have the leeway to make some decisions myself, or no one’s ever going to believe that I’m in charge.”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue, but how could he? She was right, and he knew it.

  She waited a moment. When he said nothing, she did. “I told Yates we would get back to him with the details. You set up the trip, and I’ll let him know.”

  6

  It was almost quitting time when Tony settled in at his desk with a stack of folders. With Henry in the hospital and Damon Long in jail, his workload had dropped off significantly. His current cases consisted of three gang-related drive-bys and a bank-robbery homicide, plus some old cases that he hadn’t yet given up on.

  And an attempted homicide that he wasn’t assigned to but had a personal stake in. The lab hadn’t found anything to help them—no fingerprints on the shell casings, nothing remarkable about the fiber. The shooter must have been lucky or well instructed, since Tony was convinced he wasn’t a pro. There was just no way a pro would have missed his target under those circumstances.

  Sending in an amateur certainly limited the suspect list. If a hit had been put out by any of the top men who worked under Henry, the job would have been given to someone with experience. Had a lesser employee taken it upon himself to kill Selena in an attempt to save himself? Or had the person who’d sent him been faced with limited options?

  Damon Long had limited options—sitting in jail, facing a certain conviction and the death penalty. Every visitor he had was logged in, every phone number he called duly noted. And he had plenty of reasons to want Selena dead.

  Standing up, Tony pulled his suit coat on. “I’m going over to the jail,” he announced to no one in particular.

  Darnell Garry, on the computer, nodded absently. Simmons stood up from his own desk. “Lucky you,” he said sourly. “I get to question the dearly bereaved of that little smart-ass that got shot in the bar fight the other night. Wanna trade?”

  “When you have such a knack for interrogating the victim’s loved ones?” Tony joked.

  “More like pissing ’em off,” Garry put in.

  “Is it my fault these people insist on pretending that their kids were perfect little angels? Besides”—Simmons grinned broadly—“I get along just fine with the victims themselves.”

  “What does that say about you, Frankie, when the only people who can stand being around you for long are dead?” Garry asked.

  Tony left them squabbling and took the stairs to the parking garage. It was only a few blocks to the correctional center. He parked and went inside, stowed his weapons in a lockbox just off the lobby, and went to find the information he was after.

  “Phone calls made by Damon Long,” a corrections officer named Johannes repeated as he checked the records. “We have three—two to the same number the first couple days he
was here, then another a week later.”

  Tony wrote down the numbers, then checked through his notes that filled half the legal pad. The first two calls were to Long’s lawyer, as he’d thought. He would have to run the second number through telephone security to find out who it belonged to. “What about visitors?”

  “Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer . . . here’s one—Carl Heinz. Was here last Friday and again yesterday. The only other one was a Selena McCaf—” At Tony’s choked curse, the officer broke off. “You know her?”

  Tony’s fingers curled so tightly around his pen that it cut off circulation. He wished it was Selena’s neck he was squeezing, wished a good strangling would shake some sense into her. Goddamn it to hell, what was she doing visiting Long? How stupid could she be?

  “Yeah, I know her.” He unclenched his fingers and flexed them to get the blood flowing again. “I want to talk to him. Can you get us an interview room?”

  Johannes checked the computer again, then shook his head. “You’re a couple hours too late. He was released this morning.”

  Panic building inside, Tony shook his own head. “He was denied bail.”

  “Judge reconsidered and granted it.”

  “Why would he do that? The man killed at least nine people! He’s committed more crimes than all your inmates here combined. Why in hell would the judge release him?”

  Johannes shrugged. “I don’t have any idea. But Selena McCaffrey might. He was released into her custody. You know where to find her?”

  Ice spread through Tony, making his movements and his voice stiff and unyielding. “Yeah, I know.” Goddamn!

  It took less than ten minutes to reach the Daniels estate, where he was stopped at the gate by armed guards. He showed his badge as he said, “I want to see Selena McCaffrey.”

  “Ms. McCaffrey isn’t seeing visitors at this time.”

  “She’ll make an exception for me.” She’d damn well better. If she turned him away . . .

  The thought gave him pause. If she turned him away, it would mean a significant change in their relationship . . . as if they hadn’t already faced a few of those. The difference was, so far they were surviving. But one more disagreement—one more disillusionment—just might be one too many.

  The guard stepped a few yards away and made a call on his cell phone. While he waited, Tony drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, feeling the knot of tension in his gut growing.

  Finally, the guard got off the phone, opened the gate with a remote, then bent to look in the driver’s window. “Park at the side there and use the main entrance.”

  Instead of pulling onto the parking apron on the north side of the drive, he stopped at the foot of the steps to the porch, took them two at a time, then jabbed the doorbell. Before its chime was half-through, the door swung inward. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Instead of one of the feds, it was Selena who stood there, wearing her usual sexy, tropical clothes, looking her usual sexy self except for the wariness in her eyes. She ignored his question and took a step back. “Come in.”

  He glanced past her to the tall man with reddish-blond hair, watching from a few feet back. “Why don’t you come out?” His voice was sharp, clipped. “I’d rather not have an audience.”

  She glanced at the man—for permission?—then stepped out onto the porch, closed the door behind her, and strolled to the south end, where she leaned against a fat round pillar and folded her arms over her middle. A stranger would have thought she was perfectly at ease, but he wasn’t a stranger. She knew she had something to fear from him.

  “What the fuck is going on, Selena?”

  She opened her mouth—to offer a lie? to pretend ignorance?—then closed it again. After a moment, she sighed. “You know about Long.”

  “Hell, yes, I know. Did you think I was too stupid to notice that some idiot had gotten the prime suspect in nine of my homicide cases out of jail? How long did you think you could hide it?”

  Her only immediate response was a hard swallow. Her fingers tightened where they clasped her arms, leaving pale spots on her skin. His gaze moved automatically from those to the wound healing on her upper left arm, then to the bruise darkening her upper right arm, ugly and purple in color. He wouldn’t let himself ask what had happened, wouldn’t let himself care.

  “I wasn’t trying . . . It wasn’t my idea.”

  He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Christ, well, that’s a relief. You got this multiple murderer out of jail—this man who physically assaulted you on several occasions, who would have helped Henry kill you and me both, who would still kill you if he got the chance—but it wasn’t your idea. I feel so goddamn much better now.”

  Her eyes, already the color of rich chocolate, turned nearly black and her shoulders stiffened as she pushed away from the column. “I had already signed the FBI’s agreement when they told me I would be working with Long. I had no choice in the matter—”

  He interrupted, his voice harsh. “This argument’s getting old, Selena. You had every choice. You could have backed out. You could have come to your senses.”

  “And risk going to jail or getting deported?”

  “Fuck that! Why is everyone in the world smart enough to see that they’re bluffing except you?”

  For a long moment, she stared at him, her expression too blank to read a damn thing. Then she started toward the door. “You’re right, Tony. This argument is getting old. I’m not having it with you again.”

  He let her get a half dozen feet away before he spoke. “Don’t walk away from me, Selena, not now. If you do . . .”

  Her steps slowed until she was motionless, but she didn’t turn around. Not right away.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the ache between them before he found the courage to finish. “If you do, it’s over.”

  Finally, she turned, and this time there was emotion on her face. Her eyes were huge with shock, hurt. The hand she reached out trembled, and her jaw worked a few times before she found her voice. “You don’t . . . you can’t...” Abruptly, she filled her lungs, as if she’d just realized she’d stopped breathing, and she came back a few steps, touching her icy fingers to his. “I know you’re worried, Tony. Damon Long is more dangerous than William dreamed of being. But I don’t have a choice in this. The FBI is right. He knows everything. We need him.”

  “ ‘We,’ ” he echoed. His experience with the FBI had always been of a more adversarial nature, even when they were working toward the same goal—an “us” versus “them” situation. And Selena had aligned herself with “them.” She was falling for their threats, taking their advice, trusting their judgment with her very life.

  A faint flush pinked her cheeks. “You know what I mean. If I’m going to do this, I need to have the best information possible . . . and Long has it. Without him, I’d be walking in blind.”

  If she’d taken his advice, she wouldn’t be walking in at all, he thought bitterly. The emotion came through in his voice when he shook her hand away. “How can you even consider trusting him? He wants you dead.”

  Once again she folded her arms across her middle, and once again became cool and distant. “I’m not trusting him. He’s wearing an electronic bracelet. An FBI agent is with him at all times. He’s under constant watch. He’s a threat, but he’s a controlled threat. He has less freedom here than he did in jail.”

  “How much freedom does he need to snap your neck?”

  “In front of my three hired thugs?”

  Tony stared at her. She looked so damn arrogant, so damn much like Henry, that it was scary. She was actually pretending that this was a rational move. If anyone could thwart an electronic bracelet and constant surveillance, it was Long. Didn’t any of these bastards realize how easily, how quickly, he could kill her? He had nothing ahead of him but the death penalty. Why not die for ten murders instead of nine?

  If he still faced the death penalty. “What kind of deal did they make with him?” he a
sked suspiciously.

  “The deal is with me, not the FBI. I told him I could get him out of jail, that I would make it worth his while to teach me William’s business. He has no idea the FBI is even involved.”

  “So he thinks these guys are . . .” Hired thugs, she’d called them. “Christ.” Tony walked to the next pillar, resting one hand against it and staring out across the lawn to the River Parks trail on the opposite side of the street. It didn’t seem to matter to the fishermen, joggers, and cyclists that the heat index was hovering somewhere around 110 degrees, or that the air quality had been deemed unhealthy. Proved the idiots inside the house weren’t the only ones in town.

  Selena edged around the pillar to face him, a bright splash of color against the blinding white paint in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. “You’re playing games with a man who kills for fun and profit. Do you have some death wish I know nothing about?”

  “I have a life wish, Tony. This is the only way my life will ever be my own. Yes, Damon Long is a threat, but he’s a controlled threat. He’s a danger whether he’s here with us or locked up in jail. At least here, we know what he’s doing.”

  “Do you know Carl Heinz?” Tony asked grimly. When she shook her head, he went on. “He went to see Long on Friday, and again yesterday.”

  “Do you think he might have been the one shooting at me?”

  He shrugged. “I’m going to check him out. What if he was? What if Long put him up to it? Would it make you rethink this?”

  For a time she stood still as a statue. Finally, though, she gave a small shake of her head.

  A hollow formed in Tony’s chest, and he rubbed it absently. “Okay. So I shouldn’t bother checking out Heinz. If you don’t care who’s trying to kill you, why should I?” He pushed away from the pillar and started toward the steps. Halfway there, he heard the scuff of footsteps on brick as she caught up with him.

  “Tony, I’m sorry. I should have told you about Long, but . . . I knew you wouldn’t approve, and I knew that wouldn’t change anything. I just . . . I guess I was hoping you would trust me to know what I’m doing.”