“I told you when I agreed to help that Lucy is off-limits.”
“It’s never going to work between you and her,” Colton said.
Sean’s jaw tightened. “I said—”
“Sean, I know you better than anyone. We might not have kept in touch since—”
“Another off-limits subject.” He didn’t want to discuss what had happened after he destroyed Martin Holdings.
“I know what drives you. I know what keeps you getting up each and every day. No federal agent is going to understand that the system doesn’t work. That people like us are necessary.”
“First, you don’t know Lucy. You don’t know what drives her. She’s not even interested in white-collar or cybercrime; she’s driven to put sex offenders and killers in prison. Something I can get behind and support. Sometimes, the system does work.”
“Then why did you agree to come back?”
“You know why.” He hadn’t spoken to Duke since he quit. He’d talked to Patrick a couple of times, helping him adjust to being a solo operation, but Sean wasn’t going to talk to Duke. Sean didn’t even know if he wanted to talk to Duke when it was all over, but he’d figure that out later.
Breaking with RCK was necessary, but his emotions were still raw. Sean had been acting. Duke hadn’t. Rick Stockton felt it was absolutely essential that no one at RCK know about the undercover operation.
“I’m really sorry about Duke. If you weren’t trying to help me—”
“I don’t want to talk about Duke, either. He’s still my brother.”
“Have you talked to him since—”
“No. But he’s family.”
“Understood.” Colton drained his beer. “I’ve always had your back. You’re as much a brother to me as Travis was. You know that.”
Sean didn’t doubt Colton’s loyalty. It was the one thing Sean had always trusted. He knew Colton was keeping something back about PBM, but he hadn’t betrayed Sean to Paxton.
Someone else had.
Sean motioned to the bartender for two more beers for him and Colton.
“Paxton isn’t someone you can screw over.”
“Let me worry about Paxton.”
“I can’t.”
“Sean, Paxton has far more to lose than either of us.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“He understands the risks, but once I get into PBM, I’ll have everything I need—” He cut himself off.
“What?”
“I don’t want to say yet—”
“Dammit, tell me.”
Colton waited until the bartender put the beers in front of them, drank a long gulp, then said, “He just wants one file.”
“What file?”
“I don’t know what’s in the file, but it’s in Joyce Bonner’s personal safe. He wants it before I expose PBM to the world, in exchange for funding my operation. He has a secret. So do we.”
“I really hope you’re going into this with your eyes open, C.”
“I am.”
“If I think Paxton is doing something that’s going to screw people, especially us, I’m walking.” Sean paused. “I need something from you.”
“What?”
“When you know what he’s after, tell me. I will never trust that man.” He held up his beer. “Deal?”
“Yes.” Colton seemed to sag with relief.
“Tell me about Evan,” Sean said.
“He’s been with us for a couple years. Skye brought him in. He’s not as good as you, but he’s good.”
“Carol?”
“She’s been living with me for a year. I love her, Sean, just like you love your Lucy. Why all the questions?”
“I don’t want to go to prison.”
Colton smiled and relaxed. “You won’t. And Sean? It’s really great to have you back. It’s like you never left.”
Hardly. Sean hadn’t realized how much he’d changed in a decade. While the adrenaline high was still incredible, he had far more to lose. Things—people—he wasn’t willing to sacrifice.
He needed to dig deep into PBM and figure out why the pharmaceutical company was important to Jonathan Paxton. Because there was something else going on and Sean couldn’t figure out if Colton knew and was keeping Sean in the dark or was truly ignorant.
Jonathan Paxton was the last person Sean would ever trust.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sean sat in the bar for another thirty minutes after Colton left, researching on his smartphone any connection between Paxton and PBM or their principals. He’d already looked into PBM and they were squeaky clean, at least as clean as a corporation could get. There was no active federal or state investigation, per Noah.
Nothing jumped out at Sean, but he made a note to investigate their cancer trials from two decades ago. Colton wouldn’t say PBM had given his brother unproven cancer drugs if he didn’t have something solid to base his accusation on. Sean needed a copy of Travis’s medical reports, and that was treading in a delicate area.
There was no reason for Paxton to fund a big project like exposing PBM simply to expose them. Sean knew it in his gut. It all centered around this mysterious file that Paxton wanted Colton to steal.
Sean believed Colton when he said he hadn’t told Paxton about the information on a possible bio-weapon—it was likely that a military development company or the government could have a private medical research company like PBM developing such a thing. That was the kind of political statement Colton would love to make, and he wouldn’t trust a politician with the knowledge. Everything made sense, except Paxton’s involvement.
“Colton,” Sean mumbled as he left cash on the bar for the bartender, “what have you gotten yourself into?”
He left the pub and turned east down 19th toward his apartment. The late-afternoon sun played across the old buildings, and Sean wished Lucy were here to share the beautiful day with him. He stopped at the corner and was about to cross with the light when he glimpsed a reflection of a woman stepping into a doorway. He glanced discreetly over his shoulder and noticed her black, low-heeled shoes—she was waiting, not entering the building. He couldn’t see anything else to identify her. He crossed the street but turned north, away from his apartment.
Did Colton put someone on him? Colton knew where Sean lived; he hadn’t made it a secret. Or did Paxton hire someone? That would make more sense.
Sean turned into a corner grocery and bought a water bottle and pack of gum. While he paid he looked at the reflection in the curved mirror behind the cashier. He couldn’t make out any details outside the store but caught sight of a blondish woman in a beige blazer and dark slacks. The shoes were low black pumps, like the ones he saw in the doorway. It was her. She passed the store, but Sean suspected she was waiting on the other side. She looked like a fed, the way she moved, the way she dressed—what if she was Paxton’s mole?
He grinned.
The clerk said in a thick accent, “I say some-ting funny?”
“No.” Sean put his pennies in the tray next to the register. “I just thought of a joke.”
This was going to be fun.
* * *
Where the hell was Sean Rogan going?
After her meeting with Juan Martinez, Deanna had crossed Central Park and staked out Colton Thayer’s carriage house. She often found herself in the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rogan, but while she sometimes saw him entering, he always seemed to elude her when he left.
She’d followed Colton this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised that he met with Rogan. She only popped into the pub for a minute, exiting immediately, not wanting Rogan to see her. She didn’t think he’d recognize her, but she didn’t want to take the chance. She sat in the Starbucks down the street and watched the door with an eagle eye. Colton left first, nearly an hour after he entered. She expected Rogan to leave immediately, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t leave for another thirty minutes, and she’d feared he had skipped out the back. Just when she was about to giv
e up, she saw him at the corner.
Deanna nearly had to sprint to catch up with him. He crossed the street, turned north, and entered a grocery store. They were on the border of SoHo and the West Village, two neighborhoods, either of which he could live in. All she had on him was that he had been in New York City for the last three weeks.
What she wanted was his address, so she could search his place. Not legally, but she was beyond that at this point. She needed a direction, some tangible proof of what he was up to, and then she’d find a legitimate way to get the information before going to her boss.
Rogan seemed to be walking in circles. He went around the same four blocks twice, going in and out of stores without purpose. He took the subway and she followed. One stop later, he got off.
She was hot and crabby, and chasing a crook around New York wasn’t her idea of fun on her day off. Either she confronted him or she walked away. He obviously knew he was being followed.
She approached him and he stepped into an art gallery without looking at her. Dammit, she would have rather talked to him on the street. Maybe she should leave it alone—she had no cause to arrest him. She just wanted to find out where he lived. She could demand ID and then fib and say she thought he was someone else. That might work—he had to produce identification to a federal agent. That way she could legally get his address. He might recognize her, but it had been twelve years since Stanford. She’d changed a lot, including longer, lighter hair.
She stepped into the gallery and scanned the room, hyper-alert for any movement. There were more people than she expected. She wasn’t surprised when she realized it was a gallery of famous cartoon stills.
She didn’t see Sean anywhere. An elderly employee, dressed all in black with a red-and-white name badge, approached with a warm smile. “May I help you find something? We’re closing in ten minutes, but I can—”
“No,” she snapped. The employee stopped smiling. Deanna took out her badge. “I’m Deanna Brighton, Federal Bureau of Investigation. A man walked in here, six foot one, dark hair, blue eyes, wearing a light blue polo shirt and jeans.”
The employee looked both concerned and worried and glanced around. “Is there a problem?”
“Where is he?”
“I think a young man went into the Seuss exhibit. It’s in the back, through the red-and-white-striped curtains.”
Deanna strode toward the curtains. As soon as she pushed open the drapes, she was confronted with a roomful of kids, none of them taller than her waistline. Someone in a Cat in the Hat costume was giving the captivated munchkins a tour of the exhibit, which included a car-sized replica of the machine Thing 1 and Thing 2 used to clean up Sally’s house.
For a minute, Deanna was transfixed by the whimsical art, remembering when her dad used to read her the silly books, long after she could read them herself. She’d loved listening to his voice. It stopped when she was eight, and she liked to believe it was because she was finally too old, but she knew it was because her dad had lost hope after he lost his business. Without hope, no one could enjoy Dr. Seuss.
She blinked, pulling herself out of her memory, and scanned the room. She walked around the periphery and still didn’t see Rogan.
Dammit, where had he gone? She rubbed her temples. The headache she’d been nursing at Starbucks was a full-blown migraine now.
There was another curtained doorway and she went through it, but it was a hallway that led back to the main studio. Shit. He’d ditched her!
“Did you find him? Is there something wrong?”
She went back outside, ignoring the employee’s questions. Her fists clenched and she pounded her sore feet on the pavement.
“Damn, damn, damn!”
Impossible.
Then she saw him in the back of a cab. He tipped an invisible hat to her as the taxi turned the corner and disappeared from view.
* * *
Sean had the taxi driver drop him off at Grand Central Station. If the fed got the cab number—and Sean was pretty certain the woman tailing him was a federal agent—she could find out where the cab took him.
From Grand Central he walked around to make sure she hadn’t followed in another cab, then ten minutes later took a taxi to the carriage house. He had the driver leave him two blocks away. Sean was certain the fed hadn’t followed him to the pub; that meant she was following Colton.
Sean went up to the door and used the pass code Colton had given him to enter.
Colton was walking up the stairs. He turned around immediately when the door opened.
“Sean.”
He closed the door behind him.
“A federal agent followed me from the pub. I lost her, but I guarantee you led her to me.”
“I wasn’t followed.” He didn’t sound confident.
“I’m paranoid by nature. Learned that from Hunter. Are you being investigated by the feds?”
“No, of course not.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I check periodically.”
“Shit, Colton! Paxton could be setting you up. You get him the information he wants, he turns you in. He turns us all in.”
Colton shook his head. “He knows I have something that will destroy him.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Sean ran up the stairs until he was face-to-face with Colton. “You owe me.”
Colton didn’t like the threat. “I have our initial conversation videotaped, all right? Taped and safe. He knows it. He won’t do anything to us.”
“Then who is the fed?”
“What did she look like?”
“Dark blond hair, highlighted, five foot six, one hundred thirty-five pounds. Or so. Forty, give or take.” He’d taken a picture of her on his cell phone, but he was saving that for Noah.
Colton said, “Let’s go to my control room. We’ll look at the security footage from the last couple weeks. If you see her, let me know.”
Sean followed Colton to the small room off his office where he had all his security cameras. They sat down.
“It’s going to take a while,” Colton said. “I’ll have Carol put another plate on the table.” He smiled. “It’ll be like old times.”
Not quite, Sean thought, but he nodded. “Old times.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Monday
Sean stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. The last time he looked at the clock it glared 1:47. Too late to be up on a Sunday night. Monday morning? He should just get up and walk off his anxiety, but he didn’t want to leave. He was too wound up, too angry and frustrated, and with all the drunks leaving the bars he feared he’d get himself into trouble.
He’d made his bed. That’s what Duke would have told Sean. And maybe he had agreed to help Rick Stockton because he was desperate to purge these demons that had haunted him. Maybe he’d agreed to go undercover because it would disappear his past.
Except it wouldn’t. His past had been locked tight until now, and Sean had willingly opened the door. Redemption? Maybe. Maybe that’s all this was about. Cleaning the slate for him and Lucy.
But even though he’d agreed to work undercover with Noah Armstrong, Sean couldn’t help but think that he’d been manipulated into it.
* * *
Over two months ago, the week Lucy started at the FBI Academy, Assistant Director Rick Stockton asked Sean to meet with him. Sean hadn’t been surprised or suspicious at first—Rick was a longtime friend of JT Caruso and Sean’s brother Kane, who’d together founded RCK. They’d also been Marines and Marines tended to stick together, even if they hadn’t served with each other. Sean had always been unclear how the friendships had been forged. Because Rick had the authority to hire private contractors for certain jobs and RCK was on the approved-vendor list, Sean had met with him a few times for business since moving to D.C. last year. He’d also done a few private jobs for him.
But Rick’s call was unusual because he hadn’t gone through Duke for the meeting;
he’d asked that they meet at Sean’s house instead of the FBI office and insisted that Sean’s partner, Patrick Kincaid, not be present.
Sean made it all happen, his curiosity battling his wariness. Any time law enforcement was involved, Sean became apprehensive. He didn’t trust most of them.
And then the kicker: Rick brought Noah Armstrong with him.
Sean had planned on meeting with Rick informally, at the dining table that sat in the middle of the great room next to Sean’s pool table. Maybe play a game or two. But when he saw Noah, Sean changed gears and took them upstairs to his office. He sat behind his desk and motioned for them to take either the chair or the couch. Rick sat in the chair across from Sean. Noah leaned against the wall.
“What can I do for you?” Sean sat back, casual, though his muscles were tight. He and Noah had settled their differences for the most part, but they’d never be friends. It was because Sean knew, in his gut, that Noah cared too much for Lucy. Personally cared. He’d never admitted it, to Sean or Lucy, but guys knew these things.
“I’m sure I don’t have to ask this, but I need strict confidentiality,” Rick said.
Sean dipped his head. “Of course.”
“You remember the case Lucy assisted in a few weeks ago, before starting the Academy? The Wendy James murder?”
“Yes.” Lucy would have been dead if not for her bulletproof vest. Sean couldn’t forget if he wanted.
“Noah came to me with an off-book investigation—”
Sean couldn’t help but smile. “Noah, I’m impressed.” When Noah looked at him quizzically, Sean added, “You aren’t usually one for breaking the rules. There’s hope for you yet.”
Stolen (Lucy Kincaid Novels) Page 6