Undercover Father

by Mary Anne Wilson

  “I’m a guard, not a valet,” he said, and didn’t move.

  She blinked at his words. She hadn’t meant to offend him, or ask him to be her slave. “I just thought it would help me get out of here faster,” she said with all honesty.

  “Of course it would. Just ask me, instead of assuming I’ll be your lackey.”

  She had no idea where this was coming from, but it made her feel uneasy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll take them myself and make a couple of trips.”

  That clearly wasn’t the right thing to say, either, though she didn’t know why. “It’s going to kill you to be polite, isn’t it?” he murmured in a low voice.

  “Forget it. It won’t kill me to make two trips.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll be done in ten minutes, if that’s okay with you?”

  “Now’s even better,” he said, and went straight to the boxes, picking them up. “Let’s get this over with.”

  He sounded as if he were about to have a root canal operation, but she didn’t argue. She collected her things, then did as he said, leading the way to the elevators. She reached to press the down button, and the doors opened immediately. She stood back to let Rafe on board, then followed and hit the button for the lobby.

  She faced the doors as they closed, and deliberately didn’t look at Rafe’s reflection in them as he stood beside her. The elevator started down, and she realized she might not be looking at him, but he was staring at her. “What?” she finally said.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “Sorry,” he murmured, and as she eyed him, he glanced away. “I was just thinking that if I were you, I wouldn’t wear a ring like that in the neighborhood you’re going to tonight.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “How big is that ring?” he asked.

  “None of your business,” she said.

  “Three carats, four?” he pressed.

  “Big enough.”

  “Okay, a nice ring. The place you’re staying is in a fringe area, a mixture of warehouses and converted lofts, populated with homeless street people.”

  She knew the type of area, but had assumed that the loft was in an industrial section that had been turned into pricey condos and studios. “Mr. Lawrence arranged it, and I don’t think he would put me in a place he considered questionable or unsafe.”

  “It might be paradise,” Rafe said, staring straight ahead at the doors, “but I’d still keep that ring under wraps.”

  She covered the diamond with her other hand.

  “One more suggestion?” he said, and this time he met her gaze in the reflection.

  “What now?” she asked with a tinge of exasperation.

  “When you park there, assuming they don’t have a secured parking area, go right to the door and have your key ready. Then go straight in.”

  She frowned at him, hating the uneasiness that was beginning to niggle at her. “What are you trying to do, scare me as payback for...not signing the lists?”

  He shrugged. “Security’s my job, and I’m just giving you a few suggestions. Take them or leave them.”

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened with a soft chime. He let her step out first, then went with her to the back exit, toward the parking garage. Megan opened the door, let him go out, then followed, hearing the door close with a metallic clang. She headed for her car, parked between a foreign compact and a large black SUV.

  She hit the lock release, then Rafe put the boxes on the backseat, closed the door and turned to her. “I would have pegged you for a BMW,” he said.

  “I have a Porsche,” she admitted. “I flew in, so it couldn’t come with me. This is a rental from the company.”

  He opened her door for her, and as she slipped into the driver’s seat, he crouched by her the way he had at the entry gate that night. “Anything else, ma’am?” he asked in an annoyingly deferential tone that she knew he didn’t mean at all.

  “Nothing, thanks,” she said, putting her briefcase on the passenger seat.

  “Well, if you think of anything, give me a call,” he said, and motioned to her phone and the earpiece. “You’re wired for it.”

  “Sure, you’ll be the first one I call if I need something,” she muttered.

  She was braced for some snappy comeback meant to cut her to the quick, but he surprised her when he said simply, “Be careful.”

  What looked like genuine concern touched his dark eyes, and that surprised her, too. He was taking this whole thing seriously, about security and the neighborhood. “I plan to be.”

  “Good. You do that,” he said. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How to get there, to the loft?”

  “Oh. No.” She turned to her briefcase, opened it and took out the now infamous envelope to get the letter and read it more carefully. There wasn’t any mention of parking in it, but there were directions she could easily follow. “It’s all here.”

  “One more thing?”

  “What?”

  “If you do end up parking on the street, don’t leave anything in your car where it can be seen through the windows. You’d be asking for trouble.”

  “Are you sure you don’t live down there or something?” she asked. “You seem to know a whole lot about the criminal element.”

  He stared at her, hard. Then he stood and said, as if from a great distance above her, “Why don’t you call my parole officer and ask him about me?” Slamming the door so hard it shook the car, he strode away without looking back.

  Megan was stunned. She hadn’t meant anything by what she’d said, but he was furious at her. Offended, obviously. And walking away. She scrambled out of the car and called to him as he got to the door of the building. “Hey, I didn’t sign the stupid list!”

  He stopped, then turned. “You never checked in, so technically you aren’t here. You don’t exist.” And he left.

  She sank back into the car, horrified to feel her eyes smarting with tears. She swiped at them. She never cried. Never. But now she was on the verge of springing a leak. She could hate him, really hate him, for the way he got to her.

  She put the car in gear and headed for the exit. Maybe she wouldn’t see him again. It looked as if he worked nights, and she wasn’t about to stay late anymore. She wouldn’t have to with the setup at the loft.

  She got to the closed security gate and it didn’t move to open. She realized she didn’t know what to do to get out. She’d come in with other cars that morning.

  She spotted a keypad by an empty booth, rolled down the window and leaned out to examine it. One of the buttons was labeled Assistance, and she pressed it. She pressed it again, and still nothing happened. Everyone must be gone for the night and she was stuck.

  She sank back in the seat and felt the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should go inside again and find someone to help her, or if there would be anyone there. Then she remembered—Rafe was around. No, she wasn’t going back inside.

  She sat forward and pushed the button again. This time, loud static came over the speaker, then a voice. “Security.”

  “I’m in the parking lot and I need to get out. The gate’s shut.”

  “Name?”

  If he had a list, she wasn’t on it. But she gave it a shot. “Megan Gallagher. I just started today and—”

  “I know,” the voice said, and she realized it was Rafe.

  The next instant the gate slowly rose. “Thank you,” she called into the speaker, but there was no response. He probably hadn’t heard her. She rolled up the window and eased out onto the street, then stopped by the curb, aware of the gate going down behind her as she reached for the paper with the directions. M
r. Lawrence had made them simple, even writing down the estimated distance between turns.

  She started off, and as she got closer, recognized the area. It’s where she’d thought the loft would be, right in the middle of a redevelopment zone. It could be just fine. It might be nice now, and not dangerous. It could have upscale residences and elegant businesses. The loft might be like the ones she’d seen in New York when she’d visited Quint. She remembered him telling her some of the prices and they were outrageous. People actually had bidding wars, driving prices through the ceiling, all wanting to live in such places. Maybe that’s the way it was with the LynTech loft.

  She spotted the street she was looking for, turned onto it and knew she was wrong. It was lined with warehouses, half of them boarded up, the others with stark security lights on them. Interspersed were other, smaller buildings, some abandoned, none remotely like the elegant renovated places she’d hoped for. She drove slowly, noticing that there were no people on the street, and just a scattering of cars parked by the curb. Streetlamps provided a little light, at least the ones with bulbs not broken, but there were no garages in sight, no driveways and no parking stalls.

  Megan spotted the number she was looking for halfway down the block on the right, and pulled her car to the curb in front of an old van that looked as if a hippie probably lived in it. Ahead, three motorcycles were parked, nose in, in front of the two-story warehouse, whose only ornamentation were two potted plants sitting on either side of a steel security door. At least there was light from a caged fixture over the entry.

  She turned off the car, double-checked the address, then took several deep breaths. She could barely admit it to herself, but what Rafe Diaz had said had scared her more than a little. If he’d intended to do that, he’d succeeded.

  She picked up the keys, gripping the one tagged for the front door, then pushed everything else into her briefcase and got out of the car, leaving the boxes for later. Locking the door, Megan set the alarm and practically ran around the vehicle and across the sidewalk to the warehouse entrance.

  She pushed the key in the lock, turned it and heard a click, then opened the door. She went inside, closed it behind her and stood for a moment in the barren-looking foyer. Two doors, one to the right and one dead ahead, came off it, and to her left was an old service elevator. The note had said the loft was on the second floor, straight across from the lift. She stepped forward and raised the chain gate on the elevator, then got in, relieved when it began to move.

  Reaching the second level, she went to the door directly across the hallway and got out the second key. But before she could put it in the lock, another door off the hallway to her right opened and a mountain of a man stepped out. He had on a leather vest over a massive bare chest, plus faded Levi’s, heavy motorcycle boots, and a skullcap over long gray hair, which was pulled back in a ponytail. There were tattoos on each of his massive biceps and one visible through the open front of the vest. She thought she could make out Die as one of the words.

  Megan didn’t move, not even able to push the key into the lock. She just stared at him as he came closer, shocked that the floor didn’t vibrate each time his big feet hit it. “You got a problem, lady?” he asked in a voice that matched his size.

  “No, no, no,” she managed to reply, and knew that he had to own one of the three bikes downstairs. That meant there were two more like him somewhere around. “I just...I came here...and I was going inside.”

  He frowned at her. “I was told that place was empty.”

  “I’m just here for a few weeks. I’m with LynTech.”

  He eyed her up and down, then actually smiled at her, showing surprisingly white, even teeth. “Well, no offense, but you hardly look like one of those big executives over there at LynTech.”

  “I’m an attorney.”

  He glanced at the briefcase she was clutching tightly, as if the supple leather could protect her. “Need any help?”

  “No, but thank you very much for offering,” she said quickly.

  “Well, I’m just next door kicking back, but we’ll try to keep the noise down for you, Miss...?”

  “Gallagher,” she said. “Megan Gallagher.”

  “Trig,” he said, offering no other name but that. “Now remember, if you need anything, just come on over, or throw a rock at the fire escape window, you hear?”

  “Yes...thank you,” she said.

  With that he turned and headed back to his loft. But at the door he hesitated, then looked at her over his shoulder, smiling again. “If I ever need a good attorney, I’ll be calling on you, okay?”

  She tried to smile and nod, then he was gone, the door closing behind him, and she exhaled in a rush that left her vaguely light-headed. Quickly, she pushed the key in the lock, and when the door swung back, she all but dove into the shadows within. She closed the door, fumbled with the lock, then stood very still. She’d made it.

  Exhaling with relief, she reached to the right of the door and found a light switch. Two lamps came on, illuminating the space. She glanced around, at high, shadow-filled ceilings lined with criss-crossed pipes and duct work. The space right in front of her was a sitting area, with two sofas, a chair, tables and a TV on the wall to the right. At the back she saw high louvered windows that ran the width of the loft.

  The cavernous space was divided by walls that reached only two-thirds of the way to the twelve-foot ceiling, and from what little she could see, there were two other “rooms” to the left. She stepped farther inside and saw a work area directly under the back windows, with louvered ones over them, framed by long, low windows on either side. The fire escape exit, she thought, but knew she wouldn’t be going out there to throw rocks at Trig’s window.

  She put her briefcase on one lamp table, then went back to the work area, snapped on a side lamp and saw a full office set up—everything from three computers to a fax machine, to a scanner and two landline phones. Mr. Lawrence had been right about this place—that it could serve as her office when she couldn’t get to LynTech.

  A shrill ringing startled her, and she looked at the phones. One of them had a flashing light at the base, and she picked up the cordless receiver. The LED screen was lit, and showed the message Unknown Caller. She realized that Mr. Lawrence was the only person who would be calling her here, so she hit the talk button and said, “Hello?”

  “You got inside okay?”

  She couldn’t believe the voice coming over the line, and thought for a minute she’d imagined it. “Who is this?” she asked.

  “Rafe Diaz. I was just checking to make sure everything was okay.”

  She felt tension at the back of her neck, and the headache was becoming a reality. “Excuse me? You’re checking on me?”

  “I was thinking about that area, and thought it might be a good idea to make sure you got inside okay.”

  “Why?” She asked the question more abruptly than she’d meant to, unnerved that she remembered clearly that look of concern in his eyes in the garage, right before she’d offended him. He’d been angry, but now he was checking to make sure she was okay. His call and concern touched her.

  “It’s my job.”

  “Maybe you should check that job description,” she said.

  “I’m probably being overzealous, and you’re probably just fine, so I’ll—”

  She didn’t hear the rest, because right then something flew at her, hitting her hard in the right shoulder, sending her reeling sideways. The phone shot out of her hand, and the next thing she knew, she’d hit the floor, landing on her left side and wincing in pain. She instinctively pushed herself up off the floor to her feet, still wondering what had hit her so hard to make her fall.

  She grabbed the edge of the desk and frantically looked around. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she could barely breathe. There was nothing but shadows and silenc
e around her now, however. She saw the phone on the floor and quickly picked it up, gasping into the receiver, “Rafe? Rafe?”

  Nothing. She hit the disconnect button frantically, but there wasn’t even a dial tone now. And standing there in the light, she suddenly felt like a target for anyone who might also be in the loft. She dropped the phone on the table, then eased to her left, into shadows for protection, and stood very still. She couldn’t hear anything at all beyond her own ragged breathing, and couldn’t see anything outside the glow of the lamps.

  She glanced at the door. It was twenty, maybe thirty feet away, and if she ran, she could reach it and slip out in mere seconds. She could make her escape and call the police from her cell phone. The only thing wrong with that scenario was that her phone wasn’t in her pocket any longer. She’d put it in her briefcase before she’d come up here. And her briefcase was on the lamp table by the sofa. She could grab the whole briefcase as she ran toward the door. She could even use it as a weapon if she had to.

  She got ready, then ran as fast as she could to the sofa, all the while expecting someone to leap out and tackle her before she got what she needed. But she made it to the table, grabbed for her briefcase and accidentally sent the lamp flying to the floor in the process. It crashed, shattering on the wooden floors. She ignored the sound and kept running for the door. She grasped the knob, turned it and pulled, but the door didn’t open.

  The lock. She flipped it open and tried again, but the door still wouldn’t budge. She looked up and down the frame, then saw a lock near the top that must have automatically clicked into place when she came in. She reached up, turned the lever, heard it snap back and was about to pull the door open when someone pounded loudly on the outside.

  Megan jerked back as if she’d been scalded, and had a truly paranoid flash of being attacked from all sides. She stared at the door, unable to say or do anything until a deep, muffled voice called out, “Open the door! Open up!”

  She flinched at the sound, then managed to find her own voice. “Who...who’s there?” she called back.