by Penny McCall
Trip started the car and pulled away, Hollie giving Lurch an earful. “Did she say that?”
“No, but all he had to do was mention it to her. When he wants something he’ll use whatever leverage he can get. Manipulation is the least of what he’d do.”
Trip glanced over at her, one eyebrow lifted above a slight smile. “Being passive aggressive, are we?”
“You’re not manipulative. You came right out and told me you were after the loot and everything else took a backseat to finding it. And I don’t do passive-aggressive. I do the regular kind of aggressive.”
“Yeah,” Trip said, grinning full-out, “I’ve noticed.”
chapter 19
THE CLUE THEY’D RETRIEVED AT THE DETROIT Zoo had been packaged for the long haul, wrapped in heavy plastic and completely sealed with duct tape, then wrapped and sealed again, packaged to keep the contents safe through Michigan’s extremes of weather. It took Norah the better part of fifty miles and Trip’s pocketknife to work her way into the package. He wasn’t happy about the wait. “You’re not very long on patience today,” she said to him.
He stopped drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Just anxious to know what’s in there.”
Norah reached in and pulled out a small book, setting it on the dash. Then, remembering the contents of the last packet, she held the bottom of her T-shirt out with one hand and dumped the rest of the contents into it. “Hmmmm.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“Actually it is. The book,” she said, retrieving it from the dashboard. The title and name of the author were on the cover, along with a small gold rectangle showing a man sitting on what looked like bales of cotton overlooking a river, with a steamship in the background. “It’s a copy of Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. The copyright is 1883, which probably means it’s a first edition.
“There’s also an ancient photo of a Conestoga wagon, a small bronze statue of”—she brought it close so she could read the tiny lettering on the base—“Lewis and Clark, and a string of pearls.” She rubbed them on her teeth. “Real pearls.”
“What does the clue say?”
“No poetry,” Norah said, upending the package then peering inside when nothing fell out. “In fact, there’s nothing written of any kind, except the book.” She sifted through the pages, careful of its age and fragility. “No writing in the margin, no letters circled to spell out code words, no notes stuck between the pages.”
“Okay, the gems in the first packet didn’t have anything to do with the Detroit Zoo. They were likely there as an incentive to keep on the trail. Which means we can probably ignore the pearls. That leaves the Mississippi River and Mark Twain, a Conestoga wagon, and a bronze of Lewis and Clark.”
“St. Louis?” Norah said.
“Why St. Louis?”
“It just sounds right,” Norah said. “Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Missouri, which is on the Mississippi River.”
“Maybe we should be going there.”
“It doesn’t fit with the rest of the items. St. Louis is on the Mississippi, too, and one of its nicknames is the Gateway to the West.”
“The wagon. What does the statue of Lewis and Clark mean?”
“I’m not sure, but I would hazard a guess that they went through the area on their way to the Pacific. Give me your cell.”
Trip glanced over at her.
“I’m not going to read your contact list or listen to your messages.”
He dug it out of his back pocket and handed it over.
Norah stared it for a second, at a loss. “How do you get onto the Internet?”
Trip took it back, punched a couple of buttons, and held it out. Norah typed in “Lewis and Clark + St. Louis,” sifting through the first few entries. “They spent the winter of 1803-1804 near St. Louis preparing for their expedition,” she said after a couple minutes. “More importantly there’s a life-sized statue—oh, never mind, it was dedicated in 2006. But there’s a Museum of Westward Expansion. It would fit with all the clues.”
Trip didn’t say anything, just followed the signs for I-94.
“Do you want me to punch St. Louis into the GPS?”
Trip still didn’t say anything.
Norah twisted around and looked over her shoulder because he seemed angry, and since she hadn’t done anything—lately—somebody else must be responsible for his snit. “Is Hollie following us again?”
“No.” He scowled at the road some more.
“What the heck is wrong with you?”
“We’re being conned.”
It was Norah’s turn to be at a loss for words. She wanted to disagree with Trip, even though she was tired of arguing about her father’s motivation. The problem was, she did believe Lucius would use her to give the FBI its comeuppance. But she also believed him when he said he wanted to get the loot back in the hands of those it rightfully belonged to. “We decided to follow the breadcrumbs, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“It was actually your call.”
He shot her a look. “It doesn’t feel right anymore.”
That comment struck her as strange, coming from Trip, but after mulling it for a minute Norah decided she was filtering it through her feelings, not to mention a healthy amount of wishful thinking, when all Trip referred to was the case. Trip always thought about the case first. And it was okay, as long as she remembered that. “What doesn’t feel right about going to St. Louis?”
He looked over at her again, the crankiness on his face replaced by mild surprise. “No comment about my feelings?”
“You don’t like being psychoanalyzed.”
“You’re catching on.”
“You have no idea.” She was getting an education in all sorts of ways.
Trip chose to leave well enough alone. “It’s been three days since we left Chicago,” he said, “the amount of time Puff had between the robbery and his arrest.”
Again she let it go. “We got stuck at the lighthouse overnight,” she reminded him, “and then there’s all the time we wasted with Hollie and the other lunatic treasure hunters. Even if you insist on Lucius being the perpetrator of this scavenger hunt, he could have fit in at least one more city, and St. Louis is only three hundred miles from Chicago.”
“Yeah,” Trip said, but Norah was done with the guessing game.
“How about you fill me in on your thought process, and spare me the twenty questions routine.”
“I’m not really sure myself why I’m having second thoughts.”
“Gut feeling?”
“I trust my gut. It’s kind of a job requirement.”
Norah didn’t have any response for that.
“And it’s not like we can’t come back and pick up this leg of the search where we left off,” Trip finished.
“So why did we take the detour to begin with?”
“It made sense at the time. The lighthouse could have been the hiding place for the entire cache of stolen loot. When we found the clue instead, the Detroit Zoo was a confirmation that we were on a treadmill. Going to St. Louis feels like chasing wild geese.”
“You think there will be another clue there.”
“I don’t think we’ll find the main cache under a loose floorboard in the Lewis and Clark museum. It’s too public, for one thing.”
“If you believe Lucius is behind it, then you have to believe he could have charmed his way in, just like he did at the bank.”
“What would be the point?”
He had her there, and the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. If the scavenger hunt was intended to keep them busy and out of Chicago, that meant her father had lied to her. She wasn’t prepared to go there.
“I’m sorry, Norah,” Trip said, too observant, as always.
She looked out the window, throat tight, willing herself not to tear up. “It’s not important,” she said.
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s not important to you.”
Except in how it affected his mission. “You don’t know for a fact Lucius is behind this.”
“It’s the only logical conclusion.”
“He’s my father. I don’t have to be logical.”
“So your vote is for St. Louis.”
“Does it matter?” she asked him, knowing she was being defensive and not caring.
Trip started to respond, holding his hand out instead when his cell phone rang.
Norah handed it over, not liking the half of the conversation she could hear.
“How?” he said, biting off the word, his expression hardening, then, “the man was on his deathbed the last time we saw him,” which Norah took to mean her father, a fact Trip confirmed, snapping the phone closed and dropping it on the console between them. “Apparently Puff wasn’t as bad off as he led everyone to believe,” he said.
Norah smiled, she couldn’t help it.
“I realize it’s good news on a personal front, but it also means he conned us, just like we figured.”
“Like you figured. I’m still not convinced.”
Trip shook his head, but he also grinned, reluctantly. “I guess you have to admire the man’s style.”
“That,” Norah said, “is why he gets away with it.”
Trip met her eyes, still smiling, but with conviction. “Not this time.”
NORAH WOKE UP AN UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF time later, her cheek creased by the seat belt and a crick in her neck. She blinked a couple of times, then stretched, rubbing at her neck and trying to get her bearings. She was in the car, traveling on I-94 on the outskirts of Chicago, according to the billboards. And then it all flooded back, the zoo, Hollie, St. Louis. And Trip.
She looked over at him, driving with one hand flopped over the steering wheel, his face, strong and handsome in profile, his lean body loose, all of him still as a statue, like a blank canvas for her to paint her memories onto. She closed her eyes and could feel his skin under her hands, the ripple of muscle, the heat and strength of him, just the thought enough to have her stretching again as the need moved through her, and not just her body. Her heart flopped in her chest, and she jolted a little, thinking, of course, I’m in love with him. Looking back she could recognize the stages, interest, attraction, infatuation, attachment. Love.
It was a little lowering to realize that, despite all her study on the subject, she hadn’t recognized anything past attraction. Writing about feelings and experiencing them were so . . . there was no comparison, and she held on to that for a second because she’d never been in love before. Maybe she’d had a crush or two, but she’d never felt this overwhelming rush of emotion—which was too pale a word, but it was the only one she had for a feeling that seemed to blossom and grow until her toes curled and her scalp tingled. A feeling that filled her and warmed her, and scared her to death at the same time because it could take her over, make her do things and want things that went beyond rational, that were bad for her or foolish. What kind of stupid was she, Norah asked herself, to fall in love with Trip Jones?
The answer was, the worst kind, the love-is-blind kind of stupid, the kind that wanted to think with her heart, see the world through rose-colored glasses, believe he would change for her. Fortunately, she had a brain, not to mention a hell of a memory and a past that included just the kind of man she’d been foolish enough to fall in love with. She didn’t have to compound one folly with another. Being in love was one thing; making life-altering decisions because of it would be the real mistake.
“You finally awake?”
Letting Trip find out would be an even bigger one. Sex was sex, especially to men. If Trip knew she’d fallen in love with him, he’d feel a need to establish some distance between them. She couldn’t protect her father, let alone herself, unless she was kept in the loop. Then there was the part where she didn’t want to give up one moment with him. He’d leave, and she’d be devastated, but it didn’t have to happen any sooner because of something she couldn’t help and neither of them wanted. Foolish, she knew, but that was love.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, pretending for all she was worth that nothing had changed. “You want me to drive?”
“No,” he said, voice deep and quiet. And cool. “Thanks anyway.”
His gratitude, coming, as it did, as an afterthought, spoke volumes. She’d made the same offer just after Trip had tossed down his verbal gauntlet. He’d turned her down then, too, probably figuring she’d get behind the wheel and point the car anyplace but Chicago. He was wrong. Not that she hadn’t considered it, but she needed to find her father and make sure he was all right.
Trip had already switched back to FBI agent mode. The wall was up, and she would be wise to stay on her side of it.
“We don’t have to be enemies, Trip,” she said. “I want to believe in my father, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand who he is.”
“I get that, and at some point you’re going to have to make a choice. It’s inevitable, Norah.”
“And you think by pulling away you’re going to make that choice easier for me?”
“Aren’t I?”
“You’re seeing it as a choice between you and my father. Isn’t it really a choice between right and wrong?”
“Who’s right and who’s wrong is open to interpretation, to your view of the circumstances and your ability to rationalize. And don’t tell me feelings won’t come into play, Norah. He’s your dad, and I’m . . . not prepared to use our personal relationship to sway you.”
That sounded honorable, but Trip wasn’t only thinking of her. He wasn’t in their “relationship” for the long haul. Using her feelings to gain her cooperation would be the same as setting a trap for himself, because, being an honorable man, he’d feel obligated to her. Obligation was worse, in her opinion, than pity.
They didn’t have far to go, for which Norah was thankful since she spent the miles in a fog of misery and self-castigation. And then they pulled in front of her house. She took one look at the front porch, and a particularly nasty curse word sprang to her lips but remained mercifully unsaid. The hits just kept coming, was her next thought, as she opened the car door and climbed out. “Did you try knocking?”
Lucius jerked upright and spun around, looking guilty just because he was trying so hard to look innocent. Norah had known this moment would come, but on the heels of her emotional upheaval, the last thing she needed was to be faced with her father.
“Norah, darling,” he said expansively, arms wide as he limped his way down the walk to wrap her in a hug.
“Lucius.” She hugged him back, but she kept her eyes on Trip, walking past them to climb the porch steps.
“Not Dad anymore?”
Norah let that be a rhetorical question because she couldn’t explain to her father that calling him Dad felt like taking sides. At least she worried it would sound that way to Trip. Thankfully, Lucius let it go, too, keeping his arms around her shoulders even after he turned to face Trip, returning from the front porch with his hands full.
“Disposable cell phone,” Trip said, holding it up for Norah’s benefit, “and a set of tools suitable for disabling an alarm system and picking a lock. That alarm system is state-of-the-art.”
“I reached out to a friend who was going to talk me through it.”
“Why didn’t you call Norah to meet you here and let you in?”
“Well, now—”
“Because you knew we were on a wild-goose chase,” Trip answered for him. “Which you sent us on.”
Norah felt her father lean on her a little more, and even though she factored in the likelihood he was playing her, she said, “Why don’t we go inside and hash this out where we can all be comfortable?”
Trip’s jaw tightened, and he sent her a long, speaking look before he turned and led the way up the walk. When he punched the code into the keypad by the door, he didn’t bother to hide it from Lucius.
Norah helped her father inside, steering him into the parlor. He
lowered into an overstuffed chair, giving Norah a flashback to her childhood, to the memory of him, twenty-five years younger, sitting in that exact same chair.
“You’re a lifesaver, darlin’,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Trip snorted. “You wouldn’t need saving if you’d stayed in the safe house where you were sent to recuperate.”
“Kind of obvious,” Norah said, “and hardly helpful.”
“And you’re already defending him.”
“Because you’re attacking him.”
Trip looked at Lucius, who smiled benignly while Trip’s jaw began to flex. “Where were the agents assigned to you while you were crawling out of your bed?”
“They really should have been more observant,” Lucius said, “considering the onerous responsibilities they carry.”
Trip swore, pulling out his cell phone and dialing a number as he walked away so he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Aye, call your handler,” Lucius called out to him. “Heaven forbid you make any autonomous decisions.”
Trip glared at him. Norah took it as a sign of his self-control that he didn’t pull out his gun.
“Do you have to make everything as difficult as possible?” she said to her father.
“I was merely entertaining myself,” he grumbled. “I spent fifteen years at the beck and call of lazy, pusillanimous federal employees.”
“And you were getting a little payback. I get it. But Trip is neither lazy nor cowardly.”
Lucius sent her a sidelong, measuring look.
Norah popped up an eyebrow and stared back. “If you want to talk about motivations, let’s discuss what you’re doing here.”
“Where else did you expect me to go?” Lucius blustered.
“I expected you to stay in custody,” Trip said as he rejoined them.
“I’ve served my debt to society.”
“You have seventeen more days, by my calculation.”
“’Twas your kind that let me out.”
“Into protective custody,” Trip reminded him. “In effect, you escaped from jail.”