Out of Time (Nine Minutes #2)

by Beth Flynn

  Unfortunately, Pinelli wasn’t quite grasping the intricacy of the operations they dealt with. He wasn’t able to keep his personal feelings and emotions in check. Especially when it came to dealing with one operation in particular. He noticed it early on and immediately pulled him from that case. He quickly reassigned him to a legitimate FBI operation.

  “Thought you might want to know this, sir,” Pinelli said, tossing a manila folder on the director’s desk. He took a seat and waited for Spiro to pick up the folder.

  “I don’t have time to read a report. What do I need to know?”

  “He’s at it again. Only this time, he’s gone too far.”

  Spiro knew exactly who Pinelli was referring to.

  “He’s kidnapped a girl,” Pinelli continued. “Well, he didn’t do it himself. He had someone else do it.”

  “I know,” Spiro replied calmly. “Drop it and keep working on the Giamanni case.

  “But, sir, she is fifteen. She’s only fifteen!” Pinelli answered, the bewilderment in his tone evident.

  “I know who she is. I know she’s fifteen and I’m telling you to leave it alone. What the hell are you doing looking at it, anyway? You’re not running point on this one and you were specifically assigned to another operation. I can write you up for this, Pinelli. Shit, I can have you fired!”

  Pinelli ignored the question and the reprimand. “He probably noticed her after he bought the house next to hers and put his guy there. I checked into her. Not really much of an investigation. Nothing remarkable about her. No gang connection. Her mother and stepfather are drunks. She’s a straight-A student. Babysits for spending money. Tried to report the father of one of the kids she was watching. She seems like a nice girl. I just don’t know why—”

  This wasn’t news to Spiro. He’d already run a basic background check on the teenager and her family, and he had to agree with Pinelli. They’d found nothing special and didn’t feel she required further investigation. Pinelli jumped when Spiro slammed his fist hard on the desk. “I told you to fucking leave this alone and move on to the Giamanni case. You were directed to do that three months ago. Why are you disobeying a direct order, agent?”

  “Because I have a fourteen-year-old sister, sir.” Pinelli sat up straighter in the low chair. “And while you may overlook his murdering and maiming tendencies, this one is too close to home for me. He has to be stopped.”

  Pinelli wasn’t going to let this drop. Spiro had to play it right. He took a slow, centering breath and leaned back in his chair.

  “You know what? I think you may be right on this one, Pinelli,” Spiro said, nodding his head as if in agreement. “I have a daughter and two granddaughters. Yes. Now that I think about it, you’ve made a good call here, agent. I’ll get some paperwork started. Get back over to the Giamanni case. I don’t want anything that we’re going to do linked back to you. Got it?”

  Pinelli seemed satisfied. His posture changed as he stood up.

  “Yes, sir,” Pinelli said. “And thank you for taking the time to listen to my recommendation.”

  He reached for the file he had laid before the director. Before he could pick it up, Spiro grabbed it and pretended to look it over.

  “Is this everything? Anything else in your files that I’ll need?”

  “No, sir. Everything is in there” Pinelli replied, nodding at the folder.

  “Good work, Pinelli.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Pinelli left the office.

  Spiro looked at the cigarette that had burned itself out in his ashtray. He reached for another one and lit it, inhaling deeply. He picked up his phone and dialed a number.

  “It’s me. Pinelli’s become a problem.” He paused while he listened to the other person on the phone. Without saying anything else, he hung up.

  He took another drag on his cigarette. Stupid fucking kid. Trying to be a hero.

  Spiro found little consolation in the fact that Pinelli wouldn’t be leaving a wife and child behind.

  **********

  Moe’s Diary, 1975

  Dear Elizabeth,

  I took Kit shopping yesterday. It wasn’t so bad. She really is a nice girl. I think I’m starting to see why Grizz seems to love her. She’s different than the women that he’s used to being around. She offered to buy me some clothes. Nobody has offered to buy me something since Grunt helped me get my car.

  Seems like Grunt has forgotten about me. I thought it was school, but I know in my heart it’s her. I think I knew it the night he asked me to keep her wallet. I have it hidden in my room. I don’t care that Grizz told me to burn it. I hate him! She’s too good for him, anyway.

  I took her to the post office. I forgot about the stupid Missing Persons poster. Back when my parents thought there was a sighting of me, they started putting their posters up again, but I could never go home. I wouldn’t be able to stand being around my sisters. I’m sure they’re beautiful and have everything I used to have. Including their tongues.

  I forgot about that poster. It was covered up with other stuff for a while. I know they stopped looking for me years ago. Next time I go there, I need to take it down.

  I’m going to have spaghetti with Kit and Chowder. I’ll write more later…

  Dinner was actually nice, Elizabeth. It was fun. I was laughing at Chowder. He doesn’t say a lot, but when he does, it’s funny. Then Grizz came home. He always ruins everything. He sat there and ate with us, and it didn’t seem as much fun.

  I was right about Grunt having feelings for her. I was sitting in the pit when he came home. I think he’d spent the day with Sarah Jo at the beach. I know they’re just friends. You’d think that since we both care for Grunt, we’d be friends, too, but Sarah Jo doesn’t come around here practically ever, and when she does, she certainly doesn’t try to be my friend. Anyway, I saw Grunt walk to unit four, and when he noticed the outside light was off, which means Grizz doesn’t want company, he leaned against the door like he was trying to hear if something was going on inside.

  I have a feeling Grizz hasn’t slept with her yet, but I know he will tonight. After I had dinner with them and went back to my room, I realized later I was out of dog treats. When I went back to number four to get some, I heard music that wasn’t Grizz’s kind of music.

  I knew what they were doing, and I think Grunt heard it and he knew, too.

  **********

  “You are not going to fucking believe this.”

  Spiro looked up from his desk. Agent Marcus had walked in without being announced and closed the door behind him. His secretary must have been away from her desk, because she was very good about announcing that someone was there to see him. Spiro pinched the bridge of his nose. He had an excruciating headache.

  “What is it, Marcus?” He looked at the agent resignedly. “What am I not going to believe?”

  Marcus plopped himself down in front of Spiro. “He married her. He fucking married her.”

  This caused Spiro to sit up straight. He knew exactly who Marcus was talking about.

  “Has this been confirmed?”

  “It has, sir. He married her. Under his alias, Rick O’Connell, of course, and the alias he created for her,” Marcus said, his tone incredulous. “He really fucked up this time.”

  Spiro squinted in concentration and stared at his agent. “No. He doesn’t fuck up. He’s never fucked up. There must be a reason.”

  “Maybe he loves her.”

  “Loves her?” Spiro said as he leaned back in his chair. “He doesn’t love anybody. He is the most brutal bastard I’ve ever come across. No fucking way.”

  “You see, though, sir. We have him. If he loves her we can rein him back in. Back where he belongs.”

  “No, there has to be something else. Something we’re missing. He doesn’t do anything without a reason; and I can guaran-damn-tee you he didn’t marry her for love. You sure there’s nothing else on her?”

  “There’s nothing there, sir. She’s just some
girl. Other than reporting some child abuse incident—which went nowhere, by the way—she’s clean. Parents are drunks, but clean. Except the mom sells weed from a store she works at.”

  “Could he be involved with that and we missed it?”

  “No, sir. Small potatoes. No connection. We have him, sir. He’s vulnerable now. He has a wife to protect. His ass belongs to us. Like I said. Time to rein his sorry ass in.”

  “He doesn’t do anything without a reason.” Spiro gritted his teeth. “And are you forgetting that he let a kid, who may or may not even be his, get stabbed? He is a first-class son-of-a-bitch who cares about nobody but himself. We sit on this for a while until we figure it out. And rein him in?” Spiro raised a brow. “Exactly who do you think he is? This fucker goes back almost twenty years and we’ve never been able to completely confirm his identity.”

  “I was just saying, sir—”

  “You were talking out your ass is what you were doing. Go fucking do your job, agent, and leave your sixth-grade excitement and speculations at the door.”

  The agent left. Spiro’s head was really pounding now. This particular operation had been ongoing since the fifties. He was the second person assigned to this top-secret task force. The last one had retired. He had a feeling he would be retiring, too, before this operation came to fruition.

  Of course, nobody, including his secretary, knew his real title or job. Nobody knew he and his operatives didn’t work for the FBI. They worked for the U.S. Government, and while Spiro did act as director for the other legitimate FBI agents on his team, he had been planted at the bureau to manage one case and one case only. He had two office agents, who he had to occasionally assign to real bureau cases to avoid notice, and one operative in the field. One operative who risked his life daily for the sake of this one assignment.

  One he was no longer even sure of himself.

  Spiro knew with perfect certainty this case was being overseen as high as the Oval Office. He didn’t know why; he just knew what he was assigned to do.

  And he was having second thoughts about Marcus now. Too excitable and rambunctious. This was a waiting game and he knew it killed his agents to let this one man get away with so much. But they had to. Their hands were tied thanks to someone at the top.

  If anyone needed reigning in now, it was his own agent.

  Dammit. He picked up his phone and dialed a number.

  This was the most cryptic case he’d ever been assigned, and he was afraid it would be the death of him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  2000

  Moments later, Ginny was standing in the entranceway to their kitchen.

  “Thought you wanted to read it together,” she said flatly.

  Tommy closed the journal and flashed a sheepish smile. “Curious.”

  “Anything interesting so far?”

  He was getting ready to tell her how Moe had written about how much she’d hated Grizz, how responsible she’d felt the night he, Grunt, was stabbed by Monk. He was trying to remember if he’d ever told Ginny how he got that scar. Sometimes he couldn’t remember what he’d told her and what he hadn’t. It was all a blur. But before he could answer her question, her face changed.

  “You know what?” She held up a hand, her expression bitter. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

  Something in Tommy snapped. It took a lot for him to get angry, but he suddenly couldn’t help himself. He stood and slammed the notebook on the table.

  “What else is new?” he asked her, voice full of attitude.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She set her suitcase down on the floor, then walked to face him.

  “It means that you are the best person I know for putting your head in the sand and pretending something doesn’t exist. You did it for ten years with Grizz, and you’re still doing it!” His face was red and his hands were clenched. “If Ginny doesn’t know about it or let herself think about it, then it didn’t happen. It was your coping mechanism. It was then and it is now.”

  He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to be mean to her, but dammit! He’d had enough. Yes, he admitted to himself. Yes, all those years ago, he had come up with a plan. The perfect plan. He remembered the day he’d realized he wouldn’t have to lure her away after all. Grizz would handle that—push her away with his ruthlessness. He remembered likening his quest for Ginny’s love to a chess game. He was going to outsmart Grizz.

  The only problem with the plan was that he found it actually hurt him more to see her hurting. So he’d protected her from certain things Grizz did. It went against everything he’d started out to do, but he loved her so much, he couldn’t stand to see her suffer.

  He was the fool.

  “How dare you.” Her eyes flashed and her voice grew quiet. Deadly quiet. “How dare you accuse me of sticking my head in the sand? You are Grizz’s son! You are Mimi’s brother! Do you think it might’ve been important enough to tell me? Don’t you think I deserved to know I married my ex-husband’s own son?”

  “Why?” Tommy wanted to hit something. Anything. “Why would I tell you, Gin? It would just be another thing you wouldn’t want to know.”

  “Really, what else is there, Tommy? What else wouldn’t I want to know about? For goodness sake, I lived at the motel. I knew what he did. I left after Chico had his guy kill those kids. You’re the one who convinced me to go back. Do you remember that? Do you remember the day you found me and talked me into going back?”

  “Yeah, Ginny. I remember.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1976

  Grunt leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. He’d been sitting on his bed trying to concentrate on his homework, but he just couldn’t do it.

  He closed his eyes and immediately saw her. Kit. She was laughing at something he’d said over one of their many chess lessons. They used to be lessons, but now they were just matches, really. She was smart and at this point could almost beat him. He’d thought more than once about letting her win, but that wasn’t Kit’s way. The girl would have to beat him fair and square. Maybe one day she would.

  Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t call her a girl. She’d been living with the gang since she’d been abducted last year and was married to their leader. She was now sixteen and had experienced more in the last year than some grown women would in a lifetime.

  No, Kit was definitely no longer a girl. She was a woman. And she was the woman Grunt had been in love with for a very long time.

  Even before she came to the motel.

  Over the years, he’d accompanied Grizz to keep an eye on the young girl then called Gwinny, later just Ginny. Sometimes, he was the one that suggested it—that they go take a drive by her house, check up on things. Grizz didn’t seem to have a problem taking him along. Maybe people were less suspicious of a man who had a kid with him. He was sure they assumed he was Grizz’s kid.

  It didn’t matter. He always looked forward to the times he would be able to watch her. He didn’t remember the exact moment it became love. There had been too many times to count how often he’d observed her doing something that melted his heart.

  He remembered her first night at the motel. It was last May. He didn’t know then that Grizz was going to have her brought here. He’d secretly hoped that maybe Grizz would step aside, let her find her own destiny. If that was the case, Grunt was certain he could insert himself into her life.

  He’d imagined it a thousand times. Casually running into her somewhere. Making small talk. Making her laugh. He’d even thought about enrolling in her school, but that charade would be too difficult to maintain. Especially since he was already in college and he had no doubt that Grizz wouldn’t have allowed it. He laughed to himself at the memory. People in love are willing to do desperate things.

  He’d never imagined Grizz was falling for her, too. He knew about the obsession, but somehow he believed the story, believed that Grizz truly was looking out for the girl. A favor to an old f
riend, he’d said. Maybe Grunt was just too busy wrapping himself in his own fantasies of a life with her. A future.

  Unfortunately, as long as Grizz was around, no other man would ever have a chance with Kit, let alone a future.

  Her first night at the motel was seared in his memory. He’d been leaning back in a lawn chair, staring into the fire. Willow and Chicky were arguing about something. Monster pulled up on his motorcycle. He could tell there was a female on the back.

  He’s certain he gasped when he noticed it was her and Monster was walking her towards the pit. What the fuck?

  He half listened as Willow started arguing with Monster about the “thank you gift.” Bullshit. Grunt knew better. Ginny—Kit, she called herself now—was only fifteen and probably scared to death.

  But if she was scared, she certainly wasn’t showing it. He watched as she calmly observed the exchange between Willow and Monster. He knew she hadn’t noticed Grizz when he walked up next to her. What would her reaction be? He wondered, watching her as she noticed Grizz for the first time and her eyes slowly moved up his body until they reached his face. She showed no emotion that he could detect. And when Willow lunged at her and Grizz intervened, the girl never even flinched.

  He couldn’t believe how brave she was that night. The dying campfire cast an almost angelic glow on her face. The face he had loved for a long time.

  And now, she was here.

  And she belonged to Grizz.

  He’d watched that night as Moe led her to number four. He only half listened as Grizz told the gang they were never to discuss her. They weren’t to look at her, speak to her, or address her presence at the motel. Ever. He then watched Grizz turn around and go inside.

  It was only a few minutes before Moe came out. She walked toward the pit, her head down. Grunt jumped up when he saw her, gently took her arm and led her to his unit. He heard some laughter from the pit. Who cares—let them think what they wanted.