“Hey there, can I get you a drink?” I asked.
“Um, sure. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Beer okay?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Can I see some ID?” the bartender asked.
Flynn reached into her pocket, pulled out a thin wallet, and handed him her license. “So embarrassing,” she mumbled.
We’d just returned to the table with our beers when Holt stepped up to the mic, introduced himself, and played his first song. It wasn’t long before Buck and Stella were dancing along with another couple.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“That’s Ben Rice and his wife, Olivia. Don’t you recognize him?”
“Should I?”
Flynn giggled. “We went and saw his band play last night.”
“Nope, I didn’t recognize him.”
Flynn took a sip of her beer, stood, and held her hand out to me. “Wanna dance?”
The dance floor in the bar was a lot smaller than the one in the barn, but that was okay; we didn’t move around too much.
I took a break to go to the men’s room, and when I came back, I didn’t see Flynn anywhere. I ordered another beer and turned around to watch Holt play. A flash of a red-print top caught my eye, and I realized Flynn was dancing with a guy I didn’t remember meeting.
“Who’s that?” I asked Buck when he came and stood next to me.
“You mean dancing with Flynn? That’s Paco. He’s one of the guys who works in the kitchen.”
The bartender slid Buck’s drinks across the bar while I watched Flynn dance with a man a lot closer in age to her than I was. Somebody who’d probably be sticking around longer than I would be too since he worked at her family’s ranch.
Whatever the guy said to her made Flynn laugh. He tightened his arm around her waist, spun her around, and she giggled. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The guy was laughing too.
When her brother started another song, the two kept dancing.
“How’s it going?” asked Ink.
“Pretty tired. Anybody heading to the ranch?”
“I can take you if you want.”
“Don’t want to spoil your fun.”
Ink raised one eyebrow. “I’m on your detail, man. This isn’t about fun.”
I threw some money on the bar and left before the song ended.
Instead of going to the dining hall, I made do with what I had at the cabin for the next few days. When I needed something, I asked one of the guys to pick up whatever it was for me the next time they went into town.
I felt like a jerk both for my foolish flirtation with Buck’s kid sister and for leaving the bar that night without saying a word to her. Both were jackass moves, but neither mattered. I was here to do a job while, at the same time, keeping my head down so I didn’t draw attention or bring danger to the Roaring Fork.
There was no doubt that if our suspicions were right and we hadn’t nailed everyone with the arrests of a couple of months ago, whoever was still out there would be gunning for not just me but Cope, Ali, and Decker too.
I still wasn’t convinced that Stella’s aunt, Kerr, or Interpol were connected to Fisk, but until we ruled that out, I had to consider it a possibility.
Something outside caught my eye, and when I stood, I saw it was Flynn. She dropped a package off on the porch and turned around to leave. From what I could tell, she kept her eyes down the whole time.
I raced over to the door, pulled it open, and called out her name. She turned around and shielded her eyes from the sun.
“Did you need something?”
“I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
“Is there something wrong with your cabin?”
“No, nothing like that. I just thought I should explain about the other night.”
She opened the driver’s door to her truck. “Nothing to explain. Have a good rest of your day, Paxon.”
“Hang on.”
Flynn got in the truck, but when I approached, she rolled the window down.
“You were having so much fun, and I didn’t want to put a damper on your night.”
“Yeah, your leaving didn’t put a damper on my night at all.”
“Like I said, it seemed as though you were having fun.”
“Right. Was there anything else?”
“No. I just wanted to make sure things were okay between us.”
“Yep.” She turned her head and rolled up the window. As she drove away, I wondered if it was my imagination or if she had tears in her eyes.
It took three more days before I saw Flynn again, and in order to do so, I had to invent a reason.
“Your pilot light is out,” she said, sitting up from where she lay on the floor, inspecting my stove. She stood, walked over to one of the drawers, and pulled out a long-handled lighter.
“Do you want me to do it?” I asked.
“If you could do it yourself, I wonder why you called me.” She lay back down, reached in, and lit it. “There. You’re all set.”
When she stood up, I grasped her wrist and took the lighter from her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Not a big deal. Next time, you’ll know what to do.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry for.”
“I know.”
“So you’re saying the next time I’m at a bar with you, I’ll know not to leave?”
“The next time you’re at a bar with a woman you acted like you wanted to meet you there, my advice would be not to disappear on her. As far as with me, that won’t be happening again.”
“Flynn, please accept my apology.”
“Accepted. Now, I need to get to work.”
I looked beyond her and saw Buck approaching in his pickup followed by an SUV. When they both parked, I watched Cope and Ali get out of the second vehicle.
“Friends of yours?” asked Flynn, walking out the front door with me right behind.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll let you get to it, then. Bye, Paxon.”
“Flynn, I’d really like to continue this conversation later.”
“Yep,” she said, waving behind her. I didn’t think for a split second she intended to allow me to.
I hugged Ali and Cope and followed them into Stella’s cabin, where Buck and Decker waited.
“Shall we get started?” asked Cope without any preamble whatsoever. He motioned for the rest of us to take a seat.
Decker looked at Buck, then me, and winked. He stood and cleared his throat. “Before we do that, you should know Stella is the lead on this mission. Anything related to the execution of it, has to be approved by her.”
Cope’s eyes opened wide. “Is Stella contracting for the Invincibles now?”
“That’s right, and if this goes as well as I’m hoping and she’s interested, we may offer her a permanent partnership. Her exceptional investigative skills are certainly worth adding to the team.”
I wondered if Deck was serious or just blowing smoke up Cope’s ass.
“Take a seat, Copeland,” said Buck, turning to Stella. “Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”
I listened as Stella went over things I’d already heard or knew about. She told Cope and Ali how she’d gone to visit her aunt the day after their wedding and then found her dead a few days later.
I half listened as she continued the story about her aunt’s career in journalism ending when she wrote an article accusing Nicholas Kerr, then-president of Interpol, of accepting bribes in the cover-up of Operation Argead.
She told them about the safe-deposit key her aunt had tried to give her that night and that Rock found hidden in her piano after she died.
Ali had questions about the evidence Stella’s aunt allegedly had, but since no one knew where the safe-deposit box was located, there was no way to know what was in it.
“Why didn’t she just release the evidence then if she had it?” Ali asked.
“They threatened to kill her.” All eyes turned and look
ed at me.
“But why kill her now?” Ali asked.
“Exactly. Why now, instead of ten years ago?” asked Stella.
I looked at Decker. “You said there weren’t any bugs in Barb’s apartment. Is that right?”
“Affirmative,” Deck answered.
It was obvious to me that either the bugs had been removed by whomever killed the aunt and her housekeeper, or the housekeeper was the one who’d ratted Barb out.
“What do we know about the other victim?” Ali asked, obviously thinking the same thing I was.
Stella told her that her aunt’s caregiver had worked for Barb since shortly before the career-ending scandal, but she knew little about her, including whether she had any family.
“How did your aunt find her?” Ali asked.
“I can’t remember the details, but I think it was through a temp agency.”
Ali volunteered to see what else she could find out about the woman. “What’s next?” she asked Stella.
“Irish, Buck, and I have been focusing on making connections between the people we consider to be players both back when Barb made the accusations and more recently. Let’s start with Nicholas Kerr, Antoine Moreau, and Stanley Donofrio.”
I’d been researching all three men extensively over the last several days.
“What are you thinking?” Stella asked me, perhaps noticing I was lost in thought.
“How many cold cases of murdered agents could be linked to these three men.”
“And?”
“All of the older ones.”
She continued to talk about her aunt, Kerr, and what she believed was a possible connection to Ed Fisk. Judging by Cope’s reaction, he thought it was as much of a stretch as I did.
What I was far more interested in was how Fisk might be connected to Interpol’s current executive committee. I turned to Stella when she took a deep breath.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded and told Ali about Kerr’s marriage to her aunt’s former editor. “Clearly, they set her up.”
“How?” asked Ali.
I cleared my throat, and Stella told me to go ahead. “I’m theorizing, but Kerr knew Barb had enough evidence to bring him down because Sally shared Barb’s story with him. Neither of them thought anyone would pick it up. After it ran, Hennessey wrote the follow-up herself, and in it, accused Barb of manufacturing evidence.”
“As well as accusing her of having an affair with Kerr that ended badly,” Stella added.
“It makes sense that one or both of them threatened your aunt. Like Irish, I’m theorizing,” said Buck. “Kerr, most likely, delivered the threat, demanding your aunt turn the evidence over to him or he’d kill her. She refused, but he didn’t go through with it.”
“Why not?”
“Mutually beneficial arrangement,” said Decker, who had been mostly quiet to that point.
“Meaning?” asked Stella.
“She still had something on him. Probably whatever is in the safe-deposit box. And someone, like Barb’s attorney for example, has instructions for what to do in the event of her untimely death.”
“Wouldn’t that come into play now?” asked Ali.
“Not if Kerr believed he could intercept it,” Buck answered, stroking his beard.
“Because he finally knew where it was?” I asked.
“I still don’t understand the timing,” said Ali.
“There’s a connection. I’m sure of it,” I mumbled.
“Between?” Ali asked.
“The housekeeper and either Kerr or Hennessey.”
“I need to find that damn safe-deposit box, and in order to do that, I need to go to New York and meet with Barb’s lawyer,” said Stella.
“Have you spoken with him?” asked Deck.
“Not since the first time.”
“I’ll check with the medical examiner and see if the death certificate is available yet. If it is, then I agree. If not, I’d recommend waiting.”
Stella left the room. I assumed to call her aunt’s attorney. My eyes met Cope’s, and he motioned for me to join him outside. Before we got to the front door, Ali and Buck swept past us.
“We’ll be back in a minute,” she told Cope.
“What the hell is that all about?” I asked.
“Ali sticking her nose into Buck and Stella’s business.”
“Why?”
“My guess is she’s not exactly thrilled that the two appear to be in a relationship.”
“Does it bother you?”
Cope smiled and shook his head. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me exactly, but I feel confident Buck will put my wife in her place.”
“I meant that Ali and Buck are so close.”
“Doesn’t bother me at all. She’s married to me, and based on what I’ve seen, Buck is with Stella.”
“How is it, being married?”
Cope walked over and sat on the oversized sofa. I followed.
“All those years, I never would’ve believed it was possible. Ya know?”
“I do.”
“And yet, here we are. What about you? Who was the woman I saw coming out of your cabin?”
“That’s Buck’s sister. She helps run what I think will eventually become a dude ranch. We’re the first guests.”
“Looked like there was more to it.”
“To what?”
“The two of you.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“It’s okay, Irish.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation, but I knew Cope well enough to anticipate he wouldn’t let it go. “We had a flirtation, and then I realized two things.”
“What?”
“She’s half my age, she’s Buck’s little sister, and as soon as I possibly can, I’m leaving.”
“That’s three things, and here’s the way I see it. First, she isn’t half your age unless she looks really old for seventeen.”
“It would be eighteen, asshole, and she’s twenty-one.”
“So legal. Way beyond legal, actually.”
“If three years is way beyond.”
“Second, Buck didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed when I asked who the woman was I saw coming out of your cabin.”
“Because he knew she was delivering supplies.”
“Right. And third,”—he waved his arm in the direction of the view—“this place is un-fucking-believably beautiful. Where are you in such a hurry to go?”
“I’d like to be a free man at some point in my life, Cope.”
“I hear you there.”
I looked over and saw Buck was back inside, talking to Decker, and Ali was head-to-head with Stella. “We should join them.”
Cope got right to the point when we did. “I’m still not following how this directly connects to Fisk,” he said. “Or how you’re linking Kerr to Barb’s murder.”
“I located travel records indicating Kerr flew from London to New York City two days before Stella found Barb dead,” I told him.
“I’ve been watching facial recognition feeds,” added Decker. “So far, I haven’t gotten any hits, but Kerr would know how to avoid being picked up.”
“Are you saying we don’t presently know Kerr’s whereabouts?” Cope asked.
“That’s correct,” answered Decker. “Although we have reason to believe he hasn’t left the States.”
Cope stood and walked around the table. “Unless anyone here objects, I’m going to go to Money McTiernan with this.” He turned to Stella. “That’s if you truly believe your aunt has the evidence you think she does.”
Stella’s mouth opened and shut.
“Asshole,” I muttered on her behalf.
“Well?” Cope asked.
“It’s either in the safe-deposit box or whoever killed her took it,” she said, standing and walking over to the window.
“I’m not involving Money unless we’re sure.”
Ali reached over and put her hand on her husband’s ar
m. During Cope’s original investigation, it was Money who’d brought in Ali, a CIA internal affairs officer, to determine whether Cope was also a double agent working with me.
Once Money found out the nature of the mission we’d conducted on our own and that we suspected Fisk of leading a ring of double agents responsible for the deaths of some of the CIA’s best operatives, he backed us with the full force of the agency, all under the auspice of internal affairs—which was how he was able to hide it from Fisk. Not to mention with support from the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by none other than Cope’s father, Henry Clay Copeland, Senior Senator from the State of Louisiana.
I knew none of this at the time, of course.
If Cope planned to take this to Money, it had to also mean he hoped to secure funding to keep the mission going—something his senator father would certainly approve.
“No objections?” Cope asked. When no one spoke up, he continued. “Deck, err…and Stella, do you have the next steps determined?”
Stella looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“What happened with China?”
“What about them?”
“You were on trial for spying for them. Was that part of the cover?”
I looked at Cope and then Deck. “They’re pretty easy to make a scapegoat for just about anything,” I said.
“To confirm, there was never an official connection to China?”
“Nothing concrete enough to base a case on. That doesn’t mean they weren’t somehow involved,” said Cope, putting her off as easily as I had. It had become second nature to us both. Our suspicions about China, and maybe even Saint and Dr. Benjamin, hadn’t changed, but like he said, we couldn’t make a strong enough connection to do anything about it.
We talked more about Interpol’s current executive committee, agreeing to continue researching their backgrounds as well as their known affiliations in intelligence.
I felt a migraine coming on. I’d give anything to return to my cabin and sleep. When I closed my eyes momentarily and thought about it, I realized that more than sleep, I wanted to see Flynn.
26
Flynn
I had absolutely no reason to feel guilty about the conversation I’d had with Paxon earlier, but I did. I drove up to the cabins, but one of the men standing watch told me the meetings were still going on.
Irished (The Invincibles Book 7) Page 11