Accomplice (14 page)

            “Because.” He spat on
the ground by her feet. “After your sugar daddy kicked the bucket, you picked
up where he left off. New secrets, new demands.”

            She shook her head in denial.
He grabbed her by the shirt and hauled her up until she was staring into the
man’s florid face. She recoiled from his hot breath.

            “Wilson can’t risk a
trial this time. We must destroy that necklace. Tell me where it is or you’re
dead.”

            If that was all true,
she was dead no matter what. “I didn’t do it. I swear. I don’t have the second
necklace. Find the thief and you’ll find the blackmailer.”

            He shoved her back down
on the bed and stalked toward the door.  He paused, hand on the knob and
considered her. “You better hope your lover boy has them both, or you are both
dead.”

The first thing Noah did when he got home was to
get rid of the awful silver pants. He swallowed a couple of ibuprofen to help
clear his pounding head and his throbbing sore arm and showered off the stench
of nightclub and anxious sweat. The sun was peeking out over the horizon when
he finally crawled into bed.

He couldn’t have slept more than two hours before
his cell phone woke him. He managed only slightly better than a croak, “Hello.”

“If you want to see Jessica alive again, listen
carefully.”

Noah bolted upright in bed, his heart hammering
and his mind racing. As he answered, he flicked through the icons on his phone,
looking for an app that he had never had a chance to use. “Who is this?”

“Doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is
this: I have Jessica and you have something I want. Bring the necklace to me
this afternoon by two. If you bring any of your FBI pals, she dies. If you are
late, she dies. If you try anything funny, she dies.”

Noah grabbed the closest paper he could find, a
carryout menu. Cradling the phone on his shoulder, he scrambled out of bed in
search of a pen, while he cleared his mind to focus on every detail of the
caller—voice, accent, word choice. “I don’t have the necklace.”

“You’re lying. And if you lie to me…” The voice
trailed off.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard you. Then she’s dead. How do
I know you aren’t the one lying? Let me talk to her.”

“I don’t think so. She’s still pretty tired from
the drive from St. Louis. She doesn’t look so good either. The new hair cut
doesn’t suit her.” The man paused to allow the words to sink in. “Be there.”

Noah scribbled down the address. “Any other
rules?”

“The usual. No weapons. No backup. No phoning a
friend. My men are watching you now, so don’t think you can go visit the cops
or the feds. Try it and she dies. Oh, and by the way, sorry about the problem
tracing my phone. You didn’t think I’d be stupid enough to allow that, did
you?”

The connection severed, and Noah looked down at
the screen. Sure enough, the phone tracing app he had tried to use had failed,
blocked by the caller. It took inside knowledge of the department-issued phones
to be able to do that.

The thought of Jessica, at the mercy of an unknown
kidnapper, made his blood run cold. He should never have left her alone. He should
never have let her go.

His options were limited. The caller knew enough
about Jessica to be telling the truth. And enough insider knowledge of the FBI
to block the tracer. But he obviously didn’t know that Noah and Cole had given
the necklace to Cole’s contact at the CIA. That meant that Cole was probably
not involved in the plot, which was a huge relief. But he didn’t dare call his
partner’s regular phone. There was no way to know what was bugged and what
wasn’t.

He glanced through the mini blind slats on his
front window. The same car that had followed him to the club last night was
parked half a block down. It was a fairly nondescript four-door sedan. Nothing
fancy except for the deep tint to the windows. But even that was nothing
unusual in the southern California sunshine.

He glanced at the clock. Nine thirty. He had a
little over four hours and an address on the outskirts of the city where he
might or might not find Jessica alive. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do it
with an entourage.

He slipped a pair of jeans up over boxer-clad
hips, and pulled a t-shirt over his bare chest. From a drawer he withdrew his
gun and checked to make sure it was loaded.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Friday,
and his working-class neighborhood of tiny brick houses was nearly deserted.
Across the street, a tricycle sat idle behind a low chain link fence, but
inside the house he couldn’t see any movement. He inched out his back door to
the alley behind and crept to the end of the block where he could loop around
behind the parked car. With any luck, his stalker wouldn’t bother looking back
until it was too late.

The mid-morning sun was hot on Noah’s head and
sweat trickled down his back as he maneuvered towards his quarry. He cut to the
next block, then doubled back by way of Mrs. Ramirez’s yard. She was elderly
and half-deaf, but her side yard had a tall evergreen hedge that would shield
him from view of the watcher until he was practically at the car’s back bumper.
If any of his Mrs. Ramirez’s endless nephews or grandsons happened to be
visiting and spotted him, they would either call the cops themselves or come
out wielding a shotgun. He wasn’t sure which reaction would be more helpful at
this point.

He peeked around the bush. The silhouette of one
head was visible in the front seat of the car. He palmed his gun and checked
the safety, then hopped out onto the curb, knocking on the side of the car as
he hurried to the driver’s door to see who waited inside.

Tony’s surprised face greeted Noah from the
business end of his revolver. He was alone in the car, a super-sized soda
sweating in the cup holder, and a crushed fast food bag discarded in the
passenger seat.

The security guard lifted two beefy hands in the
air and nodded his chin toward the door handle. Carefully Noah reached down to
open it, keeping his gun trained on the man.

“Well played, Grayson. I didn’t even see you
coming.” Tony shook his head, half a grin on his face. “You can put the gun
down. I’m not gonna shoot back.”

Noah lowered it a touch but made no move closer to
the car. “Why are you following me?”

 “You’d better get in before one of your neighbors
starts asking questions. Like the lady in the house over there,” he jerked his
head back towards Mrs. Ramirez’s place. “One of them kids of hers picked her up
an hour ago, and there’s no tellin’ when they’ll be back.”

Noah lifted an eyebrow and searched the man’s face
for any signs of dishonesty. Tony wore the same bland expression that he always
did. Impossible to read.

“Look,” the man said, his voice growing impatient.
“If I was gonna shoot you, I woulda gone in your house when you were asleep and
done it. Or just shot you from here. Don’t be stupid. We’re on the same side here.”

Noah chanced a look across the street. His bedroom
window faced the front, and from this angle, he could make out a clear
silhouette of his bedside lamp, and the edge of the pillow where he’d been
snoring not twenty minutes ago. Man had a point. If Tony was any sort of a
marksman, Noah would already be dead.

It was a damned good thing he was on friendly
terms with all of his neighbors.

With a sigh, Noah tucked the gun into his back
holster and got in on the passenger side. His nose wrinkled at the smell of
stale French fries and sweat. The car was an odd choice for Tony, whose
shoulders seemed to overflow the driver’s seat and loom over Noah in the
passenger one. “I’m in. Are you going to tell me why you are watching me? I
thought you’d still be on vacation in the Caymans’

“I’m not watching you, Grayson. My job is to watch
Mrs. Kingsbury, and she’s been missing for a while.”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “No shit. Funny, I
thought that is exactly what your team’s little stunt with the plane and the
look-alike in the red wig was all about.”

Tony grunted. “She was supposed to check in. She
always checks in.”

That was news. Noah’s stomach flipped over. “Does
she do this a lot? Send a decoy off on vacation while she disappears?”

Tony looked unhappy. “Not like this time. Lindsay
said not to worry, that no one needed to know details. She’s been pretty shaken
up since the robbery—Mrs. Kingsbury that is. And well, I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I kind of hoped she might be with you. It was
pretty obvious that she liked you and, well, I guess I hoped she was somewhere
safe. I’ve been watching you for a couple of days. I know she’s not here. But
if I can’t look over her, at least I could make sure you were doin’ okay.”

Noah was silent for a long moment. He wasn’t sure whether
to throttle the man for assuming that Noah could be a safe haven for Jessica,
or to kiss him. “Can I ask you a personal question, Tony?”

“I guess.”

“Why are you so protective of J—of her? Does she
really pay you that well?”

With a shake of his massive head, Tony replied,
“Nah. I mean I can’t complain about the pay. And the perks aren’t too bad
either. But I guess I just like her. Sure she takes her clothes off and dances
around, but when people need help, she’s there for them. Turns the other cheek,
you know?”

Noah nodded. He knew. He knew how quiet she could
be. How fiercely loyal she was to her late husband—even while admitting his
faults, she had still loved the man. He remembered the touch of her fingers as
she tended to his arm. Tended a man who she assumed was either kidnapping or
arresting her. She had rescued her chief of security off the streets, donated
anonymously to charities that would have thrown her money back in her face. She
did it all with a beautiful smile on her face to hide the pain he knew she felt
at every outrageous tidbit of gossip or innuendo that flew her way.

He knew that he didn’t deserve a woman half so
perfect.

He also knew that if he didn’t do something, and
soon, then he would never again have the chance.

“Tony, I need your help.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Grayson.”

 Noah related the short version of the story so
far—that he had helped Jessica try to leave the country. Then about the phone
call this morning demanding a necklace that he didn’t have.

He could see the veins on Tony’s head pulsating by
the end of the narrative. “I need you to get ahold of my partner, Cole, and
give him the message. But don’t call his phone.”

“Why don’t I drive you down to the station?”

Noah shook his head. “Someone inside the FBI is
working with these guys. My money is on Cutlass, my boss. The trouble is no one
will believe me without proof. I have a reputation for not quite playing by the
rules.”

“You? You’re one of the most up-tight law
enforcement I’ve ever met.”

 Tony’s sincerity was surprising. “You don’t know
me. Plus Cutlass has been spreading stories about how my dad died. He was FBI
also. He was working a case and went undercover, alone, without proper
approval. Got shot. If I’m right, and Cutlass is involved in this, then this is
the perfect setup to get me out of the way. Unstable agent, out without
approval, gets himself into a dangerous situation and dies. I’m going to need
backup, but I can’t make it look like I’m calling it in myself.”

“That is one hell of a tight spot. And I will find
your partner, I promise. But you’re going to need more than backup to get out
of this one,” said Tony slowly.

“Yeah, I’m going to need a miracle,” agreed Noah.

“Not a miracle. A diamond necklace.”

Noah gulped. “That’s the problem, yes.”

“I know where it is.”

Noah hadn’t mentioned the fake necklace that
Jessica had retrieved from North Carolina. “It’s in London at a museum. I doubt
they’d want me traipsing around the California desert with a priceless
antique.”

“For a cracker jack agent, you can be pretty dense.
Cutlass or whoever has our Jess wants the other diamonds. The copy.”

With a huff, Noah said, “Oh
that
necklace.
The stolen one. Right. Do you happen to have it with you?”

“No, but it’s a short drive to Brandon Kingsbury’s
house.”

Noah leaned back in the car, his breath gone in a
whoosh. “Didn’t anyone question you?”

Tony shrugged “Sure. I don’t have it, I just have
a guess about who does. But a guess isn’t evidence. Shall we see if I’m right?”

 “Where? Who? Let’s call it in.”

“See, that’s the trouble. If the jewels are where
I think they are, then the cops aren’t going to listen. Don’t you think I’ve
tried that once?”

Noah pounded fists onto the fabric of the seats.
“Are you suggesting we go in alone to recover stolen property? That would be
stupid. Possibly illegal. Definitely dangerous. And there’s no way it would
pass a review by internal affairs. Even if the necklace falls off the back of a
truck with a hundred witnesses who swear that I didn’t do it, I’m not touching
it.”

Tony turned and gave him a hard stare. “I know the
kinds of people that Charles Kingsbury used to deal with. The kind that have
our Jessica. If you think for a moment that you can waltz in empty-handed and
live to see the S.W.A.T. team arrive, then you’re even denser than I thought.”

 “And if I waltz in with the necklace in hand,
they’ll just check my pockets before they feed my corpse to the sharks”

“True. So come in with proof that you have the
necklace, and make them go hunt for it. That might buy you and Jessica enough
time for your precious backup to arrive.”

Noah shook his head. “If they can convince a jury
that I planted evidence on them, then the assholes will walk free.”

“Better that than letting them kill Jessica.”