Betrayal's Shadow (25 page)

A new email from her publisher and one from Mason registered in bold at the top of her inbox. Her publisher’s note she ignored. Mason’s message was brief:
field goal successful
.

Mia puzzled for a second. He’d searched for the photos from the accident and the medical examiner with some success. Mason wouldn’t have sent them via email, just as he had insisted on sending the police report only through standard mail in his previous correspondence.

With a lighter step, she headed out the back door and down her winding lane to the main road. Her mailbox was deceptive in appearance, a large black metal standard affixed over a tall brickwork pillar. Never sure when she’d be around to pick up the mail, she’d had a slot cut in the bottom of the box so it would shift the contents into the bottom of the hollow brick pillar. She unlocked a metal door at the rear of the pillar’s base and retrieved the haphazard stack.

One small lumpy pouch postmarked Denver stood out from the bills and junk mail. Mason’s publicity agent lived in Colorado and she had no doubt that was who originated the package, but why the subterfuge?

Back in her office, Mia slit the pouch and slid the thumb drive into her computer. The files, a collection of autopsy photos, were chilling.

Without specific details on what to search for, she was reluctant to waste too much scrutiny on the naked, dead bodies of Isabella and the cop, Marco Valencia. But her brief view of the pictures nagged her, as if they contained brainteasers of one item in the pictures that didn’t belong. Only she didn’t have enough knowledge of these people to determine any abnormalities.

She bit her lip and clicked from one picture to the next. Even with a pale wash of death, Isa claimed an innocent beauty, clearly the reason for Turen’s reluctance to blame her for his circumstance. This young woman could have passed for his younger sister, with her dark hair and distinct cheekbones.

Mia tried to shake away her emotions and assess the photos objectively. The M.E.’s reports listed stab marks and burns, all located across Isa’s chest and sides. The myriad tattoos covering Marco’s lean and muscular body made it harder to discern his stab wounds. The bullet wound in his chest, targeted by the M.E. as cause of death, she found with ease.

The police academy picture Mason had added with the files revealed a young man with tanned skin, thick brown hair, vivid brown eyes, and a full sensual smile that would let him blend in and finesse easily in multiple groups of people. Not a surprise that he’d been a top choice for undercover with narcotics and DEA.

She stared for a long time at Marco’s face, finding no correlation to the cold, horrific details of his wounds in the autopsy file. Yet there was something here. She could feel it. She’d learned over the years to trust in her gut, but damn if she could figure what it was trying to tell her.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and mentally parsed through the pages of details in her private journal. A connection teased in the back of her mind, refusing to come forward. She relaxed in her chair and forced her mind not to linger on any one thing but to drift in a round robin from the journal, to the photos, to the Archives and back.

She jumped as it hit her. Eyes open, she clicked on the photos again and launched her graphics program. She ignored the queasy sense of voyeurism and the dangerous tingle along her nerves at the prospect of delving further into Guardian privacy and secrets. With a mental shake, she brought up the first of the photos and increased the view to two hundred percent.

Isa’s murder had been cold and gruesome, and while the autopsy photos showed only the clean, sterile remnants of Isa’s body, Mia struggled to remain detached. She didn’t have the luxury of being squeamish. A quick search for tattoos on Isa’s body revealed nothing. Prepared to close the file, she stopped at an image of small swirls, strikes and circles, some filled, some not. The designs, resembling empty circles on a stick, were nestled in a one-inch circumference on the inside crease below Isa’s right hip.

Mia enhanced the resolution to three hundred percent.

Oh my God.
She brought up Marco’s image and enhanced it as well. Painstakingly, she went through each section of his tattoos until, finding what she sought, she traced along the image with red.

Isa’s symbols were clear delineations of sixteenth notes, rests, and accidentals. The images, mirrored on Marco’s files, were harder to find given his wealth of previous tattoos.

Whether Isa’s talent was music or not, practicality forced Mia to assume Marco hadn’t chosen to inscribe musical notes between the clan tats on his chest.

Her heart fluttered at the proof on the screen. Marco Valencia had been Isa’s mate, most likely earmarking him as one of the lost members of the Guardians.

She wiped at the wetness on her cheek and forged on to the more horrific part of her search.

Tracing Isa’s wounds in blue and Marco’s in green, she saved images of just the wounds and faded the bodies to translucent components in the background. Superimposing the image of Marco’s body over Isa’s, she confirmed Mason’s theory, as the stab wounds aligned. Marco had died with his body positioned over Isa. Shot first, he had covered her, presumably trying to save her. Two more mates brutally killed together.

Had Isa knowingly used her mate to make connections for Turen to Xavier?

Mia saved the files and turned off the screen, no longer able to stand viewing the evidence. She grabbed a pad of paper, her determination recharged. She wrote her directive in large letters on the sheet.
Return Turen to his people
.

To free him she would need to break him out, or for Xavier to release him. How in—she ground her teeth and forced logic back to the forefront. Okay, if she didn’t have the skills to do either, then she needed resources. She needed help.

She tapped the paper with her pencil.

What she needed was for his people to help her. Again, too far of a leap…but nothing said they had to know they were helping her.

If she manipulated them, broadcast that he was alive, then they would pursue his release on their own.

Impossible. She couldn’t just call them all up and schedule. Or could she?

Opening Marco’s file, she drew a box around the highlight of Isa’s mark and saved the segment to a new file. She cut and pasted the small segment of Isa’s mark to a new file as well.

With a quick flip through the hard copy of the police report, she found another detail, the email ID Isa had used to coordinate with Marco and the text ID he’d used to contact Xavier’s team.

Mia didn’t have the skills to hack into accounts. However, someone might still be watching these accounts, not just the police. She would bet Xavier still wanted information. She’d also bet someone on Isa’s team continued to search for what had happened to her.

So now for the setup.

Establishing several ghost addresses across various free accounts was easy. Just to be obvious, she used the same moniker as Isa’s email with minor alterations of 1, 2, 3 added to create a dozen similar accounts. That should attract attention.

So many accounts added necessary layers for anonymity. A tedious process, but Mason had taught her the necessity and the procedure when she had worked with him. He’d been a wealth of knowledge. She even had an anonymous offshore account and corresponding address for the funds. Granted it held very little money, but no one could trace it back to her, thanks again to Mason.

Now for the plan.

From the first of her new email accounts, she attached the photo of Isa’s mark with only the comment “
interested,”
directing the messages to each of the other new accounts and finally to Isa’s actual email. The process created a string of spam-like email.

If the Guardians were monitoring the account for activity, they would respond. If the police viewed the email they would probably filter it as spam. Whether they were even monitoring this email account was doubtful. Mason had noted that the police department’s main system had experienced a brief power failure. The outage resulted in the loss of some digital files. Isa’s and Marco’s police report and the M.E.’s files were among those not recovered.

Fortunately, the M.E. had a backup drive of his cases at home. Mason being a friend of the man had access to find the drive after the M.E.’s death. Mason had secured her copies prior to releasing the drive to the M.E.’s office. He’d tracked down a copy of the preliminary hand-written notes on the case, which had somehow made their way to the DEA and included that in her packet as well. But as far as he was aware, the police didn’t have all their information compiled. With no new leads on the case this wouldn’t be their highest priority.

For those unfamiliar with Isa’s unique Guardian attributes, like the police and DEA, the emailed files would appear to be bits of nonsense.

In a second series of text messages from her new email accounts, she attached the picture of the cop’s mark and Isa’s. This was dicey. If Xavier was monitoring the number Marco had used to contact him, or Rasheer, the text would alert him. If he wanted proof of his mate’s murder and he knew of Isa’s death, he would recognize what the coordinating marks meant. Another mate’s death should be of critical interest to him. Her only comment in the message read: “Turen = info. Trade?”

Messages sent. She sat back and tapped the pad of paper with her finger with an unpleasant thought. What if only one side responded?

Ready to sign off, she pulled email one more time.

Three new messages.

Damn. Lack of response wasn’t a problem.

***

The crowd for the New York Opera’s evening performance mingled in the lobby. Mia sipped her soda and watched the fringes for signs of Turen’s comrades as she waited for her friend Becca and Becca’s husband to return from saying hello to some old friends.

The Guardians would be here. However, would she be able to pick them out in this crowd? Turen would stand out in a crowd. Perhaps it was too confident to assume his people would also.

They had at least responded immediately. As had Xavier, from two different IDs. She still wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the alarms it raised forced her to go to greater lengths to cover herself tonight.

Her trail from the hotel had been circuitous, overlapping, and delivered with a high degree of difficulty. She’d changed there and discarded the tools she’d used to camouflage herself from detection by the Guardians. She hoped Turen would be proud. They had spent grueling hours on boring details she now depended on to give her an edge.

Clean of scents and fragrances, she wore thrift-shop clothes to confuse any traces of her skin with that of previous owners.

The tools for the next phase of the plan remained tucked in a janitorial closet near the back alley exit. Embarrassed, she tried not to linger on the skills she brought to the table. Lock picking, a brief fit of teenage rebellion, had finally proved handy.

“You know the last time we were here was before you and Alex were married.”

Mia jerked her attention back to her friend. “It’s been a long time.”

Becca rolled her eyes and squeezed her arm. “Sorry. I wasn’t very subtle. I didn’t mean to drag you down. Especially since we’re so glad you’ve been able to spend some time with us.”

Mia slid her arm around Becca’s waist. “It’s okay, I know what you mean. I’m relieved at the chance to get out, too. I’m just a little under the weather today.”

“Do you want to go sit down early?”

“Let me finish this soda.” She glanced around one last time, not knowing what to expect. Except that the Guardians would come in numbers. They’d lost Isa. They’d lost Turen. They would make certain they lost no more of their people.

Her subsequent email interactions promised information if the meet was here, tonight. It inferred a trade of information, and Turen, for a monetary exchange. The transfer of a portion of her request had appeared in the ghost account she used to set up one of her emails. Her stomach pitched at the recollection.

In person, she could never carry off the extortion; the falsified data and cover tonight camouflaged her reticence. The request for money would confirm a threat and a viable cover. Human deceit the Guardians would buy; human loyalty, not so much.

“Are you sure you don’t want to check your coat?”

“You know, I’d be more comfortable having it with me.” Mia folded her coat lapels tighter over her sequined tank top and floor-length black skirt. “Just in case.”

Becca patted her arm in sympathy as the chimes announced the procession for seating.

Mia tossed her empty cup in the trash. The crowd worked their way to the main doors and she followed her friends up the grand staircase to their box.

“Do you mind if I sit back here?” She gave an apologetic glance to the door after she entered the box, and Becca patted her knee in reassurance.

“Of course, honey. I’m sorry this bug hit you today.”

Mia nodded, waiting for Becca and her husband to settle. Then she discreetly canvassed the patrons already seated from the backdrop and darkness of the box.

Surveying each section, she ruled out areas with young children and women seated together. The box seats on her level and the one below were either empty or filled with groups of couples. Becca and her husband knew many of the other box holders. While she wouldn’t put it past Turen’s people to bring human women with them, it seemed unlikely.