Betrayed by a Kiss (6 page)

“You calling dibs?” Her laugh held no humor.

“If that’s what it takes.” Dane pushed down his irritation, excusing her behavior as a misguided sense of guilt.

“I came to save your life,” she said. “You’re safe. Now it’s time for me to move on. You can trust that I’ll do what I say.”

His mind kept going back to the existence of a video of Alice dying. It was out there in the world, and no one in the department or DA’s office had told him. It could have been withheld for a reason. If the video held no actionable evidence beyond the obvious, couldn’t ID any perp, it wouldn’t be unheard of to withhold it from a loved one, in his case, the spouse. It would be seen as a kindness. Dane made a mental note to ask Joe, his ex-partner, to conduct a search of the homicide evidence locker. If it was there, he needed to know.

There was no reason, however, that they couldn’t turn the stolen files in to the lieutenant immediately. “We’re bringing the flash drive in.” He wanted this over tonight if possible. “It’s the quickest way to take the heat off us.”

“I’m sorry, MacLain.” She looked embarrassed again. “Company files are automatically encrypted when they’re copied off Whitman’s personal server. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I was discovered before I could steal the decryption key. Soon the company will know what files I stole, if they don’t already, and they’ll know I have no way of opening them. The digital signature of what I copied will tell them they suffered a close call, but I failed. If they’re smart—which they are—they’ll change the encryption algorithm and its decryption code. Probably did it hours ago.” She tossed the flash drive into the truck’s console trash bin. “I never fail. Hell, I never get caught. I’m rusty. And mortified.”

His heart sank. “Decryption keys can be recreated. If incriminating files are on that flash drive, it might be the only copy now. Why won’t they wipe the information from their server to cover their tracks? Seems the smart choice.”

He saw embarrassment, maybe ruefulness, but no subterfuge on her face. “No. Sorry. We can’t recreate the decrypt code, and they won’t delete anything. Why should they lose their revenue stream when they can change their encryption instead? This is my area of expertise. You’ll have to take my word for it until you can find another cybergeek to ask. Deleting won’t happen. They’d move the server first, though that will take time and planning.” She closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat. “I’m sorry. I can’t even tell you how sorry I am that I brought this down on your head. The only move they have left is to kill us.”

She was sorry. The files were useless, and she wanted him to drop her off at the nearest rest area. For the life of him, he couldn’t see her angle. “So we steal the files again with the new decryption code. You have the skill to do the computer work. I can get you back inside.” She shook her head.

“That rest area.” She pointed. “Pull over. Let me out.”

“No.”

“MacLain.” She covered her face. “Let me out.”

“I can’t make you help. I know that.”

“This
is
me helping!” She rubbernecked as they passed the rest area. “Dammit, MacLain!”

Frustration morphed to anger. “What’s it going to cost me?”

She flinched. “If I was looking for a paycheck, I would be schtupping a guy like Whitman, not trying to destroy his life.” He’d offended her, and it was convincing—so convincing he felt bad for having said it. “Let me out of the car. I’ll walk back to the rest area. It’s not that far. You’re safe now. I work alone.”

“My family’s safety is on the line. Mine. Yours.” He needed her, but she needed him, too. “You’re working with me now. You broke into their offices once. Let’s do it again, but this time I’ll make sure you don’t get caught.”

“I was rusty!” He’d offended her again.

“If those files contain what you say they do, there is no way the MPD can sweep this under the carpet. It will save Tuttle’s life. I don’t know why he thought half a million dollars was worth death row, but no man deserves to die for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“He was taking care of his family, MacLain.” He saw her exhaustion, and saw her fighting tears. “In all of your digging, you never noticed the family’s medical bills? His kid has leukemia. Let’s cut the guy some slack.”

Dane hadn’t known. It had never occurred to him to care why Tuttle confessed. Dane was too focused on the confession’s fallout: the MPD closing his wife’s murder case. Marnie Somerville cared, though. She’d said leukemia. Whitman’s sins were piling up. “We need to steal the files again.”

Marnie sank deep into the bucket seat, leaning her head against the window. “What about all that
against the law
shit you threw at me back at the cabin?”

She was right, and it rankled, but she was wrong, too. “My family was kidnapped. My wife was murdered. I get to choose what laws I’m willing to break. Not you.” Her gaze was hard to hold, so he kept his on the road. “Moving those bodies was wrong. It would make what I did murder, not righteous kills. Let the cops find the bodies. Force them to ask why a hit squad wants me dead. Let’s see what they do.” He felt the warmth of her delicate fingers on his arm. She was trying to console him, and it made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be consoled. He wanted this hell to end. “Alice’s killer is out there,” he said. “And we’ll never be safe until I find him. Not you, either, Marnie. Your safety is on me now, whether you intended that or not.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. All he heard was good-bye.

Chapter Six

Marnie inhaled slowly, held it, and allowed it to flow out of her body with an even breath. She’d broken the golden rule.
Thou shalt not put your nose into other people’s business.
She was alive today because she’d religiously followed this axiom. If she’d continued to follow it, she’d be home now, eating a pint of ice cream and marathoning
Outlander
. Alone. And lonely. If she hadn’t been so damn lonely, she wouldn’t have been so easily embroiled in the MacLains’ family drama, so easily infatuated with them all, with their courage, their struggles, their loyalty to each other. She’d followed them on Skype, watching them like a soap opera, and become invested in their well-being. They were normal. Marnie envied normal. And they broke her heart. He’d worked so tirelessly to find his wife’s killer, and when she discovered evidence that Tuttle was paid off, it was a lead she knew he’d kill for, so she led him to it, anonymously. To please him, even if she wouldn’t get credit for it. To help him find peace.

She hadn’t thought it all through, however. MacLain was a dogged investigator. Why hadn’t she anticipated him following the lead to the Cayman Islands, throwing up red flags for the company? In the end, it didn’t matter. They were coming after him anyway, and whatever screwy decisions she’d made, clouded by romanticism and her own brand of damage, it landed her here—feeling guilty in his truck, trying to stop him from getting himself killed. Her decision had prompted a chain reaction she couldn’t regret.

The truth was always better than fantasy. She’d loved her job at Whitman Enterprises, with its patina of respectability, but it wasn’t real. Marnie deserved real. MacLain deserved to find his closure. She’d give it to them, but he needed to back off. If there was one thing Marnie was good at, it was surviving a grift, and survival meant working alone. Just the thought of partnering with MacLain made her nervous. He’d get to know her. It was intolerable.

“Say something,” he said.

She searched for a reason he’d understand. “If we steal the files again, they’ll be acquired without warrants. Still inadmissible. You should go through regular channels.”

“Without those incriminating files, I’ll never get the authorization I need to subpoena the servers. No probable cause. They’ve branded me a troublemaker with a vendetta against Whitman Enterprises. Why would a judge take my word for it? No judge would. I need evidence. I need those files. I should have taken that flight to the Caymans tonight.”

“They would have followed you to the airport.”

“We’re stealing the files again.”

The company’s security team was waiting for that move, salivating to catch her. Marnie had her own plan. She was going to hunker down with her electronics until she hacked her way into bankrupting the company. She could do it remotely. It would take time and money, and it wouldn’t be quick or pretty, but she was motivated. She’d get the job done. The files were lost to them. They had to get Whitman another way.

“Call the FBI,” she said. “Homeland. Whitman Enterprises has offices outside the U.S. You could call Interpol. Have them subpoena Whitman’s servers.” It would keep him busy and out from underfoot while she got the job done, but would it keep him safe? She wasn’t so sure.

“You’re trying to make me someone else’s problem.”

“You are someone else’s problem. I came to warn you. I did. I don’t owe you anything now.”
Blatant lie.
At the creek, at the cabin. Yup. She’d be dead. “Now leave me to my work.” She saw an exit that promised a gas station ahead. She could hitch a ride from there. “Take this turn. Let me out at the gas station.” He didn’t pull over and looked no more inclined to follow orders than she was. Frustration put an edge to her words. “You don’t understand what you’re asking. Say you jump over the hurdle of getting past the guards, past the coded entryways, past the video surveillance. How will you know where to look for the files and programs you need? And then there’s the problem of encryption and finding the decryption key. Do you even know what an algorithm is?”

“You do. We can do this.”

“
Don’t tell me my job.
You said it yourself, they’re a cutting-edge cybertech facility that specializes in security. They’re protected with on-site armed guards.”

He scowled at the road ahead. “You did it once.”

“They didn’t know I was coming. They had no idea I was trying to help you, otherwise they wouldn’t have let me anywhere near that building.”

“Trying to help me? Good to know, because it certainly doesn’t feel that way.”

She scowled. “Sooner or later you’ll pull this car over, and then I’m gone. Whatever you decide to do is on your head, not mine.” She fell silent, wondering if she were capable of following through with that threat. Hell, was it even what she wanted?

…

It was two in the morning, and they were almost at the safe house. An hour ago, when Marnie finally realized he wouldn’t allow her to fend for herself on the side of the highway, she gave him the silent treatment, and that quickly turned into an exhausted sleep. He was glad. She needed it. Hell, he was envious. Sleep and he hadn’t been friends for a while now.

When he was still a detective and railed against the system, pushed back when his supervisors told him his wife’s murder case was cold, he’d lost it, busted up his lieutenant’s face and nearly gotten arrested for the pleasure.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
It was in his file. They said to take time off, be with Elizabeth, who at the time was still catatonic, but it was like telling him to ignore what had happened. His daughter was made to stand with a noose around her neck for hours, screaming herself mute, while across town his wife was hanged by the neck until she died. There was no getting over that. Elizabeth hadn’t. She still hadn’t spoken a word, despite her doctors’ assurances there was nothing physically wrong with her. Dane suspected Elizabeth would only talk again when she knew she was safe, when Alice’s killer was brought to justice.

His family’s safety had consumed his life. He bought this farmhouse to hide Elizabeth and Harper when the shit hit the fan, like he knew it would. Bought with a blind trust, no paper trail, it was hidden in the woods for privacy, and all high-tech security measures were in place. No one came within a hundred yards of this place without his sensors picking up on them, his video cameras recording them. There were gun safes on both floors, and he’d taught his sister, Harper, how to shoot to kill. He’d tried to think of everything, shore up every weakness that could be exploited and make his family vulnerable. Yet, of all the outcomes he’d brainstormed, not one came close to what had happened today.

Marnie Somerville happened. He glanced at her sleeping next to him, propped up against the window. She was in danger because of him, and he needed her to commit to more of it, which put the pressure on. One more innocent to keep alive as he tracked down the son of a bitch who’d destroyed his family. She wouldn’t make it easy on him, he knew, but it was necessary nonetheless. Somewhere between her latest demand to be let out of the car and his driving up to the safe house, he’d realized he’d put his fate in her hands. He believed her. She wanted to help him and, for some reason, was invested in keeping his family safe.
Not
trusting her seemed more dangerous in the long run.

He saw Harper’s car in front of the safe house’s garage. The trip from home in Manchester wouldn’t have taken all that long, even with the circuitous route he’d suggested to prevent possible tails. Once again, he was hit with a wave of gratitude that Harper had moved up from Boston to help after Alice’s murder. She was a life saver, especially today.

Knowing Elizabeth was inside the farmhouse allowed him to relax a bit. She and Harper were as safe as he could make them under the circumstances. He shuddered to think of the gunmen arriving at Harper’s little Cape with its picket fences. Harper was a good shot, but she was barely out of the schoolroom, trained as a teacher, not a soldier.

He was impatient to see Elizabeth, even if she was asleep. Rusticating in the cabin for three days, avoiding the MPD’s questions, he’d missed her. Skyping helped, but he wanted to hug his daughter. She was twelve. Pretty soon she wouldn’t want hugs.

He parked and stared at the dilapidated farmhouse. She’d been a grand dame at one point, maybe a hundred years ago, but things like painting and repairs had been low on his priority list this past year. The money he and Alice had saved during their marriage, severance, the insurance, and the profit from selling the other house had bought this one and funded the blind trust. It wasn’t his dream home, but it got the job done. They’d be safe here until he could figure things out.

The rain had stopped long ago and the clouds cleared, but he was tired of being wet and cold, and knew Marnie had to feel the same. When he stepped out of the car, she didn’t stir, so he carried her in, searching her face for hints of his future. She represented so many good things to his family: hope, closure, a chance to have a normal life again. Be a detective again. Yet nothing was free. He worried what life would take from him next.

He climbed the porch stairs. Harper was waiting for him, exhausted. Her shoulder-length red curls were secured in a ponytail, and her usually smiling face was tense as she held the door open for him. She’d been crying. He knew she was afraid and didn’t blame her. She was twenty-four and had been forced to shoulder a lot for one so young.

“Who is that?” Harper kept her voice to a whisper.

“I’ll explain later. Is Elizabeth asleep?”

“Yeah. Upstairs. We arrived an hour ago. Anything I should know?”

“We’re safe here.”

She nodded to Marnie. “Is she sick?”

“Just tired. Do you have any rooms set up?”

“I changed the sheets in yours.” She led him inside. The worn rug muffled his footsteps as he climbed the stairs. Not much had changed since he bought the farmhouse. The electrical still needed updating. The furniture came with the house, run-down but serviceable. Harper must have swept and dusted, because everything looked clean. Dane wasn’t big on details like that. When he came here, which wasn’t often, he spent most of his time in a side bedroom upstairs, poring over boxes of files he’d compiled on Alice’s case.

Marnie was warm in his arms. He liked how she pressed her face against his neck, and the desire it prompted. Her hand rested on his chest, bringing back memories of a simpler, happier time in his life. The quiet of the night enticed him to pretend, but he resisted. He didn’t know her. She’d survived the shootout at the cabin with him, and it had created a camaraderie he’d felt only with his unit in Afghanistan. Adrenaline was working his libido, and he’d waited too long to find pleasure in a woman’s arms. He didn’t know why he was looking for reasons for wanting her when reason enough was staring him in the face. She was fascinating, and gorgeous, and she wanted him back. Why? Who the hell cared? He missed feeling anything other than alone.

Dane forced himself to lay her on the bed. The moonlight streaming in the windows gave enough light to see she was shivering, still damp from earlier. She needed a hot shower, but he suspected she needed sleep more, so he covered her with a thick quilt and then stripped her by touch. He was quick about it, gentle, but she shifted restlessly, dislodging the blanket and exposing her long, muscular legs and the tiny black panties he remembered from the last time he’d had to undress her. His hands shook as he covered her back up, and he wondered if this was the universe balancing accounts, sending her to him when he needed her the most. He hoped so.

He left her there, quiet and asleep, amazed that he had the capacity to hope again.

…

Dreams of faceless men shooting at her startled Marnie awake, and even the faded floral wallpaper and trappings of the unfamiliar bedroom didn’t convince her heart rate she was safe. Neither did the morning sun. Nightmares were for children, she reminded herself, and she hadn’t been a child, well…ever. She blamed last night’s excitement for harshing her calm. It wasn’t that dead bodies were new for Marnie. Exposure to them was inevitable with an addict mom who dragged her from flophouse to flophouse before abandoning her in one, but overdoses were peaceful compared with last night’s deaths. She hated guns.

Marnie rubbed her eyes with her palms, yawning, displacing the threadbare quilt from her body and stretching out the soreness from yesterday’s tussle with the creek bed. A chill was in the air, and it cut through MacLain’s borrowed T-shirt. Tugging the quilt about her, she blinked, trying to adjust, wondering where the hell she was. The last thing she remembered was being in MacLain’s truck.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye. Marnie jumped. “Shit!”

Elizabeth was staring. Her straight brown hair was tucked into a long ponytail that fell to her waist. Skinny, all elbows and knees, the young girl stood biting her nails. Marnie stared back, acutely aware that, unlike Elizabeth, at twelve she’d been picking pockets and stealing food. Elizabeth was something Marnie had never been, and therefore was foreign. What was there to say to a foreigner?

“Biting your nails will give you worms.” As a conversation starter, it lacked finesse, but it got Elizabeth to drop her hand.

Her boots were in the corner, but Marnie saw no clothes in the room.
MacLain
—his hands on her, stripping her while she slept. The memory was blurry at best, but it was there. Her body heated at the thought. With Elizabeth hovering and dissecting her every face twitch, thinking about MacLain touching her would have to wait. She tucked the quilt around her and threw her legs over the side of the bed. “I need pants.” Marnie rubbed her itching nose against the quilt. Elizabeth said nothing.
Right.
Mute.

The hardwood was cold as she hurried past the girl, out of the old-fashioned bedroom, and into the hall. Voices downstairs led her to the kitchen. MacLain and Harper were sitting at a tiny Formica dinette set, drinking coffee, and the room was warm from the ancient woodstove fired up in the back.