Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (27 page)

Lucas said, “Damn. I hate to be predictable.”

“Never that, buddy. Anything outside tie to you?” Jordan interrogated. “Fingerprints?”

“Gloves.” Lucas held up his hands, still encased in latex. “Magnets came off after I came in.”

“With the exception of the ladder, her house is undisturbed.”

My mind raced. Jordan Ramirez truly believed Staci Grant was alive. “Why would they keep such a close watch on her house?”

Maybe they were waiting for one of Staci’s recruits to show up. Or maybe they were waiting for her impersonator to show up. Or maybe Jordan Ramirez was right and they were waiting for Staci.

As we proceeded down his carpeted stairs, he shrugged. “As far as I know, the agency has the same files in the office that she does here. But a week after she was reported dead, they started 24/7 surveillance on her house.”

“Constant?”

“Two guys during the week. One on weekends.”

There had to be a reason. No department would waste those resources without just cause. “If she was alive, wouldn’t they know?”

I glanced around at his living room. Besides the fact that the house was in a fancy neighborhood, on the inside his place looked a lot like mine. Nothing personal. No pictures. No mementoes. At the bottom of the stairs, Jordan paused. “She is alive.”

“But....”

“Someone completely trashed her house in the Bahamas.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s alive,” I said softly.

“She’s alive,” he repeated tersely.

Lucas spoke into the tense silence. “I saw the report. It...didn’t look good.”

“I saw the pictures.” Jordan Ramirez stalked into his kitchen. The fierceness of his response struck something within me. His intensity reminded me of my need to protect my sister.

“The body,” he swallowed. “Was missing a scar.”

Jordan Ramirez wouldn’t be anymore help. He was operating on passion not evidence. We needed to get out before we drew any more unwanted attention.

“Time to motor,” I said briskly.

Lucas glared at me.

I checked the backyard. The single man–if Jordan had been right about the surveillance schedule–was still in Staci Grant’s house. If we waited much longer, he’d have a clear view of us and the van. “We have to go.”

Jordan Ramirez visibly shook off his funk. “She’s right.”

Lucas pulled a white card out of his breast pocket. “In case they decide to check up on Mel’s Window Washing.”

Jordan Ramirez examined the card. “Nice work, Goodman.”

“I try.” Lucas clamped his hand on Jordan’s shoulder. “Keep in touch.”

“If you find anything....”

“You’ll be the first to know.” I shoved Lucas out the back door.

“Did you have to be so harsh?” Lucas sniped as we hustled down Jordan Reynold’s sidewalk.

I knew he didn’t understand and I couldn’t take the time to care. “Candy coating reality isn’t going to help him.”

“What if he’s right?”

“He’s not.” I wanted to believe Jordan Ramirez was a sap, a sucker, a total emotional nutcase. But I tripped up over how much he loved Staci Grant. And his refusal to believe she was dead.

He wasn’t a sap. He loved.

A lump grew in my throat making it difficult to swallow. Again I couldn’t help but make the comparison between Staci’s life and my own. If I died there’d be no one to search for me. No one to mourn me.

I’d be just an anonymous footnote in Bella’s life.

Bella was in danger. Even though Lucas believed Johnny wouldn’t hurt her, this feeling of impending doom wouldn’t leave me. I had to protect her. First, I had to obliterate this emotionalism before the liability got Bella and me killed. Focus and focus hard.

“I put business cards in the houses on this side of the street. Maybe they’ll believe what they see.” Lucas started the engine as I hopped in the passenger side. “After all, we didn’t trip the alarm.”

The back door of Staci Grant’s house burst open, just as we drove down the alley.

The guy spoke into a microphone at his wrist. He wasn’t running for his car. “We better hope they don’t have another team waiting.”

“Two car surveillance detail. On a dead woman’s house? What are the odds?” As soon as Lucas completed the turn, he pressed the accelerator down.

“Nonexistent. No one has that kind of budget.” Even the NSA had to answer to Congress for budgetary concerns now. I stripped the white jumpsuit off my arms as Lucas took the turn onto the cobblestone street slowly.

“You pick the damndest places to undress.” Amusement lit his words.

Adrenaline fizzed through me, his mood infectious. “Yeah, that’s me. A total exhibitionist,” I deadpanned.

He let loose a laugh from deep in his belly. Laughter creased his face.

The tires jiggled over the uneven cobblestone.

I leaned over and started unzipping his jumpsuit. “Can’t keep your hands off me.”

“In your dreams,” I said roughly.

“Oh, yeah.” The appreciation and memory in his voice gave me pause.

“We’re going to have to ditch the plates and get rid of the magnet.” Almost at the intersection, I saw what we needed. “Turn into that alley.”

A row of buildings with narrow yards and detached garages bordered the alley.

Lucas swung left. “What now?”

“Over there.” I pointed to an open garage.

Lucas eased the van into the garage. I hopped out, tugged the cord, pulling the old manual door closed with a screech. Hopefully the owners didn’t hear the door close. We didn’t have much time.

I pulled the magnetic signs with Mel’s Window Washing off the van while Lucas switched the magnetic license plates. We moved in concert, stuffing our signs in the back and pulling the white jumpsuits down our legs.

I hopped on one foot, tugging off the suit. Lucas balled his up and tossed it in a wire bin in the back.

I yanked off the white painter’s cap I’d been wearing and clipped it onto the metal grid bolted on the floor and ceiling, then fluffed my dyed hair.

He grabbed another sign from a storage rack like the kind that hold baking sheets.

“That Goth look is growing on me.” He grinned as he slapped up a logo for Artistic Signs on the side of the van. He ran his fingertips lightly along the underside perimeter of the van’s bumper.

I climbed into the rear of the van.

Lucas paused, his hand still on the bumper for a minute.

“What?” I sat up on my knees. “Tracker?”

“No. What are you doing?”

“One of us should get in back.”

He yanked me to him, our hips flush and angled his mouth over mine for a quick, hot kiss. I ripped my mouth from his. “We’ve got to go.”

“Yeah, but I should be in the back.” Lucas yanked up the garage door. He scrambled in back and pushed me through the barrier separating the driving section from the back. “Haul ass.”

I reversed out of the garage and went back the way we came. Waiting for a break in traffic, I watched the cars go by, but no one suspicious passed. We crossed the street with Staci’s rowhouse. With any luck, I’d catch a glimpse of the guy I’d seen outside the house.

But no one was there. And no one was following us. I turned the van sedately onto the cobblestone street and headed for the freeway.

“That was too easy,” Lucas commented, his voice muffled from the barrier of the curtains.

I agreed. “Tracking device?”

“Nothing underneath,” Lucas said.

I turned again, racking my brain for another type of tracking device that could be planted easily. “Still no one following. Any ideas?”

“Not enough time for anything fancier. With the exception of the few minutes we were all in the closet, Jordan or I had the van under constant watch.”

I hesitated. “Can we trust him?”

“No reason not to.” Lucas’s voice was muffled by the curtain. “Maybe they don’t want us.”

“Then who are they waiting for?” The question bugged me. Staci’s impersonator? Staci? Which brought me back to the file with Bella’s name on it. Had Staci tried to recruit Bella? I couldn’t get a handle on the situation. The urge to touch base with Bella, warn her somehow, was incredibly strong.

“Call her.” He shoved his cell phone through the curtains.

“What? Who?”

“Your sister.”

Was he crazy? I couldn’t call her.

“Here’s my cell. Call her.” His disembodied hand waggled the phone at me.

I glanced at the thing as if it were poison. I couldn’t call her. How the hell could he even suggest such a thing?

Because he didn’t know.

“I can’t.” I’d meant the words to come out forceful, direct. But it was a whisper. My hand reached out without my permission to take hold of that phone. I deliberately curled my fingers into a fist. I couldn’t.

“Why not?”

A huge lump grew in my throat. I’d given up the right to see her, talk to her, long ago. “I can’t.”

“Jamie?” I heard the question, the confusion in his voice.

“She thinks I’m dead.”

“Well shit.” Lucas was silent. “Why?”

It was a question I’d never asked. When they had come to me in the hospital, I’d been scared and heartsick with grief. I’d never thought to really question why Bella had to believe I was dead.

“It made sense at the time.”

“Does it make sense now?” Lucas asked gently.

I wasn’t sure anymore. “I...don’t know.”

Lucas climbed through the curtain and slid into the passenger seat. He put his hand on my knee, the gesture ripe with comfort.

I flipped Lucas the papers with the information from Staci Grant’s private files. “Look and see what you can find about Johnny.”

“Here we go.” He rubbed his hands together. Lucas was silent for a moment, then he muttered, “Just his general statistics. Nothing new here.”

“What about recruitment notes?”

“Let me read.”

I kept trying to look over at the papers as we sat stalled in the late afternoon traffic. He skimmed the papers without reading aloud.

“I’m waiting here.”

He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Just read the notes.” I squeezed the steering wheel. I hated feeling impotent, hated just sitting here doing nothing while he scanned through information. I sighed. Information he needed to track down his friend’s son. Although, Johnny/Donald was toast if he hurt Bella. In any way.

“It’s all here. She’s got the MICE acronym and her analysis of what would work best for Johnny.”

Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego–the cornerstones for espionage recruitment. “What did she put in the file?”

She has analysis of each method and Johnny’s personality.

“But she dangled the big carrot. The one that hooked him. Revenge.”

She’d used exactly the same technique Carson had used to recruit me. Exactly. Did they have a damn script?
Son of a bitch
. “What about Bella’s file?”

“Isabella Gertrude Holden.”

I swallowed and wondered if I was really ready to hear what was in Bella’s file.

“Parents: deceased. Mother: Elizabeth Lilly Holden, nee Kaplan, diplomat. Father: Richard no middle name Holden, diplomatic spouse.”

I cleared away the sadness.

“Money. So noted that Bella doesn’t need money.” My heart wrenched. My parents had plenty.

“She inherited her parents’s estate,” I said.

“
Her
parents?” He lifted an eyebrow.

I pressed my lips together. It helped to distance from her even in that little way. “Our parents.”

“Does that bother you?”

“What?”

“Your sister got everything. Money, stuff.”

I shifted my gaze back to traffic. “What am I going to do with money like that?”

“What do you do with your paycheck?” Lucas asked.

“Daily expenses.” So what if a good portion went into an account for Bella? If anything happened to me, she’d have another layer of cushion to take care of her.

“She also inherited her aunt’s, my mother’s sister’s, farm in Virginia. That’s where she went to live after they died.”

“So your sister is loaded.”

I’d never really thought about it that way. She had enough money that I’d never have to worry about her financially.

I shoved away the unpleasant memory of her comments about the day we’d all died, about seeing the car explode.
Nothing years of therapy couldn’t fix.

He looked down at the notes.

“Ideology.” Lucas took a deep breath. “No chance of her having a love for her country. The files says Bella has a distrust of the American government. She blames them for not protecting your family, for allowing their deaths.”

Sorrow pierced my chest. “Compromise?”

Lucas said, “Again nothing fit there.”

The last was ego.

“Ego,” he said calmly. “Ego probably has a better recruitment success rate on guys than girls but Staci seemed to think ego was not the way to play your sister.”

But when I put it all together, fear coalesced. “What was Staci planning to do?” And had someone else taken up her trade?

I must have uttered some sound because Lucas gave me a sharp look. “Where’s the fear for yourself?”

“I can take care of myself.” I dismissed his concern with a wave.

He skimmed through the rest of Bella’s papers. “No contact yet.”

Shit.

Until Lucas confirmed it, I’d held out hope that maybe Staci had been providing some sort of protection for Bella. But the details in the file killed that dream. She had considered trying to recruit my sister.

If Staci wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her myself.

I held onto the words, no contact yet, like a Mecca pilgrim clutching a prayer rug.

I forced myself to move onto the other file we needed to look at. “Can you read the 5491 file?”

“Sure.” Lucas looked at the file while I drove through the streets, turning left and left and left. Watching for tails.

Lucas was silent.

“What’s it say?” I hated not being able to look with my own eyes. Even though I’d retain the information just as well if I listened to it from him, I was still relying on his perceptions, his intonations, and his paraphrasing.

“It’s a chart of names and dates.”

“Read it out loud, please.”

“Brad Johnson, Staci Grant, Jamie Hunt, Luna Sunlight a.k.a. Sunshine, Ezekial Hawthorne, Isabella Holden, Katerina Wolf.” Lucas continued to rattle off names but I’d stopped listening.