Deadly Sins (49 page)

“Ah, yes. I assume Bolton was for my benefit. But you’ve admitted to personal reasons for Cote. So I’m guessing you had a similar excuse for wanting Patterson and Reinbeck dead.”

“Patterson.” Just the mention of the man’s name was enough to have anger flaring. “He and I had a sweet little thing going. I was signed up as a dummy client, and he’d throw information my way about corporate takeovers in the making. I’d buy stock in the company relatively cheap and sell it for double or triple the price. Split the profits with him. But the greedy bastard sold us all down the river when the index funds driven by the commodities bubble he and his ilk created burst. He got off easy.”

He emptied his beer. “As far as Reinbeck . . . have you read his decisions? Judges like that put dirtbags back on the street faster than we can get them in a cage, and call it justice. The country should have given me a medal for that one.”

“Why don’t you meet me? I can deliver the medal myself.”

The temptation was great. The fates had been smiling on Raiker for too long. It’d be sweet to take him out with his own hand. Mulling the possibilities, Shepherd wondered if it could be managed. Or maybe there was a way to set the man up, draw him out while having agents secreted nearby. He’d be the hero then. His career would skyrocket from the hole Hedgelin had buried it in. Hell, he might even end up with the assistant directorship. There
was
a vacancy.

“Maybe that can be arranged. What do you have in mind?”

When there was no answer, he thought for a moment that the man had disconnected. “Raiker. Are you there?”

“No. I’m here.”

Shepherd froze. The voice hadn’t come over the phone. It was right behind him. Whirling, he dove for the counter.

Adam was ready for the move. Unconcerned. The weapon the man kept there had already been emptied. But Shepherd wasn’t after the drawer where he kept his gun. What he was after became clear a moment later.

The lights went out.

Moving backward, Adam slapped a hand on the wall, flipped on the light switch. Nothing. The power had been cut. And the closet where Shepherd had been standing was completely enclosed. While the window in the room allowed enough filtered moonlight for Adam to be highlighted.

He was moving before the first shot fired. Tiny flakes of plaster stung his cheek before he ducked around the doorway. Now he had the same advantage that Shepherd had.

Darkness.

Silence stretched. Shepherd must have drawn a clutch piece. Adam crept several feet to the doorway opposite the room the agent was in. He reached inside his coat pocket. Found the object he was seeking and tossed it in the doorway across the hall to land with a soft thud. Instantly, multiple shots were fired, kicking up splinters of wood flooring. But smoke was filling the small room from the smoke bomb he’d thrown. Shepherd had two ways out. The window or the door.

Adam braced himself. He was betting on the door.

The other man rolled through the opening, firing as he moved. A bullet tore through the Sheetrock. There was a flame of pain in Adam’s arm. He lunged to the other side of the doorjamb, shooting at the rolling target. Shepherd gave a grunt. One of the shots had found its mark. But then the figure was melding with the shadows, crawling along the floor. And the agent had the clear advantage. He knew the house. Adam was the stranger here.

He left the cover of the room and headed into the hallway after the man. Knew immediately it had been a trap. Then Shepherd turned and fired. Adam dove to the ground. Landed on his bad leg. Damaged nerve endings sent up a chorus of agony. He rolled to his stomach, stretched his arms out in front of him, and emptied his gun.

And this time the huddled mass on the floor didn’t move again.

Dizziness crowded his vision. An answering hum was in his ears. With difficulty Adam crawled to the wall and struggled to a sitting position, his weapon still trained on Shepherd. With his free hand he pulled out his cell phone. Paulie and Kell burst in the back door an instant after he sent them the predetermined signal.

“Check Shepherd.”

Paulie kicked the weapon out of the man’s loosened grip and knelt down next to him. “Breathing,” he announced. “Barely. I’ll get an ambulance. Some first aid here, Burke.”

A small penlight snapped on as Kell bent over the agent’s body. A moment later he was shrugging out of his coat, making a compress to press against the wound. After a few minutes Kell looked up and turned the light on Adam. “You’re bleeding, boss.”

The words seemed to come from a distance. “Yeah. Jaid isn’t going to be very happy about that.”

“ You owe us. All of you.” The truculence in Ryne Robel’s tone was offset by his wry smile. “You get in on a code eight while we’re doing legwork on Lambert in Ohio. You know how long I’m going to have to wait for another code eight?”

“Hopefully forever,” Adam said dryly.

Silently, Jaid agreed. They were having a celebration of sorts, having just gotten the main site for Raiker Forensics operational again. But there was a sense of déjà vu in the scene. The table Adam’s operatives were gathered around might be littered with sandwich wrappers, but it reminded her a bit of the time spent hunched over a similar table at the temporary site.

Trying to come up with a way to keep Adam alive.

The look she sent his way was meant to be surreptitious. Although the bullet had passed through his arm without hitting anything major, it’d bled profusely. The Kevlar she’d insisted he wear had left his head and limbs unprotected. But she was hoping this would be the last time that she’d have to worry about someone shooting at him.

Abbie Robel caught her eye, a slight smile on her lips. Jaid had just met her and her husband, but she didn’t think there was much that got by the very pregnant forensic psychologist. Not Jaid’s worry about Adam.

And certainly not the cause of it.

Her attention was caught by the rise in voices among the operatives, each of them striving to outdo the other as they filled the Robels in on what they’d missed.

“Yeah, okay, Paulie and Gavin hacking in to TKM Security System’s mainframe helped,” Kell allowed, his arm stretched along the back of Macy’s chair, his fingers playing lightly with his fiancée’s hair. “But I still disabled the system. In thirty seconds flat on the first try when we did the scouting mission. I made Paulie time me.”

“Honestly.” Macy gave Paulie a commiserating glance. “He does that. He’s like a twelve-year-old.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Samuels waved dismissively. “I’m the one who swept Shepherd’s place for listening devices and cameras. And disabled them, I might add. And added our own. Your part was little more than a locksmith, Burke.”

“Uh, and who discovered the information about what security system Shepherd was using?” Risa chimed in. “Nate and I did the intelligence gathering while you glory hogs take all the credit.”

“I found the TracFone for Adam to call,” Kell pointed out.

“Hey, Zach and I drove the truck and got the DC Water uniforms for you two to wear for your cover,” Dev drawled. “Pretty good for a couple rank amateurs.”

Abbie put in, “But what’s the word from the feds? Were they satisfied with the recording of that phone conversation between Shepherd and Adam?”

“Coupled with what they found on his computers and in his office, yeah,” Ramsey put in. She reached over and snuck a couple of her husband’s fries. “They’ve got bank books to overseas accounts. Evidence that his was the computer sending the e-mails to Lambert. And with Paulie’s help they’ll soon be tracking the path Shepherd’s finances took, with money ending up in overseas accounts set up for Dodge, Ferrell, and Tweed. There’s enough evidence to convict him twice over. He probably would have rather died from his injuries than end up imprisoned for the rest of his life.”

Feeling Adam’s gaze on her, Jaid looked up. And catching the barely perceptible tilt of his head, she waited a few minutes after he’d let himself out of the room before following him, unaware of the knowing glances passed around the room she exited.

She found him outside the building, his head tipped back as if trying to catch a wintry ray of sunlight. It was chilly enough to have her buttoning her coat as she went to join him where he leaned against the building.

“I finally heard from Jerry,” he said abruptly. “He’s having a tough time dealing with the cardinal’s death, but I think he’ll be okay. Maybe not unchanged.” His expression was brooding. “But none of us skate through things like this unscathed.”

“What about Mary Jo Reinbeck?” Jaid knew the woman had called him earlier. He’d been on the phone with her for a long time.

“The funeral’s tomorrow. She wants to talk to Lambert. Despite his culpability in this whole thing, she’s got some sympathy for how Shepherd used him. When it comes time for sentencing, I think he’s got a valuable ally.”

Jaid didn’t know the woman but thought she must be empathetic indeed to forgive the part the young man had ended up playing in her husband’s death, even if it had been unwillingly.

“And I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Royce.”

She blinked. They weren’t the words she’d expected to hear from him. “It concerns me that Bolton spoke to Shepherd about him. I don’t trust the man not to try something from prison. If he thinks he can make one of us suffer, that would be plenty of motivation for him.”

Anxiety surged. She looked in the distance. Her son would be home in another two days. And she still couldn’t be sure that he was safe.

But she should have realized Adam wasn’t done. “Sometimes the best way to protect a secret is to remove the reason for it.” His expression was somber. “This afternoon I’ll put everyone on your father’s past. Figure out what he and Royce’s mother were involved in and, more importantly, who might still harbor a grudge over it. When we know that, we can neutralize the threat.”

His voice was assured, as if he didn’t even contemplate failure. And it eased something inside her. “Mother still can’t know. She’d never be able to handle the fact that she’s helping raise her ex-husband’s child.” Jaid’s smile flickered. Disappeared. “She isn’t the forgiving sort.”

His gaze was bright blue. Unswervingly intense. “Did she pass that trait on to her daughter?” Jaid’s breath caught. Held. Her eyes searched his. “It’s a bit humbling to discover that I’ve been fooling myself all these years. Thinking that carving you from my life could also mean extricating the feelings I had for you. In all I’ve experienced, the most frightening was the hold you had on me. The hold you still have, whether you’re in my life or not.”

Emotion thudded in her chest, flooded her heart. But still she said nothing. Whatever their relationship had been in the past, if they were to go on, it’d be a new kind of partnership. One of equals. There was no equality where one felt more than the other.

“You have to wonder about a man who takes as long as I have to recognize what was right in front of me.” The uncertainty in his expression, when it was usually so sure, made something inside her go soft. “I thought what I felt for you made me weak. But it was weakness that had me driving you away the first time. What I need to know is if it was for good.”

She looked at him. Saw what was in his heart but so rarely in his expression. “I can be pretty hard to shake.”

Something eased in his face then. His arm reached out to snag her around the waist. Bring her close. “I won’t be finding that out on my own. I intend to keep the woman I love pretty close to my side.”

Her lips curved, even as her pulse jittered. And when his mouth lowered to hers, she whispered against his lips, “Just try to get rid of me.”