Hard As Ice (Fortis Series 1) (21 page)

She looked away, feeling nauseous.

“Okay, let’s get on it, team. We have a limited amount of time before our culprit realizes the attack on Nia was unsuccessful,” stated
Ice.

The other agents started moving toward the door to the connected suite.

“Wait, what happens now?” Nia demanded, standing up.

Michael turned back to her.

“Now we close in. Something that you’ve uncovered is the missing link so we just need to connect the dots,” he told her.

“What about me? Should I be doing something?” she asked, looking back and forth between her boss and the young agent.

“All you need to do is stay here and relax. Have something to eat,” Michael advised. “Mr. Worthington has told the office that you’ve been called away for an urgent client negotiation. So you cannot contact anyone there for any reason.”

She nodded with acceptance.

“Can I call anyone else? I had plans to meet my friend Lianne after work. I need to let her know I won’t be able to make it.”

Michael looked over at Ice, who was still in the room. The other man nodded.

“Okay, only her. We might need someone to get some clothes and things from your apartment. Could she do that?” asked Michael.

“Yes. She has my spare key.”

“Good. Then have her pack a bag for you with enough stuff for a few days and bring it here. One of us will meet her in the lobby.”

“Can I tell her what’s going on?” she questioned. “I don’t know how else to explain being stuck in a hotel room, watched by a security team under lock and key. I promise she won’t say anything to anyone else. Lianne is a professional therapist. She knows how to keep a secret.”

Michael looked at Ice again for approval and got the brief nod.

Nia let out a sigh of relief and turned away from the men.

“Mr. Worthington, if you have a moment, you can join our debriefing meeting for an overview of what we have planned next,” stated Ice, then he and Michael joined the others in the next room.

“Are you okay?”

She turned back to her boss, the only other person still in the room.

“I don’t know, to be honest. This is all too much,” Nia admitted.

“Do you need anything?” he asked, clearly and genuinely concerned.

“No. I just want this whole thing over and resolved,” she mumbled. “Do you think we’ll still be able to get the pieces back whole?”

“Fortis seems to think so. So we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed. If not, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there.”

She nodded looking down at her bare feet. But something else was also bothering her and she could not hold back the question.

“Edward, did you know about Evan DaCosta’s role in all this?”

“What do you mean? I just met him today as the lead partner,” he replied. “Most of my conversations have been with one of the other partners in Virginia, Lucas Johnson. Why?”

“Nothing,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand. There would be plenty of time to explain everything later.

Then it occurred to her that the DaCosta account might also be sham, a contract not worth the paper it was typed on. Nia covered her mouth as she thought back to the first moment she met Evan DaCosta, and every tender and intimate moment they had shared since, until the magnitude of his deception almost choked her.

Thankfully, Edward departed within a few minutes, leaving her alone to call her best friend and explain what had become of her life.

Chris Morton had disappeared. By two-thirty that afternoon, their surveillance of the Worthington gallery and office showed he had left the premises with no word of where he was going and had not been seen since.

Raymond’s analysis of cell phone usage provided another link. Morton’s work phone had almost no personal calls, while his cell activity during the day was higher than normal, and mostly to one number. It was another cell phone with no contact information attached. A disposable cell phone.

Fortis finally had their inside man for the heist. To recover the jewels, they only had to tie all the other evidence back to Chris Morton.

The first thing to consider was Matt Flannigan’s girlfriend, Jennifer Coombs. Morton’s phone records also revealed several attempts to reach Coombs in the week after Matt’s murder. It aligned with the conversation Nia had overheard, and it prompted Evan to send Tony to stake her out, while Raymond pulled everything they could find on her actions since her boyfriend was killed. While the team agreed it was unlikely that Flannigan would have left the money or the jewels behind when he was skipping town, they still needed to know what Morton was trying to get back. It was too loose a thread not to tie off.

The second thing still missing was the money trail. While Morton’s local bank account was overdrawn, Raymond couldn’t find any suspicious transactions, or any sign of an off-shore account. That suggested he either still had possession of the goods, or he had been paid in cash.

As for the dead assailant, a federal database search of his fingerprints showed he was a hired gun, known to operate locally, and loosely associated with organized crime activities. The cell phone found on his body only led to other untraceable phones, with no connection back to Morton.

“I think we still need to use our carrot,” Michael stated.

It was late on Thursday, and the team was finally able to regroup. Evan had asked Carlos, the hotel concierge, to order in the best pizza in town, and they were now devouring four boxes of deep dish, cheese- and meat-laden pies in the control room.

“Our plan from last week? With Nia?” Evan asked between chews.

“Yeah. We need to root out the broker,” the young agent continued. “We know he operates out of hotels, according to Spencer. So let’s go hire him.”

“Shit!” muttered Raymond. “Carlos.”

The other two looked at him.

“If you want something at a hotel, something you can’t find yourself, who do you call?” he prompted.

“The concierge,” Evan stated, wiping sloppy tomato sauce off his fingers with a napkin. “Makes sense.”

“What are we going to ask for?” Michael asked. “It has to be something expensive, worth the effort. Illegal, but not something that will make anyone skittish, right? What were you going to plant with Nia last week, Ice?”

“Rare Cuban cigars,” replied Evan, realizing how much had changed in just a few days. “I told her that there was an antique humidor in my dad’s collection that I wanted to keep. I was going to stock it with Cohiba Esplendidos.”

“Nice. Black market, but innocent,” Michael added with an approving grin.

“Yeah, but it won’t get much attention if we’re going after Walsh directly,” Evan advised.

“And we should stay away from jewelry or art. Anything that could be easily associated with the auction world,” recommended Raymond.

“Scotch,” Evan stated suddenly. “George Clement is obsessed with it. At the event at the Vineyard, he talked about the most expensive bottles worth over one hundred thousand dollars.”

“You’re shitting me!” Michael exclaimed.

“I shit you not, my friend,” Evan shot back with a quick smile.

“A hundred g’s for a few glasses of whiskey?”

Raymond was back at the computer, his now clean hands flying across the keys.

“How about one worth over ten thousand dollars,” he suggested to the team, looking at the info pulled up on the screen. “There are a few bottles of a rare fifty-five-year-old Macallan in the city. Sounds like the kind of gig that our Walsh would be into.”

“We’ll ask for one at a discount, like half price. If they take the order, we’ll know Walsh and whoever he works with will steal it.”

“And if they actually deliver the bottle, we have them for possession of stolen goods, and enough to squeeze out some intel on Walsh, then from Walsh on the buyer.”

The men looked at each other, letting the idea marinate, searching for holes.

“Boys, it looks like we have a plan. We’ll start with our friend Carlos downstairs. Then we’ll fan out from there. There’s probably twenty luxury hotels in downtown Boston.”

“Thirty-two to be exact,” Raymond threw in with a grin. “I’ll start making room reservations.”

The team continued to fine-tune the strategy while finishing the pizza.

Evan should have been elated. After only sixteen days, he was on the verge of wrapping up his first mission with Fortis. After eight months of recovery and change, he finally felt back in his comfort zone, doing what he was good at. The leadership and orchestration of a complicated investigation felt familiar, and there was the eager anticipation of the safe and secure recovery of the assets. That day should have been a good one.

It wasn’t. It was hell.

He was focused, composed, and committed to getting the job done. But only because he had to be. The alternative was not an option. If he stopped to think about the woman in the other room, vulnerable and betrayed, he wouldn’t be able to leave her side regardless of how angry she was at him. So, he stayed at the helm of his operation, holding on to the sense that his actions had been worth it. The ends had justified the means, and with enough time and discussion, once the whole thing was over, Nia would eventually accept that.

Lianne Bloom arrived at the hotel before six o’clock that evening with a bag packed from Nia’s apartment. Though the sound was turned off, the security feed from the living area of his hotel suite was still connected, displayed on one of the computer screens in the control room. Evan tried not to be distracted, but caught the occasional glimpse of the two women as they moved around the space.

Nia had changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt soon after her friend arrived. Then they had sat in the living room talking. From her gestures and agitated movements, Evan was fairly certain he was the topic of some of the conversation, and not in a good way.

It was almost midnight when the local Fortis team packed it in for the day, leaving Raymond to monitor the progress of the investigation through the night. Evan went back into his suite where Nia was now alone. Lianne had left a couple of hours earlier. He knew she was in the bedroom, and tapped on the door. There was no answer, but the light was definitely on. He tried the door handle. It was locked.

“Nia,” he called softly, knocking again.

“Go away, Evan.”

“Open the door, Nia. I want to give you an update on the investigation.”

He heard movement, then the door opened barely more than a crack.

“Fine. But in the future, I’d appreciate if you would send Michael or someone else,” she demanded in a cool voice.

“Look, I know you’re upset—”

“Upset? Upset doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel,
Ice.
”

He clenched his teeth at the name.

“I get it. You have every right to be angry, but let’s just talk—”

“Are you serious right now? You want to talk? I don’t even know who you are, so unless you’re going to tell me what’s happened with Chris and the situation at Worthington, we have nothing to discuss.”

Evan took a deep breath. After the day she’d had, he expected this reaction. He’d be patient with her, give her time and she’d come around.

“Okay. Open the door and I’ll tell you what we know.”

“No, you can tell me from right where you are.”

His patience slipped. He felt the need to see her, be close to her, reconnect even through her anger. How was he going to fix things if she refused to even be in the same room with him?

“I’m not talking to you like this, so either you let me in now or you can wait until tomorrow to find out where we are.”

It took a few seconds, but the door swung open and she walked to the other side of the room next to the window. It was a small victory but he took it, following her inside.

“I’m waiting,” she snapped, arms folded across her chest.

Evan clenched his teeth at her tone, but spent a few minutes telling her the latest information about Morton’s disappearance. They would find him, and it wouldn’t be long before the whole thing was wrapped up.

“Do you know where Chris is?” she asked quietly.

“No, not yet. Which is why we need you to stay here for the time being. We have to assume that Morton was behind the attempt today and the hit and run last week. Which means he’s dangerous and capable of anything.”

Nia nodded with understanding. Silence filled the space for several moments. Evan used the opportunity to drink in her presence. She had changed into an oversized cotton nightshirt that fell to her midthigh. It felt like forever since he had held her, kissed her, seen her laugh, yet it was only that morning. The idea that he might never do so again was now unimaginable.

“Nia, let me explain this whole thing,” he finally implored.

“I’m not an idiot,
Ice.
I kind of put the whole thing together myself. I’ve had hours to work it out. So please save both of us the trouble,” she countered. “You had a job to do, and you accomplished your goal.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he protested, stepping forward.

“It was exactly like that and you know it.”

“Nia.”

She cut him off with the slice of her hand through the air.

“I’m curious; how did you think this conversation was going to go? I mean, you must have known it would come to this eventually,” she reasoned, sounding detached and analytical. “Or maybe not. Maybe, the plan was to just end things once you got what you needed from me. Say thanks for the good times and just move on.”

Evan hung his head, ashamed that she was able to sum up one of the exit strategies so succinctly.

“I was going to tell you,” he claimed.

“What?” She laughed, a dry humorless rumble. “Why? What could you have possibly hoped to achieve,
Ice?
”

“My name is Evan. Evan DaCosta,” he finally snapped.

“Thanks for the confirmation. Good to know.”

She turned away, shaking her head sarcastically.

“I wanted you to understand why things started the way they did between us,” he finally explained. “But it doesn’t change anything else, Nia. Not really.”

She turned back to him, the look on her face incredulous.

“You can’t be serious,” Nia whispered. “It changes everything.”

Evan closed the gap between them, ignoring her look of alarm as he stepped in front of her. He wanted so badly to touch her, remove this invisible barrier between them.

“No it doesn’t,” he insisted.

“Damn it! You slept with me to find out if I’m a thief!” she yelled, poking him in his chest.

“That’s not what happened and you know it, Nia!”

“That’s exactly what it was. So own it,
Evan.
Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Mission accomplished. But don’t patronize me by watering it down,” she jeered.

“You have no clue what you’re talking about. There were plenty of ways to get information out of you without sex, Nia. And I’m very good at all of them,” Evan shot back.

“Great, so it was just a perk? Something to keep you entertained on the job?”

“Stop it,” he demanded, gripping her shoulders and giving her a small shake.

“Let go of me!” she screamed, pulling back.

Evan released her immediately and turned away. His heart was racing as he struggled to get it together. His throat tightened up from the growing lump squeezing against his windpipe.

“I screwed up,” he whispered. “I wanted you. Yes, I had a job to do. I needed to get close, find out if you were involved. But the minute I saw you, I wanted you. It was never part of the plan, Nia.”

The seconds ticked away as he waited for her to say something. Anything.

“So you took what you wanted, regardless of the lies you had to tell me.”

“What lies? Yes, I withheld some details related to the case, but everything else was true. Everything important was real,” he emphasized, turning back to face her.

“Really? Like taking over your dad’s company?” she snapped back with disbelief.

“True. It’s temporary until I confirm a new CEO, then I’ll take a place on the board,” he explained.

“Your contract with me to sell the collection you inherited.”

“Absolutely.”

“And your job overseas? You want me to believe that while selling defense contracts, you also learned how to kill a professional hit man by snapping his neck?”

That one was complicated.

“That’s what my résumé says and what my mother knows. Anything different doesn’t exist.”

“Wow, no secrets there,” Nia retorted, throwing her hands up.

“Christ, Nia!” he cursed, bowing his head with frustration.

“Don’t try to manipulate me, Evan,” she shot back, refusing to bend even a little. “Nothing important was real. It was all built on a stack of deceit.”

“No,” he countered. “For the first time in my life, it was all real. Don’t you see, the job was a lie, but you and I were true.”

She closed her eyes as though blocking him out. He was starting to see that he wasn’t getting through to her. What if he couldn’t? What if whatever they had shared was damaged for good? Evan tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. The lump was too big.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered, sounding tired.