In Too Deep (29 page)

“She’s not an investigator—she’s just a finder-talent,” Julian muttered. “A technician.”

“Who is now a full-fledged investigator at J&J,” Fallon concluded.

Isabella picked up a flashlight and aimed the beam at Julian’s battered face. “What’s this all about Julian? What kind of operation were you running? And what really happened to Caitlin Phillips?”

Julian said nothing.

Fallon turned thoughtful. “I think you were right, Isabella. There was something going on inside Department A. Garrett and Caitlin Phillips were running a small, private arms-dealing operation. They had a buyer for the mirror, but I doubt that it was one of Lucan’s black-ops clients. They set up the deal with the broker, Sloan, who chose the mansion as the drop point. But things fell apart when Sloan got shot before he could tell Garrett and Phillips where he had hidden the mirror. So they went looking for you.”

“At that point you knew that you would need the resources of Lucan’s company to find me, didn’t you, Julian? And once you did grab me, you knew you would need my full cooperation. That wasn’t likely as long as Lucan and everyone else thought I was guilty of arms dealing. So you changed your story to point the finger of blame at poor Caitlin Phillips. You killed her, didn’t you? You planted evidence in her house to make Lucan believe that she was the guilty party.”

“Have fun weaving your little conspiracy fantasy,” Julian said. “You can’t prove a damn thing. The worst you can do is get me fired.”

“No,” Fallon said. “That’s not actually the worst thing I can do.”

“We both know you’re not going to murder me in cold blood and dump my body.” Julian managed a hoarse chuckle. “Give me a break—J&J doesn’t work that way.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Isabella warned.

Fallon raised his brows. “We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?”

“Well, yes,” she grumbled. “But we decided that there are exceptions to every rule, remember? And Julian constitutes a really big exception if you ask me.”

“He is, but as it happens, Garrett isn’t our problem. Max Lucan hired him. He can terminate his own employees. No reason we should do his job for him.”

Julian went very still. “It will be your word against mine.”

Fallon’s smile widened. “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? Go on, get out of here.”

Julian looked flummoxed. “What the hell are you trying to pull, Jones?”

“You’re right. I can’t prove a thing, so get lost while I’m still in a good mood.”

Julian scrambled to his feet. “What happens to the mirror?”

“It goes back to its rightful owner.”

Julian grimaced. “Guess I should have seen that coming.”

He half loped, half limped down the hall and disappeared around a corner. Isabella drummed her fingers on the side of the door frame.

“I really hate to see him go free like that,” she said. “It’s not right.”

“Maybe not,” Fallon said. With one hand he pulled a pristine handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his cheek. He used his other hand to take out his phone. “But letting him run might give us the answer to one lingering question.”

Isabella speared the flashlight at Fallon. Blood glistened on his jaw and dripped down the front of his jacket.

“You’re
bleeding
,” she wailed.

He looked down at the handkerchief. “Yeah.”

She rushed to him, took the handkerchief from his hand and gently blotted up more of the blood.

“You need to sit down,” she ordered. “You could go into shock.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He started to bend down to pick up the mirror but stopped midway, groaning a little, and gingerly reached inside his jacket.

“I’ll get it,” Isabella said quickly.

“Thanks.” Fallon spoke into the phone. “He’s running. Don’t lose him. He’s injured and will probably seek medical help. Don’t interfere. Just keep an eye on him until one of Lucan’s people takes over.”

He ended the call and punched in another number. “Max? Jones here. Isabella was right about everything. Looks like Caitlin Phillips is most likely dead. She was Garrett’s partner, but he needed another fall guy after he realized he required Isabella’s help to locate the artifact. What is it? The Quicksilver Mirror. Yeah. Worth a fortune in some quarters. We’ve got it and Garrett is running. I’ve got a hunter following him until you can get someone on it. I’ll give you the whole story tomorrow. What? Of course we’ll send you our bill.”

He closed the phone.

Isabella picked up the mirror and took Fallon’s arm to steady him, although he did not seem to be wobbly. She drew him carefully down the staircase.

“What’s the one lingering question?” she asked.

“The name of the person who commissioned the Quicksilver Mirror.”

“You let Julian run because you want to know the identity of his buyer.”

“Well, that plus the fact that there wasn’t anything else I could do with him except try to convince the local cops that he’s guilty of breaking and entering and something tells me that wouldn’t fly.”

“But Garrett doesn’t have the mirror to sell now. Why would he contact the buyer?”

“He might not,” Fallon said. “But I’m thinking there’s a high probability that the buyer will contact him.”

“Why?”

“Because we are not going to let it be known that Arcane recovered the mirror,” Fallon said patiently. “That will be our little secret.”

A cold thrill of comprehension swept through Isabella. “You think that the buyer will believe he’s been double-crossed. That Julian has sold the mirror to someone else.”

“It’s been my experience that not only is there no honor among thieves, but there’s also not a hell of a lot of trust or mutual affection, either. What’s more, that type tends to be vindictive.”

“One more thing. You said the mirror is going back to the rightful owner.”

“Yes.”

“Who is that?”

“The Arcane Society. The Quicksilver Mirror was stolen from one of the museums.”

“Oh, geez. That raises some troubling questions doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Fallon said.

C
aitlin Phillips’s body was found buried in her own backyard,” Max Lucan said. “Looks like she was drugged and then strangled. Garrett has gone to ground in a third-rate motel outside of Sacramento. I’ve got a team on him. I’ll let you know if he contacts anyone or if someone attempts to contact him.”

“Don’t let the disgruntled customer get to them first,” Fallon warned.

“In spite of recent evidence to the contrary,” Max said, “my people do know what they’re doing.”

“Too bad
you
didn’t know what they were doing,” Isabella said.

Fallon looked at her. “Play nice, Isabella. We need Max’s help at the moment.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, all right.”

Max raised his brows at Fallon. “Vindictive, isn’t she?”

“Not usually,” Fallon said. “But this particular situation is a little different.”

It was the day after the events at the mansion. The three of them were sitting in the executive suite of Lucan Protection Services. It occurred to Isabella that although she had worked for Lucan for nearly six months, she had never been in Max Lucan’s office. Her career path was clearly trending upward. When you worked for J&J, you got some respect.

She had not been keen on the idea of coming face-to-face with her former boss on his own turf, but Fallon had said that it was important for her to be seen in the company of the president and
CEO
. It was, he claimed, the quickest and most efficient way of dispelling any lingering gossip about her. She knew he was right, but it made her uneasy. A lot of people were now aware of her real name, she thought. Her life was getting complicated. Then, again, maybe that was what happened when you finally got a life of your very own.

“Garrett and Phillips were running their little side business out of Department A,” Max said. “Looks like it was going on for damn near a year. They were obtaining weapons-grade paranormal artifacts and selling them to buyers on the black market. Orville Sloan was the broker who handled the arrangements.”

“They had to be very careful because they knew that your company has an agreement with Arcane,” Fallon said.

“Any devices or antiquities that appear to be potentially dangerous must first be evaluated by one of the Society’s labs,” Isabella stated. “If they are found to be weapons-grade, they must be dismantled or rendered inoperable. If that is not possible, the artifacts go into cold storage in a secure vault until such time as the techs can figure out how to de-energize them.”

Both men looked at her. She gave them her most charming smile.

“Sorry if I’m lecturing,” she said sweetly. “But you deserve it, Mr. Lucan. You actually thought I was the one behind the illegal arms sales. How could you believe such a thing?”

Max fixed her with a considering expression. “Maybe because you ran?”

“I ran because I found those files on my computer and I knew I’d been set up.”

“You should have come directly to me.”

“Oh, yeah, like you would have believed me instead of Julian.”

“And maybe I liked you for the dealer, because of all the people I’ve got working in Department A, you’re the one with the talent to pull it off,” Max said.

“So my talent made me look good for the part of the bad guy, is that it?”

“It was certainly a major factor.”

She thought about that. “Okay, that’s a much better reason.”

Fallon’s eyes gleamed with amusement but he said nothing.

“There was also the fact that you were a relatively new hire,” Max continued. “You’d been here less than six months. And when I pulled your personnel file, I got a real queasy feeling.”

She was incensed. “What was wrong with my file? It was perfect.”

“A little too perfect,” Max said. “Trying to track down your previous employers or close relatives turned out to be impossible. It was as if you were a ghost.”

“Good description,” Fallon said. “I ran into the same problem when I hired her.”

Isabella gave him her most repressive glare.

“On the other hand, Garrett and Phillips had been working for me for a few years and had an impressive track record,” Max continued. “In addition, they were very convincing. When Caitlin vanished under suspicious circumstances and Garrett made a production out of finding the record of the last deal with Sloan, I gave Garrett everything he needed to track you down.”

“All he cared about was recovering the mirror,” Isabella said. “After that he probably planned to pull the plug on his career at Lucan and disappear with the artifact.”

“I may have to rethink my employee benefits program,” Max said. “Clearly I’m not offering a competitive salary package. I’ve lost three high-level talents this month. You, Phillips and Garrett.”

Isabella glared. “That is not amusing, Mr. Lucan.”

“You have my most sincere apologies,” Max said.

“Fat lot of good that would have done me if I hadn’t had J&J watching my back.”

Fallon stirred ever so slightly. “I think it would be a good idea if we all stay focused here. Is there a drug lord involved in this thing?”

“No,” Max said. “Looks like Julian embellished that story a bit. But a certain black-ops agency did pick up the rumors of the artifact and asked Lucan to try to get it off the market.”

“Well, Julian certainly had a client,” Isabella said. “And I doubt very much that it was a spy agency.”

“We’re still waiting for him to come out of the woodwork,” Max assured her. “Don’t worry, if and when he shows up, we’ll grab him.”

“Surely you have a list of possible suspects,” she said.

“We do,” Max said. “We’re checking it, trust me.”

“For heaven’s sake, how many collectors would be interested in old weapons infused with paranormal properties?”

Max and Fallon looked at each other. Fallon shrugged. So did Max.

Isabella sighed. “Okay, more than a handful, I take it.”

“You’d be surprised,” Max said.

“We’ve got two problems,” Fallon said. “We need to find both the client and whoever was supplying Phillips and Garrett with the para-weapons.” He looked at Max. “I take it that you didn’t come up with anything helpful on Sloan’s computer?”

“My people are still digging but so far nothing,” Max said. “Sloan was a very careful man. Which makes me wonder who got to him.”

“Given the timing of his death, I’m thinking whoever was supplying him with the para-guns was the one who shot him,” Fallon said.

“Really?” Isabella asked, fascinated.

Max frowned. “Hadn’t thought about that possibility.”

“But why would the person who was obtaining the weapons want to ice the broker?” Isabella asked. “And why kill him before the mirror sale was completed. Seems to me the supplier needed Sloan just as much as Caitlin and Julian did.”

“That may have changed,” Fallon said. “Arms dealing is a dangerous line of work. Lot of tough competition. We can assume that the supplier concluded that he no longer needed Sloan and that the broker had become a liability.”

“Sloan was the one person with a direct connection to the supplier,” Max said. “With the broker out of the picture, there is no one who can identify the person who provided the weapons to him. I agree with you, Fallon. Sloan’s death was no coincidence. The supplier was severing all connections in preparation for firing up a new business arrangement.”

“But what about the mirror?” Isabella said. “It was worth a lot of money and it was good as lost in the Vantara mansion.”

“Looks like in the grand scheme of things, the mirror was no longer important,” Fallon said. “The loss of the artifact was minor collateral damage.”

Max leaned back in his chair. “Which makes you wonder what the supplier’s new business arrangements look like.”

“Yes,” Fallon said. “It does. It also makes you wonder what he plans to sell next.”

Isabella shivered. “Whoever it is must think he can make a lot more money with his new partners than he could with Caitlin and Julian.”

Fallon contemplated Max. “Keeping an eye on Garrett and identifying the client who commissioned him to acquire the mirror is your problem. You know the paranormal black market better than anyone, including me. The supplier, however, is a J&J problem.”