Silent Pursuit (13 page)

Stepping inside the warm area, they followed the guard through a series of short halls, arriving at a tastefully decorated office. Stan Holcombe sat at his computer but immediately stood when he saw his visitors. A tall man in his early
sixties, he exuded competence and a genuinely friendly smile that instantly put Gina at ease. Clear green eyes twinkled down at her as they exchanged introductions.

She asked him, “Did you know Mario?”

“No, ma'am, I can't say I had the pleasure. Now, if you'll just show me some form of identification and sign this admission form, we'll get started.”

Gina signed the paper, then pulled her license from her purse and handed it over to him.

He picked up a paper from his desk and compared the two signatures. “Gina Santino. Excellent. If you'll follow me, I'll take you right to the safe-deposit box and you can conduct your business.”

“Thank you.” They followed the man down another hallway and came to the room. Anticipation jumped inside Gina as Mr. Holcombe headed for the door that would allow access to whatever it was Mario had deemed important enough to hide in a bank. Yet, she felt confused, too. She'd never signed the papers to rent the box, so why was her name listed as a renter? And even more weird, why did the signatures match?

Chilled, even though the room was warm, she rubbed her arms.

Oh, Mario…

As soon as the banker was out of sight, she turned to Ian. “Mario must have forged my name on those papers.”

Lips tight, he nodded. “That's what I figured, too, when I realized your name was on them.”

“I can't believe he did that…. He forged my name and actually got away with it!”

“He was a Ranger, Gina. You'd be surprised with what we can get away with.” He didn't sound particularly proud of that, more like he was simply stating a fact.

“So he opened it three days before he died. That means he acted as soon as he realized he was in trouble—and that he needed to find a way to protect you.”

She shuddered. Sympathy flashed across his face and he pulled her to him in a spontaneous hug. Grateful, she leaned into his strength, taking comfort in his presence.

Then Mr. Holcombe was back, setting the box onto the table in front of them. “You have your key?”

“Of course.” Gina fumbled for the locket. Once again, Ian helped her remove it. The banker said nothing as Ian pulled the key from its hiding place, his placid demeanor implying he'd seen it all. One more weird couple in his bank was nothing to raise his brows over. Instead, he pulled the guard key from his pocket and motioned for Gina to go first.

Taking the key from Ian, she placed it in the designated slot and twisted it. Faintly she heard the tumblers inside release. The banker then inserted his and did the same.

The box was unlocked.

A
fter Stan Holcombe left the room, Ian looked at Gina. She stood staring at the box as though it contained a poisonous snake. “Are you all right?”

“I'm scared to open it. Just like the chest in my cellar—I guess I want to know so bad and yet…I don't.”

“Do you want me to?”

She hauled in a deep breath and reached out to touch the box. “No, I guess not. Now or never, huh?”

With shaking fingers she lifted the lid.

And stared.

Ian looked over her shoulder. A single sheet of drawing paper, about twelve by eighteen in size and covered in strange markings, was the only thing in the box.

With shaking fingers, she reached in and pulled it out. It had been folded a number of times, then stretched out flat on the bottom of the box. “That's it?”

“It means something,” he reassured her. “Mario wouldn't have put it in there if it didn't.”

“But how am I supposed to figure it out?” She pulled out a chair and slumped into it, still staring at the paper. With a growl of frustration, she slapped it on the table. “Why did he have to make this so difficult? What's the point?”

Ian slipped into the chair beside her and took her hand. The tears shimmering in her bottomless dark eyes rocked him. She wasn't used to this kind of thing. Her nice, orderly life had been shaken to the core. For him, this was business as usual—if one didn't count the fact that the woman he loved was in danger and he didn't seem to be getting any closer to catching the guys who wanted to hurt her. “It's going to be all right, Gina. And the only point I can think of is that Mario thought it best. He was taking extra measures to protect you.”

She swiped her eyes. “I know, I know. Sorry. Guess I just needed to whine a moment.”

Ian brought her hand up and kissed her knuckles. “You're entitled.”

Face flushed, she pulled her hand from his and gave a jittery laugh. “Well, let me look at this for a bit.”

Mentally, Ian gave himself a kick. What'd he go and do that for? He watched her and decided she didn't seem to mind too much. Encouraged, he scooted a little closer to see the paper even as he examined his heart.

Yes, he still loved Gina. Now more than ever.

Did he feel guilty that he was picturing a future together with Gina once all this was over? Assuming they made it through alive?

Yes, he did.

He moved his chair back a bit.
Sorry, Mario.

And yet, Mario was dead. He'd loved Gina. Surely he wouldn't want her to mourn him forever. Would he?

Not the Mario Ian had once known, but it looked like Ian hadn't known the man as well as he'd thought.

His phone rang.

Mac.

He looked at Gina, who'd raised her head at the sound. He said, “I'll just be over here. Go ahead and keep doing what you're doing.”

She nodded and Ian headed to the other side of the room, clicking open his phone. “What do you have for me, Mac?”

“Mario was undercover. I've figured that out. Only he was undercover on his own. I don't know what he was working on. All the unit guys are being tight-lipped but are admitting that Mario was being a rogue, going off on his own.”

“Great.” Ian sighed and looked at the ceiling.
Mario, how could you be so stupid?

Or was it stupidity? Ian had a feeling Mario had acted the way he had because he felt as though he didn't have a choice. Because he didn't trust his guys.

Mac said, “His grandmother left him a tidy sum of money and that farm out in the country, but as far as I know he never set foot there once she died.”

“Huh.”

“And, uh…”

“What?”

“I've got some pictures.”

“Of?” Cold dread curled in Ian's belly. Somehow he knew he wasn't going to like this.

“Mario and some chick. We're looking into it, trying to figure out who she is.”

“Where did the pictures come from?”

A pause. Ian clutched the phone a little tighter. “Mac?”

“Jase gave them to me.”

The cold dread turned to a sick hollow feeling. Jase?
Those
pictures? The ones Mario had threatened to kill him over? And for some reason Jase had given them to Mac. Interesting.

He cleared his throat. “All right. Thanks, Mac. Call me back if you find the identity of the woman in the pictures, will you?”

“Absolutely.”

A gasp from the table caught his attention, and he turned to see Gina on her feet, working on the piece of paper from the box. “Gotta go, Mac.”

He clicked off and walked over to Gina. “What are you doing?”

 

Excitement thrummed through her. “I think it's a puzzle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know Mario. He loved puzzles, codes—and origami.” She folded one piece to match up two arrows. The seemingly random lines connected, forming one long one.

“Okay, what's next?” she muttered, almost to herself. “Which ones go together next?”

“Try these.” He pointed to two arrows.

She folded, then gave him a look of approval. “Good job.”

He shot a smile at her, one that glowed with warmth. The place on her knuckles where he'd pressed the briefest of kisses still tingled. She rubbed her palm against her jeans and focused on the paper.

“Here, let me try this one.” She folded it. “That doesn't look right, does it?”

“No. I think all the lines are supposed to connect.”

“Yeah, you're right. They are.” She tried another one and felt a surge of satisfaction when the lines merged, this time to curve around the edge of the page. Another fold. “It's a picture!”

“A drawing,” Ian agreed.

Gina looked at the clock. They'd been in the room for forty minutes. She started to sweat. Staying in one place too long caused her nerves to jump.

“What did Mac have to say?” He grimaced and she paused, pinning him with her gaze. “What?”

“Mario was definitely working on something on his own. Something he didn't want to share with the guys in the unit.”

“We already knew that.”

“Right, but apparently he was doing something deep undercover.”

“But how is that possible? How could he do the job he was supposed to be doing and do something on his own? He couldn't be in two places at the same time.”

Ian paced and motioned for her to keep working.

“He must have been called out of cover for something. Something serious enough to warrant blowing his cover.”

She turned back to the paper, but her mind clicked through this new information. “That training session he was supposedly killed in…Is there any way to find out for sure how he really died?”

“I've asked Mac and he's sticking to the story.”

She shook her head. “I just have a feeling it was something else. With all of this going on and the guys after me…I'm not buying the training exercise. If he was running for his life, setting up this crazy—” she waved a hand searching for the right words “—scavenger hunt,” she finally blurted, “then what was he doing going back to participate in some training exercise?”

She folded another section of the paper.

Ian ran a hand through his hair. “I know. I've wondered that myself. And all this craziness was smart, believe it or not. He was making sure you stayed useful. Just in case you were caught by the guys who were after whatever he had. All of this stuff—” he gestured toward the paper “—it's all something only you could figure out. At least in a timely
manner. If anyone else had been able to get into that box, they would have been stumped. But you…you've already figured it out.”

She studied the paper again. “Yeah, I guess you're right.”

Ian rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I can probably get my hands on the autopsy report.” He looked at his pack, which held the laptop courtesy of Mac.

Gina shuddered. “Can you do that without jeopardizing anything? Like your job?”

“Don't worry about it. I'll make a few calls first before I use…alternative methods to gain information I need.”

She raised a brow. “You mean ‘Rangerish' methods?”

Ian gave a chuckle. “Right. Now, what have you got there?”

She looked down and made one more fold.

The picture was complete.

“It's a map,” Ian offered.

“Yes. There aren't any buildings or anything. It's just the layout of some land.” She pointed, saying, “See, here's a small lake or a pond. And over here, this looks like some kind of a barn or something. Then over here is a property line? But what prop—” She cut herself off with a gasp. “Wait a minute. I know where that is. That's the farm!”

“The farm?”

Excitement oozed through her. “The one Ian's grandmother willed to us.” She gave him a spontaneous hug, then stepped back, not embarrassed one bit, just grateful he was by her side, walking with her through all this.

“Then that's where we go next, right?”

“Right.”

T
he thirty-minute drive to the farm had Gina nibbling her nails and looking over her shoulder. Ian drove with a focused concentration, watching his tail while following her simple directions. His cough seemed better, so she was guessing he hadn't inhaled as much smoke from last night's fiasco as she'd feared.

“Do you have the key?” he asked as he turned onto the gravel drive.

She slapped a hand to her forehead. “No. I can't believe this. I didn't even think about the key.”

He shot her an amused look. “It's all right. I don't really need one, but it does make things easier.”

“Ha-ha. Cute.”

Then all joking stopped as the house came into view. “Somebody's been taking care of this place. It looks exactly like it did the last time I saw it. Better than last time, actually.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a month after Mario's grandmother died. Toward the end she was pretty sick, and we had to come take her to the hospital.” Gina stepped out of the car. “She never came home. Mario didn't want to touch the place for a long time, but I finally convinced him we needed to pack some stuff
away and take care of…those things you take care of after someone dies.”

“It was hard for him.”

She nodded. “First, his mother willingly abandoned him to social services when he was eleven and Patrice, his sister, was just a year old. Mario told me she didn't even put up a fight when they came to take them. Then Patrice was killed by that monster in Colombia….” She shook her head. “He was never really the same after that, I don't think. At least according to his grandmother's stories. I met him shortly after the fact.”

“Yeah, he never talked about his sister, just that he'd like to get his hands on the guy that killed her.”

“Unfortunately, he never had that chance.” Gina stepped out of the car and walked toward the front door of the house. “I wonder who's been watching over this place.”

“Mario probably hired someone.”

“Sure, in the beginning, maybe, but he's been gone six months. I doubt he paid someone that far in advance.”

“A friend of his grandmother's maybe?”

“Possibly.”

She tried the door. Locked, of course.

“Here, let me help.”

He stepped in front of her. She couldn't see what he was doing, but within about five seconds the door swung open. Chilled air greeted her and she shivered.

Ian entered and went straight to the stack of wood next to the fireplace. “This is a great house.”

“I know. Mario loved it.” She swallowed hard. “We were going to live here after we were married.”

Ian nodded and turned his attention to getting a fire going. “Looks like someone's had a fire here recently.” He held up a pack of matches and she frowned. Weird.

Gina flipped the switch on the wall. The overhead ceiling-fan light brightened the room. “Huh. The power's on, too.”

“I gotta admit, it's kind of strange. I'm going to take a look at the thermostat. If the power's on, it shouldn't be this cold in here.”

He wandered down the hall while Gina looked around, soaking in the memories the place evoked. She loved coming here and visiting, had planned her future around Mario and this home. Had pictured herself raising children here.

She blew out a breath and thought about Ian. He'd come to her rescue, no questions asked. What shocked her was the feeling that had erupted inside her. Being around Ian made her feel safe, secure and unsteady all at the same time. Deep down she knew he was an honorable man, one who put God first. And that drew her to him more than anything else. She was falling for him. Hard.

Ian walked back into the room and said, “Well, it was turned down pretty low. I inched it up, so between the fire and that, it should feel good in here pretty quick.”

She just looked at him.

He blinked. “What?” Then narrowed his eyes. “What is it, Gina?”

It was her turn to blink. “Nothing. Sorry. It's this place…It brings back memories.”

“Good ones, I hope.” Skepticism played across his face as if he hadn't bought her simple explanation for her weird behavior, but he was letting her get away with it.

That brought a smile. “Yes, mostly good ones.”

A scraping sound outside the door had them whirling toward it; then Ian had her by the upper arm and was pulling her down the hall and out of sight of the door. Finger to his
lips, he gestured for her to be quiet. Eyes wide, fear raging once again, she nodded.

Another sound, this time resembling a thud. Something dropped? The sound of a key turning the dead bolt. Some of her terror dissipated. The guys after them wouldn't have a key to the front door.

Right?

She peeked around the corner. Ian stood to the side of the door, gun drawn. As the door opened slowly, he shifted, reached out his left hand, grabbed the knob…and yanked.

A hoarse yell greeted his efforts and a rifle skidded across the wooden floor to bump against the wall. Gina raced for it and snatched it up. Spinning, she took aim, only to stop and stare. Ian had his gun against the head of the intruder.