The Puppeteer (12 page)

They ate in companionable silence for a while, until Dani's guilt got to her.

“I apologize for the attitude earlier,” she said.

Ty glanced at her and shrugged. “Apology accepted. Why does Drew think I can kick his ass?”

Dani laughed. “He thinks you
want
to kick his ass. I'm the one who thinks you
could
.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but those tall wiry guys are quicker than they look.”

“Yeah,” Dani gave him a rueful grin. “Tell me about it.”

Ty shook his head. “You've sparred with him haven't you?” He didn't wait for her to answer. “Of course you have. Have you ever won?”

“Yeah, but it took me a while to get there,” she grinned.

“So what did he say to piss you off earlier?” Ty asked.

Dani's first reaction was to answer the question with a glib ‘nothing’ but she bit her tongue and took a few deep breaths before deciding how to answer. That she was going to answer at all surprised her, but her conversation with Drew earlier, and the subsequent revelations about herself were lurking in her mind. Nausea roiled in her stomach. Fear. Fear of maybe offering a little bit more of herself. She took another breath and looked at Ty. And even more powerful than her fear was her desire to overcome it. Maybe it was a control issue, or maybe it was Ty. Either way, she answered.

“He figured out something had happened between the two of us. He was concerned.”

Ty's eyebrows shot up. “Don't tell me he thought you might let it compromise the investigation?”

Dani shrugged, still not comfortable having this conversation, but wanting to have it anyway. “Something like that.”

Ty's eyes narrowed. “Something like that?” he repeated and then paused in thought. “I can't believe he would think you would let anything interfere with an investigation. I've known you less than twenty-four hours and even
I
know you wouldn't do that. Wait,” he paused. And then his eyes narrowed. “Is he afraid
I'm
going to do something to screw it up?” he asked in dawning recognition.

Dani glanced up and shook her head. “I don't know what brought it on. I have some ideas but I'm just…” she paused, thinking. There was more than one reason Drew might be concerned, although, at this point, she was pretty sure it was because he was worried she would hurt Ty and Ty would retaliate by becoming difficult. By now she knew this wasn't a fair assessment of Ty so she didn't want to share it with him.

“He's like a big brother to me. And kind of like a father figure, too. I'm sure he has his reasons, and I'm sure none of them are based on his professional knowledge of you or me,” she said.

“Father figure?” A hint of a teasing grin curled his mouth. “He's what, three years older than you?”

Dani, thankful to him for not pursuing the personal conversation, gave him a cheeky smile. “He's five years older, but don't let those boyish good looks fool you. Underneath all that baby skin is an old man.”

“You mean, old soul,” Ty corrected.

Dani's smiled widened, “Maybe that, too.”

*   *   *

Several hours later, Dani jogged up the steps to the second floor of the house, hoping to avoid Drew. But the fates weren't that kind.

“Dani,” he called from the bottom of the stairs. She hesitated for a split second before turning to look down at him. “It's late, where have you been?”

Dani glanced at her watch, surprised to see it was close to ten p.m. “I got hungry. We stopped for dinner.” The lie came easy. The
truth was that she and Ty had stayed on the little shelf talking. Nothing too serious, just chatting about life. He talked about how he went from being a Navy SEAL to a vice detective. He talked about his family, his life in Portland. She talked about Sammy and the kids. They even spent a bit of time talking about Getz and Ty's recollections of him—of things he'd heard, over the past several years.

Drew didn't look like he believed her, but for the first time in a long time, she didn't care what Drew thought of her. She felt a sense of calm that she hadn't experienced since the investigation started, probably even long before that.

“How were the sites?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to ask something else.

“Better than we could have hoped for,” she replied with a telltale glance down the hall toward Cotter's set up.

“You going to tell Cotter?”

Dani nodded and made to move away, but Drew stopped her. “Dani,” he spoke, the regret clear in his voice. Dani turned to looked at him, studying his face. After a moment, she shook her head in resignation.

“Forget it, Drew.”

“I was out of line,” he continued.

“Yes, you were.” She refused to make him feel better, but she wasn't interested in pushing back or fighting about it either. “I want to catch Cotter before he closes up shop for the night, and then I need to go to bed. It's been a long day.”

Drew studied her face. He knew as well as she did that Cotter wasn't going to close up shop for the night. Cotter wasn't going to close up anything until the investigation was long complete. But he was searching her face, looking for something. Whether or not he was satisfied with what he saw, she didn't know. But he gave her a sharp nod. “Stop by the library when you're done. I have a new stack of pictures for you.”

It was as close to an apology as she was going to get, which was fine with her since she didn't want an apology—didn't know if she deserved one anyway. “Thanks, I will,” she responded, as she turned and headed toward Cotter.

An hour later, she dropped into the library to pick up the promised photos. She'd hoped that her extra-long detour would mean the room would be empty—that she wouldn't have to see Drew again. She was disappointed to find both Spanky and Drew there, looking like they wanted to talk to her about something. But she wasn't interested in having any conversations, so she gave them a brief nod and picked up the tidy folder resting on the edge of the big, teak desk. She slid out of the room before either man could stop her and headed for her bedroom.

She'd gotten only a few hours of sleep over the past three days—her eyes felt gritty and her limbs heavy. But even as she tossed the folder onto her bed and headed for the adjoining bathroom, she knew she wouldn't rest until after she looked at the new set of photos.

Ten minutes later, showered and dressed in one of the old t-shirts she'd found in the dresser, Dani sat cross-legged on her bed and opened the folder on her lap. This stack of photos, like all the other photos he had given her over the years, was something Drew did for her—something that, if pressed, would be considered inappropriate. Many of the photos had nothing to do with her assignments and the agency wouldn't take kindly to her studying them. But Drew had made a promise to her over fifteen years ago, and he'd stuck by it.

Focusing on the task at hand, Dani began to review the first photo in the stack. It was easy to dismiss. The single form in the picture was a woman, dark hair, young, wearing sunglasses. She looked like a journalist, ambitious but weary. The picture was taken in the desert somewhere; judging by the colorless beige background Dani would place it in the Middle East. It wasn't the face she was looking for.

Setting it aside, she looked at the second photo. A single form was in focus, a young man, not the man she was looking for. But the photo was taken at a café so she pulled out her magnifying glass and scanned all the other faces. No traces of the blue-eyed man whose face was burned in her memory.

Methodically, Dani went through all thirty-six photos before sagging against the headboard, closing her eyes, and admitting
defeat. One day, it might be different. One day, she might see the man who haunted her nightmares. She had to hope that, one day, in some photo, she would see the face of the man who had killed her parents.

Chapter 10

“I MADE BLUEBERRY SCONES,”
Dani announced as Marmie walked into the kitchen the next morning. “Want one?” she asked. Dani saw Marmie glance at the clock and didn't miss the look of concern that passed over her colleague's face.

“Everything okay?” Marmie asked, reaching for a pastry.

“Fine. Did Adam find anything on Smythe's daughter?” Dani poured a cup of coffee, offered it to Marmie, then poured another cup for herself.

“He did. We have some evidence she might have met with Keogh a few months ago in Morocco.”

“Some evidence? Might have met? How close are we to getting anything more definite?”

“Close,” Adam said, entering the kitchen followed by Spanky.

“God, that smells good.” Spanky sidestepped Adam and went straight for the scones.

“How close?” Dani asked, leaning back in her chair. The two men joined her at the table after filling their own mugs and loading up on scones. If she didn't know better, she'd think they looked like a group of old friends enjoying breakfast together.

“I know they were in Morocco together.” Adam said, catching a falling blueberry. “I even know they attended the same party. But I'm waiting for a contact to send me his surveillance data to see if I can get a photo of the two of them together.”

“Can we sketch this whole thing out?” Dani asked Spanky, their resident artist. “We have a lot of players and having to divide up the
board and keep our investigation into the drugs separate from the investigation into the weapons is making me crazy.”

“Sure.” Spanky rose from his chair, grabbed a pen and paper from the counter, snagged another scone, then sat down again. Flipping over a clean sheet of paper, he wrote ‘Drugs’ on the left-hand side. Under it he wrote ‘Savendra’ and ‘Sonny.’ On the right-hand side he wrote ‘Weapons’ with Smythe's name under it.

“We need Getz's name on there somewhere,” Dani pointed out. “He's a key player in all this.”

“More than the others?” Marmie prompted, even as Spanky added the name in the middle of the sheet.

“He's the place where everyone meets.” Dani paused and took a sip of coffee. “I can understand how Smythe might come in contact with Keogh, given their similar circles. And since Sonny has lived in most of the major drug producing countries and Savendra has family connections to the Colombian cartel, I can understand how Sonny and Savendra might be the drug contacts. But what I can't figure out is how Sonny and Savendra got hooked up with Eagle's Wing and how both Eagle's Wing and Smythe got hooked up with Getz.”

Dani took a sip as she leaned forward to study the paper. Next to her, Adam did the same, while Spanky tapped the pen on the table.

“Something smells good.” Drew walked into the kitchen. Dani glanced up. He caught and held her eye for a moment.

“Blueberry scones,” she said, turning back to the paper.

“Did you make them?”

“If you consider ‘making’ adding water and an egg,” she replied without raising her eyes.

“Good enough.” Scone and coffee in hand, Drew dropped into a seat beside Marmie. “What are we doing?”

“We're trying to figure out the connection each of these parties has to Getz,” Adam answered.

“What more did you find out last night?” Dani asked Marmie.

“I spent my time on the weapons piece of this case. I figured we can do the other part, researching Sonny and Savendra, anytime,” Marmie said.

Across from her, Drew gave a tight nod. No one on the team liked operating this way—breaking the investigation up into several
parts. It obscured connections and relationships and made it harder to find patterns or links between parties. But, given the sensitivity of the possible Smythe connection, they didn't have a choice. They couldn't lay everything on the table at the same time.

“We did receive confirmation that Keogh and Smythe did not meet in Jordan a few months ago. Yes, they were both there, but they didn't meet. Smythe's two unaccounted for days are now accounted for. He was staying at a resort with a very married woman,” Spanky added.

“How reliable is the confirmation?” Dani asked.

“I have photos if you'd like to see,” Spanky said, offering her his cell with a mischievous smile.

Dani shook her head. “No thanks. If Smythe looked like David Beckham, maybe, but since he doesn't, I think I'll skip confirming the gross visual I already have.”

“So what about the daughter?” Drew asked.

“Cornelia Elizabeth Smythe. Goes by Nelly.” Adam proceeded to tell Drew the information he'd already shared with the rest of the group. As if on cue, Adam's cell buzzed.

“And we have confirmation they met.” Adam held up the phone that revealed a picture of Nelly and Keogh dancing much closer than the couples around them. Adam scrolled to the next picture. Nelly and Keogh slipping out a door, holding hands.

“Okay, let's assume Keogh is involved and he uses Nelly to get the weapons into the country. But do either Smythe or Nelly know? Does he ask either, or both, to help? Or does he use his connections to broker the deal on his own, using info he learned from pillow talk with the daughter?” Spanky posited.

Dani rose from her seat, mulling over the possibilities, as she headed to the coffee pot.

“It's empty,” Drew said.

“Thanks, Drew. I figured that one out.” She held up the empty pot and made a face at him.