Authors: Janet Dailey
Triumph (11 page)
“Maybe for you. I don’t know a damn thing about Dallas society.”
Kelly had to smile. “Do I look like a former debutante?”
He finished his glass of ice water. “Yes, actually. Were you one?”
She shook her head. “Are you kidding? There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. What makes you think I come from money?”
Deke grinned and tilted his chair back. “The way you move.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” Her tone had a noticeable edge.
“You walk like you own the world and no one tells you what to do.”
“You’re right about the second part.” She pushed her plate to the side. “Anyway, no one at this event besides Natalie is likely to recognize me.”
Opening her laptop, Kelly quickly changed the subject. “If you could bring me up to speed on the investigation before we make our grand entrance, that would be great. Any new developments?”
“Some. Do we have to do this right now? I should run out and get a burner.”
“Huh?”
“A prepaid disposable cell phone to hand over to the guard.” He was talking about the social director’s ban. “I don’t want to hem and haw when he asks me if I have one. It’s a prop.”
“Something I need?” Kelly asked.
“I’m still going to carry my real phone. So should you. Don’t worry. We won’t get frisked.”
“I hope not.”
The gown she’d brought along had no place to hide anything. It clung. It revealed. She couldn’t wait to see Deke’s reaction when he saw her wearing it. Right now he looked impatient.
“The hotel gift shop might sell prepaids. Worth a try,” she told him. “Okay, quick questions. Do you have an update on the voiceprint analysis?”
“I just got a text on that. Done.”
Kelly suppressed a sigh. He never actually told her much unless she really prodded him. It wouldn’t hurt to remind him that she’d done him a huge favor.
“Did Hux let you know?” she asked. “I got the idea you didn’t want him to know I’d met with Gunther Bach.”
Deke ignored the dig. “The update came from the lab.”
“Share it. I’m all ears.”
Deke brought his chair back down on the floor and reached toward the coffee table for his smartphone, tapping the screen before he read the text aloud.
“Results inconclusive. Low probability that unsub—that means unknown subject—at prior meeting is Gunther Bach. Additional analysis to follow.”
Kelly looked at him impatiently. “Spare me the tech talk. Your people obviously don’t have a clue at the moment.”
“Bach is still a person of interest,” Deke defended. “If I didn’t explain it before, voiceprints are comparisons. You never get a precise match. But thanks for trying.”
She felt a little miffed. “So where is Bach now?”
“Out of the country, as far as we know. We were able to pull up his flight information. He booked a one-stop with a layover in Phoenix. Final destination, Mexico City.”
“Did you—”
“No. Hux tailed him to the airport, got as far as security, and saw Bach in the VIP line. He didn’t feel like flashing his badge when we had nothing on the guy.”
“Oh, I could think of a few things,” Kelly said. “I feel sorry for the flight attendants. But good riddance. I can’t believe I wasted a lunch hour on that creep.” She got up and collected the dishes and cutlery, stacking everything on the tray like a pro.
“You can leave that for the housekeeper,” Deke said with amusement.
“I don’t like looking at the gruesome remains.”
Kelly balanced the tray on a half-moon table near the suite’s main door. She opened the door and peered outside before she bent gracefully to set down the tray on the hall carpet.
“Were you ever a waitress?” he asked when she came back.
“Yes.”
He looked at her expectantly. She didn’t see any reason to tell him her entire life story. Deke would have to be satisfied with the basics.
“I worked my way through college,” Kelly said flatly. “And it took me a while to pay off my student loans. My own fault. I majored in You Can’t Get A Job With That.”
“Let me guess. English Lit?”
“That’s right.”
“And how did you become a reporter?”
“I talked my way into a job at a local TV station because I was good at bugging people and I could write. We had five thousand loyal viewers and three advertisers.”
“Where was that?”
“Virginia. In the boonies. Which is where I went to college. Once I got out of high school, I headed east and didn’t come back. Then I moved to a bigger station and kept on going from there. Eventually I became an investigative reporter and then I got the Atlanta gig. Are you done asking me questions?”
“Sorry. Just curious. Ask me a few.”
“I already did my homework on you and your brothers. It’s amazing how little information there is on the Bannons. Especially you.”
“That’s how I like it,” Deke answered. There was a guarded look in his eyes.
Kelly wasn’t going to grill him on his past if he intended to keep it to himself. There were safer topics, like multiple unsolved homicides.
“Let’s get back to the investigation. I’m beginning to wonder why you invited me to Dallas.”
“The pleasure of your company?”
That didn’t deserve a reply. She glanced down at her laptop and realized that she hadn’t turned it on. A minute later, she got a nice surprise. “Hey, free Wi-Fi. Is that a penthouse perk?”
“Yup.”
She didn’t look into the glowing screen after she tapped a few keys, just at him. “Okay, nuts and bolts questions first. Did the ballistics tests reveal anything interesting?”
“Kelly, think about how long it takes to find shells and bullet fragments in a seventeen-story building and a parking lot. They’re just getting started.”
Kelly positioned her fingers above the keyboard. “How about bloodstains? Spots? Spatter?”
“Same deal. Blood analysis can take weeks. You know that.”
“I’m not a detective.” Kelly smiled sweetly. “But you know what would make a great visual? A computerized reenactment of the shooting. Graphs, bullet trajectories, figures in 3-D.”
“Dream on.”
“We need something fabulous before the story goes cold and no one’s interested.”
“That would be the purpose of the news blackout,” Deke muttered.
Kelly seized on the comment. “Really? Can I quote you on that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Deke, you have access to all kinds of inside information. You and I might have the same liaison at the police department. Who’s your guy?”
Find common ground. Get the other person to believe you were on their side. She had always been good at both.
“Someone I trust.”
“Another non-answer,” she sighed.
“I don’t have to tell you everything.” Deke shifted in his chair.
She figured she might as well keep him on the hot seat. “And I keep thinking we have a deal.”
Deke shrugged. “I’ll answer questions as I see fit. But I can’t speak for the police. They have their own way of doing things, and I’m not going to second-guess their investigation.”
“Is that a nice way of saying that feds and cops don’t like to work together?”
“Kelly, lay off. And don’t put words in my mouth,” he said in a level tone. “My dad was a cop.”
“And your older brother RJ followed in his footsteps,” Kelly replied. “Why didn’t you?”
“I’m not good at following orders. Like you.”
The corners of her mouth quirked for just a second. She couldn’t really argue with that.
Deke’s steady brown gaze made her uneasy. So did his next question. “While we’re on that subject, what did your father do?”
Kelly was aware that she’d left him an opening. She covered.
“Good question. He took off when I was really little. We never saw or heard from him again. For all I know, he’s dead.” There was a sudden fierceness in the depths of her green eyes. “I’m not sentimental about him.”
“No reason you should be.”
Deke’s blunt response made her want to get the explanation over with. It wasn’t classified information. Just not something she ever talked about.
“By the time I was a teenager, I figured if he didn’t want me, I didn’t want him. I started using my mother’s maiden name.”
“Johns?”
“Yes.” She braced herself for the inevitable next question. It was slow in coming and Deke asked it gently.
“Is your mother still alive?”
“No. She died of cancer when I was nine. My grandmother raised me. She’s gone too. I love her and I miss her. Can we talk about something else?”
“Pick a topic.”
Kelly composed herself. He gave her plenty of time.
“What exactly are you hoping to find out tonight?” she said finally. “You gave me a general idea, but I could use something more specific. Starting with how you got the invite. Were you on the A list or the B list?”
“Neither,” he replied.
There was that annoying grin again. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was one step ahead of her, for reasons he wasn’t about to explain. Kelly glared at him until he gave in. Or pretended to.
“One of our undercover agents knows someone on Natalie Conrad’s personal staff,” he said. “This ball is going to be the first of many. She plans to host similar events in different US cities and abroad.”
“She has houses all over the world. Palatial houses,” Kelly added. “Maybe she got tired of decorating them all.”
“Could be. Maybe she just wants to get back into the social whirl.” Deke reached for his laptop. “Guests are coming from all over for tonight’s shindig.”
“I noticed more private jets touching down right after we landed.”
Deke gave a nod. “This could be the highest concentration of rich people in one place ever. And we have more bad guys to keep an eye on than we thought. Headquarters sent a fresh batch of photos while you and I were en route. Want to see them?”
“Hell yes.” Kelly’s eagerness showed in her body language.
“Got the file right here. Just let me open it up and—hang on.” He tapped the keyboard for a minute, then turned the laptop toward her. “I removed the identifying captions. See if you can tell our agents from the bad guys.”
“Deke—”
“Good training,” he said cheerfully.
Her momentary exasperation vanished as she looked at the rows of photos. He’d handed her the kind of challenge she enjoyed most. There was nothing easy about it. These weren’t mug shots or freeze-frames taken from surveillance video.
No sullen stares, no scowls. No unshaven jaws on the men. No messed-up hair or streaked mascara on the women. Every single subject seemed to be well-groomed and confident, and obviously a lot more intelligent than the average lawbreaker. Kelly studied the faces for several minutes, until she realized Deke was gazing just as intently at her.
She looked up. “Okay. Test me.” She rotated the laptop so they could both see the uncaptioned photos on the screen.
“Go for it.”
Kelly pointed to several male faces and one young woman. “I’m not sure on everyone, but I would guess those four are crooks.”
“Right on the men. Wrong on the woman.”
“Is she an agent?”
“Yes. But it’s interesting that you picked her out. She used to be known as the Happy Hacker, liked to break into classified databases just for the hell of it. Eventually, she was arrested and charged, but she got out of doing time by, uh, sharing her expertise.”
Kelly’s eyebrows raised.
“Sometimes it’s what we have to do. She turned out to be one of our best, even if she doesn’t like to follow the rules. So how did you pick those four?”
“Instinct. Something in the eyes, I guess. I really can’t define it.”
“Good work. If you can pick them out at the ball, even better. Those photos are out of date.”
“But what about the others? Let me try to get all of them.” There were nine other images on the screen. Kelly studied it again. “Hmm. Those two in the bottom corner are probably agents. And so is the lady at the upper left and this guy in the middle.”
“Right again.” He looked genuinely impressed. “Tell me how you knew.”
“Those true-blue shirts and dark suits. The steady gaze and square shoulders. They look just like agents on TV,” she said. “And I can see lanyards for the ID badges on the two in the corner.”
Deke applauded. “Whatever works. You nailed more than half correctly. That’s better than average.” He tapped several keys and brought back the captions.
Kelly studied the screen with renewed interest. “Are all of them going to be there?” she asked.
“We don’t know exactly which ones yet, if you mean the bad guys. They do tend to need a constant influx of cash, like Gunther Bach. Most of them aren’t in his league, though. But they could steal hundreds of millions if they pick the right marks tonight.”
“Just like that?”
“No,” he acknowledged. “But once they get someone rich and greedy to trust them, they know how to make money disappear.”
“Where to?”
“Overseas accounts. Sham funds. Churning it through banks that look the other way. Sometimes suitcases are the best way to move a lot of cash and not have it traced.”
Deke tipped his chair back again and folded his arms across his chest. The nonchalant pose made her wonder how often he’d taken on assignments like this.
“Ball or no ball, this could get dangerous,” she said.
“I’ll cover you.”
Kelly was rarin’ to go. Her undercover reporting had been limited to fraud that affected the average viewer. Home-repair scams, seniors conned into giving away their savings online, lonely hearts that were bound to be broken—she’d seen and heard it all.
“I almost forgot to ask,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you want me to flirt with the bad guys or hang out with the bad girls?”
Deke looked her over and laughed. “You could do both. Work the ballroom. You can’t predict who’s going to be standing next to you at any given moment.”
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