Untraceable (21 page)

“Amen,” he
silently mouthed. The sound from his vocal cords couldn’t get past
his throat. He stayed until her eyes closed and her breathing
became deep and steady. He slipped downstairs. Nadia was sitting at
the dining room table holding onto a cup of decaf coffee. She
wasn’t drinking it, she just held it. “Come on,” he said softly,
removing the cup from her hands as he led her out to the couch.
They sat together as he pulled her against his chest and let her
cry herself to sleep.

When morning came,
Nadia woke on the couch with her head on a pillow and a blanket
over her; Micah was sitting out on the pool deck watching the
sunrise. He actually did try to get some sleep, but his thoughts
wouldn’t shut down and the pain only worsened when he tried to
relax.

Gwen showed around
eleven in the morning looking haggard. She had been up all night
with the team that was working Leese’s case. Broward County had
been good to extend the professional courtesy to her, but more than
that, they really needed the help of Thomas McFarren, the forensic
expert she had brought with her.

She had a lot to
tell her brother, and none of it was anything she wanted to say.
Nadia offered her and Thomas coffee, but they both declined saying
that as soon as she talked with Micah, they were going to head back
to their hotel and get some sleep. Nadia tried to talk them into
staying at her house, but Gwen said the rooms were already booked
and the department was picking up the tab.

“If you don’t
mind, Nadia,” she began, “we really need to speak to Micah alone
and then he’ll let you know what’s going on.”

“I’d
rather—”

“Please, Nadia.
I’m sorry, but you don’t need the kind of details that he needs.
It’s bad enough I have to tell him.”

She nodded, though
it wasn’t immediately obvious if the gravity of what kind of
details were getting ready to be disclosed entered her mind as she
took Kimmy upstairs.

Micah started to
speak when Gwen put up her hand to silence him, “There has to be
somewhere more private than this living room to discuss
this.”

Micah led the way
to the apartment off the pool deck. They went inside and sat
silently at the small dinette.

Gwen’s eyes were
red and watery, partly from lack of sleep, but mostly because this
was going to be so damn hard. “It wasn’t an accident,” were the
first words out of her mouth. “It was professional, and when I say
professional, I mean this was done by the best out there. The front
tire was evidently rigged so once the car went over a certain
speed, any reduction would cause it to blow. She must have been
doing one-forty or one-fifty when she finally tried to slow
down.”

Micah’s eyes
closed slowly; she shouldn’t have been going that speed. He
reopened them and stared at his sister.

Gwen drew a shaky
breath and continued. “She was moving so fast when the tire
exploded there was no way she could have recovered. The car was
air-born, over the rail and flipped at least a dozen times before
it hit the trees. Tom is going to tell you the rest,” she stated as
she grabbed hold of Micah’s hand and clamped down tightly. She was
bracing him for the final blow.

“There was a
second explosive charge set in the car and, as close as I could
tell, its timer was set in motion by the first explosion. No one
could have gotten to her in time. It was probably only set for
about a ten to twenty second lapse. The driver’s seat,” he paused
and looked to Gwen.

She nodded for him
to keep going.

“Under the
driver’s seat were, I believe, special gelled fuel packs. Not only
did the second explosion ignite the fuel tank, but it also ignited
the gel. Someone didn’t want any evidence left. I know it’s no
consolation, but it was fast. She didn’t have time for pain. I’ve
only ever seen two other jobs done this thoroughly. Most
investigators wouldn’t have noticed the tell-tale signs about the
fuel packs because they are destroyed in the fire, but, if you know
what to look for… Anyway, the carbon body on her car only served to
hold the heat inside and the gel doesn’t extinguish until it’s
gone. There wasn’t much left for identification, but they did find
a few things.”

Gwen reached into
her bag and pulled out a small container. “They want these back,
temporarily, for evidence, but they needed you or Nadia to identify
them. At least until they can figure out if they can do DNA or
something on the—the remains.”

She opened the
container and poured out the contents. The gold was misshaped from
the intense heat, but the stones were undeniable. Leese’s wedding
set with the five carat, Asscher-cut stone and a gold, tangled mass
with a brilliant orange diamond.

Micah burst into
tears and sobs so hard he couldn’t breathe. “God, Gwen—why? Why
her? If someone was after me, why not rig my Vet? Why her?” he
repeated.

“I’m sorry, Micah.
I wish I had more answers for you. Hell, if I had names, I’d kill
the son-of-a-bitches myself.”

Micah wiped his
eyes to remove the tears from his vision as he stared at her
jewelry. He inhaled and looked at Thomas. “You said you’d only seen
two other cases done this way—where were they?”

Thomas cut his
eyes to Gwen and she shook her head no.

“Don’t hide stuff
from me, Gwen,” Micah warned.

“It doesn’t matter
where the other cases were. It—”

Micah’s fist came
down on the table so hard that the jewelry flew inches into the
air. “The hell it doesn’t!” You might as well tell me because you
know within thirty minutes I’m gonna know every place that
son-of-a-bitch ever worked.”

“I don’t want you
flying-off-the-handle and doing something really stupid. Give us
time to figure out what’s going on first.”

“Where were those
cases?”
he demanded with
so much malicious intent in his eyes that Thomas was visibly
shaken.

“All right,” Gwen
conceded, “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise me—and I mean it,
Micah—you’ll give us a couple weeks to work on the case before you
try to take this on yourself.”

He wasn’t
responding as he stared at Thomas.

“Nadia and Kimmy
both need you right now. Help them get through this and then we’ll
do this together—as a family.”

It was going to be
someone big if it was going to take the family.

“Agreed?” she
asked.

The blank look in
his eyes slowly faded as he turned to her,
“Agreed.”

Gwen gave Thomas
the nod.

“New
York.”

That was all he
had to say to finish off what remained of Micah’s world. The man
who had granted his pardon; the man who had kept him untouchable;
the man who even a Gavarreen was afraid to approach, had plans for
him—plans that didn’t include him having a wife and child tagging
along. Nadia and Kimmy weren’t safe here. He doubted the next
strike would be immediate, that might look too suspicious, so there
was a little time. As soon as David got his ass untangled from
whatever he was doing in Louisiana, if he really loved Nadia, he
was going to have to take them into hiding.

There was nothing
left to say as she picked up the jewelry and placed it back in the
container. She rose and embraced Micah, but he was too numb to
respond. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there after they left, but
he had to decide what to tell Nadia. She had been through so much
hell with Robert that he really didn’t want her to know another mad
man was targeting her family. He would sit there until the ability
to lie returned to his brain and then he would face
her.

CHAPTER twelve

By late afternoon,
Kimmy had put on her bathing suit and was in the pool. She wasn’t
swimming, splashing, or enjoying her time in the water, she was
lying on a floating mat and staring up at the sky through the
screen cage. She appeared to be deep in thought for someone so very
young.

“Can you tell me,
Micah, what Gwen found out? I don’t know if I want to hear it, but
I have to know if she—if she suffered at all.”

He unconsciously
chewed his lower lip as he watched Kimmy floating. He finally
seemed to wake from his trance as he reached out and gathered her
hand in both of his. “They said it all happened incredibly fast.
No, Nadia, she didn’t suffer—it ended quickly.
They—”

“No, Micah,” she
stopped him. “That was the only detail I wanted to know. Nothing
else matters to me and I don’t want you to have to make up lies to
cover what your sister told you.”

How did she know?
He was baffled, but he didn’t care; he didn’t have to lie, and he
was actually glad that she wouldn’t let him
continue.

“But, you and I
need to talk—about her funeral.”

“I honestly don’t
know if I can do that.”

“Then I’ll talk
and you listen. My daughter, your wife, was a beautiful person and
that is how I want her remembered. I spoke with Pastor Anderson
today and he suggested we do a celebration of life ceremony.
They’re going to bring in a huge movie screen. He wants us to pick
out all our favorite pictures, videos, and television clips, and he
is going to have someone put it together. I want to see her
singing, dancing, rejoicing, and being the person I remember,
because every time I—I think about—I don’t want to remember what
happened in that accident.” Nadia’s eyes welled with tears, but a
large smile filled her face. “But I think God may have granted her
a wish she once made.”

Micah couldn’t
imagine what wish could have been a part of the tragic ending she
endured.

“When she wasn’t
much older than Kimmy, I think she was nine or ten, she got
infatuated with the Wes King song,
“I Believe,”
and she wanted to perform it for the
church. Anyway, there is a line in the song that says something
about Elijah never died but caught fire from heaven on a
mountainside. She loved that line and she said when she died…”
Nadia paused as the tears overran her lashes, “She said that was
how she wanted to leave this world. Someday, she told me, God would
just sweep her up in a huge burst of fire and take her, like
Elijah, straight to heaven.” Nadia’s voice at this point was
cracking and shaking, but she went on to finish what she wanted to
share. “I don’t know how fast that car was traveling, and it
doesn’t matter now anyway, but I know as soon as that fireball went
up, her spirit flew straight into God’s arms.”

Micah was also
smiling, “That sounds like her. I wish I could have seen her
performance.”

“I taped it!”
Nadia said, jumping up. “I’ve got a bunch of old home videos that I
had transferred to disk. I almost forgot, but I know I taped it.
This is what I wanted, Micah. I want you to go through the pictures
and videos with me so we can decide what to give the pastor. Can
you get me some clips from Remake?”

“I can get
anything you want. I’ve had my videographer burn the whole first
season for me on disk.”

“Perfect. I’m
going to find that performance and we’ll watch it
together.”

A little while
later the three of them sat on the couch as the video began. He
couldn’t be sad as he watched her. This girl was so young, but it
was definitely Leese. She marched up onto the church stage filled
with confidence and energy. She had on white boots and a short,
white skirt, with a pale blue top. She spoke with a little girl’s
voice as she introduced the song.

Kimmy
giggled.

When the
performance began, it was undeniably Leese. She came out with this
booming voice as she moved and hip-hopped to the beat of music. She
was all attitude as she chanted “I believe, I believe, I believe in
the Word of God, yeah-yeah!”

For only a few
precious moments, his heart lifted and the pain stopped. Minutes
later they were sorting through pictures and making a stack to be
given to the pastor. But when the wedding album came out, the pain
cut back into him so hard he had to get up and walk away. He headed
out onto the pool deck, realizing as he walked that he had a small
shadow; Kimmy was trailing him.

“You should be
helping pick out pictures,” he softly
suggested.

“I’d rather be
with you—Please, Micah.”