Double Cross (5 page)
She slung my purse over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. “You missed my point. I just want to know why I didn’t get to bring mine.”
I tapped a finger on my cheek. “Well, let’s see. You’re not twenty-one, you don’t have a permit to carry it, and you don’t have a single reason in the world to be carrying it even if you did have a permit. Do you need to hear more?”
“I’m a better shot than half the guys at the range.”
Actually she was a better shot than ninety percent of the guys at the range, but I wasn’t about to let her redirect the argument. “That doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have a permit to carry—and don’t get a big head about your shooting. You’ve still got a lot to learn. Now, do you mind? I’d like to get that gun out of here before they come back in.”
Kacey headed for the front door. I went back to the desk in the corner. A docking station and printer, but no laptop—so how did she write the note? I looked all around the desk, and opened and closed the drawer again. Then I walked across the room, through the kitchen, and into a hallway that ran from the back of the house to the front. The first door was the master bedroom. I stepped onto the cream-colored carpet and looked around.
I felt as if I had walked through a mirror into Barbie’s bedroom. To my right was a canopy bed with a pink duvet, a frilly white dust ruffle, and layers of lacey pillows. Beyond the bed was a bay window with a built-in pink cushioned love seat. The curtains were white lace. I assumed that the window looked out onto the lake, but the blinds were drawn. To the left of the door was a pink-and-white painted dresser with a mirrored back; against the opposite wall was a tallboy in the same colors. Beyond the tallboy was the door to the master bath.
On the floor next to the tallboy sat a pink nylon laptop case. I walked over and unzipped it. No computer. I looked in the closets and even opened the dresser drawers. Nothing. Glancing toward the bed again, I noticed a cell phone plugged into its charger on the end table. I went over, picked it up, and checked the screen. No messages. I made quick mental ledger entries of the pluses and minuses of taking the phone. The biggest plus was that it might have phone numbers and information that belonged to Simon’s ministry. The biggest minus was that even though this was a suicide scene, I was still uneasy about the whole evidence thing.
I got over it by assuring myself that it was an employee’s phone, probably issued by the ministry. We were entitled to it. Besides, it wasn’t as if we were going to throw it away. If the police ever needed it, we’d still have it. In fact, the same was true of her flash drive. Legitimate or not, that line of reasoning made me feel better.
I looked over my shoulder at the bedroom door. Everything was quiet in the house. I unplugged the phone and stuck it in my jeans pocket with the flash drive. Just in case the police came in and looked around, I unplugged the charger from the wall and put it in the drawer of the end table. No sense inviting questions.
As I was about to leave the room I noticed a picture of Simon and Elise in a silver frame on the dresser. They wore jeans and Texas Rangers baseball caps. Behind them was Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington. For a man in his forties with a ridiculously busy schedule, Simon had always kept himself fit. His gray T-shirt strained against the lean muscles of his chest and arms. He looked as if he could have walked into the ballpark, slipped on a uniform, and trotted out to center field.
I picked up the frame and touched his face. If only he had listened, he would still be here. Kacey would have a father, and I would have . . . well, whatever he was to me, I would have that. I focused on Elise. She was beaming, thrilled just to be standing beside him. She’d have given anything if he would have loved her. But he didn’t, and what difference would it have made if he had? He was gone.
I recalled the evening that I met Simon. It was in Chicago at the Bulls’ arena, and he had only recently received terrorist threats. That was the night he hired me; the night the kidnappers took Kacey. I tried to picture him standing there in his corduroys and denim shirt, so casual, so unassuming, yet such a great man. That I had loved him, I was certain. The question was in what way.
My father used to tell me that the most dangerous places were the ones where he felt most comfortable. Those were the places where he relaxed and lost track of what was happening around him. It doesn’t make sense, I know, that I could have felt comfortable standing there in Elise’s bedroom. After all, not a hundred feet away, she was lying dead in a car that was being swarmed by police and medical technicians. I was in a comfortable place, though—a quiet place in my mind. I was with Simon in Chicago, the place I most wanted to be.
I suppose that’s why I was so startled when a man’s hand clamped hard onto my shoulder.
Instinctively, I reached up, grabbed the hand, and yanked it down hard over my shoulder. I pivoted on my left foot, bent at the waist, swung my right foot up, and lifted with my back. It was a leverage move, and it worked perfectly. In less than a second I was standing over my attacker, who was on his back on the carpet, red faced and puffing.
It was Officer Ferrell.
CHAPTER
FIVE
FERRELL SHOOK HIS HEAD. “What in the—”
I let go of his hand. He reached for his holster and unsnapped it.
I took a step back. “Whoa, wait a minute. I’m sorry. That was reflex. Let me help you up.” I held out a hand.
He rolled onto one knee and swatted my arm away. Reaching for the edge of the dresser, he pulled himself to his feet. Before I could say anything else, he was spinning me around. “Hands against the wall!”
I tried to turn to face him. “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
He jerked my arm hard and slapped my hand against the wall. “Shut up! Hands on the wall!”
I leaned forward and extended my arms. He kicked my legs apart, so I was standing spread-eagle, then he pulled one of my wrists back to cuff me. He was grabbing my other wrist when Kacey and Sandra walked into the room through the door just to our left. Behind them, his tie loosened and the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up over his thickly muscled forearms, walked Michael Harrison. His charcoal suit coat was slung over one shoulder.
Ferrell looked at Michael and dropped one of my arms.
Michael pushed his black-rimmed glasses up on his nose. His face brightened. “Excuse us. Are we interrupting something?”
I twisted my neck toward him and scowled.
Michael lost the smile. “What is going on here?” His voice was a full octave lower than when he thought he was being funny.
Ferrell grabbed for my wrist again, but missed, which made him even angrier. “She attacked me! Tossed me on my back!”
I rested my forehead against the wall and felt like banging it. “I did not attack you. You grabbed me from behind. Besides, I already apologized.”
I tilted my head and looked up at Michael. His eyebrows narrowed to a point. A vein bulged in the side of his neck. I’d seen that look before. Now I was the one who smiled. I lowered my head and waited.
Michael took a step toward Ferrell. “Get your hands off her.” His voice was clear and hard, and if I hadn’t known him so well, I’d have been terrified. He pulled his coat off his shoulder, reached inside it, and pulled out his badge. He held it up toward Ferrell.
Ferrell squeezed my wrist. No one moved. I wondered how long it would take Ferrell to figure out that Michael was not a person to be trifled with—and I wondered how long Michael would give him to do his figuring. I was enjoying the moment immensely.
Ferrell’s feet shuffled on the carpet behind me. He loosened his grip on my wrist, but still didn’t let go. “Who are you?” Ferrell’s voice wobbled, and I knew that our little encounter was just about over.
Michael took another step forward and held the badge closer to Ferrell’s face. “Michael Harrison, Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI. I’m going to say this one more time. You need to let the lady go.”
Ferrell’s grip on my wrist loosened even more. “I’m a Lewisville police officer,” he said, the last few syllables trailing off in retreat.
“I don’t care if you’re Elliott frickin’ Ness.” Michael reached back into his inside jacket pocket to put his badge away. As he moved his arm, his bicep flexed. The cotton of his shirt stretched tight.
I was impressed, and apparently Ferrell was, also. He dropped my arm and stepped back, putting more distance between him and Michael. Nevertheless, he attempted a verbal rally. “The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction here. This is local. It’s just a suicide.”
Uh-oh. I turned my head and raised an eyebrow at Michael.
He crossed his arms. “Yes, but I’m, uh . . .” He looked down at me. I pulled my hand up to where my body blocked it from Ferrell’s view. Then I rubbed my fingers and thumb together rapidly. Michael’s eyes lit up. “I’m following a money trail. Investigating the movement of illegally acquired funds—across state lines, that is. You know—in interstate commerce. That makes it a federal offense—moving funds in interstate commerce.” He cleared his throat.
I was surprised he didn’t finish the sentence by holding a finger in the air and saying, “Yeah, that’s it!” Michael’s mouth turned up, and he gave a nearly imperceptible shrug, but he didn’t look at me.
Ferrell scratched his head. “What funds? What are you talking about?”
Michael quickly found his rhythm. “That’s still confidential at this point, but Ms. Pasbury has been assisting me with the investigation. I need to talk to her, and that’s going to be hard for me to do with her spread-eagled against the wall like that.” He paused. “Besides, she’s modest. I know that it must offend her sensibilities.”
I rolled my eyes.
Apparently Sandra determined that it was time to bail her partner out. She walked over and touched my arm. “You can turn around, Ms.—what did you say your name was again?”
“Pasbury. Taylor Pasbury.” I straightened up and brushed at the front of my blouse. I turned around to face Officer Ferrell. “Look, I really am sorry. I was trained in the Secret Service. It was just an instinctive reaction.”
Kacey took a step forward. “An awful lot has happened to her during the past year.”
My mouth practically dropped open. A lot has happened to me? “Oh, Kace, you’re such a sweetheart.” I walked over to her and gave her a hug. Within a few moments I was wiping a tear with the back of my hand.
Sandra shook her head. “Are you crying?”
I shrugged. “I do that a lot. It doesn’t take much.”
In unison, Michael and Kacey said, “It’s true, she does.”
Ferrell mumbled something under his breath, and I caught the last couple of words: “. . . crazy chick.”
Sandra stepped in front of him. “I think we can all just forget about this and get back to business. We have a suicide in the garage out there.”
Ferrell shook his head. “Forget about it? I’m not—”
She looked him in the eye. “Ed, we’re forgetting about it.”
Ferrell mumbled again and stuck the plastic cuff band back in his pocket.
“Can we go take a look at that suicide note, now?” Sandra said.
Michael stepped out of the way and we all filed past him. When I got next to him, he whispered, “You tossed him on the floor?”
I turned a palm up and shrugged. As I moved past him into the hallway, I heard him chuckle.
CHAPTER
SIX
BACK IN THE FAMILY room I recalled the reason I had been in the bedroom in the first place: the missing laptop. There was one obvious place I hadn’t been able to look. “Did either of you find a laptop in Elise’s car?”
Sandra looked at Ferrell, who shook his head.
“Did you look in the trunk?” I said.
“Lady, we scoured every inch of that car,” he said. “Even the engine compartment.”
Sandra frowned at him. “Her name is Ms. Pasbury, not Lady.”
Ferrell acted as if he hadn’t heard. He walked over to the desk in the corner, picked up Elise’s note, and read it. Then he motioned to us. “Have a seat.”
Kacey and I sat on the couch. Michael stood behind us, his hands braced on the back of the couch.
Ferrell leaned against the fireplace, the torn note in his hand. “Did you know Ms. Hovden well?”
“She managed Simon Mason World Ministries,” I said. “Kacey’s known her for years. I’ve known her for less than a year.”
He pointed at me. “That’s how I recognized you. You were Simon Mason’s security guard. I remember you from television.”
I gave him as much of a smile as I could muster, considering that a few minutes earlier he had thrown me against a wall.
“You were the one who tried to rescue him over in Lebanon. Boy, I’d like to hear that story.” He seemed already to have forgotten our little dance in the bedroom.
I touched Kacey’s leg. “This is Simon Mason’s daughter, Kacey.”
He straightened his back. “You were the one who was kidnapped?”
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