Hidden Legacy (15 page)

“And now?”

“Now?” Now she was more confused than ever. “Everything’s changed.”

Something vibrated against her hip. His body moved away, making her shiver with loss. Hands still resting against her neck, he lowered his forehead against hers. In his eyes, she saw warmth, sadness, and regret. “My phone. I have to make this call. They need to know about Willy and Cindy Marchand.”

She nodded. Business, it would always come first. Yet for an instant, she’d seen something in his eye, something that gave her hope, if not for herself, then for Briana.

“We can find Willy through her and put him in jail where he belongs.”

“Yes, of course.”

A knock rattled the door. Ella poked her head into the kitchen. “I saw you drive in. I couldn’t wait any more. How’s our little princess? Oh, I’m interrupting something—”

“No, Ella, come on in. Briana will be so glad to see you.”

Lucas’s grasp slowly slipped from around Juliana’s neck. Only a slight hesitation of his fingertips against her pulse interrupted the smooth flow of the movement. As if seeking to keep the contact longer, the beat bumped harder. Then Lucas turned and moved away. Without a look back he picked up the phone and dialed. Juliana wrapped her arms around her middle and faced Ella with a shaky smile.

“Briana’s in her room. I’m afraid I made her cry. I—” She shook her head, fighting ready tears, not sure she could explain what demon had temporarily possessed her. “Maybe you can comfort her.”

“Oh.” Worry floated in Ella’s eyes. “Of course. I’ll go right up.”

Lucas hung up. He’d closed himself off again. She could read nothing on his face but stony aloofness. “I have to go in.”

“Of course.” She reached for the sponge in the sink and mopped at the spilt milk on the table.

He placed a hand over hers and stopped the frantic action. “You and Briana have to come along, too.”

“No!”

“I either take you in, or they come get you.” His smile was flat, mirthless. “What would the neighbors think?”

* * *

Lucas had given his best shot to protect his daughter from the intrusion of an FBI questioning, but Regan wouldn’t budge from his position without an explanation, not after Lucas had let the Phantom slip for a third time, and Lucas wasn’t about to give him one.

In the once organized tapestry of his life, Juliana, Briana, the Phantom, even his own future were all tangled threads for which he couldn’t seem to find the ends. And right now, he couldn’t afford to get lost in the knot where they all snarled. His concern had to be safeguarding Juliana and Briana from the law he was sworn to uphold.

He glanced at Juliana, busily mopping the milk spill from the table. All the while he’d held her, he’d damned the attraction filtering even through his anger, cursed the ready need of his body to consume hers, condemned the familiar fit of her so right in his arms. He’d wanted, needed the anger to get his job done, but when he’d dug down for it, all he could find was frustration, and regret at what he’d let go without a backward glance.

Despite everything that had passed between them, he didn’t want to separate mother and daughter. They belonged together. And as strong as Juliana was, jail would break her. He didn’t want to see the expressive light in her eyes die. Not when she’d just shown him her feelings like an open book.

She still cared. She didn’t want to, but she still did.

She’d wanted him to know about their child. This time it would be different. He would be there. He would protect her, take care of her, of Briana.

“Juliana,” he said, taking the sponge from her hand and dumping it in the sink with a splat. “We have to talk.”

“We’ve been talking.” She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, and finally crossed her arms under her chest, pinning her hands to her sides.

“About the Nadyenka Sapphire.” He turned a chair and gestured for her to sit.

“It’s gone. The Phantom has it.”

“You stole it. It was part of an FBI operation.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I had to.”

“It won’t matter.”

Frowning, she shook her head slightly from side to side. “What are you trying to say?”

“You could end up in jail.”

Her fists shot down at her side. “No!”

Given the importance of this investigation, it was not only probable, but likely. “We need to stick as closely as we can to the truth, but they can’t know you were at my house.” He placed both his hands on her shoulders, felt the delicate bones under his fingers. Instinctively, she curled her shoulders up. The unspoken rebuff hurt more than he cared to admit. He shook her slightly. “Do you understand?”

“No, Lucas—”

“Sit.” He walked her backward to a chair and pressed on her shoulders until she sat. Then he dragged another chair out and straddled it backwards to keep from reaching for her. “Here’s what we’ll say. I brought the brooch to your shop for an appraisal. While you were doing your job, you received word your daughter had been kidnapped. Because you were afraid the Phantom would hurt your daughter, I approved your exchange of the brooch for your child, and promised you I’d keep FBI involvement in her rescue minimal until she was safe.”

“Won’t that get you in trouble?”

To keep her free, to keep Briana home, it was a risk he would have to take. “I can handle it.”

“You could lose your job.”

Could he live with that? He wasn’t sure. This job was as much part of him as the color of his eyes. Few things gave him the satisfaction that the hunt and capture of a criminal did. He couldn’t imagine not doing exactly what he was doing. But neither could he allow Juliana and Briana to become victims of the Phantom’s game. He had much more to lose this time than a piece of heirloom jewelry.

“Do you want to spend time in jail? Do you want Briana to be turned over to Family and Child Services? That’s what’s going to happen to her when you tell them she has no family.”

Her face turned chalk white, her voice was a harsh whisper. “No, they can’t do that!”

He hated using this tactic, but her mile-wide independent streak left him no choice. He reached for her hands, felt their cold clamminess, and squeezed reassurance. “Then listen to me, Juliana. We have to get our stories straight.”

* * *

Rudy Regan, Jr. was pacing his office when Lucas finally reached it. His boss’s face bloomed red. The veins at his temples throbbed purple. Lucas didn’t want to hazard a guess at the numbers Regs’s blood pressure would register on a sphygmomanometer.

Hands loosely held in front of him, body braced against Regan’s onslaught, Lucas waited.

Nothing was out of place in Regs’s office. Though filing cabinets, books, and papers packed the small space, the area was neat. His files were in order. His paperwork was caught up. Everything was labeled. Lucas often thought that if he’d had a picture of his family, even they would have neat little labels below their images—Susan, Jacqueline, Alicia. But there were no pictures. Regan was divorced and hadn’t seen his two daughters in over four years. A victim, like most agents, of his FBI obligations.

Old Regs was taking his time, letting strained silence wear his victim down. And it was working. Lucas’s mind filled with thoughts of Juliana. Pure poison for a man in his situation.

How was she holding up? He shook his head in a small dismissive way. Juliana had been taking care of herself for a long time. She had her cover story; she’d be fine. She didn’t need him. The truth was, he was the one who needed Juliana for the next phase of his plan to work, needed her and Briana to fill the empty spot in his heart aching for… what? He searched his mind for the right word, but came up blank. The inability to label his need set off a fretful hum along his nerves.

“Close the door,” Regan barked.

Lucas complied. Not good. But then, he hadn’t expected this to be a picnic in the park. Regan wasn’t high on imagination, but following the rules with strict application had gotten him upward mobility—something he wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

“Sit.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself.”

FBI rule #1 was don’t embarrass the Bureau—which his two, make that three—failed attempts to nab the Phantom had done.

Since he’d arrived he’d learned that agents hard searched Cindy Marchand’s home and found nothing. She’d disappeared—along with Willy and any evidence that a kidnapping or a jewel theft had ever occurred. They were still waiting for lab reports on fingerprints and fibers, but Lucas didn’t hold out much hope. The Phantom was a canny specter. He was already three steps ahead of them.

“What’s with the woman?” Regan asked.

“The surveillance was stagnating. I was planning to take the brooch to several jewelers to have it appraised and get a buzz going about it. The Phantom nabbed her kid and forced her to exchange the brooch for her daughter. I agreed.”

“By who’s authority did you do this?”

“Mine.”

The silence was long and heavy under Regan’s piercing gaze.

“It’s agents like you that give the FBI a bad name. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“My job.”

Regan halted, and spun around. His jowls quivered. “Your job is to follow orders, which for some reason, you seem to think you are immune to doing.”

Regan wanted an excuse, any excuse, to jump on Lucas. Defending his position would be useless, a sign of weakness. Regs didn’t understand instinct. Lucas said nothing.

“If it were up to me, I’d have your badge before the day’s out.”

Lucas clenched his jaw, kept his temper in check, forced his body to appear relaxed.

“But Temple’s got this mistaken impression your expertise is worth your trouble.”

Thank God for guardian angels of the senior management kind, specialized knowledge, and a string of media-worthy solved cases attached to his efforts. But none of this pull would count for anything if the truth came out. His career was self-destructing before his eyes.

“I’m passing the case on to Stanley Fowler.”

Stanley Fowler! The jerk was more image than imagination. A strict nine-to-fiver. He would never prove a match for the Phantom. His brain couldn’t flex far enough to anticipate the thief’s actions. They’d get so far behind, Willy would die of old age before they caught him.

“Is that all?” Lucas said, not caring that his antagonism showed.

Regan reached for a bulletin tacked on the wall and shoved it at Lucas. “There’s an opening in Billings.”

Translation: take it willingly before I force feed it on you.

A resident agency, not even a field office. Lucas crushed the paper in his fist without reading it. He’d hate it there with every fiber of his body. Billings wasn’t part of his plans. Boston and Briana were. So was Juliana—her arms, her bed, her heart. “They have sapphire mines up in Montana. Maybe they need someone with my expertise.”

Regan leaned his beefy fists on top of his desk and fixed him with a stare that had gotten more than one seasoned criminal to sweat bullets. “You’re pushing your luck, Vassilovich.”

Lucas leaned forward, placing his fists on the desk, matching Regan’s stance. “I’m fighting for what’s mine—in and out of the Bureau. Something you can’t understand.”

“This is a team sport, and you’re not a team player.”

“I don’t know. It seems this player came in mighty handy last November when you insisted on letter perfect paperwork and screwed up the timing. We missed the Phantom at the museum by five friggen minutes.” Rule #2 was cover your ass—which Regan had done admirably by making sure Lucas had taken the full brunt for the failure to apprehend. “And because you wouldn’t sign off on getting a replica of the Nadyenka Sapphire, I’ve lost a family heirloom. Tell me that’s not putting my butt on the line for the ‘team.’”

Regan’s nostrils flared. “Channels—”

“Screw the channels. Channels didn’t help me today when I needed your support.”

Regan’s gaze narrowed. “Even with Temple behind you, you’re expendable. One letter, Vassilovich, that’s all it’s going to take.”

And Regan didn’t mean a letter of praise. If he had any imagination at all, Regan would expend it all on this last letter of censure. Lucas straightened and turned to leave.

“You’re maxed out on vacation,” Regan said. “You’re going to start losing it.”

No mistaking the underlying threat. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that. In the meantime, hand over your files to Fowler.”

As he stepped through the door, Regan’s voice stabbed him. “The kid, she looks like you.”

Maybe Regan wasn’t as devoid of creative perception as he’d thought. No sense casting further aspersions as to the reasons for this particular failure to catch the thief. Would he have acted differently if Juliana hadn’t been involved? He didn’t know, and that bothered him. He was good at what he did because he could focus from start to finish without a lapse. Now he had to wonder.

Would it come down to a choice of one or the other?

* * *

Lucas watched, trapped on the wrong side of the two-way mirror. Walters and Randall shared the space with him. Juliana looked small and fragile under the glare of the harsh light, and as out of place as a china doll on a soccer field right before kick-off. Briana sat in her lap, playing with a bean bag dragon with pink iridescent wings. It was all he could do to stand there and pretend they were simply two strangers.