Hot Target (39 page)

“I joined the Navy to go to college,” Cosmo said. “Money was tight—my dad died from a car accident and the hospital bills were . . . I wanted to go to college, so I enlisted. Did two years at sea, hated it. Kept bumping my head, and the food on board sucked. But I needed to stay in to get my degree, so I applied for the SEAL program. I would’ve done anything to avoid another six-month cruise.” He smiled. “Nothing like a little incentive to get through BUD/S.”

Jules laughed. “That’s unbelievable.” He sat down across from Cosmo. “You always scared me,” he admitted. “Out of all the SEALs in Team Sixteen . . . well, there are several of you who set off my homophobia red alert.”

“It’s the eyes,” Cosmo said. “I thought it was the haircut for a while, but . . .” He shrugged. “Not much I can do about the eyes.”

Jules laughed again as he opened his briefcase. “I have that list you called me for: cast members who own World War Two–era military uniforms, both German and American, cross-referenced with DMV records as to what kind of car or truck they own.” He looked up at Cosmo. “What exactly are you thinking?”

Cosmo took the computer printout, flipped through it. There were about forty names on the list. Some of them he recognized from Jules’ first list of cast members with Nazi uniforms—he’d already checked them out. Just a few of these actors owned trucks. Which didn’t mean anything. Not only could his hunch be dead wrong, but if it wasn’t, the truck he’d seen could be borrowed or stolen or simply not registered.

“I asked Jane about how extras get cast,” he told Jules. “You know, why pick Bob Smith over Tim Jones, if all they’re going to do is be part of the background. She said that age and physical description play into it—you don’t want to have a four-hundred-pound, balding, sixty-something man if you’re looking for seventeen- to twenty-one-year-olds for a boot camp scene, right?”

“Obviously,” Jules said.

“So you weed out all the unsuitables not just from their headshots, but also from Polaroids you take during an extras casting session. See, the extras show up, the casting agent makes sure they’re human, tries to eliminate the psychopaths and troublemakers, takes a quick photo of what they look like right now—headshots can be several years old and not accurate—and has them fill out an information sheet: Where do you live, do you own your own uniform or other period clothing, do you have an early 1940s model car or maybe a military vehicle like a jeep, and finally, what’s your availability?

“Jane told me that anyone who owns a vehicle or costume gets put into a separate file,” Cosmo continued. “Their car or uniform gets checked for historical accuracy—if the extras pass that test, they get placed in a high-priority pile. They’re going to get used first because they come fully equipped—make sense?”

Jules nodded.

“From that list, it’s a crapshoot, depending on the actors’ availability. Jane told me that Patty takes that list and makes phone calls. Whoever’s home to take the call and is available at the time of the scheduled shoot gets the job,” Cosmo told him. “And when she needs crowds of extras—like for the big D-Day scene they’re going to start filming tomorrow—she’ll go to the general list.”

“But the actors who own their own uniforms get called first,” Jules clarified. “So if I’m Mr. Insane-o and I want to get a job working as an extra on a World War Two movie so I can terrorize the producer, I should get an authentic-looking uniform.”

“Or a period car,” Cosmo said. “If you have a car that can be used in a street scene, the production assistant is going to become your new best friend. You’ll get a lot of extra work, maybe even a day-player role—you know, a coupla lines like “Look out!” or “Incoming!” as kind of a trade-off for them renting your cool car. But I’ve already got that list from Patty—it was very short. I’ve already, um, checked them all out.”

“Yeah,” Jules said. “That brings me to the other thing I wanted to ask you about. My good friends at the LAPD have reported a curious rash of break-ins in the Los Angeles area. Nothing’s stolen, nothing’s vandalized. Just a jimmied lock or an alarm system that’s been compromised, and a sense from a bunch of homeowners that someone was inside their house while they were at work.”

“Really?” Cosmo said.

“Yeah.” Jules closed his briefcase. “Even more bizarre—all of the addresses come from our master list. You know—cast, crew, studio employees?”

“No kidding.”

Jules shook his head. “Nope. I’ve spoken to Tom and Decker—they’re as baffled as I am.”

“Sounds pretty mystifying.”

“Yeah,” Jules said dryly. “I’m completely mystified.” He stood up. “You find this guy, you call and you let us take it from there, you understand?”

“My priority right now is to keep Jane safe,” Cosmo said.

“Yeah, right. Answer my question with a vaguely related statement that promises nothing.” Jules laughed as he went out of the kitchen. “I won’t notice that you were evasive. I’m only a federal agent.”

Jules was on the verge of leaving the house, a process that involved coordination with the entire Troubleshooters team—although with all of the video cameras and sensors, not to mention the watchful personnel, the Chadwicks’ front yard was now probably the safest place in all of Los Angeles—when he heard Jane shouting.

“Cos!
Cosmo!
”

Jules had to leap out of the way as the SEAL came out of the kitchen like an express train. He went up the stairs by jumping and grabbing hold of the railing, flipping himself up and over it.

Jules followed the more conventional way as Jane came barreling out of her upstairs office, her cell phone in her hand, a stricken look on her face.

Cosmo nearly knocked her over, grabbing her shoulders, doing a quick visual. She looked okay, all in one piece.

“He’s got Patty,” she said, and burst into tears.

“Who’s got Patty?” Cosmo demanded.

Robin had come into the entryway, drawn out of the conference room by the ruckus. Jules didn’t let himself look down at him.

“He just called me!” Jane told him. “Mr. Insane-o. He called and said he was going to kill Patty if I didn’t . . . if I . . . Oh, God, Cos, we have to call Jules!”

“Jules!” Cosmo called, holding tightly to Jane.

“He called on your cell phone?” Jules asked her. “Just now?”

Apparently Jane hadn’t noticed him climbing the stairs. She blinked at him in surprise. “Wow, you’re good,” she told Cosmo with a watery smile. But it faded as she answered Jules’ question. “Yeah. He said if I didn’t do exactly what he told me, he’d do to Patty”—her tears returned with a vengeance—“what he did to Angelina.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

Jane sat in her conference room as the FBI set up equipment that—according to Jules Cassidy’s opinion—probably wouldn’t help them trace much of anything, if and when the killer called back.

The killer who’d kidnapped Patty.

The tension in the room was thick. Cosmo was hovering nearby, as was Robin.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Robin was merely hovering near the liquor cabinet.

Jules came and sat down across from Jane. He looked tired, but he managed a smile. “Let’s go over that phone call one more time.”

“I’d rather talk about this woman who is going to pretend to be me,” Jane told him.

“She’s a trained FBI agent,” Cosmo said.

“Which will do her a hell of a lot of good if, as you’ve pointed out, this guy takes a . . . what did you call it? A head shot,” Jane said sharply. The phrase meant something very different in her business. “No one dies.” She looked back at Jules. “I need you to promise me that—”

“I can’t,” he told her, his elegant lips set in a grim line. “I’m not going to lie to you. But you also need to know that forensics has determined that the bullet that struck Angelina in her head was most probably a lucky—or unlucky—hit. The shooter fired six rounds total, and the first round entered her right shoulder. It was only after she was down, on the ground, that a bullet entered the back of her head.”

Oh, God. “How do you know?” Jane asked.

“Forensics is a science, Janey,” Cosmo told her. “It’s math and physics. When you know several of the variables, like where the shooter was positioned and the point and angle of where the projectile entered the victim’s body, you can figure out how and where the victim was sitting or standing when she was shot.”

“In Angelina’s case,” Jules added, “we also know that when that first shot was fired she was walking down the driveway to her car—facing the shooter. Our guy is good, but no way could he have hit her in the back of the head.”

“If that’s the case, then give
me
a bulletproof vest—” Jane started, but Cosmo cut her off.

“Not an option.”

She didn’t look at him. “I’m talking to Jules.”

“It’s
not
an option, Jane,” Jules agreed. “In some ways, this is even worse news. It means that whoever this guy is, he’s probably good enough to know not to take intentional shots to the head—it’s a smaller target, easier to miss. He’s also smart enough to know that even if you didn’t come to us with the news that he’s taken Patty, he’s giving you enough time to scrounge up a vest or a flak jacket. He’s got something else in mind, and we’re not going to take a chance risking your life.”

“But you’ll risk someone else’s,” she pointed out.

“A professional agent,” Cosmo said, “who is trained to handle this type of situation.”

“What’s her name?” Jane asked.

“Janey,” Robin said, “why don’t you just answer Jules’ questions? What does her name have to do with—”

Jane was on the verge of losing it. “Because if she’s going to die for me, I should at least know her name!”

Jules sat forward and took her hands in his. “Jane. I know what you’re thinking. But you have to know that if you’d tried to deal with this on your own, both you
and
Patty would’ve ended up dead.”

“So now just Patty’s going to die.” Jane hated this. “Patty and some woman I’ve never even met.”

“When I find out the agent’s name, I’ll let you know,” he told her. “I’ll make sure you’re in the loop—every step of the way.”

Jules Cassidy had very nice eyes. They were a warm shade of dark brown, with long lashes. Nicer still was the kindness she could see in them, the sincerity in his almost too-handsome face.

What was wrong with her brother? What devil inside of him had made him go home with Adam instead of Jules?

Who, it was also very obvious, had been badly hurt by that.

Jane had seen it so many times before. Hurricane Robin swept in, crashed around, and destroyed all potential for happiness.

Gay, straight, bi, she loved her brother, but God, he was a screwup.

“Right now we don’t have a definite plan,” Jules admitted. “We need to wait until this guy calls you again, see what his demands are, where exactly he wants you to go. Meanwhile, we’ll be using every resource available to find Patty—everything from state-of-the-art satellite technology to Mr. Mysterious over there”—he gestured to Cosmo—“and his amazing ability to walk through locked doors.”

Cosmo. Who loved her.

He was standing on the other side of the room, as if he didn’t want to crowd her, or impose, or . . .

“See if you can’t remember more of the exact conversation,” Jules urged her. “When your phone rang and you saw it was Patty’s cell number . . .” he prompted.

“I answered by saying, ‘Thank God, you’re safe,’ ” Jane told him. “And this man laughed and said, ‘Oh, I’m keeping Patty nice and safe.’ ”

As her voice wobbled, Cosmo shifted slightly.
I’m right here.

She cleared her throat. “I said, ‘Who is this?’ He said, ‘Your worst nightmare,’ and I said, ‘Robin?’ because I thought maybe he was, you know, messing around with me.”

It was such clichéd dialogue from a B-grade thriller, she’d actually thought . . .

Over on the other sofa, Robin covered his eyes with his hand. Jules glanced at him. “And he said . . . ?”

This was where it got a little blurry. “He laughed,” Jane said, closing her eyes to concentrate, “and said, ‘I’ve got Patty and’ something like, ‘if you don’t want me to do to her what I did to Angelina’—” She had to stop again. Take a breath. Look at Cosmo, who nodded encouragement. “—you’ll do exactly what I say. You tell anyone that I called—’ and that was where I interrupted him. I said something like, ‘But the FBI’s already been notified that she’s missing.’ Even though we hadn’t called you yet,” she told Jules. “I knew it was the next step.”

“Do you think she’s already dead?” Robin interrupted.

“No,” Jules answered him. “His goal is probably to lure Jane to a place where he can kill her and escape. He’s got to figure that in order to get Jane to play his game, he’ll need to offer something we call proof of life—a chance to speak to Patty on the phone, for example. A real conversation, not just a recording of her voice.”

“He said, ‘If you tell anyone about this phone call, she’s dead,’ ” Jane said. “And then he said something about calling back later tonight with instructions.”

“He used that word?
Tonight?
” Jules asked.

“I don’t know,” Jane admitted. “He may have just said later.”

Jules looked over toward the other FBI agents, who nodded. “Well, either way, we’re ready for him to call. When he does, we’re going to want you to keep him talking. Whatever he asks, tell him you’re going to have trouble getting away from your security team. He’s probably going to give you a deadline. He’ll try to push it so we have as little time as possible to prepare.” Jules’ cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”

He stood up as he took the call, moving away from the sofa.

Robin stood, too, crossing to the bar, where he poured himself another drink. Just what he needed.

“You did the right thing.” Cosmo sat down next to her on the sofa. Closer but not too close. “Asking for help with this, instead of doing something crazy. I wanted to . . .” He cleared his throat. “I want to make sure you know how much that means to me.”

Jane couldn’t hold his gaze. Please, God, don’t let her start to cry again. It seemed as if all she’d done these past few days was cry.

Angelina, however, would never cry again.

Cosmo was silent for a good long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “I lost a really good friend a few years ago,” he told her. “Frank O’Leary, who was with me when . . .”

“You saved Yasmin’s life,” she finished for him.

He nodded. “He was killed a few years after that. In a terrorist attack—when a gunman opened fire in a hotel lobby in Kazbekistan.”

“Oh, God.”

“It won’t always feel like this,” he said. “So raw.”

“It will for Murphy.” She clenched her teeth to hold back her tears. “Oh, Cos, all I keep thinking is I shouldn’t have tried for so much advance publicity for
American Hero.
I should have just quietly made it and released it, and people like Tim Ebersole and the Freedom Network and the psycho who killed Angelina might not have even noticed it.”

He thought about that for several moments. “But was that really what you wanted,” he finally asked. “To make a movie that no one noticed?”

“No, but . . . then I keep thinking I should just give in. Quit. No movie is worth dying for,” she told him.

“You’re wrong.” He spoke with such conviction, no hesitation at all. “I’ve been to countries where people aren’t allowed to make movies, where free speech will get you thrown in jail or even killed. Every American should have a TDY—temporary duty—in one of those places. It’s life-changing, Janey. Too many people take freedom for granted—you should see what it’s like to live without it. You come home, and you think
Thank God,
because you live in a country where you have freedom from persecution, freedom from oppression and fear, freedom of religion. . . .” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Freedom of speech. Freedom to disagree. Have you ever heard that expression,
I will fight to the death to protect your right to disagree with me
?”

Jane nodded.

“Frank did. He fought to the death. Frank and Matt and Scott and Jeremy and—” Cosmo shook his head. “They made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and there are others, just like them, making sacrifices every single day. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be out there, at risk, to have friends die, and then come home and see this”—he struggled to find the words—“to see people—Americans—trying to silence the voices of other Americans, just because they disagree. People calling other people unpatriotic because they don’t share the same opinions. Frank didn’t die for that, he died for democracy—for a country ruled by
all
the people, where all voices, even unpopular ones, have the right to be heard. Even the Freedom Network has the right to spout their Nazi bullshit as long as they don’t threaten or take away someone else’s rights when they do it. Because telling someone to shut up—
that’s
un-American. That dishonors my fallen brothers.

“We’re at war,” Cosmo told her. “American servicemen and -women are out there, in the thick of it, fighting for freedom. We’re counting on people like you to hold the line here at home. Oppression starts when we back down from a threat, when we let ourselves be bullied and frightened into silence.”

He was quiet for several moments, then he said, “Frankie O’Leary’s birthday was the day after mine. He was born in this little town in Louisiana. He had this really thick accent—Cajun, I think. And even though he could tone it down when he wanted to, there was this one officer—regular Navy—who really chaffed his . . . Well, Frank didn’t think too highly of him, and whenever Admiral Tucker was around, he always cranked the accent to eleven. Drove Tucker nuts.” Cosmo laughed softly, remembering. “Frankie really loved Elvis Presley—his gospel years—and he liked to water-ski. He was something out there, you should have seen him. His girlfriend’s name was Rosie, and his last words, his last thoughts were of her—of how much he loved her.”

It took him a moment, but Cosmo finally cleared his throat and went on. “I call her a couple times a year and we talk about him. On his birthday, on Memorial Day, and later in the summer, in August, too. He was really into astronomy, and he loved this one meteor shower, you know, in early August—Perseid, I think it’s called. I think it might’ve been around the anniversary of the first time he asked Rosie out. He was really into romancing her, you know? He treated her really nicely.”

Jane gave in to her tears.

“We honor his memory the other 362 days of the year by doing him proud,” Cosmo continued after another of his long pauses. “By fighting on. By holding the line. By living large and remembering that freedom doesn’t come for free. That’s what you’re going to have to do for Angelina, Janey. I know she didn’t sign on to fight this war, but the man who killed her is as much of a terrorist as the man who killed Frank, and we cannot let the terrorists win.”

“What about Patty?” Jane had to ask. “And this FBI agent, this woman?”

“Trust Jules and his team to do their jobs,” Cosmo told her. “Do what they say, Jane. Will you promise me that you’ll do exactly what they say? No foolish risks, no craziness, no heroics?”

Fear made her heart beat harder. “Where are you going?” Talk about no craziness, no heroics . . .

“I’m going to go find this guy before he hurts anyone else.” He kissed her so sweetly, his mouth so gentle, his hand warm against her cheek. But he only held it there briefly. “I’m sorry I was so public when I said . . . what I said.”

I love you.

Oh, God.

“Cos,” Jane said. “About that . . . We need to talk.”

We need to talk
were not the four little words Cosmo had been hoping to hear Jane say.

At least not right now, in response to his declaration of love.

But okay. He glanced over at Robin and Jules. They were on the other side of the room—Jules still on the phone, and Robin getting yet another drink. Cosmo would have preferred complete privacy, but . . . Here they were. Needing to talk.

Jane had tears in her eyes, which made his chest hurt.

“I know I’m not very good at this,” he said quietly. “I’ve made mistakes in the past by not saying anything at all, and now I guess I’ve gone and said too much, too soon.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Oh, and weren’t those the most damning words in a state-of-the-relationship conversation?

“Maybe,” Cosmo said, “we shouldn’t be talking about this right now. Maybe, when this is over, when we have Patty back, and this guy is—” He exhaled hard. “Maybe, if we have time to take things slowly, maybe then . . .”

Maybe he could make her fall in love with him, too.

“I just . . . hate the thought of disappointing you,” she told him. “And I know that’s all I’ve been doing.”