In Plain Sight (Stolen Hearts) (12 page)
Read In Plain Sight (Stolen Hearts) Online
Authors: Kate Kelly
He sank his head into his hands. No matter what the FBI said, he knew he wasn’t wrong about Bridget. She may have shadows in her life, but she was a good person and wouldn’t harm anyone if she could prevent it. He’d bet his life on it.
He looked up when Nick came back into the room. “Got some things I think you should see.” He laid three passports on the table in front of him like he was dealing a winning hand.
“We found them in Darcy’s apartment after we got a tip that Bridget was staying there. Go ahead.” Nick nodded at the passports. “Have a look.”
His hands trembling, Rafe picked up the first one. It was a French passport. In the passport picture, Bridget wore short blonde curls and loads of makeup. She looked like a kid playing dress-up. Her name was Lucinda Strom.
“She’s young here.” He ran a finger over the photo.
“Try this one.” Nick pushed another passport toward him.
“Colleen Mahone,” he read out loud. The picture could have been taken yesterday. Her short brown hair had the same hacked-off look to it, and she had tension lines etched deep between her eyebrows. He scanned the pages before he flipped it back on the table. “It looks recent.”
“France, Serbia, the States.” Nick picked up the last passport. “This is her American passport. It’s the only legal one.”
Rafe picked up all three passports, stacked them into a tidy pile and pushed them to one side, his mind racing. “You found them at her brother’s apartment?”
“Along with this.” Nick shoved a paper bag across the table.
Rafe slid a finger inside the bag and pushed it up enough to glance inside. American money. Stacks of it. Relief washed over him, and he sagged back in his chair.
“She’s been set up.”
“Gage said that’s what you’d think.”
He glared at Nick. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
“Whatever happened to cooperating with the law?”
A fist formed in his gut. “Why would she when you’ve already found her guilty?”
“Of what?”
The question plowed into him. “I haven’t a fucking clue.”
“Make a case for her. Why do you think she was set up?”
“Because she didn’t have any money. She said she had a credit card and money in the bank she was afraid to access because you’d trace her through the transaction, but she didn’t have any available cash. If that money is hers, why did she borrow money from me?”
“You lent her money?” Nick looked incredulous.
“It’s not a crime to lend a friend money.”
“It is if you’re aiding and abetting a criminal.”
“She’s not a criminal,” he shouted. “She’s in danger.” He gulped for air. “You found all this stuff at Darcy’s. How did you know to look there?”
“We got a tip.”
“Anonymous.”
Nick frowned. “Yeah.”
“Darcy and Bridget have a friend called Claire. I don’t know her last name.”
“Yeah. Claire Daley.”
“I don’t think Bridget trusts her.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Bridget would never do something as stupid as leave this stuff lying around Darcy’s apartment. She’s always thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else.”
Nick nodded as if he agreed. “And you have no idea where she is now?”
“Haven’t a clue.” She’d go back to Honey’s, he realized. She knew how to talk her way past the concierge, and she knew Honey wasn’t expected home for a while. And she assumed he wouldn’t think to go back there because she’d already left. Hell. She was probably soaking in the Jacuzzi right now, sipping one of Honey’s ultra-expensive wines.
He frowned and tried to look depressed for Nick’s sake as he stood. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Rafe jerked his head up. He didn’t like the cat-and-mouse smile Nick had on his face. “I thought we were done. I told you everything I know, which isn’t much.”
“Oh, I doubt that. But you’re right. I’m done. For now.” Nick got to his feet and unsnapped a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Rafe Pascotto, you’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a criminal and for—”
“You’re fucking kidding me.” He bunched his fists. He’d love to take a swipe at the smug bastard, but two uniforms showed up at the door.
“You can phone a lawyer or—”
“Come on, Nick. Don’t do this to me.”
Nick cuffed him. “Sorry, man. Gage’s orders. I know it doesn’t feel this way right now, but you’re lucky you have a brother-in-law who looks out for you.”
“I want to call my lawyer.”
Nick clapped on the shoulder. “You bet. Just as soon as we book you. See you later, Rafe.”
Rage boiled through him as the two burly federal agents led him away. He was going to kill Gage, and then he was going to pound that smug look off DeMarco’s face. But first he had to get free. His chest constricted. Christ, he couldn’t even breathe. Bridget was on her own, and it seemed like everyone was out to get her.
There’d been times in his life when he’d felt helpless as a kid, and he’d sworn never to go back there. As soon as he could he’d call his lawyer to get him out. No way could they hold him for aiding and abetting a criminal. What criminal? They hadn’t charged Bridget with anything yet.
And when they did? His gut churned. What would they arrest her for? What kind of mess had she gotten herself into?
***
Bridget used her big toe to pull the plug in Honey’s hot tub and tried not to pout as the water drained away. She’d given Pascotto too much credit. She’d assumed he’d finally work out that she’d return here and come after her. Where else did she have to go?
She’d waited until the concierge had left his post at the front desk, then slipped in the lobby and hit the stairs. A ball cap had covered her face, and she’d tried to walk like a guy in case the cameras caught her image. She’d stolen the key to the condo earlier and had a copy made while she was out. Pascotto probably hadn’t even noticed the key was gone. Honestly, the man would have made a lousy criminal. He didn’t have it in him to be sly.
The corners of her mouth turned up as she reluctantly climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in a large green towel. He was such a sweet man, she could just eat him up. She should have left a note or a clue to lead him back here. But maybe it was better this way. The way things were going at the moment, she didn’t need to be worrying about Rafe as well.
Hadn’t she told herself that a hundred times in the last few days? And yet, one somehow managed to track the other down. Like they belonged together.
She snorted and went in search of more clothes to borrow from Honey. She was fed up not having her own cash. After she got dressed she’d contact Mickie, a hacker buddy, and see if there was a way to move some of her money into an accessible account.
She found a plain white T-shirt n Honey’s dresser and a pair of jeans that probably cost several hundred dollars in her slacks-only closet. Thank goodness they were close to the same size, although Honey was an inch or two taller. She rolled the bottom of the jeans up to her ankles and ignored the image of her plain brown curls in the mirror as she left the room.
Changing her hair color and cutting it had brought back bad memories. But that was okay because she couldn’t afford to forget what she was up against. It was also okay that Rafe hadn’t thought to circle back and look for her in the only safe place she had to stay. She had to take care of business on her own, and she knew from experience she was tough enough to handle it.
***
Two hours later, Bridget stretched and pushed away from Honey’s computer. Mickie had not only helped her set up a new, untraceable account, but had moved money from one of her old accounts into the new one without leaving a paper trail. Finally she had her own money again. She double-checked that she’d followed Mickie’s instructions for erasing all activity in the last two hours. She’d hated not having her own money. Had learned young that money meant independence for her and Darcy.
Some might have said she’d made a few bad decisions along the way to gain that independence, but they hadn’t been about to lose their only brother to a brutal social assistance system or been shoved into a group home themselves. She’d promised her mother she’d look after Darcy. It hadn’t always been easy, and obviously she’d failed because her brother was in jail, and she was on the run. But how could she have guessed one wrong decision made years ago would come back to haunt them?
She booted up the computer again and went in search of a coffee or cola while waiting for the programs to load. She had a lot of work to do tonight and needed the caffeine kick. When she sat back down in front of the monitor, she plugged in her favorite news site. She didn’t know specifically what she was looking for, only that she would recognize the event when she saw it.
Her can of soda almost slipped through her fingers when Rafe’s picture came up as a news item. Oh, no. She covered her mouth with her hand. The FBI had arrested him. For what? She punched the button to read more. Aiding and abetting a person of interest? Were they serious?
They were using him to flush her out. How clever. Except it wouldn’t work because what they failed to consider was someone much scarier than the FBI were after her. She wished for Rafe’s sake that she’d never met him. It hurt to look at the picture they showed of him, handcuffed and looking as though he hadn’t had a shower in days. Where was Mr.
GQ
now? His beard had to be at least three days old and his hair had grown long enough to brush the top of his shirt—the ten-dollar T-shirt she’d insisted he wear. He looked rough and, God help her, sexy as hell.
She swiped at her tears. He’d hate the attention, and he’d feel ashamed, as if he’d actually done something wrong. She knew he’d gone out of his way to avoid the press since Paris, and now he was front-page news again. He must hate her, and how could she blame him?
Enough
. She jabbed at the keyboard until Rafe’s picture disappeared and a list of headlines rolled by. She didn’t have time to indulge in self-pity. She had work to do, and not as much time as she’d hoped. First, she had to find the bastards who’d started the ball rolling. And then she had to find a way to best them at their own game. If it took her the rest of her life, she’d destroy them. Because until she did, she didn’t have a life.
Stretched out on his prison cot, Rafe cracked open one eye, then closed it when he saw Gage approach his cell. He had nothing to say to the man. Well, he had one or two things, but considering he was locked up and Gage had the gun, he’d keep them to himself.
He draped his arm over his eyes. “Have you told Sophie I’m in jail?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t. It’ll only upset her. Is she okay?”
“Yeah.”
Rafe peered out from under his arm. “That didn’t sound very convincing.”
“I’m still working on the house situation.”
“You need a down payment or something, the offer’s still on the table.”
Gage cursed. “Would you stop being so damned stand-up? You think I like seeing you in jail?”
“Yeah, I do. But one thing doesn’t have to do with the other.”
Rafe waited and when Gage didn’t say anything, he asked the question that had been on his mind since they’d locked him up two days ago. “Did you find her yet?”
“No. She can’t leave the country, though, because we have her passports.”
“No you don’t.”
Gage leaned against the bars. “What do you mean?”
“You have passports someone planted for you to find at Darcy’s apartment. Bridget wouldn’t leave her real passport lying around.”
Gage grunted. “You ready to talk yet?”
“I’ve got nothing to talk about.”
“You really don’t know where she is, do you?”
“Bingo.”
Gage sighed. “I’ll start the paperwork to release you.”
“Good to know.”
“We’ll be sitting on you once you’re free. You know that, right?”
“I figured.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that. See you tomorrow.”
He lay back down on his cot when Gage left. Had he passed the test? Had Gage believed him when he said he didn’t know where Irish was? God, he hoped so. He couldn’t wait to see her again. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get to her without the entire FBI following him.
***
In the middle of the night, Rafe woke to hear his cell door slide open. What the hell? He lay as still as possible, trying to figure out what was going down. It was difficult to see in the dim night lights left on after curfew. God help him if it was the big guard who’d been eyeing him. Fighting off that guy would be like attacking a tank.
He tensed when someone slipped into his cell. Whatever was going down wasn’t good. “Hey. Someone. Anyone. Wake up. Something’s going down here.”
In the resounding silence, a man slapped a piece of tape over his mouth and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Then he grabbed a handful of Rafe’s hair, jerked him upward and dropped a hood over his head.
Not able to see a thing, he kicked in the direction of the man and heard a grunt and a low growl that sounded like
merde
. The guy had just sworn in French. Not any of the guards then.
Rafe kicked again but missed him. His head snapped back when the man’s fist plowed into Rafe’s right eye. Holy Christ. He reeled backward and fell against the cot.
The man pulled Rafe to his feet and jabbed something hard into his side. “Feel that?” he whispered. “It’s a gun. Give me a hard time and I’ll start with your toes, work up to your knees and…well, we all know what comes after that. Move it.” He shoved Rafe forward, but kept a hand on his arm.
Who the hell was he? Not anyone connected to the prison. Goddamn it. They were going to let him out tomorrow, free and clear. Now the feds would think he’d escaped.
Rafe must have cursed out loud without realizing it, because the guy used the butt end of the gun to jab his ribs. “Shut up and keep walking. If we get caught, I’ll shoot you first.”
If they got caught, there’d be a whole lot of shooting going on. How had the guy managed to walk into a jail and walk out with a prisoner? Obviously, he had inside help. Was it just one guy kidnapping him? He strained to hear footsteps other than his and the kidnapper’s, but everything else was silent. Too quiet, now that he thought about it. They must be passing other cells that held prisoners.
Before he could process that information, he stumbled into a room with bright lights that bled through the weave of the hood over his head, but he still couldn’t see anything. He tensed when he felt another person come up on his right. But his captor yanked on the cuffs and pulled him along.
“You’re wasting time. Open the door.”
Rafe heard the pneumonic whoosh of electronic doors opening and the cool evening air rushed in to greet him.
He sucked air in through his nose when the man dragged the hood off, and—hello!—took off the handcuffs. He peered at the kidnapper, but the man wore sunglasses and a ball cap that cast deep shadows over his face. He was thin and short and wiry; Rafe recognized the strong smell of French cigarettes.
“Come on. Hurry. Get in the back.” The man shoved him into the back seat of an SUV that was parked at the curb.
Really? That was it? No cops pulling up in unmarked vehicles? No alarms from the jail? No SWAT teams? He righted himself in the back seat when the vehicle swerved away from the curb.
He braced himself, waiting for the first opportunity to jump out of the SUV. He didn’t think the doors were locked, and even if they were, he could unlock them. Wow, the guy was even worse than him when it came to thinking like a criminal.
By some stroke of luck, the man drove toward the downtown neighborhood where Rafe had grown up. He knew the back alleys and streets like any kid knew his neighborhood. If he could jump out and have a few seconds start, he could lose the guy, easy.
His heart pounded in his chest as he waited for the SUV to pull up at a stoplight or slow down for a corner. His right eye throbbed, and he couldn’t see that clearly out of it unless he squinted, but it hurt to do that for more than a few seconds. Sweat rolled down his sides, the smell stale and sour. Didn’t matter. He’d be free in a few minutes. He should phone Gage once he got away, but what the hell. It’s not like his brother-in-law had done him any favors.
The vehicle suddenly slowed at the corner, and not allowing himself to second-think his move, Rafe shoved the door open and raced down the alley on his right. Gulping for air, he scampered over the fence at the end of the alley and hoisted himself up a fire escape and followed it to the top of the building.
The dipshit moron probably hadn’t even parked the SUV yet. He ran to the door on the rooftop, and stopped. Okay, he was doing vertical, and he needed to go horizontal. Stop. Think. Where was he?
He winced as he ripped the tape from his mouth. He could see the spires from St. Anthony cathedral just down the block. Years ago when he lived in the neighborhood, Monsignor Donahue had kept a small room unlocked near the back of the cathedral that had a sink and a small bed. Everyone called it the Sanctuary, and almost everyone in the neighborhood had holed up there for the night at one time or another. Teenagers angry at their parents, desperate wives, drunken fathers, broken-hearted lovers. The first time he’d gotten drunk, his buddies had dumped him in the Sanctuary so his mother wouldn’t find out. She’d have been drunk herself likely and would have had one of her dramatic fits.
He could get to the room if it still existed. It would give him some time to figure out what was going on. Lately he felt like he was always waking up in the second act and scrambling to learn the script. Just beyond the rooftop door, he saw a tattered lawn chair sitting beside a wood crate that held an overflowing ashtray. He’d give his left nut for a smoke right this minute.
He sat in the lawn chair and eyed the old smokes. Forget it. He didn’t need sanctuary, either. He had everything he needed for the moment. Except some ice. His eye still throbbed, and he had a bitch of a headache. By the man’s smell back in the jail, it had been a Frenchman. Who else would willingly choose to smoke Gauloise? Why had the Frenchman hit him? He’d already been cuffed and blinded and had the tape on his mouth.
Probably because he’d kicked him. Or because he was a mean SOB. Still, the whole episode felt all out of whack to him. The first part had seemed so professional, he supposed. The guy getting into the jail, the prisoners somehow silenced, walking right out onto the street. But cuffing his hands in front of him? Driving through his old neighborhood? Okay, maybe his captor hadn’t known it was his neighborhood. But slowing down and not locking the doors so he could jump out? It was almost as if—
Hell
. He’d wanted Raphael to escape. Whoever had broken him out of jail thought he’d lead him straight to Bridget. There was a good chance that Gage and DeMarco had arranged the midnight breakout. And if not them…
Christ
. He jerked to his feet, picked up the glass ashtray and whipped it across the rooftop. He heard a solid thump when it connected with an air vent. Why hadn’t Bridget trusted him enough to tell him the truth about what was going on? Who was after her and why?
He’d had it with people manipulating him for their own ends. So what if he didn’t know how to use a gun and had only been in two fights in his entire life? He was seriously pissed now, and he wasn’t taking anyone’s shit anymore.
He might as well go home. He was one hundred percent certain he already had a tail, and it would be easier for him to lose him using Sophie’s car than running around on foot. And he needed to mail the amber stones to the address Darcy had given him.
He didn’t have to worry that Bridget would show up at his apartment. As angry as he was with her, he prayed she was all right. It killed him to think of her being captured and held against her will. What the hell did the Frenchman or the FBI want with her? It had to involve jewelry, didn’t it?
In the beginning, Gage had mentioned wanting to question her about a theft that had happened a few years ago. And Rafe was supposed to have interested her in some sapphires in Boston. That part could have been just bullshit Gage had fed him. Goddamn FBI.
He yanked open the rooftop door, slipped down the first few steps and stopped to listen. If someone was waiting for him, he was holding his breath or had stayed on the street. But he didn’t think anyone would stop him now. Maybe the Frenchman would try again in a day or two when he realized that Raphael wasn’t going to lead them to Irish. As for the FBI, if they were so damned smart, they’d probably be knocking down his door tomorrow morning.
In the end, Rafe stayed home only long enough to shower and shave and change his clothes, as well as self-medicate his aches and pains. He’d been fooling himself to think he could stay away from Bridget. He had a hole in his gut the size of the ocean from worrying she might not be at Honey’s.
Before he left, he found the amber stones Bridget had stashed in his coat pocket, washed and dried them meticulously and slipped them into a padded envelope with the address Darcy had recited to him. He debated taking the stones to Bridget, but there were too many what-ifs in that scenario. What if he got caught with the stones on him? Or worse, if he gave them to Bridget and she was arrested? Let the FBI or someone else deal with them. He stuck on all the stamps he had, knowing he was probably overdoing it, but better the stones arrive at the address than float around lost in the postal system forever.
More for effect than the belief he was giving anyone the slip, he exited through the back door of his apartment building after putting the envelope in his neighbor’s mailbox where it would be picked up tomorrow morning. He trotted down the street to the underground parking lot where Sophie had left her MG Midget. The bright red color made it easy to spot, he supposed. But he only planned on driving the sweet, little ride until he could shake his tail.
He took pleasure in zipping around town, not concerning himself with breaking any traffic violations. If the feds were following him, they’d likely tell the local cops to back off. And if it wasn’t the feds, it would be interesting to see what the asshats would do to discourage a cop from stopping him. They’d already broken him out of jail.
He didn’t bother trying to identify any one vehicle behind him. There were enough cars on the road that no one stood out. After two hours of aimlessly driving around, he pulled into the Market District where people were arriving to start setting up for the day. He parked the MG, jumped out, strode through the busy stalls and caught a just vacated cab on the other side of the building. When they stopped at a red light two blocks away, he paid the driver and caught another cab going in the opposite direction. He hopped a bus after that, rode it for fifteen minutes, got out at a busy intersection and lost himself in the morning office crowd.