by Cassie Miles
He sipped his coffee. Today he should consult with Chance—the computer genius—in order to uncover information on Davidoff and on Alyssa’s former boss, the Chicago pawnbroker. And, of course, he’d talk to Sheila Marie to find out the gossip on the street. First, he needed to get into the bathroom.
Peeking down the hallway of this narrow, shotgun-style house, he saw her walking toward him, wrapped in a blue, yellow and orange beach towel. Her hair was still damp from the shower. The overhead light in the hallway spread a golden mantle across her bare shoulders. Her cheeks flushed pink. Her eyes were bright. “Good morning, Rafe.”
“Allo, cher.”
Her gaze dropped to his naked chest. “I didn’t expect to see quite so much of you.”
His nascent plan to assert his authority disappeared. With nothing more than a smile, she had disarmed him. “I made coffee,” he said.
“I’ll throw on clothes and join you in the kitchen.” She tossed her head. “We need to make plans. Because it’s Sunday, I can’t get into the safe-deposit box at my bank. But I have other things to do before I leave town.”
“It is not safe for you to leave New Orleans before you have a safe destination and a plan.”
“It’s worse if I stay,” she said. “And I’m good at figuring out what to do. I’ll need to use your computer to look for locations.”
Instead of objecting, he dived into the bathroom. The mirror was still steamed over from her shower, and he could only see a hazy outline of himself, which was fine with him. Rafe didn’t want to confront himself directly after allowing Alyssa to roll over him. The way she talked about her plans sounded like she was calling the shots.
He rushed through a shower, brushed his teeth and dressed in cargo pants and a T-shirt. Though he was moving fast, she beat him back to the kitchen. When he entered, she was on tiptoe, reaching for a high shelf in the cabinet. Her mint-green blouse rode up, giving him a glimpse of her silky midriff.
“I thought I’d make oatmeal,” she said. “Why do you keep it way up here?”
“I prefer grits,” he said. “Step aside, I’ll cook breakfast.”
He took the container of stone-ground grits from the lower shelf and got started while she settled herself at the square-topped wooden table.
She tasted her coffee. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me.”
Without measuring, he poured milk and water into a saucepan to heat. Grits for breakfast had been a standard since childhood, when Grandmama Lucille prepared most of the meals for his active family. Both his parents were professors at Tulane, and his three sisters were older and busy with their own lives. Nana Lucille had taught him how to cook, and he’d enjoyed his time in the kitchen where the air was redolent with Cajun spices and his mouth watered in anticipation of the treats to come. The kitchen was a soothing place, good for talking.
“I know the basics of how you came to be in WitSec,” he said, “but it would be useful to hear the details from you.”
She groaned. “I’ve told this story a gazillion times. Are you sure you need to hear it?”
“We need to determine who is after you and why. So, yes, s’il vous plaît, tell me how you got yourself into so much trouble. Start with your old boss.”
“Max Horowitz?”
“How did a nice girl like you get a job working for someone like him?”
“Through my mom,” she said. “Mr. Horowitz used to come into the jewelry store where Mom worked as an appraiser. Long story short, she arranged for me to take a part-time job at his pawnshop after school, which was a huge step up from the pizza joint where I’d been working.”
He set the cast-iron skillet on the range to heat before he cooked the bacon. The part of her account that she’d omitted with a casual “long story short” intrigued him. “What else was going on in your life at that time?”
“It was about ten years ago, just after Aunt Charlotte ran off and was killed in a fire. Mom missed her and spent a lot of time crying. She wasn’t purposely ignoring me, but I felt isolated. I liked the distraction of working.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, noticing that she’d used the coffee mug with daisies that he seldom touched. “Did your mama know that Horowitz was a fence?”
“Are you insinuating that my mom didn’t take good care of me?”
“You tell me, cher.”
“When she was in a good mood, she was the best—beautiful, funny and talented. On weekends, she used to sing with a band at weddings and, of course, with the choir at church.” Alyssa fluffed her still-damp curls. “Mom raised me by herself. Money was tight. Not that we were broke or anything. But there were times when she might have dabbled in petty crime—things we didn’t talk about. She never hurt anybody, always had my best interests at heart.”
Her tone had become defensive and sharp. She loved her mama and wouldn’t tolerate any negative allegations against her, even if they were true. He had to wonder about her mom’s untimely death, killed in a hit-and-run.
“And so,” he said, “you took a nice, quiet office job as an accountant in a pawnshop.”
“I jumped on it. Mr. Horowitz was a sweet older gentleman.”
According to internet gossip, that kindly old man with his walrus mustache and rumpled suit had stabbed a robber with a sword disguised as an umbrella. “Tell me about your job.”
“The office was on the second floor of the pawnshop on the Near West Side, which was a fairly decent neighborhood. Mr. Horowitz assured my mom that it wasn’t dangerous, and he did everything he could to make sure that was true. When I got to work, he buzzed me in. The door between the staircase leading up to my office and the shop was always locked. There were only four attempted burglaries during the five years I worked there.”
“Only?” He stirred the grits and turned the bacon in the skillet.
“Pawnshops are tempting targets for thieves. It’s a cash business. Mr. Horowitz had a built-in safe in addition to the cash register.” She left the table and joined him at the stovetop. “I’ll do the grits. You take the bacon.”
He’d considered frying up andouille sausage to mix with the grits but decided to keep it simple. Making an incredible breakfast wasn’t his primary goal. He wanted her to relax and give him the real story. But he didn’t want her to make a mess with his food. “Have you made grits before?”
“I’m a cook at a bistro.”
He’d wondered why she’d taken that job. When her mom died, Alyssa had been left with substantial assets and a big insurance payoff. She didn’t need the money. “Do you enjoy being a chef?”
“Not as much as I thought I would. All the food in New Orleans sounds so exotic—gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée. Learning how to make those dishes isn’t easy, and I’ve had several disasters.”
He liked her curiosity and her interest in his hometown. So much about her was appealing. “You mentioned burglaries,” he said. “Did you get involved in one of them? Is that how you ended up in witness protection?”
“You are so wrong. The incident didn’t come until later, and it didn’t happen at the pawnshop.” Using a wooden spoon, she swirled the grits. “Should I add butter?”
“If you like.”
“Everything is sweeter with butter.”
“Spoken like a true daughter of the South.”
“Don’t forget,” she said, “when you first met me, I was dressed as Scarlett O’Hara. I’m not a belle, but my mom was born and bred in Savannah. I’ve spent enough time there to understand their customs and habits. Not to mention the past few years I’ve lived in New Orleans. I like this town, and I’ll be sad to leave.”
“Perhaps, cher, we can find a way for you to stay.”
She shook her head. “The best thing is to pack up my tent and move far away. In a new city, I can start over.”
“And if they
find you again?”
“I’ll stay on the move.”
While leaning over her shoulder to check the grits, he caught a whiff of her hair, a peach fragrance that didn’t smell like any shampoo he’d ever bought. She must have brought her own hair products in that giant backpack. When he inhaled again, she turned her head. Their faces were inches apart. The tip of her nose almost touched his chin.
Kissing her lips would have been natural, sexy, pleasant and...très, très, très stupide. Such intimacy was destined to end in a slap. He pulled back and said, “Cayenne. I like to add pepper to the grits.”
“So do I.” She stirred in salt, a pinch of cayenne and a glob of butter. “I like my food sweet and spicy.”
Precisely the way he liked his women. Not a topic he intended to mention to her, not even as a joke. “Tell me more about your work at the pawnshop.”
“Mr. Horowitz made it easy for me. At various times during the day, he handed over paperwork that showed what merchandise had been taken in and how much he paid for it. I recorded the transaction in a digital file that could be checked against the counter receipts. After I’d been there for a couple of months, I started doing larger shipments that were delivered to the warehouse. After that, I recorded estate sales where Mr. Horowitz picked up antiques and artwork. Sometimes, Mom went along on those trips.”
Her work sounded straightforward. Products came in and cash went out. “I suppose the business expenses had their own records.”
“There were several different files. Mr. Horowitz liked to see monthly figures, detailed quarterly tax data, profit and loss statements to verify how much he was spending on different parts of the business. Everything was computerized, but my boss was old-fashioned. He liked the ledger system that he’d used when he first went into business.”
“How did you do that?”
“I translated the figures by hand from the computer to neat, tidy books. Some were bound in leather. Others were less fancy. He kept them on floor-to-ceiling shelves behind his antique desk in the upstairs office. My workstation was across the room by the window.”
Rafe took the skillet filled with thick strips of bacon off the flame. “Are you saying that there were two sets of books?”
“Actually, there were three. I used to take a photo with my phone of the computer sheets to copy into the other ledger. Before you get all excited, I should tell you that FBI forensic accountants went over the ledgers and other data. They were satisfied that Mr. Horowitz wasn’t committing fraud.”
Still, the complicated system was suspicious and offered many opportunities for disguising amounts and burying payments. Using a high school part-timer to keep track of business accounting seemed risky. While she finished with the grits and sprinkled cheddar on top, he whipped up scrambled eggs. With breakfast assembled, he sat across the table from her and raised his coffee mug in a toast.
“Here’s to us,” she said.
“And here’s to finding the men who are after you...”
“...and locking them up in handcuffs, and then we’ll throw them into a swamp, where the gators eat them piece by bloody piece.”
Her grin belied the danger in her words. Not unlike the zombie Scarlett she impersonated, Alyssa had many secrets she hadn’t revealed. For one thing, she made the pawnshop sound like a cute little neighborhood business. He knew better. Horowitz Pawn & Exchange had been a multimillion-dollar business. Not only did the old man with the white mustache deal in over-the-counter trades, but he handled raw diamonds and antique jewelry with untraceable provenance. And he was a fence who regularly dealt with criminals and probably laundered their cash.
Though the FBI accountants hadn’t found evidence of fraud, that didn’t mean her boss had been cleared. When Alyssa came forward to testify, Max Horowitz had disappeared. He hadn’t been heard from since.
“We should make plans,” she said. “I’d love to get into my house.”
“A joke?” Because he wasn’t laughing.
“I realize that it would be difficult, but I hate to lose everything I own.”
She might be hiding something of significance at the house. “Any particular item? Perhaps jewelry?”
“As if I’d be foolish enough to leave anything valuable lying around.”
“Mais non, you are too clever.” He watched her expression as he continued. “You might have hidden something under a loose floorboard or in a secret compartment of a desk or in the freezer section of your refrigerator.”
“I might have tried a stunt like that...when I was twelve.” While holding eye contact and looking innocent, she dug into her breakfast and moaned with pleasure at the first taste of grits. “If Mr. Horowitz taught me anything, it was how to keep my treasures safe. My mom was the same way. When I was a kid, we used to play a game where she’d hide a diamond brooch and I had to find it.”
“And now that you’re grown up?”
“Well, you saw my storage unit. And I mentioned my safe deposit boxes. I have a locker in a gym and at my work.”
Her green eyes sparkled so brightly that he was distracted. He looked forward to the time when she stopped playing this game of cat-and-mouse with him. They were on the same side. The more he knew, the better he could protect her. “In any case, you cannot return to your house. They could be watching or have rigged booby traps. Your car will most certainly have a tracking system so they can find you.”
“You might be interested to know that I have another car. It’s in a private garage, all gassed up and ready to roll.”
“Is this vehicle in your name?”
She bit off a piece of bacon with her sharp, white teeth and chewed before washing it down with coffee. “Technically, Alyssa Bailey is an alias. That’s the name I use for everyday business, but I have four other identities, two with passports and all with credit cards.”
It sounded like she changed names the way other people changed clothes. “Did you have any of this paperwork while you lived in Chicago?”
“Only one,” she said. “I added the others during my three years in New Orleans.”
She made falsifying her identity sound like a hobby. Where had she gotten the paperwork? How had she obtained credit in different names? He suspected that Horowitz had taught her more than rudimentary accounting procedures. “I would like to see these documents.”
“Not a good idea. After all, I might need to disappear from you.” She dabbed at her full lips with a paper napkin. “Maybe we can pick up my second car or visit the locker at my health club.”
“We’ll see.”
He had no intention of allowing her to call the shots and drag him along on her secret and possibly nefarious agenda. After another sip of coffee, he scooped up a forkful of fluffy scrambled eggs. The food was good, but he ate too fast and only savored every other bite. Alyssa had thrown him off his game.
After they cleaned up the breakfast dishes, he took her into the small pantry off the kitchen so he could show her his array of surveillance equipment. Four screens from cameras outside the house were divided into four smaller pictures. None showed suspicious activity.
He explained the sensors. “If you jiggle the doorknobs or rattle the windows, an alert rings through on my cell phone.”
“Last night, you knew exactly when I made my escape.” Her tone became accusatory. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I wanted to see where you’d go.”
“And why is that, Rafe? Did you think I’d be meeting a contact?” She whirled to confront him. The walls of this tiny room seemed to shrink as she demanded, “Do you suspect me?”
That was a big question with many shades of gray between gleaming innocence and pitch-black guilt. Hoping not to destroy the cooperative mood that had been building during breakfast, he distracted her by holding up her cell phone and replacing the battery. “If you want to check messages, you can turn
it on for a few minutes. I have enough security in this house to shield phone transmission and tracking.”
She snatched the phone. “Thank you.”
He watched her scroll through texts and messages. Her manner was casual, and he didn’t sense that she was looking for a contact from a partner in crime. “Are you expecting a call?”
She shrugged. “I have a message here from Anonymous. Should I play it?”
He perched on a stool in front of the screens. “If you please...”
The voice of Anonymous reminded him of her earlier account. Pitched low with husky overtones, Anonymous could have been male or female. The message was brief: “Sunday morning, nine o’clock services at the Hope and Peace Church in the Ninth Ward. Be there.”
She played it again. “That’s the same person who called me last night. I’m sure of it.”
“But you don’t recognize the voice.”
“There’s something familiar, but no.”
He glared at the phone in her hand. Though he wasn’t in the mood to dash across town without knowing what he was looking for, they couldn’t ignore this message. “You need to get dressed in a hurry. We’re going to church.”
She bounced to her feet. “Give me eight minutes.”
Most women would take longer than that to put on makeup and style their hair, but Alyssa was a clever little chameleon. In his bedroom, Rafe changed into a dark blue suit and a white shirt with no tie. Before he donned the jacket, he added a shoulder holster. Then he ran a finger over his jaw. No time to shave, but he wasn’t too scruffy-looking. He combed through his thick, dark hair with his fingers and called out, “Ready?”
“Almost.”
He stepped into the hallway and came face-to-face with a blonde whose long hair curled past her shoulders. Out of curiosity, he checked his watch. Exactly eight minutes had passed. “How did you know the timing?”
“I’ve practiced changing into my disguise.” She wore extra-large black sunglasses with rhinestones in the corners. Her patterned pink sundress had a full skirt and low-cut neckline. With her fists on her hips, she stuck out her impressive cleavage. Then she pursed her lips, which were painted neon pink, and asked, “What do you think, sugar?”
