Undercover Protection

by Maggie K. Black

  Esther’s lips curled in a sneer and suddenly no amount of makeup or coiffing could hide the ugliness in her face.

  “You don’t get it,” Esther said. “You have no power here. Just because I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform your life doesn’t mean I won’t just take what I want if the answer is no.”

  But again Leia glanced past her to the glorious world outside and the strong form of the man she admired most in the world. As she watched, he wrote J832 in the suds before wiping it clean. John 8:32. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

  Leia felt her chin rise. “The answer is no.”

  Esther’s blue eyes grew and her perfectly painted mouth set in a thin line. She pressed a button on her desk and the double doors swung open again. Stan and Ross strode into the room.

  “Take her,” Esther said. “Restrain her and sedate her.”

  The criminals came toward her. There was a syringe in Stan’s hand. Instinctively Leia backed up toward the window.

  “It’s a pity,” Esther said. “I would’ve enjoyed dressing you up and managing your image. It could’ve been big for the company. But a sleeping beauty in a medically induced coma is more practical, I suppose.”

  Fear rose up Leia’s spine. She prayed that Jay saw what was happening.

  The explosion of a high-powered weapon sounded behind her; the floor to-ceiling window exploded, and a sudden wind rushed in as glass cascaded through the room like a wave.

  “Leia!” Jay shouted. “Come on!”

  She turned and ran across the floor toward the shattered remains of the window and the open sky beyond. Jay opened his arms for her. The window-washing platform began to drop.

  She leaped over the ledge.

  FOURTEEN

  Jay opened his arms, and she tumbled into them and felt him clutch her to his chest as the window-washing platform slid back down the side of the building. She held him tightly and he held her just as fiercely as a wind rushed past them and the platform dropped at a swift but controlled pace. Bullets echoed from the floors high above them as criminals tried futilely to fire after them, only to give up quickly as they apparently realized there was no safe way to lean out the gaping hole Jay’s weapon had left behind, let alone hit the moving target in the wind.

  She prayed and thanked God for rescue and that Jay was safe.

  “Told you I’d find you,” he called, raising his voice against the rushing sound of the falls below as the wind whipped around them. He stepped back just enough to help her slide into a safety harness and clip her in. Then went back to embracing her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes!” she practically shouted back. “I’m fine. But what about you? We’re forty stories off the ground.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he said, and chuckled. “And before you ask—nope, I’m not getting used to it.”

  “What about the beard?” she yelled.

  “I’m not keeping that, either!” he said.

  She leaned against the warmth of his core, and despite the height, she was feeling secure in a way she couldn’t put into words.

  “How did you even find me?” she asked. “I thought you’d assume they’d taken me to Franklin’s offices in Toronto.”

  “I did!” he said. “But Moses tipped me off you were here.”

  She laughed. “How?”

  Jay reached around her and pressed a button, and the window-washing platform started to slow the pace of its descent.

  “We initialized a full-scale predawn raid on Franklin’s offices in Toronto,” Jay said. “He claimed to have nothing to do with your kidnapping. Police made a full search of the building and of course didn’t find any trace of you. The mentor I mentioned, Detective Jess Stone, is in charge of the operation and she texted her tech friend, Seth, to see if he could spot anything on camera feeds at other Vamana properties. Anything at all, no matter how weird or irrelevant. It was a total long shot. But sure enough he found something online about a random brown, white and black tabby cat wandering around a building in Niagara Falls. And then I remembered that your dad had rescued your mom from Niagara, not Toronto.”

  Her mind boggled.

  “Moses hitched a ride on the helicopter in one of the criminals’ bags,” she said. “He’s notorious for falling asleep in bags.”

  And where was the cat now? she wondered. Had he found a new home, or kept roaming or somehow come back?

  She looked up and estimated that Jay had already put ten stories’ distance between himself and the shattered window above. She glanced nervously at the building windows as they moved past her, but saw only her own reflection and the sky above mirrored back.

  “What’s to stop criminals from figuring out what floor we’re about to pass next and just shooting us through the window?” she asked.

  “Police,” Jay said, dropping his voice back to speaking level now that the wind in their ears had dissipated some. He turned to face her again and her heart swelled as she traced the lines of his face. “Joint provincial and local police initiatives are moving in to lock down the building as we speak. They’d just been awaiting my confirmation that you were on the premises and where you were located.”

  “So, you went in undercover,” she said.

  “I did,” he said, “and I hated every moment up off the ground.”

  She laughed.

  “But it was worth it,” he said. One arm slid tight around her waist, and the other slid to her face. He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Knowing you were okay and laying eyes on you was worth everything to me.”

  “Well, I’ve got to say I’m not a fan of this beard,” she teased.

  “Consider it gone the moment I’m not at risk of being identified,” he said. He glanced down and she followed his gaze. At least twenty police vehicles had surrounded the building now, including a gawking crowd and news vans. Jay pushed the button again and the platform stopped halfway down the side of the building.

  Something warm and comforting pooled in his eyes. A voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she couldn’t just let herself keep falling into this man’s arms when she was scared. Yes, he’d found her when she was in danger and scaled the side of a building to keep her safe. But that didn’t mean that he was ready to be in a relationship with her. Or that she could let herself love him.

  And yet somehow her hands slid up into his hair and then his lips found hers. He kissed her and she kissed him back, for one brief moment letting herself feel complete in his arms. Then he pulled away, and she tucked her head into his shoulder and shivered against him.

  “You cold?” he asked.

  “Just scared mostly,” she admitted. It was like somehow she’d managed to hold it together for the entire ordeal, from the first moment she’d been grabbed when she stepped through her front door, through being chased, kidnapped, threatened, taken captive and then finally when she found herself face-to-face with an unexpected and surprising evil. And now that she was safe, the full weight of what she’d been through was finally hitting her at once. “I’m okay, but this night has been the scariest of my life.”

  “Mine, too,” Jay said.

  He hugged her for one long moment. Then he let her go, turned and looked out at where the sun rose slowly over the falls. His hands gripped the railing.

  “But it’s all over now,” he added. “Police secured your family farm and made sure Sally and the baby were okay. Local police in the jurisdictions where Quinn and Rose live are checking up on them, and Sally has already talked with them both. Willie was arrested by the side of the road. Sally still had him at gunpoint when police arrived. The coroner has taken away Dunlop. Police will make sure any remaining family are contacted, and if no one claims his body, then he’ll be given a dignified burial. No one’s seen Ben ever since he escaped the burning barn back at the farm. But both Stan and Ross
will leave this building in handcuffs, as will Esther Vamana. I also recorded every word Esther said with a high-powered microphone and relayed it back to police on the ground. We have all the evidence we need. But I expect you’ll be questioned by my colleague Jess, who’s now heading the operation, and also be asked to testify when it goes to trial.”

  “So, this means your cover was never blown?” she said. “You succeeded in staying undercover this entire time.”

  “I did,” he said. “I came very close to giving it up at one point. Franklin recognized me as my father’s son and started taunting me. For a second I didn’t think I was going to keep it together.”

  “I can only imagine,” she said. “That must’ve been hard.”

  “It was,” he said. “But I stayed strong, held my tongue and didn’t crack.”

  “Well, you’ve always been good at controlling your feelings,” she said slowly.

  While she’d just let her own emotions run roughshod over her mind yet again.

  Lord, as much as I care about this man, I need to change. It’s time I respect myself enough to save my heart for someone who wants a life with me.

  He didn’t look at her. Instead, his gaze searched the stunning waterfall vista below. She stood beside him and did likewise. Their arms bumped. And she knew this moment together, suspended on a rickety metal platform off the edge of a skyscraper, was nothing more than another sweet and stolen moment between them. Nothing more. They were just sharing one final goodbye in a long and painful string of goodbyes they’d had so far.

  Help me, Lord. Make me strong enough to say goodbye to this man again.

  Jay took a deep breath, as if trying to delay his next sentence as long as possible. So she said it for them.

  “The fact your cover wasn’t blown means nothing changes for you, right?” she said. “You’re going to head out from here into your undercover work, fulfill your dreams and take down every single face on that board.”

  Without a wife and without a family.

  Without her.

  “And you’re going to be the star witness in the case against Esther Vamana and all the criminals who threatened you, terrorized you and took over your farm,” Jay said. “It’s done. It’s over. We’ve won.”

  Which was probably true and yet didn’t even feel the slightest bit like a victory. Something about his tone of voice and the frown on his face made her pretty sure he didn’t feel that, either.

  “But what about Franklin Vamana and the Phantom Killer?” she said. “Has he been arrested? Have the bodies been found?”

  “No,” Jay said.

  “And are you okay with that?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m not,” Jay said. “He taunted us, like a smug bullfrog, just knowing he’d gotten away with multiple murders he’d never get caught for. He dropped the kind of threats and comments that he knew any good lawyer would be able to get dismissed in a heartbeat as both hypothetical and insubstantial. Including vile threats against my colleague Jess, and her husband and children. He even implied my father begged for his life before he killed him—my father!”

  He turned to Leia. An unexpected and anguished pain pooled deep in his eyes. “How could I ever be okay with knowing a man like that was out in this world living free? I thought that’s what this case was about. I thought Franklin had sent the criminals to the farm to ransack it and kidnap you. Turns out I was wrong. It wasn’t him, it was his sister. And that’s okay.”

  No, it wasn’t, in a way she didn’t even know how to articulate. It wasn’t all right that the Phantom Killer had gone unpunished.

  “This wasn’t how I thought this story was supposed to end,” she said. “The Shadow gets caught. His prisoners get freed. There’s no evil Shadow sister who turns out to be behind things all along.”

  “I know.” Jay ran his hand over her back. Then he pushed the button again and the platform restarted its slow descent. “But not every story is going to end the way we want it to. And what can I do beyond keep digging at leads? Your sister Sally gave investigators a copy of your mom’s stories and said she’ll also use them to recreate her own maps of the locations in the story. Plus I have the ones I saved from your family’s basement computer. Maybe this will give us new leads. I don’t know. I just have to hold on to faith, pray and not give up. Sometimes the answers we get aren’t the answers we hoped for, and together we brought multiple criminals to justice. We have to hold on to that.”

  She looked out over the twin Niagara waterfalls, one in New York and one in Ontario, as they crashed down into the basin below. She watched as the sun spread its gorgeous rays sparkling over the raging waters and casting shimmering rainbows in the spray. Raging waters swirled around tiny islands above the falls before then coursing between tall towering rock faces below, and she was reminded of all the people in history who braved that river to cross the border without detection, whether to escape slavery and war, embark on a new life or smuggle forbidden goods. Now, cars slowly moved back and forth along the Rainbow Bridge between the United States and Canada.

  Shivers ran down Leia’s limbs.

  It couldn’t be, could it? Cymbafalls? She grabbed Jay’s hand.

  “Stop the platform,” she said, “and please tell me what you see.”

  * * *

  Jay could hear his superior, the head of the operation, in his earpiece telling him that the building was secured and to hurry up and come down. They couldn’t stay up there forever. Not to mention that, despite putting on a brave face, his wobbly legs were really looking forward to being back on solid ground. But something about the nervous joy filling Leia’s voice had him pressing the button without hesitation. She squeezed his hand tightly.

  “Okay, please don’t think I’m crazy,” she said, “but look at this view and tell me what you see.”

  She was excited about the view? Gamely he cast his eyes over the city below. He saw casinos and tacky tourist traps. There were billboards advertising a dinosaur-themed mini golf course, an upside-down house, an indoor water park and multiple ways to eat a lot of pancakes and steak for an incredibly low price. Traffic snarled and gawdy lights flashed.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?” Jay asked.

  “You don’t see it?” Leia asked. Her face fell.

  “I see an eyesore,” Jay admitted. Albeit one that had been built around a beautiful natural sight. “But I want to see what you see,” he added. “Show me what I’m supposed to be looking at.”

  “It’s a bit ridiculous,” she said. Her shoulders rose and fell.

  Her fingers began to slip from his, but he gripped them before they could fall.

  “Please, Leia,” he said. “What do you see?”

  “I see Cymbafalls,” she said.

  “You’re kidding,” he said, and knew instantly that he shouldn’t have. But he was beyond sore and exhausted from being awake almost twenty-four hours, and the words slipped through his lips before he caught himself. He’d actually thought she might be about to back down before he’d said that. But as soon as he spoke, he saw a fierce and beautiful defiance flash in her eyes.

  She pulled her hand from his.

  “Two waterfalls,” she said, pointing, “side by side. A literal Rainbow Bridge joining them both, on top of the natural rainbows in the spray. There’s a roaring river that pours into a chasm, islands and so many trees.”

  He opened his mouth but found that words failed him. Yes, all of those elements were technically there around them. But they were also swamped by fast-food restaurants, hotels and gambling.

  “You’re cherry-picking,” he said, “and seeing what you want to see.”

  “Maybe,” Leia said. “But your entire life is dedicated to seeing and finding the things nobody else can see. And if either your father or mine was here right now, wouldn’t they both say that the Bible has countless stories, not to m
ention parables of Jesus, about treasures being hidden?”

  He couldn’t deny that, especially as Daniel 2:22 leaped immediately to mind. He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

  “Okay,” he said, “when I told you that I was an undercover cop and that your dad had been helping me with a serial-killer cold case, you believed me. When I said he had a secret friend who’d seen the Phantom Killer murder someone and the evidence of that was hidden inside the house where you grew up, you didn’t laugh at me, when maybe any sane person would have. So, let’s say I believe you. Now what? We can’t get a warrant without solid facts. And children’s fairy tales won’t cut it.”

  “So, we hop in a car and follow the clues,” she said. “If we find something, you get a warrant to search it. If not, then all we’ve lost is a few minutes of driving.”

  She made it sound so simple. And if it had been anyone else he probably wouldn’t have entertained the idea for a moment.

  But just one look in Leia’s eyes, and seeing the drive to fight shimmering there, was enough to make him feel like maybe he could, in fact, do the impossible.

  “Let me talk to Jess... Detective Jessica Stone,” he said. “She’s the face of this operation and the one calling the shots. As you’ll remember, she, her husband, Travis, and their tech-guru friend, Seth, were the ones I was trying to email for help. Sadly, our email didn’t get through before the computer was blown to bits. But still, if anyone’s going to have our backs on this, it’s her.”

  “Okay,” Leia said. Her chin rose. “But I’m really sure I’m not wrong.”

  Despite himself, he chuckled.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You remind me of Walter.”

  He started their descent again and finally the window-washing platform returned to the ground. Silently, Jay thanked God as he unclipped his harness and his feet stepped back on solid ground, and he prayed he would never have to go up anywhere that high outdoors for any reason ever again. He made sure Leia’s harness was unclipped and that she was surrounded by good officers he trusted, and then he strode through the crowd, looking for his boss.