Keeping Gemma

by KB Winters

  If there was ever a candidate for a worthy partner—it would be her.

  I checked back into the conversation as Gemma concluded her explanation and the two agents poured over the papers she had handed to them. When they were done, Agent Montgomery looked over at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since she began holding court. “As we discussed before, everything we have on Mr. O’Keefe is circumstantial. Including this,” he said, holding up the medical report Gemma had obtained. “Without further proof, we can’t go into Mr. O’Keefe any deeper than we already have, which, admittedly, has all been very surface level.”

  “He could have killed two people already!” Gemma snapped, her tone sharp. She crossed her arms. “Whether directly or indirectly, this is all too coincidental to be ignored and swept under some sort of rug. Aaron’s life is in danger. My life could be in danger.”

  Agent Montgomery’s eyes went wider. “What do you mean? Has he threatened you?”

  I sighed. I’d been hoping to leave that part out as it all circled back around to my involvement with Rick and his smuggling operation. “O’Keefe called me yesterday. He said he needed to reschedule the meeting I told you about. In that conversation, he told me that I should thank him for getting rid of Talia as she would have been jealous about my new relationship.”

  Gary’s eyebrows shot up but he remained silent. Agent Montgomery held up a hand. “Wait, he knows about Gemma?”

  “It appears so. Gemma hasn’t noticed anyone following her, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have people watching her. It’s the same reason that Talia came to me that night, to get away from the men he had following after her.”

  Montgomery nodded, the pieces all forming together in his mind. “All right. We can post agents here, on the premises until we can do some more digging.”

  “That’s it?” Gemma asked, her eyes blazing as she stared up at the two men.

  “What would you propose we do, Ms. Henderson? We can keep you safe while we look into this further.”

  “I have an idea.” I raised two fingers, drawing all eyes back to me. Gemma’s brow crinkled. I hadn’t even shared the idea with her. I knew she wouldn’t like it.

  “Okay?” Montgomery prompted.

  “When O’Keefe sets the meeting, send me in with a wire. He likes to run his mouth. I’ll make sure I get his confession and you’ll have it on the tape.”

  “Aaron!” As expected, Gemma hated the idea. “That’s too dangerous. What if he finds out you’re wired?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll have to take the risk. Without his bodyguards, there’s no way he could take me. I’d beat his ass. He’s a lot of talk and money, but not a lot of muscle.”

  “You’re still stitched up from the crash,” Gemma argued.

  “Hold on, Ms. Henderson,” Agent Montgomery interrupted. He leveled his eyes with mine. “Normally, I would advise against this plan. We don’t usually send civilians into a situation like that. But in this case, it might be our best option to put this guy away for a really long time.”

  “There has to be another way,” Gemma said, though her voice was softer, as though she already knew it was the only plan that made sense. “Aaron is still in a cast.”

  “All the better to beat his ass with.” I chuckled. Gemma glared at me, but I could see the sparkle behind the stare.

  “Gemma, I’ll be all right. The FBI agents will be on site,” I cut a glance to Agent Montgomery to confirm, and he nodded. “Otherwise, what? They take the next month to get warrants to go through his bank records or phone records. Even if they can search his office or home, O’Keefe isn’t the type to have shit just laying around and easy to find. He’s too smart, too rich. It’d be a snap of his fingers to bury things and screw up the investigation with a shit load of bull.”

  “When is the meeting?” Gary asked, finally speaking.

  “I have to wait for him to call and reschedule. But that’ll at least give us time to set up.”

  I gave Gemma one more look, silently pleading with her to understand, and after a long moment, she relented and dropped her arms. “Okay.”

  “All right, Mr. Rosen. You got a deal. But this is going to be on our terms. Which means you have to follow our instructions exactly. It won’t be a chance for you to go off half-cocked in some kind of James Bond fantasy. The stakes are real and this will have to go off without a hitch if we’re going to get you out of that meeting unharmed—with the evidence we need to put this guy away.”

  I scoffed at the implication I would somehow get into trouble or botch the meeting. Hadn’t this guy seen me? I wasn’t some skinny assed snot-nosed kid. But I nodded my consent without arguing with him.

  My anger was better spent elsewhere, channeled into getting O’Keefe to give his finest performance.

  On tape.

  For all the world to hear.

  Come hell or high water, I was going to bury his ass and make him wish he’d never met me.

  35

  “Do you remember your code word?” Agent Montgomery asked, his face hovered inches from mine, a stern expression etched into the lines around his eyes as they bore down into mine.

  I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the code. If I need out, I’ll say that I’m ready to sign the papers.”

  “Good.” Agent Montgomery straightened and crossed his arms. I knew he wasn’t a fan of this operation, but for the sake of the investigation, he was willing to go with it, and had put the wheels into motion. I was fitted with a wire, taped to my back, with a small, flat recording device attached to my chest.

  The tech that had hooked me up ran her fingers over the wires one more time, and Gemma cleared her throat loudly at the woman’s lingering touch. I flashed a sideways smile up at her. It was cute watching her get all possessives. She’d been at my side all day long, working with the agents to put the plan together. Once O’Keefe called to set up the meeting, she’d put on her own outer shell like a true soldier going to war.

  “Okay. You’re good,” the tech said, backing up a step and flashing a nervous smile over to Gemma. “You can put your shirt back on.”

  Gemma handed me the shirt and I shrugged into it, trying not to laugh at her demeanor. She had been standing a few feet away from where I was seated in a chair getting hooked up, and once I was back in my shirt, she came over and I wrapped an arm around her hips.

  “This is crazy,” I marveled, looking down at my torso. I could feel the wires and tape on my skin, but even through the thin shirt, there was no trace of it. O’Keefe would never be able to see the wire. “I can’t believe how thin this stuff is.”

  “As we discussed, Mr. Rosen, it’s imperative that O’Keefe does not see you’re wired. At this point, we don’t imagine he would suspect it. Still, on the off chance he has you searched for weapons, they shouldn’t be able to feel these without a very thorough search,” Agent Montgomery replied, going over to where the tech was running tests on a laptop.

  We were still at the museum, but in the next ten minutes, I’d be getting into my Jeep and making my way up the 101 to a neighboring town where O’Keefe had rented a hotel room. When he’d called me that morning to set up the meeting, he’d made it sound like it would be just the two of us, although I had a hard time believing he wouldn’t have back-up with him. He knew I was dangerous.

  It didn’t matter much to me. I was wired and had an entire FBI team that’d be flanking me from a distance, ready to move in at the drop of a dime if things went sideways.

  Which, with O’Keefe, was likely to be when things went sideways. Not if.

  Gemma stroked a hand over my neck. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded and looked up at her. Although she was resolved and strong, I could see the worry written all over her face. “It’s all going to be over soon, baby.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Okay, Mr. Rosen, we’re ready to go.” I looked over and saw the tech who’d hooked up my wire, shutting the lid of the computer
in her lap. She nodded and Montgomery turned his full attention back to me. “Let’s go over the plan one more time.”

  I held back a sigh. “Geezus, dude. I’m going to the Sandy Road Inn, room two-oh-five, and I will knock on the door and announce myself to Mr. O’Keefe who, presumably, will be waiting for me inside. After gaining entry to the room, I will introduce myself to anyone else present to have their identity for the record. When O’Keefe starts talking, the goal is to keep him going until I can find a way to back him into a confession. If this does not occur, or if he gets riled, I will tell him I’m not going to sign the contract. If he gets violent, you will back me up and extract me. And if at any point, I feel he may become violent, or I want out, I say the code phrase.” I finished my monologue and stood from my seat, keeping my arm locked around Gemma. “Did I miss anything?”

  “No.”

  It wasn’t my first rodeo. Granted, I hadn’t done a lot of covert ops shit in my military career. Still, if there was one thing I was trained to do, it was memorizing operation instructions.

  “All right, Mr. Rosen, I’m trusting you to keep your word. Don’t try to be a hero here,” Agent Montgomery reached for my hand.

  “Yes, sir,” I said with a nod. I took his hand and we sealed the deal we’d hashed out in private. If I helped them nail O’Keefe, anything said about my involvement with Rick, my smuggler friend, would stay off the record.

  “Let’s go.”

  The two words ricocheted through me and out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Gemma wince. I squeezed her hand, dropped a kiss to her temple, and whispered, “It’s going to be okay. I won’t do anything stupid.”

  I knocked on the door to room number 205 and sucked in a breath. Sounds of movement and dull voices filtered through the door, and for the dozenth time since pulling into the lot, I wondered why on earth someone like Henry O’Keefe had chosen such a dive of a place to conduct our meeting.

  The last time he’d called me into a meeting, I’d been ushered into a gleaming conference room with high tech projection equipment, a handful of guys in power suits, and all the pizazz a corporate drone could offer.

  This meeting was the polar opposite. The Sandy Road Inn was a dingy little hole-in-the-wall place with a “No Vacancy” sign that I had a feeling was constantly lit. It was half past eight, and the sun had set within the last ten minutes, leaving the outdoor breezeway dimly lit with overhead can lighting. The problem was that most of the lights were either burnt out or so coated in spider webs, dust, and dirt—they didn’t provide much help either. The entire thing had an eerie Bates Motel vibe, and I wondered if that had been O’Keefe’s intention. Maybe he thought the atmosphere would throw me off or instill fear.

  Sorry, jackass, but you’d have to try a lot harder than this if you wanna scare me.

  I’d seen much worse places.

  The door opened, snapping my attention back to the task at hand, and I stiffened at the sight of Henry’s smiling face. “Good evening, Mr. Rosen. I do so appreciate you joining me on such late notice.”

  Every smarmy word rebounded through me, bouncing off my tense muscles and adrenaline-pumped veins. I returned the fake smile, finding it easy, knowing that within minutes he would dig his own grave just in time for me to kick his ass into it. “O’Keefe,” I greeted with a slight tilt of my head.

  “I do hope your injuries are healing nicely,” he said, dropping his eyes to my hand inside the cast on my arm and then to my side. I wondered how he knew about the wound in my side but quickly dismissed it. It didn’t really matter how he knew. The point he was trying to make loud and clear was that he saw my weaknesses. “Can I take your jacket?”

  “No thanks. I don’t plan on staying long.”

  He nodded, his eyes gleaming as though the game had only just begun. “Fair enough. Please come in.”

  I stepped over the threshold and spotted another man inside. He was a large, broad shouldered man that I didn’t immediately recognize. “I hope you don’t mind, but this is Giovanni, he’s an associate and also a certified notary. He’ll be here to oversee the signing of the contract,” O’Keefe explained. Only then did it click that he had been present at the last meeting O’Keefe had beckoned me to. He hadn’t been seated around the table, but he’d been there, as some kind of bodyguard in all black.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr…” I trailed off, hoping he would provide a last name.

  “Just Giovanni,” he said, his voice low but not unfriendly.

  Fine, no last name then. That was the FBI’s problem anyway. I didn’t care.

  The only person I cared about was rounding my side and gesturing for me to sit at the small, round table.

  “Please sit,” O’Keefe said, flicking a glance at Giovanni, who sat like an obedient dog. “Mr. Rosen, you as well.”

  This was it. My heart jumped into my throat, rumbling with anticipation.

  “No thanks. I’ll stand. I don’t plan on this being a very long meeting.”

  O’Keefe sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Rosen, do we really have to go over this again? Life will be easier for you if you just follow my lead. I promise you; I’m not trying to do anything untoward. You have a contract. I’ve brought a notary. This can all be over with…so painlessly,” he said, placing special emphasis on the last word, his eyes flashing a warning to me.

  I pulled the contract out of the inner pocket of my leather jacket and held it up for him. “This contract? Yeah, I’m not so interested in signing it. See, I had my lawyer look over it, and it turns out it’s not a very good deal for me.”

  O’Keefe’s eyes blazed as he watched me reach out and drop the contract pages to the table. His false smile faded and a snarl erupted from his curled back lips. “Very unwise, Mr. Rosen. I thought we had finally seen eye to eye on this matter.”

  “Or what, O’Keefe? My lawyer told me I can’t be held liable for Rick’s business, so short of getting an old buddy of mine in trouble—you have no power over me. So, I suggest you take your contract and your fancy-ass car and your massive pile of bullshit and get the fuck out of Holiday Cove.”

  Giovanni remained seated, but his eyes rolled to O’Keefe, again, reminding me of a dog, waiting at his master’s feet, waiting for the command.

  O’Keefe didn’t even flinch at my hard words. “What about your little nurse? You wouldn’t want her to end up like Talia…poor, innocent Talia. Trust me, Rosen, you don’t want another person to pay for your bad decisions.”

  “You know, that’s the part I still haven’t figured out.…” I tapped my index finger on my lips. “Did you plan for her to be there that night? I mean, how could you? When you sent your goons in to fuck with the fuel lines, how did you know that I’d be taking her up and that she’d suffer the consequences?”

  Without a break in my mock puzzlement, my gut clenched. I’d baited the hook, now it was time to see if he’d bite…

  O’Keefe grinned and released a low, rumbling chuckle. “You flatter me, Rosen.” He turned to Giovanni and they shared a ghoulish smile. “No, I didn’t know that my dear little sparrow would get caught up in the plot. That’s what we call a happy accident. Saved me the trouble of putting her down myself.”

  “So, she was right? You were going to have her killed?”

  O’Keefe shrugged. “She was a loose end, Rosen. But…she also gave incredible head…” he chuckled. “Not that I need to tell you that. You had the pleasure of experiencing it first hand, I’m sure.”

  My stomach turned at his cruel smile and the way he so flippantly talked about killing another human being—especially someone who had once been his lover. Had he ever had feelings for her? Or had she been nothing but a pawn in his game since the day she had the misfortune of meeting him.

  I tossed the questions aside, channeling my focus into finishing the mission.

  “It doesn’t really matter now, Rosen. The plane was supposed to go down, you were in it, and while you’re not dead—your business is now
in shambles, and your only solution is to sell it to me. Which, all things considered, means that my plan worked.”

  “You’re not getting my business, O’Keefe,” I snarled.

  He flicked his wrist at Giovanni and he heaved up out of the chair. He reached behind him and pulled a hunting knife from some holder on his belt. “It sounds like we need to do a little…convincing.” O’Keefe said.

  “Luckily, this shit hole is abandoned. Set to be condemned. Guess who holds the deed, my dear Aaron?” He flashed what he probably thought was a sinister grin. In reality, all he was doing was pissing me off more.

  “Hank.” I stepped a foot toward him but stopped when I saw his thug step toward me, I had to keep my cool. “Can I call you that? I don’t give a flying fuck who owns the deed to this shithole. Haven’t you learned you don’t scare me?”

  He nodded to Giovanni who took a step forward, “There’ll be no one around to hear you scream. Giovanni do try to keep blood from getting everywhere. I didn’t think to bring a second copy…I made the mistake of thinking Mr. Rosen would be…reasonable.”

  He made a tut-tut sound under his breath and Giovanni nodded his consent before taking a step toward me.

  Montgomery’s code phrase was ringing in my head, each echo louder and louder as I stared, transfixed on the gleam of the soft light off the tip of the knife in Giovanni’s hand.

  I threw the code phrase—and my promise to Gemma that I wouldn’t do anything stupid—right out the fucking window.

  “Before we get started, Hank, there’s one other thing I should probably tell you,” I taunted. My good hand reached for the hem of my shirt. Alarm bells rang inside my head, screaming at me to back down, abort the mission I’d become set on, but my rage and fury spurred me on. The faces of Talia and Gemma flooded my mind’s eye and overrode any logic I may have had.

  O’Keefe’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a wolf-life grin. “Oh really? What’s that, Rosen?”