“Archer, you spit it out this second, or heaven help me—”
“Okay, okay. You were right about the flowers. Declan’s flower of choice for his bereaved employees is white lilies.”
“What, you mean like he sends them to his workers’ funerals?”
Archer nodded. “And their families. Company courtesy for the loss of a loved one. Now we’ve got something to go on.” Plucking his cell phone from his pocket, Archer dialed out and barked a slew of orders to someone at the FBI while weaving with a sort of maniacal precision through downtown traffic toward the FBI building.
“The breach in security was Declan Whyte’s fault.” Archer slammed his fist down on the steering wheel, the deadly growl of his words so low Finn strained to hear him over the heavy hush of rain and sleet. “All that money, and the man can’t even buy a lick of sense.
“He paid off the guard to allow his own henchmen in undetected. Told the guy at the back to walk away from the door and let those Gill and Royce clowns in for a little added protection.” The laugh that emerged was anything but comical. “They were the ones that chased you guys up to the safe room. His taking matters into his own hands left us vulnerable for attack.”
Finn ground his teeth to keep from swearing. “But how did the kidnapper know Joselyn would leave from that door specifically?”
“He didn’t. He had those homemade flash grenades hidden at every entrance. He sat around and waited. Probably had some of his own surveillance set up so he’d know which one to trigger if he got the chance.
“It guess it didn’t matter if the guard was there or not. I trust Sal over any one of those uniforms, and even he couldn’t stop him. The real problem was the diversion of those giant Scottish goons that pulled all of our resources inside. Even this psychopath couldn’t have anticipated that kind of luck.”
Within minutes they were bursting through the door of the FBI office. Activity hummed in the bullpen. Several agents rushed at Archer, all seeming to talk at once.
While they wove though the hive to Archer’s office, Finn understood that some of the agents were running all the plates from the vehicles that popped up on the traffic cams. Others were compiling a list of past and current Whyte employees and family members that had received a bouquet of white lilies per the company records released by Joselyn’s father.
Archer seemed to have gleaned more from the chaos than Finn and bossed a bunch more people around. All of whom scurried away to do his bidding without the slightest hesitance.
If anything ever happened to Finn, he’d want Archer heading up the investigation. The man was a machine.
The spate of activity was keeping Finn’s mind from wandering to a dark place. Silent prayers looped on an unspoken and almost mindless repetition, somehow keeping the anarchy clawing at his insides from cutting him to ribbons.
“I’d wager anything he took that exit there.” Archer pointed to the DOT schematic on the white board in his office, talking more to himself than Finn. “He’s too smart—too prepared—to risk being caught on camera, and that Forest Park cut through is the only one that avoids every traffic cam in the area.” Archer stormed around to his desk.
Finn followed and looked over Archer’s shoulder at the lists emerging on his computer. “So … you’re not going to look at these traffic cam photos?”
“It’s a dead end. I can feel it. I’ve got a few people on it, but we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
Finn dropped the folder and fought the urge to pace. “Okay, then what’s our next move?”
Archer snatched a stack of sheets spitting out of the printer and shoved roughly half of them at Finn. “Let’s start looking over these employee records. Don’t seem to be more than a hundred deaths for employees or family members for the last two years, so let’s get through these. There has to be a link here.”
Dropping to the chair in front of Archer’s desk, Finn started poring over the depressing files of factory mishaps and heart attacks, cancers and car accidents. Archer did the same. They worked in silence for no more than five minutes when Finn caught a break.
Tobin Devore. “Bingo! This has gotta be him.” Finn scanned the page detailing the man’s loss. Losses. His stomach jammed up in his throat.
Archer was instantly at Finn’s side. “Oh, man. Not good. And look at the date. It was never a decoy. He set Joselyn’s house on fire on the one-year anniversary.” With a whispered curse, Archer slipped back behind his desk and hammered the information against the keyboard. With the whip of his finger, a posse of agents returned to retask.
Excruciating minutes passed while Archer and the team scrounged for the whereabouts of the ghost of a man. The flurry of agents bounded in from the bullpen with updates on their search. All of which led nowhere. And all of which made Finn feel about as useful as a garden gnome.
All they had was a name. A former address. A former occupation with Whyte Enterprises as a scientist/inventor in research and development. Brilliant, not only from the looks of the file, but the orchestration of the elaborate revenge.
The information they managed to obtain over the next half hour was useless. Everything else came back blank. No credit cards. No active DMV records. No current residence. No next of kin. It was as if the man liquidated his life and disappeared.
Something in Finn snapped. Without a word he fled Archer’s office. The fear pinched around his neck, hopelessness rising up to drown him. He needed air.
He rounded the corner to the exit and collided with a woman. The files she’d been carrying scattered to the floor.
“Sorry,” he muttered and bent down to help retrieve the mess. He froze.
Laid out before him was a moment in time he’d never forget—the moment in the loft of Joselyn’s bedroom, his first unguarded glimpse of the heiress he’d loved and loathed from afar.
Except it wasn’t a dream. He was actually seeing it. The surprisingly artful photography of Joselyn’s peeping Tom, Stuart, now lay before him.
Clinging to something, anything to feel close to her, Finn raked up the rest of the photos and refreshed his mind with the sweet memories of the night the tide had turned for them. Or for him, at least.
Oh man, that’s it! Finn pushed the pictures at the woman and ripped another sheet of paper from her hand.
Stuart.
These pictures were only from that one night. There had to be more.
Maybe Joselyn having a stalker would be the key. With Stuart being so dedicated to all things Joselyn, maybe he had unwittingly caught Tobin Devore on camera. Or captured some clue to where he might’ve taken Joselyn. His heart buoyed with the possibility, fresh adrenaline charging through his veins.
Declan Whyte’s stuffy business partner’s words from hours earlier came hurtling back.
“… can’t believe you ever let Tobin go. Heard he really lost it after what happened to his family.”
The man lost his family, his home, and his job, all at the hands of Declan Whyte.
And now, Finn feared, he was out to even the score.
“Stuart!” The force of Finn’s fist splintered the door panel. “Open the door, now!” he roared.
Having pilfered Stuart’s home address from the spilled contents of the file and the keys to Sal’s Dodge Challenger from his desk—sorry, bro—Finn left to get answers, by any means necessary. He’d called Archer while he was en route and may have promised that he would wait until Archer arrived to confront Stuart about his “surveillance” photos.
But time was of the essence, and he didn’t want to tap dance around any bureaucratic red tape. He wouldn’t put Archer in that position when every minute that passed could be Joselyn’s last.
And now that he knew why this guy had a taste for fire, his skin prickled, and his neck heated, recalling the agonizing touch of the flames. Knowing Joselyn could be burning alive at this very moment was incinerating him from the inside out.
Finn shuddered and set his fist to the door again. He’d walk
through fire again and again to be the hero she needed. And not because he had something to prove to himself anymore. He could see now who he was and where his strength came from. Helluva time for that to finally sink in. But this time he had something to prove to her. Love had cost her too much and brought her nothing but pain. And it was time for that to change.
“You can stop yelling at me. I know I should have waited, but there’s nothing we can do about it now, so let’s get on with it.”
Finn sat in the interrogation room with Archer roughly forty minutes later. The man was fuming, but at least Finn’s initiative had paid off. Archer would get over it; he simply wasn’t used to people defying his orders. And since he was about to acquire an obstinate wife in a few short weeks, it was good practice, Finn thought wryly, surprised he could find anything even remotely amusing at a time like this.
“I am trying to get on with it. The kid will be here any minute. Agent Mackenzie, you know, the one you stole Stuart’s address from? She’s bringing him in. But apparently the roads are in bad shape due to the weather.”
Archer assured him things were coming together quickly. It had only been two hours since they’d left the crime scene. At this point the clock was irrelevant. The countdown was racing down to zero in his chest, each heartbeat of waiting an eternity of imagining life without her. But sitting in this tiny room waiting for, what they hoped would be, the final piece of the puzzle, proved to be the longest fifteen minutes of Finn’s life.
“Did they at least get a BOLO out on the car now that I got the license plate?”
“Yeah. We’ve got everyone on it. Don’t worry, Finn, we’re close.” Archer’s ire softened to something much more frightening. Sympathy. As if it might already be too late.
It couldn’t be.
Finn clung to the smallest hope. Just over an hour ago a divine whisper had propelled him out that door on a collision course with the information they needed. For the first time in far too long, Finn felt like he’d surrendered the burden of his own expectations. He couldn’t control everything. But he was poised to be the ready weapon in the hands of the warrior who could fight the battles he couldn’t win alone.
It was as if the blinders had been lifted from his eyes. How else would he have sensed that the flowers were significant? Or zeroed in on Tobin’s file in that massive stack within minutes of searching?
Good things came in threes because the hat trick was complete when Stuart finally opened the door to his apartment.
His stalker-den had been plastered with pictures of Joselyn. Candid and hauntingly beautiful shots of her being surveilled serving as wallpaper, sparing no inch of blank space.
Of course, Stuart hadn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat, but a few aggressive shoves, and a quick rundown of the evening had granted Finn access to Stu’s “security detail” of Joselyn’s street in the days leading up to the fire.
And that’s when Finn struck gold. Or rather a battered and rusty navy blue Honda Civic. The car had appeared down the street from Joselyn’s every day that week, each time in front of a different house.
Finn had snatched up the photos and rushed to leave, but a firm grip on his arm had stopped him at the door.
“I can see that you love each other.” Stuart had produced a picture of Finn and Joselyn from outside the restaurant on their first date.
Big surprise, Stu had been there to document it.
Finn had hesitated long enough to drink in the captured moment, once again ensnared by the memories. Joselyn was nestled in his embrace, their eyes locked. Their emotions so transparent they’d been almost too easy to miss up close but from a distance seemed ironically magnified with perfect acuity.
The moment from the image came alive in his mind. The silk of her hair beneath his fingertips. The sweetness of her mouth millimeters from his but still imprinted on his lips. That look in her eyes he hadn’t been able to decipher until now. Love.
“It’s up to you now to keep her safe.” Stuart’s words had brought him back to reality. And Finn had eyed the resigned man who loved Joselyn too—in his own hopeless way. He couldn’t condone the guy’s methods, but Finn supposed he could relate to being totally gone over Joselyn Whyte.
Finn had accepted his mandate with a terse nod and had set off again, phoning Archer—who’d still been en route to Stuart’s and consequently on the other side of town from the registered owner of the blue Civic. Crappy cards on that score, but he had the ace in his pocket.
So now they waited. And waited. Until finally, sixteen-year-old Billy Levenworth stumbled into the interrogation room.
The gangly teen in a hoodie boasting Spock and the words “Trek yourself before you wreck yourself” sat warily in the metal chair, his tawny brown eyes darting with confusion under the sloppy mess of his curly dark mop-top.
“Billy, I’m Special Agent Archer Hayes. I need to ask you some questions, and it’s really important you’re completely honest with me. Understand?” Archer’s tone, while calm and collected, could strip a coating of paint off a steel beam.
The young boy’s gulp echoed through the small room, and his pencil neck bobbed his head in compliance.
Archer laid a print from Stuart’s collection on the frigid metal table and slid it across to Billy’s laced, white-knuckled hands. “Billy, is this your car?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“About three weeks ago, do you remember parking your car on North Harrison Avenue in Kirkwood every day around noon,” Archer produced another picture, “near this house.”
The boy’s bushy eyebrows pulled together despite the lack of distinction between them. A bead of sweat dripped from beneath the matting of bangs down the slope of his nose.
“N-no, sir. I have perfect attendance at school. And I don’t have a parking pass so my car is at home during the day. I’ve had to ride the stupid bus for the past month while my parents are on their European cruise. What’s going on? Why was my car there?”
Archer ignored the questions and pressed on. “Do you know a man named Tobin Devore?”
His brows disappeared further beneath his bangs. “My uncle Toby took my car?”
“Uncle? I thought Devore didn’t have any living relatives,” Finn interrupted.
Billy nodded, “That’s because he’s not technically my uncle. My mom and Toby grew up in the system. They lived in the same foster home for four years. After the fire—and even more so after that Declan Whyte d-bag fired him a month later—Uncle Toby kinda snapped. Stopped going to church with us. Grew this gnarly beard. Sold all his stuff and moved into this nasty old hunting cabin in the middle of East Jesus. I mean there’s no electricity, or running water, or anything. It’s like a shack.
“Anyways, my mom’s been really worried about him so she asked him to come and stay with us for a while. Plus, she needed someone to keep an eye on me while they were on their cruise. Lotta good that did because I’ve only seen him twice in three weeks. And one of those times he was dressed up as an EMT. I swear, he’s totally lost touch with reality. Outer limits, for sure. He’s battling some serious demons. Like Luke verses Darth stuff. And there’s like this … deadness to his eyes. When I look too deep I can feel the dark battle of all that spiritual warfare. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s freaky.”
“Where is this hunting cabin?” Archer stood, economy and urgency in his movements.
“Leasburg, Missouri, I think? Somewhere near those campgrounds off of I-44. I’m not even sure there’s an address. He paid some guy off the books a tiny hunk of cash for it. Like I said, it’s not much of a house. I only saw it once in a picture.”
Finn and Archer darted out the room. Finn flashed a parting Vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ symbol for the poor kid with a perplexed look on his face.
They were approaching the Suburban some twenty seconds later, and Archer was already ending a clipped phone conversation. “Leasburg is about fifty miles west. We’ll head that way. I’ve got a chopper and local backup
en route. I think it’s safe to say Devore is planning on setting his cabin on fire with Joselyn in it. Not sure where the cabin is located, but hopefully they’ll find it before we do. Or before we see the smoke.”
They slipped into the car, and Archer tore away, tires screaming over the icy pavement.
Finn braced himself as his body lurched with the violent jerk of the car.
“Better buckle up, Finn. And keep praying we’re not too late.”
Chapter 44
Joselyn Whyte
It felt like she was floating. Swaying. Dancing. Whatever the reality was, Joselyn knew she wanted to remain blissfully ignorant of it as long as possible. With her eyes closed she could almost grasp the memory of Finn’s embrace. Cradled in his arms, the music had all but faded as she swayed with the rhythm of his heart.
But this … this was different than that. So very different.
Nature’s fury rained down above her. Pelting sounds of ice and rain warred against a strange surge of peace that entranced her mind. But the increasing violence of the hail on the roof above pinched stray nerves in her head, ricocheting random sparks of pain through her throbbing skull. The splitting headache and slick of blood seeping into her eye suggested another blow to the head. But that couldn’t touch the agony that radiated from her shoulder. The only explanation she could warrant was someone had ripped her arm from her body.
Straining against the weight tearing at the joint, her body swayed too much. A rush of delirious pain shook a gasp from her throat. Without summons, tears washed the blood from her eye and the pain threatened to steal her questionable consciousness.
Stay awake! Open your eyes. Open them!
She winced, fighting for strength to both open her eyes and hold back the curtain of darkness pressing heavily from the pain. Oh. Oh God. The meager tentacles of lantern light in the dilapidated shed produced enough light to arouse a fair amount of panic.
From Winter's Ashes: Girl Next Door Crime Romance Series - Book Two Page 31
