Face of Danger

by Roxanne St Claire

  The other agents had sequestered Mercedes after the shooting, and no one had yet asked her any questions to determine what, if anything, she knew about Sunisa Pakpao and how he’d gotten into the house.

  Lang thought that bringing her up to speed, especially given the fact that she knew Vivi’s real identity, was their first order of business. No surprise, he took the lead as they entered her subterranean apartment, telling her that for Cara Ferrari’s safety, and the fact that they had nothing definitive on the killer other than a suspicious rap sheet, the FBI had opted to keep Vivi undercover as a decoy for the actress.

  All the while, Mercedes stayed on the edge of her seat—literally—and listened.

  “I fully understand and will abide by this decision,” she said, her icy blue gaze on Lang.

  “You don’t have a choice, Ms. Graff,” he said brusquely. “You will comply or you will be obstructing justice, requiring me to arrest you.”

  Her face paled a shade and her eyes registered something more like fear than surprise. “And take me somewhere?”

  “That’s the general course of action.”

  “This is my home.”

  “I understand that. But it’s also a crime scene.”

  The light tap of dog feet on the stairs made her sit even straighter. “That dog is not allowed down here.”

  But Stella apparently didn’t know that rule or was willing to break it just to get close to Lang, because she scampered in and sidled up to his leg. Lang absently rubbed her head, his attention on Mercedes. “As I was saying, ma’am, you need to answer my questions.”

  “The animal needs sedatives,” Mercedes said, starting to stand. “Let me get her prescription.”

  “No,” Lang said, shooting out a hand while Vivi got up to lead Stella out the door. “Ms. Graff, this is more important. Do you have any idea how the assailant entered the house?”

  “None. Every door and window is locked and alarmed, and I change the code on a daily basis.”

  “What is it today?” he challenged.

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve turned it off to accommodate the foot traffic.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “It’s a combination of numbers and letters that only I know.”

  “And today it is…” he coaxed.

  “615PTR.”

  “And yesterday it was?”

  “504QVM. Please don’t ask the day before.”

  “Because you’ve forgotten it?”

  “I know every number back two years, Mr. Lang. I have a photographic memory. I don’t want to bore you with nearly seven hundred numbers and letters and, beyond that, I can’t imagine the reason behind this line of questioning.” She crossed her hands on her lap. “What else do you want to know?”

  “Does the name Sunisa Pakpao mean anything to you?” He spelled it to help her, but she registered no recognition. “Has he ever been here before?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “The name means absolutely nothing.”

  “Can you give me a list of people who visit this house on a regular basis? Specifically anyone who may have been here within the last two months?”

  “If you want it printed out, please allow me to access my computer. Everyone is logged and photographed by the security cameras. Otherwise I’ll repeat it from memory. I can assure you there is no Mr. Pakpao on the list.”

  Oh, yeah, definitely una tedesca. All precision, no passion.

  “When did you turn off the alarm code today?”

  “When Ms.”—she indicated Vivi with one pointed finger—“when she arrived.”

  “I’d appreciate if you would just refer to her as you refer to Cara Ferrari,” he instructed.

  She barely nodded. “I turned the alarm off when I received the call that you’d arrived at the front gates.”

  “How long was it off?”

  “A few seconds, until I knew the car had entered the garage. Then I escorted Ms.”—she nodded toward Vivi—“ her upstairs and returned to the kitchen. I spoke to you and then I escorted Agent Iverson down the pass-through to the guesthouse, when we heard gunshots.”

  “Why were you so anxious for Ms. Angelino to get in her room?”

  “Because getting guests settled is what I do.”

  He waited a beat, giving her a minute to elaborate, then, “You never went outside after you left her?”

  “No.”

  “Not for one minute, in the driveway, on the patio, anywhere you—”

  “I never went back outside, Mr. Lang. Of that you can have no doubt.”

  He and Vivi shared a quick look, both probably thinking the same thing. Then what should we have doubt about?

  “How about the night before? The day before? Was there ever another point in time when the house alarm was turned off and someone might have gotten in?”

  “Not to my knowledge, but I suggest you contact the security company. They log every time the alarm is armed and disabled. With the packs of photographers and media gathering around the property, I’ve been quite vigilant.”

  “Except for the few minutes after we arrived, when you were not vigilant.”

  She just stared at him.

  “How many staff members does Ms. Ferrari employ at this house?” he asked.

  “Just me.”

  “No landscapers? Pool service? Additional cleaning assistance? Handymen? Any service personnel, like plumbers or air-conditioning repair?”

  “I have all of those individuals logged, Mr. Lang,” she said. “But I run this household. I do all the cooking, cleaning, and general maintenance. Yes, there is a landscaper, but he hasn’t been here in over a week, as we don’t require any daily or weekly upkeep in the winter and spring months.”

  “How often are you gone, leaving the house unattended?”

  “I am never gone and the house is never unattended.”

  Lang looked surprised. “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “You don’t go shopping, to the movies, to church?”

  She leaned forward to make her point. “I do not leave this house, Mr. Lang. Ever.”

  “Why not?”

  She just stared right back at him, stone silent.

  “Is that your choice, Ms. Graff?”

  “Of course,” she said quickly. “I’m not… held against my will.”

  Vivi could see where he was going, and she didn’t agree with the line of questioning, but before he could fire off the next question, his phone rang and he excused himself and took the call outside.

  Thank God. Now Vivi could have some time to try this interview her way. Because Lang was getting nowhere.

  She stepped away from the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, slowly approaching Mercedes.

  “You must be shell-shocked,” she said as she got close enough to connect but not to invade the obviously self-protective woman’s personal space. “In the space of an hour, your beautiful home has been wrecked and invaded, turned inside out, and packed with strangers.” Because, clearly, she felt it was her home. Enough that she never left. “And your boss’s life has been threatened.”

  Mercedes lifted a bony shoulder. “When Ms. Ferrari is home, there is constant chaos. I’m no stranger to upheaval.”

  “Upheaval is one thing,” Vivi agreed. “But having an intruder shot in the master bath is something else.”

  “It’s all upheaval.”

  Vivi eased into the chair Lang had been in but sat back, curling her legs under her. “Hard to imagine how someone could get into this place with all the security and your supervision.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She needed to try another tactic. “Let me ask you something, Mercedes.” She got a quick look of surprise, probably for using the woman’s given name, but Vivi powered on. “If you didn’t know about the switch, how long would it have taken you to realize I’m not Cara?”

  “Me? A second. Most people? Quite a bit longer.”

  “So you know he
r that well.”

  She almost smiled, or certainly the closest thing Vivi had seen so far. “I’ve known her since she was a child, so, yes, I know her well.”

  Vivi blinked at her, digesting this new information. “And now you work for her?”

  “I don’t call it work, miss.” She finally stood, her knees creaking a little. “She’s given me a place to live, right here on the island where I’ve spent every year of my life, and, as you can see, it’s quite beautiful. I really don’t think of my life as a job, but more of a reward for… for all I’ve done for her.”

  “I had no idea you were that close to her—and Joellen, too, I imagine.”

  She nearly bristled. “Yes, I practically raised them both.”

  She had? “What about their parents?”

  The older woman drew in a slow breath, making her long, thin nostrils quiver. “Both dead, many years now. Mr. Mugg was in an accident on the bog, where he worked. Mrs. Mugg passed from cancer when the girls were in their teens.”

  Vivi’s heart folded a little. She shared the same history: a father killed when she was young, a mother taken by cancer. “And you raised them?”

  “There was no one else, and I already worked on the bog.”

  Vivi frowned. “What bog?”

  “The cranberry bog the Muggs owned, right here on this property. It’s abandoned now.”

  “They lived in this house?”

  She almost laughed. “No, in the bog house at the edge of the property. Karen—er, Cara—built this when she became successful. I’ve lived here since the day it was completed.”

  “Always down here?” In a tomb?

  She got up and walked to the kitchenette, rounding the counter to stand at the sink, staring at the wall where anywhere else there would be a window. “These are my quarters. I’m not a member of the family.”

  “How was it you practically raised them?”

  She shook excess water from her hands then opened a crisp, clean dish towel to dry them. “Their mother worked as a secretary in town. I watched the girls when they came home from school from the time they were kindergarten age.”

  She smoothed the towel on the countertop, folding it with military precision. “Are you finished interviewing me, Ms. Angelino? I have a house full of people who are no doubt going to be hungry.”

  “I’m not interviewing you,” Vivi denied. “I’m fascinated by the history. I knew Cara was born and raised in Nantucket, but didn’t realize it was on this land, or on a cranberry bog.”

  “You’re interviewing me. I’m not stupid.”

  Lang opened the door, cutting off the next question. “I need you to come with me,” he said to Vivi. “And, Ms. Graff? One of my agents will be in here shortly to continue our interview.”

  “He or she can continue it upstairs,” she said, brushing by Vivi and Lang to the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  She marched up the stairs and left them staring at the open door.

  Lang blew out a breath. “She’s tight-lipped.”

  “Not at all.”

  “No? So what did you find out that I didn’t?”

  “Plenty. For one thing, she’s known Cara since she was a child, and practically raised her.”

  He frowned. “That doesn’t tell us how someone got into this house.”

  “Maybe not,” she agreed. “But I usually find that when you discover the personal angle behind relationships, you get answers to questions you never thought to ask.”

  “Still doesn’t tell us where the security breach is.”

  “But it tells us a lot about the gatekeeper.”

  Lang put his hand on her back and guided her to the door. “I don’t know about her history with Cara, but I thank God she’s an organizational fanatic who keeps track of everyone who has ever entered the house.”

  “And an agoraphobic,” Vivi added.

  “Did she tell you that?”

  Vivi gestured toward the tomblike rooms. “Does she have to? She never leaves the house, lives in a hole, and reeks of OCD.”

  He fought a smile. “So you’re a profiler, too.”

  She merely shrugged, not sure if his look was teasing or admiration. “She has a lot of emotional ties with Cara. A lot of history and, in my investigative experience, that can really affect a case.”

  “Well, in my investigative experience, finding the security breach that allowed a killer to get in the house can really affect a case, too. So come with me while we do a search of the grounds.”

  It wasn’t a suggestion, but then, with Lang, nothing was. “On one condition.”

  He choked softly. “Vivi, I don’t do conditions. And are you forgetting who’s in charge?”

  As if that would be possible. “There’s something on the property I want to see.”

  He hesitated, then moved forward. “What?”

  “The abandoned cranberry farm where, according to Mercedes Graff, Cara spent a good chunk of her childhood, in a bog house.”

  “Because you think you’ll figure something out if you see the environment and get in tune with the emotional connection Cara has to this land?” His voice was thick with sarcasm. Definitely teasing. Why would she even dream it was admiration?

  “Nothing so deep, Lang. We’re looking for places Cara might have hidden something and, since I’m pretty much unable to cruise the crime scene up in her bedroom, I’m just trying to think outside the box.”

  “I’ll buy that. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I found a pair of shit kickers.”

  The voice, the phrase, even the verbal attitude was so “Vivi” that Colt got a little jolt when he looked up from the ignition of the ATV to see a woman who appeared to be nothing like her bounding into the garage.

  Even with the long, fake hair pulled up in a ponytail and stuck through a baseball cap, shades covering the made-up eyes, and the rubber-bottomed suede boots she proudly extended for his examination, Vivi—as Cara—was drop-dead sexy. Why didn’t she try a little harder to look like a woman? It suited her. It slayed him.

  “Shit kickers?”

  She placed the foot in question on the running board of a Honda Rancher, one of several in the garage, gracefully swinging her leg over and settling behind him on the four-wheeler’s seat. “The only shoes in that woman’s closet without a heel. Let’s roll, Lang. I love riding these things.” She gave her legs a squeeze, smashing the inside of her thighs against the outside of his. “In fact I love them so much, it’s difficult to let you drive.”

  “You’re not letting me do anything,” he said, turning the key so the transmission rumbled right underneath them, feeling as powerful as the contact with her body. “However, I am letting you come along.” Rolling out to the drive, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, already programmed to a satellite image of the property, and handed it to her.

  “You can navigate.” He revved the engine and headed to the back of the property, where he already knew he could pick up the first trail in the woods behind the house.

  “Whoa, look at this map,” Vivi said. “This place is huge.”

  “I want to check the perimeter where the privacy wall gives way to brush and foliage and swamp land. We’ll start at the northernmost trail and work down. Hang on.”

  Instantly, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight as he followed a path into an opening in the woods. The brush was thick along the trail, but the dead pines made a smooth path and he went a little faster than necessary just for the pleasure of having her hang on to him.

  Before long, she let go, steadying herself with one hand around his stomach, working the satellite map with the other.

  “We should be coming to the end of this trail, and either the privacy wall or—”

  “A swamp.” He hit the brakes and eased up as they reached a wide area of wetlands. “You’d need a swamp buggy to get through that, and if anyone had been through here they would have left tracks in this mud. Pakpao
didn’t come through, but we’re going to have to get this opening barricaded right away.”

  They went through the same process on two more trails, one ending in thick brush that hadn’t been trespassed, the other closed in by part of the privacy wall. They headed west, deeper into the woods, the wheels of the ATV rolling over large rocks and splashing through early spring mud. On the roughest patches and tightest turns, Vivi held firmly to him, close enough that he could feel her heart beat against his back and her breath on his neck. Her hand rested low on his abdomen, perilously close to his crotch, an area humming with life and a little too much blood, blissfully unaware they were on a security search at the moment.

  The engine vibrated between his legs, aggravating the tightness in his balls, the dryness in his throat, the temptation to stop and drag her into the most secluded grove of trees, and—

  “The bog’s that way, Lang.” She let go and pointed to another path. “I can see it right here on your phone.”

  He had to stop thinking about sex with her, because she was obviously not feeling distracted by the same thoughts. Knowing Vivi, she was probably planning her ambush on his personal life. It was his own fault; he’d opened the door by mentioning what had happened to Jennifer. Part of him wanted to tell her. Not so she pitied him, and not so she understood why he needed to escape the memories that lurked in every corner of Boston.

  But because Vivi ought to know that taking risks had deadly consequences.

  “Oh, look at that.” She squeezed tighter, her breasts plastered to his back, images of her curves hugged by a white lace bra wiping out the view that had her gasping against him. “It’s the cranberry bog. So pretty.”

  He concentrated on the panorama, slowing the ATV as they ripped through some overgrown brush that blocked the path. For acres in all directions, the shallow, murky water glistened under the sun, reflecting the clouds and making the whole stretch a mirror image of the sky. Some bushes and dried-up cranberry vines shot up through the murk like nature’s craggy fingers, and the still barren tree line that encircled the bog only added to the sense of death and abandonment.