by Nikki Duncan
“Was your dad around when you lost your sight?” It didn’t have anything to do with the case, but Ian’s answer might give her a glimpse of the man she was tracking. It might also give her a better understanding of the man she was … No, she couldn’t think about that right now. Not until she’d found Lana, solved the case and proved herself to her team.
He sat silent and statue-still for so long she suspected he wouldn’t answer. That he wouldn’t share his past with her. “He was on a mission. Before he left, like every other time before, he pulled me aside and told me I was the man of the house in his absence. He asked me to watch out for my mom and my sister.”
Leaving a young boy with the perception, at least in his own head, that he was the adult. That expecting someone to look out for him would lead to disappointment.
He’d had a mom, but had she known about his dad’s requests? Had she done anything to counteract them, to let Ian know that she kept an eye out for him? Or had he truly been expected to be the man?
“One night, I was ten, the house caught fire. We’d practiced fire drills. We all knew how to get out and where to meet. Jennifer, my sister, ran back inside for a stuffed sheep.” As he traveled back in his mind, his eyes glazed over, making him appear blind for the first time. His voice grew distant. “Mom’s screaming for her. I can’t hear sirens. No one else is around. Only crackling fire.”
He was deeply entrenched in the past. Almost as if he was reliving it.
“Jennifer’s only four. She’s scared and can’t remember what she’s supposed to do. The smoke detector…it’s going off now. It hurts her ears. Mine. The house is burning faster and faster. I run after her. Past the kitchen to her room. She grabs her stuffed sheep. Fire is crawling up the walls.” Sweat broke out across his forehead. “It’s so hot.
“I grab her and hug her to me. She buries her face in my chest. I hurry through the house.” He rubbed his arms. “The hair is burning on my arms. Something smells rotten, like the eggs Mom had thrown out once. In the kitchen, something’s whistling. Flames wrap around the door. I turn to look in the door.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. His face tensed and sweat ran down his temples. “The stove explodes. I’m knocked against the wall. Jennifer cries out. I clutch her closer and curl myself around her. I fall to the floor. Something’s wrong. I can’t see. I can’t feel my face.”
He’d rescued his sister, but he’d lost his sight. He’d done what his father asked at a cost greater than any of them had likely anticipated.
Ian shook his head. His eyes cleared. “I woke up in a hospital to find Dad pacing, Mom crying and Jennifer singing some song with made-up lyrics to her sheep.” His voice lost the reflective tone and he swiped at the sweat on his face as if it frustrated him. “They told me that I would have to have multiple, painful surgeries and skin grafts to correct the damage from the fire, but that I would never see again. My dad took a leave of absence while I was recovering. He was at my bedside when I woke up covered in sweat from the nightmares. He stayed close at hand every time I went into and came out of surgery. He was my mother’s and Jennifer’s support beam when they were worried and scared for me.”
“And when you were recovered from the surgeries he and his unit taught you what they’d learned in the service.” He’d been Ian’s rock. His actions had given Ian the strength to become the man he had.
Not the actions of a man who would betray his country. He hadn’t abandoned the family when things had gotten tough and ugly. When it became obvious that he and his wife would have to spend the foreseeable future helping their handicapped son cope with day-to-day life, it appeared that he’d dug in and done his part.
“Yes.”
“Do you know anything about the case he was working on when he disappeared?” Judging by Ian’s remembered impressions, and it would be tough to romanticize such a dark time, Kieralyn was inclined to believe that his dad’s disappearance had been meant as the ultimate protection for his family. Tragedy tested a person’s character, and Ian’s family had dealt with their share as a unit. A man didn’t change his core beliefs easily, and few did at all after they reached a certain age and maturity level. It seemed unrealistic to hang on to the belief that a father of two grown children, a man who’d done the things Ian spoke of, would suddenly change his moral code.
“Only that it dealt with terrorism. Based on what I’ve been able to find out, or rather what I’ve managed to surmise based on guess work, it’s a more subtle attack on our country. Key people in the government were, or still are, being controlled by a group of Venezuelans.”
It was almost too coincidental that she’d considered Venezuela as a shipping point for the women, but it might explain his father’s involvement. “What people are being controlled? What’s the end game?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He snapped his fingers. “You said your team didn’t think there was a connection between the women taken.”
“None that we found aside from age range and race.”
“Types of jobs?” He jumped up and started pacing. “Lifestyles? Income levels? Types of neighborhoods?”
Kieralyn filtered through everything they’d learned about each woman, but nothing spectacular popped to her mind. “Their annual incomes were probably within ten thousand dollars of each other, all from different lines of work. Most of them lived in apartments or town homes.”
“Types of jobs? Their employers?”
He might be onto something. It might be small, but… “I need to go to work. I need access to the files.”
“Are they on your computer?”
“Yes.”
“You can access them here.” He moved to grab his chair and positioned it beside hers before sitting.
“Excuse me?” Her jaw dropped and she gaped at him. “How is that possible? Since nine-eleven, security measures have increased. Bureau files are protected behind several layers of firewalls.”
“And since nine-eleven, there is more participation and information sharing between agencies. You can access your files from here.”
“You’re saying that you can hack the FBI?” She glanced from the computer to him and back to the computer. He’d lost it. He’d passed the level of talent and skill and headed straight into grandiose impossibilities.
“National security could be at risk.” He shrugged. “Besides, nothing can be accessed without proper authorizations.”
“How comforting.” The urge to argue that the NSA shouldn’t be able to hack the FBI sat on the tip of her tongue. That a blind listener had been given the capabilities was just…weird. He acted like nothing was wrong or off about the setup. As if anything—underhanded or not—was acceptable when his agency decided that national security might be at risk.
“Kieralyn.” Humor lightened his tone. “Few people in the agency know this program exists or have the know-how to use it.”
“But you do.”
“Yes.” His voice grew clipped. “I, with a security clearance that you couldn’t imagine, know how to access the files. It’s a tool that has been used on occasion when working with other agencies to verify what I found in a recording. To save the lives of Americans.”
“Touchy much, Cabrera?”
“You’re one to talk about being touchy. I get it. Lana is important to you. More than anything or anyone else.” He raised his hand and waved off whatever she might have said. “Do you want to do this, or not?”
She opened her mouth to deny what he’d said. The ugly truth was that she couldn’t. On some level his assessment was right. He’d shown her on multiple occasions that he could function without his sight. He’d been the first man to buy into her theory about the women, he was an amazing lover, a talented listener and he’d saved her ass from joining the women she was trying to save.
Being involved with anyone, being with Ian as deeply as she suspected he would want to be, wasn’t an option. Relationships were hassles.
“Yes. I want your help.”
<
br /> Chapter Eight
Ian walked Kieralyn through the steps of accessing her files. He didn’t like it. Kieralyn didn’t verbally admit it, but neither had she denied his claims. Hell, he’d known there was no future for them. That didn’t mean he’d wanted to be right about the status of their relationship.
Last night, holding her, dancing with her and feeling every beat of her heart as she moved against him, absorbing the warm tenderness in her voice, he’d glimpsed the connection they could have if she let herself go. He wanted the chance to solidify that connection, though he knew that along the way he’d likely fall in love with a woman who refused to allow herself to love him back.
Regardless, he wouldn’t try to persuade her beyond letting her know how he felt. Kieralyn had to decide for herself what she wanted.
“Do you really think there’s a connection?”
Yes. “I’m not sure.” He dragged his mind back to thoughts of the case. If her team had investigated thoroughly, and he had no reason to doubt that they had, she would have the information to confirm his suspicions. “It warrants serious consideration. Are you in your files?”
“Yes. One woman worked as an aide to the mayor of Miami. Another ran the local office for a congressman.” Her nails clicked the keys rapidly. “The third woman was the private tutor for the governor’s errant son. The fourth woman, the last one before Lana, had no ties to government within the last five years.”
“Look at her again.”
“She broke the pattern, Ian. She doesn’t fit the profile.”
“Use the computer program you were in last night. Go deeper, especially into her college education and work history.” She’d either been taken to throw the FBI off track, or she had an association with a local politician. One that could ensure certain indiscretions got swept aside. “Something’s missing.”
“We know how to run an investigation, Ian.” Irritation pinched her voice. She clicked the mouse and tapped at the keys, commanding his computer much faster than he could with verbal commands. “Every missing person that we try to locate gets equal attention. Every one deserves to be found. Rescued when possible.”
And yet, as fired up as she was, she was running a deeper search into the victim of question. She was stubborn and contrary. Damn, but he loved that about her.
“I’m not disputing your methods. The fact is that if we’re going to seriously consider the possibility of a connection, we have to know if there’s more to why Lana was taken.”
“You’re hoping to find something that settles her neatly into the profile.” She slid her tongue over her teeth, making a slight sucking sound. “But why? Are you hoping that it will somehow clear your father of any wrongdoing? You haven’t said how far you’re willing to go for him, Ian. For the man who walked away from your family, the mother you swear he adored, without a word? Do you really believe with your whole being, given the evidence, that he’s better than that?”
He almost blasted her with a rebuttal, cataloging all the great things about his father. Instead, he considered what she’d just said. And the silent revelation of why she held herself separate from others—including her coworkers. Someone had abandoned her, set her up for a rough life, and she’d convinced herself that everyone was capable of the same thing. His story about his father sealed that truth in her mind even more, that given the opportunity even the most upstanding person would turn on you.
“Until your recording, we half suspected that he’d been killed. I want to believe that my father had altruistic reasons for his choices, but I will not trade the lives of five innocent women for the sake of a traitorous father. My mother and sister can handle the truth either way.”
“I hope you mean that.”
Regret thickened her voice. His heart slammed against his ribs before stalling half a beat. “Why? What have you found?”
“The fourth victim attended a local junior college for a year. She attended a self-defense class. One Mick Cabrera is listed as the instructor.”
“Which gives her—along with a few hundred other people—a connection to my father.” Not that it was looking real coincidental.
“Well, she also took a criminal investigations course from a police lieutenant at the police academy.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “He’s now the chief of police.”
Ian’s brain tingled. He rubbed his temples and got up to pace. Flipping through everything he knew from his research into his father’s case and Kieralyn’s, he considered the angles and connections. “Okay, find any holes in this.”
“Gladly.”
“A gang begins moving drugs or weapons, maybe both, into Miami society. Crime rates rise and the government goes on alert. After investigating and following up leads, they get an idea of who is behind it all.”
“The gang wouldn’t just jump up activity like that. They’d first get some cops in their pockets at the very least.”
“Right.” Ian had thought the same thing. “So, someone higher up in the department, maybe the chief of police who suspects he has cops on the take working for him, calls in some help.”
Again, she slid her tongue over her teeth, making a sucking sound. He hadn’t realized it, but she’d done the same thing the night before when she’d been thinking things through. “The help he reaches out to is a buddy he made while teaching at a local college.”
Ian stepped through the opening in the control panel and paced the outer circle of his desk. “A former military, now CIA operative buddy.”
“The CIA buddy, your father, looks into the case.”
“And goes undercover to see what he can discover, but it takes a long time so he changes his tactics. Maybe he reaches out to the chief of police and the gang gets word from their guys that the heat is on to them.”
“So they begin taking women with connections to the politicians capable of making what they’re doing disappear.”
Was she really on the same wavelength as him? “The fourth victim could have been taken either as leverage against the police chief, or she was on the payroll of the gang, or involved with someone on the payroll who was making noises about getting out and she was taken as leverage against them.”
“Maybe she stumbled across the dirty cops and threatened to turn them in and this is their way of silencing her.”
“Maybe.” He blew out a ragged breath and turned toward her.
If Kieralyn could be made to believe that his father might be innocent of any heinous involvement then maybe he wasn’t such a fool for hoping. If that was true, his father could eventually reclaim his spot in the family.
Ian’s heart broke every time he visited his mother and sister. Every time he heard the sadness, the grief in their voices. They’d thought his father was a consultant for the government. If they knew what he might be tangled up in… He would make sure they didn’t crack.
“Ian, I know you want me to agree that you’re right about your dad. That you think maybe if I believe the best of your father then maybe he hasn’t done your family wrong.”
“I’m a big boy. I can handle it if you see the situation differently.” He approached the desk opposite her and braced his hands flat on the cool surface. “I need your honesty on this. I need to know that I’m not coloring the options to suit my desires.”
“You could be right.” She slipped a hand over his. A brief touch of comfort that had tears thickening his throat. “It’s possible that your father has gone so deep undercover that he’s stopped talking to our side. I hope, for your sake, that’s what has happened.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought of that. I’ve just never found any validation to the theory.”
“Don’t you have a high enough clearance to find out for certain?”
“When I’m not being shut down at every turn by my father’s supervisor. He says there’s nothing to know. That my father is gone.”
“Sounds like a great guy.”
“He’s an ass who would prefer that I think my dad is dead.”
“I’ve checked the wires. About an hour ago, they met for breakfast. Nothing of interest has been said yet.”
“How can you know that? You don’t have the recording playing.”
“It’s turned down. I can hear it.” Though he may have missed something during their talk. “I’ll wind it back and turn it up.”
“I’ll check the search results on the computer.”
He moved to his control panel. She worked at the computer. They worked in silence, aside from Kieralyn’s pulse thrumming steadily—a constant reminder of what would never be.
Hell, maybe he was imagining his feelings. He didn’t have a lot of experience with emotional connections to women.
“A Horatio Danielson and David Sanders were cellmates in prison for two years. Without confirmation of the names of the men we’ve tagged, I can’t be sure they’re the same men, but it’s a bit too coincidental.” Her heart sped up suddenly. A flush of warmth heightened her body temp, carrying her essence to him. “Especially when you add in the fact that one Tyler Isaacs served time in the same prison during their incarceration.”
Interesting. He paused the recording. “What did they do time for? When?”
“Danielson got charged with drug possession, intent to deal, and assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Sanders for three counts of armed robbery. Isaacs went in for murder three years ago. Interestingly, all three were released less than two months from when Isaacs went in.”
“Someone pulled strings to release them. Serious strings in Isaacs’ case. When did that happen?”
“July of 2005.”
“Six months before my father went missing. Though we’re still missing hard proof of where the women are being held, and if they’re going to be shipped out or the details of said shipment. Some of the women have been missing for weeks. Would they really keep them in the same place—especially a club filled with people?”
