“From what I hear,” Valri interjected, “Andrew Cavanaugh isn’t a man who accepts excuses readily.”
Brennan was in a position to know otherwise. “When you save a guy’s life, you get a little leeway accorded to you,” he confided, holding out Duncan’s car keys.
“Gotta remember that the next time I save someone’s life,” Duncan replied as he took back his car keys. “Where—”
“Down the block, about halfway to the corner,” Brennan told him, anticipating the rest of the question.
With a nod, Duncan and Valri went to find his sedan.
“You think your brother’s right about Roland?” Tiana asked after Duncan and Valri had gone. “Or do you think that maybe Roland’s onto us and said what he did just to toy with us?” she asked, coming back to the possibility she’d raised earlier.
“I still don’t think Roland’s bright enough to plant red herrings—he’d have to have someone pretending to be whoever was in charge call him on his cell for us to hear—and that presupposes that he’s onto the fact that you planted a monitoring device on his person. Acting isn’t his forte. All he’s good for is throwing his weight round and behaving as if he was important.”
“Maybe ‘Mr. Big,’ whoever he is, got paranoid and called off the meeting,” she guessed. Why else was Roland still inside the suite?
“Dealing with Roland, I’d be paranoid, too. Should things start going south, there’s no question that Roland will do whatever it takes to keep himself out of going to prison.”
However, Tiana wasn’t as sure as he was. “If Roland turns state’s evidence, he’ll be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life.”
“At least he’ll have a shoulder to look over,” Brennan reminded her. “Considering that there have been a number of dead girls found in most of the cities this traveling sex circus has been through, the death penalty is on that same table,” Brennan said. “‘Singing’ for us is actually the better way to go for middle men like Roland. Our job will be to convince him of that.”
“Something tells me that might not be too difficult to do. One look at his future cell mates in the general population and that man will sing soprano before you can request the aria from Carmen.”
“You know opera?” he asked, surprised at the mention of the classical play.
“I go to the occasional performance when it doesn’t interfere with my work. I suppose you think that’s hopelessly uncool in your world,” she wondered out loud.
“I don’t know about ‘cool’ and ‘uncool,’ but my mother liked operas. The thought of having to sit through one would make Dad cringe, so she used to take me instead. I always told her I thought it was all a bunch of noise in a language I couldn’t understand, but to be honest, there were some I liked, especially after she explained the stories to me.”
Tiana understood him better than he thought. “You just couldn’t admit you liked them because you’d be made fun of by the other kids.”
Brennan inclined his head. “Something like that, maybe,” he admitted with a shrug. “Funny how much the opinion of others means when you’re that age.”
It wasn’t always confined to just a narrow range of age. “Any age, depending on the person.” The memory was painful—but it only became more so if she allowed it to remain inside her and fester. “Janie thought the sun rose and set around Wayne.”
“Wayne,” Brennan repeated, momentarily drawing a blank. And then he remembered. “That would be—”
She nodded, anticipating his response. “The dead guy in the motel.”
“Ah.” He’d been right, he thought.
Part of her wished she had found a way to keep Janie at home. She would have been safe then. But she knew it would have been wrong to rob her sister of her independence, or stifle it. There had to be a happy medium. But she would explore this after she found her sister.
“When I told her to be careful around Wayne, that he might not have her best interests at heart, she told me that I was just jealous because she preferred Wayne over me.”
“You turned out to be right. The guy didn’t have her best interests at heart—just his own,” Brennan pointed out.
Tiana sighed. “Somehow being right is small comfort if I can’t find Janie before that scum pulls up stakes and sneaks out of the country.”
He kept one eye on the monitor as he went on talking. “Hey.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I promised you we’d find her in time, and we will. I don’t go back on my word.”
“You really can’t guarantee something like that,” she reminded him. Tension, fed by fear, crackled in her voice. “You’re not God.”
“Well, that’s a blow to my ego,” he cracked drolly. “And here I thought that you—”
Brennan stopped talking abruptly when something on the monitor caught his eye. Roland was taking a cell phone out of his pocket and talking on it. From his movements, it had rung and caught him off guard. Though he looked very animated while speaking, not a word was heard inside the car.
There was no audio.
“We’ve lost the sound,” Brennan realized in frustration. He slanted a glance in her direction. “You wouldn’t happen to read lips, would you?”
“I can if I can see them,” she told him, frustrated, “but this monitor is just too small. Besides, even if I could, we still can’t hear whoever’s on the cell.”
He figured that had to be the man in charge—or whoever that person had authorized to call in his stead. “Well, whoever it is has Mister Not-So-Big jumping to attention.” They might have lost the sound, but they still had video. “Now he’s calling over one of his oversized bodyguards. No, wait, he’s calling over both of them. Looks like there’s going to be a road trip in their near future,” he speculated.
She closed her eyes, feeling incredibly grateful. It looked as if they were finally getting somewhere. “And we have liftoff.”
A crackling noise came on, then faded and returned, doing this intermittently as the audio struggled to make a resurrection. But at the moment, there was no real need for it to be working. The micro device that Tiana had planted on Roland’s person showed that he was on his way out of his suite. He was following one bodyguard, and the other was clearly behind him, obviously watching the man’s back.
“The curtain is finally going up on what could be the third act,” Brennan said to her, turning on the car’s ignition.
“Do you think he’s going to where the girls are being kept?” Tiana asked him nervously.
Brennan knew what he’d be going through if he were trying to rescue one of his sisters. He completely sympathized with Tiana.
“All we can do is follow him and find out.” Spotting the car as it emerged from the hotel’s parking structure, Brennan began to tail the vehicle at a safe distance. “Call Duncan and tell him we’re on the move.”
She had her cell phone out in a second. But then she stopped. “I don’t—”
“Sorry. I forgot.” He rattled off his brother’s cell phone number for her.
She hit each number on the keypad as quickly as he recited it. She heard the phone ringing on the other end. Someone picked up on the fourth ring.
“Cavanaugh.”
“Duncan?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before he answered, “Yes, who’s this?”
“Put it on speaker,” Brennan told her. When she did, he directed his words to his brother on the other end of the call. “The fox has just left his lair and appears to be on his way to the henhouse.”
“Ah, Brennan. Of course,” his brother said wearily. “Exactly why did you call? You want me to applaud?”
“Save it until I’ve done something applause-worthy.” He made a left at the light after watching the vehicle Roland was in execute the same turn. “At the moment, I want you to
be my backup.”
“You do remember that you have other brothers you could call, right?” Duncan asked.
Brennan grinned. “I remember—but you take orders so well.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve gotta go—”
Not one to give up, Brennan raised his voice. “And I have two courtside seats to the next Lakers game for you and the basketball fan of your choice.”
That stopped Duncan from hanging up. “You think you can bribe me?”
Brennan laughed. “I know I can. Don’t pretend otherwise. When it comes to your obsession with basketball, you’re not exactly clearheaded. Don’t forget, I’ve known you since you were born.”
“Okay.” Duncan sighed, resigned. “Tell me your twenty and I’ll be your backup.”
“You’ve renewed my faith in the power of bribery.” With a grin, Brennan slanted a look toward Tiana. “That’s your cue, Venus,” he told her. “Fill him in on the route we’re taking.”
She was quick to comply.
Chapter 16
Pursuit of Roland’s black sedan had all but ground to a halt. Literally. Following the vehicle at a safe distance, they found themselves driving into a very upscale area whose well-kept-up streets were far too narrow to accommodate any sort of standard flow of traffic.
“This is more like a drip, not a flow, if you ask me,” Tiana commented impatiently. Since she was unfamiliar with the area, she turned to Brennan and asked, “Exactly where are we?”
He was surprised she didn’t know, but he kept that to himself. “Right now we’re inching our way through Rodeo Drive.”
She knew the name. So this was what it looked like, she thought, focusing on the boutique windows that faced the street. There was a profusion of expensive clothing, accessories and jewelry as far as the eye could see. All of it left her cold. She viewed it as just so much avarice. In her opinion, there were far better, more worthwhile things to spend money on than a thousand-dollar pair of stilettos.
“This is the place with all the fancy, pricey stores, right?” she asked him.
It tickled him that Tiana didn’t sound as if she would have enjoyed having a shopping spree here. “The very same.”
“Well, I really doubt that Roland’s got Christmas shopping in mind,” she said, exasperated. “Why is he doing this?”
“Maybe to look as if he was on the way to do some expensive gift buying and throw off anyone who might be tailing him.” Coming to yet another stop—he’d lost track of how many that made—Brennan glanced at his watch. “Being stuck in this kind of gridlock for any amount of time is enough to fray a saint’s patience.”
Her mouth curved despite the gravity of the situation, recalling the way things had been a couple of hours ago. “And you are definitely not a saint.”
Brennan laughed, fairly certain that his mind was homing in on the same thought she was having. “Not the last time I checked.”
“So, we’re not turning around, are we?” she asked, her mind scrambling for a way to convince him to continue in case he answered yes.
“It’s just as gridlocked behind us as it is in front of us. It’s got to let up sometime. And we might as well see if he really is shopping or just up to something,” he said with a hint of resignation.
“That gets my vote,” she said. “Maybe he’s smarter than we gave him credit for.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s just following instructions that we didn’t get to hear because the audio went down,” he theorized.
A light blue van darted out from the left, nearly cutting them off had he not stepped on the gas and swerved to circumvent the vehicle. A collision was ever so narrowly avoided by inches. He’d expected Tiana to scream or rattle off terrified instructions after the fact. But all she had done was suck in her breath. The woman had nerves of steel, he thought with no small admiration.
Once clear of the van, he spared her a fleeting glance. “Well, one good thing. At least I know you’re not a front-seat driver.”
“You wouldn’t listen to anything I said, anyway,” she pointed out. “Besides, I figure you have more experience driving these streets than I do.”
“That I do,” he agreed, although not exactly happily. Driving here at any time of the day was a challenge he would have rather done without.
They were back to crawling and he saw the black sedan he was following. It was three car lengths ahead of them but still very visible.
For now.
He glanced at Tiana for a beat longer and took note of the imprints in the armrest that was closest between them. She’d dug her nails in. Hard. He found that rather comforting.
“Apparently, not all of you trusts my driving as much as you think.”
She noted where he was looking. Her nails had gone in deeply enough to not only leave marks, but to tear away some of the leather.
“Sorry,” she apologized, “that’s just an automatic reaction. I was bracing for what looked like it was going to be a huge collision.” She flashed him a smile. “Thanks for not having one.”
“That would seriously impede having this come to a happy ending,” he commented, his eyes back on the road and watching Roland’s sedan intently. “And I promised you a happy ending.”
Though she knew in her heart of hearts that there was no way Brennan could actually guarantee that, she still clung to his words. Maybe if she believed hard enough, it would come to pass.
“That you did,” Tiana murmured under her breath.
Brennan still managed to hear her. “And like I told you, I always keep my word,” he told her. He grew serious for just a moment. “I don’t intend to change my pattern now.”
“Okay.” Tiana was doing her best to sound nonchalant and together, but the very real tension she felt building up inside her was enough to blow her apart if she let it.
So she wouldn’t let it, Tiana told herself fiercely. She had to hold it together until they found Janie. It didn’t matter what happened to her after that, but she had to get Janie out of this horrible situation. She refused to entertain the possibility of any other sort of scenario coming to pass.
Close to forty-five minutes later, they were finally clear of the small, packed shopping area and on their way at something approaching a normal speed.
“I’ve never seen so many Bentleys and Ferraris in my life,” she told Brennan.
As with the merchandise on display on Rodeo Drive, to Tiana, paying the kind of money that one of those automobiles had to cost was a terrible waste of money, money that could be better spent elsewhere, on causes that made a difference.
“Have you figured out where we’re going yet?” she asked.
Considering the direction the vehicle transporting Roland was going in, Brennan figured he had a pretty good idea about the man’s destination’s end. “I think he’s headed for Brentwood.”
That sounded vaguely familiar, although she wasn’t really sure what context she’d heard it in. “Is that like Beverly Hills?”
“Very much so,” he said, just managing to squeak through a light. “Pricier for the most part.”
She tried to reconcile the thought that people who spent so much time and effort on the outer trappings of success would be involved in something like sex trafficking. “You think the girls are being kept somewhere around there?”
“If they are, the accommodations are going to be a great deal better than a run-down motel or an empty warehouse.” Both of which had been considered possibilities when the investigation got under way. In Brentwood there were large regal homes—mansions, really—dotting the hillsides. “I couldn’t afford this. Neither could anyone I know.”
As far as she could see, there seemed to be only one reason Roland would be traveling in this area. “Maybe he’s going to meet with whoever’s in charge.”
“
That would be my guess.” For a second, he focused on something other than his target. “You see Duncan anywhere around?”
Tiana twisted around in her seat, but from this vantage point, she was unable to locate his brother’s vehicle.
“No,” she answered, at which point she took out her cell phone and hit Redial on the keypad.
“Cavanaugh,” Duncan bit off, answering on the third ring. “Is this a wild-goose chase?” he asked, obviously assuming that it was his brother calling. It was hard to miss the impatience in his voice.
Brennan spared Tiana a smile. He liked the fact that she’d anticipated his next request and had gotten Duncan on the phone without being asked.
“If it is,” he told Duncan, “I’ve got my eye on the goose that’s leading this parade. He’s still three cars ahead of us, but I’ve got him in my sights. Where are you?” Brennan asked.
“Lost amid the rich and famous.” Duncan gave him the name of a street.
Duncan wasn’t all that far behind him, Brennan thought. He told his brother the street he was currently on and gave him a description of the surrounding area to facilitate matters.
“I think our quarry is going to a house in Brentwood. Presumably for a meeting.”
“I sure as hell hope so after all this trouble,” Duncan grumbled. “You know how I feel about traffic.”
“Never met anyone who was crazy about it,” Brennan said. “I’ll call you when I get to wherever it is I’m going.”
* * *
The lots the custom-made houses in this particular neighborhood were on were huge in comparison to the rest of the homes in this region of Southern California. They were coming upon a stately mansion normally secured behind tall black gates that rendered it inaccessible to the rest of the world.
But at the moment, the gates were standing wide-open. A parade of hugely upscale automobiles were winding their way through the gates, including the black sedan they were following. The cars all appeared to be headed toward a large, imposing-looking, multicolumned mansion in the distance.
Cavanaugh Undercover Page 18
