Niall heard a heavy sigh in his ear. “I could fool my mother if I had to. Why?”
“How long before you can turn yourself into a tourist?”
“That depends. Caucasian—three hours. An old black guy—one. Why?”
“Ye have thirty minutes to be blending in enough to fool me. Text Sam when ye get to the Trading Post as a tourist, and he’ll go up and fill you in on what’s happening. And Jake? Make sure there’s room in your disguise for a couple of weapons and enough ammunition to deal with an army of two dozen.”
There was a heartbeat of silence, then, “I’ll come loaded for bear.”
Niall called Cole and made the same request, but gave him forty-five minutes to drive up from Turtleback. He lowered the phone again just as Shep came racing down the lane, took a moment to quiet his mind, and called Claude. Their conversation not nearly as succinct, Niall explained what Sam had discovered as well as Hazel’s and Birch’s situations. And as he’d expected, Claude was halfway out the colony road by the time they finished their talk, having agreed to keep his eyes and ears open sitting in the Bottoms Up until he got the signal they were moving.
Niall called Duncan and Alec, explained what was going on and what he’d like from them, and had just gotten off the phone with Nicholas when Sam—his demeanor rather aggressive and his limp barely noticeable—came striding down the lane.
“I brought along a little something else,” Sam said as he walked past Niall and into the station. He set a small Drunken Moose box on the desk and opened it, pulled out a compact pistol, and held it up. “Since you asked if the tracking device was small enough to hide on a dog, I assumed Shep will be wearing it. How about we also secure this under his vest on the chance he can get close enough to Birch or Hazel for them to get it? Do you suppose either of them know how to handle a gun?”
“Shep’s going to carry the transmitter to Birch at the shelter, where she’s searching for two DVDs Rabideu hid in their belongings. My plan is to have her wearing the tracking device when she trades the discs for Hazel,” Niall explained. “And to the best of my knowledge, Birch has an aversion to guns.”
Sam grinned tightly. “I bet she’ll warm up to this one real quick when she realizes it could save her mother’s life.”
Niall looked down into the box and shrugged. “I don’t see any reason not to include the pistol. That’s the transmitter?” he asked, pointing at the tiny black device no larger than a disposable cigarette lighter.
“This is it,” Sam said, pulling out the transmitter and holding it up. He snorted. “You can take the spook out of the game, but apparently you can’t take the game out of the spook. I like to keep up on all the latest toys. This one allows anyone with the code to track it right on their smartphones, so we can all see where Birch is in real time. And the best part is the little bugger’s range is unlimited because it works off satellites.”
“Hop up, Shep,” Niall said, tapping the top of his desk. The dog jumped up, sniffed the Drunken Moose box, then stood quietly as Niall removed his vest. “There’s a pocket on either side of the vest,” Niall went on, signaling Shep to get down, then laying out the vest on the desk. He unzipped one of the pockets, slipped the pistol inside, then zipped it closed. “Aye, we’ll send Birch the gun, seeing how the pocket doesn’t bulge enough to be noticeable, especially from a distance.”
He took out the pistol, dropped out the magazine, checked to make sure the chamber was empty, then reseated the magazine and put the gun back in the pocket—all the time aware of Sam fiddling with the transmitter. Niall then picked up the Leopold ring, unzipped the other pocket, and slipped it inside.
Sam stopped fiddling and arched a brow. “Mighty generous of you to return their ring while you’re at it.”
“Birch is going to use it to buy us time to get into position.” Niall looked at the transmitter Sam was holding. “Is it on?”
“Up and running.” Sam set it on the desk and held out his hand. “Give me your phone so I can link it to the transmitter.” He then took his own phone out of his pocket and exchanged it for Niall’s. “Go ahead and look at mine while I program yours. There should be a pinging dot coming from this location on the map.”
Niall looked down at the map of the northwestern half of Bottomless and saw a small blue dot pulsing in the center of Spellbound Falls.
“You can zoom in and out with your fingers,” Sam went on as he worked on Niall’s phone. “And change back and forth from map to satellite photos. Cole and Jake already have the app on their phones, so I just have to give them the code.”
“Duncan and Alec are on their way, as well as Claude St. Germaine,” Niall said. “And Nicholas is bringing Rowan, Micah, and Dante. I want everyone to be able to track Birch, since we’ll likely all be closing in on her from different directions.”
Sam stopped tapping the screen and looked up. “MacKeages and Atlantean warriors against the Leopolds; bet you find it hard to believe,” he said dryly, “that nine hundred years after you were born, we’re still having clan wars.”
Niall snorted and set Sam’s phone on the desk. “From what I’ve read, I can’t believe mankind hasn’t blown itself out of existence by now.” He picked up the transmitter and studied it briefly, then slipped it in the same pocket as the ring and closed the zipper. He patted the desk again. “Shep, up.”
“So let me get this straight,” Sam said. “You’re going to tell Shep to go see Birch, and he’ll head straight to her without getting distracted by some tourist eating a hot dog or a cute poodle wagging its tail at him? And he’s never had any training?”
Niall settled the vest onto Shep’s back and cinched the straps. “He seems to know when a situation is serious.” Satisfied the vest was secure, he moved to look over Sam’s shoulder. “Can I send him to Birch now, or do ye still need access to the transmitter?”
“No, I’m good. There, see, it’s also pinging away on your phone.”
“Is the transmitter waterproof?”
“To a point,” Sam said, frowning at Shep standing with his nose pressed to the door. “But I don’t know if it would survive salt water if you’re thinking of having him approach the shelter from the beach.”
“Nay. Any Leopolds watching the house won’t find it odd for the dog to show up at home in the middle of the day.”
“You’re not including a note with the transmitter, explaining what Birch needs to do?” Sam asked, handing Niall his phone.
“The man in charge of the ambush smashed her phone and gave her one of his to use, which he claims he can monitor,” Niall said, going to the door and opening it. “She called me on a phone she keeps for residents, but she’s been going up to the attic to talk because she’s afraid he may have put listening devices in the house. I’ll call her on the shelter cell phone and explain everything.”
“Have her tape the transmitter someplace on her body instead of just putting it in her pocket,” Sam said, following him out onto the porch. “But just sticking it in her bra isn’t secure enough; she has to tape it.”
Niall dropped to one knee and pulled Shep up against his side. “Go to Birch,” he said close to the dog’s ear. “And stay with her. Go to Birch and stay,” he repeated in Gaelic, opening his arms and then standing up when Shep leaped off the porch without even bothering with the stairs.
“I’ve seen a lot of K-9 soldiers and operatives in my day,” Sam said as they both watched the dog hightail it up the lane. “But it seems as if Shep intuitively knows what you want from him.” He squinted over at Niall. “He didn’t bubble up from a magical spring or anything, did he?”
Niall had often wondered the same thing. “Nay, he came slinking out from behind the tree he was chained to at the house of a man I’d heard was selling a boat.”
“Let me guess; you bought the dog instead.”
Niall looked down at his cell phone. “Aye, someth
ing like that,” he murmured, watching the pulsing dot on the map race past the church and turn onto Whisper Cove Road.
• • •
Birch finished inspecting the backside and bottom of the bureau drawer, tossed it away with a curse, then sat back on her heels in the middle of the mess she’d made of her mother’s room in a thirty-minute frenzy. Dammit to hell, she was going about this all wrong. Instead of acting like a panicked maniac, she needed to think like a stupid-ass criminal. So if she were Jacques Rabideu, where would she hide two thin discs?
Well, to begin with, she wouldn’t stash them where her wife might run across them in the course of everyday life, which meant they wouldn’t be in drawers or closets or any box she and Hazel had packed. No, she’d hide them in the structure of the house—except the stupid-ass idiot hadn’t, apparently.
“No, I wouldn’t,” Birch decided out loud. “Houses can burn, so I’d want the DVDs to be easy to grab in the middle of the night if there was a house fire. Well, unless I could find a way to sneak them into my wife’s safety deposit box.”
But Hazel never visited the bank unless Birch was with her, and then usually only to swap out pieces of jewelry. Heck, her mom hadn’t even wanted a key to their bank box, so Rabideu couldn’t have talked Hazel into taking him. And now that she thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have gotten his own box, either, because he would have wanted quick access to the discs if he needed them for . . . whatever.
And that brought Birch back to her grab-and-go theory.
The DVDs were in something mobile, or something sitting in plain sight that could easily be reached in a crisis. But it had to be something Hazel didn’t handle very often, if at all. So what had they brought with them from Montreal?
Clothes, mostly. Several boxes of academic books and novels. Their bedroom furniture, thinking to free up the beds and bureaus already here for the residents. They’d donated their living room set to the shelter, along with two televisions, a bookcase, and a modern-style grandfather clock that didn’t at all fit with the theme of the house.
Grab and go . . .
Birch jumped to her feet and ran downstairs and into the living room, where she stopped and looked around for something mobile. Had Rabideu lived with Hazel long enough to realize the woman rotated furniture the way people rotated the tires on their cars? Because if not, he could have hidden them in something that was now sitting in someone else’s freaking house. Because every time one of her mom’s charities held an auction, Birch would come home to find a new couch or chair replacing the one Hazel had donated. And if a group home happened to open nearby, she ate off paper plates with plastic forks until Hazel could replace their silverware and bone china—which unwed mothers or foster teens were likely tossing in the dishwasher.
“Please don’t have hidden the discs in the furniture,” Birch whispered, going to one of the end tables beside the couch. She picked up the lamp that had a round base the size of a DVD, turned it upside down, and used her thumbnail to peel back the felt bottom to expose . . . nothing but a wire. She lifted the table to see if anything was taped under the top, did the same to the other lamp and table, then checked the coffee table—again finding nothing. She pulled all the cushions off the couch, tipped it onto its back, and studied the underside.
“Merde,” she growled, going to the clock. She opened both little side doors to look around the mechanism, checked the outside and inside of the tall case, then carefully tilted the freaking thing and crouched to run her hand under the base—despite realizing it wasn’t exactly a grab-and-go hiding place.
But dammit, she wasn’t leaving anything to chance, even if it meant she had to open every last book they owned and tear apart every damn piece of furniture. She went to the bookcase Hazel thought should go in the living room and had already filled with nonacademic books, and sat down on the end of the coffee table and pulled out a book, turned it upside down and fanned the pages, then tossed it on the floor so she wouldn’t end up looking through the same one twice.
She was just reaching for the next book when she jerked in surprise, barely stifling a gasp as she slapped her vibrating left boob. She pulled the shelter phone out of her bra, accepted the call, and held it up to her ear. “Hmm,” she hummed in a whisper, covering her mouth with her free hand. “Let me run up to the attic to—”
“Nay, ye only have to listen. Or, since I imagine you’ve been cursing out loud for the last half hour, how about ye just say merde for yes and maudit for no?”
“Merde,” Birch growled rather loudly, earning her a little chuckle—which earned Niall huge points for being so strong and solid and in her ear.
“Shep’s almost there. Set the phone on the kitchen table but leave the line open, then go out on the porch and make a show of being pleased to see him and bring him inside. Then I’ll tell ye what he brought you and what to do with everything.”
Birch grabbed a book off the floor and dropped it with a bang on the coffee table behind her. “Merde,” she growled as she stood up and headed for the kitchen.
She hadn’t even made it to the door when she heard a sharp bark—Niall’s sigh indicating he had also heard. She set the phone on the table, unlocked and opened the door, and stepped outside—leaving the inside door open. “Well, hello, big boy. You’re home early today,” she said, kneeling down to hug him, then hugging him tighter when he started trying to lick her face. “Oh, Shep, your timing couldn’t be more perfect. You know the lady who was staying here with her daughter? Well, that bitch stole Mimi!” she cried loudly, burying her face in his neck. Birch then stood up, briefly glanced around the yard, and opened the screen door. “Come on, Shep. Come inside and keep me company while I tear apart this house,” she added, walking in behind the dog.
She closed and locked the inside door, then ran over and picked up the phone. “Oh, yes, you’re such a good boy,” Birch said into the phone so Niall would know she was back. “You want a cookie? You . . . you can have one of Mimi’s,” she said thickly.
“There’s a pocket on either side of his vest,” Niall said, getting right down to business. “One is holding a small tracking device that I need ye to carry on your body in an inconspicuous place. Inside your bra, maybe,” he added, sounding a bit gruff himself. “But Sam says tape it in, so it can’t slip out if you bend over. Understand?”
“Merde, Shep, you swallowed that cookie without even tasting it.”
“In the same pocket is the ring the eagle gave you. I want ye to take it with you. Here’s why,” he rushed on, apparently a mind reader. “When you meet with the bastard and after ye give him the discs, I want you to show him the ring and tell him you found it in a small cloth bag in your mother’s jewelry box. Then mention the bag also held a photo of Leonard Struthers kissing a woman who was wearing the ring, and ask if he might be interested, since ye noticed he wore a ring just like it. Are ye following me?”
“Yes, Shep, you can have another cookie,” Birch said.
“In the other pocket is a small pistol,” Niall said quietly. “Do ye know anything about guns, Birch? Have ye ever watched your father handle his?”
“Merde, Shep, that’s enough. Come on, I’m working in the living room,” she said, going to the living room. She sat down and started pulling out books again, grabbing them by one cover with her free hand and giving them a shake.
“If you can have the pistol on you when you meet Leopold, I would feel . . . well, I’d like for you to have some means of protecting yourself and Hazel if things go to hell in a handbasket. You don’t have to worry about shooting yourself; there’s no bullet in the chamber. But just before your meeting, pull back the top of the barrel to load the gun. Study the weapon before you leave the house, so you’ll know where the safety is. Red means it’s ready to shoot; not red, ye won’t be able to pull the trigger.”
“Yes, big boy, you might as well lie down, because this could take a
while,” Birch said, continuing to pull out books and shake them.
“Okay, let’s get back to the ring,” Niall went on. “I’m only guessing here, but making Leopold believe he has a traitor in the family might stall him long enough for us to get in place. Can ye do that, Birch? We’ll be able to track you to the exchange site, but . . .” he hesitated, then quietly said, “but I can’t guarantee he’ll have Hazel with him or that he won’t insist on taking you to her.”
Birch kept pulling books, refusing to let the fact she was shaking uncontrollably stop her. “Yes, Shep, I-I know you’re disappointed Mimi’s not here.”
“That’s why I’m thinking,” Niall continued just as softly, “you should tell Leopold ye destroyed the photo because you didn’t trust he’d let Hazel go once you gave him the discs. And say that if he wants to find out who the woman is, he’s going to have to drop Hazel off in a public place. Tell him once ye see your mother is safe, you’ll sit in the town park together and he can show you photos of his family off his phone and you’ll point out the woman. Can ye do that, lass?” he repeated.
Birch couldn’t answer because her jaw was nearly touching the floor as she stared at her outstretched hand holding the cover of her birthday book, the weight of the well-worn tome having caused the inner cloth liner to rip away from the binding and expose the edge of a disc.
“Birch,” Niall growled. “What’s wrong?”
She’d found them. She’d found the freaking DVDs!
“God dammit, woman, say something.”
“Come on, Shep,” she finally said, having to set the heavy book on the floor to close it, then scooping it up one-handed and cradling it to her chest. “I just remembered the movers put some boxes up in the attic. Let’s go see what’s in them.”
It was Niall’s turn to go silent as Birch ran upstairs, Shep beating her to the top.
“Ye found the DVDs,” Niall whispered.
“Merde, Shep, the door’s stuck,” she said calmly even though she was screaming ohmigods over and over in her head.
The Highlander Next Door Page 31
