Mission: Irresistible

by Sharon Sala

  “I got up to get a drink of water,” she said.

  “I can’t sleep either,” he muttered, and turned back to the skyline of L.A. “Hell of a place, isn’t it?”

  Ally moved to stand beside him, shoulders touching, sharing the night and the space.

  “When I was little, I was afraid of people who lived their lives in the dark. Intellectually, I knew there were people like doctors and policemen, even firemen, who had to work no matter what time of day it was. But a part of me was convinced that they were really vampires who came out after the sun went down and disappeared during the day.” She managed a lopsided grin. “I saw an old movie about werewolves and vampires when I was about six. I didn’t grasp all the nuances, just enough to scare the bejesus out of me for a good ten years.”

  East laughed, and again, was surprised that he could. There was something so sweet about her lack of artifice that he couldn’t help himself.

  “You’re good for me. Did you know that?” he asked.

  Ally shook her head.

  “Well, you are,” he said, and gave her a quick hug. As he did, he felt her shiver. “Let’s get back inside before we both get a chill.”

  He nodded, as he led the way back inside, and then locked the door behind them. “How about some coffee?”

  “I’ll pass,” she said. “It would just keep me awake.”

  “You’re already awake,” East argued. “What’s one cup going to hurt?”

  Reluctant to admit that she was afraid of making a fool of herself again, it was all she could do to agree. She stood in the dark, watching as East walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. From the living room, she felt safe; secluded from his all-seeing eyes. Yet when he beckoned, she followed him into the light, like a moth to the flame. Morning could come none too soon. Oddly enough, after two cups of coffee, they both went to sleep. East dreamed of her laughter, and Ally dreamed of his arms, holding her tight.

  Hundreds of miles away on a Colorado mountaintop, Jonah stood on the second-story balcony of his home, looking out at the darkness and the star-filled night. The emptiness of the house behind him was nothing more than a reflection of his own life. Despite his power, he had no roots—no family. If he survived this mess he was in, his future still looked bleak. It was impossible not to think of what the last years of his life would be like when he gave up this job to someone else. He would be exactly what he was now, only older—a lonely, lonely man.

  A deep sigh racked his body as he looked up at the sky. As he watched, a shooting star suddenly fell into his line of vision, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, and as it did, an old memory suddenly resurfaced. As a young man, he’d stood in the dark on a night like this and watched stars falling from heaven. Only he hadn’t been alone. He shuddered, remembering the sequence of events that had taken him to where he was now and as he did, loneliness turned to a slow, simmering rage. He’d given up too damned much in the service of others. And as he stood there, a certainty came to him. After he cleared his name, he was going to resign. There was a woman he wanted to see—just one more time, before anonymity claimed him again.

  Angrily, he turned away from the view and stalked into the house, shutting and locking the door behind him, then moved through the rooms without turning on the lights, confident of his path and of the decisions he’d just made.

  There was another sort of darkness where Jeff was being held; a choking blackness where, at times, the air seemed too thick to breathe. At first, he’d been afraid that he would eventually die from lack of oxygen, and then he had remembered the breathing tube he’d seen in the ceiling. As the hours passed, he also discovered that daylight, although infinitesimal, was visible through the tiny tube and the knowledge, somehow, gave him peace.

  He moved within the small enclosure, feeling his way from cot to table, fumbling his way through the packets of food, carefully sipping the water for fear this was all they would give him. Periodically, he would find his way to the steps, then go up them on his hands and knees until he got to the door, pushing hard with his hands and with his back, just on the off-chance someone had gotten careless and left it unlocked. But it was never so. Oddly enough, just the act of trying was enough to keep his spirits up—that and the hope that East would find him.

  Ally raked a brush through her hair and then tossed it aside as she picked up a tube of lipstick, giving her lips a quick swipe. Her jeans were old but comfortable. Her pink and yellow, tie-dyed tank top was an alarming conglomeration of swirls and blobs, but she loved it. It was a rare concession to her youth, rather than to the austerity of her position with SPEAR.

  In the other room, she could hear snatches of East’s conversation with Foster Martin as he checked in with his second-in-command, making sure that all was going well at the resort. As she exited the bathroom, she looked toward the bed, trying to remember where she’d left her shoes, but they were nowhere in sight. She headed toward the living room, gathering up a file of papers as she went, anxious to get down to work.

  East had already spoken with the chief of staff at the hospital where Jeff worked. Ally didn’t know exactly what had been said, but she knew that East had made sure Jeff would not be penalized for missing school or work when he returned. It was a tricky situation, making certain that no one reported Jeff Kirby missing, because the last thing they needed or wanted was for the police to become involved in the search. It would drive Jeff’s kidnappers even further underground and possibly anger Jonah’s enemy to the point of having Jeff killed.

  She entered the living room, put down her file and began looking for her shoes. East turned and waved, then quickly brought his phone call to an end. As soon as he hung up, he turned to Ally.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Looking for my shoes.”

  “They’re in the kitchen under the table.”

  “Oh! Right! I kicked them off while I was working last night. Thanks.”

  She headed toward the kitchen, leaving East with a delightful view of her backside.

  He shook his head, then swiped a hand over his face, as if wiping out the thoughts that kept going through his mind. It was very out of character for him, but he was having the devil of a time keeping his hands off of her.

  “Found ’em,” she yelled, then added a few moments later. “Want some breakfast?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But there’s nothing here to cook. We’re either going to have to shop for groceries or have food delivered.”

  Ally appeared in the doorway, a frown on her face. “Do they deliver breakfast?”

  He shrugged. “Hell if I know. It’s L.A., so probably. However, let’s go find a store, buy some food for later and I’ll treat you to breakfast before we get down to work.”

  She looked back at the microscope and the slides. “Maybe I should—”

  East took her by the hand. “Look, nobody wants my son found worse than I do, but you have to eat. We won’t be gone long. Besides, you said you needed a modem to hook up to your laptop.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I do,” she said. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Just as they opened the door, a couple exited the elevator down the hall and started toward them.

  “Oh, you must be our new neighbors,” the woman said, offering her hand. “We’re Mil and Bill. Mil is short for Millie, you know, but I like Mil better. Millie is so bourgeois.”

  Before East could comment, she let forth with a second burst of chatter.

  “I told Bill the other night that it was too bad that nice young man was moving because he was such a good neighbor.” She giggled. “Of course, part of the reason he was so good was because he was rarely here. He was a medical student, I believe. Anyway, do you and your wife have children? Bill and I don’t. Not that I’m against the idea, but parenting is such a confining life-style, don’t you agree?”

  Ally wanted to take a deep breath for the woman because she didn’t seem able to slow down long enough to breathe for herself. How
ever, the woman had volunteered one useful bit of information, and East wasted no time in questioning her about it.

  “Why did you think that Jeff had moved?” he asked.

  Bill started to answer, but Mil jumped in ahead of him. “You knew him?” She rolled her eyes, then giggled. “Of course you must have, you just called him by name.”

  Finally, Bill interrupted. “You’re Jeff’s father, aren’t you? I think we were introduced a year or so ago.”

  East nodded. “Yes, but back to my question. Why did you think Jeff had moved?”

  “Oh! I remember you now. Sorry, I feel so silly, but when we came back from the hospital that night… Oh, that was just awful,” Millie said, flying off in another conversational direction. “Someone called us a few nights ago…the night we saw the movers…and told us we needed to go to a hospital to identify my mother’s body. Why I nearly died myself. We left immediately, of course, but the most awful thing…well, it wasn’t really awful, because she wasn’t there after all, and when we realized it was a hoax, we were really glad. Anyway, someone lied to us just to get us out of our apartment, Bill said. We raced home, certain that we’d come back to find we’d been robbed. Imagine our relief when everything was all right.”

  East glanced at Ally, but it was obvious by the look on her face that she was already on the same wavelength as him.

  “So, why did you think Jeff was moving?” he repeated.

  “Why…because of those three men in coveralls. They came out of your son’s apartment carrying a great big trunk and after that, we didn’t see him anymore so we just assumed that he had moved.”

  “What did they look like?” East asked.

  Bill shrugged. “I didn’t pay any attention.”

  “Oh, you know,” Mil said. “Ordinary white men. One was a little taller and older than the other two and they were all wearing blue coveralls and baseball caps. Why, is something wrong?” She suddenly clapped her hands against her cheeks. “Oh, my! Was Jeff robbed instead of us? Why I never thought of that, did you, Bill?”

  “No, no,” East said quickly. “He wasn’t robbed.”

  “Oh, that must have been the stuff he was shipping to you for storage,” Ally said, giving East the alibi he needed to put this couple off the idea that anything was wrong.

  “Right,” East said.

  “So Jeff hasn’t moved?” Bill asked.

  East shook his head. “No. He’s on some sort of trade-out with a hospital in another state…specialized trauma work, or something of the sort.”

  The couple nodded. “Hope he does well,” Bill said, and then added. “Nice to see you again.”

  It was all East could do to stay quiet until they were gone.

  “God all mighty,” he whispered. “I’d lay odds that Jeff was in that trunk and those men carried him out right under their noses.”

  Ally nodded. “Okay, now we know there were three men, and they had a big trunk, so it’s doubtful that they were in a car or even a pickup truck. They would want some kind of an enclosed vehicle to move him away, and I’m betting on a van, although they could have had some sort of a rental truck.”

  “After we get back from breakfast, I’m going to question some of the people who live here. Maybe someone saw something that night that could help us.”

  “And maybe I’ll find something in those fingerprints I lifted,” Ally said. Impulsively, she gave East a quick hug. “This is wonderful,” she said. “See…already we have hope because we have new clues. We’ll find him, East. I just know it.”

  East smiled ruefully. “Where were you ten years ago? I could have used your faith and optimism then.”

  “Umm, I believe I was still wearing braces and working on my first Ph.D…or was it my second?”

  “My God,” East muttered. “I keep forgetting how young you are.”

  She pursed her lips in a rather puritan mode and gave him a disgusted look.

  “Age is nothing but a state of mind. Personally, I can’t remember a day of youthful exuberance in my entire life. I think I’ve always been old.”

  This time, it was East who reached out, pulling her close against his chest.

  “I’m going to make you a promise, Ally girl. When this is over, I’m going to teach you something you don’t know.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “I’m going to teach you how to play.”

  It was late afternoon and the evening sun was coming through the kitchen window with bright persistence. Squinting against the glare, Ally shoved her chair back from the table and strode to the window, turning the slats on the shade until the room was bathed in a warm, homey glow. She tilted her head to the right, then to the left, wincing in satisfaction as her neck suddenly popped. Then she sat back down, pulled her laptop forward and resumed what she’d been doing.

  It had been simple, hacking into the database at FBI headquarters. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, but never had the act been as personal to her as it was now.

  During her forensic investigation, she’d found several different fingerprints, which stood to reason, since East claimed that Jeff occasionally entertained some of his med-school buddies. And, she’d identified Jeff’s and one other young man’s right off. But it was the partial she’d found on a large shard of glass that interested her most. She had every chance to expect that the print could very easily have come from the man who’d cleaned up the broken glass. All she had to do was wait while the program ran, hoping she would get a match.

  The blood she’d typed had been the same type as Jeff’s, which virtually eliminated the possibility of linking it to someone else. Because of that, they had little else to go on, save the print. If that bombed, it left them with nothing but vague descriptions of three white men in blue coveralls. Now, she sat staring at the screen as, one after the other, it sorted through the thousands of prints on file, looking for the one with the same set of whorls and indentations as the print she’d found on the glass.

  A short while later, she glanced at her watch, then got up again, this time moving toward the living room and the terrace beyond. East had gone out some time ago, intent on talking to some of the other tenants to see if they’d noticed any unusual activity the night Jeff disappeared. The file Jonah had sent him was spread out on the coffee table, and although East had remarked upon the thoroughness employed by the man who was trying to take Jonah down, he hadn’t been able to find anything pertinent that might help them find Jeff.

  She opened the patio door and walked out on the small, balconied terrace, then sat down to watch the comings and goings from the parking lot below. So many people, and yet no one had noticed a young man had gone missing within their midst. Within their worlds, it was as if Jeff Kirby had never existed. Yet Ally knew that he had. She’d seen pictures of him and East together—both men laughing into the camera’s eye at some lost bit of nonsense: Jeff holding up a huge big-mouthed bass caught while on a Colorado fishing trip, East flipping hamburgers on an outdoor grill.

  Ally sighed. East and Jeff had packed more “family” stuff into the last ten years they’d been together than she and her parents had done in her entire life. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single time when her parents had gone out of their way to make her feel important. They’d left the discovery of that issue up to Ally, herself.

  She kicked back in the chair and then closed her eyes, wanting so badly to give that life back to East. Mentally, she began reviewing the true facts of Jeff’s disappearance, as she knew them.

  There was the cryptic message from Jeff about walking away from a crash and burn.

  The name Bob, written in blood on the floor of Jeff’s apartment.

  The three men who’d been seen carrying a trunk out of his apartment.

  The so-far, unidentified fingerprint she’d found on the glass.

  She opened her eyes and sat up, frustrated that they didn’t know more. Again, she glanced at her watch. Almost an hour had passed since she’d come
outside and she began to wonder what had happened to East. Hope began to rise as the sun began to set. Maybe he was on to something important—something that would set them on the right path to finding his son.

  She stood abruptly, suddenly anxious to check on the program that was running. Maybe a match had been made.

  As she started to leave, a flash of silver caught the corner of her eye and she turned back to the parking lot, curious as to what it was that she’d seen. When she saw nothing, she shrugged, and turned again, and again, the same flash of brilliance occurred. This time she stood, looking at the light from the corner of her eye until she’d focused on the exact location.

  As she turned, she realized she had been looking at something affixed to a pole in the bank parking lot across the street. When she realized what it was, her heart skipped a beat. It was one of a couple of visible security cameras. But the implications of that particular camera were impossible to ignore. Unless she was mistaken, the background images of that particular camera would most likely be the vehicles going in and out of Jeff’s apartment complex.

  Her first impulse was to dash across the street, flash her government badge and demand to see the tapes. But then she remembered the time and realized that the establishment had probably been closed for quite a while. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Excited about a possible new lead, she hurried back inside, hopeful that by now the fingerprint program had found a match. To her frustration, it was still running. Shrugging off the disappointment, she began rummaging through the refrigerator for something to fix for their dinner. She was debating between the two steaks East had bought or pasta and salad when she heard the front door open. Anxious to tell him her new theory, she dumped the stuff back in the fridge and bolted for the living room.