by Cindy Dees
“Were you always that mistrustful of the women you dated?”
“It was an issue wondering if women wanted me for myself or for my wealth. But at some point, you have to take a chance and go with your gut. I may have gotten it wrong with Meredith, but I got it right with you…twice.”
She brushed aside the overture. Adam was her entire focus at this juncture. But the mystery of Nick’s marriage to a woman he clearly thought dangerous tantalized her. Was Meredith behind either or both kidnappings after all?
The man she knew—both in Paris and now—simply wouldn’t have married a woman in whom he had so little faith. Surely Nick’s core personality hadn’t changed that much in the past six years. “Do you have any idea how you met Meredith?” she asked.
“No, I don’t.”
She asked cautiously, “Would you mind if I researched your wife a little?”
His gaze was open and honest, and he answered without hesitation. “Be my guest.”
Thank God. He was finally willing, not only to face his past, but to let her see it, too. She minimized the AbaCo files and pulled up her favorite search engine. She typed rapidly.
In seconds, pictures of Nick and Meredith from the front pages of the tabloids leaped onto her screen. “Attractive woman,” Laura commented.
Nick shrugged. “Beauty comes from inside a person. You’re attractive. From what I know of her, she has the heart of a snake. She may be well-groomed, but she is not attractive to me.”
Laura might have smiled under other circumstances. But as it was, she kept typing grimly. “She was living pretty high on the hog when you met—designer clothes, expensive hotels and spas, jewelry running into hundreds of thousands of dollars…” She typed some more. “Did you know she was collecting art? It looks like she’d bought a couple million dollars’ worth by the time you two hooked up.”
Nick looked about as interested as if she’d told him the price of tea in China had gone up by a penny a pound.
Laura poked around some more, but then leaned back, perplexed. “I can’t find the source of her money. She doesn’t come from a wealthy background, and I’m not finding any indication she had a high-paying job. She had a high school education from an average school. No college. She wasn’t a model. Several years prior to meeting you, she started tossing around the big bucks. She didn’t appear to be dating any men who could’ve financed that sort of lifestyle. According to her tabloid appearances, she seemed to be picking up mostly good-looking toy boys and footing the bill for them.”
Nick made a face. “Maybe she was a hooker.”
Laura snorted. “Even high-end working girls don’t pull down the kind of money she was spending. She was blowing through three to five million dollars a year.”
“Was she running up a massive debt? Maybe she married me to dig herself out?”
Laura gestured with her chin toward his laptop. “Is there any record of your attorney running a background check on her? My lawyer used to run one on all the guys I dated in college, and I didn’t inherit anywhere near the wealth you had.”
Nick scowled. “I seem to recall William checking out my girlfriends at university, and it drove me crazy.”
“Did you tell him to stop?”
He laughed. “I doubt William would have listened to me. He was the executor of my father’s estate and had the power to do pretty much whatever he pleased. As I recall, he didn’t think I was exactly the most responsible young man on the planet.”
“Was he right?”
“Absolutely. I was in my early twenties, good-looking, smart, and too rich for my own good. Girls flocked to me, and I had no problem taking advantage of that. William kept me on a stupidly tight financial leash. Good thing he did, too. I might have blown my inheritance before I grew up and got interested in the shipping business.”
“What else could Meredith have been up to that pulled in so much cash?” Laura asked thoughtfully.
“No education. No fancy job. No modeling. No prostitution. No rich boyfriend,” Nick ticked off. “She was either the secret mistress of someone extremely wealthy, or she was into something illegal.”
Laura spent the next several minutes looking at Meredith’s travel patterns over a three-year period. She found no recurring destinations. She even cross-checked the guest lists at various hotels and resorts Meredith frequented and found no pattern of any repeating guest at the same places. Tabloid references consistently called Meredith single and on the prowl. She appeared to subscribe to the theory of a new man in her bed every night. Laura even ran Meredith’s name through the various intelligence databases that she had legal—and occasionally way off the books and not so legal—access to. There were no records or even rumors of the woman being involved with anyone. Nada.
Finally, Laura announced, “If she was having a secret affair, it’s so secret I can’t find any hint of it. I think the crime angle is all we’ve got left.”
“Given what Kloffman says she’s into now, it seems the likeliest scenario.”
Laura nodded. “Okay. Let’s assume she was already dabbling in crime. She comes to you with a plan to use your shipping company to expand her activities. Do you say yes or no?”
“Emphatically no,” Nick replied firmly. “I always ran a legitimate business.”
Laura nodded and continued her line of reasoning. “But she doesn’t take no for an answer. She figures she can seduce you and gain access to your company that way. Either she figures she can do it behind your back, or once you’re married, you’ll go along with what she’s up to and take the money and run rather than turn in your wife.”
Nick pushed his laptop aside and propped his elbows on the desk. “But what if, after we were married, I didn’t want to go along with her plan for Spiros Shipping?”
Laura picked up the thread of the logic. “Then she’s got to get rid of you. But because of the prenup, she’ll lose all control of, and even access to, the shipping company if you die.”
“So, she has me kidnapped, tosses me on one of my ships, and has it sail around indefinitely in international waters with me aboard. For all I know, I might have been the first prisoner. Maybe she got the idea for selling high-end kidnappings from me.”
Laura scowled. That woman had better hope her path never crossed Laura’s. On behalf of all the families of the kidnapping victims, she was going to gouge the woman’s eyeballs out with her bare hands.
“Surely I suspected something before I married her, or else I wouldn’t have insisted on this crazy prenup.”
“Is it possible you had in mind some sort of scheme to expose what she was up to and married her to find out what exactly she was involved in? Maybe to expose who her business partners were?”
Nick stared into space for a long time. It was painful watching him try to dredge up a memory that simply wasn’t there. Finally, he huffed in frustration and his gaze focused on her once more. “Yes, it’s possible. But I don’t remember.” He added in a rush, “I wish now that I’d cooperated with all those shrinks who tried to help me remember the lost years.”
Laura jolted. She’d long suspected he’d stonewalled his doctors, but to hear him say the words aloud was a shock. “Why didn’t you cooperate?”
He laughed shortly. Without humor. “I knew something really bad had happened during that lost time, and I was dead certain something even worse would happen if the docs uncovered it.”
She had to give the man credit. He was one fine actor to have fooled all the physicians like that. But it did raise another and more disturbing question: What else wasn’t he being square with her about?
It took her a moment to pick up the dropped threads of their conversation. “Okay, so you suspected Meredith of being up to no good. Maybe she was already using your company to ship illegal somethings.”
He nodded. “But she was too careful, and I couldn’t find out what she’d involved Spiros in unknowingly.”
“Do you think it’s fair to assume you were acting nobly
to protect your company?”
He nodded. “My only recollections of Spiros Shipping are fond and proud. I can’t imagine doing anything to sabotage it.”
“Okay. We go with noble motivations. Would you have been willing to seduce Meredith to find out what she was up to?”
He nodded again, but slowly this time. “If my hobbies were any indication, I was a bit of a risk taker back then. I might have gotten involved with someone like her for the sake of my family’s business. Hell, I might have done it purely for the thrill of playing with fire.”
She tsked. “Nick, Nick. What did you get yourself into?”
“Apparently, I got myself into waters way over my head.” He reached across the table to squeeze her hand apologetically. “I’m so sorry I sucked you into this mess.”
Recollection of why they were having this conversation washed over her. Adam. His precious face, so much like his father’s, swam in her mind’s eye. Agony stabbed her.
A cold feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as a disturbing thought occurred to her. She frowned. “Do you think it’s possible you knew who I was in Paris? Did you approach me because I was CIA and could help you take her down?”
A horrified look leaped into his eyes. “Surely not. Surely I wouldn’t have used you like that. Maybe I found out you were getting too close to her and might ruin my investigation, or maybe you had come onto Meredith’s radar and were in danger.”
How could she have been so stupid in Paris? She’d been so swept off her feet by Nick’s good looks and extraordinary charm that she’d never stopped to ask herself exactly why and how he’d blown into her life. What if it hadn’t been happy coincidence at all? What if he’d been using her? Had their instant and explosive attraction been a lie? Had he really loved her at all?
Oh, God. And what about now? Had the past year been all about using her resources to hide from his enemies? About regaining his strength for another fight? Had their entire life together been a lie?
She reeled, both emotionally and physically, and actually had to grab the edge of the desk to steady herself. Nick was speaking again, and she struggled to focus on his words.
“…know what your partner was investigating? Did he maybe stumble across something having to do with Meredith’s activities?”
She retreated into the mundane rather than dwell on the horror spinning through her mind right now. “We were investigating the Russian mob’s activities in France. It’s possible I didn’t know everything Kent was doing, though. But I can find out.” Using a dummy email account, she typed out a quick email to her old boss at the CIA asking if her partner might possibly have been investigating Meredith Black Spiros at the time of his disappearance. Clifton had also been Kent’s supervisor. If anyone would know what Kent had been up to, it would be him. She hit the send button. Clifton’s reply was almost immediate—he must be working late. Kent hadn’t been working on anything else to his knowledge. No help there.
Her research on Meredith dead-ended for the moment, she turned her attention back to the AbaCo documents. Nick went back to reading legal documents from his lawyer’s files.
She’d been perusing blindingly dull shipping documents and correspondence for about an hour when she sat up straight abruptly. She read the short email correspondence again—in Russian. Nope, she hadn’t mistranslated it. Holy cow.
“Uhh, Nick? I know where your wife got her money.”
He glanced up questioningly from his own computer.
“She worked for the Russians,” Laura announced.
“What?”
“There’s a message in here for her, in Russian. Kloffman made a note on the email that he didn’t know what it was, but he was startled that a personal email for Meredith had accidentally made its way into AbaCo’s files, and that it was in what looked like Russian. She apparently never let on to him that she speaks the language. I have to agree with Kloffman. It had to be a mistake that this got saved in an AbaCo archive.”
“Can you read it?”
She smiled grimly. “I had a Russian minor in college.”
“What does the email say? Is she a spy?” Nick demanded.
“I don’t know. This could have come from the URS—the Russian security service—or possibly the Russian mob.” She added dryly, “Not that it makes much difference one way or the other. The two organizations are firmly in bed with each other.”
Nick stared. “Was she some sort of plant? A mole to get inside my company?”
“Maybe.”
Or maybe Nick had made some sort of deal with the Russians and Meredith had been merely the instrument of its implementation. It was all well and good to spin Nick as the possible hero in the Paris scenario, but it was just as possible he’d instigated whatever criminal activities Spiros Shipping had gotten into. Maybe he’d been unwilling to add murder to the list and had saved her that rainy night as a selfish maneuver to protect himself. Or maybe he’d been trying to ingratiate himself with the CIA.
It was so maddening not knowing the truth! Did she dare trust him or not? By his own admission, he’d run interference on the doctors trying to discover the truth about his past. Had that, too, been a purely self-protective maneuver?
She had to believe his memory loss was real. Too many times over the past year, he’d casually reached for some memory in an unguarded moment and run into the black wall of nothingness. She’d seen the fear and frustration in his eyes when he didn’t think she was looking. He hadn’t been acting for her benefit in those moments, and he’d been absolutely consistent in his inability to remember even the smallest details of that time, even when he was half-asleep, distracted by the kids, or just surprised by a sudden question from her. No actor was that good.
Good guy or bad guy? Liar or victim? Who in the world was Nikolas Spiros/Nick Cass? She had to unravel the mystery fast or else their son might very well die.
She glanced up. Nick was frowning deeply, obviously trying yet again to pierce the black veil in his mind. “Anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “How did she get away with being a spy, or at least some sort of Russian agent?”
That was an excellent question. Laura went back to her earlier computer screenshots of Meredith’s childhood and early adulthood. Some or all of it could very well be faked. She studied the records carefully. If it was fake, it had been extremely well done. Which meant the URS was probably behind it.
Of course, working for the Russian government didn’t exactly exclude Meredith from working for the Russian mob, too. Laura reached for her cell phone. “Let me make a few calls to Langley. I need to talk to the guys on the Russia desk about her.”
Although she was no longer a CIA agent and her clearances had long been terminated, she was nonetheless considered to be a friend of the agency. In that capacity, people listened to the occasional tips she passed their way. And in return, they threw her a bone now and then. An anonymous male voice answered the line.
“Hi, my name’s Laura Delaney. You can run my bona fides past Clifton Moore in the morning. He’ll vouch for me. Please copy the following for immediate dissemination: I believe I have discovered a long-term Russian mole. A sparrow possibly, functioning inside and behind a major international cargo shipping company.”
The man at the other end of the phone made a sound of surprise. Over the years, there’d been a lot of rumors about the KGB’s vaunted core of operatives who used sex as a potent weapon of espionage. The men had been called ravens, the women, sparrows. But the talk had been mostly rumors and urban legends.
She continued briskly, “Her name is Meredith Black Spiros. I have reason to believe she is using the resources of AbaCo Shipping to engage in much more extensive illegal activities than the Agency is currently aware of. Her financials are highly suspicious. I recommend the Agency take a closer look immediately. I’m requesting any additional information available on her. Have you got all that?”
“Yes, ma’am. What is a good phone number and
email address at which we can contact you?”
“Clifton Moore knows how to get in touch with me.” Laura hung up the phone.
“Are you so sure that was a good idea?” Nick asked doubtfully. “If she’s some dangerous spy, wouldn’t she be really mad if you sicced the CIA on her? I mean, what if she’s behind Adam’s kidnapping? Lord knows, if she’s connected with the Russians, she’d have access to the kind of resources to pull it off.”
Laura shook her head, remembering Adam and Lisbet laughing on the floor. “Lisbet worked for a Russian family before I hired her. She speaks some Russian. She’d know if she were being held by one and would have used some sort of Russian word out of context instead of a French one.”
Nick studied her intently. “Are you willing to bet our son’s life on it? Because that’s what you’re doing.”
None of her mommy-warning intuitions were firing. Was it possible that Meredith’s true identity and Adam’s disappearance were not related? One thing she was sure of: Whoever had Adam was out for AbaCo’s blood, not Meredith’s.
Nick surged up out of his chair. “You could’ve made a terrible mistake by calling Langley.”
“I did my job,” she retorted sharply.
“You’re not a spy anymore. You’re a mother. And you may have just endangered my son even more than he already is.”
They glared daggers at each other, as much frustration glinting in his eyes as roiled in her gut. “I wasn’t being impulsive or reckless,” she snapped. “As a citizen, I have a duty to report a national security risk to my government.”
“It’s pretty arrogant of you to decide that all by yourself, don’t you think? He’s my son, too.”
“And where were you the first five years of his life?” she shot back. She regretted the words the second they were out of her mouth, but once said, they couldn’t be unsaid.
“It’s not my fault I was locked in a box that whole time! I didn’t know I had a son. And even if I did, there isn’t a damned thing I could’ve done about it.”
He was right. But he also had no idea what it had been like, having no clue where he’d gone or why he’d just disappeared like a puff of smoke from her life. In spite of her determination to find him, she had to admit—if she was being brutally honest with herself—that part of her had been furious at Nick during the long years of his absence.
