Guardian of the Night

by Debra Webb

  He checked to make sure that she was sleeping, then he ensured that all the doors and windows were locked. After that he climbed the stairs. Something had been nagging at him from the moment he found Lowell on the floor. Something that didn’t quite fit.

  Noah was naturally suspicious…it was the nature of the beast in the business he’d once been in. Few things ever slipped under his radar. That someone this close to him could have fooled him didn’t seem plausible. Still, he was no fool. There had been far too many coincidences lately. Ignoring the possibility was out of the question.

  BLUE JERKED AWAKE. She glanced at the wall clock and realized she’d slept just over an hour. She stretched as she got up, thankful for the reprieve, but ready to jump back into the fire. A frown worked its way into her expression when she considered that Lucas should be at the hospital by now. Why hadn’t Lowell or Ramon called to give her an update?

  Maybe one of them had, and Drake had opted not to wake her. In which case, she’d have no choice but to kick his rear. She almost smiled. No, that wouldn’t work. Touching him in any way would only give her too much carnal pleasure. She thought about the way his beard-stubbled jaw had felt beneath her fingers and she shivered. Nope, a good tongue-lashing would have to do, and even that conjured ideas that were off limits.

  At the top of the stairs she surveyed the second-story hallway and moved quickly toward Lowell’s room. She could no longer ignore her mounting suspicions about the man. Something wasn’t as it should be. The comment he’d made—calling her a real fighter, saying Drake had said it—and then hearing that same remark from the guy who’d taken her down in the woods. Lowell’s odd reaction to hearing that Lucas had been at the house. His even more peculiar behavior after Lucas had been shot. Behaving uncharacteristically hysterical. Obnoxiously so. And then suddenly, the moment it was time to get in the car to take Lucas to meet Mr. Venable. Lowell was calm as could be. Of course, he had been injured and frightened. She supposed…

  No, that wasn’t right either. In her gut, she knew that Lowell was hiding something. No one else had access to the house. Too many unexplainable events had occurred. Chester had sworn that he hadn’t taken his eyes off the supplies before delivering them to the house. Whoever had attacked her only hours ago had gained entry into the house without force. It just didn’t add up. She and Lowell were the only ones with keys.

  Either someone was using Lowell, somehow coercing him into going along with their plans, or he was one of the bad guys.

  Blue froze in her tracks when she thought about Jaymo and his pal Sykes in the woods. Lowell had called the sheriff. Lowell had said that according to the sheriff the two were nothing but local yahoos who’d done this sort of thing before.

  No one else had spoken with the sheriff’s deputy.

  No one else had even seen him.

  Who was to say that the deputy had ever even been called or that the two men had ever been in custody and interrogated.

  Only Lowell. She hurried now, rushing toward Lowell’s room.

  All she needed was one scrap of evidence—

  She slammed into a hard male body in the open doorway. She jerked back, reaching for her Glock…

  It was Drake.

  She exhaled the breath that had stalled in her lungs. “Sorry.” She released the nine-millimeter’s grip and displayed her palms stop-sign fashion. “I’m a little edgy.”

  He smiled, just a ghost of a gesture. “Understandable.” Then he frowned. “You should still be resting.”

  Focusing on his words rather than the movement of those incredible lips proved a real challenge. “I couldn’t sleep any longer…there’s something I need to check out. No word from Lucas or Lowell yet?”

  He shook his head. It dawned on her then that Drake was standing in Lowell’s doorway and that wasn’t normal.

  “Something’s been nagging at me as well,” he said, then stepped back for her to enter the room. “I think you should see this.”

  The ominous note in his tone sent goose bumps pebbling over Blue’s skin. She followed him into the room.

  “Look closely at the photographs on the walls.”

  Blue had assumed they were of family, but closer inspection revealed the truth. “They came with the frames.”

  Noah nodded. He took down one of the frames and removed the back. Lowell had carefully matted the paper photo so that the size and price information imprinted there was covered.

  Five photos had been treated in that manner. He’d carefully chosen different frames that used similar images for display. The people looked so similar, no one would have noticed unless they had been looking for discrepancy.

  She remembered on the first day she’d arrived, assuming that this was likely his room. She’d noted the framed photographs, but hadn’t looked at them closely, and, considering the low lighting, especially before her eyes had grown accustomed, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual. She remembered that he’d mentioned losing his family. She just assumed these photos were of the family.

  “Does this smell familiar?”

  Noah held out a handkerchief. She lifted it to her nose and cautiously sniffed it. Drawing back instantly, she coughed and purged her lungs of the strong stench.

  “It was him.”

  The words were hers, but she barely recognized them as her own. She shook her head in disbelief. Though she’d mentally noted several inconsistencies in things Lowell had said and done, it was still hard for her to believe that he could play his part so well. What on earth did he have to gain by doing this?

  “Take a look at this.” Noah opened a drawer in the bedside table and showed her the mutilated magazines, glue and other items needed to create threatening notes.

  “Why would he do this?” she voiced her disbelief and frustration, then chewed her lower lip as she turned the idea over in her mind. “It doesn’t make sense. He’s lived here with you all this time. He could have killed you on numerous occasions. Why do the notes thing and all this other cloak-and-dagger hoopla? Could he be connected to the general somehow?”

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with me.”

  Realization burst through all the other confusing thoughts. Lucas. It was about Lucas.

  “He’s got Lucas,” she murmured almost to herself. “I have to warn Casey and—”

  Noah placed a restraining hand on her arm when she would have rushed from the room. “There’s more.”

  Ice-cold fear thickening her blood, she watched as Drake picked up an innocuous-looking shoebox that lay on its side, the contents spilled across the chenille bedspread.

  “Look at these.” He picked up a handful of photographs, mostly candid snapshots, and a few five-by-sevens.

  Blue’s heart pounded harder with each photograph she viewed. One by one she shuffled through the stack. Dozens of shots of Lucas, but always in a crowd or an unapproachable situation. There were other subjects pictured as well. The only other one that stood out was that of a woman. There was photograph after photograph of her as well. Late forties, early fifties, attractive, dark hair with a hint of gray. Very sophisticated looking. Then there were a couple of the woman with Lucas.

  Though Blue didn’t know the woman’s name, she knew instinctively that this was the woman who owned Lucas’s heart. The woman all the Specialists speculated about.

  “How long did you say Lowell has worked for you?” she asked, as she reviewed the photographs once more. A sinking feeling had started deep inside her.

  “One year. Before that I managed without anyone else. But after—” He hesitated as if unsure whether he wanted to divulge the rest. He swallowed tightly. “After the accident I knew I couldn’t really manage on my own so I sought out someone to take care of details…just to be around on a regular basis.”

  Worry twisted inside her. “Accident? What kind of accident?”

  He stared at the floor a moment. “I had the flu or a bug. It dragged on and on. I ended up dehydrated, got dizzy one evening and fell
in the kitchen.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Lay there unconscious for an hour or so before I came around. I’d hit my head in the fall. There was a lot of blood. Scared Chester worse than it did me. He brought Emery to patch me up. I pretty much admitted the need to have someone around at that point.” He laughed dryly. “Well, actually, Edgar insisted.”

  Blue almost said good, then realized that Lowell was the assistant—companion or whatever—who took the job.

  “I got used to having him around eventually. It was his idea to contact an agent…when he stumbled upon my hobby.”

  His artwork. He still didn’t want her to know about it. That stung just a little, but she had no time to dwell on it. “Who recommended Lowell?” There had to be a connection.

  “I ran an ad in the classifieds. Conducted the interviews myself. Lowell impressed me. His background check was clean so I hired him.”

  Lowell had impressed her too, at least as far as his concern for Drake. She laid the photographs near the shoebox. “I have to get word to Director Casey. We’re going to need an entire team.”

  “I agree. I’ll—”

  A loud pounding on the front door echoed all the way up the stairs.

  “Stay here,” Blue said for all the good it would do.

  She ran down the hall and descended the stairs two at a time, Drake right behind her. He ducked into the parlor, away from the possibility of being exposed to the light.

  When she checked the viewfinder Chester stood on the porch. Drawing her weapon, she unlocked and opened the door. “What’s up, Chester?” She scanned the yard, found only his old truck.

  He didn’t look surprised at all by her weapon. Instead he hitched a thumb in the general direction of the road. “I’m here to find out what the devil’s going on,” he grumped. “Old man Venable said he’d been waiting over an hour at the dock and nobody showed. Then when I come to find out what the trouble was I saw a black car’d been run plumb off the road.”

  Renewed fear surged. “Was there anyone inside?”

  Chester pushed back his cap and scratched his head. “Just one Mexican-looking feller. I can’t say for sure, but he looks dead to me.”

  Ramon.

  Blue jerked Chester inside and closed the door. “What kind of injury did he have?” she demanded, Chester’s shirt lapels held tightly in her grip to keep his attention.

  He tapped his head. “There was a lot of blood.”

  Damn. “I’ve got to go out there,” she told Drake who had joined them in the hall the moment the door closed. She released Chester and bent down to retrieve the .38 from her ankle holster then handed it to Drake. She didn’t want him unarmed for even the time it would take to unlock his gun cabinet. “Chester will go with me. Call and see if we can get some sort of medflight here just in case Ramon’s alive. Whether he’s alive or not, Chester will drive him to the dock. There should be enough room on the beach there for a copter to sit down.” She looked hard into Drake’s eyes. “Once you’ve made that call lock yourself in that secret room of yours.”

  To his credit, he didn’t look at all startled that she knew about the room. “I’ll be back,” she assured him.

  Before she could unlock the door, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Be careful. We have unfinished business.”

  She nodded stiffly, noting somewhere in the back of her mind that she’d said those words to him earlier.

  Once Drake was safely out of the entry hall, Blue and Chester left. She locked the door behind her, double-checking that it indeed locked before she joined Chester in his truck.

  Not a half mile from the driveway, the black sedan sat half in and half out of the woods. Blue bolted from the truck before Chester came to a full stop. She jerked the driver’s-side door open and checked Ramon’s carotid pulse.

  “Thank God,” she breathed. It was there, weak and thready, but there.

  “Can we move this car?” she asked Chester.

  He went around to the front of the vehicle and checked it for damage. “Should be able to.”

  “Okay. Let’s get him scooted over to the passenger side and you can drive him to the dock and wait for the medflight.” She prayed like hell one was available nearby, like in Savannah. “I’ll take your truck back to the house.”

  “Okey-doke.” Chester opened the passenger-side door and with Blue’s assistance scooted Ramon over.

  She quickly stripped off the blouse she wore over her tank top and used it for a makeshift bandage around his head. “Once you get stopped at the dock, I want you to keep some pressure on that wound so it won’t bleed so much. Keep an eye on his breathing and pulse too.” She frowned. “Do you know CPR?” If his heart stopped…God, she didn’t want to think like that.

  Chester lifted an indignant eyebrow. “I may look and talk like a country bumpkin, but I know how to do that stuff. Learned it from the coast guard when I volunteered to help them on the weekends back in the eighties.”

  Blue smiled, chagrined. “Chester, you’re one amazing guy.”

  His face flushed. “Well, I try.”

  Blue stood back out of the way as Chester maneuvered the sedan back onto the road. As soon as he was off, she climbed back into the truck. She didn’t want to leave Drake alone any longer than necessary.

  As she drove back to the house, her lips started to tingle all over again as she thought about that kiss. She had no idea what had possessed him, maybe fear of never seeing each other again, but whatever it had been, the kiss was something she wouldn’t soon forget.

  She parked close to the house and surveyed the yard and the edge of the woods carefully as she moved toward the front door. She had to call Director Casey and get some help down here. Lucas was missing and badly wounded. Time was no longer on their side. As she unlocked the door she said a quick silent prayer for Lucas and Ramon.

  They were her friends…men she respected. If either of them died…

  She refused to think like that.

  Contrary to her orders, Drake waited in the parlor. “Medflight should be landing any moment,” he told her.

  Relief made her weak. “Good. I need to call Casey.”

  “I’ve already called Edgar. He said he would inform Casey immediately. He also suggested that we fax some of the photos to Casey’s office so they can identify the woman, although Edgar was relatively sure who she was.”

  Blue remembered that Lucas had said that Rothman was a personal friend of Casey’s.

  “Victoria Colby,” Drake went on. “She runs an elite private investigations agency in Chicago. Edgar feared that she might be in danger as well.”

  Blue knew the Colby Agency. She’d worked the tail end of a mission involving Lucas’s niece, Piper Ryan, and the Colby Agency had been involved. Ric Martinez, the Colby agent assigned to the case, was pretty unforgettable, she recalled as well.

  “He wants any pictures we can find of Lowell for identification purposes.”

  Another idea surfaced amid Blue’s chaotic thoughts. “Do you have a professional quality scanner with really high dpi? A five megapixel or better digital camera?”

  Drake shrugged. “Sure. Rothman insisted I have only the best for communication purposes.”

  A smile slid across Blue’s face. “All we need is one fingerprint on a glass or mirror, anything where it would be visible. Mission Recovery’s lab can download it from the Net and use it to track down the identity of this bastard.”

  An answering smile tilted Drake’s lips. “You are good, Maggie Callahan.”

  She winked at him, knowing full well she was flirting. “That’s what they tell me.”

  As she passed Lowell’s room on the way to Drake’s quarters she smiled again as her mind formed a single word:

  Gotcha!

  Chapter Eleven

  Noah watched Blue pace the floor as she conversed with Director Casey. They had spent the better part of the day going through Lowell’s room and getting a good latent print downloaded and forwarded via
the Internet to the Mission Recovery lab. Casey had immediately sent two of his top Specialists, along with a member of Mission Recovery’s Housekeeping Team named Maverick who was acting as Blue’s new backup to the island. Though they hadn’t conversed other than a brief greeting, Noah was pretty sure Maverick was former military. About forty and quite physically fit, the man had the military demeanor down pat. He was accustomed to taking charge and he did it well. In addition, Victoria Colby had sent two of her finest agents as support.

  They now knew that Lowell Kline’s real name was Errol Leberman. Noah still had a hard time believing he’d been fooled so thoroughly. But, incredibly, it was true. According to Blue’s director, Leberman had once been the archenemy of James Colby, Victoria’s late husband. Blaming Colby for the murder of his family, he had ultimately been responsible for James Colby’s death. Leberman had then gone underground and had not been heard from again until a few months ago.

  Some of Victoria Colby’s people had gathered intel indicating Leberman was on the move once more. One of Victoria’s agents, a Simon Ruhl, had flown to Atlanta around noon to look into the art agent Noah had employed at Lowell’s—Leberman’s—urging. The man was oddly missing in action. It would take time to discover the tie-in between him and Leberman, if there was one, and Noah had a sneaking suspicion that there was. In his estimation, Leberman had assumed the identity of Lowell Kline in order to avoid detection by the Colby Agency and to bide his time until he could lure Lucas Camp here. The real Lowell Kline was most likely dead.

  Noah had no way of knowing how Leberman had discovered his situation and the ultimate connection to Lucas Camp through Edgar Rothman’s friendship with Director Thomas Casey. He, however, agreed with Director Casey’s conclusions. Leberman had likely found himself a mole on the inside. If that proved the case, it would take time to ferret out the mole as well. Right now, they didn’t have time. The consensus was that Leberman’s attack on Lucas was orchestrated to bait Victoria Colby.