Fearless Pursuit (Off The Grid: FBI Series Book 8)

by Barbara Freethy

  "So, don't pick the first thing you see."

  "Exactly. He also used to say, in life, as in chess, one's own pawns block one's way. Sometimes you have to beat yourself before you can beat your opponent." He shook his head. "It's weird how those came back into my head. Although, it's probably because the chess tournament at the club reminded me of my dad. He used to play tournaments on the weekends."

  "What was his job?"

  "He was a math teacher. He was brilliant, and his calculating mind translated to the chess board."

  "Did you inherit his talents?"

  "Definitely not for math, and I haven't played chess since he died."

  "Until last night. How did that feel?"

  "Very strange—in a good way."

  She smiled. "Maybe you need to rediscover your love of the game. It might make you feel closer to your dad."

  "I don't know if I want to feel closer. It's easier not to feel anything."

  She nodded, wondering if that's why he'd said he didn't do love. The loss of his parents at a young age had probably scarred him. "That's kind of sad."

  "I don't let the sad in anymore. I haven't in years."

  "That doesn't mean it's gone. It just means you shoved it down deep into your soul. It's probably festering."

  "Or I've come to terms with my loss," he said pointedly.

  "Thanks for telling me about them."

  He sipped his coffee. "In case you haven't noticed, I have a little trouble saying no to you."

  "I think that’s worked in your favor," she said with a laugh.

  A grin spread across his face. "That's true. Last night was all kinds of amazing."

  She flushed with pleasure at the look in his eyes. "It really was."

  "But now you have to go to work."

  She looked at the clock and groaned. "All right. Let's do this."

  She got up from her chair and carried her dishes to the sink, then she went to put on her scorched clothing. She didn't want to leave this little oasis of safety and Jax, but she had to get to those journals before someone else did.

  After picking up clothes at a nearby boutique, Jax took Maya back to his house where she changed into a pair of white denim jeans and a sleeveless top. Then they headed to Blackwood Studios.

  He hadn't been on a movie studio lot before, and after getting through security, he found himself driving by huge gray cement buildings that looked like airplane hangars but were apparently sound stages. Maya eventually directed him into a parking spot in front of a series of two-story office buildings. He tried to act as if this was all old hat to him, considering he was supposed to be an out-of-work actor. Fortunately, Maya was so distracted by what she needed to do, she wasn't paying him much attention. He really needed to come clean with her. But first they had to get the journals. Right now, that was all that mattered.

  "You should wait here," she told him. "It will be easier for me to get in and out without questions."

  "Okay. But don't take too long. I'll miss you."

  She smiled. "Believe me, I'm going to do this as fast as possible."

  As Maya left, he took out his phone and called Flynn. He'd texted him when he'd first gotten up, but now he needed to follow up.

  "How's it going?" he asked. "Did you talk to the police?"

  "Caitlyn and Diego are at the precinct now. They'll bring the arson investigation under our purview, so we'll have that case along with Julia Poplova's death and the ongoing investigation into Yuri's murder."

  "The bodies are piling up," he said grimly.

  "I'm just glad you and Maya didn't add to that count."

  "Which brings me to another favor I need to ask. I'm concerned about Maya's family. I need our team to set up a security detail for her parents and sister. They're all staying in a house in Carlsbad with her sister Darcy. I don't know her married name. Her husband's name is Matt and he works at a tech company. If you can't figure out the address, I'll find a way to get it for you. Maya's grandfather, Phillip Ashton, is at the Carmichael Center, an assisted living facility in West Hollywood."

  "I'll take care of it," Flynn said. "What are you doing now?"

  "I'm at Maya's office at Blackwood Studios. She's getting her grandmother's journals. We'll take them back to my place. Hopefully, there's a clue in there she doesn't realize she has."

  "That would be helpful. And the parking valet?"

  "He wasn't at the club last night; he called in sick. I'm not sure if he's still on for the alleged poker game tomorrow night. I'll see if I can get in touch with him today. Caitlyn is working on another way to put David in a precarious position with his colleagues."

  "She mentioned she was doing some photo manipulation."

  "I need to convince David that Bozic and friends are going to see him as a traitor to their cause. They'll kill him unless we protect him. Hopefully, that will be enough to turn him into an asset and blow this case wide open, because my cover may be blown at the club. I was with Maya last night, and if the arsonist saw us together, it would be easy for him to report back. There's a good chance they might think that I've been working with Maya all along. I doubt they'll suspect I'm onto the car ring. But once Sylvia gets wind of my relationship to Maya, I'll be done."

  "You're probably right."

  "There was also a man at the club last night, one of the original founders, Daniel Bragin. He kept telling me we'd met before. It turns out he thinks I'm the spitting image of my father, Andrei Markov. Apparently, my dad beat him in a chess match thirty years ago, and he still remembers him. Of course, I denied any knowledge, but I'm not sure Bragin won't keep digging. I'm not that concerned about him tying me to my dad, but if he goes deep enough, he'll find out I'm with the bureau."

  "Then we better start moving fast."

  "Yes," he agreed. "I have to go. Maya is on her way out."

  "Does she know who you are?"

  "Not yet."

  "That sounds like you're thinking of telling her."

  "I am. I can trust her, Flynn. She won't get in the way if she knows, but she might get in the way if she doesn't."

  "Your call. Keep in touch."

  He set down his phone as Maya got into the car with a relieved expression in her eyes.

  "I got the books." She reached into her bag and pulled out three red journals and a black one. "The red ones are her personal diaries. I've marked them one, two, three, in chronological order of her life. The first one begins when she's a teenager. She writes randomly through the next twenty years of her life. Sometimes, she skips years at a time. But the last entry is a few days before her death."

  He nodded, skimming through the first book, noting the sweeping cursive and the little hearts she liked to draw and color in. Not wanting to take the time to read yet, he set down the red journals and moved to the black book. "This is the one you think she was using for a story draft?"

  "Yes."

  He opened it and flipped through the first few pages. There were random words and sentences that didn't seem to make much sense. There were also rough illustrations of a house, a tree, a post-office box, a grave and then a series of numbers underneath. An uneasy feeling grew within him. Some of the sentences were words children used when they were learning to read. The dog jumped over the fence. The cat needed milk. The farmer's wife went to the market. "Is this for a kid's book?"

  "It feels like it might be a picture book, but Natasha didn't appear to have tremendous artistic talent. And there are lots of numbers," she added, as he flipped the page. "Is that like a number search game?"

  He shook his head as he stared at the grid of numbers. He didn't think that's what it was at all. And then it hit him. "My God," he murmured. "This isn't a picture book; it's a cypher."

  Maya's gaze widened as her eyes locked with his. "A cypher? What is that?"

  "It's code."

  "Why would my grandmother be writing in code?"

  "Because she had something to hide. Now I know why someone is so worried about these b
ooks, or this book in particular."

  She stared back at him in bewilderment. "Important to hide? It's all gibberish, Jax."

  His uneasy feeling deepened. "It's not gibberish. It's encrypted information. You may have stumbled onto something big, Maya."

  "Like what?"

  He met her gaze. "Your grandmother was Russian. She hung out with a lot of wealthy, influential people at the Russia House."

  "Are you suggesting my grandmother was a spy?"

  "That's exactly what I'm suggesting."

  "That's ridiculous," she said, but there was doubt in her eyes. "Just because she was Russian doesn't make her a spy."

  "No, but this cypher might. We need to figure out the code."

  "Should we take it to the police?"

  He immediately shook his head. The last thing he wanted was for the police to get involved in any of this.

  "Why not?" she asked.

  "Because you'll lose track of it. They'll take all of her journals into custody and you'll never get the truth."

  "I don't want that to happen, but how are we going to figure out the code?"

  He hesitated. He couldn't tell her his secrets on top of this, not while they were sitting outside her office. "I have a friend who does this kind of work for the government. I could ask him to take a look at it."

  "Okay, that sounds like it could work."

  "I'll send him a text." He took out his phone and texted Brandon, their tech specialist. "While we're waiting for him to get back to us, I'd like to go through the other journals, especially the references to nicknames or possible code names."

  "I can't believe this," Maya said, but there wasn't much conviction behind her words. "Maybe you're right. Maybe she did use code names. It always seemed weird that she would refer to people in that way. I don't want to believe Natasha was a spy, but maybe she was. This is a huge twist, Jax. Maybe she wasn't murdered because of jealousy or personal emotions. Maybe it was bigger than that."

  "Someone burned down your house to get rid of these books. They must not have realized they existed until you started asking questions." He handed her back the book. "We'll read through everything when we get to my place."

  He pulled the car back onto the road, careful to keep an eye out for a tail. If her grandmother had been involved in the spy game thirty-six years ago and some of her associates were still alive, he couldn't underestimate the amount of danger Maya might still be in, and he was in there, too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Was her grandmother a spy? The question rocketed around in Maya's head all the way back to Jax's place. It didn't really make sense. Her grandmother was an actress. She didn't live in the shadows. She lived in the spotlight. Or was playing the role of celebrity part of her cover?

  She looked over at Jax as he stopped at a light. He had a distant look in his eyes, as lost in his thoughts as she was in hers. He turned his head in her direction. "What are you thinking?"

  "If my grandmother was a spy, then everything about her life could be a lie."

  "Yes. It could all be a lie."

  "But she was an actress. She's immortalized in more than fifteen films. She married two men. She had a son. All that was true."

  "Spies can have personal lives. It would make sense, Maya."

  "It would? How does any of this make sense?"

  "Natasha was a beautiful woman with access to powerful people. She could move easily through social circles and travel internationally. She was Russian, and she spent a great deal of time at a club that was predominantly filled with Russian members. Any one or more of those people could have been working with her."

  "To do what?"

  "Move information. That's what spies do. They collect intelligence and they pass it on."

  "But she became an American citizen."

  "Even better. Who would suspect her?"

  She shook her head. "I've never seen one theory that pointed to her being a spy. All the rumors were personal in nature—jealous wives, husbands and ex-lovers. Or depression and drugs leading to suicide. Or professional jealousy from other actors. No one ever speculated that she was killed because she was a traitor." She paused. "Who would have killed her if she was a spy? The government? Could the FBI or the police have taken her out?"

  "It could have been the Russians. They might have been unhappy with her work."

  She shook her head, feeling breathless and overwhelmed. "This is feeling impossibly complicated, Jax."

  "Let's take it one step at a time." He used the remote to open his garage and then pulled inside.

  As the door came down, he said, "Wait here, Maya."

  "Why?"

  "I just want to be sure everything is locked up as tight as we left it."

  "You said you had an alarm."

  "And it looks like it's still on. Give me one minute."

  "Okay."

  As soon as Jax left, her heart started to pound. He might think she was safer in the garage, but she didn't feel that way at all. Without his powerful, comforting presence, she felt alone and vulnerable, and her imagination was going into overdrive.

  Although, Jax didn't seem that worried or scared. He was being cautious, but not crazy. He was taking care of her, making sure she was safe. He was helping her solve her mystery.

  Why?

  The question ran around in her head.

  Why was Jax being so helpful? Why did he keep telling her not to go to the police? Why was he keeping her close when being close put him in danger?

  Her imagination ran wilder with every passing second. She didn't want to be suspicious of Jax. He was the only one she could count on, the only one she could trust. They'd gotten incredibly close. They'd shared personal information. They'd made love for hours last night. She knew who he was. Didn't she?

  But he was Russian, too. That fact suddenly jumped out at her. She hadn't even thought about it before now. Had Wallace Jagger really asked him to return the pages or had Jax used that as a way to get to her? Was he in on it? Had he stayed with her so that he could get the journals?

  She jumped out of the car, gripping her tote bag and her purse, like a shield in front of her. She could leave right now. But she'd be on foot. He could catch her in a second.

  "All clear," he said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. "I have good news. My friend will be here in ten minutes to look at the cypher."

  "Who is he again?" she asked, her voice shaking.

  "He works for the government, hacking computers and cracking code. If anyone can figure the code out, he can." Jax paused, his gaze narrowing as he took in her defensive stance. "What's wrong, Maya?"

  Was she losing her mind? This was Jax. He'd told her about his childhood, the death of his parents, growing up in a family where he didn't fit in. He wasn't a bad guy. She needed to get a grip on her imagination.

  "Maya." He took a step forward, then stopped, as she instinctively stepped back. "Are you afraid of me?" he asked in surprise.

  "I'm just thinking that I should go. I should take the journals to the police and I should wash my hands of this."

  "You can do that after we figure out the code."

  "I want to do it now. I can get a rideshare. You don't need to drive me anywhere." She looked around the garage for an exit, but the only door was going into the house. "Can you open the garage door?"

  "No," he said, shaking his head.

  She stiffened. "Why not?"

  "Because you're freaking out for no reason."

  "No reason? I have a lot of reasons," she snapped. "And these are my grandmother's journals. You don't need to know what's in that code. Only I do."

  "You suddenly don't trust me—why?" He moved closer, and she backed up into side of the car. And then he was right in front of her, his hands hitting the car on either side of her. She was trapped. She was terrified and she was also, God help her, incredibly attracted to him. What was wrong with her?

  "Please let me go," she whispered.

  "I would never hur
t you, Maya," he said, making each word a purposeful statement. "Never."

  "I don't know who to trust. You showed up at my door out of the blue. You never want me to call the police. You made sure I didn't tell them Julia's last words. And you're Russian. You work at the Firebird Club. You could be a part of this. You could be a Russian spy."

  "If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I've had plenty of opportunity?"

  "Maybe you just wanted to get the journals first. You knew they were locked up until now."

  "But you have them in your possession, and I haven't tried to take them from you."

  "Not yet. You could be waiting for the right time."

  He stared back at her. "You can trust me, Maya."

  "Can I?"

  "I'm not working against you. I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to keep you safe. I almost died with you last night."

  Everything he was saying was true, but there seemed to be a lot he wasn't saying. "You're choosing your words carefully. Why? What don't I know? And don't try to tell me I know everything, because I don't. I can see it in your eyes, Jax. You're hiding something, and I am not taking one more step closer to you without knowing what that is." She felt a little foolish offering up that ultimatum when he had her trapped against the car.

  "You're right," he said, surprising her with his words.

  "I am? I mean, you're damn right, I'm right. So, what aren't you telling me?"

  "I'm not a Russian spy." He drew in a breath. "I'm a federal agent."

  "What?" she gasped.

  "I'm a special agent with the FBI. And I've been working undercover at the Firebird Club as part of an ongoing investigation."

  "An ongoing investigation?" she echoed, her mind reeling with his revelation. "About my grandmother?"

  "No. It has nothing to do with your grandmother. Actually, I don't know if that's true anymore, because a lot of the same people seem to be involved."

  "What are you looking for?"

  "I can't get into the details. I'm not supposed to be telling you this much."

  She saw the conflict in his eyes, but she didn't feel conflicted; she felt angry. She shoved him away, putting a few feet between them. "You lied to me."