He and Wyatt had already been on the phone this morning, and they'd both agreed they needed more evidence before they allowed Lily to turn herself in. Evidence in both cases-to show that not only was she not the lily killer, but somebody else was setting her up to take the fall. And that she was in very real danger.
They needed time. They also needed help. Which was why he was about to take one of the biggest gambles of his life.
"Jackie, do you have some sense about what's going on around here?" He stared at her directly, letting her know he was done covering up, skirting around the real story.
"It involves Lily."
"Yes, it does."
Jackie lifted a shaking hand to her throat. "You know what happened to her."
He nodded once. But before he could say another word, the door to her office burst open. Kyle Mulrooney stuck his head in and said in a loud whisper, "Anspaugh heard somebody say you were here, Cole, and he's looking for you. He's in Alec's office right now, but Alec won't be able to stall him for long. Get outta here unless you want to be questioned all day."
No, he couldn't afford that. Lily couldn't afford that, either.
"My office is next in line. I'll try to hold him up, too," the gruff, older agent said, shooting him a conspiratorial look. It was as if all the other team members knew Brandon was up to something, and they trusted him enough to cover his ass without asking a lot of questions.
He had never been more thankful to work with this team, these people, than right now. He only hoped every one of them didn't hate his guts when they found out he'd helped Wyatt cover up the truth about Lily for so very long.
After Kyle ducked back out, Brandon strode toward the door, peering out into the hall. Anspaugh's blustery voice was easily heard from down the hall, two doors past his own office.
It was incredibly risky, but he wasn't leaving here without what Wyatt had asked him to get. Namely, the audio files from the other medical conventions that he'd been working on until yesterday's impromptu trip to Maine.
Before he left, he grabbed Jackie's arm. She was watching him, wide-eyed, tense, and silent. "Come to
Wyatt's when you can," he insisted. "Just come and you'll understand."
Then he checked the hallway again, dashed down it as quickly as he could, and ducked into his own office. The audio files were backed up on a flash drive. Considering a lot of his stuff had been gone through, he only hoped Anspaugh had been as inept in his search as he was at everything else.
The voices moved closer, out in the hall. Then he heard Kyle Mulrooney ask Anspaugh to step into his office on some pretext. He was almost out of time.
Spying the drive still sticking out of his CPU, Brandon yanked it free, breaking every one of his own rules about how to handle his backups. He shoved it into his pocket, then, still certain the voices were coming from inside the next office, dashed out of his own. He didn't turn around, didn't even hesitate; he simply hurried to the main doors of the suite and burst through them into the outer corridor.
"Secret Agent Man," he told himself with a laugh as he hurried toward the elevators. "Running away from your own damn desk. Pathetic."
He'd wanted to do fieldwork, wanted to get away from the lab and the computers and see some action. Well, now he was seeing it. Hiding from an idiot like Anspaugh-it was fricking embarrassing.
But a little embarrassment he could handle. He only hoped it didn't end up costing him his job altogether.
Or landing him in jail.
Brandon looked like a kid playing a dangerous game when he showed up at Wyatt's later that morning. Lily almost found herself laughing as he described his game of hide-and-seek with Tom Anspaugh. She knew the game could have had very serious consequences if he'd been caught out, but couldn't deny she would have liked to see Anspaugh's face when he realized he'd been misled.
"You rule breaker," she said, shaking her head and eyeing him with affection.
He dramatically threw himself down on the lounge chair, which stood beside the patio table. "God, I need a drink. All this clandestine stuff is giving me the jitters."
"I think it's your hyper personality that gives you the jitters."
"Hey, I'm not hyper." He shot her a wide grin. "I'm just exciting."
This time, she didn't control her laughter. She let it spill from her lips, so happy to have Brandon flirting with her, acting completely at ease, like a playful little brother, that she just couldn't help it.
His happy smile widened when he saw he'd made her laugh. And when it faded, he reached for her hand, squeezed it, and said, "It's good to have you back, Tiger Lily."
Thoroughly relieved he'd gotten over whatever kind of feelings he'd thought he had for her, and gone back to being the adorable, roguish player she knew him to be, she squeezed back. "It's good to have you back, too."
"If you two are finished, we have work to do."
She hadn't even heard Wyatt return from the house, and he nearly growled the words. He'd been in an awful mood since that lawyer had called, barely meeting her eye, not wanting to even have a conversation until after Brandon arrived. Now he looked even more irritated.
It didn't take a genius to figure out why. He'd been kicking himself for kissing her, and tried putting up that wall between them afterward. Now, though, he was afraid someone else might be going around it.
It almost made her laugh again, the idea that Wyatt might think she would prefer Brandon. Men were such strange creatures. He wanted her but wouldn't take her. Yet he didn't want her with anyone else, either.
When, she wondered, would Wyatt realize he was falling in love with her?
"Are you ready to listen to the new clips?" he asked, not meeting her eye.
"I suppose."
For some reason, since the moment Wyatt had finished his call with that scumbag Boyd's attorney-who, judging by whom she took on as a client, had to be pretty scummy herself-he'd been anxious for her to listen to the audio clips Brandon had brought down. The speakers had been recorded at the same annual medical convention she'd listened to before, only one year previously. He hadn't said why it was so important, just that something the lawyer had said made it even more imperative that she listen again for the voice of the man who had attacked her. With any luck, he'd attended the previous year as a speaker. That was the hope, anyway. Then they'd have his identity.
She was due for some luck. Right?
"I've uploaded the files off the flash drive onto your laptop," Brandon said, sitting up in the chair. "Whenever you're ready, Lily."
"Are you sure you don't want to go inside to make sure there are no outside noises distracting you?" Wyatt asked.
"Now that I know exactly who I'm listening for, I don't think I'll miss him even if your next-door neighbor decides to jackhammer his driveway."
She'd never forget that voice. Never.
Lily scooted close to the table, sipping from the glass of iced tea she'd poured for herself when she'd gone in to change her clothes. Coming outside in a short bathrobe might not have been a big deal with Wyatt, but she wasn't nearly as comfortable with Brandon or anybody else
When, she wondered, was he going to realize she was falling in love with him?
Oh, yes, falling so hard. This was nothing like the silly crush she'd once had on the man. It was no longer about being dazzled by someone smart and handsome and mysterious. She wasn't awed by him anymore; she'd become his equal. And the way he'd acknowledged that more with each passing day-how she'd changed, how she'd strengthened-had made her fall for him even more.
She no longer doubted she was woman enough for him. She doubted only whether he'd let her be.
"Okay, let's do this," she said, forcing all the crazy personal thoughts out of her head. There was still a long road to travel before she could think about any kind of future, a life with Wyatt, or one without him. For now, she just needed to focus on staying alive.
Wyatt handed Brandon a sheet of paper he'd carried out from inside. He'd gone to
check something on the Internet, and he'd returned with a list of the medical workshops presented two years ago. "Go right to number nine," he said, putting the paper on the table. He tapped his finger on the line in question. "This group workshop."
Lily glanced over, catching sight of the first speaker's name. "Alfred Underwood… Why does that sound familiar?"
Wyatt remained standing behind her, blocking out the sun with his broad frame. "The woman whose car was stolen-Dr. Kean? Her maiden name was Underwood. Alfred is her father."
Lily gasped in surprise. "You said you didn't suspect her!"
"I don't suspect her of being involved in your kidnapping. But I think she and her sister-in-law might be hiding something. Why would two women who strongly dislike each other stick together to cover up for someone unless it was a member of their own family?"
With all that had gone on in the past forty-eight hours, Wyatt hadn't had time to tell her everything about his interview with the surgeons, but she didn't think he'd have kept such a tidbit from her if he'd suspected before now. The only thing she could think of that could have led him in this direction was this morning's phone call.
"What did the attorney tell you?" she asked.
He didn't seem surprised that she'd put it together. "She told me her office is located in Williamsburg."
Interesting. But certainly not a stop-the-presses revelation. "We knew Lovesprettyboys was in that area back during the initial investigation. That's why the stakeout was conducted there. So why do you think the attorney might be specifically linked to Dr. Kean or her family?"
"Call it a hunch. I had some misgivings when I left the office Tuesday."
"I trust your hunches more than I trust most people's studied findings."
"Ditto," said Brandon.
"Hearing the attorney's location just made me a bit more suspicious and I wanted to check a few things out." He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a small stack of folded pieces of paper, handing her the top sheet. On it was a printed screen shot from a Web page, one of those doctor report-card sites, and it was focused on Dr. Alfred Underwood. He had been sued for malpractice twice, which, in his line of work, probably wasn't a bad record.
"Look who represented him," Wyatt said.
She did, and felt absolutely no surprise when she saw Claire Vincent's name. "You really ought to patent your hunch method."
"It gets better." He handed her the next sheet. This time, the page was a printout from an online newspaper article. Wyatt had cropped out most of the text to focus only on the photograph, a woman identified as the attorney Claire Vincent herself.
"She might be attractive if she got the stick out of her ass," Lily muttered, predisposed to disliking the woman intensely.
"And got rid of the awful hairstyle and glasses," Wyatt agreed. "She's rather distinctive, isn't she? I recognized her immediately when I saw the photo."
Lily tilted her head in sheer surprise. "You've met her in person?"
Shaking his head, he explained cryptically, "No. Just held a door for her."
"Must have been a pretty impressive door."
His eyes glittered as he dropped the next bombshell. "It was the door to the Eastern Virginia Plastic Surgery
Center. Ms. Vincent was coming in just as I was leaving the other day."
"Bingo," Lily whispered, realizing why he was so confident that this whole case was somehow connected to Dr. Kean and her family. It all made sense now.
Someone in that practice had gotten the family's trusted attorney to work on Jesse Boyd's appeal and there could be only one reason why.
They were getting close-she could feel it right down to her very core.
"Ready?" Wyatt asked. When she murmured her assent, he nodded at Brandon. "Go ahead."
Brandon clicked the touch pad to start the clip, skimming through the introductions to the meaty part of the workshop, when the actual speakers all got their turn at the microphone. Lily listened intently as the first one began educating his audience about the most recent procedures in sucking the fat out of people's posteriors. Charming. And his pompous, older-sounding voice was utterly unfamiliar.
"Not him?" Wyatt asked, frowning.
Almost feeling as though she'd disappointed him, she slowly shook her head.
"Continue." He bent over the back of her chair, his hand on her shoulder, listening along with her to the next speaker. This one sounded younger, forthright, and brusque. And, again, was no one she'd ever heard before.
Wyatt s hand tightened on her shoulder, not a lot, just enough to indicate his rising tension. "Keep going. We're not finished yet."
Lily nibbled on her bottom lip, leaning so close to the laptop's speakers, her hair brushed the screen. Her heart pounded furiously. Wyatt seemed so sure. She almost held her breath as the next speaker began. Then disappointment made her release it in a gush.
"No," she said after the third man spoke only a few words. He sounded young and even a little flirtatious. Not the cold, arrogant voice she remembered. "It's not him. None of them are him."
Brandon sank back in his lounge chair, muttering a curse. Wyatt straightened and turned away, crossing his arms and tilting his head down, as if studying his feet. Though he appeared disappointed, he certainly didn't look thrown. Nothing ever really threw the man for long.
"A miscalculation, then," he said, sounding thoughtful. "I don't believe in coincidence, of course. I still strongly believe Dr. Kean and her family have something to do with this and that they brought that attorney into Boyd's case. But who…" He shook his head, visibly frustrated. "I'm sorry I got your hopes up."
"Don't apologize to me," she said. "Not for anything, not ever. I intended to listen to clips from every workshop, anyway. This just knocks one out of the way. We'll figure it out."
He nodded absently, rubbing his clean-shaven jaw.
"Hey, there a party going on back here?" a woman's voice suddenly called, shocking all three of them into near immobility. "Nobody answered out front, so I decided to come around."
Lily didn't have to turn completely around to recognize Jackie Stokes, who had opened the gate at the side of the house and stepped into the courtyard. Her heart started to pound, and on the table, her hands clenched into tight fists.
Please don't let her hate me.
Jackie, who still stood just inside the gate, suddenly froze. Her keys, which she'd been holding in one hand, slipped unnoticed from her grasp, landing on the flagstone walkway.
She hadn't even gotten a good look at Lily yet; from where she stood, she couldn't have seen more than her profile. But it had apparently been enough.
"Oh my God," the other woman whispered. She appeared in shock, her mouth open in confusion, her eyes wide and quickly filling with tears. "Is it you? Is it really you?"
Lily pushed the chair back and rose, turning to face the woman who'd become so close to her in the months they'd worked together. "It's me, Jackie."
They stared at each other from about a dozen steps away, not moving for a second, as if Jackie needed to give her brain a chance to catch up with what her eyes and ears were telling her. Then, with a shriek, she cried, "Lily!"
Flying across the courtyard, Jackie threw her arms around Lily, hugging her tightly enough to cut off her circulation. "It's you, it's you, it's you," she kept whispering, stroking Lily's short hair, wetting her cheek with her tears. "Oh, thank you, Jesus."
Lily was crying, too, by the time Jackie released her and stepped back to stare her in the face. Jackie might be angry when she found out Lily had been hiding all these months, but at least for a few minutes, her friend had made it clear that she was very happy Lily was alive.
Offering Jackie a tremulous smile and reaching for the other woman's hand, she drew her over to where Wyatt and Brandon stood, watching silently, shoulder to shoulder.
*'If you're going to thank somebody, these two would be a good place to start. Because they saved my life."
Ch
apter 12
The private investigator called at eleven a.m. Friday. It seemed far too early for news, but there was always hope. "Do you have something?
"You could say that," said the PI, who called himself Jonesy, an ex-cop who'd been fired for roughing up suspects. Though obviously an alcoholic, with the spider veins on his nose, the sloppy clothes, and the bright red cheeks to prove it, Jonesy was good at what he did. And, most important, discreet. "Easiest job I ever took."
He sounded as if the case was solved. Was it really possible? After such a short time, just twenty-four hours since he'd been put on the job, had he really come up with a lead on Lily Fletcher? There had been no doubt the woman would come crawling back to D.C. when she heard the news about Boyd, but this soon? It seemed almost too good to be true.
"You discovered something about Agent Fletcher?"
"You could say that."
"Tell me everything."
The man made a smacking noise as he cracked his gum, which seemed to be the second-most frequent item in his foul mouth, after the lip of a beer mug. "I been sit-tin' outside that Blackstone guy's house since last night. Told ya I saw him pull up with a black-haired woman, who spent the night."
"And I told you, I'm not interested in Blackstone's girlfriends. I hired you to follow him in case he goes to meet up with Fletcher." Or even to arrest her, a strong possibility. If Lily was ready to come back to life, whom else would she trust to bring her to the FBI building than her former boss? And wasn't she in for a surprise when her former supervisor picked her up and informed her she was a suspect in four murders?
Blackstone was good, his team's reputation strong. Even if Lily didn't turn herself in, they would be on her tail by now, considering she'd been well and truly exposed as a murderous vigilante. With Wyatt Black-stone's reputation as a scrupulously honest, by-the-book straight arrow, he'd bring Lily in the minute he located her.
It would be easier to take the woman out before she was in FBI custody, but if it had to be done afterward, there were ways.
"I'm getting there," Jonesy said, his voice puffed up with self-importance, as if he knew he had something good.
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