“You have records that confirm that? You know, that there were no other deals made that day?” Sam asked, pulling off the gloves. They left behind a powdery residue on his hands that he wiped on his jeans. “Just so we’re sure you’re thinking of the right day.”
“The computer has a record of the day’s receipts. That should confirm it.”
“Mind pulling that information up on the screen?”
“Not at all.” Hopper headed toward his office, a single-story former service station dating from the architecturally challenged 1950s.
Alyssa glanced at Sam again as he let her go first. Apparently he looked as freaked out as he was feeling. “I’m figuring Mary Lou cut Haley’s hair, dressed her like a boy. She knew someone was after her and she’s trying to hide. This is good news we’re getting, Sam.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Is it really? Can this guy really tell us anything? I keep trying to remember, I don’t know, like, the woman who was in front of me in line at the grocery store three weeks ago. I mean, I know I went to the grocery store three weeks ago. And I know there was a woman in front of me with a kid in her shopping cart, but I don’t remember what color her hair was or what she bought. Or if her husband was waiting for her over by the ATM.”
“Did you talk to her?” Alyssa asked as she opened the door to the office. “Because unless you talk to someone, it’s harder to remember—”
“Yeah, actually I did. I asked her how old her kid was. I don’t remember what she said.”
“This is different.” She was trying to reassure him. “This was a business transaction. A deal was negotiated. That’s easier to remember. Even after three weeks.”
“Still …”
As they went inside, Alyssa pointed up at the surveillance camera that was mounted in the corner of the room, up by the ceiling. “Does that work?” she asked Hopper.
Yeah, like this guy would be able to afford a wireless system in a shit-hole like this.
Hopper glanced up from the computer. “No, it’s just a dummy, to discourage anyone who might be thinking about pulling an armed robbery.”
“You might want to think about putting some kind of dummy power cord up there, then, too,” Sam suggested. “Make it look more realistic.”
“As long as you’re checking records—exactly how much money did you give Mary Lou Starrett for her car?” Alyssa asked.
Hopper actually looked embarrassed. “It wasn’t worth very much. I’m probably going to have to send it out to auction—”
Alyssa cut him off. “I understand. You’re a businessman, not a charity. How much?”
He cleared his throat. “A hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
Shit. It would have been smarter just to keep the car.
Unless, of course, someone who wanted to kill her was looking for her.
“And that was the only transaction of the day,” Hopper added, swiveling the computer screen so they could see the account file. “Saturday, May twenty-fourth.”
“Do you know where Mary Lou went after she signed the papers and received payment?” Sam asked.
“Actually, yes,” Hopper said. “I remember that quite clearly. I drove her to the bus station.”
“You drove her?”
“I had a dentist appointment not far from there,” Hopper explained. “She’d asked me for directions to the terminal, and at first I offered to call her a cab, but she said her bus wasn’t till noon, so they’d walk. I think she was probably short on cash.”
You think? After getting only a hundred and seventy-five bucks for her car …?
“So I told her if she could wait until ten-thirty, I’d give her a lift over there myself,” Hopper continued. “I don’t usually do that, but I was going that way and I felt bad for her, having to walk with the little boy and those suitcases, so …”
Suitcases.
“How long did she wait here?” Alyssa asked. Her cell phone rang, and she reached for it but didn’t answer it.
“About an hour,” Hopper said.
Alyssa looked at Sam. She didn’t say the words aloud, but he knew what she was thinking. Mary Lou and Haley hadn’t been there, held at gunpoint.
And Haley was definitely still alive.
At least as of three weeks ago.
“Excuse me,” she said, and stepped outside to take the call.
“Thank you,” Sam told Hopper.
“So who is she?” the car salesman asked after they’d stood there a moment in uncomfortable silence. “This Mary Lou Starrett? She didn’t look like public enemy number one.”
Alyssa pushed open the door. “Sam.”
He turned toward her and … Whoa.
Whoever had been on the other end of the phone had ratcheted up Alyssa’s stress level to about a million. Didn’t it figure that just when Sam was relaxing into the relief of knowing that Mary Lou and Haley were still alive, Alyssa would start freaking out?
“Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Hopper,” Alyssa called. “The folks from the crime lab will be arriving probably within the hour to take fingerprints from the vehicle.” She took Sam’s arm and practically dragged him out of there and over to her car. “Get in.”
He did. And he waited until she was behind the wheel and starting the engine to ask, “Who called?”
“Max.” She put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, raising a cloud of dust behind them as she got back onto Route 20, heading toward the highway.
“What’s going on?” he asked when it became clear that she wasn’t going to volunteer more information.
“The fingerprint report from Janine’s house came in early this morning.” The glance she gave him was pretty freaking grim. Whatever this was about, it was not good.
“And?”
“The lab analyzed the prints of everyone who’d been in that house,” Alyssa told him. “And Manny Conseco’s team went back to verify it.”
For Christ’s sake … “Verify what?”
“That Mary Lou’s fingerprints are on one of the weapons used in the Coronado attack. Sam, Mary Lou is our missing Lady X.”
CHAPTER
NINE
When the door opened, it actually took several seconds for Tom Paoletti to recognize the two enlisted men standing outside his room. It was the combination of dress uniforms and fresh haircuts that made Petty Officers Dan Gillman and Cosmo Richter look nothing like their usual froggish selves. The fact that Cosmo wasn’t wearing his sunglasses didn’t help, either.
“You better get dressed, sir,” Gillman said, maneuvering his way into the room on crutches.
Tom shook his head. “No. The leader of the Spanish Inquisition was just here. I’m not needed again for at least a few hours.” And since taking his dress uniform to the dry cleaner didn’t seem to be an option while under “house” arrest, the less time he spent sitting around in it, wrinkling it and making it stink, the better. “How’s the ankle, Danny?”
“It’s a pain in the ass, sir.”
“I bet. Look, could you guys do me a favor and give Kelly a call?”
“Excuse me, but you really do need to get dressed, sir,” Cosmo interrupted, shutting the door tightly behind him.
Cosmo Richter’s eyes were an unusual shade of pale gray. It definitely had been a while since Tom had seen him without his sunglasses. Or maybe it was the haircut that made him look so different. It actually met military regs.
Or maybe it was just because it had been six months since Tom had been Richter’s commanding officer that made the man look like a stranger.
“And you can tell her whatever you need to yourself, Commander. I’m sure you’d prefer that anyway. Kelly’ll be up here in—” Cosmo consulted his watch as if he were part of some synchronized plan. “—three and a half minutes.” He handed Tom his pants. “So shake it a little faster, sir.”
Tom pulled them on. Kelly was on her way up, thank God. “I hate to shock you, Cos, but she has seen me in my
shorts a time or two.”
Gilligan was already there, holding out Tom’s jacket, crutches balanced under his arms. “Yes sir, but Father Stevenson hasn’t.”
Father …? “Who?” Tom asked.
Cosmo and Gilligan exchanged a look.
“Father Stevenson, sir,” Gillian repeated. “He’s like, you know, a Father with a capital F.”
“A priest?”
Cosmo cleared his throat. “Kelly ran into a glitch today, sir. Since she’s not legally your wife, they’re not letting her visit you. She wasn’t too happy about that.”
Son of a bitch. He’d been afraid of that. “But you said she’s on her way up,” Tom pointed out.
Cosmo looked at Gilligan again, who was now straightening Tom’s shoulderboards. “Well, sir, she is, but she isn’t,” he said. “See, the guards aren’t going to let her into your room. So we’re going to have to do this with her out in the hall and you in here.”
“Do what?” Tom asked.
Cos cleared his throat again. It was probably sore. He’d already spoken more in these past few minutes than he had in all of the years Tom had known him. “You know that time about a year ago, when we were hanging at the Ladybug Lounge—you, me and the senior chief? Do you remember what you said?”
Tom laughed. “Try the Sam Adams Summer Ale …?”
Cosmo Richter actually gave him a chiding look. Tom hadn’t realized that chiding was in the usually impassive petty officer’s arsenal of facial expressions. “Tommy, this is serious shit.”
“I’m being held under guard in the BOQ,” Tom told him. “I think I know how serious this shit is.”
Chiding turned to something that was almost eager. “Say the word, sir, and we’ll get you out of here.”
Tom suspected that Cosmo wasn’t kidding. He shook his head. “Just tell me where you’re going with this. It sounds like a bad joke. A CO, a senior chief, and a petty officer walk into a bar. And …?”
“You told us that one of these days Kelly would be ready to get married, but until then, you were just going to play it cool,” Cosmo reported, and then dropped a bomb. “Well, Kelly’s ready. Today. In fact—” another glance at his watch “—in about thirty seconds, she’s going to marry you, Commander.”
“What?”
“You need to fix your hair, sir,” Gilligan said as a murmur of voices sounded outside the door.
“You still do want to marry her, don’t you, sir?” Cosmo asked, his hand on the doorknob.
Tom smoothed down his hair. “Yeah, but—”
“You look great, sir,” Gilligan told him.
Not like this.
The door swung open. And there she was. Kelly.
In a freaking wedding gown.
Arguing with the guards.
There was a wide-eyed young man in a priest’s collar standing next to her.
“I realize that I’m not allowed in to see him,” she was saying to the two ensigns who stood in front of his door, “but is there really a problem with my standing here in the hall?”
She was so beautiful, something in Tom’s chest snapped. It just broke.
The guards looked very unhappy. One of them said, “Yes, ma’am. I have to ask you to keep moving.”
She was holding a small bouquet of flowers. “And I have to ask you to call your commanding officer and verify that I’m not allowed to rest here for a moment after climbing all those stairs. It wasn’t easy in this dress, you know.”
It was an amazing dress—a long, sweeping length of some rich-looking shiny fabric that Tom knew would slip coolly beneath his fingers if he touched her. It fell behind her in a glistening, shimmering pool of ivory. But it was the impossibly low-cut neckline that killed him. The entire gown set off the gorgeous smoothness of Kelly’s shoulders and the pale voluptuousness of her breasts. And all that creamy skin was a perfect frame for her beautiful face, her incredible eyes.
She caught sight of him and just looked at him, her heart in those eyes. Her heart, and a hint of uncertainty.
“Kelly,” Tom whispered. “This is insane.”
The other guard glared at him. “Move back into the room, sir. You must keep this door closed.”
Tom ignored him.
“Isn’t it?” Kelly said. “But I didn’t know what else to do.” She turned to the priest. “Forgive me for rushing things along, but, Father, if you don’t mind?”
“Sir,” the guard insisted, “if you don’t move back—”
Tom took a very small step backward. “Kel, I’m not going to marry you. I’m looking at spending the next thirty years in jail—”
“For something that you didn’t do!”
“To hell with that!” Tom winced. “Excuse me, Father, but would you please tell her that thirty years is thirty years and the fact that it’s unjust and unfair isn’t going to make it pass more quickly.”
“Sir, this door must stay closed.”
Cosmo leaned forward, closer to the guards. “We need a little air in here, Ensigns,” he said quietly. “No one’s going anywhere. If we were trying to break Tommy out of here, we’d already be gone.” And you’d be dead. He didn’t say it aloud, but he didn’t have to. That message gleamed clearly in his odd-colored eyes. “This’ll be over and done much sooner, sirs, if you put a sock in it.”
“Go ahead, Father,” Kelly said.
Tom shook his head. “Kelly, I’m sorry, you look incredible. The dress is … It’s perfect. You take my breath away, but … I can’t do this.”
“You’re not going to jail,” she told him rather fiercely.
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“We’ll get an annulment,” she said. “Tom, this is the only way I’ll be allowed in to see you. How can I help you if I can’t even talk to you?”
He shook his head.
“Tom!” She glared at him. “Are you giving up?”
“No!”
“Then marry me, so I can actually stand next to you when I stand by you!”
Tom laughed. It was either that or cry. “God, I love you.”
“For richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness or in health, and even in jail,” Kelly told him. She looked at Stevenson. “Is that close enough?”
The priest nodded. “It is. All you really have to do is sign the license.”
“I do,” Kelly said as she gazed at Tom. “I take you, Tom. For all those things. Forever.”
He nodded, wanting to hold her so badly that his chest ached. “I do, too.” But forever was going to be god-awful long if he had to spend it in prison. And, damn it, he didn’t have a ring for her. This was so not the way he wanted to do this.
She already had the paper and a pen out and was affixing her name to the document. No doubt she’d torn his den apart searching for the license, God love her.
Cosmo reached out of the doorway and, with a glance at both of the guards, took the paper from Kelly.
Tom couldn’t believe he was doing this as he signed his name, as Cosmo and Gillman signed, too, as witnesses.
It was a dream come true—in the middle of a nightmare.
“By the power vested in me … I pronounce you husband and wife,” Father Stevenson said.
No rings. No kiss.
No real future.
Except Kelly didn’t believe that. And as Tom stood there, looking at her, he didn’t believe it, either.
Kelly looked at the guards. “Thank you,” she said with quiet dignity. “Now. Please call your CO and tell him that I demand to see my husband.”
“What the …?” Sam stared at Alyssa.
When she glanced over at him, she saw that his gaze was out of focus. He wasn’t really looking at her. He was merely looking in her direction, thinking hard, no doubt trying to make sense of the stunning news she’d just given him.
Mary Lou Morrison Starrett was Lady X, connected to the terrorists who’d tried to kill the U.S. Pres
ident at the Coronado naval base six months ago.
Alyssa was having some trouble making sense of it herself.
“Pull over,” Sam said, and when she looked up from the road and over at him again, he was back. Alert, focused, and grim. Very grim.
She could relate. This was beyond bad. But she shook her head. “Sam, we’re already late enough as it—”
“Pull over!” he roared. Loudly enough for her hair to move from the force of his voice. “Jesus Christ, Alyssa. You didn’t honestly expect to drop that news flash on me and just keep driving, did you? Pull this car over and at least have the decency to look me in the eye when you tell me the details of—”
“Don’t you shout at me!” She gripped the steering wheel and kept driving as she yelled over him. “I don’t know the details. Other than the fact that Mary Lou’s fingerprints apparently show up quite clearly on one of the terrorists’ weapons recovered in Coronado last year. Congratulations. You now know everything I know.”
“Alyssa, I swear to God, if you don’t pull this car over, I’m going to grab the steering wheel and—”
He was serious and just crazy enough to try it. Alyssa pulled over, tires squealing as they bounced into the empty parking lot of an abandoned restaurant.
As soon as she hit the brakes, Sam opened the door and got out of the car.
“Whoa,” she yelled. “Starrett, get your ass back here!”
But he just kept on walking away.
Her tires squealed again as she moved the car into an intercept path. If she could have, she would have slapped him on the rear with the open car door. Instead, she put the vehicle into park and climbed out to face him. “What are you doing?”
He gazed at her, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. Gentle. “You know what I’m doing, Lys. You know I can’t go back to Sarasota with you.”
What? “You have to. There are a lot of people with a lot of questions—”
“That I can’t answer,” he cut her off. “I have no idea what’s going on. Is this a setup? It sure as hell smells like one to me. But why would someone frame Mary Lou? It’s absurd—almost as absurd as Mary Lou actually being involved with terrorists. Unless what they’re really trying to do is frame me.”
Gone Too Far Page 17
