Kept in the Dark

by Heather MacAllister

  “Yes, sir.” Blake didn’t point out that Kaia discovering he was a cop had worked to their advantage in gaining her trust.

  “We’re standing by for your signal.”

  At that moment, Blake saw Kaia push through the beige employee exit doors by the loading docks. She was a few minutes earlier than usual, so she must not have had to close up tonight.

  And it meant his backup hadn’t had a chance to arrive yet. Blake glanced in the side and rearview mirrors before looking toward Kaia again. She saw him and flashed a big, excited smile. Calm and happiness seeped through him.

  In that very brief moment of time, he felt that life was perfect and all he wanted was to see her smile every day and night for the rest of his life.

  He watched her walk toward him in slow motion, like a sappy commercial. He held his phone to his cheek and hesitated.

  She was early. No backup was here yet. She was an escape expert.

  He could warn her. He could pick her up as usual, drive right out of the parking lot and let her go. Or disappear with her. She’d know how to disappear. They could start over somewhere. Together.

  “McCauley?”

  “She’s here,” he said, because he couldn’t put it off. He snapped the phone closed and got out of his car to meet her.

  She was lugging a bag behind her.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Laundry!” She laughed, dropped the bag, and launched herself at him, wrapping her arms and legs around him and kissing him with a hungry urgency.

  And Blake clutched her, kissing the words, “I love you,” into her mouth. Because he did. Because he could see everything clearly when he kissed her. Together, they’d go see the captain and Blake would convince the man that they’d been investigating the wrong person. He’d have to find a way to explain everything to her…but she felt so good in his arms…

  He was barely aware of a thrumming, and then the sound of tires. Lights flashed outside his closed eyes.

  Doors slammed and Kaia flinched, breaking their kiss.

  Patrol cars surrounded them. One last door slammed and Blake looked into the eyes of his captain.

  They’d already been on site, watching, during the whole phone conversation. The captain hadn’t trusted Blake. With good reason.

  “Blake?” Kaia’s voice sounded panicked. “What’s going on?”

  Blake glanced around at the men. His colleagues. His captain. They all knew what he’d been about to do. He could see the pity and contempt in their eyes.

  Contempt.

  And suddenly, he felt that contempt for himself. He’d not only been about to blow his career, he’d been about to break the law.

  “Blake?” Kaia touched his arm.

  Blake looked into her dark eyes and knew the moment she saw the truth.

  The captain stepped forward. “I’ll take it from here, McCauley.”

  “No. My case, my collar.” Blake took Kaia’s wrist and turned her around. “You have the right to remain silent—”

  But she didn’t. “Blake!”

  And Blake knew the sound of his name filled with anguished betrayal would haunt him the rest of his life.

  2

  Washington, D.C.

  Present day

  WHEN KAIA BENNET walked into the Guardian Security Services conference room on Friday morning and saw Casper Nazario’s lawyer sitting with her boss, she pivoted in an abrupt about-face and bolted for the ladies’ room. She locked the door and was standing on a toilet seat while pushing out a ceiling panel when Tyrone LaSalle opened the door.

  “Seriously?” she asked as he pocketed the lock pick. “Doesn’t the fact that this is the women’s restroom count for anything?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t do it, Kaia.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to do anything yet.” She moved the panel out of the way and looked down on the beefy, six-foot four wall of muscle. Light reflected off his shaved head. “I should never have taught you to pick locks.”

  “You do know that Wendell installed security grates in our duct system after you retrieved the Bailey documents last year?” he asked.

  Kaia knew. Her boss had been both fascinated and horrified at the ease with which Kaia had exploited that particular vulnerability in buildings, especially supposedly secure government buildings in Washington, D.C. He’d secured the service portals to the ventilation system at Guardian, but not the air ducts themselves. He hadn’t thought it necessary because the ducts weren’t designed to support the weight of a typical repairman—that was why Kaia didn’t allow herself to carry more than one hundred ten pounds on her five-foot four-inch, not-typical-repairman frame. She chose not to share that info with her boss.

  “Of course you knew,” Tyrone answered his own question. “That means you’re headed somewhere else.”

  The rooftop, but Kaia wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Or maybe you were gonna hide out in here until everybody left, except we all saw you come in…” he mused.

  In a practiced move, Kaia wiped all expression from her face, something she should have done when Tyrone first opened the door.

  “Rooftop?” he guessed correctly. “And then what? Have you got rappelling equipment stashed up there?”

  Yes, but more important, a prepaid cell phone programmed with the number of a helicopter pilot who owed her a favor. She flexed her arm muscles and assessed the rectangular hole left by the ceiling panel.

  “Don’t do it, Kaia,” Tyrone repeated. “Do not run. I’ll beat you to the roof.”

  Doubtful, but he’d certainly get there before the helicopter arrived. The question was how long would it take him to break through the rooftop door after she barricaded it?

  It might be fun to time him.

  Her gaze skimmed the custom black suit he wore, specially tailored to accommodate overdeveloped arms and shoulder holsters. It was the same black suit all employees of Guardian Security wore, including Kaia. She hated the slick wool-blend material. Not good for climbing.

  Tyler eased forward a step, his casual movement telling her he’d decided to grab her legs instead of racing up the stairs to the roof.

  “Wrong choice.” She shook her head. “My feet would be out of reach before you got through the stall door.”

  “I could shoot through the panels.”

  “Too noisy. And you could kill me.”

  “What if I don’t care?”

  Kaia put the ceiling panel back in place. “There is that.” She hopped off the toilet and opened the stall. “Except dead cat burglars don’t tell tales.”

  “I’ve noticed live ones don’t, either.” Tyrone leaned against the outer door to the restroom as someone tried to come in. “It’s occupied,” he called over his shoulder.

  “The whole thing?” protested an outraged voice.

  “You knew I was going to run, otherwise you wouldn’t have been here so fast,” Kaia said.

  Tyrone cracked a smile, his dark eyes warming momentarily. “Casper Nazario’s lawyer makes me want to run.”

  “He shouldn’t.” Kaia mock punched Tyrone’s sleeve and the unyielding arm beneath it. “If I had a choice between you and ten lawyers like him, I’d still pick you.”

  “He’s a better lawyer than I am,” Tyrone said.

  “He’s a more experienced lawyer than you are. Slipperier. Like his boss,” she added darkly.

  “I’m too big to be slippery.”

  “And I like that about you. Tell your wife if she doesn’t treat you right, you’ve got options.”

  Tyrone grunted in embarrassment and shifted his weight. Kaia made him nervous, a fact she liked to emphasize every so often just to keep him off balance.

  The only time Kaia, herself, had ever been off balance, she’d had over two years in prison to regain it.

  More knocking came from the door behind Tyrone. “Hurry up!”

  “Use the men’s,” Tyrone called. “We’re gonna be a while.”

  “It’s okay. I�
��m over it,” Kaia assured him. “Running was just a reflex. It’s good to exercise my reflexes every so often. You know, to keep in practice.”

  “Hunh.”

  Tyrone reached for the door. Kaia stopped him from opening it. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “Whatever Casper Nazario wants, I can’t do it.”

  “You have to. Those are the terms of your probation.” Which Tyrone knew because he’d negotiated them. And he’d continued negotiating, chipping away at the length each time some government agency needed her specialized talent, off the records.

  Casper Nazario was hardly with the government. “You know that Casper lied about giving me the Cat’s Eye diamond and that’s why I ended up in prison.”

  “It was a he-said, she-said situation.”

  “Only what he said wasn’t true and what I said was. And he knows it.” Kaia wondered if Tyrone believed her and hated that it mattered to her. It shouldn’t. “I’m not going anywhere near that man or any of his minions.”

  “Not alone, you’re not.”

  Every bit of self-preservation Kaia possessed was screaming “Trap!” at her. “You can’t trust him.”

  “I know.” Tyrone met her eyes with the same steady gaze she’d held for over ten silent minutes as they’d faced each other across a table in the prison’s conference room during their first meeting. “But you can trust me.”

  It wasn’t about trustworthiness. It was about dealing with an arrogant slimeball. “Why did he ask for me?” she whispered.

  “Let’s go find out.” Tyrone raised his eyebrows at her and Kaia nodded reluctantly. “I got your back,” he murmured as he opened the door.

  Yeah, but what about the rest of her?

  In the doorway, a young man smiled pleasantly. “Hiya, Kaia.”

  She hated that. Presley seemed to think he was the only one who ever thought of rhyming her name that way.

  “Do you need an escort?” he asked Tyrone.

  “Bite me,” Kaia said, knowing he would if the situation warranted it.

  Tyrone sent the kid away with a slight shake of his head and gestured for her to precede him. Kaia ignored the annoyed glares from two female coworkers as she brushed past Tyrone and walked out the door. “You know I could still get away, if I wanted.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Tyrone said.

  “Hmm, I think you do.” Kaia threw a grin over her shoulder and abruptly stopped walking, causing him to stumble against her.

  “Hey!” He gripped her arms both for balance and to keep her from running away. Naturally, she’d counted on that.

  Sighing heavily, Tyrone looked down. “You took my security badge.” Smirking, he said, “You’ll need more than that.”

  Kaia held up his wallet.

  He blinked and his smirk turned rueful. “Not bad,” he admitted as she handed it back. “What was the rest of your plan?”

  Kaia nodded at the exit to the stairwell a few feet in front of them.

  “Except I’d pick the lock again and I’m gettin’ gooood,” Tyrone bragged.

  “With what? This?” Kaia held up his lock pick.

  He patted his breast coat pocket in surprise, but quickly recovered. “No. This.” And he removed a second pick from another pocket.

  Smiling widely, Kaia relaxed for the first time since she’d seen Casper’s lawyer. Tyrone was on his game today. “I’m so proud.” She tossed Tyrone the pick she’d lifted in the restroom.

  As he caught the pick, Tyrone said, “You taught me never to trust anyone without a backup plan.”

  “And you’d better have a good one if you expect me to talk to Casper’s lawyer.”

  For all her talk, she’d known she’d end up returning to the meeting. But that didn’t mean she would agree to do the job, she vowed as she walked through the door. The only bright spot, and that was because everything else about the situation was dim by comparison, was that Casper must be desperate to seek her out. What had his kleptomaniac wife stolen this time?

  Kaia sat in a comfy club chair. They were using the so-called domestic room, decorated like someone’s casually chic living space. Such surroundings soothed families, especially women who were hiring bodyguards or couriers.

  The legal weasel who sat on the chintz sofa across from her looked out of place.

  She remembered him from her trial—same weasely eyes, hair coiffed like a television evangelist, and a little pointed goatee. He was dying the goatee a dark brown now, but left his temples and sideburns gray. Odd. And not in a good way.

  His gaze flicked over the men in the room. “We require Miss Bennet’s services for a delicate matter I will detail to her in private.”

  “No,” said Wendell and Tyrone simultaneously.

  Kaia’s, “No,” sounded a beat later because she’d prefaced it with, “Hell.”

  “As Ms. Bennet’s counsel, Tyrone will stay,” her boss said smoothly, and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  It was quite a concession on Wendell’s part. Something big must be up.

  Tyrone settled back in a leather wing chair he liked to use. It was the power chair, being a few inches higher than the sofa cushion where the weasel sat. The difference wasn’t noticeable until both parties sat down. Tyrone’s chair didn’t give much, but anyone who sat on the sofa sank deeply and ended up with his knees higher than usual. This also resulted in an awkward power-diluting struggle to get up from the sofa at the end of the meeting. Tyrone would be standing first, in the perfect position to extend a hand to help.

  It was all gamesmanship, and Kaia was for anything that diminished Alvin Rathers, aka the weasel.

  He wasn’t happy about Tyrone being there, but he started talking anyway, making up a story about Casper’s wife, Tina, “forgetting” to return a couple of bracelets lent to her by a jewelry designer whose chunky designs were much favored by the ladies who lunch.

  Tina was a kleptomaniac, pure and simple. Kaia had figured that out right off. It was a surprise that Tina was still getting away with it all these years later.

  Kaia barely listened as the weasel explained that Casper wanted the bracelets returned to the designer without anyone, especially Tina, knowing. Because, heaven forbid the man should confront his wife and get her into therapy.

  Yeah, yeah. Same song, second verse.

  Just like six years ago, when Casper had hired Kaia to return jewelry Tina had lifted during a summer stay in the Hamptons. In a switch for her, Kaia had broken into homes and left glittering baubles for their owners to find like some kind of Tiffany’s Easter Bunny.

  And then he’d lied and she’d gone to prison.

  Did he think she’d forgotten?

  “Why doesn’t he just pay for the bracelets?” Kaia interrupted, earning a frown from Tyrone.

  “They are not for sale,” the weasel said.

  Everything’s for sale, Kaia thought cynically. Casper must have balked at the price. “Then—” She broke off when she felt the unsubtle pressure of Tyrone’s big foot against hers.

  “In any event, Mrs. Nazario has stated that she already returned the bracelets, and, indeed, they are not in the jewel safe.” Alvin Rathers shifted, struggling against sinking further into the sofa. “However, Mr. Nazario has remembered that Mrs. Nazario installed a safe or safes for her personal use, ones to which Mr. Nazario does not have access.”

  He didn’t even know how many? Kaia perked up. Okay, now this was great. Anything that caused Casper to suffer was great.

  “It is possible that Mrs. Nazario placed the bracelets in them for safekeeping and has forgotten.”

  Kaia was especially proud of her restraint in letting this whopper pass unchallenged.

  The weasel withdrew a legal-looking paper from his briefcase. “Mr. Nazario wishes to hire Miss Bennet to locate and open the safe and/or safes and examine the contents for these two bracelets.” He placed a photograph on the coffee table and slid it toward her.

  Kaia saw two wide cuffs set with a lot of turq
uoise chunks and some designs that looked vaguely American Indian. Strikingly beautiful, sure, but she’d been expecting diamonds at least.

  “If Miss Bennet identifies said bracelets, she will—”

  “Identifies to the best of her ability as a non expert,” inserted Tyrone, who was studying the printed agreement.

  Alvin smiled. “I’ll concede the point, although a case can be made as to her expertise.”

  “Actually, not,” Kaia said, just to keep things moving along. “I don’t know anything about turquoise. That is why I’m not the person for this job. Sorry.” She stood.

  Tyrone spoke, “Let’s acknowledge that we’re all aware that prior to her employment with Guardian, Mr. Nazario retained Kaia’s services—”

  He made her sound like a hooker.

  “—and they had a disagreement over terms.”

  Disagreement? She gave Tyrone a hard look. “He gave me the Cat’s Eye pendant and then claimed I stole it rather than admit the truth to his wife. I went to prison.”

  “There was no record of your agree—” the weasel began.

  “There will be this time,” Tyrone said.

  “There won’t be a ‘this time.’ Look.” Kaia held up her hand. “The thought of Casper Nazario makes me so angry my hand shakes. I can’t crack a safe with shaking hands.”

  “Will telling you that Mr. Nazario will be paying double the fee, of which you’ll receive fifty percent, help you get over the shakes?” Tyrone asked.

  Kaia’s hand stilled. “Yes.” She sat back down. She wanted to tell herself that it wasn’t just because of the money; there had to be more to this than a couple of turquoise cuffs and she was curious to discover what was really going on. But it was about the money.

  The weasel managed to sneer without moving his lips. “Excellent decision, since I imagine the fee will be quite high due to the constraints.”

  “What constraints?” Kaia asked suspiciously.

  “We require the utmost discretion in an extremely delicate situation.” The weasel began removing folders and papers from his briefcase. “Mrs. Nazario is to remain unaware of any attempt to locate and, if located, retrieve the bracelets.”