by Jan Coffey
Dealmaker, collector and former high-rolling fence for Louis Littlefield, Ray Claiborne had been Ellie’s mentor and protector for most of the years her father had been in prison. Everything she’d learned about the legal and illegal acquisition of precious artwork and antiques had come from her “uncle” Ray. Even the start-up money for her business had been a present from Ray. Of course, the criminal record she’d acquired as a youngster had been another gift from him.
“Where did you say this guy was from?”
“He says he moves with the sun these days. Has a place in Palm Springs and Maui and skis in Aspen when he feels like it. But I think he said something about being ‘born and drug up’ in New York State.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“I’m not surprised. He’s not stick-it-in-your-face rich. Kind of old money attitude, you know? And as far as his collecting, I’d bet money he’s pretty new in the game.”
“Good-looking?”
“Ray!” She drawled out his name and heard him chuckling on the other end.
“Answer the question, babycakes.”
“He’s too old for the way you like them.” She tucked the phone into the crook of her neck and waved at the door, motioning for Nate not to knock. It figured he’d be early. “Actually, I don’t think he leans that way at all. Vic tried to hit on him already, with no success.”
“That may just mean that Vic isn’t his type.”
“I’d still bet he won’t be interested.”
“I haven’t met him, so I won’t take your money yet.”
As she moved to open the door for Nate, she realized it had been a good thing that she hadn’t immediately shared her suspicions with Vic that Nate was a cop. If she’d even told him Nate’s last name, they would be doing this all differently.
Ray’s tone became businesslike. “So you want me to start a buzz about this young man?”
“Just get the word out that I have a new client who’s a player. Will you do that?” Ellie waved Nate in. He was wearing a gray suit, a quiet patterned tie and another one of his starched white shirts.
“Now, why does he have to have that specific flag…the Morris flag? If he’s a new collector, there are many other—”
“The man’s got the money, and he tells me that’s what he’s looking for right now. He says he’s willing to pay big for it and pay me a handsome commission if I find it for him before the Fourth of July. Says he’s going cruising on a friend’s yacht for a couple of months around the middle of July. Now, do you want me to talk him out of it?”
“No, no. I understand perfectly. In fact, I myself hate it when you walk into the florist shop looking for gardenias and the clerk shoves daisies at you,” Ray grumbled. “I suppose my problem is that there is just too much chitchat about this supposedly fabulous flag and no solid word about any auction. Maybe the rumor-mongers are just being coy to stir up interest—bring out money-people like your client—but everything is pretty vague, even for this kind of item. I haven’t heard of anyone who knows where this flag is or when they’re selling the damn thing. Also, there hasn’t been a single word about a starting price. Whoever it is that’s handling this is being pretty clever. And I don’t think it’s anyone from Philly or New York.”
“That’s why I thought I should call you right away. I figured if the word went out about a live customer, we’d start hearing more.” Nate pointed to his watch, and Ellie turned her back on him. “I’ve made a few calls myself, but I was hoping you’d do the same thing and see what it gets us.”
“I’ll see what I can do, kid,” Ray told her. “By the way, I hope you’re planning on bringing this guy to the house this Friday for my dinner party. I can’t wait to meet him.”
Ellie looked over her shoulder at Nate’s stiff shirt and frown. He had cop stamped all over him. “We’ll see. I have to work on him.”
He had already picked up her leather overnight bag from the chair and was waiting by the door when Ellie hung up. “We have less than twenty minutes to make it to the airport.”
“I have faith in you, Agent Murtaugh.” Ellie grabbed her purse and keys and walked out behind him. The blue sedan, another obvious sign of his profession, was parked illegally on the sidewalk. She climbed in, and he took off while she was still pulling on her seat belt.
“You were talking to Ray Claiborne.”
“Are you guys tapping my phone?”
“No.” He ran a red light. “What did you tell him about me?”
“The stuff you gave me last night on the phone. I like the Moffet thing. It’s close to Murtaugh—Moffet, Murtaugh. It’s easy to explain if I slip.”
“Try not to.” He cursed at a car that didn’t get out of his way fast enough. He glanced over at her. “Not a morning person, are you?”
He stepped on the gas, and she clutched the door handle until he’d run through another red light.
“As a matter of fact, I am. Ray is, too. That’s why I called him this morning. He’s much better connected out there than I am. In fact, I’m surprised you people didn’t go to him for help instead.”
“When it comes to cooperating, Ray Claiborne’s willingness and expertise ends with incriminating his friends and the child who’s been left in his care. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
It would have been a loyal gesture to argue on Ray’s behalf, but there was no point. The circumstances around Louis Littlefield’s arrest and jail sentence were not Ray’s fault, and the fact that her father had refused to drag his main contact into the mess was Louis’s own decision. And as far as Ellie’s own arrest when she was fifteen, it was a matter of him going to jail for years and his operation folding or Ellie taking the rap and having her hand slapped as a juvie. She’d known what she was doing. She’d just stuck to her story. There was no mastermind directing her when she’d been caught stealing a two-million-dollar painting out of a house on the Main Line. There were no buyers waiting. Nobody had given her any lead. It was just a spontaneous thing that she’d grabbed the canvas and not the owner’s wallet. She didn’t know it was worth that much. She just liked the painting. The family court judge had bought the story. Now it was ancient history.
Ellie looked out her window. At thirty, she could live with her conscience and her decision to stay loyal to Uncle Ray when she’d been a teenager. But she also knew that at sixty-eight, Ray still felt guilty for what he had done to her.
No regrets. She was where she wanted to be in her life. She had a nice apartment. Owned her own business. Drove a fancy sports car. And going shopping no longer consisted of illegally rummaging through a Salvation Army collection box. Ellie turned to the maniac driver next to her. “We have to go shopping when we get back.”
“You can discuss your expense account with Hawes.” Nate weaved between two cars. “And I hate shopping.”
“Well, that’s too bad, since it’s your expense account we’ll be dipping into. You’re the one we’ll be buying for.”
“Buying what?”
“Cooler clothes. Maybe some silk shirts. A bit of jewelry. A different cut of pants. Definitely better shoes. Clothes that don’t say ‘I’m a career G-man.’ By the way, we also have to do something with your hair.”
“Why?”
“To look cooler.” Ellie touched the fabric of his jacket with the tip of two fingers. “To hang around with me, you’ll have to do a lot better than this, Mr. Murtaugh…Moffet…whatever your name is. I have a reputation to protect.”
He parked the sedan illegally in front of a terminal. Before they stepped out of the car, a security guard immediately approached. After a couple of quick exchanges with Nate, the guard called someone over to park the car for him.
“You tell them to jump, and they want to know how high,” she commented as they raced through the terminal. “You have it made, don’t you, Agent Murtaugh?”
“I did, before I started hanging around with you.”
“It’s good that you realize there’ll be a
change, because you won’t be the same person after I’m done with you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, a promise.” She smiled at him when they reached a security checkpoint. “You haven’t seen anything of my ability to bring out the more stylish side of people. In the case of men, I like to think of it as their feminine side. Now that I think of it, you’d fit much better into this role if you were gay.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I do. I’ll just need to get Vic’s help, and you’ll be in top form in no time.”
The newly renovated hospital, with its modern critical-access facility, twenty-four-hour emergency room and helicopter pad, sat on a rise overlooking Ticonderoga, New York.
Nate stared through the glass at the computer monitors, plastic tubes and perpetually moving apparatuses designed to keep the body functioning. The roomful of equipment was keeping Officer Tom McGill alive. His condition was still grave. It hadn’t changed since Nate had stopped by this morning.
He’d spent the couple of hours in between visits at the police barracks going over the reports, evidence and photos that they’d taken at the scene.
They were calling it a burglary gone bad. A couple of morons trying to rob the body shop and caught off guard by finding Tom in the lot. They’d hit him hard enough that he’d been thrown twenty feet, till he came to rest against the concrete-block wall of the shop. They’d taken a look, panicked, then left him to die. That was the preliminary report, anyway.
Nate didn’t need the itchy feeling at the base of his scalp to tell him something didn’t jive. So far, the local and state police had found no sign of the car. The state labs were still analyzing tire tracks and footprints. The only thing they knew for sure was that two people had gotten out of the vehicle after hitting McGill. And of course, there was the possibility of a witness. And once again, it was Christopher Weaver.
The boy had left enough telltale signs behind that the locals had determined where he’d been hiding and how he’d gotten away, slipping through a loosely chained gate at the rear of the junkyard. Beyond that, there were woods for a mile or more and there was no telling whether the perpetrators were on his trail or not. If it went down the way the locals thought, those two jokers were probably shaking in their boots somewhere between here and Ohio right about now. But there was also the possibility that it hadn’t happened that way.
“The folks over there are Tom’s parents.” The officer standing next to him nodded toward a young-looking man and woman, holding hands and sitting on a light blue faux-leather sofa down the hall. They were in their late forties, maybe fifty, tops. Not much older than he was. The realization washed over him like cold water. Nate started toward them.
The father stood up when Nate introduced himself. After he pulled up a chair for himself, he explained that it had been his call that had sent McGill out last night.
“Tom mentioned you,” the mother said quietly. “That’s where he’d love to end up someday…in the FBI.”
“He’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Mr. McGill said, “just like his mother.” He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“I’d be happy to write a recommendation for him when he’s ready,” Nate whispered hoarsely, relieved that they had not given up hope.
He made some small talk, unable to add anything to what these people already knew, and listened to snatches of stories about Tom growing up. A few minutes later, Nate spotted Ellie sitting on a bench near the elevator, cup of coffee in hand. She darted an anxious glance their way. He said goodbye to the McGills, gave them his card and walked over to her.
She’d had Nate drop her at a little antique store near the center of town when they drove in from the airport this morning. Since his first stop was the police station, Nate had been more or less happy with the arrangement. He hadn’t been the only person who had watched the security shots of Ellie talking to Christopher in the museum. And though she was working with the Bureau, the locals didn’t know anything about it. As far as Nate was concerned, at this point the less anybody knew the better. When she stood up, he could see there were dark lines under her eyes.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Just a few minutes.”
“Something wrong?”
“I was thinking that if I hadn’t given Chris a ride Friday afternoon, then he wouldn’t be missing, and there would’ve been no reason for that cop to go looking for him last night.”
“Look, if it wasn’t last night, then it would have been another night, another call, another creep,” he said grimly. His knuckles brushed gently against the backs of her fingers. “It can happen anytime. It’s in the nature of the beast. You join up to help people, but sometimes you end up becoming a target yourself.”
He took the cup from her and sloshed around the mud that was left in the bottom before dropping it in a trash can next to the elevator. “Why don’t we get out of here. I’ll buy you a fresh cup of coffee, and on our way back to the airport you can tell me what you’ve been up to since this morning.”
She got inside the elevator with him. “What time is our return flight?”
Nate glanced at his watch. “Not until five-thirty. Why?”
“I had a call on my cell from Sister Helen. Now that I’ve agreed to work with you people, she wants the two of us to come by the convent to go over some ideas and possible ways she could hook us up with some other connections. Basically, she wants to get things rolling.”
“She’s a master planner, isn’t she?”
“Absolutely.” She stepped out of the elevator in front of him. Aside from a white-haired volunteer standing next to the receptionist’s desk, there were only a few people in the lobby. The volunteer was wiping the leaves of a potted plant and smiled at them as they went by. “I think becoming a nun satisfied a spiritual need in her, but it also gave her a means of directing her energy and creativity. The mission she’s chosen gives her the opportunity to change things. And yes, she is definitely an organizer. Where to?”
Nate took her elbow and turned her toward a row of snack machines along a wall. “Sorry, this is the best I can get you here.”
“I’m not fussy.”
Nate realized that he was allowing his hand to linger on her bare arm, and he let it drop. “Maybe Sister Helen and Hawes would make a good team.”
“No.” Ellie wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “But I think she would make a good replacement for him. Not that your agency would ever—”
“Are you Miss Littlefield?”
They both looked with surprise at the blond-haired girl who had stepped out of nowhere.
“Yes. That’s me,” Ellie whispered, shooting a hasty look around the quiet lobby.
“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
In those few seconds since the girl had sprung up in their path, Nate had tried to estimate her age and possible connections to Ellie. She was young. Maybe eight or nine years old. He looked around the lobby, too, searching for Chris.
“Of course.” Ellie squeezed Nate’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”
He watched her talking quietly to the young girl as they walked away. They went out the front door of the hospital. When he’d dropped Ellie off this morning, Nate knew she was going to talk to her antique-dealer friend. Where she’d gone from there and who she’d talked to, he didn’t know yet. But he was certain she’d spent the day looking for the missing boy.
“Can I help you with something?”
Nate shook his head at the elderly volunteer and started toward the front doors. Christopher Weaver was a complication in the assignment, and they had to forget about him; this was what Hawes had been telling him. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, obviously. Ellie was determined to help the kid, and Nate wanted him safe. But what constituted “safe” for a kid—that was what he was struggling with.
Despite dealing with some of the toughest sons of bitches on and off the str
eet since joining the Bureau, Nate was pretty ignorant when it came to children. Kids had parents who raised them. Kids had homes that social services agencies placed them in. But what about the rest of the ones on the street? Or the ones who got tossed out of their homes? Or the runaways? What about all the kids nobody wanted?
Nate had seen them, dealt with them, but he’d never thought that one of those kids would slap him with his reality wake-up call. He’d never thought a kid would make him question life and what the hell he was doing with his end of it.
Nate hadn’t repaid Joey Sullen very well for the gift the boy had given him.
He waited by the door until a man in a wheelchair pushed his way in.
On the hot sidewalk outside, he saw Ellie hurrying across the parking lot and up the grassy hill to him. She’d shed her jacket and was carrying it on her arm. She walked a couple of steps, then ran a few, then walked again. Nate started toward her. He saw her smile.
“You don’t have much of a poker face. Where is he?”
“Give me your keys.” She was breathless. Nate saw the little girl who had approached them sitting on a bike across the parking lot. Ellie saw her, too, and waved back at the blond youngster. In a moment the girl had pedaled off.
“Who was she?”
“Allison, a classmate of Christopher’s,” she answered, giving up asking for the key and instead taking him by the arm and dragging him toward the visitor’s parking lot.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re driving Chris back to Philly.”
He stopped short, causing her to spin around and face him. “Hold on a second. We’re not taking a missing child across state lines.”
“Yes, we are,” she replied firmly. “The boy is terrified. He says there are some bad guys after him. He wants to go someplace safe, and he has trusted me to help him.”
“That’s how this whole mess started,” he snapped. “The boy is here. We put him in the car, notify the local police, then take him to the closest family services office and let them deal with him.”
