Secrets of the Dead

by Kylie Brant

  And soon…very soon now…that cunning would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

  _______

  “I’m fine.” Her tone reflected her rapidly deteriorating patience, both for the agents flanking her and the hours long process after the shooting. “I don’t need the bandage changed. Dammit, Declan.” Just as he’d been doing for most of the evening, he ignored her objection, merely brushing the hand she brought up to protect her cheek and started gently loosening the tape around the gauze there.

  “Just let him baby you some.” Kellan Burke’s green eyes twinkled behind his trendy dark rimmed glasses. “You’re not going to stop him anyhow and take pity on the guy. The way he fussed over your wound, I thought maybe you’d been gut shot. Bet that shaved a couple years off his life.”

  “Remember, I saw you moments after Macy went in labor,” Declan said mildly, peeling down the blood soaked gauze and reaching for the antiseptic cream. “I figured they were going to have to get a gurney for you.”

  Burke winked at Eve. “Sympathy pains. I’m a very empathetic guy. Surrender to the inevitable. It’ll make him feel better.”

  Inevitable was an apt word for what they’d been through since the shooting. They were still in the police conference room. Their statements had been held up while FBI agent Gilbert Stillions had been summoned, and she’d been diverted for a totally unnecessary trip to the ER to remove the small slivers of stone and debris that had lodged in her cheek and forehead. Her protests that she could clean the damage herself with a tweezers had been overruled. Mostly because of Declan’s insistence that she get expert medical care.

  She blew out a sigh and did what Kellan advised. Slumping in her chair, she withstood Declan’s ministrations with the last remnant of patience she could summon. The wounds would continue to sting for a while, but they definitely didn’t require this level of solicitude.

  Looking at the man from beneath her lashes, she wondered where all his concern was coming from. Or maybe she already knew. He had a protective streak a mile wide. She could live with that. What she couldn’t—wouldn’t—live with was any misplaced guilt he might be feeling about her minor injury.

  The door to the conference room opened and Stillions walked in again, without the police detective this time. His gaze going to the bag of first aid supplies the hospital had sent with her, and then to her wound, he said, “Damn, Gallagher, you could moonlight as a medic.”

  Eve silently agreed. Certainly his touch was as gentle as the nurse’s had been when her wound was cleaned and dressed earlier. The actual extraction of the tiny splinters of stone had been a little less pleasant. “I hope you’re going to tell us we can go home. Finally.” Not home, actually but to yet another strange location. She didn’t even care about that as long as it had food and a warm bed.

  “Eventually.” The man draped his painfully thin body over the back of a chair from across the table and surveyed them. His suit was navy today. Just as ill-fitting as the brown one she’d last seen him in. For the first time Eve wondered if the man were recovering from a long illness.

  “I just got off the phone with Raiker.” He paused a moment while Declan placed new tape on the bandage to keep it in place. “Since he last spoke to you two, he got a hit off the prints from the pen you gave him.” His inflection made it a question. At Eve’s nod he went on. “The woman you’ve been dealing with isn’t Xie Shuang. Her real name is Sun Yanyu. She was scooped up in an ICE raid here in DC seven years ago and returned to China.”

  A niggling sense of intuition made Eve ask, “Do you know the location of the raid?”

  The man rubbed his narrow jaw. “Now that you mention it. It was a hotel called the Kaula. I believe you know it as the Latifma.”

  Eve and Declan exchanged a glance. “There’s coincidence, and then there’s exact duplication,” she murmured.

  “Raiker said he had pictures taken of her that first meeting. They aren’t an exact match for the photos taken after the raid, although the resemblance is there. I’m guessing she’s had surgery to alter her appearance. Changed her nose. Narrowed the jawline.”

  “And how would a woman who was ostensibly held as a sexual slave find the money for that sort of surgery?” Eve wondered aloud. Her imagination was filling in answers to the mental questions that rose, and she needed to sort through them before reaching any conclusions. She was tired, more than a little grumpy and not at all inclined to give Xie Shuang—or Sun Yanyu—the benefit of the doubt.

  Whatever she might have experienced in her past, it was what Shuang was now that mattered. And everything they’d discovered about the woman told her that she was nothing short of a monster.

  Declan wadded up the wrappings and old bandages and got up to drop both in the metal trashcan in the corner of the room. Then he started putting the supplies they’d used in the sack. “Raiker say anything else?”

  “Just that everything you need would be found in the safe house Burke is taking you to. Your weapons will be returned after the investigation into the shooting. Since you named Lafka Malsovic as the probable shooter, the DCPD and FBI are currently planning a joint sweep of the hotel. I’ll be on location.”

  Relief spread inside her. A rescue would be mounted. Brina and the other women would soon be safe. Hopefully before Shuang discovered that Malsovic had failed to kill them. She didn’t trust what the other woman might do in a fit of temper.

  “Did they find any brass on scene?”

  The agent shook his head woefully at Declan’s question. “But officers are canvassing the area. Maybe they’ll get lucky and find the weapon. He would have had to dump it unless he had a vehicle pick him up nearby.”

  There would have been time to arrange for that, Eve thought, with a sidelong look at Declan. If Malsovic had followed them to the restaurant, he would have known he had at least an hour in which to make arrangements.

  “What’d you find when you traced the cab?” Kellan Burke spread his hands when Stillions stared at him. “C’mon, it’d be the first thing you’d look at and the easiest to follow up on.”

  “They’re still sweating the cabbie in one of the other rooms. He claims he was carjacked on Fifth and Central, but all the cabs are equipped with GPS tracking. His last reported stop before that was the Latifma Hotel.”

  “Damn canny move,” Burke muttered, his chagrin apparent. “Easy enough to spot a tail, especially on streets as congested as we were traveling. But the ratio of cabs to cars is about two to one downtown. He didn’t follow us into the parking lot. Didn’t make that mistake. But he was waiting somewhere nearby ready when you two came out.”

  “Well, he got a bit more than he bargained for there.” Declan’s smile was grim. “I would have liked to think one of us hit him, but I didn’t see any blood on the pavement. Probably just wishful thinking.”

  “With luck we’ll pick him up tonight.”

  Eve’s head jerked up to stare at Stillions. “The raid is tonight?”

  “Did I say that?” The man looked bemused. “Surely not. It’s not like me to give away classified information. But the matter has taken on more urgency with DCPD’s need to bring in Malsovic for questioning. And the bureau isn’t about to let them into that hotel without us, so…”

  Eve reached over to squeeze Declan’s hand impulsively. The women had hours rather than days longer to suffer the indignity of slavery. Relief flooded through her. When he turned to look at her she almost snatched her hand back, conscious of her action. But before she could do so his fingers shifted in hers so he could skate his thumb across the back of her hand. The action left a trail of heat in its wake. She eased her hand away. The culmination of events in the past few hours were definitely affecting her if she was susceptible to the lightest touch.

  Eve caught Burke’s eyes on them and read his thoughts in his slow wicked smile. The glare she aimed his way had him wipin
g the grin from his face, but she knew it lurked beneath his purposefully sober demeanor. His mind was all too easy to read, but he was wrong. She’d make sure of it.

  Weakness wasn’t a trait she’d cultivated over the years. It would never have been tolerated in her family. Nor would it have furthered her career at the State Department. Weakness wasn’t in Eve’s vocabulary.

  And she wasn’t about to change that by being weak with Declan Gallagher.

  “You know, Eve and I could be valuable assets when it comes to tonight’s raid.”

  Declan’s words startled her, but they didn’t have any noticeable effect on the federal agent. He just raised a brow. “How do you figure?”

  “How many languages would you estimate are represented by the women held at the hotel, Eve?”

  “Chinese, Thai, Serbian, Slovenian…no telling how many others.”

  Declan gave a slow nod. “She can save you a ton of time with translation when the women are brought in.”

  Stillions seemed to give the words consideration. “That could be helpful after the raid. Doesn’t explain a need for you having a part, though.”

  “I know the inside of the hotel.” His smile was complacent. “I assume your warrant will include access to the hotel’s security system and I rewrote the code for the cameras.” He had, Eve recalled, just that morning, although he’d returned them to working order this afternoon. “Not to be immodest, but it’ll take hours for cyber crimes to crack it. I’m guessing that’s energy your team would rather focus elsewhere. I can switch the cameras on and off, alter their views to your split second recommendations, watch for civilians…I’m a useful guy.”

  Silence stretched long enough for Eve to grow uncomfortable. Stillions fixed Declan with a gimlet stare. “And you did all this without a warrant.”

  “I sort of stumbled into the online security by accident.”

  “Uh-huh.” The agent’s sarcasm was unmistakable. But after a long moment he lifted a shoulder. “All right. You can have a limited role.”

  From the look on Declan’s face, Eve knew he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. Her stomach did a slow roll as she considered the ramifications. They’d already been shot at once tonight. She hoped Declan’s part in the raid wouldn’t put him in the line of fire again.

  _______

  “How long have you had this place, Lafka?” Zupan wandered around the small space, poking into all the cabinets and the refrigerator. He made a pleased sound when he saw a six-pack inside but had the good manners to close the door without taking one.

  “A while.” They spoke in English because Malsovic was too damn tired to try to recall the smattering of Slovenian he’d picked up over the years. Zupan had told him about Shuang’s account that he’d just bounced money to. If he had managed to move it once, surely he could again, into one of Malsovic’s. The money would go a long way toward paying for the abduction operation he was putting together. What he’d spent on it so far that day had all but bankrupted him.

  “There is no need for you to go back to the hotel. Shuang grows more unpredictable all the time.” The other man bobbed his head in agreement. “I fear this plan of hers will get us all killed. I have a better idea. We will get the boy before her. We’ll share the riches from that equally.”

  Zupan was a simple man. He had to be in order for him to believe that Malsovic would cut him in for half when the other man brought nothing of note to the table. However, if he could really move Shuang’s money…that might be worth a bonus.

  Cash was the best way he knew to buy loyalty. Èmó hadn’t realized that. She’d ruled through fear and brutality. Violence had its place, but the way the woman operated, she wouldn’t have the manpower to make another attempt for the boy. Once she discovered that Malsovic had failed to kill Gallagher, her rage would have no bounds. That did not bode well for the men still in her employ.

  “I have not heard much of her plan,” the other man was saying. “Taufik, Harris and Amin…they have been avoiding me.”

  “So let them be the ones to suffer Shuang’s wrath. And take all the risks for her.”

  The other man nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Yes, let them feel her whip when they do…” His gaze traveled across the small space to the laptop open on the sagging couch. “What is that on your computer? That blinking light?”

  Malsovic followed his gaze. “That…that is what hundreds of thousands of dollars look like.” The less the other man knew the better, so he didn’t tell him about Rick Sorenson, or the man’s relationship with Jaid Raiker’s mother. The young man had performed well so far, as the location mark on the computer screen showed. Sorenson surely would have been searched before being allowed in the car with the old woman, so Malsovic had told him to find a way to slip the GPS device into the lining of the old lady’s bag.

  He walked over to the computer now, sank down on the stained couch. Frowned as he looked at the screen. GPS would provide him with a foolproof way to be certain of the boy’s location before he put himself into danger by going after him.

  But something was wrong. The map surrounding the blinking light didn’t show the area where Raiker’s compound was located. It was two hundred miles to the south and east.

  A jolt of rage seized him. Had Sorenson double-crossed him? Tossed the device into a passing car?

  “Lafka, what is the matter?”

  He couldn’t answer. Could barely see through the fog of fear and fury that was consuming him. He zoomed in on the map. Looked closely at the surrounding area. It was on the ocean, or close enough to it that it made no difference. Why would the old lady’s bag be… Comprehension swept through him then. Gallagher had lied to Shuang. To the other men. The boy wasn’t on Raiker’s compound at all.

  He was a couple hundred miles away. Safe. Or so Raiker believed.

  Malsovic began to laugh and Zupan took a careful step away at the ugly sound. This was too good. Much too good. He had been afraid that Shuang’s plan would get them killed and all this time he had been right. Gallagher must have deliberately attempted to set them up. The video that showed the boy on Raiker’s compound had been a fake.

  And Shuang was prepared to send her men into a trap.

  “Come.” He closed the computer and unplugged the power cord, leaving the small MiFi device attached. It would allow him to access the Internet even in the truck, and they would be taking a trip now.

  “Where are we going?”

  He glanced at the other man. “Bring the beer you saw in the refrigerator. We have a trip ahead of us.” First they needed to walk to where they’d parked the rented panel truck he’d picked up today, and which Zupan had used to pick him up earlier. The lot they’d left it in was at least at a mile away. “I will drive you to the hotel. You must go to my room, bring me all the digital equipment I have there and my passport from the safe.”

  Zupan had looked much more enthusiastic about the beer than he was about the return trip to the hotel. “I thought you said I didn’t have to go back there?”

  “You don’t. Not to stay.”

  The man set the six-pack on the table as he picked up his coat. “I should get my passport, as well. I will go in the back entrance. Take the cargo elevator. No one will see me.”

  There was no reason for the man to get his passport, because Malsovic had no intention of leaving the country with him. But that news was not for now.

  “Yes, you must get your ID. Then we have a drive ahead of us.”

  Once he made certain he’d found the right property where the kid was being kept, there was still much work to be done, and quickly.

  Urgency pressed at his skull as he donned his coat, picked up the computer and headed out the door. Zupan carried the six pack inside his jacket. Malsovic had everything in place. He just needed to adjust the location.

  Success
felt so close he could all but taste it.

  _______

  “No need to flip for the bed.”

  “Honesty compels me to admit that I was planning on cheating anyway.” Declan prowled through the space after he’d unloaded their weapons and put them away. Checking the security, Eve thought, but also mapping the condo where they’d be spending at least the next several hours.

  “Really.” She smirked. “I was going to use my own coin. And flip it myself.”

  “You…” In the act of poking his head into one of the bedrooms, he turned to look at her over his shoulder. “I would never have suspected it. And you look so innocent, too.”

  “Sometimes that comes in handy.” Eve walked over to the other bedroom and was surprised to discover that her bag was already sitting on the bed. Someone had packed their things and delivered them here. She wondered if Burke had drawn that duty, too. “Maybe you’d like to play a game of Blackjack later.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m being sandbagged?” There was a tinge of amusement in his tone. She was pretty sure that she’d rob him of that after four hands of cards. As well as most of what he had in his wallet.

  “Dibs on the bathroom first.”

  Because it was her bag on the bed in the room before her, she went in to take out her toiletries and fresh clothes. It gave her an odd feeling to know that a stranger had packed her things. But that feeling was the last of her worries when she got to the nicely appointed bathroom and shed both sweaters before taking a look in the mirror for the first time in hours.

  “Oh. My. God.” Her voice was aghast. She leaned closer to the mirror to assess the damage.

  “What?” He was across the apartment and by her side so quickly she jumped a little. Clearly she’d neglected to lock the door.