by Kat Martin
Franco kept walking, forcing the girl in front of him as a shield, his arm still locked around her neck, gun pressed to her temple. “Stay back or I shoot her.”
Hands held high, Beau froze where he stood. “The helicopter will have to land before you get to the border. It can only travel a little over four hundred miles without refueling. Piedras Negras and Nuevo Laredo are the closest Mexican towns. They’re five hundred miles away.”
Franco paused. “I don’t believe you. You think I’m a fool? We’re leaving and you better not try to stop us.”
“Let the girl go and I’ll arrange for you to refuel in San Antonio. No cops. The pilot will land and refuel and you’ll be on your way.”
“She’s my insurance policy. She’s going.” Franco glanced around. He was still a good distance from the helicopter in the park across the street.
Franco started walking. As he stepped off the curb, a string of vehicle headlights appeared. Two sheriff’s SUVs and a SWAT Bearcat careened around the corner, sirens blaring, roared down the road toward them, and slammed to a halt. Deputies in full tactical gear streamed out from the vehicles.
“I told you no police!” Franco screamed. Panic had him turning, swinging his big black semiautomatic pistol toward the deputies, firing off a string of bullets. Then the gun swung back toward Missy.
Cassidy watched in horror, too far away to make the shot, and the deputies were not in position. Franco was going to kill Missy and there was nothing anyone could do.
A rifle shot sounded, the roar echoing into the darkness. Franco’s head exploded in a rush of blood and bits of skull, and his lifeless body crumpled to the ground, the gun flying out of his hand as he hit the pavement. Missy started screaming, the sound a high, eerie wail of horror.
Beau raced toward her and the girl flew into his arms. She was covered with blood and hysterical. Cassidy ran toward the house.
“You’re okay, Missy,” Beau said, hugging her close, trying to calm her. “You’re okay.”
“My baby! I want my baby!”
“I’ll get her!” Cassidy ran into the dwelling, but Evie wasn’t in the living room. She ran for the bedroom, spotted the baby in her pink bassinet, waving her tiny arms and gurgling softly. Cassidy’s heart clenched. She blinked back tears as she picked up the infant and cradled the baby in her arms.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. You and your mama are safe.” She loved babies, could imagine the beautiful babies she and Beau could make, felt a wave of sadness that it was never going to happen.
By the time she carried the infant outside, Josie was there, shouting for her daughter and crying. The café was close enough to hear the sirens. Apparently she figured she had waited long enough.
Beau handed the hysterical girl over to her mother and Missy began to sob in Josie’s arms. Spotting Cassidy approaching with her infant daughter, Missy gave a soft cry and reached for her baby girl.
“Evie’s fine,” Cassidy said. “You’re both okay.”
“Evie . . .” Missy sobbed, carefully cuddling the infant in the crook of her arm. “My sweet little baby.” Tears ran down her cheeks. She looked up at Beau. “I knew you’d come. You saved us. You’ve both been so good to us.”
Beau just nodded, his features grim. Cassidy knew he blamed himself that Missy and Evie had ever been in danger. “They’re okay,” she said to him. “They’re both okay.”
Beau reached for her, pulled her into his arms. “It’s over,” he said, a shudder rippling through his tall, lean body. When he buried his face in her hair, Cassidy hung on hard.
“Missy and Evie are safe,” she said. “Everybody’s okay.”
He swallowed. “If it hadn’t been for Josh . . .” The words trailed off. If it hadn’t been for Josh, Missy would be dead.
Chief Warren walked up and they broke apart. “Josh is giving a statement. You’ll both need to do the same.” He gave them a weary smile. “I’m glad the girl and her baby are okay.”
It was over. Missy and Evie were safe and the hit-and-run driver who had tried to kill Cassidy was dead. The police knew his name now—Franco Giannetti. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“One down, one to go,” Beau said, reminding her there was still a contract killer out there. Cassidy felt like collapsing on the ground, curling into a protective ball, and crying till she ran out of tears.
Instead, she walked next to Beau toward the waiting police.
Chapter Thirty-Three
They gave their statements at a picnic table in the park, trying to ignore the chaos around them, the flashing lights of the patrol cars, the ambulances, EMTs, sheriff’s deputies, and SWAT.
After they’d finished, Beau went in search of Josh. Without him, Missy would be dead. He asked one of the policemen where to find him, but the officer said Josh had given his statement and left.
Beau didn’t know Linc’s brother well, but on the surface at least, Josh was the strong, silent type, a guy who probably didn’t want any thanks. Or maybe he was still just trying to get his bearings in a world so different from the one he’d left behind.
Josh liked his privacy. Unfortunately, by tomorrow, his name would be all over the news.
Eventually, they were able to leave. By the time Beau, Cassidy, and Frank were aboard the chopper on their way back to Dallas, the sun was a big yellow ball rising over the flat Texas landscape, spilling faint gold light on the farms and towns below.
From the Tex/Am building, Beau drove the Ferrari back to the house, with Marino following in the black SUV. Beau checked in with Will Egan while Marino took off for the studio apartment at the far end of the house.
Beau and Cassidy headed for the bedroom, desperate to get some sleep, both of them exhausted. Later, after they were rested, they would start over, try again to solve the mystery that was destroying their lives.
But only three short hours passed before their sleep was disturbed. Only three hours before Beau’s cell rang with a call from Will Egan, warning him the FBI was about to show up at his door.
Beau cursed as he rolled out of bed. Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, he dressed in jeans, shrugged into a long-sleeved T-shirt, and headed down the hall, leaving Cassidy to dress and join him.
She walked into the kitchen a few minutes behind him in a pair of tailored slacks and a yellow turtleneck that outlined her pretty breasts. She looked feminine and professional. This was, after all, the FBI. Considering the situation, it should have been impossible to feel a jolt of sexual heat.
Beau ignored it, turned to the pot of coffee he had just finished brewing, poured three mugs full.
“Cassidy, this is Special Agent Quinn Taggart.” He handed a mug to the agent, handed one to Cassidy. “Agent Taggart and I met a couple of years back when he worked a serial killer case involving one of our female employees. He also worked with Linc last year when he and Carly were having trouble.”
Taggart took a drink of his coffee. “Looks like now you’re the ones having trouble.”
“Nice to meet you, Agent Taggart,” Cassidy said.
“Pleasure’s mine, Ms. Jones.” Taggart was in his late thirties, thick-shouldered and barrel-chested, with short blond hair in a buzz cut. Dressed in a dark brown suit, yellow shirt, and a pair of polished wing tips, he pulled out a chair for Cassidy, one for himself, and they all sat down.
Cassidy took a drink of her coffee, apparently as desperate for a shot of caffeine as Beau was.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, “but would you mind repeating the reason you’re here, Agent Taggart?”
“Actually, we were waiting for you to get here before we started.” Taggart leaned across the table, his authority clear. “Let me begin by saying how glad I am last night’s situation ended with everyone safe.”
Beau grunted. “Everyone but Franco Giannetti.”
One of the agent’s blond eyebrows went up. “I stand corrected. Everyone except Giannetti. Actually, it would have been better for us if Franco had been arrested. As I unde
rstand it, that wasn’t an option.”
“No,” Beau said flatly.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on Franco for a little over a week, hoping something would break. He only recently surfaced on our radar. No prior arrest record, nothing that alerted us to him right away. We didn’t expect him to go rogue the way he did last night, which is why we weren’t there to stop him.”
“Why were you watching him?” Beau asked.
“One of our informants came forward with information that Franco was the man responsible for a string of hit-and-run murders, including the recent attempts on Ms. Jones’s life. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him.”
Beau flicked a glance at Cassidy, who seemed as intrigued by the FBI man’s presence at the house as he was. Giannetti was dead. Why was Taggart there?
“Go on,” Beau said.
“Aside from the man’s hit-and-run, murder-for-hire scheme, we found out one of his paying customers was a man named Clifford Jennings. We were hoping, once we had Franco in custody, we could get him to roll on Jennings. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen now.”
Beau took a sip of his coffee, hoping the caffeine would kick his brain into gear. “So the man you’re after is Clifford Jennings?”
“Yes and no. Jennings works for Malcolm Vaughn. I understand you’ve spoken to Vaughn, that you went to see him in regard to your father’s murder.”
“That’s right,” Beau said, keeping his answers simple till he knew what the hell was going on.
“The man we’re interested in is one of Vaughn’s largest investors,” Taggart continued.
Cassidy caught Beau’s eye, silently asking for his approval. Beau nodded. If they helped the feds, maybe the feds would help them.
“Vaughn’s connected to a man named Luca Reichlin,” she said. “He’s not the guy you’re looking for, but he might help you find him.”
“We know about Reichlin. The man makes his money as a service provider, working at the highest levels. One client at a time, charges big bucks, and anything goes. Currently he’s employed by a Texas billionaire named Jamal Nawabi.”
Beau dredged up a memory from his sleep-deprived brain, something he had read or seen on TV. “I’ve heard of him. Lives in Houston.”
“That’s right. He lives there now, but Nawabi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. Made his money in oil and gas and moved to Houston ten years ago. Net worth approximately thirteen billion.”
Beau’s eyebrows went up. “Definitely not chump change.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“And the FBI is interested in Nawabi because . . . ?”
“Because lately his name has been surfacing in terrorist-related Internet chatter. We have no idea if it amounts to anything or not, but Nawabi lost his family during the war. There’s a chance he might want some kind of payback. We think it’s possible he’s involved with members of the same cell your friend Cain butted heads with last year. That’s why I was assigned the case. We think someone from that cell may have been responsible for the terror attack last week in Houston.”
Beau’s head spun as he tried to put the pieces together. The Houston attack had been all over the news. And everyone in Texas knew about Cain’s clash with the terrorists who had tried to smuggle stinger missiles into Dallas. But how were the attacks related to Franco Giannetti? It made no sense.
Maybe if he got a few more hours of sleep he’d be able to think more clearly.
Taggart turned to Beau. “We’ve asked the Howler County district attorney to hold off on any proceedings against you, Beau. We think your father’s death may somehow be related to our investigation. The DA’s agreed.”
Relief eased some of the tension in his shoulders. “That’s some good news at least.”
“Unfortunately, Beau and I have an even bigger problem,” Cassidy said. “Apparently there’s a contract out on us. We think Mal Vaughn may be behind it.”
Taggart frowned. “I thought Giannetti was the problem.”
“Franco tried and failed,” Beau said. “There’s someone else out there now and it looks like the guy’s a professional. Nearly took us out a few days ago.”
“You report it?”
Beau nodded. “To Detective Briscoe in Pleasant Hill and also the Dallas PD.”
“I met Will Egan, your head of security, when I arrived. I know Frank Marino. He’s a good man.”
“I’ve got round-the-clock protection,” Beau said. “I’m doing everything I can to keep us safe.”
Taggart glanced from one of them to the other. “Best thing you can do is hole up here until we figure this out.”
“Give us a little time to digest all this,” Beau said. “Maybe we can come up with something useful.” Maybe. At the moment, none of the pieces seemed to fit together.
“That’s the reason I’m here,” Taggart said. “We’re hoping, now that you understand the bigger picture, something will occur to you we might be able to use. You understand this is highly confidential. Our discussion doesn’t go beyond this room?”
“Of course,” he and Cassidy said in unison.
Taggart rose from his chair. “Call if you need me.” He handed each of them a business card. Beau pulled out his cell and added the number to his contacts. Cassidy did the same.
“I’ll be in touch,” Taggart said. “In the meantime, you two be careful.”
Beau walked Taggart to the door, then returned to the kitchen, where Cassidy sat sipping her coffee, looking almost as tired as he was.
“Let’s go back to bed,” he suggested, “get a couple more hours’ sleep. Then we’ll start over, take a look at everything we’ve got.”
Cassidy managed a half-hearted smile. “That’s an amazingly good idea.”
Contract killers and terrorists, he thought. Could things get any worse?
Beau shuddered to think that, yeah, maybe they could.
Chapter Thirty-Four
After sleeping a few more hours, Cassidy felt a little better. It was midafternoon, the sun out but clouds beginning to build. Beau was already up, at work in his study.
She made a fresh pot of coffee, carried the thermal pot in with a couple of mugs, and poured them each a cup. She set Beau’s down in front of him and turned to leave, but he caught her arm and tugged her down on his lap. A soft kiss turned slow and hot, and Cassidy’s whole body lit up. The man really knew how to push her buttons.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he said with another soft kiss. “Maybe it’ll clear my head so we can figure this out.”
Cassidy felt a little tug at her heart. She was in so deep with Beau. Way too deep. She wished there was something she could do.
Heading for her side of the desk, she opened her laptop and went to work. As soon as the screen lit up, she checked the GPS on Vaughn’s car, then muffled a curse when she saw that the battery was dead. So was the battery-operated audio device that worked off her cell phone.
She’d been expecting it. Still, they were tools that could no longer be used.
“Anything?” Beau asked.
“Batteries are gone. We’ll have to use the information we already have, go back over everything again.”
His mouth flattened an instant before he went back to work. They started nosing around, going through files, hoping to spot something they had missed. After an hour of unsuccessful digging, Cassidy sat back in her chair.
“Let’s take a break from the computer. What do you say we talk it out, run through our notes out loud, toss some ideas back and forth?”
Beau ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but maybe it’ll help.”
She picked up the yellow pad next to her laptop, and they headed for the table in the corner. She held up the notepad. “Old school,” she said as she sat down across from him. “Let’s start at the beginning.”
Beau grumbled but nodded.
Determination and another cup of coffee fueled them as they delved through the information t
hey had collected in the past few weeks. Cassidy printed the most recent information they had and they went over it verbally, sharing their thoughts aloud.
Beau got up to stretch, work the kinks out of his neck, then sat back down. Cassidy drummed her pencil on the table, drawing his attention.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We’ve gone over this again and again, but we always come to the same conclusion.”
“Yeah,” Beau said, frowning. “Zero, zip, nada.”
“That’s right. So let’s try something new.”
“Something new,” Beau repeated. “I thought that’s what we were doing. But all right, I’m game.”
“Maybe the reason we keep coming up with zip is because we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.” Cassidy studied the notes she’d made on the pad, old ideas revived, new ones doodled on the thin blue lines, some scratched out, others rewritten.
“All this time we’ve been working the money angle,” she said. “The loan your dad made with Vaughn, blackmailing George Larson into selling Green Gables, the building deal on the side, the arson fire for the insurance money, Jess Milford demanding money from Vaughn to keep quiet about what he knew.”
“Money was what my father was all about.”
“Right. Which is why we keep thinking the favor Vaughn’s big client was after had to be something worth very large bucks. But what if money wasn’t what the client wanted?”
Beau pondered the notion. “Taggart says Jamal Nawabi is Luca Reichlin’s client. If Reichlin wanted a favor from Vaughn for his boss, it sure as hell wouldn’t be money. He’s already worth thirteen billion.”
“Exactly. So let’s make a leap and assume the Internet chatter is real. If Nawabi is part of a terrorist cell—”
“Terrorists don’t need money, either. With all the oil they control, groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are swimming in dollars.”
“So what do terrorists want?” Cassidy asked, working through the problem aloud.
“They want to destroy infidels. Anyone who doesn’t believe the same way they do, Americans in particular.”
Cassidy sat up straighter. “That’s right, and to destroy infidels, they need access. Access, Beau. Access to planes to blow up the Twin Towers. Access to streets in the area where the Boston Marathon was being run.”
