Barefoot Bound: A Barefoot Bay Undercover Prequel

by Roxanne St Claire

  “Can’t we make your company another division of this company?” Vivi asked.

  Gabe shook his head. “I can’t do that, V. The whole thing only works if it’s completely invisible. I’m not even going to put a name on the door. I’ll be buried in the back offices of a resort security firm, and no one will know what I’m doing except the clients and select staff. A complete undercover operation is the only way this will work. If word gets out, our clients won’t be safe.”

  Vivi nodded, seeing the sense of that.

  “My brother’s a lone wolf,” Chessie teased, getting up to wrap her arms around him.

  “Not completely lone.” He patted Chessie’s arm. “I tried to steal Nino today, but—”

  “What?” They fired the single syllable in perfect unison, and Gabe held up his hands against the expected barrage.

  “Don’t worry, he said no.” He glanced at the computer, weighing how much to tell them.

  Chessie’s face relaxed into relief, then her expression softened even more. “I can’t say I’d love the idea of Nino leaving, but if he wants to be warm and comfy, who are we to stop him from moving to Florida like a billion other senior citizens?”

  Vivi nodded, though she was clearly not enthused about the idea. “I guess all that matters is that he doesn’t have cancer.”

  Gabe nodded. “No cancer, but he does, however, have a chick on his radar, which is why he says he can’t leave town.”

  Two sets of disbelieving eyes blinked at him.

  “Nino has a girlfriend?” Shock strangled Chessie’s voice.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Gabe said. “But she is trouble. And a liar.”

  “A liar?” Vivi asked.

  Gabe turned back to the computer. “I dug his lady friend up in the database, and…” He finally clicked the link and saw his hunch confirmed. “The old ho bag is married.”

  “Married?” The two of them practically pounced on him. Instead of fighting, he backed away to let Chessie at the keyboard. As her fingers flew and she made her way through back doors to information most people didn’t even know could be found on the Internet—damn, the girl was worth her weight in gold—a profile of a woman who went by “Trisha Browne” and not Patty Sullivan emerged. She had a husband, all right, a multimillionaire investor in biotech firms. They had dough, and plenty of it, with a house in Concord, no kids, and a calendar full of charity events.

  Chessie, of course, wanted to believe that Trisha was stuck in a loveless marriage and in the process of a divorce and wanted it finalized before she went any further with Nino.

  Vivi decided she was probably trying to make her cheating husband jealous by flaunting a “friendship” with a sexy Italian man.

  Gabe wanted to rip Trisha Browne’s fucking throat out.

  “I’m going to be paying Mrs. Browne a visit,” he said, folding up his deli paper just as Vivi snagged the pickle and crunched a bite.

  “Careful, cuz. He might poison your pasta fagioli on Sunday.”

  “Oh, he wants to know,” Gabe said. “He hates that he wants to know, but he does.” Gabe stood and went to stare out the large window that looked down over Newbury. How was Nino going to feel when he found out he’d fallen for a married woman? Probably like the loser in a fight he didn’t even know he was in.

  Chessie clicked away, her competent fingers flying. “I added this extension to the database that tells us the most recent address of everyone we have in the system.”

  “Good. I want to know exactly where she lives.” Gabe turned from the busy street.

  “I’m coming with you.” Vivi grabbed her bag.

  “I don’t need assistance.”

  “Don’t give me your lone wolf crap, he’s my great-uncle and I’d have grown up in some Italian foster home without him. You’re not the only one who cares about his happiness. Gimme five minutes to call Lang and tell him what’s up.”

  Gabe snorted when she was out of hearing distance. “So Lang can insist we spend two weeks lining up the paperwork to get the proper permit to see a judge and apply for a warrant? By then, Nino’s heart could be gone for good.”

  “Colt’s not that bad anymore,” Chessie said. “Here, I’m getting a satellite visual on the Brownes’ house.”

  Gabe leaned in to look. “Did you tell Vivi you went to New York?” he whispered.

  “No, I did not,” Chessie ground out. “And if you do, I’ll kill you, Gabe.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Damn, damn, and double damn. Look at this place, Gabe. A $4.4 million completely restored Victorian complete with a turret.”

  Where she paced…and thought about an elderly Italian man who could cook? Something was off. Way off.

  “And look where it is,” she said. “Not ten minutes from our house in Sudbury.”

  He peered at the map, memorizing the location.

  “What on earth does she want with Nino?” Chessie whispered, echoing his precise thoughts.

  “I don’t know, but I sure as hell plan to find out.”

  * * *

  This time, Gabe used the right car for spying, taking the dark company sedan instead of his GTO to wind through the tree-lined residential streets that smelled of old money and comfortable lives.

  “She’s probably bored and lonely,” Vivi mused from the passenger seat. “What old broad wouldn’t crush on Nino? I mean, he’s a good cook, and I bet his class is a hoot, but isn’t she a little mature to be hot for teacher?”

  Gabe shot her a look. “I’m not sure this attraction goes both ways.”

  “So he’s just imagining it’s happening?”

  Gabe headed into the tony streets of Concord, considering how much of Nino’s confessions to share without tossing the same shit at each other they always did. “He’s not happy, Vivi.”

  “I know, I know. As you like to remind me, I’m not giving him any meaningful work.”

  “He’s lonely.”

  Next to him, Vivi bristled, as if she took the accusation personally. “He does come into the office once a week, and he teaches that class, and the house is almost always full on Sundays.”

  “Don’t you see? He’s facing his own mortality,” Gabe said, putting words to the thoughts that had been slamming at his brain since he’d had the conversation with Nino.

  Vivi huffed out a sigh. “Damn it,” she murmured. “I’ve been so wrapped up in the business and Lang and trying to get pregnant, I’m not even paying attention to the people I love the most.”

  He reached over and put his hand on her arm. “We’re all in this, V. Everyone in this family would die for that old bastard.”

  “But you’re the only one who noticed he’s unhappy.”

  Gabe shrugged. “We got a connection, me and Nino.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “And as much as I hate the idea of you taking him with you, I kind of know it wouldn’t be the worst thing for him. He always had a soft spot for his Angel Gabriel.”

  He choked a soft laugh at the family’s nickname for him, which always reeked of irony. “It’s mutual.”

  After a beat, she turned to face him better. “So, what’s the real reason you’re leaving?”

  Oh, no. Not going there. He squinted into the darkened night. “I think it’s the next side street.”

  “Gabe.”

  He flicked his hand. “I told you the reason. It’s lucrative. It’s interesting. And it’s time.”

  “What makes it time?”

  He kept his mouth clamped and drove, feeling Vivi’s stare on him.

  “Are you in trouble? Is it a woman? Is the CIA trying to lure you back?”

  He almost snorted on the last one. “Does there have to be some nefarious reason for a guy to want to strike out on his own and not be smothered by a small country’s population worth of family members?”

  “If that were an issue, you wouldn’t want to take Nino,” she fired back.

  “Hey, a man’s gotta eat. And the place is fucking paradise, Viv
i.”

  “Do you really think I don’t know you at all? There’s more to this than a cushy gig.”

  He turned away from the road long enough to slice her and her questions down to nothing. “Stuff it. Now.”

  And she did. She folded her arms and looked straight ahead, the same expression everyone in his life wore while he went off to do classified work in the field.

  “I thought all that…that business was over.”

  So did he. “Here’s the street,” he said, jerking the wheel to the right. The headlights shone down a hill, landing on a house facing them, tucked into trees on a perpendicular road. “We can park here and check out the house,” he said.

  “Is it government work or are you going to be a consultant again? I thought that consulting job in Guantanamo ended bad—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Vivi. Is that clear enough?”

  She inched back. “So it’s emotional for you.”

  He turned slowly to her, icing her with a look. “You know what I hate?”

  “Talking about emotions?”

  “Being on an assignment with someone who talks about shit that has nothing to do with the problem at hand. That’s how you get in trouble, you know.”

  She gave a light laugh. “You have more in common with my husband than you realize.”

  “Great, I’ll borrow his nine iron next time I want a pole up my ass.”

  “Make fun of him all you want, but he hated emotions and feelings and anything that made him vulnerable, too. I changed him.”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s a veritable bowl of mush.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes, and it’s really sweet.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Gabriel Rossi, why don’t you let someone in and tell them why you don’t trust anyone and you wear a cloak of sarcasm and cynicism when you’re really very…”

  He put his hand over her mouth. “I really wish you’d get knocked up so you can do all this analyzing on your kid and stay the fuck out of my face.”

  “See? See what I mean?”

  He angled his head. “And you wonder why I want to get the hell away from this place.”

  The rev of a motor pulled their attention, stealing Vivi’s breath as they watched a sleek, navy blue, late-model Jag tear ass out of the driveway.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “Someone’s in a hurry.”

  “I wonder if the house is empty.”

  Vivi gave his shoulder a light punch. “I like the way you think, cuz, but my husband would probably divorce me over a B&E.”

  “He wouldn’t divorce me.” He reached into the backseat for the bag he’d thrown in when they left. “But let’s see if we can find out if anyone’s home first. I brought my FLIR.”

  “The thermal camera? Man, you love that thing.”

  “More than my favorite Glock.” He rarely had to use a weapon these days, but he sure as shit had to see in the dark and know where people might be hiding. And the way to do that was tracking heat, which, for a mere twenty grand, he could do with this infrared camera.

  “The house is completely dark,” Vivi said.

  “Telling me the people who live there are morons. A few outside lights would help security, don’t you think?” He tapped the device to life and aimed it toward the house, instantly able to see the hot spots.

  “How does that work, exactly?” she asked.

  “It measures heat in the house. See, the upstairs is warmer than the downstairs, of course. The highest temperature is up in that round room on the second floor.” He squinted at the screen, then the house. It was utterly dark from corner to corner, but… “Someone’s in that turret.”

  “How can you tell?”

  He showed her the bright yellow spot moving back and forth. “It can’t see through glass, but this is a sensitive piece of equipment and it detects warmth and movement. That has to be a person or an animal.”

  “Maybe they put their dog up there when they go out.”

  “Another security flaw. But it’s certainly moving like someone, or something, who’s trapped.”

  “Either way, you’re not going in there, so put your spy boner away, cuz.”

  Sadly, she was right. He sighed and scanned the whole property with the camera.

  Someone was in the turret. Pacing. Nino’s words ricocheted in his head. She told me she paces.

  “It’s her.”

  “How do you know that?” Vivi demanded.

  “I just do.” He kept the camera pointed at the house, but looked over it, scanning the area with his naked eye. “Maybe I should pay her a visit.”

  “No, Gabe. Someone else is in that house. Look at the way the color is moving downstairs.” She pointed at the screen, where another flash of yellow appeared. Hot. Impossibly hot. Colors exploded on the screen, picking up the intense heat as it moved from the center of the house, directly under the turret.

  “Is that normal?” Vivi asked.

  No. In fact, the downstairs radiated intense temperatures now, almost as if someone had turned on the heat or started a…holy hell.

  “Call 911! The house is on fire!” He threw open the door and ran toward the burning house.

  Chapter Seven

  Gabe ran hard, scanning the home to search for the best point of entry. From the long driveway, the structure still looked normal, no sign of the fire inside.

  But someone was in there, and he didn’t care if it was Satan’s wife, they weren’t going to fry on his watch. It was his only thought as his feet pounded the bricks, the walkway, the front porch. He smacked both hands on the door, instantly feeling the heat behind it. Too much heat. He took a few steps back to get a better look at how he could get up to the turret. He could climb the outside or break in and face down the fire.

  Either way, he was getting in.

  A first-floor window on the other side of the door exploded, and the blast of heat practically flattened him. That answered his question. He had seconds—nanoseconds—to get into the house and upstairs.

  Running in the opposite direction of the exploded window, he used his fist to smash another. Covering his face when the glass shattered, he battled his way up to the windowsill, ignoring the jagged shards that cut him. He landed in a smoky dining room, barely able to see the massive table set for two, food still on the plates. What the hell?

  He covered his mouth and nose and dropped low to crawl farther into the house and find the stairs. Smoke billowed like black, ominous clouds. He followed his instinct, feeling for stairs, finding his way to cooler spots, which were few.

  Everything seared in the heat. His chest, his eyes, his skin. His hand hit the first stair, and he shot up two at a time, following a curve. He held his breath to avoid sucking in smoke, his lungs not aching…yet. He threw himself against the wall, slapping furiously as he searched for a door or opening to where he visualized the turret to be. Suddenly, he hit wood.

  But the door knob was hot, and locked. From the outside, with a key.

  Sonofabitch! Someone was locked in there, and possibly unconscious if the smoke had found a way in.

  Someone—whoever peeled off in the Jag—had locked this door and left someone else to die. This was murder.

  “Hey!” he screamed, choking hard for his effort.

  Nothing but the gunshot cracks of lightbulbs and windows popping answered him, the tearing crackle of walls frying up and furniture igniting. He kicked the door, cursing the overpriced solid-wood doors.

  He hammered the door again and again with his boot, finally splintering it, then it whipped open with a crack. The room was full of smoke already—more than he’d expected. He dropped to the floor and started crawling again, almost instantly finding a body. The body of…

  A man.

  With a grunt, Gabe scooped his arms under the leaden body and hoisted him up and over a shoulder, grateful the guy was wiry and light. Turning, he squeezed his eyes shut, ignored the burn in his throat and sting in his chest and ran back down the way he’d come, barely aware of the fl
ames around him as he shot into the dining room and let the guy out the window into the bushes.

  The shrill squeal of a siren cut through the night. Squeezing his smoke-burned eyes, Gabe leaped over the bushes and brought the man down to the grass. He knelt next to him, taking in an aging face and gray hair, as he felt his throat for a pulse. He found one just as the older man choked and wheezed.

  “You’re safe,” Gabe assured him.

  He just moaned and coughed some more.

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” Gabe demanded.

  He shook a gray head, still wheezing.

  “Your wife?” he prodded.

  “She tried to kill me.” He gasped on the words, falling into a fitful choke.

  “Someone did,” Gabe said. “Locked you in a burning house.”

  “No…she tried to…use this.” Fighting for strength, he moved his hand and found his way into his pocket. Slowly, he inched something out into the light, silver glinting from the orange flames behind them.

  A knife. A long chef’s knife with a familiar wood handle. Gabe didn’t need to look any closer to know the initials NR were carved into that handle. He’d been there in Florence when it was made.

  “She wanted to stab me…ran through the house…locked me up there…”

  Revulsion rose like bile in Gabe’s throat. That knife would lead right to one person…a man who happened to be quite interested in Mrs. Browne.

  As the sirens got closer, Gabe looked up, seeing Vivi running toward him. He made a split-second decision, standing and waving for her to stop.

  “Help is coming,” he promised the man. Without waiting for an answer, Gabe took off toward Vivi, who was shouting questions at him.

  “We gotta go!” he said, shoving her into the yard so they could get back to the car without being seen.

  “Where?”

  “Home.” He had to get to Nino.

  * * *

  The house in Sudbury was dark but for a flickering light in an upstairs bedroom.

  “Aunt Fran told me she and Uncle Jim had a thing at the country club tonight, so Nino’s home alone,” Vivi said.

  “He better be alone,” Gabe growled as they neared the house.