by Harper Allen
And by the time it is, I’ll be in Room 507 with some of Denver’s finest, getting fitted with a wire, she told herself shakily. After that, all I have to do is call Helio on the cell phone once more and find out where he wants to meet me.
Breen had assured her she would never be in any real danger. If he hadn’t been able to promise her that, Marilyn acknowledged as she glanced up at the number of the hotel room she was passing and kept going, she would have contacted Colleen Wellesley through Lexy and handed the matter over to her, however regretfully.
And Colleen would have passed Helio’s contact number on to Con, she thought, along with a warning to him not to attempt to play a lone hand but to use ColCon as backup. My Creole gentleman would have given her his most rakish grin, sworn up and down that he wouldn’t dream of going after Helio alone, and all the while he would have been lying through his teeth.
“You were born a gambler, Con,” she said softly. “I didn’t know until I met you that there were some things worth taking a risk on. Helio thinks I want money to keep my mouth shut about Tony’s theft of the virus, and I’m going to get him to talk on tape just enough so that the authorities have grounds to hold him for questioning. After that it’s up to Colleen and Colorado Confidential, and you and I can start living that life you told me about—coffee and beignets in bed, walking through the French Quarter together, long New Orleans nights spent in each other’s arms. I’ve just got to play this one last card for us to have it all, Con, and then—”
She’d reached 507. She halted so abruptly she nearly lost her balance. With a suddenly trembling hand, she tapped quietly on the room’s door, and almost immediately it opened.
“Captain Br—”
The greeting died in her throat as she met the eyes of the man standing in front of her. They were cold eyes, with a curiously flat, dead quality about them.
They were eyes that wouldn’t look out of place just inches above the murky waters of a swamp, watching unblinkingly as its foolish prey moved into easy reach.
Marilyn’s bones seemed to turn suddenly to ice. She’d just turned over the river card, she thought with sick dread. And Helio DeMarco had been underneath it all along.
Chapter Fifteen
He’d had it with Colorado Confidential, Con thought furiously as he strode into the Royal Flush, the Confidential agents the Wellesley woman had sent to bring him in following him like casino goons escorting a cheat to the manager’s office. He’d been ready to make his move when they’d waylaid him as he was getting into his car and told him that he could either accompany them to ColCon headquarters without causing a fuss or in handcuffs, whatever his choice.
“Thanks, Ryan, Shawn.” Turning from the long pine bar, Wellesley passed her glance over him without pause and smiled thinly at her two employees. “Did he give you any grief?”
“Not much.” Shawn was the chatty one, Con had discovered on the drive from Denver to the ranch. The rugged blond man was over the moon about some Doctor Kelley Stanton and her little daughter, so Con had heard ad nauseum all the way. And Ryan wasn’t much better, prosing about some long-lost love he’d just reunited with. “Not after we cuffed him, anyway.”
“You’d better give me the keys to those cuffs before you leave, then.” Again acting as if he was beneath her notice, Colleen approached the two men, her hand held out for the key Ryan produced from his pants pocket.
Con snorted, and went behind the bar. Lifting down a bottle of bourbon and selecting a squat tumbler from the collection of glassware on the counter, he poured himself a shot and tossed it back. He set the glass back down on the bar.
“Catch, Shawn.”
Even as the handcuffs arced past her Colleen reached out and grabbed them. She fixed him with a flat stare, but her words were directed to the two men behind her.
“I’ll take it from here, gentlemen.” Her tone was steel. “Thanks again for bringing him in.”
“Bringing me in,” Con repeated as the Confidential agents left the room. “Like I’m a criminal. In case you forgot, Wellesley, I’m working on the same side you are, so what’s this merde about bringing me in, dammit?” His voice took on an edge. “Do you know what you screwed up when you sent those two after me?”
“You’re not working on my side, Burke.”
She reached for the scotch she’d obviously just poured before he’d walked in. Con’s gaze narrowed on the slight tremor in her fingers, and immediately Colleen set the glass down again.
“You’re not working on anyone’s side,” she said. This time it was her voice that shook. “You’re a maverick, a lone rider, a hired gun. I called you in here to tell you there’s no place for a man like you in this organization. You’re off the investigation into DeMarco, as of now.”
He stared at her disbelievingly. “Are you out of your mind, cher’?” He gave a short laugh. “I’m your best bet—hell, your only bet when it comes to catching that bastard. And as a matter of fact, if your people hadn’t interrupted me when they did, DeMarco would probably be in custody right now.”
“If my people hadn’t taken you in when they did you’d be a dead man by now, dammit!” As if her slender reserve of control had been finally depleted, Colleen slammed her palm sharply down on the surface of the bar. She went on, her voice rising. “What the hell were you thinking, going after him by yourself like that? Do you realize he was aware of every move you made after you left the morgue and followed him this morning?”
Con’s gaze narrowed. “The hell you say.” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I took every precaution, from the time I left that parking garage three nights ago and arranged with the coroner to pose as one of the morgue attendants, to when DeMarco showed up this morning to claim his nephew’s body for burial.”
“Every precaution but one. Captain Jack Breen saw you talking with the coroner that night. And the good police captain’s as dirty as they come,” Colleen informed him flatly.
Con was more shaken than he was willing to admit. “Looks like I owe you one, Wellesley.” Out of habit he extracted the silver dollar from his waistcoat pocket. A moment later the coin was slipping familiarly through his fingers. He frowned. “I should have informed you of my plans when I reported Corso’s death. It won’t happen again—”
“No, it won’t.” Wellesley raked a slim hand through her cropped hair. “Like I said, this is the end of the line for you with Colorado Confidential, Burke. You’re booked on a flight out of Denver this afternoon, going nonstop to your beloved Big Easy. You’ll be listening to decent jazz and scaring up a card game on Canal Street by tonight.”
“Does Wiley know about this?” The coin between his fingers slipped and he caught it before it fell from his hand.
For the first time since he’d walked in Colleen’s hard gaze softened. “Yeah, Wiley knows, Con,” she said quietly. “He was the one who recommended taking you off the case.”
She sighed. “Remember when we first met I told you I didn’t like tricky? I found out you pulled a fast one on us right from the start. We know about your relationship with Marilyn, Burke, and we know you were involved with her even before we asked you to keep an eye on her for us. She’s carrying your child, isn’t she?”
Con met her gaze. He felt a dull pain in his palm, and realized he was clenching the coin in his hand so tightly that the worn edges were pressing into his skin. He tried to relax his grip and found he couldn’t.
“There’s no way I should have been able to give her a baby,” he said hoarsely. “But yes, Marilyn’s carrying our child. Now do you understand why you can’t take me off this case, Wellesley? If you know her baby’s father is the man who’s made it his mission in life to bring down Helio DeMarco, make no mistake, DeMarco himself knows. And he won’t hesitate to go after her.”
“That’s one of the reasons why Wiley and I don’t want you on this case anymore,” Colleen said with a return of her earlier hardness. “You know as well as we do that it’s a recipe for disaster when an agent has a pers
onal stake in an investigation.”
Con frowned. “You said that’s one of the reasons,” he said dismissively. “If that’s all you’ve got, you’re holding a pretty poor hand. With my knowledge and experience of DeMarco, I’d say I’m still playing the high cards here.”
Wellesley’s mouth quirked up into a one-sided smile. She reached for the drink she’d set aside earlier, and downed the scotch in one gulp, her gaze over the rim of the glass never leaving his.
“You just demonstrated the other reason, Burke,” she said evenly. “This isn’t a poker game, with every man for himself. Colorado Confidential is a team, and you just can’t bring yourself to be a team player, can you?”
She shrugged. “The election’s in two days. If DeMarco plans to release the virus, it will be sometime before midnight tonight so the media has a full day to hammer home the connection between Josh Langworthy and the dozens of deaths we expect will occur. We’re in a race against time here—we’ve alerted state officials to put extra security on public buildings and we’ve recommended that all small planes be grounded for the next twenty-four hours, especially those outfitted with crop-dusting apparatus, but those are just two possible ways DeMarco could disseminate the virus. Our only guarantee of averting what could be the most devastating biological attack America’s ever known is to find him before he can put his plan into effect.”
She shook her head. Watching her, Con thought he saw a flash of regret in her dark eyes. “And we still don’t have a lead on Sky’s kidnapping. We can’t afford to gamble on this one, Burke,” she said with finality. “And since you’re a gambler, we can’t risk having you in on it.”
“What if I go after DeMarco without ColCon’s blessing?” Con allowed an edge of anger into his question.
Colleen looked confused for a moment. Then her brow cleared. “ColCon. That would be your private name for my merry band of undercover cowpokes, I’m guessing.” She gave him a tight smile. “Your plane leaves in two hours. If you aren’t on it the Marshalls themselves have orders to bring you in.”
He liked to tell himself he knew enough to fold his cards and leave the table when he was beaten, Con thought. Truth was, he wasn’t always that smart. But this was different. He could see it in the ex-cop’s eyes. She would carry through with her threat if he tried to finesse this any further.
He knew with sudden certainty that even if ColCon…Colorado Confidential, he corrected himself wearily, managed to thwart DeMarco’s plan in time, the man himself would sink out of sight.
There’s only one way you gon’ keep her safe, Cap, he told himself bleakly. You have to make a clean break with her—never see her again, never contact her, never be there for your child. If DeMarco thinks she was only a passing fling, he won’t see her as a way to get to you and he’ll leave her alone.
“Your two agents can give me a ride back to the city?” At his query, he saw Colleen exhale, and he realized she’d been holding her breath. He managed a smile. “Naw, cher’, I ain’t gon’ cause you no more trouble,” he said in his thickest drawl. Her answering smile was uncertain, and he went on in a more subdued tone. “That’s the truth. You don’t have to worry about me on top of everything else, Wellesley. Give my best to Wiley when you see him, will you?”
When she didn’t answer he turned to walk away. He’d gotten halfway to the door when she spoke.
“Burke.” Con looked back at her, taking in the tense set of her mouth, the faint shadows beneath those dark eyes. She met his gaze steadily. “You could have been the best Confidential agent of all, you know—good enough to have headed up your own organization. Wiley thought so, and even though I couldn’t see it at first, now I know what he was talking about. I wish things had worked out differently.”
Something twisted inside him. He forced a tight grin. “Hell, cher’, what makes you think I would have wanted that? Besides…Big Easy Confidential? It just doesn’t have the right ring to it, now, does it?”
He should have wished her luck with the case, Con thought as he strode out of the Royal Flush and crossed the gravel drive to the idling vehicle and the two agents waiting beside it. But Colleen Wellesley wasn’t the type to count on luck, he supposed. She was methodical, motivated and a good leader of good people, no matter what he’d said in the past. And against Helio DeMarco, she was going to need all those qualities.
“That handcuff trick—how’d you work that, Burke?” It was Shawn who posed the question, and Con lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
“Years of dealing off the bottom of the deck gives a man an edge, Cap,” he said mildly. Even as he spoke he realized he was still holding his silver dollar in his hand, and he tossed it carelessly into the air.
“Dealing off the bottom. That’s cheating.” The agent scowled heavily.
Con sighed. The coin reached the top of its arc and began falling again. “Yeah, I guess in Colorado that’s cheat—”
“Burke! Burke!”
He spun around, the coin tumbling unheeded to the ground behind him. Colleen Wellesley, her face a tight mask, was running lightly down the verandah steps. Con’s heart lurched in his chest.
“It’s Marilyn, isn’t it?” he rasped. “What’s happened to her, Wellesley? Tell me, dammit!”
“She gave Kanin the slip.” The brunette put her hand on his arm. “But that’s not all, Con. Right after Lexy rang off I got another call, this one from a buddy of mine in the police department. Tom’s one of the good ones. I trust him,” she added.
Con shook off her hand. “Cut and deal, Wellesley,” he grated. “What’s happened to Marilyn?”
Her eyes darkened. “Tom says he walked in on a phone conversation Jack Breen was having with someone. Tom didn’t hear much before Breen realized he wasn’t alone and shut up, but he got the impression Breen had scammed some woman into thinking she was helping the police in a wire operation. Tom said Breen called the person he was talking to ‘Lio’.”
“Helio. But we don’t know for sure that the woman he set up was Marilyn.” Con heard desperation in his voice, and saw compassion in Colleen’s gaze.
“Not for sure, no. But Breen described her as a mama-to-be, Burke. That has to be Marilyn.”
An invisible knife slashed between Con’s ribs. It hacked a bloody circle around his heart, pierced it, and drew it, still beating, from his body. He looked down at his chest and saw that none of that had happened.
It just felt like it had.
“I’m hauling in every available Confidential agent to look for Marilyn. I know you’re going to want to go after her yourself, Burke. I’ll inform both my men and the Marshalls Service that you’re to be left strictly alone.”
She started to turn back to the house, and Con found his voice. “No.” The single word came out as a croak. He took a deep breath. “No, Wellesley, this isn’t a goddamn poker game. I don’t want to play a lone hand on this one. Tell me how Colorado Confidential can use me as part of the team.”
Dark eyes widened in disbelief at him. Then they narrowed. “How the hell do you think we can use you?” she said briskly. “You’re the expert on Helio DeMarco, aren’t you?”
Wellesley stood back. “You’re heading up this operation, Burke. Shawn, Ryan, come join us in the meeting room. Burke, Colorado Confidential’s going to be behind you all the way.”
“I’M NOT A MONSTER, I’m a businessman, it’s as simple as that. Your friend the Marshall has been bad for business lately, and losing the woman he loves and the child he fathered is going to show him he can’t win against me.”
Helio DeMarco snapped impatient fingers, and obediently the thin man standing at the hotel room’s door looked up. “Go check the lobby,” DeMarco ordered. “The doctor should have been here ten minutes ago. Probably the fool’s forgotten who he’s supposed to be asking for.”
The thin man smiled. “Right away, Mr. Cheesman, sir.” His smile turned dubious. “Boss, you sure you’re going to be okay here with—”
“With a pregnant woman wh
o’s tied to a chair and gagged, to boot?” DeMarco finished dryly. “I think so, Simons. Go on, see if you can find Halid. We want to be out of Denver before—” He glanced at Marilyn, apparently thinking better of completing his sentence. “Just get Dr. Halid up here. We’re running out of time.”
As DeMarco’s man slipped quietly from the room, behind the strip of duct tape that covered her mouth Marilyn managed a frantic, guttural sound. The mobster glanced at her.
“That’s not going to happen. You could swear to me on your baby’s life you wouldn’t scream and I still wouldn’t believe you. We don’t have anything to talk about anyway, Marilyn.” He looked bored. “This isn’t a movie. I’m not going to conveniently tie up all the loose ends of the mystery just in time for the hero to crash through that door and arrest me.”
Even as he began to turn away, Marilyn forced another desperate grunt from the back of her throat. DeMarco’s lips thinned.
“You’re going to keep that up, aren’t you?” He shrugged, the movement tight with irritation, and walked across the room to the television set half-hidden behind an entertainment armoire’s louvered doors. Picking up the remote, impatiently he turned it on and selected the display feature, scanning the pay-per-view movies available. He punched in a channel number and tossed the remote aside.
A chilling scream filled the hotel room. Marilyn jumped, her movement immediately constrained by the tape binding her to the chair she was sitting in. Slanting her gaze toward the television, she saw a hockey-masked and knife-wielding figure slashing at a victim while the soundtrack rose to a terrifying crescendo.
DeMarco stood in front of her. With one quick pull he ripped the tape from her mouth. Tears jumped to her eyes at the sudden stinging pain.
“Why is a doctor coming here?” Despite the pain her words spilled forth frantically. “What is he going to do to me?”
Helio hesitated. Something flickered at the back of those cold, dead eyes, and to her horror Marilyn realized that it was a flash of amusement.
