Cort hadn’t grown up with siblings but he recognized when family pushed each other’s emotional buttons. Marton had been a heavy smoker. The case probably wasn’t the only factor in his death, but Cort would keep that opinion to himself.
Cassie blew a lung full directly at her sister. “She’d have twenty fits if she knew you wanted to dig around in the case.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. I said it all on the phone.” Mara turned to Cort. “Come on. I’ll pour you some coffee before we head downstairs.”
In the kitchen she poured aromatic brew from a drip coffeemaker into two bright red ceramic mugs and added cream and sugar to hers. “Basement door’s over here.” The handle rattled when she tried it but it didn’t turn.
Arms firmly planted on her hips, she went to the breezeway. “Door’s locked.”
Cassie laid her smoke in the ashtray and swung out of the deck chair. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to take those files.”
Cort retreated to a dark corner of the unlit kitchen to watch the battle.
Mara chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. “They’re Dad’s files. I have as much right to them as you do.”
“But it’s my house now, not Mom’s. What you’re doing can lead to nothing good. Dredging it all up again.”
Mara looked like she’d been slapped. “You think he’s guilty.” Apparently she’d just realized the source of her sister’s resistance.
Cassie lifted one shoulder in dismissal. But the red flush on her face said the accusation hit the bull’s-eye. She was named right. Cassandra, the predictor of doom.
Time to step in. This was his fight. “Mara isn’t doing this only for herself,” he said. “It’s partly because I asked her.”
“You just want the loot.” Cassie’s mouth was tight with emotion.
“I want my life back. I paid my debt to society, but the FBI won’t let me move on. If I can lead them to the crown jewels, I’ll be free once and for all.” He could hold up his head instead of holding out a damn tin cup for crumbs.
“Not my problem, is it?”
“Cassie!” Mara knitted her hands together in supplication. “This is for us, for Mom. She could have Dad’s pension if he’s cleared.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“At least I tried.” Mara’s mouth was tight, her shoulders hunched. “Don’t forget you still owe me thousands for my half of this house. If I took you to court, that line you’ve drawn in the sand would be blown away. Is keeping me from Dad’s files that damned important to you?”
Red faced, Cassie shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “I didn’t think of the pension. This search, investigation, whatever—it better not hurt Mom. The key’s in the junk drawer.”
A short while later, Cort followed Mara outside with one of the two file boxes. He enjoyed how her low-slung jeans fit her curvy butt. He wanted her but couldn’t afford to alienate her. He needed her. But no stopping the fizz of chemistry in his veins. And he liked her. She was feisty and smart.
“You know I hate this, Mara,” Cassie said, her smoker’s rasp adding another layer of doom. “Opening up Dad’s last case. Cozying up to this, this—”
Sparks flared in his veins. “Thief? Ex-Con? Those the words you want?”
He shoved the two boxes into the truck bed and slammed shut the cap gate. When he saw her tears, the fear and pain, he reminded himself she was justified in her fear.
On a deep breath, he calmed his expression, his voice, kept it even. “I promise to do all I can to keep Mara safe. She believes in your dad. If we can figure out who my father’s accomplices were, your dad is in the clear and so am I. So chill.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat and breathed deeply in a rhythmic pattern—an exercise he’d learned in prison anger management classes—while he waited for Mara.
***
Cassie reached for her sister’s hand. She had to try to talk her out of this misadventure. “If he has to keep you safe, what didn’t you tell me?”
“He’s just the protective sort. I’ll be all right, Cass,” Mara said. “Mr. Devlin’s going to help us with the investigation.”
How could Mara bear to go through this again? Her throat tight, Cassie shook her head. “Let Jones take the boxes. You stay out of it.”
Mara’s eyes widened. “Now you trust him more than I do. I don’t plan to let Dad’s files out of my sight. If Cort took off on his own, clearing Dad would be a dead issue.”
“He’s a good-looking guy. I saw the way he looked at you. You sure this isn’t—”
“Whoa!” Mara held up her hands. “No way. You can back off on that one. He may be a hunk but I’m not going to be like Mom.”
“Whatever. But what if you go on this wild goose chase and still don’t clear Dad? You don’t know what dangers you might be facing.” Cassie sniffed back her tears.
Mara looked about to say something but only handed her a tissue and hugged her.
Cassie mopped at her eyes and kissed her sister on the cheek. “You always were stubborn. Just make sure your methodical ways keep you safe.”
Mara grinned. “I never even asked you about Livvie. How’s my fave niece?”
“Your only niece, kiddo,” Cassie replied. The tension in her throat relaxed now they were on safer ground. “What can I say? She’s eight going on twenty. Wants a tattoo on her ankle. I’m hanging tough but I only hope Walt doesn’t cave under the wheedling.”
Mara opened the truck passenger door. “Look it up on the Internet. Tattooing anyone that young is probably illegal.”
Cassie heaved a sigh. The ash on her cigarette had grown nearly an inch and she tapped it onto the pavement. “You’ve just saved me a headache.”
“Until she’s sixteen or so.” Mara held the door partway open. “And promise me you won’t tell Mom about this. I don’t want to worry her.”
Cassie pressed her lips together in thought. “I don’t know.”
“Look, I’ll tell her myself if we get anywhere. If nothing pans out, she doesn’t need to know. Okay?”
“I guess. Deal.”
Cassie watched as the big black truck pulled around the corner and disappeared. Too-trusting Mara didn’t know what she was getting into. After all these years, no way were they going to get anywhere finding proof of Dad’s innocence. Or those jewels. All they’d find was more trouble. And more pain.
***
The truck rolled away and Mara waved goodbye. She noted Cort’s thin slash of a mouth and set jaw as they reversed their route. He kept his emotions under tight control, but she was beginning to read him. He kept a lot of hurt buried.
Cassie’d gone on the attack but even she yielded to his potent maleness and the internal scars he couldn’t conceal. “Sorry about my sister. She’s five years older and defensive.”
He hit her with his stone-gray gaze. Hypnotic when he really looked at her. As if she were the only person in the world. She could barely drag her gaze away.
“Not a problem,” he said. “I just want to get these boxes opened up.”
“Exactly what I want.” Why she’d never examined them before, she wasn’t sure. Maybe too heavy a burden to go through what the FBI had already searched. If they came up empty, what could she find? And, like Cassie, she dreaded the pain of opening old wounds. But now with a ray of hope, she had to take the chance. “Plus, the divorce has her all on edge.”
“I gathered that. The daughter was with the ex.” He frowned at the side mirrors.
“Tough situation. Cassie came home from work early to find Walt in bed with her best friend. To her credit, she kicked both of them out of her life that very day. Walt and the best friend aren’t together now but Cassie doesn’t forgive.”
“Don’t blame her. I know what it’s like to be screwed over.”
So did she. Her dad was innocent. He had to be. Once a crook, always a crook. His favorite saying. Too painfully ironic if it applied to him. And her as a transgressor.
“You tell her about being attacked last night?” Cort asked.
“No way. She’d have called Mom, gotten her on my case. One of her Korean lectures is all I need.”
“Your mom teach you girls her language?”
“We learned some when we were kids but both of us lost interest by high school. Even in Korean I’d know I was on the receiving end of a scolding.”
He grinned then straightened in his seat as he checked the mirrors again. “Get a hold on that safety handle above you.”
She blinked. “What?”
He reached across her, blocking her view. “This.”
She slid her gaze along his sinewy forearm to the handle above the door. “You don’t trust the seatbelts or something?”
“You’re gonna need it. Humor me.”
As soon as she had a firm grip, he shifted to Neutral. He yanked the steering wheel a hard left and stood on the brakes. In the middle of traffic, the truck swerved into the opposite lane in a tight U-turn.
Tires shrieked. Horns blared.
The move flung Mara right shoulder first into the passenger door. Her breath blew out in a whoosh. Her fingers froze around the safety handle.
When the truck threatened to fishtail, Cort corrected the steering. His jaw set in stone, he shifted to Drive. The truck shot forward, laying more rubber with an ear-splitting squeal. The G-force thrust Mara back in her seat. They zoomed the opposite direction down the street, zigzagging around traffic so fast she barely registered the other vehicles.
“What the hell is this, NASCAR?” she croaked.
“Losing our tail.”
“What?” She peered back between the bucket seats. “Someone’s following us?”
“Watch for a black Explorer.”
“That’s an SUV, right?” What did she know about big, macho vehicles?
“Ford, yeah.”
At the next intersection, he made a hairpin turn right onto a one-way street the wrong way. He squealed around a green van headed their way. After that she didn’t want to look.
“Anybody back there?”
Turning around, she dared a peek. “A few shocked motorists giving you the one-finger salute out the windows.” She closed her eyes, picturing what she’d seen. “Maybe a black SUV. But it didn’t turn into this street.”
“Good. I’m not done yet. Hang tight.”
Chapter 6
Another sharp turn followed that one, and another, careening the truck nearly off its tires. Now she knew what the expression heart in your throat felt like. The pickup bounced across railroad tracks, and they entered the industrial area near the marine terminal. Finally Cort reduced the break-neck speed and zipped through an open chain-link gate into an abandoned shipping business. The pickup rolled to a stop behind a warehouse.
“We’ll wait here awhile,” Cort said. “Allow time for them to give up looking.”
Mara released her grip on the handle, one cramped finger at a time. “What the hell was that about?” she said when she could trust her voice again.
He rolled down the driver’s window and adjusted the side mirror. “The SUV picked us up the block after Cassie’s house. Hung back a car length or two but stayed with us.”
She twisted her fingers together. “You think it’s the thug who attacked me last night?”
He covered her shaking hands with one of his rough workingman’s hands. “Maybe. Could be FBI. They’re driving dark SUVs now instead of sedans.”
Any minute she expected to hear sirens. When after a few minutes, all she heard were the normal, distant traffic noises, she breathed easier. “Where did you learn to drive like that?”
His mouth curved in a teasing smile that dented the small new-moon scar on his left cheek into a dimple. She’d have to shore up her resistance to this boyish side of him.
“Misspent youth doing some street racing. Used to sneak out of the house after midnight. Mom went ballistic when she found out. Even Leon disapproved.”
“What father wouldn’t?”
He lifted a shoulder as if to dismiss Leon’s attempt at discipline. “He was afraid it’d draw police attention onto him.”
“It’s possible he genuinely feared for your safety.”
He grunted his doubt of that and started the engine.
He brushed off his hurt, kept it unspoken but the aura of anguish around him was palpable. How sad to be betrayed by his own father. Her dad, no, never.
They drove home the longer way, across the Francis Scott Key Bridge and via the Baltimore-Washington Expressway, a route no one would expect them to take. She hoped.
***
At the end of Cassie Marton’s street, Rolf Rousso stabbed the End Call button on his phone and muttered a string of profanity. He should’ve known that idiot would lose them. But the greedy pair were his only connection to the puzzle rings.
The Jeweler had led Centaur on a merry chase for years. He would not let the son do the same to him. Retrieving the Gramornia crown jewels would be his ticket to move up in the smuggling syndicate, to be management. He would no longer have to sit in a rental subcompact and rely on idiot locals for assistance.
He had grown up sleeping on the floor beside his snoring older brothers. Their father drank most of the money their mother earned on her back. Rousso had grubbed for every coin he could beg, con, or steal. He was never sinking again to such misery.
Never. The Gramornia jewels were as good as his. As Centaur’s, he amended.
He turned the ignition key. No purr or roar of a finely tuned engine, only a basic vehicle, nothing to attract unwanted attention.
Jones and the Marton girl had led him to what he suspected was their weak link. A little research and he would know exactly how to use her.
***
Later that night Cort dug into Mara’s cooking at her cocktail table as they finished with the first box of files. So far the only indication of her father’s possible guilt or innocence was the lack of any. No proof of anything.
“Ate in a Korean restaurant in Boston once. This dish isn’t exactly rice with tofu and kimchi,” he teased as he forked up a bite of chicken and pasta primavera. She’d accompanied the dish with a fresh green salad.
“The only Korean dish I know how to prepare is gam-ja-tang, a pork stew with potato and vegetables. Dad was a meat and potatoes eater. And kimchi?” She affected a shudder. “Way too eye-watering for this girl. I prefer Italian.”
“I’ll eat this anytime.” He scarfed down more.
After thanking him, she nibbled from her plate as she organized the mess of files they’d examined in the first box. Somebody stuffed copies of police reports in folders with Marton’s notes and insurance reports.
Elegant and exotic even in a simple lime-green jersey, faded jeans, and flip flops, she seemed to have settled down after their dodge’em maneuvers in Dundalk. She’d pulled her glossy hair back in one of those scrunchie things. He took in how the thick chunk of it slid onto one shoulder as she bent forward. When she reached for the piles nearest him, her knee pressed against his and her scent underlined with savory sauce swirled in his head.
To distract himself he looked around the room. Comfortable furniture in primary colors—reds in the sofa and pillows, strong blues, greens—elegant and feminine but not frilly, like the woman. Family photographs and bold abstract paintings scattered the walls around shelves. A yoga mat lay rolled up in one corner beside a tennis racquet and bag.
She’d set aside in a stack her magazines—Wired, PC World, Smithsonian Magazine—before they sat down. She was meticulous about the filing, to the point of adding new folders and labels. With a felt-tip pen, she labeled the next folder “Police Reports,” with the dates involved. Her lips were pursed in concentration.
Soft and kissable, he bet. He needed to ditch those thoughts. Hell, he wasn’t here for fun and games and neither was she.
He set his empty plate on the table and noted she’d barely touched her food except for the salad. Metho
dical and exacting, good qualities. But was she overcompensating for the cloud around her father by trying to be perfect?
“I’m surprised your father was so disorganized.” He enjoyed a swallow of cabernet.
“The files were probably in folders or neat piles on Dad’s desk when the FBI took them away. When they returned the boxes, Mom stored them away without looking at the files.” Her voice caught on the last word but she firmed her mouth. “I don’t know who to blame for the mess—the FBI or the DSF operative who dug into the case later.”
“Does organizing matter now? We’ve examined them.”
She glanced up from the label she was affixing to a folder. The stress and exhaustion showed in fine lines around her eyes. “Not enough. We may want to go through those papers again in case we miss something.”
Thorough, he’d give her that. “What about computer disks?”
“Maybe in the other box. Back then he backed up his files on floppies. I’d have to take those to the office to see if they’re corrupted.” She edged back and picked up her plate.
Cort looked at the short list he’d made in his spiral notebook. Marton had eliminated most of the people the FBI questioned. “Looks like he narrowed the suspects to the security guards and Leon’s usual partner. Must’ve figured Falco knew something even if he didn’t take part in the burglary. Falco might tell me what he wouldn’t reveal back then.”
She cocked her head. “You took his part in the break-in. Why don’t you have another one of the ring pieces?”
“I refused a cut.” He should’ve refused the whole dodgy enterprise, but he’d been a dumb-ass kid and Leon a smooth talker. “Maybe he gave that piece of the ring to Falco before the job and didn’t have time to get it back from him.”
“A possibility.” Appearing to take his hint not to grill him further, Mara peered at her laptop screen. She scrolled down the names and the scant information. “This guard, George Hauptman, stayed in the central security headquarters, monitoring the closed-circuit system.” She worried a corner of her lower lip between her teeth.
Ring of Truth (Devlin Security Force Book 2) Page 5
