by Fiona Brand
Elaine’s hand landed in the center of Taylor’s chest. She shoved, her expression livid. “Then earn it on your back at Tony’s. You’re not getting a cent out of me.”
The door slammed a bare inch from Taylor’s nose.
She let out a breath. Life was good.
Slater had been dating a hooker. Which was why he had hidden the relationship—he hadn’t wanted Lopez to know. As head of security, and an insider on cartel discussions, Slater was in a privileged and delicate position. Dating a hooker was a definite no-no. If Lopez had ever found out, Slater would have been wearing a concrete jacket at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Tony’s was a discreet bar and massage parlor at the edge of town. The wig now lying on the backseat, Taylor sat back and watched the entrance, sipping a coffee she’d picked up from a drive-through.
At this time of the day, late afternoon, nothing much was happening, which was predictable. After another fruitless half hour, where only a handful of men strolled in and out of the premises, she locked the car and walked across the road and into the bar. There were half a dozen guys just off work seated at tables and at the counter, and a couple of girls, trolling the crowd. Taylor ignored everyone but the bartender.
After ordering a glass of wine she barely sipped, she picked up her bag and walked through to the bathroom, which she really needed to use. When she was finished, instead of walking back into the bar, she slipped through a back door into the massage parlor. An attractive dark-haired woman seated behind a desk stopped flipping through a magazine and lifted a brow. Taylor could tell from the look that they didn’t often get women in.
Taylor plucked a name out of the air. “Excuse me, maybe I’m in the wrong place, but I’m looking for a friend. She said she worked here. Her name’s Miriam Butler.” In a place like this, she was pretty certain there couldn’t possibly be anyone by that name.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have a Miriam here.”
Taylor manufactured a frown. “I’m sure this is the place. I was really looking forward to seeing her. We were at school together.”
The woman closed the magazine. “Just a minute, I’ll check.” She shrugged. “Sometimes the girls do change their names.”
When she pushed a curtain aside, Taylor followed her into a small lounge. There were four girls seated watching TV. A redhead, a delicate Asian girl and two blondes—one platinum, the other honey-blond. Elaine had reacted to Taylor’s honey-blond wig, so she was betting she was the one.
The receptionist spun around when she realized Taylor was behind her. “I’m sorry, you do have the wrong place. There’s no one called Miriam here.”
Taylor pulled out her badge and flashed it. The effect was instantaneous. “If you do hear of her, let me know. I’ll be in town for a while. I’m staying at the Winton Court Motel, so I’m easy to find.”
When she reached for a pen the woman said, “Don’t bother, we know where the Court is.”
No one would ever ring, but that didn’t matter, because the charade had achieved exactly what she wanted. The honey-blonde had gone as white as a sheet.
Smiling and apologizing for the disturbance, Taylor backed out of the tiny room, turned on her heel and strode out of the bar. Ignoring a catcall, she strolled across the road, climbed into her car, drove around the block and found another place to park where she could see the staff exit.
Five minutes later, she watched the honey-blonde get into a small, sporty car and glide into rush-hour traffic. Evidently, she had decided not to work tonight.
Taylor followed, keeping a discreet distance. Half an hour later, the sports car took a steep incline that ended in a cliff-top coastal settlement dotted with huge homes and walled estates. Taylor had hung back all the way, using the homebound commuter traffic as cover, and she was certain the woman hadn’t spotted her. Slowing even further, Taylor watched as the car rolled through a set of electronically controlled wrought-iron gates.
A dog barked as she cruised past the entrance, making all the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. Maybe it was a coincidence that there was a dog here, but then again, maybe not. It could have been a guard dog she had just heard. But if that was Baby, then, right at this moment, Bayard was raiding the wrong address.
Rounding a corner, out of sight of the estate, Taylor pulled over onto the verge, reached for her cell phone and thumbed in a short dial. The smart thing to do now that she had Slater’s probable address was leave, but Slater’s girlfriend had left Tony’s in a panic. If Slater did live here, he could react by packing up the dog and leaving immediately.
Bayard’s phone rang once, twice. Glass exploded, showering her face and hands as the windscreen vaporized. A split second too late, her foot stamped on the accelerator. The car lunged forward, straight into the back of a reversing truck. She was flung forward, then back, her forehead connecting with the steering wheel hard enough that she saw stars. When her vision cleared, the barrel of a businesslike Glock positioned in the driver’s-side window froze her in place. Somewhere, distantly, she could hear Bayard’s answering service asking if she wanted to leave a message.
Twenty
Rina checked her watch. The time for the bust had come and gone. A restless hour later, she dialed Taylor’s cell phone. After the predetermined number of rings, she was transferred through to Taylor’s voice mail. She hung up without leaving a message.
At eight o’clock the phone beeped. She checked the screen. Not a call, but a text message from Taylor, asking her to ring her at a Winton number because the battery on her cell phone was low.
Rina set the phone down on the kitchen table. She was tempted to call, and she would in a microsecond, except for one problem: whoever had sent the message, it wasn’t Taylor. If Taylor had taken the time to text, why hadn’t she simply rung? The conversation would have been a brief “Yes, they had Baby” or “No, they didn’t.” Alternatively, she could have texted the information. No call was necessary.
Pulling out a chair, Rina sat down and stared at the message, her skin crawling. She had to figure out what to do. Whoever had sent the message had Taylor’s phone and now her cell phone number. It was possible Taylor had simply lost the phone and that someone had gotten hold of it and was playing a prank.
It was also possible that the message was a setup, designed to locate her.
The third option was that Taylor was in trouble, but that didn’t make sense. Taylor hadn’t been a part of the bust. In theory, she was doing exactly what Rina had spent the day doing, kicking her heels, waiting.
She wasn’t going to reply to the text. If it was Taylor, she would make contact again. If she hadn’t heard from Taylor by the morning, she would assume the worst and get hold of Bayard. She had his cell phone number in her old address book, which was stored with her passport and the other personal papers that belonged to her previous life. Even if she couldn’t get through to him straight off, she would reach him eventually. He wouldn’t ignore a call from her.
Another hour ticked past while Rina waited for Taylor to call. She switched on the television and flicked through the news channels, half dreading to see something about the bust or Taylor, but nothing even remotely close to Winton was making headlines.
At ten she made herself a sandwich and sat nursing a glass of iced lemonade, keeping an eye on the news. At midnight, she switched the television off, checked her security alarm was set, had a shower and went to bed. Fifteen minutes of tossing and turning later, she deactivated the alarm, pushed open the French doors leading off her bedroom and stepped out onto the long, narrow deck that ran the length of the back of the house. The temperature was cooler outside, but it was still hot, the moon full enough to throw a pale silvery glow over the back lawn.
Settling down on the swing seat just outside her bedroom, she plumped cushions and tried to make herself comfortable. The silence should have been soothing, but tonight it grated. A mosquito whined. Absently, she slapped at it. Another zeroed in and she began to reth
ink her plan of cooling off outside.
A shadow moved at the edge of the lawn.
The paranoia that had gripped her that afternoon flooded back. The movement could have been made by an animal, maybe a large cat or a dog, but definitely not a breeze, because there wasn’t one. Aside from an animal, that left a human prowler. Not for the first time, she decided it was time she got herself a gun and learned to use it.
A shadow detached itself from the outline of a rhododendron and something clicked into place in her mind, a brief flash of the way the man at the mall had merged into the shadows.
Sitting bolt upright, she stared at the dark figure strolling across the lawn as casually as if it was daylight and he was invited.
“Don’t tell me you can see in the dark.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
JT stepped up onto the deck. “I’ve read your file. I don’t think you could surprise me.”
Ridiculously, considering that he had just broken into her property, Rina was suddenly aware that she wasn’t wearing nearly enough—a camisole and a pair of light cotton drawstring pants. Neither the top nor the pants were see-through, but they were definitely meant for bed. “Don’t you ever knock?”
She caught the flash of a grin, quickly gone, and her stomach lurched ever so slightly.
“I’ve gotten out of the habit.”
The voice was the same—deep, mild, with that slight Southern accent. Nothing that should make her stomach do somersaults. Despite that, she definitely had butterflies. The only thing she could put it down to was the odd sense of camaraderie she’d felt toward him the night he’d helped her escape. Or maybe it was out-and-out loneliness. For weeks now she hadn’t seen anyone who knew who she was or cared. She wouldn’t say that JT cared, exactly—he was just doing his job—but he was a familiar face and a link to her past.
It was the “link to her past” bit that worried her now. She studied the black T-shirt and jeans he was wearing. They weren’t exactly a uniform and a flak jacket, but the dark clothing was definitely useful for sneaking around in the dark. “How did you find me?”
“I’ve got working agreements across the board. One of them is with the U.S. Marshals. I’m not supposed to be anywhere near you, but the fact is, you spotted me in town, so I’m touching base. If Marlow finds out I’m in Beaumont, he won’t be happy.”
That was an understatement. Marlow had been categorical about the parameters of the WitSec program. In order to secure her safety, she wasn’t to have contact with anyone from her past, and no one from her past could contact her. To bypass Marlow, JT must have gotten some kind of high-level permission.
She was now certain that the man she’d glimpsed walking into the mall had been JT. She was also willing to bet he was the owner of the black truck. For her to have missed seeing his face as he had walked back to his truck meant he must have exited the mall by a side entrance and worked his way around the perimeter of the car park to stay out of her line of vision. Later on, the same truck had been parked just across from the newsagent, which meant he had been following her most of the day, including the three hours of driving lessons.
Her cheeks warmed when she thought about all the mistakes she’d made. Denny had nearly had a heart attack a couple of times. “Just how long, exactly, have you been in Beaumont?”
“Three months, give or take a day.”
A sharp tingle went down her spine. That was exactly how long she had been here.
She wasn’t happy that she was under surveillance of any kind. She hadn’t expected it, and for JT to have been surveilling her for weeks, not days, made her feel distinctly uneasy.
She trusted him; in a weird way, she trusted him more than anyone, except Taylor. He had risked himself for her back in Winton, then, against the odds, for Baby, but she didn’t trust his agenda. JT’s focus had always been Alex. The only reason for him to be in Beaumont now was that he thought there was a good chance Alex would find her.
He propped himself against one of the veranda supports, arms folded over his chest. The stance was nonthreatening, although after her initial shock that there was someone sneaking around her house, Rina hadn’t felt any real anxiety. Once she’d realized it was JT, apart from her reaction to seeing a familiar face, she had felt okay. One of the things she had noticed about JT was that he had the facility to seem neutral, so that even though he was definitely male and tough, he wasn’t threatening. “I thought you would have been in on the bust in Winton.”
The statement was probing, but he didn’t show any surprise that she knew about the operation. More alarm bells rang. Taylor had been worried about her phone being tapped. Rina was now certain that it was: by JT.
“Lopez wants you, not the dog. He’s a smart operator. Bayard won’t find it easy to nail either him or Slater. That’s the other reason I’m here. Bayard rang me a couple of hours ago. The operation went bad. Taylor’s gone missing.”
She had known something was wrong. “Taylor was supposed to ring me when they got Baby.” Pushing to her feet, she stepped into her bedroom. “I’ve got something you should see.”
As she reached for the light switch, JT’s soft “Don’t switch that on” stopped her.
The need for darkness reinforced the message that she wasn’t living a normal life, no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, and JT’s visit wasn’t anywhere near as casual as he was making out. Feeling her way in the darkness, she found the cell phone, which was sitting on her bedside table. When she stepped back out onto the deck, she flicked through to the message she’d received and passed it to JT. “That came through. It’s Taylor’s number. I didn’t answer it, because I didn’t think the message was sent by Taylor.”
He studied the message, took his own cell phone out of his pocket and made a brief call, relaying the number. “We can try to get a fix on it, but the chances are whoever’s got the phone won’t use it now for that reason.”
“What about Taylor?”
“Bayard’s doing what he can, but there’s no news yet.”
“And Baby?”
“They did find dog hairs that they think belong to Baby, and signs that a dog was kept at the house they raided.”
So now Alex had both Baby and Taylor.
Her jaw tightened. She was thousands of miles away and powerless to help, but JT could. He had contacts and resources. The possibility that he could do anything now was slim, but she had to try. “Will you look for Taylor?”
The hesitation before he answered underlined that Taylor wasn’t his priority. “I’ll see what I can do, but you’ve got to leave it with me. Whatever you do, don’t call Bayard or anyone else connected with the FBI. Bayard’s got a mole. He’s been working to identify him, but he hasn’t found him yet.”
The warning was softly spoken and, she realized, the motivation behind this visit. Today she had noticed the back of a man’s head and a truck, but she’d had no idea the two were connected, or that it was JT. If he had changed his vehicle, he could have continued to watch her and she wouldn’t have been any the wiser.
The reason he had followed her was now also clear. He knew she had made contact with Taylor and that it was highly likely she was compromised. Whether he had been staying close to her as a protective measure or to get a line on Alex was a moot point.
A chill ran down her spine. She had been going to ring Bayard in the morning, but if he had a mole that would have been tantamount to serving herself up on a plate to Alex.
JT handed back her cell phone. “I’ve entered my cell number. Try not to use it unless there’s an emergency.”
Heart pounding a little too fast, she watched until he disappeared over the back fence.
An engine started up in the distance: definitely a truck.
Another vehicle drove past, although this one sounded more low-key—a sedan, not a four-wheel-drive.
Walking back into her room, she locked up, set the alarm and went back to bed. Tired as she was, though,
she was too keyed up to sleep. Her mind kept running over her last conversation with Taylor and a raft of unsettling possibilities. She refused to dwell on the fact that her friend could be dead. If Alex did have Taylor, he needed her alive; there was no point in killing her.
JT had stated that he didn’t think either Alex or Slater were in Winton, which let in a small ray of hope. If one of Alex’s other men had gotten hold of Taylor, then maybe there was a chance that JT, or even Bayard, could get to her in time.
As for Baby, she couldn’t bear to think what had happened to him. The only positive was that if he had survived three months because Alex thought he was useful, there was no reason to kill him now. The same logic applied to Taylor. She had to believe that they were safe, so long as Alex thought there was a chance he could use them to get to her.
Knowing that JT was on the job relieved some of her tension, although she had to remember that he was working on his own investigation; he wasn’t here to protect her. Even though he had broken the no-contact rule to warn her against contacting Bayard, JT viewed her in exactly the same way that Alex viewed Taylor and Baby: as bait.
Twenty-One
When Rina woke the sun was fully up and it was closer to afternoon than morning. She hadn’t fallen asleep until after three. The fact that she had slept at all, let alone slept in, surprised her.
She checked her cell phone, but there were no new messages or missed calls. She hadn’t expected to find any. If either of the phones had rung she would have been awake instantly. The lack of contact from Taylor confirmed that something had gone badly wrong.
Feeling physically sick, she picked up her cell phone, sat on the edge of the bed and dialed JT.
He picked up on the second ring.
“I want to help. I could be bait.”
“Marlow won’t allow it, and if Bayard tries anything like that he’ll lose his job.”
“What about you?”
“Honey, don’t push it—”
