by Sharon Dunn
“Clarissa, I’m an FBI agent. Max saw me when I came into town to pick you up. I managed to shake his henchmen off, and then we faked the story so he wouldn’t try to pursue me. When the other agents went to find you, you had vanished off the face of the earth.”
“So you know that Max was doing something illegal with money,” Clarissa said.
“When the housing market went south, we suspected that he took to laundering money for the mob. I was looking for evidence that day in his office, but I didn’t find anything. Though he couldn’t prove anything, Max was suspicious and paranoid, so he got rid of me.”
“I thought you were dead.” Anger and joy wrestled within Clarissa. She’d thought she’d lost her friend.
Sondra pulled her into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
Agent Lewis ran out into the parking lot. “Clarissa, I was only calling Sondra. I wanted time to prepare you for the shock before she showed up. That’s why I went into the other room.”
Ezra came and stood by Clarissa. “She’s been through a lot.”
Agent Lewis touched Clarissa’s elbow. “We do need to talk to you. Would you come back upstairs?”
She planted her feet and squared her shoulders. “Is this about catching Max?”
Agent Lewis nodded. “We would like to take a moment to find out what you and Mr. Jefferson know.”
They returned to the office. Clarissa was led into a second room, occupied by a table and chair.
“I need to go get my laptop and call my supervisor.” Agent Lewis went to do so.
Sondra came in and leaned against the door frame. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you when we were working together,” she said. “I had no idea Max would go after you. The mob must have got word that he was under investigation, so he suspected everyone.”
Clarissa stood up and offered her friend a sideways hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. This is just a lot to process.”
Agent Lewis came back into the room and set her laptop on the table. “Clarissa, I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.”
Sondra left the office, closing the door behind her.
Agent Lewis placed her fingers on the keyboard. “Can you tell me when you first suspected Max of laundering money?”
“I didn’t put it all together until a couple hours ago. Ezra helped me figure it out.”
“Why were we unable to find you for the past few days?”
“Max’s men started coming after me as soon as I arrived in Discovery. I feared for my life, and I needed to hide somewhere they wouldn’t find me. Ezra runs a survival training program, and I talked him into taking me on one of his wilderness expeditions. Max found me anyway. I put a bunch of people’s lives in danger—the others on the expedition. Ezra stayed with me to protect me, which meant they were left on their own. I still don’t know if they are okay or not.”
Agent Lewis placed her hand over Clarissa’s. “We can find that out for you.” She continued to ask questions about what had transpired in the weeks leading up to Clarissa fleeing California, and then for details about what had happened in the forest. “Can any of what happened to you when you were out in the wilderness be linked directly to Max?” she asked at last.
“Don is an employee of Max’s. I didn’t know the other men. I did see Max get out of the helicopter when those men came after us at the lodge.”
Agent Lewis paused for a moment, tapping her pen on the desk. “Do you think the reason Max made advances toward you was because he thought maybe he could make you a coconspirator?”
“At the time I didn’t think that, but now, with everything that I know, maybe he thought if I was involved with him, I wouldn’t turn him in.”
“We don’t have a lot to nail Max with other than your word against his. I’m wondering if you would be willing to try to trap him into admitting to the laundering,” said Agent Lewis.
“How would I do that?”
“Give him a call. Tell him you are tired of running and that you want to make a deal with him.”
Fear shot through Clarissa like a bullet. “So I’d sit down face-to-face with Max,” she said.
“It would be a public place. We’d have agents outside the restaurant and inside.”
The thought of meeting her old boss terrified her, but she fought past it. “If it’s the only way...I sure don’t want him to get away with all this.”
“Good. Then we’ll make the phone call and set something up for later this afternoon.”
This had to be done. As Agent Lewis retrieved a phone for her to make the call, Clarissa wished Ezra was sitting beside her instead of being questioned in the next room.
* * *
Ezra studied the tall woman sitting on the opposite side of the desk. Agent Mayer had stepped out, saying something about food.
Ezra narrowed his eyes at Sondra. “So you’re Clarissa’s friend?”
“Yes. And in case you are wondering, I truly am her friend. I didn’t pretend to be her friend so I could get information out of her, if that’s what you wanted to know.”
“No, I...” Ezra shook his head, but then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s what I was asking.”
“Clarissa is probably glad that you’re looking out for her.”
“Clarissa can look out for herself,” Ezra said.
“I know that. She’s a very capable woman. But you still feel kind of protective of her, don’t you?” Sondra shifted in her office chair.
“Is that one of the questions you’re supposed to be asking me?”
“As an agent, no. As Clarissa’s friend, yes.”
“Maybe you should stick to the official questions.” He pointed to her laptop.
“But you do care for her?”
Ezra stared at his hands. “Yes, I do. I just don’t know what that means to me right now.”
“If you’re not sure, don’t mess with her head. She’s had a lot of people walk out on her in her life, and she deserves to have someone who will stay,” Sondra said.
“I don’t know if I can be that guy for her.”
Sondra studied him for a moment. “At least you’re honest. Okay, on to the official questions. Can you tell me what you know about Max Fitzgerald? What level of interaction have you had with him, and what Clarissa has told you?”
Ezra recounted everything he had witnessed and what Clarissa had told him. After about ten minutes of questioning, the door to the other room opened. Agent Lewis stepped out with Clarissa behind her. Clarissa’s expression was solemn, and her skin had lost much of its color.
Ezra rose to his feet as she locked on to him with her eyes. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Agent Lewis rested a hand on her shoulder. “Clarissa has agreed to wear a wire and to meet with Max to try to get him to admit to his illegal activities.”
Ezra felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. “You want her to sit down face-to-face with that man?”
“Ezra, it’s the only way they can make a solid case against him.” Clarissa tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes held a pleading look. “I’ve already made the phone call. Max has agreed to meet me in four hours, and he’s promised to come alone.”
“I don’t know if that is such a good idea.” Max’s men had been relentless. Why would they simply back off now?
“Mr. Jefferson, you are free to go,” said Agent Lewis.
A kind of panic that he’d never felt before rose up in him. “I want to be there with her.”
“I’m afraid we can’t allow that and risk Max walking away. She agreed to come alone, as well. She needs to appear completely vulnerable.”
“Appear? You mean you’ll be close by?”
“Agent Mayer will be in the restaurant, and Sondra and I will be listening in the van.”
/> “I guess you have it all worked out then.” Ezra couldn’t stop the encroaching helplessness.
“Like I said, Mr. Jefferson—you are free to go. There’s no indication that Mr. Fitzgerald will come after you unless you are with Miss Jones.”
Sondra cleared her throat. “Maybe Ezra would like to have a moment alone to say goodbye to Clarissa.”
He nodded. “Please.”
Sondra tugged on Agent Lewis’s sleeve. “We’ll be out in the hall.”
As soon as the door shut behind them, Ezra turned to face Clarissa. “I don’t suppose there is any way I can talk you out of this?”
“I want to make sure I do everything to guarantee that Max goes to jail. It has to be done.” Ezra saw the resolve in her eyes...and the fear.
He rested a hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes.
“I wish there was some other way—a way where I could be there for you through this.”
“It’s not your fight, Ezra. It never was. You’ve done more for me than any man should have to do. You kept your word—you said you would get me out of that wilderness alive and you did.”
She was letting him off the hook, but he didn’t want to go. “I feel like I’m throwing you to the wolves. I can’t walk away.”
“They don’t want you around.” She glanced at the floor, then lifted her head and locked him in her gaze. “I don’t understand why you’re still here. They said you were free to go.”
He didn’t understand it himself. Why couldn’t he let go? She was in the hands of the professionals now. “Guess I want to see this thing to the end. To know that Max can’t hurt you or anybody else.”
She nodded. Her gaze delved beneath his skin. “Is that what it is?” A lilt in her voice hinted at some emotion she was trying to hide.
The door swung open, and Sondra poked her head in. “I don’t mean to rush you, but we have a lot of setup to do, and Clarissa will need some prep, as well.”
Ezra offered a faint smile. “I understand. Be safe, Clarissa.” With one more backward glance, he opened the door and headed down the stairs.
The long walk across town gave him time to think, but his thoughts remained a jumbled mess. He felt adrift, at loose ends. It was as if he didn’t know what to do with himself now that responsibility for Clarissa’s safety had been taken off his shoulders. He stopped in at the Black Bear Inn to see if Leonard or the others had checked back in.
The clerk shook his head. “No one has come by, and their suitcases are still in storage.”
Ezra felt a heaviness as he crossed the street to Jefferson Expeditions. Today would have been the day the group got back if things had gone as planned. He stepped into his office and called search and rescue to advise them of the situation. If the helicopters couldn’t find the group, he’d have to go up himself later today. Search and rescue promised him some men and dogs if needed.
Next, he looked around the office to see if it was still secure. Nothing indicated that Max’s men had broken in. His business website would have provided enough information for them to know the general area where to look for Clarissa once they’d concluded she’d gone on the expedition.
He locked the place up, got in his car and drove home to his cabin outside of town along the river. He showered and ate with the words of the FBI agent echoing in his head: you are free to go. He stood on the porch listening to the rushing water. He was struck by how what he used to describe as peaceful now felt lonely. In that moment, he knew he couldn’t let Clarissa face this confrontation alone, regardless of what the professionals thought.
* * *
Clarissa brought the car she’d borrowed from the agents to the curb. She laced her fingers together to try to stop the trembling. The recording device she wore pressed against her rib cage.
The restaurant where Max waited was just around the corner.
She took in a deep breath.
Agent Mayer was already in the restaurant. Agent Lewis and Sondra were in a van across the street.
Clarissa pushed the car door open and stepped out onto the curb. She rounded the corner.
Her legs felt as limp as cooked noodles as she made her way up the sidewalk. A group of people entered the restaurant a block and a half away. She stepped deliberately as her heart pounded against her rib cage. This had to be done, but having to sit across from Max and look him in the eye terrified her more than all she and Ezra had been through in the mountains. His charismatic salesman personality had camouflaged the monster beneath his skin for years, but now she knew he was pure evil.
She hadn’t ever been good at reading people’s character, especially where men were concerned. Except for Ezra. He had proved himself. It stung that he wasn’t romantically interested in someone like her. But Clarissa would admire him for rest of her life. She stopped ten feet from the door of the restaurant and steeled herself for what she needed to do.
A car door opened behind her. She turned her head just as a man reached out for her and dragged her into the backseat of the car, which immediately pulled away from the curb and sped up the street. Clarissa barely had time to absorb what had happened before the man in the front passenger seat turned around and sneered at her. It was Max Fitzgerald.
“Did you really think I’d fall for that scam?” Max looked at the man who had yanked her into the car. “Get the wire off her.”
She looked at the man next to her. It was Don. “Where is it?” he demanded. She saw murder in his eyes. He pulled her shirt to one side and ripped the tiny microphone off, rolled down the window and threw it out.
“Head out of town, someplace secluded,” Max said to the driver. “This has to happen with no possibility of witnesses—and in a place where no one will find the body.”
“Does it look like we have any kind of a tail?” the driver asked, keeping his eyes on the road. She recognized the driver as the square-jawed thug who had attacked her in the forest.
Don chuckled. “Doesn’t look like they got their act together fast enough.”
His words were like knife blades through her skin.
So Max would win, after all.
* * *
Ezra watched as Clarissa was grabbed and yanked into a car, just as he was about to pull into a parking space. With his heart in his throat, he eased onto the street so as not to call attention to himself as he followed the fleeing car. He gripped the steering wheel. It took every ounce of self-control not to speed.
The car was moving too fast and was already too far ahead for him to stop it by causing an accident. He couldn’t risk injuring Clarissa in any case. Max’s car took a left turn. Clearly, they were headed out of town toward the highway.
The agents must have seen and heard some of the scuffle when Clarissa was taken, but they would be delayed in their pursuit by the need to get the van turned around. They might even have lost sight of Max’s car. He didn’t know the agents’ phone numbers so he dialed 911 and alerted them to the situation. When he caught up with these guys, he might need help.
He turned up a side street so as not to clue Max in that he was following them. He knew all the shortcuts through town. They wouldn’t see his car until they were on the highway, and then they would probably assume he was just another anonymous driver headed in the same direction.
Even as he said a quick prayer for Clarissa’s safety, doubt invaded his thoughts. He knew in the moment that he watched her disappear into the car that the agents had been wrong about him. He wasn’t free to go. What he and Clarissa had been through together bound them to each other. More than that, he knew why the home that he loved had felt so empty. Without Clarissa, everything would be that way from now on. He loved her.
As he pulled out onto the highway, he only hoped the realization hadn’t come too late.
* * *
Clarissa winced as D
on dug his fingers into her forearm. Her heartbeat drummed in her ear. The yellow lines of the highway clipped by.
“Got to be a place to turn off here somewhere, right?” said the driver.
“Like I know this part of the country,” Don said.
“There.” Max pointed to a sign that said Spanish Creek 2 Miles. “That’s got to be some sort of out-of-the-way hiking trail or river.”
The driver slowed the car and hit the turn signal. Right before he turned, a blue Jeep passed him on the left.
“Jerk,” said the driver.
They turned onto a dirt road. “How far?”
“We need to get back here quite a ways. I don’t want any chance that some do-gooder hiker stumbles on us,” said Max.
Don chuckled as his grip cut off the circulation in her arm.
So this was it. She was going to die alone. Clarissa regretted not telling Ezra more directly that she loved him.
* * *
Ezra zoomed his Jeep past Max’s car when it became clear they were turning. He pulled over to the shoulder, and the back tires spat out gravel as he turned around without stopping. Spanish Creek Road forked about three miles into the forest. While it was important that he avoid detection, he needed to stay close enough to know which way they went. Otherwise, he could lose them, and any chance of getting Clarissa out of the forest alive.
He phoned in to the police station again to alert them to where he was headed.
He turned onto the dirt road and slowed down. No sign of Max’s car. He sped up, searching for any sign of the other car. He drove until he came to where the road split. He turned onto the fork that led north, driving for several minutes. Seeing no sign of the other car, he headed back toward the other fork. The second road straightened out for about a half-mile stretch. He breathed a sigh of relief when a dust cloud in the distance told him he had made the right choice. He slowed down, waiting for the car to disappear around a corner.
There had been at least two men in the car, the one driving and the one who had gotten into the backseat with Clarissa. If he sped up and rammed the car to disable it, he risked not being able to overpower them before he could get to Clarissa—or worse, injuring her in the crash. The better strategy was to surprise them once they’d stopped. He hung back, watching an uphill section of the road until the car came into view. He waited until it took another turn, onto a road he knew dead-ended. He drove as fast as he dared on the gravel road until he was about forty yards from the end.
