Or thought I loved. I’d spent the last decade convincing myself I never really loved him after he abandoned me. But at this point, I had to call bullshit. We’d been in love. I just don’t know how we went from love to him running off to join the Iraq War.
It was still difficult for me to picture fun loving Connor shooting a weapon. Killing someone.
“Here,” the driver shouted, awakening me from my daze.
“I had to shower and get dressed for work before I came. Sorry,” I said to Blake once I’d made it to our meeting place.
He shut the door behind me and followed me into the living room. I could feel his gaze on me, and when I turned around, I discovered I was right. He looked up from my legs and met my eyes. “We need to end this and soon.”
Blake had been fine with the slow pace of the investigation up until recently, and now it appeared he’d lost his patience. I had to assume the fact that terrorists were now involved was the reason. “You talk to your friend in D.C.? Is Homeland or the CIA aware of the situation?”
“They’re up to date. They’ll be sending in reinforcements soon and specialists to help track the flow of weapons. Hopefully, we can take down some terrorist cells while bringing down the entire Russian New York mob.”
Yeah, I just needed to figure out how to do it without hurting Connor. “I had a run-in with Andrei Belyakov and Oleg Konstantin yesterday.” I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see the reaction that would spring to his face.
His hand was on my arm and his breath on my face when I opened my eyes. “What?” His blue eyes grew dark, his pupils expanding.
I pulled my arm free from his grip and turned my back. “You have any coffee?” I escaped to the small kitchen, where the coffee pot was full and warm. Thankfully, Blake was like me—he drank coffee at all hours of the day.
“Olivia.” He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the counter in the kitchen, standing a few feet away while I made myself a cup.
“They were at the gym yesterday. I don’t think they recognized me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid you’d pull me from the case.” I sipped my coffee and attempted to act nonchalant. Ha. Not possible.
“Damn right I’d take you off the case!” His arms dropped to his sides, and he shook his head. “Shit, Olivia. What if they made you?”
I knew I should also mention spotting Andrei at the subway, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. We were too close to bringing down Konstantin and Declan. If we could connect Konstantin to terrorism—to treason—no way he’d be able to wriggle out of that one.
“You were the one who identified them at the police station after your sister’s murder.”
“They didn’t see me then. I was behind glass. And the case was never brought to trial, so they don’t know me.” Somehow, the case had been dropped due to police negligence. But I knew that was straight BS.
“They saw you at the club. You told me you charged Oleg like a damn bull and hit him in the chest, after what happened to your sister.” He closed the gap between us, and I set my coffee down on the counter.
“Olivia.” His hand touched my forearm. “This is exactly why I should never have agreed to let you on the case.”
I started to shake my head like some bobblehead doll. “I was barely twenty when that happened. It was ages ago, and he didn’t get a great look at me then. We were in a dark club. The second I ran up to him, the cops were on the place, and he took off.”
“Yeah, missing his chance to kill you.”
“We’re getting close, Blake.” I pulled my eyes up to meet his blue ones. “I’m actually glad Andrei and Oleg are out of jail. Now we can make sure they rot away for good when they’re arrested.” Not just on another one of their bullshit pseudo-sentences.
Blake stared at me, his eyes cold. I touched the counter with both hands, bracing myself. “If you’re worried about Connor, don’t be. He’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”
“How am I supposed to ensure the deal happens smoothly while also staying away from Connor like you ordered?” I pushed my hair to my back, frustration spearing me, my nerves wreaking havoc on my organs.
“I doubt Connor will bring his friend to the club, right? Regardless of what you think Connor’s doing, he won’t bring an FBI agent to The Phoenix.” He shoved his fingers through his blonde hair and wrinkled his nose at me. “Make sure he’s at the club tonight and agrees to sell the weapon to Declan. We can’t waste any more time, especially now that Andrei and Oleg are in the mix.”
***
Connor
I pulled into my father’s parking garage and turned off the engine. My brain was still spinning full throttle. Resting my hands on the steering wheel, I peeked at Jake from the corner of my eye. He was busy reading something on his phone.
“This is a bit hard to believe, don’t you think?” Jake looked up from his phone, but my head now had that feeling of being at extreme altitudes, where your ears have a persistent, low-pitched ring inside. I couldn’t think straight.
“Olivia would’ve been about twenty when her sister died. Would she have put such a long-term plot into place?”
Jake slipped his phone into his pocket and shifted to better look at me. “Anger doesn’t have an expiration date. Maybe she stumbled upon the chance to go after these men while working for Declan.”
I was shaking my head without realizing it. “No. Olivia’s way too smart. There’s no way any of this is a coincidence. She knows about Declan’s connection to that club. She brought it up when we grabbed a bite to eat recently.” I shut my eyes, trying to remember our conversation. Her olive skin had gone almost ghost white after she’d mentioned that the club where we’d first met was now owned by Declan. She’d been thinking about her sister—I just hadn’t known about her sister’s murder at the time.
“What?”
“I’m betting that Olivia has been after Andrei and Oleg for a while, but they’ve been protected by Konstantin or in and out of prison. She’s on a revenge mission, and she targeted Declan to get to the mob.” My eyes popped open, and I was sure the color was draining from my face.
Olivia was going to get herself killed. I knew if anyone had ever hurt Mason, I’d have done the same thing. But I would’ve been too impatient to wait for the right time to attack, like she clearly had. I’d want to ring my hands around the bastards’ necks at the first chance.
Olivia could fight, though, and she was capable of firing a weapon without flinching. She’d been preparing, but there was no way Olivia could go up against Konstantin and his men. They’d crush her as soon as they found out who she really was.
“You’re that sure Olivia is on a revenge mission?”
I reached for the door handle. “Hell, yes.” I slid out of my Jeep.
“Why hasn’t she been honest with you?”
I swung the door to the building open. “Maybe she thinks she can’t trust me. She’s worried I’ll break her cover.” I was afraid to tell her the truth, myself. I couldn’t blame her, given the past we shared.
“You think she’s doing this alone?” he asked as we entered the lobby.
“If she is, she’s not alone anymore,” I answered before my jaw clenched.
Jake held his hand out in front of me, stopping me a few feet away from the security desk. “We’ve been in these situations more times than I’d like to count.”
My face pinched together. “Shit, I know. It’s crazy.”
“Alexander Konstantin,” he said in a low voice as an elderly couple walked past us. “He’s been chased by every federal agency, and they’ve all failed.”
“You’ve never tried catching him, though, right?”
Jake grinned. “Hell, no. If I had tried, he’d be behind bars right now.” He slapped me on the back.
This was what I needed. “Then let’s take the son of a bitch down.”
“Can I help you two gentlemen?” The security guard appr
oached us. His appearance was a bit more Kris Kringle than an intimidating guard, with his white beard and hair, warm eyes, and full belly.
“My father lived here. Edward Matthews.” I reached into my pocket and offered him identification before showing him the key to my father’s home.
The man’s face went long. “I’m so sorry for your loss. He was a good man.”
Good man—my father? He must have had him confused with someone else, because my dad had never been kind to anyone in his life, unless it benefited him. “I haven’t been to his home since he passed away.”
The man nodded. “Of course.”
“Do you know who found his body?” Jake asked, and both the security guard and I turned to face him. It was a little embarrassing that I didn’t know the answer. I never asked Mason or the lawyer. My father never even made it to a hospital; he’d been pronounced dead by the medics in his house.
The security guard scratched his beard, and an awkwardness grew apparent in the lines of his leathered, aged skin. “His maid. I can’t remember her name. Hold on, I’ll check the list.” The guard left us and walked over to his desk.
“We should have a talk with the maid and see if she knows anything,” Jake suggested.
I crossed the lobby and approached the desk and pressed my palms to the counter. “Excuse me, sir? Can I get a list of all the approved visitors for my father? And do you keep a record of when people visit?”
The guard looked up from his computer screen. “We don’t keep a record of visits, and for some reason, my computer is acting up. I’ll try and get you the list when you come back down. My apologies.”
“All right.” I started to turn but stopped. “Sir, did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary around the time of my father’s death?”
The security guard clasped his hands together and brought them to his abdomen, and his eyes twitched a little. “I thought your father died of natural causes?”
“He did,” Jake assured him, knowing we didn’t want to ring any alarms. Even an aging security guard could be a potential spy. “Excuse us.” Jake nudged me in the side with his elbow. “We should go up.”
I gave the guard one last look and followed Jake over to the set of elevators. Once inside, I pressed the button for the thirty-fifth floor.
“I think that’s the tenth time your phone has rang since you met me at the airport. You ever going to answer it?”
“It’s just work.”
“I take it this running-a-business thing isn’t all that fascinating to you.” Jake angled his head at me and fought back a smile. “You going to go back to your old life when Mason takes over the company?”
“If there’s a company left for Mason to take over.” I released the pent up air I held in my lungs. “I’m just glad I’m the one handling this and not Mason. Guess everything happens for a reason.” God, Olivia would be alone in all of this if I wasn’t involved. I had despised her for so long, and now . . .? I shirked off the thought of her in danger. The weight of the situation would crush me if I allowed it to hang. But what choice did I have? Our lives were now wrapped up in the same tragedy.
“Mason can handle himself, by the way. He’s not just your kid brother, anymore,” Jake commented as the doors opened.
The two penthouses sat on the top floor of the building. “3510.” I motioned to the door with my head. “Mason can take care of himself. I know.” I needed to stop treating him like he couldn’t hold his own. He was a decorated officer in the Marine Corps, now.
“Has anyone been here since he passed?” Jake asked as I opened the door. He whistled as we entered the home.
We walked into the foyer, and my eyes darted to the ceiling. Light poked through the impressive domed ceiling of stained glass and bounced off the large mirror by the front door. We walked down a long hall, on what I assumed were marbled floors—I was never an expert at decorating—and we found our way to the living area. Olivia’s apartment could fit inside the living room. “This place makes Michael’s pad in Charlotte look small.”
“Did he sell it yet?” Jake asked as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked out the wall of windows.
“I think so.” I moved past the modern leather furniture, which couldn’t have possibly been picked out by my father, and joined him at the window. “Nice view.” I studied the tree tops of Central Park, which waved in the distance.
“It’s a good thing your father’s place is higher up than the buildings across the way. Anyone can see inside.” He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“That’s what these are for.” I pointed up, and his eye caught sight of a long silver box that looked more like a steel beam than the hiding place for electronic blinds.
“You think you could get used to this life?”
I folded my arms and stared out the window. There were benefits to money, but I made a decent living doing what I enjoyed, and that type of money suited me just fine. I peeked over my shoulder at the lavish home—this kind of money was unnecessary, in my opinion. “You know me,” I finally answered and looked at Jake. “I’d do better in a tent in the Amazon than here.”
He laughed. “Sure. I can see that. But you grew up in New York. In this lifestyle, right?” He opened his hands palms up.
“People change.”
He half-grunted. “I hear that.”
“What we saw in the Middle East. What I’ve done . . .” I thought back to my recent case. Saving the girl in Mexico. Keeping a family safe in Johannesburg, and before that, helping my friend Aiden’s now-girlfriend. The list went on and on—a litany of moments that had severely altered my view on what really mattered.
“We should get started.” I left the living room before Jake could speak and made my way up the black metal spiral staircase in search of the master bedroom. “Checking for his pills,” I hollered out as I reached the top floor.
“I’ll try and find the name and number of his maid,” Jake shouted back.
I stopped just inside the entrance to the bedroom, and my hands dropped to my sides like dead weight. I cocked my head and stared at the canvases on the wall. Photos of Mason and I were displayed as works of art in a collage-style pattern above my father’s four-poster bed headboard.
Black and white images. Mason and I laughing. Playing. Graduating high school. College.
What the hell? This wasn’t like my father. He wasn’t a sentimental person—he was cold, hard, calculating. He had been brutally honest with Mason and me as we grew up, always knocking us—okay, more often me—down for any mistakes. I’d strike out in Little League, and he’d yell at me. If I didn’t make straight A’s on one report card, I’d hear his wrath.
I couldn’t ever do anything right. And he thought he was so damn perfect. It wasn’t him that screwed up the marriage with my mother, after all. She’d been the cheater, the bad parent.
I swallowed and folded my arms, just staring at the images.
“Connor?”
I took a step back and turned around. “Huh?”
“I found a magnet on the fridge for a maid’s service. I’m assuming it’s the one he used.”
“We should call,” I said and pushed open the double doors that led to the master bath.
“Damn,” was all Jake said when he entered the bathroom, which had enough open space to serve as a dancefloor.
There wasn’t a medicine cabinet, so I started opening drawers. One drawer rattled as I opened it, three bottles rolling toward me. I picked them up and studied them. “Niacin, Lipitor, and Aspirin.” I handed the half-empty bottles to Jake. “Like you said, they’re probably legit, but we should have them analyzed, just in case.”
I started to shut the door, but paused and pulled it back open. I picked up my father’s hairbrush and cocked my head.
“What?” Jake shoved the bottles in his pants pockets and eyed the brush.
“Last time I checked, my father didn’t have long, brown hair.”
“Was your father seeing some
one?”
“Looks that way. We really need that visitor list.” I went downstairs and scoured the kitchen for a bag. We could run a DNA test on the hair.
After another long hour, Jake and I had managed to scavenge the entire place. We hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary. If my father had information on Declan, Konstantin, or anyone else for that matter, it wasn’t here.
Either my father didn’t trust to keep information in his home, or someone had scraped the place clean. Probably the same someone who had him killed.
“You ready to call the maid?” Jake dialed the number on the magnet as we stood in the foyer. He pushed the speakerphone button, and the ringing echoed along the tall walls.
“Maids of Manhattan. This is Sarah, speaking.”
“Hi, Sarah. I am trying to get ahold of whoever cleaned my father’s place. Edward Matthews.”
She didn’t respond, but I knew she was still on the line. I could hear her breathing. “I—I worked for him.” A muffled noise, and she said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Was it you who found Edward’s body?” I asked as Jake’s brown eyes focused on mine.
“Yes. I found him,” she answered with a shaky voice. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“Sarah, I need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”
Her young voice sounded through the line, “Yeah.”
“How long did you work for my father?”
“I only started cleaning for him a few months ago.”
“Did you ever notice anything unusual? Or see him with anyone?”
“Um.” She was hesitating. Why?
“Sarah?” I looked down at the phone.
“I only spoke with Mr. Matthews twice. Once when hired and one other time.” Another pause. I was getting irritated. “I cleaned his place twice a week during the day. Once I was listening to music, and I had my headphones on, so I didn’t hear anything when I first got there. I was in the process of carrying all my supplies in when I saw Mr. Matthews come into the living room. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Only dress pants, and a woman followed in after him, dressed in a robe.”
Buried Lies (Hidden Truths) Page 17
