Mountain Blizzard
Page 16
“I like it better this way. No muss, no fuss.”
“Like wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.”
“Hey, there, if you’re implying that I don’t want to take my time, you’re dead wrong. With all that hair out of the way, I can devote my attention to other parts of you.”
He started by nibbling on her throat and worked his way down her body. Though he wasn’t usually a fan of electronic aids, he started using the pulsating, handheld sprayer about halfway down.
The way she shimmied and twitched when aroused drove him crazy. Her excitement fed into his, building and building. One thing was clear: he wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer. On the verge of eruption, he had to get her into the bedroom. In the shower, he wasn’t able to manage a condom. For half a second, he wondered if using prevention was necessary. Would it be a mistake to have a kid with Emily? He shook his head, sending droplets flying. Now was not the time for such life-changing decisions.
He brought her from the shower to the bed, tangling them both in towels. Condom in place, he entered her. Her body was ready for him, tight and trembling. She was everything to him.
An irresistible surge ripped through him. He felt something more than physical release. More than pleasure, he felt the beginning of something he’d once called love. Not the same. He couldn’t be in love with her. Those days were over.
He collapsed on the bed beside her. They lay next to each other, staring up at the ceiling, thinking their own private thoughts. Did he love her? He’d give his life for her without a second thought. Was that love? She delighted him in so many ways. Love? He was proud of her, of the woman she’d become.
Does it matter? He should let those feelings go. Taking on the biggest gang in the city and the snakeheads, they’d probably be dead before the night was over.
He cleared his throat. “After Chinatown, we’ve done all the investigating that we can hope to do. Then we leave. We need to put distance between us and the people who want us dead.”
“Right.”
Reluctantly, he hauled himself up and out of the bed. “I need to make that call to my brother.”
Swaddled in the white terrycloth robe provided by the hotel, he went to the desk in the living room and set up his computer equipment to have a face-to-face conversation with Dylan. Through the windows, he noticed that dusk had taken hold and the streetlights were beginning to glow. By the time he was prepared to make contact, Emily had blow-dried her hair and slipped on a nightshirt that left most of her slender, well-toned legs exposed.
She sprawled on the sofa. “Put it on speakerphone.”
He took out the earbuds and turned up the volume. Though it was after eight o’clock in Denver, Dylan answered the number that rang through to the office immediately.
“Are you still at work?” Sean asked.
“Of course not. I transferred everything to a laptop, and I’m at my place.”
“Turn on your screen and let me see.”
“Just a sec.”
Sean heard the unmistakable sound of a female voice, and he asked his brother, “Am I interrupting something?”
A slightly breathless female answered, “Hello, Sean. How’s San Francisco? It’s one of my favorite places. With the cable cars and the fog. Did I mention? This is me, Jayne Shackleford.”
She was the neurosurgeon his brother had been dating and was crazy in love with. Sean envied the newness of their relationship. He and Emily would never have that again; they were older and wiser.
“It’s a great city.” He liked it better when nobody wanted to kill him and Emily. “Put Dylan on.”
After a bit of fumbling around, his brother was back on the line. He turned on his screen so Sean could see into his house and also catch a glimpse of Jayne in a pretty black negligee before she flitted from the room.
“Here’s the thing,” Dylan said. “I’ve done a massive hack in to Wynter’s accounts, both personal and professional. It took some special, super-complicated skills that I’m not going to explain. I’ll take pity on your Luddite soul that barely comprehends email.”
“Thanks.”
“Is that Emily I see behind you?” Dylan leaned close to the screen and waved. “Hi, Emily.”
From her position on the sofa, she waved back, “Right back at you, Dylan.”
“You did good. You gathered a ton of info with the research tools at your disposal. But you were missing the key ingredient, namely, James Wynter’s personal computer.”
“I knew it.” She straightened up. “The personal documents are what I was going after on his yacht.”
“That’s where he kept the real records that didn’t synch up with income.”
“What does it prove?” Sean asked.
“Somebody’s stealing from Wynter,” Dylan said. “If I have the codes figured correctly, and I’m sure I do, he lost twelve people last month. They disappeared.”
“And there’s no way to track them?”
On-screen, Dylan shook his head and rolled his eyes. “What part of disappeared don’t you understand? These people—referred to as human cargo—were supposed to arrive at Wynter’s warehouse facility. They just didn’t show.”
Sean took a guess. “Did they come from Asia? Arriving in shipping containers?”
“There was a container. It came up three children short, five-year-olds. All the adult females were accounted for.”
And the women would never rat out the kids if they’d somehow found a way to escape. Could those be the children whom Patrone was concerned about?
Sean asked, “What about the other nine?”
“They came on a regular boat. One way Wynter smuggles from Asia is taking his yacht out to sea, picking up the cargo and returning to shore north of San Francisco where he off-loads. Morelli was in charge of the last delivery, which was over six weeks ago.”
“When Patrone was killed,” Emily said.
“You guessed it,” Dylan said. “No human trafficking since then. There’s got to be a connection.”
“What happened to the nine?” Dylan asked.
“Morelli swore they got onto a truck.”
“But they disappeared,” Sean said. “You don’t happen to know where the yacht off-loads?”
“Medusa Rock, a little town up the coast.”
Sean offered his usual brotherly, laconic compliments for a job well done. In contrast, Emily was over the moon, couldn’t stop cheering.
“Enough,” Dylan told her. “Sean’ll get jealous. It’s not good to have big brother ticked off.”
“He most certainly can be a bear.”
Sean growled. “If you two are done, I’ve got one more question for Dylan. Is Wynter connected with the snakeheads?”
“He’s refusing to pay the snakeheads until he gets his hands on the missing twelve. The local gangs are up in arms, inches away from gang warfare.”
And Sean and Emily were right in the middle.
Chapter Eighteen
Emily decided against the blond wig for their trip to Chinatown. Instead she tucked her hair behind her ears and put on a baseball cap. She wore high-top sneakers, jeans and a sweatshirt because it was supposed to be chilly tonight. All her curves were hidden. She looked like a boy, especially when she added the khaki bulletproof vest.
Sean regarded her critically. “Do you have a beret?”
“Not with me. I have a knit cap in cranberry red that I packed for the mountains.”
“Put it on,” he said.
“Really? But the baseball cap is better. I’m trying to pass for a boy.”
He slung an arm around her waist, pulled her close and gave her a kiss. “There’s too much of the feminine about you. You look like a girl pretending to be a boy, and that attracts attention.”
“Better,” he said.
“Yeah, great. Now I look like a deranged girl.”
“When we’re on the street,” he said, “keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact. If they don’t notice you, they can’t recognize you.”
He was more intense than earlier today, and that worried her. “Who do you expect to run into?”
“We’re walking into the tiger’s maw.”
“Very poetic.”
“I stole it from you,” he said, “from a poem you wrote a long time ago. The description applies. Chinatown is home base for the snakeheads and a familiar place for Wynter’s men. I bet they even have a favorite restaurant.”
“The Empress Pearl.”
When she first started her research, she’d gone there several times to watch Wynter’s men and try to overhear what they were talking about. She’d often seen Morelli, but when they finally met for his interview, he didn’t recognize her, which made her think that Sean was right about being anonymous and, therefore, forgettable.
She asked, “Are we coming back to the hotel?”
“Sadly no, our suitcases are packed.”
“I want to make a phone call from here to Morelli. If he tries a trace, it doesn’t matter.”
Thoughtfully, he rubbed his hand along his still unshaven jawline. “Why talk to him?”
“At one time, we had a rapport, and maybe that counts for something. I have a question I hope he’ll answer.”
“You’re aware, aren’t you, that Morelli is the most likely person to be stealing from Wynter? He has inside information, and he signed off on the nine that went missing.”
“I think he’s being framed,” she said.
“We never did a profile on Morelli,” he said. “I see him as a corporate climber, a yes-man scrambling to get ahead. He wouldn’t take the initiative in stealing from Wynter, but he might support the double-crosser who took off with the nine.”
All this crossing and double-crossing still didn’t explain why they were coming after her. Like Bulldog said at her apartment, Wynter wasn’t worried about her eyewitness testimony. His expensive attorneys were clever enough to make her look like the crook. If she was about to be framed, she wanted to know why.
She took her last burner phone from her pocket. “I’m making the call.”
“And leave the phone behind,” he said.
It took a moment to find Morelli’s number. He answered quickly, and his voice had a nervous tremor. When she identified herself, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
“Emily, I have to meet with you, please. Name the place.”
“Actually, John...” She used his given name to put them on a more equal footing. “I was looking for some information. If you help me, I might help you.”
“Always the reporter,” he said. “Ask me anything.”
“According to you and also to Mr. Barclay, aka Bulldog, there’s a rumor floating around that I know something about human cargo going missing on shipments from Asia.”
“Do you?” He was overeager. If he’d been a puppy, his tail would be wagging to beat the band.
She said, “You first.”
“Based on detailed information in your articles about Wynter, I suspected that you had an inside edge. When you talked about our warehouses and distribution, you knew about the supposed warehouse where we stored our human cargo.”
“What do you mean ‘supposed’ warehouse?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Emily. You know it’s just a house with mattresses in the basement.”
He had it wrong. She had the number of warehouses but not all the addresses. If she’d known where they were keeping the kidnapped people, she would have informed the police.
Morelli continued. “I thought you had inside information, and Bulldog confirmed it.”
“Do you always listen to Bulldog?”
“If you didn’t want him to talk, you shouldn’t have left him tied up in your apartment. It only took ten minutes for somebody to show up and let him go.”
“Should we have killed him?”
“Not the point,” Morelli said. “He told me that you witnessed the murder from inside the closet in the office.”
“That’s right.” She wasn’t sure where this was going but wanted him to keep talking.
“You were in the private office on the yacht...alone with James Wynter’s private computer. You were the one who made changes on the deliveries and receipts, trying to cover up the theft.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, but everybody on that ship had access.”
“Not true. The office was unlocked for a short time only. Only Frankie had a key.”
And she’d been unlucky enough to stumble onto the one time when she could get herself in deep trouble. She was done with this conversation. “Here’s what I have for you, Morelli. I’m leaving San Francisco and never coming back. I’m gone, so you can quit chasing me. No more threats. Bye-bye.”
When she ended the call, she felt an absurd burst of confidence. She dropped the cell phone like a rock star with a microphone. Emily out.
* * *
AFTER DARK, CHINATOWN overflowed with activity. Sean parked downhill a few blocks, avoiding the well-lit entrance through the Dragon’s Gate. They hiked toward the glaring lights, the noise of many people talking in many dialects and the explosion of color. Lucky red predominated. Gold lit up the signs, some written in English and others in Chinese characters. Some of the pagoda rooftops were blue, others neon green.
Sean wasn’t a fan of this sensory overload. He ducked under a fringed red lantern as he followed Emily toward the shop owned by Liane Zhou. His gut tensed. This wasn’t a good place for them, wasn’t safe. He wanted to take care of business and get out of town as quick as possible.
Emily stepped into an alcove beside a postcard kiosk and pulled him closer. “It’s at the end of this block. I think the name of the shop is Laughing Duck, something like that. There isn’t an English translation, but guess what’s in the window.”
“Laughing ducks.”
“I think you should do the talking. I’ve already met Liane, and she was tight-lipped with me. You might encourage her to open up.”
The only thing he wanted to ask Liane was if her snakehead brother intended to kill them. If so, Sean meant to retreat. “What did you talk to her about before?”
“I didn’t know about the missing human cargo, so I concentrated on Patrone. At that time, he was only missing, and I didn’t tell her about the murder.”
“And what did she say?” he asked.
“Not much.” She scowled. “She might open up if you spoke Chinese. Do you know the language?”
“A little.” He’d picked up a few phrases when he was working undercover. Needless to say, the people who taught him weren’t Sunday school teachers. In addition to “hello” and “goodbye,” he knew dozens of obscene ways to say “jerk,” “dumb-ass” and “you suck.”
“Liane is easy to recognize. She’s five-nine and obviously likes being taller than the people who work for her because she wears high heels.”
Glumly, he stared through the window into the fish market next door. A pyramid arrangement went from crabs to eels to prawns to a slithering array of fish. He hunched his shoulders and marched past the ferocious stink that spilled from the shop to the sidewalk. They entered the Laughing Duck, a colorful storefront for tourists with lots of smiling Buddhas, fans painted with cherry blossoms, parasols, pouches and statuettes for every sign of the Chinese zodiac. Since his zodiac animal was the pig, he pretty much disregarded that superstition. Emily was a sheep.
A young woman met them at
the front with a wide smile. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Liane Zhou,” he said as he entered the shop.
The narrow storefront was misleading. Inside, the shop extended a long way back and displayed more items. He knew from experience that Liane very likely sold illegal knockoffs of purses and shoes and other merchandise that was not meant to be seen by the general public.
Most of these shops had a dark, narrow staircase at the rear that led to second and third floor housing. An entire family, including mom, dad, kids and grandmas, might live in a two-bedroom flat. All sorts of business were conducted from these shady little cubbyholes, ranging from legitimate cleaning and repair services to selling drugs.
Emily’s description of Liane was accurate. The tall, slender woman stood behind the glass-top counter near a cash register. She wore a bright blue jacket with a Mandarin collar over silky black pants and stiletto heels. Her sleek black hair was pulled up in a ponytail and fell past her shoulders. Her lips pursed. Her eyes were shuttered.
Hanging on the wall behind her were several very well-made replicas of ancient Chinese swords and shields. He knew enough of history to recognize that the Zhou dynasty was one of the most powerful, long-lived and militaristic. Liane was the daughter of warriors, a warrior herself.
It seemed real unlikely that she’d open up to him...or to anybody else. He decided to start off with a bombshell and see if he could provoke a reaction.
He met her gaze. Sean had been told, more than once, that his eyes were as black as ebony. Hers were darker. In a voice so quiet that not even Emily would overhear, he asked, “Do you want revenge for the murder of Roger Patrone?”
She blinked once. “Yes.”
Chapter Nineteen
A fierce hatred was etched into the beautiful features of Liane Zhou. Looking at her across the counter, Sean was convinced that the lady not only wanted revenge but was willing to rip the replica antique Chinese swords off the wall and do the killing herself.
Instinctively, he lifted his hand to his neck, protecting his throat from a fatal slash. He nodded toward the rear of the shop. “We should go somewhere quiet to talk.”