Deep Cover

by Rachel Butler

  And that was it. No kiss, no gentle hug. No, “Take your pain pills,” or “Take it easy.” No, “I’ll see you tonight.” He could have been walking away from a stranger. Fair enough, since he was probably thinking that he’d fallen in love with someone he didn’t know at all.

  Selena stayed where she was a long time, barely able to breathe for the tightness in her chest, until Mutt jumped off the bed, rubbed against her, then positioned his head under her limp hand for a scratch. She obliged him, then dropped to her knees and hugged him. “You’re easy, Mutt,” she whispered. “I scratch you, I feed you, and you love me. People are so much more complicated.”

  And so very rewarding. She would prove to Tony that she’d made the right choice. Once the threats were gone, she would be truly free for the first time in her life—free to chase after every dream she’d ever had. If only she could know he would be waiting for her . . .

  He was the one, he’d promised, who would never leave, and she had believed him. For the past few weeks, they’d pretended they were a normal couple involved in a normal relationship, and she wanted that for forever. But the truth was, she couldn’t have it, not with someone trying to kill her. Maybe not ever.

  Just one more thing to blame Henry for. One more reason to destroy his life’s work.

  Releasing the dog, she locked up and went to her own house next door. Henry had chosen it for its proximity to Tony’s house—had paid cash for it and put everything in her name. That way, when the police officer next door turned up dead, the trail would lead only to her. She also liked it for its proximity to Tony, though she spent little enough time there.

  Showered, dressed, and armed with the switchblade and the compact .22 in her handbag, Selena studied herself in the bedroom mirror. She didn’t look dangerous. More importantly, she didn’t look fearful. She knew better than to show any weaknesses to the enemy.

  She was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rang. Visible through the sidelight, a familiar figure stood, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. She opened the door, then folded her arms across her middle. “Special Agent King. What a surprise seeing you here.”

  Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “I thought we could continue the conversation from yesterday.”

  “I thought we finished the conversation yesterday.”

  “It won’t be finished until we get what we want.”

  “We can’t always get what we want.”

  “But sometimes we get what we deserve.” A cool smile accompanied his words. “Now . . . do you deserve to go to prison for the rest of your life, maybe even face the death penalty? Probably not. But you don’t deserve to walk away free, either. You committed crimes, Ms. McCaffrey. You have to pay.”

  Illegal weapons. Document fraud. Illegal entry into the country. Crimes, yes, but minor compared to taking a man’s life. “I had nothing to do with Henry’s drug business or those murders.”

  “So you say. But it seems to me that an innocent person would want to do whatever she could to put the guilty people in jail. A person who refuses to send criminals to jail must not be so innocent.”

  She hugged herself a little tighter. “Or maybe she just wants to live a normal life.”

  “You should have thought of that before you got involved with Daniels and Damon Long.” His expression hardened. “You’ve got two choices, Ms. McCaffrey. You can risk jail or deportation . . . or you can help us. Turn me down, and I will do my best to put you away for the rest of your life.”

  Selena opened her mouth, then closed it again. She hated giving in, surrendering what little control she had. She hated that the FBI—and, to some extent, Henry—were getting what they wanted. But she would get what she wanted, as well.

  She laid her purse on the hall table a few feet away, gestured for him to step inside, took a breath, and asked, “Exactly what are the terms of your offer, Mr. King?”

  Surprise flashed through his eyes, then disappeared. “Complete immunity in exchange for your cooperation in shutting down Daniels’s business. We’ll forget that Selena McCaffrey exists—or, rather, that she doesn’t exist.” Speaking deliberately, he said, “We won’t charge you with any crime of any sort or attempt to remove you from the country. Ever.”

  “And what would you expect of me in return?”

  “To all outward appearances, you’ll be running Daniels’s business while providing us information that will assist us in making cases against his associates.”

  He had a talent for making the difficult seem simple. Run the business . . . exactly what she’d been fighting against for six years. She hadn’t wanted to be involved with drugs, not for power, not for wealth beyond imagining. But she would do it for freedom, for Tony, for a future. She would do it to destroy what Henry had loved far more than he’d ever loved her.

  She nodded once. “Would I be working with you?”

  “No. You don’t meet the undercover agents until you’re on board. It’s safer that way.”

  His distrust made her smile faintly. She suspected he saw her as the best of a bad situation. The feeling was mutual.

  He waited a moment before asking, “Are you coming on board?”

  She shrugged. “I have a condition of my own. Henry kept journals. At least one of them had information about me. I want to see it.”

  His immediate response was to shake his head. “The journals are evidence in a criminal trial.”

  She remained motionless.

  “They’re being examined by our documents experts right now.”

  Still she waited.

  Finally, King made an impatient gesture. “It’ll take some time, but . . . all right. So . . .?”

  Once again Selena folded her arms across her chest—to hold the trembling inside. “As soon as you put it in writing and my attorney signs off on it . . . we’ll have a deal, Mr. King.”

  3

  Kathryn Daniels Hamilton sat in the reception area of the FBI office, idly paging through a magazine in between glances at her watch. When Mr. King had called to set up this appointment, he had offered to meet with her at the hospital or at the family’s Riverside Drive estate, but she’d politely refused. She didn’t want a stranger coming to Henry’s hospital room, and she certainly didn’t want to invite the FBI into his home. That was reserved for family and friends, not glorified police officers.

  As a police officer himself, her brother didn’t appreciate her opinion that policemen ranked with the hired help. One paid their salaries and benefited from their particular skills when necessary, but one didn’t socialize with them. After all, they were called public servants for a reason.

  She’d always thought Henry had undercut his own potential significantly by choosing a career in law enforcement, no matter that he’d risen through the ranks to become chief of police. Business and politics—that was where the real money, power, and prestige lay. If he’d gone into either, he wouldn’t be lying in a coma, wasting away before her very eyes.

  Footsteps drew her out of her thoughts, and she watched as the receptionist to whom she’d spoken earlier approached. “Mrs. Hamilton? Special Agent King will see you now. If you’ll come this way . . .”

  Ninety minutes later, moving as if on automatic pilot, Kathryn nodded politely to the uniformed guards at the main gate of the estate, drove around to the back of the house, then went inside. Sonja, the Daniels family housekeeper since Kathryn was a girl, was at the stove, and her husband, Cecil, the butler, sat at the nearby table, the newspaper open in front of him. Kathryn greeted them both, brushed off Sonja’s offer of coffee, and passed through into the house proper.

  She’d always loved the house—a beautiful white gem plunked down in the middle of a vast lawn, filled with beautiful things and, her grandmother had liked to say, beautiful people. Definitely privileged people, for all the good it had done them. Her father had grown up there, his every whim fulfilled, but it hadn’t stopped him from dying of cancer before his forty-fifth birthday. She and Henry
had been raised there as well, spoiled as well, but nothing they’d been given— not wealth, not attention—could raise him from the hospital bed, where he lay dying before her very eyes.

  She wandered through the rooms—the very formal living room called the white room, because everything in it was: the library filled with leather-bound first editions; the gentlemen’s drawing room, where her grandfather had played poker with his cronies, betting oil wells and real estate; the ladies’ drawing room where Grandmama had entertained their wives; the formal dining room that could seat thirty; the informal dining room that seated only ten. Every piece of furniture was antique, every slab of marble imported, every painting and knickknack and lamp worth a small fortune.

  Kathryn had taken it all for granted when she was a child. All her friends had lived in beautiful homes, though none so beautiful as her own. She’d been the only one to have a Monet hanging on her bedroom wall, but there had been a great master in every room; she’d paid them little attention. She had been in college before she’d realized that not everyone lived that way. A sorority house was as close as she’d ever come to seeing how the other half lived, and that had been more than enough for her.

  Trailing her hand along the banister, she climbed the grand staircase to the second floor. Her meeting with the FBI had been far more unpleasant than she’d expected. She had thought they would talk about the men who’d harmed her brother, offer their sympathy, and leave her to visit the hospital.

  Instead, they’d told her a fantastic tale . . . and had proof to support it. About how Henry, loving brother and highly regarded chief of police, was a drug dealer. How he’d suffered his injuries while trying to kill one of his own detectives and the young woman he’d referred to as his niece. How he’d lived a secret life, complete with a different identity, for twenty years. How the FBI wanted to use his family home to destroy the business he’d worked so hard to build.

  She hadn’t been able to decide which part of the story stunned her most. In the time since, she’d figured it out: the niece.

  Henry living a secret life as a drug dealer . . . it should shame her, but she could see that. He’d always looked for thrills and challenges; that was why he’d become a police officer in the first place. He’d been a master game player all his life. He loved competition, strategy, outsmarting and outlasting everyone else. He loved pitting his skills against all comers, and he especially loved winning.

  And he had proven himself quite capable of looking the other way when a crime was committed. She’d seen that for herself.

  But the niece . . . the FBI agent had called her by various names—Rosa Jimenez, Gabriela Sanchez, Selena McCaffrey. Henry had apparently met her when she was fourteen and claimed her for his own. He’d treated her like family— dressed her in the finest clothes, sent her to the best schools, filled her every need.

  No matter how Kathryn tried, she simply couldn’t imagine Henry’s taking someone else’s child to raise. He’d been uncompromising when she’d told him she and Grant were adopting a child, and he’d never shown the least interest in Jefferson once the boy had joined the family. A simple legal process couldn’t make a stranger family, he’d insisted. Blood mattered.

  But then he’d taken in a stranger, and a fourteen-year-old girl at that. At least Jefferson had been a mere five years old when they’d adopted him. By fourteen, the damage caused by their upbringing was done; they were rebellious, troublesome, and not the least appealing. The only reasons she could think of for a man to take in a stranger’s teenage daughter were too perverse to give voice to.

  At the top of the stairs, she turned to the right and went to the one room she’d avoided since returning home—Henry’s study. That was where the events of that Sunday had taken place. The police had removed what they considered evidence, and Sonja had cleaned the room, then closed the door, and it had remained closed. Now, her hand trembling, Kathryn turned the knob to go inside.

  It had been raining that day in Greenhill, Alabama, when Kathryn received the call from a distraught Sonja saying that Henry had been gravely injured. Kathryn had hastily packed while Grant arranged the use of a friend’s jet for the trip to Tulsa. One of the deputy chiefs had picked her up at the airport and delivered her to the hospital, and he’d filled her in on what had happened.

  A daytime burglary. The estate was encircled by a six-foot iron fence; there was an elaborate alarm system with panic buttons in every room; armed guards patrolled the grounds; and still the thugs had managed to find their way inside. It had been no secret that Henry was making a public appearance with the mayor that day—some sort of fund-raiser— but he’d left early and surprised the burglars in the act. One of them had shot him, and the impact had knocked him through the window behind his desk. He’d fallen headfirst onto the parapet four feet below and been in a coma ever since.

  That was the official version of events—what she’d been told by the deputy chief, read in the paper, heard on the news.

  Now the FBI was saying, no, sorry, it didn’t happen that way at all.

  The hand-knotted rug Grandpapa had brought back from Turkey was gone, leaving bare marble. There were dark spots on the wall near the vault door, and a large splatter at the far end of the room. Blood, her mind supplied, even though she didn’t want to know. No one had died in the room, but not for lack of trying. Though one of the thugs had only bruises and contusions, another had been shot, and the third had suffered a concussion and a broken nose along with a stab wound. The young detective credited in the media with saving Henry’s life had, in fact, been the one to shoot him, and he’d been shot himself by Henry’s other target that day. Selena, the girl he called niece.

  Actually, someone had died that day, she thought as she forced herself to approach the windows and gaze down onto the narrow parapet. Sonja had brought in a crew to clean away the broken glass and blood, but it was still far too easy for Kathryn to imagine Henry lying there, dying. Machines kept his body functioning, but his spirit, his essence, was gone.

  As a chill rushed over her, she swept from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She’d told Mr. King that she needed time to consider his request, to take in everything he’d told her, and he’d agreed none too graciously. He’d made it clear, though, that asking her permission was no more than a courtesy. He’d mentioned words like criminal enterprise, seizure, and forfeiture, and asked her to please give him an answer within the next day or so.

  At the end of the corridor, she entered Henry’s bedroom. Sonja continued to dust it every day, as if he was merely away on a trip and might return home at any moment. His toiletries still filled the bathroom, his clothes the closet. Kathryn pressed her face into a jacket, inhaling the familiar scent of him, and her breath caught on a sob. “Oh, Henry, you fool! Any man in the world would have been satisfied with what you had, but not you. No, you wanted more—more money, more power, more challenge, more excitement. And look where it got you.”

  As she stepped back from the closet, she stopped in front of the portrait that hung in the sitting area between two love seats. Grandmama and Grandpapa were seated in the middle, Mother and Father stood behind them, and she and Henry flanked them. They’d been a beautiful family. Now they were all gone, or as good as.

  On a small table beneath the painting stood two dozen or more framed photographs. Henry graduating from the academy. When he’d been promoted to detective. His first job as deputy chief. Receiving awards and commendations. It was his equivalent of what Jefferson called an “I love me” wall— photo after photo of himself in the highlights of his law enforcement career.

  “What about your other career?” she murmured as she studied his handsome, smiling face. “Nothing to commemorate earning your first million in drug money? No photograph marking your move from just another dealer to the big time? Nothing to remind you of the first murder you committed in the name of the almighty dollar?”

  She was about to turn away when a small frame caught her eye. I
t measured barely three inches tall and was easily overlooked among the larger, more ornate ones. Her hand trembled when she reached for it—and with good reason, she soon realized.

  The girl in the photo must be Henry’s “niece,” the woman who called herself Selena—the only woman who figured prominently enough in his life to be included among these photos. She was in her teens in the picture, and she wore a school uniform along with an uneasy smile. Her skin was a creamy light brown, her hair black, and her features bore the obvious stamp of her African-American heritage . . . along with a familiarity that made Kathryn’s heart clutch.

  The frame fell from her unsteady grip, landing faceup on the floor. One hand clapped over her mouth, Kathryn stared at it—at the lovely young girl she hadn’t seen in twenty-eight years. The girl who had haunted her all those years. The girl she’d believed was dead.

  She sank to her knees and covered her face with both hands. “Damn you, Henry! Dear God, what have you done?”

  “Murder is our business, and business is good.”

  The solemn voice came from Tony’s left, along with the crashing of footsteps, but he didn’t turn. He’d heard his occasional partner, Frank Simmons, shout his name a couple times, then start his climb up the hill. Hell, a dead man could have heard his approach.

  “Business is too good for you to be doing someone else’s job for him. What’re you doin’ up here? CSU’s already been over this area with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Tony knew that. Marla Johnson, a crime-scene tech and an ex-girlfriend, had filled him in on what they knew so far. She’d also reported that she’d gotten a call from the FBI, wanting the same info. If the hit had come after Selena had accepted their offer, the feds could have taken over the investigation, but as it was, they had no jurisdiction—a fact that never sat well with them.

  “I’m just looking.” Tony was crouched in the weeds in the shade cast by a gnarled post oak. Sumac bushes grew to one side, and wild honeysuckle tangled around everything on the other side. The only clear view was ahead, a perfect downward angle to the firing range.