Deep Cover

by Rachel Butler

  She nodded.

  He cupped his palm to her cheek. “Are you sure? I can catch Frankie before he gets home and send him instead.”

  With a faint smile, she laid her hand over his. “Suz would kill you and him both.”

  His grin formed, then faded. “Seriously, are you okay?”

  Truthfully, she hadn’t gotten past the shock to emotion yet. She had met her father. Her mother had loved her, wanted her, and had likely died, in part, because of her. Getting a grip on that might take a while.

  “I’m fine,” she said quietly. “Just a little off balance. You go do what you have to do.” Then she gave him a sultry smile. “Though I wouldn’t object if you come back when you’re finished.”

  He smiled, too. “It might be late.”

  “That’s all right.”

  With a glance at Grant, Tony drew her into the hall and kissed her. When he released her, he said in a fierce, low voice, “Your mother isn’t the only one who’s ever loved you more than anything.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  She held on to him until she had no choice but to let go. After watching him leave, she hugged her arms tightly over her middle. Her father waited for her in the parlor, and he wasn’t a drug dealer, wasn’t a heartless murderer like William. He was a good man, who’d wanted her, who’d missed her the entire time she was gone. He knew her history, her roots, her paternal family and her maternal family. He could tell her who she was and where she’d come from—questions she’d thought she would never find answers to.

  And all she’d had to do to meet him was get shot at twice. Being a target wasn’t always as bad as she’d thought.

  The bed-and-breakfast was less than two miles from Henry’s estate. Full of questions Tony couldn’t answer, the owner let him into Kathryn’s rooms, a luxurious suite in the south end of what had once been a detached garage. He walked through the space once, then returned to the living room to begin his search.

  There was little that belonged to her there—a novel, a pair of slippers, and a couple of brochures on long-term-care facilities. Planning for the day Henry was discharged from the hospital?

  The refrigerator in the small kitchen held a six-pack of bottled water and a selection of fruit, and cosmetics and toiletries spread across the marble counter in the bathroom. There were no notes, no phone numbers, no weapons, no diary documenting her activities.

  He went into the bedroom, the final room. The closet was filled with expensive clothes and smelled of expensive perfume. Purses lined one shelf, and a dozen pairs of shoes filled the other two. Another novel, along with a pair of reading glasses, sat on the night table, and a jewelry box, filled with earrings, brooches, and bracelets, was on the dresser.

  So was a photograph. It was an eight-by-ten in a heavy gold frame—a family photo, taken within the past few years. The Kathryn captured on film was a far cry from the one shrieking and wailing at Henry’s tonight. This one was smiling, serene, happy. Grant stood beside her, his smile distant, looking for all the world as if he wasn’t really there, and behind them, with one hand on Kathryn’s shoulder, was their son, Jefferson.

  Still holding the photo, Tony glanced around one last time. Not a thing that qualified as evidence. Still, he’d had to be sure. He couldn’t have risked putting off the search until morning and giving the housekeeping staff a chance to unwittingly remove something important.

  Not that the lack of evidence there mattered. They had the tape and the photographs at the pay phone. They had Kathryn’s confession earlier in the evening. Hell, she’d tried to kill Selena in front of three FBI agents and one homicide detective. The DA couldn’t ask for a stronger case.

  He left the suite and returned to his car. He’d told Selena he would come back, but first he would finish up with Garry downtown. No doubt, she could use the extra time with her father.

  Simmons was walking out the door at the correctional center as Tony approached. “How’s Island Girl?” he asked.

  “In shock, I think. Is Darnell in there with Kathryn?”

  “Yeah, she’s been processed, and he just took her to an interview room. Listen, I’m sorry about bringing the old man to Daniels’s house. When he found out his wife was in custody, he was raising hell about representing her and demanding to see her right away. Shit, I figured the feebs wouldn’t let us past the gate and he could be blamin’ them instead of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Selena’s finally getting some of the answers she’s been looking for.”

  Simmons shook his head. “You think she’s any happier knowing Henry was her real uncle—stepuncle, at least?”

  “Knowing her real uncle wanted her dead?” Tony asked dryly. “I don’t think she’s ever gonna be happy about anything involving him . . . but at least she knows her father now. She knows her mother wanted her. That’s something.” He opened the door, then turned back. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  Tony shrugged. “Everything.”

  The door swung shut, cutting off Simmons’s chuckle. In the interview room, Kathryn was sitting across the table from Darnell Garry. Her tears had dried, leaving dark shadows around her eyes, and her haughty manner had returned. Sitting there, looking like hell but acting as regal as the damn First Lady, she reminded him too damn much of Henry.

  He sat down across from her. “You really didn’t know anything about Henry’s business, did you? He didn’t send you any records. But you did know your husband was on his way to Tulsa, and that you couldn’t risk letting him see Selena.”

  She shrugged. “Where is my husband?”

  “At the estate talking to his daughter.”

  Kathryn’s eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into an ugly slash. “His bastard, you mean. His whore’s bastard.”

  He pulled out a chair at the end of the table. “How long have you known who she was?”

  “Since the day the FBI told me about her. Henry had a photo of her in his room. I recognized her right away. The resemblance was . . . startling.”

  Particularly when she’d thought Selena and her mother were problems long since dealt with. “Is that when you decided she had to die?”

  Scorn etched her features. “I couldn’t have cared less, except for the fact that her very existence meant Henry had lied to me all those years.”

  “He was supposed to kill her . . . after you killed her mother.”

  She clamped her mouth shut and said nothing.

  “He told you he did kill her, and you believed him.”

  Her desire to stay silent lost out to her hatred. Color flooded her face. “He said he would do it—would get rid of that whore’s body and take care of the baby, too. He made it look as if she ran away and took the baby with her. That’s what I told Grant. And all that time Henry lied to me! He didn’t kill her—he sent her off somewhere and kept in touch with her, then brought her back into our lives, the arrogant bastard!”

  She’d told worse lies to her husband and saw nothing wrong with that, but was furious because her brother had lied to her. Because he hadn’t killed a tiny baby in cold blood. What kind of sickness ran in the Daniels family?

  “You killed Amelia to keep your husband from leaving you.”

  She lifted her chin, the haughtiness returning. She was every bit as pompous as Henry, and thought herself every bit as much above the law. “That never would have happened. She was a nobody. I was a Daniels. I was his wife. He couldn’t leave me. It just wasn’t done.” Her shrug was dismissive, unconcerned. “It was her fault. If she had just taken the money and gone . . . That was all I wanted, all I asked. She said she was leaving, all right—with Grant. They were going up north, where one’s race didn’t matter so much. I told her that would never happen, and she just laughed. She said it wasn’t my choice. So I had to prove her wrong.”

  “How did you do that?” Tony asked quietly.

  Kathryn crossed one leg over the other, then smoothed the fa
bric of her skirt. “She lived in a shack, a tiny little house. The kitchen was so small, she kept the pots and pans stacked on top of the stove. I picked up a cast-iron skillet and . . .” She broke off, gazing into the distance, reliving the memory. Had she been horrified by what she’d done? Had it frightened her, sickened her?

  More likely, she’d thought it was no more than Amelia deserved for daring to take what belonged to her. Her only fear had been getting caught, and Henry had handled that for her. He’d taken everything he’d learned as a cop and used it to cover up a homicide. To protect his sister from the consequences of her actions. Had that been the beginning of his criminal activity? Had it appealed to his ego, his sense of gamesmanship, that he’d been able to turn a crime of passion into the perfect murder? Once he’d gotten away with that, had he been tempted to try other crimes?

  When she didn’t go on, Tony did. “Twenty-eight years ago Henry lived in Boston. Did you call him? Wait for him to travel to Alabama?”

  She smiled faintly. “No. As luck would have it, he was in Montgomery, interviewing for a job there. I had such hopes, having him nearby, being a close family again. I called him at the hotel, and he drove out to Amelia’s shack. There was a terrible rainstorm that night. It took him forever to get there, and all that brat did was cry and cry until I thought I’d start screaming myself. I should have killed her while I waited for him. It would have been so easy—just hold a pillow over her face until she stopped that damned wailing.”

  Her voice was soft, her tone conversational, and Tony felt cold inside. For all the emotion in her voice, she could have been talking about something totally inconsequential instead of the murder of an infant. Selena’s life had meant nothing to Kathryn, while it was everything to him.

  “They offered him the job, you know,” she went on in that tone. “Chief of detectives or some such thing. I tried not to pay too much attention to his police work. It was something of an embarrassment to the family. Danielses donated money, but we did not dirty our hands.”

  “Killing a woman with an iron skillet sounds pretty dirty to me,” Garry remarked.

  Kathryn shifted her attention to him, then back to Tony. “He turned the job down, unfortunately. It was such a disappointment, and it was all because of her.”

  “You have a son,” Tony said. “What is he going to think when he finds out that his mother is in jail for the attempted murder of his half sister?”

  The tenderness that appeared at the mention of her son quickly disappeared beneath hatred and loathing. “She’s not his half sister. She’s nothing to him!”

  “They share the same father.”

  Her spine stiffened. “Jefferson is adopted. Since Grant seemed to miss his little brat so much, I thought replacing her with a more suitable child would make him happy. Jefferson was perfect—sweet, obedient, loving.”

  “White,” Garry added, but she ignored him.

  “He’s the light of my life, and he should have been for Grant, too. He was everything a man could have wanted in a son, but Grant didn’t care. He just wanted her.” As if suddenly remembering Tony’s question, she gestured dismissively. “When I told Jefferson that the little bitch was going to inherit Henry’s estate, that I was going to stop her, he said, ‘Let it go, Mama. It’s Henry’s property. Let him give it to whoever he wants.’ Of course, he doesn’t know who Selena McCaffrey really is. That might change the way he thinks.”

  After a deep breath, the smile and affection returned. “Jefferson’s a good son. He would be here in five minutes if I called him, and he wouldn’t leave until I could go with him. He takes care of his mama.”

  Tony exchanged glances with Garry. They’d known Grant was flying in, but there had been no mention of Jefferson coming from his home in Florida. “You mean, he’s here in town?”

  Kathryn smiled blissfully. “Has been since Monday. He came to see his mama, to help me through this trying time with Henry.”

  Garry, his expression wary, gestured to Tony, and they moved to the far corner of the room. “I talked to Jefferson Hamilton a couple times in the last two days,” he murmured, “and the number I dialed was in Florida. I know it’s possible to route calls all around the world, but why do you think he never said a word about being in Tulsa unless he had something to hide? She just admitted he knew about her plan.”

  Kathryn was a master manipulator, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be manipulated herself. She was the one who’d contacted Stark and set up the hit, but Jefferson could have been the guiding force. No doubt, growing up with her had infected him with the same smug arrogance, the same sense of superiority and entitlement.

  “And when he finds out that she’s in custody . . .” Tony glanced at Kathryn, so sure that everything was going to go her way, just as it always did. “He could come rushing to her rescue, or he could . . .” Finish the job she’d started. And through his adoptive father, who’d been completely in the dark about his wife’s plans, he had a better than even chance at gaining access to Selena.

  With a yawn, Grant said, “I suppose I should see about finding a hotel.”

  Selena glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was nearly eleven. She hadn’t come close to asking all her questions, or answering all of his, but she’d waited twenty-eight years. Another few hours wouldn’t hurt.

  “You’re welcome to stay here.” The words were out before she gave them a second thought, but she wouldn’t take them back if she could. She had nothing to fear from Grant. Instinct told her that. He’d been as deeply hurt by the Daniels family as she had been—more so, in fact. She’d lost the parents she didn’t remember, while he’d lost the woman he loved more than his wife, more than his life, and their child.

  He considered it, then shook his head. “It doesn’t seem right—staying in Kathryn’s family home under the circumstances.”

  “It can’t be any less right than my staying here,” she pointed out. “I’m partly responsible for William being in a coma.”

  “I wish he was in a grave,” he said darkly, “and that Kathryn—” Abruptly, he broke off, pressing his lips together. He’d been married to her more than thirty years, and had probably thought that nothing she did could surprise him. But she had, and in trying to save her marriage, she’d destroyed it.

  Selena couldn’t summon even the faintest hint of sympathy for her.

  Grant’s hands shook as he pushed himself to his feet. “On second thought, I believe I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  Selena rose, too. “Why don’t you get your bags and I’ll show you to a room. We can talk again in the morning.”

  He nodded. She walked to the door with him, where Simmons had left his luggage before leaving, then took him to a second-floor guest room at the opposite end of the hall from her own room. She was about to leave him there when he touched her for the first time, his fingertips light against her cheek. “Your mother would be so proud of the woman you’ve become,” he said, his voice choked.

  Emotion clogging her throat, Selena smiled unsteadily. “A woman in so much trouble that the FBI could force her to be a cooperating witness in a sting to take down a global drug empire?”

  “A strong, kind, honorable woman who loves and is loved. She had dreams for you, and except for the grand-babies, you’ve fulfilled every one of them.”

  Her eyes dampened, and she blinked to clear them. “Thank you,” she murmured. The temptation was strong to throw her arms around his neck for the sort of hug she’d long dreamed of, but it was too soon. She was still too unbalanced. Instead, she settled for the farewell she’d often given William over the years—a polite kiss on each cheek. “If you need anything, I’m at the other end of the hall. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, Selena.”

  She closed the door behind her and started down the dimly lit hall. Tonight would be a good night. Tony was coming back, and Grant wasn’t leaving.

  She went to her own room but found herself unable to settle in one s
pot. After wandering through the house a time or two, she ended up in the ballroom. The lights were off in the servants’ quarters, where Jamieson and Gentry were staying, and across the lawn in the guesthouse. Out the front window, she could see the dim illumination in the guard shack; out the back window, the glow of a cigarette in the night showed the location of the rear gate guard.

  Impatient for Tony to arrive, when the telephone rang, she snatched it up. “Tony?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s Sonny. We’ve got trouble. Can we talk?”

  “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “This is serious shit. If it could wait, I wouldn’t be calling.”

  She suppressed a sigh. “Okay. Talk.”

  “Tell the guards to let me in.”

  Alarm prickled the hairs at her nape. “You’re here?”

  “Goddamn right, I’m here. I told you it was serious. I just flew five hours from Savannah. We’ve got big trouble. I’m talking fucking-federal-indictment-type trouble. Someone’s ratted us out—someone on the inside. Someone who knows enough to send all of us to prison for the rest of our fucking lives. Can I come in and talk to you, or are you gonna sit there on your hands while this whole thing blows up in our fucking faces?”

  She lifted her gaze to the front window again, where headlights showed at the gate. She wished Tony was there to advise her, or Robinette, or even Long. But they weren’t, and she had to act. And it wasn’t as if she was alone. Jamieson and Gentry were asleep two floors down, and Robinette was an intercom call away. “Let me talk to the guard.”

  There was a murmur of voices, then a stiff, “This is Tompkins. We’ll send him away—”

  “No, let him come in. I’ll get in touch with Mr. Robinette. By the way, Detective Ceola will be returning tonight also.” She’d left the front door unlocked for him, as had become her habit.