The Third Secret

by Tara Taylor Quinn

Erin couldn’t believe the man had hung up on her. Not even when she was left standing with a cell screen that read call disconnected.

  23

  Steve wanted to fly a kite. After Rick reminded him that his kite was broken, he wanted to make a new kite. And then fly it. Rick didn’t want Steve outside. Not until he’d done more investigation to verify the information he’d gleaned from his beautiful attorney that morning.

  Steve still wanted to fly a kite. When an hour’s worth of crying, stomping his feet and, eventually, hitting his head on the floor didn’t get him a kite, he wanted to go fishing.

  Another outdoor adventure. One that was riskier than flying a kite in a private gated area with security alarms and guards in place.

  Rick tried to interest him in video games. In movies. In board games and puzzles. In the Erector set. And a balsa wood airplane they could fly in the hallway outside Steve’s room.

  He finally resorted to bringing out Steve’s swimsuit, telling him to put it on and taking him to the whirlpool sauna room. Steve thought the pool was for fun. Rick knew it was a way of calming down heightened emotions.

  At dinnertime, with a word of warning to the private guard on duty and an apology to Jill, Rick left a pouting and cantankerous, though much calmer, Steve in Jill’s care at the door of the dining room. He suggested Steve be offered brownies for dessert if he cleaned his plate, then headed for his truck.

  The blocks around Lakeside were quiet. No suspicious traffic or parked vehicles. No people sitting in cars. Rick turned south toward Grand Rapids, made the two-hour trip in an hour and a half and pulled off into a secluded area near the Thornapple River.

  A place he’d never been.

  There, still armed, he left the truck, locked it and moved into the trees to walk along the river. The trees were camouflage. The water, an escape route.

  He probably wouldn’t need either.

  He hadn’t been followed.

  Rick walked for a while, listening—to the water flowing a couple of feet to his right and to the world around him.

  Someone was spreading a rumor in the drug underworld that Tom Watkins was washed up, whatever that meant. Tom hadn’t been much of a presence in that world. And yet Segura, the arms dealer whose family he’d infiltrated, was willing to do business with him.

  Though it was still light, the early-evening hour was bringing in a chill. It was supposed to drop down to the forties overnight.

  Segura wasn’t worried about the rumors. Because he was the one who’d started them? He had connections to the drug world, so he could’ve spread word among the movers there. At the very least, depending on how widespread the rumors were, he could have heard them.

  But if Segura was behind this, why? Unless he knew that Rick—Tom—had brought about the end of his lucrative illegal arms business several years before. The business had been stopped. But the man had walked. Because he had a government contact? Someone who smoothed things over for him? Because he’d called in favors?

  Or because he had so much cash stashed in various other interests that he’d been able to hire a lawyer good enough to protect him from the fall?

  Was there a mole somewhere in the government?

  As he walked along the peacefully flowing river, Rick processed what he knew, what he suspected and what he’d heard until he found the confidence that had been guiding life-and-death decisions for the past twenty years.

  He took out the scrambled phone and called Sarge.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call,” Sarge said quietly.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Rick didn’t bother asking where.

  “I got bad news, son,” Sarge continued. “Someone’s passing word among our low-life contacts that you’ve let your addiction to the bottle get the better of you.”

  So Eddie was right.

  “I heard something about that, but don’t know who or why.”

  “I’m still checking.”

  “Is someone just pissed at Tom, or is the cover blown?”

  “Couldn’t confirm that, either, but I think it’s Tom they’re after. I still get intel on a need-to-know basis and no one sent word that Tom had been cut loose.”

  No one had challenged the government about Tom’s identity or tracked either that identity or the job’s he’d done to the United States government. If they had, the government would have cut Tom loose. The government wouldn’t protect him. They’d deny ever having heard of him.

  And Sarge would immediately be notified and Rick would be told. So Rick had a chance to do whatever he could to protect himself.

  “But with someone framing Rick, it seems pretty obvious that someone somewhere has put your two identities together,” Sarge went on. “There was always that possibility. Always the danger that someone could run into Rick and recognize Tom.”

  Rick stepped on a twig. And stopped walking so he could concentrate on his surroundings.

  “If my cover’s intact, then it’s not the government behind this.”

  “I’d know if it was. But we can’t forget about the missing Homeland Security emails.”

  “A mole, maybe.” Rick told Sarge what he suspected. “We’re probably looking at one of Tom’s contacts who had business with Homeland Security. Someone who’s figured out that Tom Watkins and Rick Thomas are the same man, but who doesn’t know yet that Tom Watkins was a government agent.”

  “It’s the only theory that makes sense at this point.”

  “And Brady and Saul—whoever this is was after them, too. Or rather, after Jack and Kit. Both men were killed while living as their aliases. Whoever this is knows we’re out there—that we’re connected. They just don’t know we were agents.”

  “Right.”

  “Which would most likely mean we’re looking for someone in drugs, ammunitions or human trafficking. Those were the three activities we focused on.”

  “Agreed.”

  Rick’s mind raced. His ability to rev up, to come alive, in the face of extreme danger had kept him alive for fifteen years of working against unbelievable odds in the most cutthroat societies.

  “And I’m not dead yet, like Brady and Saul are,” he said. “Because I’m of greater value to them alive than dead for some reason. But they need to limit my power, which explains the rumors. They’re ensuring that no one will associate with me, but not making it so bad that anyone’s going to kill me before whoever’s behind this gets what he wants.”

  He’d worked out a lot of it.

  “Which means they have a job they want you to do—a job requiring Tom’s unique skills…”

  “Or one involving something I handled in the past, something I have intelligence on, maybe a contact I made…”

  The river was deep, flowing swiftly. Rick couldn’t see the bottom lost beneath the swirling mass of brown water.

  “Or you have something they want.”

  It was the validation Rick needed for the conclusions he’d already drawn. “And if I go to work for someone else, I might pass it on, whatever it is. Certainly explains the bad rap being spread around. But that doesn’t explain Cook’s death. Even if he was on to some emails, had stumbled on some intelligence, why frame me for his murder?”

  “So they could keep an eye on you. If you’re a murder suspect, they have the law helping them. The very system they want to destroy is helping them keep tabs on you.”

  Made perfect, twisted sense. In a twisted world.

  “Until they either find what I have or come up with a way to make me give it to them,” Rick said slowly.

  “If they don’t find what they want, they’ll need you as backup to lead them to it. Or, like we said, they have a job they want you to do, but the timing’s not right. We can’t ignore the fact that whoever we’re up against is smart. We have to assume he knows what he’s doing.” Sarge paused. “A name was mentioned,” he said, his voice still low, as though he was trying not to be overheard. “I suspect this has to do with the
mess in Arizona.”

  Rick had been caught with his hands in the safe of a government official.

  “Then why kill Brady?” he asked. “And Saul?”

  “Word is that after you went to prison, Brady did some checking.”

  “He thought I’d been set up.”

  “Could be someone thinks Brady passed something incriminating on to you. A computer chip, maybe.”

  Or a matchbook.

  “So why kill Kit?”

  “He must have known something.”

  “Or the deaths could be unrelated.”

  “It’s safest to assume they’re related.”

  Rick agreed. “But Cook’s murder might not be,” he said.

  “Could be you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and an easy scapegoat.”

  Rick. The itinerant construction worker with seemingly no ties. No one to look too closely if he took a fall.

  “Cook had a married lover. They got an APB out on the husband, but so far, he hasn’t been found.” A good sign. A guy who’d committed murder would be on the run. But it wasn’t enough of a good sign to make Rick comfortable. The murder weapon had shown up in his house too soon after the incident to have been a spur-of-the-moment decision.

  Even if Charles Cook’s lover’s husband was letting Rick take the fall, how would he have known where Rick lived and been able to get the weapon planted in his bedroom within hours of the murder with no evidence of breaking and entering?

  Rick’s theory was that Cook’s murder had been carefully planned.

  By someone who knew exactly what he was doing.

  “Did you learn any more about the missing Homeland Security emails?”

  “Still waiting to hear back from my contact.”

  The content of those posts could tell them so much. What Cook had found out. If he’d found anything out. Who they’d been sent to. And from. Who was out to get Rick…

  And they might tell them nothing.

  “If they involve information on drugs, ammunitions or human trafficking, we’d know where to focus,” Rick said. “Cook could’ve been on to something. Maybe there’s someone dirty in Homeland Security. And he or they are letting the team—our former team—take the heat for whatever they’re doing. It could be someone who knows about the team, but is working both sides. And maybe I’m still alive because he thinks I know what Charles uncovered. Maybe he thinks Charles passed on evidence to me. Maybe Charles’s death and my being framed is a warning.”

  “Maybe. I’ll see what I can learn. You don’t need me to tell you we don’t have much time, son.”

  “Which is why I’m calling you. I want permission for Tom Watkins to take a job.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s the quickest way to find out who’s after him. Tom has to get back on the streets, talk to people. We have to know who’s spreading rumors about him. Let me do this, Sarge. It’s the only way.”

  The only way to ensure Steve’s safety, at any rate.

  “I’m not comfortable with it. It’s not the only way.”

  “What else is there?’

  “We have to figure out what you have that they want.”

  He’d been over all of that. Many times since the day he’d come home to discover that someone had been in his house, touching his things. “As you said, we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “You went to see Brady’s landlady. Did she say anything at all that could help us?”

  “No.”

  “When was your last contact with him?”

  “Before Arizona. After I was caught we couldn’t communicate or we’d risk blowing the team’s cover. You know that.”

  “He died for a reason. So did Saul. It’s connected to Tom. It has to be. Which means you. Maybe what they’re looking for doesn’t have to do with Cook at all. Or maybe Cook’s role is after the fact. I still think this ties back to Brady. He was nosing around the Arizona deal. Maybe they think he gave you something. Some clue.”

  “It’s possible. But I’d have come up with it by now if he had.”

  “So maybe he gave it to you and you didn’t know it.”

  Not Brady. Not without a trail Rick would recognize, be able to follow. They knew each other too well. That was why he couldn’t let go of the matchbook.

  The matchbook. Brady had given him something. Something Rick needed to keep to himself until he could figure out why his comrade had singled him out.

  Whatever was going on had already gotten Saul and Brady killed. Whatever it was, Brady had determined it to be a danger to Sarge. Otherwise, he would’ve had Janet Meadows give the matchbook to Sarge, who’d be the one to pick up his things if anything happened to him.

  Brady’s saving the book for Rick was a clear message to protect Sarge. That was protocol. Period. Rick was going to do everything he could to keep Sarge alive.

  “Tom has to go back to work,” he insisted.

  “No.”

  “It’s the only way,” he said again. “We don’t know exactly how much time we have. And we don’t know when they’ll be coming after you.”

  “Give me a few more days to see what I can find. A couple of key contacts have been out of the country. I’ll be in Michigan on Tuesday. Meet me at rendezvous five. At midnight.”

  That gave him three days with Steve. Three days to put their affairs in order.

  Three days to fight off sexy images of his beautiful attorney.

  And three days to find the connection between the covert ops team, Brady’s matchbook, the Arizona setup, the destroyed yacht and four deaths. Saul, Brady, Maria and Charles Cook.

  For the first time since Noah’s death, Erin didn’t sit in the Fitzgerald family pew at church on Sunday. Caylee went. Daniel, with whom she’d been on the phone for most of Saturday evening, had begged her to. While the young man didn’t want Caylee to go to Yale, didn’t understand the need, he was being wonderfully supportive where Caylee’s father was concerned.

  According to Caylee, Daniel thought Ron Fitzgerald’s behavior was overbearing and dictatorial.

  With Caylee gone, Erin took an hour to clean on Sunday morning, vacuuming the carpets, running a disposable dust cloth over the furniture and shining the bathrooms. She also put extra sheets on the beds. Kelly and Maggie were due to arrive sometime that evening.

  And when the house was in order she took pity on Boots—who detested the vacuum cleaner and the smell of household cleansers—and left. With a house full of people, she wasn’t going to have her usual evening time for work. She had a couple of briefs to prepare and some paperwork to fill out to inform the court and Christa Hart that psychologist Kelly Chapman was going to be an expert witness in the Thomas case.

  She parked in the vacant lot behind her office building just after eleven Sunday morning.

  The front door of the building wasn’t locked. Odd, but not unheard of. It opened into a vestibule and a lobby with a single long counter used by the couple of receptionists they all shared. Hallways lined with office suites shot off from both sides. They kept the door unlocked during business hours. And their receptionist locked it up each night.

  Obviously one of the other tenants—attorneys, an accountant, an investment broker and a family counselor—had been in over the weekend and forgotten to lock the main door. She’d done it herself. Because she’d only had her own private practice for five years, she still worked alone. No researchers or assistants who would’ve had access to her office.

  The doors in the silent hallway were all shut. Erin found the quiet a bit unsettling as the tennis shoes she’d put on with her jeans and sweater whispered against the carpet.

  And she remembered watching Rick Thomas walk down this same hallway. Remembered the unusual energy, the sense of life, he seemed to exude.

  There was a break in the straight line of closed doors. One was slightly off.

  Heart pounding, Erin recognized the door. It was hers. And she was positive she’d locked it on Friday when sh
e left because she’d dropped her keys and when she bent down to retrieve them, she’d spilled the contents of her purse.

  Moving slowly forward Erin stopped just short of her door. Listened. And then peeked around the corner. She didn’t hear anything.

  But what she saw when she pushed on the door sent a shaft of fear straight through her. The only thing about her office that looked normal was the position of the desk, which was set out from the middle of the back wall, facing the door. The high-backed maroon leather chair lay upside down by the entry to the private bathroom, the wheels hanging in midair. Where carpet should be, she saw only papers. And file folders. Envelopes. And unused computer discs. The once-locked black four-drawer filing cabinet had been shoved over, with a big hole cut in the side.

  Desk drawers were scattered around the desk, all of them emptied. Her plants were uprooted, soil everywhere, pots thrown haphazardly about. Her Juris Doctor degree and professional awards, along with a couple of framed pictures, had all been removed from the walls.

  Books were pulled out of bookcases and left open, many with pages bent, on the floor. Some looked as though they’d been flung across the room. Her plastic in-box was broken into jagged pieces. An angel water globe had been shattered, the glittery water soaking a pile of papers on the desk.

  Even her Kleenex box had been emptied, crumpled on the floor, the tissues lying around it.

  She should go. Run. As fast as she could. Call Sheriff Johnson. Get help.

  Stepping into the room, she closed and locked the door behind her. Then she checked the closet and bathroom to make sure she had no trespassers lurking there. She probably should’ve checked before locking the door, but right now it felt more dangerous outside than in. Whoever was after her, and it could’ve been more than one person, had already done their damage here.

  Were they out there? Perhaps watching her?

  Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and Erin pulled her phone out of the purse still hanging on her shoulder.

  And she dialed the number she did because she knew it was the right thing to do.

  “Thomas.” He picked up on the first ring.