Fast Track (Buchanan-Renard #12)

Fast Track (Buchanan-Renard #12) Page 31

“Who the hell is Larry?” Alec asked.

She whirled around to face him. “Larry the fisherman.” Her tone suggested he should already know that.

Alec put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, we’ll figure something out.”

His promise calmed her. “Thank you,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aiden was standing in the doorway of his office reading a printout his assistant had handed him when he happened to look up and see Cordelia walking past. He did a double take, dropped the paper, and rushed after her. “Cordelia.”

She turned around just as Alec caught up with her. “Yes, Aiden?”

“In order to get here you had to take the private elevator to the first floor, cross through the lobby, and take another elevator to the third floor.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I had to do.”

The muscle in his cheek flexed. “Who let you out?”

“Let me out?”

Alec could almost see smoke coming out of the top of Cordie’s head. “I let her out,” he said. “I promised her.”

“For the record, this isn’t out,” she argued. “I’m still inside the hotel. I would like to go outside.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Aiden snapped.

“This is a compromise,” Alec explained. “Until it’s safe. Come on, Cordie. Let’s go find Regan. She should be in her office.”

Aiden walked down the hall with them. “Let me know when Cordelia is coming back upstairs. I’ll go with her.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. Frowning intently, he stared into her eyes. He acted as though he wanted to say something to her, but he kept silent.

“I’ll come get you,” she promised.

He let go of her, nodded, and went back to his office. He walked past the paper he’d dropped on the floor, seemingly unaware that it was there.

“I’m making him crazy,” Cordie whispered. “I almost feel sorry for him. He likes a calm, peaceful, uncluttered environment when he’s at home, and since I’ve been here, it hasn’t been calm or peaceful. It’s been chaotic.”

“He’s going to miss you when you leave.”

She didn’t believe that nonsense for a second. Maybe he’d miss the sex . . . the mind-blowing, incredible sex. “When will I be leaving?”

“Soon,” Alec promised. He looked at his watch. “It’s ten in the morning in Sydney, and tonight Liam will be busy at the restaurant trying to shake things up with Simone. He’ll put on quite a show pretending to collect her DNA. I wish we could see it.”

“Will she know what he’s doing and why?”

“Oh, she’ll know. The only reason to get her DNA would be to match it to yours and prove you’re her daughter. Unless she’s a complete moron, she’ll know.”

“Liam told us he already had Simone’s DNA and the results. How did he really get it?”

Alec opened the door to Regan’s reception area. “I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. It’s better that way.”

“Liam’s CIA, isn’t he?”

Alec laughed. “No.”

She knew he wasn’t going to volunteer the information, but that didn’t stop her from prodding. She put the issue of Liam’s job aside for now and said, “Simone’s going to freak out.”

“That’s the hope.”

“Do you think we’ll see an immediate reaction?”

“Yes, I think we will.”

As it turned out, he was right. There was an immediate reaction.

         • • •

Aiden shook Cordelia awake at seven in the morning to tell her Alec was coming over with some news, but before he could say anything, he became distracted. He hadn’t touched her in what seemed an eternity, and when she rolled over and moaned, still more asleep than awake, he couldn’t resist the temptation. She wore a little silk-and-lace nothing that barely covered her, and he desperately wanted to tear it off her. He turned into an animal with her. There was no control, no discipline. He pulled the sheet back, stripped out of his clothes, and made love to her. She more than matched him with her wild and uninhibited response.

After he caught his breath, he leaned up on his elbow. Looking down and tracing the contented smile on her lips with his finger, he said, “Alec should be here anytime now.”

She sat up, pushed the hair out of her eyes, and asked why.

“He said he has some good news for you.” There was a knock on the door. “That’s probably him now.”

She flew out of bed. “Put some clothes on,” she said in a furious whisper. She picked up his jeans and tossed them at him. “Do you have any idea . . . We shouldn’t have . . . I don’t want him to know that we . . . you know.” She took a quick breath. “Do you have any idea how frustrated I am?”

He pulled on his jeans but didn’t bother to close the zipper. Ignoring another knock at the door, he walked around the bed to where she stood. “Frustrated? How many times did you come? Two? Three times? If you’re still frustrated, then we need to get back in that bed and—”

She put her hand over his mouth and started to laugh. “Not that kind of frustration. Go open the door.”

Fortunately Alec wasn’t at the door. Room service was delivering breakfast.

Aiden called out to her, but she was already in the shower. She had become a pro at showering with the use of only one hand. By the time she was dressed, she was starving and ready to take on another day in paradise prison. Later, as she was drinking a glass of orange juice and sitting across from Aiden, who was buried in what looked like a stock report, it suddenly occurred to her how surreal it all was. They were behaving like an old married couple.

Alec arrived a few minutes later. He took the cup of coffee Cordie offered and sat down at the table. “I’ve got some good news,” he said. “Charles Kendrick is on his way to Chicago. Liam reported that he boarded a plane in Sydney using the name Charles Ford and is carrying a passport with that identification.”

“And that’s good news? I’m assuming he’s coming here to kill me. Right?” Cordie asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

“Right,” Alec agreed.

“We won’t let him get near you, Cordelia,” Aiden assured her.

“I know that.” She took a deep breath. “So what’s the plan?”

“Jack and I are going to be at the gate to welcome him to Chicago with a gift . . . handcuffs,” Alec said. “We’re taking him in as soon as he steps off the plane.”

“Shouldn’t you catch him in the act? You can’t charge him with attempted murder if he doesn’t try.”

“For the love of God,” Aiden muttered, appalled by the idea.

“No, we have enough to get what we want,” Alec said. Once again he refused to expound, and no matter how much she nagged, he wouldn’t elaborate.

Aiden could see how discouraged she was. Living day to day with the unknown was unnerving. After Alec left, he tried to cheer her up. “It won’t be long now until you can go anywhere you want.”

“That will be nice,” she said, appreciating his optimism but almost afraid to hope.

“Tonight we’ll have a good dinner and watch a movie.”

“Sorry. I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

She picked up a bagel and tore it in half. “I’ve got plans. What did I do with my orange juice?”

“You drank it. What plans? You aren’t going out. Stop messing with me.”

“I’m playing cards with Walker.”

“You couldn’t have just said that?” he demanded.

Of course she could have, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

         • • •

Charles Kendrick wasn’t happy to see two FBI agents waiting for him. As soon as he got over his shock, he became surly. Alec thought the man believed he could bluster and intimidate his way out of an arrest. They put him in an interrogation room and let him sweat while they went through his duffel bag. In one of the pockets, wrapped in socks, were three Testor phones. One of them already had a Sydney number programmed in. To Jack and Alec, the find was better than Christmas morning.

Liam had already gone through all the phone logs on every cell phone, home phone, and business phone owned by the Rayburn family, and there weren’t any calls to or from Chicago, which meant the number programmed into the phone they held most likely went to another burner in Sydney. The only way to find out whom it belonged to was to call.

Jack led the interrogation. He sat across from Kendrick at a metal table in a small, windowless room. Wanting Kendrick to feel closed in and trapped, Jack had handcuffed him to the table, and Alec leaned against the wall behind him, observing. Every once in a while he’d circle the room and stand behind Kendrick, all but breathing down his neck. Kendrick fidgeted in his seat. Sweat trickled down his forehead, steaming up his round Harry Potter glasses. The first words out of his mouth were expected. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Jack sat back in his chair and couldn’t have looked more easygoing. “You have a unique opportunity here, Charles. You can help yourself by giving us the name of your boss. All we want to know is who hired you to kill Cordelia Kane.”

“Are you crazy? No one hired me to kill anyone,” he blurted. “I’m just here to see the sights.”

“Oh, I misunderstood,” Jack said apologetically. “Well, now that you’ve cleared that up, you can be on your way.”

A flash of relief crossed Kendrick’s face before he recognized the sarcasm in Jack’s comment. He slumped down in his chair.

Alec moved to stand close behind him again. “It would save time if you told the truth.”

“I am telling the truth.”

“Let’s go back to this unique opportunity,” Jack suggested smoothly. “If you tell Detective Buchanan and me now, if you work with us, we’ll help you.”

“I’m not telling you squat,” he muttered. “Lawyer. Get me a lawyer.” There were beads of sweat on his forehead.

Jack acted as though he hadn’t heard his demand. “It’s a sweet deal,” he said. “But here’s the thing. There’s a time limit. Once we call the number you have programmed into the burner, we won’t need your help. The deal goes away then, and Detective Buchanan and I will do all we can to make sure you get the maximum sentence.”

“For what? You’ve got nothing.”

“Let’s start with a forged passport,” Jack said. “That alone will put you away. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll see that you go to prison for a very, very long time.” He pushed the chair back. “I’m going to go get you a lawyer now.”

Alec followed him to the door. He turned back and said, “You’ve got five minutes before we make the call.”

They left Kendrick to sweat—and hopefully panic—and headed to another interrogation room, where Jenkins waited. They’d had him brought up to the fourth floor so they could have another chat with him . . . or, as Alec called it, round two. The plan was to play one suspect against the other.

In the hall Jack said, “Five minutes? You gave him five minutes to decide what he wants to do? Where did that come from? We agreed to tell him he had twelve hours, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember, but five minutes sounded more dramatic. Twelve hours didn’t have the same kick.”

Jack laughed. “You’re right.”

“I want to call that number now.”

“Me, too, but we have to wait. We’re working blind here, but doesn’t it make sense that Kendrick wouldn’t call his boss an hour after landing? He wouldn’t have anything to report. So we wait a little longer, maybe five or six hours. If the boss is spooked and doesn’t answer the phone, we’re screwed, and easy becomes hard.”

“Unless Kendrick and Jenkins tell us what we want to know.”

The rest of the day Alec and Jack rotated between the two interrogation rooms, hoping to wear down one or the other of the two suspects, but neither Jenkins nor Kendrick was giving up anything. Threats of longer prison sentences for their crimes didn’t seem to faze them. As though they had rehearsed their denials, each separately insisted they were not taking orders from anyone.

Jack was the last to question Kendrick. When he walked out of the room, Alec was waiting for him. “The tech is ready.”

A minute later they stood next to a technician as he played a recording that sounded like electrical static. “Will that work?” he asked them.

“Perfect,” Jack told him.

“Kendrick’s going to cry entrapment, you know,” Alec said. “This will never fly in court.”

“That’s true,” Jack admitted. “But it might give him the motivation to open up.”

“Time to make the call,” Alec said as he picked up Kendrick’s burner phone, touched the screen, and laid the phone in the center of the desk so everyone could hear.

The men hovered over it, listening. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . the phone kept ringing. They glanced at one another. No one was answering. Six . . . seven . . . eight . . . Alec shook his head and was about to pick up the phone when suddenly there was a click. A few seconds of silence followed, as though whoever was on the other end was waiting for the caller to speak first. Finally, the silence was broken.

Julian Taylor answered. “Is it done?”

         • • •

Jack and Alec couldn’t wait to have yet another chat with Charles Kendrick. They were both smiling as they entered the interrogation room. Kendrick was sitting next to his attorney, a forty-year-old man with a sour face and a disposition to match. His posture was that of someone who had been beaten down by disappointments.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Kendrick stated defiantly. “My lawyer here, Mr. Kale, says I don’t even have to talk to you.”

Alec and Jack pulled out chairs and sat facing them. Kendrick’s smug expression was about to change.

Addressing the attorney, Jack said, “We’re going to be adding to the charges.”

“What charges are you adding?” Kendrick demanded before his attorney could say a word.