Deadly Little Secrets (26 page)

“Shit. Trust Davis to find the one thing we can use.” Pretzky shook her head in disgust. “How the hell he manages it, I'll never know. It's that one miniscule thing here and there that repeatedly saves his ass.”

“Really?” That was news to Ana, and she tried to muster some interest, but she couldn't.

“Really,” Pretzky answered. “Davis has been on probation so many times, it's ridiculous. In fact, if it goes too long between complaints, I wonder why I've not had to write the paperwork.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Ana said, since Pretzky seemed to expect some reply. The older woman watched her for a moment before she spoke again.

“You're due in DC tomorrow, for the final stage of the inquiry.” Pretzky dropped the bomb with no further preamble. “They want you there at three.”

Ana sat bolt upright, her hands gripping the arms of the chair. How could it be now? It had finally come, the yes-or-no vote that would determine the fate of her career. She'd been praying for it, waiting. Now, of all times, she wished it were a few weeks down the road.

“It's shitty timing, but I have no doubt of the outcome, Agent,” Pretzky said, calmly. “You do good work and I feel certain that you did good work in Rome. These last three weeks have been a crap hole of difficulty, but you've handled it. I've been impressed.”

Ana's jaw dropped, she couldn't help it. “Uh, t-thank you,” she said, wanting to curse the stutter. It made her sound like some green cadet, but Pretzky's words took her by complete surprise. So much so that she had to ask her to repeat the next part.

“I said, get your flight worked out. A room's been reserved for you at the St. Regis. Details are in an e-mail I forwarded to you. Take the rest of the day.” Pretzky glanced at the clock on the wall behind Ana. “You'll need it to gather your notes and pack.”

“Thanks.” Ana started to rise, but Pretzky motioned for her to stay.

“That's not all. When you're done in DC, I want you to go on to White Plains or New York City, wherever it is in New York, check out this lead Davis dug up on the shipper.”

“White Plains. It's not too far from New York City.”

“White Plains, then. If there's anything to it, we need to hit it hard and fast. Get him to forward everything to you electronically, so you can review it on the trip east. If it looks like there's enough to warrant further checks, let me know and we'll get it arranged. I've reached out to the New York office, but they've got four big cases pending. They're okay with us being on their turf, checking a cold case, but they aren't going to lend a hand, if you know what I mean.” She waited for Ana's nod of understanding. New York was there, would get some credit if they closed it, but they weren't fronting any help or time for a cold case.

“If we could close this,” Pretzky continued, “it would be huge.”

Pretzky fell silent, but still didn't dismiss Ana. They sat, listening to the clock tick for what seemed like an eternity. Evidently, Pretzky made up her mind to speak openly.

“I didn't like you when you came here, Burton. You know that. I questioned your dedication.”

“Everyone did. Hell,” Ana admitted, “I did.”

Pretzky nodded. “I get that. Here's the thing. You've done superb work. I'm in this job because I'm not built for the field, and I found it out the hard way.” She didn't elaborate, and Ana didn't ask.

“I'm good at what I do,” Pretzky continued. “I'm good at managing the rejects and the lost causes, the people who need desk duty for a while.” She flicked her eyes toward Pearson, who was passing by the windows as she spoke. A sure indication that Pearson was no reject, but that she had issues no one was immediately aware of. Pretzky obviously
was
good at what she did, since Ana would never have guessed that anyone in the office—barring Davis—was considered a reject. “What I do is important to the Agency, I know that. I also know that I won't get someone with your impressive capabilities in this office anytime soon, if ever. I've pushed you hard,” she continued, ignoring Ana's halfhearted protest. “It's my job. But you'll hear it at the inquiry. I would recommend you to any duty post, and have you back here in a New York minute if they'd let you come.”

Once again, Ana felt her jaw loosen with shock. She didn't know what to say, where to look.

Pretzky laughed. “I know, I'm a hard-ass.” She leaned forward, earnest now. “I have to be. Sometimes the people they send me just need a break, a chance to breathe before they get back to what they're really good at. You're one of those. Sometimes, this office is just the cruise to retirement, or the way to keep a half-decent resource plugging away at a menial but necessary task. We're the last stop for some.”

Cold Cases certainly qualified in that respect.

“Most of this crap is either so opaque, with so few leads, that it'll never be solved, or so obviously botched that it was worthless to even review the data. But someone has to check and mine for the few, the very few, that may have a lead no one else saw. In the three, no four months on the job here, you've closed a case and you are well on your way to closing another.” Pretzky sounded sure, authoritative. “Hell, I'd beg for you if I thought they'd let me have you.”

“Thank you.” Ana's voice was weak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean, I hadn't considered…” She paused, searching for courtesy. “…everything, but it makes sense. I've enjoyed working with you, Special Agent.”

“Same goes, now get out of here. Let me know when you're headed for New York.”

“Will do,” Ana said, and rose since Pretzky had finally given her usual dismissive wave to speed Ana on her way.

In a daze, she got back to her cubicle, staring blindly at the files that lay on her desk. A new, hard-locked file cabinet sat under the workstation. It had been there when Ana came back in. Only she and Pretzky had keys to it.

The Inquiry. Oh, God. Why now?

Her e-mail pinged with six incoming messages. She frowned and opened the first.

Hell. Just what she needed. Ana opened the others to find they were all from TJ, with at least one more phrase per e-mail, most of these in Greek.

If it were anyone else, she'd tell them to go to hell. For TJ, she'd make the time. He'd saved her ass so many times, she had to help him when he needed her. If nothing else, their brief stint as lovers was the one bright spot in the whole debacle in Rome.

With a sigh, she hit R
EPLY
and answered, easily translating both the Italian and the Greek. She knew that his recommendations, and continued support, might mean the difference at the Inquiry between a hammer blow to her career, and merely a black mark that continued good work could expunge.

She opened a new e-mail, entered TJ's address.

Heart clenching, she picked up the phone, dialed the private number Dav had given her. When he answered, she simply asked, “How is he?”

“Cranky. Hold on, please.” She heard the muffled hum of voices and the rustle of fabric. “There, I've stepped outside. He's healing, but it's slower than he wants it to be.”

Her heart eased, though it still ached from Gates's dismissal. She'd felt compelled to check on him. Dav had enabled that, to a degree, by giving her his private line.

“I wanted to let you know I'd be away for a few days. The case is moving,” she added, wanting to have some real rationale for bothering Dav, a business excuse, since her personal ties were now severed. “I've got some leads to check out.”

“You've got the Inquiry as well,” he said, and she sat up, alert.

“How do you know that?”

He laughed. “My dear young woman,” he continued to chuckle. “I have my sources too. Any number of my companies work with DOD, NSA, and even NASA. There's not much I can't uncover. I will wish you luck, but you won't need it. Safe travels, eh?” he continued, his voice warm and friendly. It brought tears to her eyes. She dashed them away before anyone could walk by, see her crying.

“Thanks, Dav. For everything. I owe you.”

“No, dear lady, we're even, if anything. When you solve this, I'll owe
you,
” he said. “Take care.”

“Will do,” she said, hanging up. Shaking her head over all the strange paths her life seemed to be taking, she made her flight reservations for the red-eye, printed out the info Davis had managed to find on the shipper.

Before she could leave, the phone rang. “Miss Burton, it is Misioia.”

Oh, God. The dress.

“I am so sorry,” Ana began, but Misioia cut her off.

“No, no. I am calling to say that the new dress will be delivered to your home next week. Mr. G called, he told me everything. He wants you to have the dress.” She paused, laughed. “Well, another like it. I do not usually repeat my garments, but for you, for
him,
I will.”

When Ana tried to protest, the designer laughed again and told her she'd had twelve calls for custom gowns and an additional fifteen calls for interviews. “I am well paid, Miss Burton. I hope you will come back to me again. I will make my creations well within your range, yes?” She wouldn't hear any protest or comment from Ana; instead, she ordered Ana to return to her shop soon to be sure the replacement dress was fitted properly. “Now, have a good day, yes?” And she was gone.

Ana wanted to put her head down and cry. Instead, she packed up, got her newly returned car from the garage, and went home.

Jen was waiting when she got there. “I called your office. They grilled me about who I was before they would tell me you were on the way home. Someone named Pearson.”

Ana managed a smile. “Yeah, she's a good agent. What's up?”

“Oh, just stopping by to say hi. Pearson said you were heading to DC. I know what that means,” Jen said, tossing an arm around Ana's shoulders as they mounted the steps to the apartment. “Want some company while you pack?”

“Sure.”

“Good, we can order Chinese and gorge ourselves while you debate which conservative black suit would work best. After all, you only have twelve.”

Laughing, they went in, with Jen heading straight for the phone. “Total exaggeration,” Ana called from the bedroom. “I only have four.”

“Six,” Jen called back. “I counted last time I was here.”

“Six? Really?” She didn't remember having six, but Jen was actually far more in touch with her wardrobe than Ana was. She'd helped pick out the more conservative garb when Ana moved back to The City, understanding that Ana needed to look like she was serious, meant business. No more flamboyant Parisian and Italian fashion.

She pulled the suitcase from under the bed, and true to her word, Jen helped her focus enough to pack the right things. They had Chinese for lunch, and laughed over a stupid comedy on HBO while they ate.

“How're things with Jack?” Ana finally asked, sure she'd hear that Jen had brushed him off, kicked him to the curb.

Jen's dreamy smile disabused her of that notion right away. “He's good. Really good. He's out of town right now, back east, but he's already called me twice today.”

Shocked, Ana managed only a “Wow, really?” before Jen was off on a tear about the wonders of dating the doting New Yorker, Jack D'Onofrio.

Maybe, just maybe, there was someone in the world for whom things could work out. If anyone deserved it, it was Jen.

“Hey, you're tired, I know,” Jen said on a grin. “I've been running off at the mouth, but I need to get out of here and let you get going. Besides, I gotta go make kissy noises into the phone with Jack. You don't want to be there for that, right?”

“Uh, no. Thanks for asking,” Ana said facetiously. “We'll just take a rain check on that.”

“Hey, he wanted me to tell you he was sorry for everything that happened, you know, like empathetic and all.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. Where is he today?”

“Back in New York, I think. Maybe Boston.” She waved toward the east. “Out that way. Why?”

“Just wondering.” Ana strove to keep her voice level, nonchalant. A hunch, a very troubling worry about New York Millionaire Jack, was buzzing in the back of her mind. “Hey, thanks for coming over,” she said, standing up as Jen did. “It really helped.”

Her friend gave her a hug and a pat on the back. “What friends are for, right? I can do that, most of the time.” She laughed, and gathered her things. “Call me, about everything, okay? I'm here for you.”

Ana nodded. “I know. Thanks.”

“Sure. Fly safe.”

Locking the doors behind her friend, Ana flew to her computer to run Jack D'Onofrio again. There had to be something that linked him, and she was going to find it.

The private jet was well appointed, the nurses dressed in regular clothes rather than scrubs, but Gates still felt the irritating sting of being under a doctor's care. Two days out of the hospital and he was still annoyed by all the poking and prodding. He hated being hovered over.

He felt surprisingly good for someone who'd been shot. Then again, the doctor kept saying it was a miracle that the bullet had missed all the vital stuff. Essentially, he just had to heal from the surgery, the blood loss, and the shock to his body.

Piece of cake.

“So.” Dav stood in the doorway to the plane's bedroom. “You're insisting on this. Why?”

“We've been over it, Dav. Until Baxter and whoever else he's working with can figure something out, it's better for me to be away from here, away from you.”

“So you want me to take you to the Paris house and leave you there. It makes so much sense.” Dav's dry answer said exactly the opposite.

“Dav, I work for you. I'm your security guru. It's my job to be there and make sure you're safe, not bring the target that's on me to you too. You've got enough trouble dealing with the Central American faction and whoever's lurking around, impersonating your dead brother and scaring Sophia, without my adding my crap to it.”

“We still don't know that it's your crap,” Dav pointed out. “Don't look so belligerent.” Dav laughed. “I've no objection to a few days in Paris. However, we've got to stop in New York. That meeting with Goldman Sachs can't be postponed any longer. I have a suite set up at the Waldorf. You can recuperate from this flight and prepare for the next one, tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. I could just go on to Paris alone, you know.” He shifted. He was getting stiff spending so much time in bed. That reminded him of Ana, so he went after Dav again. “By the way, don't think I haven't heard about Carrie.”

Dav looked away, just a flicker of movement, but Gates saw it and knew he was on to something. “I don't know what you mean,” Dav said, with bland unconcern.

Gates rolled his eyes. “The hell you don't. I know you've been calling her, asking her out.”

Dav sighed, and Gates heard the puzzlement in it. “She won't talk anything but business. Won't meet with me. Especially after the gala.”

“Really? Why?”

Dav looked at him with an “it should be obvious” expression. “Sophia.”

“Oh. Got it.” Gates saw the problem immediately. He wished his challenges with Ana were that simple. He missed her with a need that ached like a sore tooth. “Give it time.”

Dav treated him to a long, thoughtful look. “Recent events have pointed out to me that I may not have time. Life's precious, Gates.”

Gates gritted his teeth and sat up. The muscles in his gut protested, but he ignored the pain. “Look, Dav, just because I got shot doesn't mean the world's going to end tomorrow. I'm just saying that you should give it a week, try again when we go back. Maybe use a different approach.”

The pilot appeared, announcing their imminent departure.

“Right. Get comfortable, Gates.” Dav nodded to the nurses, who closed ranks to pull out the pillows he'd shoved in to support himself and helped him lie back. “Get some sleep if you can.”

“Think about it, man,” Gates offered as a parting shot.

Dav got the last word, however. “Advice from someone who's had it work out so well. Thanks.”

“Fuck,” Gates muttered, allowing the nurses to fuss around him, anchor the equipment they'd insisted on bringing. As they buckled into the nearby chairs for flight, he closed his eyes, intending to ignore it all, get some thinking in.

Dav's words reverberated in his mind.
Life is short.
Every time he closed his eyes, Gates relived the bullet's impact. Behind his closed eyelids, he replayed it. The needle-sharp pain, the hot smell of singed flesh and fabric, the almost simultaneous crackling of the car door's glass. Ana's scream. Dav's shout. Being lifted; Ana's voice telling him she had him and to hang on.

It all came back to Ana. Every time.

She had him, she'd said it. She had his back. She wasn't some frail flower needing or wanting protection. Instead, she was there for him. Now, to add to his nightmares, he could see her face as he essentially told her to get lost, that it had just been a fling.

The pressure of takeoff was nothing compared to the pressure in his chest, in his heart.

Ana. She was it. She was the real deal, not some weak fool to be dismissed.

With a soft moan for the pain in both sides of his chest, he twisted on the bed, feeling in his body the pain of his sheer bullheaded stupidity. What had he done?

He sensed the nurses bustling around, but paid them no heed. What could he do? How could he fix it? He'd well and truly screwed everything to hell, and he knew it.

Her features, wracked with pain, leapt into his mind like an IMAX movie. She'd recovered quickly. She was well trained, well schooled in making her face show only what she wanted it to show. But he'd seen it. The same agony he felt now.

Somehow, he had to mend the breach. To make it right. Yes, that's what he'd do.

He was about to open his eyes and demand his laptop when he felt the cooling change in the IV line still taped to the back of his wrist. His thoughts fogged, and his mind drifted away from its sharp focus.

 

“Thank you for coming, Agent,” the head of the Panel of Inquiry started the proceedings. They'd kept her cooling her heels for a day in DC. She'd spent most of the time in the CIA Headquarters, waiting, only to be sent back to her hotel for the night and called back the next day.

Seated next to her, Ana's advocate noted the time on his legal pad. “Yes, sir. I appreciate your time and efforts,” Ana replied, taking her seat.

The four men looked slightly nonplussed by her thanks, but they opened files and began reading the pertinent details of the Inquiry into the record.

“On Monday, February fifteenth,” the man on the far left read. “The following events occurred which are the subject of this Inquiry.”

Reese, her advocate, wrote the names of the panel in order across the page. Ana tuned into the recitation only so much as necessary to be sure they were following her statement, which they were.

The flight had been long, and she'd slept for only a little while because she knew she had to. The data on Jack G. D'Onofrio wasn't panning out. He didn't have a shipping arm of his magazine business as far as she could tell. His main business was West Coast too, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas.

Nothing showed. The problem was, she knew something was there. He was too much a New Yorker to not have something on the East Coast. You didn't leave your roots behind when you were a New York City boy. Not one who'd spoken with such pride about his roots to a total stranger at the gallery showing.

On her own pad, she wrote:
D'Onofrio. New York? California. Gallery. Berlin?

Reese tapped her toe with his, signaling for her to pay attention as the executive agent presiding over the Inquiry spoke. “Is this your statement, Agent Burton? Are there any amendments you would like to include?”

“No sir,” Ana said, forcing her tone to be level, unemotional.

“So noted.” To the woman at the far right, he said, “Please address your attention to the additional statements as they are read into the record.” The woman selected a folder, began to read the statement Agent Beverly Stanley had made before she died.

To distract herself, Ana focused on D'Onofrio again, writing:
Prometheus equals California. Moroni equals New York. Pratch equals Berlin. Artful Walls equals Miami.

Wait.

The shipper in White Plains had done all the work for Moroni. Moroni and another New York gallery had used the same shipper in New York for two paintings of Dav's for resale overseas.

The designer, the one who had dated Dav, had mentioned Moroni.

“Agent, do you agree with, or have any comment on the statements as they've been read?”

Shit. She'd missed it. She glanced at Reese and saw the barest shake of his head. No.

“No, I do not.”

“So noted. Moving on. Please read into record the actions of Agent Thomas James Michaels with regards to this matter.”

Wait a minute. What did TJ have to do with this? He'd been peripheral to the situation in Rome, essentially coming in at the end to help clean up and cover up, making sure everything got explained away. Confused, Ana forgot the data on the art case and focused on the current recitation.

“Agent TJ Michaels has been on approved leave of absence for several months in which time he has sought out leads in regard to this case. Upon his return to duty, he presented evidence of significant mitigating factors, factors which may have skewed the data and led to the conclusions drawn by Agent Burton. His dedication to uncovering leads on the matter of the events of the fifteenth of February, in Rome, has been above and beyond the call of duty,” the executive agent intoned. “Whereas our Agency did not approve his actions, per se, he has provided substantial additional information that leads the Panel to believe that the data Agent Burton provided was, in fact, accurate as far as could be determined. His return to approved duty to continue tracking is part of the record, in as much as…”

My God, they were saying her analysis was right, that it wasn't the killing factor.

Ana redirected her thinking, refocused on the statements. “Furthermore, Agent Michaels's dedication to this pursuit has been noted and now sanctioned, facilitating the ability to investigate his leads.”

Sanctioned. That meant he'd found something, something related to all that translation he'd sent her.

Another buzzing hunch flitted into her brain and immediately disappeared when the executive agent said, “Agent Burton, do you have anything you'd like to add, regarding this matter?”

She cleared her throat, took a sip of water before replying, trying to recapture the thought. The present took precedence however, with the panel members watching her, and the thought, the hunch, was gone.

“Sir, my only addition is a note of gratitude that Agent Michaels has been so dedicated to uncovering the truth, and the reasons for the events of Fifteen February.”

Reese scrawled,
Good answer,
in big letters on his legal pad.

She ignored that, as well as the next reading as she made more notes.

TJ. Translations. Cheating spouses. Shipper? Freight?

Wait. Shipping. Another thought occurred.
Yountz. Freight. San Fran. Prometheus?

Holy hell. Yountz had been at the gallery opening. D'Onofrio had been there as well. Most of the victims, all of the West Coast victims, had been at the opening.

Was Yountz connected too? Ana knew better than to discount the idea. She had a gift for data, and if her brain brought it up, there was something in all the stuff she'd read, something small and seemingly insignificant that had put the thought in her head.

Despite Rome, she never, ever forgot to check that sort of thing.

“And from your current supervisor, Special Agent Sarai Elizabeth Sinclair Pretzky,” the first panelist read, drawing Ana's attention back to the proceedings. She'd never heard Pretzky's full name; she wasn't sure she'd even known her first name. “The following statement is read into record.”

Ana held her breath throughout the narration, barely hearing words like “dedicated” and “perseverance,” “unstinting work ethic,” and “grace and aplomb.” The overall sense of Pretzky's addition to the proceedings was positive and as fulsome as anyone could be.

Reese bumped her elbow and wrote on the pad again.
Good job.

As if she'd done a good job in order to be reinstated, like kissing up. Right. Thinking in those terms made her think about Davis, the pus-ball. She wondered if everyone thought it was all about skating by these days, until you had to cover your ass.

That sparked a thought, and she wrote,
CYA? Who? Covering for whom?
next to the listing for the Moroni Gallery. They had closed down immediately after the forgeries came to light. Neither McGuire nor Hines had been able to track the owners. By the end of the time they worked on the case, filing it as cold, they'd still had no leads on the owner's whereabouts. Doing her own follow-up, she'd come up empty as well.

She scrawled the word
Disappearances
next to the Moroni owners' names. She also wrote,
HINES!!!
as a reminder to call the man again. He still had not returned her calls, and she needed to know if he'd checked the shipper in White Plains. It hadn't been in the notes, and McGuire hadn't remembered anything about the shipper, but he said Hines had been the one to talk to the Miami gallery owner, as well as Moroni in New York.

Then there was Berlin. The Moroni crew had disappeared; Pratch was gone too. Had his disappearance been about money, or ass covering?

And where was the body? Did they need to be looking for the Moroni owners' bodies, as well? She scribbled another note.
Pratch—body? Moroni—body? Jane/John Does? Check Potter's Field burials/timeline.

“I have the fitness reports.” Another panel member spoke up, this time the gentleman to the left of center. “Reading into the record,” he intoned. “Review of the mental fitness of Anastasia Elena Burton, and her capacity to return to duty.”

When he started reading the review from the shrinks, she shut it out. She'd read the files, knew what they had to say about her stability, the way her mind worked.

What she needed was for her mind to actually work, to make the leap from names on a page to a solid direction. It was there, she could feel it hovering in the back of her mind. She'd started to flip the pages back, review her list of names when the lead panelist cleared his throat, calling her attention to him.