“He’s not that kind of friend.”
“That’s too bad.” Ella set a bowl of steaming vegetable soup and a plate of grilled cheese points on the table at Juliana’s regular place. “Will he be back for dinner?”
I hope not
. “I don’t know.”
“Sit and eat.”
Juliana stared at the food and nausea engulfed her. “I’m not hungry.”
“Having you faint with hunger is not going to do Briana any good now, is it? You need to eat to keep up your strength. You didn’t eat dinner last night, and I’ll bet you haven’t had any breakfast either. You want to be able to go wherever you get sent to pick your daughter up.”
Reluctantly, Juliana sat down. “You’re right.”
She forced down a spoonful of soup, tasted none of it. The phone rang and instantly she sprang to her feet, knocking over the portable phone to the floor. Ella, who’d been standing next to the wall phone, answered.
* * *
Amid the ringing of phones, the clatter of computer keys, and waves of voices, Lucas entered the cramped corner of the Criminal Investigation squad room reserved for the special Interstate Personal Property Task Force at the FBI’s Boston field office—an ugly concrete eyesore in Government Center.
“Hey, Vassilovich, R-and-R’s looking for you,” Scott Walters said as he poured a cup of liquid dynamite from the coffee pot. “He’s hot under the collar again. I told you, you’ve got to cross those
T
s.”
That Rudy Regan, Jr., their Senior Supervisory Resident Agent, was looking for him was not news. Lucas had ignored his BlackBerry’s urgent vibrating twice already and was asking for trouble. “Yeah,
T
s and
I
s, they always give me problems. Seen Harris anywhere?”
“Punching data into NaDIS.”
The National DNA Index System. They hadn’t gotten close enough to the Phantom to gather any DNA evidence. “Give a shout if Rules-and-Regs walks in, will ya?”
“Doin’ the old avoidance dance?”
“And I’m not as fancy a stepper as you are.”
Walters howled, and disappeared behind a partition.
“How long have I got?”
“He’s been with the SAC for an hour already.”
Which meant time was short. Special-Agent-in-Charge Don Temple was known for his brevity—something Lucas usually appreciated. He snaked across the maze of cubicles to the far end. As Walters had predicted, he found Jeb Harris hunched over a computer keyboard, inserting data.
Harris was fresh out of the Academy, and still on probation. With his short blond hair, clean cut good looks, starched shirt and polished shoes, he could play poster boy for the model agent recruit of old G-men movies. More often than not, he got stuck in the office doing grunt work. Every street agent had to go through that phase, but Harris seemed to take it harder than most. The way he followed rules and regulations made old Rudy purr with contentment, but Lucas also knew Harris champed at the bit for some real action. Lucas was betting the kid’s eagerness would win over his need to follow the standard operating procedures bible according to Regan.
“Harris,” Lucas said, appropriating an empty chair from the cubicle next door. “I have a project for you.”
“Yeah?” Harris’s eyes brightened, then he scrunched his eyebrows. His trusting nature had made him the brunt of more than one joke around the office.
“I hear you’re a whiz with that computer.”
Harris shrugged. “I can work my way around a keyboard.”
“I need some information, and I don’t have time to look for it.”
“Sure.” Harris turned away, returning his attention to the computer screen.
“I need a background on the following people.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket, looked at the names he’d written. Putting Juliana’s name on the list bordered on betrayal, but how else was he supposed to help her? If he understood more of the situation, he could make sure everything went off right. Then everyone would end up happy. Juliana would get her daughter back. He would snare the Phantom. Even Rules-and-Regs could crow about the thief’s capture and get the SAC off his back. Still. He placed the page torn from his pocket notebook on the desk, hesitated, then slipped it across to Harris. “Off the record.”
Renewed interest sparked in Harris’s eyes. “Off the record?”
“Not just criminal, personal, too. Can you do that?”
“Possibly.” Harris glanced at the paper. “Who are these people?”
“Does it matter?” Lucas was not about to explain the complicated web of this situation to anyone until he absolutely had to.
“Might.” Harris looked up, and shot him with an uncertain look. “Does Regan know about this?”
“No.” Lucas had nothing against rules and regulations, or chain-of-command formalities. He followed them whenever he could. But sometimes gut feelings had their place, and this was one of those times. He simply didn’t have time to dot every
I
, cross every
T
, or placate every hard-nosed supervisor.
Shaking his head, Harris stared at the names. “I don’t know. Regan’s strict about protocol. He’s not going to like this. I’m still on probation. I don’t want to be stuck at a desk for the rest of my career—or get busted out because you put me between a rock and a hard place.”
Lucas let the room’s noises fill the space between them. The silence was a gamble, but the decision had to be Harris’s.
Harris straightened. His mouth parted, then snapped shut. “Has this got anything to do with the Phantom?” He was trying to hide his eagerness, but practically salivated at the thought of doing some work on an important on-going investigation. He was hooked. All Lucas had to do was reel him in.
“If you can get that information for me today, I can nab him tomorrow.”
“You’ll cut me in on the action when you close in on him?”
“I’ll make sure you’re part of the team.” Lucas stood up and handed Harris a card. “My cell phone number’s on the back. Call me as soon as you have something.”
“How thorough do you want it?”
“Hey, boss, got a minute?” Walters shouted in warning. R-and-R was back.
“As thorough as you can get it. I need something by tonight. I’ve got to go. And Harris…”
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t seen me.”
Smiling, Harris cleared his screen and pulled up another. “Right. Prince Valiant, he’s still on surveillance somewhere in New Hampshire, isn’t he?”
Lucas wound his way to the door, gave Walters a salute of thanks, and slipped out before old Regs could skewer him with questions he didn’t want to answer.
One more day and he could balance his transgressions with the Phantom’s capture.
Before he left the building, he stopped at the communications division and sweet-talked a tech into letting him borrow one of the newest trap-and-trace recording systems still being tested. The favor cost him the promise of an afternoon of batting practice with Connie’s son, but it was worth the price.
Why couldn’t his powers of persuasion work as well with Juliana? He’d much rather hear how she’d filled the last six years from her than from a Bureau report.
Glancing at the dash clock, he started Juliana’s car. He usually enjoyed playing seek to the bad guy’s hide, but not this time. Juliana wasn’t a criminal. She was a woman motivated by fear. He would give her space. He would give her opportunity. He would make it safe for her to bare her soul.
But he would take the information any way he could.
He had too much at stake to let the Phantom do all the counting. “Ready or not, Jewel, here I come.”
* * *
Hand over the mouthpiece, Ella whispered to Juliana, “It’s Callie. Do you want to talk to her?”
“I’d better.” Juliana let out her held breath and took the phone. Callie Mercier, her assistant, not the Phantom. But her uneasiness didn’t completely dissipate. Callie was knowledgeable and trustworthy. On the few occasions Juliana had had to take time away from the shop, Callie had handled everything efficiently. Knowing how Juliana prized her privacy, for Callie to call, something had to be wrong. “Is everything all right?”
“I really hate to bother you. You never take vacations, and I know you really need this one, but Mr. Horton was just here and he’s spitting mad.”
Oh, no!
She’d completely forgotten about the ring.
Brent Horton was a lawyer, specializing in estate law. He’d sent a lot of appraisal work her way over the years, not to mention the amount of original work he’d commissioned for his three ex-wives and his present fiancée. Brent Horton was extremely generous with his ladies. Other than the ten carat diamond-and-emerald engagement ring she was working on, Juliana had already created several other pieces for this particular fiancée.
“You promised him the engagement ring by today,” Callie continued. “He planned an elaborate scene to propose, and he’s royally pissed the ring’s not ready.”
From Callie’s guarded tone of voice Juliana felt her assistant was leaving something out. “I’ll have to put him off for a little while.”
“He’s made a threat or two,” Callie said. “His face was so red, I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. But…”
“What?”
“He said he helped build your business, and he could help bring it down, too.”
Juliana sighed. Yes, that sounded just like Brent Horton. He was a good client and a generous man, but he wanted things when he wanted them, and was used to getting his way—in and out of court. She’d never let him down before. But with Briana in the hands of a deranged man, and Lucas showing up at the absolute worst time, what could she do?
Her feet were going numb on her again. She twisted a hank of loose hair around her finger. Would she do Briana any good staying home, driving herself crazy with worry? The Phantom, as Lucas called the kidnapper, had said he wouldn’t call before morning, and according to Lucas, he kept his word. The waiting and worrying and doing nothing was cruel. No, she would accomplish nothing, except wear a path into the carpet.
If she went to work, she could possibly appease her best client, and avoid Lucas’s piercing gaze for a while longer. She could worry just as well at the workshop. With something to do, maybe each minute wouldn’t seem like an eternity. She’d be ready; she’d have her calls forwarded—just in case. She snorted. As if this Phantom wouldn’t know where she’d gone.
Glancing up, she caught Ella slicing a pear onto a dessert plate. But if she wasn’t here, and Lucas returned, he might decide to pay the Tiltons a visit. She couldn’t afford for them to meet just yet.
She’d send Ella on an errand of some sort—a complicated one—Juliana decided, and would have to hope she got home in time to prevent her past and her present from colliding. Albert wouldn’t talk—not to a stranger, not even a smooth-talking one like Lucas.
“Give me an hour and I’ll be there,” she told Callie, calculating the time it would take to get changed and drive to the shop.
Maybe she could keep everything together long enough to get Briana back.
“Ella, I need a favor,” she said as she hung up the phone.
Ella beamed, eager to please. “Anything, dear.”
“Lucas took my car. I need you to drive me to the shop.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, she nodded. “Right, I’ll get Albert—”
“No, I’d like Albert to stay here in case something happens—the phone rings, or Lucas comes back. There’s hardly any food left in the house, and if Lucas does reappear before dinner, then I really should have some sort of meal for him.”
“Yes, of course. With his generous offer of help, the least we can do is feed him.”
“Yes,” Juliana said, relieved. “He likes chicken with mole sauce.”
Ella frowned. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“I have a recipe somewhere.” She had no idea if he liked chicken with mole sauce, but he did favor spicy food. She snatched a Mexican cookbook off the shelf and flipped through pages. “Here.”
“Oh dear, it calls for ancho, mulato and pasilla peppers. I don’t know if I can find anything like that around here. I don’t even know what they look like.”
“I have confidence in you, Ella. You can work miracles.”
Ella made a clucking noise. She tottered over to the counter and jotted down ingredients she would need on a list. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Great.”
Juliana would need a miracle of her own to pull off this charade.
I won’t abandon you Briana. I will do
everything
in my power to get you back and keep you safe.
“One more day,” she whispered, getting ready for work like an automaton. “Tomorrow Briana will be home.”
Twenty minutes later when she closed the front door, heading for Ella’s half of the duplex, her own red car sat in the driveway, blocking the Tiltons’ old Buick.
“Going somewhere?”
Lucas’s beguiling voice tingled down her spine from the wicker rocking chair where he sat, long legs sprawled out in front of him, hands hanging with deceptive ease from the chair’s arms, head cocked to one side in a way that could be taken as either enticement or challenge.
“I thought you’d be longer,” she said, heart pounding in her chest. He’d promised her an afternoon and had given her less than three hours.