Cover Me (14 page)

Ray watched Molly as she moved around him toward the door.
As she slid sideways, doing her best not to touch him, the edges of the kimono separated a little and he caught a glimpse of her bare leg from toe all the way past the top of her thigh to the small bump of her hipbone.

Suddenly, he couldn’t think straight. He blinked and tried to drag his gaze away. He really did. But her skin looked as creamy and firm as it had eight years ago. What he’d
said to her about her clothes had been technically correct—the long kimono did cover a larger percentage of her body than the short skirt and blouse she’d had on earlier. But there was a big difference between an outfit suitable for appearing in public and a garment that could get her arrested for indecent exposure. Indecent but tantalizing exposure, he amended as he noted the outline of her nipples
through the thin silk and, by using very little imagination, the subtle V at the apex of her thighs. A gnawing hunger to see more left his mouth as dry as the Sahara and his body tensed against his rising desire.

“Thanks for the info,” she said with a definite chill in her voice as she wrapped the kimono more tightly around her. “I’ll tell Martin about the guy. Acles, right?”

With a
lot more willpower than he’d have thought he possessed, he turned toward the door and put his hand on the knob. But then he paused.
No time like the present,
he thought with a pang of regret.
Might as well burn this bridge now as later.

He hadn’t meant to blurt out that she was being followed. He had come to warn her, but he could have handled it more delicately. Especially since he didn’t
know where the danger was coming from. His best bet was that Acles had been hired by her brother, Martin Hennessey.

“Molly, I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

She sighed. “You’ve
been
talking. And believe me, I appreciate the info. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that there’s a pudgy, pasty P.I. following me,” she drawled. She made an
after you
gesture toward the door.

Ray
didn’t miss the irony in her tone. She didn’t like him, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d betrayed her trust and taken advantage of her naïveté. “No matter what you think of me, no matter how much it hurts you, you know I was right about Martin,” he said, figuring he might as well dive in headfirst. He was already up to his butt in alligators, as the saying went. “Even without the evidence from the
meeting that Sunday night, I had enough to bring your brother and the others before the grand jury. You didn’t need me to tell you that your brother was involved in something illegal. You’d already made those copies of the financial papers with huge discrepancies and the memos that proved Martin was in it up to his neck. Have you forgotten that you gave me copies?”

She closed her eyes. “No,
I haven’t forgotten. But Martin’s different now. He got married after Katrina. They’re separated right now, but I’m hoping they can work it out. He has a little boy—my nephew.” Her eyes lit up and her voice was filled with pride. “My brother has done a lot of good for New Orleans these past eight years. He has set up grants and loans for local businesses to get back on their feet. He’s acquired
federal funding for rebuilding in the flooded areas—”

Ray stared at her.

“Don’t say it, Ray,” she said quickly, waving her hand. “There’s no way he’s involved in skimming moneys these days. He’s running for governor!”

“Right. The only reason he’s free to do that is because of a natural disaster. He’d be in prison now if Katrina hadn’t hit. If the levees hadn’t broken—”

Molly
laughed. “You sound like my granddad. ‘If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs—if we had some eggs. In other words, you’ve got nothing.’”

“You know my evidence was solid. Recording that Sunday night meeting would have been the icing on the cake. It would have saved the prosecution a lot of time by proving that your brother, Barnaby, Barrow and Flay all knew the same things.”

“You keep talking about the evidence. If you’ve got enough to take my brother down, where is it?”

He grimaced. “You know the answer to that. My hard drive was practically irretrievable. The printouts, including the copies you gave me, were completely destroyed by the water and mud.”

“So in fact, you really don’t have any evidence.”

“All I’ve got is what I’d already transferred to
Washington and the record of Flay’s plea bargain.” He shrugged. “And that’s worth zilch if Flay’s dead. You, on the other hand, have more than enough to put your brother in prison.”

She stared at him. “Me? I don’t know what you mean,” she said levelly.

“Come on, Molly. Are you telling me you didn’t keep copies of those financial statements? Or the memos with margin notes that incriminate
your brother?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. You haven’t changed that much.”

She shook her head, looking a bit shell-shocked. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Ray watched her struggle with her conscience. Of course she had the papers. He could tell by her face that she was trying to figure out how to lie. Truth was, she was a terrible liar.

“Martin is my brother,”
she said finally. “I was only nine years old when our parents died. He’s been my only family my whole life. I’m not going to help you ruin him.”

“Not even if his election means more years of diverted funds? Funds that could prevent another disaster like Katrina, that could put food in the mouths of needy children, that could—”

“Stop it! You can’t know that! You’re trying to manipulate
me again. I’m not that naive girl anymore.”

Ray winced. “Look. I can’t deny that I was a jerk back then. It was wrong of me to—”

“To what, Ray? Seduce me? Take advantage of the poor young thing? Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “You weren’t all that. Contrary to what your ego and libido think, I knew what I was doing.”

He raised his hands, palms out. “Okay.
I apologize.” He shrugged. “I apologize for not trying to find you before I had to leave. I apologize if I hurt you.” He looked down for a split second. “I apologize for using you to get to your brother. I don’t blame you for telling him his office was bugged.”

“Telling him—” Molly stared at him. “What are you talking about? I didn’t tell him.”

“What? Come on. It had to be you. Nobody
else knew. Have you forgotten where we were when I let it slip that we were planning to raid that Sunday night meeting?” He certainly hadn’t. He had erotic dreams of lying with her in the single bed in her tiny bedroom of the off-campus apartment she shared with three other girls. Laughing and making love from Friday night until Sunday afternoon, when she’d finally begged him to leave so she could
study.

“No,” she said. “I haven’t forgotten. But please. What about the other people on
your
team?”

“The people on my team were police officers.”

“And therefore above reproach. Seriously?”

“I can guarantee you that neither of them gave up our plan.”

“Well, I can guarantee you that I didn’t.”

Ray studied her. He’d known her for about eight weeks during the summer of
2005, while he was working hard to make a success of his first undercover operation as an FBI agent and get proof to bring down three prominent officials. But as short a time as that was, he was confident that he knew her well enough to be sure she wasn’t lying.

So the question remained, if she hadn’t outed him to her brother, who had? He filed that question away for another time. Right now
he needed what only she had, and he wasn’t looking forward to asking for it.

“Molly, I need those papers.”

“What papers?”

“You know what papers. The ones you copied for me. The ones that implicate your brother.”

The light that always shone from her eyes went out. “That’s why you’re here.”

He gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold her gaze. “It’s not the only reason.”

She laughed. “Please. Even if I were still eighteen, I’d have sense enough to know that you didn’t just wake up one morning and think, ‘Hey, it’s been eight years. I wonder how Molly is.’”

“Mols—”

“Don’t. Assuming I even have the papers, if it were my last day on earth and my brother had murdered half the population of New Orleans, I wouldn’t give them to you. Now, get out of my
house.”

“Come on, Mols, you did the right thing back then.”

She lifted her chin and eyed him narrowly. “Back then, I made my decision for all the wrong reasons. I was blinded by a silly schoolgirl crush.” She propped her hands on her hips. “I know better now. Please leave.”

Chapter Three

First thing the next morning, Ray called Teague Fortune.

“Where y’at?” Teague said. Ray was familiar enough with Cajun slang to understand that the phrase was a greeting, not an actual question. “Remy said you wanted to know about some guy name of Patrick Flay.”

“That’s right,” Ray said.

“Here we go,” Teague continued. “After Katrina, Patrick Flay’s
car was found on Elysian Fields Avenue out in Gentilly, upside down, and there was no sign of Flay’s body.”

“Any indication of what happened? Did the car turn over there, or was it carried there by the floodwaters? And where did Flay live?”

“Residence, 4478 Touro Street. Touro’s off Elysian Fields, and that whole area was underwater. So I can’t tell you where the car turned over. He
could have been trying to get home or trying to get out.”

“What about his bank accounts? What about his family?”

“I don’t have anything but police records. I’ll have to check out the other records. Give me a few days.”

“Thanks.”

“Sounds to me like you don’t think Patrick Flay is dead.”

“My job would be a whole lot easier if he wasn’t, since there’s no statute of limitations
on a plea agreement.”

“You got that right, I guarantee. You find Flay, you take down Hennessey.
C’est finis.
”

As soon as he hung up, Ray headed down to the French Quarter. If he remembered correctly, Acles perched down here somewhere on the edge of the Quarter, where drug dealers, addicts and two-bit whores lurked out of reach of the bright lights of the more insulated center streets.
Down there, quaint, picturesque and fabulous could turn into creepy, dirty and dangerous from one side of a street to another. Acles’s office was definitely on the wrong side of the street.

Ray walked down Decatur and turned left on Urselines. About three-quarters of the way to Rampart, he saw a tiny, peeling sign. Barnabus Acles Investigations.

He touched the paddle holster at the small
of his back where his SIG Sauer was tucked, shrugged to settle his summer-weight jacket onto his shoulders and stepped through the narrow door. The foyer was dark and narrow. Squinting, he spotted a piece of paper taped to the wall. An arrow pointed up the stairs and the name ACLES was printed in block letters.

Feeling sweat beginning to run down his back, Ray climbed the stairs cautiously.
When he checked out the second floor, he found a second scrap of paper with the same writing on it. Behind the door he heard a TV. He knocked and listened. There was a soft thud and a squeaking noise like the springs on an old office chair. Ray took a step backward.

Acles opened the door, pushing his thinning hair back from his sweat-drenched forehead.

“Oh,” the P.I. said when he met
Ray’s gaze. “It’s you. You know, it’s still a free country. You can’t do anything to me for walking on Canal Street.”

“You can walk anywhere you damn well please as long as you stop tailing Molly Hennessey.”

Acles shook his head. “Who?”

“Give me a break, Acles. Who’s paying you to follow her?”

“I got no idea what you’re talking about.” Acles tried to close the door but Ray
stopped it with one hand.

“Hey,” Acles snapped. “You got no—”

“Can it, Acles. Who hired you? And I’m warning you, in about five seconds I’m going to smash your nose if you don’t start talking.”

“Nope,” Acles said, his words sounding braver than he looked. “I can’t violate client privilege.”

Ray laughed. “You’re invoking sleazy P.I./client privilege?”

The P.I.’s face turned
beet-red. He muttered a vile curse. “I’m invoking
no dice.
” He tried to shove the door closed again.

Ray shot out an arm and grabbed his shirt collar. He lifted the P.I. off the ground and got in his face. “How about the I-can-beat-you-up clause?” Ray said, his teeth bared in a grimace. For all his pasty softness, the P.I. was heavy.

Acles, struggling to stay on his tiptoes, choked out,
“Okay, okay.”

Ray loosened his grip on his shirt collar and the man stumbled backward until he hit his desk.

“Ow!” he yelled. “Watch out. You could have broke my back.”

“With all the insulation you’ve got? I doubt it. Now, who. Hired. You. To. Tail. Molly?” Ray repeated. “And why?”

“Okay, okay, I don’t know, I swear,” Acles said. “I got the gig by phone—couldn’t run a trace
on it. Burner phone, I guess.”

“Is it Martin Hennessey?”

The P.I.’s beady eyes went wide. “Her brother?” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “No. I mean, how would I know?”

“Right. How would you? It was just a voice on the phone. You just take any low-down job that somebody will pay you for?” Ray said distastefully.

Acles blinked as a drop of sweat dripped into his eye. He thumbed
it away. “Well, yeah,” he said. “I mean, money is money.”

Ray suppressed a shudder.
Money is money.
He’d heard those words too many times from his dad growing up. He wanted to punch Acles in the mouth for reminding him. “Yeah?” he grated through clenched teeth. “I hope you bought yourself a good dental plan, because in about two minutes you’re going to need a lot of work done.”

Acles
cowered backward, holding a hand up to shield his mouth. “The message is on my phone.” Acles grabbed the phone from his desk and handed it to Ray. Ray pocketed it.

“Hey!” Acles started. “That’s my—”

“It’s evidence now.”

“Evidence? Of what? You don’t have anything on me.” Acles’s voice quavered.

Ray ignored him. “Whose voice is it?”

Acles’s face drained of color. “I swear,
man. I can’t. I don’t—” The rest of that sentence was choked off as Ray took two steps, reached across the desk and grabbed Acles’s shirt collar again.

He dragged the P.I. halfway across the desk. “I need answers. How do you want me to get them?” He tightened his grip on Acles’s collar.

The man coughed and flailed his arms. “Okay! Let—me go! I’ll tell you,” he panted.

Ray loosened
his hold and the other man flopped down onto the table.

Acles struggled to his feet, breathing heavily. “It could be Hennessey,” he panted. “I mean, I couldn’t swear to it, but it could be.”

“You little worm,” Ray said disgustedly. “Sending me on a wild-goose chase isn’t going to help you. I’ll just come back mad as hell. Now, try to tell me the truth for a change. How’re you supposed
to report to whoever hired you? And how do you get your money?”

“There’s a guy on Tchoupitoulas runs a message service. You pay to leave a message. More if you want the guy to call and let somebody know they’ve got a message waiting.”

“And the recipient doesn’t pay anything. Right.” Ray knew all about those places. In New York, back when he was a kid, barely old enough to understand
that what his dad did was illegal, Ray had made runs to the message service for him.

“I’ve dealt with places like that. Nobody uses their real name and everything is cash only. You listen to me, you worthless—” Ray stopped, pulling in a deep breath. “You’re working for me now. First, I want you to keep following Molly. Second, if anything—and I mean anything—starts to go down involving Molly,
you call me, and if you have to, call 911. Because if something happens to her, you’re going to get it back quadruple. Got it?”

“The police? I can’t— I mean—” Acles stepped backward and his back hit the wall of the tiny cubicle.

“You can and you will, if you know what’s good for you.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll kill you, too, if anything happens to Molly.” Ray took
a deep breath. “Third, I want you to find out who ordered Molly followed.”

Acles started shaking his head. “I don’t ask no questions,” he whined. “That way I don’t know nothing when it all goes down.”

Ray ignored him. “Write this down,” he commanded and watched as Acles fumbled for a pencil and a piece of paper. When the P.I. was finally ready, Ray gave him his number.

“But you
took my phone,” Acles whined.

Ray reached into his pocket for his wallet and peeled off two twenties. “Here,” he said, tossing them down on the desk amid all the clutter. “Get yourself a new one.”

Acles eyed the money but didn’t move.

“One last question. Where’s Patrick Flay?” The P.I.’s eye’s flickered.

“I—I think he died in Katrina,” he stammered.

Ray grabbed a fistful
of sweat-drenched shirt collar. “You’re a damned pathetic liar, Acles.”

“I swear,” Acles croaked. “I swear! Far as I know, nobody’s seen nor heard from him since then, but—” He coughed. “I’m choking, man,” he rasped.

Ray let go of him. “But what?”

“That message service? It’s the same one Flay used—you know—before. But I swear I never heard that voice before.”

Acles coughed
again.

“Okay,” Ray said. He had the feeling this time the man was telling the truth. He leaned across the desk to get in the guy’s face. “Don’t forget who you’re working for. Who are you working for?”

“You,” Acles panted.

“I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” With that, Ray left, taking the narrow stairs down two at a time. He felt vaguely nauseous. He’d been too close to that lowlife
for too long. Dealing with scum like Acles—and worse—was a major reason he’d left home at seventeen and worked his way through college. Despite, or maybe because of, the influence of his dad and brother, he’d always wanted to be a cop. Sometimes he still had nightmares about what his life would have been like if he hadn’t gotten away. His older brother, Shane, had dropped out of high school to
follow in their dad’s footsteps. Until that time, Ray had idolized his older brother and wanted to be just like him.

Shane’s decision cemented Ray’s determination to
catch
the bad guys, not be one of them.

* * *

I
T
WAS
AFTER
NINE
when Molly turned left onto her street. She was tired and it didn’t help that her brother was being his usual pompous self. She turned down the volume
on her car’s Bluetooth as the sound of Martin shuffling papers came through the phone.

“Why on earth would you ask me a question like that?” he asked.

Molly rolled her eyes. He was sixteen years older than she—old enough to be her father. In fact, after their mother and father died in a car wreck when Molly was nine, Martin had taken care of her.

She loved him dearly, but when he
talked to her as though she were still nine years old, she wanted to choke him. He talked to everybody that way, but being his baby sister, Molly had endured it for a lifetime.

“I keep seeing this guy everywhere I go,” she replied. “Maybe it’s nothing.” What she meant was maybe she shouldn’t have brought it up until Ray got back to her with more information. If he was planning to.

“I
don’t understand. Out of all the people walking on Canal at rush hour, you noticed this one guy. Is he cute?”

“I’m not twelve, Martin. No. He’s not cute. He’s creepy. I didn’t just
notice
him. I’ve seen him several times.” A small lie, but Ray had been certain the man was following her.

“What does he look like?”

Molly thought about Ray’s description. “Pasty, sweaty, thinning hair.”
She shrugged. “Average, I guess.”

She heard a pen scratching. “Okay,” Martin said. “I’ll check into it for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to check into it. I asked you if you hired him to follow me.”

He sighed and she felt his disapproval through the phone. “That’s a disingenuous question,” he said dismissively. “Now, I’m busy, so if there’s nothing else—”

She sighed and shook her
head. “And
that
is no answer. This is not a political debate. You
may
answer honestly,” she said sarcastically as she turned onto her street.

“Molly, be rational. Why would I hire someone to follow you?”

“It’s not like you don’t have enemies. The incumbent governor for one. Or, let’s see. Maybe you’re worried about my safety.”

“Your safety—” He interrupted himself with a chuckle.
“You’re perfectly safe. Why wouldn’t you be?”

“Or maybe you think I might do something to embarrass you.”

“That possibility has existed for years,” he said with a smile in his voice. Such statements were the closest he got to humor. “I have no recollection of ever seeing a person matching the description you gave.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true politician. I don’t suppose
I could get a simple yes or no out of you, could I?”

“No,” he said shortly.

Another lame joke. He was really feeling his oats today. “Oh, ha-ha. Funny,” she responded drolly.

“I’m busy, so if there’s nothing else—”

“Martin, are you having me followed or not?” she demanded as she pulled into her driveway. There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone, almost undetectable.
Just enough to make her suspicious.

“Molly, I can assure you—” He stopped. “Oh, Flan,” he said, his voice changing. “I didn’t hear you come in. Molly, Flan’s here and we need to go over my speech for the campaign kickoff dinner this week. I’ll have to talk to you later.”

Molly gritted her teeth. It didn’t matter what Martin was doing. Even playing with Benjamin, his four-year-old son,
if Thrasher showed up, Martin dropped everything. It was one of the many things Molly couldn’t stand about Flannery Thrasher. And she suspected it was the main reason Jan had taken Benjamin and left Martin.

“Fine, then,” she said shortly. “I have no choice but to assume you put the guy on my tail.”

“I have to go,” Martin repeated. “Call me.”

“Of course,” she said wryly. “If you
can squeeze me in during the five minutes Thrasher’s not there monopolizing your time.” She hung up, her head filled with an endless supply of better retorts to her brother’s flaccid comments than she’d been able to think of at the time. She unlocked her front door and went inside. She set her purse and keys down on the kitchen counter, then stopped and looked at them thoughtfully.

Something
wasn’t right. Had the key turned too easily in the front door? She glanced around the kitchen, then turned to look back at the door. Briefly, she wondered if she should go outside and get into her car, then call the police. If she did, what would she tell them? That her house didn’t feel right? Right.