Last Call (12 page)

But that didn't mean he wouldn't
try.

Nick swallowed hard. "Send me the
address."

"You sure?" Shock colored Cutter's
words.

"Your idea, buddy. Why the hell not?" Nick
kept his eyes on the road, primarily to avoid whatever look Rhys
might have plastered to her face.

"In that case, I'll make sure you're on the
list. There's bound to be security. What name is your girlfriend
using?"

Your girlfriend
.

Nick looked at Rhys, who responded with a
slight shake of her head. "She doesn't have any identification,
fake or otherwise."

"I'll work around it. Head back toward town
and I'll be in touch."

Rhys ended the call. "We're going to
Siegal?"

Nick set his lips in a firm line. "Yep. Unless
you object."

"In spite of the fact he wants me
dead?"

Nick took his eyes off the road
long enough to meet Rhys's gaze head on. "We're going to
Siegal
because
he
wants you dead."

But he had a stop to make first.

****

Rhys frowned. The thickening urban landscape
revealed they were not headed toward Siegal's suburban estate.
"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The kid. I just wanted to pay my
respects."

"We're going to the cemetery?" But she needn't
have asked. Brian McKenney's death weighed heavily on Nick — he'd
admitted as much. Still, it seemed an odd time to go traipsing
through a graveyard.

Rather than answer, Nick kept his attention on
the road.

Her heart broke for him. He held onto this
guilt, refusing to consider Brian as anything more than a victim.
"He's not there."

Brown eyes grazed her. "He's not?"

"Well, he's buried there, as far as I know.
But if you believe he can hear you, then surely you know you don't
need to be in the graveyard to have that conversation."

Nick's face hardened. "It was my bullet, Rhys.
I need to let this go."

With that, she agreed. But the
timing?

He reached to take her hand. "I need to find
peace with at least one person I've shot," he said with a smile
that didn't reach his eyes. "Make room for the guilt I won't feel
when I kill that bastard Siegal."

Rhys shivered at his icy tone. She
wouldn't ordinarily peg Nick as a killer, but in that moment she
believed him. She leaned for a glimpse of the side mirror. "What
about the people trying to kill
us
?"

"We don't have a tail," he said as they pulled
into the cemetery lot. The expansive grounds covered several acres.
She might count them as pastoral if they weren't surrounded by
concrete towers — a mix of apartments and office buildings creating
a multi-storied fence that ruined any sense of peace. The
low-rolling lawn, bright green under patches of snow and ice, held
innumerable headstones. Winter blooms in various stages of health
burst from concrete planters — some simple, others part of large,
ornate statues.

Nick parked next to a small building that
blended chillingly with a line of mausoleums. He looked down at
their hands, still intertwined, and squeezed her fingers. "I'm
going to ask where he is," he said. "Do you want to wait
here?"

"I'm coming with you." She tried to pull free
of him, but he didn't let go. "What?"

"I really am sorry. I shouldn't have left
you."

She bit her lip, the unfamiliar heat of tears
threatening. "You're right," she said. "You shouldn't have, but I
wasn't yours to leave."

"Rhys—"

"Let's get this over with," she said.
Irritation nipped at her conscience. She didn't want to hurt him
but after a night spent making love she felt dangerously close to
falling hard. She'd hoped ridding their relationship of all that
sexual tension would make things easier, but now she only wanted
more — more from a man who had told her from the start he wasn't
sticking around. No upside existed.

She waited while he circled the car, his jaw
set. He met her on the passenger side and she followed him into the
office, which she found to be as much a tomb inside as out. A kid —
he couldn't be more than eighteen — stood as they
entered.

"Can I help you folks?" he asked.

"Do you have a directory?" Nick
asked.

"You're looking at it." The young man reached
in the heavy desk and pulled free a thick book. He flipped it open,
revealing handwritten pages. "When was the burial?"

Nick gave the date. "You don't have these
things computerized?"

"We do, but not here. After the second
computer was stolen, we decided to stick with paper. What's the
name?"

"Brian McKenney."

The kid looked up and promptly shut the book.
"You can't miss it. Biggest stone out there. Might be better off
calling it a monument."

Nick and Rhys traded glances. "I thought he
had a standard-issue marker," Nick said.

"He did until a couple of weeks
ago."

"He had no family. Who paid for
it?"

The kid hesitated. "I guess I can tell you it
was donated by a non-profit. You can see for yourself. There's a
plaque. If you'll come with me, I can point you in the right
direction."

"Thanks, man." Nick turned to follow, pausing
with a slight tip of his head toward the desk. The meaning was
clear: he wanted her to see what was in the book.

Rhys waited a few paces, then doubled over and
gasped. "Oh, no."

Concerned immediately blanketed Nick's face.
"You okay, sweetie?"

She took in the startled look of the kid and
grinned inwardly. She and Nick still had it. "I think… is there a
bathroom?"

"It's not open to the public," the kid said.
"There's one in the gardens—"

Rhys cut him off with a sob and clutched her
abdomen. "My baby—"

Nick rushed to her.

She waved him off, doing her best panicked
flail. "Please, just let me use the restroom."

The kid was as pale as one of his tombstones.
"Um, okay. Just…" He gestured toward a door near the
back.

Rhys took off, not giving him a chance to
change his mind. She slammed the door, then listened against it as
Nick suggested giving her some privacy.

"She's a bit dramatic sometimes," he said,
irking her. "But you know how hormonal pregnant women can be. We
just got the news last week. Now, where were you saying Brian's
grave was?"

She opened the door a crack and watched as
Nick patted the kid on the back and ushered him outside.

Rhys took a moment to splash water on her face
then eased back into the other room. She flipped open the mammoth
book. The back had burials listed by date. She found Brian's plot
number and cross referenced it to the front of the book, where
contact information was organized by gravesite. Most plots, she
noted as she flipped through, offered names, addresses, and phone
numbers. A few were blank — she assumed they were
unsold.

Brian's was different.

Private
.

But it had a phone number, which
Rhys committed to memory. She was about to flip shut the book when
something else caught her eye. Several of McKenney's neighboring
plots had the same contact name.
Ethel
Garcia
. Not a common name.

Rhys took one last look at the McKenney number
and returned the book to its original position. Then she left the
office, finding Nick outside feigning interest in which type of
grass stayed so green all winter.

Rhys cleared her throat. "I'm so sorry," she
said when they turned their attention her way. "I was just worried.
Those cramps can be pretty scary and I thought I might be bleeding
— but thankfully it was a false alarm."

The mention of blood went over as well as she
expected it would. Their host stammered a hasty goodbye and headed
back inside.

"Good talking to you!" Nick called after him.
Then he put an arm around Rhys and drew her close.
"Anything?"

"Let me write down this number
first."

"No problem," he said. "We can drive further
back."

In case she still had an audience, Rhys
climbed gingerly back into the car. Nick closed the door after her.
By the time he hopped in the driver's side she'd written down the
number. "That's the contact number for Brian's gravesite," she
said. "The name was marked private, but I noticed several
neighboring spots all share a contact. Ethel Garcia."

"Doesn't sound like a common name," Nick
muttered, starting the car and easing down the asphalt
drive.

"My thoughts exactly. Did you get anything on
the non-profit?"

"No. I get the feeling he thinks he said too
much."

She shrugged. The motion made her shoulder
zing. "He said the name was on a plaque."

"Perhaps I failed to hide my shock over the
news of a giant rock. You know how it is when someone acts too
interested. You start second guessing yourself."

"Maybe."

Nick took a right off the main drive, circling
the graveyard and pointed toward the back corner — much of it
obscured by evergreens. "There. He said we couldn't miss
it."

One more turn, and the truth of those words
became apparent. The huge stone monolith looked like something out
of Stonehenge, yet for all its size it was surprisingly plain. Rhys
hopped out of the car as soon as it stopped and walked over — Nick
hot on her heels. Naturally shaped, the stone stood higher than
Nick's height of six feet. All the standard information was there —
Brian's name and dates of birth and death — but there was no
mention of his parents or other family members left
behind.

Rhys circled the rock, finding a small plaque
at its base.

Lovingly donated by Vision
Community Theater
.

She sucked in a breath. "Judy."

"What?"

"Remember Judy Ross?" Aside from Nick, she'd
been Rhys's closest friend during the last stint undercover. "She's
the program director. It's a volunteer position, but still." Rhys's
mind whirled. The little theater — a community outreach to keep
kids off the street — was constantly hurting for money. They'd even
had the lights shut off for a brief period during Rhys and Nick's
investigation. "Why would they put so much money into this thing?
No disrespect intended, but surely there's a better use of this
cash."

Nick didn't answer. For a frightening moment,
Rhys didn't see him. Then she found him on the opposite side of the
stone, staring at the neighboring marker. "What is it?" she
asked.

"See what you can find locally on Ethel
Garcia," he said. He'd pulled a notepad from his pocket and
scrawled on it as he paced down the line of headstones.

Rhys hesitated, then went to the car. She
settled in the seat, one eye on the laptop screen and the other on
Nick.

But soon the laptop commandeered her full
attention.

The name was indeed an unusual one, as was the
woman herself. In fact, it took less than a second for a laundry
list of Ethel Garcia's good deeds to fill the screen. But her
altruism wasn't what caught Rhys's attention.

Ethel Garcia had two sons.

One was Vincent Siegal.

The second was Reginald Cutter.

****

Rhys spent the first part of the
drive to the Siegal estate talking Nick off a figurative ledge.
"Maybe it's not our Cutter," she said, wincing over the
our
. It didn't seem the
time to point out her well-documented opposition to Cutter's
involvement with their current situation.

"Yeah. Just one big coincidence."

"You don't know that's his first name." But
she was grasping at straws. One way or another, Cutter had to be
involved.

Nick's dark countenance suggested he'd long
settled on Cutter's involvement.

"I'm going to tear that bastard a new
one."

"Do you think this is the best time for a
confrontation?" Privately, she entertained a modicum of concern for
anyone in Nick's warpath.

"Can you think of a better time?"

His question seemed rhetorical. With a hundred
thoughts running through her mind, Rhys opted for silence for the
duration of the trip.

Vincent Siegal's estate was located in an
exclusive gated community. At its entrance was a guard house whose
occupant took a long look down his nose and sniffed
distaste.

Nick wasn't deterred. After easing to a stop,
he offered his fake name. "For Vincent Siegal," he
added.

Rhys's heart raced. She and Nick were crazy
for walking into this. Cutter had set them up, but he couldn't know
they'd discovered his relation to Siegal. Rhys wasn't sure how that
connection could prove to their advantage, but it was
something.