Bound and Determined (31 page)

“I’ve had no one else but you in my heart for years, and he’s clouded your mind so much that you won’t even listen. If you won’t tell me where to find the selfish slimeball, I’ll find out for myself,” he snarled. “I’m not giving you up to a user like him!”

Turning away, he stomped to the door, wrenched it open, then slammed it so loud the entire house shook.

Kerry stood, staring at the door, stunned. Trembling, she made her way to the breakfast table and sank into a chair. In a few short months, her world had started to cave in. Now, the entire foundation of her existence was disintegrating on one overcast Tuesday morning. Mark had been arrested and gone to jail, and her plan to save him hung in the balance. She’d lost her heart to a man who didn’t return her feelings. She’d probably lost one of her best friends because she didn’t want more than his friendship. Pops, her boss, hadn’t been thrilled when she’d called in sick this morning, and she desperately needed the money working at the diner brought in. She was due to start summer school next Monday, which wasn’t paid for, and her head felt ready to explode. What was she going to do?

For the moment, she opted for a shower. It wasn’t a stroke of genius, but it was a place to start.

A long twenty minutes later, she combed her wet curls, wrapped herself in a thin cotton robe, and skulked to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

As her bare feet hit the cool linoleum, she gazed at her answering machine. A flashing red light. Rafe? Or Jason?

Breathing suddenly constricted, she pressed the button.
The electronic voice informed her the message had been left just before 10
A
.
M
., mere minutes ago. Then Tiffany’s voice filled the room, sounding slightly harassed.

“Hi, are you home yet? Guess not. I thought I should warn you, Smikins is looking for Mr. Dawson. He’s not happy and asked me to track Mr. Dawson down. I had no idea where to start and with Shorty on a rampage . . . Can you help me out and tell me where Mr. Dawson is staying? Call me on my cell phone. Thanks!”

Smikins in one of his moods . . . A self-induced lobotomy would be more fun.

Kerry erased the message. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Her sister-in-law was such a great listener—sometimes too good. She’d want to hear every last detail, talk through every bit of the problem. Kerry didn’t want to talk about the fact that her fling with Rafe was over. On the other hand, Rafe had stuck his neck on the chopping block to help Mark, so if she could do anything to make sure he got paid so he could go to his dad a five-million-dollar man, she would do it. Then she’d have her tea, a good cry, and figure out how to recover from a broken heart—one of the few repairs for which Superglue was useless, damn it.

Grabbing the phone, Kerry dialed Tiffany’s cell number. Voice mail picked up immediately.
Thank goodness.
She left the name of Rafe’s hotel and quickly hung up. Family obligation met for the moment.

She turned to grab some sugar for her tea and noticed the pantry door open on her right. Had it been open earlier?

Probably. Likely she’d been too distraught to notice. It had an annoying habit of popping open, and her landlord was too lazy to fix it. Normally, she’d ask Jason to look at it . . . but that was clearly out of the question now.

Refusing to travel that mental path, Kerry lifted her little red kettle from the stove and ran fresh water into it. A cup of hot tea. That would be good. That would help clear her mind. She sifted through the tea bags in the silver canister on her counter. Lemon? No, too tart. Mandarin orange? Possibilities. Peach? Too happy.

Something, a shuffling, sounded behind her. Before she could turn, she heard a
whoosh
. Pain exploded in the back of
her head. Darkness crowded the edges of her vision. She tried to turn, to see what had happened.

She crumpled toward the ground instead. Then . . . nothing.

C
heck-in went smoothly enough. Too bad, really. Rafe had hoped for someone to argue with. Instead, Isabel, as her name tag read, had been perfectly polite and professional. Damn, why did women always choose the wrong time to be accommodating?

Because the hotel wasn’t full, they allowed him to check in to a room at barely nine in the morning. He paid for the night, though he’d be leaving for the airport about three-thirty. Until then, he would watch the money he’d taken from the accounts, talk to D’Nanza about being reasonable, and pray he didn’t get arrested.

Such a full plate should have meant that he could go more than fifteen seconds without thinking about Kerry.

Yeah, and Shaquille O’Neal was going to take up professional ballet dancing.

As he set up his laptop on the squatty desk and sat in the uncomfortable chair, he eyed the minibar. Was just before ten in the morning too early for a beer?

His phone rang, providing enough distraction to avoid answering the question. He picked it up and looked at the caller ID. Unknown.

“Rafe Dawson,” he answered.

“Special Agent Robert D’Nanza. What the hell are you doing, stealing half a million dollars?”

“Making sure someone innocent doesn’t go down the river. Mark Sullivan did not commit this crime. Someone disguised a retired terminal to look like Sullivan’s in the system and—”

“Our guy would have found that.”

“Down in the kernels? Only someone really clever puts shit like that there. Besides, if it’s Mark, why is someone banging away at that same terminal now, using Mark’s ID and password? The bank hasn’t reassigned that terminal or ID to another employee. I checked. Now, I know they have a lot of privileges in jail these days, but I doubt Mark can remotely access a secure bank terminal.”

D’Nanza paused. “I don’t have time for your theories. This trial starts Monday.”

Rafe cursed under his breath. “Don’t you want to bring the right man to trial? I think you’d have a better conviction rate if you did.”

“Are you a fully trained federal investigator now?”

“No, just someone who’s willing to look at all the facts in front of him. Someone willing to look beyond the surface, rather than being concerned with taking my next donut break.”

“I ought to haul your ass to jail,” D’Nanza snarled. “You took money that did not belong to you. End of story. And I did some digging on you. I know all about your sordid little past pranking the CIA.”

Rafe’s gut clenched, but he kept on with this game of chicken.

“Goody. Then maybe you’ll realize I wouldn’t resort to such drastic measures if I believed there was a shred of a possibility that Mark Sullivan was guilty.”

“You’re lucky you’ve done solid work for one of our assistant directors, Tim Norton, over the years. If he’d given me the slightest indication that you’re a thief or a crackpot, buddy, you’d already be standing on concrete looking through bars.”

Rafe plugged his laptop into the data port. “Norton’s a good guy. At least he realizes that hauling my ass to jail won’t solve the problem. You got the wrong guy locked up. Sullivan was set up from start to finish either by his boss, his wife, or his best friend.”

“That’s your speculation. The fact that Sullivan’s sister hired you doesn’t compel me.”

“She didn’t hire me. I looked into it as a favor.”

“A favor.” He snorted. “Do I want to know what you asked for in return? I’ve seen her; she’s a looker. Maybe I’d like to do a favor or two for her myself.”

“Keep your dirty mind off Kerry Sullivan,” he growled.

“Is that the way the wind blows?”

Rafe heard the sticky smile in the agent’s voice and gritted his teeth. “I’m inside, so I’m not aware of wind blowing, actually. I am aware that if you just looked at what I’ve dug up—”

“I have more than one case to work on, and my work on
this one is done. I’m late for a meeting, so here’s the deal: If no one has made a move on that money by this time tomorrow, I’m going to arrest you and bring you up on every charge I can. If someone does make a move on the money, call me.
Maybe
you’ll avoid doing time. But personally, I’m looking forward to slapping you in handcuffs and bringing you in.”

D’Nanza disconnected the call. Rafe put the phone down, tension knotting his insides.

“Prick,” he muttered to the phone, then connected to Standard National’s mainframe.

He’d known when he took the money that he’d be sticking his neck on the chopping block. The thought of jail made him shiver. All too well, he remembered the weekend he’d spent there before his old man had bailed him out. It had been cold, winter. The food sucked. Big guys with tattoos thought he was some sort of rich Harvard kid and tormented him. If he hadn’t been tall, built broad, worked out . . .

Rafe shook the memories away and browsed Standard National’s files. It was quarter after 10
A
.
M
. now, so hopefully all his suspects were at the bank and someone would start looking for the money soon.

Scrolling through the overnight deposits and withdrawals, he sorted his list by terminal ID.
There!
Already someone had accessed terminal 4389 and, using Mark’s ID and password, gone on a fishing expedition. Rafe got down to the keystroke level and smiled. Now he was damn glad he’d installed a bit of software that would track the user’s keystrokes.

A little prowling through the files had him pumping his fists in the air in triumph. Yeah, the guilty party logged in about twenty minutes ago and had looked everywhere for the money. No doubt whoever it was—and his bet was still on Jason, the lying twit—knew by now that the money had been taken.

And likely knew that Rafe had taken it.

Racing to the phone, he dialed Kerry’s number. His heart began to pound. He was going to talk to her. Would she be happy to talk to him? Three rings, four . . . five. Her voice mail. He hung up and scowled.

Had Kerry decided not to speak to him? No, she might be upset about their time together or their parting or whatever,
but she’d take a call that might be about her brother. Granted, he didn’t know a lot about women in general, except in bed, but he
knew
that much about Kerry. No question, she’d do anything for Mark.

Before he could contemplate anything, his phone rang. He peered at the caller ID. Ah, his faithful assistant.

“Morning, Regina.”

“Good morning, Mr. Dawson. I have two urgent phone calls that have come into the office. The first from Mr. Smikins at Standard National Bank. He’s threatening nonpayment because the work isn’t finished.”

“What a putz. I’m basically finished with their files. Their security breach was internal. I’ll update their external control measures today. Send him the checklist of internal security recommendations and tell him I’ll call later today. He’ll pay me.”

Or else. Rafe planned to show up on his father’s doorstep the day he turned thirty and prove he was worth five million and more successful than the old goat had ever been. Then he’d feel vindicated. His father’s voice in his head telling him he was worthless and would never amount to anything for any reason to anyone would stop ringing in his head late at night when he couldn’t sleep. He was worthy of happiness, of success, of a warm beautiful woman like Kerry—not that he intended to make anything of their relationship. It was the principle. Rafe wasn’t about to give up his five-million-dollar goal for any reason.

Unless you’re in jail,
a little voice whispered in his head.
Won’t Daddy be proud then?

Telling the unpleasant part of his brain to fuck off, he turned his attention back to Regina. “Who else called? Someone named Kerry Sullivan?”

Rafe heard the note of hope in his voice and thought about biting off his tongue.

Perceptive Regina heard it, too. “No, but she must be something. The other call was about her. Someone named Jason Bailey. He called you some rather . . . interesting names. Sorry to say, I didn’t bother to write them down word for word. None were too polite. The rest of the message indicated that Kerry is crying, and it’s your fault. He demanded to know where you’re staying.”

“Damn it,” Rafe muttered. “He went to see her this morning, I’ll bet. Son of a bitch.”

Because Jason panted so hard after his best friend’s sister, he’d called around midnight—rude in itself—to ask when Kerry might be home. And he’d done it with the intent to . . . what? Confront her? Assault her?

Or did he know now that the money was gone and suspect Kerry of having a hand in its disappearance?

“Gotta go. If he calls again or if Kerry herself calls, let me know immediately. Don’t you dare tell him where to find me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. What is going on down there?”

Rafe ignored the interest in her voice. “Just call me if you hear from either of them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Flipping the phone shut, Rafe paced, then tried to call Kerry again. On the fifth ring, her voice mail picked up again.

Cursing loudly, he pocketed his phone. The knot in his gut didn’t comfort him. He had no reason to believe Kerry was doing anything but ignoring him. He’d parted company with her hours before because he wanted just to ensure her safety. But something was wrong; he felt it.

He hoped whatever had happened wasn’t deadly wrong.

A few keystrokes later, he found Kerry’s home address on the Internet and called the front desk for a cab.

The ride there felt like the longest fifteen minutes of his life. The sun shone a bit too brightly through the gray clouds to match well with the worry gnawing his insides. Clouds swirled above, promising an afternoon shower. People came. People went. Traffic sucked.
C’mon, hurry
. He looked at his watch as buildings went by.

Businesses and busy streets gave way to a neighborhood. The cabby steered the car into an older part of town, not quite run down yet, but getting awfully close. Mature trees shaded stucco houses in faded turquoise, terra-cotta, and pink. Shaggy grass, cracked sidewalks, and rust-stained driveways abounded.

Suddenly Rafe smelled something acrid. Smoke? Then he saw it, swarming in an ominous charcoal-colored serpentine above the low roof of an old house at the end of the street. The plumes turned black and menacing as they rose from the
tiny building. And the cab was racing toward it. The knot in Rafe’s gut clenched so hard he thought he might be sick.