Deadly Sins (14 page)

Adam moved to the end of the bar where he’d left his cell while he worked out. “I’ll message Kirby. Just sent Reno home an hour ago.”

“An hour ago?” Paulie sipped again. “Where you been?”

Adam gave him a short version of the events of the last several hours. Because he was watching his friend carefully, he noted the lack of surprise on his face. “You knew about Jaid’s son.”

Paulie gave a slow nod. “I’m not like you. I keep in touch with old friends in the bureau. Heard she had a son. No one knows anything about his father, though.” He paused before adding deliberately, “Do you want me to find out?”

“No.” Adam was a big believer in privacy. His. Jaid’s. She didn’t owe him any details. Unless she wanted to tell him, the information had no bearing.

And she hadn’t seemed in the mood to share this evening.

“I got a call from the deputy sheriff who took the report the other night.” Adam drank, took a moment to savor the flavor of thirty-year-old Scotch. “He never found any trace of the car I had a run-in with.” The call had merely been a courtesy. It had been apparent that the man felt that he’d done his duty as far as the investigation went. Adam wasn’t surprised. He’d purposefully downplayed the incident. The last thing he needed was for Hedgelin to blow it up as a distraction worthy of having Adam removed from the case. He wouldn’t let himself be manipulated that way.

“Backwoods punk. I turned over the partial plate to Kell, and he had a list of possible vehicles from a tristate area within an hour. Also looked for stolen plates.” Kellan Burke was one of Adam’s operatives. “Culled his findings to a dozen fitting the make, model, and color you described. He followed up with background checks on the owners and interviews with the ones he could find at home. Isn’t finished yet, but with our luck he’ll discover that the car that ran you off the road is the one on the list whose plates were reported stolen.”

“Stolen.” Adam drank. “Most likely. Where did they disappear from?”

“From a Safeway parking lot in Arlington two days ago.”

“That’s when I started with the task force.” He leaned his elbows against the bar and gazed into his glass contemplatively.

“If he narrows it down to that car, at least we can let the feds off the hook for this deal.”

Adam said nothing. There were plenty in the bureau who hadn’t wanted him on this case, but the events of the other night didn’t bear their stamp. Hell of it was, they didn’t bear the stamp of whoever had been orchestrating the attempts on his life in the last year, either. They hadn’t been lethal enough.

“The timing is suspect,” he said finally. “I never fully bought that Jennings was acting on his own. Or that his attempts on my life were wrapped up with my having put away his estranged girlfriend’s father years earlier.”

“You think someone set him on you.”

“If I say yes, I’m a paranoid son of a bitch with a suspicious mind.”

“It’s not paranoid when someone tries to kill you five times in as many months,” Paulie pointed out.

Adam smiled wryly. “Which leaves the rest of the description intact. The truth is, I’m not sure what to think. The attempts stopped when Jennings was killed. Even if we’re to believe that a new assassin had to be found and hired, the other night wasn’t on the same level as the previous attacks. Strictly amateurish. No shots fired. The intent wasn’t to kill me.”

“Maybe just to put you out of commission for a while.” Paulie drummed his pudgy fingers on the marble top counter reflectively. “Which does tie it up in this investigation. Other than the feds, who—let’s face it—welcome your presence like they would a case of foot rot, who else would be threatened by your working the investigation?”

“The suspect in the killings.” Adam shook his head in frustration. “Who has already proven that he’s capable of far more finesse than was displayed the other night. Maybe the whole thing was like I told the deputy. Some boozed up idiot looking for a fight.”

“Sure.” Paulie drained his glass, cast a hopeful gaze in the direction of the bottle. “An idiot who put stolen plates on his car first.”

Adam tipped more liquor into Paulie’s glass. Paulie picked it up and saluted Adam with it before taking a drink. “Maybe the killer is more afraid of you than of the FBI.”

With black humor, Adam replied, “He should be. I really did like that car.”

It was the flashing lights that woke him. Adam came from a sound sleep to completely alert in a matter of seconds. The silent alarm was going off. His gaze went immediately to the large computer monitor mounted on the wall next to the bed. Stared hard for several moments until he saw the movement that would have tripped the alarm. Someone was in the garage below.

He sat up. Swung his legs to the side of the bed and pulled himself upright by grasping the bedside table. The gym shorts he’d donned after his shower were on the floor. He pulled them on, then opened the drawer of the table and removed his weapon.

His gaze still on the monitor, he loaded the Glock. The monitor showed one individual moving in the double garage below. Five-ten, eleven maybe. Two hundred and change. Stocky but light on his feet despite his bulk. Right now the intruder’s attention wasn’t on the gleaming black replacement vehicle Paulie had leased for Adam, nor on the stacks of boxes that he hadn’t yet gotten around to unpacking. He seemed to be looking, unsuccessfully, for something else.

Comprehension hit Adam. Cameras. The idiot was looking for the alarm and security cameras. He wouldn’t find them. They were too well hidden. But then, it had taken better than decent skills to get into the garage in the first place. Much better.

Maybe Adam had underestimated the intruder.

Because there wasn’t a doubt in Adam’s mind that the stranger downstairs was the same man who had run into him the other night. The hulking build gave that much away.

As Adam watched, the man gave up his search and turned his attention to the car. Paulie would have made sure it was equipped with their agency’s security system before bringing it here. If so much as a finger was laid on the vehicle, an alarm—this one not silent—would begin shrilling.

Adam didn’t wait to hear it. He slipped his cell from its spot atop the bedside table and into the pocket of his shorts. Grabbed the cane that was leaning against the table and headed for the door, pausing only to shove his feet into his sneakers.

He and Paulie had kicked around several questions about the possible identity of the man behind the run-in the other night. Maybe he was about to get some answers.

The exit from the garage to the apartment building was a dummy. Even if accessed, a person would find himself in a rabbit warren of a hallway, with none of the passages leading anywhere. There would also be no way to get back inside the garage, as there was no knob on the door from that side.

The real entrance/exit was cleverly hidden in the wall. The high-tech Bond-like silent mechanism that the architect had constructed had a set of shelves along a portion of the wall that slid to the side to allow access to the small foyer with the private elevator. Paulie had been positively giddy at the security measures the man had achieved. Adam found them a royal pain in the ass. But tonight they might come in handy.

The elevator was equipped with a small security monitor, too, like the one upstairs running the live feed from the area that had been breached. The dim overhead light in the area showed the man getting up from the floor, backing away from the car. And Adam recognized for the first time that he might be heading right into a trap.

The car alarm hadn’t sounded. The vehicle hadn’t been touched. But that wouldn’t stop an enterprising prick like the one inside from leaving an explosive beneath it. Maybe set to go off at a certain time. Perhaps one that could be triggered remotely.

Since he conducted a sweep of his car every time he drove it, the device would have been discovered. But perhaps only shortly before he was blown to hell and back.

He pressed the security panel, and the wall moved soundlessly, the dim light from the garage spilling into the opening. The intruder had his back to him, placing something high on the wall opposite the driver’s door then stepping back to rappel out some cord. A mini camera, Adam guessed. So the detonator could be triggered remotely as soon as he entered the garage in the morning.

Damn, but this shit was getting tedious.

“Just keep your hands up there,” Adam suggested. The man froze for a second before shooting a look over his left shoulder. A stocking mask covered his face, and he wore coveralls, boots, and thin black gloves.

“That’s right, turn around. Ah-ah.” Adam gestured with the weapon. “The hands stay up.” The man turned slowly, fully facing Adam. He held a cell in one gloved palm. “I’m beginning to think you hate foreign cars. But I’m guessing your intent is a bit more personal than that. Drop the cell. And take off the mask.”

The man didn’t move.

The shot Adam fired kicked up small chips of cement at the guy’s feet. He jumped. Slowly reached up his free hand to remove the mask.

He was a stranger. Impatience flared in Adam. Of course he would be. His hair was a grizzled graying brown. Square jaw. Fiftyish. “Who hired you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t waste my time.” Adam moved closer, looked beyond the man to the narrow opening where the garage door had been forced open. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure your word is gold, but I’ll reserve judgment.” Leaning his cane against his hip, he reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out his phone. Speed dialed a familiar number. “Send police to my place. Now.” Leaving the rest to Paulie, he replaced the phone in his pocket. And for the first time noticed the chill in the air. The garage was heated, but dressed like he was, fifty degrees didn’t exactly feel like the tropics.

“Jesus, what happened to you?”

Black humor flickered as the man stared at the scars displayed prominently on Adam’s body. “Not half the damage you were hoping to inflict, I’m guessing. I’ll ask you again—who hired you?”

“No one. I just . . .”

The next shot shaved a bit of leather off the outer edge of the man’s boot.

“Christ!” The man jumped a good foot. “Calm down, buddy. I don’t got nuthin’ to tell you, and that’s the truth. I only ever got contacted by phone. And he used one of them voice-changer things. Could have been a woman for all I know.”

Could have been, but Adam doubted it. There were far more men than women in this world who’d like to see him dead. Most of his relationships with the opposite sex ended somewhat amicably. With the exception of Jaid. And in the past few days she hadn’t seemed especially homicidal in her feelings toward him.

She’d seemed, in fact, to have gotten over any feelings long ago.

“How’d you get paid?”

“He sent me the account number to an overseas bank account he’d set up in my name. Money got deposited there.” A whine entered his voice. “Not enough money to get sent back inside, that’s for damn sure.” The man reached inside his coveralls.

Adam sidestepped to present a moving target. “Really? You’re that fast with a gun covering you?”

The guy froze. Seemed torn by indecision.

“If it helps you decide, I shoot to kill, and I rarely miss. Never at close range.”

Gradually, the stranger eased his hand back. Raised it again.

“Wise choice. A few years in prison look more attractive than bleeding out on my garage floor. Two fingers. Slowly. Take out the weapon.”

The man obeyed. The look he threw Adam was sullen. “I wish I’d blown you to bits, cocksucker.”

“I’ll bet. Now drop the weapon,” he ordered in a steely voice. The gun clattered to the cement. “Kick it over here.”

When the gun skittered his way, he kicked it behind him rather than bend down and take his attention off the man.

“Someone wants you dead pretty bad.” All of a sudden the man turned conversational. He gave a meaningful nod toward Adam, displaying an odd fascination with the scars crisscrossing his chest. “Not for the first time, from the looks of you.”

“No,” Adam agreed wryly. “Definitely not for the first time.”

“You look like hell.” Jaid’s observation was made in an undertone as they waited outside the Hoover Building for Shepherd to bring round their vehicle.

“Nice thing to say to the person who arranged your ride into the city today.”

“Thank you,” she said dutifully. “You still look like hell.” It was a gorgeous morning, promising to be one of those Indian summer days to be recalled wistfully when the temperatures dropped and the wind became frigid.

One corner of his mouth quirked. “Much better. How’s Royce?”

She stared at him for a moment then blew out a breath. She should have known better than to expect him to offer an explanation. “Fine. It still hurts a bit, so he was grumpy this morning. I kept him home from school. Frankly, I’m more concerned about the time when the pain goes away and he starts forgetting the need to be careful.” She stopped, wondering not for the first time why she felt the need to offer personal information when he so rarely reciprocated. “Thanks for last night,” she ended stiffly.