Kitabı oku: «No Safe Place», sayfa 3

THREE

Beth instinctively covered her pocket. “Why do you want my phone?”

“That was my neighbor,” Corbin said. “There’s a chance the men from the garage are at my house.”

“Oh.” Wading into his personal life muddled her thoughts. “You said your girlfriend was there.”

She didn’t want to think of him as a regular person with a family and mundane responsibilities. He was standing in the way of her successful escape. Not the sort of relationship she needed in her life right now. Despite the fact she was drawn to him. Had a crush on him. No, she was just attracted to him. Who wouldn’t be? She was only human, after all. He was cute and funny when he wasn’t questioning her like a suspect.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.

She tamped down her flare of relief. It didn’t matter that Corbin didn’t have a girlfriend. His personal life was of absolutely no interest to her. She was merely relieved he was working with the government and not Cayman Holdings. She’d live longer that way. Maybe not much longer, but at least she had a few more days. Or hours.

“Why don’t you call the police?” she grumbled.

“I’d rather not involve local law enforcement.”

“You government types are all the same.” She snorted. “The police might be able to help.”

“Or they might get hurt. There’s nothing at my house worth stealing. They won’t find anything revealing, and I’m not risking the life of an officer over my toothbrush.”

Her stomach dipped. “I didn’t think of that.”

She’d seen Corbin pretending to be a staid and steady financial consultant, and she’d seen him handle himself with chilling ease when the bullets were flying. She’d yet to see this side of him. The lazy cordiality he’d shown before had disappeared, and his focus was razor sharp. Though his demand to see her phone annoyed her, she didn’t see the harm in letting him look. She had nothing to hide. At least not in this regard.

“Did you call anyone?” he asked.

“An Uber. That was all. This is a new phone and a new number.”

“Did you really think no one would notice if Beth Greenwood disappeared?”

“Arranging the disappearance of Beth Greenwood was the easiest part of the plan,” she mumbled. “No one pays much attention to temporary employees.”

“I did.”

“Only because you suspected me of laundering money for a crime syndicate.”

Something flickered in his gaze. “Crime syndicate?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

Working freelance around the country twenty days a month didn’t leave much time for socializing. She didn’t even have a cat. She had a few friends, but given her work, they often went weeks without speaking. She’d turned down so many invitations to lunch, people had ceased asking.

“You didn’t call anyone else?” he prodded. “No family? No friends?”

“No one,” she said, a defensive edge in her answer.

There was no one to call.

A twinge of regret speared through her. When had everything tethering her to mundane social interactions disappeared? She’d made excuses for not keeping in touch. Nobody talked on the phone anymore, and she’d given up on social media. Her Facebook account had languished for months. Cute kittens had morphed into endless baby photos which had subsequently transitioned into political rants. There was no reason to scroll through the boundless pages of happy family photos and competing politics.

Corbin slid the backs of his knuckles across the table and flexed his fingers. “Who else has this number?”

“Nobody.”

Since her dad’s death, she wasn’t listed as the emergency contact on any forms. By the time anyone became suspicious of her disappearance, she’d counted on the FBI clearing the case, and that’s when she’d quietly resurrected Beth Greenwood. She’d planned on a few weeks, possibly a month. No one would be suspicious until maybe the holidays when folks started looking for excuses to get together.

“I still need to check,” he said. “This is important. If they’re tracking us, I need to know how. Like it or not, judging by the attack in the parking garage, Beth Greenwood left a trail before she disappeared.”

The censure in his voice raised her hackles. “You’re awful judgmental for a man who fakes his identity for a living.”

“What I do is legally sanctioned by the government. Can you make the same claim?”

“This was a matter of life and death. Doesn’t that count for immunity?”

“You should have asked for help.”

“And the serpent said unto the woman,” Beth quoted the Bible beneath her breath, “Ye shall not surely die.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

The only guilt she felt was for not caring more about her deception. Letting go of Beth Greenwood had filled her with a curious sense of relief. She had a fresh start and a clean slate. She wasn’t the person who’d gotten Timothy killed. She hadn’t fallen for the first embezzler in a suit who’d shown her a scrap of attention after emerging from the haze of caring for her dad. She didn’t have to endure another audit as a hostile presence among her temporary coworkers.

While she loved her job, she hadn’t anticipated the isolation that accompanied fraud investigations. Even innocent people were chilled by her presence.

“Fine,” she said. “You can check my phone. But you won’t find anything.”

After she typed in the security code, she handed it over. He didn’t trust her. She wasn’t a complete idiot—he was investigating her more than looking for a tracking device. Not that she blamed him. Neither of them had much reason to trust the other.

“What about your phone?” she demanded. “Who did you contact?”

Corbin flipped through her call history, turned the case over and removed the back cover. “My phone is encrypted and untraceable.”

“Are you certain? Maybe someone did a background check on you,” she scoffed. “The office rumor is that you were Special Forces in the military.”

His head snapped up. “Who started that rumor?”

“Someone who saw the tattoo on your arm.”

She’d like to get a look at that ink. No. She didn’t want to see his tattoos or hear about his family or listen to him talk with his neighbor. He wasn’t the enemy, but he wasn’t an ally, either. They were at cross purposes. He wanted evidence against Cayman Holdings, and she wanted to live. Near as she could tell, those two goals were mutually exclusive.

“Huh.” He continued his search of her phone. “I can’t believe anyone at Quetech Industries was that observant. Half the people couldn’t even get my name right. They kept calling me Clark. Even you.”

A flush spread across her cheeks. “That’s because your nickname is Clark. You know, like the mild-mannered reporter from film and television fame.”

“The one who turns into a superhero?”

“Yeah. Because of, you know, the glasses.”

He sat back in his seat. “You’re right. Must be the specs.”

The glasses, the piercing blue eyes, the way he’d jog up eight flights of stairs without getting winded. That time he’d carried two five-gallon jugs for the water cooler on his broad shoulders. His chiseled jaw.

But let him believe it was the eyewear. “Mmm-hmm.”

“There’s nothing here,” he said, glancing at her backpack. “What else did you take with you from home?”

“Nothing. I dumped my clothes and my purse at the train station. Everything here is new.”

She’d even bought new makeup that afternoon. Being pampered at the department store makeup counter was one of her few indulgences. Some people drank. Some people ate chocolate. She purchased expensive cosmetics. Not the best method of coping, but not the worst, either.

“Discernably new,” he said. “Let me see your hat.”

Too confused to argue, she handed it over.

He bent the brim and scooted it back across the table. “That’s better.”

The waitress delivered their food, and they both fell silent. They went through the familiar, comforting rituals of arranging silverware, glasses and napkins. Famished, she dug into her meal. She’d been too nervous to eat much the past few days.

Corbin sliced through his sandwich. “If they had a tracer in your bag, and you switched in Chicago, they’d only get as far as Union Station. There are plenty of routes leaving from there, which should slow them down. That might buy us some time.”

“You’re still assuming it’s me. You worked for Quetech Industries. You were a new hire. Maybe they suspected you were spying. I certainly did.”

“You did?” His knife and fork stalled over his plate. “Why?”

“Because you asked me out on a date, that’s why.” Humiliation burned through her chest. “People worried about getting caught for laundering money approach the forensic accountant first. It’s like a game. They always think they’re smart enough to fool us, and they’re always wrong.”

“Is it so strange that I’d ask you on a date?”

“Karaoke? Really?”

“Maybe I was curious about Janice’s singing voice.” He had the decency to appear abashed. “You want to talk about Timothy Swan?”

Her stomach knotted, and she set down her sandwich. “He’s the reason I’m trying to disappear.”

Timothy had been a good man. A kind mentor who was worried about her safety when he should have been looking out for himself.

“You need my help,” Corbin said. “They’re obviously on to you.”

“Maybe.” She swiped at her mouth, as though she could erase the memory of the man’s hand clamped painfully over her lips. “I can’t figure out how. I was extremely careful.”

“Homeland Security and the FBI will protect you.”

“Like they protected Timothy Swan?”

Corbin made a sound of frustration. “Tell me more about your relationship with him.”

She studied his expression for signs of deception, but he appeared genuinely curious. “Timothy was a mentor. I worked with him my first year out of college. He helped me through a difficult time. We became friends. He’d lost his wife. I’d lost my dad. I was the daughter he never had, and he was like a surrogate dad. We understood each other. Two years ago, I was working with a small conglomerate in Houston, and something stirred my suspicions.”

Corbin tilted his head. “What?”

“Instinct, I guess. Why does a company that sells copiers need an offshore account? How were they doing millions of dollars of business out of a strip mall? I asked for Timothy’s help deciphering some usual transactions I’d tracked through Cayman Holdings. He insisted on taking the evidence to the FBI himself.”

She paused, her throat working.

Corbin drummed his fingers on the table. “Didn’t you think that was unusual? Why not advise you to contact the authorities yourself?”

“Because he was protective of me.” She pressed her thumb and forefinger against her eyelids and pictured Timothy’s reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose. She saw the ink on his jacket sleeves, smeared from his favorite fountain pen. He’d been a throwback to another generation. “This community is tight-knit. He’d heard rumors the bank was involved with the Russian mafia.” Pressure built behind her eyes. “You know what happened next.”

“He was poisoned.” Corbin’s expression didn’t flicker. “Poisoning is modus operandi for the Russians.”

“Then the rumors were true?”

“I don’t know. The case is still open under FBI jurisdiction, but there hasn’t been any progress.”

Beth choked back a sob. Poisonings happened in TV detective shows and movies. She never thought she’d be tangled in an international web of deceit.

She was an accountant, after all. “I didn’t know someone was still investigating his death. I thought they’d forgotten about him.” She’d followed the case, but there were no leads. No suspects. Only suspicions. While she was grateful someone was interested in discovering the truth of Timothy’s death, something didn’t quite fit. “What does Homeland Security want with a foreign mafia? Especially if the FBI has jurisdiction over the case.”

“Cybersecurity covers all sorts of interference.”

“Now you sound evasive.”

“I’m being as honest as I can be considering the situation.”

Which was simply another way of saying he didn’t trust her.

Her thoughts drifted back to her last conversation with Timothy. He’d been her mentor during her first internship, and they’d remained friends long after she’d graduated.

“I never should have gone to Timothy.” She pushed away her plate, her gaze growing blurry. “If I hadn’t confided in him, he’d still be alive. I never imagined... I was naive. I suppose I just never...”

“Don’t think like that.” Corbin reached across the table before quickly retracting his hand. His expression shifted, and he dropped his arm to his side. “It wasn’t your responsibility to protect Timothy Swan.”

“Then whose was it?”

He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “Mine.”

She narrowed her gaze. “I don’t understand.”

“Why do you think I’m here, Beth?” For the first time since she’d met him two weeks ago, there was a weary, almost defeated note in his voice. “The FBI brought Timothy’s information to the Cyber Division of Homeland Security. That was my case. My responsibility.”

“You?” The full implication of his words seeped through the fog of her shock, and the space closed in around her. She felt as though someone had dropped a weight on her chest. “Then you met him?”

“We had an initial meeting. There was nothing solid in the evidence, but there was enough to connect the dots. I requested protective custody, but the request was denied.”

She gripped her hands in her lap to stop the trembling. “Why?”

Clearly Timothy had been in danger.

“I was working on a hunch, and I was new to the division.” The set of Corbin’s jaw grew rigid. “His death was my mistake. I should have pressed harder. I’ve been waiting two years for another chance at Cayman Holdings.”

“I’ve been a gullible idiot, haven’t I?” She hung her head and rubbed her fingers against her forehead, pressing the tips over her deepening worry lines. “Have you been tracking me the entire time?”

“No. You weren’t considered a suspect. Timothy kept your name out of the initial inquiry. Following his death, we investigated his contacts. His friends. That made you notable, but not a suspect.”

She didn’t entirely believe his answers, and she’d learned to trust her instincts over the years. Sometimes the tip-off wasn’t the mistake, the tip-off was when the columns balanced the first time perfectly. Honest people made mistakes. Crooks went overboard to make everything look flawless. A lack of errors often meant that someone was trying too hard.

Considering Timothy’s fate, even with the protection of Homeland Security, the chances of her surviving this ordeal had dropped by at least fifty percent.

Her chicken salad sandwich sat like a rock in her stomach. “What happens now?”

“There’s an FBI field office in Minneapolis. I need to know everything you’ve uncovered regarding Quetech Industries.”

A tiny flame of hope ignited within her. “Then you believe I’m innocent?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

The tiny flame sputtered and died. “I have an impeccable reputation. That should count for something.”

“You were running, Beth,” he said. “Under an assumed name. What am I supposed to think? In my line of work, actions speak louder than words.”

Despite the warmth of the dining car, she shivered. The evidence she’d sent to the FBI this evening took on an even greater importance. She wasn’t simply being morally courageous by turning over what she knew; that email might be the key to keeping herself out of prison.

She fiddled with the edge of her plate. “Quetech was laundering money for Cayman Holdings through several shell accounts. The system was ingenious. I would never have caught the transactions if I hadn’t seen something similar two years before. They’d changed the name of the shell corporation, but the address was the same. An empty office in an industrial park.”

“You remembered an address two years after the fact?”

“The name of the street was my middle name, and it just stuck in my head.”

He reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a small notebook and a pen. “Then working at Quetech was just a coincidence?”

He jotted down a few notes, and she pictured Timothy’s ink-stained sleeves. Pen and paper. A throwback to another generation.

“An awful coincidence,” she said. “As soon as I saw the name, I should have walked away. But I couldn’t. Timothy was dead because I hadn’t acted before.” Her dad had never backed down from a dangerous choice, and she couldn’t disappoint him. “I owed it to him to see this through.”

“You never considered catching a little action of your own? You could have gotten paid a lot of money to look the other way.”

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

“Mark 8:36.” He grunted. “Yeah. I went to Bible school, too. Do you have any proof of these transactions?”

“I sent an email with everything the FBI needs to trace the payments to the Chicago field office. It’s time-stamped for delayed delivery. It’ll be there first thing Tuesday morning after the holiday. Everything you need is in that email.”

His pen skipped over the page. “To a general account, or did you address the email to someone specific?”

“An agent named Stephen Keel. Timothy had worked with him before.”

Corbin glanced up. “Do you have access to the information now?”

“No.”

The pen stilled. “Where is it?”

“I sent a list of the transactions and the monetary amounts from a private email account and used the Quetech computer.”

“Can you recreate it from memory?”

“Some. Not all. There are account numbers. I can’t remember them all. Without those numbers, you’ll be looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“You sent the email from a work computer.” He tapped his pen against the notebook. “Which means any ghosted information is still at Quetech.” He jotted another note. “Why not simply walk out with the information on a flash drive?”

“Because I needed to buy some time. I didn’t want anyone to track me. If I left the ghosted information on my home computer, there’d be a trace. If I had the files on a flash drive and they caught me, I’d have no insurance. They’d take the drive and kill me.”

“You needed the delay to catch a train and assume a new identity.” He lifted an eyebrow. “They found you, anyway. How?”

She threw up her hands. “I don’t know. I was careful. At least I thought I was.”

Not careful enough. Corbin had been on to her from the beginning, after all. Then again, for all she knew, he’d been tracking her for the past two years. Either way, the case against her didn’t look good. She’d been linked to Cayman Holdings on two occasions. She’d purchased a false identity from a couple of her dad’s former informants, and she’d attempted to disappear. Everything pointed to her guilt.

Corbin retrieved his phone and typed something. “What about the account you used to send the email? There should be a copy in the Sent folder.”

“I’m not a complete idiot.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t use a regular email account. I used an encrypted service called No Going Back. The emails are time stamped.”

“A private service?” He grimaced. “Can you access the information?”

“No. That’s the whole point. Once the email is time stamped for delivery, there’s no going back. According to the website, it’s primarily used for relationship breakups and deathbed confessions. I needed a delay that was untraceable.”

The idea had seemed inspired at the time, giving her a chance to run. Except now she had no way to prove her innocence until the email was delivered. As it stood, she could just as easily be covering her tracks as turning over relevant information. Her fraudulent identity made the optics appear even worse. Three days suddenly seemed like a very long time.

“You’re telling me people send deathbed messages before they die.” Corbin rested his elbow on the table and splayed his hands. “That doesn’t make any sense. How is someone supposed to know when they’re going to die?”

“The system emails the sender at predesignated intervals. If you don’t reply with a receipt of confirmation, they assume you’re deceased and automatically send the correspondence.”

He rolled his eyes. “There’s no possible way that can ever go wrong.” Corbin pushed her plate closer to her. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ll feel better if you eat something,” he said, a softness in his voice she hadn’t heard before. “Try.”

“I know my situation doesn’t look good.” She plucked at the lettuce edging her sandwich. “I needed a few days to disappear. I needed a way to send the information from Quetech without leaving an obvious trail. I knew they’d find out about me sooner or later, but I was counting on later in order to survive.”

“Then you should have contacted the authorities.”

“That didn’t work out too well for Timothy.”

“We don’t know who killed Timothy. We don’t know who else he was involved with.”

Her lips pursed, she clenched her fists. “Don’t you dare say anything against Timothy. He was a good man. An honest man. He didn’t have to protect me, but he did, and it cost him his life. He had a family. People who loved him. He doesn’t deserve someone like you questioning his integrity.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought guilt flitted across his features. “I’m not questioning your friend’s integrity, but I have to examine all the possibilities.”

She pressed her fist against her mouth. He didn’t care about Timothy any more than he cared about her. She was a means to end, not a person. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her hand.

“What now?” she asked.

“We wait until Tuesday,” Corbin said. “And we ensure your email arrives safe and sound. I’d rather have the information now, but we’d need a warrant.” He scrolled through the screens on his phone, then typed something with his thumbs. “It appears that No Going Back is located offshore. Without jurisdiction, a warrant takes even longer. Which means we lay low and wait for your initial email. If the information is sound, we’ll protect you.”

“You can’t hold me.” Panic straightened her vertebrae. “You can’t prove I’ve done anything wrong.”

His expression turned grim, and her stomach dropped.

“In cases of terrorism, the department is allotted a generous amount of leeway.”

Her vision swam. “Terrorism?”

“I will do whatever I have to do to prevent another Boston Marathon.”

“I didn’t know...” She’d have handled everything differently. She’d thought she was dealing with a drug runner, not a terrorist. Her head throbbed. It was too late now. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Yes. You will.” Corbin offered a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And for the next three days, you and I are going to be inseparable.”

Her shoulders slumped. She’d tried, and she’d failed. That email was supposed to be her insurance, not her death sentence.

Just past midnight, Corbin knocked on Beth’s roomette. The FBI had balked at taking jurisdiction of Beth until they knew for certain the context of the email, which left him in a holding pattern. If what she said was true—that she’d turned over an email with the evidence—then she had nothing to worry about. If what she said was a lie, and she’d been working with Quetech all along to launder the money, she’d face the consequences of her actions. The outcome was out of his hands. Either way, they were stuck together for the next three days.

An eternity considering his conflicted feelings for her. Without any evidence, he was flying solo. The attack in the garage had only gotten him so much leeway on handling the witness. He’d called in a welfare check at his house, but the car was gone and the police hadn’t noticed anything suspicous. Maybe Ruth was taking her neighborhood watch duties too seriously.

Beth slid open the pocket door, looking sleepy and delightfully tousled. Her hair cascaded down her back and her leaf-green eyes blinked in droopy confusion. She appeared petite and vulnerable in the dimly lit, narrow corridor. He thought of Timothy Swan and hesitated. She was his witness. His responsibility. This time was different, though. As long as she came through with the evidence, she’d have protection.

“What time is it?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

At least one of them had gotten some sleep. “Midnight. Grab your stuff. This is our stop.”

Though he’d confiscated her phone, he’d kept a close watch on her for the past few hours. He stood a better chance of living to a ripe old age if he maintained a healthy suspicion. He hadn’t given her an opportunity to contact anyone else.

She tossed him a grumpy scowl. “Be right out.”

“I thought accountants were morning people.”

“It’s not the morning. It’s the middle of the night.”

The door slammed in his face, and he stifled a grin. There was something oddly intimate in seeing her without the usual polite filters in place.

True to her word, she reappeared moments later. She’d caught her hair in a ponytail and slung her backpack over one shoulder. He urged her ahead of him, his attention sharp.

They made their way down the narrow staircase and into the chill Minnesota evening. An enclosed walkway separated the train from the depot, and their footsteps echoed through the space. He surveyed the half-dozen passengers who emerged with them into the vaulted lobby but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The train had arrived early, making up time for the earlier delay. To his surprise, there appeared to be an FBI agent lounging against the ticket counter, a half-read newspaper in his hand. Had the Feds changed their mind about the jurisdiction?

The agent studied his phone before checking the crowd. No doubt comparing them to a photograph. The man caught sight of Beth and pocketed the device. He was definitely here for her. Corbin’s annoyance flared. Someone should have notified him. Had new information come to light?

The agent strode toward them.

Corbin resisted an eye roll. The field agent had the same nondescript look as most FBI agents. His hair and eyes were brown, his build average. His face was clean-shaven, and his cargo pants crisp. The academy must stamp them out in a factory. He’d even dressed in an identifying windbreaker. If he turned, he’d reveal large letters spelling FBI across the back of his jacket.

He was beefy but not exactly fit. One of those men who used to be able to spend an hour in the gym three times a week to maintain his fitness and hadn’t realized he was aging out of the routine.

The agent approached them and flashed his identification. “I’m Agent Smith. Are you Elizabeth Greenwood?”

She glanced between the two men. “I, uh, I am. Yes.”

“I’m here to take you in for questioning. Come with me, ma’am.”

Corbin’s scalp tingled. Something didn’t feel right. “I’ll be going with her.”

“You can call your boyfriend later,” Agent Smith said to Beth. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Greenwood.”

Corbin’s pulse jumped.

Agent Smith didn’t know Corbin’s identity. If the Feds had been informed of Beth’s arrival, they’d be aware there was an accompanying agent from Homeland Security.

This man was no FBI agent.