Best Laid Plans (23 page)

*   *   *

Brad left at ten and Sean tried to call Kane. Of course he didn’t answer so Sean left a brief message. “Call Donnelly. Then call me.”

Sean was partly bothered by the fact that his brother was involved in this situation at all. Why was Kane keeping tabs on the elusive Tobias? Why would he call Donnelly? Kane rarely worked with law enforcement. He would share information, usually through RCK because Kane didn’t have a tolerance for bureaucracy. Which made Sean think there was something else going on.

He would find out what it was.

Sean sat down next to Lucy on the couch. She leaned over and rested her head on his chest. “I assume you got what you needed from our conversation?” she said.

“Yes. The tech guys Juan sent were good.”

“High praise.”

“Barry’s a jerk.”

“Sean—”

“He may be a good cop, but he’s still a jerk.”

“Okay.”

“You’re giving in easily.”

“I thought the same thing about him at first.”

“And now?”

“I understand him better. He’s not like us. Or, rather, me. He doesn’t obsess or let his work consume him, but he’s sharp. He gives one hundred percent when he’s on duty, and when he’s off, he’s off. It’s healthier that way. I sometimes wish…” Her voice trailed off.

Sean turned her head so he could kiss her. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and stop. You’re thickheaded, you know that? How many times do I have to tell you I love you exactly the way you are?”

“Maybe I just like hearing you say it.”

That wasn’t it. She was doing it again, feeling like something was wrong with her. “What happened today?”

“It was just a long day.”

“Lucy.” He wasn’t going to let her avoid the conversation.

She didn’t say anything for several minutes. But she was too tense to be sleeping.

“We interviewed this woman named Mona Hill. She has a long and sordid past—and she’s hard. Shrewd and calculating. I got the distinct impression that, if given the choice, she would continue down the same path. That she actually enjoys what she’s doing.”

“Which is?”

“Running call girls. She owns an apartment building—a nice place in a so-so area. The girls all rent from her. It won’t be easy getting to them.”

“And this girl you’re looking for works for her?”

“Elise,” Lucy said. “Don’t have a last name yet. But I don’t think Elise works for Hill. Elise is from out of town. According to Hill, Elise called her up looking for work and Hill sent her to cover for a girl who’d gotten sick. Sounds so plausible, but…”

“You don’t believe her.”

“I don’t know. Except, according to Tia, Elise
is
new to town, so there’s a ring of truth. It just feels … Okay, this new girl comes in, kills Worthington, and then drops Worthington’s phone in another john’s hotel room? Why? There’s so much we don’t know.”

“Backtrack. You think this girl killed Harper Worthington?”

“I don’t know!” Lucy tensed. Sean tried to rub out the tension, but Lucy pulled away. She said, “Elise had to have been involved in some way, right? She came out of the motel room—the taxi driver only saw her. There are no security cameras, so the killer could have left before Elise. I can see her not calling the police, but the evidence suggests that someone staged Worthington’s body after he was dead. And truth is—while I originally thought that he was a pervert and maybe, subconsciously, thought he deserved what he got—we’ve found nothing that suggests he planned on meeting a prostitute. I think he planned on meeting an informant, or someone who had information for him, or a blackmailer, or
anyone
other than a prostitute. Then you find a bug in his office and we know he’s changed his patterns over the last month. That tells me he was either doing something illegal or trying to figure out if someone else was doing something illegal. But if it was someone else, why didn’t he talk to Smith? Or law enforcement? There’s nothing in his background that suggests he was doing anything illegal, but white collar crimes are out of my specialty area.”

“That’s more my area of expertise.” Sean considered what he’d learned about Worthington’s business today. And Worthington himself. “I haven’t uncovered anything, even a hint that he was doing anything illegal, but the fact that he kept a separate computer—the tablet—suggests he was definitely hiding something.”

“And he was killed for it. Whatever
it
is. And whoever killed him wanted to embarrass him, even in death.”

“And this Mona Hill knows who this girl is.”

Lucy shivered. Sean wouldn’t have noticed except that he was touching her.

“What else happened today?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re tense. When you were talking about Mona Hill, and now when I said her name. What is it?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said. But she wasn’t looking at him. “Maybe because she’s running underage prostitutes? And this one, this
Elise
, is missing? Every cop is looking for her and she’s nowhere. Maybe in hiding. Maybe dead. And she has all the answers.”

Lucy was avoiding something. Sean shifted on the couch and turned Lucy to face him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What do you mean? You want me to recount my entire day for you?” Her voice rose as she spoke.

“I want to know what happened with Mona Hill that scared you.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Do not lie to me, Lucy. Never lie to me.”

She stared at him with pain in her eyes, but her mouth was set in anger. “I’m not lying. About anything. I’m just tired, and frustrated, and you’re reading something into this conversation that just isn’t there.” She rose from the couch. Sean reached for her—he didn’t want to argue with Lucy, he wanted answers—but she pulled away.

That infuriated him.

“You did exactly this when I asked about your nightmare this morning.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s not acceptable.” Not with him.

“You can’t fix everything, Sean.” Her eyes watered. “I’m going to bed.” She turned and started for the stairs.

“Don’t walk away, Lucy. We need to discuss this.”

She hesitated, but didn’t look at him.

He held his breath, waiting for her to explain. Waiting to hear why she was scared. Because he’d felt it in her body, and he knew her better than anyone. Better than she knew herself.

Then she walked away without another word.

Sean didn’t move for several minutes. He couldn’t think. He could scarcely breathe. How could Lucy walk out like that? Without talking it out? He wanted to go after her, but he was too angry. And hurt. Like she’d stabbed him in the gut. Because if Lucy didn’t trust him with her fears, she didn’t trust him at all. And if she didn’t trust him, she didn’t love him.

He buried his face in his hands. He would do anything for Lucy. He would kill for her. He would die for her. He would follow her to the ends of the earth and back again. For years, before Lucy, he’d lived a purposeless life. Parties. Women. Fun. Making money and spending it, on cars and electronics and other toys. He’d helped his brothers when they needed it, but mostly, he lived to please himself.

It was a shallow, meaningless existence.

Until Lucy.

She gave him a purpose in life he’d never had before. Her compassion and vision, her drive and determination … they empowered him. She made him a better person. He looked at her and melted.

He’d known from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be easy to pull Lucy out of her icy shell and show her the world beyond her work. But he had—very successfully. She laughed and enjoyed the small things that she’d never noticed when they first met. Like ice skating and Disney movies and eating ice cream on cold winter days.

Keep my girl smiling.

It was the voice of Lucy’s father, when he’d given his blessing upon learning they were moving in together.

That’s what had been missing for the last two months. Lucy hadn’t smiled as often. She hadn’t laughed as much. She’d retreated inside again, the nightmares drowning her. And she wouldn’t talk to him about it. She talked around it, or distracted him, but she never really told him what they were about.

And then today … something had happened with this Mona Hill.

Sean stood and walked down the hall to his office. He hesitated briefly at the bottom of the stairs, wanting to go to Lucy, to kiss her, to tell her he didn’t want to go to sleep with this hanging over them.

But instead, he went into his office, shut the door, and started a very deep—probably illegal—background check on Mona Hill.

*   *   *

Mona Hill had built her career around one thing: people. No one could keep a secret from her. No one could lie to her. She always found out. Those who knew her feared her, starting from when she was a young teenager playing cons, running drugs, and selling girls. She’d learned to use that fear to maintain complete control of every situation.

It pleased her that she’d been right about this one. The feds were a little faster than she’d expected, but they came asking the right questions.

She called her contact. His name was Jay. That was all she knew—his first name and how to reach him. She’d met him once. He was all muscle and did what he was told. But that didn’t mean he was stupid.

Mona did not underestimate the people she took jobs from. That would be the fastest way to the grave.

“Tell your boss that the feds came knocking today,” she said.

“And?”

“They have her name but nothing else. Should I move forward with the plan?”

“Do it tonight.”

“We’d originally agreed tomorrow night. Why the change?”

“That is none of your business, Ms. Hill.”

She bristled, but didn’t say a word. She didn’t want to admit that she was scared of these people; rather, she’d simply say that she had a healthy respect for their methods. She knew more about their plans than they realized, but not enough about their plans to be confident she knew everything. And she wasn’t quite sure who was in charge.

All she knew about the boss was that he had a particularly sick fetish. She’d procured girls for him on several occasions, and they’d never been seen again. She wasn’t particularly concerned … She gave him girls who wouldn’t be missed. If she’d had a conscience, it would bother her.

But he paid extremely well, and when one of her girls got out of line … Well, she needed to be punished. Apparently, the boss was extremely proficient in the art of punishment.

And one thing that Mona had learned in her business was that men with an insatiable obsession—any obsession—were rarely in charge.

There were, of course, exceptions. Which was why Mona danced the waltz with Jay. She’d let him have the pick of her litter, so to speak, and he liked one girl particularly well. He didn’t hurt her, so Teresa was happy to give away a freebie every week in exchange for a reduction in rent. Besides, Mona could not afford to make an enemy of anyone with power. Judging from the way they’d taken out Harper Worthington and set the dominos in motion, she thought that their plan might actually work. If it did … she’d know for certain whose good side to remain on.

She almost didn’t tell Jay what she had, but at the last moment, before he hung up, she said, “I have some information that may be valuable.”

“We’ve already paid you for your assistance.” He was angry. No one liked getting a bill for services they’d already paid for.

“This is something completely new. I’ll send you a sample. You can let me know what you want me to do with it.”

“You had better not be wasting my time, Ms. Hill.”

“I assure you, this will be worth every second.”

She hung up with a smile. She sent Jay a ten-second video clip and waited. Almost immediately, he called her back.

“Is that doctored?”

“No.”

“Is that all you have?”

“I told you, it’s just a taste. I have a full seven minutes.”

“I’ll let you know what to do with it.”

“It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“It’s negotiable. Think about it while you replay that clip.” She hung up again and laughed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lucy was angry—at herself, at Sean, at the world. Though Sean was downstairs, she felt alone and isolated in their bedroom.

She took a long, hot shower and wanted to cry. But she didn’t. She rarely cried. Another deficiency in her psyche, another scar left over from her forty-eight hours of hell. That her life could change completely, irrevocably, over such a short time …

Stop.

She was feeling sorry for herself. Yet again. For the past year she’d thought that she was truly over her rape. Not
over
it in the sense that she could forget it completely, but that she’d compartmentalized it in such a way that the past could no longer hurt her. She’d come a long way toward healing and acceptance before Sean, but it was Sean—proving to her that she was lovable—who closed the book on the past.