Elusive Echoes (36 page)

"And his marks would be?"

"Me and Sean."

Julia nodded thoughtfully, apparently trying
to digest what she was being told. "How do we find out what your
brother knows?"

"Easy." Mel scooped up the king of clubs and
replaced it with the queen of spades. "You make sure he stays in
the game. He'll do anything to avoid being hurt or thrown in
jail."

"Ms. Mitchell—Melanie." Bronson laid a hand
on Mel's arm and pinned her eyes in a cool stare. "We need your
help getting to your brother. Will you at least agree to talk to
him?"

"I'll try on one condition. Sean is
completely out of this and he knows he's out of it. He gets a pass
and you tell him, so he can stop worrying." Mel met the FBI agent's
stare head-on. She had nothing left to lose, but she could make
certain Sean had everything to gain. "And you don't tell Sean what
I'm doing. As far as he's concerned, you cleared him. Period."

Bronson hesitated.

"Agent Bronson, you know he's innocent. He
may have been chosen for his reputation, or because of his
relationship with me. But he'd never do anything like that. He'd
never put any horse at risk, and if a horse can be saved, he'll
never allow it to be hurt."

Bronson smiled. "You help us get into
DeVayne's head. McGee gets a pass." She tilted her head and
surveyed Mel with a critical eye. "I'm wondering what it would be
like to play poker with you."

"You'd lose." Mel kept her voice carefully
empty of emotion. "And I wouldn't even have to cheat."

****

The Orson's Folly jail was in serious need
of updating to bring it into the twenty-first century. Heck, just
bringing it into the second half of the twentieth century would be
an improvement.

When Mel entered the one-cell holding area,
Denny lay on the cot, lounging against the wall, one leg up and one
on the floor. His eyes were closed but his face was relaxed. He
might have been resting beneath a tree on a sunny summer afternoon.
For all intents, this was an innocent man with nothing to worry
about. He'd gotten good at using the body language. But she was
just as good at reading, and the two twitching fingers on his right
hand told an entirely different story. He was waiting for
something.

"You almost had this one, didn't you,
Denny?" Mel crossed the room and grabbed the single metal folding
chair against the wall. She opened it and sat down just outside the
cell. "I don't know how you found out about my operation, but you
know, it's rude to try and nudge your way in like you did."

The briefest flicker of surprise entered his
eyes, leaving just as quickly, and he shrugged. "You could have
invited me."

"Like I knew where you were? You sent me
letters but never gave me a way to contact you." She stretched her
legs out. "I could have used your input a couple of times."

"What exactly were you running?"

Mel rolled her eyes. "Like you don't know.
It wasn't hard at all getting Sandy to trust me to buy into the
bar. The trick was for me to buy it using her money."

Denny snickered. "You spent a lot of time
here. I thought you were putting down roots."

So he'd been keeping tabs on her. That was a
creepy thought. "I was alone. I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
I figured why not start in a place where the people trusted me
already."

"You love these people."

"You know the first rule is not to care
about the marks." She smiled, slow and easy. "And everyone's a
mark."

"How'd you get started with your little
operation?"

Mel allowed her smile to dissolve. He was
buying into it, pretending he knew all about her scam; when of
course he couldn't, since there wasn't one.

She shrugged, flicked her eyes off his face,
and jerked her head ever so slightly in the same direction, as if
trying to stop herself from looking over her shoulder. "I ran into
a few of the right people in Vegas. Sometimes the cleaning business
gets a little hot there and they subcontract. I could do a little
out here, small but busy bar and all." Mel studied her fingertips,
counted to ten.

"I'm curious. How did you get her to partner
you up?"

"That was part luck." She shrugged, striving
for a reluctant manner. "I knew the right people. Sandy got
abducted a couple of years back and I just made myself
indispensable. She started talking partnership as a joke, and I
took it a step further along by making her an offer." Now Mel stood
and paced the confines of the room. "Got my first stake from my
partners in Vegas." Mel picked at a fingernail, refusing to meet
Denny's questioning gaze. "Oh, I've paid them back with some
high-level cleaning, so we have a positive balance again." She
stopped digging at the nail, extended her fingers and frowned at
her hand. "At least we did until you came along. I had to cash out
on a very lucrative deal because the feds gave me some
attention."

Denny's face went white. A bead of sweat
formed on his upper lip. "Who are your partners?"

"Well, originally just a small group out of
the casino where I worked in Vegas, The Electric Light." She
smiled. Pretending naïveté came so easily now. It was almost as
though she'd never left the family business. "But turns out they're
part of a bigger group out of Detroit. They go by The
Engineers."

Denny rubbed his jaw with a hand that shook.
"Mellie, that's part of the Detroit mob."

She shrugged. "So I'm finding out. But what
can I do? I almost had everything covered, but now I can't finish
the job because of this thing you got me into."

"What exactly were you doing?"

She slashed her eyes across him, allowed
some irritation to show. "Same as you, I expect. Surviving at all
costs."

"I could have cashed out of the game with
this gig, Mel." Had he always sounded so whiny?

"Well, you didn't offer to share, did you?"
She lifted a shoulder. "I had a good thing, Denny. A real good
thing. Valentine's has a phenomenal crowd on Fridays and Saturdays.
You've seen it. A lot of the regulars from the next county . . .
well, they have friends in high places, and let's just say they pay
for their drinks with very large bills. Then I put the evening's
take into two separate accounts. One my partner knows about, and
one she doesn't."

"So it's simple money laundering."

She shrugged. "It was. Now the feds are
looking at me and I can't finish my payoff."

Denny looked around the room. "That could
get dangerous."

Mel smiled. "That's not going to be my
problem."

Denny snickered. "You're going to leave it
on your partner?"

She brushed a hand over her hair like a
preening cat. "Yep. But not the partner you're thinking of." She
punched some sweetness into her smile. "You told the feds I'm your
partner. The Engineers are going to be looking to you to deliver on
my contract with them."

Denny stared, horror creeping over his face.
His breathing was suddenly unsteady.

Mel stood. "Anyway, I'm sure they'll find a
place for you in their organization . . . somewhere."

"Mel! Are you going to leave things like
this?"

She shrugged and winked. "Looks like. If you
cut another deal, that's up to you."

Her cell phone chimed with
an obnoxiously loud rock song. Mel looked at the caller ID.
Wireless caller
showed
above a number with a three-one-three area code.
Right on schedule.

She caught her breath, licked her lips.

The outer door popped open and Julia Bronson
bustled in. "Is that a cell phone? I was very clear, Ms. Mitchell.
No cell phones." She held out her hand. "I'll need to see
that."

Deliberately, Mel fumbled the cell, dropping
it. The phone landed on her foot, bounced onto the floor. When she
bent to retrieve it, she nudged it with her foot, and the phone
skidded along the floor, into the cell with Denny.

"Give me the phone now, Mr. DeVayne." Agent
Bronson's voice was frigid.

Denny checked the readout, then touched a
button. "Oh, sorry. I think I accidentally deleted your call,
Mellie."

She smiled tightly and accepted the phone.
"No doubt they'll call back."

"Okay, Ms. Mitchell, your visit is over."
Bronson held the door open for Mel, and shot her a glare. "If you
ever want to visit your brother again, you're going to have to
follow the rules. No more stunts like that."

"Wait." Denny stood at the bars, his face
vaguely green. "One more minute. Please."

With a long-suffering sigh, Bronson finally
shrugged. "You can have two. But I'll take the phone." She held out
her hand and Mel handed over the phone with a show of reluctance.
Agent Bronson slipped through the door, closing it behind her.

"Thanks for deleting that call for me," said
Mel. "I hope he doesn't call back until I get out of here."

"Mellie, what are you into?"

"I told you. I was a cleaner."

"What was that area code?"

She shrugged. "It's a Detroit number,
probably Frankie or . . ." she allowed her voice to thin. "It could
be Sal."

"Sal? Sal K? As in Sal Kowalski?"

She shuffled her feet, looked the other
way.

"He's the number two guy in the Detroit Mob,
Mellie." Denny ran an agitated hand up and down one of the bars.
"Crap, sis, he'll shoot you just to test his gun."

Mel looked up, startled. "How do you know
him?"

"Nick dealt with him a couple of times in
Florida and again in Vegas. He's the reason Nick mostly stayed out
of the bigger cities."

Julia Bronson opened the door. "Time's
up."

Mel shuffled toward the door, but stopped
just short of the threshold. "Denny . . . I get why you messed with
my cars—you wanted my attention. But why—why did you try to hurt
Ricky?"

The soft laugh sounded truly evil. "It was
never about either of you. It was to keep your boyfriend occupied
with what was happening in your life and to keep his attention in
town. At your bar."

Mel suppressed a shiver. "Oh. For a while
there I thought the car thing was . . . someone else. You
know."

"Ms. Mitchell, I must insist you come with
me." Bronson tapped a neatly trimmed fingernail against the heavy
metal door.

With a shrug, Mel followed the FBI agent
into the hallway.

Allowing the door to slam shut behind them,
Bronson marched Mel to the front of the sheriff's department office
and indicated the seat next to DC's desk.

Dizzy and lightheaded, Mel sank into the
chair and leaned over to put her head between her knees.

"You're okay, just breathe in deep and blow
out." Agent Bronson laid a hand on Mel's shoulder.

"Do you think he bought it?" asked DC.

Mel sat up and wobbled her hand in a so-so
gesture. "He doesn't want to. Nick wouldn't have bought it. But
Denny's on his own, and he's never been as much into the con as he
wants to believe. He really doesn't have the nerve for it."

"You did good," said Bronson. "We'll let him
stew and see where he goes with it. This might backfire if he
decides to sell you out for what he thinks you have running
here."

"Part of the grift is to get the mark
running scared. I hope whoever he's tangled up with in the racing
world is less scary to him than the Detroit mob." Mel shrugged.
"Otherwise, he won't budge." She looked at Bronson. "Either way,
Sean's out of it now, right? Our agreement was I try to get Denny
to roll over and Sean's in the clear."

The FBI agent smiled. "Mr. McGee's been
cleared for two weeks. Since you and I first talked."

Mel stared at Bronson for a long moment.
Finally, she acknowledged appreciation for the agent's gambit with
a half smile. "Well played."

Julia shrugged. Then she smiled. "Not so
much. You've already walked through fire for your man. I suspected
you'd do anything you needed to for him."

"He's really clear?"

Bronson nodded.

"Make sure it stays that way. I've got a bar
to open this evening."

****

Shadows from the fireplace danced over the
oak paneling, a perfect match for the shadows in Sean's empty
heart. The fire was dying down, and the November chill was sneaking
back into the living room.

Sean hauled himself from the leather chair
in front of the fire and drew the screen on the fireplace. He
stirred the embers, tossed on another log, and waited. Flames
sprung up around the edges, consuming the wood and chasing the
chill from the room again, though the warmth never touched the
coldness dwelling in his heart. The fire stoked, Sean settled back
in his chair.

He downed the shot of Jack and poured
another, but held it in his hand as he watched the fire. He didn't
see the cozy glow of the fire in the living room. Instead, he was
transported to a night more than two weeks past, when flames from
the stable reached high into the night sky, taunting him, daring
him to enter, promising kisses of torment.

The hiss of the fire, the screams of alarmed
horses, and Mel's cries were never far from his memory. As the log
in the fireplace split in two and fell off the grate, he saw
instead the center beam of the stable collapse just as he got Mel
and Dev out of the furious firestorm.

He tossed back his second shot. Poured
another.

"Staying in again?" Ryan stood in the
doorway to the foyer.

"Looks like it." Not that he had anywhere to
go or anything.

"The insurance adjuster was out again today
with more questions. Did she find you?"

"Yep. I answered her stupid questions and
she went away again."

"Did she say what the holdup is?" Ryan moved
like a cat across the carpet to the liquor cabinet and poured
himself a brandy. "We're not going to be able to rebuild before
spring if we don't get started in the next week."