Turn On A Dime - Kade's Turn (28 page)

Kade was up early. He showered and threw on a pair of jeans before going to work on cracking the phone Kathleen had lifted. He’d also finally gotten a trace on one of the numbers used to call Freeman that had been stonewalled behind a labyrinth of government agencies. He hadn’t yet found a name, but it was worth following up on.

He heard from Blane around mid-morning.

“Kathleen’s staying home today,” he told Kade, “so you’re off the hook for bodyguard duty.”

“Awesome,” Kade said flatly, ignoring the twinge of disappointment that he wouldn’t see Kathleen today.

“She’s got some date tonight,” Blane said, “but I don’t think she’ll be out long.”

So they had made up, or were at least well enough on their way to inspire that confident tone in Blane’s voice.

“Yeah, I know,” Kade said, leaving it at that.

“One more thing,” Blane said, then seemed to hesitate.

“What?” Kade prompted.

“Kathleen. I think…well, it seems likely anyway…that she’s pregnant.”

Kade’s stomach dropped to his feet.

He’d lost her.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” he said at last, belatedly hearing the rough aggression in his voice.

“Pregnancy is not something I joke about,” Blane said. “I just thought…with how much you detest playing bodyguard…that you should know.”

“You think I’d do a better job if I knew she was having your baby, you mean,” Kade said bitterly.

“That’s not it,” Blane said. “I just thought you’d want to know that she may be carrying your niece or nephew.”

“I hate kids.”

Blane laughed lightly. “You won’t hate your own flesh and blood, I guarantee it.”

Kade didn’t smile. He was still reeling from the fact that Kathleen was now permanently and forever beyond his reach. He’d thought he’d accepted that last night.

Guess not.

“Gotta go. I’m due back in court.” Blane ended the call.

Kade stared blindly at the four computer screens in front of him, the dead phone still in his hand.

Kathleen was pregnant. With Blane’s kid.

She wasn’t his, was never going to
be
his. He’d been deluding himself last night. Deep down, he’d been nurturing a persistent hope that once Blane was through, Kade could make a play for her.

Not anymore. Even Kade drew the line at going after another man’s pregnant girlfriend.

It suddenly occurred to him—he assumed Blane would marry her if she was pregnant, but this was
Blane
they were talking about. He’d been on the ropes with Kandi for years. No way was he just going to throw her over for Kathleen, no matter how beautiful she was, pregnant or not.

Which would leave Kathleen a single-mom, just like Kade’s own mother had been.

Kade tossed down his cell and scrubbed his hands over his face. His loyalty should come first and foremost to his brother. He knew that. So why did he feel like he wanted to kill him?

Pushing aside thoughts that made him feel like the shittiest kind of brother, Kade went back to work, his fingers flying over the keys as he routed his IP address through China and Eastern Europe before attacking the firewalls protecting the network at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Kade wondered if he’d hear from Kathleen, but not once did she call him. Maybe she wasn’t even thinking about him and hadn’t thought of him at all today. Pregnant with Blane’s child, he guessed she probably had other things on her mind, which didn’t stop him from reaching for his cell a little before seven o’clock. He hit the number for her speed dial.

“Nice of you to tell me the big news,” he said when she answered.

She paused and Kade wondered if she was surprised that he knew.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, and Kade could tell she was lying through her teeth. She knew exactly what he meant.

“I talked to Blane,” he said. “He told me.”

“I-I’m sorry, Kade,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m not trying to get Blane to marry me, if that’s what you’re upset about.”

Kade mentally cursed. He wished his anger was so righteous and noble as to be protecting his brother. Instead, he was just mad. Mad that she was pregnant with Blane’s kid. Mad that he’d missed his shot. Mad that she was about to become another casualty of the Kirk family.

“Damn it, Kathleen, that’s not why I’m pissed. Blane knows better than to be so careless.”

She didn’t reply for a moment, and when she did, it was almost as though she’d seen through his excuses.

“It’s not for sure,” she said quietly. “Probably just a false alarm. I’ve been under a lot of stress, you know.”

No shit. “Yeah, I know.”

“Ryan’s here,” she said. “Gotta go.”

Ryan Sheffield.

Supposedly a JAG officer, but his interest in Kathleen seemed a bit too…convenient.

Kade turned back to his computer. A few minutes later, he’d gotten into the personnel records for the Navy, based out of Tennessee. Ryan Sheffield pulled up okay and he seemed to check out.

Following his gut, which had turned out to be right on more than one occasion, he traced his service record back a few years...and hit a brick wall. Grabbing his cell, he dialed.

“Hey. Remember me?” He asked when the person picked up.

There was a pause. “Um, yeah,” the guy said.

“Remember when I said I’d call one day and you could do that favor you owe me.”

“Yeah.” The man’s voice was hesitant, slightly afraid.

“Today’s that day.” Kade went on to explain what he wanted to know.

“But I’m not supposed to access those files,” the guy protested.

“So be sneaky about it. I’ll call back. You have ten minutes.” Kade hung up.

The phone’s code had cracked while he’d been busy, and Kade picked it up to scroll through its contents.

They’d been careful, whoever they were. There were no emails or texts and the dialing history had been erased. Even *69 to redial the last number led to a disconnected line with the number blocked.

Pulling up software he’d written himself, Kade accessed the phone’s memory. Not something just anyone can do with just any tool and most people wouldn’t know to look there anyway, but it proved fruitful for him.

“Well, look at what we have here,” he murmured to himself.

A photograph had been left in memory. A naked woman who didn’t seem to mind at all that she was having her photo taken.

Adriana Waters.

The photographer could be seen in mirror on the wall. It looked like a generic hotel room. Enlarging the photo, Kade scrutinized the somewhat blurry reflection. He’d bet a thousand bucks it was Ryan, but he needed more proof.

Grabbing the phone, he dialed his source again.

“What do you have for me?” he asked when the guy picked up.

“Yeah, that guy is like a ghost,” his source said, speaking furtively in an undertone. “His record is bullshit. Says he’s served for six years, but none of the places he said he was stationed have any record of him.”

Kade digested this, the bad feeling that he’d felt when Kathleen had said Ryan was picking her up now growing.

“So I kept digging,” the man continued in a hissed whisper. “And, well, I think the guy is CIA.”

Fuck.

“I haven’t had a chance to get any further, not enough time, but does that give you enough?”

Kade’s reply was curt. “Yeah.”

“So we’re square?”

“For now. Catch you later.”

Kade was already typing on his computer, disconnecting the call with a flick of his finger. Ryan Sheffield may think he was smart, but he wasn’t smart enough. He may have deleted the phone numbers he’d called from his phone, but he hadn’t been thorough enough to get a burner phone, and the record company would know who he’d called.

Soon, Kade was staring at the phone number for the Bank of Grand Cayman. This was going from bad to worse to downright shitty. Grand Cayman was a pain in the ass to hack into and took some time, which he didn’t have. So instead, he called a woman.

“Nicole. Guess who.”

There was a fluttering of rapid French and Kade had to cut her off.

“You know I love that shit, but I’m short on time, sweetheart. Been shopping lately?”

Nicole was an expatriate from Paris with a taste for the finer things. Her job didn’t come with a salary to finance her habits, so she supplemented in some creative ways.

“You know I have not, Kade,” she said in a throaty purr. “Perhaps you come take me, no?” Which she meant literally and sexually. As he recalled, she was particularly flexible.

“I’ll send you on a spree to Tiffany’s if you’ll look up a phone number for me and tell me the name on the account,” he replied.

She laughed and he could picture her swinging back her long, chestnut brown hair. Nicole was tall and lean, with bedroom eyes and a smile you could feel.

“Okay, but you promise not to tell,” she said.

“Would I do that to you?” Kade drawled before reading her off the number. He glanced impatiently at his watch while he waited. Kathleen had been with Ryan for almost thirty minutes. Pulling up the GPS on his computer, he saw they’d ended up at some restaurant north of downtown, at least thirty minutes from him.

He was up and grabbing his keys before Nicole even came back on the line.

“That account belongs to a Ryan Sheffield,” she said. “Perhaps a rich friend of yours? He has over five million dollars in the account, new deposits within the past two weeks.”

Shit! “Thanks, Nicole. Hit Tiffany’s up this weekend and give them your name. I’ll make sure you’re on my list.”

“Merci, Kade. Though I would prefer if you were to take me.” He could hear the French pout in her voice.

“Some other time, sweetheart. Gotta run.” He ended the call and hit the door at a dead run.

The elevator seemed to crawl and blocked his signal. He was dialing Kathleen as he ran to his car and jumped inside. To his relief, she picked up on the third ring.

“Get out of there, Kathleen,” he said. His tires squealed as they spun on the concrete floor of the parking garage.

“What? Why?”

“I cracked that phone you lifted,” he said, burning straight through a red light. Cars honked as he flew past. “It belongs to Ryan Sheffield. From the photo I found, he’s been sleeping with Adriana Waters.”

“They’re having an affair?” she asked.

Duh. Dumb question. Hadn’t he just said they were sleeping together? Wasn’t that the definition of “affair?” But he bit his tongue when he replied, mindful of the fact that she was in the company of a cold-blooded murderer who for some unknown reason, hadn’t hurt her. Yet.

“It would seem so.”

“That must have been him that I heard in the hotel room,” she said.

Now she was putting the pieces together. He could only hope she kept her wits and didn’t panic. “Right, which is why you have to leave. Now. I found an account in Grand Cayman that belongs to Ryan. It’s recently received over five million dollars in deposits. In case you’re not aware, they don’t pay enlisted men that kind of money.”

“But why would he kill Ron and Stacey, Kade?” she asked. “Or come after me? He’s JAG, not a SEAL. They would’ve laughed in his face if he’d been the one threatening them.”

True. “Because before he was JAG, he was CIA.”

“What?” she squeaked. Kade winced. “But…but that’s not possible.”

And she was losing it.

“I’m on my way,” he said, glancing down at the speedometer. Pushing ninety in a thirty-five. At least traffic was light. “Ryan’s neck deep in this shit. Get out of there. Tell him anything.”

“Okay, I’m downtown, at—”

But she was cut off, and the next voice on the line was most definitely not Kathleen’s.

“I’m sorry but Kathleen can’t come to the phone right now,” Ryan said. “She’ll have to call you back later.”

Kade clutched his phone so hard, the metal bit into his fingers. “You lay a finger on her, and I personally will make sure it’s the last thing you ever do.”

“Tell Kirk that if he wants to see her alive again, he should make sure he loses this case,” Ryan said, then he hung up.

Panic burned a hole in his gut, but Kade ignored it, instead pushing the accelerator down even further. He was still over fifteen minutes away. His one hope was that Ryan wanted to use Kathleen for leverage. Hopefully, that meant he wouldn’t hurt her. The signal was still coming from her phone and it would continue to do so, even if he turned it off.

Kade just hoped he hadn’t left it behind.

He drove like a madman, weaving in between cars and into oncoming traffic at a suicidal speed. The thought occurred to him to call Blane, but that would take time away from trying to get to her, and he couldn’t afford that.

He was only five minutes away when his phone rang again. It was an unknown number. Maybe it was Ryan, wanting to talk terms.

“Yeah,” Kade bit out.

“Help me!”

It was Kathleen, breathless and terrified.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice shook. “They shot Ryan.”

“Who? Who shot Ryan?”

She was sobbing now. “I don’t know! His head just exploded. And now they’re after me.”