Catch a Shadow Read online

  “I know how to protect myself, and I know how to lose a tail. You don’t.”

  You’re a self-serving bastard,” Sam muttered. “Be honest. You want what he gave Kirke.”

  Jake looked at him with new respect. Of course he was a bastard, and he most definitely wanted what Kirke had. But he also knew Kirke wouldn’t be safe until Gene Adams was behind bars or, preferably, dead.

  The police were an option. But not for him. If she took what she knew to the police, he might never find Gene Adams. He would disappear, and Jake could never prove his existence.

  “I won’t deny that I want to know what was in the envelope she took,” he said. “Two good men are dead. They had families. They were killed by men they trusted. They deserve some justice.”

  “Not my problem.” Sam glanced at his watch. “I have to be at work in six hours. I was late last night. If I don’t show tonight, I might lose the gig.”

  “We’ll figure out a way to get you there.”

  “Just figure out how to go away.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “Maybe whoever is doing this would leave if you did.”

  “You’re not listening,” Jake replied, trying to keep his impatience in check. “This man does not leave loose ends. Mark Cable was a loose end. Now Kirke is.”

  “And your solution?” Sam said sarcastically.

  “I get him before he gets Kirke. You two stay out of sight until I do.”

  “And my gig? I’m a sax player. There are dozens ready to step into my spot.”

  Jake didn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t have the right to make decisions for others, decisions that could affect their lives. But he felt in his gut that whatever Kirke—and now probably Sam—did, they would continue to be targets.

  So he ignored Sam’s question. “Play tonight, then disappear for a few days,” he said. Then he asked, “Do you have a friend who will switch cars with you? For a few days?”

  “Damn you,” Sam said bitterly.

  “Find a motel,” Jake said again, “and call me.” He jotted down his number on a piece of paper and pushed it into Sam’s hand. “In case you lost it.”

  He sprinted off before Sam could protest again.

  Would she agree? Or would Sam talk Kirke into going to the police?

  The musician wanted her to. That much was obvious.

  He hadn’t believed Jake, but then who would? Boulders by the names of Adams and Kelly had just tumbled over two ordinary people and seemed to be sweeping them down a cliff.

  Jake followed Sam to the main entrance. He kept another car between them as Kirke rose from a wheelchair and opened the door of the passenger’s side of the car.

  She looked tired. Her arm was bandaged, and he could see from here her uniform shirt was stained.

  Gene Adams was around somewhere. Jake could feel him. He would be disappointed to have failed. In fact, if the shooter had been Adams, Kirke was damned lucky to be alive. Jake had never known Adams to miss.

  Unless he meant to.

  Nothing made sense, but then Gene Adams didn’t make sense. Jake hadn’t known the man’s real name, and while he hadn’t liked the man, he never would have expected him to kill three of his team in cold blood.

  Jake had tried to come to terms with that in the past few days. He had been leader. He should have sensed something was off about the mission. He’d known something was wrong with Gene Adams, that he liked killing a little too much.

  He had to stop him. He might have to use Kirke to do it.

  He didn’t want to, but it might be the only way to bring Adams out in the open.

  Kirke was beginning to feel like voodoo doll, one with a lot of pins stuck into it.

  One more place to hurt.

  She was beginning to get angry. She didn’t get angry easily, but when she did, she was a force to be reckoned with.

  After being attended herself, she had waited at the hospital until Ben Wright’s wife appeared, then sat with her until the doctor appeared, a smile on his face. “He came through surgery just fine. He should make it.”

  She’d waited another hour until Ben had been wheeled into a room and his pregnant wife joined him. Guilt filled her. Had she been irresponsible by just coming to work? This may well not have happened otherwise.

  She didn’t feel any better now as Sam started in on her about telling the police about Jake Kelly.

  “Kirke, dammit, it’s dangerous. He’s dangerous. You don’t know anything about him except he keeps popping up when something happens.”

  “He popped up again?”

  “Hell yes. He was here just a few moments ago.”

  “What did he want?”

  Sam sighed. “He wanted to know how you were. He also said it might be dangerous to return to the house. He suggested we go to a motel for now.”

  “Merlin …”

  “And Spade,” he said in a tone totally foreign to her. “He said he would bring them.” He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Did you tell the police anything?”

  “Just about what happened today.”

  “No more?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice.

  “I take it those officers were not the same involved in the purse snatching. Or there would have been a few more questions. Don’t you think it’s time to tell them about your mysterious Mr. Kelly?”

  She had little defense. She should have told them. And they would connect it all before long. But she’d wanted to give herself, and Jake Kelly, a little more time. It was illogical and dangerous and probably even very, very dumb, but there she was.

  “You’re the one who always calls me unrealistic,” Sam snapped uncharacteristically.

  “I know,” she admitted, the guilt swelling in her. She wasn’t just disrupting her own life, she was messing up Sam’s as well. But she couldn’t forget the desperation in the eyes of a man she sensed was rarely desperate. Nor a dying man’s plea. There was her job, as well, but she was honest enough to know that was only an excuse.

  “Let’s hear him out,” she said. “If he doesn’t tell us everything, then I’ll go to the police.”

  “Where do you want to go now? A hotel? Or home?”

  She hesitated. She wanted to go home. But in the last few hours she’d recognized that she really was a target. And she had made her partner one as well. He’d almost died. She didn’t want the same to happen to Sam.

  She usually considered herself a rational person. Maybe not always. She didn’t know when to quit when she believed in something or someone. It had cost her much in the past. She’d clung to her marriage far too long, and she had been fired when she’d protested a principle a little too vehemently.

  “I want to talk to him,” Kirke said and used Sam’s cell phone to call. It was a near miracle she hadn’t left it at the scene of the attack.

  He answered almost immediately.

  “Mr. Kelly?” she said, not quite sure what to call him and settling instantaneously on that.

  He didn’t bother with courtesies. “Did your neighbor tell you to go to a motel tonight?

  “He did. Neither of us agree.”

  Momentary silence.

  “I can’t make you, but I don’t want either of you dead.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she said.

  “I sincerely hope so. I was afraid nothing scared you.”

  She ignored that. “How would you get into the house?” she asked.

  “I can get in,” he said simply. “It would be easier if you gave me the code to the alarm system.”

  She hesitated, then gave it to him. “What about the door?” she asked.

  “I can get in,” he repeated.

  She didn’t know whether she should be comforted or horrified by his statement. Were homes really that easy to enter? Even with security systems? “It will be easier if you get the spare key,” she said, ignoring Sam’s continuing glower. “There’s one in a small metal case in back of the rosebush in the front yard.”


  He didn’t reply to that, but she sensed his disapproval over the distance. He lived in a different world than she did.

  “What do you need for a couple of days?” he asked.

  He was taking charge of her life. And Sam’s.

  She should resent it, but all she wanted now was to go home, get in bed, and forget the last week.

  Still, she heard the words come out. “Merlin and Spade. Their food and supplies. Cage and cat carrier. Two sets of clothes. Shirts and jeans. Several large T-shirts from the bureau. The usual from the bathroom.”

  How could she put her life in a few words?

  And yet something about his manner, even over the phone, told her he was worried. She didn’t think he was a man to worry over much.

  That scared the devil out of her.

  She handed the cell to Sam. To her surprise he also listed what he needed. Unhappily. But he did it.

  Sam stopped at the first motel he found and went inside. She stayed in the car, knowing her bloodstained shirt, bandaged arm, and colorful black eye would probably raise eyebrows.

  He came back. “No pets.” He took a long look at her. “Probably not battered wives, either.” He paused, then added, “They gave me the name of one that might and called ahead. We have two rooms.”

  “Did you tell them about Merlin’s siren?”

  “Hell, no,” Sam said.

  That damn guilt wrapped around her, smothering her. What was she doing to Sam? Was she betraying that friendship by insisting on going ahead on what was probably a quixotic mission of her own?

  She called her captain.

  “Are you all right, Kirke?” he asked the without preamble. “Do you need anything? We’ve been worried sick about you since you disappeared from the hospital.”

  “I just needed to get away,” she said. “Can I take a couple of sick days?”

  “With what you’ve been through these past two days, take a week. You have several due. If you need more, call me. Keep me posted. And Kirke?” he added.

  “Captain?”

  “You did a good job with Ben Wright.”

  Wrong! If not for her, maybe Ben Wright may never have been injured at all. Yet it was even more reason for her to find out what was really going on.

  Now she would insist on hearing everything from the enigmatic Jake Kelly. After hearing him out, she would decide whether to give him the information he so badly wanted.

  Or go to the police.

  Jake had not been followed. He was sure of that, but it probably didn’t matter. Adams undoubtedly had someone watching her house.

  He let himself into her unit with the key and punched in the code to the alarm system.

  He heard the siren next door and grinned.

  Merlin was on duty.

  He started a search through her house. Within fifteen minutes, he’d found two listening devices. One was in the phone in the living room and the other in the bedroom. Adams had not lost his touch with locks or security systems.

  He continued to look, even as he located a suitcase and gathered up the items she’d requested. He then went next door. He didn’t have a key for Sam’s side, but he did have a small tool he’d picked up at the electronics store. In seconds he had the door open and punched in the same code as he had on her house.

  Merlin eyed him suspiciously as he entered.

  “Good Merlin,” Jake said, repeating the words he’d heard Kirke say.

  Merlin cocked his head for a moment, then ruffled his feathers. “Goddamned bird,” he responded in a male voice, then whistled a tune Jake hadn’t heard in a long time.

  Jake picked up Sam’s litter box, carrier, and food, along with a ratty-looking stuffed mouse. He put them together with a suitcase full of clothes for Sam and another for Kirke. Because of the heat, he wanted to leave Merlin and Spade for his last trip.

  Merlin repeated the whistle, and Jake stopped.

  Adams had been in here as well. He used to drive other members of the team nuts with that tune. No one knew what it was, and Adams hadn’t enlightened them.

  Were there listening devices here as well? He started another search. He found one in the living room.

  On impulse, he looked under the sink. There were a number of liquor bottles there, some nearly empty, two half full. Scotch. Bourbon. Vodka. Gin. A little of everything and not much of anything. The kind of collection you had if you had people over for parties.

  Something caught his eye in the back. Maybe because of the pattern of the bottles. It was neat compared to the rest of the house where clothes were thrown over furniture, and magazines and CDs were scattered all over.

  Jake found a flashlight in one of the cabinet drawers, then lowered himself to the floor and peered toward the back. He took the bottles out, then saw the small package connected to a detonator.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  He reached out and felt the substance.

  Plastique.

  CHAPTER 14

  Adams had been almost as good with explosives as Del Cox.

  Jake made sure the plastique wasn’t connected to anything under the sink, then slowly pulled it toward him. He studied the detonation device. No timer. Designed to be set off from a distance by a remote.

  He very carefully separated the detonation device from what looked like a lump of clay.

  When was Adams planning to use it? When he got what he wanted from Kirke? Or did he have another use for it?

  Was the shooting today merely a diversion to pull Jake to the house? Or was it something else? Jake glanced around the room. His fingerprints would be all over both sides of the duplex. He might well have been seen coming and going. Like Adams, he was an expert shot as well as adept with explosives. He’d been pegged for Kirke’s murder, except she foiled it by tripping. If Adams had been successful, he, Jake, would be a candidate for the death penalty. No questions asked.

  Explosives were apparently plan B.

  Adams had framed Jake once. Apparently, he thought he could do it again. Any accusations Jake made—if he wasn’t dead—would be seen as a desperate attempt to deflect charges from himself.

  His stomach clenched. Run. Run! But the image of Kirke’s battered face surfaced in his mind.

  He detached the detonator and took the plastique to the bathroom. He crumbled the whole into small pieces, then searched the drawers until he found a box of matches. He lit each small piece, feeling the heat as the flame flared and consumed the chemical. The acrid smell permeated the small room.

  When he was through, he washed the residue down the drain, even as the odor lingered.

  Then he went back to Kirke’s side of the duplex. He started in the kitchen. Her cabinets were much neater than Sam’s. Nothing. He did a quick search of the rest of the house. Still nothing.

  That didn’t matter, though. There had been enough plastique in what he’d found to blow up the entire house. Apparently whoever planted it thought they had found a safe location. Then it could be detonated at any time.

  Jake gathered up Sam’s and Kirke’s suitcases and placed them in the trunk of his car along with food for the cat and Merlin.

  Before loading the animals, he checked the bottom of the car and the ignition. He also checked the trunk and engine. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean some device wasn’t there. He was dealing with professionals.

  He wished he knew how many.

  He loaded the animals and drove out onto the street, then turned on Peachtree. A few more turns put him on the expressway, where he darted in and out of traffic. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror. He thought someone was following for a while, but he was sure he lost them when at the last second possible he managed to swerve across two lanes of traffic to an exit lane. He heard a squealing of brakes behind him. He accelerated the car, turning right, speeding down a main street, then entering the expressway again. No one was behind him.

  He was as sure as he could be in a situation like this.

  He
looked at his watch. He called Sam Pierce’s cell phone, and Kirke answered.

  “Where do I go?” he asked.

  She gave him directions. He would rather have had found a new vehicle, but he didn’t have time. They would move soon again in any event. It wouldn’t take long for Adams and his mercenaries to find them at a local motel.

  “Goddamn bird,” Merlin said over and over again as Jake brought him into the motel room. “Goddamn bird.”

  Kirke fastened her gaze on Jake Kelly’s face. His jaw was set, and he had a five-o’clock shadow that made him look even more dangerous than before. His eyes were even darker and colder than she remembered.

  He radiated tension, and yet Merlin had hopped onto his shoulder when she opened the cage. He never did that with strangers. Never.

  “Traitor,” she said to the bird.

  Unfazed, Merlin started whistling an odd melody.

  Sam apparently had heard Jake’s entrance and emerged from the connecting room where he’d been sleeping. He inspected his sax as if Jake Kelly had put a hex on it. He looked at the clothes Jake had bought, then nodded.

  “I don’t think I should play tonight,” he said. “I don’t want you alone here,” Sam protested.

  “I’m not alone,” she said. “And I’m in a motel room with lots of other people around, and you know exactly where I am and who I’m with.”

  Sam still looked uncertain. “I still don’t know why we couldn’t go home.”

  Jake Kelly dug in his pocket and brought out in his hand several small pieces of metal. “Listening devices,” he said. “They were in both sides.” He dumped them on a table, then produced a small clump of something that looked like dough. He’d saved a small piece to show them.

  “There was a hunk of this in the back of the cabinet under Sam’s sink.”

  Sam stepped forward. “You searched my house …?”

  “Only for stuff that shouldn’t be there,” Jake Kelly replied.

  Kirke stared down at the substance in his hand. “What is that?”

  “Plastic explosive,” he said.

  Somehow Kirke knew what the answer would be before he said the words. She’d had a course in explosives. It was part of a Homeland Security program. She’d seen it before. Even felt it.