As Good as Dead (2 page)

“You’re crazy.” This time his thoughts did escape his lips, and Luke wished he could take them back.

The man ignored his comment. “Certain people want you dead, and your only option, if you want to stay alive, is to disappear. I’m giving it to you straight, kid; you’ll need a new identity. I’m giving you one chance and only one to escape. You surface anywhere, and you’re a dead man.”

“I still don’t—”

“You don’t have to get it. Just take my word for it. Like I said, Luke Delaney is a dead man. He no longer exists, got that?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “The cops will find these guys within the hour, but you’ll be long gone. CSI will have evidence that you were here. There’ll be questions as to your part in all of this. It won’t take much to convince the powers that be that you sold out, killed Stanton and Wheeler, and ran.”

“No one would believe that.” Luke repeated the words again, but this time they hung limp in the air.

“Won’t they? Better men than you have caved to a big payoff. Besides, I need a fall guy. A call to the press implicating Luke Delaney should do it.”

Luke shook his head. The killer was already talking as though he didn’t exist. “This is insane. Why don’t you just kill me?”

“Because it suits my purposes not to. As an added incentive for your cooperation, know this: if Luke Delaney surfaces in any way, shape, or form—if there’s any attempt on Delaney’s part to talk to the cops or anyone else—I start picking off his family. Maybe I’ll start with the youngest.” His lips curled in a sinister smile. “Angel, right? Of course, she’s too pretty to just kill...”

Luke strained to pull free of the tight cuffs. “You touch her and—”

“Your disappearance is her life insurance.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The hit man shrugged. “I don’t think it’s wise to kill you just now. On the other hand, I can’t let Luke Delaney slip out of my hands. I have a reputation to preserve and money to collect.”

“What’s the going rate these days for exterminating people?” Luke gritted his teeth.

“Not nearly enough.” The man took a step back and leveled the gun. “Now it’s up to you. You can live as long as you’re someone other than Delaney. Or I can kill you right here and now. Your choice.”

“I’ll go.” Luke would take life, but he vowed to get this guy and put him away if it took a lifetime. There had to be a way to turn the tables on the Penghetti brothers and their hit man.

“Smart move. But remember, if I hear that Luke Delaney has surfaced, I go after his kid sister. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.” Luke saw no choice but to go along with the man’s wishes—for now. There had to be a way out. Maybe as they left, he could signal one of the hotel security guards.

“Good. You and I are going to walk out of here together. And don’t get any ideas about alerting anyone.” The gunman lifted his jacket, showing Luke a badge identifying him as a law officer for Lee County. He took Luke’s arm and propelled him forward, the gun barrel tucked in against Luke’s ribs.

In the hallway, the man slipped off the gloves and the booties and tucked them into a small pack he wore around his waist. Luke noticed a heavy gold ring on his right ring finger with a garnet center and two small crosses that were carved on each side of the stone. A class ring, maybe? Luke stored it in his memory along with other details he’d give police when he had the opportunity.

They took the stairs down to the third floor, where the killer pulled open the heavy metal door. In the open doorway, he unlocked the handcuffs and shoved Luke into the hotel’s parking garage. Luke fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. The door slammed shut, and when Luke looked back, the man was gone.

Getting to his feet, he tried the door and found it locked. A security pad allowed only guests with passkeys. The killer had taken Luke’s key card and left it on the bar, proving beyond a doubt that Luke had been there this morning. He hit the door with his fist, then turned around and leaned against it, tears clouding his vision. “Dear God, what am I going to do?”

TWO

Six years later, Sunset Cove, Oregon

A
ngel Delaney’s eyes were dry and burning as she stood between her mother, Anna, and Callen Riley, an Oregon State Police detective and her boyfriend. She stared at her father’s casket and the spray of flowers lining the grave, still unable to believe that Frank Delaney was dead.

Since his heart attack and bypass surgery, Frank Delaney had gone steadily downhill. A stroke had taken away the last vestiges of his self-esteem. A second stroke had killed him.

Her mother bore the pain of his passing in the slump of her shoulders and the etchings on her face, as well as the cast on her arm. Frank, a big man, had fallen on her while she was transferring him from his bed to a wheelchair, pinning her to the floor. Angel brushed away the all-too-recent memories.

“Frank Delaney was a proud man, strong and honest,” Angel’s brother Tim said as he tearfully gave the sermon, choking on the words yet determined to fulfill his position as pastor. Frank was not only Tim’s father but also a member of his church. Tim had presided over dozens of funerals in his ten years of pastoring at St. Matthews, but nothing could have prepared him for presiding over his own father’s funeral. “A police officer for more than forty years, Frank made his mark on Sunset Cove.”

Angel caught Tim’s gaze, and his grief seemed to drain into her, bringing an onslaught of fresh tears. Using an already droopy tissue, she wiped her eyes and nose. She looked beyond Tim to the rest of her family.

Her twin brothers, Peter and Paul, stood on the opposite side of the grave with Rachael, Paul’s girlfriend, between them. Rachael, an attorney, had represented Angel in a shooting incident, after which they’d become friends and Angel had taken a job as Rachael’s private investigator.

Her gaze moved on to Tim’s two daughters. Heidi, six, and Abby, four, stood in front of Tim’s wife, Susan, looking like princesses in their new spring dresses and shiny white shoes.

Surrounding the family were scores of friends and acquaintances, many of them in uniform—members of the Sunset Cove police department, the sheriff’s office, the Oregon State Police; even two law enforcement officers from Canada stood at attention. All had come here to pay tribute to her father.

Her gaze drifted over the crowd as she picked out people she knew. Men like Joe Brady, the chief of police in Sunset Cove and her former boss. Bo Williams, sheriff’s deputy, and Nick Caldwell, police officer and neighbor, who was more family than friend. A reporter from the local paper, Faith Carlson, moved quietly from one place to another, snapping photos at random. Angel wasn’t a fan of reporters, but at the moment she was glad Faith had come. Glad that her father was being given the honor he deserved for his years of service.

Only one person was missing from this gathering of mourners: Luke, the brother who had disappeared six years ago and broken her parents’ hearts. And hers. Hardly a day went by that she didn’t think of him. Not surprising since he’d bestowed his Corvette on her and every time she got behind the wheel she wondered where he’d gone.
Oh, Luke, couldn’t you have at least come for the funeral? What happened to you? Are you on the run? Do we mean so little to you?

She had hoped he would come after Frank’s heart attack, but he hadn’t. Some part of her believed he’d at least show up for the funeral, but again, no-show.

Maybe he’s here and you just don’t know it.
The thought gave way to another perusal of the cemetery. He could be here incognito, standing along the perimeter.
Get real. You’ve been playing cops and robbers too long. Luke isn’t here. If he was, you’d know.

She lifted her gaze to scan the rest of the cemetery. Standing alone beside a tree some forty feet away was a stocky man with a beard and glasses. Her heart did a somersault. Could that be Luke?

Of course not
, Angel chided herself. The guy didn’t look anything like her brother. But then who was he? A reporter maybe? Well, if he was, he wasn’t holding a notepad or camera.

Continuing her perusal, Angel spotted a thin, dark-haired man in blue coveralls tending to a series of border plants that surrounded a large grouping of rhododendrons not twenty yards away. The rhodies were in full bloom, a brilliant shade of pink.

The man caught her gaze and quickly turned back to digging in the dirt. Angel frowned, wondering why a groundskeeper would be working so close to the gravesite.
If he is a groundskeeper.
He had the shifty look of someone she’d want to question if she were still on active duty with the police force. He in no way resembled Luke, but Angel made a mental note to find out who he was and why he was there.

Angel reined in her curiosity and her imagination. Frank Delaney’s death had been a tragedy, but certainly not an incident worthy of spies or undercover agents.

She leaned into Callen, letting his strength seep into her. His arm went around her shoulders. Callen’s tender gaze touched hers for a moment, then shifted back to Tim, who was into the final farewell. As much as she loved her father, Angel wanted this day to be over. Wanted to go home and sleep off the grief, sleep away the sandpaper grittiness in her tear-worn eyes.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We now commit our beloved Frank Delaney into your hands.”

After the payers and internment, the mourners drifted away. As they reached their cars, Angel glanced around the cemetery again for some sign of Luke. She wanted to be angry with him for leaving and with her father for dying, but a dulling numbness softened
the edges of her resentment, and propriety held her in check. She barely felt the biting wind coming in off the ocean, turning their pleasant spring day into winter again.

The gardener, she noticed, was still there on one knee, watching them. Faith Carlson came up to them, pulling Angel’s attention away from the man. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said to Anna and the rest of the family. “I’ll be doing a feature on your husband for the paper.”

“Thank you, Faith. You’re coming to the church too, aren’t you?” Anna asked.

“Sure.” The reporter glanced at Angel, looking as if she’d rather not attend.

“It’s at St. Matthews.” Anna ducked into one of the long, black limousines the family was sharing.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Angel assured Faith.

The reporter smiled then. “I’ll be there. It’ll give me a chance to talk to some of the people Frank knew.”

Angel nodded. “Thanks.”

The reporter turned and headed for her car. Angel scanned the cemetery one last time. The gardener had moved to another spot. The bearded, stocky man she’d seen earlier began to walk down the hill and toward the street, with his head down and collar up against the chilling wind.

Nick had left the crowd and now jogged toward the stranger.
What are you doing, Nick?
she wondered. Nick had been Luke’s best friend. Suddenly her heartbeat quickened.
Could the bearded man be...
Angel brushed the notion aside. The man wasn’t Luke. Maybe Nick knew him from somewhere else.

You’re making too much out of this, Angel
.
Luke isn’t coming. And there are no bad guys hiding in the shrubbery either.
She pulled her coat more tightly around her and climbed into the limo beside her mother.

Angel managed to keep her social graces intact as they entered St. Matthews and the reception hall to eat the meal the church women had prepared for them. Several times, between talking
with well-wishers and those who wanted to reminisce, Angel glanced around, wondering what had happened to Nick. He’d been in uniform, so maybe he’d gone back to work. He hadn’t said he was going to do that, though. Or maybe he had. She couldn’t remember.

At around 2:00, the family drifted toward home. Angel moved in robotic form along with the others. The limousines were gone, and she climbed into Callen’s SUV when he opened the door. Her mother rode with Tim and Susan and the girls. They’d congregate at the Delaney house, walk on the beach, talk of old times, maybe play some volleyball, and eventually eat again—all avoiding the moment that would take them each to their own beds, to solitude and their own suffering.

Once they had been a family of seven. Luke left, and there were six. Pop died, and there were five. Angel couldn’t bear to think about it.

THREE

T
homas Sinclair, once known as Luke Delaney, stood on the side of the hill, apart from the throng that hovered around the casket and his brother Tim, who was conducting the funeral service for their father.

Luke wanted more than anything to close the distance separating them. He longed to hold his family in his arms and comfort them. And be comforted. He swallowed back the painful emotions that clogged his throat.

It had been six years since he’d been forced to change his identity. Luke had lost himself and carved out a new life, eventually becoming Thomas Sinclair. At the time he felt he’d had no choice but to run. He wondered where the killer was now. Was he still watching? Would he know if Luke Delaney came home just for a short while?

He warily eyed the gardener, who seemed out of place. The guy had to be for real, though; no tail would be that obvious. The gardener looked nothing like the hit man who’d killed the witness and the bodyguard in that hotel room in Fort Myers—the man who had allowed Luke to live. Still, a lot could change in six years, and at the time the killer had undoubtedly been wearing a disguise.

Luke shivered as droplets of rain found their way down his neck and into his collar. He couldn’t take the chance—couldn’t even talk to them. The killer had known far too much about him and his
family. Suppose the hit man had planted someone here in Sunset Cove to keep watch. That gardener? Someone else?

How long do I need to hide? I love my family. My father’s gone, and I should be there for them.

Luke often wished he’d been stronger back then. That he’d gone directly to the DA’s office and told them what had happened. But how could he chance it? If he had, how many of his family members would be dead now? If he had gone to the DA, would they have arrested him on the spot and charged him with the murders?