Drawn in Blood (16 page)

“Right.” Sloane’s tone was dripping with sarcasm. “So this was al about me. Not your loyalty to the Bureau.” A muscle worked in Derek’s jaw. “It was about both. Yes, I did my job. Yes, I feel an obligation to put away the bad guys. And, yes, that would apply to your father if he turned out to be one of those bad guys.”

“Wel , what do you know? A shred of honesty. Maybe if you’d gone for that approach from the start, I would have cooperated, and we wouldn’t be having this fight.”

“Oh, get off it Sloane. You wouldn’t have cooperated—not emotional y or legal y. You’d be choosing between your father and an organized-crime investigation. That’s one hel of a major conflict of interest. Worse, he’s not just your father. He’s also your client. You’re legal y obligated to protect his interests. Take a step back and view this objectively. Don’t you see how irrational you’re being?”

“Yes.” Sloane slammed her fist on the counter, hating that Derek was right, hating that she couldn’t get past this. “The logic is al there. But the way the situation was handled…I stil feel used. And manipulated.”

“I had a snap decision to make. I made it. I knew you’d be furious. And I felt like shit when I gave Rich the go-ahead. But I couldn’t see any other way for him to get his answers and not put you in an untenable position. I’m sorry for how al this makes you feel. I’m sorry about your mother. But I’m not sorry for my decision. Now it’s up to you. Are you going to be reasonable and work through this with me, or are you going to reerect that damned wal of yours?”

“I’m trying like hel not to. That’s why I put off having this fight. I get what you’re saying. But here I was, picking out fabric patterns with you, while my mother was being carted off to be kil ed, and Rich was gril ing my father about Cai Wen’s murder. Do you know what a fool I feel like?”

“The redecorating part wasn’t a lie. I want to make this place ours, rather than yours. The only contrivance was the timing of Leo’s appointment.” Derek leaned forward. “Let’s face it, Sloane. If you’d been the lead agent on this case, you would have fol owed the same procedure I did, and you know it. The real issue here is that you need to be the one in control

—always the cat, never the mouse. Wel , life doesn’t work that way. This time you were the mouse. And you can’t come to grips with that.”

“Right back at you,” Sloane retorted. “You’re the biggest control freak I know. If the tables were turned, you’d be ripping mad.” Derek issued no denial. Not that Sloane had expected him to. The facts were the facts. They both hated being maneuvered like chess pieces, no matter how solid the reasons behind it were. And now Derek was waiting for her to find an objectivity that continued to elude her.

“This whole situation is impossible,” she final y determined aloud. “We can’t change who we are. And we can’t seem to table it, not even when it comes to separating our personal and professional lives. Look at your reaction in Tony’s office. You shot down my idea of becoming part of the investigation simply because you were worried that I was setting myself up as a target. Would you have done that if it had been anyone but me making that stipulation? Especial y if that anyone had my experience, my credentials?” Derek rol ed his wine goblet between his palms. “No,” he stated flatly. “I wouldn’t have.” He pinned her with his gaze. “So what’s the solution? Do you want to change your mind and bow out?”

“Of what? The investigation or our living together?”

“You tel me. Which means more to you?”

There it was. Out in the open, just like the last time. Only Sloane had learned a lot since then.

“You’re testing me,” she replied. “I don’t like it, but I know where it’s coming from. So I’l surprise you. I’l answer—honestly. No, I’m not going to walk away from us. No, I won’t put an investigation ahead of what we have. But I also won’t bow out of this case. Not unless you force me to. In which case, it’s you who haven’t learned anything from the past.” She knew she’d gotten through by the expression on Derek’s face.

“You’re right,” he acknowledged. “My being a hard-ass wil only make things worse. So how do we handle this?”

“The way I see it? One minefield at a time. We’l butt heads, constantly rip each other a new one, and with any luck, come out alive and together.” A flicker of amusement. “Sounds like the story of our relationship.”

“More or less.”

Derek reached across the island and held out his right hand, palm out. “Truce?”

Sloane eyed him for a moment, then met his handshake. “A reluctant one, but okay, truce.”

“Enough to get me out of the guest room?”

Reflexively, Sloane’s lips twitched. “Barely. And only because you’re so good in bed.”

A broad grin. “Works for me. Want to try out our truce now? You look very sexy in that nightshirt.”

“After I finish my wine and brie. And after you fil me in on this Dai Lo, Xiao Long, and his enforcer, Jin Huang, who my parents’ descriptions helped you sketch and identify.”

“I’l fil you in, but on a need-to-know basis,” Derek reminded her.

“Agreed. I’l take what I can get.”

The cemetery was quiet.

Low, moody clouds eclipsed any trace of early morning sun. But it wouldn’t have mattered what the weather was. It was the same ritual each month.

The eleventh. Seven-twenty a.m.

That’s when the medical examiner had declared her dead.

And when life had changed forever.

Whoever originated the phrase “time heals al wounds” was wrong. There were some wounds that nothing could heal. They remained open sores that festered as the years crept by.

He made his way across the cemetery’s manicured lawns, passing headstone after headstone. Each one of them had its own story. But none of them was his.

He reached her graveside and stood reverently before it. The familiar gripping pain constricted his chest. It never got easier. It never would.

He knelt, running his fingers over the etched letters and numbers on the stone, tasting his own tears as they glided down his cheeks.

So young. So innocent. A whole life stretching before her.

Extinguished in one heinous, senseless moment.

It should have been him. If someone had to die, it should have been him.

But it wasn’t.

He took the bouquet of daisies and placed it on her grave. It was always daisies. They were her favorite flower. She’d picked them from the garden on the estate from the time she was two. She’d present them to him like they were a sacred gift, rather than a crumpled tangle of stems.

To him, they were sacred. And so was she.

He bowed his head, let the grief and the guilt consume him. He didn’t pray. He couldn’t. He no longer believed.

Sloane panted as her sneakers pounded rhythmical y on the road, the hounds racing along at her side.

The morning was gray. And so was her mood. Something was bothering the hel out of her.

Long after Derek had fal en asleep beside her last night, she’d sat up with the reading lamp on, poring over the portion of Xiao Long’s file that Derek had given her access to.

Detailed accountings of the recent string of burglaries Xiao had orchestrated. The part that his nephew, Eric Hu, and his computer services company had played, electronical y equipping every apartment that the Red Dragon kids had hit. Al except for the Burbanks’ apartment. The burglary at her parents’ place didn’t fit the pattern—for obvious reasons.

The facts were in order. The conclusions seemed logical.

So what was bugging her?

She’d thrashed around in bed until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Then, she’d leashed up the hounds and gone out for her run, hoping it would clear her head and provide her with an answer.

It did.

Halfway through her jog, the incongruity struck home.

Rosalyn Burbank opened the front door with her good arm when her daughter arrived. She looked peaked but determined, her gaze stil dul ed by medication, but her power suit saying she was fighting bed rest tooth and nail. She also looked distinctly baffled, and not particularly pleased.

“Sloane.” She gave her daughter a quick hug, then stepped back and glanced at her watch. “I postponed the breakfast meeting with my author for an early lunch. He wasn’t too happy about it, since he’s in New York only another day before he takes off for his European tour. Why did you insist on meeting here, now? What on earth is going on?”

“Hi to you, too, Mom.” Sloane was used to her mother’s type A directness. After al , that’s who she’d inherited it from.

She walked in, hung her jacket on the coatrack, and turned to face Rosalyn as she shut the front door. “Breakfast meeting? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I rested enough after the concussion. I’m not missing an important client meeting because of a broken arm. But don’t worry. I’m pumped ful of painkil ers. And I won’t be at the wheel. Special Agent Carter is driving me.” She gestured at the breakfast nook, where Alan Carter was sitting, drinking a cup of coffee. He gave Sloane a brief wave of his hand that looked more like the wave of a white flag of defeat.

Sloane stifled a smile. Babysitting her mother was probably as taxing as working Violent Crimes. “May I have a few minutes alone with my mother?” she asked.

“Of course.” He nearly leaped up. “I’l go out and stretch my legs, then make sure the car’s brought around.”

“Thank you.” Sloane waited until he was gone. “Are you torturing the poor man?” she asked her mother.

“No, I’m just living my life—which includes meeting my client.” Rosalyn shifted impatiently. “So let’s get to the point of this visit.” Sloane complied. “Ground rules,” she began. “There’s information I can share with you and information I can’t. So let’s do this my way. No twenty questions.”

“A tal order,” Rosalyn responded drily. “But, fine. I’l do my best.”

“Good.” Sloane pointed at the door. “I want you to reenact for me exactly what happened the night of the burglary. Start right there, at the front door. Pretend you just got home.

Walk in. Look around. Close your eyes when you get to the part where the thieves pul ed the sack over your head. That way, you can play it out as you remember it.” Rosalyn blinked in astonishment. “What good wil it do for me to—” She bit off the rest of her question, remembering her promise to Sloane. “I’ve gone over this story a thousand times—with the police, the FBI, and you. I don’t see the point in doing it again.”

“Humor me.”

An exaggerated sigh. “It couldn’t have been more than a minute from when I walked in and when that ape grabbed me. After that, the bag was over my head, the rag was in my mouth, and the rest happened in darkness.”

“Fine. I stil want you to take it from the beginning.”

“Are you saying you want me to stagger blindly around the apartment in the direction I think they dragged me?”

“No. I want you to visualize it in your mind’s eye, step by step, and relive it aloud.”

Rosalyn shot her daughter an exasperated look, but refrained from firing any more questions. “I had my keys, but I didn’t need them. As I told you and the authorities, the apartment door was ajar. I assumed your father forgot to shut it behind him when he got home. I cal ed out to him as I walked in. That’s when the first intruder grabbed me from behind, gagged me, and yanked the sack over my head. I suppose I should be grateful. If I’d seen his face, I’d probably be dead right now. No such luck yesterday.”

“That’s why you’ve got FBI protection. No one’s getting near you,” Sloane said fervently. “Now, I want you to freeze-frame those first few seconds when you stepped through the front door, but before you were assaulted. You had a direct view of the entire living room. What was going on? Was the place wrecked? Was there activity? Movement? Noise?” A long, intent pause. “No. Nothing. The room looked normal.”

“You also had a good view of the breakfast nook and the kitchen. Were the silverware drawers dumped? Were there pieces scattered around or were they already missing?”

“Again, no. Everything looked to be in place. I’m not stupid enough to stay in an apartment that’s obviously just been burglarized.”

“I agree. One last thing—what about your diamond stud? Dad found it on the floor near the door when he got home.” Rosalyn arched a brow. “When have you ever known me to overlook a diamond? That pair of studs were two carats each. Your father gave them to me for our twenty-fifth anniversary. If one of them had been lying on the floor, I would have seen it.”

“Good point.” Sloane made the necessary mental note. “Okay, now go on. This time from after you were grabbed. Shut your eyes.” Rosalyn complied. “I fought that son of a bitch tooth and nail. He wasn’t too tal , but he was strong. He yel ed out something in Chinese. Clearly, he was shouting for help from his accomplices, because one of them came running. The two of them dragged me into your father’s office and tied me up in a chair—”

“Stop,” Sloane interrupted. “Were both of the other burglars in Dad’s office when the first one cal ed for help?” Another pause. “I’d say yes. The footsteps of the one who ran out to help subdue me definitely came from that direction.”

“And the other guy?”

“He had to already be in there when I was brought in. No one came into the office after that. But just before they knocked me out, I heard al three of them talking and arguing.

They were al definitely in the room with me.”

“So while you were conscious, no one left to grab the stuff they ripped off? No sound of unplugging components from the entertainment center? No grunting as they hauled off the TV? No clanking of silverware?”

“No. Just a lot of banging and thudding that I now realize were probably the drawers and file cabinets in the office being dumped. I don’t know when they ransacked the rest of the place. It had to be after that second blow to my head, when I was unconscious.”

“They were certainly efficient,” Sloane murmured thoughtful y. “Was there any hesitation in their motions or questions in their voices? Like they were trying to figure out where things were?”

“Not that I recal . I wasn’t exactly coherent. I assume they found what they wanted, robbed us blind, and took off.” Rosalyn opened her eyes and waved her hand in noncomprehension. “What are you getting at?”