Make Mine a Marine (58 page)

Drew wondered if she'd slip back into her prickly armor if he moved over to the empty space beside her. Probably. Without knowing how, he'd pushed one of her defensive buttons earlier, making her run from Kerry's room. By the time he'd reached her, she had put those fortresses firmly back in place. Emma protected some very deep secrets behind those smoky eyes. As long as he treaded lightly around anything personal, she dropped her guard and revealed a keen intuition and sharp wit. He liked her all soft and open like that.

Maybe he liked her a little too much.

Still, this relaxed companionship seemed a decent trade for burying his desire to discover whether those sable tresses felt as soft to the touch as they looked.

He removed his glasses and leaned back in the chair. "It's not Begosian's style to be so literary. He's more of a picture-book kind of guy."

"So you think he's just a messenger for one of the names in this address book?"

He ran through the list of underworld cronies that had shown up on the papers in Stan Begosian's file cabinet. "Chi Garibaldi works for an outfit out of New York City. Natalie Maples used to be the mistress of a drug king out of New Orleans. Billy Kramer has a Detroit connection."

"Stan Begosian seems to be just local bad news. What would they want with him?"

"What do they want with
you
?" he corrected. "Any idea why criminals from all parts of the country might want to contact you?"

The shrewd intellect in her eyes dimmed. He said nothing further, waiting as she set the file on the coffee table and pulled her knees up to her chin, hugging herself in a classic defensive posture. "My husband ran a task force that targeted the influx of crime into the United States. Arms dealers, drug trafficking, information exchanges. His team tackled whatever the government wanted them to."

"Military?"

She shook her head. "Jonathan and his men trained in Marine Intelligence. But he started his own company when he retired from the Corps. His men were former operatives working freelance for him. I think they could do more that way."

"With fewer questions asked."

The lost expression he'd seen on her face at LadyTech seeped into her features, aging her youthful face. Drew gripped the corner of the desk to keep from going to her, knowing it wasn't his place to offer her comfort. Nor, he suspected, would such a gesture be welcomed, coming from him. But he'd yet to see her back down from a tough situation, and whatever painful memory she dealt with now met the same resilient strength.

She rewarded his patience with an unexpected revelation. "Jonathan disappeared on his last assignment. The government wrote him off, claimed they knew nothing of his activities. The military said their hands were tied with security issues." Her wistful smile told him she had tapped into a bittersweet memory. "He just wanted to get rid of the bad guys. Make the world a better place for his little girl."

A deep breath shuddered through her. Drew ignored his own advice of caution and crossed to the sofa. She didn't protest when he unclenched her fingers from her knee. Her skin felt as if she'd just come in from the cold. Tracing the delicate length of each finger, he rubbed her hand between both of his, instilling warmth through the soft friction.

"I can see why he'd want to." He encouraged her with a compliment. "Kerry's a treasure."

Emma nodded. She hid the sheen of tears in her eyes by studying his hands at work. "All I've been able to find out is that Jonathan was after an arms dealer code-named the Chameleon. According to his men, Jonathan was the only one to see his face. They can't even trace him through fingerprints. I don't know if the Chameleon's on that list or not. I don't even know if he's a man. Jonathan didn't share many details about his work. He said it was a way to protect us."

"Sounds smart." A grudging respect blossomed alongside a bud of jealousy inside him.

"His point man, Hawk Echohawk, told me Jonathan was in pursuit of the Chameleon when they both disappeared. He heard an explosion
…" Emma turned her hand and latched onto Drew’s. "I know he's not dead. They found no trace of either one."

Drew gripped her hand with the same strength with which she clung to him. "Em," he said gently. "Sometimes with an explosion—"

"Don't tell me scientific facts." Her head shot up and she shook the hair back from her face. "I've heard them all. Vaporization if you're too close to the impact. The incredible rate of jungle growth that can hide a body in a matter of days. It's not true. None of that was the case." She thumped her chest. "I know it in here. If Jonathan were dead, I'd know it." Her fingers curled into a defiant fist. "I know it makes no sense. I have no proof. But I know he's not dead."

Drew didn't even consider the idea that Jonathan Ramsey didn't want to come home, that he had staged his own death and left his family behind. No man, certainly not one who possessed the degree of honor that Colonel Ramsey commanded, would abandon this beautiful woman and their delightful little girl.

He reached out and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. The velvety softness stayed with his fingers when he pulled away. "What incredible faith you have."

Drew had never believed in anything to the degree that this woman believed in her husband.

A foreign impulse swelled in his gut. He was on his feet, and the offer was out of his mouth before he could consider the wisdom of getting involved with another man's wife.

"Let me talk to Begosian. If there's a connection to organized crime, the D.A. would want to know about it, anyway."

Emma swiped her fingers across her eyes, drying her tears. She stood and followed him to the desk. "You're going to help me?"

"Sir, may I help you?"
Her voice rang clear and true in his mind, an elusive memory he couldn't quite remember.

Maybe spending extended time with Emma would be more than pleasurable. Maybe by helping her find answers, he'd find a few of his own.

"Drew?"

He'd never felt so connected to the name he'd chosen as he did now, hearing it from her lips. Skepticism turned to hope when he met her gaze, making him feel a glimmer of the hero her husband must have been. Or rather, the hero he still was.

Drew ejected the disk from the computer and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. The usual rush of tackling a new mystery mingled with something deeper, indefinable. He knew a need to succeed beyond the satisfaction of rising to a challenge. Beyond the need to discover his past.

"I'd like to trace the author of this journal," he said. "Find out who James Moriarty is. Maybe there's a clue in here we haven't figured out yet."

"I can talk to Brodie. Or Kelton Murphy. They both worked with my husband. Maybe one of those names in the file means something to them."

"I don't know this Murphy, but if he's like Maxwell, he won't be too thrilled that we're working together."

The smudges of mascara at the corners of her eyes made her look little older than Kerry. But he saw nothing adolescent in the determination that steeled her shoulders. "I'll hire you."

"To do what?"

"I'm not sure yet. It doesn't matter. But if you're working for me, then they can't question us spending time together."

A spiral of hair had fallen loose across her cheek again. Drew brushed it back, her freckled skin cool and smooth beneath his roughened fingers. "You sure you want to deceive your friends?"

She laid her hand over his, holding on in a rare gesture of trust. "I'm not deceiving them. I'll pay you every penny I have if you can find Jonathan."

Chapter Four

Faith sat on the third step in the drafty stairwell of the rickety brownstone watching over her trickiest assignment. The circle of light she carried with her kept her warm enough, but Drew Gallagher, blending with the shadows of the predawn hour, huddled deep inside his leather jacket.

"You should be home," she reprimanded him gently, knowing he wouldn't hear her. "You deserve a good night's sleep."

She sighed, lifting her bangs with a puff of air. She rested her elbows on her knees and plopped her chin in her hands. This job was proving to be her most difficult case. The temperature around her suddenly dropped, and she shivered. She tilted her face upward, understanding the silent message. "All right, so it’s my only case." She sat up straight and spread her arms wide, beseeching the light from above. "It’s the only case I've ever had.”

The temperature fell in a sudden rush to a subarctic level. Her teeth chattered in contrite apology. "I know, I know—I should have listened to you and minded my own business. I thought I could help."

She relaxed as the heat returned. Soon she could breathe again, surrounded by a glow as soft as a rosy sunset.

Drew Gallagher wasn’t faring as well, though. He pulled his hands from his pockets and wriggled his fingers, encouraging circulation before burying them inside his jacket again. The banister hid him from sight, but did nothing to stop the winter chill that whistled in through the broken pane on the front door. Taking pity, Faith left her perch and floated down to him. She wrapped him in a hug he couldn't feel and tried to instill some of her warmth into him.

Alert as always, his gaze darted from the front door in a quick scan of his surroundings. "Yes!" she urged him, waving her hands in front of his face. "Notice me. Listen to me."

But he shrugged his shoulders and turned his head back to the front door.

Faith groaned in frustration. "You don't see me at all, do you?"

A noise rustled behind her, and she crinkled her nose at the putrid odor burning through her sinuses. She turned to identify the acrid stench. The drunk on the inside stoop had rolled over.

"I'll bet you do."

The vagrant's bleary eyes squinted open and looked right at her. His pasty, gap-toothed smile made her cringe. "Hey, honeybunch."

"Shut up." Drew answered the mistaken come-on with a cold look that made Faith turn away, too.

"Thank you." She preened as if Drew’s warning had been a gallant defense on her behalf "See? You do the right thing. You're a good man." She tapped his chest. "But until you believe what's in your heart, you'll never see me. I’ll never be able to explain. You'll never understand what you have to do." Her weary sigh stirred the fall of hair at his shoulder, the subtle movement getting lost in the January breeze. "I guess I'll keep doing what I do best."

The lights surrounding her blinked. She threw up her hands, chastised like the meddling novice she was.

"Okay, fine. I'm working on it. I will find out what I do best. Just give me time." She floated up through the second and third floors and made her way back to the citadel at the outer reaches to study other events beginning to take shape in her guidebook. She'd been doodling on the first page, only half-listening when they'd explained how this guardian angel guidebook worked. There'd been something about noninterference and guidance through successful rites of passage to earn her wings, too.

She hadn't realized that wings could be so important. But without them, she'd be stuck here. Alone.

Maybe one day she'd find out how everything worked. Then she could make things right for Kerry.

She'd write her own book about it. Illustrate it herself and share it with her cohorts. Yeah, once she

figured out why humans fought so hard to hang on to life, why love bound two people together through mistakes and miracles, she'd be in demand, not stuck way out in
…

The lights around her flashed, bleeding first to orange, then a vivid scarlet. She heard the echo of thunder rumbling in the distance.

"I know, I know." Her deep sigh filled the empty expanse. "No books. No wings. Not until I learn to do the job right."

She prayed Drew Gallagher had the kind of time she needed to figure it all out.

* * *

Drew shivered. The warm draft of air that had brought feeling back into the tips of his fingers vanished with the momentary awakening of his smelly companion on the stoop.

The Drew Gallagher of the fictional world lived and breathed dumps like this.  The make-believe detective passed in and out of the seamy underbelly of the world as if he'd been born to it. Yet he could shave, don a suit and tie and an attitude, and blend just as easily with the upper crust of society.

The flesh-and-blood Drew Gallagher had taught himself the same skills. But this night, maybe more than ever before, he wondered what he was really like.  What was his real name?  His real profession? His real neighborhood?

He sure as hell hoped he came from a place far away from this perpetual gloom and squalor. He wanted to come from a place bathed in warmth and light. Where people shook hands and made eye contact. Where they stuck out their necks and helped their neighbor because that person needed help.

Where a woman believed in a man’s survival just because she loved him.

Drew shifted, the creak of his leather holster the only sound he made. He’d offered to help Emma because he thought he could gain her trust. Because having her indebted to him would make her more inclined to help him find
his
truth.

But his conscience warred with his head. He couldn't move past the guilt that gnawed at his stomach. He tried to be a good man. He didn't like using her.

But a man had to look out for himself first, didn't he? The fictional Drew Gallagher would play this game through to the end. He'd track down her husband, then demand that she rack her brain, submit to hypnosis, do whatever it took to remember her connection to him.

Problem was, the real Drew Gallagher had discovered a liking for Kerry's bubble-bath freshness, and the exotic herbal scent of Emma's hair.

And the idea that he might hurt or fail either one of them sat on his conscience like a lead weight.

The sound of an overbuilt motor revving and sputtering to a stop outside the door brought his focus back to the task at hand. He identified his man by the hurried crunch of slick-soled shoes on the unshoveled sidewalk. Swallowing his questions and his conscience, Drew snagged Stan Begosian by the elbow and steered him to his apartment door without breaking stride.

"Evening, Stan," he said in a low-throated whisper. "Pretty late for a man like you to be out on the town, isn't it?"

The smaller, stockier man quivered in Drew's grip.

"I didn't do nothing wrong. I’m out on bail. I can stay out as late as I want as long as I stay in town."

Drew seized Stan's hand and guided the key into the lock. "I'm just worried about your health on a wintry night like this. Why don't you invite me in?"

The lock tumbled over, and Drew shoved Stan in ahead of him, closing the door behind them and pocketing the keys.

"You can't barge in like this. I have rights."

Drew ignored the protest and scavenged around the studio apartment, digging through drawers and opening books. "How'd you make bail money, Stan?"

Begosian huddled in the center of the room, turning to watch Drew's progress. "I don't have to say nothing. You ain't a cop."

Drew let his gaze stray over to Stan's dark, beady eyes. "You're facing two counts of attempted kidnapping and an assault charge. You don't have the kind of money to pay that bond. Who's backing you?"

Stan fidgeted inside his brown tweed coat, and his gaze darted to the kitchenette area. With a feigned interest in the sofa cushions along the way, Drew crossed to the small stove and sink.

"I had some money saved up."

"From what? Selling your dirty pictures?" Drew poked around the pile of pans and plates in the dish drainer. For a cockroach, Stan lived in a remarkably well-kept place.

Stan took a step in his direction, but halted when Drew looked up. "I don't do that kind of stuff no more. I'm in therapy."

"Who pays for that?" A quick examination of the lone drawer and cabinet revealed nothing unusual. "The D.A. seems to think you're back in business. And quite frankly, you're throwing around a lot of money.  That makes me wonder if he’s right."

He followed the nervous flutter of Stan's glance a second time. "I tell ya, I'm clean. I just wanted to help out that lady friend of yours."

Drew opened the refrigerator door, but Stan bolted across the room and slammed it shut. Drew scratched a nonexistent itch on his nose, waited for Begosian's focus to shift to the tiny movement, then strong-armed him out of the way. While he explored the bare-bones contents of the fridge and freezer, he held Stan by the collar at arm's length. "I don't think you're into helping anybody but yourself. I'll just bet
…"

He pulled out an old-fashioned metal ice-cube tray. Instead of frozen water, he found a plain white envelope anchored beneath the metal dividers. A slow, calculating glare rooted Stan in place after Drew released him to open the envelope.

A scrawled name leaped off the bottom of the check inside. The sixth sense awakened and kicked into overdrive.

"You have a ten-thousand-dollar check here signed by James Moriarty."

"And you got no search warrant!" Stan lunged for the check.  Drew sidestepped, and his attacker stumbled past and slammed into the counter.

Drew strolled into the sitting area. "Like you said, I'm not a cop. I don't need a warrant." Begosian backed off from making a physical threat. Drew fluttered the check in the air. "This has made an appearance since the police searched your place. Did Mr. Moriarty pay your bail? Did he tell you to give that disk to Emma Ramsey or her daughter?"

"Just the mom." He followed Drew, fixing his covetous gaze on the check. "I was supposed to give it to Mrs. Ramsey and ask for money. I figured the little girl would be easier to talk to."

Drew snatched the scumbag by the collar and hauled him against the wall, pinning his neck and dealing out a bit of the retribution he'd wanted to exact at the museum. "You sure
talking
is all you had in mind?"

Stan squirmed like a bug pinned in a display. "I swear. I don't do that no more. All I was supposed to do was get the disk to Ramsey and ask for money so it'd look like my own job."

Drew let him dangle. "What does James Moriarty look like?"

"I don't know. I never talked to him. Some lady called me long distance. And then a guy from New York."

"Detroit, too?"

"Yeah." Stan stopped struggling, more awed by Drew's knowledge than by the force of his grip.

"There's no postmark on this envelope. Where's the envelope the check came in?"

"It came in that one." Drew squeezed harder. "Honest! I found it in my mailbox downstairs."

"Then it was hand-delivered."

"Yeah, I guess. Is that important?"

"It means this Moriarty has another local connection. You have any friends?" Stan's eyes swelled to the size of quarters. Drew eased the pressure a fraction, not anxious for his talkative source to pass out on him. A guy with Begosian's history wouldn't make a lot of friends, even in the criminal world.

"You said you had more than one call?"

"Yeah. I got a different job each time. Different instructions."

"They all have to do with Emma Ramsey?"

"Not exactly."

Drew altered his grip, tugged, and tossed him onto the sofa. "Make yourself comfortable, Stan, and explain 'not exactly’."

* * *

Emma's purse beeped with an irritating repetition that made her long for the days when she couldn't afford a room to sleep in, much less a cell phone with unlimited calling access. She reached into the outside pocket of her bag and punched the button with practiced efficiency as she put it to her ear. "Emma Ramsey."

"Em. It's Drew Gallagher."

His raspy baritone dispelled her annoyance and shrank the world to the sound of his voice. The confines of her spacious van seemed suddenly smaller and warmer.  “Hello, Mr. Gallagher.”

"Where are you?"

"Sitting at a traffic light on Lee's Summit Road wondering why I don't shop closer to home. Kerry's in the back seat engrossed in a computer game." She glanced in the rearview mirror to check the accuracy of her statement. "She waves hi."

The answering beat of silence alerted her to the knowledge that this was more than a friendly call. "Tell her ‘hi’ back."

She waved her fingers in the air. Kerry smiled and returned to her game. Emma turned the heater down a notch, feeling suddenly a little too comfy, a little too cozy. She had hired Drew to find her missing husband, not help renew her small-talk skills. "Did you find something?"

"Yeah." A sharp sigh followed his clipped response. "Moriarty's journal looks legit, after all."