Stranger in my Arms (25 page)

T
he following morning Merrick asked Michael to take a walk with him. He knew by the expression on Michael's face that he thought he'd taken leave of his senses; who'd want to go for a walk when some streets were still impassable because the sanitation department hadn't gotten around to removing the mountain of snow from residential neighborhoods?

Michael recognized and quickly processed the tension in his friend's request, and agreed. “What's up, Gray?” he asked once they attempted to navigate a narrow path on the sidewalk, made by booted footsteps.

“I need a favor.”

Michael stared up at a startlingly blue, cloud-free sky. The warmth of the winter sun felt good on his face. “Ask away.”

Merrick stomped his feet, knocking snow off his boots. “I need you to look after Alex.”

Closing his eyes, Michael smothered a savage expletive. “What the hell are you involved in
now?
”

“I can't tell you. It's—”

“Classified,” Michael said, cutting him off and completing his statement. He shook his head. “I thought you were going back as a trainer?”

“I did.”

“But right now you're not training anything or anyone. I don't want to be the one who said I-told-you-so, but I'm going to say it anyway. I told you that they were going to recruit you for some clandestine operation. I know how
they
operate, Gray. It's one thing to be in the field and wait for your orders, and another completely when you're sitting at the top in an office making decisions as to who they can use and who is expendable. If nothing else, working at the Pentagon taught me that.”

Merrick waited for Michael to finish his tirade, then said, “This is personal, Kirk.” The two men stepped into a snowbank to let a woman pass.

“How personal?” Michael asked.

“It involves my mother.”

“Is she alive?”

Merrick shook his head. “No. The only thing I will tell you is that she was tortured before she was executed.”

“Oh, damn. I'm sorry, Gray.”

“It's okay. What I find strange is that when I found out how she died I didn't feel anything. No anger, no sadness.”

“That's because you never met her. Do you have a photograph of her?”

Merrick shook his head. “No.” He'd tried accessing her file through an intra-agency database, but her name had been deleted.

Clasping his gloved hands behind his back, Michael gave his friend a sidelong glance. “How much danger is my cousin in?”

“Life threatening.” Merrick had decided not to mince words.

“She can live with me until whatever crap you're involved in is over. I'm sure Jolene would love to have Alex around. I'll be home until the end of January. I hope you complete your mission before that. If not, then we'll have to come up with another plan.”

“I want her to go to Florida and stay with her folks.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Yes.”

“Did she go off on you?”

Merrick stopped and stared at Michael. “Did you hear us last night?”

Michael shook his head. “No. But I know my cousin, Gray. She's not going to Florida because she doesn't want to, but because you told her to go. Alex is sweet, funny and generous. But she's also as stubborn as a mule. You don't tell Alexandra Cole what you want her to do, you ask her. Let her think it's her idea.”

Merrick frowned. “I don't have time to coax and coddle. Not with what I'm up against.”

“Your wife is with child, Merrick. She is not the same Alexandra you met and fell in love with. Once she has the baby the old Alex will return. Right now you can't do anything to set her off. I'm a witness. I've lived through and survived the nine months of horror.”

“Because you've survived the horror, what do you suggest I do?”

“Tell her you have to go away for a week, and that you want her to stay with me because you don't want her left alone because of the baby.”

“But I'm not going away. Besides, I've never lied to Alex.”

“Merrick, my friend. You
are
lying to her. Her life and that of your unborn child are at risk, yet you're telling her she has to go away. And when she asks why, you tell her it's classified. Look, man, if you have to lie, cheat or kill a son of a bitch to keep your family safe, then you do it. Tell Alex you're involved in some training program and see what she says. I'm willing to bet she'll volunteer to hang out with me and Jolene.”

“Okay, I'll give it a shot. But if she balks, then it's World War Three.”

Michael smiled. “If you'd told me you were fooling around with my cousin I would've given you the four-one-one on her. After all, she's a Cole woman and they are a breed unto themselves.”

“Amen,” Merrick said under his breath. “I'm ready to go back. Thanks for hearing me out.”

Michael patted his shoulder. “No sweat. After all, we're family.”

 

He and Michael had returned to the house at the same time Jolene and Alex walked into the kitchen. They shooed the women to the family room while they prepared a country breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, grits, biscuits, freshly-squeezed orange juice and brewed coffee and tea.

Michael put on several CDs, and the music flowing from hidden speakers added to the festive mood. Six-month-old Teresa, who'd begun pulling herself up in her crib, crawled around on the floor, getting underfoot. Jolene placed her in a playpen in a corner of the large kitchen and the little girl cried hysterically until Alex freed her from the mesh-covered prison.

Jolene glared at Alex. “She's spoiled enough without you adding to it. I should send her home with you.”

Alex kissed Teresa's curly black hair. “Do you want to come stay with Titi Alex? I wouldn't mind taking care of you for a couple of weeks to give your mama a break.”

“Why don't you hang out here with us for a couple of weeks?” Jolene suggested. “We can go shopping for baby clothes and furniture to decorate the nursery in your new house.” She smiled at her husband. “Would you mind if your cousin stayed with us?”

Michael affected a stern expression. His wife had given him and Merrick the opening they needed. “Are you asking or telling me, Jo?”

“I'm asking, Michael.”

He waved a slender hand. “Alex is family. You don't have to ask. Who you should be asking is Merrick. After all, he
is
her husband and he just might have something planned for the two of them.”

“Merrick and I don't have any plans,” Alex volunteered.

Merrick stared at Alex rather than Michael. He knew if he looked at his wife's cousin, he wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. He felt relieved that he didn't have to lie to Alex.

“Did you forget that we close on the house January ninth?”

“No,” Alex said. “That's not going to take more than an hour or two. As soon as we get the keys I want Jolene to see the house.”

Jolene dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Have you decided what style of furniture you want to put in it?”

“Not really.”

“Now, that's going to be fun.”

Alex shifted Teresa to her other knee. “Merrick, would you mind if I stayed here with Jolene? We have a lot of shopping to do, and I would like her opinion on things like wallpaper.”

“I don't mind at all,” Merrick said much too quickly. He ignored Michael's incredulous stare. “You know I have no interest in wallpaper, paint colors or what fabric you want on some chair or other doodad.”

“Are you sure you're not going to miss me,
mi amor?
”

“Miss you? Aren't we going to see each other at night?” Merrick affected a frown. “If you've found someone you'd rather be with, please tell me now.”

Alex blushed like a schoolgirl with her first crush. “Who's going to want me looking like this?”

There was a long-suffering silence. “I want you, Ali,” Merrick said, his voice filled with emotion.

Michael cleared his throat. “Damn, my brother. You don't have to show your woman you're whipped.”

“Stay out of it, Michael,” Jolene warned softly. “Please,” she whispered when her husband opened his mouth.

Michael caught and held his wife's gaze. He knew how Merrick felt about Alex because he felt the same about Jolene. He'd fallen in love with her on sight, and each day he grew more in love with her.

M
errick opened and closed his eyes in an attempt to relieve the burning. He'd been staring at the computer monitor for hours, searching one database, then another for something that would link Duffy to something—anything the government could use to issue an indictment.

He headed a team of four, including himself, who'd worked tirelessly for the past three months researching every lead given them. So far, Duffy had come up clean.

He came in early and worked late, yet his private life had remained stable. He and Alex had closed on the house in Alexandria and her priority was decorating it before giving birth.

The Kirklands' offer of their guest wing had become a necessity once the Arlington condominium was sold. Merrick was more relaxed because Alex wasn't left alone during the day. Whenever she had to see the doctor he took time off from work to take her.

Merrick was aware that Alex didn't like that he didn't go anywhere without the small but powerful handgun tucked into his waistband, but it was a topic he refused to discuss with her.

He glanced over at a female computer programmer who'd been Ashleigh's recommendation. Merrick was astounded with what she could do with one keystroke. “What screen are you looking at, Patty?”

“DEA.”

“Patch me over.”

Within seconds the Drug Enforcement Administration logo appeared on his monitor. The fact that Duffy had been DEA before leaving to start up his lobbying firm made them a part of the investigation.

Pen in hand, a pad of paper nearby, Merrick began scrolling down a listing of names of past and present agents, hoping to connect at least one to Duffy's present operation.

Summer Montgomery. The name jumped out at him. The undercover special agent—code name: Renegade—was engaged to his brother-in-law Gabriel. Pressing a few keys, he viewed the operation she was assigned to cover at Weir Memorial High School. He stared at the names of the students and faculty members. A slight frown furrowed his forehead. Dumas Gellis. He'd come across the name before, but where?

He scribbled the name on the pad.

“Patty?” Merrick hadn't taken his gaze off the screen.

“Yes, Merrick?”

“I need you to go to the Treasury Department site and type in Dumas Gellis.”

“Dumas like in Alexandre?”

“Yes, Patty.”

Soft brown eyes widening behind the lenses of her glasses, Patty smiled. “He's here. He has several offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.”

“Can you tell me how much he's deposited?”

“Give me a few minutes and I'll let you know.” Biting down on her lower lip, an affectation she executed whenever she concentrated on a task, Patty bobbed her head up and down. “Got it.”

“How much?”

“All totaled. In excess of three mil.”

Merrick whistled. “Not bad for an assistant principal and ex-footballer.” He read the name of the agent-in-charge of the Weir operation. “I believe Lucas Shelby would find Mr. Gellis's bank balance quite interesting.” With a stroke of a key, Gellis's banking information was forwarded to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Merrick knew he'd helped his future sister-in-law bring closure to her assignment, but he still hadn't gotten a single clue with which to take down Duffy.

The lobbyist was smart, but was he smarter than the team of four who were the best at what they did? Merrick knew if they were going to pinch Duffy, it would be tied to his finances.

Leaning to his left, Merrick tapped the shoulder of an accountant on loan to the CIA from the Treasury Department. A recent college graduate, Stuart Olson didn't look old enough to drive or drink.

“I need a printout of banking transactions from every international database in existence.”

“Can I do that, sir?”

Smiling, Merrick nodded. “Yes, you can.”

He didn't tell the accountant that the secret program, run out of the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, initiated weeks after the September 11 attacks, permitted counterterrorism officials access to financial records from a vast international database to examine banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States. However, the program was limited to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to terrorist groups.

Stuart gave a look that said he didn't believe what he'd been told. “The program is predicated in part on the president's emergency economic powers,” Merrick explained.

During a briefing session, Merrick was told data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunication, had allowed officials from the CIA and the FBI and a few other agencies to examine tens of thousands of financial transactions.

“That's going to take days if not weeks, Mr. Grayslake.”

Merrick patted his shoulder again. “You have a June first deadline to come up with something on Duffy.”

Stuart sat up straighter. “I'll find something on him before May Day.”

Merrick redirected his gaze to his computer monitor. Patty had changed it again. He noted the time at the lower right of the screen. It was 8:05 p.m., time that he headed home.

He couldn't wait to wrap up this case so he could resume a normal life wherein he'd come home from work and have his wife greet him in their new house. A contractor had refurbished it to Alex's specifications, and she and Jolene had spent all their free time together shopping for antiques to fill up the grand structure. They'd established a routine of going to Sunday-morning mass, followed by brunch, then to the house that was to become their home once he closed the Duffy case.

Merrick knew Alex longed to spend the night in their new home, but he couldn't afford to take the risk—not even with a state-of-the-art sophisticated security system—because he never knew when he would be summoned to return to Langley.

Her advancing pregnancy slowed her gait, and she constantly held her lower back as if she were in pain. Whenever he questioned her she said it was just the baby pressing on her lower spine.

Ashleigh had given him until June first to bring down Duffy, but Merrick hoped it would be sooner. His wife was due to deliver their first baby in a month, and when he brought his daughter home he didn't want it be under a cloak of danger and secrecy.

Standing up, he rolled his head on his shoulders. “I'm done for the day.”

“I'm staying,” said Patty.

Stuart stared up at Merrick. “Me, too.”

“What about you, Justin?” Merrick asked an information specialist whom he'd selected to join the team. Justin Jefferson bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Malcolm X.

“I guess I'll stay a little longer. Besides, I could use the overtime.”

“If I see any of you in before me tomorrow, I'm going to write you up,” Merrick teased. They laughed as he walked out of the room that had been set up for them.

His stomach growled loudly as he made his way to his office, reminding him that he'd skipped lunch
and
dinner. He would stop at a health-food drive-through and pick up something.