72 Hours Page 4

  “Any problems?” he demanded.

  Gallagher shook his head. “None. The package is secured and we can meet with the company rep anytime.”

  Alex stood with Danny’s picture in his hand, random thoughts trying to coalesce in his head. “I don’t think we’ll return it just yet.”

  Grace and Carmen watched him expectantly, but Gallagher was nodding agreement. “The timing ain’t a coincidence. You get made surveilling this deal, now Grace’s kid gets snatched at the same time this theft goes down?”

  “What are you talking about?” Grace demanded. “What deal?”

  “We heard a thief named Johnny Washburn was getting into something big, with some big people. He met with a rep from the buyer, and he recognized me. He got away, but we were able to bring Washburn in.”

  “He sang like a girl,” Gallagher put in with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

  “The biotoxin we just stole?” Carmen reminded her. “Well, the pencil pusher was going to sell it to Washburn for peanuts, and he was going to sell it to this big shot. For a much more considerable profit, of course.”

  Grace looked at Alex, confusion apparent on her face. “But if you knew about it ahead of time, why didn’t you stop it?”

  He knew what she was thinking. If he’d reported the pencil pusher’s intentions to the company immediately, there was a good possibility none of this would be happening.

  “Washburn would be a dead man. And I’d have lost my only lead on this guy. I’ve been chasing him a long time, Grace, and I knew Carmen could get it back before it changed hands again. And we still don’t know the two are connected.”

  “But you believe they are.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “Like Gallagher said, there’s the timing. And I knew the voice of the man who recognized me at the café. I didn’t recognize the face, though.”

  He let the silence grow for a moment while he considered keeping the man’s identity to himself. The bastard was supposed to be dead after all. But his instincts told him he was right, and she had a right to know.

  “It hit me this morning—where I knew his voice from. I listened to the surveillance tapes again just to be sure. It was Ricardo Escobar, Grace.”

  The color drained from her face. Alex took a step toward her, but Carmen was already beside her. Grace’s breathing was suddenly shallow and he cursed himself for not finding a better way to tell her.

  “No freakin’ way, man,” Gallagher said, shaking his head.

  “I didn’t believe it at first, either. But I’m not wrong.”

  Gallagher stood in his usual at ease position, rocking back and forth on his heels as he considered it. “Even with the velocity reduction caused by the bullet passing first through Grace’s shoulder, you said it was a solid chest shot. And the fire on top of that?”

  “His face has been totally reconstructed. Big dollar job, and he looks nothing like he did before.

  “You really think Escobar has Danny?” Grace interrupted in an unnaturally high voice.

  He crouched to look eye-to-eye with her. “I don’t know, but I think so. And no matter who has Danny, we’re going to get him back.”

  When she nodded, he stood and paced for a minute, gathering his thoughts and letting the beginnings of a plan take form in his mind. “Did you bring them up to speed?”

  “Mostly,” Grace whispered.

  “Let’s get on it, then. Gallagher, scan this photo and get it to as many technical and support people as we can muster. Call in favors. If there’s any clue at all to be found in the picture, I want it found.”

  “On it.” Gallagher took the picture and lifted the scanner lid before glancing at it.

  Alex saw him pause and heard the muttered curse. The two men locked gazes for a few seconds before Alex nodded. Gallagher’s eyebrow raised a notch, but he only said, “We’ll get him back.”

  “Damn right. After you get that sent Carmen can monitor the computer. You go back to Johnny Washburn and squeeze him hard. I want to know anything he’s heard and I want to know where Ricardo Escobar is. I’m going to start making calls and pulling favors.”

  “Shouldn’t Devlin do the phone contacts while we hit the streets?” Grace asked.

  Alex’s brain froze for a second, and he flailed for an answer. “He, uh…can make all the official contacts we think we’ll need, but I’ll do the local calls. I’ll probably use the bedroom, so you and Carmen can work out here.”

  He was going to have to do some serious juggling to keep Grace from finding out he was Sean Devlin, because now wasn’t the time to deal her another emotional blow.

  Carmen pointed to the steel case holding the deadly biotoxin. “What do we do with that?”

  “Leave it there. It doesn’t leave our hands until I figure out if and how it’s connected to Danny’s kidnapping.”

  The agent’s eyes widened. “Tell me you won’t trade the case if it becomes a ransom situation.”

  Would he? It was hard to weigh the collateral damage against the life of his son. “I prefer to think of it as insurance. Now get to work. I want Danny’s location ASAP.”

  He turned to face Grace, still trying to bury the emotions that could get in the way of the job. “Can you work, or have you gone soft with no thrill—no fear—in your life?”

  “No fear? You arrogant son of a bitch. I know all about fear. It’s standing over your sleeping newborn, and he’s so still and silent you’re sure he’s dead until you tickle his feet to make him twitch. And then, when the fear of SIDS fades, there’s cancer and speeding cars and sending him to school for the first time. I’ve lived with fear every second since his birth, and I still…”

  She had to stop—had no choice because the unshed tears clogged her throat. “I still failed. The boogeyman got him, Alex. I couldn’t keep him safe.”

  Without planning it, or even knowing he would do it, Alex crossed the room and hauled Grace up into his arms. Her eyes met his, and beneath the terror he could see the fiery rebel he’d known her to be surfacing. He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her.

  “You and me…we’re not okay. When this is over there’s going to be shouting and tears and a whole lot of bad words. But right now it’s all about Danny. We’ll get him back, sweetheart,” he murmured into her hair, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was reassuring her or himself. “I swear. Now, can you work?”

  “If I don’t, I’ll go mad.” Her voice was shaky, but he had no doubt she’d pull herself together with something constructive to focus on.

  “Grab Gallagher’s computer and his phone. If there is a connection, it’s because Escobar recognized me and knew he could get to me through you…and Danny. Find out about any rental taken possession of in the last week. He’ll be close because Washburn and the biotoxin are close.”

  Grace swiped at the lingering wetness on her cheeks. “I’m on it.”

  He couldn’t resist pressing a swift kiss to her forehead. “Let’s find Danny.”

  Chapter Four

  After the initial rush of adrenaline and emotion, the drudge work that followed was like trying to run the fifty-yard dash waist-deep in setting cement. And sorting through information they already had in an effort to find new information was frustrating as hell.

  The photo of Danny had been taken at the very same airport Grace had taken off from. Flight plans showed the plane also landed at the same airport as Grace’s chartered plane. The plane which had whisked Danny away from his mother had also been a charter, and the info supplied to the charter company was so false even a moron should have known it. And that false identity’s activity had stopped at the airport. They didn’t yet have a thread on their next move.

  Hacking into hotel registrations had netted Grace nothing but a lead stomach and a throbbing head, and now she sat holding the photo of Danny, looking into his dark, scared eyes.

  What really hurt was guessing how they’d gotten a kidnapped child onto a chartered flight without sending up flags. They ha
d used her. All they had to do was tell Danny they would hurt his mother, and he’d done what was asked of him.

  “I need to run the pilot of that flight,” she said out loud, needing to do something—anything—that might give her a glimmer of hope.

  “Done,” Gallagher responded. “He’s clean. Just doing his job.”

  “I need to do it myself,” she said. Nobody wanted Danny back like she did, and maybe she’d look a little harder than Gallagher did, dig a little deeper.

  He turned away from his computers, giving her a hard look. “Let’s you and I go for a walk on the beach and have a little talk.”

  She choked out a laugh. “I’m not going beachcombing with you. We don’t have time for chatting.”

  Gallagher stood and stretched his back. “I’m hacked into the major credit cards, looking for a local bulk purchase of things you’d buy for a boy that age. It’s a kick-ass bit of code, but it takes time, which gives us time to chat.”

  “Fine,” Grace said through gritted teeth. “Talk, then.”

  Gallagher shook his head as he walked to the bedroom door. He stuck his head in and told Alex they were taking five. Then he plunked Carmen’s hat on Grace’s head and sunglasses on her nose. “Let’s go.”

  Despite the protection of the sunglasses, Grace blinked when they stepped from the rear patio of the hotel into the bright south Florida sunshine. The heat was intense, and she almost balked, but Gallagher grabbed her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers.

  “Come on, babe. It’s our honeymoon,” he said a little louder than was necessary.

  She plastered a fake smile on her face and walked with him down to the beach. The laughter of children and the raised voices of the parents minding them tore at her heart, but she shoved it down and kept the cover, walking too close to Gallagher and looking like a woman with nothing but love in the sun on her mind.

  “Don’t second guess my work,” he said in anything but a loving voice when they’d wandered to a barren stretch of sand.

  “I have to do something, Gallagher. He’s my son, and I can’t step aside and put his life in somebody else’s hands.”

  He stopped then and turned to face her. “His life is in somebody else’s hands, Grace. Somebody who doesn’t like you and doesn’t like Alex and won’t hesitate to use him to hurt you. I have always had Alex’s back, and I’ve always had your back, and you need to trust me to have Danny’s back, too.”

  “I do trust you, but—”

  “I need you to trust me with your kid.”

  Grace smiled, but she could tell it wasn’t a very convincing one. “I know you’re a good friend of Alex’s, and you know Danny’s his, but it’s a little hard for me to trust people right now.”

  He didn’t appear to take offense at her words, but he wasn’t willing to let it go, either. “How about we trade trust?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  He leaned close to her so he could speak quietly. “My name—my real, tell anybody and I’ll kill you slowly name—is John Gallagher McLaine.”

  “John McLaine? Like the Die Hard guy?”

  “Spelled differently, but yeah. Only better.”

  Grace arched an eyebrow at him. “How so?”

  “I’m real, and my gun’s bigger.”

  He gave her that little boy grin, but his eyes said You may be off limits, but in my mind I’m seeing you naked.

  Too bad her taste ran toward a certain tall, dark and arrogant ass. “How many people know that?”

  “Just Alex. But we’re talking about your kid here, so here’s something else.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close. To the rest of world he probably looked like he was hugging her, but he spoke so quietly into her ear she had to strain to hear him.

  “I have a fifteen-year-old sister. Her name is Melissa and she seriously rocks my world. She lives in San Diego with our parents.”

  Grace took a deep breath and let her forehead drop to his shoulder. He’d just given her all the information she needed to find his family. That kind of sharing was unheard of in men like Gallagher, and it said more than all the promises in the world could have.

  “I’ll trust you with my loved ones,” he said, still in that low, serious voice, “and you trust me with yours.”

  She stood up on her toes and stretched to plant a short, sweet kiss on his mouth. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Alex watched them from the hotel window, never breaking stride mentally as he talked to the man who was canvassing the airport, looking for any information on how the little boy in the Red Sox hat left the terminal.

  He hoped Gallagher could calm her down. She’d been like a caged animal since her arrival, and he couldn’t take the time to reassure her himself. It was already draining him trying to be Sean Devlin and Alex Rossi at the same time.

  “Hold a sec,” his contact said. “Let me talk to this guy.”

  Alex watched Grace and Gallagher making their way back to the hotel and squashed a pang of envy. He’d been in this damn bedroom too long, trying to juggle his identities and get the job done. He wanted to be the one walking on the beach with her.

  He’d hidden his role as Sean Devlin from Grace during the years they’d worked together, of course, but it had been easier then. With scheduled, tightly run jobs and separate locations, it had been easy to maintain the subterfuge. But now, with chaos reigning and all of them jammed into one hotel suite to work, it was more of a struggle.

  And he’d have to tell her. Not now, not when they couldn’t afford yet another distraction and even more tension between them, but when it was over. Because as far as he and Grace were concerned, it would never be over. They shared a son, and he’d have to share his secret. Later.

  “Your boy got into a black, late-model Civic rental with two males, one female.”

  Grace was right about a woman being involved. “He’s sure about the car, and it being a rental?”

  “Yeah. He talked to one of the guys. Told him they could upgrade to something a little bigger since there was four of them and all. Guy said they wouldn’t have it long.”

  “Okay. That’s it for now, but stay available.”

  Alex hit the main living room seconds before Grace and Gallagher entered. “You two done sightseeing?”

  “Yup,” Gallagher said easily, sliding back into his position at the computers.

  “Did the satellite images pick up a black Civic at the airport?”

  “Affirmative. The angle didn’t allow me to see who got in it, though.”

  “Go back and see how far you can track it.”

  “Any activity on the boat?”

  Alex shook his head. He’d been watching the live surveillance feed on the laptop in the bedroom and there had been nothing. No armed men, no black Civic and no Danny. “The boat’s just for the meet, I guess.”

  Carmen slid into the room, tucking both the hotel code key and the extra card—another layer of security programmed by Gallagher—into her considerable cleavage. “I hate bar duty.”

  “But you’re so good at it,” Gallagher said. “Learn anything?”

  “I’ve got the name of a down-on-his-luck charter boat captain who’s suddenly buying rounds at every bar on the island, and the info on his boat.”

  “Bingo. Let’s run him down.” Alex nodded his head toward the silver case. “I heard from…Devlin, and the pharmaceutical company isn’t happy we’re holding their poison.”

  “I’m not really thrilled with it, either,” Carmen said.

  “We’re not giving it back until we know how it’s connected to Danny,” Grace said.

  “We don’t even know if it’s connected.”

  “Come on, Carmen. Like Alex said before, the timing can’t be a coincidence. My son being kidnapped has something to do with that damn briefcase, and it’s not going anywhere until I have Danny back.”

  Carmen narrowed her eyes. “You and I have been friends a long t
ime, Grace, but this isn’t your call. Even if you were still with the Group, there’s no chance in hell of your being objective.”

  “As long as there’s even a chance the kidnappers are—”

  “Carmen’s right,” Alex interrupted. Not only because he was in charge, but he knew Carmen was one of Grace’s few friends, and he didn’t want something said that couldn’t be taken back. “You can’t be objective.”

  “Objective? Danny’s my son. And maybe that doesn’t mean shit to anybody else, but it means everything to me.”