The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Page 13

  Finally Clint finished. She helped him with the rug, then the desk. They spent another few minutes riffling through the file cabinet, but it appeared Eddie wasn’t the type to keep his files neat and up-to-date. Nothing piqued Clint’s interest.

  “Well, I guess that about does—” He stopped. “What was that?”

  “What?” Marissa barely breathed the word. Then she heard it—voices.

  TEN

  “What the hell?” Clint said under his breath. “Jimmy was supposed to let us know if someone was coming.”

  “Maybe someone took him by surprise,” Marissa whispered back. She clutched her thick stack of photocopies to her chest. “Let’s get out of here. It sounds as though whoever is here came through the front.”

  Clint did a visual sweep of the office. Everything looked pretty much as they’d found it. He turned out the lights and locked the door behind him, leaving himself and Marissa in the dim corridor.

  He could hear the voices more plainly now. Two men, one of them Jimmy. If that weasel had betrayed him, Clint would—

  “They’re getting closer,” Marissa hissed. “They’re coming this way. I think it’s Eddie.”

  They both took off at a dead run for the back exit. But Jimmy had locked the door and reset the alarm when they’d entered. Clint grabbed Marissa’s arm just as she reached for the door. “We can’t get out this way. We’ll set off the alarm, and that could put Jimmy in danger.”

  “What then?” Marissa looked up at him, her eyes wide with panic, expecting him to come up with a solution.

  He did his best. “This way.” He recalled seeing a maintenance closet across from Eddie’s office. He found it, opened the door, pushed Marissa inside, and followed. He got the door closed just as the two men rounded the corner.

  “I knew you’d come around sooner or later,” one man was saying—the one who wasn’t Jimmy. “You can’t let a woman totally monopolize you the way Sophia does. It makes a man weak. Having some affairs—it’s the best thing you can do for a marriage. Make sure she knows about it too. It’ll keep her in line, make her realize she’s expendable.”

  Clint pulled Marissa close. “Eddie?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered back, clutching her stack of photocopies to her chest. “Oh, God, Clint, we’re in trouble.”

  “Shh. There’s no reason he’d come in here.”

  Jimmy was responding to Eddie’s advice. “Hey, hey, now, don’t you go telling Sophia anything. I love that woman.”

  “Of course you do, buddy. She’s a peach. We all love Sophia, if you get my drift.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Just that a leopard doesn’t change her spots, Jimmy. I knew her before you did, don’t forget.”

  “Knew her how?” Jimmy roared.

  Oh, for God’s sake, Clint thought, this was no time for Jimmy to get into a pissing match over a woman. Why didn’t they go into Eddie’s office instead of standing out there in the hall acting like a couple of teenagers fighting over a cheerleader?

  Marissa shifted her weight, leaning up against him. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s kinda crowded in here—ooh!” The last part came out as a clearly audible yelp.

  Clint swung his arm around her and placed his hand over her mouth. “Shhhh. Do you want to die?”

  She shook her head, and he released her. “Something crawled over my foot.” She barely breathed the words.

  “What was that?” Eddie asked.

  “What? I didn’t hear nothing,” Jimmy said.

  Marissa grabbed Clint’s hand and squeezed. “I’m scared.”

  “So am I.” He squeezed back.

  “Why do you keep looking at the closet?” Eddie demanded.

  Clint held his breath, wanting very badly to curse. They were goners, and all because Jimmy was a rotten liar. How could he ever have believed Jimmy Gabriole was the mastermind behind an ingenious drug business?

  “Marissa?” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear.

  “What?”

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve been trying very hard not to fall in love with you.”

  She gasped, and he took the opportunity to kiss her. If they were going to die in a broom closet, he wanted to go with a smile on his face. Marissa melted against him. He savored the taste of her for one last second, then got his mind back on business.

  They needed weapons. He handed Marissa a mop. “When that door opens, hit anything that moves.” For himself, he got a bottle of glass cleaner and a toilet plunger.

  “Jimmy, who’ve you got in that closet?” Eddie asked in a deathly calm voice.

  “Nobody, Eddie, I swear it.”

  “Then you wouldn’t mind if I sprayed that closet door with bullets—”

  “No! Eddie, stop, please. There’s a … a woman in there!”

  Clint braced himself for the barrage of bullets. It didn’t come. Instead, the closet door was yanked open. Clint sprayed a stream of glass cleaner in Eddie’s face while Marissa wielded the mop as if she were a samurai warrior with a sword.

  Clint didn’t even get to use the plunger. Eddie crumpled to the ground.

  “God Almighty, that’s the second person I’ve bashed over the head in twenty-four hours,” said a stunned Marissa. “I’ve turned into a cavewoman.”

  “Oh, Jeez,” Jimmy was saying. “I’m a dead man.”

  “You did the best you could,” Clint said, feeling surprisingly detached now that the crisis was over. He divested Eddie of his gun, then checked his pulse. “Nice job, Marissa. He’s out cold, but he’s plenty alive.”

  “That’s not funny! I could have killed him.”

  “He was gonna kill you, sis,” Jimmy pointed out. “He would’ve, too, if I hadn’t stopped him. He’d have filled that closet full of lead and asked questions later. The fact that he don’t like killing women is the only thing that saved your life.”

  “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” Marissa said.

  “Wait.” Clint started fishing in the pockets of the unconscious man.

  “Are you crazy?” Marissa asked. “I want out of here.”

  Though he hated to, Clint ignored her distress. He’d come here to do a job, and he wasn’t leaving until it was done. He came up with a set of keys. “One of these opens that safe.”

  Marissa immediately changed her tune. “Oh, great idea!”

  “Jimmy, you and Marissa watch him. If he so much as twitches, yell.” With that, Clint reentered Eddie’s office. He found the safe key and put it into the lock. It turned with a satisfying click, and the door swung open.

  At first, Clint thought the safe was empty, and his heart sank. Then he saw the small, leather-bound book hiding in a back corner. He took it out and flipped through it. It was a ledger book, with pages and pages of mind-bogglingly huge figures. There were dates, names, and coded words that probably indicated various kinds of illegal contraband.

  Clint wanted to take the book with him. But then Eddie would know he’d been found out, and he would fold up his tents and be gone to South America or Switzerland. The success of his investigation depended on Eddie’s believing the incriminating evidence in his office was still his secret.

  One final notation intrigued him—today’s date, a time, and a location. Would that be the appointment all that cash was destined for?

  “Clint!” Marissa called. “He’s moving.”

  Clint committed the notation to memory, shoved the book back into the safe, and shut the door. In seconds he was back in the hallway, replacing the keys in Eddie’s pants pocket. The man stirred, opened his eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a nightmare, Eddie,” Clint said, patting the man’s cheek. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Oh, okay.” Eddie obediently closed his eyes. The three coconspirators established a new speed record in exiting a building.

  “I’m a dead man,” Jimmy mumbled over and over even after they’d cleared the parking lot. “I betrayed my best friend.”


  “Oh, knock it off, Jimmy,” Marissa said. “We’re all in trouble with Eddie. But in a matter of hours he’ll be behind bars. Right, Clint?”

  Clint said nothing.

  “Right, Clint?” she repeated.

  “He’s going to make a buy,” Clint finally responded. “A huge buy. If he doesn’t cancel it after what’s happened. If he goes ahead with it—we can get the Big Boss.”

  “When?” Marissa asked.

  “Tonight. I need to talk to McCormick. I’m going to tell him everything, and turn over the evidence I have and hope it’s enough. I’ll drop you two back at the safe house first.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Marissa announced.

  “Where have I heard this before? Absolutely not. It’s not necessary to drag you any deeper into this mess.”

  “Clint, I’m in as deep as I can get. I’ve assaulted two people. I’ve stolen things from a man’s private office. I’ve made private use of FBI property—”

  “Exactly why you shouldn’t go with me.”

  “You plan to leave me out of the report you give your boss? How are you going to explain how you got the evidence?”

  “I’ll say I broke in.”

  “Then you really will be arrested. No way. Take me with you to talk to your boss, or I’ll go to him on my own.”

  Clint sighed. The damn woman was driving him nuts. Had he really told her he was falling in love with her? Did she remember?

  Was it true?

  “I’m coming with you too,” Jimmy said.

  Clint rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell.”

  “I’m turning myself in and begging for protective custody. It’s the only way I’ll stay alive. Eddie won’t believe any story I could come up with to explain what happened. He’ll kill me, or have me killed.”

  “But, Jimmy,” Marissa protested, “you haven’t done anything wrong, not really.”

  “I haven’t killed nobody, and I haven’t dealt drugs. But I’ve done an awful lot of looking the other way.”

  “Oh, Jimmy,” Marissa said on a hopeless sigh.

  “I know, sis. I always promised you I wouldn’t end up like Dad, but you were just a kid when it happened. I was a grown man. It was Eddie’s uncle who done the bombing, you know, and they saw me as a threat. I had to go along with Eddie, whatever he said to do. It was that, or end up as dead as Mom and Dad.”

  Marissa sobbed, and Clint’s heart went out to her. He felt her pain as if it were his own.

  “How did you know?” she asked. “About the bomb. Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  Clint shook his head. She really was an innocent.

  “It was Eddie’s uncle who took over, that’s how I knew who was responsible,” Jimmy said. “And the police knew. They also knew better than to point fingers. Back then, they pretty much let the families take care of their own problems.”

  “It’s not too late, you know,” Marissa said.

  “Too late for what?” Jimmy asked.

  “To walk away from it. We could both move away, change our names.”

  Clint swallowed with a mouth gone suddenly dry. He didn’t like thinking about Marissa disappearing from his life. He wanted to know where she was while he did his time.

  “Sissy,” Jimmy said, “if I get through this alive, and a free man, I’ll go anywhere you want to go.”

  What were the chances of that happening? Clint wondered.

  Clint’s boss, Neil McCormick, lived in a stately colonial in Bellaire, one of Houston’s most elegant neighborhoods. Marissa whistled as Clint pulled in the driveway. “They’re paying federal workers okay these days.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Clint said. “Neil inherited some kind of fortune. He makes more than me, but not that much.”

  Neil himself answered the door, appearing remarkably unsurprised. Though it was only six A.M., he was neatly dressed and groomed. With his small stature, wire-rimmed glasses, and balding pate, he was nothing like Marissa had pictured.

  Still, first impressions could be deceiving, she decided as the small man ushered them all inside. Behind the glasses, his eyes were sharp as an eagle’s. It wouldn’t be easy getting anything past him. Yet that was exactly what she planned to do.

  A shiver of apprehension passed through her. If she wasn’t careful, she would land all three of them in prison.

  Clint introduced Jimmy and Marissa to Neil. The other man showed no surprise beyond a raised eyebrow as he shook hands with both of them. He led them into the living room, which was expensively furnished in leather. Clint hadn’t mentioned his boss’s marital status, but Marissa was betting he was a bachelor, probably married to his work. So deeply imbedded in that dark, nether-world of crime that he didn’t have time for a woman.

  Like Clint, she couldn’t help thinking.

  “Okay, Clint, spill it,” McCormick said without preamble when they were all awkwardly seated. “It appears to me you’ve disobeyed direct orders in a big way. If we can salvage whatever mess you’ve created, I might see my way clear to letting you retire early.” He said all this in a deceptively friendly tone.

  Clint didn’t even act surprised. “All I want is for this operation to close successfully. With what I’ve learned over the past day and a half, I think we can do that.”

  “You mean I can do it,” McCormick said. “You’re not doing anything pending the outcome of an administrative hearing on your fitness as an FBI agent.”

  Marissa suddenly found her voice. “I think you’re being overly harsh, Mr. McCormick. Clint was trying to save his ex-wife’s life, someone you apparently thought wasn’t worth saving.”

  Clint shot her a warning look. “Turns out she wasn’t,” he said harshly. “Save it, Marissa. I can speak for myself.”

  “Please, do.” McCormick folded his arms and waited.

  Clint cleared his throat, but Marissa continued before he could even begin. “He came to me,” she said. “Just to talk. He thought I might know something. I knew my brother had nothing to do with Rachelle’s disappearance, so I brought Clint and Jimmy together.”

  Clint and Jimmy stared at her, mouths gaping. Well? What was she supposed to do, tell this man who held Clint’s career in his palm that he’d kidnapped her and stolen Jimmy’s boat?

  “Jimmy was willing to cooperate,” she continued. “We found out through Rachelle’s brother that she was perfectly fine, and that she and Eddie Constantine had faked her disappearance to lure Clint into the open. So they could kill him.”

  McCormick’s right eyebrow twitched. Marissa couldn’t tell whether he was surprised, angry, or amused by her story.

  He looked at Clint. “You concur with this?”

  “It’s mostly true. Jimmy Gabriole isn’t the key to this operation. Constantine set things up to make it look that way, but Gabriole is mostly a puppet.”

  Marissa thought Jimmy would take umbrage at this summation, but instead he was nodding eagerly. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “A puppet. And now Eddie wants to kill me, too, or he will when he wakes up.”

  “Excuse me?” McCormick said.

  Clint took over the story from there. He told his boss about searching Eddie’s office, and their confrontation with the man himself. When he got to the part about the secret ledger book in the safe, McCormick finally appeared impressed.

  “Tonight?” he said excitedly. “The buy is going down tonight?”

  “At eleven,” Clint said.

  “Wait a minute. If he saw you there, won’t Constantine call it off? He’ll know he’s been compromised.”

  “He doesn’t know that I looked in the safe, or that I found his hidey-hole in the floor. I’m not sure he even knows I was there. All he knows is that he opened a broom closet and got assaulted.”

  McCormick groaned. “You didn’t hurt him bad, did you? All I need is for this to make the papers.”

  “I’m the one who hit him,” Marissa volunteered. Clint was in enough trouble.

  “He had a gun in
his hand,” Jimmy added. “It was purely self-defense.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” McCormick waved away Jimmy’s explanation. “Let’s skip over that part. How’re we going to explain, in court, how you got this information? Stealing an unconscious man’s keys doesn’t cut it.”

  “The information could have been lying out in the open,” Clint said.

  “But it wasn’t!”

  “So what, are you going to sit on the one chance we’ll ever get to nail this bastard because of a little snafu in procedure? We’ll let the lawyers figure out that part. Let’s just put together a welcome wagon.”

  McCormick sighed. “All right. What, exactly, do you expect me to do with these two?” He gestured toward the Gabrioles.

  “Arrest me, for God’s sake,” Jimmy said. “I’ll cooperate a hundred percent. I know lots of stuff. Just protect me until Eddie’s arrested. He’ll kill me otherwise.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s the thing to do.” McCormick turned to Marissa. “What about you?”

  “Arrest her too,” Clint said.

  “What?” Marissa stared at him, at a total loss. He was turning on her, after everything she’d done to help him?

  “What charge?” McCormick asked.

  “Assault. She tried to shoot me.”

  Marissa went weak. He was right. She’d shot at Clint, hit Rusty over the head with a lamp, and assaulted Eddie with a mop. She belonged someplace where she couldn’t hurt anybody.

  “Okay.” McCormick stood. “I think jail’s the safest place for all of you. What do you say we all take a little trip downtown?”

  During the drive to Bureau headquarters in McCormick’s Infiniti, Marissa alternated between steaming at Clint and feeling sorry for herself. He really was a beast, to make love with her and then toss her away, now that she’d outlived her usefulness. He hadn’t even spared her a glance. And what was that business about falling in love with her? He’d said something to that effect when they thought they were seconds away from turning into Swiss cheese. What had been his motive?

  She’d brought this on herself, she supposed. The minute she threw in her lot with the devil, she’d sealed her fate. Putting Eddie in jail—that was the important thing. And keeping Jimmy safe. She could only hope that Clint would keep his promise to put in a good word for her brother.