Merciless Read online

  “Why do you think he’s up to something?”

  “He won’t let me see the police report on Cammy’s death.”

  She blinked. “He won’t?”

  He eyed her. “You could get it.”

  “Now, those are protected files behind firewalls,” she began.

  “And you can hack anything.”

  She pursed her lips. His eyes were twinkling. “Most anything,” she agreed.

  “Will you?”

  “If you’ll bring Markie to visit me in prison,” she said under her breath, tongue-in-cheek.

  “I’ll get you the best criminal lawyer in San Antonio,” he promised.

  She got up. “Okay. I’ll use a false identity and cross my fingers.” She went to the computer on the dining room table and sat down to turn on the power.

  Ten minutes later, she went back to Jon, frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “There are no files.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “No files at all. No photos, no evidence forms, nothing.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said curtly. “It’s a murder case.”

  “I know. But nothing has been filed.”

  He was thinking, working in his mind. “It’s only been a few days,” he rationalized. “Perhaps they haven’t had time to upload photos or other evidence.”

  She didn’t answer him.

  He took out his cell phone and called his brother. “Mac,” he said. “There are no files on Cammy’s murder.”

  “Have you led Joceline into a life of cybercrime trying to hack protected police files?” came the reply.

  “Yes.”

  “No files, you say.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll dig around and let you know what I find.” He hung up.

  “Mac’s going to try,” he told Joceline. “This is confusing.”

  Joceline was chewing on the facts herself. Kilraven hadn’t been allowed into the hotel room where Cammy died. There had been two strange men at the funeral home, and Jon said the funeral director had been disconcerted when they mentioned an open casket at the service. Now there were no files on the case. She added up those facts and produced a conclusion that she didn’t dare voice.

  Jon had reached the same conclusion. They looked at each other without speaking.

  “There would have been no reason to stage it,” she said for both of them.

  “Unless they had knowledge of a plot to kill her and set it up to save her,” he replied. “Maybe to get evidence that could be used against the would-be shooter and give them time to do more checking.”

  “Exactly.”

  His heart lifted suddenly. It might not be the tragedy he’d expected. Cammy might still be alive, in hiding, and Marquez had forbidden any knowledge of it to Jon or Joceline because he suspected someone working with them, someone who might accidentally find out that it was a setup.

  Joceline gripped Jon’s hand tight. “We could be wrong,” she said. “There are plenty of circumstantial things that we’re concocting into a theory.”

  “I know that.”

  “Is my apartment bugged, you think?” she wondered.

  “If it is, we both know who bugged it,” he replied. “And the killer can’t have planted any listening devices here. They’d have been removed.”

  Jon’s cell phone rang. He answered it.

  “Yes, it’s bugged, yes, someone did plant listening devices but I found them all,” a deep voice with a curt South African accent replied. There was a chuckle. “Your conclusions are very interesting, but I’ll say nothing to affirm or deny their correctness. You’ll have to sit back and wait for results, like the rest of us.”

  “Where is Sloane Callum?” Jon asked.

  “In a safe place. He put his own life on the line to help us with a project.”

  “There’s a very dangerous person out there,” Jon said quietly.

  “You have no idea,” Rourke replied tersely. “We’ve made some disturbing discoveries. I can’t say any more.”

  “You’ve got somebody watching my brother and his wife?”

  “Yes, also you and Joceline and the boy.”

  “All right. But I’d remind you that I do work for the premier law enforcement agency in the country.”

  “Which would get you carte blanche in this investigation except that you have one or more suspects in your very own office.”

  “One or more?” Jon burst out.

  “I can’t say any more. And don’t try to pump Marquez,” he added. “I trained him in counterespionage myself. He’s incorruptible.”

  “Damn,” Jon muttered.

  “You’ll like the result. Be patient.”

  Jon sighed. “Very well. Thanks, Rourke.”

  “Some odd things may happen tomorrow,” Rourke added quietly. “Be on your guard, don’t go anywhere alone. Make sure Joceline doesn’t leave the building without you.”

  “What about my son?” Jon asked.

  “We have two agents at the school,” he replied. “He’ll be safe. I give you my word, and I don’t give it lightly.”

  “He’d better be.”

  “One other thing,” he added.

  “Yes?”

  There was a pause. Jon heard someone else speaking, in a taut, firm tone. Rourke came back on the line. “I can’t say anything else. Trust me. I have your best interests at heart.”

  “Didn’t Napoleon make such a statement just before Waterloo?” Jon wondered aloud.

  “That’s your brother’s thing, military history, not yours,” he was reminded tongue-in-cheek. “Get a good night’s sleep. You’re going to need it.” He hung up.

  Jon looked at Joceline and then at his son with real worry. He didn’t know what or how much to tell Joceline. He only hoped whoever was orchestrating this developing plot knew what they were doing. He wished he knew what it was.

  14

  The next day, Joceline sat at her desk, typing up reports on the computer, with her mind totally not on what she was doing. She was upset because of a hint Jon had given her about today. He’d said to be on her toes, and nothing more. She wondered what he meant. He was unusually protective, and tense, as if he was expecting danger.

  Their part-time worker, Phyllis Hicks, had shown up for work, mingling with the other office workers on their floor. Joceline tried not to pay too much attention to her, but she was nervous. The woman had a look in her eyes, on her face, that was disconcerting. She didn’t seem quite normal. Especially today.

  Joceline averted her gaze to her work and tried not to notice that Phyllis was staring at her pointedly. But when the woman stopped beside her desk, she was forced to look up and smile, as if she knew nothing of the woman’s background.

  “Hi, Phyllis, how’s school going?” she asked.

  Phyllis raised an eyebrow. “You have a reputation in the office for being able to get information that nobody else can find,” she said, lowering her voice. “So it’s a safe bet that you’ve checked me out and found something that all the agents who investigated my background missed. I thought I’d covered it up very well,” she added with a cold smile. “But I must have missed one little link somewhere.”

  “Excuse me?” Joceline said carelessly and with a feigned vacant smile.

  “You know who my real father is.”

  “I do?” She smiled again.

  “Stop it,” Phyllis said, and her eyes took on an odd, feral sort of gleam. “No more games. They’ve been watching me, Marquez and his friends. My dad told me. He tells me everything. All I have to do is flatter him and make a fuss over him, and he’ll dig into files for me. I say it’s helping me to learn my job. He buys it, every time.”

  “He does?”

  Phyllis placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward, so that her voice didn’t carry. “My dad says they’ve got a file on me. It shocked him. He thinks they’re trying to railroad me on an attempted murder charge, because I told him it
was all lies. He was shocked that a good detective like Marquez would target a sweet, helpless little thing like me.”

  “Are cobras helpless?” Joceline asked.

  “They’ll never get enough evidence to convict me,” she whispered. She smiled and seemed proud of herself, in a sick way. She started talking quickly, as if she couldn’t stop. “I persuaded my real daddy into letting me go with him, to make sure Dan Jones did the job on Kilraven’s daughter. I was just seventeen, but I was already a dead shot. My daddy taught me. Dan Jones was such a wimp. He couldn’t shoot a child. He even cried. I took the shotgun away and killed the little girl with it. It was easy. Really easy. It didn’t bother me at all. My daddy said I was a natural.” Her eyes gleamed with an insane light while Joceline tried not to gag. “So he talked Jay Copper into letting me do some wet work for them. I could get in places they couldn’t. My stepdad knew all sorts of things I could use, and he didn’t have a clue he was feeding me information I gave to my real dad. I could even get weapons out of the evidence room and put them back, nobody ever suspected me. Imagine, hiding a murder weapon in an evidence room.” She laughed. Her face clenched. “Then that stupid Monroe had to go and claim credit for my kill, mine! He blabbed about the shotgun. I should never have told my real daddy where I put it. You can’t tell people anything these days. Nobody can keep his mouth shut!”

  “You killed a child,” Joceline said, horrified.

  “What’s one less kid in the world?” she asked blankly. “I was going to do yours, but they wouldn’t let me. They said killing his secretary’s kid wouldn’t hurt him nearly as much as doing his mother.” She laughed again, coldly. “So I found out where she was staying, listening in on her conversations with her son, and I took a wheel gun with the serial number filed off and did her, right in her hotel room, while she was on the phone with Kilraven.” She laughed harder. “That was so funny. Imagine how he felt when he heard her die and couldn’t do a thing!”

  Joceline’s mouth was half open. The woman was confessing to two murders, in an FBI office, to Joceline and she wasn’t wired and the office wasn’t bugged. It would be hearsay evidence, no matter what oaths Joceline swore to tell the truth.

  “You really are out of your mind,” Joceline said tautly.

  “Don’t say that!” she snapped at the older woman. “They said that about my grandmother because she killed herself. My real daddy told her what I did. She couldn’t take it. She overdosed on some pills.” She straightened. “She was really weak. But I’m strong. I can do anything, just like my real daddy. He killed Dan Jones. He wouldn’t let me go with him that time, but he told me all about it. It was so exciting!” she whispered, her eyes gleaming. “He said Jones cried and begged him and Jay Copper not to kill him. The idiot got religion. He was going to sell out Jay Copper and my real daddy. Well, they got Copper, but they didn’t get my daddy and they won’t get me, either. And Harold Monroe is going to die. He isn’t part of our family anyway—he’s just married to my aunt!”

  “You can’t think they won’t find evidence to convict you,” Joceline said quietly. “You won’t get away with it.”

  “Who’s going to arrest me?” she chided. “And on what evidence—your word? Kilraven and his new wife told them they heard Jay Copper say that my daddy helped him kill that girl, but once the tape was gone, they couldn’t prosecute daddy. It was just their word against his.”

  “How did that tape disappear?”

  “I took it out of the evidence room.” She smirked. “And we had a friend get in your apartment and take the records that proved I was daddy’s illegitimate daughter,” she added coldly. “I took the files out of the mainframe computer, here. It’s handy, working for the FBI,” she added.

  “You can’t think you’ll get away with it,” Joceline said.

  “Why not?” the other woman asked with a careless laugh. “I’ve never even been under suspicion.” Her eyes narrowed. “Your kid’s been lucky so far. Hasn’t he?”

  Joceline got to her feet. Her blue eyes were glittering as she moved toward the other woman. “If you touch my son, if you even think of touching him, you won’t be able to hide anywhere on earth.”

  “You think you could stop me?” Phyllis replied.

  “I think someone has to,” Joceline said quietly, “before you hurt someone else’s child. You’re absolutely insane.”

  “Don’t…say…that!” Phyllis lunged at her, lightning-fast, pushing her back across the desk. “I’m not crazy!” She had her hands around Joceline’s throat, her nails biting in, and Joceline could hardly breathe. If they didn’t hurry…!

  “And that’s enough of that, lady.” A gruff voice came from over Phyllis’s shoulder. She was pulled upright, turned around and handcuffed in a fluid, easy motion.

  “What the hell…?” Phyllis exclaimed.

  Joceline got to her feet, a little shaky. Jon put his arm around her, examined her throat and grimaced. She only smiled at him, safe and relieved.

  “It may take us a little time to wrap up all the loose ends,” Detective Marquez told the furious, red-faced killer, “but we get there.” He motioned to the two uniformed officers he’d brought with him, one of whom had Phyllis by the arm. “And notice that I’m reading you your rights. I wouldn’t want to leave one single loophole for a defense attorney.” He read her the Miranda rights.

  “You set me up!” Phyllis exclaimed, glaring furiously at a shell-shocked Joceline.

  “Actually Rourke set you up,” Jon said coldly, “with a little help from Detectives Marquez here, and Gail Rogers. This time the tapes won’t go missing, I promise you. Your stepfather is down at police headquarters trying to explain how he helped you get into the evidence room.”

  “He won’t tell them anything!” she spat.

  “Oh, he’s up for retirement in six months. I expect he’ll tell them whatever they want to know,” Jon added. His eyes were cold as ice. “You killed my niece, and my mother. I’ll be at every parole hearing until I die. You’ll never get out of prison.”

  “First they have to convict me,” she said sweetly, “and they have no evidence.”

  Jon gave her a quiet stare. “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that shotgun shells need to be wiped of prints as well as the barrel of the gun?”

  She stared back at him blankly, and then with dawning realization. “Monroe!” she burst out. “That stupid, stupid idiot told them where the murder weapon was hidden!”

  “He took the blame for it,” Jon lied, “to save you.”

  She shifted, surprised. “He doesn’t even like me.”

  “You’re part of his family, aren’t you?” he asked, and surprised himself defending Monroe.

  “I guess so.” She sighed angrily. “But the idiot put a noose around my neck all the same. My real daddy will take care of him!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Kilraven said, joining them. He smiled coldly at the woman who’d killed his three-year-old daughter. He had to fight the instinct that was telling him to snap her neck before she could even get to jail. “Your real daddy has been arrested and charged with complicity in the murder of my wife and child. You see, there were two sets of fingerprints on those shotgun shells.” He didn’t add that they wouldn’t be able to identify those prints officially until she was arrested and booked and fingerprinted. He was hedging his bets.

  She was absolutely at a loss for words. Her face went red, and not from embarrassment. She let out a barrage of curses, some of which had Jon lifting his eyebrows.

  “Get her out of here,” Jon advised the policemen. He was still afraid that Kilraven might do something regrettable.

  “Good idea,” Kilraven said icily.

  They removed her. Kilraven, Jon and Joceline watched her go with the same expressions.

  “What a shock,” Jon said heavily.

  Detective Marquez came closer, his hands in his pockets. He grimaced. “I’m afraid the shocks aren’t over for the day.”

  “What?”
Jon asked hesitantly.

  “You have to promise not to hit me,” he told the brothers. “It was the only thing I could think of to save her, especially after your employee Sloane Callum phoned me, all upset, and told me that he’d heard what was going down once Cammy Blackhawk got to the hotel. I got an earful about Jay Copper’s family tree in the process. So I came up with this idea, to let the killer think she’d scored a direct hit. I had no idea that Rourke had some knowledge of Hollywood-style special effects,” he added thoughtfully.

  “Special effects?” Jon asked.

  Marquez shifted. “Sorry, I was thinking out loud about the guy’s background. Yes. Sloane called Monroe and had him pay Phyllis a visit. He knew what sort of gun she carried. While she was out of the room, he switched clips. She fired blanks from a concealed position and thanks to some carefully rigged explosive charges over a Kevlar vest, it looked as if real bullets had caused major damage to Cammy’s chest. Phyllis left without checking closer, thank God. It would have ruined the setup and we’d have blown the case.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jon faltered. “Cammy’s not dead?”

  “She’s alive?” Kilraven echoed, dumbfounded.

  “Alive and still cursing me for putting the two of you through a mock murder.” Marquez sighed. “My medical insurance is paid up, so if you want to punch me…!”

  Both brothers grabbed him at the same time and hugged him, even Jon, who was notorious for avoiding displays of public affection.

  Joceline laughed, delighted. “What a trick! No wonder you wouldn’t let Kilraven or Alice Fowler into the crime scene or give them access to the police report on the ‘murder’!”

  Marquez glared at her. “Yes, despite your best efforts to hack my computer.”

  “Oooops!” she said, red-faced.

  “About which, fortunately for you, I know nothing,” he added.

  “Thank goodness!” she said. “I look terrible in orange jumpsuits!”

  “Where is she?” Jon asked.

  “At the ranch,” he replied, chuckling at their surprise. “Sloane said it was the safest place, because he’d kill anything that came near her. He was indignant that a cousin of his was responsible for this mess, even if she was only related to his son by marriage.”