Dangerous Disguise Read online

“Don’t worry, just take care of what you need to take care of. Most important thing in the world is family, Jared. When you get to be my age, you’ll appreciate that.”

  “I already do.”

  Damn, but he felt guilty, Jared thought, closing his cell phone. Guilty even though he was only half lying. He was going to see his sister, but she wasn’t the one with a problem.

  He was.

  Janelle Cavanaugh looked like all the Cavanaugh women, except for her cousin Patience. Patience was the only redhead in the lot. The others took after their paternal grandmother. They were all light to golden blond, with high cheekbones and slender figures that curved in all the right places.

  Because they were so close in age, he’d been extremely protective of Janelle when they were growing up. Protective and antagonistic at the same time. They’d fought like cats and dogs and presented a united front to the rest of the world the way only a brother and sister could.

  At times, he had trouble convincing himself that she wasn’t that quick-fisted tomboy who could sucker punch him time and again anymore, but a capable young woman the D.A. had made favorable references to in a press conference more than once.

  He’d come to see her in that capacity now.

  Janelle swept into the room, dressed in a no-non-sense, pearl-gray suit, her long hair held prisoner by more than twenty pins, making her look all business. It was only when she grinned that the young girl emerged again.

  “This is an unexpected treat. They told me you were waiting for me, but I thought someone made a mistake.” She deposited an armload of files onto her desk beside the computer. Research was a bear. “So, where have you been keeping yourself? Or am I not supposed to ask?”

  “Ordinarily, you’re not,” he acknowledged. “But I need your help.”

  The admission stunned her, but she was quick to recover.

  “This is new.” She took a seat, perching on the edge of her chair. “Since when does my big brother need anything from me?”

  “Not from you, exactly,” he amended, habit making him not admit anything directly. “But from the D.A.” Hesitating, he framed his words slowly. “I need to bring someone a deal.”

  Right in front of his eyes, his sister became the A.D.A. “What kind of deal?”

  He sighed, still not entirely certain if this was the way to go. Then again no other course was open to him. And all the while, in his mind’s eye, he could see Maren. Could see the disappointment in her eyes. Or worse.

  “I need to offer someone immunity.”

  Janelle folded her hands in front of her, her voice patient. It was as if she could sense just how important all this was to him. “In exchange for?”

  “The man’s help in bringing down a money laundering scheme.”

  If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Instead she was the picture of a dedicated assistant D.A., sworn to do her duty to uphold the laws of the state. “How much evidence do we have?”

  He shook his head, his frustration evident. “Not much. All just circumstantial, really. The one person who talked to us is dead.” He saw her eyes widen. “They’ve been very, very careful.”

  She seemed to mull over options. “The D.A. has his eye on becoming the governor of this great state in the not too distant future. Will the evidence you hope to get from this man bring down anyone of importance?”

  He hedged his words carefully. “It could possibly bring down members of a prominent crime family.”

  “Just possibly?” she prodded.

  Jared gave her what he could. This was still all on a need-to-know basis. “The evidence I need to substantiate anything is in a computer. The only way into that computer is through the accountant. A decent guy.”

  Still sitting on the edge of her chair, she asked the obvious. “If he’s such a decent guy, what’s he doing mixed up in this?”

  Which was why he’d been wavering about all this. But he had his back against a wall. It wasn’t a crime to buy new equipment, wasn’t a crime to be in the black when you should have been in the red. Unless the money was coming from investors who stole for a living and were beefing up the prices of the equipment being brought in. And the only way he could hope to find that out was through Joe. Because he’d liked numbers, he’d minored in accounting at college. He knew enough to find inconsistencies. But first he had to get his hands on them.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Something compelled him to come to Joe’s defense, even if his sister didn’t know who he was talking about. “You know as well as I do that not everyone’s black and white. Sometimes there’s some gray.”

  “Only if you’re using bad laundry detergent.”

  Jared got to his feet. He needed to go in and didn’t have much time left. “Janelle, I don’t have time to debate this. Can you help me?”

  “Just a second.” Reaching into her desk drawer, Janelle took out a tape recorder.

  Jared’s eyes narrowed. Trained to blend in, he didn’t like the idea of any kind of recording devices near him. “What’s that?”

  “What does it look like? It’s a tape recorder. I just want you to repeat that last line for me before I go talk to Davidson,” she said, mentioning the D.A. by name. Her eyes were shining as she looked at her brother. “Nobody’s ever going to believe you asked me to help you unless I have proof. C’mon,” she held the recorder up to him. “Say it.”

  He sighed, then repeated the words she asked for. “Can you help me?”

  Janelle depressed the Stop button. The whirling noise ceased. If her grin was any broader, it was in danger of splitting her face.

  “Perfect.” Depositing the recorder back into her middle drawer, she rose from the desk. “Okay, I’m going to go and beard the lion in his den. You wait right here for me.”

  Relieved, Jared nodded. They didn’t have the deal yet, but if anyone could get it for him, he knew that Janelle could. His sister was like a pit bull once she was let loose.

  As she opened the door to leave, Jared called after her. “Janelle?”

  She paused, her hand on the knob, and looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  She grinned, nodding at her desk. “Remind me to get that on tape, too, when I get back.” And then she left the room.

  Chapter 13

  Less than forty-five minutes later Jared had his deal.

  As he drove through the dark streets of Aurora, some fifteen hours later, that same deal weighed heavily on his mind. Janelle had secured a verbal agreement from the district attorney that the offer—immunity in exchange for concrete information leading to the arrest and conviction of the party or parties behind the money laundering transactions—would be placed into writing the moment that Joe agreed to the bargain.

  All he needed to do now was to approach Joe. The man had been at the other restaurant all day so he’d had all that time to stew about his next giant step. Talking to Joe. And dropping his cover.

  An SUV cut him off, and he had to stomp on the brake to keep from becoming one with the flying vehicle. Jared upbraided himself for not being more alert. He had to stop thinking about the case until he got to Joe’s house.

  It wasn’t confronting Joe that bothered him. It was the look on Maren’s face when she finally realized what he’d been doing at the restaurant. Gathering information. Pumping people. Pumping her.

  Despite the fact that they were all brothers under the uniform, that he had more than his share of relatives on the force and that his father was the chief of detectives, he knew that the department generally didn’t give a rat’s rear end about personal repercussions. Lying to Maren had just been part of the job, and all the department cared about was the law. It cared about keeping men who made money off the misery of others from growing richer by posing as respected businessmen. It cared about keeping them from being rewarded because crime wasn’t supposed to pay. The fact that there would be an emotional casualty or two, well, those were the breaks. Better an emotional casualty than
an actual physical one.

  He didn’t used to have trouble wrapping his mind around that. He did now.

  Jared raced through the next light, tension governing his movements, and he had to force himself to ease up. The last thing he wanted was to complicate things further by getting into an accident. He needed to get this over with. After all, he had signed on to this gig and had a responsibility to see it through.

  But he hadn’t known Maren when he’d signed on, hadn’t known that his life would be forever changed by a smile that lit up his soul as well as every single part of him. Jared shook his head as he turned down an oak-tree-lined road. Never in a million years would he have thought that he would ever find himself in this situation. He’d figured that he was beyond that, immune. That his heart was not for the losing.

  A hell of a lot he knew. Not only had he lost his heart, but he’d done it at the worst possible time. Frustrated, powerless to stop what he knew was coming, Jared drove onto Joe’s street. A sense of déjà vu slipped over him.

  Déjà vu with a difference.

  The last time he’d been here, Maren had been in the car with him. A host of possibilities had lain open to him. Now there were only dead ends and darkness. What a difference a few days made, he couldn’t help thinking.

  He wanted to make a U-turn and go back. But it had to be done. He needed to talk to Joe, needed to know once and for all if this was all just an elaborate wild-goose chase, or if all the signs, all the whispers, were on target. Emil’s death made him believe that they were.

  But either way, asking for Joe’s help was going to “out” him. And most likely make Maren hate him.

  With a heart that felt as if it had been forged out of lead, he pulled his car up beside Joe’s in the driveway. The garage was closed. It was past eleven, but there were lights on in the front of the house. He recalled Joe mentioning that he needed little sleep these days, going to bed after midnight and rising in time to “wake the roosters.”

  Bracing himself for whatever was to come, Jared rang the bell. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door and then saw the door being opened.

  “Jared.” Joe stared at him as if he’d just popped out of a magic lantern. “This is a surprise.” His expression more than a little puzzled, Joe opened the door wider. “Come on in.” Closing the door again, he turned to face Jared. He was about to say something when the expression on Jared’s face evaporated any and all small talk. “Something wrong, Jared?”

  “Yeah, something’s wrong,” Jared replied quietly. So wrong, he didn’t know where to begin now that he was face to face with the man he’d grown to like so much in such a short period of time. Any way you sliced it, there was something wrong. He was either going to insult an honest man or take a chance that a criminal was really honest at heart and could be turned.

  There was no other way to do it but to do it. But still, rather than plunge ahead, he hedged a little. Giving Joe the opportunity to fabricate something and cover his tail.

  “Joe, have you noticed anything strange going on at the restaurant?”

  “Strange?” Joe repeated the word cautiously as he led the way back into his living room. Sitting down in his recliner, he motioned for Jared to take a seat on the sofa.

  This wasn’t going to work, Jared thought, sitting down. He’d felt more relaxed in a courtroom, being grilled by a defense lawyer. What he needed was to get to the heart of the matter and to see if Joe would meet him halfway.

  He took a breath and this time plunged ahead. “Joe, I’m not really who I led you and Maren to believe I was.”

  A guarded look came over the other man’s face. “Could have fooled me.” Joe seemed unwilling to hear the confession. And then he smiled. It was a weary smile, as if he had been waiting for this and could now finally put his burden down. “But then, I guess maybe that was the point, wasn’t it?” He laughed softly. “You give one hell of a damn good imitation of a chef. Who taught you how to cook?”

  “My uncle Andrew.” He was getting sidetracked. Jared focused. “My name is Jared Cavanaugh. I’m a detective on the Aurora police force. We’re investigating allegations that Rainbow’s End is a front for money laundering.” He looked at the other man intently. Joe’s gaze met his dead-on. He couldn’t fathom what was beneath it. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Joe took his time answering, but then gave Jared the reply he needed. “I knew all along you weren’t trying to access the Internet, even though I told myself you were after you called Maren.” The need for deception, for omission, was over. “I left that cell phone on you on purpose to see what you would do. But either way, I had a hunch you were here for a reason and it wasn’t to make soufflés.”

  Things fell into place. “You were the one who hit me from behind and put me in the walk-in.” Jared didn’t want to believe it, but he had no choice.

  Jared looked at the accountant, a man he might have been friends with under different circumstances. A man he still wanted to be friends with. God, but he hated his job sometimes. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, Joe, but why didn’t you just get rid of me?”

  Joe shook his head. “Not my way. I was hoping, if you were spying, just to scare you off. Besides, I wasn’t sure you were up to something. When you called Maren instead of the police, I told myself that you were just fooling around on the wrong computer, trying to get on the Internet. Every fourth person seems to be addicted to that these days.” He blew out a long, deep breath seeming twice as old as he was. “Guess I was wrong.” Silence hung between them for a moment. “So, now what?”

  Jared moved forward on the sofa. “I need your help.”

  The words were clearly not what Joe had expected to hear. “What?”

  “I need your help,” Jared repeated. Taking a breath, he began to lay it all out for Joe. “My sister is an assistant D.A.—”

  Like a man barreling down an incline with no brakes on his vehicle, Joe scrubbed his hands over his face, overwhelmed. “Oh, boy.”

  Jared was quick to try to allay the other man’s fears. “She went to the D.A. for me. I think we got you a deal you can live with.”

  Resignation turned to confusion. A lifeline suddenly dangled before him where a moment ago there was none. “A deal? What kind of deal?”

  “Immunity for your cooperation.”

  Joe’s tone was cautious, disbelieving. “Why would you do that?”

  Jared answered as honestly as he could. “Because I can’t get the information I need without you and because Maren would never forgive me if you were arrested and taken away to prison.”

  At the mention of Maren’s name, Joe straightened. “She’s not part of this,” Joe informed him quickly.

  Jared didn’t know if the man was covering for Maren or not, but he took the words at face value. Because he wanted to believe in her innocence. “But you are.”

  Joe made no attempt to deny it. “Yeah.”

  Greed was the undoing of many people, but Joe didn’t strike him as someone who was led around by the nose by avarice. Something else had to be at the heart of this. He refused to believe that he’d been so wrong about Joe. “Mind if I ask why?”

  The wide shoulders rose and fell in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Everyone has a choice.”

  Joe dragged his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. His expression told Jared he was being naive. “Not with these people.” Joe seemed to weigh his words carefully before doling them out, but it was time to bring someone else in. “I found a discrepancy in the accounting. Shepherd found out that I knew.”

  Jared honed in on the piece of information Joe had just substantiated. “So Shepherd is behind this.”

  Joe looked mildly surprised that Jared had entertained any doubts. “Yes.”

  “And Rineholdt?” Jared pressed, bringing up the so-called silent partner’s name.

  Joe laughed without mirth. “There is no Rineholdt. That was the discrepancy I found. Money supposedl
y coming from him was being forwarded through a series of dummy corporations, all with mob ties. Offshore accounts were involved. It had ‘illegal’ stamped all over. Shepherd got wind of my ‘research’ and threatened me. His threats didn’t hold much weight until he said he’d kill Maren unless I kept my mouth shut and went along with this. He ‘needed’ me, too,” he added wryly, looking at him. The older man clasped Jared by the wrist, as if to bond him to the promise he was about to extract. “Look, I don’t care about myself, but I want your word that you’ll use whatever methods you have at your disposal to protect Maren.”

  “I can take care of myself. I don’t need a liar looking out for me.”

  Both men turned to see Maren walk into the room from the rear of the house. Her eyes blazed as she glared at Jared.

  For one of the few times in his life, Jared was caught completely off guard. Maren’s car hadn’t been parked outside. There was no reason to suppose she was at the house.

  On his feet, he stared at her. “What are you doing here?”

  When she’d first heard his voice, she’d hurried from the kitchen to greet him. But just as she was about to come around the corner, she’d heard him talking to Joe. Heard him say what he was really doing at the restaurant. She’d hid, listening, growing more and more agitated. And furious.

  “Finding out that I’m still the same lousy judge of character I always was.” She stood beside Joe, her message clear. She was taking sides.

  Jared struggled to collect himself. “Your car’s not outside.”

  “It’s in the garage.” And lucky for her that it was, she thought. Otherwise she might have continued being fooled. Continued being the idiot. “I just had it detailed and I wanted it to stay clean for at least a day.”

  Tears threatened to spill but she fought them back. She was babbling about cars when her heart was breaking. And it was all Jared’s fault, damn him. She caught hold of her anger. “What the hell do you mean, coming into our lives, spying on us?”