Whispered Lies

EPILOGUE

CARLOS WALKED INTO Joe’s office atop the Bat Tower in Nashville, ready to hurt people. “Where is she?”

“You mean Gabrielle?” Joe rose from behind his desk. He wore gray slacks and a sky-blue, button-down shirt.

Tee walked in from the door that connected their offices. She had her furry little Pomeranian, Petey, in her arms, snuggled against the cinnamon-red sweater she wore over a dash of black leather skirt. “She’s gone, Carlos. She called when they landed to give us the airport where they arrived and was gone by the time we reached your aunt and cousin. We don’t know where she is either.”

He stared at both of them, wanting to call everyone liars who tried to tell him Gabrielle had vanished into thin air.

“You knew she could do it,” Joe pointed out.

Carlos raked a hand over his head and clutched the back of his neck. “Maybe Gotthard can find her.”

“I don’t think so.” Tee shook her head. “Not from what Gotthard said. He’s impressed by her ability to manipulate anything electronic, and that’s saying something.”

This couldn’t happen. Carlos just wanted a chance to explain to her, to tell her she was free forever from Durand, her ex, everyone. That he hadn’t given her up and hadn’t been using her.

What else could she think after finding out she’d been sleeping with the person she believed killed her mother?

“How’s the burn on your leg?” Joe asked.

“Fine.” Carlos waved it off, trying to figure out how to function now when the only thing that mattered in his world was gone forever.

“We just got in. What’s the scoop?” Korbin asked, walking into the room with Rae on his heels.

Carlos backed out of the way and leaned against the wall so Korbin and Rae could take seats facing Joe’s desk.

The idea of disappearing was starting to sound appealing.

“The teens you two rescued in Switzerland are the real McCoys,” Joe started.

“The clinic had been told all three teens were severely depressed and delusional,” Korbin added for everyone. “They had plenty of documentation that, of course, led nowhere.”

Joe continued. “The teens in D.C. were copies who all thought they had been chosen to play decoys for the real teens, and Collupy believed she’d been employed by the CIA as an escort to watch over Evelyn. All three teens had been homeless or orphans who were involved in bad traffic wrecks in different countries in the last year. When they woke up in the hospital, each one had some physical damage that corresponded to the one on the real teen. They’d all had plastic surgery they were told was necessary as a result of their injuries, then speech and physical therapy.”

Rae leaned forward, appalled. “You mean the Fratelli intentionally injured these kids, even put one in a wheelchair for life, and removed limbs on the others to make duplicates?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what we’ve figured out has happened,” Tee replied. “The teens all confirmed a photo of Josephine Silversteen as the contact person. She told each teen after the surgery that the organization she represented protected children and paid all their medical bills, but her people wanted them to help other children they resembled who were targeted for kidnapping by taking their place for a week. She assured them they’d be protected the entire way, and in return all their hospital and educational expenses would be paid.”

Joe added, “The ability to find abandoned children that matched so close to the teens physically and in speech, and to infiltrate the DEA, proves the Fratelli are an even higher threat than we imagined. Kathryn Collupy was just as innocent. The planning on this was phenomenal since all of them went through surgery, rehab, and voice instruction during the last six months.”

“What’s going to happen to them now?” Rae asked.

“The teens have all been debriefed and are now in the WITSEC,” Joe explained. “They’ve been placed with good families in the program and will receive what they were promised as a minimum. Now we know why Silversteen never caught Brady and why she was killed. They risk leaving no one who can talk.”

“I just finished filling out a report. Brady is known as Vestavia, part of the Fratelli,” Carlos interjected.

Everyone quieted and turned to him.

Carlos shared the phone call Durand received and how he saw Vestavia’s face. He intended to add his connection to Durand in the report, but Retter had stopped him, saying he and Joe were the only two who needed to know that. Retter had refused Carlos’s resignation this morning, telling him Joe wouldn’t accept it until Carlos took some R and R.

They thought he’d stay. Would he? Carlos couldn’t answer that right now.

“So Vestavia knows what I look like,” Carlos finished.

“I don’t think that’s an issue if we don’t put you out somewhere public or high profile,” Tee interjected. “Salvatore burned the Anguis complex to the ground after you left and put out word he killed all the Anguis soldiers, including you.” Tee gave Carlos an assessing look. “We’ll build you a new profile.”

“Right.” Carlos had to get out of here. “Where are my aunt and cousin?”

“The Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta.” Tee lifted a small box from Joe’s desk and walked over to Carlos. “This is all the mail that came into Gabrielle’s post office box in Peachtree City.”

Carlos took it, thanked her, and headed for the door.

“Going to take some leave time?” Joe asked.

Carlos couldn’t look him in the eye and lie so he just said, “Yes.”

“When you coming back?” Rae tacked on to Joe’s inquiry.

“Don’t know.” Carlos walked out.

GOTTHARD RUBBED HIS tired eyes and glanced at the third missed call on his cell phone. All three from his wife, who only wanted to bitch him out for still being at work after midnight.

Like she was ever home when he went there? Shopping, girlfriends, and the spa came before a decent meal together.

The only light in this section of the IT offices at BAD came from the glow of multiple computer screens he’d watched for days.

Seven hits popped up next, replies to messages he’d sent out, searching for Linette. Multiple hits had come in constantly, but none with her signature. He clicked through the first five, then stopped on number six, shock paralyzing him.

He read the brief reply again, decoded the signature three more times until he slapped the desk. “Hot damn!”

The coded signature read “Jane of Art.”

Linette had responded.

BAD now had contact with a mole inside the Fratelli.

CARLOS DROVE HIS BMW down the driveway of the safe house in Hiawassee, Georgia. Fall had come and gone without him, speckling the mountains with dried orange, red, and brown. Wind swept discarded leaves in piles along the paved entrance.

All the security systems cleared without a warning light.

He grabbed the box with Gabrielle’s mail he’d already gone through during the drive, hoping to find a clue to where she’d gone.

No chance. The only significant piece he did find was a manila envelope from the life insurance group that had carried the policy on her for the slimeball ex-husband. A document enclosed stated that the policy had been canceled and they had received a letter from Roberto claiming any future policy on her listing him as the beneficiary would be a false document he would willingly testify against.

That letter would be the fax Roberto had sent the night Carlos visited him. The guy lost his chance at a fortune, but he still had both nuts and his face.

And Carlos had a signed confession from Roberto.

Carlos climbed out of the car and went in search of his things.

One suitcase stored a week of clothes, and a two-foot-square cardboard box locked in the downstairs storage room held all the other possessions he owned.

He had enough money put away to find a place for his aunt and cousin once they finished with the treatments. With Durand dead and Salvatore appeased, no one should bother them.

What would he do then? Carlos didn’t know, didn’t care. What was life without Gabrielle?

He punched in the security code, then waited for a second beep before he punched in another set of numbers. Inside the house, he tossed his jacket aside and headed for the bedroom to retrieve the suitcase first.

When he stepped into the bedroom, he heard a movement in the bathroom and drew his weapon.

The door opened slowly and a body wrapped in a towel stepped out. Gabrielle.

Not possible.

“Don’t shoot,” she ordered. “I saw you coming up the drive on the monitor in the bathroom, but you got here before I could dress.”

“What are you doing here?” He hadn’t intended for that to sound so harsh, but pissed off had been his natural state for the last twenty-four hours.

“Obviously showering. Will you put that bloody gun down?” She wrenched the towel, covering half her body, tighter. The matching beige towel wrapped around her head flopped to one side when she angled her head.

He laid the gun on the nightstand. “How did you get in here?”

“Oh, that?” She shrugged and had to tuck the towel again. “I linked into the central house computer and ran the security codes when Gotthard let me check my e-mail on my computer. I fixed it so I could get in undetected, just like I did in our room at the school. I figured if your people brought me here again, I’d have a way to escape. When we left for the airport, I kept track of the route.”

The little sneak. No one, not even Gotthard, had considered that she’d screw with BAD’s security system in the house when she and Gotthard had been working to access the school computers from here.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Getting my things.” He was answering out of reflex, not really processing what was going on. Gabrielle was here. “I thought you’d disappeared.”

“I did, but I needed somewhere to stay for a few days until I had clothes and a car again. I left South America with nothing-well, except for some money your aunt gave me I used to get here. It was the only place I felt for sure was safe.”

It was now or never. He had one chance before he lost her again. “If you’ll get dressed, I want to tell you something.”

“Tell me now.” She straightened her posture as if preparing to hear a lecture.

Carlos blew out a gush of air and jumped in with both feet. “I didn’t tell anyone you were Mirage, and I didn’t know about your mother when I made love to you. I wasn’t using you.”

Her face softened, giving him hope until she shook her head and said, “Now, tell me the rest of the truth.”

Damn. She didn’t believe him. “I just did.”

“No, you didn’t.” Gabrielle took one step toward him, then another, slowly moving around the bed. “Tell me the truth about the day my mother died.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone when I triggered the bomb,” he said in a monotone, repeating the story he’d told a few times. “I didn’t know the bomb would do so much damage.”

Gabrielle kept coming closer. “That’s not the truth either.” She stopped a foot away from him, so close the next breath hurt when he smelled the familiar scent of her.

“That’s the only one I know.” He loved her beyond belief, but would not betray Eduardo so she’d have somewhere else to turn her wrath.

“Tell me how you pretended all these years that you were the one behind the bombing even though Eduardo was the one who really triggered the charge,” she said gently. “Tell me how you carried the burden of those deaths and almost died yourself to keep the truth hidden. Tell me how you walked back into that snake pit to protect those you love…and lied to Durand to protect me.”

His heart raced. “How could you-”

“Your aunt told me everything once we finally found common ground. I thought she was going to hand me over to Durand’s men at the end of the flight, but she’s like you. She’ll fight to protect her own. She asked a lot of questions, then told me the tale of a young man she’d raised as her own son.”

Gabrielle lifted a hand to his cheek. “Did you think I’d harm Eduardo in any way? She said she’d made an oath not to tell Durand the truth, but she figured I needed to know. Eduardo was with us when his mother shared the story. He cried and told me he was sorry about my mother. He’s had to live with that and the guilt of knowing you shouldered his burden for the deaths all these years and how you’ve lived on the run to protect him and Maria. He lost his future that day, too. My mother would forgive him, so I can’t do any less.”

“I’m so sorry for your mother.” Carlos couldn’t believe the huge relief that washed over him now that Gabrielle knew.

“I’m sorry for Helena, too.” Her eyes misted. “We all lost that day, including Maria. How about if we all build a new life together? Now, tell me you love me.”

“I love you more than life,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. In his next breath he sent thanks for this miracle.

Gabrielle hugged him to her. “I was so scared you wouldn’t get away from Durand, but when I talked to Joe, he told me Retter had gone undercover to get inside and find you. Or I’d have gone back on the next flight.”

Carlos owed Joe big-time for that lie or she’d have been killed if she’d returned to South America.

Her hands crawled along his back and up into his hair. He kissed her with all the love in his heart.

“You know what kind of blood I come from,” he warned her.

“Yes, I do.” She pulled away, her shimmering eyes filled with admiration he’d never have expected. “Not all the men in your family were like Durand. I know, because I traced the Anguis lineage at one time. You have the blood of warriors in your veins. The kind of men who protect what is theirs and love without restraint. I want that love and I want you.”

“It’s all yours.” He kissed her, amazed to be holding her again. When he broke the kiss, he gave her one last warning. “You’re not getting much out of this deal since all I own is what I can carry in two hands.”

Her hands slid around front, between them. She moved her lips to his ear. “Great. That means I get to decorate the house the way I want.” She giggled until her towel broke free and slid to the floor.

“Decorate away, princess, starting with the bedroom.” Carlos lifted her in his arms, intending to show her just how much she meant to him. He draped her across the bed and stood up, slowly peeling out of his shirt.

He stared at his future, something he’d never expected to have.