Deadly Lies (Deadly #3)(27)
Author: Cynthia Eden

His hand flew up. “Not now, Beth.” He knocked her hand away and then marched toward the bar. Frank poured a tall glass of whiskey. “Not now.”

Sam saw the other woman’s flinch. Interesting.

Very interesting.

Sam remembered the e-mails that she’d read on Quinlan’s laptop last night. She couldn’t help but wonder if Frank knew his younger lover was also sleeping with his son. Sometimes it was so easy to hide an affair, especially with one lover dead to the world every night. So easy.

Sam shoved her phone back into her bag. Beth turned around and headed for the door. But Sam had caught a glimpse of Beth’s eyes before she’d whirled away. Tears hadn’t been filling that blue gaze. Rage had burned in Beth’s stare.

Sam typed one more note. Want background checks ASAP. That would have been routine, of course. As soon as the SSD learned of the disappearance, they would have started working every angle.

She’d been doing her own checks while she was in the house. When she’d used Quinlan’s laptop, she’d gotten access to his complete social networking system. She’d backtracked through his wall to follow his activity for the last few weeks, and she’d sent his list of “friends” to the SSD office so that they could cross-reference those with the other kidnap victims.

She’d also entered Donnelley’s system. The good doctor apparently liked his  p**n , and he’d been trying to hook up online at a dating site. None of his e-mails had raised a red flag with her, but she still planned to search his financial records the instant that she had access to the SSD’s computer system.

When she’d tapped into Frank’s online accounts, she’d seen that he had far more than a healthy balance in the bank. As with the previous kidnap victims, their perps had picked a target that could easily pay them.

But she wanted more information than what she was retrieving through the house network. After the drop tomorrow, she’d have full access again. Then she’d take an hour on her equipment at the office, and she’d be able to find out every secret the Malones possessed.

“I want Jon on point in the park tomorrow.” Luke gave the order to his team and knew it would come as no surprise. An ex-sniper, Jon was by far the best when it came to observing from a distance. “Keep a weapon on them, Jon. This thing…” His shoulders rolled. “I don’t want it blowing up in our faces.”

“No,” Hyde’s deep voice cut from the doorway. “We sure as hell don’t.”

Luke inclined his head. “Sir, this is our best chance. Sam is serving this case to us on a platter.” The pieces still didn’t fit for him, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If they could break this case… take down these killers…

“We need to talk with Kathleen Briar,” Monica said, nodding her head. “I want to know exactly what her husband said about the ransom drop demands.” A soft sigh escaped her lips. “As far as I know, two people have never been asked to come to the drop site. Either they’re changing their MO now or they changed up the plan with Briar…”

“It would be easier to find out if she hadn’t blown the guy’s head off,” Kim murmured, tapping her pencil against the edge of the table. “Then we could’ve just asked him directly. So much easier.”

“If you wanted easy,” Hyde drawled, “you wouldn’t be in the Bureau.”

“Guess not.” Kim flashed a wide smile, one that faded quickly when she said, “There’s something you all should know.” Kim flipped open the file in front of her and pushed some pages toward them. “The fingerprint check on the box turned up a hit on an ex-con. A woman named Kailey Elizabeth Gentry, a prostitute from Boston.”

Shit, this might be it. The break they needed. The one—

“I pulled up a picture of Kailey.” Her lips twisted into a humorless grin. “Funny thing. She looks just like Beth Dunlap, only about ten years younger.”

Well damn. “Sam texted that Dunlap was the one to pick up the box.”

“Yeah, and I’m guessing the lady didn’t know just what she was giving away when she did.” Kim shook her head. “So far, Beth has been coming up clean on the check.”

Not so much for Kailey.

“But I did more digging after I got the hit,” Kim said. “I’m not as fast or as good as Sam on a computer, but I did find some info. Seems Ms. Kailey married a man named Gunther Dunlap when she was twenty. An older guy, with a little money. When he died a year later in a car crash, she kept the cash and got a new name.”

So her current last name had come courtesy of the dead husband. And now Kailey was living with another older, richer man.

“Kailey isn’t the only one in that house with a record,” Kim told them as she leaned forward, her face intent. “And I think we need to get this info to Sam right away.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Who else?” The security guard? He’d had the look of a man who’d been around the block and seen the dark streets, but…

“Maxwell Ridgeway isn’t quite the clean-cut man that the business papers would have you believe.”

Luke’s gaze dropped to the paper that she’d shoved his way. He scanned the lines, his heart pumping faster. Shit.

“Had to unseal some records.” Kim gave a careless shrug but he knew that the job hadn’t been easy. “Seems that once Max’s mother married Frank Malone, well, Max’s past vanished.”

Not completely. Nothing and no one ever vanished completely.

“Manslaughter,” Luke said, and felt a throb begin in his temples. Did Sam know about his past?

No, no, she couldn’t know.

“What is it?” Monica asked, craning her neck to read the paper in his hand.

Kim handed her a copy of the file then passed other copies to the rest of the team as she said, “When he was fourteen, Maxwell Ridgeway beat a man to death with a baseball bat.”

Damn.

Kim waited a beat. “And that’s the man that Sam is currently protecting, 24–7, with no backup in sight.”

Sam answered her phone on the first ring. “Hello.” She was careful to sound like a civilian and not provide her usual, automatic agent identification.

“Get to a secure room,” Luke barked in her ear. “Get in there, alone, and get there now.”

She turned away from Max and automatically shut the door. “I’m secure.” But not alone. Frank had gone after Beth. And she wasn’t leaving Max right then.