Gone Missing Read online

  “I’ve been reading what Elisabeth dug up on Roman,” Joslyn said. She’d gotten onto the WiFi in the house and logged in to her email to get the report. “One thing that stood out is that apparently Roman’s company is not doing as well as Martin’s. Actually, his company has been hemorrhaging money ever since Martin stole that bid from him.”

  “So taking Martin’s money isn’t just revenge, it’s a need,” Clay said.

  “That would make sense,” Joslyn said. “What if this is a long game?”

  “A big con?” Fiona asked.

  “Think about it,” Joslyn said. “Roman found out about the Bara accounts somehow, and that you were handling them. He decides to manipulate the situation so that Martin would move more money into those accounts. All he’d have to do is get the other accountants to start skimming, and then get caught—maybe he bribed them, or blackmailed them, or maybe he made sure Martin found out about the skimming by leaking the information. Martin would naturally move his money into the only account that wasn’t being mismanaged.”

  “That’s exactly what Dad told me he did,” Fiona said. “That’s why he wanted me to come back to work for him, because so much of his money is in Bara Bank and he trusted me.”

  “Roman would really go through all that trouble, wait this long?” Clay asked.

  “From what I’ve read about Roman, that’s something he might do,” Joslyn said. “Revenge is a dish best served cold, right?”

  “So what do we do?”

  The million-dollar question. They were silent as they thought about it, then Joslyn said, “What if we take away Martin’s money?”

  Fiona and Clay looked at her.

  “We move the money from the Bara accounts?” Clay asked.

  “No, not legally,” Joslyn said. “And no, not move it from Bara. We make it inaccessible to both Martin and Roman in one fell swoop.” She gave Fiona a hesitant look. “What if you testified against Martin to the FBI?”

  Fiona was stunned, but Clay immediately picked up on what Joslyn was saying.

  “Fi, you can cut a deal with the FBI,” he said. “You get immunity, and you tell the FBI about Martin’s money laundering. If the FBI arrests him, they can freeze all his assets.”

  “There would be no money for Roman to steal,” Joslyn said, “not without a lot of high-tech work, and if he had those kinds of resources, he’d have already stolen the money from the Bara accounts.”

  “Roman would back off so he isn’t singed by the legal heat on Martin,” Clay said. “I’ve seen it happen before, although from the criminal’s point of view. The authorities take out a criminal’s victim or target—sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally—and so the criminal slinks away.”

  “It’ll give the FBI—or us—time to find more information on Roman so we can put him away for good,” Joslyn said.

  “It’s up to you, Fi,” Clay said gently to her. “Whatever you decide, you know I’ll be here for you.”

  Fiona chewed on her bottom lip. “It seems terrible to think about testifying against my own father.” She looked up at Clay. “But I know exactly how he treated you. I know how he views me—I’m just a tool for him to use. That’s the kind of person he is. He wouldn’t hesitate to turn against me if it served his interests. I’ll do it.”

  “You’re sure?” Clay took her hand.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “But what about Roman after all this is done?”

  “Let’s worry about Roman after you’re safe.”

  “We can ask Elisabeth to talk to her FBI contacts,” Joslyn said. “The problem is that we’re in a time crunch. Martin is moving his money.”

  “We have to act now,” Clay said urgently. “Trust me on this. If he moves the money, it’ll make Fiona’s information on the Bara accounts useless to the Feds, and they’ll have nothing to put a case together against Martin.”

  “How would he move it?” Joslyn asked.

  “There’s an underground banker he uses. Frank Devereaux. He’s just outside of LA in a pretty remote spot,” Fiona said.

  “How can we get him to postpone the transfer?” Joslyn asked.

  “You can’t,” Fiona said, her face turning pale. “But I can.”

  “No way,” Clay said immediately.

  “Maybe we can hack into his computers,” Joslyn said.

  “You’d still need to get close enough to do it,” Fiona said. “He has surveillance cameras. He would spook if he saw anyone within a hundred yards of his property. In fact, he’d spook even if a camera went out.”

  “Continuous loop?” Joslyn said.

  “We’d still need to get close enough to hack the camera feed. Look, he knows me. In fact...he’s met both of you, too.”

  “When?” Clay asked.

  “In Chicago. It was just before I left. Do you remember picking me up from school so we could go to the ballgame? There was a man I was talking to while I waited, and I introduced you. I said he was trying to recruit me for a job.”

  Clay’s brows knit. “Yeah, I think I remember. Old guy, gray hair, kinda grouchy?”

  Fiona smiled. “That’s him. Martin had sent him to talk to me to see if I had the computer skills to handle the money laundering and his Bara accounts. At that time, Martin was using Frank for several accounts, but it was taking too much of his time to run them all.”

  “So Frank knows I’m your brother,” Clay said.

  “He also knows about your mob connections and the fact you went to prison, which might make him less suspicious about seeing you again.”

  “But I don’t remember meeting anyone like that,” Joslyn said.

  “I didn’t introduce you,” Fiona said. “You walked me to the restaurant where I was meeting Dad for dinner because it was on the way to Mariella’s apartment. Frank was outside the restaurant talking to my father. He left after I’d gotten there, but he saw you when you waved goodbye.”

  “He’s not going to remember me from that.”

  “Before he left, he asked who you were. I told him and said you were the best hacker I knew. He said it was a pity my dad didn’t need any more computer experts.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Clay said.

  “Don’t you see? The two of you could come with me.”

  Clay looked hopeful. Joslyn was wary, but at the same time, she knew what she had to do in order to protect Fiona. Still, she had to mention, “Do you think we should wait and let the FBI take care of this?”

  Clay thought a moment. “The problem is that we’re on a deadline. If Martin moves his money and we don’t know where it went, it’s Fiona’s word against Martin’s. There’s nothing to prove she’s telling the truth, and the FBI needs proof.”

  “Also, it’s only been about two weeks,” Fiona said. “If we go now and we find out the money’s already been transferred, there’s a better chance we can find out where Frank sent it before he erases the info from his computers. If we wait another day or two, it might be gone.”

  “Did you ever go see Frank with other people?” Clay asked.

  Fiona bit her lip. “Usually only with a bodyguard.”

  “Then that settles it. Joslyn’s not going.”

  “I am not staying behind,” Joslyn said.

  “I think we could use Joslyn’s help,” Fiona said. “Remember what I said about hacking his computers? It’s not impossible, if we can get close enough. If Joslyn’s there, either one of us can try to hack Frank’s computers. If he’s already moved Dad’s money, we might be able to find out where it’s gone. If he hasn’t, we’ll be able to slow the transfer.”

  Clay looked mutinous, but Fiona folded her arms as if to make her point.

  Finally he sighed. “All right, if you think this will finally get rid of this threat...”

  “
It will,” Fiona said. “It has to.”

  “We can be there in a few hours.”

  “Joslyn and I need to create the hack, first,” Fiona said. “Just a simple virus, I think, will do the trick.”

  Fiona happened to have a virus that someone else had created, which she’d found and saved, and so they worked to reprogram it to slow the money transfer. Fiona was most familiar with Frank’s computer system, so she did most of the heavy lifting. It only took a couple hours, and Joslyn was glad that Clay took the time to sleep on the couch.

  While Fiona was finishing up the hack, Joslyn went outside. The mountain air was cleaner, smelling strongly of fir and faintly of leaf mold. All was quiet, and above her, clouds skidded across the azure sky.

  She dialed Elisabeth. She’d avoided telling her their plans because Elisabeth would want her to wait for the FBI to step in, but Joslyn didn’t want to risk Fiona’s life that way. They needed Martin’s money in order to stop Richard Roman.

  Joslyn was almost relieved when she got Elisabeth’s voice mail. She left a message detailing what they were going to do, included Frank’s location, then disconnected the call.

  She smelled cedar and lemon zest and his deep, soothing musk just before she heard him come up behind her. Without turning around, she asked him, “Are we making a mistake?”

  “Would you have been able to wait around, hoping the FBI would act in time, willing to put Fiona’s safety in other people’s hands, when you could do something about this whole situation right now?”

  “It’s just that it’s so risky.”

  “Sometimes you have to take risks.” Then, as if to put action to his words, he moved to stand in front of her. He cupped her face in his hands and bent to kiss her.

  His kiss was like walking in a forest, the wind in her hair, sunlight on her face. The world spinning around her, full of possibilities, excitement, adventure. He was the kind of strength who would help her to be strong, to be able to believe even harder in a strong, sovereign God.

  When he lifted his head, his hands caressed her cheeks. His eyes had darkened to deep blue like a tropical sea, and she felt she could drown in them.

  Then he grinned, that irrepressible grin that never failed to lift her spirits. He suddenly bent down and picked a flower from the manicured flower beds lining the walkway leading up to the front door.

  “Don’t pick their flowers,” she said weakly.

  He handed her a bachelor’s button, the same flower he’d picked for her outside the car rental office.

  “What’s this for?” she asked.

  “A promise.” He tucked it into her hair, like he’d done before. “We’ll talk later about taking risks.”

  He turned and walked back inside.

  Joslyn wanted that talk. But she couldn’t suppress a shiver of foreboding that the risks they were taking now would turn their plans upside down.

  * * *

  It was full dark by the time they arrived at Frank’s farmhouse, miles north of Los Angeles. The gleam from the car headlights reflected off the thick, waist-high weeds on each side of the country road, gold-and brown-colored from the dry season. The noise of the weeds swishing in the faint breeze put Clay’s teeth on edge, because it made it hard for him to hear danger coming.

  Fiona was pale, but only someone who knew her would notice. Her face was set in an uncompromising line.

  “Won’t Frank be worried if you’re looking so upset?” Joslyn asked.

  “I’ve never gone to Frank’s place without being upset,” Fiona said. “He’s incredibly annoying and I hated driving all the way here to deal with him.”

  They had parked next to the bent and battered mailbox that looked as if it had rusted open. There was no driveway.

  Fiona walked along the road, shining a flashlight they’d taken from the car, then finally stopped in front of a scratched mile marker. “Here.” She plunged through the weeds.

  Clay let Joslyn go first, so he could bring up the rear. The path through the weeds was barely visible, even in the beam of his own flashlight.

  “Don’t stray from the path,” Fiona told them. “Frank set land mines in the field.”

  Ahead of him, Joslyn started in surprise, then continued on. “Paranoid, much?” she muttered.

  “He can see us on surveillance cameras, too,” Fiona added.

  Joslyn sighed. “Of course he can.”

  Her feisty spirit cheered him. He didn’t want her to be here—he didn’t want Fiona to be here, either—but he was glad he could protect them, even as injured as he was. He could still punch with his right arm, and there were some grappling moves he could do with a gimpy left arm. Fiona had said Frank wouldn’t suspect him, so he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.

  He wasn’t going to fail her again.

  The large shadow in front of them materialized into a two-story barn, made of a mix of wooden boards and metal siding. Motion-sensing floodlights came on, glaring down at them. Fiona went up to the front double doors and pounded with her fist. “Frank!” She then stepped back and looked straight into a camera placed above and to the side of the doors.

  There was a long moment of silence. Fiona frowned, and pounded on the door again. “Frank!”

  An intercom buzzed and an annoyed man’s voice said, “F-Fiona? What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to save my hide,” she snapped. “Let me in, Frank.”

  There was another long stretch of silence, where Clay counted his heartbeats. This was taking too long. He was about to say something when he heard the click of heavy locks being disengaged from inside the door.

  Fiona froze. She looked back at Clay and Joslyn, her eyes wide but her mouth barely moving as she said, “He didn’t ask who you two were.”

  Clay looked up at the camera. If he was as paranoid as Fiona had indicated, why had he just let them in? He nodded for Fiona to go ahead and open the door, and he kept his posture deceptively casual, but his senses were on alert as he followed her and Joslyn inside.

  Fiona pretended not to notice Frank’s uncharacteristic behavior. She stalked into the barn, past rows of metal shelving filled with electronic equipment, toward a bright light shining near the back. “Frank!”

  “I—I’m here.” A portly man with low, dark brows suddenly appeared ahead of her, standing in front of a long table filled with computers. “F-fiona, where have you been?”

  There was the barest hesitation before Fiona answered, and Clay could tell by the tilt of her head that she had been surprised by something, maybe something he said, or maybe the nervous way he rubbed his fingertips together on each hand.

  “I’ve spent three weeks hiding from the two thugs who kidnapped me,” Fiona said, sounding annoyed. “It wasn’t until yesterday that I figured out it was Richard Roman after me.”

  She walked toward him as she spoke, with Joslyn and Clay bringing up the rear. The barn was large and open with its concrete floor and high, bare walls. Everything told him something was wrong, but he knew they weren’t followed here. So what was it?

  Fiona went up to Frank and stood with her hands on her hips. “Listen, Frank, we have to move Dad’s money from the Bara accounts. If they’re empty, then Roman has no use for me.”

  “Oh, I’ll think of something,” said an unseen man in a smooth, confident voice.

  Clay rushed forward to insert himself between Fiona and the source of the voice on their left.

  In a swivel chair in front of a computer, legs crossed, hands steepled casually in front of him, sat Richard Roman.

  EIGHTEEN

  If Clay were a dog, Joslyn was certain he’d have been growling, hackles standing on end. He stood in front of Fiona and Joslyn and his attention seemed to be completely on Roman, but Joslyn was sure he was aware of a slight movement among t
he shadowy metal shelving just out of reach of the lights over Frank’s computer desk.

  “You must be Clay,” Roman said with a smile that belonged in a boardroom. “If it weren’t for the PI you hired, I would never have known you were even looking for Fiona. I certainly wouldn’t have known about Joslyn, here. So thanks for that.”

  Met moved out from behind a piece of shelving, and he actually had his hands in his pockets and was snickering. G followed him, looking more serious with his body loose and ready, like a boxer about to head into the ring.

  “Pity that bomb didn’t kill you both,” Roman said. “I’m sure you know Met and G by now, right? They’ve been trying to eliminate you for the past few days. I have to admit, you really did give them the slip when you figured out about that GPS tracker in your cast. I’ve got two other men scouring Sonoma looking for you two.”

  Roman’s cold, dark eyes passed to Fiona. “You don’t know Met and G, Fiona, but you’d know their associates. You spent a few hours with them.”

  “They weren’t very good if they let a girl get away from them,” Joslyn said.

  “Very true.” Despite his light tone, Roman twitched his shoulders beneath his expensive gray business suit, so Joslyn knew she’d struck a nerve. “They’ve been looking for her ever since—well, except for the side-detour to try to stop the two of you.”

  “Like I said,” Joslyn said, “not very good.”

  “I’m not as trusting as they are,” Roman said. “You can lose the gun in your flashbang holster, Joslyn.”

  She clenched her jaw.

  “Slowly,” Roman added. “You can hand it to Met.”

  Joslyn reached under her shirt to remove the gun from the front bra holster and glared at Met as she gave it to him.

  Met grinned. “Maybe I need to search you.”

  This time, Clay really did growl, and the look he shot Met could have melted iron. Met’s smile hardened and he met Clay’s gaze in challenge.

  “You dogs can fight it out later.” Roman sounded bored. “Joslyn, lift your pant legs, too.”

  She pulled each leg up, to show she didn’t have a secondary weapon on her ankle.