Killer Focus Read online

  She slipped the form across the counter for a signature, stamped it, then handed over the cash and smiled politely as the next customer stepped up to the counter.

  Her smile froze. She went hot then cold, then calmly put the Closed sign on her counter, picked up her purse and walked out of the office.

  Jack Jones.

  Memories pushed at her, a few bright and burning, most tarnished and edged with anger. Their relationship had worn her out and taken her youth, but even so, when she’d gotten the news that he was dead, she had grieved. She had stood at her husband’s grave, shattered at the utter finality of his death. She had even prayed for him.

  She tapped in the exit code on the door that led to the staff parking lot. The lock disengaged and she was outside, enveloped in steamy heat and the smell of melting tar. She blinked, adjusting to the harsh light and discordant sounds of traffic after the dim, muted coolness of the bank. The fact that she was close to tears shook her and, briefly, she wondered if she could have made a mistake. Maybe it hadn’t been Jack, just someone who looked like him?

  It had been Jack. She had met his gaze for a split second and she’d seen the recognition in his eyes. He’d had plenty of time to look at her before she’d seen him, plenty of time to turn on his heel, walk out of the bank and leave her in peace.

  Her eyes stung and the parking lot swam, a mishmash of glittering cars, flashing mirrors and shimmering heat. Quickening her step, she wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips, careful not to smudge her mascara.

  She reached into her purse and found her car keys.

  Hard fingers closed on one arm. “Dana.”

  Jerking free, she spun, her handbag swinging, even though she knew this wasn’t a mugging.

  He blocked the blow with ease, but instead of trying to physically detain her again, he bent down and retrieved the keys she must have dropped.

  Dana stared at her car keys now dangling from Jack’s fingers. “What do you want?”

  “Taylor sent me.”

  Dana stared at his jaw. The fact that Taylor knew her father was alive was a shock, but that was a minor point. If Taylor had contacted Jack Jones that could mean only one thing: trouble. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Wrong answer. “You expect me to fall for that?”

  “She called last night.” Briefly, he repeated the conversation.

  Dana weighed the information against what she knew about Taylor and WITSEC. Jack Jones was a con man, a gambler and a liar; he was going to have to try harder if he was going to convince her that Taylor had left WITSEC. “If there was a problem, she would have rung me herself.”

  “She didn’t want to tip Lopez off.”

  Dana felt all the blood drain from her face. If she had one nightmare in this life, it was Alex Lopez. Just the mention of his name made her feel physically sick. Twenty-three years ago, he had walked into her life and taken it over. Through those years the only thing that had kept Dana sane had been the need to keep Taylor safe and as untouched by Lopez’s twisted world as possible. But, like a poisonous vine, Lopez had stuck to them. No matter how hard they tried to cut loose, he never let go.

  “Dana—”

  Her jaw clenched. “Give me my keys.”

  “I can’t let you take your car.”

  “You can’t stop me. I’ve got a spare set.”

  He swore beneath his breath, and she had time to notice that decades might have passed, but some things never changed. Jack Jones was lean and handsome, younger than he had any right to look, and without the lines of strain she knew were etched on her face. He barely showed any signs of going gray, just a touch at the temples. Dana had to keep a regular salon appointment to keep her hair honey-blond; otherwise she would look exactly like her mother had at fifty-five, tired and ten years older than she really was.

  She unclenched her jaw. It was tempting to argue—she wanted to argue—but she wasn’t stupid. If Taylor had sent him, there was a problem, and Taylor’s life was too important to risk. “How is she? Is she all right?”

  For the first time he seemed to be at a loss, and that more than anything else convinced her. “I don’t know. She didn’t talk for long. She’s not exactly comfortable with the relationship.”

  She stared at Jack’s face, his eyes, looking for a chink that would tell her that he was lying, that this was all some crazy scam. “When did she find out that you were still alive?”

  “I visited her in the hospital in D.C.”

  Finally, something that made sense. Taylor’s shooting had been reported in a number of papers, which explained how Jack had been able to make contact. “If I can’t take the car, what happens to it? When this is all over, I’m going to need that car.”

  “I’ve taken care of it.” He jerked his head in the direction of a truck double-parked to one side of the parking lot. “They’re going to store the car for you.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a business card for a well-known storage firm.

  Dana stared at the vehicle he’d indicated. Without the glasses she normally wore for driving, her distance vision was blurred and indistinct, but she could make out the lettering. There were two men sitting in the cab, which gave credence to his story, since one guy couldn’t drive both vehicles.

  She studied the card, buying a little more time. The fact that Jack had taken time out to make arrangements for her car was sobering. If Taylor had rung him last night and he’d had to fly in from the East Coast, he hadn’t had much time. “What about my job? If I walk out now, I could get fired.”

  His expression didn’t change. “Take sick leave.”

  Dana’s jaw tightened. She knew a doctor in the Mission district. For a price, he would give her a medical certificate. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to use him. When Taylor had gone missing last year she had needed time off work to search. She had paid Gomez for the certificate, but in retrospect, she hadn’t needed to. Any legitimate doctor would have given her time off work. She let out a breath. “I don’t know if I believe you, but I’ll come with you—for now. Just…don’t touch me.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after walking a circuitous route around the financial district and into the trendy Embarcadero Center, Jack ushered her into a rental car. After another few minutes of driving around side streets, he finally took an exit out of town and headed across the Bay Bridge.

  Dana stared at the brassy strip of sea visible between the network of steel struts and cables. “You’re going the wrong way. I live south of the Mission district.”

  “I can’t take you there.”

  She studied his profile and suddenly panicked. They were heading in the opposite direction she wanted to go, and it was happening too fast. “Turn the car around. I need clothes and toiletries. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  When he didn’t respond, she gripped his arm and yanked. “Turn the car.”

  Jack swerved and straightened. The squeal of tires was punctuated by honking.

  He shook her grip off. “I’m not turning back. You need to get out of town. Now.”

  The cold remoteness of his expression shocked her to her core. The entire time they had been married, she had never backed down. He had always been the soft one, the one who had walked out the door. “How would you know?”

  “Because Lopez had men closing in on you. You’ve got to listen to me, Dana. I wasn’t a gambler or a con artist. I was a hit man. That’s why I had to leave.”

  She blinked, concentrating on the one fact she could absorb. “How do you know Lopez had men closing in on me?”

  “Because I saw one out on the street, and I’m certain the parking lot was watched. And, honey, if I had been given the job, that’s exactly what I would have done.”

  Twenty-Three

  Two days later

  Taylor cruised through the quiet suburb of Woodside just outside Washington, D.C. At seven o’clock in the evening, it was close on dark and most houses had their lights on. According to
the staff register still stapled in the back of her address book, Martin Tripp lived at 87 Renner Drive.

  She needed access to the Bureau’s files and getting that was going to be difficult. If she wanted to get into the system, she was going to have to break into it. She’d gone over her options and decided she had only one: Martin Tripp.

  Tripp’s entire life was the computer and the Bureau. He was single and he lived on his own. She was willing to bet that he worked at home and that when he logged on, with no one in the house to compromise his security, he stayed logged on for convenience.

  The house number eighty-five flashed in her headlights, a two-story weatherboard house with an immaculate front yard. Taylor braked, slowing to a crawl. Eighty-seven was a similar style of house, matching several others in the shady, tree-lined street, although Tripp’s had no upper story. Wraparound verandas and an overgrown garden completed what was, even with the dimming light, a bedraggled picture. She noticed that the property was unfenced and situated on a corner. The lack of a fence and the extra street frontage would give her several points of entry to choose from.

  Taylor turned the corner, made a slow circuit of the block until she was back on Renner Drive, then did another drive-by from the opposite direction.

  This time she caught a glimpse of Tripp’s car parked beneath a carport. A run-of-the-mill, silvery-gray sedan. No surprises there.

  The car and the house were a lot like Tripp. There was definitely potential, if only he could pull his head out of cyberspace. She was willing to bet he was online now. In fact, she was banking on that—and the knowledge that Tripp hated cooking and regularly ate out.

  She circled the block again, and this time parked several doors down. Checking the fit of her wig, she got out, shrugged into a small backpack and began walking. The evening was chilly and she was dressed for jogging, which instantly helped her blend. She had noticed several joggers while she’d been driving around the neighborhood. The backpack wasn’t out of place, either. It was a dark blue sports pack that matched the blue track pants and jacket she was wearing. If anyone noticed her at all, she would be just another ultracoordinated jogger taking advantage of the crisp autumn evening.

  As she approached Tripp’s place, keeping to the opposite side of the street, she studied the surrounding properties, looking for signs of dogs and nosy neighbors. A dog had barked farther along the street, but so far that was the only one. She checked her watch. All of the front yards were empty, which she had expected. It was almost seven-thirty. Most people would be either eating dinner or watching television.

  She walked to the end of the street, crossed the road and strolled back, this time on Tripp’s side of the road. As she passed Tripp’s front gate, the porch light flicked on and the front door popped open. Keeping her gaze forward, she squashed the urge to speed up. She had caught a clear glimpse of Tripp, but his vision would have been hindered by the flooding porch light. If he had registered her at all, he would have seen a blond female out walking.

  Rounding the corner, she stopped, shrugged out of the backpack, extracted her phone from a side pocket and pretended to make a call while she studied the layout of Tripp’s place and waited for him to leave. The perimeter of his yard was planted with an array of unkempt shrubs, punctuated by a large oak. A garage was situated to one side of the house. There was also a garden shed.

  Headlights swept the front lawn as he backed out of his driveway. Seconds later, as Tripp accelerated down the road, the house was plunged into gloom.

  Taylor noted the time he’d left and slipped the pack onto her back. Tonight she was just doing a reconnaissance, and timing Tripp to get an idea of how long it took him to get dinner.

  After doing a circuit of the grounds, she checked out the garden shed and found that not only was it unlocked, it contained an assortment of junk, including an old wooden toolbox. Walking around to the front of the house, she flicked on a penlight and shone the beam through finely etched glass into a nicely proportioned hallway. A peeling sticker on the glass panel of the front door indicated that he had an alarm system. She could make out a discreet box mounted on the wall. A small, glowing light at the base of the box indicated the alarm was active.

  Proceeding cautiously, she moved around the house, checking doors and windows to see if every window was wired. If it was an old house and the system hadn’t been installed by Tripp, chances were good that not every window had been connected. The classic was to skip bathroom windows, especially if the window was high and tiny, or louvers had been installed.

  Tripp didn’t have louvers, but he did have a small bathroom window set high in the wall. She risked flicking the penlight on again.

  The window wasn’t sitting flush with the frame.

  Shrugging out of the pack, she extracted a pair of latex gloves, pulled them on and reached up to try the window. It swung smoothly open.

  Heart pounding, Taylor stared at the gap. It wasn’t a casement window—that would have been too easy. It was a flip-up style, old-fashioned and tiny, and the reason it was unsecured was immediately evident—the sliding screw that locked it was missing. It had probably fallen into the garden and Tripp hadn’t bothered to either look for it or purchase a replacement. The gap was small, about eight inches. It would be a tight squeeze, but providing she could maneuver her head through, she could make it.

  She checked the luminous dial of her watch. Tripp had been gone ten minutes. If she allowed him half an hour, maximum, to collect his dinner and get back home, that would give her a clear quarter of an hour inside.

  This wasn’t part of her plan. She had intended to break into the house by cutting a square of glass out of a French door or a windowpane and crawling through, thereby bypassing the need to open the window or the door. The method was crude. The vibration could trigger the alarm anyway and the biggest downside was the fact that Tripp would know he’d had a break-in. This way, he didn’t have to know. When she weighed the benefits of ditching her original plan, with its inbuilt margin for safety in knowing how long Tripp was likely to be out, and the benefits of concealing the break-in, there was no contest.

  Removing the wig, which would be pulled off when she went through the window, she stowed it in the backpack and collected the toolbox from the garden shed. The shed was festooned with cobwebs, emphasizing the fact that Tripp had no interest in his yard. The dust-coated toolbox, which was empty, indicated he was even less of a handyman.

  Seconds later, she had the toolbox propped on its end for maximum height and positioned beneath the window. Leaning her pack beside the box and holding the flashlight in one hand, she stepped up, gripping the window frame to keep her steady as she positioned her head inside the window and slowly straightened. The frame scraped her back as she pushed forward and up, fitting one shoulder through, then the other. Her hair, which had been clipped close to her head beneath the wig, collapsed around her face. Tiny clicking sounds indicated that clips had fallen into the bath, which was directly below the window. She would have to remember to collect them before she left.

  Slipping the rubber thong at the base of her penlight over one wrist, she braced both palms on the windowsill and surged upward until her torso was through.

  Flicking on the penlight, she checked out the bathroom. It was surprisingly upmarket, nicely tiled in neutral beige, with a glassed-in shower and a separate bath. Leaving the penlight turned on, but letting it dangle from her wrist, she twisted and attempted to ease one leg through.

  After overbalancing and almost losing her grip on the sill, she decided there was no way she could climb through the window. It simply wasn’t wide enough for the maneuver. The only way forward was to continue on in a controlled dive, headfirst, into the bath, using her hands to cushion her fall.

  Leaning forward, she slid her palms down the tiled wall, her stomach muscles protesting as she gradually wriggled her torso over the sill. She inched forward, her jaw clenched as her hair slid across her face, impeding her vision. Abru
ptly, her center of gravity shifted. Hands flailing, she caught the sides of the bath and managed to slow the momentum. An ungraceful sprawl later, her shins burning after being scraped across the edge of the sill, she pulled herself out of the bath. She was in.

  Reaching up, Taylor pulled the window closed and collected the hairpins that had landed in the bath. Satisfied that the bathroom didn’t show any signs of her entry, she padded down the hall, switching her penlight off because Tripp had left the lights on. As she stepped into the sitting room, the cozy warmth of central heating made her realize just how cold she’d gotten standing out on the street.

  The house was large and airy and, despite the neglect of the garden, was furnished in surprisingly good taste. Golden light from strategically placed lamps flowed over dark leather couches. A faded Turkish rug took center stage on the floor and bookshelves gleamed with what looked like genuine leather-bound books. Signs of Tripp’s occupancy were visible in a folded newspaper and a mug left sitting on a coffee table.

  Her heart sped up when she noticed that one corner of the sitting room was devoted to a large antique walnut desk and a computer, and that the computer was switched on.

  Padding across thick carpet, she pulled out Tripp’s chair and sat down. The second she moved the mouse the screen saver flicked off, revealing text. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized that Tripp hadn’t even bothered to exit the file he’d been reading.