Crashed, p.3
Crashed, page 3
Chapter 1
Isabel
22 Years Old
“Ms. Steele, is it true you and your father had a contentious relationship?”
Isabel stared at the lawyer and wondered how many times she’d have to go through this.
Then she thought of her sisters, thought of her mother, dead and cold in the ground, thought of the endless reports unearthed after she agreed to cooperate with Miles Hawkins and the investigation of her father, an investigation that had involved numerous international intelligence agencies as well as the FBI, the CIA, and DHS.
How many times would she do this? If it kept Wilson Steele locked up, she’d do it every day for the rest of her life.
“Yes.” She met the attorney’s gaze. “We had a contentious relationship. He locked me in a room for three weeks after I refused to marry—”
“Your Honor, please ask the witness to focus on the questions asked.”
Isabel wanted to yell at him, blacken his cool eyes and break his nose. Instead, she looked at the judge. “Your Honor, he asked me about my relationship with my father. Almost every teenager thinks they’ve got it rough. But how many have actually been locked up by their own fathers for refusing to marry?”
“Your Honor—”
The judge gave him a flat look and lifted a hand. “You asked the question, Mr. Rheingold. The statement stands.”
He tried again, going at Isabel from several angles. But she’d prepared for this, the same way she’d once prepared for track and field events, turning that dedication to honing her emotional control so she wouldn’t break for worms like this.
His eyes took on an avid gleam and Isabel knew the next question was going to be bad. Very bad.
Clenching her hands into tight fists, she let her nails bite into her palms, that small pain grounding her as Rheingold started to speak.
“Were you arrested five years ago for attacking your father, Ms. Steele?”
“Yes.” She stared at him, unblinking.
“You broke his nose and knocked him down, causing him to strike his head on a desk. He needed stitches and suffered a concussion. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Her voice started shaking as the memories of that slammed into her.
“And is it also correct that he had to have his own security personnel restrain you? His own daughter?”
The faux horror in the lawyer’s voice made her want to vomit. But when she opened her mouth, what came out was laughter—near hysterical laughter.
“Is this funny, Ms. Steele?”
“Funny?” She echoed, uncertain how she managed to stifle the laughter. It hurt, that macabre sound, like it was edged with rusty razor blades that tore her throat. “Why would it be funny¸ Mr. Rheingold, that I’d attacked my father after he refused to let me get an abortion although he knew I’d been raped, that one of his friends had been the man to rape me, and he knew that, that he’d given the bastard the go-ahead? No, it’s not funny. Although I find it grotesquely humorous, in a way, that you have the balls to act appalled over it considering you were there on one of the days I tried to run away—and that my father attacked me for it.”
She had to keep raising her voice to be heard after Rheingold, then the judge both demanded she be quiet.
Her final words, though, had everybody falling silent.
Even the judge looked slightly dismayed.
Rheingold was pale, his mouth slack.
The prosecuting attorney acting on behalf of the state was the first to regain composure. She rose, her hands flat on the surface of her desk.
“Your Honor, permission to approach.”
Judge Whitmer cleared her throat and then beckoned for both attorneys to join her.
Isabel was fuming. But at the same time, she was cynically amused.
Oh, she’d been waiting for this moment.
Rheingold thought she hadn’t noticed him that day, skulking outside her father’s office when she’d been dragged into her father’s office, her attempt to slip past the watchful eye of her dogged babysitters an abysmal failure, just like the past three had been.
She hadn’t been able to believe it when the prosecuting attorney handling her father’s second appeal had informed her that Edwin Rheingold would be handling the case.
He’d been her father’s protegee. Better than most, Rheingold should know how dangerous it could be to piss Wilson Steele off, how ... unhealthy it was to fail to live up to his rigorous standards.
Wilson Steele’s displeasure was on display for the whole world to see right now, his features hard as granite, pale gray eyes as chilly as chips of ice. He flicked a look in her direction.
Isabel stared back without flinching, any fear she’d once felt having long since burned away. The only thing he could do to frighten her would be to threaten her sisters and they were safe away from him, under witness protection, several states away.
As long as they were safe, nothing her father said or did mattered.
There was nothing left he could take from her.
A faint noise caught her attention and she shifted her focus to Edwin Rheingold. He moved on stiff legs toward the bench, the colorless oval of his face seeming to float above the lapels of his pricy designer shirt. His pale blue eyes and pale blond hair barely offered any color, offering a washed-out appearance more than anything.
He looked like a man already dead.
His eyes wheeled in her direction as he closed the final few steps between them.
She stared back at him pitilessly.
She might have felt sympathy, had he been unaware of her father’s actions, his influence.
But he’d been in their house too many times, had stood silently as those who displeased Wilson Steele had bones broken, noses smashed, fortunes obliterated and children threatened.
The only people she would pity would be any family he might have, innocent people ensnared in the actions of others, the way she and her sisters had been.
Sometimes, late at night, when she clutched her pillow and tried not to think about the empty forever stretching out in front of her, she wondered if there was going to come a time when she couldn’t even find it in her to care about that.
Chapter 2
“Why are we here?”
Miles Hawkins met the blue-green eyes of Travis Barnes and gave him a smile he didn’t feel. Acting came easy to him, though. At forty-six, he was fairly young to be in charge of his own division, but an injury a couple of years earlier had ended his career in the field.
That career had shown him too many things, shown him a world where the vicious preyed upon the weak and too often, those in power cared little to step in and help.
A couple of years earlier, a few months after Miles had mistakenly screwed up the lives of two innocent kids, one of those kids had showed up at his house.
Travis Barnes had shown an amazing resourcefulness, tracking him down as he had, something Miles had taken notice of. It wasn’t like FBI agents tended to keep a large profile. Travis hadn’t come looking for an apology, though. He’d demanded entrance to Miles’ world—for an absolution that only Miles owed.
But Travis hadn’t wanted to listen.
Because Miles understand the weight of guilt, and because he was too aware of the shit he’d slogged through and how unbalanced the scales were, he’d given Travis access to that world.
Travis could very well become one of the US government’s best assets. His affluent upbringing and keen intellect made it easy for him to gain entry into a world where the world’s elite used their money for craven, awful excess at the expense of others.
He had the gift of both charm and insight, and a natural ability to play chameleon, showing his targets whatever face they expected to see.
Now, just a few weeks shy of twenty-four, he’d already helped collect information on three high-profile targets—with actionable intelligence on all of them. Miles had just received confirmation that morning that two were expected to be in US custody by the end of the week.
Nobody would ever connect their arrest to the pretty-boy asset sitting next to Miles.
Granted, the man next to Miles currently looked nothing like the laughing, teasing playboy who’d wined and dined the wife of one of the biggest human traffickers in Europe while she was on holiday in Italy.
Had she, or any of her bodyguards, glimpsed this side of Travis Barnes, they would have stayed far clear—and possibly ordered his immediate assassination. It was getting to the point that his face would soon become a liability—and present a danger to the other person who shared that face. When Miles had pointed that out, Travis had calmly come up with a solution—a brilliant, drastic one that was, at the same time, ridiculously simple.
It was his knowledge, skills and abilities they really needed, after all. His face wasn’t necessary, and he didn’t need that face to know the ins and outs of high society.
And although Miles wanted to refuse the kid, time and again, he knew how desperately the skills and mindset of somebody like Travis were needed.
There wasn’t a day Miles didn’t worry Travis would slip, make a mistake and come back to the US in a body bag. Or not at all.
Miles still sent him out.
He’d do so as long as Travis was willing, or until it was obvious Miles could get no further use out of him—he was just that damn good.
Yet when Travis had ended up finishing his last job right at the same time Isabel had been scheduled to be in Boston, on the stand in yet another attempt by her father to get his sentence overturned, Miles knew he’d try again.
Every chance he got, he’d try.
“You said you wanted a drink and a damned steak that wasn’t like cooked until it resembled leather. So ... here we are.” Miles offered a crooked smile and gave a sweeping gesture that encompassed much of the luxurious lobby bar and restaurant, tucked into the corner of one of Boston’s most exclusive hotels.
Travis picked up his drink and tossed it back, treating the twenty-five-year single barrel malt like backyard moonshine. As he met Miles’s gaze, he put the now empty high ball glass down on the polished mahogany bar with a distinct click. “Pricey place for a meal on Uncle Sam’s dime.”
“This is my treat.” Miles smiled thinly. His father’s death a year earlier hadn’t come as a shock—the former senator had lived hard, partied harder, even into his seventh decade and nobody who knew him would be surprised that he’d collapsed by the bed just as after rolling in the sheets with one of his three mistresses. His wife, dead for nearly twenty years, had left a substantial family fortune to her two surviving family members—her husband, and her son, Miles.
His father had been a genius with money and after his death, aside from a few charitable bequests, Miles had inherited everything.
That had come as a shock.
Miles had been estranged from his father for most of his adult life and he didn’t regret not spending any time with the corrupt, cold-hearted bastard.
But that his father had left the estate to him? Yeah, he’d been surprised.
Most of the money was still sitting in the bank, collecting dust and interest but he could take the boy who’d become his protegee out for a nice meal and not expense it to his work account.
Just like he’d arranged for the funds—and the security—that had Isabel Steele, now known to the world as Bella Franklin, staying at this same hotel, private security backing up the US Marshals who’d been assigned to protect her while she was in town to testify against her father.
The marshals hadn’t liked hearing there was an outside team on the job.
It wasn’t...policy, but Miles didn’t give a shit. He’d informed both the marshals and his superiors he hadn’t liked that information about Isabel’s location and last alias had been leaked the last time she was in town, and the outside team wasn’t going anywhere.
Currently, Tina Winslow, the second-in-command of that private team, was on watch and had just updated him with the news there was no news. Isabel was in her room. Everything was quiet. Miles had texted the young woman with an invitation to join him in the lobby twice already, with the second barely fifteen minutes earlier.
So far, they’d both gone ignored.
He wasn’t ready to give up yet.
When his phone vibrated with a text notification a few minutes later, he ignored the text—it was a woman he’d met through a friend, asking him if he was interested in drinks. He’d liked her, thus the reason for ignoring any and all overtures. He fucked up every relationship he’d had and with his life in the shape it was now, it was only going to get worse. He did, however, take the time to send Isabel a third text—and a subtle warning.
Miles: I’m at the hotel. You might as well come down and talk to me or I’ll come up. You know I’m as stubborn as you are. I just want to see how you are doing.
Then he tucked the phone away and gave Travis an easy smile. “Sorry. Never off the clock in this job.”
The look Travis gave him told him he saw clear through the bullshit.
The bartender came by, a smile on her pretty face. Her wide brown eyes warmed as they landed on Travis, lingered in appreciation which he completely ignored.
“Another round for you gentlemen?” she asked, her voice husky.
Before Travis could answer, Miles said, “Yes, please.”
Travis breathed out a heavy sigh and rubbed his neck as she moved away to start on the order. “You know, I had maybe four hours of sleep the night before last—and that was after crossing several time zones. I had to get up for a debriefing at the crack of dawn yesterday, spent most of the day closed up in offices the size of a postage stamp wearing a fucking suit and tie, crashed at a shitty hotel with an even shittier bed, got up and had to do it all over again. And in a suit and tie, no less.” He yanked at said tie in disgust and gave Miles an irritated look. “When you told me you were going to spring me and give me a bit of a break, I didn’t think I was going to have to spend a few more hours in this miserable suit, at a bar eating peanuts while you keep staring past my shoulder at the elevator.”
Miles went to speak, but Travis wasn’t done. Leaning in closer, he said in a low voice, “Who the fuck are we waiting on and why the fuck is there security crawling all over the place?”
His phone buzzed with another alert, but under the sharp attention of his protégé, he didn’t dare check the screen. Instead, he studied Travis with narrowed eyes.
Travis rolled his. “You think I didn’t notice? Five guys—okay, to be correct, four guys, one woman. She’s probably private, knows how to blend better. The guy with her, also private. The other three are feds. I’m sure I’m missing somebody since nobody is going to put that much security in one area.”
“Three more on the ground floor,” Miles said. “And a couple more ... elsewhere. You’re getting better. You were already good.”
“I’m also not distracted. Who the fuck are we waiting on?”
Miles blew out a breath. “I should have known you’d realize something was going on.”
“Yeah, now why don’t ... ” He lapsed into silence as the blonde bartender approached a warm smile on her face and two drinks in hand.
As she set them down, Miles checked his phone, saw the text from Tina. It was via his regular texting app, but coded, in a manner of speaking, so you’d have to be aware of the situation to understand.
It simply read, incoming.
He took a breath and glanced up just in time to see the bartender place a napkin in front of Travis with exaggerated care. Her lips curved in a smile as she gave the napkin a tap it with a red-slicked fingernail. “Let me know when you need anything else.”
Travis didn’t even look at the phone number and he barely waited until she was out of earshot before spinning back to Miles. “Talk.”
Miles glanced at him, then past him. His jaw went tight.
That had Travis glancing in the mirror behind the bar. His eyes bounced off the person approaching as he resumed his quick assessment, looking for a potential threat.
Travis muttered an irritated curse even as he went to do the same, turning. The breath he’d just taken exploded out of him in a harsh burst, quickly followed by, “Isabel.”
Isabel hadn’t had the luxury of friends in her life. Even growing up, she’d been relatively isolated, although her mother, ever the perfect wife for the powerful, suave district attorney Wilson Steele, had made sure her three daughters had the upbringing one would expect from a rich, affluent family.
Isabel had been enrolled in ballet and piano lessons and the girls from both had invited her to parties, just as her mother had taken care to reciprocate—birthdays, Christmas get-togethers, Fourth of July.
Isabel was nine when she stopped sharing invitations, ten when she’d told her mother she didn’t want any more birthday parties. When her mother had asked why, Isabel had, naively, told her mother.
One of the girls said her father thinks Daddy is a criminal. Is he?
Her mother had slapped her. Evelyn Steele had immediately apologized and pulled her close to hug her. As the years passed and Isabel matured, she understood the emotion behind her mother’s violent response.
Fear.
Her mother had known exactly who her father was and she’d feared him.
While she’d not immediately understood why her mother had slapped her, she had understood on an instinctual level. After extricating herself from her mother’s arms, with her cheek still burning, she’d reiterated what she’d said, I don’t want any more birthday parties, Mom. I won’t go to any when I’m invited. And you shouldn’t throw any more for the twins.
Isabel hadn’t even understood why she’d felt that way, but on a level deep inside, she’d understood the need to protect herself, and her sisters. The only way she could do so from such a young age had been to keep them isolated from those who might hurt them.
She’d let her guard down only once. It had destroyed her, breaking her heart into such tiny pieces that she’d never been able to find them all.
