Hot in Handcuffs Page 8

  “U,” Jon said, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen off Celeste’s desk. “What’s next?”

  “One hundred twenty-one is a bit trickier. But since the first word doesn’t have twenty-one letters, we’re safe to assume he meant twelfth word, first letter.”

  “S.”

  “Exactly. Next is seventy-two.”

  “E.” Jon frowned. “Use? He wants you to use something?”

  “That’s the end of the word. See how he ended the line and continued his cipher directly below? That’s his indication of another word.”

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  A half hour and two plates of piping hot lasagna later, they sat back, staring at Jon’s scribbles on the pad, and he read them again to make certain he hadn’t misunderstood. “Use key to open space twenty-eight at Newark Storage Solutions. Give to FBI.”

  Jon pulled the key from his pocket. “This must open the lock at the storage facility.”

  Lucia nodded. “Agreed. But who else knows about this storage facility and has simply been waiting for the person with the key to open it?”

  Good question. “Likely the person with the most to lose. The person who killed your father—Pietro. We can’t prove that…”

  “Yet. Hopefully with this”—she palmed the key—“we will. I just wonder what we’ll find.”

  Jon wiped a bit of sauce off the corner of her mouth, then kissed her. “Let’s find out.”

  * * *

  THE TRIP TO Newark Storage Solutions took barely three minutes by taxi, long enough for Jon to text an FYI to his boss and a fellow agent in the area, so they would stand by for backup—just in case. The sun shone down brightly in the cloudless sky. It was a perfect day…and yet as the driver dropped them off, Jon didn’t like it. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He was watching carefully and hadn’t spotted anyone following them. That didn’t mean someone wasn’t lying in wait.

  “Please let me put you back in the taxi, Doc. I’ll handle it from here.”

  Resolutely, she shook her head. “My father wanted me to find this. There might be another puzzle to solve. That would be his style.”

  Swallowing a curse, Jon relented. He couldn’t refute her. Yeah, he could get the Bureau involved, but there would be delays and red tape, and he didn’t have time for that.

  With a wave, he sent the cab driver off.

  The moment Lucia spoke with the facility owner, who opened the gate to admit them, Jon wrapped a protective arm around her waist and walked with her down the narrow paths past one corrugated orange door after another, peering at the black numbers above. For her sake, he hoped this was the end of the trail and that this gave her the peace she sought. If it at all helped with Stef’s case, it would be a huge bonus. Time was running out for his brother, and if this lead proved fruitless, he was going to have to start from scratch. But he wasn’t giving up.

  Nor was he ready to let Lucia go. He had no notion whether this had been just a pleasant interlude for her, a way to fulfill a fantasy. Did she intend to simply go back to her fancy private school in the fall and resume her life without him? They’d both carefully avoided discussing the future, focusing instead on solving the riddle her father had left behind. But now that the end was seemingly in sight, Jon couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow. The picture without Lucia in it wasn’t one he wanted to contemplate. Could she live with his job, the danger, the separation, the adrenaline?

  “Here it is.” Her voice shook, and she drew in a huge breath.

  “I’ll unlock it for you.”

  “No. He wanted me to do this, and I won’t let him down.”

  Jon knew exactly why Nicholas DiStefano had been proud of his daughter. Smart, yes. That was a given. But her backbone impressed him. She could have hidden her head in the sand and decided that whatever her father wanted uncovered would be safer buried forever. But no. And she insisted on being the one to do it. No crying, no hand-wringing. Not that she wasn’t afraid, but she faced it head-on. He had to admire the hell out of that.

  Slowly, Lucia released a shuddering breath and tried to steady her hands as she fit the key into the padlock on door number twenty-eight. It popped open, and she pulled it free of the mooring. Jon bent to throw the door up. Sunlight shafted under the metal door as he revealed the insides one inch at a time.

  Concrete. Emptiness. Just an echo as they stepped in the ten-by-ten space that contained nothing except one little box in the corner.

  Lucia stared at it like a snake, transfixed but terrified. Jon understood. This meant potential danger. Whatever was in that box had been a secret her father had probably died for. But it also meant she had to face his death again and say another good-bye.

  She didn’t hesitate, just walked over to the metal box and bent. “There’s a combination.”

  And they were out of clues. Damn it. “Any ideas? Your birthday, maybe?”

  Immediately Lucia shook her head. “He didn’t like being obvious. He wouldn’t pick birthdays or addresses…”

  “May I?” He held out his hands for the box.

  Without a word, she handed it over. He inspected the top, blowing off the thick layer of dust, glancing at the sides. When he rubbed his fingertips along the bottom, the disturbance of the smooth surface made him frown. He lifted up the box and peered at the bottom, hearing something metallic rattle around inside. The investigator in him knew they could call in a team and just pry the son of a bitch open. But he was technically off the clock, and this was Lucia’s gig until he knew he had something worthy of calling in his boss and a whole team. For all they knew, this box contained nothing more than family mementoes or had already been raided. It didn’t look like it…but until he knew it hadn’t been disturbed, he had to play along.

  The appearance of three letters carved into the gray metal surface along the bottom of the box made him frown. “LRD.”

  “My initials. Oh, he used to do this when I was little. It’s a Caesar Cipher. It’s also called a Caesar Shift Decoder. It lets you decode text by shifting each letter a certain number of ‘steps’ along the alphabet. Since he didn’t specify, I’ll assume he used one. So that would mean that A becomes B, B becomes C, etc.”

  Jon had heard of this cipher. “So L becomes M, R becomes S, and D becomes E. This is a numeric padlock, though.”

  “The letters probably represent the number of that symbol in the alphabet. M is the thirteenth letter.”

  “So the combination is thirteen, nineteen, five?”

  She didn’t look convinced. “That’s my best guess. Just knowing what I knew of my father.”

  He handed the box back to her. “Want to do the honors?”

  Lucia’s face turned pensive and reluctant, but she nodded and she reached for the metal square. “Yes.”

  Moments later, she had the lock in hand and had dialed out the combination they’d puzzled their way into. To his shock, it popped open on the first try.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed. “It worked.”

  Jon brought her against his chest. “You knew your father better than you thought. He’d be really proud of you today.”

  She smiled up at him, and wasn’t that the prettiest sight he’d ever seen, her chocolate eyes swimming with proud, poignant tears, her mouth still swollen from his kisses.

  “Open it,” he urged. “You’ve earned it.”

  Prying off the little lock and handing it to him, she lifted the lid—and gasped. Jon peered inside. There sat a platinum filigree engagement ring that looked very old, the ornate detail ringing a carat and a half of lovely round diamond. Beside it rested a locket in a warm yellow gold with two emeralds encrusted on the front, topped with a little diamond and a few etchings to mimic the shape of a flower. It was suspended on a short chain decorated with shimmering crystals and onyx beads.

  “I’ve been searching for my grandmother’s engagement ring and my great-grandmother’s locket since Papa’s death.” But it was the iPod beside those two items that she re
ached for first.

  Scooping it up, she pressed the button to turn it on. Nothing. Not that Jon had expected anything. He went digging in his pockets. “It’s been sitting dormant for a few years, Doc. The battery’s dead.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, clearly nervous. “I should have realized that. I’m just—”

  “There’s a lot going on. Here.” He handed her the little portable charging device he carried around for his iPhone.

  Her eyes lit on it, and relief crossed her face as she clipped the little charger onto the device. He was glad to make her smile, but…

  “We shouldn’t investigate the iPod here. Let’s take it back to our room.” In fact, Jon was certain that his boss would be very interested in this development. But he wanted to be in a safe place to look at the contents first.

  “I’ve waited years already. I’ve solved the riddles he left for me. I have to hear what he wanted me to know.”

  Jon hesitated. Her plea was passionate and emotional. But that impending sense of danger rolled over him again. Whatever was on that iPod may have gotten Nicholas killed. He’d hidden it this thoroughly for a reason. He’d told her to give it to the FBI. Besides, standing out here in the open, they were awfully vulnerable. Other than a single security gate, intended to keep cars more than people out, the area was totally accessible to anyone.

  “Lucia, we’re not safe here. Let’s get secure—”

  “Two minutes. Please. If we haven’t seen anything interesting yet, I’ll shut it off. We’ll be fine. If Pietro had any idea where my father had hidden this, he would have already come and taken it. And I don’t think we were followed.”

  “We don’t know that for sure, Lucia.”

  “You’re being paranoid.”

  He raised a brow at her. “Better paranoid than dead.”

  She stood, watching him, measuring his words. That look on her face told him that she was going to argue.

  Jon had had enough. He’d stepped back and let her solve the riddle her way. Now they were entering his territory. As much as he’d like to grant her wish, he couldn’t afford to be soft with her when it came to safety. “Whatever is running through that pretty head of yours, Doc, don’t say it. I picked you up and carried you out of a situation once. You can be damn sure that I don’t have a problem doing it again.”

  LUCIA CLUTCHED THE iPod in her hand. She didn’t doubt Jon meant that. Nor did she discount the fact there could be danger. But there was danger in waiting, too. Every moment they didn’t know what her father wanted to say was another moment the truth remained in the dark.

  “Two minutes,” she insisted, then pressed a few buttons.

  Jon opened his mouth to argue—but closed it when he saw her father’s face come into view on the little screen.

  Lucia clapped her hand to her mouth to hold in a cry. It was footage from a security camera in his office in the back of one of his dry-cleaning facilities, date stamped about a month before his death. She held her breath, even as grief pressed down on her while she watched images of her father shuffle a few papers.

  Then Pietro walked into the scene and shut the door behind him. “We need to talk about Casale.”

  Her father didn’t lift his head, didn’t reply.

  “You listening to me?” Pietro demanded.

  “I heard you.”

  “Fucking do something!” Her uncle pounded his fist on the table. “The asshole is getting out of hand, making more demands. He’s not denying the warrants and wiretaps like we’re paying him for.”

  “He can’t look too obvious. He’s done his best to minimize the shit. We’ve had this conversation. It’s over.”

  “The hell it is! You’re getting soft. This whole fucking organization is going to come down around our heads, and you’re still going to be telling me to stay patient.”

  Her father finally lifted his head and speared his younger brother with a glare that promised the fires of hell. “It’s not going to fall down around us. I know exactly what I’m doing. You remove Casale, and we’ve got no advocate behind a federal bench. All those dirty damn cops you’ve got stashed all over Jersey will only get you so far. Leave it alone.” He got to his feet. “I’ve got a meeting, so get the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah? With who?”

  “None of your business.” Her father streaked a hand through his dark hair, sprinkled now with gray. “Lock up on your way out.”

  He exited the scene, the door slamming behind him. Pietro cursed, then began pacing. Up one side of the office, then back down the other. Finally, he yanked his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. “Yeah, it’s me. We gotta act. Casale’s got to go.” Pause. “No. I’ve got a plan. On the first of every month, Stefan Bocelli visits the good judge’s house to pay him off. Next time he does, be waiting. As soon as Bocelli is gone, finish the judge. We’ll plant the gun on Nicholas’s lapdog later. Double-tap him to the head, just like Bocelli would. His prints are likely all over the house. You phone in an anonymous tip, say you’re a passing neighbor.” Pietro laughed. “Bingo. No one will be sorry to see Stefan go down the river.”

  Lucia reared back and looked at Jon’s face. She’d read the accounts of Judge Casale’s murder, enough to know that it had been an open-and-shut case against his brother, based purely on circumstantial evidence. “That might be enough to free your brother.”

  He blinked once, twice, gripping the iPod so tightly, his knuckles turned white. “Maybe. I hope so.”

  “What?” Pietro barked into the phone on the video. “Yeah. It’s time to get big brother out of the way, and I know exactly how. This organization needs to run right for a fucking change. I’ll take care of it. Keep your fucking mouth shut. Later.”

  Pietro flipped the phone shut, and the iPod’s screen went momentarily dark before flashing to the menu.

  Lucia tried to suck in all the information, and it rolled around in her brain over and over in the heavy silence. “I knew he had something to do with my father’s murder. The police never tried very hard to solve it. They saw my father as nothing more than a career criminal not worth their effort.”

  Jon wrapped an arm around her and brought her against the vital warmth of his hard chest. “This isn’t conclusive, but it might be enough to reopen his case and my brother’s.” He lifted his head and looked around. “We’ll make some phone calls as soon as we get back to our hotel room. Let’s go.”

  Quickly, Jon sent a short text before he took the iPod and shoved it into his pocket. He was right—they should contact people who could help his brother and put Pietro away.

  “Are you sending for backup or something?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’d put them on alert when we arrived. Now I’m asking them to move in.”

  She looked at the jewelry her father had left for her in the metal box wistfully. “And these?”

  He lifted the familiar pieces and put them in her hand. “It goes against procedure, but they have no bearing on the case. Take them. It’s our secret.”

  Even after finding such a huge bombshell, Jon found a way to make her smile. After donning the jewelry, she lifted the metal box. “Should I leave this here?”

  A long moment later, he nodded. “We need to stay light, be ready to run.”

  In truth, she didn’t see how danger could find them now, but she supposed anything was possible. She put the box down. “You didn’t exactly abduct me in the right shoes for that.”

  He peered down at her platforms and grinned. “But they’re sexy as hell.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t mean that only for the compliment, but for all his tenderness, his help, his general goodness.

  “No words necessary,” he murmured, then planted a quick, soft kiss on her lips.

  It was over too soon, and as they left the storage facility, Lucia wondered, after all this was over, what came next for her and Jon? She loved him, but he couldn’t possibly be ready to hear that. After all, he’d walked away from her once before. So where di
d that leave them?

  They exited the unit. Jon tugged the metal door down, and Lucia locked it behind them.

  Side by side, they walked to the main gate of the storage facility in silence, Lucia waving at the owner through the office as he let them out with the press of a button. As soon as they cleared the front to wait for their taxi to return, a rustling behind them caught her attention.

  She whirled but Pietro grabbed her arm and dragged her back against the front of his body, planting a gun to her temple. She gasped and looked at Jon with big eyes, her heart pounding madly. He’d drawn his gun and pointed it at Pietro, but her uncle wasn’t tall, and there was almost no way Jon was going to get a shot off without hitting her. They all knew it.