The Warning Sign Page 16

  “But aren’t there safeguards against this sort of thing?”

  “There are, but Valenti has bypassed them all. Easy to leave the latch open when you’re the gatekeeper,” Ryan said. “What we’re looking at is the program to build the program and it’s hidden in tiny segments throughout the system. You see this.”

  Sara looked where he was pointing, but none of it made any sense to her mind.

  “I can’t be certain,” Ryan said. “I’ll need to study it more, but it seems this back door is a way to switch outcomes right at the point of the actual vote.”

  “So I may touch the screen to vote for A and the machine records B?”

  “Exactly. A vote less in this precinct, a few more in another, all randomly timed, so if there was an electronic audit it wouldn’t pick up a thing.” Ryan shook his head. “If they’re fixing the election, it’ll be so subtle no one will suspect a thing.”

  “But exit polls—”

  “Are notoriously inaccurate,” he finished for her.“Remember when Obama was supposed to win the New Hampshire primary by nearly double digits and Hillary Clinton walked away with 3 points to spare? Besides, the press loves upsets.”

  “Yeah, but they’ll be getting this one exactly backwards,” Sara said. “What are we going to do now?”

  Ryan moved the laptop to the coffee table. Then he slid his hand up from her knee to caress the length of her thigh. “I could have been imagining it, but I think I remember someone saying something about ‘more sex?’”

  ~

  Sara woke in semi-darkness to find Lulu licking her ear. As soon as her mistress’s eyes popped open, the little dog did her alert dance. Ryan sprawled beside her on the queen-sized bed, on his stomach this time. He’d kicked the sheets off in his sleep and even in the dimness Sara made out the long indentation of his spine, his tight buttocks and heavily muscled thighs. Sara rolled to her side to enjoy an unhurried look at him.

  Lulu circled again.

  Sara glanced at the alarm clock they had agreed not to set. It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning. Poor little Lulu was probably about to pop.

  Sara eased out of bed trying not to disturb Ryan and dressed in the darkened room, glad they’d thought to pull the blinds last night. He’d worked so hard on Valenti’s computer in the wee hours of the morning, he deserved his rest.

  Of course, he hadn’t been in all that big a hurry to get to that rest. Their lovemaking washed over Sara like a warm rain.

  He’d said the words.

  Not in the heat of the moment when anything might slip from a man’s mouth, but later, when their two heads shared one pillow.

  “I love you, Sara.”

  She’d read the words plainly on his lips and seen them shining in his soul through the windows of his eyes.

  Ryan loved her.

  Tenderness made her chest ache. She’d forgotten what this sort of happiness felt like. Perhaps she’d never really known.

  Lulu did another doughnut and pawed the air like a miniature stallion, bringing her paws down on something that clicked beneath her little claws.

  Sara knelt to find the new cell phone Matthew had given her on the floor. She’d set it on vibrate last night and it must have jiggled its way off the bedside table to land on her pile of discarded clothing.

  Even though she was irritated by the intrusion, she gave Lulu a ‘good dog’ pat on the head.

  Sara inserted her hearing aids. Then she flipped the phone open and padded into the living room to retrieve Lulu’s leash while she read the incoming text message. It could only be from Matthew since no one else had the number.

  MUST C U. WAITING IN LOBBY. COME ALONE.

  Sara sighed.

  How like Matthew. Heavy-handed and demanding.

  She didn’t need this now. He’d know she hadn’t slept alone last night. Not that she wanted to rub his face in it. She hoped she was a bigger person than that, but her deep contentment must be radiating from every pore.

  She pulled on her Reeboks and headed out of Ryan’s condo, careful to lock the door behind her. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, Matthew was sitting on one of the leather couches, leaning forward, his elbows balanced on his knees, studying the carpet between his shoes. He looked up at her.

  And no little squeeze compressed her heart. Nothing whirled in her gut. His mere presence no longer had the power to heal or hurt her. Finally, she was done.

  She was over Matt Kelley.

  And crazy, head over heels, take-me-again-please in love with Ryan Knight.

  “Good morning, Matthew,” she said. “Sorry I couldn’t come alone. Lulu needs a walk.”

  She didn’t even slow her pace as she headed for the door with a smile and a nod to the concierge. The staff already knew her by name.

  It was going to be lovely living here. Ryan wanted her to stay. Why shouldn’t she? Her parents would object to what they called “shacking up,” but she was big girl. She could make her own choices.

  And besides, something told her Ryan was the marrying kind.

  Matt fell into step with her as she headed toward the footpath that skirted the Mystic River.

  “Sara, I need to talk to you.”

  Those words used to set her belly twisting, but she refused to let them dampen her mood today.

  “I figured.” She hadn’t decided if she was going to tell him about Anthony Valenti’s laptop or if she and Ryan should take it to the Federal Building and hand it over to the FBI. If he could be civil about things, it might be nice to let Matthew take a little credit.

  “I’ve been doing some investigating into your new friend,” he said, his lip curling with dislike. “How much do you know about Ryan Knight?”

  “We’re not going there.” She turned from him and walked away, dragging Lulu away from her investigation of a light pole. It was a very ‘deaf’ thing for her to do. A quick easy way to say this conversation is over. If she couldn’t see his lips, she didn’t have to listen to him. And he had nothing to say about Ryan that she wanted to hear.

  Matthew wouldn’t let her get away with it. He caught her arm and made her face him.

  “Why are you bothering me instead of doing real police work?” she demanded.

  “I don’t want to see you hurt, Sara.”

  “That’s a laugh. Please don’t touch me again.” She pulled her arm away and started walking again, but he kept pace with her.

  “Did he tell you that Knight is not his real name?”

  Sara stopped in mid-stride.

  “It’s actually Garibaldi.” Matt took out his little notepad where he kept the salient points of his investigations and flipped to the right page. “Ryan Luciano Garibaldi. I know with that blond hair and those blue eyes, you don’t think Sicily when you look at him, but I guess his mother was English with a little Scandinavian thrown in.”

  “That’s not important.” Sara strode away. Matt was determined not to let her be happy. What did it matter what Ryan called himself? He was still her Ryan.

  A rose by any other name…

  Matthew trotted to catch up with her and signed awkwardly. ‘Let’s sit.’

  He so seldom used the small bit of ASL he knew, Sara was stunned into compliance. She sank onto a cast iron park bench, one leg of which Lulu obligingly marked.

  “Ryan Knight is the nephew and heir-apparent of one of the biggest crime bosses on the East Coast,” Matthew said. “Nicholas Garibaldi. Smart, tough and up to his slimy armpits in racketeering, drugs and murders-for-hire.”

  Uncle Nick. A tickle of apprehension danced along her spine.

  “Now, I don’t know why he uses his mother’s name. Probably trying to be the front man—the legal wing of the family business that gives the illegal side a good face,” Matthew said. “But the fact that he didn’t tell you—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she finished stiffly. “Why are you trying to ruin everything?”

  “Sara, I have to ask you this. When did Ryan Knight first take
an interest in you? Was it before or after Valenti?”

  “I didn’t meet him before.” She explained how she first met Ryan in his clinical role and then later she bumped into him—quite literally—on the T.

  “And he didn’t make an effort to contact you until after the article about your involvement with the investigation came out in the paper?”

  She cast back in her mind to the day she landed on Ryan’s lap on the subway. He’d been so interested in her. That flirty rush of awareness hadn’t happened to her in such a long time.She’d been resistant at first, but he wore her down with charming insistence. It couldn’t have been an act.

  But it did happen on the same day that article came out in the paper.

  “Then he took you to Maine where you were nearly killed,” Matthew accused.

  “So was he,” Sara said.

  “The man has military training. I doubt his danger was as great as yours.”

  “You’re wrong.” The idyllic trip back on Ryan’s boat couldn’t have been part of some scheme. But without doubt, she’d been in Nicholas Garibaldi’s stronghold. That mansion on the Maine coast with its art and exquisite appointments had been paid for in misery and blood money. Still, that didn’t prove Ryan was involved. “Even for you, this is a stretch.”

  But as she said the words, doubt squeezed her heart.

  “What exactly does your uncle do?” Her conversation with Ryan in Nicholas Garibaldi’s sumptuous home played back in her head.

  “Uncle Nick has his finger in lots of pots. I guess you could call it distribution and security…

  Distribution and security. Is that what they were calling drug trafficking and protection rackets in mob circles these days?

  If Ryan wanted to be honest with her about his background, that would have been the perfect time.

  “There’s more,” Matthew said. “The FBI always monitors the phones of known bad actors. The agent in charge of this case told me Nicholas Garibaldi has been receiving an uptick in calls of late. Lots of them from a cell phone registered in Ryan Knight’s name.”

  “I call my family.” Sara lifted her chin, determined to defend him. “Don’t you call yours?”

  “Yeah, but it had been over half a year since Ryan Knight called his uncle. Now he’s lighting up the lines. And just when he’s managed to lure you into his condo where he can keep an eye on you.” Matthew flipped the notebook closed. “Look, Sara, I don’t want to be the one to have to tell you this, but better from me than a stranger. Lots of cons masquerade as a romance.” He swallowed hard before he continued. “Has he lured you into his bed yet?”

  “Get away from me.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You didn’t want me anymore, but you just can’t stand it that I might be happy with someone else.”

  Tiny lines of concern etched around his brown eyes, lines Sara had never noticed before.

  “Do I hate the thought of you being with him? Damn straight.” Matthew’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “But I know I’ve no right to complain. Besides, this isn’t about what’s happened between you and me. Believe me, I wish with all my heart that was all there was to this. The truth is I’m scared to death for you.”

  Shimmering in the depths of his eyes was the Matt Kelley she used to trust. Whatever the truth might be, he believed what he was telling her.

  Sara stood, shaking with anger. At Matt. At Ryan.

  At herself.

  Chapter 26

  When Sara opened the condo door, Ryan was standing in the living room wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His blond hair stood out in dark, wet spikes and droplets of water trembled on his broad shoulders.

  “Hey! Where’ve you been?” His brows tented in concern. “I was showering and it seemed like a waste of water to me when we could so easily shower together. I was coming to surprise you.”

  She’d been surprised all right, but not by him. Matthew had managed to stand her world on its head yet again. “Lulu needed to go out.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me? I’d take her out,” he said. “Or at the very least, go with you.”

  “So you can keep an eye on me?”

  “Well, yeah. Someone needs to.” He strode over and bent to kiss her. She turned her head at the last moment so his lips bussed her cheek. He straightened with a frown and then he looked around by their feet. “Where is Lulu?”

  “Matthew has her. He was waiting for me in the lobby this morning.”

  Matthew was still waiting. He’d done everything but threaten to handcuff her to keep her from returning to Ryan’s condo, but Sara was adamant. She wanted to hear Ryan’s side of the story.

  If he had a side.

  “Figures,” Ryan said with a snort.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t blame him. I’d do the same if I were in his shoes.” His hands found her waist and pulled her close. Against her better judgment, she let him. His body was warm and hard against hers. “Matthew’s not giving you up without a fight.”

  “I’m not his to give up.”

  “I know, you’re mine.” He drew her into a wet hug. “I’m not finished with the shower yet. Wanna join me?”

  “And who would I be joining?”

  He raised a quizzical brow at her.

  “Would I be showering with Ryan Knight?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice. “Or Ryan Garibaldi?”

  Something slid down behind Ryan’s eyes and he released her. His expression turned wary and she had the sickening feeling she was seeing him for the first time. And he wasn’t what she’d thought.

  She was suddenly glad that Matthew had warned her if she wasn’t back in fifteen minutes, he was coming up to get her, concierge or no.

  “So the detective knows his business,” he said.

  She nodded. “And now, thanks to him, I know yours.”

  “What is it you think you know?”

  “That you’re next line to lead a major crime family. That you are in close contact with your Uncle Nick. That—” She stopped short of accusing him of seducing her solely so he could keep tabs on a murder witness who might harm his family. Matt had no proof the Garibaldi family was involved with the Valenti killing.

  Just a hunch.

  Unfortunately, Matthew’s hunches had a habit of turning out to be right. She forced herself to maintain eye contact with Ryan when she wanted more than anything to just run away.

  “So that’s it.” His face was carved stone. “No trial. No defense. I’m guilty as charged.”

  “If you aren’t, why did you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t lie,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I may have been born Ryan Garibaldi, but I had my name changed to Ryan Knight as soon as I hit legal age. For pretty obvious reasons, I decided to take my mother’s family name.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about your family?”

  “I did. I told you my parents divorced. My dad is dead and my grandmother’s deaf.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, determined to stand her ground. “Why didn’t you tell me the rest?”

  “Tell you what? That, oh by the way, I have an uncle who’s been indicted on several RICO charges but never convicted. All right, I admit it. My Uncle Nicky is a crook. Ok? Are you happy now?”

  “No. Not even a little.” She shook her head. This was all some horrible dream. Any moment she’d wake and find herself back in bed with him, tangled together in the sweat-dampened sheets, safe and loved in his arms.

  Ryan took both of her hands and brought them to his lips. “Sara, please try to understand.”

  She pulled her hands away. “We were at his house, for pity’s sake. I asked you, Ryan. I asked you what your uncle did for a living and you lied to me.” A fist tightened in her chest. “If you’re not involved, why didn’t you tell me the truth right then?”

  A muscle ticked along his jaw. “You think I’m one of Nicholas Garibaldi’s soldiers.”

  “Matthew thinks you�
�re much more than that,” she said. “He says you’re the front man, the legal face of the Garibaldi crime family.”

  Ryan’s fists balled at his sides. Then he looked down at her from beneath hooded eyelids. “What do you think?”

  “I…don’t know.” She wanted with all her heart to believe him innocent, but why had he lied when she asked him point blank? Suddenly the bloody scene in the old Godfather movie where the guy wakes up in bed with the severed horse head flashed through her mind. Vicious. Brutal. The reality of organized crime was probably even worse.

  It was a world she didn’t want any part of.

  “So what happens now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know that either.” She shook her head, her mind made up. “I’m going home.”

  “Sara, I can’t protect you there.”

  “I’m not sure you are trying to protect me,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” No, no matter what Matthew said, she couldn’t have misjudged Ryan that badly. She would not believe Ryan capable of harming her. But then she’d never have guessed Matthew would cheat on her either. She really didn’t have much luck with men.

  Her right temple was beginning to pound. She put a hand to her head to massage the indentation as she started gathering up her things.

  Ryan followed her wordlessly.

  ‘Is Matthew going to stay with you?’ he signed as she took her clothes off the wooden hangers and stuffed them back into her suitcase without stopping to fold them.

  “No.” That was the last thing she needed.

  “Maybe he should.” He caught her by the shoulders and held her fast, forcing her to look at him. “Sara, I know you’re upset with me, but this is a foolish time to take chances.”

  “The biggest chance I took was trusting you.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but then his head jerked back toward the door. Someone must be pounding on it to grab his attention so quickly. If Lulu were with her now, Sara suspected she’d be doing her little alert dance. Perhaps she was, on the far side of the portal.

  “That’ll be Matthew.” She let her gaze travel down Ryan’s bare torso to the towel still cinched at his waist. “You might want to put a few more clothes on before you let him in.”