Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Present Day
Palm Springs, California
Mission Day Three
Mick felt sick.
He let Emily disappear into the crowd on the sidewalk before he slowly followed her back to the hotel.
He’d be there in the lobby, as she’d requested, so she could give him his room key, and he’d try at least once more to convince her to take his car.
But really, why would she?
He was a liar—for all she knew, he’d never really had car trouble. For all she knew, he’d rigged his car to break down while she was driving it, so he could... what?
Trap her, kidnap her, kill her?
Tell her she’d just inherited twenty million dollars.
In the chaos of his confession, he’d failed to tell her the thing he should’ve told her as soon as he’d found out: that his father had made her his heir.
Although she’d never believe he didn’t want a penny of her newfound fortune.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out—the caller ID came up as the Los Angeles Police and he sent it to voicemail.
Nope, he did not want to be pressured into donating to whatever they were calling about, but he saw from his list of missed calls that they’d tried to reach him more than once.
And in there was that call he’d gotten during dinner from a. ..
Wait.
619 was a San Diego area code and... that number was familiar.
Shit, it was the number for the Troubleshooters cowboy. Sam Starrett.
Calling this phone—not his burner.
Clearly Starrett and Cassidy had figured out his true identity. Might as well call them back and let them shout at him, too. Get it over with.
But first he listened to the message that the investigator had left...
“Hey, Milt or Mick or whatever the fuck you want us to call you.” The voice on the message was male with a hint of Texas.
Definitely Starrett. “We need to talk to you ASAP. It’s urgent.
Oh, yeah, since I’m calling you on Mick O’Rourke’s phone you might not have my number in your contacts.
This is Sam Starrett from Jules Cassidy’s Troubleshooters office here in LA.
You know, the team you hired to find Emily Johnson, even though you knew exactly who she was and where she lives? ”
Oh, shit, they knew that, too...? Damn, they were good.
“Yeah, we found out where she lives, too,” Starrett’s message continued. “We believe she’s in serious danger—”
What?
“—and maybe you already know that, but maybe you don’t.”
Christ, he had no idea. Danger...?
“I hope the fuck you don’t, because if you’re in league with the assholes who are trying to harm her, you will find your ass back in jail.
I also wanted to give you a heads up that the police have been trying to reach you because your home in Woodland Hills has been broken into—as has Emily’s in Van Nuys, except hers also got the shit shot out of it by a pack of assault-rifle-wielding idiots in a black SUV who we believe are targeting her. ”
What the fuck?
“So. If you know where she is, you damn well better do two things. You keep her safe, and you call me back. Now.”
What the fuck!
Someone was targeting Emily...?
Mick broke into a run. He had to catch up with her, but shit the sidewalk was crowded. He dodged people as best he could, bumping and jostling and getting shouted at, but he didn’t slow down.
Emily was in danger, and she didn’t have her phone with her. Although even if she did, he knew she wouldn’t answer his call. God, he’d screwed everything up.
His head was spinning, but his first reaction—kneejerk but warranted—was that it had to be Harper behind this. That motherfucker had been his father’s lawyer for as long as Mick could remember.
In fact, Harper had been at the meeting with Mick, his father, and that shitty defense attorney that Harper had recommended, in which all three adults solemnly advised him to take the plea deal.
After he’d discovered the truth, Mick had always suspected that it was Harper who’d come up with the plan for his most valuable client to frame his own teenaged son to avoid going to prison.
It was obvious in hindsight that Harper, at the very least, had endorsed it.
And if Mick was right, it tracked that Harper would’ve hired his own team to try to find Emily first.
But to shoot at her house, in hopes of hitting her—and, Jesus Christ, killing her?
Well, yeah, that actually made sense. Because who’d inherit his old man’s fortune if Emily was dead?
Mick would.
And who would remain executor of the estate if he then went to jail for, oh, say, Emily’s murder? Which Mick absolutely would, because who else would want Emily dead but his father’s ex-convict felon of a son?
He was about to get his sorry ass framed all over again, but the thing that panicked him the most was that Harper was literally gunning for Emily. Not only that but he’d somehow found out where they both lived. Somehow... oh shit. Not somehow. He knew how. God damn it.
Mick needed help.
So he hit return-call on that message from Sam Starrett even as he ran faster.
Studio City, California
Sam’s cell phone rang as Robin sat with him and Jules at Janey’s kitchen table, post barbeque feast complete with, yes, corn on the cob.
“It’s Mick,” Sam announced.
Since Jane and Cosmo had taken Billy upstairs for a bathtub de-buttering, Jules leaned forward to say, “Put him on speaker.”
As Robin watched, Sam obliged, answering with a curt, “Starrett,” then putting his phone down on the table, cranking up the speaker’s volume.
“It’s Mick,” a voice came gasping out of the phone. “O’Rourke. Milt. Devonshire. Junior.”
“I know who you are, Mick,” Sam shot back. “The question is where are you? And is Emily with you?”
“Palm Springs,” Mick responded. “And yes. Well, she was. But then she. Found out. Who I. Am and...”
“Are you running?” Jules leaned in to ask. “This is Jules Cassidy. We have you on speaker.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to catch up to her,” Mick panted. “Look, she doesn’t have her phone with her, but in case she makes it back to the room before I find her, I need you to call and leave a message. Tell her what Starrett told me—that you think she’s in danger.”
He gasped out the number, which Jules quickly wrote on a napkin and then dialed on his own phone, murmuring, “It’s the same number I got from her business card...”
Mick was still talking, “God damn it, where is she? I want to find her before she gets back to the hotel, because... oh, God, they know we’re here.”
“Who’s they?” Sam asked.
Meanwhile, Jules shook his head. “It went to voicemail,” he said, handing his phone to Sam, who seemed to know from just that bit of eye contact to take it and leave a message. The former SEAL stepped away from the table, speaking into the phone, his voice low.
“Harper,” Mick gasped. “And whoever he hired to do this. I don’t know for sure, but has to be.
I’m pretty sure someone put a GPS tracker on my car,” he continued, pushing the words out as he clearly kept running.
“There was a guy over by my car in the parking garage when I left the meeting with Harper on Wednesday, but see, after the meeting, I went back to my house and then I stopped at Em’s—I fricking led them there!
But the engine light went on, on my way back to the desert, so I dropped my car at a shop over near the airport, but I picked it up this afternoon and right now it’s parked in the hotel lot, so if someone really is gunning for her, they’ll be watching for her in the lobby, and she’s gonna walk right in—”
“Okay, slow down,” Jules said as Sam came back to the table and handed him back his phone. He nodded his thanks and checked his thread of text messages even as he continued, “Just take a beat, Mick. We can help you. And we will. We’ll contact the local police and—”
“Fuck no!” Mick was absolute. “You seriously trust the police? Because I sure as hell don’t.
I spent four years in prison for a crime that it should’ve been pretty fucking easy to prove that I didn’t do!
Someone got paid off to close their eyes.
Harper has connections everywhere and...
No! No way am I delivering myself—or Emily—into their hands.
If that’s your idea of help, forget it.”
“Okay,” Jules said soothingly. “All right. We hear you. We get it. You don’t want police, we won’t call the police.
Just... don’t hang up, okay, Mick?” He didn’t let Mick answer.
“Because Sam and I are at least two hours away from you,” he continued.
“More if there’s traffic and seeing that it’s Friday, I’m pretty sure there’s traffic.
Do you have a place, away from the hotel, where you can hide? ”
“No,” Mick said. “I’ll figure something out—but I’ve gotta find her first!”
Sam leaned in and raised his voice. “If you’re lying to us,” he said, “and she ends up dead, we will track you down.”
Jules looked at Sam. “I’m pretty sure he knows that,” he said mildly as Mick shot back, “I’m trying to keep her alive here! If I wanted her dead, I’d just walk away! I love her, for God’s sake! Oh, shit! There she is! Oh, my God, thank you, thank you! Look, I have to go—”
“Wait!” Jules said. “Mick—”
But Mick spoke over him. “I’ll call you back and... Em! Emily! ”
The connection was cut as Mick hung up on his end.
Sam took his phone back as Robin looked from Jules to Sam and back.
“Let’s get in the car, then call him back.
” Jules stood up. “Jenk and Lindsey are still sitting in traffic on the 5—Lopez is with them,” he reported.
“Deck and Dave are in Deck’s truck—they were trying the 15, but it’s just as backed up.
Last message from them said they were stopping for food in Murrieta.
Everyone’s at least an hour away if not more, and with this traffic. ..”
Sam nodded as he headed for the door. “I’ll check with Cos,” he said. “See what he’s got in terms of weaponry and ammo that we can borrow.”