Deadly Little Secrets Page 0,127

soulful connection. “Oh, Ana,” he murmured. She heard love and relief in his voice, and pain.

“Let’s get you checked out, Gates,” she said, helping him to rise.

From the scene to the hospital, to the police barracks, they didn’t let go of one another.

“We need to talk about this,” he said, leaning heavily on her as they got into Dav’s limo.

“Yeah,” she said, pressing a kiss to his face and easing in beside him. “We do.”

“Are you two going to neck or are you going to go explain all this to your colleagues?” Dav said with an indulgent smile.

The conference room at the White Plains police department looked like a roundtable for all the law enforcement branches in the US. Four CIA agents; two FBI, who’d joined in because they’d had eyes on D’Onofrio as Bates, but hadn’t figured out that he was also Santini; and the SWAT team and the troopers.

Evidently TJ was the only one who had put it all together.

Then there were the local police, augmented by the state troopers, the local SWAT commander and several other interested parties including the New York attorney general. Pretzky started off by detailing the department’s involvement, who she was, and what was going on.

“I’ll turn the floor over to Agent Burton, since she, of all of us, has the most complete picture of what’s been happening over the last few days.”

So Ana walked them through it, starting with Rome, although she didn’t describe any of the situation there; she merely used it as a point of reference to explain how she knew TJ.

“I transferred to the California division for a short sabbatical.” She nearly laughed at Pretzky’s smirk over her terminology. “And to make some decisions about my career.” She ignored the huge smile that crept over Gates’s face as she said that. She couldn’t imagine why he found it so amusing. “I was assigned a nine-year-old case of art fraud.” She outlined the same map that she, Gates, and Dav had created in the penthouse. “These clues tracked in parallel with the information my colleague, Agent Michaels, had provided me.”

She went on to detail how they had uncovered the information on the paintings, traced the calls through the complex program, and all the steps that had led to their being in New York. “Another shipper was involved, one in California we believe, but whether that individual knew, or was duped, we are still investigating.”

Pretzky had assured her that California police had headed out to pick up Drake Yountz and ascertain his involvement in the entire affair.

“And I believe I can fill in the final blanks.” Gates moved into the center of the room. “The woman who stole your gear and impersonated your team member is a paid assassin. My family was murdered fourteen years ago. This woman was hired to kill them. She didn’t finish the job, leaving my sister and me alive. Since I served in the US Armed Forces, she was unable to get to me until I went to work in the private sector. My sister married and lives on a military base in Germany. Another difficult target.”

He leaned on the wall, never letting on that he was tiring. “My current position has kept me travelling all over the world, and the authorities believe this particular assassin is either unwilling or unable to operate outside of the United States. We know that two shootings in San Francisco can be attributed to her. I believe she followed us to New York, but was stymied by the Waldorf security. They are used to high-profile clients, and the ways in which people try to sneak into their hotel to bother the rich and famous.” He studiously didn’t look at Dav, but the smile playing around his lips and his ironic tone said he was thinking about his boss.

“We’ll be looking into that for you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll backtrack and make sure we’ve helped you clean that up.” The Bureau official gave him a look, and Ana saw him touch two fingers to his brow in salute.

Gates returned it. “Thank you, sir. This sniper managed a hit in San Francisco. However, her infrequent attempts, going back a number of years, had all of the teams believing that the attempts were connected either to my colleague, Mr. Gianikopolis, or to this most recent development in the art fraud matter.” He took a bracing breath and pushed off the wall. “We think now that she was watching me in New York and when