Tariq had always been a physical man. A love and appreciation of women had always burned fierce and pure in his gut. But unlike his younger brother, he’d always been a one-woman man.
And for the last five years of his life, that one woman had been Julie. And her memory was still sharp.
An interest in someone else was not a transition Tariq was ready, or willing, to make.
Not only that...it could be dangerous.
Chapter 3
It was late, a blanket of snow hushing the night world outside, but inside her small room Bella was still buzzing from her experience at the restaurant as she opened her Skype contact list, clicked on Hurley’s icon, hit Video Call.
Hurley answered on the second ring, his affable features looming live onto her screen, his reddish-brown dreads framing his freckled face, the fishbowl effect of the webcam making him look even rounder than usual.
“Bella,” he said. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the past forty-eight hours. I have—”
“It’s him, Hurley,” she said quietly. “The man living in the abbey is Prince Tariq Al Arif. The palace lied about his death. MagMo failed to assassinate him.” She spoke in a whisper, a sense of urgency, secrecy taking hold of her.
“Are you certain? Are you ready to run something on the site?”
“I need proof before I break anything. If I send you some of the high-resolution images of his face, you think you and Scoob could try for a biometrics match?”
“Without a doubt. Scoob’s facial-recognition software is top-of-the-line security stuff, Bella. If it’s him, we’ll get a match. But—”
“Hang on.” Bella quickly began loading the digital images into a file. She hit Send, then glanced up registering for the first time a strange sheen of perspiration on Hurley’s face.
“Hurley? Is everything okay?”
“Your Watchdog page got another anonymous IM, Bella. Same sender.”
“What did it say?”
He rubbed his brow, inhaling deeply. “It was a digital image from an old newspaper. I’m sending it to you now.”
Bella clicked on the icon, accepting the file. It opened onto her laptop—an image of two men in black-tie attire, champagne glasses in hand. One of the men was Sam Etherington, taken when he was a lot younger. He had his arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired, stocky guy with receding hairline and a small goatee.”
“Who’s the guy with Etherington?” Bella said, peering closer.
“Benjamin Raber. The photo ran on the social page of a Chicago newspaper fifteen years ago.”
She glanced up, met Hurley’s eyes. “Raber? As in Johnson’s boss? The head of Strategic Alliances, the alleged front for STRIKE?”
“Same guy.”
“Did the tipster say anything about this photo?”
He swallowed, and worry wormed deeper into Bella.
“Hurley, what’s going on?”
“All the message said was ‘Blackmail is a powerful tool and Johnson was an instrument.’”
“What does that mean?” Bella asked, looking more closely at the two men in the photo, arm in arm. Friends. Celebrating. “That Etherington was blackmailing Raber? Forcing him to use STRIKE—and Johnson—to carry out assassinations?”
“Maybe it’s vice versa—Raber blackmailing Etherington.”
“Holy Christ,” she whispered. “Hurley, we have got to find whoever sent these tips. We need more information, we need proof. We—”
“Scoob already found her, Bella.”
“Her?” Bella whispered.
“She’s dead.”
Bella’s world spun. “What do you mean...dead?”
“This IM with the photo attached appeared on your Watchdog profile just over forty-eight hours ago. Scoob’s software trap caught it instantly, and his program started tracking back to her IP address even as she tried to burrow out ahead of the trap. But we got an ID.” He swallowed. “Her name was Althea Winston. She was Travis Johnson’s widow.”
Bella put her hand over her mouth.
“Althea was a computer expert, Bella. Her husband could have told her things no one else would have known. Her tipping us off could have been about revenge for her husband’s death, her way of seeking justice for him. But she must’ve been scared they’d come after her. And now, forty-eight hours after she sent that last IM, she’s dead.”
Bella’s heart began to thud against her rib cage. “How did she die?”
“It was all over the news this morning. Althea and her five-year-old daughter were killed in a freak car accident on the way to the kid’s school. Road was icy. They were sideswiped by a gray Dodge Ram 4500, no plates. Impact forced them through the bridge barrier and they went over, through ice, into the river. The truck fled the scene.”
Just like the “accident” that had sent Senator Sam Etherington’s ex-wife and twins over a bridge.
Looking ill, Hurley said, “Scoob figures someone started monitoring Althea’s electronic movements after you posted that photo linking Tariq Al Arif to Alexis Etherington. It must have sent up red flags, and they had to have fingered Johnson’s widow as a possible leak. Then when she contacted your page again with this, they had her red-handed.”
Bella sat back, horrified. She’d found an old newspaper photograph of the senator’s missing ex-wife, Dr. Alexis Etherington, with Dr. Tariq Al Arif at a medical convention in Chicago years ago. She’d posted it online with a story she’d written after Tariq’s family had announced his “death.” In the caption, she’d suggested there might be old links between the Etheringtons and the Al Arifs. Bella had hoped this hoped this might solicit information, and it had. Now this.
“Jesus, Hurley,” Bella whispered. “We killed her. My investigation. This is my fault.”
“Bella, even if her death is linked to this, it’s not your fault—Althea had to have known she was taking a risk by tipping you off in the first place. She had to have known they meant serious business after her husband was killed.”
“Who the hell is they, Hurley! STRIKE? Strategic Alliances? Raber? Sam Etherington’s people? Why on earth would Etherington want to kill an Al Arif prince, anyway? He’s the one promising an oil deal with their kingdom should he get into office. And how does MagMo fit in to all this?”
“We need to figure all that out before they find you.” Hurley’s features were tight. “This is why I’ve been trying to get a hold of you—since Scoob’s trap chased back to Althea Winston’s IP addy, someone’s been trying to use the same digital trail as a route back into our systems.”
Nausea washed through Bella’s stomach. “Did they get in?”
“Not yet. We’ve increased security parameters. But they’re circling like sharks, and they’re going to keep trying to find a way to penetrate our system.” Hurley paused, wiping the gleam from the top of his lip. “It’s best you contact us only when really necessary, Bella. You’ve still got that prepaid cell?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to get one, too. And I’m using a laptop that’s not connected to our servers to be safe. We’ll run these photos you’ve just sent through the biometrics software, then I’m going to shred them, so keep copies on your end. I’m not going to store anything this