“And no one would pay attention to a middle-aged woman.”
“Right.” The captain slid the folder across the t
able to Mike. “We don’t know what’s going on or why two major criminals are there, so we need someone to find out. Since you have a connection to the place, you’re the winner.”
“And here I’d never considered myself a lucky man.” When Mike opened the folder, he saw that the first page was from the Decatur, Illinois, police department. He looked at the captain questioningly.
“It’s all in there about how Stefan was found. An off-duty cop was on vacation in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife, and he saw Stefan and the girl in a dress shop. The cop found out where they lived. As for you, a guy you worked with a long time ago knew about Edilean and your sister.” When Mike frowned at that, the captain couldn’t help grinning. Mike’s secrecy—or “privacy” as he called it—could be maddening. Everybody in the fraud squad would go out for a few beers and afterward the captain would know whose wife had walked out, who was getting it on with a “badge bunny,” and who was having trouble with a case. But not Mike. He’d talk as much as the other guys as he told about his training sessions, his food, and even about his car. It seemed like he’d told a lot about himself, but the next day the captain would realize that he’d learned absolutely nothing personal about Mike.
When the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of Florida called and said they thought one of the most notorious criminals in the U.S. might be in Edilean, Virginia, and that Mike Newland’s sister lived there, the captain nearly choked on his coffee. He would have put money on it that Mike didn’t have a relative in the world. In fact, the captain wasn’t sure Mike had ever had a girlfriend outside a case. He never brought one to the squad functions, and as far as the captain knew, Mike had never invited anyone to his apartment—which changed every six months. But then, Mike was the best undercover cop they’d ever had. After every assignment, he’d had to hide until all of the people he’d exposed were in prison.
Mike closed the folder. “When do I go and what do I do?”
“We want you to save her.”
“Mitzi?” Mike asked in genuine horror. “So she can stand trial?”
“No, not her. The girl. Of course we want you to find Mitzi, but we also want you to save this Sara Shaw. Once the Vandlos get whatever it is they want from her, no one will ever see her again.” He paused. “Mike?”
Mike looked at the captain.
“If your sister really is there and if they find out about you . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Mike said. “Right now Tess is in Europe on her honeymoon. I’ll tell her to keep her new husband out of town until this is solved one way or the other.”
The captain opened another folder and withdrew an 8 x 10 glossy of a woman with dark hair and eyes. She was stunningly beautiful. She was standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change, and a slight wind had blown her clothes close to her body. She had a figure that made a man draw in his breath. “Does your sister really look like this?”
Mike barely glanced at the photo. “Only on her worst days.”
The captain blinked a few times. “Okay.” He put a picture of Sara Shaw on the table. The young woman had an oval face, light hair, and was wearing a white dress that made her look as sweet as Mike’s sister looked, well, tempting. “She’s not Vandlo’s usual type.”
Mike picked up the photo and studied it. He wasn’t about to tell the captain that he knew quite a bit about Sara Shaw. She was one of his sister’s two best friends, which said a lot, since Tess’s sharp tongue didn’t win over many people. But from their first meeting Sara had seen past Tess’s biting words and extraordinary looks to the person beneath.
“Do you know her?”
“Never met Miss Shaw, but I’ve heard some about her.” He put the picture down. “So no one has any idea what the Vandlos want in Edilean?”
“There’s been a lot of research both from a distance and locally, but everybody who tried drew a blank. Whatever it is, Miss Shaw seems to be at the center of it. Is she rich but no one knows about it? Is she about to inherit millions?”
“Not that I’ve heard. She just opened a shop with . . .” His sister kept him up-to-date on the gossip in Edilean but it wasn’t easy to remember it all. Now it seemed that every word she’d told him was of vital importance. “With her fiancé, Greg Anders. Tess hates the man, says he snubs everyone who isn’t buying something from him. But Tess does all of Sara’s accounting so she’s made sure Sara hasn’t been put into debt by him.”
“That sounds like a Vandlo.” The captain hesitated. “Your sister manages people’s finances?” His tone said that he couldn’t believe a woman who looked like Tess could also have a brain.
Mike had no intention of answering that. He well knew the captain’s curiosity about his private life and he wasn’t going to reveal anything. “So you want me to catch these criminals, but I’m also to get the lovely Miss Shaw away from Stefan Vandlo? Is my assignment to follow and watch? Or am I to do more than that?”
“You have to do whatever you must to keep her alive. We think Stefan will murder Sara the minute he gets what he wants from her—and what he seems to want most is marriage.”
“My hunch is that since the dresses in the shop are expensive, Sara must get into a lot of rich houses. Maybe the Vandlos want to see what’s in them.”
“That’s what we thought, too, but as her boyfriend, Vandlo already has access to the houses and no robberies have been reported. It’s bigger than that and no one has a clue what it is.” The captain tapped the folder. “After you read what’s in here, I think you’ll see that this scam of theirs is much more than just stealing a few necklaces. It’s got to be if both mother and son are there.” He lowered his voice. “We think Stefan divorced his wife of nineteen years just so his marriage to Miss Shaw will be legal—which means he’ll inherit whatever she owns after she dies in some so-called ‘accident.’” He looked at Mike expectantly. “You’re sure you have no idea what’s connected to Miss Shaw that’s so valuable that two of the most evil conners in the world have prepared so well for this?”
“None whatever,” Mike said honestly. “The McDowells are rich and Luke Adams lives there, but—”
“The author of the Thomas Canon books? I’ve read every one of them! Hey! Maybe you can get me an autographed copy.”
“Sure. I’ll be a tourist who’s lost his way.”
The captain became serious again. “Too distant. You’re going to have to use your connections to your sister, to the town, anything you can find, to get close enough to this girl to talk her out of marrying Stefan. We do not want it set up that he can inherit what is hers. And you have to do this right away because the wedding is in three weeks.”