“A doctor makes house calls out here? I remember a guy coming during the night. Can’t recall much else.”
Joe nodded. “Travis knew a local doctor he trusted. Had him come check you out. The guy said you belonged in a hospital, at least until your head cleared and you could get on your feet. We couldn’t run that risk, unfortunately. You need to stay still for a day or so-doctor’s orders.” Joe smiled, patted a pile of folded clothes, and glanced at Gerrit’s bare legs. “Travis left these for you. Might want to slip into these unless you’re set on giving the women a real thrill.”
Gerrit stood and reached for the pants. A gentle knock on the door made him lunge. He had one leg started when Alena came through the doorway. She took one look and tried to stifle a grin. “Joe, you guys have a chance to talk?”
He nodded. “We got to the point where Richard Kane’s name popped up.”
Gerrit finished putting on his pants, zipped up, and slipped on a black T-shirt with white lettering. Again, Alena smiled, glancing at the inscription. “Looks like Travis must have gotten that from a homicide school. My day starts when your day ends. Travis has a sense of humor.”
Gerrit glanced down at his chest. “My day would have ended if you and your friend hadn’t bailed me out. Never did thank you.”
Her face turned serious. “You are welcome.”
Joe pointed to a large sofa near the fireplace. “Alena, this is a good time for you to join the conversation.” He glanced at Gerrit. “Let’s get comfortable while we try to bring you up to speed.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stand a bit longer, try to get my sea legs back. Why don’t you guys have a seat and tell me what I’ve been missing for the last seven years.”
They sat down and Joe started in. “First, let me fill you in on some background. While I tried to sort out what happened in Seattle, Travis reached out to an FBI contact he worked with a few years ago here in Idaho, a guy named Beck Malloy. This agent is like a ghost-pops here, there, everywhere, and then disappears again. Back then I wondered if he really was with the FBI.”
“Is he?” Gerrit asked. “I really need to know about the people I’ll be depending on to stay alive. You’ve got this guy Travis, plus an Indian tribal police chief and his daughter. Man, it’s like some kind of family get-together around here. I don’t know any of these people. I’m supposed to be dead. I wanna keep it that way until I can fit these pieces together.”
“Funny you should use the term family, because that is exactly what we’ve become. One extended family. I trust Travis and his friends with my life. They’ve proven they’re trustworthy. You’re the last member of my physical family, Gerrit. I would never endanger you again.”
Gerrit frowned. “Again?”
Joe nodded, looking over at Alena for a moment. “After Malloy hooked me up with the U.S. Marshal’s office, I quickly realized that my life-as I knew it back then-was over. I needed to recreate myself if I was going stay alive- just like you will.”
“So you became Joseph Costello. Wanted to keep that Irish thing going?”
That drew a smile. “Not many people would know Costello is an Irish name. Once Irish, always Irish. No better calling, me ‘boy.”
They heard Travis and the others coming up the pathway. Alena pushed herself off the sofa and went outside. He heard her talking to the others. They began to walk away as Alena rejoined Joe and Gerrit. “They’re going down to the river for a while. Give you more time to catch up.”
Gerrit turned toward Joe. “So how did you endanger me?”
“Not intentional. You were off in Iraq. Ironically, I learned that you might have been safer over there. Then you came to Seattle and became a cop. That changed everything.”
“I came to Seattle to find my parents’ killer. And all the time you knew who that was? Too afraid to share it with me? Let me go for seven years without knowing why they lost their lives?” The anger in Gerrit’s voice made Joe flinch.
Alena walked over and placed her hand on Gerrit’s arm. “That is not really fair. Your uncle did not know the details for several years. He is trying to explain. Give him a chance.”
Her softly spoken words cooled his anger. “Sorry, Uncle Joe. Just tell me what happened.”
The older man took a deep breath. “Malloy and I started from the beginning-the incident in Chicago. While I was off getting my features altered, he used his resources to start to put together what happened on that day I left Argonne National Laboratory. He collected surveillance footage-before and after I left-and captured information on both vehicles seen in the vicinity on several occasions. They must have been tracking my movements. He hunted down vehicle registration, credit-card use, and traffic-cam footage. He even returned to the scene where I was threatened and collected more evidence. From that, we started putting names and companies together to piecemeal the events in Chicago and Seattle.”
“Kane’s name popped up?” Gerrit asked, impatiently.
“Not at first. Once Malloy knew what to look for at your parents’ crime scene, he latched on to the evidence- particularly the videotape and crime-scene log of everyone who arrived on the scene. Several names didn’t match up. He even used facial-recognition software I helped to develop to build these leads.”
Gerrit began to feel irritated again. It seemed like his uncle was drawing out this information way beyond necessary. “So where did it lead?”
“I’m getting there,” Joe said with a twinge of frustration. “You always were impatient.” He shifted on the sofa. “Malloy ran this information through the Department of Homeland Security’s new US-VISIT program and a yet-unreleased program the CIA is using for tracking and identifying terrorists.”
“Got a hit?”
“In a way,” Joe said. “He locked on to a couple of guys who used to work for the CIA and began to run this down when he got a cease-and-desist order from the attorney general’s office.”
“Since when does the AG’s office tell the FBI what to do?”
“Malloy did some checking and learned that a power broker-a consultant with the government and a former spook himself-put pressure on his contact to shut down Malloy’s investigation.”
“Richard Kane.”
“Bingo.” Joe rose and walked to a window near the front door. He peered outside, seeming to gather his thoughts for a moment. “Richard Kane became our focus-scratch that. Became my focus. Malloy, for the time being, had to back away from investigating this case. He has been giving us back-channel help ever since.”
“So when do I meet this Beck Malloy?”
“If you are lucky-never. I think there’s a target on Malloy’s back. Anyone who goes near him will be identified and tracked. We need to stay as far away from Malloy as we can get unless it’s an extreme emergency. If he needs to communicate, he’ll find a way.”
Gerrit was done waiting. “For the last time, how did you endanger me?”
“I thought if I remained out of the picture and kept you in the dark, Kane and his people would think you were not a danger to them. But you joined the police department and started kicking over rocks about your folk’s deaths. That triggered Kane’s interest. He started to build a surveillance net around you-Marilynn Summers and others-to keep tabs on where you went with this case.”
Gerrit’s throat tightened. “So Marilynn was a plant.” Thinking back on everything, this made sense, but it still hurt. “Why did they kill her…Marilynn?”
Joe clasped his hands together. “Because she must have failed in her mission. She was the bait Kane dangled out there to get you to help them. He does not tolerate failure.”
“How long have you been keeping tabs on me?”
Alena edged closer. “Like I told you in San Francisco, we’ve been watching you for years. Ever since you moved to Seattle.”
Joe looked away from the window. “Son, I’ve been watching over you from the very moment I started looking into this mess. One way or another, you have never been out of my sight.”
Gerrit gazed at Alena. “That just leaves you. How did you and my uncle connect?”
Alena and Joe exchanged a glance before Joe spoke up. “We’ll get into all that later. Right now, we need to figure out our next move.”
Gerrit sensed the two were hesitant to bring up the past. He’d leave that alone for now. But sometime soon
