Chapter 19
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"Is this going to take long?" he asked.
"Not any longer than it has to."
"I'll just . . . be over here."
If ever a human being was out of place, it was Michael Westen in a high end discount store. There was no way for him to be inconspicuous next to a wall display of purses. This wasn't an environment suited to his abilities to blend in.
It had been some time since Michael last allowed the full extent of his predatory nature to surface, but it was in force today and barely hiding under the surface. If he was trying to keep it tamped down, and he probably was, it wasn't working. At least he was wearing a pastel blue shirt today instead of the black polo, Fiona thought. That helped soften an edge or two.
They were in the same kind of store she'd visited with Dani Pearce several months ago, when she needed something more appropriate than a sundress, sandals and a loaner CIA jacket for a meeting with Michael's agency people. That shopping trip hadn't included him, and if the truth were to be told, she'd rather be making this trip without him, but that wasn't going to happen in light of events of the past 24 hours.
She didn't plan on browsing long, but she did want to repay Dani for her kindness, and having packed her clothing this morning, she now had a good idea of the type of things she would need while she recovered, especially since Jesse was determined he would keep her safe until she could take care of herself again.
Fi turned around and looked at the display of bras, checked for labels and sizes and debated a moment before selecting two strapless convertible types that should be comfortable while her surgical wounds healed. She was walking toward athletic wear when an silver gray set of lounging pants and a top caught her eye. Dani's tastes fell into classic and practical categories and colors. This would be perfect.
She glanced over her shoulder to see where Michael was, and found him behind her, standing near shelves of sandals, still intimidating the shopping public. She watched three women turn down the aisle, spot him and then turn and walk the opposite direction.
During the twenty minutes it took Fiona to gather the things she wanted, Michael's sentry presence near her had created the equivalent of a no-fly zone. As they waited together in the check-out line, the gray headed woman in front of her turned, looked at her, then up at Michael and whispered. "Is he with you?"
Fi nodded.
The woman turned forward only to look back over her shoulder at him and spoke to Fi again. "He doesn't like shopping, does he?"
"No," Fi said quietly. "He doesn't."'
"You should leave him at home the next time."
"I'll think about it."
Fi, amused by the woman's remark, glanced over her shoulder at Michael, who was not amused. He glanced toward the ceiling then excused himself to wait by the door next to an older man sitting on a bench.
By the time she checked out and they left the store, it appeared her brief shopping trip had the negative effect on his mood she fully expected it would. Humility, thy name is husband, she thought, as she handed him the keys to her car and opened the passenger side door. "What did that man say to you?"
"He said we must be newlyweds."
"That was it?"
"Yup."
"Mmm. Looked like it was a longer conversation," Fi said.
As she watched him, she knew any common sensible person would take one look at him and go the opposite direction, so she allowed his negative mood for the moment. She'd said nothing during the meeting in Jesse's office or during the drive to the shopping area she wanted to visit. Before they left, he said he understood her desire to return the kindness Pearce had shown her, but she knew it kept him from what he wanted to do: hunt for Anson.
Fi saw the measured glance Sam had given him in Jesse's office, and she had also caught the warning look Sam sent her way.
Since Michael had returned to Miami, he had been forced to learn, slowly, to rely on others. He had almost shut the door on that part of his rapacious nature that he kept hidden until he'd opened his phone to the message Anson left after their house was destroyed.
While he was highly effective in his current mode, it also gave him tunnel vision. And that was the danger. They had been down this road before without positive results. She didn't want to repeat the past, not now. Not now.
This attitude was one of the underlying reasons she'd turned herself in to the FBI. She didn't know how to deal with this now that their circumstances had changed. How could she stop Michael from being himself, she wondered silently. She didn't want to, still . . .
When her phone rang, she glanced at him and answered. "Just Fiona will do, Barry. Not Fi, baby. Yes, I'll tell him. Yes, immediately. See you there."
"Turn around. Barry wants to meet us at the park across from Carlito's. He said there's something you'll want to see."
"The last thing he found was a way to find Vaughn." Michael's grin was all teeth without the smile.
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Barry was not alone.
Sitting next to him on the concrete picnic bench was Oswald Patterson, and next to Oswald, his girlfriend Sherry. She was the woman Oswald had left to find after Michael copied Oswald's intercepted Void-BOT malware from the coke dealer who took it from the HSA/FBI/DEA facility. It had been stored there with highly confidential and confiscated evidence in need of extreme safeguarding.
After Sam and Jesse manipulated the cocaine dealer trying to kill Oswald by giving him access cards to the facility, he'd been covered with nearly invisible micro RFID trackers, tracked and then arrested by Miami-Dade cops, FBI and Homeland Security agents.
For Oswald, it was all good news.
The dealer no longer wanted him dead, he got to keep the five million dollars the dealer exchanged for the access cards, and he no longer needed an FBI-provided identity. That gave him the freedom to search for Sherry who had gone to the Dominican Republic for her safety.
For Michael and Fiona, it was all bad news.
The theft and copying operation opened the doors for Anson to reveal the full extent of the leverage he would bring to bear on Michael, leverage Fiona knew he would never end, leverage Michael desperately wanted to find a way out and through.
Sherry's arm was wrapped through Oswald's, and it appeared, at least to Fiona, that Barry, personally, was anything but happy about that situation.
"Michael," Barry said, extending his hand. He nodded to Fi. "Good to see you. Ozzie says he knows you both, and he needs to tell you something. So my job here is done now. See you later."
Barry slung his leather messenger bag across his chest and walked away, a slightly sour expression on his face.
Fiona turned to Michael. "I'll be right back."
"Stay close," Michael warned.
She caught up to Barry quickly and threaded her arm thorough his, slowing his steps. She steered him to a bench within sight of Michael and Oswald and Sherry.
"So what was that about?" she asked.
"Just helping," Barry said with a hint of exasperation. "That's what I do. I help. I really need to leave, Fi."
"Tell me about Sherry."
Barry flinched then looked up and over the top of his sunglasses at her and sighed. "You know I have trouble keeping my special ladies my ladies. I thought Sherry had changed, then Oswald came back a week ago and she disappeared again. Just like that."
Fiona filled in the rest of the story. "She can't decide which one of you she likes better, so she changes her mind so one of you is always unhappy."
Barry sighed. "Yes. You know, Michael made everything worse when he helpd Oswald get Xavier's five million and then had him arrested. I helped Oz stash the money," he said, pausing to sigh again. "It was like, like self flagellation, but you know me, I strive for professionalism."
"And the commission."
"Of course. But I don't play games, either, you know. Video games."
"And Sherry does." Fi patted his arm. "I really think you deserve someone who doesn't need to make friends jealous over her attention."
Barry sat up a bit straighter and turned to look at Fiona straight on. He didn't say anything for a minute and then he smiled and winked. "You're right. Thanks, Mrs. Westen."
She smiled, surprised, at his remark. "How . . . ?"
"He's wearing a wedding ring. Think I didn't notice?" He stood, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Thanks for the advice. Be happy."
By the time she turned back to Michael, he was on his phone and Oswald and Sherry were walking the opposite direction.
"What happened?" they both asked of each other at the same time.
"Come on, and I'll tell you on our way to the realtor's office. You first. What was Barry's problem?"
"Oh, not much. Apparently he's been sweet on Sherry, but she plays her male friends off each other. And what's your news?"
Michael's predatory smile returned. "Oswald figured out how to reverse Void-BOT."
Fiona gasped. "That means . . ."
"Anson's secret life is no longer secret. The information we can retrieve will be out of date but it's more information than we currently have."
"And why are we going to the realtor's office?"
"The fire and arson investigators told her it wasn't a gas line explosion. It was a bomb. She has the reports and wanted me . . ." Michael paused.
"Does she know your connection to-"
"Not yet," he said, slowing his steps at Fi's car. He squinted and looked off into the distance. "I need to talk to Raines first."
Fi agreed. "It sounds like a trap."
"It does, doesn't it?"
Fiona waited until they returned to the CIA offices before expressing her concern as they waited for the parking garage elevator.
"Michael, I'm worried . . ."
"I know," he said quietly. "It took me a while to figure out what you and Sam weren't saying this morning. I'm not about to do anything foolish, Fi."
"Promise?"
"I do."
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Raines agreed with Michael's assessment.
"It sounds exactly like a trap. I wonder whose?" Raines said. "Why don't you call her back and tell her to send the reports to your insurance company, since you just took out a renters' policy."
"Address? Phone?"
Raines provided both, direct links to an insurance business in Tampa anyone working in intelligence would recognize as a CIA fronted company.
They were sitting in Raines outer office at the Miami facility, because his wife and Pearce were in his office, both sleeping, both recovering, and both in a safe location. Raines had a second couch moved into his office just for Pearce. After she and his wife finished earmarking the OMB data files suitable for further investigation, they were exhausted so his office was doing double duty as a safe room while he worked at an assistant's desk. The entire area was behind glass walls, as secure as it could be.
"Let's find out if our friend is interested," Raines said quietly. "Then we can test the water and find out if he wants to swim with us. Now, what's this about Oswald?"
Michael produced a data card. "He said he's had an attack of conscience about creating Void-BOT and since we met, he's been working on a program to remove and restore information that it removed from the network."
"When you installed it," Raines said, gritting his teeth.
"Yes, when I installed it. I thought we had moved on, Raines."
"We have, which is why you're going to take this to tech and explain it all to them, how you installed it and want you want to do with it now."
"After I make a call to the realtor. Also, do we have anything from listening to Larry and Vaughn? Or the ID of the guy who shot Pearce?"
"I'll find out."
Fiona sat three desks away watching and listening to the exchange.
Not everything was smooth sailing with Raines, no matter how lovely his wife was.
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"You can stay here. I, uh, moved my stuff out. Changed the sheets."
It was the master bedroom of Jesse's townhouse, and Dani was anything but comfortable with the situation. "I can stay in the guest room."
"It's upstairs. You can't do stairs yet."
She frowned.
"Give it time. You'll recover. But you've got everything here including privacy. The bathroom in there, closet here. TV if you want and the remote's on top."
"Jesse, you don't have to do this. Really."
"Pearce, look at this."
He reached into the closet and pulled out a brown paper bag. Inside was the blouse, a bra and lightweight jacket and slacks, and well the shoes and socks she'd worn the day they investigated the weapons facility. Her clothing had been cut off her body by EMTs and ER staff, then left in her room with her personal possessions, a watch and necklace, following surgery.
As Jesse had opened the bag to show her, a body blow of memory hit him. The garments told a devastating story.
He held up the blouse for her to see. "This is why I need to do this." The entire garment stained dark with her blood, had dried rumpled. It had been cut at the seams to allow the EMTs access to her wound.
She reached for the plastic bag that held her watch and jewelry.
"I put your .45 in my gun safe, by the way."
She felt a bit weak, seeing the shirt, and tightened her grip on the footed cane, then looked up at him. "You were injured, too."
He unbuttoned his shirt to the middle of his chest and spread it open to reveal a small bandage at the base of his throat. He held up a battered gold medal. "You stopped it. The bullet tore through you, hit my medal and lodged about an inch in here. They removed it in the ER. I kept the thing as a souvenir, but you can have it if you want. It's just dumb luck it didn't hit anything vital. But if you hadn't done what you did, which was pretty stupid, by the way, I'd be dead. So you're just going to have to put up with me until you're healed."
"All right," she said slowly.
"Fi said you're going to need help with your bandage. If you're not too fussy, I can do that, too, but you need to ask because I'm not a mind reader. Or Fi said she can come over in the morning. It's up to you."
"She said Michael had a wound like this recently."
"He did."
"What happened?"
Jesse paused before answering. "I shot him. It's a long story. So are you good here, Pearce? I put your bags there, so you don't have to bend over, and Fi left this stuff. And there was a bag of stuff that looked like it should go in the bathroom so I put it there."
He wasn't done explaining life as she would know it yet. "There's an intercom system here, so if you need something, hit that panel by the bed, and there's one in the bathroom, too. Are you hungry?"
"What? Ah, uh, no. Not really. A glass for water though?"
"How about I bring you a bottle?"
With that he left, leaving Dani to wonder what had happened between this morning and now. Jesse was short with her, almost angry. Not that she expected something different, except that she did.
She toed off her shoes and sat on the bed then lay back and turned, tucking her knees. A few seconds later she was sound asleep.
When Jesse returned with the bottle of water a minute later, he found her taking up the smallest space anyone could take at the edge of a king size bed. He reached for an afghan Fi insisted he needed for the chair in the corner and covered her with it, made sure the bathroom light was left on and turned out the bedside lamp. Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead.
He hoped he could survive Dani Pearce's recovery.