Elizabeth Bevarly - The Pregnancy Affair

“Do you have any idea why a federal marshal would show up at my front door less than an hour after you did?”

“Mr. Hawthorne,” Grady interrupted.

Tate held up a hand to halt him. “Renata?” he repeated.

Finally, she turned her head to look at him. This time he knew exactly what she was thinking. Her eyes were a veritable window to her soul. And what Renata’s soul was saying just then was Oh, crap.

In spite of that, she said, “No clue.”

“Mr. Hawthorne,” Grady said again. “We have to leave. Now. Explanations can wait.”

“Actually, Inspector Grady,” Tate said, returning his attention to him, “you won’t have much to explain. I’m guessing you’re here because my grandfather was Joseph Bacco, aka the Iron Don, and now that he’s gone, he wants me to be the new Iron Don.”

“You know about that?”

“I do.”

Grady eyed him warily for a moment. “Okay. I wasn’t sure you were even aware you had a WITSEC cover, if your mother ever made you privy to that or if you remembered that part of your life. The other thing I came here to tell you is that your WITSEC cover has been compromised, thanks to a hack in our files we discovered just this morning. We need to put you somewhere safe until we can get to the bottom of it.”

Tate barely heard the second part of the marshal’s comment. He was too focused on the first part. “You knew my mother?”

Grady was visibly agitated about his lack of compliance with the whole leaving immediately thing, but he nodded. “I was assigned to your father and his family after he became a state’s witness. The last time I saw your mother or you was the day your father died.”

Okay, that was why he looked familiar. The man in the suit that day must have been a younger Terrence Grady.

“Look, Mr. Hawthorne, we can talk about this in the car,” he said. “We don’t know that there’s a credible threat to your safety, but we can’t be sure there isn’t one, either. There are an awful lot of people interested in taking over your grandfather’s position—the one they know your grandfather wanted you to assume—and it’s safe to say that few of them have your best interests at heart. Last week, someone accessed your federal file without authorization, so your WITSEC identity is no longer protected. That means I have to get you someplace where you are protected. Immediately.”

“Um, Inspector Grady?” Renata said nervously. “I, uh... That is, uh... Funny story, actually...”

“Spit it out, Ms...” Grady said.

She began patting her bun again, but this time kept doing it the entire time she spoke. “Twigg. Renata Twigg. And, actually, the person who compromised Mr. Hawthorne’s WITSEC identity? Yeah, that, um...that might have been, ah...me.”

Grady eyed her flatly. “You’re the one who told Mr. Hawthorne about his past?”

Something in his tone made Renata pat her bun harder. “Um...maybe?”

Tate was going to tell Grady that she absolutely had been the one to tell him about that, but he was kind of enjoying how her bun patting was causing strands of hair to come loose. Her hair was longer than it looked.

“You have access to federally protected files, have you?” Grady asked. “Or do you have hacking skills that allowed you to access those files? Because hacking a federal database is a Class B felony, Ms. Twigg. One that carries a sentence of up to twenty years.”

She looked a little panicked by that. “Of course I don’t have hacking skills,” she said. “Are you kidding? I majored in English specifically so I wouldn’t have to do the math.”

“Well, which is it, Ms. Twigg?” Grady asked. “How did you discover Mr. Hawthorne’s identity? And why did you go looking for him in the first place?”

She bit her lip anxiously. Tate tried not to be turned-on.

Quickly, she told Grady about Joey the Knife’s will and his intentions for his grandson. Grady nodded as she spoke, but offered no commentary.

When she finished, he asked again, “And just how were you able to locate Mr. Hawthorne?”

At first, she said nothing. Then, very softly, she asked, “Class B felony, you say? Twenty years?”

Grady nodded.

For a moment, Renata looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, right down to the fawn-colored suit and doe eyes. Then her expression cleared, and she said, “Craigslist.”

Grady looked confused. Tate wasn’t surprised. He’d been confused since seeing Renata at his front door.

“Craigslist?” Grady echoed.

Renata nodded. “I found a computer whiz on Craigslist who said he could find anyone for anybody for the right price. He helped me locate Mr. Hawthorne.”

“His name?” Grady asked. Dubiously, if Tate wasn’t mistaken.

Renata briefly did the deer-in-the-headlights thing again. Then she told him, “John something, I think he said. Smith, maybe?”

Grady didn’t look convinced. “And do you know if Mr., ah, Smith did anything else with this information he found for you? Like, I don’t know...sold it to someone else besides you?”

“I’m sure he’s totally trustworthy and kept it all completely confidential,” Renata said.

Now Grady looked even less convinced. “A guy on Craigslist who says he can find anybody for anyone for money and calls himself John Smith is totally trustworthy,” Grady reiterated. Blandly, if Tate wasn’t mistaken.

Renata nodded with much conviction and repeated, “Totally.”

Grady looked at her for a long time, as if weighing a number of scenarios. Finally he growled, “We don’t have time for this right now. We need to get Mr. Hawthorne somewhere safe. And until it’s all sorted out, you’re coming, too, Ms. Twigg.”

That finally stopped the bun patting. But it restarted the button fumbling. So much so that Renata actually undid the button, and then another below it, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of lace beneath. Which was weird, because in light of developments over the last several minutes, the only thing Tate should find tantalizing about Renata Twigg was thoughts of her having never entered his life in the first place.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t go anywhere with you,” she said to Grady. “I have a red-eye out of O’Hare tonight.”

“You don’t have a choice, Ms. Twigg,” Grady said emphatically. He turned to Tate. “And neither do you. We’re all leaving. Now. Once the two of you are settled in a safe house, we can get this all straightened out. But until we know there’s no threat to Mr. Hawthorne, and until we get to the bottom of this security breach, both of you—” he pointed first at Tate, then at Renata “—are coming with me.”

Three

Renny sat in the backseat of the black SUV with Tate, wishing she could wake up in her Tribeca condo and start the day over again. They’d been driving for more than two hours nonstop—pretty much due north, as far as she could tell—and Tate had barely said a dozen words to her during the entire trip.

He’d spoken to the marshal often enough early on—or, at least, tried to. Grady had responded to every question with a promise to explain once he was sure Tate and Renny were settled at a safe location. He’d replied the same way as he hustled the two of them out of the house earlier. He hadn’t even allowed Tate time to change his clothes, hadn’t allowed Renny to bring her handbag or portfolio and had made them both leave behind their electronics due to their GPS.

On the upside, the fact that Grady hadn’t allowed them even basic necessities might be an indication he didn’t intend to detain them for long. On the downside, the fact that they were still driving after two hours was a pretty decent indication that Grady planned on detaining her and Tate for some time.