Allan sounded angry. “Yeah, I remember. I also told you I thought that was a bad idea at the time.”
“Yes, you told me so.” Ben let out a sigh. “Happy?”
“No. Not until we know she’s safe.”
“Go to your office. Wait for me there.” He got out before Allan could say anything else, closing the door and pocketing the set of house keys as if they were the car keys, just on the off chance anyone was watching them. He found the stairs and took them, two at a time, down to the third floor where Allan’s car was parked. From the safety of the stairwell doorway, he hit the button on the key fob to start the ignition and waited. After two minutes, when the car didn’t explode, he slowly approached it, opened the driver’s side door, then closed it again without getting in and retreated to the stairwell, leaving it sitting there running.
After another two minutes he deemed it safe and returned to the 226 Tymber Dalton
car. He got in, quickly leaving the garage after paying cash.
Yes, an overabundance of caution, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Bianco stooped to desperate measures to get Allan and him out of the way. Using explosives wasn’t Bianco’s method, but there was always a first time.
And he didn’t want to be that first time.
What he hadn’t revealed to Allan was that he no longer had a permanent address. He had a triple storage unit in West Palm Beach with most of his things in it, and a month-to-month cash lease on an extended stay hotel studio room in Margate before he checked out when they left for Brooksville. When he’d realized the Bianco case was going to trial, he’d quickly packed and moved out of his rented condo, knowing he needed the ability to leave fast with little trace.
Bianco was not a man who gave up easily. A permanent address was far less important to Ben than staying alive and healthy and keeping his brother in the same condition.
He quickly drove to Allan’s house, in a middle-class suburb almost all the way to Coral Gables.
He circled the block once, twice, happy to see people didn’t park on the street around here, meaning less likelihood of someone watching the house at that moment.
He pulled into the driveway but didn’t pop the garage door.
Walking around back, he didn’t see anyone inside the house, which he knew didn’t mean anything, but still was a good sign. He also didn’t see any signs of forced entry.
He returned to the front door and hurried in, shutting the alarm off.
Empty.
“Dammit.” No sign she’d been by, no note on the door, nothing.
While he was there he took the opportunity to grab a couple more suits out of Allan’s closet, then reset the alarm and locked the door behind him.
The only place he could go was to the office and to keep trying to It’s a Sweet Life 227
call her.
Allan forced himself to stick to the routines Ben had set up. He took an indirect route to the office, constantly checking his rearview mirror for anyone following him, and doubling back several times just in case.
All clear.
At the parking garage, he swiped his ID, which had Ben’s name on it even though it was his own picture, to get into the garage.
Because of the case, his office had issued “Ben” a special employee access pass to go through the back entrance, avoiding the main public entryway and enormous, and extremely busy, lobby area. He nodded to the bailiff on duty at a desk inside, showing his pass.
The bailiff waved him through.
Yet another of Ben’s ideas, to keep everyone in his office thinking he was Ben, and that Ben was him. Ben knew the case as well as he did. Depositions were actually handled by the lead attorneys on the case, so they didn’t have to worry about any charges of impropriety should the ruse be discovered before the trial started. Once the trial started, Ben would completely disguise himself and Allan would go back to his normal appearance.
They’d even swapped wallets.
Only behind closed doors would Allan get on the phone and handle calls related to the case, Ben listening in from behind Allan’s desk. No one could tell their voices apart.
Well, maybe Libbie can by now, he wistfully thought.
Ben, while still officially employed by the sheriff’s office, was only working behind the scenes doing support work and research on tech crime cases to keep him out of the office and out of harm’s way.
He could work on his cases from anywhere he had an Internet connection.
228 Tymber
Dalton
Allan made it to his office without interruptions and closed the door behind him. His office assistant, thinking he was Ben, wouldn’t come in to bug him.
He started tackling calls to take his mind off the wait.
Libbie stared at the enormous lobby behind the glass entry doors.
As foggy as she felt, she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
I want to see my guys.
With that thought in mind, she got in line behind several dozen others waiting to pass through a metal detector to gain entry to the building. By the time she made it into the main part of the lobby, she already felt mentally exhausted in additional to physically, and she had to sit down for a moment to rest.
There were signs all over, people hurrying to reach their destinations, and an ever-present loud buzz of voices, cell phone ringers, and noise from the metal detectors and waiting people reverberating off the tile floors and through the large space.
She felt like crying.
Buck up. You can do this.
Her flare was worse than she’d originally thought. She hadn’t had fibro fog this bad in months. No doubt triggered by the drive combined with stress and exhaustion and loneliness and worry about her men.
She started with one large sign of office listings and scanned through it when she realized her brain didn’t want to pick out a pattern to the arrangement. She could read names and office numbers, but it just didn’t make any sense. Allan’s business card had a street address, but no suite or office number. And without her cell, she couldn’t call to have him come down and meet her.
Looking around, she almost smacked herself in the forehead when she spotted two uniformed bailiffs standing behind an information It’s a Sweet Life 229
desk on the other side of the lobby. Libbie hurried over and waited her turn.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m here to see Allan Donohue. He’s in the State Attorney’s office.”
The bailiff nodded and said, “440.” He pointed. “To the left, elevator’s on the right, go left when you get to the fourth floor. Next.”
She put out a hand. “I’m sorry.” She offered him what she hoped wasn’t too pitiful a smile. “I’m…I’m not feeling good this morning. I have difficulty remembering things. Could you please write that down for me?” His eyes narrowed as he turned his attention more fully upon her. She took a deep breath. “Please? I have fibromyalgia and I couldn’t even drive this morning it’s so bad. I had to take a cab.”
His expression immediately softened as he reached for a piece of scrap paper. “Sorry. My sister has lupus. She has bad days like that, too.” He scribbled the information onto the paper for her and handed it to her. “If you can wait a few minutes, I can have another bailiff escort you if you need it.”
She wanted to cry at his kind tone. She took the paper. “No, that’s okay.” She glanced at the paper and it made sense to her foggy brain.
“This helps a lot. Thank you so much.”
He nodded. “Next.”
She found the elevators. She stood in line again, waiting, her heart racing. I’m so close. So close to seeing them.