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“I thought he was a ghost? Fake social security number and all of that.”
“He is,” Clay said. “But I got a hit on facial recognition. Juska’s face popped up in some old fuzzy CCTV footage from Moscow. I didn’t want to say anything until I had something solid — it took me awhile to connect the dots — but there was someone else in the footage, and not just that footage.”
“There was more?” Nick asked.
“When I ran the two faces together, I got several more hits. Nothing overtly incriminating, but they definitely worked together or something. In every case, they were seen on the same camera.”
“Any idea who the other guy is?” Nick asked.
“Actually, yes.” Clay hit another key and a man’s face appeared onscreen: deep set eyes, a wide forehead, pockmarked skin. “Took one of my guys a couple of hours to refine the image. It’s not perfect, but this is the best we can do.”
“And you got an I.D.?” Nick asked.
“Yep. Guy’s going by the name Erno Kovaks, living in Gibraltar.”
“Gibraltar? That’s interesting,” Nick murmured.
Gibraltar was often referred to as “The Fence” because of its designation as the boundary between British territory and Spain, but it was also a short distance across the water to Morocco and Algiers, both places where people like Juska went to get lost.
“I thought so too,” Clay said.
“Think he can tell us anything about Juska?” It wasn’t lost on Nick that they were desperate — desperate enough to cling to a shady colleague of Juska’s hiding out in a coastal town few tourists would want to visit, hoping he might give them something that would help them get to Juska, already one degree moved from the people they were trying to take out.
“Don’t know,” Clay said. “But given the newsabout Delaney and Karen LaGarde, not to mention Alexa’s…”
“Stubbornness?” Nick offered. “Recklessness?”
“Let’s call it determination,” Clay said. Nick cursed silently. That was all he needed: for Clay to be on Alexa’s side. “Given her determination, maybe it’s the perfect time for a vacation.”
Nick lifted his eyebrows. “A vacation? In Gibraltar?”
He didn’t mind going to Gibraltar. In fact, it was the first thing he’d thought when Clay told him that’s where Erno Kovaks was hiding out. But taking Alexa, putting her in proximity to someone who’d worked with Juska, wasn’t part of the plan.
The plan was simpler: force Alexa into hiding. Maybe in the mountains somewhere. Or on an island surrounded by armed guards.
Clay shrugged. “At least it’s warm?”
Nick sighed. “Fuck me.”
7
Alexa took off her computer glasses and rubbed her temples, the words on the screen swimming in front her eyes. She sat back on her chair and let her eyes travel through the sliding-glass doors to the sea beyond the glass.
She had no idea which of the Murphy brothers had chosen this office as their headquarters, but she made a mental note to ask so she could thank them. She’d logged countless hours in the office, hours spent staring at the computer until the words all blurred together, and not a day passed that she wasn’t thankful for the nearness of the ocean.
It was too cold now to leave the door open, but she still stepped outside now and then, letting the bracing air bring her back to alertness. If she stayedout there long enough, she could taste salt on her lips when she came inside, the smell of the sea clinging to her clothes and skin.
She’d spent every day in the office, combing over data on the Walkers in the week since Richard Delaney’s death, looking for something new or a connection she might have missed. Part of her had known it was futile. The odds of finding something new in data she’d already gone through were slim, and Clay’s newer stuff was more and more obscure as it dug deeper into the internet.
But she hadn’t known what else to do. The night of the hotel siege was never far from her mind, and the image of Matis Juska in the parking garage haunted her dreams. Juska’s eyes had been cold and dead, not an ounce of fear or hesitation in them as he’d fired at Nick.
She knew he was just a tool, one of many used by Frederick Walker to do his dirty work, but the knowledge did nothing to ease the power he had over her. He’d become her boogeyman, the embodiment of the hold the Walkers had had on her life since the night Leland left her for dead, of the threat they were to her now.
Combing through the same data over and over again was more than likely pointless, but sittingaround the house made her crazy, despite Julia and Elise’s efforts to keep her company. Julia had the baby to keep her busy, and Elise had her job at the boutique and her night classes, but it was increasingly hard for Alexa not to feel that she had nothing, that with the loss of her job at the AG’s office and her alienation from her parents, Leland Walker had succeeded in taking everything from her.
Except for Nick. She had Nick, and he was the only thing keeping her going.
She sighed and stretched, then put her glasses back on as she looked at the computer. She’d just started reading again when the elevator dinged from the lobby.
