A sudden churning in her stomach warned her and she lurched to her feet, making a mad dash for the ladies’ room. She made it just in time. When the violent reaction was over, she realized Keira had followed her and was silently offering her a warm, damp wad of paper towels to wipe her mouth.
Still shaking, Cate used the paper towels, then rinsed out her mouth several times. Keira watched her, then asked quietly, “You want to talk about it?” When Cate shook her head, Keira leaned against the sink, crossed one leg over the other and said conversationally, “You know, when Nick D’Arcy asked me to participate in this op, Cody didn’t want me to do it. He thought it was too dangerous.”
“Op?” Cate’s brain hadn’t focused on it before, but all at once she wondered what Keira had been doing there at the cabin. Not to mention her husband and Trace McKinnon. Wondered how Vishenko had known where to find her. “You asked me what I was doing at the cabin,” she said slowly, “but you didn’t say why you were there. No one was supposed to know where Liam and I were except Nick D’Arcy and Sheriff Callahan.”
Keira drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips, whistling under her breath, obviously trying to decide how much to tell Cate. “Baker Street—Nick D’Arcy,” she amended, then explained, “We call him Baker Street in the agency. Anyway, D’Arcy knew the attempt on you in the courthouse had to be an inside job. Nothing else made sense. And even though you were still willing to testify, without corroborating testimony from the other witness—the one he was fairly sure Vishenko had killed—he knew there was a chance Vishenko would get off. With you in safekeeping, he decided to go for a long shot.”
“I don’t under—”
“Bait a trap...with you.”
Chapter 18
“Only not you, if you see what I mean,” Keira was quick to add. “I was supposed to be the bait, made up to look like you from a distance. D’Arcy couldn’t risk you because he still needed you to testify in the conspiracy trial. And besides, he has a thing about keeping witnesses safe. Long story.”
“I know,” Cate said. “He used to be a US marshal. He told me about it when he...when he convinced me to come here.”
Keira continued as if Cate hadn’t interrupted. “So he set it all up to make Vishenko believe he was willing to sell you out. Since your location was a closely guarded secret—no one knew where you were except the four of you, and he put out the word through channels that only the agency knew where you were—he knew Vishenko couldn’t get that information from any other source. It had to come from D’Arcy. Which meant Vishenko had to try to bribe him.
“His plan worked beautifully. D’Arcy had Vishenko dead to rights on bribery and conspiracy to commit murder. In addition to the money—the serial numbers of which, by the way, were recorded by the banks where Vishenko withdrew the cash from his various accounts for the bribe, proving the money came from him—he also had Vishenko on audiotape offering the bribe and soliciting your murder.”
Cate was puzzled. “How did he manage that? When I knew him, Vishenko was extremely cautious about wiretaps, listening devices and...oh, everything of that nature. I can’t see him letting himself be recorded by Mr. D’Arcy.”
Keira’s lips twitched in sudden amusement. “Two years ago D’Arcy had knee replacement surgery on his left knee. He had the brilliant idea of using that as cover for the wire. Do you know that when you go through airport security screening after you’ve had a knee replaced, the replacement knee sets off the metal detector? And when they run a hand scanner over you, it’ll ping on your knee?”
Cate shook her head.
“Well it does, so whenever you get a new knee, the manufacturer sends you an ID card stating you’ve had the surgery, and showing what the knee looks like under X-rays. It’s supposed to help you get through the airport screening. Doesn’t really work that way,” she added as an aside. “D’Arcy found that out the hard way. But that’s the theory.
“Anyway, D’Arcy knew Vishenko’s men would physically search him, use a metal detector to check for weapons and an electronic scanner to detect a wire. Sure enough, the metal detector pinged on his left knee. But he showed them his surgical scar and the ID card, and they bought that explanation. So when they ran the electronic scanner over him, they skipped his left knee—exactly what he was counting on. The wire was hidden in a prosthesis that looked like real skin and muscle, attached to his knee.”