Playing With Fuego Part 18

It was beyond creepy to know Agent Diaz and her surfer-dude friend were spying on me. It was infuriating. If the three-hundred-feet rule was right, that meant they were...

Sure enough, their black SUV was parked directly below. What I wouldn't give to pee like a boy.

"You feeling any better?" Mari had practically hovered over me all evening, constantly refres.h.i.+ng my cold drink and bringing me pillows. Each time was punctuated with a kiss on my cheek or the top of my head.

I felt guilty for the charade, but d.a.m.n, was it ever nice to get this kind of pampering. It wouldn't matter to me if Mari were an ax murderer. I was in love with her and there was no way I'd give her over to the feds. If Florida weren't such an oppressive state, I'd insist we march down to the courthouse and get married so we could a.s.sert spousal privilege to keep them from forcing me to work with them against her.

"My head still hurts a little."

Being spoiled by Mari this way made me want to lead her into the bedroom to see what else she could do to give me comfort. Still, I had to consider the possibility that Diaz had planted some sort of listening device in my apartment, so bedroom noises were out of the question. Blondie would have to get his Thrill of a Lifetime from someone else.

"Is everything else all right?"

"Of course." Except I truly hated myself. I hated the IRS even more. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You just seem out of sorts." She touched a finger to my forehead. "And this little spot has been wrinkled all day like you're worried about something. It could be my imagination but it gets worse when you're quiet. Call me crazy, but that tells me you're thinking about things that bother you."

"I guess I've got a lot on my mind." If Diaz was listening, I hope she enjoyed the rest of this. "I've been thinking a lot about you over the last couple of days."

"That can't be too good if it makes you frown."

"It's all good, Mari. I'm just overwhelmed by how much I've grown since I've known you. I don't mean just the cultural stuff, like the fact I can now appreciate a good arroz con pollo and doing sixty-five in the emergency lane."

She chuckled and fell against me on the couch.

"You've always given me credit for the kind of work I do at the foundation, but I never took that job to help people. Sure, I say all those things when I go out and meet with businesses, but not because I'm a good person. I do it because it's my job. I love that you took it upon yourself to help Saraphine. That was a real inspiration, and it's always going to stay with me." No matter what else was true. "It makes me want to do good things too, and if there's a reason we're all here on this earth, that's it."

"Wow. That's a lot to live up to."

"You've already lived up to it, Mari. I love you for that." It was my turn to do the kissing, and I left my lips against her temple so we wouldn't be tempted to get carried away.

"I love you too. Who would have guessed I'd fall for my jailer?"

"Or I for a woman who grated on me the moment she stuck her finger up to shush me because she was jabbering in Spanish on her cell phone."

Mari laughed. "I remember that. Mima had gone into the hospital after her stroke and I was too ashamed to tell anybody in my family why I couldn't be there."

"Aw, now you're making me feel bad. I thought you were just being annoying."

"I was being annoying. But I had a pretty good reason."

I'd seen for myself the devotion of everyone in the family to Mima, so I knew what a big deal it was for Mari to miss being at her side at such an important time. It made me furious at Delores to think about all she'd put Mari through. There was no taking back any of the evil I'd inflicted on Mari at the jobsite, but I wasn't going to be part of doing it again. Starting right now, I was firmly on her side, regardless of what she'd done.

That meant taking sides against Agent Diaz and the IRS. If I could find a way to upend her investigation of Mari, I would. At the very least, I wouldn't be their stooge.

Chapter Twenty.

"...that's right, I'll have T-s.h.i.+rts and hats for everyone. So I'll see your crew on Sat.u.r.day at seven thirty. Looking forward to it, Jerry."

Gisela loves it when I land big-name volunteer crews like Bacardi. They'll send a PR team with photographers, and then we'll get copies to use in our brochures and website. They like it. We like it. We'll talk it up this afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce c.o.c.ktail party, not only to give them recognition, but to lure more businesses to our cause. Everyone wants to be in good company.

I'd come to work this morning with the blind hope Gisela would send me out on some sort of special a.s.signment today, like schmoozing someone who needed a tax deduction before year's end. But no, few things are more important to the foundation than hobn.o.bbing with our board members and the rest of the business community at the Chamber's social events.

My other blind hope-that something would come up for Mari-was dashed as well, since she'd texted me earlier to say she planned to be there around five. I hadn't seen her since Sat.u.r.day night, when I talked her into going home so I could rest and sleep late to recover from my feigned headache. Then at my urging, she spent Sunday with her family, though we texted and talked on the phone a dozen times.

Maybe Mari would grasp right off the bat at the c.o.c.ktail party that Diaz was a cop. I'd gotten that vibe about her the instant she stepped into the elevator-the strong hands, the serious slacks and blazer, and the stern look that was all business. If Mari got the vibe too, she and Pepe might realize the authorities were on to them. No way would they talk to her. And they'd hurry to dissolve the sh.e.l.l company, close my account and the one belonging to Edith and Mordy, put their clients' money in the right accounts and cover their tracks. No harm, no foul.

"Hey, Daphne." It was Rosa, the IT specialist. "You mind if I check something on your PC real quick?"

"Help yourself." I watched over her shoulder as she called up one of my system files and typed in a script. "I thought everything was networked."

"It is, but your machine's one of the old ones. It'll slow down unless I free up some of these processes." After a few more keystrokes, she took me back to my home screen. "By the way, have you had any more trouble with your phone?"

"No, it's okay now." I'd noticed all the things she'd told me about, how it lit up after every text or call while Diaz-actually, it was probably Henry, the surfer-dude technician-downloaded the e-mails, voice mails and texts. It also drained my battery, so I had to leave it plugged in nearly all the time I wasn't using it. "You know what, Rosa..."

I'd been thinking about what Henry said about background noise s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his recordings. I was pretty sure there were other ways to disrupt their plans, but I was too scared to research them on the Internet because either they were monitoring my web use, or they could reconstruct it later after they led me off in handcuffs for obstructing their version of justice.

"You were right. Someone has been hacking into my cell phone."

"I knew it!" She positively beamed, which I found disturbing in light of what I'd just told her. Techie types live in a world of their own.

"Is there any way I can stop it?"

"Oh." An earnest expression replaced her smile instantly. "Sure, call your provider and tell them someone's accessing your phone without authorization. They'll help you block them."

"And what if...it's official...and authorized?"

That certainly got her undivided attention.

"I haven't done anything wrong, Rosa. It's just that the authorities are using me to get to somebody else. I don't want to be in the middle of it." I looked back and forth between her and my phone hoping she'd take the hint. "I don't want to do anything illegal, but they're hanging one of my friends out to dry and I don't want to help. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Absolutely." She took my phone and played with the settings. "I just disabled your GPS and Bluetooth, but I don't think that's going to help for long because they probably have access to your settings. They'll just turn them back on."

"You're saying I can't stop them?"

She shrugged and tipped her head to one side. "Probably not, but you might be able to bother them a little. Voice files are all digitized these days, so they have to be decrypted. You can screw that up with a lot of background noise, but the problem with that is the person you're trying to talk to is going to have trouble understanding you too."

If I couldn't get through to warn Mari about what they were doing, at least I could try to make it harder for them to record what she said.

"Rosa, do you happen to know anything about wireless transmitters?"

"A little bit. What do you need?"

I shut the door, figuring a sensitive topic like this called for a little more privacy, especially since it probably amounted to obstruction of justice. I hadn't forgotten Diaz's threat of five years in prison.

"Let's say-in theory, that is-someone was wearing a wire in order to get a conversation on tape. All hypothetical."

"Of course." Except her twinkling eyes suggested she knew it wasn't hypothetical at all and wasn't the least bit put off by the possibility she was helping me commit a felony. By their nature, IT professionals rank a technical challenge above all else.

"Could someone potentially...do something that might...potentially disrupt that?"

"Wireless signals have been known to be unstable. In the first place, there's usually a limit to how far they can transmit."

"Right, like three hundred feet."

"Or even up to five hundred, but only in ideal conditions. If you've got something interfering with that signal, all bets are off."

"What kinds of things could cause interference like that?"

"Again, there's background noise. Other electronics could degrade the signal, especially cordless devices, like cell phones, Bluetooth headsets, two-way radios...that kind of stuff."

I could manage a cell phone and headset. "But I'd have to be talking on the phone, right?"

"Technically yes, but you could also be downloading stuff.Streaming video uses lots of bandwidth, and that could mess up anything else that was wireless. Hold on." She busied herself with installing an app on my phone. "Okay, here you go, one of my favorites. It's a website that streams twenty-four-seven-the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, over and over. The Was.h.i.+ngton Caps beat the Buffalo Sabres in overtime, and I'm telling you, it was one of the greatest hockey games of all time."

A hockey game. I was going to bring down the IRS with a hockey game. "So I just..."

"Tap that app and drop it in your pocket. Joe Juneau and Olaf Kolzig will take it from there."

I'd have to take her word for it. "You think that might be enough?"

"Hard to say, but I think it's your best shot."

If Joe and Olaf let me down, at least I could tell Mari I tried. Let's hope I don't have to tap out that message on the bars of my prison cell.

Diaz's familiar four-wheel-drive ride was on the first level of the garage at the James L. Knight Center, which meant she and Henry were already somewhere setting up their sound equipment. She'd sent a text asking me to meet her before the event. Getting there before Mari helped her control the location, she said.

They weren't going to get as much of my cooperation as they hoped for. Even if I'd wanted to help, Gisela had other plans. She grabbed me after lunch to go over the list of names we needed to contact at this party. That meant I couldn't stand around all night waiting for Mari to work her way across the room to me. We had only a very short window to pull this off, and if Mari arrived thirty minutes late as usual, Diaz was on her own.

Except now that I had Joe and Olaf in my pocket, I didn't actually want to risk leaving Mari to deal with Diaz alone. Disrupting the recording was the critical piece to this meeting tonight, especially if Mari should happen to go into detail about the Iberican Fund.

I hadn't realized the c.o.c.ktail party was slated for the Riverwalk, an outside terrace overlooking the Miami River and Brickell skyline. We'd have noise from the drawbridge and boat traffic, and even the hum of Interstate 395, which was only two blocks away. Henry wouldn't like that at all but I sure did.

Up until my chat with Rosa this morning, I'd been dreading this moment. Now I was eager for it to come so I could enjoy watching Diaz's frustration. With a last-minute stop in the ladies' room, I checked to make sure everything was working. I'd gone with my usual, a charcoal pantsuit with a paisley silk scarf, a look perfectly befitting the professional demeanor of someone soliciting corporate donations. Good thing I wasn't into c.o.c.ktail dresses because they weren't suited to hiding gadgets. The pockets of my jacket were deep enough to conceal my cell phone, which was fully charged and ready to load the hockey game with a single touch. On the other side was my iPod, which I'd added for good measure.

The biggest problem was the Bluetooth earpiece. I didn't want it to be conspicuous, and there weren't many ways to hide it with hair as short as mine. I kept turning my head this way and- "Daphne, you moronic imbecile."

I didn't have to listen to the stupid game. The earpiece was only for interference, and would be just as effective clipped to my knickers, as long as it was turned on.

The first thing I saw when I reached the terrace outside-to my utter delight-was a salsa band warming up. Even the Culture G.o.ds of Miami were on my side tonight. We'd have to shout at one another to be heard over all that bra.s.s, which likely meant Diaz and Blondie would go home empty-handed.

I picked up a gla.s.s of white wine from the cash bar and perused the scene. Small cliques of people were gathered throughout the terrace but Diaz was nowhere in sight. The only woman standing alone was yet another one of those typical Latina model types-six feet tall in her three-inch pickle stabbers, a little black dress that put every curve on display and the sort of dangling diamond earrings you'd expect to see only on an heiress.

"Daphne?"

Great Versace's Ghost! It was Diaz in drag.

"Thanks for getting here early."

I was still too stunned to speak. She looked spectacular. Her hair was stylishly spiked and her eyes heavily lined and shadowed for a glamorous effect. As if it wasn't enough to hope Mari wouldn't incriminate herself, I now had to worry about these two running off to Bimini together.

"Here's my card. Elena Franco-Diaz. I recently sold my significant stake in Hart Paper Products, and moved to Miami from Virginia to be closer to my family in Puerto Rico."

I couldn't wait to burst her balloon. "Just so you know, Mari does a lot of research on her clients. She may not find out who you are, but she'll find out who you aren't."

"It's all covered. You'd be surprised how many of us work at Hart Paper Products."

In other words, they were all professional liars. Made me wonder how much of what she told me was true.

The terrace had begun to fill with new arrivals and we stepped away from the bar for more privacy.

"Daphne, I know this has been difficult. None of us like to believe bad things about our friends and loved ones, but the evidence we've gathered against Maribel and her uncle is rock solid. Using their clients' money to reap windfall profits for themselves is both illegal and unethical. And hiding that money in offsh.o.r.e accounts means they have to deal with me."

I had my own ideas about what was unethical. "By the way, I found your little bug on the back of my picture frame. I'm a.s.suming that was included in your warrant."

She had the grace to look mildly embarra.s.sed.

"My neighbor saw you through the peephole, so don't congratulate yourself too much on how good you all are at your jobs."

I spotted Gisela at the top of the stairs and waved.

"That's my boss. She's given me a long list of people to talk to at this event, so I'm not going to be able to stand here all night and serve as your bait." She didn't have to know I'd fall all over myself getting back to her side if I saw her moving in on Mari.

"That's fine. I'll watch for Maribel, and when I see her come in, I'll find you before she does."

As she walked away, I could still see her talking, which probably meant a sound check with Henry. I hadn't noticed an earpiece, so I wasn't too surprised when she pressed her heavy bracelet against her ear as she casually smoothed her hair. I was willing to bet the microphone was embedded in her necklace.

It was all I could do not to watch the door for Mari as I worked the room. As the party wore on, I grew hopeful she'd changed her mind about coming. I'd just wrapped up a chat with the woman in charge of community relations at Norwegian Cruise Lines when Diaz appeared suddenly at my side.

"She's here, Daphne. Remember, I'm new to Miami and came to the party to network with the business community." She threw her head back and laughed. "...and I decided I'd stick to the slow lane until I learned all the local traffic rules."

"Good idea," I said meekly, feeling Mari sidle up behind me.

"Hi, there." With one hand pressed into the small of my back, Mari extended the other to the agent. "I'm a friend of Daphne's, Mari Tirado."

As her hand lingered against my waist, I almost felt as if she was marking me as hers for the benefit of Diaz. I rather liked this possessive streak.