On Borrowed Time Read online

  No sooner had she pulled the door open than Sully strode into the room.

  “I knew it!” he cried. “You set me up so you could take advantage of my absence.”

  “Did you fall off your dingy and get water on the brain?” Robbie asked. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “I was on water taxi duty this evening, which is usually quite dead in the dark days of December, but no, I had three different calls for pick up out in the farthest islands in the bay, and, big shock, when I got to each one, no one had called for taxi service.”

  Lindsey turned from Sully to Robbie. “You didn’t.”

  “I refuse to answer that on the grounds that I might incriminate myself,” he said.

  “Why you . . .” Sully lifted his hands like he was about to throttle the other man.

  Robbie, being quicker on his feet than most, managed to keep the wide coffee table between them. “Hey, you got to spend a whole night with her. I was just evening it up a bit.”

  “I almost froze out there, not to mention the amount of gas I wasted for nothing,” Sully said. He looked like he was going to lunge across the table but instead he snatched a piece of pizza from the box.

  “Bill me,” Robbie said.

  “Oh, I will,” Sully said. “But now you can leave, since I think it’s my turn to watch Lindsey.”

  “The night’s not half over,” Robbie protested.

  “It is for you,” Sully said.

  Lindsey rolled her eyes at Heathcliff. Enough was enough. She picked up the box of pizza and shoved it at Sully. Then she maneuvered so that she was behind both of them. With one hand on each of their backs, she applied a steady pressure until she had them out the door and into the hallway.

  “I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been, really,” she said. “Now good night.”

  She shut the door in their faces.

  “Well, you certainly managed to bollocks that up,” Robbie snapped.

  “I managed to?” Sully argued. “What was the big idea sending me out on a fool’s errand?”

  “Your words, not mine,” Robbie said. “I’m an actor. I can’t help it if I’m no good at strategy.”

  Lindsey wondered if they would stand there and bicker all night. She opened her door a crack and said, “Good night, gentlemen.”

  With sulky glances, they obviously took her meaning and began to walk down the stairs. She noted they were sharing the remains of the pizza and took that as a good sign.

  She did check the lock on her door once to make sure she and Heathcliff were safely locked in. Then she did a quick scan of all of her window locks. Yes, the break-in had given her a case of the wiggins. There was no doubt about it.

  She finished her glass of wine and took the empty plates to the kitchen to be rinsed. She ran the conversation she’d had with Robbie through her mind. It bothered her that she didn’t know as much about her brother’s business as she should. What kind of sister had only the vaguest clue as to what her brother did for a living?

  She went over to her small desk by the window. It was fully dark outside and the living room lights reflected the room on the window glass, making it hard to see out but easy to see in. A sense of caution zipped over her nerves. She reached over and closed the thick curtain.

  She sat at her small desk and opened her laptop. She scrupulously saved all the e-mails she received from her brother in a file appropriately labeled “Bro.” It took her computer a minute to get going.

  Last year, Lindsey had attended a cybercrimes workshop put on by the state library association. Being providers of the Internet to the public at large, libraries were finding that some users knew how to hack the filters that were put in place to keep the computers in the library safe for all users.

  One of the many things the detective teaching the class had taught them was how they could trace a criminal user back to the library by tracing the IP address, which stood for Internet Protocol address, a numerical label assigned to every computer, printer and other device within a network. Lindsey had never really thought the information would come into play in her life, but now she wondered. If Jack had been using a foreign network when he e-mailed her, she might be able to trace where he had been most recently by locating the origin of the IP address.

  Lindsey opened the file from the workshop that listed the websites that could help her trace Jack’s IP. Then she opened her personal e-mail and frowned. How was she supposed to figure out his IP address from an e-mail? She switched back to her notes. Sure enough, scribbled in the margin were notes for just that.

  She chose an option she had never noticed before that read “show original.” Bingo! A bunch of cybertext came up on her screen that read like gobbledygook to her, so Lindsey figured it must be right.

  She checked her notes. She cut and pasted the gook onto the query screen of a website that said it would track the IP. It came back a second later with a message that said it was unreadable. She checked and trimmed her original cut from the recognizable words “return path” to “content.” She sent the query again. This time a chart came up.

  Lindsey had to pause to pump her fist. She was pretty sure any computer-savvy ten-year-old could have done this in half the time, but still she had managed it. She felt the need to let out a nerdy “Woot!” before she got back to work.

  She checked her notes again and logged on to the website that could track an IP address. Success was short lived. The first few websites she tried couldn’t find the IP. She tried another and another. No luck.

  She needed something more to go on. She opened up her e-mail and read her brother’s messages. Jack was not one to post much more than “Hey, I’m alive!” which, while reassuring when she hadn’t heard from him, was also very annoying because it really gave her no details as to where he was or what he was doing.

  Usually, the only way she discovered where he’d been was when her birthday or Christmas rolled around and a box that looked as battered as if it had walked all the way from its destination to her house arrived and inside she would find anything from a Tibetan singing bowl to a Costa Rican string bracelet.

  “Jack,” she said to the miserly list of e-mails in her Bro file, “when I see you again, we are going to have a very long talk about communication, your lack thereof, and how you will improve or face my wrath.”

  Finally, in the fifth e-mail she scanned, there was a kernel of information. His closing sentence read, Linds, I’m south of the border consulting on plantas de café. Hope to be home for the holidays. L, Jack.

  Jack spoke at least four languages fluently and a smattering of others. It was one of the reasons he liked to be a global business consultant—he got to dust off his language skills. Lindsey had always thought that his use of the language of the country he was headed to was him showing off, but now she was grateful. It was the first solid lead she’d gotten. It fit, too, as the woman who’d absconded with him had an accent and she was clearly a beauty, a Latin beauty.

  So Jack had to have been in a Spanish-speaking country and was there assisting with a company that produced coffee. At least, given her college Spanish, she hoped plantas de café meant coffee plants. She supposed she could use an online translator, but it seemed pretty obvious.

  Lindsey rubbed her eyes. Sleeping on Sully’s couch had been fitful, since she was worried about her brother, freaked out that someone had followed them, and frankly, distracted by how close Sully had been. Her exhaustion was catching up to her and she yawned.

  She logged on to the library’s website. She needed a quick business breakdown about the coffee industry. Ironic how much a cup of java would help her right now, she thought. She chose the “Business Insights: Essentials” option and typed in a search for the coffee industry.

  Under the subheading “Roasted Coffee,” she read all about the history of coffee, the difference between the arabica and robusta b
eans, the importance of storage and roasting, and a multitude of other facts. Finally, in a small paragraph toward the bottom, she saw the listing for the countries where it is grown, with Brazil leading the way by producing one third of the world’s coffee.

  Brazil. So maybe plantas de café was not Spanish so much as Portuguese. She sincerely hoped so. Either way, she knew her next step was to find and search a Latin IP address registry.

  Heathcliff suddenly dropped on top of her feet, and Lindsey scratched his head while she waited for her search. Finally, it popped up with a Latin IP address registry. She cut and pasted the IP address into the search, and sure enough, the country of origin was verified as Brazil. Jack must have been using one of the computers belonging to the Brazilian company he’d been hired by to send his e-mail.

  The cybercrimes detective had talked to them about how some criminals use a proxy server to hide their IP and thus their specific location, but there would be no reason for Jack to do that, so she had to assume this address was legit.

  She was afraid to look and see how many coffee companies were in Brazil. She had a feeling it would be like trying to locate one particular bean in a silo of coffee beans. Was there anyone in Jack’s inner circle who would know?

  Surfacing like a submarine from the depths of her brain, the name Stella McQuaid rose to the top. Lindsey logged on to the library’s website, and from there she went into the newspaper databases.

  She found an article written two years before about Stella McQuaid. At that time, she was still working for the consulting firm, New System Technologies, which Jack still worked for in a freelance capacity. She remembered that Jack had thought very highly of Stella. Lindsey wondered if they’d kept in touch. It was too much to hope that the Brazilian coffee company was a freelance gig for this company, but hey, she wouldn’t know until she asked.

  She glanced at the clock. It was closing in on midnight. She’d have to wait to call Stella’s office in the morning. She tried to convince herself that she was okay with that.

  She shut down her laptop. She turned off the lights. She wondered what had become of Sully and Robbie and then told herself it didn’t matter. She was safe, she told herself. Perfectly safe.

  She unlocked her front door and peeked out just to do one more visual sweep for peace of mind. It was a mistake. The sight before her gave her anything but peace. Instead her voice was full of ire when she asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I told you’d she’d get her knickers in a twist about this,” Robbie said.

  “Can’t be helped,” Sully said with a shrug. “Do you have any eights?”

  “Go fish,” Robbie said.

  Sully sighed as he took a card off the top of the pile. The two men were sitting on the landing with a pack of cards and a bottle of brandy between them. The only light shone dimly from Charlie’s landing below, and the draft that blew through the stairwell caused her to shiver.

  “You’re playing go fish?” Lindsey asked, knowing full well she was just verifying the obvious.

  “Neither of us had enough money for poker,” Robbie said.

  “And war seemed inappropriate,” Sully added.

  “Could lead to fisticuffs,” Robbie agreed.

  “Go home!” Lindsey barked.

  They both looked at her in consternation. Sully picked up the brandy and took a sip and then handed it to Robbie, who did the same.

  “Nope,” Sully said. “We’re staying.”

  “But that’s completely unacceptable,” Lindsey said. “You can’t sit in my hallway all night.”

  “It’s a free country,” Robbie protested. Lindsey noticed his British accent seemed thicker and he was slurring. “And coming from me, that’s saying something.”

  “Are you all right?” Lindsey asked. She hunkered down in front of Robbie. One whiff and she knew he was not all right. “You’re shnockered.”

  “Am I?” he asked. Then he keeled over onto his back with his arms out wide and a snore coming from his mouth.

  Lindsey glanced at Sully. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

  His bright blue eyes went wide with innocence. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

  “Let me take a wild guess,” she said. “Robbie was a bit miffed about my sleeping at your house and was quite determined to even things out by sending you on a wild errand so he could be my shadow tonight.”

  Sully prodded Robbie with the toe of his shoe, but the Englishman didn’t respond.

  “When I tossed you both out,” Lindsey continued, “I’m betting he planned to camp out on the steps and you joined him, bringing brandy and cards to pass the time. How am I doing so far?”

  “Sounds reasonable enough.” Sully brushed a bit of imaginary lint off his shirtsleeve.

  “But”—Lindsey emphasized the word, hoping Sully caught the double meaning—“you didn’t actually drink any of the brandy, did you?”

  “It’s not really my thing,” he said. “It’s more of an Englishman’s beverage, don’t you think?”

  “I think you got even for being sent on a wild-goose chase, that’s what I think,” she said. “Also, you should be ashamed of yourself. Look at him. He’s a drunken mess!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s kind of cute when he’s not flapping his lips.”

  Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Come on, help me carry him in.”

  “What?” Sully squawked.

  “Well, he’s got to sleep it off somewhere,” she said.

  “I’ll give him a ride home,” Sully said.

  “You’re going to carry a man down three flights of stairs?” she asked. She gave him a dubious look.

  “I was thinking I’d roll him,” he said.

  “No.”

  “I’m sure he’d bounce.”

  “No.”

  “He’d better have one heck of a headache tomorrow,” Sully said.

  “I’m sure he will,” she said.

  She bent over and hoisted Robbie into a seated position. Sully took one arm and draped it over his shoulder while Lindsey took the other. Together they hauled the Englishman into her apartment and dumped him on the sofa.

  “What if he’s faking it?” Sully asked.

  Lindsey held up the bottle of brandy to the light. It was more than half gone.

  “Somehow I doubt it,” she said.

  “Still, he’s an actor,” Sully said. “This could just be a ruse to get into your apartment and be alone with you.”

  As if he heard them speaking, Robbie let out a grunt and a snore and turned over onto his side into the back of the couch. Heathcliff hopped up beside him and lay down next to him.

  Sully frowned at the dog. “Hey, help a guy out.”

  Heathcliff put his head down on his paws.

  “Robbie gave him pizza crust,” she explained.

  “I think I should stay just in case someone tries to break in,” Sully said. “This one is going to be of no use to you.”

  “No one is going to try and break in,” she said. “Why would they? It’s like Grand Central Station around here.”

  She put her hand on Sully’s arm and guided him to the door. “Thanks for looking out for me, but I’m good.”

  “But I—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Good night, Sully,” she said. She closed the door on his frowning face.

  Back in the living room, Robbie snored on. Lindsey was quite certain he wasn’t faking it, as he didn’t move when she put a quilt on him. He’d been known to catch her off guard with a surprise kiss before. Never would there be a better opportunity, but he slept right through it, for which she was relieved. She was not up for any more relationship shenanigans, not when she was so worried about her brother.

  She headed to the bedroom with Heathcliff at her side. Amazingly enough, even though h
e wasn’t in shape enough to defend a wet noodle, she felt better just having Robbie in the apartment. His presence, well, maybe his snoring made the shadows stay in the shadows and Lindsey was grateful.

  * * *

  “My head,” Robbie moaned. “I think that bloody pirate split me with an ax when I wasn’t looking.”

  “No, you’re in one piece,” Lindsey said. “I promise.”

  She’d cooked up a breakfast of toast and tea, which Robbie was gingerly nibbling. She’d also given him some pain pills for his head, but she had a feeling only lots of water and a nap would set him right.

  “I’d say you two are even now, wouldn’t you?” she asked.

  Robbie glowered. “I don’t know. How’s he feeling this morning?”

  “Vindicated?” she asked. “After all, you did send him out into the cold.”

  “Not far enough,” he said. “I should have sent him to Long Island.”

  Lindsey rolled her eyes and poured him some more tea.

  “So tell me,” Robbie said. “Because truly, I can’t feel any worse than I do now—do I stand a chance with you at all?”

  “Are you still married?” she asked.

  “It’s just a piece of paper,” he protested. “You know Kitty and I are just business partners.”

  “Not to me,” she said. “I don’t date married men.”

  “What if I were free?” he asked. He lowered his head and was cradling it in his hands as if holding it together to keep it from separating. “What then, my lovely librarian, would I stand a chance with you then?”

  His normally mischievous green eyes were studying her so intently that Lindsey felt her breath catch. Even with a pitiful hangover, Robbie was a force to be reckoned with. It was as if he emitted his own electromagnetic field and no one was immune. Not even Lindsey.

  She had always used his marriage as a buffer for her attraction to him. There could never be a them because she was not about to date anyone who was already spoken for, whether it was in name only or not. The thought of him being available was singularly disturbing because she really didn’t know if she could resist his charm.