Chapter 13
"You gotta admit, the view is gorgeous," Tristan said, following Juliet's gaze out the passenger-side window.
California's Coastal Highway offered an unparalleled view of the Pacific Ocean, stretching as far as the eye could see. Bright sunshine had replaced the previous day's clouds. A stiff breeze ruffled the water's steel-blue surface and kept the birds above gliding on a perpetual current. Juliet's sweet profile as she took in the scenery completed Tristan's contentment.
"It looks a little inhospitable," she replied in the dry tones of a realist.
"For people," Tristan agreed, even as a breeze buffeted their vehicle. "But the marine life loves it. Hooyah," he added, expressing his happiness.
Their plan to visit Monterey's famous aquarium while they were in the area further bolstered his spirits. They had left Hans Coenen and his murky ties to Cold War espionage far behind. He and Juliet would enjoy this adventure together as they had down in Mexico—at least until all hell broke loose. By the time their impromptu vacation drew to an end, Juliet would realize heaven meant for them to be together.
First Tristan had to take her thoughts off Coenen, which wouldn't be easy, considering Hilary had just texted with news that Irena Kapova was a registered Socialist and that Coenen's sister, Bergit, had bought Goebel's painting in Chile the week before. It looked more than ever as though Hans and Bergit were the brother and sister pair mentioned in Anya's letter. What's more, Bergit was still obviously allegiant to the spymaster if she was buying pieces of his art collection. Whether that gave any of them a motive for seeking vengeance after twenty-two years was still debatable.
Intent on drawing Juliet into the present moment, Tristan turned up the volume on the country music station they were enjoying. He promptly joined the artist in belting out a line about no shirt, no shoes, no problem. Juliet tossed him a tolerant smile and he thought he had her, but then her cell phone rang. She pounced on it, gasping as she read the number.
"It's my messaging service!"
As tension tightened her face, Tristan's hopes for a carefree getaway went straight out the window.
Coenen had taken the bait. Disappointed, Tristan watched Juliet's reaction as she listened intently to the message. Her gaze went to the road ahead of them. She began to peer around as if expecting to see something.
"He wants to meet," she relayed when the message was over. "At a town called Rockaway Beach, just south of San Francisco. And it's obvious he knows I'm not an insurance agent because he didn't even bring that up. Do you know where Rockaway Beach is?"
Tristan's mood abruptly darkened. "Yeah," he affirmed. "We're almost there." He had glimpsed the quaint, seaside village on his way to the airport to pick up Juliet. In fact, he'd planned to stop there for a quick meal this very day. Coenen had just ruined his and Juliet's lunch date.
"He wants me to meet him there at noon," Juliet added, her expression tightening, "on the path that goes out to the point."
The update had him spearing a suspicious look in his rearview mirror.
"He's following us, isn't he?" Juliet said in a voice taut with strain.
"Yep." For Coenen to expect a rendezvous outside of San Francisco in ten minutes, he had to know exactly where they were, just like he might have known yesterday that they were at Fisherman's Wharf. Obviously it was time to find another set of wheels.
Tristan scrutinized the cars behind them, looking for one that a retired cop might drive. "You're not going to talk to him without me," he insisted. He'd be damned if he'd sit in the car again, like he had the day before, and let Juliet face a possible murderer on her own.
She considered his ultimatum a moment before casting him a look of apology. "I have to be alone. He's not going to admit to anything with you standing there."
"What are you planning to say to him?"
She had already thought this through. "I'm going to tell him I saw him at the scene of the accident."
"What?" A black Charger trailing three cars back caught his eye. "Are you crazy?"
"Listen." Juliet tried to reason with him. "Sometimes to incriminate a perp, you have to catch them off guard. When I tell him I know who he is and what he's done, Coenen will either deny my accusation or walk away. Chances are good that he'll do or say something incriminating."
"And you'll be filming with your button again," he guessed.
"Of course." Juliet withdrew the device from her purse and attached it to the lightweight jacket she wore. It looked just like the other buttons on her outerwear. No doubt she had bought the jacket with that fact in mind. Coenen would never know the difference. Still, he could only have some nefarious purpose for wanting to talk to Juliet so privately.
Tristan didn't want to scare her, but..."Look, the path to the point where he's asked to meet you is probably right next to a cliff. Doesn't that make you nervous?" It made his skin crawl.
Juliet considered the question. "Not really. He's not going to try to kill me knowing you're watching us."
Her words relieved some of the tension building in him. "Then I'm coming with you."
"Not exactly. You'll be close enough to shoot him if you have to, but far enough away to give us privacy."
Juliet's comment pulled a reluctant laugh out of him. "Honey—" Leery of trampling her pride, he weighed his next words carefully. "This isn't the kind of investigative work you usually do. There's a political history here that neither one of us can fully appreciate. I think the FBI needs to question Coenen. Not you."
"Agreed," Juliet said, proving herself reasonable. "But no agency will believe my story without more evidence. Trust me. I have the advantage here. Coenen never saw me at the scene of the accident. When he finds out that I saw him there, that should shake him, and I'll be filming his response. If he tries to hurt me, by all means shoot him but don't kill him. That's a totally defendable action, especially if we're standing on a cliff."
Tristan groaned and shook his head. "I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."
"It'll be all right," she said in a calm voice meant to reassure him. A glance at her lap, however, revealed she was gripping her purse with white-knuckled hands.
This insanely dangerous meeting wasn't the adventure Tristan had in mind when they'd set out that morning.
As Rockaway Beach came into view on a straightaway, a cold feeling dropped into the pit of his belly. Two hotels, a couple of restaurants, and a quaint village of touristy shops comprised the village by the sea. Signaling his intent to exit the highway, Tristan watched in the rearview mirror as the black Charger slowed and moved into the right lane to follow. A hundred bucks said Coenen was driving that car.
Parking proved scarce, even on such a blustery day. Tristan zipped into a spot as someone vacated it, putting them directly by the bulkhead of boulders. Waves battered the rocks, and a fine sea spray immediately filmed their windshield. He looked in his mirrors for the Charger, but the driver must have pulled into a different parking area.
Adjacent to the parking lot, a worn path followed the rocky bluff, enticing tourists to a grassy overlook that jutted into the ocean two hundred yards distant.
"There's the path." Tristan pointed it out to Juliet. "You sure you're up to this?"
Her expression as she took in the cliff's edge betrayed no fear. "I'll be fine," she repeated. "Here, take this." She reached into her purse and produced her Ruger, placing it in his palm.
Tristan checked the magazine and found it loaded. Smaller than the weapons he was accustomed to, the 9-millimeter felt like a water pistol. Without practice firing it first, he doubted he could hit a target past fifty feet.
Taking one last look at Juliet's set features, he felt the words I love you rush to the tip of his tongue. But since she hadn't responded the last time he made that confession, he kept the words in check and, instead, brushed a quick kiss across her lips.
"Okay, let's do this." Hiding the pistol in the front pocket of his hoodie, he rounded the back of the car to get Juliet's door.
* * *
"Do you see him anywhere?" Juliet sent a nervous glance over her shoulder then looked back at the group of tourists thronging to the point ahead of them.
"I think that's him right there." Tristan nodded toward a man seated on a boulder tying his shoe laces.
As the man straightened, the shape of his silvery head caused Juliet's innards to lurch. "It is," she affirmed, switching on her surveillance device.
Tristan's grip on her other hand tightened. "I'll leave you here with him and walk ahead," he said, his voice gravely with reluctance.
"Thank you. I'll be fine," she promised.
As they drew parallel to Coenen, he looked up at them. Tristan leveled him with a distinctly chilling glare, released Juliet's hand, and continued to forge the path alone. A bracing breeze rocked Juliet as Coenen pushed to his feet and closed the distance between them.
The glimpse of his face at the window the day before had prepared her somewhat for the visceral shock of meeting him face-to-face. Still, his pale gaze seemed to run her through.
"Hello," she said, managing a cool smile.
With a scant nod of recognition, he cataloged her features wordlessly. Juliet imagined he was comparing how she looked to his memory of her mother.
"Do I look that much like her?" She seized the opportunity to broach the real purpose of their meeting.
Coenen's gaze jumped from her neck to her eyes. "I'm sorry?" He pretended not to know what she was talking about.
"Like Anya, your old friend, the one you recruited for the Directorate."
His pale eyes narrowed, concealing any reaction to her words. "I don't any Anya."
Dismay pinched Juliet. She had hoped to startle a stronger reaction out of him, but his self-control was superb. Even his German accent was nearly gone. Juliet managed a condescending smile. "I know all about you, Mr. Coenen. My mother left copious notes," she added, exaggerating grossly.
Thoughts might have flickered behind his carefully blank expression. He kept quiet, forcing her to fill the strained silence.
Juliet's heart began to thud. She had only one more chance to startle a reaction out of him. "I was there when you murdered my parents, Mr. Coenen. I saw you look through the car window." She had meant to sound like a cool-headed interrogator, but the pent-up horror of witnessing her parents' deaths got the better of her. She heard herself continue to accuse him, all the while fighting to keep her voice steady and waiting for Coenen's stony expression to crack.
"You see, I was there in the back seat. You looked right at me, but you never saw me. You didn't call for help, either. Why would you? It was you who masterminded the accident, jamming my mother's seatbelt, disabling the airbags. You thought of everything, didn't you?"
The only indication he'd heard her was the subtle creasing of the lines on his broad forehead. Otherwise, Coenen held perfectly still while his trench coat snapped in the wind and his thin white hair fluttered. Juliet pressed on, determined to get a response that would betray his guilt.
"You must have been monitoring their phones for some time to know their destination that night and when they'd be on that road. But you didn't know about a last-minute change in plans. You didn't know that I went with them. I saw you, Mr. Coenen. I know what you did."
At last, a muscle twitched in his cheek, indicating she had struck a nerve.
Juliet paused, sucking in the air needed to feed her hammering heart.
"Sorry, miss." His voice could have frozen running water. "You've mistaken me for someone else."
With those dismissing words, Coenen inclined his head and stalked past her, retracing his steps to the village in a swift but unhurried stride.
Swallowing a scream of pure frustration, Juliet whirled and watched him retreat. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she battled the impulse to chase after him and pummel him until she exorcised her fury. Her thoughts went to her gun, which was, fortunately, in Tristan's hands.
Turning to look at the point, she found Tristan heading her way, his gaze fixed and worried.
With Coenen putting more and more distance between them and needing a moment to collect herself, Juliet started for the parking lot. As she walked, she switched off her recording device, crushed that what she'd filmed had in no way advanced her investigation.
She had underestimated Coenen's professionalism. He had arranged for them to meet so he could feel her out while revealing nothing about himself, a skill he'd clearly perfected as an East German mole and later a police officer. All she'd managed to do was alert him to potential murder charges. Her calculated risk had backfired. Now that he knew why she was after him, he had time to manufacture an alibi, to find a good lawyer, maybe even flee the country, joining his sister in Chile, where Bergit might well still be, given she was wanted for murder in the states.
Tears of frustration blurred Juliet's vision as she allowed herself an emotional moment. The shivering that had wracked her the day before started up again, forcing her to clench her jaw.
"Juliet!" She could hear Tristan calling, so she slowed her step, composing herself as he caught up to her.
She had just smoothed her features when he tugged her around. Taking one look at her face, he swept her into a consoling embrace.
"You did great," he praised, hugging her so hard the pistol in his pocket gouged her belly.
"I said too much," she admitted, suddenly angry with herself. "I only meant to rattle him, but I couldn't stop talking. Now he knows everything I know."
She squirmed free of his embrace, but Tristan kept hold of her shoulders.
"Give yourself a break, OK? What you did took some serious balls."
His choice of words drew a short laugh out of her.
"We'll call the FBI over lunch. We'll tell them what you witnessed as a kid and why you're sure Coenen was responsible."
He sounded so eager for her to hand over her investigation that she nodded with reluctance. "OK." It didn't look like she'd be able to implicate Coenen on her own anyway. Worse than that, the man might feel compelled to hinder her investigation permanently—by quietly murdering her. A shiver of concern snaked through her. "What if he keeps following us?" she asked.
"Already thought of that," Tristan answered. "We're going to change vehicles."
"How do we do that?" she asked.
"Easy." He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. "I call Hertz, and they bring me one."
She watched him thumb his keypad. "Why would they deliver a car to you?"
Tristan winked at her. "'Cause I'm special."
Listening to him introduce himself and spin a yarn about how the Camaro wasn't handling well, Juliet guessed that the people at Hertz still thought of him as the famous NASCAR racer. He even had the gall to request an Audi TTS.
"Hour and a half?" He glanced at his tactical watch. That's perfect. "We'll meet you in the front parking lot. See you then. Thanks." He grinned at Juliet as he put his phone away.
"Well, I guess you are special," she relented.
He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Are you mocking me?"
As much as she wanted to keep him in his place, she had to admit she couldn't have faced Coenen without Tristan nearby. "Not this time," she replied.
His smile grew as he waited for her to say more—possibly even to admit that she loved him. Yes, he was special, but there were limits to how close she could let him get.
Tristan chuckled at her reticence. "Good enough," he decided. "You ready for lunch?"
The thought of food turned Juliet's stomach. However, a quiet moment in an ocean-side restaurant was exactly what she needed to regain her poise.
"Sure," she agreed. "And then I'll call the FBI."
* * *
Two hours later, Tristan eased their sleek silver Audi TTS onto California's CA-1, pointed in the direction of Monterey.
"Why an Audi?" Juliet had asked him when the Hertz employee first pulled up in it.
"Used to own one," he'd explained. "I like the way it handles." He hadn't told her the real reason—that he was worried Coenen might come after them. If Juliet's life was in Tristan's hands, he wanted to have the fastest vehicle at his disposal, one he knew how to handle.
He pictured a scene straight out of The Fast and the Furious, in which he executed a drifting maneuver around a deadly road bend, while the villain chasing them smashed into the guardrail, then over it, splashing into the ocean below.
There was no sign of Coenen following them. All the same, Tristan wasn't going to ignore the cold sensation in the pit of his stomach. Jeremiah had taught him to pay attention to it. Hence a vehicle with a six-speed dual clutch and 292 horses under the hood.
Glancing at his quiet companion, Tristan wondered if Juliet realized exactly how dangerous Coenen might be. If he'd worked for Goebel, he'd probably killed for him more than once.
Sitting straight as a board in the bucket seat next to him, Juliet white-knuckled the purse on her lap. The vigilant look in her gray eyes suggested she was every bit as aware of the dangers as he was.
If only she'd managed to speak with an actual FBI investigator. The call center had connected her with the voicemail of an agent where she'd left a concise but powerful message. Like every other federal employee in the country, however, the investigator was out of the office in observance of Columbus Day.
Since the call, she'd turned tense and pensive. Tristan tried to think of something to lift her spirits; the best he could do was to deliver them as speedily as possible from Coenen's sphere of influence. Edging his speed to five over the posted limit, he hoped to convey them to Monterey by twilight.
The terrain grew steep. Sunlight glanced off the hood of the vehicle as it zipped uphill, following the edge of a precipitous cliff. They came to a section of the highway called the Devil's Slide, named thusly for the eroding sandstone. A few years back, the state had transformed the most dangerous portion of the highway into a walking path. Two brand new tunnels funneled travelers safely through the crumbling escarpment to the other side.
The north and southbound lanes split, each disappearing into their own brightly lit, one-way tunnel, with only a single lane of traffic. Tristan sped into the southbound passage. Hearing Juliet's indrawn breath, he looked over to find her glued to her seatback, eyes fixed on the curving cylinder ahead.
What the hell? "You OK, honey?"
"Claustrophobic," she bit out.
Well, damn. The woman had a chink in her armor, after all. Wanting to alleviate Juliet's distress, Tristan accelerated, shifting into a higher gear until the lights along the side walls turned into a solid line.
Within seconds, they tore out of the enclosure and back into the sunshine. Juliet heaved a sigh of relief. Tristan felt good for having rescued his damsel in distress, until a glimpse into his rearview mirror banished his satisfaction. Tucked into the shadows right outside the tunnel's exit, sat a black and white patrol car just waiting for some hotshot like him to come screaming out of the tunnel at well over the speed limit.