They stood outside the Barnes & Noble store off Route 1 in Saugus in a line of a hundred people that spilled from the doors into the parking lot. That didn’t seem safe to Scarlett, but who was she to judge? If some Big Mike fanboy waiting to pay too much for an autographed copy of his crappy book got run over, that wasn’t her problem. If she was out here long enough that she started sweating, however, that was her problem, and the only thing she’d be seducing would be a bonus-sized tube of Secret Clinical.
Diana folded her arms across her own inflated chest and raised an eyebrow. “Is it so hard to believe that I simply wanted to do you a favor?”
“Yeah, it is.” Scarlett blinked mascaraed lashes, mirroring Diana’s expression and pose. “You’re a spook—that kinda automatically means you don’t do favors for people. Not only that, but you screwed over Jimmy in, like, the worst way with that whole ‘I’m only dating you so I can get access to your dead father’s old office but I know he’s alive and you don’t’ thing. You always play both ends against the middle. Why? What’s in it for you?”
“I…” Diana trailed off, her shoulders slumping. “You’re right. I do not know how to do favors, or make friends, or have any kind of social interaction that’s remotely genuine.”
“See, that’s what I—wait, what? You agree with me?”
“I don’t want to, but the truth is the way I was raised was not to make friends. All I saw was competition—for my next meal, a blanket, a sliver of soap.”
“Orphanages in Serbia are that bad?”
“Ones where they train child killers are, yes.”
Scarlett blinked again. “Are you shitting me? You’re a real-life Natasha Romanoff?”
“Minus the red hair and fake breasts,” Diana quipped. “Does that make David the bird-man with the bow and arrow?”
“Nah, he’s more the Nick Fury type.” Scarlett smiled, and she nudged Diana’s shoulder with hers. She didn’t doubt for a second that Diana’s backstory was just as convoluted and tragic as she’d implied, but Scarlett didn’t want to push for more info. “I could be your Hawkeye if you want.”
Diana looked at her for a moment before smiling back. “I would like that.” They were inside and almost to the front of the line, so copies of Big Mike’s autobiography that they were expected to purchase were shoved into their hands by store associates. She flipped it to the back cover and barely suppressed a grimace when she saw Big Mike’s headshot. “Why did he think wearing a fedora for this picture was a good idea?”
“Why does anyone ever think a fedora’s a good idea?” Scarlett wondered aloud, right before she plastered on a fake smile and stood across a table from Michael “Big Mike” Draymond. “Oh wow, it’s really him!”
When it came to nicknames, the person they applied to often didn’t match the descriptor—for example, a gangster called “Tiny” would turn out to be the size of a Honda Odyssey. That was not the case with Big Mike, because while he was barely taller than Scarlett (and as Jimmy liked to point out, Scarlett was not tall) he was as wide as a surfboard was long. In person, much like in the photograph on the back jacket of his book, his face reminded Scarlett of Leonardo DiCaprio if somebody sat on his head. He wore a dark blue button-down shirt tucked into a pair of black Wrangler jeans and a pinstriped tie that was too short.
His close-set eyes went wide like saucers when he saw Scarlett and Diana, and the way he clenched his pen in his hand so hard it stood up straight was probably a good metaphor for something else. “Yes, ladies, it’s me. Can I sign that for you, miss…?”
Scarlett forced a giggle out of her throat and handed him her copy of the book. “Scarlett, and this is my friend, Diana.” She linked elbows with her Eastern European companion, who flipped her hair and batted her eyelashes in a perfect imitation of a Valley Girl. “We were wondering something, Mr. Draymond… but it’s a little embarrassing.”
His manager pointed to his wristwatch and then to the line, but Big Mike waved him off. “Oh, please, call me Mike.”
“Okay, Mike,” Diana said, her voice high, vaguely Midwestern, and completely false. “Would you, um… maybe come out back with us?”
The question was dripping with sexual innuendo, and Scarlett swore she heard Big Mike’s hard-on hit the bottom of the table. He was up out of his chair and fumbling to prop up a sign that declared he was taking a bathroom break; his manager flapped his arms halfheartedly but otherwise didn’t seem invested in his employer’s business. The best part was that Big Mike didn’t have any security personnel to follow him around, which made things easier on the femme fatale front.
Scarlett took one of Big Mike’s clammy paws in her own and led him to a fire door. She slipped two fingers between the red push-bar and the door and pinched off the wire that triggered the alarm, then shoved the door open. They emerged into the loading dock area behind the building, and Scarlett led Big Mike a few paces to the right before she allowed him to push her up against the wall. They were in a security camera blind spot, and he seemed to have forgotten about Diana.
That was a mistake.
One of Diana’s hands clamped down on Big Mike’s right wrist, yanking his arm behind his back at an awkward, painful angle; her other hand held a double-sided combat knife, which she held across his windpipe. “Step away from her and put your back to the wall. Do not do anything stupid—you scream, I slit your throat.”
“Okay, goddamn!” Big Mike yelped, doing as instructed, his face gone blotchy purple with shock and fear. When Diana released her grip on his wrist he smacked both his palms flat against the brick at his sides, watching her and Scarlett like a gazelle eyeballing a pair of cheetahs. “Holy mother of Christ, what do you want?”
“We’ve got a couple of questions for you, Big Mike,” Scarlett told him, wiping residue from his damp hands off her shoulders. “You either tell us what we wanna know, or the footage from the camera hidden behind this atrocious bow on my top can go viral on Twitter in under ten minutes. Your choice.”
Big Mike’s eyes went so wide she was afraid they’d fall out of his head. There was no hyper-masculine posturing or bargaining, only fear. From the pictures Scarlett had seen she thought Big Mike’s wife was capable of crushing a tree trunk between her thighs, so his reaction matched the possible outcome. “What…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat to try again. “What do you want to know?”
~***~
David had contorted himself in every way possible behind the wheel of the Camry, but after almost two hours of watching Blakely Manor for any more activity he couldn’t feel his ass and one of his legs. His phone buzzed in the cup holder, and when he glanced down at it he wasn’t surprised to see it was Dev calling—what surprised him was that it was a video call. “Hey, blondie,” he said after he answered. “Make any progress on the chip I pulled from Otis’s brain?”
Adam “Dev” Devereux shot him a crooked smile from the other side of the call, and David realized when Dev’s long-fingered hands came into the frame that it was Flynn holding the phone while his partner worked. With a youthful face and big blue eyes, Dev looked less like he was pushing thirty and more like he should be at college orientation, but David knew better. He was the best explosive ordnance disposal technician the Army ever had and a literal genius in a lanky, kind-hearted, and occasionally smart-mouthed body.
“Would we be calling if he hadn’t?” Flynn countered, panning down to Dev’s workstation and showcasing the dismembered parts of the chip. “Tell him what you told me, hoss.”
“As far as I can tell, this chip wasn’t much more than a glorified battery,” Dev said, the tenor of his voice surprisingly deep when paired with his boyish features. He held the outer casing of the chip—which was plastic and almost completely melted—in a pair of tweezers, and moved it closer to the phone. “See this? The circuitry was overheated intentionally, and the resulting current drove the chip straight through Otis’s spinal cord.”
Based on what David saw in the moments leading
up to Otis’s death that tracked, but he was still confused. “How did his killer get the chip to overheat remotely?”
“That’s the interesting part.” Dev put down the outer casing and picked up a tiny circuit board with the tweezers, its surface charred black. “At first I thought this was from a long-range radio, but it’s got the wrong kind of wiring. I showed it to Flynn, and he said—”
“That it looks an awful lot like a timing device,” Flynn interjected, elbowing Dev good-naturedly. “Which is funny considering you’re supposed to be the bomb nerd.”
“And is it?” David wanted them to speed this along in case anything interesting happened across the street, but also because he had to piss and he wasn’t about to whip out his Dunkin’ cup in front of them. “A timing device, I mean.”
“Yes it is,” Dev confirmed, putting the tweezers down and taking the phone from Flynn. He raked a hand through his shaggy blond hair. “My best guess is that this chip was planted in Otis while he was at Blakely Manor and the timer started counting down when he left the property. It was probably insurance in case whatever they did to try and make him forget what he knew about Anton didn’t work.” His expression twisted sympathetically. “There was nothing you could’ve done for him, David. I know that doesn’t make it better, but…”
“You’re right, it doesn’t make it better,” David said, rubbing his jaw and sighing. “But at least now we know what happened. Thanks for the info, guys.”
~***~
Wolfe, Sebastian, and Constantin met up with Scarlett and Diana at the Dunkin’ off Central Square in Lynn, across from the elevated tracks for the Newburyport/Rockport T line. The train roared by at the same time the five of them sat down at a big table in the rear corner, a box of a dozen donuts open for sharing. They were the only people in the shop besides the workers, and would be until the folks experiencing their afternoon caffeine crashes stopped in around three o’clock.
“So get this,” Wolfe began, taking a seat with his back to the wall, across from Scarlett. She’d changed out of the outfit from the picture she’d texted him earlier (with the caption “send help my boobs hurt”) into a Thin Lizzy t-shirt and aquamarine short-shorts. “The governor got super cagey as soon as he figured out why we were at the chili cook-off—”
Constantin snorted out a mouthful of donut crumbs. “That event is an insult to chili connoisseurs everywhere.”
Wolfe shot him a look. “Anyway, I expected him to have a less than positive reaction… but it got me thinking about something. Why would Anton want the candidate he’s been backing to die? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I hate to make this more confusing,” Scarlett said, “but Big Mike says he was paid to get into the race… by Anton. He has several mistresses—shocking, I know—and it takes a lot of moolah to keep them all happy.” She glanced at Sebastian. “Plus he said your father was very convincing. I have the feeling there may have been some blackmail involved.”
“It would not surprise me.” Sebastian had one hand wrapped around a large iced coffee so full of cream and sugar it was almost white. His other hand rested on his thigh, and looked awfully tempting to hold… Wolfe forced himself to pay attention to the conversation, and shoved a donut in his mouth. “As well all know, my father has many ways of manipulating people. I have a hard time believing he is not in bed with the governor in some capacity, even if it is not through his reelection campaign.”
Diana drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Big Mike was coerced by Anton into running for governor, Christopher has received large donations and public support from Anton, and we suspect but cannot prove that he was or is involved with Governor Halliday.” She looked around at each of them. “What’s the endgame? How do these things further Anton’s ambitions?”
“I’m not sure,” Wolfe admitted, licking some stray chocolate off his thumb. Dunks made a decent donut (was there such a thing as a bad donut?), but in his book nothing beat Kane’s. “And I think the only way we’re gonna find out is if we can take a peek at Halliday’s finances.”
“Time for a visit to Frogger?” Constantin asked, taking the lid off his coffee (he was the only one who’d ordered hot) and blowing in a vain attempt to cool it to an ingestible temperature. “I like her. She’s tough.”
“Yes, she is,” Diana agreed, and pulled out her cell phone. “I believe she and I have a mutual friend who may be able to assist us further. Let me see if she is available.”
~***~
The asset stood in an alleyway somewhere in Malden that stank of garbage and feces, a silenced pistol held down along her leg. She stared straight ahead, aware of the bad smells and the sun beating on the top of her head, but she was focused on one thing: her handler. He was on her left side, one hand in the pocket of his trousers, the other one holding a lit cigarette. He brought it to his mouth and took a drag. He took six more before the redheaded man arrived, silhouetted like a target a shooting range with the street at his back.
“Lainey?” The man took a hesitant step forward and then he saw her eyes. She had seen them too, in a mirror at Blakely Manor while an orderly watched her get dressed. They were blank and hard, like twin sapphires set into her face. “Anton… what did you do to her?”
Her handler’s lips quirked upward, and he dropped his cigarette on the pavement and stubbed it out with the toe of his loafer. “I improved her, Aiden. She is not your sister, not anymore—she’s better.”
The man took another step, quickly, but the asset was quicker to raise her weapon and aim it at his heart.
“That’s close enough,” her handler chided, sliding his second hand into his pocket to match the first. “She doesn’t know who you are, Aiden.”
The man—Aiden, evidently—stared first at the asset, then at her handler, his expression morphing from disbelief to fear. “Why? Why would you go to all this trouble to assassinate a fucking gubernatorial candidate?”
“Stupid boy,” her handler spat. “It was never about Christopher. He was the bait, and you and your sister were so caught up in hating him that you didn’t see my trap. I could not have predicted those idiots from Winter Hill would strafe my restaurant, but as it turns out, it saved me the trouble of convincing Christopher to hire his sister’s ex for protection. I knew as soon as Laine saw Jim Wolfe she would miss her shot, and I took advantage of the resulting downward spiral. Now I have an assassin that is totally in my control, and will not tire until she kills Christopher… and then the man who ruined my life.”
“You’re crazy,” Aiden said, his voice quaking. He held out a hand toward the asset and took a half-step in her direction. “Lainey, please—”
She dropped her arm and fired a warning shot at his feet, a loud pop issuing from the silencer. He danced backward, away from the bullet where it had struck near his shoe, and looked at her like a wounded dog, mangy and confused. The asset looked back at him, dull but steady and fully prepared to put her next shot in his chest.
Her handler waved dismissively. “You should go, Aiden. We would not want you getting hurt, after all.” He turned and headed for his car, which was parked at the other end of the alley. “Come along, ucigaş.”
The asset followed him and did not look back.
~***~
Chapter Fifteen
Frogger owned a house on Sanborn Avenue in West Roxbury, equidistant between Millennium Park and Bellevue Hill, both beautiful green areas that saw plenty of use by the locals. Her house was partially hidden from the road by several tall oak trees, a gravel driveway leading to a little two-bedroom bungalow with a dark-shingled roof and green siding. The windows were open, curtains fluttering in the breeze, and a car Wolfe didn’t recognize sat in front of the garage next to Frogger’s Toyota 4Runner. It was a Corvette, but unlike Scarlett’s it was brand new and bright orange. Wolfe presumed it belonged to the mutual friend Diana mentioned back at Dunkin’. He parked the Mustang and got out with Sebastian and Constantin, Diana and Scarlett exiting the Beemer at the same
time.
They approached the house as a group, and Wolfe could hear women laughing before he got through the screen door. “Started the party without us, huh?”
Frogger left her seat on the couch and her laptop on the coffee table to hug him, standing on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. “Sorry, Sarge, but Tara and Lottie beat you here.”
Lottie Tran sat in a bright purple wingback chair, a Bugs Bunny mug full of coffee balanced on her knee. Her hair was braided down her back and she wore no makeup; instead of a ball gown, she had on a loose button-down blouse and skinny jeans tucked into combat boots. She twiddled her fingers in a wave. “Hey, boss lady.”
“For the last time, Lottie, I am not your boss,” Diana said, rolling her eyes in a good-natured way. She walked over to stand next to the third woman in the room, who had a hacking rig propped in her lap. “Everyone, this is Tara Byrne. Tara, this is… well, everyone. I’m sure you’ve done background on them all.”
Tara smiled at them, a lip ring glimmering at the corner of her mouth as she pushed a pair of square-framed black glasses up her nose. She was around Frogger’s age, with straight blonde hair that hung to her shoulders, blue eyes, and a square jaw. She wore a strappy white dress patterned with palm fronds and a pair of worn-out Chuck Taylors, and sat in a manual wheelchair that had been spray-painted blue, pink, and white. “Only one deep dive on everybody—I tried not to be too invasive.” She tapped at her keyboard with nails painted pastel yellow. “Now, when it comes to Governor Halliday’s finances, that’s a different story.”
“Tara and I were friends back at MIT,” Frogger explained, bringing over a serving tray piled full with coffee mugs, creamer, and an honest-to-God sugar bowl. And even though they’d just gotten done slugging down large coffees at Dunks, everybody grabbed a cup and made the necessary adjustments to it before finding a place to sit down. “Of course she winds up working for a super-secret intelligence agency and I’m still doing freelance.”
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