by Mary Stone
“Yeah. I’m from Saint Ignace, just on the other side of the Mackinac Bridge.”
He asked more questions, his blue eyes looking so sincere. When she talked, he seemed to absorb every word.
She found herself opening up a little bit, telling him small snippets about what life was like in Saint Ignace, just north of the bridge. None of the important things, of course. She’d never do that. But what it had been like, living in a big old house perched on top of the tallest hill in town.
Her family had done some renovation work on it. They’d converted an old coal room into usable space, among other things. An elderly neighbor had told her later, that one winter, in the early 1900s, dozens of people had died from an illness that went through the community. The ground was too frozen to bury anyone, so they’d ended up storing them in the “big house,” as they called it, until spring, when the ground thawed. They’d stacked the bodies up like cordwood in what was now the Presley living room.
She’d never thought it was haunted, but her mom was a nervous, neurotic woman. Her erratic behavior had gotten worse in the house after that. Heidi didn’t tell Ryan that piece of her history.
Ryan refilled their glasses—or maybe just hers, she wasn’t sure. He told her about a hotel he’d stayed in in Europe one time. How at night, someone or something had yanked the covers off the top of his bed in the middle of the night. It had scared him so badly, he’d run straight down to the reception desk. The only problem was, he hadn’t taken the time to put on clothes.
“I sleep in the nude,” he admitted, his eyes twinkling in a wicked way.
It surprised a giggle out of her. She was not a giggler.
“I think you might have gotten me drunk,” she said in surprise. Her head felt like it was wobbling a little on her neck, and she was warm. Deliciously warm.
“Maybe,” he said, his tone mischievous. “That depends. Do you like it?”
“Maybe,” she said back. She couldn’t believe she was bantering. She was not a banterer.
“You want some more?”
She nodded. Ryan was right. They were celebrating. She’d pulled off the first two stages of her plan without a hitch. Or much of one anyway.
Ryan brought her glass back. His fingers lingered against hers longer this time.
“Are you flirting with me?” She needed to concentrate hard on pronouncing the words.
“Do you want me to be?”
Looking at him, carelessly handsome, with his black hair falling down over his forehead, barefoot in jeans with a plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned just a bit at the neck.
She drained the rest of the glass, feeling the warmth spread through her belly and elsewhere. “Maybe I do.”
Thank God, Ryan thought, looking down at Heidi. She was out cold. Her lips were parted a little, and as he watched, a soft snore escaped.
He eased off the bed, careful not to jostle her.
He’d sooner have sex with a praying mantis and had worried for a while there that he might have to follow through. He’d gotten her drunk enough, though, pouring his second glass into hers when he’d gone to the kitchen for refills, and giving her the rest of the bottle.
She shifted, and he stilled, but she just murmured something in her sleep. Her wig—brown again—had come a little askew, and beneath, he thought he could see a little blonde. It made sense, with her fair coloring.
But she could be as hot as the lingerie model he’d once hoped for, and it wouldn’t matter now. The bitch was stone-cold crazy. Not a turn on.
He could still see the face of the helpless security guard when he’d fallen backward. His mouth opened in shock as what looked like a harmless, wealthy, middle-aged woman, who shot him in the chest twice. All because he’d been trying to offer her a fucking tissue.
Between that and the way she’d been covered in blood when she came out of Covington’s room had him on edge. And the cold expression on her face as she’d shot the prince’s bodyguards. She was ruthless and scary as hell.
He moved across the carpet of the bedroom, heading toward her bags.
He’d admit it freely. He’d gotten Heidi drunk, and…he grimaced, tried to seduce her for the purpose of going through her things. The laptop would be useless, as he’d watched her log in to it before. The password was probably forty characters long, not all of them letters. Her phone was the same way. But he needed to find any kind of leverage he could. He wanted out.
He made no noise as he rustled through her belongings. That, at least, was his forte. It was like he’d told the spritely Miss Charlotte. He was a thief. Not a killer.
Heidi was paranoid, though, and it showed in her things. Or in the lack of them. No ID, no personal items. Nothing except as it related to the jobs they’d done so far.
And there was the big, black gun she seemed to favor, tucked in at the bottom of the duffel bag. He touched the metal, just grazing his fingers over it, where it glinted cold in the moonlight that poured through the window.
He could take it out. Shoot her while she slept.
He’d probably be saving dozens of lives, if not more. Including his own.
But he wasn’t a killer. Besides, she’d already told him that she had a dead man’s switch that would activate if anything happened to her. If that happened, the dossier of information she had accumulated on him would be broadcasted to who knew who.
So…he kept looking. Until, behind him, came a voice that wasn’t the least bit sleepy.
“What are you doing, Ryan?”
He turned around, managing to have a sheepish smile already on his face, but Heidi was sitting up in the bed with a look that told him she wouldn’t be buying any of the bullshit he had to sell.
“Well, love, I—”
“Did I tell you, by the way,” she interrupted with a smile, the conversational beginning not easing his nerves, “that I did some recognizance on you when you were in Jamaica? I followed you around a bit. Just to get a feel for what you were like. It was one thing to hear stories about the legend, but it was another to see him in action.”
She slipped from the bed to stand, almost eye to eye with him. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in response.
“I saw you flirt,” she said. “With all kinds of women. But there was one in particular that I noticed you seemed to have a real fondness for. Ionie, I think her name was?”
Ionie. Dammit to hell, not Ionie. He tried to keep any reaction from his face. Tried and failed.
Then, knowing she had him, Heidi smiled.
16
Winter was grateful for the accommodations of The Phoenix. Under the circumstances, she wished she wasn’t staying there at the expense of so many lives, but the FBI on-the-road accommodations didn’t normally extend to the luxury that The Phoenix had to offer.
She felt better that morning, after having had a mocha and a scone, and a decent night’s sleep on a mattress better than the one she had at home.
And because of the time difference, she’d been able to call and check in on Sheriff Marchwood in San Clemente late the previous evening. Winter had been told that Shannon was stable. She’d made it through the first critical twenty-four hours, and that was a good sign. She was resting, sedated, and would be undergoing skin grafts as soon as she was deemed strong enough to make it through the procedure.
It would be horrible and painful, but if Marchwood could survive an exploding house, she could live through skin grafts.
Winter breakfasted early, served by the hotel’s skeleton staff, hoping to miss everyone else from the unit. Sun had reversed any goodwill they’d developed in California, and Winter seemed to have a target on her back. Poor Bull wasn’t much better. He had thick skin, though, and let Sun’s insults roll off his brawny shoulders.
Noah had become the teacher’s pet. Sun stuck to his side, hung on every word, and had been throwing darts with her eyes at Winter every twelve seconds. It was partly annoying and partly gratifying. On the one hand, she was doing it in an attem
pt to get under Winter’s skin. On the other, Noah was super uncomfortable, and after him blowing up at her in the bathroom the day before, it was nice to see him squirm.
Winter hoped he had taken her warning seriously. They’d become good friends, but the second he betrayed her trust, he was gone.
She wasn’t the first in the conference room set aside for their use. Noah was already there. He nodded good morning, giving her a searching look before he relaxed a little. “You look like you’re feeling better today.”
“I’m fine. Thanks.” She took a sip of her coffee. “How long have you been in here? You look beat.”
He shrugged, still looking at his computer. “A couple hours. Believe it or not, I had a late date.”
She couldn’t help it. She pictured Noah and Sun together and fake-gagged.
“With Charlotte Edwards,” he explained, grinning. “I got the summons last night after we all split up to go to our rooms. She claimed to need someone to play poker with. Like your Grandpa Jack, based on my Texan accent, she decided that I’d suit her just fine.”
“Really?” Winter chuckled, not liking the fact that she was greatly relieved that he hadn’t been hooking up with the senior agent. “I can picture that, actually. Did she tell you any more about the robbery?”
“Just the same stuff she’d told us the day before. To be totally honest, I think she’s got a little crush on Ryan O’Connelly,” he added. “She seemed pretty taken with him. Told me he could come back and burgle her again anytime, and that it was the most fun she’d had in years.”
They were both laughing when Sun sailed in, followed by Bull at a dragging walk.
She shot Winter a glare. “Where were you? I called your room an hour ago.”
“You should have tried my cell,” Winter answered, her tone chilled. “I was having breakfast. And in case you were concerned, they think Shannon Marchwood will be okay. She pulled through the first twenty-four hours. Detective Patterson is gone, though. They were able to identify his remains yesterday. The dishwasher was rigged with dynamite.”
Sun’s eyes widened. “The dishwasher. Of course. In the original job, the perpetrators completely cleaned up the townhouse they’d used as base but forgot to run the dishwasher. It was full of dishes and fingerprints. I should have figured that out sooner.” Instead of focusing on the news about the police that had been involved, Sun went on, looking impressed. “By filling the dishwasher with dynamite, they managed to connect it even tighter to the original case. Remember, the gang used dynamite to get in through a hole in the bank roof? Genius.”
“That wasn’t my takeaway.” Winter’s tone was heavy with disgust. Sun had a one-track mind.
Instead of responding, Sun pulled out her laptop and sat down. The rebuke had flown right over her head.
“All right, everyone. I’ve got our next target. We need to go back to California. Los Angeles, this time. These guys are brilliant, but we’re going to get ahead of them.”
She turned around the computer screen and showed them a story on another old robbery—the Dunbar armored car depot.
“How do you—”
Sun held up her hand, cutting Noah off. “This is the next likely target. It was widely regarded as one of the biggest heists in U.S. history. Allen Pace, a regional safety inspector, pulled it off. He knew the cameras and how to avoid them, got a gang together, and did the job on a Friday night when the vault was kept unlocked sometimes because of the heavy volume of deliveries coming in. They got away with close to twenty million.”
It sounded plausible. Likely, even. But something didn’t feel right. As Noah asked questions and Bull slumped in his chair, looking like he desperately wanted coffee and a couple more hours of sleep, Winter pulled up her own computer and grabbed her notebook. She’d spent some time the night before, thinking about her vision. Without any additional clues, she’d tried to focus in on the emblems on the uniforms.
She’d ended up with a sketch, not a very good one, but it didn’t look like the Dunbar logo. Maybe they’d changed logos over the years. She needed to—
“Winter? Are you with us?” Sun snapped out, her voice impatient.
She didn’t look up, just kept skimming through the Google images page she’d pulled up. “Yeah,” she finally said, waiting just long enough to piss Sun off. “I think you’re on it with the armored car depot thing, but I don’t know if the location is right.”
“What do you mean?” Sun demanded. “Why would you even think the location is wrong?” Sun scowled, tapping her pen on the table. “Los Angeles is where the depot was located. It’s still there. The Phoenix robbery was done here, at The Phoenix Hotel. The only reason the bank robbery was done elsewhere was that there was an empty storefront where the United California Bank used to be in Laguna Niguel. The San Clemente bank was a substitute.”
“I know.”
Winter kept scrolling. Finally, a picture popped out at her. The logo looked similar to the one in her vision, and her heartbeat quickened. This was it. This was the one she’d seen. She was certain.
Excited now, she clicked through the image to an article: “ArmorGuard Security Buys out Dunbar Armored.” The article was dated earlier in the year.
Her fingers flew over the keys, typing in another search term, wanting to know the locations.
Bingo.
“I think it’s going to be here,” Winter said, looking up to meet Sun’s glare. “In New York.”
Noah looked at her with interest. Even Bull perked up.
“Why’s that?” the older agent asked. “I sure would rather not have to fly if I don’t have to.”
“Bear with me,” she said to Sun, knowing she’d be the one to convince. “I think you’re right with the Dunbar angle. It’s the most logical choice for the next job, if there’s going to be one. But I think that it’s going to be here in New York. ArmorGuard Security bought out Dunbar earlier this year. There’s an armored depot right in Brooklyn. If you were the suspects, even working with an advance plan, wouldn’t it make sense to stick close to the site of your last job?”
“Then why fly all the way across the country in the first place?” Sun clearly wasn’t buying it. Her face was set and tight.
“Maybe the first job was a warm up,” Winter guessed. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling that we’re looking too far away. They would have likely figured out that we’d be on to the theme of this whole spectacle by now. Maybe they’d expect we’d go to the original site while they sit tight here and get ready to pull their next heist.”
“You have a ‘feeling?’” Sun mocked, practically sneering the word. “We’re FBI. We don’t put stock in feelings. We deal in facts.”
“Then why have you been operating on hunches since we started this investigation?” Winter burst out.
Noah watched the two of them, appearing to be uncertain as to whether he should intervene. Bull just looked fascinated by the back and forth.
“What kind of solid evidence did you have that a random bank robbery in California would just happen to be the first in a string of historically based cases?”
For a second, Sun looked stymied. Her mouth opened but no excuse was forthcoming.
Understanding dawned.
“You knew.” Winter said the words in a quiet voice, underlaid with menace.
“How could I have known?” Sun’s retort sounded a little desperate.
“You knew,” Winter repeated. “Was it an anonymous tip? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sun blustered, shoving to her feet. “I’m the case agent on this. You don’t get to question me.”
“I do when it relates to the case I’m assigned to,” Winter said, standing too. “What else are you hiding?”
“Sit down.” Noah’s firm voice cut in. “Both of you, cut it out. Going at each other’s throats will not bring this case to a close.”
Bull had crossed his arms, a slight grin on his face, looking like he was watching a ten
nis match. “I don’t know, Dalton,” he said, the remark sly. “Don’t stop ‘em now. We might get to see a catfight.”
“Shut up, Bull,” Noah said mildly, his eyes still on Ming. “Sun, did you know about this?”
She’d subsided into her seat. Caught out. A minute passed. Two. When Noah opened his mouth to ask again, she held up a hand. “I got an email,” Sun admitted. “I didn’t think anything of it until I saw the headlines on the San Clemente job.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell anyone?” Winter couldn’t believe it. This whole time, they’d had a lead right in front of them. Her face went hot with anger. “We could have handed the address over to IT or the computer forensics team. They could have tried to trace it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Noah still looked pissed, but he was shaking his head. “We know now. What did the email say?”
At first, Sun looked mutinous, like she wasn’t going to tell them. “It said that I’d been chosen,” she admitted, “as one of the FBI’s best agents. They’d decided to give me an early clue about a series of robberies that were going to take place, and that I should watch the news out of California. That I’d know it was them when I saw it.”
“Call Max.” Noah tapped his knuckles on the table. “Now.”
Sun looked like she was about to argue. She glanced around the table, but there was no sympathy or understanding there.
Even Bull, not the most sensitive of the lot, realized that what Sun had done had jeopardized the case from the beginning. He shook his head at her, looking grim. “You’ll be lucky not to get fired. You know that, right?”
“No. I won’t.” She looked stubborn but determined. “Who else would have known about all the old cases? Who would have had an interest in them and put together the clues so quickly? I am the right person to lead this case, and they knew it.”
“And how would a completely anonymous person have known?” Noah asked. “Are we looking at an inside job?”
Sun flushed. “No. I don’t think so. I had an old blog about the biggest heists in history. I hadn’t even thought about it in years, hadn’t written on the site since like 2006. When blogging first started to be a thing, I would do posts on old cases. It didn’t occur to me until a couple of days ago that that’s how they could have tracked me down. It’s still on my LinkedIn profile. I haven’t updated that in a few years, either. Not since I started working in Richmond.”