Hard As Ice (Fortis Series 1)

by Raven Scott

  6:30 it is.

  Once back to work, Nia’s day flew by. She went to meetings from one end of the city to the other in cab rides, finally getting back to the office shortly after four o’clock. At one of her client visits, she had the opportunity to acquire a large nineteenth-century Italian marble statue. Nia had been unable to commit to accepting the piece on consignment for the gallery until she spoke to Chris. The size and weight far exceeded what they usually managed.

  Imagining special equipment and extra laborers, she went into the warehouse to get Chris’s opinion. When he wasn’t in his office, she looked around, intending to check in a couple of storage areas. On the way, she passed the back door next to the delivery bay and noticed it was left slightly ajar. Nia hesitated, concerned about security. With soft steps, she walked closer, until she heard someone talking in an agitated tone. Still apprehensive, Nia leaned closer, and the words of the one-sided conversation came through the narrow opening of the door

  “I’m telling you, Matt’s girlfriend must have it, but don’t worry about it. I’ll find her. I’ll get the stuff back. I just need a little more time, that’s all.”

  He turned toward the doorway, and Nia jumped back, then walked away as quickly as possible, embarrassed by the thought of being caught snooping. It wasn’t until she was halfway up the stairs that the significance of Chris’s words registered.

  Evan and the Fortis team had spent the last day and a half tracking down any scent of a broker named Walsh, but they had come up empty.

  At five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, they were back in the control center looking speculatively at the virtual picture board displayed on one of the flat oversized LED screens. It was a visual map of the people they had in their scope. The employee photo of Nia James was still front and center, with the mug shot of Nigel St. Clair on one side, and the picture of Matt Flannigan on the other. There were two squares next to Flannigan; one was blank with only a large question mark in the center and the second one had the name Walsh captured in it. The other Worthington employees were displayed in a row below.

  “We need to rethink the profile of Walsh,” Evan stated. “None of the names we short-listed were viable suspects. It was too easy. If we’re on the right track, we need to find a real connection. James or someone at Worthington made contact with the broker, either directly, through Flannigan, or through another third party. It’s the only way a heist like this could have come together. We just need to find out who and when,” Evan summarized.

  The team uttered their agreement.

  “Let’s review all our known variables again to see if we missed anything,” Evan decided. “We know there’s a low probability that Nia handled the jewels herself. We can’t place her at the robbery, and she hasn’t been in contact with anyone outside of work.”

  “Except for her visitor on Saturday at the community center,” Raymond stated as he pulled up the picture. “We couldn’t get facial recognition off the picture you took. So I took another route. The music student is Meghan McFarlane. She lives with her divorced mom, Julie McFarlane, just a few blocks from the community center. Julie’s maiden name is St. Clair. And meet her younger brother, Nigel.”

  He pulled up a recent picture of the subject, then layered it against the original Michigan mug shot from eleven years ago. The newer picture showed a thinner, more clean-cut man.

  “Nicely done, Raymond,” Evan commented. “Now we can remove our unknown subject from the list.”

  The team watched as Raymond updated the virtual picture board by removing the square containing the large question mark.

  “But now we still need to connect James to possession of the jewels or a way to get paid for her role in the job,” Tony reminded them.

  “And, based on the system alerts, Flannigan was on the surveillance video doing his rounds at the time the safe was accessed. So it’s unlikely he ever took possession of them,” Raymond added.

  “Agreed. I did a complete search of his place. There was no money, and no sign of him receiving any payment for his role. So, his job was just to provide access to the warehouse. And we have to assume he was going to get paid after the heist,” Tony surmised.

  “Explains the timing of his elimination. They tied up a loose end and removed a slice of the pie,” concluded Michael.

  “By the way, it looks like his girlfriend is now staying with her parents in Worcester, Massachusetts, about an hour away,” added Tony. “I guess she was pretty spooked by the whole thing.”

  “Not surprising,” Evan mumbled. “Keep tabs on her. We can’t rule anything out at this point.”

  “What about his friendship with the ops manager and the receptionist? Any meat there?” probed Evan.

  “Looks accurate. Morton was visibly upset when we spoke to him on Wednesday. A few other people we talked to confirmed a friendship outside of work,” Michael verified. “Even Flannigan’s supervisor at the security agency mentioned it. They usually move their people around with various clients to managing shifts, but Morton had requested Flannigan as a regular on their account months ago.”

  “And he did move from the day to the night shift about a couple of weeks before the robbery,” added Raymond.

  “Does that make Morton a viable suspect? What do we have on him?” Evan probed.

  Raymond pulled up another screen full of personal data on Chris Morton.

  “Thirty-two years old, divorced. Worked for Worthington for about five years, and moved to Boston from New Haven a year ago to take the manager role,” outlined Raymond. “Rents an apartment in Cambridge. Likes to party quite a bit, with a preference for cocaine on the weekends. His finances are basically paycheck to paycheck. But no sign he’s into anything more serious.”

  Evan crossed his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels.

  “Where was he the night of the robbery?”

  “Security cameras and cell phone data put him in the Mission Hill neighborhood until the morning.”

  “With Emma Sterling,” Michael stated with a smirk.

  “Yeah, the rumors about their relationship look accurate,” agreed Raymond. “They spend a lot of time together outside of the office.”

  “So, neither of them did the robbery. And neither had access to the safe,” concluded Evan. “But the friendship with Flannigan is still a red flag for me . . . I don’t like it. Keep digging on Morton and Sterling, just in case. Check out his drug usage and money problems more, there might be a motive for quick cash that Flannigan was exploiting.”

  “Got it,” Raymond acknowledged.

  “Is there anyone else at Worthington that looks like a suspect, other than James?” continued Evan.

  “We’re halfway through the background checks and all communications by the other employees,” Raymond advised them. “Everything that’s happened in the office or on personal devices going back two months. I haven’t seen any flags yet, other than the stuff on Morton,” Raymond stated.

  “So, that brings us right back to James,” Evan stated with a sigh. “But we have to assume that she’s working with someone else, other than Flannigan,” Evan stated. “Let’s go back to St. Clair. Any new activity?”

  “None,” Raymond confirmed, and he pulled up St. Clair’s cell phone records over the last four weeks. “All his communications look pretty consistent. There’s the occasional connection to people with some criminal background. But none appear active in the business over the last few years.”

  “Maybe he’s using another way of communicating about the robbery?” Michael suggested. “Unregistered phones, some other off-line method?”

  “Then why would Nia call him about it on his registered line?” Evan reasoned. “She would call the burner phone. And he would use that same phone to call her back. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “There’s only one logical answer, guys,” insisted Tony. “Nia reached out to him for help when she knew she was fingered for the job. She wanted to see if he knew anything about it from h
is network. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Maybe,” Tony conceded. “But that also suggests she wasn’t involved, right? It blows our whole strategy to hell.”

  “We still don’t have enough to draw any concrete conclusion,” replied Evan with a sigh. The case was doing his head in. All of their tangible leads still pointed back to Nia, yet none of the specifics confirmed her culpability. But they were getting close, he could feel it. They just needed to uncover a few key facts and the whole thing would come together.

  “It’s been one week since the heist,” he stated. “Assuming Spencer has put us on the right track, we know there is a broker and a buyer. That’s confirmed payment as motive. James as our means to get into the safe, and Flannigan provided the opportunity to access the warehouse undetected. Then someone has to, or will deliver the jewels to Walsh. That’s our window. If it wasn’t James or Flannigan directly, there’s a third party at play. We find Walsh, and we find the buyer, the jewels, and the money trail. The money will lead us back to everyone involved.”

  “Maybe we need to dangle a carrot,” Michael suggested. “Like having the new wealthy boyfriend tell James about something that he really wants. Something that he’ll pay well to get? If she’s in any way connected to Walsh directly, she’ll definitely pass on the lead.”

  Evan smiled broadly, and slapped the young agent on his back.

  “I like it!” he agreed. “I’m meeting her for dinner in less than an hour, so I’ll think of something to bait our hook.”

  The team broke up to focus on their individual tasks while Evan went back to his suite to shower and shave off the four days’ worth of beard that he’d grown over the long weekend. During a long hot shower, he combed through all the facts they had on the mission. Some were concrete; others were only tied together in loose, flimsy tendrils. And he added the ones he couldn’t easily articulate to the team.

  Like the fact that the character composite he was building about Nia James just wasn’t adding up. From his extensive experience, Evan knew how to read people quickly. He also knew for certain that if it were a woman at the center of this whole scheme, she would fall into a narrow range of profiles. She could be greedy and opportunistic, taking advantage of her position and contacts to make big money. She might be frustrated, angry, or scared about her life situation, and the theft would solve her problems. It could be personal, and stealing from Worthington was the means for revenge, or a reasonable way to right a wrong. Or, perhaps it was for ideology, where stealing the jewels was for the greater good in some way. Whatever it was, the motives weren’t always obvious at first, but one or more of them were almost always there. So were the personality and behavior traits associated with those motives.

  Nia just didn’t demonstrate any that he would expect. Sure, she was reserved and aloof, maybe even secretive. But everything else about her seemed genuine. Instinct told him she was being honest and authentic when they were together, particularly in their intimacy. She wasn’t playing him, or using his status and wealth for ulterior motives. Look how pissed she had been about the damn dress.

  Or was she? Was his physical attraction to her blocking his objectivity? It was an unpalatable thought. Particularly since the same honed instincts told Evan she was involved in the robbery in some way. He just couldn’t piece it together.

  Dressed in a dark gray blazer over a crisp white monogrammed shirt and black slacks, Evan left the hotel a few minutes later. He called Lucas from the car on the way.

  “Have you had a chance to review our status update?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah, Raymond just sent it through,” confirmed Lucas.

  “I’ll bait James tonight, but let’s assign a few analysts to help with the search of the identity of the broker. Walsh is probably not his real name, but there has to be a trail somewhere.”

  “Do you think she’ll take the bait?” his friend asked.

  “I don’t know,” Evan replied honestly.

  There was silence for a few minutes. Lucas’s brain was like a high-capacity computer, so Evan waited patiently for him to run through his process of data analysis.

  “You’re questioning whether James is our prime suspect after all,” Lucas finally stated.

  Evan let out a breath. There was a reason the two men were so close. They had different methods for getting the job done, but ultimately they usually came to the same conclusion.

  “I read her wrong from the beginning,” Evan acknowledged. “She’s not a victim in the plan, but she’s not an opportunist either. It’s just not in her personality.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Lucas. “I don’t know many female cons that spend their weekends volunteering with low-income kids.”

  “So, what’s her role in all this? That’s what I can’t figure out,” Evan admitted. “And it gets even better. Without telling her, I paid for the dress she wore to the Clement party on Saturday. She flipped when she found the receipt with my credit card on it.”

  “Really?”

  “Here I was thinking it would be a romantic thing to do for a woman I’m trying to impress. But instead of appreciating it, she all but accused me of trying to buy her, and insisted I take back the money. She even wrote out the check!”

  Lucas whistled. “Wow, that’s a first.”

  “Tell me about it. You’d think I tried to pay her for the night.”

  “Or maybe you’ve just lost your charming touch” his friend teased.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Or, one thing has nothing to do with the other, Ice. The better question is: If she’s not our suspect, what do you think is going on with her?”

  Evan was now parked across the street from Worthington, with about five minutes to spare before he was to meet Nia.

  “What do you mean?” he asked Lucas.

  “You’ve said she’s a bit cagey, reserved. Like she was hiding something, right?”

  “She’s definitely not the chatty type at first, that’s for sure. I can’t say I learned anything about her background that’s material to the case, but she relaxed a bit over the weekend.”

  “How relaxed?”

  Evan should have known Lucas would have heard what he wasn’t saying.

  “Look, the purpose was to get her to lower her guard and provide any insights into what may have happened to the jewels. It worked. If we consider that she may not be actively involved in the robbery, we can redirect our focus and resources.”

  “Ice, that’s not what I’m asking.”

  “I know what you’re getting at, Luc,” Evan bit back.

  “Look, I know you well enough to know you’re struggling with something here. Why did you need me to tell you that James may not be our target?”

  “I just needed a second opinion, that’s all. You’re reading too much into it.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, Ice. You’ve never needed a second opinion in your life,” Lucas retorted sarcastically.

  “It’s under control,” Evan shot back, shutting down the conversation. “If she takes the bait on a job for Walsh, it will all be moot anyway. I’ll let you know later how it went.”

  He ended the call abruptly just as the topic of their discussion exited the gallery. Evan stepped out of the car, and Nia acknowledged him right away with an upward nod of her head. She started toward him, crossing the street on a green light. He headed down the block toward the intersection to meet her.

  Evan heard the aggressive rev of an engine before he saw the vehicle. The sound, angry and predatory, sent chills down his spine. Instinct and seasoned reflexes had him running across the street between stopped cars as soon as the big, black pickup truck pulled out of the alley beside the gallery. The tires squealed as it picked up speed, racing through the red light and aimed directly toward Nia.

  Chapter 14

  Everything was in slow motion. Evan watched the scene unfold even as he rushed toward Nia at breakneck speed. Somewhere in the ba
ckground, he recognized the muffled sounds around him as horns blared and cars braked. He was aware of shouting her name at the top of his lungs.

  Yet the only thing he could hear clearly was the rhythm of his rapid breathing and the pounding of his heart. The only thing he could see was the two tons of speeding metal as it whipped by Nia. Then, the image of her crumbled form lying in the road. He was beside her within seconds.

  The details of the situation filled his brain. She was unconscious. There was no blood or obvious signs of major physical damage. The truck was speeding away. Other drivers and pedestrians were watching the situation, unsure of what exactly had happened. Several people shouted that the paramedics should be called. Evan heard someone close to him talking to emergency on their cell phone.

  He looked back at Nia, his breathing hard and ragged. Her jacket was torn at the shoulder and the heel of her shoe was broken. She looked so fragile. Her lipstick was smudged.

  Evan blinked, and the universe rushed forward into real time.

  “Nia,” Evan whispered, gently touching her face.

  She didn’t respond. Immediately, he started a slow, thorough inventory of her body, assessing the damage and checking for broken bones. There was nothing obvious. He knew that meant she either moved out of the way in time, perhaps knocked out by her landing on the pavement. Or, the car had hit her dead on in the midsection, in which case the damage was internal and much more worrisome.

  The ambulance and police arrived quickly. Instinctively, Evan took on the persona of the average boyfriend. He stepped back so the paramedics could examine and stabilize Nia, and he provided a solid statement to the police, but not so detailed as to raise eyebrows. Within ten minutes, he was riding to the hospital with Nia on a stretcher as the sirens wailed. She was still unconscious.

  Evan called Tony to fill him in on the situation. Someone had tried to kill Nia, or at least do some serious damage.

  It was amateurish, poorly planned. Opportunistic. The act of someone desperate or scared.