by Tina Whittle
“Who is gonna be seriously pissed.”
“I suspect so. But it’s the necessary response.”
The ball swirled around us, glamour and illusion weaving itself into a tapestry. Appearances deceived, half-revealed, half-revealing. Real swords, fake uniforms, the sheen of the surface. Nobody ever looked below the surface. Nobody ever wanted to.
People don’t see what’s there, they see what they think is there.
The realization struck me so hard I gasped. “Omigod, I know what Fitzhugh’s hiding!”
Chapter Thirty-eight
The reel flowed, and new dancers joined the circle in a flurry of black and white. I grabbed Trey’s elbow and pulled him close.
“Reynolds told me he thought Audrina was trying to kill him by sending him on all those dangerous trips. But Audrina lets Fitzhugh make all her decisions, right?”
Trey frowned. “Fitzhugh is trying to kill Reynolds?”
“No, it’s not the danger that matters, it’s the distance! Fitz-hugh’s trying to keep Reynolds as far away from Audrina as possible.”
“Why?”
“Because Reynolds is persuading her to open the museum, and Fitzhugh can’t have that. Because dollars to donuts, if a museum curator ever gets their hands on Audrina’s collection, they’ll discover it’s full of fakes.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
“Authentication is a tricky business. It takes smarts and study and practice, none of which Audrina is willing to invest. Which means that when it comes to antiques, she doesn’t know a verso from a recto. Reynolds doesn’t either. They rely on Fitzhugh. But what if he’s been doing the same thing with Audrina’s collection that Reynolds did with that sword?”
Trey was catching on. “Taking pieces and replacing them with duplicates?”
“Exactly. Only unlike Reynolds, he’s stealing, not borrowing, so that he can sell the real stuff to someone else. It’s brilliantly simple—unless your reclusive mark suddenly starts listening to her brother and decides to open a museum.” I grabbed Trey’s arm tighter. “Omigod, that’s what Fitzhugh’s been doing here all week—making private purchases to try to fill the holes in the collection!”
Trey cocked his head. “That explains the conversation in the hotel room.”
“Technically true but deliberately evasive, I know! And I figured it out all by myself!”
“Stop bouncing.” He disentangled his arm from my fingers. “We need to find Marisa. Now.”
He turned on his heel and headed for the exit. I grabbed my skirts and followed after, only to hear the buzz of my cell phone. I snatched it from my reticule and held it to my ear.
“This isn’t the best time,” I said, “so—”
“Do you want the document?”
I stopped and gripped the phone a little tighter. “Hope?”
“Do you want it or not?”
I shot a baffled look at Trey. He raised one eyebrow. Hope, I mouthed at him. She wants to hand over the Bible!
“Where are you?” I said.
“Look out the window over the courtyard.”
I hurried to the window, Trey right behind me. Sure enough, Hope stood at the threshold of the dock, near the courtyard. She was dressed in a simple black sheath dress, her hair once again dark and cut as short as a boy’s.
“Why now?”
“I watched the top of Winston’s head get blown off! You think I’m gonna fuck around after seeing that? All I need from you is an answer—do you want it or not?”
“Why would I want a fake Bible?”
“This isn’t about the Bible anymore. This is much, much bigger.”
Trey watched me through this exchange, his expression alert. Not the Bible, I mouthed. He whipped his eyes down to where Hope stood, her face hard in the angled light.
I made my voice calm. “We need to know—”
“You’ve got ten minutes to decide. No cops, no security guards. I see a single uniform, I’m outta here.”
“But—”
“Ten minutes.”
She hung up on me. I looked at Trey. “Game change.”
I gave him the summary. He listened. He pulled out his phone and called Marisa, explaining in succinct no-nonsense language. Then the conversation became one-sided.
“Yes, I realize that, but…yes, I’m willing, but this isn’t a decision I…Very well. I understand.”
He tucked the phone in his pocket and didn’t say anything.
“She told you to go, didn’t she?”
He shook his head, baffled. “She said it’s my decision.”
“What?”
“She said I’m on the ground, not her. She said it’s my call because she’s up to her elbows with Audrina and Reynolds right now. Her words.”
I was a little stunned. Leave it to Marisa to pick the worse possible time to start treating Trey as a partner. Because Trey didn’t do instant decisions. His decisions required hours of sifting, sorting, integrating, charting.
I peeked at his watch. Eight minutes.
“So what do we do?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
He moved to the window and stood to the side, pulling the sheer curtain back slightly. The courtyard lay below, square and golden and rimmed with tiny pearl-toned lights, tossing in the rain-spiked gusts. A dozen yachts bobbed in the inky water. It had all looked so innocent from our balcony. Now it glared like ground zero. Hope tapped her foot, checked her watch.
Seven minutes.
Trey went into assessment mode. “It’s relatively protected as a meet point. Two access zones—one from the courtyard, a second from the dock. The dock is unsecured, no doubt why she chose it, but the rain has kept the foot traffic down. There’s one problem.”
“What?”
He pointed to the left, beyond the trellis. “Limited sight range. There’s a blind spot just past the dock entrance. Someone could be waiting on the other side of that wall, concealed by the foliage.”
I saw the danger zone exactly as he described. “Shit.”
“Exactly.”
I stomped my foot. “Damn it, Trey, this isn’t about some artifact anymore. That bitch needs to be behind bars.”
“I don’t have that authority.”
“But you could detain her, right?”
“Not unless she presents imminent danger to others. Which she doesn’t.”
He stared down at Hope. I stopped talking and started considering my words very carefully. I was treading on the edge of the phrase that would decide for him—life or death. Once that clause was evoked, there was no going back. Trey was a straight line to action, all his rules flying out the window.
“That woman is wreaking havoc wherever she goes. If we can put an end to it by getting whatever she has away from her, then we should, before she gets me in any more trouble, or worse, gets another innocent person killed. But it’s not worth doing anything stupid. And from what I heard you say, going down there with a blind spot is stupid.”
He examined the courtyard again. “There is one solution.”
“What?”
He pointed. “Our suite is there—corner window, seventh floor balcony. From that perspective, I could see the entire area. If you stayed here while I went there, I could surveil the blind spot before proceeding to the meet point.”
I followed his finger. “Then you could go down to the dock entrance using the back stairwell, staying under cover the whole way.”
“Concealment.”
“Whatever. With all those trellises and ivy, there’s no way for a sniper to get a sight line.”
He blinked in surprise. “You read the manual.”
“Of course I did.”
“Good. Very good.” Then he checked his watch. “Six minutes.”
I cursed again. I knew he’d do whatever I told him. If I said stand down, he’d stand down. If I said go, he’d go. Damn Marisa.
He looked at me, waiting. I shook my head.
“You hav
e to decide, Trey.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
He blew out a breath. “Tell me what to do.”
“Trey—”
“Please.”
I took a deep breath. I was going to ream Marisa out when this was over. “Fine. We go. But only if you think it’s safe.”
“It has an acceptably low level of risk. Nonetheless.” He slipped the H&K out of his holster and pressed it into my hand. “Take this. I’ll get the spare in the room.”
I held his gun, warm from his body. Suddenly everything seemed real. Too real. Suddenly I wanted to crawl into that metaphorical box I’d warned him against.
He scanned the courtyard once more. “You wait here at the window, but keep an eye on the ballroom. This could be a diversion. Let me know if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t leave this spot.” Trey looked me in the eye. “We stick to the plan. No deviations. You do not move from this window until I call you. Do you understand?”
I hid the gun in the folds of my dress. “I understand.”
He wasn’t even pretending to be trusting. He analyzed my mouth, my eyes, the tic of each facial muscle. I let him read the truth lying on my face. There wasn’t anything that could get me away from that window until he called.
I turned my attention to the courtyard. “Go. And be careful.”
He left me standing alone in a hotel ballroom surrounded by men and women pretending to be dead sympathizers to an armed rebellion. I was among the doomed and blinkered and blind, deliberately unaware of the crashing violence roaring down on them, holding onto their illusion even as it dragged them to the bottom of the river.
I called Hope back. “Trey’s coming to get whatever the hell you have. Stay where I can see you. And if this is a trick, I will spit and roast you, you hear me?”
She hung up. And I took my spot at the window, the gun in one hand, the cell phone in the other.
Chapter Thirty-nine
The ball swirled around me. I watched the window of our suite, waiting for the light to go on. And then I realized it wouldn’t. Trey would find his way in the dark. Behind me a polka roared to life, pierced by a shriek of feminine laughter. I scanned the ballroom quickly. Nothing unusual, only the dancers in a black and white blur. I looked back at the courtyard.
Hope had vanished.
My stomach lurched. I punched in Trey’s number. He answered on the first ring.
“Don’t do it,” I said. “It’s a trap. Or a ruse. Whatever it is, she’s gone.”
“No sight of her?”
“None.”
“Stay where you are. I’m on my way back to the ballroom. Let me know if you see her.”
“Where are you now?”
“At the hotel room. I’ll get my spare gun and be right down.”
He hung up, and I saw the light go on in our suite. He’d been two minutes from the courtyard. I took a deep breath of relief, feeling my ribs strain against the corset. I was done. Forget Hope. Forget Savannah. I was ready to be back in Fulton County.
The lights on the dock flickered with the rising wind, and the light in our room went out. Hope did not appear, and I didn’t budge from my vantage point. Don’t leave the window, not for any reason. I held my breath, waiting for a scream, a cry, the crack of a rifle. But nothing happened. The only sound was the band behind me and the voices of the guests.
No Trey. I scanned the ballroom again. Still no Trey. I called his phone. No answer. I looked down into the courtyard. Nothing.
“All right, Trey,” I muttered, “what are you up to?”
I gave him sixty more seconds. I counted them off in my head one by one, willing him to appear. When he still wasn’t back in the ballroom, I hiked up my skirts, hid the gun in the folds of my skirt, and made for the hotel room, instructions be damned.
***
The lights were off when I opened the door. “Trey?”
No answer. I bustled to the window and pulled the curtains back. The courtyard remained deserted. I reached for the desk lamp with one hand, still holding Trey’s gun with the other. Damn it, why wasn’t he answering his phone?
I examined the desktop. Nothing seemed to be missing, but the pens clustered in a pile like loose kindling, and the edges of the folders were skewed and uneven. Not how Trey left his desk, ever.
Our room had been searched.
I cursed and called him again, cursing louder when it went straight to voice mail. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said, “but we’ve got a bigger problem than Hope. Someone’s gone through your files. Call me back ASAP.”
I turned on the floor lamp. And my stomach plummeted.
I saw the sofa cushion on the floor in front of the bar, the crooked chair. I went into the bedroom. The search had gotten sloppier in here. My suitcase lay like a gutted fish. The comforter crumpled at the foot of the bed. I reached to turn on the bedside lamp, but I couldn’t find it.
Then my foot crunched broken glass. Not just a search. There had been violence here.
I took a deep breath and willed myself calm. I called Trey again. And standing there in the darkened room, I heard a soft vibration. I got down on all fours on the broken glass and followed the sound under the bed.
Trey’s phone.
My heart stopped, then hammered. I reached under the bed and pulled it out with a trembling hand. I was going to be sick, pass out, scream, cry. I breathed until the worst of it passed, then stared at the phone. How had it gotten under the bed? Where was he? Slow down, I told myself. Think. There was a way to figure out what had happened. He’d shown me himself, the two of us in bed, the rain lashing the window.
I pulled up the password sign-in with shaking fingers. What was the formula? Okay, it was Saturday, Saturday was the seventh day. No, the sixth. What was the date? The fifteenth. I typed in the words, then fed that into matrix six. I hit enter, got a nine digit code. I entered that.
Access approved.
I sobbed once in relief. I was in. I scrolled down the library until I saw the file. I clicked it.
It began with the door opening. “Find it,” a voice said. Male. Monotone. “Start with the safe, then the bedroom. I’ll post up at the elevator.”
The door closing, the sounds of searching. Then something muffled and unintelligible. A radio? A different voice suddenly. “Who? Fuck.” An electronic crackle. “Seaver’s on his way. Go to Plan B.”
And then twenty seconds later, Trey was in the room. I heard the door open and close. Heard the last snatches of our phone conversation. Silence. Then there was only the sound of blows, and grunts, the whiplash of flesh colliding with flesh, the hard reverberation of bodies.
Trey’s voice next, strained from exertion, but calm. “Who are you?”
Not people he recognized. The first clue. They didn’t answer.
Trey again. “You’re law enforcement, both of you. Savannah metro uniformed patrol.”
“Not tonight, we’re not. Now you gonna come easy, or you gonna make it hard?”
No response. A shuffle of footsteps, more fighting. The golf clubs tumbling, the thunk of metal on flesh.
Somebody hissed in fury and pain. “Goddamn fucker broke my arm!”
Satisfaction jolted me. Trey could hurt people, and I wanted him to hurt these people, I wanted to hear him break every one of them. But I knew that wasn’t how things had ended. My stomach clenched, knowing what was eventually coming, ordained by the empty room.
There were two of them, one of him. They were cops. They had guns, and he hadn’t made it to his weapon yet.
Something unintelligible, then Trey again. “What do you want?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the order.”
“Whose order?”
A shuffle of feet. More meaty blows. Another sound, a hard slap against the wall, muttered curses, another crash. More grappling, the hotel
door opening and slamming shut. A new sound, a muffled rapid clicking. The thump of a body hitting the floor. Silence.
I started shaking.
The first voice again, still monotone. “Get him in the cart. Now.”
More noises, frantic and hurried. Dragging, muttering, a curse from the man with the broken arm.
Anger burned in my chest. I would kill them. I wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in my life.
“Tape him tight.”
More muffled sounds, banging and clattering. The rip of duct tape, the door shutting, the hiss of silence. I shut off the recording.
They had Trey. I’d sent him right to them.
I rocked back and forth on the floor. In all that uproar, he’d found a way to leave me the phone—a key and a clue and a warning, all rolled into one. He needed to leave it so that they wouldn’t take it from him later. He needed me to know that the bad guys were Savannah metro cops, in uniform. Cops he didn’t know. Three of them.
A noise then, my own cell phone, ringing. I knew who it would be before I put it to my ear. I swallowed hard and willed myself calm.
“What do you want?” I said.
The monotone voice was unemotional. “You have the document?”
“I don’t have anything. We—”
“Then find it. You have two hours, if you want him back. Don’t call the cops. Don’t call your detective friends. Don’t call 911, or we take him apart piece by piece, understand?”
I closed my eyes. Focus. Think. Listen.
The voice grew firmer. “I said, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” The voice softened, calm, persuasive. “There’s no reason he has to die, not if we keep things simple. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Please let me—”
“We’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
I sat in the rumpled wreck of my dress, phone in hand. Two hours, they’d said. I had two hours to find Hope and convince her to give me whatever it was she had.
My phone vibrated in my hand again. I stared at it for a moment, lost, dazed. I put it to my ear.
Hope’s voice was angry. “I told you not to call the cops!”
A bright fury rose. “We didn’t!”