“Where’s Bill?” Riley asked. She’d known before she arrived that she needed to be in and out, to grab the papers she’d hidden and go, but leaving Margaret, having seen the way she was, was going to be much harder than she’d anticipated.
“He ran to the store,” Margaret called after her, because Riley, steeling herself to do what she had to do, was already heading for the kitchen. “He’s been so good to me. He’s been here with me the whole time.”
The cop car was once again parked in the driveway, so Riley didn’t worry about Margaret’s physical safety once she left. Instead she worried about her mental state. She’d been through so much. How much could one woman take? But as soon as Emma was safe, Riley would be back, bringing Emma with her. Hanging on to that thought like a lifeline, Riley headed for the kitchen. She flipped on the light, made a beeline for the cabinet and poor Horatio’s mortal remains.
“Do you think they’ll let my daughter go, Agent Bradley?” she heard Margaret ask, and then she was listening to the rumble of Finn’s deep voice as she went up on tiptoe to reach the top of the cabinet.
Riley had the pewter urn on the counter and was in the process of unscrewing the lid when the back door opened. She looked up, startled, and then relaxed as she saw that the new arrival was Bill, who she presumed had used a key Margaret had given him and was coming in from the store. Unlike Margaret, on whom the strain of the last couple of days had left a visible mark, Bill looked like his usual lawyer self in a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie.
She smiled at him, and he took a long step that put him directly in front of her, pulled a gun out from under his jacket, and pointed it right at her forehead.
Riley’s heart leaped into her throat. Her breathing suspended.
“If you make a sound, I’ll kill you where you stand,” he whispered. Riley stood frozen, her hands still on the urn, staring at him in shock. He glanced at the urn. “You put the papers in there?” He shook his head. “Bring it. Walk out the door. Now.”
In the other room, Riley could hear the drone of the TV. She could hear Finn’s voice, and Margaret’s. In the split second that was all she had, her mind explored the situation wildly. The sound of a shot would bring them running. But then she took another look at that pistol—it had a silver thing screwed on the end of its barrel that was almost certainly a silencer. Which meant that he could, indeed, shoot her where she stood and no one would hear. If she screamed, Finn would be there in seconds. But she took one look at Bill’s eyes—they were cold and hard in a way she’d never, ever seen them—and knew she didn’t have seconds.
If she screamed he would shoot her on the spot.
Carrying Horatio’s urn, with Bill’s gun trained on her every step of the way, she did what he said and walked out the door.
* * *
“HOW DID YOU know I had papers hidden in the urn?” Riley asked as Bill hustled her through the back gate and across the dark yards on the same route she had used previously to enter and leave the house unseen. Windows glowed in the houses they passed, but curtains were drawn. No one was outside. He had his hand twisted in her hair and his gun kept nudging her neck, and he’d already made her give him the papers with the account numbers on them and had stuffed them in his pocket. Horatio’s urn had been tossed in some shrubberies.
“Margaret told me everything the two of you did, except where you put the damned copies of those bank account numbers you made, because that she didn’t know. She was so agitated, you see, after hearing you on TV today that she just couldn’t keep the secret any longer, and I was right there.” He chuckled. “I’ve been searching the damned house ever since that TV broadcast. When you called, I knew you were coming for those papers. I told Margaret I was going to the store, and then I watched through the windows to see what you would do. I was right: you went for the papers.” He shook his head. “In the dog urn, of all places.”
“Bill—you care about Margaret. She cares about you. Our family cares about you. You have a great career, a great life. You don’t need billions of dollars. Why would you do this?” Riley’s pulse drummed in her ears, her heart pounded like a trapped animal’s, and she was still so stunned that she was finding it hard to think clearly. Instinct told her that getting him talking to her, reminding him that he was a close family friend and she’d known him for years, was the best tack to take.
“I do need that money. The only reason I’m still alive is because the accounts I brought to the table that lost everything are counting on me to get that money back for them. Some of them are getting real impatient.” He pushed her into a jog. Riley saw that they were angling down toward the street. Instead of parking at the next cross street, as she had done when trying to avoid the media, he’d apparently parked much closer. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, that was his Chevy Impala on the grassy verge in front of the vacant house five doors down from Margaret’s. “I admire you, Riley, I really do. I’ve been hunting for that money ever since George, that pissant bastard, hid it.”
“You were working with George?” That was the first Riley had ever heard of it.
“I acted as a broker for him. I brought him big-ticket investors, persuaded them to trust him with their funds, and took a cut. It doesn’t matter if they’re jihadists, or Ukrainian separatists, or our own damned government funding secret wars, they all want to make money, and they all need a place to stash their cash, to launder it, to make it available when they’re ready to use it and to make it come back out looking legit. George didn’t want to know the details. When the crash came, and he lost some money, and some of the investors made their displeasure clear, so to speak, he wanted out. You don’t get out of something like this, not alive. I told him that, and some of the investors made it pretty clear, as well, and the fucker panicked and hid the damned money because he thought nobody would kill him while the money was lost out there. He was right.”
Riley pretended to stumble, trying to slow things down as much as she dared because she knew that Finn would miss her at any second and then all hell would break loose. But this forced march to Bill’s car was going fast and Finn would probably search the house first and even when he ran outside and summoned the troops he might not get to her in time.
She was breathing hard. Goose bumps raced over her skin.
“I’ll shoot you if I have to,” Bill warned, pulling her upright and pushing her forward. “The only good you are to me is if I need a hostage to escape, and it’s looking like I may not.”
“Bill—they’re going to know you did it. Even if you kill me, you can’t get away.” Riley tried reason as they reached his car. Bill smiled at her. The night sky was black as pitch, the few stars that showed were tiny pinpricks of silver, and the moon was a poor pale thing just rising over the tops of the trees. What little light there was touched his eyes, and something about the way they gleamed at her through the darkness made her blood run cold.
She didn’t think he was going to have any trouble at all killing her.
“Honey, far as Margaret or anyone knows, I’ve been at the grocery store this whole time. I’ve even got a sack of groceries in my car I can carry in. Nobody saw me take you out of the house. I’ll just go on in through the front door and act as upset as can be that you’ve turned up missing.” He smiled at her again, shoved her against the side of his car, withdrew his hand from her hair, and said, “Don’t you move.”
Riley caught herself with her hands against the smooth warm metal, threw a quick glance over her shoulder to find that he still had his gun aimed at her, and heard a tiny beep.
“Get in the trunk,” he said. That’s when she knew that the beep she’d heard was the trunk release on his key chain. The trunk opened. For the briefest of seconds, she hoped for the flare of a trunk light, but it didn’t come on. The night stayed just as dark as before. Panic surged like an icy tide through her veins as she realized that if he closed her in his trunk, if he put her in there and killed her, he could go back in the house just like
he’d said and nobody would ever associate him with her disappearance.
She slid a glance toward Margaret’s house. A cop car in the driveway, the Lexus with Bax still in the backseat, and another Lexus with two CIA agents inside parked behind it, her own personal CIA agent in the house, which by the way didn’t have any more lights on inside now than it had when Bill had taken her out of it, and she was still likely to be killed right down the street. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Her heart felt like it might explode. She thought of how devastated Margaret would be, of Emma, of Finn, and felt a violent aversion to the idea of dying. No. Not now.
Mouth sour with fear, she turned around to face Bill.
— CHAPTER —
THIRTY-THREE
The text wasn’t important—it told Finn that the ID number check that had outed him to Riley had been initiated, probably on the basis of facial recognition software just as he had feared, by the Ukrainian operative who’d attacked Riley and was now dead—but it distracted him. Between that, and Margaret’s asking him questions he couldn’t answer about Emma, a few minutes elapsed in which he lost his focus on Riley.
She’d gone into the kitchen. She hadn’t come back.
He covered the distance in half a dozen strides.
She wasn’t there. Four walls, stove, refrigerator, sink. She wasn’t there.
“Is something wrong?” Margaret was in the doorway behind him, an alarmed tremor in her voice. He paid no attention.
Cold, driving fear filled him.
A small, dome-shaped silver lid rested on the counter beside the sink. He remembered where she said she’d hidden the account numbers—a dog urn—and identified it with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
There was a back door. He looked at it. It was unlocked.
Somebody had gotten to her. Taken her. He faced it, felt it like a punch to the gut.
“Stay here,” he ordered Margaret, steel in his voice.
Then he went out the door, moving fast but silently through the shadows, over the damned so-dry-it-was-crinkly grass, knowing that if Riley had been taken—and there was no way she would have left the safety of the house, of him, voluntarily—that whoever had her also had the information they wanted, and thus had no reason not to kill her.
If he raised the alarm, if he summoned the backup out front, he might provoke the perp into doing just that.
Dread infiltrated his bones.
Whoever had her had left on foot, there was no other option. She hadn’t been gone long. She had to be still nearby. The most likely scenarios were that she was being taken to a vehicle, a nearby building, or that she had been/would be/was being killed soon after leaving the house.
Somebody could be killing her right now, putting a silenced bullet in her head, slitting her throat, strangling her, a thousand ways, and he could be within yards of it happening and not know.
For the first time in forever he found himself praying.
Bursting through the gate, Finn forced himself to slow down and look carefully in all directions. The cars full of law enforcement in the driveway would be a deterrent. The perp had almost certainly gone the other way.
It was too dark. So damned dark. He saw shadows, moving shadows, everywhere.
* * *
“I SAID, get into the trunk.”
Riley’s heart pounded so hard that she could feel it knocking against her rib cage. Cold sweat prickled to life around her hairline.
“Bill, please.” If begging for her life would save it, hey, she was ready, willing, and able to beg. Besides, anything that bought her time was a good thing. She slid another glance at Margaret’s house. Finn. . . . “This will kill Margaret. I—”
He made a contemptuous sound. “You sound like Jeff. You know what this will do to Mom: those were practically the last words out of his mouth. Margaret will be sad, and Margaret will get over it. If I don’t get this money, I’m going to be dead.”
Riley was so surprised she almost gaped at him. “You killed Jeff?”
“Not personally. I have . . . associates. They’re as interested in recovering the money as I am. But I was there.” He made a gesture with his gun. “Now, get in the trunk.”
“But Jeff didn’t know where the money is.”
“Well, I didn’t know that, did I? George had somebody send Jeff some emails, and I thought they probably had some kind of secret code in them telling the kid where the money was, but if they did I couldn’t figure it out. Jeff couldn’t, either, apparently.” Bill smirked. “He died trying.” His voice hardened, and he pointed his gun right at her forehead again. “I’m done talking to you. Get in the trunk. You make me say it again, and I’ll shoot you right here and then put your dead body in the trunk. Go on. Get in.”
Riley looked at him, and saw that he meant it. As slowly as she dared, she moved toward the trunk, glancing back toward Margaret’s house, wishing, hoping. . . .
I could run. Would that be better than taking her chances with getting in the trunk?
I have no chance if I get in the trunk.
Breathless with fear, Riley was just facing the reality of that when, from the corner of her eye, she saw a big body silently materialize out of the darkness behind Bill.
A sudden rush of movement, a sickening-sounding chop to the side of the neck, and Bill dropped like an empty suit of clothes, his gun clattering as it hit the pavement.
Riley almost collapsed where she stood. If Finn hadn’t caught her, she would have. Instead she collapsed against him.
“Where have you been?” she growled, clinging to him. He felt so good against her, so warm and strong, so safe, that she didn’t think she would ever be able to let him go again.
“Having a heart attack. I would have shot him as soon as I saw what was happening, but he had his finger on the trigger the whole time and I was afraid he would reflexively shoot you. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. Are you all right?”
His arms were tight around her, and Riley thought she felt the brush of his lips on her hair.
She looked up, nodding. “He—” Killed Jeff, was what she was going to say.
But then more shapes loomed out of the darkness. Men, at least half a dozen. Big, capable-looking men in black clothing.
“Finn.” Her voice had a squeak to it. He’d already seen. She could tell by the tightening of his muscles, by the sudden tension that she could feel emanating from him like an electric charge.
She knew, suddenly, that he was afraid. She could sense it, feel it in her bones.
Anything that could scare Finn. . . .
Riley felt her blood draining toward her toes.
* * *
EVER SINCE he’d entered clandestine services, Finn had known that one day the very agency he served might turn on him.
It was looking like today might be that day. He saw the black-garbed men materialize out of the shadows, surround them, and felt his heart stop.
They weren’t there for him. They were there for Riley. To shut her up, to keep her from telling anybody about what she knew about the secret bank accounts, and about the Agency involvement in the search for them and, now, their recovery. But to get her, they were going to have to go through him.
There were enough of them. Eagle knew him. He was taking no chances.
Riley’s arms were wrapped around his waist. He could feel her pressing against him, all soft female curves, as helpless as a baby against these men.
Not wanting to make any sudden moves, he angled himself so that he was between her and them as much as possible. Smart girl that she was, she let go of him and inched away, giving him the free use of his body and his hands.
If he went for a weapon, he was dead.
“Where’s the information?” It was Eagle himself. A tall, spare man in his late fifties, he’d left off doing field work years ago. It was a measure of how important he considered this that he was here.
The hell of it was, not seeing a dog urn, Finn didn’t k
now. Answer: somewhere.
“It’s in his coat pocket,” Riley said, her voice strong and clear, pointing to the man on the ground. Finn was proud of her. No fool, she would know what this was and she had to be scared to death.
Finn felt a surge of savage anger at the idea of Riley being scared. Of Riley being hurt. Of Riley being anything at all except happy, and safe.
Eagle motioned with his hand, and one of the operatives—Finn didn’t recognize him, Eagle was smart enough to use fresh-minted agents, men he wouldn’t know—bent over Stengel, searching his pockets, coming up with folded papers.
“That all we need to locate the missing money?” Eagle addressed Riley.
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s all there. Bank account numbers. Access codes.”
Eagle was looking at her. Finn recognized the cold assessment in his eyes.
“To get to her, you’re going to have to go through me,” he said. And he meant it. He was prepared to die, and to kill every one of them he could, in Riley’s defense.
“I realize that.” No inflection at all in Eagle’s voice.
“I saved your life,” Finn said.
Eagle looked at him. In the other man’s gaze, Finn felt the weight of decades worth of ruthlessly enforced silence, of operatives being sacrificed for the good of the cause, of the code they shared that mandated that the good of the many outweighed the good of the few, and his heart stopped beating.
“I know,” Eagle said. “That’s why I’m giving you this.” He gestured at his men. “Get him. Let’s go.”
Finn tensed, balancing on the balls of his feet as two operatives moved in to pick up the still-unconscious Stengel, then carried him away. Finn had little doubt that somewhere nearby they had a vehicle waiting. He had no doubt that Stengel would never be seen alive again.
“Keep her quiet,” Eagle said, and Finn recognized in those three words both a warning and a threat. Then Eagle turned and walked away.
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