Chapter 10
TEN
G RANT
“Thanks for coming.” I greet the raven-haired woman I’ve come to call a close friend as I meet her in the hall.
“Of course. Much easier to discuss this in person than to try and talk in code over the phone. Essie and I had a pickup to do in the city anyway.” She smiles at me as she follows me into the chess room. It’s my own version of a SCIF. A place where I can oversee the bar and the casino floor but devoid of cameras and recording equipment. The perfect place for private meetings. I nod to the guard who stands outside the room to shut the door.
“Have a seat, please.” I point to one of the overstuffed leather chairs. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you. I just had breakfast at a little place in town. Hotcakes? So good. ”
“Ah, yeah. Marlowe’s place. She’s a good friend of my future sister-in-law.”
“Sometimes I wish I lived in a small town. Some place where everyone knows everyone. A place where you all grew up together. It must be reassuring.” A sentimental smile forms on Charlotte’s lips.
“It’s the opposite more times than you can imagine.”
“Ah well. I guess the grass is always greener.”
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished for the anonymity you get in a big city.” I admit. I love Purgatory Falls. It’s home. But we all crave what we can’t have from time to time.
“Hudson has all of us set up with the best of both worlds. The penthouse in the city and then the country house. Not that we ever get to spend much time there. It’s in the middle of nowhere though. None of the small-town charm. Just acres and acres of fields and forest.” Charlotte’s smile returns, and I see the way her eyes go distant as she’s thinking about her men as she describes it.
“Good hunting and hiking, I imagine.” I reflect her smile.
“If one had time for hobbies.” She gives me a knowing look. “We all lead lives too busy to have much time for anything besides our work.”
“Hazards of the job.”
“It is beautiful though.” She nods, and I sit down across from her, satisfied we’ve broken the ice with small talk.
“All right. Hit me with the plan.”
“We’ve gone through all the authentication stages with the buyer, and it’s clear they’re very keen to get their hands on it. They outbid several other people on the market when they found it was finally up for auction after the presale exhibitions we did last year. I even had a friend try to drive the price up, and they continually bid well over market for it. So we’re fairly certain it’s them. Now it’s just a matter of letting the relic lead us to them.”
“Understood.” I lean forward, steepling my hands and nodding along so she knows I’m following her. We put this plan in motion last year when it became clear that the man who tried to get close to Hazel back then, and had succeeded in deceiving her, was originally sent after her to get access to the ranch and property there. Given that he had also infiltrated the casino by getting a job on staff, one that he was hoping would eventually lead to vault access, Levi and I had immediately been suspicious that he was after the relic we owned.
Or rather, the relic we had stolen. Years ago, shortly before our parents were murdered, our father had agreed to do a job that involved obtaining a number of pieces of rare art and relics. He and our Uncle Jay had been nervous about every aspect of it, and Levi and I had assured our father at the time that we could pull it off without incident.
It had seemed easy. Levi would hack into the system, dismantle the security measures, and overlap the CCTV. The two of us would go in and take the items on the list and bring them home. An in-and-out job really. Our father had wanted to go with us, but he’d suffered a cardiac incident a few weeks before, and doctors were worried that any stress could lead to a heart attack or worse. I was worried for him and his stress levels, but practically, we had also discussed what a liability a medical incident like that could be in the moment—catastrophic.
Reluctantly, he had agreed to let Levi and me handle the job alone, so we’d set off to do just that—confident in the way only twenty-somethings who have never seen the worst of it could be. And then it had all gone to hell. Levi’s work was overridden as soon as we got in the door, like someone else was waiting for his handiwork. The alarms had gone off, and the police were on their way when another group of masked men had entered the building. They’d held us at gunpoint and taken everything in our possession, barely escaping as the authorities arrived. Quick thinking and Levi having hidden one of the relics prior to going deeper into the building were the only things that had us leaving with our lives and anything at all to show for our efforts.
The incident rattled me so badly that I insisted on staying a couple of extra nights. There was no hurry to get home, and I wanted to hit up a few clubs. I needed alcohol to settle my nerves and sex to remind me I was still alive. Things I came to regret when I woke up, hungover with a woman in my bed, to a phone call telling me I needed to come home because my father and mother were dead. Murdered in cold blood on the porch. It had clearly been a hit, but the ransacked home and sloppiness of the murder convinced the cops that it was a burglary gone wrong. They believed the thieves had fled the country. Their only consolation to us was that they would report the incident up the chain where it was lost in a drawer and forgotten about.
We’d never gotten justice. At least not until last year when Ramsey came back home and helped unravel the murder of our parents. Those answers only led to more questions though. Like who sent us hunting down the relic in the first place, why they were so desperate to have it back, and who sent the Flanagans to our property to torture Hazel.
Charlotte, an expert in black-market art and smuggled antiquities, agreed to help us try to lure out the source of our troubles by putting the relic up on the market. We reasoned that if they were willing to kill and steal for it, they’d likely be willing to pay an exorbitant sum for it. Offering it on the market meant there was less of a chance of more thieves being sent to harass my brother’s once and future wife—something he’d been outspoken on as an imperative .
“Will you hand it over to them directly?” I ask.
“No. These things are done through couriers. Usually, a system of them so no one person has too much information. I’ll hand it off to the first designated courier later this week after they confirm they have it, and I confirm the money has been wired into the account they set up.”
“And then?” My brows knit together. I want to know how we find out who the buyer is when everything involved in this plan feels like a house of cards.
“I have my sources listening in, but this particular train of couriers is one that’s a mystery. I’m looking forward to answers myself. I’m hoping what we can’t get from sources and educated guesses—meaning who is out on delivery and who’s neatly tucked in their offices and gallery spaces this coming week—we can get from the device I’ve embedded in the case.”
“That seems risky.” My lips flatten as I worry what sorts of alarm bells a device could set off. If we’d get caught trying to pull this off.
“It’s well disguised in the hygrometer. That’s a temperature and humidity gauge. It’s not uncommon to have them during transport to make sure none of the carriers are leaving it in the heat too long or anywhere with high humidity. I’ve worked with Levi to create one that’s attached to a custom program he created. It’ll log the temperature, humidity, elevation, and GPS coordinates every four hours or so. That’ll ping back to a remote server and give us the data.”
“That’s clever. Will they question why it has something transmitting?”
“They shouldn’t. It’s not unheard of. I’ll argue that since it’s a courier service I’m unfamiliar with and a very rare and expensive item, I want evidence it isn’t mishandled in transit. Since the price for loss on these sorts of items can be death or worse, the couriers shouldn’t argue with that. ”
“But it could raise questions?” I want this plan to succeed. I need it. We all do.
“It could, and likely as soon as it arrives at its destination, it’ll be separated from the gauge altogether. Maybe before, depending on how paranoid the buyer is.”
“Fuck,” I curse. I’m worried we’re giving all of this up, material that could be evidence in my parents’ murder, for nothing.
“Every plan has its risks. But I feel confident about this one,” Charlotte reassures me. She’s one of the most self-assured people I’ve ever met besides Hudson. It’s why they make a good match.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
“And you’re meeting with the courier personally?” I question the sanity of that. If the buyer was smart, they’d be trying to figure out who the seller was.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t dangerous? Hudson’s not going to be furious, is he?”
“Calculated risk. Rowan and Essie will be with me. The two of them won’t let anything go wrong.”
“All right. I’m sorry to ask so many questions. I don’t doubt you know what you’re doing. I’m just…” The words fade on my lips.
“Nervous. I get it. I would be.” She pauses and looks out one of the mirrored windows to the bar. “I am, too, really. This could lead back to the death of Hudson’s grandparents if it is what we think it is—who we think it is.”
Hudson’s grandparents had died in a suspicious house fire around the same time as my parents. It had sent him on life-altering mission to find the culprits. We suspected the killers had been one in the same after last year’s events and long hours of research on Charlotte’s part.
“If it is who we think it is pulling the strings, we’ll have all-out war on our hands.” I scrub a hand over my mouth.
“A war Hudson will start.” Her face falls, and she shakes her head.
“I’ll be right there with him.” I don’t want war. But I need answers, and if answers lead to war, then I’ll do what I have to.
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
“But we can’t let it go on like this.”
“And if it’s not someone familiar behind the curtain?”
“I don’t know what’s worse. The devil we know or the one we don’t.” I lament our options. None of them are good. We sit in contemplative silence for a few moments, watching the tourists on the casino floor before Charlotte shifts in her seat.
“I should be going. Essie and I need to be back in Denver before tonight. Meetings and all of that,” she announces.
“Essie came back to Purgatory Falls? I thought this was too backwater for her.” Essie is Charlotte’s personal bodyguard, a woman who could rip most men limb from limb. Even I wouldn’t want to cross her unprepared.
“Hudson insists. Rowan and Finn don’t even like me going to the grocery store without her if one of them won’t be there.”
“You do your own grocery shopping?” I tease her.
Hudson and Charlotte ran in very elite circles. The ones us backwater kind were rarely even invited to attend. Years ago, when the underground order of things had been decided, the Kellys, better known colloquially as the Gallowsmen for their ancestors’ ability to narrowly avoid the gallows, had been the anointed ones. Years of being on the inside of the best homes and privy to society’s secrets, they snaked their way into positions of power and prestige. Positions that included the well-connected East Coast upper crust where they connected the haves with the have-nots and the thieves and criminals with the wealthy parts of society that could afford their goods.
The Stocktons, or the wider association out west that the Stocktons came to lead—The Quiet Horsemen—were silent partners. Money launderers and facilitators, making sure that all of the money was washed back out through legitimate and some less-than-legitimate means—saloons, silver and mineral investments, ranching, and casinos among them. It’s why Purgatory Falls was the perfect home and how it got its name—halfway between sin and salvation.
“I do occasionally have time to go grocery shopping, yes, and I prefer it. I still don’t feel right having help for everything, given how I grew up.” Charlotte shakes her head. You wouldn’t know her humble beginnings given her current lifestyle—one I imagine she could earn herself even if Hudson hadn’t been in love with her.
“There’s no reason to make it difficult just for the sake of difficulty.” I grin, thinking of Hudson worrying about her mulling around the grocery store.
“But challenge for the sake of challenge.”
“Is the grocery store a challenge?”
“Have you ever been in a grocery checkout line the night before a snowstorm? It’s a knife fight.” She laughs as she stands.
“Can’t say I’ve tried it, so I’ll just have to believe you.” I smile in return.
“All right. On that note, I guess I’m off then. We’ll see you back here in a few weeks for the wedding, though, right?”
“Absolutely. You’ll get to meet the entire dysfunctional family then.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. And I can’t wait to see your brother finally get his girl. They’re so sweet together.”
“We all can’t wait for that. We might finally get some peace and quiet for a moment then.” I walk Charlotte to the door, and she grins back at me.
“You next or Levi?”
“I think hell would need to develop a thick layer of ice first.”
“Wilder things have happened.”
“So they say.”
“Be safe.” She nods at me.
“You too. Careful on the drive back.” I wave her off as she heads for the elevators and then return to the chess room.
I press my hand to the glass and lean over to look out on the casino floor. It’s busy already, which is a good omen. I just hope that occupancy numbers and the busyness of my casino floor continue to be at the top of my priority list for the foreseeable future, rather than the number of men I have dying while fighting an unwinnable war in the streets.