Chapter 2 #2
“She was distraught, screaming after her husband. Becca shot her point-blank.” Abby’s voice quieted to a whisper. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She’s threatened before but never . . .”
“How’d you get loose? How’d Becca get out?”
“She ran to the window. Said the cops were shooting at something across the street instead and that we could jump to the balcony below. Some guys would meet us there.”
Nic hung his head. They’d been covering him and Lauren in the van. He’d drawn Beta team off the exterior and Charlie team off the third floor and the rip-off crew. “She went out through the window?”
Abby nodded again. “I’m terrified of heights. She knows that. Cops were closing in, so she left me helping the wife. Made me promise not to cooperate or she’d . . .” Abby lost her words again, and Nic understood why.
“She threatened to hurt your sister?”
“Yeah.” Abby reached for the tablet again, unwinding the earbud cord and weaving it through her fingers, a nervous tic not limited to her hair. “She said she’d come for me. She’s not gonna let me or the job go.”
“She’s down you, Mike, and her ringleader.”
Abby laughed, short and harsh. “You thought Scott was the leader?”
“We traced the payoff funds to his accounts.”
“Becca let him front as the lead to protect her own ass, but she called the shots. As for Mike, B&E guys are a dime a dozen. She’s probably already found a replacement and muscle to replace Scott.”
Maybe the two rip-off guys who’d helped her escape.
“Why didn’t you tell us Becca was the real lead?” Nic asked.
She shrugged, eyes downcast. “I hardly knew you. If you turned on me, all I had left was her. And she’s the one holding a felony over my little sister’s head.”
Nic couldn’t trust Abby completely, especially after she’d held back this crucial information, but he understood why she’d done it.
Yes, Abby was a criminal—he had no delusions there—but from everything he’d seen and heard since Abby had sought him out, including today, she’d gotten into this for love, not for the money or to harm anyone, and now she was stuck, a victim of Becca’s emotional manipulation. And actual blackmail.
“All that’s left is for her to come for me,” Abby said, fear making her voice tremble. “Then she’ll make another run at the artifacts.”
“Which are now locked up tight in the museum’s vault.”
Abby tapped a nail on the table, the repetitive knock-knock-knock loud in the otherwise quiet room. “Nothing is as secure as you think.”
Nic reached across the table, stilling her hand. “We’ve got eyes on your sister and we’ve got a safe house ready for you.”
Sliding her hand out from under his, she patted the back of his as if he were a child. “Which I guarantee she’ll case. The courthouse too.”
“You think she’ll make a move there?”
She gave him a duh face, and Nic conceded the point. Abby was invaluable, not just for this job but for others too as voice recognition technology continued to grow in popularity for high-end safes.
He drummed his thumbs on the table, contemplating alternatives. “I can’t move the arraignment from the courthouse, but I can talk to the clerk about keeping the exact time and courtroom under wraps. We’ll change it at the last minute if we need to. Throw her off a bit.”
“And the safe house?”
“We’ll move you each night. I’ll also coordinate with the feds to add more guards to Tony’s protection team.”
Abby lifted the tablet. “Could use some more audiobooks too. Good distraction.”
“I think we can arrange that.”
Worries seemingly allayed, Abby braced her forearms on the table and tilted toward him, flashing her cleavage. “You single, Attorney Price?”
“Yes, but this”—he gestured between them—“would be a clear violation of attorney ethics rules.”
She flapped a hand like she was swatting a fly. “Rules.”
“You’re also not my type.”
She twirled an errant ringlet of her hair again. “Blondes instead?”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice like he was about to tell her a secret. Building a sense of trust with his witness. “Men instead.”
Her eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open in a silent Oh. He laughed out loud as he pushed to his feet.
“That’s cool,” she said, recovering. “Good for you.”
“Good for you too. I’m a terrible boyfriend.”
She reclined back in her chair, tucking an earbud back in. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
He didn’t correct her, choosing instead to be amused at the end of this long, terrible day. He was still grinning when he walked back into his war room and found Lauren at the head of the table, face hidden behind her laptop screen, long brown hair escaping from the wobbly pencil bun atop her head.
His smile grew wider, then died when she glanced up, her blue eyes filled with worry.
His earlier distress came roaring back, mouth dry and skin on fire. He almost voiced it, almost asked, Where’s Cam?, then caught himself, correcting and asking more vaguely, “What’s wrong?” and praying the answer didn’t involve the ASAC.
“The shooter who targeted the van,” Lauren said. “I don’t think he was with either crew.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left behind this phone.” She disconnected the generic burner model from her laptop. “I cracked it.”
Nic eyed the device like it was poisonous. Ridiculous—it was just a piece of handheld electronics—but judging by Lauren’s wariness, his caution was warranted. “What’s on it?”
She held the phone out to him. “It’s wiped clean except for these.”
He slid it from her hand and stared at the picture on the screen.
Of him.
He swiped his thumb left across the screen. Again and again. More pictures of him.
At the Federal Building. At the UN Plaza food trucks. At the gym where he worked out.
Lauren closed her laptop, the click loud like the gunshots that had hit their van earlier today. That had been aimed at him.
“You were the target.”