Chapter 18
Eighteen
Cam had barely stepped out of the bathroom when fingernails dug into his arm, Abby yanking him out into the hallway.
“What the hell is going on?” she hissed. Every bit of control and obedience she’d fronted for Becca was gone. Eyes wide, her breath came in short bursts and her grip on his arm, while strong, still trembled.
He had to make a decision. Keep up the ruse that he’d gone rogue or put it all out there, let Abby in on the bluff, and hope he’d done enough to earn Abby’s trust. To convince her he was her best shot, not Becca.
Weighing in favor of trust was her sincerity and remorse in the elevator.
Cam didn’t think she could fake that, and there’d only be more of that in Becca’s column.
He made his decision. Backing her against the wall, he stepped close and whispered low. “I’m trying to keep us alive.”
“So all that out there”—she threw an arm out toward the living area—“was a lie?”
He wished. “Not all of it.”
A shadow fell across the mouth of the hallway, and Cam crowded into Abby’s space, a forearm braced on the wall blocking their faces, pretending he was going in for a kiss.
Abby’s lips brushed against the corner of his mouth, wanting a real one.
He turned his chin instead, dodging and slipping past her cheek.
Pretending to kiss her elsewhere for anyone who was looking. But really not.
Cam waited until Jared passed on his way to the bathroom, then stepped back and hustled Abby into the bedroom across the hall, closing the door partway behind them.
Abby jerked out of his hold, halfway between seething and dejected. “So that kiss last night was a lie too?”
“I had to know whether you were lying. If you were still on Becca’s side for real, I had to sell the rogue cover. I need to stay close if I’m going to get you and your sister clear.”
Sighing, she sank onto the end of the bed. “Who the fuck am I supposed to trust? How do I know you’re not lying now? Becca’s got me tied in knots and you just pulled a fucking one-eighty. Which end is up? Fuck, I just want to get me and my sister out of this alive.”
The fact she was asking him those questions, telling him where she was at, was all Cam needed to know.
There was more than a nugget of trust there he could expand on.
“I believe you, Abby, and I need you to believe me.” Cam knelt in front of her, a gentle hand over hers on her knee.
This was what Cam did best—the rescue part of the equation—and he wouldn’t fail Abby.
He’d do what Nic said. Use all of his past and all of his present to do his job.
“I won’t lie. Right now, we’re on a razor’s edge.
We have to play this very carefully, but this is what I do.
Trust me, work with me, and I will get you and your sister clear. Can you do that?”
She looked up, eyes still wary, but after a deep inhale, nodded. “All right. What do we do?”
“Let’s go put on a show.” Standing, he held his hand out to her, and once she was steady on her feet, slung an arm over her shoulder. She circled his waist with her arm, but the hold, while convincing, was just shy of being with actual intent.
They strutted back out into the living room together. Becca grinned. “Not staying out of the middle any longer?”
He kissed Abby’s temple. “Your girl convinced me otherwise.”
Becca approached, trailing a nail down his chest over his T-shirt. “Maybe we can take a little break.”
“On the contrary,” Kristi? said, reemerging from the kitchen. “Our timeline’s been accelerated again. We’re doing this tonight.”
Abby’s arm clenched around his waist. He held her tighter.
“I thought we were waiting for the public show tomorrow night? Or at least after the soft show tonight?” he asked. “Let the attention die down.”
Kristi? shook his head. “I’m not waiting. And doing it during tonight’s show will provide distraction and cover.”
The change in plans wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but would his team on the outside be ready? “Why the expedited schedule?” he asked.
“Because someone just pinged my bank accounts.”
A five-foot-nothing someone who was as accurate with a computer as she was at the firing range. Cam bit the inside of his cheek, hiding a smile. His team knew all right.
Cam hated wearing a tux. At least this jacket didn’t have fucking tails, but the stiff fabric and bow tie still made him feel unnecessarily contained.
Caged.
He was restless enough as it was, eyes roving the museum floor as he followed Kristi? and Abby.
Kristi? shook hands like the consummate dignitary he was and accepted condolences like the grieving husband he should have been, near tears and with a choked voice he effortlessly affected.
Acting as translator, Abby, dressed in a stylish silver gown with her hair pulled back in a bun, played the part well.
In front of them, Becca, wearing a blond wig and black pantsuit, acted as security and cleared a path for them.
Jared had hung back, an evil shadow on Cam’s tail, while Russ waited outside in the car, ready for a quick getaway.
Observing the situation around him, Cam counted guests and security personnel.
It didn’t look like any more force than usual for one of these events, not that he’d been to that many to know, but this was what he’d expected.
Maybe a few more guards were on hand than would normally be for a soft opening but not unexpected given Anica’s murder and the repeated theft attempts.
He was beginning to second-guess whether his team knew this was going down tonight when the crowd parted for a striking couple.
The man with bright blue eyes and light brown hair was taller than everyone else in the room and wore a tux better than everyone else too.
And the woman . . . Well, if a certain prosecutor wasn’t already in Cam’s sights, and if the woman in red weren’t married to his boss’s brother and able to break his neck with her bare hands, Cam would have definitely asked for her number.
As it was, he already had it.
Jamie and Mel, clearly recruited for an assist, walked close and cozy, seemingly in their own little world.
So much so that neither Becca nor Kristi? gave them a second glance, their attention elsewhere as Jamie passed by and dropped something into Cam’s pocket.
His best friend always did have a trick up his sleeve.
By the slight weight of the object, Cam figured it for a flash drive or some sort of trigger.
After another few minutes of shaking hands, Kristi? was interrupted by a museum docent. “Sir, if you’ll come with me please, we need to finish preparing the exhibit.” Meaning they needed him and Abby to open the safe.
It was the perfect setup. If Kristi? got away with the artifacts, no one would be the wiser, their attention distracted by the crowd.
If things went sideways, he’d play the hostage taken by Becca’s crew.
Becca had realized she was the patsy as they’d gone over the plan earlier that day.
Too far in to change course, she’d negotiated for more money instead.
Kristi? had given it to her, which made Cam wonder exactly how much those artifacts—and Kristi?’s ego—were worth, given the funds he’d expended to get them.
On the way to the vault, Kristi? slowed, waiting for Cam to draw to his side. “There’s more security on the floor than we accounted for.”
Not as many as Cam would have liked but Kristi? had noticed. He’d missed the deadliest, though. The woman. Mel.
“Only a few extra,” Cam said. “And not mine anymore.”
“Good. Abigail, dear, wait a moment.”
Abby halted a few steps ahead with Becca, and when Cam and Kristi? approached, the other man lifted his hands.
He appeared to be adjusting a cufflink, but in fact, he was showing Cam a hidden trigger.
He tapped it once and a soft glow lit the pendant on the necklace he’d insisted Abby wear.
“You’re going to have to prove it, Agent Byrne, or two taps and Miss Monroe will pay for your ruse. ”
Fuck, she was wired with some sort of explosive.
The light died in the necklace, explosive inactive since Kristi? hadn’t tapped the trigger a second time, but Abby remained deathly still, staring at Cam with unguarded terror in her eyes.
He tried to impart in his stare that he wouldn’t let her down, but she looked unconvinced.
And absolutely repulsed when Kristi? looped his arm through hers, tugging her along.
She glanced back over her shoulder, and Cam mouthed, It’ll be okay.
As they moved through the crowd toward the exhibit antechamber, Cam dipped a hand in his pocket, getting a better sense of what Jamie had dropped in there.
A button of some sort. An SOS transmitter?
A trigger to create a diversion? An EMP that would kill all the power?
Maybe also kill the signal from Kristi?’s cufflink to the bomb around Abby’s neck?
He prayed for the latter and prayed he’d be able to time it just right if the moment presented itself.
He still wanted to catch Kristi? red-handed, to lock up Aidan and Nic’s case airtight.
He assumed that was why the FBI also hadn’t moved in.
They were letting him drive this, and he had to do so very carefully.
The docent led them into a private room that backed up to the wall where the artifacts would be displayed.
Midway along the wall, there was a latch and a pass-through door through which the artifacts would be transferred and arranged in a glass exhibit case on the other side.
It’d make for a good reveal if Kristi? had any intention of actually revealing them.
In the middle of the room, two rolling carts sat side by side, one prepped with a velvet display tray, the other transporting the voice-activated safe.
The docent held his hand out toward the safe. “Mr. Kristi?, I understand your translator will be able to provide the necessary access.”
Nodding, he approached the safe, went through the sequence to get to the voice prompt, then he and Abby spoke the unlock phrases in Serbian and Romani. The safe door opened.
“Very good, sir,” the docent said.
Kristi? drew out the tray of valuable items—the shining cloth and jewels bright, the papers carefully tucked in leather.
Abby tried to step back but Kristi? tightened his arm, still in the curve of hers.
The first sign things were about to go sideways.
As they’d sketched out the plan this morning, they would wait for the docent to turn his back, to roll the cart over to the display case, and then Becca would knock him out.
Instead, he’d put out his hand for the tray, and Becca, who’d circled behind him, shot the docent in the back. The other cart broke his fall, but in doing so, the racket drew another docent through the door.
Jared shot him in the chest.
“I said no shots!” Cam shouted low, crouching next to one then the other docent’s body, feeling for a pulse.
He felt that and the rough edge of Kevlar vests on both.
He patted once, signaling them to stay down.
“They’re dead,” he said, standing again, then to Becca and Jared, who was handing a spare gun to Kristi?, “No more shots or you’ll draw more men down on us. ”
“They’re already here,” Kristi? said as voices and the thunder of foot traffic approached from the back of the museum.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, folding the fabric around the leather binders and placing them and the jewels into a satchel he’d pulled from inside the safe. “Becca, let’s go!”
She grabbed him by the arm, gun in her other hand, positioning them to look like hostage and hostage-taker once they opened the door to the main gallery.
“Give me Abby!” Cam demanded, determined to get her away from Kristi? and get that bomb off her neck.
“I don’t think so, Agent Byrne, and I say with complete certainty that you never went rogue.
If I had to guess by the racket outside, the FBI’s waiting for me on the other side of that door.
” Kristi? dragged Abby closer. “She’s my insurance for getting through them, and then she’s going to bring this whole place down on top of everyone, including you. ”
No third party needed when Kristi? could do the job himself.
“Let me go!” Abby struggled in his hold, trying to kick and claw her way free, but Kristi? silenced her fight with a finger over his cufflink trigger. “Not another move. The door, Jared,” he said with a nod.
Jared pushed open the door, exiting first.
A flash of red streaked by—the flutter of silk swirling around the wearer’s lightning-fast combat moves, her arms and legs moving in precise, deadly fashion—and Jared collapsed onto the floor.
Becca charged out next, gun raised, her other arm around Kristi?’s chest, pretending to drag him and Abby. “I’ve got Kristi? and his translator!” she shouted. “Hold your fire or I’ll shoot them.”
In her haste and perhaps shock at Mel’s surprise attack, Becca had lost sight of Cam behind her.
He kicked a leg up, hitting the pressure point at her wrist and knocking the gun free.
He grabbed it out of the air and Mel grabbed Becca, tearing her from Kristi? and tossing her to the floor next to Jared.
Kristi? spun, clutching Abby in front of him, using her as a shield against Cam, who had his weapon trained on them, and a dozen other FBI agents also aiming guns at him. While they’d been in the antechamber, the patrons had been cleared out and the scene secured.
Kristi?’s number was up, and he knew it, his desperation escalating. “I have a bomb,” he shouted, ripping off the cufflink and holding it up, exposing it as the trigger. He tapped it once and Abby’s necklace glowed.
“Hold fire!” Aidan hollered from the rafters.
“You let me walk out of here with the artifacts and no one gets hurt.”
That was a load of shit. Kristi? had said as much to Cam seconds ago. He’d step one foot outside the door and blow this place to smithereens. Hoping his earlier prayers had been answered, Cam pulled the device from Jamie out of his pocket.
“I have a better idea,” he said, mentally added another Hail Mary, and pressed the button.
The light in Abby’s necklace clicked off. “You’re done, Kristi?,” Cam said.
“So you’ll be a dead fed instead of a dead traitor.” He yanked Jared’s spare gun from his waistband and leveled it at Cam.
Then two things happened at once.
Abby slammed her heel into Kristi?’s instep, loosening his hold enough to slip away, and a shot rang out from above.
Kristi? hit the ground just as Abby slammed into Cam. He wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders and hunched over, covering her in case of more gunfire. When none came, he straightened and looked up, following the trajectory of the shot that had nailed Kristi?.
The glare of a sniper’s sight reflected light, then, once it was lowered, all Cam could see was the icy hot warmth of Nic’s pale blue eyes.