1. The Ten-Million-Dollar Question
1
THE TEN-MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION
Jake
Always knock first.
It was a simple rule, but it could save a ton of time and trouble. If someone was inside, you could feign being a delivery guy who got the wrong address. If someone wasn’t inside, well, that was often good news.
Standing flush against the wall by the entrance to the flat, I had a view of the hallway, the stairs, and the door. No sign of anyone watching me.
I knocked then pressed my ear to the door, listening for a cough, a bit of chitchat, any hint of activity. My intel said the flat should have been empty, but I didn’t take chances. If the guys were inside, I’d have to improvise, but it sounded like I was in luck. Nothing but silence.
Another scan of the cramped hallway—all was quiet. I took my lockpicks from the back pocket of my jeans, quickly worked open the old French lock, and then slipped inside the thimble-size studio apartment.
The place reeked of rotten fruit, moldy bread, and unwashed laundry, even though one of the windows was open, letting in a ghost of a Parisian twilight breeze.
Trying to breathe only through my mouth, I rifled through a few cupboards and drawers, then crouched to spy under the couch.
Nothing there but papers, dust bunnies, and bottle caps.
Where could it be? I turned in a tight circle, hunting for nooks, crannies, and hiding places, and noticed a small bureau in the corner, piled high with clothes. Something about the bureau called to me in a whisper to see what was inside. My fingertips tingled. Kneeling between mountains of dirty clothes, I eased open the bureau doors and held in a whoop of victory when I spotted the prize.
A gorgeous, glorious Stradivarius.
With a new, long, and unsightly scratch down the body.
I ground my teeth, cursing the bastard who’d treated such a precious thing with so little care.
Come to Daddy. Those bastards don’t deserve you.
I reached in and gently grasped the instrument by the neck. With the other hand, I unzipped my backpack and took out the violin case I’d brought. Because a goddamn Strad needed a goddamn padded ride. Once I’d tucked the rare instrument in the case and the case in the large backpack, you could just make out the distinctive shape under the nylon of the pack. So be it. No one would likely get close enough to see it, and if they did, well, I’d handle it.
I’d just slipped the strap over my shoulder when voices floated through the window from the courtyard below. Bits of French conversation. Yup. You couldn’t trust easy. Someone was always lurking around a corner.
Adrenaline surged, my heart pumping with the thrill of getting the hell out of Dodge with the prize. I closed the bureau—the only thing I’d disturbed—crossed the apartment in two strides and slipped out, shutting the door behind me. Adjusting the pack to hang low on my back, I headed to the stairs at a steady pace, sliding on a pair of sunglasses before I reached the foyer.
Nope. Nothing to see here. Just an average guy, visiting friends in this building.
I strolled past the mailboxes, even holding the door for the two men entering, which just happened to put my back to the wall until they went past. They didn’t thank me—just headed to the stairs without sparing me a glance.
I ducked out the door into the warm early summer evening. Lucky break? Yeah, I’d take that. But now it was time to move.
I hoofed it across the courtyard, keeping my gaze fixed on the street ahead, a few cars surging past and the footpath lined with locals and tourists alike. I was careful not to look like I was in a hurry. I’d been tracking the Strad for nearly a month, the last week of that here in Paris. I just had to get to the street, where I could blend in with the crowd, hail a taxi, and head for the airport.
Bon fucking voyage.
When I was almost to the courtyard gate and home free, luck turned her back on me. A cry of alarm came from the second-story window.
Seriously? Those guys had picked now to get conscientious?
Don’t look back, Jake. Don’t run. Running attracted attention. Running made you look guilty.
Someone burst out of the door behind me, shouting in French, which, even if I hadn’t understood the language, didn’t require translation to get the gist of.
Too late to stay inconspicuous. As the great Kenny Rogers said, you’ve got to know when to walk away.
And when to motherfucking run.
I took off, hightailing it out of the courtyard and onto the sidewalk. I skirted around two men in suits, both talking loudly on their phones, and nearly trampled a gray-haired French woman wearing a tweed skirt and knit hat and pushing a shopping bag.
“Excusez-moi , ” I told the startled woman.
I glanced behind me. The two Stradivarius abusers rushed out of the courtyard, spotted me right away, and pushed their way toward me. I gently ushered the French lady—and her shopping—safely to the side, and said “ Bonjour, madame ,” before I took off again.
Six years of Army PT came in handy. I lengthened my stride, barreling past a café with its scarf-and-coat-wearing and espresso-sipping crowd, and past the red awning of a butcher shop, keeping an eye out for cops, who might not take “No, officer, I’m not stealing this priceless musical instrument. I’m stealing it back,” as a justifiable excuse for my behavior.
Ahead was my goal—a busy boulevard full of traffic, where I spotted a green taxi, passenger-less and idling at a red light.
I sprinted to the door, grabbed the handle, and slid inside. The cabbie turned his head and arched a bushy eyebrow. “Oui?”
I gave the address of my hotel in the Seventh arrondissement, adding in French, “Quickly, please.”
“How fast?” the cabbie asked without moving.
“As fast as you can.”
The two thieves stepped out onto the boulevard. The driver shrugged laconically. “It’ll cost you extra.”
“Yes. I know,” I rushed out.
The light changed, and the cab peeled away, leaving two Stradivarius thieves behind me on the outskirts of Montmartre. I caught my breath as I settled into the backseat, slinging the backpack around so it was safely beside me.
“You running away from something?” the cab driver asked as he tore through side streets toward the Seine.
“No. I don’t run away,” I said. “I’m returning something to its rightful owner.”
Some called me a private detective, others called me a bounty hunter, and sure, technically, now and then, my clients needed to find other people. But mostly I hunted down items—usually precious objects—that had disappeared for some reason or other. So I preferred the title retrieval expert .
That was what I did—found things and brought them back.
And once I’d delivered the Strad into the loving arms of my client, I was looking forward to bringing myself back home to Key Largo where I could recharge with a run on the sand, a bike ride on the boardwalk with my nephew, and a spot of fishing with my brother. Paris had a lot of nice things, but it didn’t have a beach, and it was an ocean away from my family.
* * *
Nothing ever went according to plan—one of many things I learned in the Army.
My plane had barely touched down back home when my sister called. I stretched and ran my hand through my hair before tapping the screen.
“Where are you?” Kate asked as soon as I answered.
“I just exited the aircraft,” I said as I walked along the jetway. “Your timing is scary.”
“Well, don’t get too comfy. We have another job.”
I groaned. I’d been traveling for a week. Goodbye recharge plans.
Kate quickly assured me. “This is easy. All you have to do is find a guy who’s barely trying to hide.”
But I don’t trust easy. “If he’s barely trying to hide, sounds like they don’t really need me,” I said dryly.
“Come on, Jake. You’ll like this one. It involves art and chocolate and one of your favorite things.”
“A day on the boat? Season tickets to the Miami Aces? A cold beer and a barbecue?”
“Try gorgeous tropical beaches and new places to scuba dive.”
I started paying attention with more than half my jet-lagged brain. “Tell me more about this job.”
* * *
The client, Andrew, was looking for a man who turned chocolate into art, but not like they did in The Great British Bake Off —in a stolen-money kind of way.
I took off my shades and looked Andrew in the eye as the sun cast golden rays on the Key Largo boardwalk. He’d come down from Miami, where his business was based, and hadn’t balked when I’d moved the meeting from the office to the boardwalk midday. The gray-haired man wore slacks and a button-down. I was dressed for a dip in the water with my nephew when we were done.
“Let me get this straight. You think your business partner embezzled money from chocolate investments, put the money into art, and took that art to Flamingo Key?”
My client nodded as we stood to the water side of the boardwalk, looking like two friends just catching up for a chat—not a bounty hunter and a customer. “It’s easier to move art than money.”
I had one eye on my nephew, Mason, making sure he didn’t get too far away as he pedaled his bike down the boardwalk, but I was listening. “So you’re saying Eli Thompson—Eli ‘launched a hedge-style fund of sorts for ordinary guy investors with seed money from his wife’s craft-fair jewelry sales’ Thompson—has been skimming pennies off his clients’ accounts for two decades?”
“She’s his ex-wife now.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“Over twenty years? About ten million.”
“Damn.” Swearing reminded me to check on my nephew, and I spotted my sister’s kid speeding off in the distance. “Mason! Don’t go past the ice-cream shop. Circle back this way, buddy.”
He turned around and pedaled toward me and my potential client.
“Did you see how far I rode?” Mason shouted from yards away, grinning.
“I did. And good job turning around when I called you.” I circled my finger, indicating the area around us. “Just stick closer, okay? We’ll get the chocolate peanut-butter-cup scoop when I’m done here.”
“My favorite!” Mason said as he pedaled off in the other direction.
I joined Andrew in leaning against the boardwalk fence, getting back to business. “I gotta ask—how did nobody notice? You said you and your brother were Thompson’s right-hand men.”
Andrew sighed. “We all manage investments in our own area of expertise. There’s a lot of movement. A discrepancy of pennies goes under the radar. Even a big loss isn’t rare—that’s the nature of this type of fund. Then this cocoa bean farm went belly-up, taking a lot of investments down with it, and at the same time, Eli suddenly retired and opened a nightclub. With his new wife. Well, fiancée.”
I almost laughed but ten million wasn’t funny. “So, big red flag.”
“Yeah.” He sounded embarrassed—even apologetic. “Only then did we look back over his accounts and realize there was a pattern. Believe me. I feel like a fool for not catching on sooner.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said, trying to reassure the guy. “Just give me the details. You believe he embezzled all this money over the years from these little hidden investments,” I recapped. “Now here’s the ten-million-dollar question: got any proof?” I felt for the guy, but I didn’t move without hard evidence.
Andrew nodded and opened a file on his phone. “Besides the financial audit, we did a data search. Twenty years of data, memos, and documents. I can send it over.”
I wanted Kate to verify it all. She had the expertise and the analytical mind. I had the bullshit detector, but it wasn’t pinging with this guy. He seemed legit.
“So, why not go to the cops?” I asked. “The SEC?”
“I’d rather resolve this as quickly and quietly as possible. We want to recover our clients’ money and get it back to them. Headlines won’t help us do that.”
I nodded, liking that answer. “Send me the paperwork today. We’ll get back to you with a final decision.”
We parted ways, and I made good on my promise of chocolate peanut-butter-cup cones. Wasn’t going to risk my status as the cool uncle by not coming through.
* * *
Two hours later, this cool uncle was carrying a conked-out Mason into the office. I settled him on the corner couch without disturbing his snooze then went to ask my sister what she’d learned so far.
“All the docs from Andrew checked out,” she said. “Looked into Thompson and his fiancée. Willow runs a classy art gallery, and she’s made some impressive deals over the years.” Kate clicked through a few pages of her research. She was fierce while digging into a case. We shared the same drive, the same motivation. No surprise there. She’d practically raised our much younger siblings after our parents were killed in a car crash several years ago. “Here’s where the gallery is. Convenient for tourists.”
I leaned over her shoulder. “Show me the bars and cafés near the gallery and nightclub.”
A few clicks on the map where she’d zoomed in covered the street with pins. “Never say never. You’re planning to—gasp!—socialize while you’re there?”
“Not a chance, matchmaker.” I straightened and took out my phone to book a flight. “Always start in the bar when you’re looking for information.”
I did not socialize on the job. Work and women didn’t mix. A stunning brunette named Rosalinda had taught me that while I was on the trail of a stolen Medici artifact in Venice. Damn good lesson I never wanted to repeat.
No woman was worth risking my livelihood and my family’s well-being for.
Especially a backstabbing thief of a woman.
My focus was work and only work. That was exactly how it would be in Flamingo Key. I’d be there to do a job, perhaps squeeze in a spot of snorkeling, and head home—and nothing, and no one, would get in my way.