Chapter 37
Jane, Uncle Chris, and Raine met at her cousin’s favorite steak place downtown.
It had a sophisticated yet kitschy vibe, the restaurant decorated in bold colors with hanging plants and potted flowers everywhere set against a backdrop of natural and light wood furnishings.
One wall, made entirely of glass windows, allowed for waterfront views of the Sound.
Servers milled about, covered in piercings, tattoos, and hair in various shades of the rainbow. Each server had impeccable manners and dressed in a sleeveless black shirt and slacks with a different colored bowtie.
The place usually had a waiting list a mile long, but Uncle Chris knew a guy who knew a guy, and they’d managed a coveted reservation at the last minute.
Seated at a semi-private table in the back near a water fountain where verdigris satyrs gurgled water around a nude gorgon who channeled the water up and out through her many snaked hair, Jane studied her family.
Her uncle appeared relaxed if she ignored the glint in his dark eyes.
Raine mirrored him, her arms loose on the arms of her chair, her smile more snarky than amused.
“How lovely to share a meal with my family,” her uncle said after their server had brought a carafe of water, a bottle of wine—on the house—and taken their orders.
“I love this place.” Raine glanced around her with a smile then tossed back a swig of wine.
“It’s not a shot, Raine,” Jane muttered, embarrassed but not surprised at her cousin’s lack of class.
Raine snickered. Uncle Chris grinned as he slid Raine a five-dollar bill.
“Sorry. But I bet that you’d get that exact expression on your face if I did that.” Raine didn’t sound apologetic as she pocketed the money.
“I live to amuse.”
Chris laughed. “Ah, my favorite nieces.”
“Your only nieces,” Jane and her cousin said at the same time. A familiar rejoinder.
“It’s true. How often do I get to spend time with you two when all of us are healthy? No casts, concussions, or stitches in sight.”
Raine nodded. “True enough. Though I’m pretty sure our FBI wonder girl is still nursing some bruised ribs.”
“Ha. I am not.” Jane barely felt the twinges anymore. “I’m too busy to feel pain.”
“As you should be.” Her uncle approved. “Ladies, I think we know why we’re here tonight. And it’s to discuss what Raine’s been up to. Jane, I know you’re worried about her.”
“So worried.” Jane nodded and made a face at her cousin when her uncle turned away to study Raine.
“I’m fine.”
“You would be if you’d come work with me,” Uncle Chris said, singing the same old song while Raine did the same old dance, rejecting the notion.
“Oh please. We’d be at each other’s throats.”
“At each other’s throats,” Jane agreed.
Uncle Chris frowned at her before turning back to Raine, but not before Raine gave her the finger. She hid it fast enough that their uncle didn’t catch it.
Jane smothered laughter and dug into the bread basket, famished. She sipped her wine, wondering if Matthew would like it. Text me back already. She didn’t like being so worried.
Jane regularly dealt with offenders through her investigations.
In the past year, she’d handled them more in person than usual.
While she took most things in stride, Kaminski seemed to be on another level of offender than she was used to, and that included the two serial killers she’d recently dealt with.
“…makes no difference to me, but you’re clearly out of your depth,” Uncle Chris continued, haranguing Raine.
“At least I’m not getting shot at every day,” Raine snapped.
The server paused by their table, his eyes wide, and set their dinners in front of them. “Anything else I can get you?” His gaze wandered warily over their uncle, imagining the dangerous man as more than the affable customer smiling through his teeth.
“No, we’re good,” Jane said.
The server darted away.
“Quit scaring the waiter or we’ll never get more water,” Jane warned them both.
They ignored her though they did lower their voices, bickering quietly about the dangers domestically versus those overseas.
National security versus crime on the home front.
Agency superiority, which they could at least all agree belonged to the United States Marine Corps, though none of them considered the military an agency, exactly.
“What about Jane?” Raine interrupted his next tirade.
Lost in her filet, Jane looked up. She took a moment to finish swallowing. “What about me?”
Crap. Now her uncle focused on her. Raine smirked and dug into her dinner.
“We need to talk, Jane.”
She sighed.
“Lionel’s worried, which makes me worry. You’ve stepped into a mess with your current case.”
“That’s no secret.” She studied him. “What does Lionel know he’s not telling me? Because that man keeps a bevy of confidences buried under other confidences.”
“Bevy. Nice. Still working that word-of-the-day calendar, eh?” Raine asked between mouthfuls of baked sweet potato.
“Say it, don’t spray it,” Jane said.
“Yes, Mom.”
Chris shook his head. “I’m sorry. Am I talking to my grown nieces or five-year-olds?”
“You treat me like a kid, so who knows?” Raine muttered.
Instead of turning back to her, Chris scowled at Jane.
“What did I do to get that look? I’m the good one, remember?” Jane didn’t know how the dinner had gone from her uncle picking at Raine to him coming down on her.
“Lionel’s been talking with Jon, who’s been talking to Matthew. But you’ve been a little too quiet lately. What’s going on?”
“You want to talk about this here? In public?” Jane glanced around them, annoyed to find them conveniently apart from everyone else.
“Keep your voice down and there won’t be any problem. Geez, Jane. A little discretion.” Raine’s mocking tone didn’t help.
“Enough, you,” their uncle warned her. He looked back at Jane. “You need to be careful. We’ve been keeping watch, and we want eyes on you at all times.”
“We? And eyes on me, or Matthew and Haversham too?”
“Yes.”
Raine snorted. “That’s clear as muddied glass.”
Chris ignored her. “I’m not kidding, Jane. I’m glad I’m back because this case you’re on is a hornet’s nest waiting to explode.”
“I know that. But something you said. ‘We want eyes on you.’ Who’s ‘we’?”
“Lionel, Jon, Hal, and Diego—who’s a pretty funny guy with potential by the way.”
Jane blinked. “You talked to Diego?”
“About your case? I’ve talked to everyone. This pile of worms is bigger than you know.”
“I don’t understand why you’re involved now.” Please tell me you’re not sticking your nose into my business to protect me.
“Relax, super agent.” He read her too well. “Lionel asked me for help. I gave it to him. Especially since I learned the Bednareks are involved. Kid, you’re playing in the big leagues.”
“Who? Bednarek?” Then what he’d said before hit her. “Wait. You’re looking at me, Matthew, and Haversham? Have you seen Matthew lately? Haversham’s been bugging me because he hasn’t talked to Matthew in days. Though I thought Matthew might have talked to my boss Tuesday.”
“He did not.”
She had chills.
Her uncle looked grim. “We—Hal and Diego—can’t find him. Not through Matthew’s social media or phone, and not through the many public means of surveillance in the city.”
“You can’t track him?”
“No.” He glanced down before looking into her eyes again.
What she saw there froze her in her seat.
“Jane, those who go missing around the Bednareks are rarely found alive. Only dead and buried—in one piece, if they’re lucky.”
After a pause, Raine asked, “And if they’re not lucky?”
“You don’t want to know.”