Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Liar, Liar
JAMIE
Jamie came back from the restroom and observed Cliff chatting with Shannon. A bolt of white-hot jealousy coursed through her veins, surprising her. Cliff had made it clear that her confession had killed his attraction to her. Jamie was damaged and she knew it. This is why she didn’t share.
She had grown up hiding things from her mother because it was the only way to survive.
If Elaine Cromwell Frisco knew what she cared about, she used it as a weapon against her.
Jamie understood at a young age not to make herself vulnerable.
How could she have caved so easily to a group blind date’s peer pressure?
She glanced over again and instead of continuing to gawk at Cliff and Shannon, Jamie tried to retain some level of grumpy dignity and went over to sulk by the bar.
She ordered a water as Justin the bartender blathered on about some surf trip he was taking down to Samoa. She was already bored.
Jamie was also waiting for her buddy Jon Robey, the Vice squad captain and freelance SWAT team lieutenant, to float back around to give her a peek behind the curtain.
Jon appeared in the doorway behind her as if on cue, startling Jamie.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that, it’s creepy,” Jamie scolded.
“Sorry. Occupational hazard,” Robey said.
“Any progress on the mad bomber?” She looked at her watch, trying to mask her annoyance. “You trap him like a dog like they did in South Boston after the marathon bombing?”
“It’s interesting that you bring that up. Manhattan Beach is laid out in the same way Watertown is in South Boston. Only two real ways out of here, so it happens to be a pretty easy location to lock down. That’s why it was so confusing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone wanted us to think it was a bombing, a terrorist attack. To throw us off the trail.” Robey leaned against the wall, thinking.
Jamie got back on track. “What trail?”
“This wasn’t a terrorist attack.” Robey leaned in and said conspiratorially, “It was a heist.”
“A heist?” Jamie said, as something fell into place in the deep recesses of her brain.
“It wasn’t even a bomb. It was a timer that set off several mini-explosions that blew out the main transformers. It knocked out power to the entire neighborhood. From here all the way down to Second Street and The Strand. Cal Edison is working on it now.”
Jamie was catching up, putting it together. “Someone blows the transformers on purpose to confuse police and to knock out power to security systems around the neighborhood.”
“Yes, but most of the security systems in Manhattan Beach are super sophisticated. They have backup generators that kick in to continue to protect the house. It was clear the explosion was intended to send us off in a different direction.” Robey puzzled on this.
“It worked, too, but you’d think a place like that, the security system would instantly send an alert to MBPD but—”
“—there was no alarm at the security company because the power went out, which failed to alert police,” Jamie added.
“Right.”
“Who’s house was it?”
Jon Robey checked his notes. “Uh, one Duncan Reeves.”
Jamie’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit.” Her client. The tech bro asshole client. The one that got her fired. Obviously, no reason to bring that up to Robey at this point. Do not share.
“Yeah, a real tech mogul. Created a dating app called TwinFlame that made him a gazillion dollars.”
“Uh-huh,” Jamie said faintly.
“So, we get this frantic phone call from Duncan Reeves screaming that he’d been robbed. He was distressed, but then he hung up on us. So, yours truly—” Robey made a flourish of a hand gesture to himself “—and the rest of the SWAT team raced out to make sure he wasn’t being kidnapped or worse.”
“What happened when you got there?” Jamie asked, getting back to the task at hand.
“That’s the thing. Once we arrived, Reeves wouldn’t tell us what was taken. But clearly there was a break-in. It’s this massive house on Second Street and The Strand that was designed to look like a giant lifeguard shack.”
Jamie knew that house. She walked by it nearly daily.
It was so close to her current location she could practically toss a rock and hit it.
“You have no idea what was stolen and the guy who lives there won’t tell you?
” She squinted, trying to work out what kind of twisted game her ex-client was involved in.
“Once we definitively eliminated the theory that there was a bomber in the city, we called in forensics to do a full fingerprint sweep on the Reeves mansion. I don’t expect we’ll find anything.
This was a professional job. Which brings me to why I’m here.
There are no more bombs. The threat was eliminated, which means the lock-down is over. ”
“Oh, good. Any chance you caught the guy?” Jamie said, but her mind was working on something else.
“We have a suspect in custody. But, we believe there was no way he was working alone. This wasn’t just some smash ’n’ grab. It was sophisticated. This took planning.” Jon Robey turned his attention to his notepad before announcing the news to everyone there.
Heist. Planning. Sophisticated … smooth.
Jamie looked back at the room and this time Kyle was sitting next to Shannon, who was enraptured by everything he said. Rick and Holly were also sitting close after their insults war had blown over.
She scanned the space for him.
From across the room, Jamie and Cliff locked eyes.
And then, in an instant, it all came back to her.