Chapter 15
Rowan was beginning to panic.
He needed backup, but he’d been in deep cover for nearly three years. If you masquerade as an art thief long enough, you become an art thief for all intents and purposes. Which is good, unless you suddenly need to prove you are not, in fact, an art thief.
Marco.
Rowan felt a stab of sadness at the death of his good friend.
The Art Crimes Division of the FBI was small, and the two of them had been together since Rowan joined up four years ago.
They each came to the FBI later in life, Marco after a brief career in the Navy and Rowan after selling his small publishing house in California, where he’d focused his work on art theft and the black market for stolen goods.
They were partners in crime, quite literally, though Rowan was the only one undercover.
Marco could have set the record straight about Rowan’s identity in a heartbeat, but with him gone, there was no quick and obvious way to do it without being buried under an administrative tidal wave.
Rowan left another voicemail for his boss and checked the time. Enzo should be arriving with Becky momentarily, if he wasn’t already here. Rowan grabbed a long cardboard tube and got out of his car, walking past tens of skiers in colorful jackets and pants.
The ski resort was the most crowded place in the entire town, and Rowan knew that was why Enzo had picked it. It had nothing to do with what had happened to David on a slope just like this one, less than two hours from here, but that was where Rowan’s thoughts immediately went, anyway.
The gun in his pocket weighed against his abdomen and his mind, but Rowan was more likely to jump from the top of the building than fire anywhere near this mass of people, and he cursed under his breath.
He made his way into the crowded lodge, a large fireplace centered on one tall wall. Someone touched his arm, once, twice, before he realized they were trying to get his attention and he turned around.
Enzo stood before him. “This is Cosmo,” he said, gesturing to a big man in a New England Patriots sweatshirt. “Give me the painting.”
“I want to see Becky.”
“After I see if this is authentic.” He turned back into the crowd, and Rowan moved to follow him.
Cosmo easily blocked his path. “You wait here, and we don’t have any trouble.”
He was powerless, like a bug in a jar. He should have backup and assistance from local law enforcement. Truth was, he’d been afraid to ask, afraid they would mess up his one chance to get Becky back safely. Now he feared he had sealed that fate himself by coming here alone.
Was Becky even here? God, have they hurt her?
Then through the crowd he saw her, red hair flowing as she walked. Relief was instantaneous.
“Looks like her, doesn’t she?” said Cosmo, chuckling. “But it ain’t her.”
Sure enough, as the woman got closer and closer, the resemblance faded with every step.
Son of a bitch.
“Told you so.”
Rowan turned around. “Where is she?”
Cosmo shrugged, and Rowan imagined pulling out his gun, brandishing it in the other man’s face, forcing him to comply. But imagining was the most he could do. He closed the distance between them. “If you hurt her, so help me God…”
“I’m here.”
Rowan whipped around at the sound of her voice. Becky stood not two feet away from him. “Oh, thank God.” He turned back to Cosmo, surprised to see him retreating into the sea of people, and moved to follow him.
“Rowan!” she yelled. “Let’s just get out of here, please.”
And in that moment, it didn’t matter that Enzo had the painting, or that Rowan hadn’t gotten to beat the bad guys down into the dirt. All the mattered was that Becky was all right, that she was standing in front of him, safe and sound, apparently unharmed.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She’d been quiet when she first got in Rowan’s car, not even knowing where to begin.
He’d hugged her and held her tight, and she reveled in the feel of his arms, the scent of his skin, even while she didn’t hug him back.
When he reached for her hand while he was driving, she pulled it away and stared out her window.
There was no more reason to stay, and many reasons to leave, yet still she clung to his presence and this car speeding down the freeway like a drowning person hanging onto a life preserver.
She had to let go, no matter the icy ocean that surrounded her.
There would be life after Rowan. There just had to be.
“Just take me to the train station. Please.” She closed her eyes and exhaled every breath in her lungs.
All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Lucy and the ugly blanket for a week.
Maybe two. The very last thing she wanted to deal with was a confrontation with Rowan, but that was apparently the only way to get from point A to point B.
When she saw the sign for the train station, she had finally found her voice.
Rowan stole a sideways glance at her. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“So I can go home, where I belong.”
“You belong with me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. I love you, Becky.” He reached for her hand again, leaving his extended on the seat when she did nothing.
Her heart squeezed tight and she covered her face. How long had she waited to hear those words, believing they would never come?
I thought I would be alone forever, and it would be okay. Now I’ll be alone forever, and it just might kill me.
“I know the truth. You murdered someone. You’re a thief, a burglar, and a liar. Enzo showed me the pictures when you shot that man. Are you going to tell me they’re not real? That there’s some explanation?”
Rowan pulled over to the side of the road and stared straight ahead, jaw clenched. “They’re real. But there is an explanation. Becky, I’m an undercover FBI agent with the Art Crimes Division. I burglarized that museum because I was doing my job.”
She stared at him hard. When they were at the cabin, she might have believed that. But now? Now she didn’t know what to believe.
Enzo’s voice was in her head, telling her not to trust Rowan.
“Becky, I’m telling you the truth.”
Her head whipped around to face him. “Oh, yeah? Well how the hell am I supposed to believe you when you’ve been lying to me since day one?”
“I had to lie! I can’t go around telling everyone I meet that I’m an undercover agent.”
“But I’m not ‘just anyone’ to you, Rowan.” She leaned back against the seat. “Or am I?”
He furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
“It means maybe our relationship is just another one of your lies.”
“How can you say that?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “No harm, no foul, I suppose. It’s not like you and me could survive in real world, anyway.” It was what she was most afraid of, and she said it to lash out at him, a slap in his smug, lying face.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Tell me, was the murder staged just for the cameras?”
He lowered his eyes. “No. That one was real. I did kill that man, Becky.”
“But you said you were one of the good guys.”
“I made a mistake. A horrible mistake that I have to live with for the rest of my life.”
Becky shook her head. “I don’t know what you want from me here. I don’t know who you are. Maybe I never did. Take me to the train station, or I’ll get out right here and walk the rest of the way. I want to go home, Rowan.”
He pulled back and hit a button on the dash, a hands-free cellphone image coming up on the display. “Call Colin.”
It was on speakerphone. Colin answered on the second ring. “Becky’s here. Tell her what I do for a living.”
“You own a publishing house.”
“No, tell her the truth.”
“You’re an undercover FBI agent with the Art Crimes Division.”
She took a deep breath in, a ragged one out. He really was one of the good guys. Relief swept through her in an exhausted wave. When had she ever been this tired?
“Thanks, bro. How’s Gwen?”
“She’s good. How are you guys making out?”
“Better now. But listen, I think you and Gwen should leave Becky’s house. Maybe get a hotel. There’s a chance somebody’s looking for her and I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“You got it.”
Rowan hung up, put the car in gear and pulled back into traffic. “If you want to go, Becky, I won’t stop you. But I wish to hell you’d stay.”
Within a minute she was sobbing loudly.
“Here’s the exit for the train station. Want me to drop you off?”
She cried harder.
“’Cause, I’m a big believer. If you love something, set it free…”
She hit him in the arm. “Asshole.”
He reached for her hand and she took it. “I’m an asshole who loves you very much.”
I love you, too.
The words rose up inside her, but her throat couldn’t let them by. For all the men she’d dated in her life, Becky had never fallen for a single one, never uttered the words she now longed to say.
She settled for an easier truth. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Rowan frowned, taking his hand back to signal and change lanes. “I didn’t mean to kill that man, but I did kill him.”
“What happened?”
“It was my first job working for Enzo. He sent this Dutch guy in with me, Ruud. Guy was an idiot. He wanted to take a painting from the second floor, where we knew we had a guard on patrol. It was my own fault, I agreed to it when I should have told him no way. I didn’t want to seem like I was scared, but it was my first heist as an agent. I wanted to come off like a badass.”
“Next thing I know, I’m staring down the barrel of my gun to this kid, this young security guard.
Couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven.
He reaches for his own gun, and I want him to stop, I want him to turn around and run like hell, so I can just leave him alone.
But he doesn’t stop. He draws his gun on me, and just like that, I shot him. ”
“I hit him in the shoulder. I just wanted to take him down, make him stop advancing. But Ruud had bought the ammo. Hollow tips. Shoot-to-kill. They break apart into little pieces and travel through the body, doing as much damage as they possibly can.”
Becky covered her hand with her mouth, not sure if she was more distraught for the young security guard or for Rowan himself.
“One piece traveled into his chest cavity, killing him instantly. The alarm went off, all hell broke lose, and Ruud gives me a fucking high five. And I let him. I just let him.”
“You didn’t mean to kill him.”
“I shouldn’t have gone up there.” He smacked his palm on the steering wheel. “I shouldn’t have shot at him, for Christ’s sake. It’s all my fault.”
“You didn’t mean to kill him.”
“He was just a kid…” He looked to her, his eyes desperate.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved to his side, wrapping his body into her embrace. Her voice was a whisper as he began to shake. “You didn’t mean to kill him.”