Gemma was the girl we’d helped out of a difficult situation earlier in the week. Bethany hadn’t been keen to leave her alone in England, but Gemma had insisted she’d be fine. I wasn’t entirely convinced—nobody recovered from what she’d been through overnight—but I had to look at the bigger picture. Gemma still worked at the gallery Bethany had been fired from, the same gallery that had handled Red After Dark and at least two other stolen paintings that we knew of. If our efforts in Kentucky failed, we’d have to try another tack, and having somebody on the inside who we could leverage wasn’t a bad idea. Plus she could retrieve the bugs me and Alaric had planted a couple of weeks ago.
I’d asked Roxy, an acquaintance in London, to check in on Gemma regularly, and Alaric’s buddy Judd had promised to keep an eye on her too. I’d walked in on the tail end of the conversation between the two of them, which was more of a warning on Alaric’s part—an eye, not hands, you asshole; Gemma’s fragile—and if Judd didn’t do anything stupid, she’d be okay. Hopefully.
“I called her last night and offered the use of my flat if she doesn’t want to go home straight away, and Judd’s insisting on driving her to work tomorrow morning so she doesn’t have to brave the Tube. He seems nice, doesn’t he?”
Bethany hadn’t seen Judd shoot a man between the eyes without flinching.
“Yeah, he seems nice.” I shoved Toby’s offerings into the back seat of the Range Rover—out of sight, out of mind. “Tell Alaric to get a move on, would you?”
Closure. I just wanted closure. To find Red, find Emerald, slam the door on that chapter of my past, and move on. I owed Alaric, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days repaying the debt.
Down in the basement of Riverley Hall, I found the door to the weapons’ locker ajar. The room was a terrorist’s wet dream, and if the cops ever got a look inside, we’d probably all be arrested. Fortunately, the entrance was well-hidden.
Black was lurking at the back near a stack of Russian-made RPG launchers. We’d come across a whole bunch of goodies on a trip to Siberia a while back, and some of the stash might have made its way home with us. Not the nuke, though. We’d handed that over to the authorities. Ain’t nobody wants to sleep on top of that shit.
“I’ve packed your electronics.”
My husband waved at a black plastic case that looked more like carry-on luggage than a spy kit. I flipped back the lid and took an inventory. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him—if I needed it, it would be there—but more that he’d spent nearly two decades drilling the importance of checking my own equipment into me. Cameras, burner phones, night-vision goggles, a nifty little device the size of a cigarette lighter that could download the entire contents of a smartphone in less than a minute…
“How many people are you expecting me to bug? We’re trying to retrieve a painting, not discover state secrets.”
“Yes, about that…”
Uh-oh. I knew that tone. I hated that tone.
“I’m just gonna back away slowly.”
“Kyla Devane.”
Shit.
I’d thought it was odd Black hadn’t tried to stop me from going to Kentucky with Alaric. Arranged a meeting or a training exercise or a last-minute assassination, that sort of thing.
“She can’t be allowed to win this election,” he continued. “This government’s got too much left to do to risk having progress derailed by some crank and her self-serving agenda.”
“And by government, you mean James?”
Black just smiled. That didn’t surprise me—he’d invested a considerable amount in James’s campaign, and he wanted to get his money’s worth.
“Businessman first, friend second?”
“Husband first, patriot second. Friendship and business come lower down the list. James needs to finish what he started, which means fixing what the last asshole broke, then winning a second term. America can’t afford another four years of political infighting, which means he needs a clear path to do his job without being blocked by a woman more interested in sound bites and photo ops than global stability and a healthy economy.”
Quite the little speech from a man as economical with his words as politicians were with the truth. But no matter how much I wanted a quick, no-nonsense trip to Kentucky, I couldn’t pretend he was wrong.
“I’ll take a look into what’s going on.”
“Give me a few days to get my current project sorted out, and I’ll lend a hand if you need it.”
Alaric and Black both in Kentucky? Brilliant.
“I’ll keep you updated. Nate’s already started researching Devane and Carnes.” Nate was one of our business partners. “Check your messages.”
Black handed me a suppressed Smith & Wesson .22. “Don’t forget this.”
I took my previous “shit” and raised it to a “fuck.” If Black wanted me to take that weapon, it meant wetwork was on the cards, and I wouldn’t get much sleep until the job was over. So much for a fun road trip.
CHAPTER 5 - ALARIC
“THERE HE IS,” Emmy murmured. “Smile, honey.”
She raised a camera, and Alaric plastered on a cheesy grin and mugged for the lens. It could have been any old tourist photo in small-town Kentucky, but this one just happened to catch Stéphane Hegler as he paused to stub out a cigarette. A moment later, the man darted into a café.
Thankfully, all four members of the crew had made it to Kentucky in one piece. The trip wasn’t so much of a problem in the drama-free tranquility of the Ford Explorer—Beth and Alaric had agreed on a radio station, shared the driving, and stopped twice for snacks on the way. The dream team of Emmy and Dan? Alaric’s vehicle had passed the Range Rover fifty miles out of Richmond, pulled over at the side of the road in front of a state trooper. Two hours after that, following a brief period with no phone signal, he’d picked up a garbled voicemail from Dan. Apparently, she’d hit a guy, his dog was injured, and they were going to the veterinarian. Beth had gasped at the thought of a hurt animal, and Alaric had nearly bitten through his bottom lip as he watched her tearing up in the passenger seat.
He wanted to hit the brakes and give her a hug, but he didn’t dare. Fucking Dan.
And then things got worse.
Somehow—somehow—the pair of crazies beat Beth and him to Kentucky, and the true horror of the situation became clear. Miracle of miracles, Dan hadn’t had yet another fender bender. No, she and Emmy had stopped for their junk food fix at some diner in the middle of nowhere, and there they’d seen ol’ Joe Bob booting his mangy old mutt across the parking lot. Emmy, of course, had asked him to stop, and when he gave her a mouthful in return, Dan had punched him in the face while Emmy slashed the tyres on his pickup. Then they’d stolen the damn dog and driven it to Lexington for a check-up. And now? Now Beth was feeding the skinny pooch cocktail sausages in their rented house while Alaric and Emmy tracked Irvine Carnes’s assistant.
“Coffee?” Alaric asked after Emmy finished taking pictures.
He’d deal with Fido later. Right now, there were more important things to worry about.