I can only deduce the reason no one has ventured my way is they quickly found Julian Mercier in his château with the four hundred million euro worth of gemstones Saint and I had stolen. I’m assuming they must have figured there wasn’t much else they needed to do once they found the loot.
I’d watched as they led Mercier out in handcuffs—his guards, too. Other house staff came out as well, not secured in restraints but put into police vehicles and driven away, presumably for questioning.
Officers came out carrying large evidence bags, which, if I had to guess, held the diamonds and our nylon bags, which would have to be processed. They’d find the GPS chip on the necklace and wonder how stupid Mercier must have been not to spot it.
And yes, they’d speculate if Mercier had pulled the heist off alone and why, especially given his reputation as a legitimate businessman, but they’d also pound him hard to see if he’d give up any potential accomplices.
Bottom line, Saint and I didn’t think they’d get any solid information out of him any time soon. He’s going to clam up and hire an attorney. If he finds it beneficial to himself to name his co-conspirators, he won’t play those cards so early on in the process. We were fairly certain of that.
It took hours and hours for them to process Mercier’s house. Finally, by midnight, the last of the police cars had left and the house was dark. I continued to watch in case someone else would come back, but now I feel secure enough to make my move. There are a few hours until daybreak which should give me more than enough time to do what I need to do.
With a set of manual lock picks I always carry with me, a pair of cheaply purchased gloves and my own gumption, I enter Mercier’s house. The police were not worried about engaging his alarm system when they left, and it’s eerily quiet when I walk in.
This could end up being the easiest heist I’ve ever attempted.
I make my way down to the basement level to Mercier’s office. The police have tossed it, pulling open every cabinet and drawer. Black fingerprint dust is everywhere.
It would be so easy to alleviate Mercier of all of his legitimately purchased art he keeps down here. Millions of dollars’ worth of the stuff—all mine for the taking if I want. I’m sure he’ll be allowed to return home pending a trial, and it would give me immense satisfaction knowing he would walk into his basement to find his treasures cleaned out.
But I’m not here for that.
I’m here for one thing only.
The Renoir I’d stolen from Lord Dennison’s apartment.
I’m not sure why it’s bothering me so much. I’ve not had attacks of conscience over any other robberies I’ve pulled off. The only difference I can point to is Saint coming back into my life. Perhaps I’d already been dreaming of a new future—away from this—when I’d willingly gone into Dennison’s apartment and poisoned him.
Whatever the reason, I have an opportunity to make this right.
I’m convinced it’s here somewhere, hidden carefully for Mercier’s own personal enjoyment. He’s a true collector. He hadn’t made us take that Renoir to sell it on the black market because it would only get a pittance of a profit compared to its true worth.
He had us steal that Renoir because he found it to be beautiful… and he wanted to possess it.
I intend to find it.
I leave the office and go into the cavernous interior of the basement, moving around the perimeter. After I check for any hidden doors or seams in the wall that could indicate a secret room, I pull every legitimate painting off the walls and turn them over to see if he reverse-framed the Renoir on the back of one.
Nothing.
I find a wine cellar on the opposite end of the basement from the staircase, but it proves to be nothing but a place to store actual wine.
Frustrated, I return to Mercier’s office. I’ll have to search the rest of the house, too, but if Mercier has been hoarding stolen art and other precious works as I suspect, it makes the most sense that it would be down here.
I move around the outer edge of his office, carefully running my fingers along the wall looking for seams. A check of his cabinetry and shelving units turns up nothing.
Finally, I move over to his desk and start to rifle through his drawers, not exactly sure what I’m searching for. It’s not like I believe he keeps a map in here pointing me to stolen art.
One drawer is locked, and I pull out my lock picks to work on it. Leaning over to get a better look at it, I insert the first pick into the keyhole… and that’s when I see it.
Under the lip of the desk at the corner, there’s a tiny black button no bigger than a pea and set almost flush into the wood so it would have been hard to feel if I’d run my fingertips over the area.
Reaching out, I touch the button lightly and feel it depress. There’s a metal grinding sound. With a soft whoosh, the desk starts to slide to my left.
It keeps slowly moving away from where I’m sitting in Mercier’s rolling chair, until it almost pushes up against a bookshelf.
I’m stunned to find a rectangular opening in the floor with a staircase leading down into a sub-basement area. From what I can see, it’s already lit with wall sconces.
“Bingo,” I murmur, my heart racing over my discovery.
There’s no hesitation. I bolt from the chair and start down the secret staircase.
The first thing I notice is it’s temperature controlled. One would expect a secret area below the basement might be cold and damp, but I get the exact opposite. That says that whatever is down here is particularly important and well taken care of. Frankly, that can only mean it’s the illegal stuff.
At the bottom is a small foyer-type area bordered by stone walls on three sides and a large steel door with a lever knob. There’s no obvious locking mechanism, and I push the lever down.
The door swings open with a tiny nudge. I’m left gaping openmouthed at a tiny art museum. The room is no more than thirty-by-thirty feet with thick carpeting, paneled walls, and a padded bench covered in royal blue velvet in the center. A handful of paintings cover each wall, all professionally mounted and lit. The wall to my left houses the Renoir I’d stolen a few weeks ago, and I don’t waste any time moving to it.
Within five easy minutes, I have the painting tucked under my arm and I’ve navigated my way out of the chateau and back into the woods surrounding the property.
Another twenty minutes puts me back in my rental car and heading into the heart of Paris.
My goal is to return the painting, and I already have a plan for that. An old underground contact is going to rent a low-budget hotel room for me, one that doesn’t have security cameras and does have lazy desk clerks. I’m going to leave the painting in the room, then make a simple call to the police alerting them to its location.
I don’t care to pin the theft on Mercier. He’s got enough on his plate, and I’m sure he’s going down since the police found him in possession of the diamonds. I merely want the Renoir returned to Dennison so I can make my amends.
Pulling out the burner phone I still have on me, I make the call I’ve been putting off all day. My dad answers before the second ring.
“Sindaria?” he asks hesitantly.
“Yeah… it’s me.”
“Oh, thank God. I’ve been going bloody out of my mind with worry,” he yells. “Saint called me hours ago looking for you, and we’re both beside ourselves.”
I grit my teeth because it hurts and pisses me off that Saint got my dad all worked up. He had no right.
“I’m fine,” I reassure. “In fact, I’m going to catch a flight to London today. I’ll be home before you go to sleep tonight.”
“Are you flying under an alias?” he asks.
“Of course.” I have several, and I never travel internationally under my real name. As far as anyone knows, Sindaria Westin has been happily spending her time in London for the last few months rather than held figurative hostage by a French businessman turned criminal mastermind.
“Listen,” my dad murmurs, and I can hear the hesitation in his voice over what he’s about to say. “You need to cut Saint a break.”
I cringe. I had expected my dad to not necessarily take Saint’s side, but to be more understanding than I am over what he did. As my dad, he would have wanted me to be safe. I’m sure he thinks Saint was even being valiant by double-crossing me.
“Dad,” I say tiredly, because I’m suddenly exhausted. I’ve gone almost forty-eight hours running on pure adrenaline and with little food in my system. “Just don’t, okay? What he did was unforgivable—”
“No, that’s not true,” he admonishes, his “father knows best” tone ringing loudly. “He forgave you, so, at some point, you will forgive him. I get you’re mad and you probably need to cool down, but this is not something that should break up what you two have managed to rebuild.”
There’s a small part of me—way down deep and unwilling to voice it yet—that knows he’s right. I’m operating on emotional overload right now.
But I can’t seem to go there and feel the need to defend my feelings. “He’s broken my trust, Dad. I’m not sure we belong together anymore.”
“Well, hurry up and get home, then we’ll go down to the corner pub and discuss it,” he replies. For the first time in a long time, I smile. Hanging out with my dad while having a pint with the locals sounds like heaven to me.
And even though at this point I’m not willing to admit that having something with Saint is even a remote possibility, my curiosity does get the better of me. “Did Saint leave Brussels?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “He had to. But he wanted me to pass on to you that if and when you’re ready to see him again, say the word and he’ll send a ticket over with your name on it.”
Pittsburgh.
He wants me to come to Pittsburgh to be with him.
“And,” my dad says after a dramatic pause. “He said he loves you and hates he has to pass that information on through me, but that you needed to know it. He said it was important you believe it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the emotional words hitting me hard, even though they’d been delivered through a third party. A little bit of the anger inside of me shifts, and something warm takes its place.
Damn you, Saint.
CHAPTER 28
Saint
Trotting down the staircase to the second floor of Jameson headquarters, I glance down to the large conference room to see Kynan’s meeting is still in progress.
I call this area The Situation Room—Sitch Room for short—because this seems to be where the brainstorming about missions takes place. Sure, our offices and desks are down here, but not much happens there. That’s more of a place to rest while writing up reports or surfing the web.
Rather, the big conference room is where we all sit around to powwow critical issues. There’s a state-of-the-art media setup with big screens and high-def smartboards with satellite hookup feeds. Individual ports for our laptops and iPads, and custom-built chairs that swivel, recline, and rotate to the comfiest of positions.
Outside the conference room and past all the desks, there’s a more casual set up at the opposite end of the second floor with plush leather sofas and chairs that have flip-top tables on them for writing notes or typing. Within three paces is a huge built-in wall unit equipped with an espresso/latte machine, a soda fountain, and a mini-fridge filled with beers for after-hours plotting. We have a similar social set up on the fourth floor, which is where the personal living areas are, but there’s an unspoken rule when on the fourth floor, you don’t talk business.
I glance away from the conference room in the exact opposite way. It’s a sitting area. Bebe’s on the couch, her feet propped on the coffee table and her computer on her lap, fingers flying over the keyboard.
I head that way, stopping to grab a bottled water from the fridge. I’d like a beer—or a few shots of whiskey—as I have a meeting in about an hour with representatives from the insurance consortium that hired us to go after Mercier. They want a detailed rundown of everything that occurred. From what I understand, they are going to have risk assessment folks present to make sure there’s no criminal liability on their part for funding this mission.
Not that it matters, as Julian Mercier is now officially in the wind. Kynan’s sources have been reporting diligently to us, and we were informed Mercier is on the run. He’d been put into pre-trial detention. Unfortunately for him, there is no concept of bail in France. However, as they’d transferred him from one jail to another—to serve out his detention until his trial—a ballsy “rescue” had been initiated.
Apparently, the transport van he’d been held in was disabled after being rear-ended. Well-armed masked men had then stormed the van. There were seven in total. In broad daylight, they’d managed to break Julian Mercier out and no one has seen him since.
The most surprising bit of information? William is the suspect the police believe to be behind the plot to free Mercier, and he’s now a fugitive, too.
This part still stuns me as I figured William to be a liability to Mercier the way Sin and I had been. I’d misjudged that, though.
Despite how much I dislike Mercier—he had tried to kill me—there’s a part of me, thief to thief, that admires his audacity and foresight in carrying out such a brazen escape. But it ensures his life in France is over. He’ll never be able to return. In fact, he’ll have to start his life all over again. Probably not a hard thing for a man who has no real family and gobs of wealth at his disposal to do, so I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.
News of his disappearance was a welcome relief to all of us at Jameson. It means Sin and I are safe. There’s no reason for Mercier to spill the beans on us now. Even if he had for pure spite, there’s no proof even placing us in France. The police could never come after us without Mercier’s testimony, and I can guarantee he’s not coming back to France to do that.
So yeah… all is well that ends well, I guess.
Except I’m here in Pittsburgh while Sin is God knows where, pissed off and uncommunicative. I’ve talked to George twice. While he’s been pleasant and empathetic, he made it clear he’s on Sin’s side and he wasn’t going to share a goddamn thing with me.
Which I understand.
“How long have they been in there?” I ask Bebe as I take a leather chair opposite her.
When she glances up, I jerk my chin toward the conference room.
“About an hour,” she replies, focusing on her laptop again.
I watch a moment as Kynan talks to several people in the conference room. It’s Malik’s parents, his two brothers—Max and Lucas Fournier, who play hockey for the Carolina Cold Fury—and their sister, Simone. They’re here for answers to questions that have gone unanswered. I’m sure, more than anything, they want to know what’s being done to find Malik as it has been a month since the ambush.
I don’t know how much Kynan can tell them, because while it was an off-the-books mission, our government funded it, which implies there’s some secrecy involved.
Man, I feel for them, just as I do for the families of all of those who lost their lives. But the situation with Malik is hitting us all a bit harder because we don’t know what happened to him. He could be dead, or even perhaps worse—yes, worse—he could be a prisoner suffering repeated torture. It’s caused me a few nightmares thinking about it, so I can’t even imagine what his parents are going through.
“Did you hear about the Renoir?” Bebe asks, and I raise an eyebrow.
No need to ask what Renoir she’s talking about. “What about it?”
“The police found it,” she replies, smirking at me over the screen of her laptop. “In a room in a seedy motel after an anonymous tip was called in about it. Now it’s back with the rightful owner.”
I frown. That’s weird.
But she’s not finished with her story. “Apparently,” she drawls with a dramatic flair, “the tip coming in was so close in proximity to Mercier’s ar
rest, the police wondered if there was a connection. They returned to Mercier’s chateau for another look through, only to find a secret room suddenly wide open—filled with stolen artwork—under his office.”
My jaw drops.
“Further rumors report there was an empty spot on the wall, exactly the size of the Renoir. So now charges are going to be amended against Mercier to add all that stolen loot on, and the police are scrambling to figure out how the stolen Renoir was lifted from Mercier’s estate and tipped to the police. Quite the mystery, right?”
A flush of anger sweeps through me as it all clicks. “Goddamn it, Sin,” I mutter.
“Quite daring,” Bebe remarks.
Because yeah… there’s no doubt Sin somehow managed to avoid police scrutiny as they’d actively investigated Mercier for the stolen diamonds, found and opened a secret hidden room only to steal back the Renoir, and then tipped off the police—for no other purpose than to return that piece to its rightful owner.
Damn Sin and her conscience for so unnecessarily putting herself at risk like that.
I’m still thinking about the ways I can cheerfully strangle her when and if I see her again, when Bebe asks, “Why didn’t Sin come back to the States with you as planned? I worked hard to create a fake alibi for her here.”
I’m unable to come up with an answer. I mean… it’s simple, but it’s also complicated.
“Oh, come on,” she urges. Setting her laptop on the couch cushion beside her, she leans forward and wraps her arms around her legs with clear interest on her face. “What’s the story? You clearly knew her before you went there, right? And I’m thinking there’s some major history between you two, but you care for her. Otherwise, why would you have us work so hard to help make her safe with fake alibis? And then… you have Cruce go over there to kidnap her and give you a bomb jacket so you can play ‘who has the bigger dick’ with Mercier—which I still need the details on how that went down by the way—but then you come back after all is said and done and Sin isn’t even with you. That was a letdown, and now you’ve been moping around here all week and—”
Code Name: Heist Page 18
