by Bronwen John
“Or is there a French version?”
“There is,” Esther said, smirking. “But I fear it’d be butchered by you.”
Chris chuckled darkly and joined her, as she poured him a good, strong coffee. She’d loved living here since she was sixteen, and had attended university here. It was good to have a second father in the wings, although he was even more distrusting of her God-given con-artist abilities than her own father.
“You’re going to have to hang off getting him, aren’t you?” Esther asked quietly. “You’ve not been saying anything but you’re a terrible poker player.”
Chris sighed and nodded. “Hoping that we’ll get him in a little bit, but we’ll be back with his head on a silver platter for you, Salome.”
“Just bring him back,” Esther said tensely. “I promised Ash, and I’m not one for breaking my word.”
Chris nodded, stepping over to plant a kiss on her head before pacing off to the waiting Dodge Charger. Esther stood in the doorway and waited for him to go down the drive, before pulling on her shoes and running out to the barn, yanking back the canvas on the jeep that she’d been playing about with. She’d kept the job ongoing, tossing oil on various tool parts and making sure she looked good and dirty when she returned. She’d spent too many hours tracking the ATF team, remaining in plain sight. Ash had nearly ruined one day’s surveillance when she’d asked to join her, but the day hadn’t been a total waste; she’d got to hear Ash be a kid. For her, the static had stopped.
She was just smiling at this thought when she saw Ash seated on the wall outside. She considered, biting her lip as she turned the engine on. The look on Ash’s face was feral. It was a promise to scream her head off and interrupt whatever plan Esther had in mind. Esther jerked her head in defeat, smirking as Ash clambered in, putting the seat belt around herself.
“I knew I shouldn’t have taught you to cold read,” she muttered, putting the car into drive and speeding off with Ash clinging on for grim death.
Twenty-Three
“I figured you out.”
“Well, it took you long enough, and you’ll be the latest in a long line of people who think they have,” Esther said as they drove down the highway, not taking her eyes off the road. “I’ve been hunting down the operation while Team 13 has been waiting and Judge Waters has been twiddling his thumbs.”
Ash threw a look at her. “You signed the paperwork, didn’t you?”
“We already did; I’m dropping it off with Chris.”
“Don’t bull me – there’s more to it!” Ash snapped, Esther raising her eyebrows. “You’re going after him again.”
“I always have a backup plan.”
“Are you going to tell me it?”
“You know, I never counted on rainmakers being so intrusive, so no.” Ash glared and Esther sighed. “Listen, I have a feeling that I’m being ratted on and I know the source. I need to check if my father’s side is done up tight.”
“I thought Chris and your dad told you nothing?”
“They didn’t. But their body language did. They’re going in for a raid. It’s a surprise one. Looks like Holmes is a desperate man.”
If Ash expected further conversation, she was sorely disappointed. Esther was silent and foreboding all the way into Denver, manoeuvring through the traffic like a pro and looking calm and efficient.
Eventually, she drew the jeep to a sharp halt. “Listen. You wait at least two hours… do the normal stuff that people of your age do. Then you go to this address.” She fished in her pocket, flipping out a card, which Ash took. “You go there. Chris will be there.”
“950 17th Street, Denver?”Ash read. “I don’t bring backup? I can call Caelan?”
“You bring no one.” Esther’s glare was hard. “I don’t want any slip-ups, as I have no doubt in this world that you’ll do as I say.”
“It wasn’t our—”
“No. He’s got a mole that’s warning him for some parts,” Esther said, closing her eyes as she clambered out of the jeep, waiting for Ash to do the same. “When you get to Chris, you tell him this: I’m intending on seeing him soon. Tell him I know what Dad’s thinking of and I’m going to see the lay of the land. Tell him everything about my little scheme… and tell him he’d better move his backside. It’s not often a killer sees their victim walking by when they’re long dead.”
Ash had gone through the story a third time by the time Chris came down to the ground floor. She immediately jumped to her feet on seeing him, and saw the green eyes flash with amusement.
“I had a bit of a surprise when front desk told me they had a young Brit waiting,” he said, handing her a visitor pass. “What’s brought on this visit? Did Esther lose badly at poker?”
“No. I don’t think I’ve seen her lose, except to Innocent,” Ash said, pinning on the visitor pass and sharing a bright smile with him.
Chris chuckled.
“And even then I think it was a fluke.”
“Could very well have been… now, what exactly is the reason for your visit?” he asked.
“Est told me to tell you everything,” she said, fishing in her pocket for the envelope.
“What the hell is that kid up to now?”
Chris narrowed his eyes as he stepped into the lift, opening the envelope that had remained closed all that time. Ash witnessed his hands beginning to shake and a glaze coming over his eyes as rage rattled through him.
“I just gave the son of a bitch coffee,” he snarled. He cursed as he looked at the watch on his wrist. There was no time; even Ash could see that.
A young man was sitting in the centre of the room, his head turned away from Ash as she pondered over the note and its contents. She poked her head over Chris’s shoulder to read it for herself.
It’d seem my little trap worked too well, Christopher. We’ve been betrayed by a source that I set up for you. Just think of the old John Denver song ‘Rocky Mountain High’ and you’ll work it out. He’s probably holding court right now.
Love, Est.
PS: Don’t shout at Mattie!
Ash threw her head up as the realisation hit her that she knew both the laugh and the expression. “Colorado?”
Max ‘Colorado’ Ying turned on his heel to look at her and flashed a grin. “You rang, milady?” he teased, looking behind him to where another young man was sitting. “Hey, Mattie, I’d like you to meet an old friend, Ash. Ash… you still mistaking me for a mark?”
“Mattie LeRoy?” Ash asked, offering her hand to the long-con man. He looked much the same age as Esther, and from the handshake, Ash realised he had accepted her into Esther’s con-artist family. “Esther told me about you.”
“And she told me about you, too.” Mattie gave her hand a tight hold and an even tighter shake. “Fantastic approach to the job… pity about Holmes getting away with some of it. Esther had that fantastic idea, told me all about it. That drug, wow, one hell of an idea.”
“Yeah, that’s great… it was laudanum,” said Colorado confidently.
“How’d you know that?” asked Chris immediately.
For a moment, Colorado looked as though he had been struck. “Ash told me.”
“I’ve not spoken to you since the con began,” Ash said quietly. “Especially since I’ve not had Facebook. But you’ve been in contact with Esther, Mr LeRoy—”
“Mattie, and yeah, she is one of my closest associates – no, no. Friends.” The young man scratched at his beard. “She was planning for us to meet, the night you went wandering, so cancelled it. Imagine our surprise when Holmes knew where the usual haunts were.” He coughed.
“So?”
“Well, when she gave herself up, she managed to lose Hughes in the Tube stations. She phoned me from an antiquated phone box… harder to track down,” he said, frowning. “We agreed to meet at one of my secret hiding spots.
Apparently, I was listened in to once again. By the time I got to the spot, Holmes’s goons were swarming.”
“But… Esther got away?” Ash said.
“Yeah, with a cut to the head and a nice slice added to her hip. If it hadn’t been for a mutual friend,” Mattie glanced in Vin’s direction, “she’d be dead. That friend managed to warn me of a future change of scenery, even managed to find somewhere else for us to go to tend to her, but there was only one person who knew of my secret cove.”
Colorado raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. “Seriously? You’re accusing me?”
“Esther was.” Mattie flashed a grin. “You see, it’s so easy to delete social media that that was part one of our little test. He knew the haunts that you were going to. I got that you’d been chased… from him.” He offered a dark smile. “Esther thought something was up. Bad feelings and all that. Then when I mentioned it, innocently enough you knew that she’d been chased. You were the only one apart from Esther to know that particular hiding spot. That clinched it a few days ago when I met Est. And then what really clinched it? Was you just spilling it wasn’t curare poison… I was the only one outside of Caelan and Est to know of that tiny lie. In fact, Est told me when I brought it up in conversation to tell you nothing… except to mention it in messages to her… the exact same thing that Holmes assumed.”
“Why?” Ash asked, staring at the man she’d called a friend as he sat his eyes narrowing with rage.
Colorado, who had fled London the same time as her due to the equal weight of Holmes on his shoulders, had betrayed her, Dee and Luke. He’d probably guided Holmes right to the house to arrange Dee’s kidnapping. He’d portrayed himself as a victim, and Ash had believed it because she had no reason not to. She’d believed every word and Colorado had laughingly led her along the merry path.
“Why?” snapped the slightly older man. “You dare ask me why?”
Things began to click into place. “Because I got sent to Crook and you didn’t, God. You didn’t even keep the small con you had going in Trafalgar Square,” Ash replied, staring hard. “How much silver did he line your pockets with?”
“He made me a partner in his business, junior, better than being abandoned by Esther Crook midway through.”
“She held on to her,” said Mattie, stepping forward. He offered a slight, if predatory, grin. “I’m not the second-best con artist and best con man for nothing you know.”
Ash lunged at the older man who barely held off the attack as she scored punch after punch. “You rat bastard! You murdered my Dad! You set him up. You tried to kill Dee and me! You broke the con!”
Chris who’d held back a few moments paced over and pulled her back. “Ash! Ash?!”
“He murdered my Dad!” she bawled.
The others of the team put their heads down. The calmness of the girl’s calculations had fled, to be replaced by the true girl that Chris had spotted before them. He merely went to the floor with her as she collapsed in his arms, sobbing harshly. He cradled her as he would have any of his own children.
“She was—”
Instantly, the angry, bespectacled eyes flew up at him. “Get him out of here before I do something I won’t regret!”
Colorado smirked for a brief second before the girl turned her gaze on him. There was something in her eyes.
“Remember me, Max, because every con artist will know that you betrayed her, and I will make sure, if anyone asks, that I end you. You sanctimonious… pray nobody asks.”
Colorado was led off by Wyatt, thrashing and trying to look pleadingly at Ash through a rapidly darkening eye. Ash, however, was sobbing into Chris’s chest.
After a few moments she collected herself and wiped her eyes. “She said she’s gone to check on her dad’s side of things… is this why?”
Realisation flickered into Chris’s expression and Ash recognised the look of fear in the eyes, the one she had seen hidden behind Esther’s emerald green.
Esther had committed the suicide that Anton had spoken of.
Twenty-Four
“You have always said that you have an impressive inventory. I have no doubt this will interest our… clientele.”
Innocent said this confidently and Holmes shot him an amused look. It had been no small act of mercy that his lawyers had managed to get him off on a technicality. Liz was pleading with him for help, and, while he had once been cautious, he was now eager to get his hands on money that nobody but himself would see. Liz could wait for a time.
It had all led to this moment. Innocent had arranged for the goods to be brought into a complex that Holmes had rented out to him as part of his ‘legitimate earnings’, and that Innocent normally used strictly for his vehicles.
It was a vast complex, isolated on the edge of the city. It was made up mostly of offloaded truck trailers stacked side by side and several levels deep, with one large warehouse. With Denver’s status as a distribution hub, no one gave a second glance to trucks coming in and out of the area, and there were far too many vehicles for a decent monitoring system to be in place.
The door opened as the gate was unlocked. Three armed men appeared, lowering their weapons when they saw their boss. “We have some samples for you, Mr Holmes, as ordered. The other weaponry is with Mr Innocent’s men. Also, your present is all wrapped up.”
“Excellent. These gentlemen are likely to become regulars here, so expect to see them again in the future.”
Innocent, Holmes and Innocent’s bodyguard Jesse stepped inside, while the others remained on guard. Innocent led them towards a side entrance, stopping just a few steps away and reaching to unlock what looked to be a service door.
“As you can see, Ezra, a fine array of weaponry for your needs.” Holmes gestured at the ground. “Automatic rifles, machine guns… all for your basic needs.”
Innocent nodded, rubbing his chin. “Very interesting. I admire your foresight.”
Holmes smirked, delighting in the reactions. “I also have a gift for you.”
“Another gift?” Innocent asked, surprise evident in his voice. “How pleasant.”
“It’d seem that we have a mole in our operations,” Holmes said. “An undercover man… Esther Crooks’ father.”
“Never had the displeasure,” Innocent said shortly. “Do you have a description?”
“None clear. My source, a rather cocky young grifter, assures me that he’s on the case… apparently his ‘tutor’ went out for dinner with Crook, and she used a particular phrase when she told him that the con had failed. Qui court deux lievres a la fois, n’en prend aucun. It turns out I rather like that expression.”
“‘Who runs after two hares at the same time, catches none’?” Innocent shook his head. “I don’t see the reasoning.”
“I caught myself a hare while Crook and her father were busy chasing me. Your gift, my friend.”
Innocent stopped dead with a look of surprise and incredulity written across his face. Holmes grinned proudly at the sight before them.
Esther Crook had walked by his warehouse, thinking she had not been seen. Scoping the lay of the land, as it were, before heading to the jeep that she had been driving. Paulsen had followed her. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts of possible cons – at least, that was what Holmes supposed she was thinking about – that, by the time she’d realised she was being followed, there was something in her neck and she had slumped into Paulsen’s arms. Holmes had made sure that she made a pretty picture on entry; he’d swapped her shirt for a halter-neck vest that left her bare back exposed, and her lower half was clad only in underwear. Her arms were lashed together and hung expertly from a hook, her bare feet dangling a foot or so off the floor.
“Seems we found a dead woman walking,” said Holmes spitefully. “Most unscrupulous law-abider I’ve met.” He stepped forward and stroked the underside of Esther’s chin, the young
woman maintaining her rage-filled emerald gaze. “Now, I have some questions for you.”
“None that I will answer,” Esther replied shortly.
“Ah, bravery – misplaced, however,” Holmes said, picking up a cattle prod and holding it out. “It is your choice… now, where is your father?”
“I still don’t know the answer to that in any language,” hissed the Frenchwoman.
“Ah, so you will answer?” Holmes mocked, smirking. “You know, you remind me of a young man. A rather good young man from a Southern French family.” He leaned forward, holding the cattle prod over the exposed flesh of her armpit. “Now, first question… where is your father?”
“Christ, she’s a kid,” snapped one of Innocent’s bodyguards.
“She’s not a kid. You all keep thinking of her as that… and she ain’t,” Holmes said, smirking as Esther glared at him.
“The art of a con man is doing everything illegal, but legally. You got away with it,” Esther snorted. “But yours was far worse than mine. At least I’m in the clear.”
“You honestly thought I’d just let you walk away? Be like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”
Esther pretended to consider. “Well, it did cross my mind. And I love a good Western… rather like The Magnificent Seven. The original, of course.”
Holmes brandished the cattle prod like a gun. “You know what you cost me, Crook?”
“Just the same as you cost me,” Esther snapped, as she looked into the eyes of a rapidly unravelling man who had lost everything. “You cost me a very good mother and a very happy beginning of my adult life… do you have any idea—”
“You have cost me my friends, my family, my reputation!”
“And that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? You don’t know whether to check your ass or scratch your watch… make your mind up. Your family? Expendable; easy to manipulate you there,” she snapped, eyes glittering without much fear. “I told you before that trial that if the law didn’t get you, I would… and I went after the thing you value most.”
