by Jeff Lindsay
Mrs. Sheila Beaumont.
Riley Wolfe’s mother.
Mrs. Beaumont needed the full-time nursing care she got here. She was in what is commonly called a persistent vegetative state, and had been for many years. Only a great deal of expensive care kept her alive—if the unchanging comatose state could be called alive, which Delgado doubted. In his opinion, Sheila Beaumont had moved out a long time ago, leaving nothing behind but the furniture. But it wasn’t Delgado’s business; it wasn’t his money keeping the body technically alive. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Riley Wolfe’s money, either, since it was all stolen. In any case, since it was leading Delgado right to Riley, he wouldn’t complain.
And it would lead to Riley Wolfe. Delgado had no doubt about it. During Riley’s previous heist, six months ago in Chicago, his mother had been right there nearby, in an Oak Park full-care nursing home. And the day after Wolfe’s robbery, he had taken his mother out of that home, and they had both disappeared.
Delgado knew that if Riley Wolfe had already hit the Eberhardt, there was no point in looking for him there. And he was completely sure that whoever had been captured on the roof, it was not Riley. Riley Wolfe would be coming here, to get his mother. Just like he had before.
And Delgado would be here, waiting.
He entered the nursing home as excited as he had been in years. He felt like a little boy on Christmas, seeing all the presents under the tree and knowing that the really big one had his name on it. This was it. After so many years of disappointment, false hope, dead ends—he was about to come face-to-face with his obsession. Cornered at last.
Feeling a confidence he hadn’t felt yet in anything involving Riley Wolfe, Delgado left the elevator on the second floor and followed the signs to room 242. As he got close, he heard voices from inside the room—not voices, plural. Just one voice.
Delgado jerked to a stop outside the door and listened.
“. . . so we’ll be moving on today, Mom. I found a really nice place for you, and it’s much warmer. There’s a garden—they have roses, Mom. You’re gonna really like it . . .” The voice changed, grew softer, filled with emotion. “It’s a great place, Mom. Just like you always said—you’ll be living the life of Riley, just like you always said.”
There was an almost audible click in Delgado’s brain. The life of Riley. That’s where the name had come from. The life of Riley, a wolf’s reward for successfully preying on the herd. Delgado nearly smiled. He had a full picture now, and—
The voice had stopped. Now, Delgado thought. He drew his gun, swirled around the doorframe and into the room—
The room was empty.
For a moment, Delgado just stood there and blinked. Then he stepped to the closet, opened it—empty. The same with the bathroom. And nobody under the bed. The room was truly and completely empty.
But the voice he’d heard . . . ?
Behind him, he heard music, a ruffle of drums, then an insistent bass line in a minor key. He whirled around. On the small table beside the bed stood an expensive, high-tech digital sound recorder and a small speaker. The music was coming from this—and as Delgado stared at it, still stupidly pointing his gun, the guitar and then the vocals came in.
He listened for a minute, until he recognized the song. It was an Elvis Costello tune, one Frank had listened to often enough when he was young: “Watching the Detectives.” It had never seemed quite so ironically appropriate before. And as a bright, hot flush mounted up his neck and into his face, Delgado put his pistol back in its holster and sank into the bedside chair.
He just sat there and listened until the song ended. It had hit him with a nearly physical pain, no doubt exactly what Riley had intended.
Riley Wolfe, all along, had been watching the detective—Special Agent Frank Delgado.
Somehow, Riley knew he would come. Somehow, he had set up a mocking welcome, designed to let Delgado know he was completely outmatched and had been from the start.
When the song was over, he got up and went to the nurses’ station. “The woman in room 242,” he asked, holding up his badge. “When did she leave?”
The nurse glanced at her computer, clicked the keyboard a few times. “This morning,” she said. “A private ambulance picked her up.” She frowned at the keyboard. “But the room was paid for through tomorrow—we’re not supposed to touch it until then.” She shook her head. “That’s weird . . .”
Delgado just nodded and walked away. It wasn’t weird to him. The room had been left for him. And there was no point in asking any more questions. He already knew the rest. He would check, of course, but he knew what he’d find; the private ambulance would be registered to a company that didn’t exist, going to a destination that was an empty lot, or a pet cemetery, and there would be no clues, no way to track it down, no way to find Riley Wolfe or his mother.
Until next time. And there would be a next time, for him as well as for Riley Wolfe. But in the meantime . . . ?
Delgado stepped into the elevator and rode down. He walked out to his car and got in, putting both hands on the steering wheel and staring straight ahead for several minutes. And then he slammed the wheel with both hands, hard. “God-damn it!” he said. Just once. Then he started the car and began the long trip home.
* * *
—
The sun was just coming up when Katrina got home. It had been a very long night, and the one before—with the ruined gala at the museum—had been nearly as long, and it occurred to her that she had not really slept more than a couple of hours for two days now. She parked her car in the huge garage, noting that Randall’s car was back, neatly parked in the spot next to hers. She was filled with elated relief; she hadn’t really believed he’d had an accident, but the possibility had elbowed its way into her mind and wouldn’t go away. But his car was here, unmarked, and that meant Randall was, too.
Katrina turned the key and switched off the motor. She sat for a few moments, blinking at the tiredness in her eyes, in silence broken only by the ticking of the engine as it cooled. She was just so tired, and so much had happened, and she couldn’t wait to tell Randall all of it. She smiled at that thought. It was just so damn good to have somebody to come home to, somebody who would listen and care . . .
She climbed out of the car, stepped from the garage into the cool bright morning, and walked up the path to the house. The rosebushes were bare, of course. Winter had stripped all the greenery from the yard, and the gray and brown of the trees and the stems of the roses were a stark contrast to the bright sunlight of the frosty morning. She stopped for a moment halfway up the path, yawning hugely. Two nights with almost no sleep—or was it three? She couldn’t wrap her exhausted mind around the arithmetic. And it didn’t really matter. But in any case, she could not remember when she’d been so tired.
That didn’t matter, either. She would be in bed soon enough—and with Randall. She smiled as she thought that he was probably sleeping, and she could quietly slip in beside him, and softly, gently, put her ice-cold feet into the small of his back—
Still yawning, still smiling, Katrina went into the house. She hung her coat and scarf on the hat tree in the atrium and headed for the stairs. Up to bed, to Randall and sleep. Mmmm, she thought happily. Perhaps not sleep—not right away.
She was halfway past the double-sized doorway to the kitchen and breakfast nook when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye, something on the breakfast table that was not normally there. She walked backward, turned, and went over to the table.
The salt and pepper shakers had been dragged to the near edge of the table. Propped up against them was a buff envelope. Beside that, on the table’s surface, was a single white rose. It wasn’t fully opened, and drops of dew glistened on the flower.
It was so very much like Randall, so thoughtful, to bring her a rose. No special occasion, just a small token to say “I love you.�
�� Again she felt the glow of happiness and fulfillment that came from having somebody who cared. Katrina picked up the rose, sniffed—it had a full and wonderful aroma, not like the cheaper hothouse flowers you usually get in the city, especially during the winter. For a moment she closed her eyes and drank in the smell, thinking how lucky she was to have Randall. Then she remembered the envelope.
Puzzled, she opened her eyes and put the rose down on the table. She picked up the envelope, noting that it was beautiful stock, the kind that came with the very best stationery. Centered on the front in green ink was her name, Katrina.
Still wondering what Randall might be up to, she opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of stationery that matched the envelope. She unfolded it and began to read the neat letters, also in green ink.
Dear Katrina,
I’m sorry, but I have to say you have really terrible taste in men—
Katrina frowned. It was a strange beginning, clearly some sort of joke—but what kind of joke? What was Randall thinking? What did he mean? Shaking her head, she went back to reading.
—you have really terrible taste in men. Michael was bad enough. But at least he was only a simple pedophile. To go from him to somebody like me . . . Well, like I said, you have awful taste. I guess there really are some things money can’t buy.
If it’s any consolation, our marriage was totally invalid—I don’t really exist! You can even pin Michael’s murder on me. That should make Brilstein happy. And you don’t really deserve to go to prison.
By the time you read this, I will be long gone. But after all we went through together, I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.
Good-bye, Katrina. Don’t bother trying to find me. You won’t.
It was a joke. Some kind of stupid joke, it had to be. Katrina felt horrid, sickening panic flood into her. She crumpled the letter and threw it to the floor. She ran from the room and yelled, “Randall!”
At least, she intended to yell. The sound that came out of her was nothing she recognized as her voice—it didn’t even sound human. It was an animal screech, a yowl of agony ripped from her throat that echoed through a house that sounded so empty it killed her hope even as she looked for some small sign to feed it. “Randall!” she screamed again, and again there was no answer.
She went from room to room in the huge house, even the very faintest hope flickering dimmer and finally dying into bleak cold ashes as the last room proved to be empty.
Gone. He was really gone. Randall was gone.
Katrina felt all the air and light go out of the world, and for a while there was nothing there at all—no trace of sight or sound or touch or anything but a dark and excruciating blankness.
And then, without any idea how it had happened, she was sitting on the kitchen floor. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even see anything except the dark fog across the whole world around her, slowly oozing back and letting in a thin trickle of awareness. And that consciousness was much worse than the darkness had been.
Gone. Randall was gone . . .
She had no way of knowing how long she had been sitting there like that, completely wrapped in darkness, inside and out, clutching the crumpled letter in both hands. But at long last she was able to take a single, deep, painful, rasping breath. She looked around her, completely numb, and sunlight began to seep back in at the edges of her world. It shed light on the room, but none at all on Katrina.
What had happened? What did the letter mean? It had to be some kind of horrible joke—except Randall really was gone. She smoothed out the letter and looked at it. It seemed to be his handwriting—and down at the bottom, in place of a signature, he had put his initials with a flourish. R.M.
But no, wait—those were not his initials. She frowned at the letters, trying to make sense of them. The R was definitely an R. But the M—it seemed to be reversed, upside down. A W, not an M.
“R.W.”? What the hell did that mean? She didn’t know anybody with the initials R.W.
And apparently, she didn’t know anybody named Randall Miller, either. The letter said he didn’t exist. She had been sleeping with a figment of her imagination.
And it didn’t matter if he was Randall or R.W. or totally imaginary. Whoever or whatever he was, he was gone.
And Katrina was more alone than she’d ever been.
CHAPTER
33
Frank Delgado stood beside the bed, looking down at the man lying there. His hands were behind his head and his leg was elevated and he was far too chipper for a man who had been shot only three days ago. He looked like he was lying in a hammock on a warm beach instead of the infirmary in a city jail.
He hadn’t said much so far, but his fingerprints had come back from Interpol and they said enough. His name was Oliver Sneed, a British national who was skilled at parkour, and he had used those skills in a series of daring robberies—not all of them successful, since he had a record longer than his wounded leg.
Delgado had been halfway back to his home in Virginia when Special Agent in Charge Macklin had called and asked him to head back to New York, to question Sneed. Delgado didn’t mind. And when he got a look at Sneed’s history, he was glad he had returned.
Sneed had given smart-ass replies to the first few questions. That was okay with Delgado. The questions were pretty standard, just setting a tone and a rhythm for the interview. Delgado was using them to make Sneed relax, to set him up for one question in particular, one that Delgado really wanted to ask.
“I told you, mate,” Sneed said breezily. “It was all a lark. Just a bit of fun on a lovely evening.”
“Pretty cold evening,” Delgado said.
“The parkour, mate,” Sneed said. “Warms the blood like a tonic.”
“And at midnight, too,” Delgado said.
“Aw, I couldn’t sleep, that’s all,” Sneed said. He shook his head slightly, as much as he could lying down, and his face took on an expression of innocence that would have done Shirley Temple proud. “How was I to know there was all those Ay-rab lads up there, automatic weapons and that?”
“You had no idea what was in the museum?” Delgado asked.
“Not a fucking clue,” Sneed said with a shrug. “Never was much for museums.”
Delgado nodded. “All right,” he said reasonably. “Just a coincidence, then?”
“That’s the word,” Sneed said happily. “Co-fucking-incidence.”
“Quite an amazing fluke, considering your record,” Delgado said. He pulled a metal folding chair close to the bed and sat. “Seven counts of grand larceny, mostly jewels.”
“Done my time, haven’t I?” Sneed said with an air of injured innocence. “Changed man, I am.”
“So you had no idea the crown jewels were at the Eberhardt?”
“Not a fucking clue.”
“And you weren’t there because you paid somebody on the dark web to turn off the alarm system?”
“The dark what?” Sneed asked.
“Somebody,” Delgado went on, “who apparently double-crossed you, set you up to get shot?”
“Aw, now, who would do such an awful thing?” Sneed asked with great innocence.
Delgado smiled. This was what he’d been waiting for. “Riley Wolfe,” he said.
Sneed’s reaction was better than he could have hoped for. His mouth opened wide, but nothing came out, and then he closed his eyes and seemed to sink down into his pillow. “Bloody fucking hell,” he whispered, and again, “Bloody fucking hell.”
Delgado said nothing, and after a moment Sneed opened his eyes again. “Should have known,” he said. “Riley fucking Wolfe.” He sighed and shook his head slowly. “Bugger has it in for me.”
“Why?” Delgado asked.
Sneed waved a hand dismissively. “Aw, I done him dirty a few years back. The old double-cross, jobbed him out o
f a right nice score.” He closed his eyes again. “Should’ve known he wouldn’t let that go. Not Riley. Not ever.” He opened one eye and pointed it at Delgado. “What did he get away with?”
“Apparently nothing,” Delgado said.
Sneed snorted. “Pull the other one,” he said. “If he was there, I promise you he didn’t leave empty-handed.”
Delgado frowned. “The museum says there’s nothing missing,” he said. “It’s all there.”
Sneed shook his head vigorously. “Don’t believe it,” he said. “Not a fucking prayer. Riley leave empty-handed? Never in life.”
Delgado didn’t believe it, either. But the museum had been positive that nothing was missing. “If it was you,” he asked, “if you’d gotten inside like you planned—what would you have taken?”
“The Daryayeh-E-Noor, nothing else,” Sneed said, and there was a note of reverence in his voice. “It really is an ocean of light—beautiful, like you’ve never seen. One of a kind—and it’s small enough to carry easy, and worth a fucking fortune.” He opened both eyes now and they shone as he looked at Delgado. “Fifteen billion dollars, mate. With a b.”
“The museum says it’s still there, in its case.”
“Look again, mate,” Sneed said. “Look again.”
* * *
—
He stood right there,” Lieutenant Szabo said, pointing to the space next to the Daryayeh-E-Noor’s case. “He had his weapon out and ready, and he stood there while we chased after the other guy.”
“What kind of weapon?” Delgado asked.
“Glock Model 23,” Szabo said.
Delgado nodded. That was the weapon most agents carried. But that was well-known. It didn’t mean much here. “Describe him for me again?”
Szabo shrugged. “I’d say five foot ten, average build, but a little bit of a paunch? So maybe a hundred seventy-five pounds. Reddish-brown hair and mustache.” He frowned. “Like I said, the most noticeable thing was the glasses. Lenses were like an inch thick. Nobody could see through those unless, you know. If it was their prescription.”
