by Ritter Ames
“Good morning, Laurel.” Jack Hawkes’s teal eyes narrowed slightly as he added, “I thought that was you. Can I help you get a cab?”
“Sure, I…” I turned my head to break the connection short-circuiting my brain. Time to switch gears. “Jack, this is Lincoln Ferguson. Linc, meet Jack Hawkes.” Then I squared my shoulders for a second and started walking again toward the exit. “You’re right, Jack. I do need a cab. We have an early meeting, after all.”
“Earlier than either of us expected,” he returned, slipping my right hand into the crook of his elbow and making sure to keep my fingers viced in the grip of his free hand. Louder he said, “Nice to meet you, Lincoln.”
I thought we’d gotten away, but in a blink the reporter was again by my side. “Do the two of you work together?”
“The idea of the two of us working together is a rather fanciful notion,” Jack said. “Laurel always feels she is at her best when she’s operating solo.”
Oh, boy. Thank you, Mr. Hawkes. Aloud, I said, “So much of my work is based on confidentiality. One of the reasons I’m not sure how interesting an interview I can offer to you.”
“I’d be willing to take that chance.”
“Knowing Laurel, it would be a total waste of time, mate. Trust me,” Jack added.
I used our proximity to elbow him in the side, and I smiled up at Linc. “As I said, I’ll have my assistant call you when I have an opening.”
We were finally outside in weak January sunshine. I saw Jack’s Audi, but he hurried me along the taxi line to the front cab. Lincoln remained doggedly at my side.
“Aren’t we going in your car?” I asked, pointing.
“I’ll follow.”
Wonderful. As he played moving recon, he’d have the time and temper to plan a lecture I didn’t want to attend.
“I think you need to know a few things before you jump to conclusions,” I whispered, hoping Linc didn’t hear.
“Good. We’re finally thinking the same way,” Jack returned, his voice pitched equally low and frown firmly in place. “Informing others is always an excellent plan.”
We both looked back to gauge if the reporter picked up any of our conversation, but he was busy continuing a persuasion tactic. “Just give me a chance to change your mind, Laurel.”
The cabbie opened the back door and I slid onto the seat, hoping my pest wouldn’t follow me inside. I almost panicked when he leaned in, but it was only to hand me another of his cards. “All my contact numbers are on the back. Your assistant can’t miss me.” He raised his light brown brows and gave me a boyish grin.
Yeah, neither of us was fooling anyone. Jack was especially not pleased, but his words were somewhat gracious when he said, “Mind, I think the cabbie wants to be on his way.” And he slammed the door a split second after Lincoln cleared the opening.
The cab pulled away, and I watched Jack grab a card Linc extended. Then Hawkes hurried to the black Audi. Perfect parking karma. He whipped a quick turn and was behind us in an instant. The man had what it took.
I just wondered what kind of karma was headed my way the next time he caught me alone
TWO
An hour or so later, showered and dressed in a copper DKNY suit for business, I slung the strap of my new winter Prada bag onto my shoulder—purchased on sale since the spring line was already out. I phoned Jack to try to ascertain a barometer reading for the rest of the day.
“As we discussed earlier, Nico’s on assignment, and I’m on my way to the office to see how the restoration work is coming along. Then I’ll—”
“I’ve already been by,” Jack said. “No one is working on the office. No one looks to be working anytime soon.”
His voice sounded gruffer than usual, and I hoped it wasn’t because he was still angry about my accidental rendezvous with the reporter—or anything else that happened at St. Pancras a half hour after dawn. I yawned just thinking about it, and reminded myself to add Lincoln Ferguson to my agenda. I couldn’t risk running into him again with Jack around, and the reporter seemed determined to pursue me until I gave an interview.
“So what’s on for your day? Or is the schedule top secret?” I asked, attempting to deflect. He’d finally given me a few specifics about who he worked for, and I thought teasing might remind him we had our own agendas. He didn’t work for MI-6 as I’d previously guessed, but close.
“You’re pretty much my itinerary today,” he said. “I found a backup office for the foundation and picked up the files from Cassie’s place last night. I’m currently en route to your hotel. Have you had breakfast?”
“An apple and coffee, but you already know about that. I’m planning to have brunch with Cassie. Would you like to join us? We’ll let you pay.”
He laughed. “How could I turn down such a magnanimous offer? See you in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be in the lobby.” Yeah, I didn’t believe his good humor was real, but I was willing to go whatever distance he wanted to play it.
This keep-Laurel-protected-at-all-times thing had taken some getting used to. Oh, who was I kidding—I hadn’t stopped trying to reconcile myself to the idea. But when your late father rises from the grave and tries to kidnap you at gunpoint, some changes must be implemented, and I understood the reasoning. I didn’t like the idea of Jack becoming my personal estate agent, but he knew London better than I did, and the prospect of his coming through on a new HQ took one rather large item off my to-do list. No doubt, the place would be ultra-secure. Possibly even boringly so, but I made myself promise to adapt. It would relieve Cassie’s worries considerably.
I’d vetoed the bodyguard idea Jack broached immediately following our last misadventure—repeatedly vetoed it. My duties toward saving art always had to come first, and I didn’t need anyone “looking out for my wellbeing” and throwing roadblocks in my way. But most important was the fact there were too many things in my life I couldn’t risk many people knowing about. Even Nico didn’t know about all of them. Leaving me with an incentive to play along with what made my team at least marginally satisfied.
I was getting better at not striking off on my own without a chaperone. Well, again, except for last night, but Nico was beside me for most of the outing and had an electronic eye and ear on me when a physical one wasn’t possible. Not that Jack or Cassie would be pleased if they knew I’d gone rogue in a high-stakes operation with Nico aiding and abetting me. A conversation for another day…Or one to avoid entirely.
When I crossed the lobby, I waved to the desk clerk, an attractive young Serb with flawless English and a perfect morning disposition. I waved as he greeted me by name. On one of the sofas, an older dark-haired man sat reading a Spanish-language paper, someone I hadn’t seen before. I smiled at the bifocaled eyes I could see over the top of the newspaper, but received no response.
Jack’s black Audi S5 glided up to the curb. I exited the revolving door. My favorite doorman smiled and opened the car’s passenger-side door for me. As I slipped into the soft leather seat, the aroma of rich ground roast coffee mixed with the new car smell I usually associated with the Audi. Two lidded cups stood in the middle console with a white paper bag alongside. My stomach rumbled.
“I knew coffee and an apple wouldn’t hold you ’til brunch,” Jack said, grinning as he tossed the bag my way. “Mostly warm orange scone.” He pointed to the console. “And the cup in front is the mocha caramel concoction you like so well.”
“Thank you.” I flashed a smile, then dove into the bag. “There’s only one.”
“I ate mine already.” He shifted gears as we moved forward. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to offer to share.”
I patted his hand on the stick shift. “You’re a good man sometimes, Jack Hawkes.”
“Not really. I just know your appetite.” He downshifted again, then asked, “What were you doing in France last night?”
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Damn. I decided to take the offense.
“What the hell, Hawkes? You flagging my passport?”
“Of course your passport is flagged,” he responded, his tone irritatingly nonchalant. “If you get kidnapped, I want to be able to put up every available roadblock.”
New tactic. “Nico was with me. We did everything last minute. Nothing to worry about.”
“Nico wasn’t with you on the return. And I didn’t even need the CCTV feed to see you waylaid by that reporter.”
This was not going according to plan. I took a moment to breathe, pulling the scone from the bag to briefly stall before I said, “I’m sorry if I worried you. Nico traveled with me to Paris and made sure I was safely boarded on the return train this morning. We had some unexpected foundation business to take care of, and he’ll be back in a day or two.”
“Why didn’t he return with you?”
I wanted to sigh, but knew it would be a mistake. Instead, I raised my chin and kept my voice decisive. “There were some loose ends he could handle alone, so I came back on an early train.” I took a bite of the warm scone.
“What kind of loose ends? And why didn’t you phone and tell me last night?”
I took an extra second or two to finish chewing, then swallowed and said, “Jack, it was confidential foundation business.” I again placed my hand over his, feeling the tension under his skin as he gripped the stick shift. The laughing voice on the phone was definitely a ruse, and I felt kind of guilty for worrying him. But not enough to be contrite. He had his job; I had mine. Even if my overnight venture had to stay off the books. “If I’d had any other choice I would have done things differently. I couldn’t tell you last night, and I simply cannot tell you now.” That’s what confidential means, I thought, but I didn’t dare say it aloud. I could see the muscles in his jaw relax, and I wanted to continue making headway. “Everything worked out. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but if it does I will take every safeguard possible.”
“And you’ll call me.”
“If I can,” I said, using the firm but soothing tones I would on a child I was trying to placate. Inside, however, I was seething from frustration. I knew he had resources, but I hadn’t thought about him flagging my passport or having me monitored on CCTV. Again. I thought I’d fully explained why it irritated me anytime he played video tag without asking first. Not that I would ever agree.
I needed to cook up some alternative means of addressing this problem when I had the luxury of time. Make a few phone calls. Likely, Nico would have to work some of his magic too.
I sipped my coffee and asked, “What is the new Beacham address? Did the queen have a palace for let so you could keep the guards around?”
He smirked. “I’m not even going to touch that one.”
“So?”
“Nothing palatial. Definitely quieter.”
“No guards?”
“No guards.”
Sure, I was teasing, but I kind of felt let down when he gave up so quickly. I finished my scone and felt better. Food had a soothing effect on me. “Is the address prestigious or back alley?”
“It’s not like you can have a spot in 10 Downing Street.”
“Just checking.”
“But it’s not back alley.” Then he gave a shrug. “Not out in the open either. That’s what I liked best about the location.”
Why did that not surprise me. I sipped my coffee and kept quiet, waiting for more information which apparently wasn’t forthcoming. Finally, I said, “Well, where are we going?”
Jack pointed through the windscreen. “There.” He pulled into a parking space close to a takeaway window in a red brick building.
It was a Chinese restaurant with several floors above. I had a strong suspicion the restaurant owner and family lived on the floor directly over the business, which meant the London Beacham office had likely gone from six steps below the pavement to three flights up.
“Top floor?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Elevator?”
He gave me a crooked smile of condolence.
“Great.” Probably the thing I liked least about London. Too many buildings and too few elevators. I looked at the lovely Jimmy Choos I’d slipped on earlier.
May need to start wearing Nikes and carrying my stilettos, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Let’s go. Give me the grand tour.”
We walked around the front of the restaurant and entered an alley with a flower shop along the other side.
“There’s another entrance through the restaurant, but this way is less public,” Jack said, pulling open an alley door. We entered a small back foyer with a deep stainless steel sink taking up one wall. An open doorway to the kitchen showed controlled chaos as everyone scurried to get ready for lunch patrons. I scanned the kitchen help as we moved to a nearby staircase. Everyone was Asian, most about my age, fifty-fifty male to female ratio, with lithe athletic bodies. I had a feeling this was Jack’s way of working around my “no bodyguard” mandate. When we climbed the back stairs and I saw the steel door at the third-floor landing, I was certain. When he keyed a complex code into the security box on the wall to the side of the door hinges, I was positive.
“What, no retinal readers?” I quipped.
He chuckled and opened the door, waving a hand to signal me to go first.
“Hi, welcome,” Cassie greeted us. Her hair was back to all blonde except for an indigo streak running down the right side. She had a handful of files, and a large manila stack on one of the heavy wooden conference tables took up about half the space. An identical equally imposing table sat at a right angle, making for one continuous work area. She continued, “I’ve started setting up. Feel free to jump in or change anything you like.” Nodding toward the aroma that emanated from the coffeemaker, she added, “But what you probably need is in the corner there.”
I smiled. “Jack picked me up a cup on the way, but thanks.”
On the far wall, the only one without a door or window, her personal whiteboard was already in play and she had attached copies of most of our objectives: people on the left and prints of art objects on the right. In the floor, near the middle space, she’d dropped an aerial view of the palazzo in Florence that Moran used for a forgery factory. Every expert in their field has a veteran master nemesis, and until last fall I always thought Moran was mine. My track record for retrieving art was impressive, but any loss I’d ever had could be tracked directly back to Moran and his unending talent for spiriting away art. That reason and his staggering ego was why Jack and I originally pegged him as public art enemy number one on our hit list for the international heist.
We now had additional bad guys to choose from, but Moran planting a forgery factory in a Renaissance-era palazzo in the shadow of the Florence Duomo proved he still held the record on egocentric one-upmanship.
About a month after we left Florence in the fall, we managed to secure the aerial shot of the deserted palazzo. Cassie clipped the picture to the top of the stack of printouts that Nico produced when he searched the history of the building’s owners. I picked up the papers comprising our limited chain of evidence.
“What’s this? Why are we revisiting the palazzo information? Something new develop?”
Cassie shook her head. “I had them in my hand and wasn’t sure where they needed to go. I was thinking about adding the aerial shot to the board but didn’t know where it fit in the present setup. So I left the pages on the floor. I’ll stick them in a file drawer when we get one.”
“I think we’re good with the two tables. We can make do with boxes,” I said, eyeing the space. It was large and open, probably thirty feet by forty. A widescreen television was mounted between two of the windows, with a blue multi-headed adapter cable hanging from the bottom. Shutters and curtains on the large windows afforded us total privacy. While this setup m
ight have sounded like overkill three floors above the street, we’d all learned not to take anything for granted. “A couple of chairs would be nice.” I looked out the windows. “And a fire escape.”
Jack spoke up. “Chairs are coming. I figure we don’t want this place to look too public and occupied, but it can be functional. And the fire escape is on the other side of the building. I’ll get us a rope ladder to keep here in the space, but I didn’t want to make it easy for someone to bypass the keypad and get in through other means.”
Made sense. I nodded in agreement.
I walked to the middle of the room and did a full slow pivot. The walls were ecru, the shutters and curtains an even brown, and the floor was covered in a variegated sand toned, level loop. “The carpet’s clean. Functional. Yeah, I like this idea. Kind of ‘war room primitive.’”
He grinned and took off his suit jacket to hang it on the doorknob, then ran his hand down the teal silk tie that matched his eyes. “We might need a coat rack, too. Or at least a couple of hooks for the walls.”
“Hooks. Keeps with the primitive decorating plan,” I said.
“Oh my god, you two.” Cassie shook her head. “Let’s do some work and stop with the interior design talk, okay?”
Her tablet sat atop one of the boxes. I picked it up, surprised. “We have wi-fi already?”
“Jack has a guy,” Cassie said. “He was leaving with his tool belt as I got here this morning.”
I looked at Hawkes. He raised his right eyebrow and gave me his “it’s nothing” shrug. There was no point in asking if the connection was secure.
I looked up at the cameras near the ceiling. “Are those live?”
“They are now. Once secure wi-fi was available.” He pulled a key from his pocket. “Here is your key, and the security key code for this week is written on the ring tab.” I opened my hand and he dropped the key onto my palm, closing my fingers around it. His hand was warm, and he held my gaze a second longer than necessary.
