35
To conceal their whereabouts, Payne used a fake ID and cash to rent two connecting rooms on one of the upper floors. Megan wasn’t comfortable sleeping with her connecting door open — she had known Payne and Jones less than two hours, and one of them had pulled a gun on her — so they reached a compromise. The guys’ door would stay open all night, always giving her a secondary exit, if she needed it. They doubted it would come to that, though. They had been on high alert during their drive
By the time they finally got into their rooms, it was nearly 11 p.m.
Payne unzipped his overnight kit. ‘I’ve been thinking about the letter, trying to figure out where Ashley got it from.’
Jones put on a T-shirt. ‘What’d you come up with?’
‘Nothing yet, but I know somebody who can help. What time is it in France?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Almost 5 a.m. Why?’
‘Never mind. It’s too late to call him now.’
‘Call who?’
‘Nick.’
Jones smiled at the mere mention of his name. He was the perfect guy to give them information about their mission, plus they could trust him with their lives. ‘Come on! This is Nick we’re talking about. The chances are pretty damn good he isn’t even in France. Every one of his cases takes him somewhere new. Besides, we saved the guy’s life and made him a millionaire to boot. I assure you, he won’t be pissed if we call.’
Nick Dial rolled over in his bed in Lyon, France, and stared at the clock on his dresser. He was a
Payne’s eyes widened at the unexpected use of profanity. He moved the phone from his lips and whispered to Jones. ‘Oh, shit. He’s pissed.’
‘Hang up!’ Jones urged. ‘I’m not gonna hang up. I’m not in middle school.’
Dial shouted into his phone. ‘Who the hell is this?’
Payne took a deep breath and answered. ‘Hey, Nick, it’s Jonathon Payne. Sorry to call you so late, but something important came up.’
There were very few people in the world that Dial truly respected, but Payne and Jones were at the top of the list. The trio had met several years ago at Stars and Stripes, a pub in London that catered to Americans who worked overseas. Payne and Jones were in the MANIACs at the time, and Dial was rising through the ranks of Interpol. The three of them hit it off, and they had kept in touch ever since — occasionally bumping into each other in the strangest places. Once
After years of fieldwork, solving some of Interpol’s most important cases, Dial had been selected to run the newly formed homicide division at Interpol. Since it was the largest international crime-fighting organization in the world, he dealt with death all over the globe. His job was to coordinate the flow of information between police departments any time a murder investigation crossed national borders. All told he was in charge of 186 member countries, filled with billions of people and hundreds of languages.
Dial sat up in his bed, groggy. ‘How important are we talking?’
‘Pretty important, Nick. Someone tried to kill us.’
‘Give me five minutes, and I’ll call you back on a secure line.’
One of the biggest misconceptions about Interpol was their role in stopping crime. They seldom sent agents to investigate a case. Instead, they used local offices called National Central Bureaus in the member countries. The NCBs monitored their territory and reported pertinent information to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon. From
Unfortunately, that wasn’t always enough. Sometimes the head of a division (drugs, counter feiting, terrorism, etc.) was forced to take control of a case to cut through red tape or handle a border dispute or deal with the international media. All the things that Dial hated to do. In his line of work, the only thing that mattered to him was justice. Correcting a wrong in the fairest way possible. That was the creed he had lived by when he was an investigator, and it had continued in his new position. If he focused on justice, he figured all the other bullshit would take care of itself.
Still waking up, Dial stumbled into his kitchen and returned Payne’s call, using a landline that was routinely checked for listening devices. ‘Who’d you piss off now?’
Payne laughed at his directness. ‘You mean, besides you?’
‘Sorry about that. As you know, I’m not a morning person.’
‘Which is why I called you now. It’s not even morning yet.’
Dial shook his head as he turned on his coffeemaker. ‘With that kind of logic, no wonder someone wants you dead.’
‘So, how can I help?’
‘Let’s start with the people I’ve killed.’
Dial rubbed his eyes. ‘Before you say another word, let me remind you what I do for a living. I arrest guys who kill people. Are you sure you want to tell me this?’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be charged. One shooter fell of a cliff, the other got hit by a bus.’
‘Were you driving the bus?’
Payne laughed, then explained the incident on the Pitt campus, the mysterious letter, and everything that had happened on Mount Washington. He also mentioned the nationality of the first shooter.
‘The guy was Belgian?’ Dial said as he sat down at his kitchen table. ‘We rarely run across killers from Belgium. Crime-wise, Brussels is on par with most European capital cities of the same size. There is some violence there, but most of their crimes centre on the tourist trade — pickpockets, purse snatching, street drugs. Not hitmen and homicides.’
‘What about Antwerp or Ghent?’
‘As the cities get smaller, so do the crime rates. Rural areas are virtually crime-free.’
‘Until then, what would you like me to do?’
‘Do you have any trustworthy contacts in the world of antiquities?’
‘I have several,’ Dial assured him. ‘Over here, art forgery is a billion-dollar business. We have an entire floor at headquarters devoted to nothing else.’
‘If you have the time, I’d appreciate if you could poke around a little bit — maybe see if anyone is familiar with the type of letter that I described.’
‘Not a problem. I know who I’m going to call already. Of course, I’ll wait until the guy is actually awake before I bug him.’
‘Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure what time zone you’d be in.’
‘Relax. I’m just busting your balls. Do me a favour, though. Try to stay out of trouble.’
‘I’ll try,’ Payne said. ‘Two shootouts in one weekend are more than enough for me. I’m supposed to be retired.’
‘Yet you still manage to kill more bad guys than any cop I know.’
Payne shrugged. ‘What can I say? Old habits are hard to break.’
36
Monday, 14 December
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Therefore, it was no surprise that Payne was still awake at 2.13 a.m. when he heard a soft tapping on the connecting door from Megan’s room. There was no urgency to the sound, so Payne didn’t leap out of bed with his gun drawn. And Jones didn’t flinch, either — although one of his
Wearing tracksuit pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, Payne crept across the dark room and put his ear to the door. ‘Are you okay?’ he whispered.
‘I’m fine,’ Megan said. ‘Are you decent?’
‘I think so. And you?’
Instead of replying, Megan opened her door, revealing the soft glow of a lamp on her bedside table. Dressed in silk pyjamas and a hotel robe, her hair was pulled back with a white scrunchie. ‘Do you have a minute to talk?’
‘Of course,’ Payne said, looming in the doorway like a palace guard. At six foot four and two hundred and forty pounds, he was a foot taller than she was and more than double her weight. ‘Do I need to wake my chaperone, or will you behave?’
‘I will, if you will.’
‘No promises,’ he teased.
She moved aside and smiled. ‘Keep in mind, I still have pepper spray.’
He stepped into her room. ‘Duly noted.’
Her queen-size
bed was a tangle of blankets and sheets, as if she had been tossing and turning
‘Did I wake you?’ she asked, concerned.
‘Not at all. I’m something of a night owl. Have been my whole life.’
‘Me, too,’ she admitted. ‘But even if I wasn’t, I would be tonight.’
He smiled. ‘To be honest, I would’ve been shocked if you had fallen right to sleep. Guns and virgins rarely mix.’
‘Did you say virgins?’
‘Sorry. It’s a military term for new soldiers in the field. Rookies, virgins, newbies, fresh meat — they all mean the same thing. Whatever you call them, they rarely sleep well.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t even imagine how scared I’d be.’
He shrugged, not sure how to explain it to someone who had never served in the armed forces. ‘If you’re interested, I have some heavy
‘Wow,’ Megan joked, ‘we just met, and you’re already trying to corrupt me. First it was guns, now it’s drugs. What’s next? Are we going to rob a bank together?’
‘That depends on you, Bonnie. Can you handle a getaway car?’
‘Not a problem, Clyde — as long as it’s an automatic. I’m a little rusty with a stick.’
‘A beautiful woman like you? I find that hard to believe.’
She blushed at the innuendo, her blue eyes shining in the dimly lit room. ‘There you go again. Always flirting.’
He raised his hands defensively. ‘Sorry about that. From here on in, I swear I’ll be on my best behaviour.’
She giggled at his claim. ‘Don’t become a Boy Scout just for me. Your best behaviour is probably too boring for my taste. I’d settle for pretty good behaviour with an extra side of compliments. I mean, a woman always likes to hear she’s beautiful.’
‘Strangely, DJ said the same thing about himself. He’s such a pampered little princess.’
She laughed at the comment. ‘I wish I had a best friend like that.’
She nodded, envious. ‘Like I said, I wish I had a friend like that.’
The two of them talked for another ten minutes, learning about each other’s backgrounds — including Megan’s job as a hostess at one of the nicer restaurants in Philadelphia. Eventually, Payne changed the topic of the conversation, focusing on something that had been bothering him.
‘When you knocked on my door,’ he said, ‘I had the feeling that you wanted to talk about something in particular. Was I imagining that?’
‘Not at all. I actually remembered something that might be important, and I wanted to tell you guys before I forgot.’
‘Go on.’
Megan crossed her legs in front of her, resting her elbows on her knees. ‘The people who searched Ashley’s apartment were looking for your letter, right?’
Payne shrugged. ‘We think so, but we don’t know for sure.’
‘Well, if she was hiding it, I think I know where it might be.’
He leaned forward in his chair. ‘Where?’
‘In the basement.’
‘The one in my apartment building. For a hundred bucks a month, you can rent a storage closet. They aren’t very big, but they’re perfect for storing boxes and junk. They’re pretty safe, too. All of them come with a lock.’
‘And Ashley rented one?’
Megan nodded. ‘I helped her carry a table down there once. Her space was jammed with all kinds of stuff. At least it was a few months ago.’
Payne considered the information. ‘You know, the odds are pretty good the intruders wouldn’t have known about it. Obviously that doesn’t mean she hid the letter there — for all we know she might have a safe-deposit box somewhere in the city — but if she wanted round the clock access to it, that would be a lot safer than under her bed.’
‘That’s what I was thinking, too.’
He smiled. ‘I’m glad you thought of it. We can check it out first thing in the morning.’
‘And then what?’
‘Well, I guess that depends on what we find.’
‘Actually, I was hoping for more of a long-term prognosis.’
‘Oh, you meant when can you safely go back to your life?’
Payne shrugged. ‘To be honest, I’m not really sure what to tell you. Right now I have some contacts researching the gunmen who attacked us in Pittsburgh. If we catch a break or two, we might be able to wrap things up in a couple of days.’
‘And if we don’t?’
He grinned. ‘There’s a decent chance we’ll be spending Christmas together.’
37
Ideally, Jones would have entered the basement alone while Payne and Megan stayed hidden in the vehicle. With his lock-picking skills, Jones figured he could break into the storage closet and search it in less than five minutes. Unfortunately, that plan wasn’t feasible because Megan didn’t know the unit number. She was pretty sure she could identify it by sight although she had only been there once, a few months back, but she wouldn’t know until she looked for herself.
Following much discussion, the trio split in two. Jones and Megan entered the complex together, and Payne kept watch from the driver’s
Not that they were expecting a roomful of treasures.
The truth was they didn’t know what to expect from a career thief like Ashley. The unit might be filled with a shipment of stolen goods, or it might be emptier than Al Capone’s vault.
Whatever the case, they wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible.
As Jones led the way into the lobby, he held his gun inside his coat, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. Megan walked closely behind him, suspiciously eyeing everyone they passed as they opened the door to the stairs. Jones paused and
‘Which way?’ Jones whispered.
‘Up ahead on the left.’
Jones nodded, then hustled forward, trying to minimize the time they spent in a corridor that had no exits or places to take cover for nearly twenty feet. At the end of the stretch, Jones peeked his head into the storage area and saw nothing that worried him. Locked doors, approximately twenty in all, lined both sides of the room which ended in a cinderblock wall. As far as Jones could tell, extra security measures had not been installed, meaning he didn’t have to worry about cameras or alarms. All things considered, he couldn’t have been happier.
‘You’re clear,’ he said to Megan. ‘Which one is hers?’
‘Let me check,’ she said as she walked forward.
Megan knew it was roughly two-thirds of the way back on the right. Ashley had needed her help to carry a breakfast table that was more cumbersome than heavy. She remembered they had struggled to get it through the closet door.
The memory brought a bittersweet smile to Megan’s face. A few days ago, she had considered Ashley a friend. Now she didn’t know what to think of her. Despite the lies, the Ashley she knew simply didn’t match the person Payne and Jones had described. And because of that, Megan didn’t know how to feel about her neighbour. Should she grieve at her death, or be thankful she was out of her life for good?
‘Any luck?’ Jones asked from the doorway.
Megan blinked a few times, then nodded. ‘It’s this one here. I helped make all these scuffmarks on the door frame.’
‘Trade places with me,’ he said. ‘If you see or hear anyone, let me know right away.’
‘No problem.’
Brushing past Megan, Jones pulled out his lock picks and eyed the closet. It was protected by a simple keyed knob, one that took him little time to defeat. With a quiet click, he opened the door a few inches and eyed the interior for booby traps. Thieves were typically a paranoid lot, mostly because they knew how easy it was to steal
‘What are you waiting for?’ Megan asked.
‘Patience,’ he said to her. ‘Never rush into the unknown.’
A few seconds later, he was confident the door was clear.
Payne eyed the traffic as it flowed in both directions past the apartment complex. Even though the snow had stopped falling and the temperat
ures had climbed above freezing, the grey skies remained. People streamed past on the slush-filled sidewalk, trekking through puddles that had been layers of ice the night before. Most walkers shivered as they moved, their faces red and chapped from the bitter winds. Instinctively, Payne turned up the heat in the Suburban.
Throughout Pennsylvania, it was a miserable time of year.
Up the street, a group of six people huddled
Not that Philly had been all bad. Without this trip, he never would have met Megan, the first woman to pique his interest in a very long time. Due to his wealth and celebrity status, he rarely met anyone in his hometown who wasn’t familiar with his life story — at least the details that weren’t classified. Because of that, he found it difficult to meet people who wanted to get to know him instead of people who knew about him. In his world, gold diggers and smooth talkers were round every corner, always trying to get a piece of him. For that reason and a few others, he spent most of his time walled off from the rest of the world.
Out of the corner of his eye, Payne noticed a vehicle turning into the circular driveway in front of the complex. He blinked once, then shifted his gaze to his left.
‘Shit,’ he mumbled. ‘This can’t be good.’
*
Jones answered. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘A squad car just pulled up to the building.’
He cursed under his breath. ‘How many cops?’
‘Two. Right now they’re sitting in the car.’
‘Let’s hope they stay put for a while.’
‘What’s your status?’ Payne asked.
‘I just picked the lock. I still have to search.’
‘How long do you need?’
‘At least ten minutes. Ashley was a damn pack rat. This place is full of boxes.’
Payne nodded. He was familiar with the type. His grandfather had been the same way. ‘Work as quickly as you can. I’ll keep you posted on their movement.’
‘If they’re here because of Ashley, they’ll probably go to her apartment to look for clues. That should give me all the time I need.’
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