by Lara Lacombe
Too bad Grandma wasn’t coming for her today.
With a last glance in the rearview mirror, Victor stepped out of the car and trekked across the street to the steps of the school. Ignoring Emily for the moment, he approached her teacher. “Ms. Patterson?”
The woman glanced over at him, then returned her attention to the group of children, her eyes sweeping back and forth over their little heads as she made sure they all stayed together. “Yes?”
“I’m Special Agent Victor Banner,” he said, pulling out his badge and holding it up for her inspection. Her eyes widened as she glanced from his face to the badge, then back again. He felt a small spurt of satisfaction as he tucked the counterfeit identification back into his pocket. Fooled another one.
“I work with Thomas Kincannon, and he sent me to pick up his niece, Emily.”
She frowned a bit at that, eyeing him dubiously before glancing back to the children. “Her grandmother usually picks her up.”
“Yes, well. She’s had a bit of an accident.”
Her eyebrows shot up, a look of concern replacing the suspicion. “Is she all right?”
“She will be. She took a fall, may have broken her hip. Thomas and Emily’s mom are at the hospital with her now, so they sent me.”
“I see.” Her tone was friendly but still guarded. This woman wasn’t a fool.
Not wanting to spend more time with her, he reached into his jacket pocket for his ace in the hole. He pulled out the folded paper, opening it for her to read. “They sent this along, if that helps any.”
“This” was the official form listing who was authorized to pick up Emily from school. There were only three names on the list: Jenny Kincannon, Diana Kincannon and Thomas Kincannon. He had stolen it from Diana’s pocket earlier in the day, figuring it would be required to convince the teacher to let him take Emily.
He could have used the old snatch-and-grab method, but it was too unpredictable, too messy. Yanking Emily off the street would have put him on the defensive, running from the cops. This approach took a little more work but would pay off in the end. He was going to steal the girl right out from under her teacher’s nose, and she’d never know a kidnapping had occurred.
Ms. Patterson scanned the paper, then let out a sigh. “This is highly unorthodox, but I’ll let you pick her up today because of the situation. If they’re going to have you pick her up again, you need to get your name added to the list.”
He nodded, folding the paper and returning it to his pocket. “I’ll tell them, but I think this will be the only time.”
Ms. Patterson turned back to the children. “Emily,” she called out.
The girl turned her head, and the teacher gestured for her to walk over. “This is Mr. Banner. He’s a friend of your uncle’s, and he’s going to take you home today.”
She looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Where’s Grandma?”
“She had an accident,” he said, crouching down to meet her eyes. “She’ll be fine, but your mom and uncle wanted me to get you and take you to the hospital.”
The little girl bit her lip, studying his face. “You know Uncle Thomas?”
He nodded. “Yes, I work with him.”
“Can I see your badge?”
Hmm. She was smarter than she looked. “Sure.” He reached into his pocket again and pulled it out. She held out her hand expectantly, so he placed it on her upturned palm. She stared at it, and he had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that she’d probably done the same with Thomas’s badge countless times before. He knew it was a good fake, but would it fool her?
She passed it back to him without comment.
“Ready to go?” he asked, letting out the breath he’d been holding when she nodded.
They set off across the street, his heart pounding with adrenaline. He’d done it. He’d grabbed Kincannon’s niece, right out from under the watchful eyes of her teacher in broad daylight. She’d even wanted to go with him, for God’s sake! He felt like laughing in triumph, but he squashed the urge, knowing it would only ruin things now. There would be time for him to celebrate later.
He held open the passenger door for her, then walked around to the driver’s side. Reaching into the backseat, he pulled forward a bag of food. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said, passing her the Happy Meal.
She took it from him and mumbled, “Thanks.”
“Your grandma is going to be okay,” he said as he merged into traffic. He glanced over at her, noting the still-unopened bag of food on her lap. “Go ahead and eat,” he urged. “It’ll take a few minutes to get to the hospital, and you won’t like the cafeteria food.”
She unrolled the bag, then reached inside and pulled out the hamburger. She wrinkled her nose at it. “What’s wrong?”
“I usually get chicken nuggets,” she said.
He gritted his teeth. Too damn bad. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she replied, biting into the burger. “What happened to Grandma?” she asked quietly between bites.
“She fell down.” It was true. She had fallen down, but it hadn’t been an accident. “They’re making sure she hasn’t broken any bones.” He didn’t think she had, but who knew? Older people were just so fragile these days....
He hadn’t meant for her to fall. He’d only wanted to talk to her, distract her enough to retrieve the piece of paper and then slip her something to make her sleep for a few hours. But she’d grown suspicious at his questions, said she was going to call Thomas. When he’d moved to take the phone away from her, she’d tripped over the rug and fallen to the floor, hitting her head on the counter in the process. The blow had knocked her out cold, which had suited him just fine. He’d hastily cleaned up the evidence of his presence, then grabbed the paper and left. Whoever found her later would assume she’d lost her footing, as there was no evidence of foul play. He really couldn’t have planned it better.
“I broke my toe once,” the girl volunteered, her words slurring slightly. “It hurt a lot.”
“I bet it did,” he said. Her head nodded forward and she jerked it up, struggling to stay awake. “Are you tired?”
“Uh-huh.” The half-eaten burger fell to her lap as her hands relaxed.
“Just lay your head back and sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get to the hospital.”
After another head bob, she gave up and slumped against the door, her neck canted at an uncomfortable angle. Excellent. He’d put enough drug on the burger to choke an elephant, so she should be out for the next several hours.
He allowed himself to smile as he drove through the city, picturing the look of horror on Agent Kincannon’s face when he revealed what he’d done. The man would do anything to get his niece back, of that Victor was certain.
He chuckled softly as he drove. Agent Kincannon and the rest of the Feds probably thought he’d run away, that they’d seen the last of him when his initial attempt to retrieve the documents and Dr. Fleming had been thwarted. Wouldn’t they just scramble to catch up to him now? He was back in charge of the situation, just the way he liked it.
He looked over at the sleeping girl, who was now snoring softly. So far, she hadn’t been a problem. He’d just have to keep her drugged and out of his hair so he could work. There was a chance he’d have to hurt her before this was over, but he wasn’t bothered by the possibility. Right now, she was more valuable to him alive, but that could change in an instant. Either way, he would use her to his advantage in this game he was playing.
“Checkmate,” he whispered.
Chapter 7
Claire glanced up as Thomas closed his phone and tucked it into his pocket. She’d been trying to focus on the pages, but the low murmur of his voice in the background had distracted her. She hadn’t been able to get back into the mental zone of total c
oncentration yet, and she was forced to acknowledge that their earlier almost-kiss had rattled her more than she wanted to admit.
“Sorry about that,” Thomas said with a sheepish smile. “It was my boss.”
“Everything okay?” Claire kept her tone even, hoping he couldn’t tell that she still felt shaken by what had almost transpired between them.
One shoulder lifted in an eloquent shrug. “He wanted an update.”
“And you don’t have one for him.”
He shot her a quick grin that made her stomach flip. “Not yet. But I bet I will soon.”
Ignoring his vote of confidence, Claire shook her head. “Was he upset?”
“Nah. Besides, he couldn’t really hear me. I don’t know what’s going on at the office, but the place sounded like a zoo. I had to repeat myself several times. I think the old man needs to invest in a hearing aid.”
Claire nodded absently, his words tugging at something in her brain. She turned them over in her mind, examining them from different angles, trying to identify what he had said that stuck out to her. Old man...office...zoo...
That was it! Zoo!
She shot bolt upright in the chair and reached for the papers, scrabbling like mad to gather them into a stack so she could read them one at a time.
“Um, Claire?” Thomas approached the table, concern in his voice, but she waved him away.
“Hush,” she said urgently. If he distracted her now, she’d lose the thread, and then she’d never find it again.
Her eyes scanned the pages, cataloging the first word on every sheet before moving to the next. Lion, zebra, hippopotamus...each page began with a seemingly random animal, a pattern she had noticed before. But what did it mean?
Several years ago, she’d taken Ivan to the National Zoo during a break in their block of meetings. It had been a wonderful spring day, and walking around the exhibits had been a nice way to enjoy the weather and have a friendly chat. He’d mentioned a memory he had of his daughter. Long ago, he’d given her a book of animal stories as a Christmas gift. She’d fallen in love with the illustrations of the animals, and when he’d finally taken her to see them in real life, she’d insisted on bringing her book along.
“She was so excited,” he’d said, recounting their trip. “She ran around to all the cages, comparing the real animals to the ones in her book.”
The book had to be the key.
She booted up her laptop, heart racing as she waited for it to warm up. C’mon, faster...
With a few clicks, she was searching the internet for a Russian children’s book on animals. It was a long shot, but it just might be the lead she needed.
There were hundreds of books, but she narrowed the search to ones that had been popular twenty years ago. That eliminated a lot, but there were still too many options to go through. Thinking fast, she typed in the animals that appeared on the pages, hoping to find out which book contained them all. Some of them were unusual, and it was her best shot at finding the book Ivan had given his daughter.
She held her breath as the search engine churned. After an endless second, the results appeared on the monitor. She grinned, exhaling in relief as she read. One book. And it had been digitized.
After that, it was child’s play to decipher the code. The animal at the top of each page corresponded to a page in the book, which turned out to be a collection of stories about different animals. She quickly figured out that the number of pages for each animal’s story corresponded to the letter she should pull from the notes. Since the lion’s story was ten pages long, she took every tenth letter from that page of words, scribbling it down on a fresh sheet of paper.
She worked steadily until she’d translated all the pages, then leaned back to read what she’d discovered.
A list of names.
She read over them carefully, frowning as she recognized several men. Gregori Petrovich was a mobster who’d been in the news recently because he was a suspect in a series of political murders. Hakeem Anwar was a known al Qaeda operative. And Joshua Rollins had recently been convicted of an attempted pipe bomb attack on the D.C. Metro. Why had Ivan listed their names?
Claire stood, needing to move while she thought. They were connected, but how? Had Ivan just made a list of bad people, men who needed to be watched? Did he suspect them of wanting nuclear material? Had they approached him, wanting to buy spent fuel? Had he sold it to them?
That last thought made her freeze, halting her progress across the floor. What if this was a ledger of some kind? A balance sheet, so Ivan would know who he had sold to, how much they owed him. Insurance, so to speak. Surely Ivan had known these were dangerous men—he was smart enough not to trust them, to create some kind of guarantee that they wouldn’t hurt him. A coded list of buyers would be incentive enough for them to leave him alone.
A movement from the direction of the table drew her eye. Thomas sat, his legs stretched out and his hands folded behind his head, watching her with a half smile on his lips. She didn’t recall seeing him sit down, but apparently he’d been there the whole time.
“Can I talk now?” he asked, his tone teasing.
Claire felt her cheeks heat, remembering her earlier admonition. She hadn’t exactly been polite. “Sorry about that,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’d figured out the code, and I needed to focus to make sure I was right.”
“I’d hate to be a distraction,” he said. The look in his eyes belied the truth of his words, but he kept a straight face as he held out his hand. “May I see the translation?”
She passed the pages to him, waiting in silence as he scanned her work. She fought the urge to squirm, feeling a bit like a graduate student again, handing over her data for inspection. This time, though, she knew she was right. Her interpretation was sound. She just didn’t know what it meant.
Thomas glanced up at her when he came to the end of the pages. “This is outstanding work,” he said, a note of respect in his voice that made her want to puff out her chest a bit. “I knew you could do it.”
Claire blinked back the unexpected sting of tears at his compliment. Only her father and Ivan had ever displayed such faith in her, an absolute confidence that she could do something and do it well. That Thomas had felt the same touched her on an emotional level and made it even more difficult to maintain a professional distance from him.
“Do you recognize any of these names?”
He returned his gaze to the papers, nodding slowly. “Some, yeah. These aren’t nice people.” He looked up at her, blue eyes intense as he studied her face. “Do you know them?”
Claire moved her shoulder in a jerky shrug. “Only by reputation. I certainly don’t exchange Christmas cards with them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Thomas finished his second perusal of the papers, tapping them into order before turning back to her. Claire could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong—his expression was guarded, like he had bad news to share. He took a deep breath and she tensed, bracing herself for whatever he had to say.
“This...this doesn’t look good for Ivan,” he said quietly. “You know that, right?”
She dropped her eyes to the pages, nodding. Even she had to admit that this looked bad—the simplest explanation was that Ivan had created a list of clients, but a small part of her still refused to believe it.
There was a pregnant pause, as if Thomas had more to say. Apparently thinking better of it, he sighed quietly. “I need to call Harper, let him know you’ve figured it out.”
Claire nodded. Of course.
“I’ll be right back.” He walked from the room, punching numbers on his phone as he went.
Feeling oddly drained, Claire walked to the window and stared at the afternoon sky, her thoughts a million miles away.
Oh, Ivan. What have
you done?
* * *
Thomas snapped his phone shut, fingers tingling with excitement. This was quite possibly the break they needed to determine why Ivan Novikoff had been killed, why Claire—Dr. Fleming, he reminded himself—was now a target.
He leaned against the back of the couch, idly flipping through the pages. She was so damn smart. He’d been staring at the nonsense words for the past several hours, racking his brain to come up with the combination to unlock the code. He’d tried every permutation of the alphabet, had even looked up common ciphers in the hopes Ivan had used a historical or well-known puzzle. None of it had worked, and now it was obvious why.
He shook his head at Claire’s accomplishment. How had she done that? How had she recalled a snippet from a conversation that had happened years ago, something Novikoff had probably mentioned without a second thought, and used it to decipher his files? It was amazing, the way her mind worked.
But...there was something about the whole thing that just felt wrong. He absently placed a hand over his stomach, the annoying churning of his gut a distraction that had him wishing for an antacid. If what Dr. Fleming had told him was true, Novikoff had only mentioned the book to her once, and in passing. Why, then, would he send her a file that required that particular book to decode?
Unless he hadn’t meant for her to decode it after all. What if Novikoff had just wanted her to keep it safe for him until he could retrieve it? He ran a hand through his hair, then shuffled the pages back into a semblance of order. If Novikoff was involved in shady dealings—and that was looking increasingly likely—he wouldn’t want his protégée to know about it. Even though he’d only known her for a few days, Thomas had no doubt that Claire—Dr. Fleming—would not hesitate to turn Ivan in. Surely Novikoff had known that as well.
