Hot Pursuit (To Catch a Thief Book 1)

by Kay Marie

  Where are you going?

  What are you doing?

  Who are you meeting?

  They followed her for another ten or so blocks, completely confused about a possible destination. Jo paused and reached into her handbag. Nate grabbed the camera by his feet and lifted it to his eyes before zooming in as far as the lens could go.

  “What’s she grabbing?” Leo asked, gaze darting back and forth between their target and the traffic, which had suddenly decided to speed up. “I’m gonna get too close if she doesn’t start walking again.”

  Nate scrunched his eyes. “A phone, it’s a phone.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and spoke into his mic. “Did we get the warrant for Jolene Carter’s cell phone, sir? Can you tap in and see what she’s doing?”

  Keyboard clicking came through the line, followed by soft muffled voices, and then his boss. “Grab the tablet in your dashboard. The tech team will send you the live feed.”

  Nate opened the glove compartment, unable to believe their luck. A cell phone? She was using a cell phone? Surely she had to know they’d been able to get the warrant for remote access. It was the oldest trick in the book. For a computer whiz, the move was almost impossibly naïve.

  The light ahead switched to red. Leo let out a relieved breath as he pressed the brake, stopping the car about ten feet behind the target—a little too close for comfort. Nate balanced the tablet on his lap, watching as the feed started coming through the screen, live updates of the apps she was accessing, any and all data the provider had been able to give them access to through their warrant.

  “Okay, looks like she’s pulling up a map, typing in some directions,” Nate read aloud for Leo’s benefit. “The address is…189 Spring Street.”

  He lifted his wrist to his mouth. But before he could get the question out, a technician came on the line. “Place called Dominique Ansel Bakery. Pretty famous. The guy invented the cronut. Was a craze for a while. It’s about a block and a half to the left. You should see a line of people waiting to get inside pretty soon.”

  “Do they have seating? Wi-Fi? Could she be meeting someone there?” Nate questioned. He turned to his partner. “Take the next left, and let’s see how close we can get.”

  “On it.”

  “One of the guys on the street, can you get inside? Or by a window? I want eyes on her while Leo and I try to find a place to pull over.”

  There was a pause for a few moments. Then, “I’m in position.”

  Nate lifted the camera back to his eyes, refocusing the lens as Jo dropped the phone back into her purse. She jauntily strode across the street, weaving through stopped traffic, jaywalking without a care in the world and with a smile on her lips.

  What was it like to feel so untouchable?

  So above it all?

  The rules. The world.

  The light turned green. Leo cut a taxi off to change lanes, earning a prolonged five-second beep. Some pedestrians paused and turned, tourists probably. Most kept on walking, including Jo. His brows scrunched. Something about her was too… He didn’t know. Too something. Unaware? Aloof? For a wanted criminal fully cognizant of the fact that the FBI was on her trail, she was a little too oblivious. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, a sixth sense that something wasn’t right. Something was off. But what?

  Jo disappeared around the corner.

  Leo followed.

  The street was packed. A line wrapped around the sidewalk, stretching a few blocks down, leading to a yellow awning in the distance. Nate nudged his chin in that direction, but Leo was already on it. He scanned the road.

  “I don’t see any place to park.”

  Nate sighed. “That’s because there is no place to park.”

  “There’s a side street right there, smaller, less crowded,” Leo said, tilting his head to the right. “Let’s wait there and listen to the comms.”

  Nate clenched his teeth but nodded. There was no other choice. He lifted the mic to his lips as they drove by Jo, moving with the flow of traffic. Her eyes never once turned in his direction, which was either a very good or a very, very bad thing. “Okay, Leo and I are stuck. We’re pulling around the corner to park. I want eyes on and updates when you have them.”

  “I’m here,” one of the street agents murmured. “Flashed my badge and cut the line to get inside the bakery.”

  Nate turned in his seat, straining to see Jo over his shoulder. But it was nearly impossible with the crowd.

  “Do these people really line up like this every day?” he muttered.

  Leo shrugged. “I would if I had the time. My brother’s office got a personal delivery of cronuts when they were at the peak of their buzz, said it was like eating little bites of heaven. I’ve been dying to try one.”

  Nate rolled his eyes.

  Leo’s younger brother was a software engineer for one of those major companies, though Nate could never remember which. He lived out in San Francisco and earned the sort of paycheck normal people could only dream of. But he was a good kid. And he knew how much Leo had looked out for him when they were teens, getting in fights to protect him from bullies, keeping him out of trouble and far away from the gang violence pervading their community. Last Nate heard, Leo’s brother had bought their mom and grandmother a new house in California, moving them out of the dangerous neighborhood where he and Leo had grown up.

  “I don’t care how good it tastes,” Nate grumbled, turning back around and dropping his gaze to the tablet, hoping something might pop up on her cell phone feed.

  “Jolene Carter just walked inside the front door,” a staticky voice came through the comm. Whispering always made the signal weaker. Nate leaned forward, focusing on the sound. “She’s walking to the counter. She’s in the preorder line. Three people are in front of her, but she doesn’t seem to be communicating with anyone.”

  He tapped his thumb on his knee, jittery.

  “Two people now.”

  He clamped his palm around his thigh to stop the fidgeting.

  “One person.”

  Nate swallowed.

  “Okay, she’s at the counter. Reaching into her purse. Appears to be a wallet. Taking out a credit card. The cashier is handing her a box. It’s sort of a tangerine orange. She’s smiling. He’s smiling. He handed her back her card. She took the box. I can’t see anything unusual about it. She’s turning. She’s walking out. She’s leaving. Not sure I can follow without my cover being blown.”

  “I’m outside,” another voice jumped in. “Across the street. Eyes on. She’s walking through the door now. Hold on, she’s stopping. She’s reaching into the box. She’s taking something out, it’s a…a…oh. It’s just a doughnut or something. Oh wait, she’s reaching into her purse now. Pulling out…her cell phone again. I don’t see any contacts close by, but it’s crowded. She’s looking at the screen. Lifting it. Maybe searching for a signal.”

  Nate zeroed in on the tablet in his lap.

  What app was she opening?

  Was she trying to make a Bluetooth transfer?

  Was she trying to call someone?

  Was she—

  “I think she’s taking a selfie.”

  Nate closed his eyes, squeezing tight as he lifted his fingers to the ridge of his nose. That was exactly what she was doing. A selfie. A goddamn selfie. Was this what his life had come to?

  “I can confirm, she opened the camera app on her phone,” Nate said with a sigh, trying to remove the aggravation from his tone.

  Leo snickered.

  “Okay, yeah, she put the cell phone back in her bag,” the agent continued, a little bit of the energy gone from his voice. Nate dropped his head against the back of his seat and closed his eyes as every single life decision he’d ever made ran through his thoughts, making him wonder how he’d gotten here, to this assignment.

  Patience, Nathaniel. His father’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  Patience. Patience.

  The one lesson Nate hadn’t had enough time wit
h him to learn.

  “The target is back on the move. She’s crossing the street. Heading east. Turning a corner. I lost visual. I repeat, I lost visual.”

  Wait…

  Heading east?

  Turning a corner?

  Nate’s eyes flew open.

  A gentle knock drummed on his window.

  His head fell to the side slowly, reluctantly.

  “Morning, Agent Parker, Agent Alvarez,” Jo said with a wave, looking at them over the rim of her sunglasses, a grin across her red lips. “Want a cronut?”

  - 9 -

  Jo

  If she could have bottled this moment to save it for later, she would have. His face was priceless. Absolutely priceless. The perfect mix of stony contempt and unabashed admiration, perhaps a little heavier on the stony contempt. But Jo took the fact that she was getting to him as an unintentional compliment—it would’ve been far worse if he’d shown no emotion at all.

  After a brief pause, he lifted his hand and pressed a button on the door.

  His window rolled down.

  “Miss Carter,” he half growled, half greeted.

  Jo smiled cheerily. “Cronut? They’re delicious.”

  And they were, they really freaking were—much as she loathed to admit it, professional jealousy and all that. But the cronut was nothing like the doussant she’d invented ten years ago during that first long, lonely year on the private island. This was perfect. Flaky. Fried. Doughy. Dipped in sugar. Filled with cream. Finished off with a light yet necessary glaze that tied the entire thing together. Dominique Ansel was a god, and Jo was a mere mortal.

  Though, hopefully, my coopie will help change that!

  Jo stretched the box closer to the window, letting the smell of the pastry fill the small car, trying to hold back a smile. She’d woken up at the crack of dawn two weeks ago to place a preorder for a full box of six cronuts, refreshing the web page over and over in a frenzy until her order processed. Sure, she could’ve hacked her way into the system to place an order, but sometimes, doing things the hard way was more fun. And the payout was even sweeter.

  Jo met Agent Parker’s exasperated gaze. “You know you want one…”

  He didn’t move.

  His partner, however, lunged across the seats and reached into the box.

  “Leo.” Agent Parker whipped his head to the side.

  His partner shrugged and took a massive bite, eyes closing in blissful joy as he chewed. It was hard to tell with his mouth full, but Jo was pretty sure she heard him mumble the words, “So good.”

  She looked back at Mr. Stiff, leaning down so her elbows rested on his windowsill, putting their faces about a foot apart. He swallowed and narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything. Jo shook the box.

  “No laws were broken during the procurement of these cronuts,” she teased, letting her voice drop to a low, sultry whisper. “I promise.”

  He held her gaze, not moving.

  So, Jo did the same thing right back.

  He frowned.

  She smiled.

  The moment stretched on and on and on, until—

  “I’ll take another one…in case he wants it later,” Agent Alvarez, or Leo, as Mr. Stiff had called him, reached back across the seats to grab another pastry from the box.

  Jo waited until he was done before shrugging and breaking eye contact with Agent Parker. She stood, folded the box back together, and dropped it into her purse. Then she lifted her arms over her shoulders with a sigh, letting her head fall back, basking in the sunlight as she stretched. She’d practiced the move in the mirror earlier, fully aware of the exposed stretch of skin flashing at just about eye level to Agent Parker right now, a few inches of smooth, flat stomach.

  She dropped her arms. “There’s nothing like New York on a hot spring day.”

  Agent Parker curled his upper lip and let out a derisive puff of air.

  Jo stared down at him, curious. “Don’t you just love being surrounded by so many people?”

  Jo did. She spent too much of her life alone. She thrived on the crowd, on how easily she could disappear into the folds and pretend to be normal, how easily she could blend in, just another tourist. Funny how at home, she so often felt lost despite knowing exactly where she was. But here, in these swarming streets, dependent on a map to get around, she’d never felt more alive, more found. Though, maybe that had more to do with the fact that she knew someone was paying attention.

  “No.” The grumpy word slipped through Agent Parker’s mouth. Jo folded her lips to keep from laughing as he twitched slightly at the sound and then lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Too much traffic.”

  “But there’s such a vivacious energy,” she said, inhaling deeply, as though the air were a drug and breathing a high all its own.

  He wrinkled his nose. “There’s a smell.”

  “Well,” she countered, cocking her hip to the side and raising her brows in challenge. “If you stepped outside that stuffy car, you might think differently. I’ve got a few more bakeries on my list and not a soul to share them with. Interested in going for a stroll? Or would you prefer I continue on my merry way and pretend I don’t see you following me?”

  “I’m quite comfortable where I am, Miss Carter,” he said, leaning back into his seat and folding his arms, shifting his gaze to the front window instead of her face, literally staring at a brick wall instead of her.

  “Never thought I’d see the day that a good southern boy from Virginia would pass up the opportunity to accompany a lady…” Jo prodded, sharpening her tone ever so slightly. Oh, she could flirt and play nice, but she wanted him to remember she wasn’t some silly girl he was dealing with. And she didn’t plan to go down without a fight. “I guess chivalry really is dead.”

  His gaze snapped toward her.

  She winked.

  Yeah, that’s right, Agent Parker—or should I say Nathaniel Parker. I did my research.

  Agent Parker was the son of a former FBI agent who died almost twenty years ago while undercover. He was the oldest of three children. His mother still lived in the 1892 center-hall Colonial where he’d grown up. He graduated top of his class in high school and college. Earned a master’s degree in criminal justice. Joined the agency young and quickly rose to the top ranks, gaining a highly sought-after position in the competitive organized crime unit. All of which led Jo to wonder how in the world he’d landed here, hunting an art thief and his daughter.

  Agent Parker clenched his jaw, refusing to respond.

  “Suit yourself.” Jo shrugged, letting the carefree tone slide back into her voice. Then she finally let her lips break out into the wide, brimming smile she’d been suppressing for the past few minutes. “Just try your best to keep up.”

  She spun on her heels and slapped her palm against the roof of their car twice, drowning out any response either agent might have muttered. And then she took her phone out of her bag and proceeded to do exactly what she’d told them she would—visit three more bakeries while chatting with her girlfriends to keep herself entertained.

  @TheBakingBandit: You’ll never guess where I am…

  @Sprinkle-Ella: Where?! Where?!

  Jo sent the selfie she’d taken with her cronut.

  @Sprinkle-Ella: OMG! Jealous! I want to go to NY so badly!

  @TheGourmetGoddess: Ugh. Still can’t believe the one weekend you come to NY is the one weekend I’m out of town. What are the chances?

  Pretty good, Jo thought, chewing on her lip. Because well, McKenzie, the Gourmet Goddess, was speaking at the annual American Pastry Chef Association conference being held in California for the next few days. And Jo may, or may not, have had something to do with introducing her name to the organizers. If she had, for argument’s sake of course, it would have included hacking into one of their computers and planting her friend’s information into the conference files. But McKenzie totally deserved the recognition, so Jo hardly considered it a breach of the rules, and it hadn’t really been abou
t her friend anyway.

  Keeping the two vastly different sides of her life from ever crossing paths was of vital importance to Jo—baking was baking, crime was crime, and never the two should meet. Which was why she refrained from divulging personal details in their chats, keeping the conversations focused on craft, and went out of her way to ensure they’d never meet in real life, planned or accidental. Digital deceit was one thing, but Jo never wanted to put herself in a situation where she’d have to look her friends in the eye and lie to their faces. They were her escape from this life, and she planned to keep it that way.

  @TheBakingBandit: How’s the conference??

  @TheGourmetGoddess: Great! My panel isn’t until tomorrow, and the food tents don’t begin until the weekend when the conference opens to the public, so right now I’m just enjoying myself and trying not to freak out. Get back to me in the morning.

  @Sprinkle-Ella: You’ll be amazing!! And so will your food! Wish I could be there!

  @TheBakingBandit: Agreed! No need to freak!

  McKenzie was an eternal perfectionist, something she vented to Jo and Addison about all the time. It was one of the reasons she’d been drawn to pastries—all the precision and calculations. Jo and Addison, on the other hand, were a little bit freer with their baking. Okay, Jo was a lot freer…and sometimes it gave McKenzie anxiety. But it was all part of how their odd little threesome worked. Addison’s eternal optimism, Jo’s unfailing enthusiasm, and McKenzie’s endearing snark.

  @TheGourmetGoddess: So, Jo, what’s the verdict on the cronut? Tasty enough to end your unrequited grudge?

  @TheBakingBandit: Maybe…

  @TheBakingBandit: But if he starts selling a coopie, it’s back on in a heartbeat! That goes for all of you…

  @TheGourmetGoddess: Shaking in my Louboutin boots.

  @Sprinkle-Ella: I’d kill for Louboutin boots, watch out!

  @TheGourmetGoddess: You couldn’t kill a fly, let alone me :)