We talk about my past. My suburban upbringing in Oregon. My early obsession with computers. My decision to (more or less) walk the straight and narrow after my best friend in high school and fellow hacker Mailin got busted by the FBI and was forced to work for them in lieu of going to prison.
Then we talk about Grant’s past. His family: mother, father, two sisters, one brother. The private schools he attended as a child. The family vacations in Saint-Tropez and Bora Bora. The family company – an international construction conglomerate – he was expected to take over one day, but only participates in tangentially (to the irritation of his CEO father).
“How do you think they’re handling the whole ‘our son is a cat burglar’ thing?” I ask.
“Huh… honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. Been a little busy evading capture and death. What about your parents? What do they think about their daughter being linked to an international bad boy?”
My stomach drops. I haven’t been able to check any mode of communication – email, text, voicemail – since the news broke in the press.
“They’re probably worried sick,” I say, wracked with guilt. “They might even think I’m dead.”
“I bet they don’t think that,” Grant says, but we both know he’s just trying to soothe me. “Once we hook up with my connections, they can get a message to your family.”
I immediately think, But then Epicurus might find my family and use them against me. Torture them or kill them.
But then I realize that if Epicurus knows who I am, he damn sure knows where my family is, too, and there’s absolutely nothing stopping him from going after the people I love.
He might have done it already.
I want to cry, but I can’t. I can’t let myself go down the path of What if? So I simply say, “Okay.”
Grant seems to know what I’m thinking. “We’ll warn them. I’ll make sure my family gets them to safety, no matter what.”
I nod mutely.
He reaches over and puts his hand over mine. “Hey… it’s going to be okay. They’re going to be okay – we’re going to be okay. I promise.”
The gesture is so sweet, the words so heartfelt, that I actually do cry. Just a little. I smile at him gratefully, and the smile he gives me is like sunshine through the clouds.
In that moment, I am struck by several things.
I am in love with Grant Carlson. There is no question in my mind anymore, and it terrifies me.
But – assuming that we survive the next couple of weeks – no matter how much I want there to be a chance for it to work out between us, I’m convinced that it won’t.
Because we come from two entirely different worlds. Saint-Tropez and Bora Bora as a kid? I camped with my parents in a tent in Siuslaw National Forest. Billionaire CEO father? My dad is an accountant who has never made more than $70,000 a year in his life.
All of that is small potatoes, though, next to my real objection: even though I’m in love, I have no idea of Grant’s true feelings for me at all.
12
In all of our conversation, there is a technical question to be settled, too. Grant waits to broach it until we’re well into Paris.
I’m transfixed by the scenery – a mix of modern apartments right next to monuments, statues, and buildings straight out of Les Misérables – when he finally breaks the news.
“I need to make a phone call.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“Why not?”
“If Epicurus knows we’re in France, which he probably does because of whoever that was at the airport, there’s a good chance he’s hacked into the phone systems. And if he’s done that, there’s an equal chance he’ll be running some sort of voice recognition software.”
“On millions of phone calls?” Grant asks dubiously.
“So far, he’s demonstrated almost unlimited resources. And if I had unlimited resources, that’s exactly what I would do.”
“Well, we’ll just have to risk it. There’s no way to get in touch with my contact otherwise.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“He has a number set up for just this sort of – ”
“You don’t know where he lives?!”
“Guys like JP don’t stay in one place too long.”
“JP?”
“Jean-Paul.”
Jean-Paul. So very… French.
I shake my head in disbelief. “You can’t, I don’t know, go to where he hangs out?”
“I have no idea where he hangs out. He could be in Montmartre, or the Latin Quarter, or – ”
“If you don’t know where he is, how do you know he’s even in Paris?”
Grant pauses, then shrugs.
“Oh my God,” I fume. “Tell me we didn’t just ditch a twenty million dollar plane in the ocean and risk our lives to find a guy who might have moved to Brooklyn.”
“He doesn’t live in Brooklyn, that I can assure you. French Polynesia, maybe…”
“Grant!”
“That’s why I need to make the call.”
“Who is this guy, that you need his help so much?”
“He’s the best electronic security systems man in the world.”
I roll my eyes. “Give me a break, I can hack into any system there is.”
“Maybe… although if someone asks you the best possible way to get past a FLIR system with an air-gapped server, would you know?”
I have no idea what a FLIR system is. But ‘air-gapped’ means the computer is not connected to the internet, or networked with any other computers connected to the internet… which means I would be powerless if I’m not standing right there in front of it.
Checkmate.
“I doubt this ‘Jean-Paul’ would know what to do with an AES-encrypted server array, either,” I grump, trying to sidestep Grant’s argument.
“No doubt, but we’ve got you for that, and that’s why we’re going to see JP for the rest. Not to mention he has extensive connections to the French criminal underground, in case we need somebody else with another specialty.”
“You just want to pull an Ocean’s 11, don’t you. Get your con man, your tightrope walker, your explosives guy…”
He grins. “Maybe.”
“Are you absolutely sure there’s no other option?”
“Well, I’m sure you could probably track him down, but to do that you’d need a new computer, and an internet connection, and – ”
“FINE. Make the damn call.”
I’m not very good company for the next few minutes.
We turn off the major thoroughfare and park on a cobblestone street dotted with cute cafés.
“Why here?” I ask.
Grant points at a big red telephone booth across the road.
“Seriously?” I complain. “A public phone? Why don’t you just call your penthouse in New York and announce exactly where you are?”
“What do you want me to do, then?” Grant snaps. “Use the cell in the backpack?”
It’s obvious he’s tired of my snippiness, which pulls me up short a little.
“No…” I say in a less confrontational (though no more optimistic) tone of voice.
He sees I’m trying, and softens. “I could steal somebody’s cell phone instead.”
“No, they’ll run after you and – ”
“Please,” he scoffs. “They’ll never know. I can do a bump and lift with the best of them.”
I frown as the meaning of bump and lift slowly sinks in. “You can pickpocket, too?”
He smirks. “After all you know about me, is that so hard to believe?”
Billionaire, cat burglar, lock picker, car hot-wirer, architect who uses secret passages he designs to aid in his crimes, target of a serial killer –
Okay, no, it’s not that hard to believe at all.
I sigh. “Actually, there’s a good chance they’d have a password on the phone, so… no. Let’s just do the public phone and get it over with.”
�
�Okay. Hand me the backpack.”
I hand it over, and he pulls out a credit card.
“You can’t use that,” I order.
He sighs, then plucks several damp twenties from one of the blocks of cash.
“Nobody’s going to trade in your cash for euros here,” I say.
“Oh yeah? Watch the Master Negotiator at work, baby.”
Oh my God. Such a cocky bastard.
If my life wasn’t riding on his success, I would love to see him fall on his face, just once.
He takes the backpack with us as we get out of the car and walk across the street to a café. There are a few early bird patrons sitting at the tables outside, but the morning rush doesn’t seem to have started in earnest.
Inside, the smell of fresh pastries sets my stomach gurgling. Up until now, I was too stressed out to realize how hungry I am.
Grant talks to the manager/owner/whatever for a minute in French. I have to say, I’m impressed with how fluent Grant is. He almost sounds like he was born here.
The bald, older guy has a dark cloud of distrust in his eyes, but at the end of the interaction, he forks over a few coins for the two twenties.
Grant seems enormously pleased with himself.
I can’t help myself. “That’s all you got? That was a hell of an exchange rate there, Mr. Master Negotiator.”
“Well, I negotiated a couple of coffees and a handful of croissants, too, but if you don’t want them – ”
“I take it back,” I say immediately, though I think my voice is drowned out by the grumbling of my stomach.
Along with to-go cups of piping hot coffee, we get three pastries in total. Grant lets me have two of them.
I have to admit, they are the best damn croissants I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.
We walk over to the red phone booth eating our food and sipping our coffee. Grant goes inside, plunks in a few coins, dials a number… waits way too long… then starts talking in French. There are no pauses, so I’m assuming he’s leaving a message.
I wonder how voice recognition software works when you’re speaking a different language. Grant doesn’t even sound like himself when he’s speaking French. Maybe, just maybe, we have a shot at escaping Epicurus’s notice.
Although I’m not betting on it, so I scan the streets worriedly as I lick the last few buttery croissant crumbs from my fingers.
It’s not the sudden appearance of a carful of gun-toting mercenaries I’m worried about. To have enough men to cover every possible place we might pop up in Paris would be impossible, even for Epicurus. (Damn that’s a lot of alliteration in that last sentence; say it out loud.)
No, it’s the surveillance cameras I’m concerned with: banks, private businesses, traffic intersections. If Epicurus can identify where we’re calling from, then he can hack the cameras closest to us and confirm our location.
Once that happens, the carful of gun-toting mercenaries follows shortly thereafter.
This is France, not the U.S., so there probably aren’t as many cameras… but it’s a Western country. The fact that I can’t see them makes no difference. They’re there. They’re always there.
When Grant steps out of the phone booth, I say, “He didn’t answer?”
“It’s not that kind of a system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it was a number without a recording. I left a message, and he’ll call me back.”
“There wasn’t a message?”
“Nope.”
“Then how do you know it’s the right guy?”
“I know.”
When you’re dealing with somebody who’s constantly and overwhelmingly confident, it can grate on your nerves a bit. Especially when your life hangs in the balance.
Not to mention that it’s seven in the morning. I can’t believe that ‘contacts’ of international art thieves keep early morning hours.
“How long do we have to wait?” I ask in annoyance, imagining us having to stand there for hours on end.
Suddenly the telephone rings.
Grant winks. “Not long at all.”
He steps in and answers the phone in his flawless French. There’s a brief back-and-forth. Grant gets a little heated at the end, almost like he’s arguing. When he finally hangs up, it’s with a bang! of the receiver in the cradle.
Uh oh.
“Um… so I guess that didn’t go so well?” I ask hesitantly.
“No, it went fine,” Grant says, though it’s obvious he’s pissed. “Jean-Paul just needed to be reminded of certain obligations he still has.”
He starts walking towards the car at a fair clip. I rush to keep up.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to get help from somebody who’s not that enthusiastic about it?” I ask.
“If you’ll recall, Connor wasn’t exactly on board at first. And he owed me, too.”
I have to admit, that’s true.
“Jean-Paul will quiet down once he gets used to the idea,” Grant says – then smiles mischievously. “Didn’t help that I woke him up out of a dead sleep, either.”
“Where are we going?” I ask as we both get in the car.
“A neighborhood called Montparnasse.”
Fear seizes my chest. “You didn’t exchange the address over the phone, did you? Or any identifying landmarks?”
“We’re not stupid, Eve. I know the risks, and he and I have been at this for a while, you know. Not to mention Jean-Paul’s even more paranoid than you are. Hard to believe, I know.”
“Then how do you know where to find him?”
Grant grins as he turns the ignition. “An age-old code amongst thieves.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re meeting at the first place we got drunk together.”
13
Montparnasse is a surprising neighborhood to find a criminal mastermind. By that I mean that I expected one of two extremes: either an enclave of the super-rich, or a seedy little neighborhood with lots of shady characters.
Montparnasse is neither. It has its fair share of 17th and 18th century buildings, for sure, but it has a lot of modern touches, too, including a 60-story black skyscraper that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all the Louis-the-Whatever style of buildings. There are also plenty of cell phone stores and fast food places, although they tend to be located in the fanciest buildings you’ve seen this side of a Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The blend of old and new gives it the feeling of an upper-crust, bustling, business-oriented neighborhood.
Grant gives me a mini-tour as we drive along the tree-lined boulevards, just like he did back in New York City. He throws around the terms Rococo, Neoclassicist, Beaux Arts, and Art Nouveau like I would say ‘Sunset’ and ‘Santa Monica’ back in Los Angeles. He also points out a bunch of cool little restaurants and bars that were frequented by Hemingway and Picasso between the World Wars.
I might enjoy the sightseeing more if I weren’t so worried we’re about to get mowed down in a submachine gun drive-by, or blockaded by black SUVs and kidnapped with black bags over our heads.
We drive around until he finds a five-story parking structure on the main drag. Grant pushes the button at the automated entry and grabs a ticket from the dispenser.
“What are you doing?” I ask fearfully as the arm lifts and he drives on in. I’m thinking about the security cameras I know must be in the building.
“Can’t very well park a stolen car right outside the place we’re going to meet JP,” Grant says. “Won’t Epicurus be monitoring police reports about stolen cars?”
Shit, he’s right.
“How long can we leave it here?” I ask.
He looks at the ticket, which is covered in French gobbledygook. “It says vehicles left longer than two weeks will be towed, so we’re good.”
He finds a spot on the jam-packed third floor. From there we exit the car and hustle down the stairwell.
Twenty minutes and over a mile later, we’re still strollin
g down a side street that has a combination of 1870’s and 1970’s buildings.
“You really did take that whole ‘let’s not park close to the meeting place’ thing seriously, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says, then wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m a professional.”
I roll my eyes, then ask, “How much farther?”
He points about 300 feet ahead to a stately seven-story building out of the 19th century, with a stone façade and ornate balconies. “Right there.”
My expression betrays my confusion.
“What?” Grant asks.
“When you said the first place you got drunk together, I was expecting a bar.”
He laughs. “See? And here you were worried about me blowing it.”
When we reach the building, Grant glances up and down the street to make sure no one’s close by. Then he casually picks the lock.
We’re in.
The lobby is ornate and beautifully furnished, with framed mirrors, flower arrangements, and plush rugs. We skip the elevator and walk up a stone staircase all the way to the top, where we find only a couple of apartments occupying the entire seventh floor.
We walk down the hall to the furthest door and Grant knocks. There is the sound of numerous bolts unlocking one by one, then the door opens and catches on a series of chains latched inside. In the three inch gap, I see a hangdog face with mournful eyes that stare out half-lidded at Grant.
“Ugh, putain d’merde,” the male voice says in disgust.
“Nice to see you, too, JP,” Grant says.
The door closes, the chains click and fall away one by one, and the door opens a few feet. A man a little shorter than Grant is standing there, dressed in a wifebeater undershirt, grey slacks, and no socks or shoes. He’s ten years older, too, with wisps of grey at the temples of his unruly, wavy dark hair, and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He’s fairly good-looking, in a world-weary, what do I care? kind of way. He kind of looks like a basset hound, if you can imagine a handsome basset hound.
“Well?” he says impatiently. “Entrez, entrez.”
We walk inside. He quickly shuts the door behind us, then latches all the chains and bolts and locks in quick succession like he’s done it a thousand times before.
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 4
