Dead In Plain Sight: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (I Fear No Evil Book 4)

by Martha Carr

  “I was double-checking the client information when I got some alerts.”

  Shay frowned. “That means this is Project Nephilim shit, then? Alien stones?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?”

  Peyton nodded. “The short version is that a few decades back, a Russian man found a small piece of metal embedded in some coal he was using to light a fire. He took that metal to local scientists, and their examinations revealed it was a tooth-wheel made of pure aluminum.”

  Shay snorted. “Wow. That’s spectacularly unimpressive. I can find aluminum in my kitchen drawer.”

  “The problem was, the wheel was embedded in the coal. As in, the coal had formed around it, and that coal was three hundred million years old. The wheel showed every indication of having been machined. It wasn’t like humans were around to whip up tooth-wheels back then unless they were using time travel.”

  “Okay, I admit that’s more impressive. So, best bet is alien litter?”

  Peyton shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Does it have any symbols on it?”

  “Not that I could find reported, but I don’t know the extent of the examination. The information on it is pretty light on the details.”

  Shay snorted. “Could be bullshit. Just because a lot of weird shit has turned out to be true doesn’t mean it all is.”

  “True enough, but the client’s willing to drop a million for its recovery.”

  “That’s a pretty strong motivation.”

  Peyton laughed. “I thought you’d say that. Or you could not take the job and just grab it.”

  “Nah. I’ll image the shit out of it before I turn it over, and you know what? The fact that Durand is looking for it is enough proof for me that it has something to do with alien shit, and I’m not gonna let that guy grab any alien artifacts first. Who’s the client? The Professor? Correk?”

  Peyton shook his head. “A Cypriot antiquities collector who now lives in Hawaii. The guy’s very clean. He spent years running charities. Made most of his money in biotech research, but cashed out early to focus on his eccentric interest in proving that aliens inhabited the Earth millions of years ago. The only odd thing is that he’s made it clear that somebody already owns the wheel.”

  “Why didn’t he just buy it from them?”

  “From what he said, he wants to keep his involvement really low-key. Claims that Men in Black showed up to threaten him a few days ago, which is one of the reasons he was pushing for this to happen quickly. He didn’t mention Durand, though, so I don’t think he knows about him.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Those guys were probably Project Nephilim assholes.” She took a deep breath. “Did he specifically mention any restrictions on how I could recover the wheel?”

  Peyton shook his head. “Nope, only that he needs it ASAP.”

  “And who has it now?”

  “Marina Mikhailova. She runs a bait shop in Vladivostok. The weird thing is, it’s hard to figure out how she got the artifact since the wheel disappeared from history after the original owner died. Even the client was a bit fuzzy on how he found out she had it.” Peyton eyed Shay. “Ignoring all that, are you ready to steal from an old lady?”

  Shay glared at the image of the French retrieval specialist on the screen. “If Durand and Project Nephilim are after it, it might be better for her if she didn’t have that wheel when they showed up.”

  Peyton chuckled. “So you’re saying you’re doing her a favor by taking it from her?”

  “I’m saying that the world’s an imperfect place.” Shay nodded toward her car. “Guess we should get to Warehouse Three and get my gear ready.”

  Shay continued marching down the dock in her search for the bait shop. Everything she’d told Peyton was true. She wasn’t about to gun down some old woman for an artifact, but she wasn’t leaving Russia without the wheel. It’s not like some babushka needed the damned thing anyway.

  Better not to ever mention to James that I’m robbing old ladies. I don’t think he’d understand, even if I gave him the speech about the Men in Black.

  She’d also have to explain what the hell Project Nephilim was, and how his alien amulet might even be connected to a greater secret. The OCD man could barely stand his house having a few stray particles of dust. There was no way he could handle being at the center of some massive history-changing revelation like that.

  That’s your problem, James. You want life to be simple. KISS and all that, but life’s never simple, and the more you try to force it to be that way, the more it snaps back and makes things even crazier.

  Shay sighed. For once in her life, one of her lies wasn’t self-serving.

  She shook her head and looked around. The damned shop was supposed to be close, according to the information Peyton had provided. She grabbed her phone to call him.

  No bars.

  Even if she ignored the cell tower she could see a few hundred yards away, her phone should have automatically switched to satellite mode when she lost the cell signal. There were several possible explanations for the glitch, but given the situation, one seemed most likely: someone was jamming the phone.

  Pulling that off in the middle of a city took balls, since it’d draw the attention of authorities sooner rather than later.

  Shay slowed her pace and surveyed her surroundings. The area was empty, the nearest dockworkers far behind her. It wasn’t like farther up the docks there was a huge crowd, but the sudden absence of anyone was notable.

  Three black SUVs with tinted windows had parked farther up, past rows of storage buildings, small shops, and the occasional maritime office.

  Too shiny. Too fancy. The vehicles didn’t fit the docks at all.

  Shay jogged toward the vehicles and slowed when she caught sight of three large suited men standing near a small shop sandwiched between two shuttered stores with cracked windows. She couldn’t understand any of the Cyrillic writing on the store’s signage, which was otherwise only decorated with a small picture of a silver fish.

  One of the men frowned at her, and she turned around to walk the other way. She ducked around a corner so she could come up on the shop from behind.

  A muffled scream came from the shop. Shay pulled her gun from her purse, regretting not being in her jacket and pants. She’d hoped to blend with the local fashions, but the dress wasn’t the best for tactical movement.

  She closed on the back door of the shop, gun raised. A woman shouted in Russian and someone spoke back, their voice calm and measured. Shay couldn’t make out the second speaker through the door.

  Three… Two… One…

  The tomb raider knocked the door off its hinges with a solid kick.

  Let’s see Marcus pull that shit off.

  Shay rushed into the back room, her gun at the ready. Stacked wooden crates lined the walls, and a shelf filled with cleaning supplies was in the center.

  She ignored the room and ran to the next door and threw it open. She turned the corner and spotted an old woman, her face weathered by the decades and salty air.

  An all-too-familiar athletic blond man with close-cropped hair loomed over the babushka. He had her backed up against a wall.

  The three goons stood outside, their backs to the front windows, but Shay had no idea how long that would last.

  “Francois Durand,” Shay spat.

  The man glanced at her with a smile. “Aletheia. We finally meet.” His French accent was slight but still noticeable.

  Shay narrowed her eyes. “You know who I am?”

  “I knew you’d come sniffing around eventually. You’ve made such a name for herself. Curiosity compels you maybe, but you shouldn’t stick your nose into this matter, tomb raider.”

  Shay lifted her gun. “Fuck you, Durand. I’ve got a job to do.”

  The babushka rattled off something in Russian and glared at the Frenchman. She looked like she wanted to tear him apart with her teeth.

  “I’ve got a job to do as well.”
He nodded downward as if pointing to something.

  Shay’s jaw tightened. The man already had his gun out and had aimed it at the old woman.

  What an asshole. This is gonna get bloody. Got to convince him to back the hell off.

  She sneered. “Whatever. She’s not my problem. I’m just here for the artifact, and I’m not leaving without it.”

  Durand gave Shay a sly smile. “Ah, I have heard about how ruthless you are. All those men you killed on Oak Island, for example. They say it was a massacre. How cold.”

  “You think I give a fuck about killing a few mercenaries?”

  “No, I suppose you don’t.”

  Shay smirked. “If you know all that, then you should know that I’m not to be fucked with.”

  Keeping his gun pointed at the old woman, Durand shrugged. “And you should know I have the backing of powerful people. You’d be wise not to attract too much of our attention.”

  “Project Nephilim? They’re nothing but a bunch of idiots who can’t figure shit out, which is why they have to overpay your ass to run around the world doing busywork, and why they have to hide in the shadows.”

  Durand’s mouth twitched.

  Oh, so you know a lot of shit, but you didn’t realize I knew a lot of shit too, huh?

  The bell above the front door jingled, and the three goons from before stepped in, guns out, frowning.

  “They can’t kill me before I kill you, Durand,” Shay hissed.

  “That’s likely true, but don’t you see? It doesn’t have to be this way. I respect you, Aletheia, for accomplishing so much when you’re new to the field. At first I thought you were an old veteran who’d changed her name, but now that I’ve seen you, I know that you’re newer at this. Walk away. I’ve already beaten you to the woman.”

  “So what? You think she’s gonna give up the artifact to a douchebag like you? She looks like she wants to tear off your balls right now.”

  The woman nodded. She must have understood more English than Shay suspected.

  Durand chuckled. “I must say I’m disappointed that you haven’t realized it yet.” He pointed with his free hand to a plaque above the shop counter. Cyrillic writing adorned the bottom, but there was nothing else but a worn brass plaque.

  “I don’t get it, Durand. You like featureless decorations?”

  With a sly grin, the retrieval specialist reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny tooth-wheel. “You see? I never needed to get the location from her.”

  Shay narrowed her eyes, her heart rate kicking up. “What the fuck? Then why are you still there? Why are you even bothering to threaten the old woman? Do you get off on it?”

  “No, no. I don’t tend to like unnecessary bloodshed, but sometimes it’s necessary. In this case, though I couldn’t resist the chance to meet you.”

  The babushka muttered something under her breath and gave Durand a baleful glare.

  Shay gritted her teeth. “Let me make this very fucking clear, Durand. I don’t care how badass you think you are or how much some government douchebags are paying you to accept their leash. I’ve killed a lot of people a lot of ways in a lot of places, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t paint the walls of this shop fucking red with the blood of you and your asshole friends.”

  Durand sighed. “You know the other reason I set up this little farce?”

  “You have a small penis and you’re compensating?”

  He chuckled. “Reputation’s a curious thing. Not solid, not real. Ephemeral. When you’re evaluating someone, the best thing to do is to observe them in action.”

  He pointed the gun straight at the old woman’s stomach. She frowned but didn’t say anything.

  Shay’s attention flicked between Durand and the three goons. A single shot would start a storm of lead, but if she timed it right, she could win.

  “Do you have a point, Durand, or are you just trying to bore me into leaving?”

  “My point is, I’ve learned something through observing you. For example, you arrived here only minutes after me, which means you’re fast, resourceful, and intelligent.

  “You were also careful enough to come in the back rather than just gun down my friends over there and kick open the door. That was enough to confirm your reputation as a tomb raider of some skill. My other concern is that you’ve survived encounters with dangerous foes. At least twice you’ve run into Snegurka and survived.”

  “She’s a real bitch, you know.”

  The babushka glanced between Shay and Durand with a confused look on her face.

  Durand held up a finger. “It’s not surprising that you’d live up to your tomb-raiding reputation, but there’s something else that’s hard to know without seeing it in person. Something I now just confirmed.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “How truly ruthless you are. For all I knew, you were only defending yourself when you killed in the past. There’s a certain practicality to that, but it’s not the same thing as a killer instinct.”

  Shay gave him a feral grin. “You don’t want to test my killer instinct, Durand.”

  “But I already have. Don’t you see?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “If you were truly the killer you’re trying to convince me you are, you would have shot this woman and me the minute you stepped in.”

  “Shit.”

  Durand barked out a laugh.

  Fuck it.

  Shay leapt toward the counter and put a bullet into Durand’s chest. Three quick shots followed before the goons even comprehended a gunfight had started and they collapsed to the ground, their blood pooling together.

  The tomb raider hit the floor and rolled onto her back, ready to fire at anyone coming around the corner. The bell above the front door jingled, and she jumped to her feet, her gun still out. Durand sprinted away from the shop.

  What the hell?

  As he turned, the bulletproof vest under his torn shirt peeked out.

  “Damn it. Of course, he had to be fucking careful.”

  Shay hopped the counter and looked at the old woman. She was shaking her fist at the front door.

  “You okay?” Shay inquired.

  “You go,” the woman snapped in heavily accented English. “You go shoot last thief.”

  Shay grinned. “Sounds like a good plan to me.” She rushed to the front door. The tomb raider ran after the retrieval specialist, not bothering to squeeze off pistol shots because of the distance.

  Durand reached into his jacket.

  Going for a gun?

  He tossed something her way. Something small and round. A grenade.

  “Shit.” Shay jumped behind a cement pylon and closed her eyes.

  The grenade didn’t explode. A hiss sounded, and a thick cloud of dark gray smoke choked her.

  Shay coughed and ran through the smoke. The air in front of her cleared, and her eyes widened at Durand in the distance leaping from a wooden pier into a blue speedboat—the same speedboat she’d seen almost hit the fishing boat earlier.

  Of course, it was you, asshole.

  She squeezed off several rounds, but none came close to striking the man or the boat. The engine roared to life and the speedboat shot away from the dock.

  “Great. Just great.” Shay dropped her gun back into her purse and pulled her phone out. Still no signal.

  Francois Durand had escaped with the artifact, and she couldn’t even contact Peyton to get a drone on him.

  Shay sighed.

  I hope you appreciate it, old lady. I just traded a million dollars for your life.

  “This isn’t over, Durand. I’m gonna find you, you prick.”

  18

  Shay paced in front of the Warehouse Two office, her arms crossed. “That French asshole is really getting on my nerves.”

  Peyton turned a corner, a small bowl of water in hand, and walked over to set it down near the door to the office. Osiris meowed from underneath a nearby table and padded over
to the bowl, his eager tongue flicking to lap up water.

  “It’s not a big deal, if you think about it,” Peyton suggested.

  Shay stopped and spun toward him, pinning him with a glare. “How the fuck isn’t it a big deal? He got the artifact, and not only do I not get a million dollars, but this is gonna ding my rep.”

  Peyton shrugged. “I meant to tell you earlier, but based on the last message he sent, the client doesn’t seem to care. Don’t think he’s going to say anything to hurt your reputation.”

  “He doesn’t care?” Shay narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  If the client had set her up, she was going to go have a loud and painful one-way conversation with him.

  “I’ve got a pretty good feel for how this guy thinks by now, so I decided to really play up that guys in dark suits—you know, Men in Black—had shown up, and how you were forced to save the little old lady from the evil international government conspiracy.” Peyton laughed. “He ate that up, and you know, it’s basically true.”

  Shay groaned and slumped against a wall. “I didn’t…save her. I just didn’t shoot her when I had a chance.”

  I could have gotten the wheel if I had just opened fire immediately. Would it have been worth it for a million dollars?

  She’d killed a lot of people in her life, and while she couldn’t claim that every one of them had it coming, gunning down some unarmed old woman would have strayed into territory she hadn’t dared enter.

  That didn’t mean they needed to discuss the subject. Shay couldn’t dismiss the moderating effects of James, Alison, and all her new friends on her personality, but she refused to be anyone’s open book. She was sleeping with James and she still kept things from him, let alone her assistant.

  Peyton shrugged. “I’ve always been a lover, not a fighter. Not saying I have a problem with you taking down some of the assholes you have, but it’s not so bad that you’re a little less vio—” He blinked under her enraged glare. “Uh, let’s stop talking about that.”

  “I agree. We should stop talking about that.”

  He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Anyway, the client doesn’t blame us. He blames the government conspiracy, and from what he told me, he thinks that the fact that even Aletheia couldn’t recover the artifact because of the government is proof that everything he believes in is real. He almost seemed giddy about it in his messages. He’s not giving up, and has mentioned hiring you for future jobs once he has a line on other alien artifacts.”