“He’s going to leave with the artifacts?”Nic said, still disbelieving.“Does he realize they may be at greater risk back in Serbia?”
“According to the person I spoke to at the embassy, Kristic thinks he and the artifacts are at greater risk here.”
“Maybe not greater,” Nic half conceded.If someone in Serbia was bankrolling this, they’d be in jeopardy there too.But here, someone was actively trying to steal them.“Does he know the payoff came from Serbia?”
“Still safer at home, they think.”
“Can we use the secure line to get word to—” Nic cut himself off as the courtroom door swung open.Turned out he didn’t need to.
“No,” Lauren said, blustering in.“His phone’s been jacked.The alert was waiting for me when I got in this morning.Doesn’t matter anyway.”
Nic scoffed.“Doesn’t matter?”
“Cam probably already knows something is up.”
“Get to the punchline, Hall,” Aidan said, voicing Nic’s frustration.As much as he valued Lauren, she had an infuriating tendency to hide the ball behind a ramble.
“Another deposit just hit Becca’s account.Double the first one.And part of it has already been transferred to Brady’s.”
“They know the schedule’s been accelerated too,” Nic reasoned.
Aidan nodded.“I’m betting they make another attempt tonight.”
“Good,” Lauren said, and when both their faces whipped her way, she added, “Already called in tactical teams for a brief in thirty.”
“Pull Cam’s rescue plan and disseminate it.”
“Rescue plan?”Nic said.
“This is his specialty,” Aidan said.“He gave us a few scenarios to work with.”
“What about Bowers?Finding out who’s really pulling the strings?”
“Fuck him,” Aidan bit out harshly.“This is about closing our case and getting our people out.Now.We can make one bust, protect the artifacts, and keep Kristic, Cam, and Abby safe.I won’t compromise all that for your boss’s ego.”
“All right, Counselor,” Nic said, breathing a little easier.“Not gonna fight you on this motion.”
Aidan smirked.“Figured you wouldn’t.”
In his father’s home office, Nic pawed through desk drawers, looking for anything that might give him a better picture of Curtis’s financial situation.He needed a distraction from worrying over Cam, and after two, maybe three attempts on his person, he needed more information about his father’s debts.What little he’d gleaned so far was from Vaughn’s goons, his conversation with Harris, and the mail he’d flipped through with Harris in the office.And from the angry lender voicemails left on the family office number.Harris had replayed all of those for Nic too.While Duncan had the most might, he wasn’t Curtis’s only lender.
If his father’s in-town office hadn’t been locked the other day, finding a laptop inside would have been Nic’s primary objective.Copy its contents or swipe it for Lauren to hack.Lock notwithstanding, Harris hadn’t thought it would be there.Curtis usually carried it on him.And it wasn’t here at home now either, consistent with Harris’s assertion.Neither were the financial documents Curtis had supposedly relocated.Nic hadn’t found them anywhere.Built in the 1920s, the Hillsborough estate house was huge, with plenty of hiding places.Curtis could have stashed the documents in any of them.But Mary, the last of his father’s household staff, and the woman who’d all but raised Nic, didn’t recall seeing boxes of documents ever come home.Was Harris lying or had Curtis stored or ditched them elsewhere?
If they did exist, Nic could use them for his case.Could maybe even get some of the pressure off his father.Until recently, Nic hadn’t wanted to concern himself with any of this.A big part of him still didn’t.Didn’t want to know how bad the situation really was and didn’t want to involve himself in his father’s life any more than he had to.Vaughn, however, wasn’t giving him a choice.How much longer before someone else his father was in debt to exerted pressure?Came after Nic with that same pressure?Or after his new family, as improbable as that still seemed?
A loud crash followed by Mary’s hollered curse shattered the silence.Sound carried under the high-pitched roof of the big old house.Nic barely flinched at the ruckus, accustomed to those sorts of sounds here.He did, however, act swiftly, something he’d been unable to do as a frightened kid.Bolting out of the study, he ran the length of the long back hallway—past the primary suite, through the cavernous, empty living room, most of the furnishings sold off, according to Mary, through the conservatory full of drafty windows, several of the panes cracked, to the kitchen with its outdated tile countertops and white plastic appliances.
Nic skidded into the room through the open door, barely avoiding the shards of glass on the floor, just as his father bellowed, “Why the hell did you let him in?”and threw his coat the direction of the table, knocking over more crystal.Another pile of shattered glass joined the other on the floor, together with his briefcase, which must have caused the first crash.
Curtis moved Mary’s direction and Nic stepped into his path, blocking his advance.“That’s enough!”
Dressed in a suit that had fit twenty lost pounds ago, with his blue eyes dull and his thinning blond hair gone white, Nic’s once regal, terrifying father looked like a fuming bag of bones.“This is my house.I’m in charge here.She had no right to let you in.”
To her credit, Mary didn’t flinch either.“Mr.Dominic asked nicely, and I keep your house, so I let him in.I wanted to see him.”
“You work for me!”
“For how many years, Mary?”Nic asked, without taking his eyes off Curtis, ready to divert any further advance.
