“On his honeymoon,” Cam said, telling Bowers what he already knew.
Aidan’s out-of-office days had been on all their calendars for months.
“He should have come back for this,” Bowers said.“Or you should have waited.”
“And how would that’ve worked?”Cam replied, irritation bleeding through his thinning patience.“Were we supposed to call up Scott and tell him it wasn’t a good day for the feds to bust his crew?I guarantee the heist would have happened in that case.”
Bowers’s round face reddened.“Maybe no one would have died.”
“On the contrary,” Nic said, “more than one person would have probably died if Cam’s team hadn’t intervened.”
“Some consolation,” Bowers huffed.“I’ve got a dead dignitary’s wife on my hands and the Serbian consulate and DOJ breathing down my neck.”
Cam’s bravado waned, reminded of Anica Kristic bleeding out as her husband tried to stem the flow, and of Stefan Kristic, thrashing in his hospital bed when the doctors told him his efforts had been in vain.
“You can tell the Serbian consulate we have the parties responsible in custody.”
“Not all of them,” Bowers said.“Rebecca Wright’s still out there.”
“I’m on my way to question Abby next,” Nic said.“We’ll find Becca.”
“And who she’s working for.Justice wants this operation, all the way up the ladder, shut down for good.”
Cam bristled at being told again what he already knew, especially when he and Nic had put in far more hours than Bowers had on this case.
He held his tongue, though, until Bowers disappeared into the elevator at the end of the hall.“I hate that fucker.”
“Not half as much as I do,” Nic answered through gritted teeth.
Cam sensed there was more there but now wasn’t the time to press.“I need to get to the office.See what the team’s got on the other shooters.”
“And I need to talk to Abby.”
“I want to be there for that.”Cam wanted to know how their CI hadn’t had a clue her girlfriend was about to turn on the crew.
Nic, however, shook his head.“She’s better one-on-one.Let me talk to her first, then you can question her tomorrow.”
Cam didn’t like it, but she was technically Nic’s CI, his play.And the prosecutor did seem to trust her.“All right,” Cam said.“Debrief first thing tomorrow?”
Nodding, Nic turned toward the exit, already on to the next task just as Cam had suggested, but Cam wasn’t ready to let him go yet.He shot out a hand, grabbing his biceps.“I’ll catch the rest of ’em,” he said, finding the words he should have said to Bowers.
“And I’ll prosecute them.”Bitterness belied Nic’s words.
Cam slid his hand down to Nic’s elbow, mimicking the earlier touch through the superfine wool of the dapper prosecutor’s suit coat.“I’m sorry about the way this turned out today.For Kristic, his wife, my agents.But I’m not sorry I took the lead.And I’m not sorry you were in the van.”
“I still got shot at.”
“By one shooter.You weren’t in the middle of the firefight.”
Nic pressed his lips together like he was measuring his words, eventually settling on, “I could have helped.Maybe saved?—”
Cam tightened his hold, fingers digging into sinewy muscle through layers of fabric.“You could have maybe died.I’m not risking that, Price.I’m not risking you.”
Two
Hands clasped behind his back, Nic stood in his war room, ignoring the long conference table littered with legal pads and file folders, and stared at their suspect board instead.His and Aidan’s scribbled notes covered half the whiteboard: timelines, bank accounts, travel itineraries.On the other half, they’d hung suspect photos in pecking order.
Scott was at the top.Directly below him, Becca, his second-in-command who’d turned on him and escaped with the rip-off crew.On the next line down, below Becca, was the crew’s “talent.”Mike, the B&E guy, who was also keeping mum in a cell, and Abby, Nic’s confidential informant and now star witness.
