Tucking one earbud back in, she offered him the other and pressed Play.
Nic only needed to listen for a second, a smile stretching across his face.“I know it well.”
“Fantasy fan?”
“That, and I have a traffic-filled commute to work every day.”
She grinned, tired but true, then started repeating the couple of sentences she’d played for him, the accent getting closer each try until, on the fourth, it was an exact replica of the narrator’s put-on British.
And that was why Scott’s crew needed her.A military brat who’d been dragged all over as a child, Abby had grown up to be a languages and accents savant who could speak and understand multiple languages and who could mimic nearly any accent, including Anica Kristic’s unique Romani-Slavic dialect.He’d never heard anything like it nor met anyone with Abby’s skill.
“Nice work,” he said with a smile.
She wrapped the cord for the earbuds around the device.“Thanks for this.It helped, a lot.”
“Knew a guy in the Navy.He was younger so I wasn’t in with him long, but he hummed aloud on flights and in his head when he lined up a shot.Centered him.”
“That’s exactly it.”She relaxed back in the chair, player in her lap.
With Abby finally wound down, Nic approached the topic that had brought them there.“Tell me what happened today.”
“There was so much blood.”She wrung her hands, staring down at them as if they were still covered in it.“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Take it from the top.We’ll get to where it went wrong.”
She clasped her hands on the table, fingers laced to still their movement.“We were in the vacant condo across the hall.Where I’d called you from.”
She’d called in the wee hours of the morning once she’d had a second alone.They’d had less than an hour to clear the area and move into position.Cam’s operation prep had been solid, ready to move at a second’s notice.
“The portable safe was in the living room,” Abby continued.“We were supposed to go in quiet and take the safe if we could.If we couldn’t, Scott had been practicing the husband’s part.I had the wife’s down.They should have never heard us.”
Cam’s team had tried to warn the Kristics, but there’d been no answer to their calls, texts, or emails, and they couldn’t approach to warn in person without tipping off Scott’s crew.It had been a calculated risk based on Abby’s intel that the op would go down quiet as she described.Cam’s team would be waiting to pounce in the hallway once they’d exited.
Except gunfire had erupted inside the apartment first.“Someone did hear?”Nic asked.
“The husband opened the bedroom door, and Becca...”Abby closed her eyes, face turned away.She started again after another hard swallow.“Becca shot him, Scott shouted, and the next thing I knew, they were shooting at each other.”
“The gunfight that drew the tactical team?”
Abby nodded.“They stormed in after Scott and Mike first, and Becca rushed us into the bedroom.”
“That’s when she shot Anica?”
“She was distraught, screaming after her husband.Becca shot her point-blank.”Abby’s voice quieted to a whisper.“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.She’s threatened before but never...”
“How’d you get loose?How’d Becca get out?”
“She ran to the window.Said the cops were shooting at something across the street instead and that we could jump to the balcony below.Some guys would meet us there.”
Nic hung his head.They’d been covering him and Lauren in the van.He’d drawn Beta team off the exterior and Charlie team off the third floor and the rip-off crew.“She went out through the window?”
Abby nodded again.“I’m terrified of heights.She knows that.Cops were closing in, so she left me helping the wife.Made me promise not to cooperate or she’d...”Abby lost her words again, and Nic understood why.
“She threatened to hurt your sister?”
“Yeah.”Abby reached for the tablet again, unwinding the earbud cord and weaving it through her fingers, a nervous tic not limited to her hair.“She said she’d come for me.She’s not gonna let me or the job go.”
“She’s down you, Mike, and her ringleader.”
