“I don’t take well to liars,” Grant Pickens growled.“Now, I’ll ask again, who did you tell?”
“Rose Protection Agency and the police.”
“Fuck,” Grant Pickens breathed.“You just had to get them involved.”
“We got the answer.Let’s go,” his brother said, tugging at Grant Pickens’ arm.
Grant Pickens shrugged him off.“They know who you are.”
“Then we need to leave.The sooner we’re gone, the less likely they’ll find us.Let’s go, brother.”
“It sounds to me like we need to give them a reason to let us go.”Grant Pickens lifted the gun to Harmony’s chest and smiled.“Let’s see how badly they want to save you.”
He pulled the trigger.
Twenty-One
Damien staredat the footage of Kiernan Smith dragging Harmony to the SUV until his eyes blurred and he didn’t see anything anymore.
They had to find her.Time was not on their side.Grant Pickens, or Stuart Smith, was not going to leave Harmony alive to tell everyone what he did.Neither was his brother from the look of it.
“Pickens’ assistant says she doesn’t know anything about his brother or about the two of them kidnapping Harmony,” Rhett said, relaying information they were getting from Marcus and his team, plus whatever Rose Protection Agency members were available to help with the search.
“Does Marcus believe her?”Jude asked.
Rhett shrugged.“He’s keeping her there in case they try to contact her, but he doesn’t seem to think she’s involved.”
Damien shook his head, barely able to hear the conversation.He wanted to punch himself for not trusting his instincts about Grant Pickens.The man was good.Too fucking good.Damien knew something about him was off.The way Harmony reacted to the man wasn’t an accident.
But he ignored his gut.He trusted the information they found.He believed what he read about the man who was praised for helping the city.
The man who fucking lied about everything.Who pretended to be someone great, but was a…
“What was Pickens hiding?”Damien asked.
“Hiding?What do you mean?”Jude asked.
Damien turned back to his computer.“He staged a break-in.He had his brother lead two men into his building.What was the plan?What were they doing?”
“Diamonds,” Eve breathed.
“What?”the men all asked.
Eve turned her screen around.“A few months ago, Kiernan Smith’s passport was stamped.The area he went to for a supposed vacation is known for diamond mines.Stuart Smith’s passport showed him in the same area.”
“Going to an area with diamond mines doesn’t mean that’s what they were doing there,” Rhett snapped.
“Maybe not, but there was a major heist around the same time.It wasn’t big news, but it was local news.It was quickly quieted, which made me think they were taking matters into their own hands, but maybe it’s because they didn’t want anyone to know someone pulled one over on them,” Eve explained.
“They stole diamonds?”Rhett asked.
“Not just diamonds.Loose stones worth a few hundred million dollars.They’re uncut, they’re straight from the mine, and they’re not registered yet.They’re essentially write-offs for the mine because they won’t be able to prove they are the exact diamonds that were taken, but it all fits together,” Eve said.She clicked through to another article, one with a grainy picture of two people who could be anyone.
“With that kind of money, they can vanish,” Jude said.
“Which is probably what they planned to do.Stage the break-in, let the other two guys take the fall for anything that was stolen, and disappear,” Eve said.
“A break-in means there’s attention there.It means people will show up.Why would they want to do that if they were trying to quietly move the diamonds?”Rhett asked.
