Maybe she found and already sold them? I circle back to her desk and examine her laptop. Password protected. Her desk drawers yield only school supplies, bills, and a checkbook with a pitiful balance. Nothing suggests she has another account with millions.
Irritation claws at my stomach and tightens my chest. This was supposed to be simple. Find the teacher. Locate the diamonds. Go home.
But the diamonds aren’t here, and I’ve wasted precious time while the mission parameters shifted.
I study Chloe, still unconscious on the sofa, peaceful in her oblivion. This isn’t over. She’s connected to those gems. I just haven’t found the right thread to pull.
With my investigation complete for the time being, stillness settles around me. Twenty million in stones just vanished into thin air. Cold, hard failure twists my gut.
I don’t fail.
Not ever.
I glance at my watch. An hour passed while I scrutinized every nook and cranny, every obvious and not-so-obvious potential hiding place. The drug will hold her under for at least another sixty minutes, but I’m no closer to my objective than when I walked through her door.
I started out with a clear, simple mission. Find the teacher and the diamonds and get out. But, ever since I first laid eyes on her, nothing about this has been simple.
My mind loops back to where this all began. MJ’s note.Chloe D., Northwood Elemen.His other message that reads,She has the diamond cache. In classroom.That’s all we have.
Smart, methodical MJ wouldn’t have died chasing ghosts. He had to have a reason for connecting those diamonds to Chloe.
Like some amateur, I’ve been treating this as a smash and grab, thinking I’d discover the stones tucked away in a drawer or stashed under a floorboard.
Stubble scratches my palm as I drag a hand over my face. I’m looking at this all wrong.
This isn’t about a place. It’s about a person. Chloe’s name was in the note, not her home address. She’s thekeyto the diamonds.
And she might not even know.
A new strategy crystallizes in my mind.
Phase one, the search, is over. Not a complete failure since I’ve gathered some data.
Phase two begins now. Infiltration.
I need to weasel into her life. Learn her routines, her friends, her secrets. Does she have a safe deposit box? A storage unit she’s forgotten about? Is she a courier waiting for a drop? I won’t find those answers in her drawers or cupboards.
I’ll find them in her trust.
Or her fear.
Whichever encourages her to talk.
My gaze drifts to Chloe, out cold, on the sofa. She’s curled on her side, one hand tucked under her cheek like a child. Her breathing is deep and even.
Vulnerable.
Mine.
The dangerous word slips into my thoughts.
She’s not mine. She’s a mission objective. A means to an end. I can’t afford attachment. Attachment gets you killed. That’s the first rule of survival in this business.
And yet.
The logic is sound. Getting close to her makes strategic sense. The most efficient way to extract intel is to entice her to give it to me. And if that means touching her again and feeling her come apart under my hands, hearing her beg…that’s just a bonus.
A perk of the job.
