“It’ll be okay, Mindy. You and your daughter can start a new life together.”
“Would. . .would you want to come along, at least for a bit? Until I got settled.”
“Mindy, my employer would not allow that. She’s counting on me for some important work and I committed to doing it for her. I can’t go back on that.”
She touched his right cheek and then kissed him on the other one.
“You really are one of the good ones, Dillon. I hope I find someone like you.”
“Just don’t jump at the first guy, and if your radar buzzes, run away, fast. You don’t need to settle for anybody, Mindy. There are good ones out there. You’ll find somebody.”
He gave her his phone number and told her to keep him in the loop. “And if you need me to drive you somewhere, or just want to talk, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if he does anything to you again, you call me. And I’ll deal with him.”
“I will, Dillon, and thank you.”
She went back inside and Nash eased into his car.
He looked up at the façade of the Temple mansion. And Nash could have sworn he saw Rhett Temple staring down at him from an upper window.
CHAPTER
56
THERE WAS NO MOTORCADE THIStime.
There was only an ultramodern and spacious helicopter that made a landing on a wide patch of grass on the rear grounds of Steers’s estate. The bushes around the chopper were nearly flattened by the blades’ wash.
Nash watched all this from an open doorway that led into the rear of the house.
The chopper was a Mercedes-Benz Eurocopter EC145. He googled the aircraft and found that the starting price was around nine million bucks.
Okay.
He was sure that Steers was watching the arrival, too, probably from the window of her office.
The chopper’s engine wound down and the rear door opened. Only one man got out of the EC145, which could carry ten passengers plus two pilots. He was of medium height with slicked-back dark hair. His suit was quietly expensive. His manner was unhurried, Nash observed, and he did not seem impressed by the estate’s lavish home and grounds. Though they were costly and luxurious, this man might be used to something still more costly and even more luxurious.
And he didn’t need an army of armed men around him, it seemed. Which was even more impressive than the cartel entourage, for perhaps an unobvious reason.
This man is unafraid that anyone will attempt him harm because they will know that the consequences will far outweigh the benefits.
That was a rarefied position to be in, and one that clearly not even Steers enjoyed.
Nash stepped out of the shadows and said, “Welcome, sir. Right this way. She is waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” the man replied politely.
As Nash led him inside, the newly recruited security team lurked in the shadows. They had no idea who this person was. Indeed, Nash did not recognize him, either, which meant nothing, really. He didn’t keep a mental dossier of global criminals in his memory.
They walked up the stairs and down the hall to Steers’s office. Nash knocked once and received the command to enter. He got the visitor settled, nodded at Steers, and withdrew. He took up his post outside her office door and placed his AirPods in. His bug was behind a book on her shelf.
And so it began.
* * *
