They weaved in and out of the clothing racks for a few minutes. Draco bought Cate a scarf the color of her blue eyes.
She said she didn’t want it.
He said they needed a bag to carry out and won the argument by handing the clerk his credit card before Cate could snatch the scarf away. Bag in hand, he led her to the staircase and back down to the ground floor. Instead of heading for the front entrance, he led her to the rear entrance, which opened onto another street with a different flow of foot traffic. He swept the immediate vicinity before the muscles at the back of his neck relaxed a little.
“We ditched him,” he said.
“For the moment,” Cate added.
Cate removed the scarf from the bag and wound it around her neck, working the fabric between her fingers as methodically as she worked through a problem. “Brunner said that we shouldn’t have mentioned Alpenhorn in the building. He didn’t say we shouldn’t have mentioned it. He said in the building.”
“Like the building is a living, breathing being.” Draco nodded. “It has eyes and ears.”
“Yes,” Cate said. “I think he wanted to say something but couldn’t...not in the building.”
“He walked us to the door,” Draco said. “Just to tell us we shouldn’t have said that name.”
“That’s not something a man who didn’t want to help would do,” Cate commented. “He knew he couldn’t in the bank building where eyes and ears were taking in everything.”
“It’s as if he was telling you to ask him anything as long as it wasn’t there. You can ask him anywhere else that the walls aren’t listening.”
“Do you think he’ll try to contact us outside the building?” Cate asked.
“You didn’t give him your information,” Draco said.
Cate’s lips quirked.
Draco shook his head. “Or did you?”
Her lips spread in a grin. “I don’t make a living as a PI by walking away from a potential informant without leaving him some way to contact me.”
With a glance down at her, Draco frowned. “How? You don’t have any business cards. You don’t have a passport or any kind of identification. I was with you the entire time. I know you didn’t whisper anything I didn’t hear.”
“When my father handed me the burner phone and told me the number, I wrote it on a piece of paper napkin at the restaurant and tucked it into my pocket.”
A flashback of Cate insisting on shaking Brunner’s hand raced through his memory. “You handed it to him when you made him shake hands with you.”
When her cell phone chirped in her pocket, Cate’s eyes widened. “You don’t think...” She jammed her hand into her pocket, pulled out the phone, and stared down at the screen. “Unknown number.” Without hesitating, she received the call, put it on speakerphone, and held it between them, her gaze locked with Draco’s. “Hello.”
“Frau Marsh,” a voice said in a hushed, yet unmistakably British-accented voice. Brunner. “You should not have come to the bank. Since you did, you need to listen carefully.”
“I’m listening,” she said.
“I have a family—a wife and two children. I have not slept in over a week. If I’d said anything at the bank, in my office today, I’d be dead by the next day, if not sooner.” He breathed raggedly. “Who am I kidding? I’m already a dead man. So...”
Draco held his breath and Cate’s gaze.
“Tonight,” the banker said. “We meet somewhere I can see all exits, where there are people around us. I will tell you what I know, those I know are involved, what I moved into which accounts and something I should have handed over to the police long ago.” He paused. “Come alone. No police. No Interpol. Just you.”
Draco shook his head vehemently. No way would he let her meet with Brunner alone.
Cate gave him a brief nod. “I’ll only come if I bring my man—the man I’m traveling with. That’s not negotiable.”
“The one who came with you today? The one who watches the doors?” Brunner asked.
“Yes,” Cate said with a slight smile. “He’ll stay back and stay quiet, but he comes with me or I don’t come at all.”
A shaky breath sounded on the phone and then, “Very well.” Another breath, steadier this time. “I will text the location. We will meet at nine o’clock.”
