Drawn in Blood (19 page)

Interestingly, the differences Cindy encompassed were as compel ing as the similarities. Her poise, her sophistication, and her professional drive—they created an equality for him that had never been there with Meili. Plus, now he was divorced, with no marriage to save.

“Mr. Johnson?” Peggy’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Are you al right?”

Wal ace regained his composure as quickly as possible. “Yes, of course. I was just thinking how proud of Cindy her uncle wil be.”

“I agree.” Peggy nodded. “He expects great things of her. And with your help, I know she won’t disappoint him.”

“I doubt Cindy could disappoint anyone.” Even as Wal ace spoke, he felt a twinge of something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

It might be the nostalgia. It might be the extraordinary likeness to Meili.

On the other hand, it might be something more.

Ben sat on the bar stool, shoulders slumped, tie and dress shirt damp and disheveled. Outside, horns honked, taxis whizzed by, and cars crammed the intersections trying to navigate their way through Manhattan. It was hard to believe that rush hour had ended hours ago.

Some things stayed the same. Some things changed.

It had been a half hour, and Ben was already craving his next drink. Four years of sobriety shot to hel . This whole fiasco had pushed him over the edge and off the wagon.

The situation sucked. And he was a prisoner to it.

Even the booze wasn’t enough. He was drowning. And he no longer gave a damn.

If it weren’t for his children and grandchildren, he’d just let the riptide take him under. He’d sink into oblivion, let go of life, of guilt, of debt. It would put an end to the agony.

“What can I get you?” The bartender walked over, drying a glass and giving Ben a questioning look.

“Scotch. Straight. Make it a double.”

“Tough day?” the bartender asked.

The truth in the question almost made Ben laugh. “Yeah.”

“One double scotch, coming up.” The bartender turned away to do his job. At least the guy caught on. Ben didn’t want to talk about his problems. He wanted to drown them in liquor.

Behind him, the front door swung open. Ben didn’t need to turn around. He recognized the heavy tread al too wel .

“Martino.” Jin Huang loomed beside him, not even bothering to sit. “Have money?”

With a nod, Ben half swiveled on the stool and handed over the envelope. “Here.”

Jin counted the bil s, after which his brick-wal body stiffened. “Two thousand short.”

“I know. Tel Xiao he’l have it as soon as I do.”

A strong hand clamped down on Ben’s arm. “Not good enough.”

“Neither is business,” Ben replied tonelessly. “The whole garment center is going down the toilet, in case you haven’t noticed.” His glance flickered to Jin Huang’s grip on his arm. “If you plan to kil me, you’d be doing me a favor.”

“That’s why kil ing is later. Tel ing secret is now.”

Ben squeezed his eyes shut, more sickened by the latter than the former. But then, Jin Huang knew that. Xiao Long had made sure of it. “Don’t. Please. Give me a little more time. I’l get the money.”

Jin’s black eyes scrutinized him, flat and emotionless. “A week. No more.”

“Fine. A week.”

“And not two thousand. Twenty-five hundred. You pay interest. Plus next week’s money—al of it.”

Ben nodded, utter desolation pervading him. “I know the dril . I’l meet you here with everything I owe Xiao.”

“You better.”

By the time the bartender put the double scotch on the counter in front of Ben, Jin Huang was gone.

Ben polished off his drink in a few gulps and slammed the glass down on the counter. “Give me another. And keep them coming.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sloane’s arrow whizzed through the air and struck the bul ’s-eye about a half inch from dead center.

Not good enough. Just like everything else that was going on.

Lowering her bow to the grass, Sloane did a few stretches, trying to ease the tension in her body. The late day run hadn’t done it. The hour of archery practice hadn’t done it.

Nothing was going to do it.

She wiped a towel across her face, drying off the perspiration. Then, she guzzled down half a bottle of water. The sun was about to dip behind the horizon, total y eclipsing any daylight. It was time to go inside, take a shower, and review her notes.

Gathering up her archery gear, she headed back, glancing at her watch as she did.

Six-fifteen p.m.

This day had been endless. Everything was hanging in a menacing state of limbo. Fred Mil er’s body stil hadn’t been recovered, despite the FBI and the NYPD’s valiant efforts to find him. Ticking inside Sloane’s head like a time bomb was the fear that Xiao Long would make another attempt on one of her parents’ lives—and succeed, FBI presence or not.

And the rest of her father’s partners? She didn’t know whether to worry
for
them or
about
them.

The unnerving prospect that one of her father’s oldest and closest friends had provided Xiao Long with entry to the Burbanks’ apartment—it actual y made Sloane sick to her stomach. She’d felt guilt-ridden that the thought had even crossed her mind when her mother was reenacting the break-in with her. But when Derek had voiced the possibility last night—

that had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Rather than expanding on the conversation they’d started in the Field Office earlier that day, they’d spent the entire night hashing out the likelihood that one of the art partners had aided and abetted a criminal.

Sloane hadn’t slept a wink after that. And if she had to be honest with herself, it wasn’t because of the heated case Derek made. It was because of her own niggling worry that he might be right.

She’d made a valiant attempt to prove otherwise, rattling off every possible name she could think of, from neighbors Xiao might have duped, to building employees he might have paid off, to everyone affiliated with the construction and sales of the individual apartments, to employees working in the coop office. The list was endless.

But Derek wasn’t buying. The bottom line was that whoever had helped the Dragon kids break into the Burbanks’ apartment didn’t just unlock the door or merely know the layout of the apartment, including which room was Matthew’s office.

They knew precisely where the Rothberg file was.

In a sea of unlabeled file cabinets, they knew just where to go and how to get what they needed, fast, trashing the place afterward as a cover-up.

And that meant someone who was familiar with Matthew’s filing system, or someone who at least knew where he kept al the paperwork relating to
Dead or Alive
.

At the top of that list of suspects were the four most logical choices: Ben Martino, Wal ace Johnson, Leo Fox, and Phil Leary.

Sloane had actual y winced when Derek said their names aloud, although she’d known it was coming. She’d argued vehemently, emphasizing her father’s long-term friendship, partnership, and trust with these men. To that, she added the ammo that if Matthew had been connected in any way, either to the art crime or to Xiao Long’s operation, al four of his partners’ butts would be on the line as wel . So implicating Matthew in anything il egal would mean their own downfal .

But even as Sloane argued her case, she knew she was fighting with herself, not Derek. The fundamental basis for her reasoning was total y subjective. Friends turned on friends every day. And her argument was flimsy. If one of Matthew’s partners had cooperated in a scheme like this, he would have done so only under coercion—out of fear of retaliation from a man they knew to be a kil er. And that was enough motivation for anyone, close friend or not.

The truth was Ben, Leo, Phil, and Wal ace
were
the most likely suspects to have aided Xiao Long with the break-in. In the guilty party’s mind, it would just have involved providing Xiao with the necessary information. No one was supposed to get hurt. And no one could have anticipated that Rosalyn would interrupt the Dragon kids and wind up in the hospital.

Sloane had wrestled with this al night, wishing the pieces didn’t fit.

She tried not to remember how nervous the four men had been on the night of the poker game. She tried to forget how reluctant Phil had been to leave her alone with her father at the end of the evening. She tried to forget how overly generous Leo had been about redecorating her cottage, and how hard he’d pressed her to get started. She tried to forget the untouched bottles of O’Doul’s on the table, and how Ben had practical y been vibrating with tension, talking a mile a minute. She tried to forget how sore Wal ace had seemed when he stood up, how stiffly he’d moved, and how, with no signs of chil s, he’d worn a heavy, perspiration-drenched turtleneck sweater on a warm autumn night—none of which added up to the onset of the flu.

She’d tried.

And she’d failed.

Derek had left for the office earlier than usual this morning. Sloane didn’t ask why. She didn’t need to. He wanted to get started running background checks on her father’s friends. She could have asked to take part in the investigation. Derek would have welcomed it, since Sloane could provide personal info on each of the men that wouldn’t be listed in anything official that Derek could scrounge up. At some point, she might have to volunteer her services for that. But not yet. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it—not until she’d explored her less likely but infinitely more tenable theories.

She’d explored little and accomplished nothing.

Her parents hadn’t been available to talk to. They, and their FBI bodyguards, had been out for the day. Her mother, once again undeterred by her broken arm, was at a digital publishing seminar, and her father was meeting with the owner of an art gal ery to hammer out the final details of a purchase. Not only did Sloane need the two of them to help compile her list of everyone who had access to their apartment but she also had to get their okay to interrogate al those on the list.

They weren’t going to like this.

But they’d like the avenue Derek was pursuing even less—if she told them about it. For now, she had no intentions of doing that. It would only cause a lot of emotional pain, hopeful y for no good reason.

Meanwhile, even after she got her parents’ permission, Sloane would have to tread very careful y when digging around their neighbors and apartment staff. These folks had al been interviewed by the NYPD right after the robbery and asked if they’d seen any suspicious-looking strangers hanging around the Burbanks’ apartment.

Sloane’s questions wouldn’t be so benign. No matter how subtly she phrased them, the implication would be that she suspected one of the interviewees of being a potential accomplice to the burglary. And the reception to that would be a far cry from the one given to the police, when they were being approached as good Samaritans.

Given her parents’ unavailability, Sloane had spent the day making phone cal s, finding and speaking with the architect who’d designed the building and the builder who’d constructed it, along with the real estate agent who’d sold the individual apartments. She’d also cal ed the Manhattan Office of Land Records to determine which real estate documents, floor plans, and so on were public and which were not.

In short, she’d blown an entire day and learned nothing in the process.

Derek hadn’t cal ed.

That could mean he was swamped with work. It could mean he had nothing to report.

Or it could mean he wanted to deliver whatever unwelcome news he’d dug up in person, so he could be there to soften the blow.

Sloane wasn’t sure she wanted to know which of those options was correct.

WESTHAMPTON

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

During the summer months, the Hamptons were hopping.

Specialty boutiques and cafés were fil ed with patrons. Yachts sailed the waters, polo matches and wine-tasting events were daily occurrences, and the beaches were jammed with sunbathers. At night, the clubs stayed open until the wee hours, and the wealthy and elite populated their summer cottages, which were, in fact, multimil ion-dol ar vacation homes.

When autumn arrived, everything changed.

The summer residents and vacationers returned to their regular lives and homes, and the Hamptons became less populated and more low-key. The trendy Westhampton shops, one of the summer’s major draws, became the destinations of year-round residents, many of whom were affluent enough to keep the shop owners wel compensated, off-season or not.

One of those long-standing shops was the Richtner Gal ery—a pricey, upscale art gal ery that had been located on Main Street in Westhampton for years. The works displayed there varied from paintings by up-and-coming local artists to paintings created by wel -known modernists, to paintings considered to be one-of-a-kind masterpieces with seven-figure price tags.

There was no doubt that this gal ery was the perfect location for the Black Eagles’ next trial run. And closing time was the perfect hour.

Seven P.M. The browsers were gone. The joggers were home. The dusk was turning to darkness.

Karl Richtner, who’d owned the gal ery since it had opened its doors fifteen years ago, was shutting down for the night.

He locked up his register, made sure al the paintings were properly displayed for the morning browsers, and told his assistant to go home.

She gathered up her purse and coat, and headed with him to the front door. As always, Richtner took out his key ring, ready to activate the burglar alarm and lock the door behind them.

It never happened that night.

The four masked gunmen slammed inside, striking Richtner’s forehead with the heavy glass door and nearly knocking him down. He staggered backward, just as his assistant reached for the alarm pad.

“Don’t,” the leader commanded in his accented English, pointing his MP5K at her. “Or I splatter your guts on the floor.” Both the assistant and Richtner froze.

The leader signaled for his team to get moving.

On his command, two of the other gunmen strode forward, dragged their captives behind the counter, and shoved them to the floor, where they stuffed rags in their mouths and immobilized them with Flex-Cufs. The last gunman rushed by, immediately starting to remove the most valuable paintings from the wal s and easels, readying them for transit. A minute later, the rest of the team joined him.