Chapter Twenty Two

Riley was scared. Of course he was. They were in Raymond’s house, and this wasn’t the safest place for Tania. Raymond ordered the gang to commit insurance fraud, and he would’ve gotten away with it if Tania and Riley weren’t on the scene of the crime the day it happened. Their involvement wasn’t something he planned, and now that they were both within his grasp, he could do anything he wanted to rid himself of this threat.

 

He could kill Tania. He could murder Riley.

 

But of course, they had a trump card up their sleeve: Jason. He was their backup, their hope for escape. Still, Riley wasn’t sure how Raymond would react if he discovered Riley was working with Tania. He wouldn’t take it well.

 

It was important to keep up appearances and, hence, when Raymond emerged from his office, Riley was wearing a furious expression as he gazed at Tania. She, in turn, was looking down.

 

Raymond clapped him on the back. “It seems Tania has a good friend. Jason is willing to exchange the information as long as she remains safe.”

 

Riley smiled. “So he’ll come here?”

 

Raymond shook his head, looking a tad uncertain. Riley could understand his need to maintain control over the situation by doing everything on his own and his inability to trust Riley completely. “He insisted on meeting outside in a public place.”

 

“Oh! I could go meet him and get the papers that he has,” he offered.

 

Of course, Raymond wouldn’t agree to that. Riley had counted on that. He wouldn’t want Riley to get his hands on the evidence that clearly showed Raymond was involved in the explosion. It was a true dilemma for the man, and Riley sure hoped his inability to trust others extended to other members of the club, or else they were screwed.

 

Raymond curled his upper lip. “I think it would be better if I went to talk to him.”

 

Riley frowned. “Is that a good idea? Do you really want to meet him face to face?”

 

“All that matters is that we get the papers away from them.”

 

“What if they have copies?”

 

“Copies won’t stand in a court of law.” He waved his hand. “So here is what we’re going to do. You’ll wait here. I’ll go and meet this man, and when he hands me the papers, I’ll call you. You’ll escort Tania out of the gate and give her the phone so she can talk to Jason. He insisted on that, said that he wouldn’t be comfortable handing over the papers until he was sure Tania was no longer in my custody.”

 

“Damn!” muttered Riley. “So we’ll have to let her go?”

 

“We don’t have a choice. She made a brilliant plan; I’ll give her that,” he said in a furious voice. “But as long as she doesn’t have any evidence, it wouldn’t matter if she were out. And if she does try to go to the police later, we could always take care of her later.”

 

Riley sucked in a deep breath. The man was bloodthirsty. He wouldn’t just stop here. Whenever he got the chance, he would eliminate Tania to avoid the risk of ever getting caught. It wasn’t just enough to scare these people. They needed to put them behind bars. “You could call someone to go with you.”

 

“That Jason guy is Mr. Hollywood. You think he would have the guts to try something on me in plain broad day? I don’t think so. No. This is easy and quick. I go out and collect the papers. You stay here, guard her, and, when the times comes, release her. That’s all we need to do. I trust you, Riley. You brought her in and now you’ve got to see this through.”

 

Riley nodded, hoping his eyes didn’t betray him. “I’ll do it. She will remain in this room and would only move out when you call me.”

 

“Good man!” Raymond clapped him on the back. “Needless to say, when all this is behind us, I would be happy to put your name forward as a member of the board.”

 

“It would be an honor to serve as a high member,” he said in a voice that brimmed with honesty. Of course, there was a time when he wanted this above anything. He needed that prestige, but now all he wanted was to keep Tania safe. One thing, he was happy about: Jason’s idea to fine tune the plan was brilliant. The guy had worked on so many scripts that he sure knew what would work in a given situation. He’d assured them Raymond would do either of two things: he would send Riley out to collect the papers or else he would go on his own. If he’d sent out Riley, Jason would’ve called the man and said he wanted to meet with him personally. But Jason had been confident that Raymond would come himself because he wouldn’t want Riley to get his hands on such key evidence. Out of the two things, Tania and the evidence, the evidence was more precious to him and he would want to keep it in his grasp.

 

“I should leave now. The guy didn’t give much time – seemed eager to get her back. He’s a really good friend.” He wriggled his brow. “It appears she may have been pleasing him in more ways than one.”

 

“It doesn’t matter to me. That part of our story is finished,” he said in a calm voice.

 

“Good for you, Riley. That’s what I like about you. Your priorities are clear.” Raymond glanced at Tania and then checked his watch. “I should go. Take care.”

 

After Raymond left, Riley waited until he heard the sound of the car driving off. He rushed to the window and checked to make sure he had, indeed, left. Now, there was much work to do. Raymond was a paranoid man and didn’t employ any domestic help for fear they would betray him. Thankfully, this meant they didn’t have to worry about prying eyes.

 

Tania rushed out to join him. “Check his study first.”

 

Out of his pocket, Riley pulled two pairs of gloves and passed one to her. “This is going to take some time.”

 

“Let’s hope Jason can keep him occupied until then.”

 

Their plan hinged on Raymond going on and leaving them at his house. They needed to get the papers from his safe. “There has to be a safe,” he muttered as they marched towards the room where Raymond had gone to talk to Jason. As expected, it was his study. The safe was nowhere to be seen.

 

For a moment, Riley was nonplussed. Where were the papers? He wouldn’t have kept them anywhere else! He didn’t trust anyone and would want to keep everything important in his possession. Riley’s gaze traveled to the walls while Tania checked the drawers and cabinets. She looked at the files and folders.

 

“This isn’t anything we can use.”

 

Riley’s gaze settled on the painting that dominated a wall. Raymond wasn’t an art lover, but this print of Van Gogh’s panting was, indeed, beautiful. He doubted the man as much as glanced at it once a day. Walking over, he took down the painting. “Bingo!” he said when saw the safe.

 

“How will you open it?”

 

He took out an electronic device from his pocket. Once more, it was courtesy of Jason who had used it in a movie once. Although it wasn’t available on the market, it was a custom made prop and was in Jason’s possession; he liked to hold onto them – they gave him a feeling of prestige. “Jason showed me. I just hope it works.” Riley had never done anything like this in his life. He put the device on top of the combination bar. It was a simple safe that needed a four-letter combination. After switching on the device, he punched a button and numbers and letters sprang to life. It was some kind of a mini computer that tried to crack the code. If the safe were manual, he had a set of keys in his pocket that could open it, but he’d guessed that Raymond was the kind of man who would need the highest security in his office. He wouldn't like a manual thing.

 

Within three minutes, the computer guessed the code and the safe clicked open. Riley pulled the door and saw the sheaf of papers. He took them out and passed on half to Tania. “Read them to see which are relevant.”

 

Quickly, they went through the papers. Tania was excited. “There is more here. They have done this before. See here and here.”

 

“Grab this all,” he decided. “It wouldn’t hurt to present this to the police.”

 

Tania gathered the papers. Taking out a folder from Raymond’s desk, she put everything in it. “Now what?”

 

“Now we wait for his call.”

 

“Are you crazy?”

 

He laughed. “Now we get out, of course. I’ll call Jason and tell him to skedaddle from that place.”

 

“It wouldn’t take Raymond long to figure out that Jason was lying, that he never had any evidence to hand out,” she said.

 

“And then he would wonder as to why we went through this hassle.” Carefully, he closed the safe and put the painting back. He took a look around to see if anything was out of place. “He would come here and we would be gone. He would come in this room and everything would look all right.”

 

“Do you think he would open the safe to see if his precious evidence was locked inside?”

 

Riley led her out of the room and closed the door. He put a hand on the small of her back as they went out. Opening the main door, he stepped outside. “Paranoid as he is, he would surely check.”

 

“I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack.” She sat in the car. Riley joined her. “I sure would like to see the look on his face when the police arrest him.”

 

“We’ll meet him in court,” Riley assured her. Once they were out of his house, he called Jason. “The work is done. Get out of there.”

 

“Right,” said Jason.

 

Riley wondered what excuse he would give Raymond for walking away from the meeting. He didn’t care. They were home free, and they had enough evidence in their hands to nail Raymond and the whole gang. The man trusted no one and, yet, he was the one who ended up betraying his club. Because of his carelessness, he would send them all to jail. They all deserved the fate. Riley might’ve forgiven them for blowing up that place, but not for trying to kill Tania. Now, they would pay the price for it. He didn’t mind.“We should go straight to the police station.”

 

“We need to first see Jason and show him this. He will guide us. And if he goes with us to the station, it would be great. The police would take him seriously,” said Tania.

 

Soon they reached Jason’s house. The maid let them in; Jason wasn’t home yet. When he didn’t come in, Riley began to worry. What the hell? Where was he?

 

Just as he picked up his phone to call, the front door opened and in walked Jason.

 

He was carrying a bottle of champagne in his hand. “Time to celebrate, my friends.”

 

“You moron! We were worried.” Tania ran to hug him. “We got him.”

 

“We sure did.” Jason grinned. He shook hands with Riley. “Did it go according to plan?”

 

“As smooth as making pie,” he assured him. “What about you? What did you tell him after I called?”

 

“I sad that I was going to the bathroom, and he should order coffee. He didn’t seem happy but since I was the one who was supposedly carrying the evidence, he didn’t have much choice.”

 

“We got him good,” said Tania.

 

Riley laughed. “I wonder how long he waited there, and when he realized you’re gone for good…”

 

“He would rush home and get another shock,” said Jason.

 

He put the bottle down on the bar and opened it. “This was exhilarating, to say the least. For the first time in my life, I actually dealt with a gangster. Before this, movies and books…it wasn’t real.”

 

“Well, I can only hope that I never get embroiled in such a thing ever again,” Tania said as she accepted a glass of champagne. “I have to admit I was scared.”

 

Riley ran a hand over her cheek. “You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

 

It wasn’t true, though. This wasn’t over as yet, not by a long shot. Raymond wasn’t the kind of man who admitted defeat so easily, and especially now when he was made a fool of, he wouldn’t just sit back and let it go. He would do his utmost to destroy them. But now Riley was ready. He would do whatever was necessary to protect the woman he loved.