15

THE PLAN

We decide to set up a base of operations at Jordan’s apartment. My house is too hot, especially since we aren’t sure what plans Grant has with Tara and the FBI, and Riker took over my apartment lease when I got married, so you already have an idea about the quality of living space there.

I’m not sure where Oz lives. Which is weird, now that I think about it. I wouldn’t put it past him to sleep in a new location every night—a drifter without ties, a man on the run. The drama is nice, but he probably just crashes on Jordan’s couch. It’s pretty comfortable, and she has about eighty throw pillows, so it always feels like falling into a cloud.

I could use a cloud right now. Clouds and rainbows and an ironclad plan of vengeance—in no particular order.

Actually, there is a particular order. I’m starting with vengeance.

“When we find Grant, I’m the one who gets to punch him. I know there are some here who maybe want to take a swing”—I shoot a very obvious gaze toward Riker—“but let’s get that out of the way right now. I call dibs.”

“You can’t call dibs on hitting someone,” Riker says, though he’s not nearly as upset at being denied first blood as I’d expected. “There could be extenuating circumstances. What if I have to take him out from behind?”

“Then you tackle him, pin his arms back, and hold him for me. Let’s not argue over details. The point is that I want to be the one to hurt him. Agreed?”

Riker nods. “Fair enough.”

I feel better now that we have everything settled, but Jordan coughs discreetly. “I hate to ruin this moment, but is there an actual plan for finding Grant? You know, before we start tearing him limb from limb?”

“Um, that’s where things might get complicated,” I say. I have no idea where Grant is or where he might be heading with Tara. The obvious answer—somewhere inside the Federal Bureau—doesn’t make sense, because the necklace was in their possession to begin with, and he could have taken it to them at any time.

Which means, of course, that it’s time to face reality. It’s cold, it’s hard, and it’s been staring me in the face far too long to feign ignorance any longer.

Grant has finally discovered the whereabouts of my dad’s fortune. It’s the one thing he’s never bothered to hide his interest in, the one thing he values more than his stupid job, and the one thing that’s kept him married to me all this time. Unfortunately, I have no idea how the necklace or Tara tie in to his plans. Believe me—if Tara knew where that money was, she’d have ferreted it out years ago.

“Complicated as in he’s hiding behind a government desk, or complicated as in you don’t know?” Jordan asks.

“The second one,” Riker answers for me. It’s not a very helpful answer, especially since I don’t hear him offering an opinion of his own, but Jordan accepts it in good form.

“So what happens next?” she asks.

“Easy,” I say. “We just need to consider all the possibilities and get rid of the least likely ones.”

That’s another one of my dad’s favorite maxims. If you can’t figure out the best way in, find all the worst ones instead. It’s a fancy way to describe the process of elimination, but then, he liked to make things a lot more complicated than they really were.

As the current situation attests. Like it would have been that hard for him to hide our money in a Swiss bank account like normal thieves.

Riker frowns. “Sure thing, Pen. We’ll work our way through every possible hiding place in New York and work outward from there.”

That makes for a second not-very-helpful answer, and I’m starting to get sick of it. He’s been like this since I outlined the whole sordid tale back at my house. I was prepared for triumph and gloating—this was the ultimate opportunity for him to lay on the I told you so—but this brooding sarcasm is a bit much, even for him.

“It’s not like we’re without resources,” I say. What we need right now are plans, not arguments. “Riker, you have all your secret underworld connections—surely someone saw or heard something about Tara in the past few days. She’s the least inconspicuous person of all time. Start asking around to see where she’s been and who she’s been talking to. If she’s on the trail of my dad’s money, you can bet someone has noticed.”

Oz and Jordan nod their agreement, but Riker maintains his stony front. I choose to ignore it.

“Oz, you should start hanging around the Whiskey Room under one of your aliases. See if you can pick up any chatter from the feds about Grant or Tara or the necklace. Something this big isn’t likely to go unnoticed, and you know how much those guys talk once they’ve had a few drinks.”

Oz, ever the trooper, nods in agreement. All that’s left is Jordan’s expectant air. Her willingness to follow me to the earth’s ends is evident in the gentle arches of her brows. “And me?”

“You and I are going to take a little trip to Paulson Jewelers.”

Her eyes drop to the infinity necklace that’s still against my sternum. I almost ripped it off and tossed it out the window on the way over here, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I needed that particular piece of jewelry. Not because I was feeling sentimental about Grant—God, no—but because it gave me strength.

This is the lie he told you. This is the promise he never meant to fulfill.

I would need to hold onto that anger until we caught him. Maybe even longer. Something would have to keep me warm at night once this was through.

“Remember the day I came over to ask if Grant could poison me with this chain?” I ask, waiting only for Jordan’s nod to keep going. “How I said it felt like he was toying with me, like he was actively trying to get me to take the diamond necklace from the safe?”

I wish I’d done it, now. We might be banished to a tropical island somewhere, on the run and wanted by Interpol, but at least I would have been safe in the knowledge that I was the one inflicting pain on my spouse.

If wishes were diamonds and all that… I shake myself back to attention.

“I think it’s because he was trying to get me to steal the necklace. He said something along those lines back at the house—about how his first choice refused to take the bait, so he was forced to turn to Tara as a backup plan. I was the first choice. He wanted me to do his dirty work, taking the necklace and leaving a trail of evidence behind. He was throwing that necklace at me every chance he got.”

“But his backup plan for what?” Jordan asks. “If he wanted us to have it so bad, he could have let us get away with it in the first place.”

“That’s what we need to find out,” I say. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either, but one thing I know for sure: I won’t rest until I have all the answers. “I’m wondering how much Paulson’s might be in on it. Maybe they arranged the introduction between Erica Dupont and the FBI in the first place. Maybe Grant had them put a tracker on the necklace.”

“It doesn’t have a tracker.” Riker is perfectly rigid. Usually, when Riker’s overcome with emotion, he detonates with it. This quiet internalization, this turning off, is unlike him.

“It doesn’t?” I ask. “Did you inspect it?”

The shake of his head is so small it’s almost imperceptible.

“Was it a trap to arrest us, then? Catch us red-handed so we’re forced to tell him what we know?”

That doesn’t make sense, either, because Grant’s had countless opportunities to do that over the past year and a half. So why this? Why now? What is it about that stupid necklace that causes the men in my life to act like incomprehensible beasts?

I ask a milder version of that last question out loud, but Riker just shakes his head, unable to meet my eyes.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I ask. My voice grows sharper as I fall further out of my depth. “Was there a clue in that necklace about where my dad hid the treasure?”

“Not exactly.”

If my voice was sharp before, it’s like a dagger now. “What do you mean, not exactly?”

He sighs so deeply, it feels as though he’s dredging up the very bottom of his soul. “The necklace is just a stepping stone, Pen. It’s a bribe.”

Bribes are something I understand, but not necessarily in this context. “Okay, so it’s a two-million-dollar bribe. I still don’t understand what that has to do with him trying to get me to steal it. It’s not like he can bribe me with it.”

Jordan’s hand on my arm stills me from saying more. “What did you do?” she asks.

Well, for starters, I was born. From there, it’s a choose-your-own-adventure of mishaps and questionable choices.

But she isn’t talking to me.

“Riker,” she repeats gently. “What did you do?”

The quiet internalization is done. He stands up with a twitchy jerk of his legs, and his eyes cast over the room—couch and table, lamps and chairs, anywhere but the three of us. “It’s Pen’s fault. It was her decision. Her choice.”

I want to get up and start twitching myself, but I’m not sure my arms or legs will work the way I’d like them to right now. There’s too much going on inside my body—cold and hot, foreboding and anticipation. All of it jumbles up and renders me immobile. What, exactly, is going on here?

“None of this would have happened if she’d just grabbed the necklace when she had the chance. I gave her the opportunity. I told her we could make a run for it.”

The fact that he’s talking about me in the third person, as if I’m not here, isn’t doing much to make me feel better. Then his gaze zeroes in on mine, making me the complete focus of his attention and anguish, and I realize that I much preferred the Riker who couldn’t look me in the eye.

I’m not sure I’ve seen him this angry before. At me, at himself, at a world that doesn’t seem to care what becomes of us.

“I told you I had a buyer lined up for that necklace—I told you he was keenly interested in that particular piece and that he was willing to pay so much, no questions asked.” His voice rises in pitch. “You didn’t ask any questions, either. Remember that?”

He’s mad at me because I trusted him to tend to the details? “I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Oz says, though he doesn’t bother to fill in the gaps.

“It was supposed to be a surprise, Pen. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, because I know how much this means to you, but Blackrock offered more than money for that necklace.” He winces, and a similar pain clenches my heart. “I told you he’s powerful. He is. He’s also connected. And he knows things—about the failed heist, about your dad, about you…information no one could possibly have access to.”

Oz’s grunt of confirmation is the only thing that pulls me back from the swirling black in my periphery.

“He told you about my dad? He knows what happened to him?”

“It looks that way. When I cut the deal, I made that information part of the payout. All we had to do was hand over the necklace, and he’d tell us everything he knew.” Riker swallows heavily. “There’s no way Grant could get anywhere near Blackrock on his own, not even with the necklace, but with you or Tara to grease the wheels…”

My world isn’t black now so much as it’s an explosion of colors—blocks of red and orange. I’m on my feet, dizzy with outrage, tempted to tackle Riker to the floor and demand justice.

I thought, a few hours ago, that I couldn’t feel any worse than I did when my husband betrayed me.

I was wrong. Grant is my enemy, my foe, and I’ve always known that our life together has an expiration date. It’s the only reason I’ve been able to stay married as long as I have. Knowing he’s going to leave, knowing he’s only on loan to me until life inevitably rips him away, is all that’s saved me from losing my head and my heart.

But Riker? He’s my friend. He’s my family. He’s the one constant in a life that’s been anything but.

“And you never told me? You never thought that might be something I’d want to know ahead of time?”

It’s hard for me to make sense of everything right now, but the underlying cadence is loud and clear. Your father, the failed heist, your father, the failed heist. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted—to discover what happened, to understand how things fell apart so tragically.

Riker knows that. He knows, and he was in the same room with someone who has answers, but his need to be the Man in Charge is so strong that he didn’t even mention it to me.

“You bastard. You selfish, single-minded, goddamn—”

“No.” He whirls on me, and I can tell that his anger doesn’t just match my own—it exceeds it. “You don’t get to be mad at me for this, Pen. You had the necklace, you had the opportunity to take it, and you decided not to sully yourself with what I had to offer. And now Grant gets to sell the necklace instead. He gets to find the answers in your place.”

“Riker, maybe now isn’t the time…” Jordan attempts to intervene, but not even her diplomacy can save us. There’s no coming down from this moment. Not even if you tossed us into a bomb shelter and let us finish each other off once and for all.

I cross the room in a flash, and my hands are against his chest—hitting, shoving, trying to make a dent that equals the one inside my chest. “You had no right to keep that information from me. You did it on purpose. You wanted to hurt me. You hate that I might have found happiness without you.”

Riker grabs my wrists—the poor wrists Grant has already weakened—and I’m forced to stop. He pulls me close, within hugging distance, but this embrace contains no affection. His rigidity equals my own, his anger intertwined with mine.

“No. I stepped back and let you choose, just like you asked me to. It was the necklace or your fancy new life. It was me or him.” His voice is so quiet that I have to strain to hear him over the rush of blood through my veins. “But you picked him. You always pick him. You always have.”

He lets go so suddenly that I catapult backward and hit the floor with a thud. I’m dizzy with the fall and emotion, with outrage and something more. But Riker doesn’t make a move to help me up, and neither does Jordan or Oz. For over a year and a half now, I’ve chased Grant in the pursuit of answers, and this is what happened. I’m broken down. I’m alone.

I rub my wrists—more in a symbolic gesture than actual pain—and Jordan softens. She extends a hand.

“Oh dear,” she says. “What do we do now?”

Neither Riker nor I are able to look at each other, which is just as well, because there’s nothing I could possibly say to him that would capture a fraction of what I’m feeling. Because even though I’m mad at Riker—furious, actually, more than I was when Grant tied me to a chair—I know he’s right.

I did pick Grant. I did turn my back on our friendship. And, if given the same opportunity again, I’m not sure I’d choose differently. Even with Grant just on loan to me, even with our lies the only thing holding us together, I’ve found more contentment in the life we share than in all my wanderings with Riker.

I always wondered if Riker was aware of it. Now, I’m sure.

I slump to the couch again, no longer feeling the clouds’ embrace. The couch is just fabric and wood and cushions, perfectly ordinary materials lumped together to hold me aloft. For the first time, I can see everything that way. Not as metaphors and wishes, not as what-if scenarios and dreams. My life is exactly what I made it.

A mess.

Silence threatens to hold us in place for hours, but none of us makes a move to break it. Which is why it makes sense when Oz is the one who finally speaks up. The man who rarely speaks is the only one who can.

“I don’t see what the big deal is.” He shrugs. “There’s information to buy and a necklace to buy it with. All we need to do is steal the necklace back.”