22

THE STAKEOUT

(Present Day)

“I can’t take it anymore,” I announce. Tossing the binoculars that have branded permanent rings around my eyes, I unlock the car door and leap out. The air smells like the back alley we’re currently parked in, but I embrace it as I might a fresh ocean breeze. “I have to know what’s happening in there. I’m going in.”

Riker tries to reach across the console and pull me back into the passenger’s seat, but I’m fueled by energy drinks and boredom—a lethal combination under the best of circumstances. And these circumstances definitely aren’t the best. I’ve been sitting in this car since yesterday afternoon, performing what can only amount to a stakeout in front of a seedy New Jersey motel, waiting for Tara and Grant to make their move.

As it turns out, there are some things I enjoy less than being crammed inside an air vent for hours on end. Sitting in a car with a man who won’t even look at me is one of them.

“I’ll just burst in to room 283, wave a gun, and demand that they give me the goods,” I say, being careful to keep my glance at least a foot above Riker’s head. I made the mistake of eye contact early on in our adventure, and he punished me by not talking for a full five hours. My ears are still ringing from the silence. “They do it in movies all the time. How hard can it be?”

He snorts his derision. “Considering Grant is probably packing and knows how badly you shoot? Very.”

I kick the tire, but it doesn’t make me feel better.

“Get back in the car,” Riker says. “They’ll see you.”

“No, they won’t, because I don’t think they’re in there. We haven’t even seen a curtain move.”

“Maybe they’re busy doing…other things.”

I kick the tire again, this time hard enough to send a jolt of pain up my big toe. “Don’t start, Riker. I’m not in the mood.”

“Yeah, well, neither am I. It’s not like I asked you to come with me in the first place. I wanted to do this alone.”

I allow my gaze to drop the twelve inches necessary to look at him and immediately wish I hadn’t. The long day and even longer night of sitting in stiff agony beside me have taken their toll on him. His hair is greasy and hangs limply in his eyes. Dark circles give him a haunted, hunted look. He’s a mere shadow of his sharp, cocky self, and there’s no one to blame for it but me.

“Riker—” I begin, but I don’t know what to say.

Riker does, though. He sticks to business—always business. It’s the only thing we have left.

“Jordan and Oz should be here to relieve us within the next few hours,” he says, his tone clipped. “If there hasn’t been any movement by that time, we can talk about a new plan.”

I won’t last a few more hours. Grant and Tara are within arm’s reach, and the necklace with them, but instead of marching up to their room and demanding answers, I’m forced to sit here and simmer in hostile silence. We can’t move until we know what we’re dealing with, and we can’t find out what we’re dealing with until they move.

The inaction is killing me. Or maybe the tension is. At this point, I can’t really tell.

A glimmer of movement across the street catches my attention, and I latch onto it like it’s a safety line. “Hey—I think I see someone.”

At first, I assume the familiarly tall and gaunt man lurking near the bulletproof motel clerk’s booth is Oz in yet another flawless disguise, but the figure rounds the corner and disappears as quickly as he arrived. I’m disappointed, but not for long, since a matronly woman in scrubs pushes a cart by a few seconds later.

“There’s a cleaning lady!” I snap my fingers to get Riker’s attention.

He leans his head across the console. “So?”

“She’s making her rounds.”

“I can see that.”

“You know who does a really good job of coming and going inside a motel without getting noticed?”

He jolts up in his seat, all his sullen severity gone in a flash. “Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it.”

“But that cart of dirty linens looks awfully roomy…”

“No.”

“You could distract her with your charm to give me enough time to hop in.”

“Pen, no.”

“I won’t even try to get out to investigate, I swear. It’ll be strict recon only, in and out with no one the wiser. Even if Grant and Tara turn her away at the door, it’ll at least give me a chance to confirm whether they’re in there.”

Riker’s lips form the word no again, but then he stops. “Actually, that’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“It’s not? I mean—of course it’s not. If your information is wrong and they’re not in there, we’re wasting our time. It’s only logical. We should have done this hours ago.”

“Don’t oversell it,” he says dryly. “I already agreed.”

I immediately clamp my mouth shut and do my best not to set him off in another downward spiral. I don’t think I could survive another one.

He slides out of the car and surveys the situation across the street. The lone cleaning woman seems to be the only one working, so her progress is necessarily slow, giving him ample time to concoct a plan of action.

Riker has always been good at this part—seeing the big picture before breaking down a scene into its constituent parts—and today is no different. “Okay. This should be pretty straightforward. I’m going to pull her away by asking her to check out a flooding issue near the ice machine. That should give you time to sneak up from that ledge above the garbage.”

I see at least four other ways I could access her cart, including walking up the stairs like a normal human being. But it’s obvious that Riker wants to punish me by making me climb on top of garbage cans, so I nod.

“You’ll have to empty at least half of the towels before you jump in.” He casts a cynical eye over me. “She’ll notice the added weight. You haven’t been running.”

This time, nodding and playing nice costs me the top layer of enamel on my molars. It’s true—I haven’t put in my requisite three miles in days—but in case he failed to remember, I’ve been dealing with the necklace and infidelity and being tied to chairs.

“As soon as you get to the end of that hall, I’ll pull her away again so you can get out,” Riker continues. “Under no circumstances will you leave that bin any earlier, understand?”

Oh, I understand all right. There will be no overreacting to events beyond my comprehension. No trusting my own instincts to see me through. Never mind that the cleaning lady was my idea; when it comes to the details of the job, it’s Riker’s way or no way.

“I mean it,” he adds firmly. “No matter what’s going on in there, you stay put. I don’t care if the necklace is sitting on the floor within your reach. Leave it there.”

If it’s sitting on the floor within reach, then Grant and Tara are obviously not to be trusted with it for any length of time, but I don’t say so out loud. That’s not the point Riker is trying to make. The point is loud and clear and ringing in my ears.

He doesn’t think I can do anything without him standing a few feet away, directing my every movement. He treats me the same way he always has—like a lost, wandering fifteen-year-old who can’t take a step without him.

I’m suddenly exhausted by it—by all of it: walking a tightrope whenever he’s around, struggling to gain his approval, carrying the weight of my choices around my neck as some kind of penance I can remove only with his blessing. In many ways, Riker became my whole world when my dad disappeared, the only person I could rely on to stand by me when everyone else erased me from their memory.

I love him for that, and I think a part of me always will. But I haven’t liked him—not in the way a friend should be liked—for a lot longer than is fair to either of us.

“You know what?” I say. “No. I don’t agree to those terms.”

He just looks at me. His right-side scowl is in place, but his eyes are more hurt than angry.

“I’m going to head up there and make an assessment based on my experience and intelligence. I’m going to hide in a laundry basket to gather data, and then I’m going to use that data to make an informed decision about whether it’s safe for me to exit said basket.”

He snorts. “Right. An informed decision.”

“Jesus Christ, Riker. Can you even hear yourself right now?”

“Yes. I have ears. I sound like a man who’s trying to help a friend. A friend who, I might add, doesn’t appreciate it in the slightest.”

I know he’s hurting. I know he’s been through a lot these past few weeks. And I know he could easily start the car and drive away, leaving me to deal with this mess on my own. It’s a testament to his value as a human being that he doesn’t.

But I’m hurting, too.

“Do you know why I always choose Grant instead of you?” I ask. “Here’s a hint—it has nothing to do with the sex.”

The angry red flush that covers his face isn’t much of an answer, but I run with it anyway. See, the problem with Riker and me is that we never moved past being angry kids together. Everything between us has been drama and angst, emotions left to simmer until they boil over. We never learned to interact as adults, and we never got to see each other grow up. We’ve been too busy running laps around this Neverland of our own making.

“From the day I met him, Grant has treated me as an equal,” I say. “His equal. It doesn’t matter that he’s an FBI agent and I’m a thief. He doesn’t care that I lie and cheat and steal to get my way, because he’ll lie and cheat and steal right back. That’s what equals do.”

Riker raises a hand as if to keep the words back. “He’s walking perfection. I get it. You don’t have to keep going.”

But I do. Now that I’m going, I’m not sure I can stop. “I know it seems wrong, to think that an FBI agent could respect me, but he does—and that’s something you’ve never done, not even when I bail you out of debt or pull off incredible heists. He sees me as his enemy, yes, but an enemy worth engaging. An enemy worth his time and effort—an enemy he’ll tie to a chair to keep from getting in his way, because he believes in me enough to know I can.”

“You want me to tie you up, Pen? Is that it?”

In that moment, he probably would. But it wouldn’t be for the right reasons, as strange as that sounds. He wouldn’t tie me down to stop me from stealing a necklace or going up against him in battle—he would hold me down, keep me back, prevent me from growing enough to stop needing him the way he needs me.

“I’ve always been a sad, scared little girl to you,” I say. “All alone in the world, able to steal anything you ask but without a lick of common sense.”

That gets me a ghost of a smile, so thin it’s almost transparent. “You never did have any.”

“I know.”

“I was just trying to protect you.”

I know that, too. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me over the years, Riker. I really do. There were times…”

But I don’t need to tell him. He was there. He knows how many times he was the only thing keeping me alive.

I soften. “At some point, we have to accept that we’re not kids anymore. We’re not fighting for survival, and it’s not us against the world. There’s nothing to protect me from anymore. You did it. You won. You saved me.”

I’ve never said the words out loud before, and the truth in them causes my throat to tighten. Riker is—was—my salvation. That fact will always be the basis of our past, but it can’t be the basis of our future. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

“You saved me,” I echo, quieter this time. “Now don’t you think it’s time we focus on saving you?”

Riker doesn’t move. He continues looking in the distance, his attention concentrated across the street. But I know he registers my comment, because I hear him say, “And how do you suggest we do that?” in a low voice.

I don’t have the answer, so it’s just as well that he nods toward the cleaning lady. “If we don’t move soon, we’re going to miss our window of opportunity,” he says. He takes a deep breath and faces me. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing, Pen.”

“I don’t,” I say truthfully. And that’s going to have to be good enough for us both.

* * *

After today, I’m going to have to add musty, used towels to my list of Unpleasant Smells to Be Trapped With. Based on the aesthetics of this particular motel, it doesn’t cater to a high-end crowd, and that fact shows in the linens forming my cocoon. The one underneath me is wet enough that it leaves a trail of drips behind the cart, while one wedged uncomfortably near my nasal passage seems to have been used to wash a skunk.

But I’m in, and other than an, “Oy, this is getting heavy,” the cleaning woman hasn’t noticed an extra passenger on her journey.

Based on my count of stops along the way, we should be approaching room 283 now, and I can feel the wheels bump over a crack in the sidewalk just outside the door. A knock and the sound of “housekeeping” send me into a deerlike state of immobility—which is just as well, because Grant’s rumbling voice is enough to set any woman running.

“We don’t need any cleaning—” he begins before cutting himself off. Panicking, I wonder if he can see my human-shaped lump inside this bag and plans to wheel me on a short path down a dark stairwell. Then I remember that he laughed outright at the idea of me hiding underneath our bathroom sink, and this is a much smaller space. “Actually, we could use a quick run-through,” he amends. “Come on in.”

She hesitates before pushing the cart over the threshold. “I could come back later,” she says.

Oh God. Is it because she’s facing a den of vice, a love nest among the bedbugs? Is the cleaning woman of one of the most squalid motels ever to grace a dirty street horrified by the depravity spread out before her?

“You’re already here. We’ll do our best to stay out of your way.”

“What’s that?” Tara’s voice sounds over what must be a blow-dryer.

So. Showering has happened in some form or another. That’s not troublesome. Not troublesome at all.

“Housekeeping is here,” Grant says.

“Oh, good. We need more towels.”

The cart rattles as I presume the cleaning lady hands a stack of fresh towels to my stepmother. I really hope Tara’s wearing more than one at the moment. I bet she looks fantastic in a towel.

“How can you possibly need more?” Grant asks. “They stocked the bathroom with twelve.”

“Um…I just took a shower?”

“And you used all twelve?”

“I used my half of the twelve, yes. So now I need more.”

Grant’s grunt of irritation penetrates my canvas walls. Since his mom is a nurse, he has this thing about putting an additional burden on women who spend all day working on their feet. “Can’t you just hang them up and let them dry? We won’t be here much longer.”

“That’s what you think. I warned you how it would be. You can’t expect these guys to trust you immediately. This situation has ‘sting’ written all over it.” A pause. “You know, you could just give it to me and let me handle the transaction for you.”

“No.”

“I’m sure Blackrock won’t object to seeing me alone.”

“No.”

“I’m not going to take it!” Tara insists. “I want to find out where Warren hid that money just as much as you do.”

Warren. Thunk. My heart turns to lead inside my chest, and I’m suddenly suffocating underneath these disgusting towels. The one nice thing about being abandoned as a teenager and finding your own way in this world is that few people want to talk about your parents. The people who raised you have no bearing on the harsh realities of street life, so they’re rarely mentioned. And anyone who did know about my dad usually had professional ties, so they referred to him as the Blue Fox rather than by name.

Hearing it now is like having him conjured in front of me. Warren: a fox, burrowing inside dark and warm places to avoid being caught. Warren: a man so obsessed with his own talents, he ended up dying in pursuit of the next big thing.

Warren: a father.

The cart rolls deeper into the room, which I assume means our cleaning lady has moved on to the bathroom. For a moment, I’m afraid—and almost grateful—that this will take me out of earshot, but even though the cleaning lady seems to have disappeared, I’m closer to the conversation. I think I might be wedged between them.

“I already told you how this is going to work,” Grant says. “You follow my lead. You go where I say. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll see that you get fairly compensated.”

Tara makes a huffing noise that perfectly captures her displeasure. That’s the Tara I remember—the one who liked things her way or not at all. “Technically, I’m the one with the most rights to that money. I was his wife.”

The sudden pressure of Grant’s leg against my hiding spot is the only thing that prevents me from springing out of the laundry basket and pulling out all her hair. That tiny bit of contact—my husband so close, I can feel him—works as a balm on my soul. It’s corny, but there’s no other way to describe it.

Grant soothes me. Grant makes me feel like there’s more to life than bouncing frantically between jobs in search of something that doesn’t exist.

“Forgive me if I disagree,” he says. The pressure increases, though this time I suspect it’s building inside my chest. “Penelope has the most rights.”

Tara laughs, but it’s a forced, unnatural sound. “Of course she does—that’s what I meant. We can split it three ways. I’ve always wanted to do more for her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you do more for her?” Grant repeats carefully. “To hear her tell the story, you walked out on a fifteen-year-old who’d just lost the only person she had. Seems a little cold, if you ask me.”

I squeak. I can’t help it. Since the other reaction bubbling up inside me is a rallying cheer, the squeak seems like a reasonable alternative.

The cart rattles in reply, and I feel pressure from above, heavy and consistent. Grant is leaning on it—on me.

“It wasn’t that simple,” Tara says.

“No?”

“No.” Her voice is defensive, stiff. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Penelope can be…difficult to live with.”

The cart shakes with his laughter. “I noticed,” Grant says.

“It might be funny to you, but remember, I was little more than a kid myself at the time. Irresponsible and fun-loving and yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but in love. I grieved over his loss, too.”

Bullshit. The only grief she felt was the loss of my father’s income.

“I had no idea what I was supposed to do with her after Warren died,” Tara continues. “Or before, if I’m being honest. That girl hated me—right from the start, with the kind of hatred you can feel, deep down—and of course she blamed me for his disappearance. He was supposed to retire after we got married, did you know that? We were going to settle down, find a place where we could lay low and figure out how to be a family together.”

A family? A family?

“Wouldn’t that have been something?” She releases her signature low-throated laugh, but it’s brittle around the edges. “Me, a mom. Sometimes, I think Warren did us all a favor by dying when he did.”

At that, Grant’s knee pushes harder into me, deliberate and focused where it lands. With a barely stifled jerk, I realize he knows I’m in here. The nearness, the touching, the comfort—it’s on purpose. I’m not sure whether I did something to give my position away or if he simply knows me too well, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s having this conversation for my benefit.

He wants me to hear this. He wanted me to find him.

Understanding grabs hold of me, clenching my stomach from the inside. Everything that’s happening is part of his plan. It’s why he tied me up and taunted me, why he set up the necklace scam in the first place. Whatever he’s trying to do, I’m meant to be a part of it.

“I begged him not to go after that stupid necklace in the first place,” Tara adds.

“You did?” Grant’s surprise equals my own. I’d always been sure it was her greed that drove him to take the unnecessary risk. “You weren’t in on it?”

“Not at all. Warren didn’t want me to help, since he was getting it for Pen.” She pauses long enough for me to think that’s the end of the conversation, but she keeps going. “It’s not like he needed money or anything. It had to do with her mother, a legacy he felt she was owed. Penelope was having such a hard time adjusting to us being married, to the idea that she wasn’t her dad’s one and only anymore. He thought having a physical tie to her mom would help.”

“Huh. Penelope has always made her mom seem like a big mystery. I wasn’t aware she knew anything about her.”

I didn’t. I don’t. I can’t breathe in here, and I think I might have just grabbed Grant’s leg through the canvas.

“Well, I don’t know anything, either, so stop looking at me like I’m the bad guy in this story. I did the best I could under the circumstances. If you want to blame someone, blame Warren. The Dupont mansion has so many security cameras and alarms—it’s practically a fortress. The Mint was easy by comparison, but he wanted Penelope to have her mother’s necklace, so he went against all advice to get it. And then he disappeared, leaving me with a surly teenager who couldn’t stand the sight of me. I know I should have done more and tried harder to take care of her, but I didn’t know how. She wouldn’t let me. If it helps, Penelope is ten times the thief I’ll ever be, even back then. I knew she’d be fine.”

“Wait a minute—backtrack there a second,” Grant says. He leans over the cart, but I barely register the movement. I’m too afraid to shift, even more afraid to breathe. I’m not fine. I’m not fine at all. “Are you saying it was her mother’s necklace?”

“Yeah, it was some kind of family heirloom. The Duponts disowned Liliana when she married Warren, and they blamed him for her death. They wouldn’t have anything to do with Penelope unless he relinquished his paternal rights and promised never to contact her again, which, of course, he’d have never done. He adored that girl.”

“Are you telling me Penelope is related to the Duponts?”

There’s a thump from a few feet away, and the sound of footsteps signals the cleaning woman’s return. I’m horrified that I might miss this next part—wheeled out before I have a chance to hear the ending to this awful tale—but Grant commands the woman to wait in that stern, authoritarian voice few have the guts to withstand. He turns it to Tara next.

“What exactly is her relationship to Erica?”

“She’s her granddaughter. I assumed… Didn’t Pen tell you? I always thought it was odd that she didn’t turn to Erica for help after Warren disappeared. I assumed it was part of her prickly nature. That girl has never been happy unless she’s plunged in the middle of a convoluted mess.”

The pressure of Grant’s leg disappears even as my mind screams in protest. Turn to Erica for help? I was supposed to have been saved by a woman I didn’t know existed?

“No,” he says, his voice distant. “No, she never said.”

“That’s Pen for you. God forbid she forms an actual connection with another human being. Well—with the exception of that delicious little friend of hers. What’s his name? Biker? Striker?”

“Riker.” Grant’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.

“That’s it! Riker.” She laughs. “Uh-oh. I see that’s not a subject you care to talk about. I’ll stop.”

“They’re just friends,” he says flatly.

“I’m sure they are.”

“He was all she had when you and her dad left.”

“Not all she had,” Tara reminds him. “He must be something special if she gave up the Duponts for him. You know what they say. Like mother, like daughter.”

She’s wrong. She’s wrong. I didn’t know Riker at the time. I didn’t know my grandmother. The only person I gave up was Tara, and based on this conversation, it’s a decision I’d make a thousand times over again.

Grant releases a violent curse. “She promised me there was nothing between them. She said she didn’t have anyone else.”

“And of course Penelope has never lied to you.”

I never lied about the things that matter, I want to cry, but I can’t. Not because I’m hiding, but because I’m not sure it’s the truth anymore. Not about whether I lied—there’s no denying that—but whether the things I lied about mattered. It was supposed to be harmless, all those games Grant and I played. Keeping secrets, tiptoeing around our true motivations, pretending to be happy together. As long as we were both in on it, no one could get hurt.

But I hurt. I hurt so much, I can feel my chest cracking open, lies pouring out like blood. They trap me on all sides—my lies and Grant’s, Riker’s and Tara’s, my dad’s most of all. He never told me why he wanted to go after the necklace. He never mentioned how far my mother had fallen for love. He never saw fit to disclose that I had a grandmother who actually wanted to know me.

Those things matter.

Grant matters.

I matter.

I know, at this moment, that it’s time to end the game. I’m probably going to give the cleaning woman a heart attack when I pop out of the laundry basket, but I’m not sure I can go another minute without telling Grant the truth.

I love him. I always have.

From the moment he turned that crinkly-eyed smile on me and picked up the gauntlet I tossed his way, from the second he declared his intention to woo me the way I deserve, I was done for. Marrying him was the only brave and decent thing I’ve done in my life, and I don’t want to spend another minute on this planet without him knowing that.

It seems I have to. A loud BOOM reaches my ears, followed by the sound of splintering wood as someone smashes in the motel door. A hissing smoke canister rolls underneath me, but the damp towels serve as thick enough barrier that I don’t inhale it right away.

That’s when the shouting begins.

“Get down. Stay back. Hands behind your head.”

My heart thumps sickeningly. It’s the FBI. Did they follow me here? Did I lead them straight to Grant? I don’t think I could bear it if he was arrested for my mistake.

There’s a bustle of movement around me. The cleaning woman mutters a prayer on repeat, and I feel the whomp of a body hitting the ground next to me. A few clicks and a grunt are enough to convince me that Grant has just been stripped of his artillery.

I feel the loss as keenly as I’m sure he does. He needs that gun.

“Grant Emerson?” a low, rough voice asks.

“That’s me,” he says. He’s nearer than I expected—almost within reach.

“We heard you’re interested in meeting with a certain someone.”

“You heard correctly.” Another grunt from Grant, more pained this time. “I assume this is our pickup service? It took you long enough.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Blackrock doesn’t take kindly to ultimatums from the feds.”

“Ah. So you picked up on that part, did you? But I have a criminal associate and everything. Surely that makes us equals.”

“Just get up.”

“I would, but your knee is in the middle of my back.”

The reply is another sickening whack. It sounds like metal against flesh, solid as only true pain can be, and I almost cry out.

“Funny guy, huh? We’ll see how long that lasts when you’re eating the barrel of my gun. Let’s go.”

“Your wish is my command,” Grant says and staggers to his feet. I use the term staggers because I feel him lean on the laundry cart to stabilize himself. He lingers with his lips against the canvas, right next to my ear.

For a moment, I think he’s going to issue an order, tell me where to go and who to contact for help, but he chooses his last words with more—or less—care than that.

“You could have trusted me, Penelope,” he says. “All I’ve ever wanted is to make you happy.”

I do trust you. The words are close to escaping and giving up my position, but he’s yanked away before I have a chance to get them out. Amid the crashes, grunts, and hysterical shrieks of the cleaning woman as she’s left behind, Blackrock’s associates force Grant and Tara out the door. I can only assume the screech of tires peeling out of the parking lot belongs to them, but it can just as easily be Riker’s arrival, which he performs in a frenzy, scaring the poor cleaning woman even more.

“All right, Pen,” he says and yanks the towels off my head. “What the hell did you do this time?”