Chapter 11
The next morning Saskia left early to pick up some supplies. She’d need to present Clive with some semblance of a poison. And it had to be convincing. The drug store had provided what she’d needed. Now, she returned to the flat and was greeted with the lush scents of oregano and tomatoes. Bless Jack’s nonna.
The scent was almost better than the sex they’d had last night. Almost, but—no, who was she kidding? What they’d done last night could never compare to a good meal, warm or not.
“You are a regular housewife,” she called as she headed to the bedroom to grab the blanket and wrap it around her shoulders.
Returning to the kitchen, she sat on a stool and pulled the small bag of supplies from her pocket. She could tell him what she was going to do, but that would then require further explanation.
Yet she had to tell him everything. Because if she did, he could get that information to the right people. People she wasn’t able to contact because she was in deep right now. And they needed to know.
It was her best move. She would make it.
“Jack, I have to tell you something.”
He looked up from the pot of pasta that she figured was as much a heat source to him as it fulfilled his weird need to cook. “Shoot.”
“Come over here and sit for a minute, if you can.”
He replaced the pot lid, tossed aside the pot holder and sat on a stool next to her. She leaned over to kiss him and he responded with a long and lush kiss. The man could be as focused on her mouth as he was on his pasta. Mmm, she liked kissing him. And sharing skin with him—she had to focus.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you asked me. About what the take for this job will be.”
“The five hundred thousand we were each promised.”
“Right. Shows up in our bank accounts the moment Clive sends the text that the job is complete. That’s how the man works.”
“You didn’t seem overly interested in my concerns when we discussed this before. What’s changed?”
“You did do research on the previous heist Clive headed, didn’t you?”
“As much as I could.” He shrugged. “The Belgian heist, right? It didn’t make any major news outlets, but I did find a brief police report online. Something about breaking in and not taking a damned thing. But I figured the report got it wrong. You had to have taken something. Isn’t worth the risk of prison otherwise.”
“That’s just it. The reports were true. We didn’t take anything on that heist. Not unless Clive took something so small we didn’t remark it.”
“Then why even break in? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t either. But I’m beginning to wonder if maybe we break in to leave something behind.”
“I’m not following you.”
And she was having a hard time, herself, with this theory. But it made weird sense to her. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to walk out empty-handed tomorrow night. No bills, no gold, not even booty from the safe deposit boxes.”
“Then why are we bloody putting ourselves out to do this?”
“The payoff?”
He shook his head. “Clive must know something we don’t.”
“That’s what I’m starting to think. And while it shouldn’t bother me and I shouldn’t ask questions…” She paused and Jack lifted a brow. He was listening, which is exactly what she needed from him. “What if Clive is serving someone other than himself and us?”
“Go on.”
“He’s not the man on top. I think he’s working for someone else. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve not seen proof of it. It’s conjecture. Listen, tomorrow’s heist is the same setup as the last one. We go in. I break into the vault. Clive breaks into the safe deposit box room. Whoever gets in first, that’s the vault we rob. Last time I made the vault in forty minutes, and as soon as I opened the door, Clive appeared and said we were finished.”
“Had he broken into the safe deposit room? What did he take?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think to ask him about it at the time. Or rather, I didn’t want to. Just trying to keep my head down and do the job, you know? But now I’m more suspicious after his request for the poison. He said it wasn’t related to the heist. But how can it not be related?”
“You never got the poison though, so…?” He tugged out his phone.
“What are you checking?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing, thought I felt it buzz.” He set the phone aside, screen down.
But Saskia knew he’d been checking his texts. Had he looked into the results from yesterday’s fouled exchange? She hoped he had.
“So you think Clive is putting poison in…a safe deposit box?” Jack prompted.
“It’s one option. I briefly wondered if he was planning to release the toxin, and leave us behind, choking and fighting for our lives. But that doesn’t make sense. If he didn’t need us along, they why not do the job himself? Or…”
“Or?”
“What if he’s got a hit list?”
“Of bank executives?”
“I don’t think so. That would require he leave the poison in a desk or an office. It is a possibility. I’m thinking off the cuff here. What if it’s someone who has a safe deposit box there?”
“Did you supply him poison for the last job?”
“No. But that was my first job with Clive. He could have had it made previously. I just think… If there was a way to check who owned safe deposit boxes in the Belgian bank that we hit weeks ago. Then to check that list and see if anyone, well…died. From poison exposure.”
She waited as Jack moved the information around in his brain. She couldn’t get any more obvious than by stating what needed to be done.
“It’s an idea,” he offered. “But how will knowing that help us tomorrow?”
“It won’t. And we don’t need help. I just would like to know exactly what the man is up to. And if I’m providing poison, I don’t want to be involved in anyone’s death.”
“Poison generally leads to death. The client who was supposed to sell it to you? You think he’s still alive? And if not, do you think you’re innocent of that death?”
“Don’t put it like that, Jack. I’ve never killed anyone. And I never will. Not unless my survival depends on it. Besides, I don’t have the poison Clive asked for. But I have to give him something.” She tapped the paper bag. “I picked up some ingredients this morning.”
“You’re going to make a poison?”
“I’m going to make a fake poison. Something that will look like what he thinks he’s getting and it will give off a noxious odor that will keep him from inhaling. It should come off as the real thing.”
“That could work. But what if your theory is correct? If someone doesn’t drop dead—then he’ll know you tricked him.”
“Right, but depending on who he is targeting—if that is what is going on—it could be days or even weeks before that person returns to the box and comes in contact with the”—she made air quotes—“poison. By then, we’ll be long gone.”
“But I’ll never know what Clive—” Jack swiped a palm over his jaw and nodded. “Right. A fake poison. That should work.”
“I gotta think about this. Make sure I’m making the right move.” She got up and wandered over to the window.
And behind her, she heard Jack flip over his phone and type in a long text. The man was easy. Thank goodness.
* * * *
A new twist had been added to his assignment. Or maybe it was the solution. Putting poison into a safe deposit box in hopes of murdering someone was a clever feat. But not out of the realm of possibility. And if Clive were involved in more than mere bank robbery, it could be a means to take out someone in a roundabout manner.
Jack texted Kierce Quinn at headquarters and told him he had some information to talk to him about and he’d call in five minutes.
Slipping on his coat and gloves, he paused at the door when Saskia asked where he was headed. “Across the street to the grocery. I forgot to pick up garlic for the bread. Will you stir the pasta in five minutes?”
“Sure. Pick up some of the cinnamon buns, will you? I know I’ll be craving those for breakfast tomorrow morning. Gotta start the day with carbs.”
“Be right back,” he said.
Trundling down the stairs and across the street, he turned before entering the grocery store and waved to Saskia, who watched from the window. She waved back.
She was a good one. He wouldn’t mind taking her along with him on his adventure off the grid. Seriously.
And what was that about? He couldn’t risk having her along with him when he left Helsinki. She’d be in the way. And would draw more attention to him than he needed.
Jack shook his head as he aimed toward the produce aisle and pulled out his cell phone. The store was quiet, and the section at the back where the onions and garlic were displayed was ill-lit. Here, he could talk in reasonable tones without anyone overhearing.
When Kierce answered, Jack picked up a bulb of garlic and tossed it up and down as he told him everything about Saskia’s suspicions.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Quinn said. “I can access the list of safe deposit box owners with ease. I’ll search the names and get back to you if I come up with anything. When’s the heist due to go down?”
“Tomorrow night. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Any problems? Have you learned what the goal is?”
“Beyond the suspicions about poison, there seems to be no actual goal.”
“More credence that the poison angle could be it. How’s it going for you working with the crew?”
Jack set the garlic in his shopping basket. “That’s an odd question to ask. You want to know if I’m getting along with the crew? Or one person in particular?”
“It’s standard psychological screening,” Quinn replied, but Jack sensed the nervousness in his tone. “Forget I asked.”
“Forgotten.” But not really.
“Right. Stay warm, Angelo. And I’ll see you back in Paris soon, yes?”
“If that’s where my next assignment takes me.” But again, not ever.
Jack clicked off and grabbed a bottle of orange juice. It was hard to shake the weird feeling he’d gotten when Kierce had asked him the personal question. Data, intel, and details of a job were the only things required on his mission reports. Not if he was getting along with the people. And while he knew the psychological aspects of relationships between the players were key, he’d gotten by with fists and fury just fine, thank you.
He grabbed a package of Saskia’s favorite cinnamon buns, and then another to be safe, and after paying, headed back across the street.
The shower was running as he tugged off his coat and he winced to know that if he wanted to shower, which he did, he’d be shivering under the cold water. Should he pull a Saskia and jump in with her? It wasn’t as though she’d mind.
Rubbing his palms together, he instead answered the insistent boiling pot on the stove. Yet glanced toward the bathroom. The pasta was ready, but it could go a few more minutes. By the time he decided he should go for it, the shower stopped and he heard the shing of the metal rings sweep across the curtain bar.
“Just as well,” he muttered.
Unable to ignore the pastries sitting beside the sink, he ripped open the package, stuck a cinnamon bun in his mouth, and then tilted the cook pot over the sink to drain the pasta.
Saskia wandered out with a towel wrapped around her body and her wet hair exposed to the chill apartment air. “You got the pastries. Great! But those are for breakfast.”
Jack pulled the half pastry out of his mouth and set it aside on the counter. He then shook the pasta in the pan and swirled in some olive oil and parmesan cheese. “I didn’t get the memo.”
“You’re a guy. Guys don’t read memos.”
He frowned at her obvious anger over him having eaten one pastry out of the full dozen he’d purchased. Then he immediately knew it wasn’t the pastry. With women, it was never what they were nagging about, but something underneath and very difficult to dredge up that was the real problem. And a man had best be wary.
“Sorry,” he offered. “I’ll forgo my morning pastry in penance.”
A heavy sigh from Saskia warned that the apology wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. Could he get a cheat sheet on this woman? Anything to save him from an argument. She wandered into her bedroom.
While he mixed garlic with olive oil in a small pan over the stove, he wondered what her problem was. Must be worried about the poison thing. As he would be if he were in her shoes. If she was all about not killing, why had she agreed to provide Clive the poison in the first place?
There were things about her that confused him. And not in a normal “because she’s a woman” way that confused all men. Was she hiding something from him? He’d never asked her how she’d known to invite him to the crew. Or at least, Clive believed he was here by her suggestion. Which he was not. Hmm…
She emerged from the bedroom wearing an oversized sweater, which reduced her figure to a blob. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed. Tumbled and so bloody sexy.
Jack hissed when he put his hand too close to the burner, and flinched away.
Saskia hid a smile and settled onto the sofa. “Watch yourself. You know those stove things are for big boys?”
“Are you hungry for some pasta, or what?”
“Always. Bring me a plate.”
So she wanted to be waited on, eh?
Jack stirred the garlic and slowly added in some heavy cream and salt. If he had pine nuts that would make the dish perfect, but he’d forgo them for a simple meal. Then he decided the smoked fish might be a good side, so he put a couple pieces of that on each plate, rolled on some pasta, then topped it with the creamy white sauce.
The burner phone in his pocket buzzed, and he pulled it out and checked the text with his back to Saskia. Monday. Midnight. Location info to follow.
Jonny’s fate was fast coming to the fore. Jack had forty-eight hours to save him. He hated being rushed. His little brother had better appreciate all that he was sacrificing for him.
* * * *
Saskia was feeling off, and it was because of the poison issue. She’d snapped at Jack earlier, and now she felt jittery. Like a drug addict coming down from a high and seeking her next fix. Or it could have been the espresso she’d slugged down before driving to the garage to look in and see if Clive or Niles needed anything.
She’d gotten Jack to do what she’d needed. She should be feeling great about this job. Instead, she couldn’t get out of her brain that condemning look Jack had given her when he’d suggested the client had died from the poison.
She hadn’t been responsible for his death. She’d been fighting to protect herself.
With a nod, and an inhale to summon calm, she peeked into the garage office. Clive nodded she enter. Tugging her coat closed and zipping it up to the neck, she wandered in.
“Where’s Jack?”
“After a white van.”
“Good boy. He’s a bit of all right, yeah?”
“Sure.”
Clive leaned back in his chair, now giving her more attention than was normal for him. Eye contact, even. Saskia tried not to look away. It would only make her appear nervous.
“Did you get what I asked for?” he asked.
“I’ll have it. Tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Watch the testy tone, Sass. I don’t like a woman who thinks she knows more than she does.”
Before she could caution her affront, Saskia said, “Maybe it’s you who is testy?”
Clive shook his head. “Maybe you and your lover had an argument. Don’t fuck him up, Sass. We need him at his best tomorrow night.”
“Don’t—” She fisted her hands at her sides. “Why is it always the women who fuck things up? You men can be perfect assholes, you know that? You expect us to do everything for you and then when one thing isn’t perfect, it’s our fault. Not your overblown expectations.”
“You’ve become too bold. I prefer the quiet Sass who did what she was told. Like on the previous job.”
“And I prefer the quiet Clive.”
He stood abruptly. And Saskia couldn’t stop herself from flinching. She’d overstepped. Damn, why had she reacted like that?
Was this job really going to bring her down so easily?
“Whatever your problem is, Sass, solve it. Before tomorrow night. Can I rely on you?”
“Of course you can.”
“Don’t make me regret trusting you.”
She nodded and quickly exited. Niles wasn’t in the garage so she returned to the car. Once behind the wheel she beat the dashboard with a fist and growled.