“A family that cons together, stays together,” Josh said, pulling his earbuds out to indicate he was done. “And yeah. They love doing it, but Felix and Danny finally have a chance to be together and have seminormal lives.” He smiled dreamily. “And I do love the game.”
“We can be like the School of Turin,” Chuck said.
“That’s not a real thing,” Hunter grunted, pulling into the Steak ’n Shake drive-thru and getting in line behind an SUV full of kids.
“Hell it ain’t,” Chuck said. “And it’s still going strong!”
“What the hell’s the School of Turning?” Grace asked, and then Hunter ordered and Grace spent the rest of the trip lost in ice cream and stories—from the apocryphal to the real—about a famous gang of thieves that educated each other within driving distance of Antwerp, the diamond capital of the world.
He didn’t even remember they were going to visit Gabriel Hu and his father until Hunter pulled off the freeway again and headed through some rural wooded land before turning off onto a private road.
“More hidden fortresses,” Hunter rumbled.
“Fantastic,” Josh muttered.
“Truly,” Chuck said, completely serious. “I love the girl, but guarding Tabby did not nearly meet my adrenaline jones. Let’s hope they got lasers and Dobermans and the full bad-guy press, okay?”
“Does an eight-foot wooden fence count?” Hunter asked as they drew near the gate. There was a guard at the kiosk there, a paunchy, sixty-something white male who had “retired cop” written all over him in Sharpie.
“Only if I have to jump over it and there’s a moat with sharks on the other side,” Chuck said.
Grace wrinkled his nose and looked over his shoulder at their multitalented friend. “I suspect,” he said thoughtfully, “that you may have led a life that makes driving to a friend’s house and knocking on the door look like small potatoes.”
But Chuck didn’t take the bait. “Look, Grease Man, you may want to pretend that these people are friends, but I tell you what. Whether they’re willing or unwilling, they are feeding information into the hands of bad guys who are ruining people’s lives. I’m not sure you get that. These people aren’t your friends.”
“Don’t worry, Chuck,” Josh said, his tone that of a man who wanted to take the intensity down a notch. “Gabriel and Laslo Hu are no friends of ours.”
Hunter approached the kiosk and rolled down his window to the retired cop/security guard.
“Please state your business,” the man said, and while his tone was bored, his eyes were roaming over the featureless black SUV with squirrel-bright intensity.
“We’re here to visit old friends,” Hunter said blandly, and Grace barely managed to cover his mouth with his hand.
“Who would be visiting?”
“Dylan Li,” Grace said, sitting forward and pretending to be a grown-up. “I’m a school friend of Gabriel’s.”
Something crossed the security guard’s features then that was hard to define. Was it pity?
“Oh,” he said softly. “Well, in that case, come on in. Gabriel doesn’t have many visitors these days.”
Grace couldn’t meet Hunter’s eyes. This didn’t bode well, and Grace’s stomach churned.
“Oh, look,” Josh said as Hunter pulled through the gate. “There’s a bunch of foliage and a wooded area between the gate and the house. Chuck, what should we do with that?”
“Well, Hunter could slow down and disable the locks so I can get out,” Chuck muttered. Hunter did exactly that, and Chuck slid out of the car, shutting the door quietly as he ran alongside the still-moving SUV. He disappeared into the trees as Hunter continued on at the same pace. As they pulled up to a large multistoried house with a paved driveway and a three-deep carport, Hunter caught his breath at the sight of a midsized man in semiprofessional dress training two large dogs in the front yard. He was holding a clicker and issuing commands, and the dogs were moving with the precision of competition field marchers.
“Well,” Grace mumbled, watching what were possibly English mastiffs as they massacred an attack dummy, “they’re not Dobermans.”
“If Chuck survives, he’ll be disappointed to hear that,” Josh murmured, and Grace had a moment to feel for his friend. Chuck’s survival was on his shoulders, even if Chuck had been the one who’d thought of getting out of the vehicle so he could reconnoiter. Josh tapped his earbud, and they all heard him as he murmured, “Ginormous fucking dogs close to the house, Chuck. Trained to kill.”
“Good,” Chuck said, cheerfully undeterred. “I brought bacon!”
“Roger that,” Josh murmured and tapped his earbud again. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s impressive.”
“He didn’t smell like bacon,” Grace observed as they pulled into a parking spot obviously reserved for visitors.
“Maybe he kept it in a plastic bag,” Hunter said, and Grace flashed him a relieved smile, because apparently Hunter got him.
“Recycled,” Josh said, and Grace had one of those sudden shafts of realization.
He was loved. These people understood him, and no matter what horrors Gabriel Hu held for him, he could do this.
They got out of the SUV and headed up the stone-paved walk toward the front door. The house had been built probably seventy-five years ago or so. Sturdy multicolored brick, covered in ivy, it stood three stories with a basement, probably. The white trim around the windows looked almost severe against all that brick-and-ivy tradition, and all of the draperies were dark colors too. No bright florals for those windows—not even in late spring.
The man who opened to Josh’s knock was thin to the point of gauntness and may have been handsome once. He certainly had striking cheekbones, and his sunken eyes were probably a tarnished gold, but his hair was thinning, and he had the sallow complexion of someone with liver or kidney problems. There was an air of desperation about the man, and the decided odor of smoke, probably vaped in some way.
It wasn’t until he said, “I’m sorry. Did you come to see me or my father?” that Grace recognized Gabriel Hu.
He gaped for a moment, while Josh stepped in smoothly. “Well, we came to visit your father,” Josh said, “but it’s good to see you, Gabe.”
Gabriel squinted at Josh and then widened his eyes. He took in Grace, and something terrible—dismay? anger? remorse?—flitted across his face so quickly it was like the shadow of a bird.
“What are you guys doing here?” he asked. “Dylan? What in the hell?”
“We need to talk to your father,” Josh said softly. “It’s business. Don’t worry—we don’t mean him any harm. We just need to ask him a few questions.”
Gabe’s brows drew together. “Business? You mean gem cutting? He’s got his workshop in the atrium upstairs—he likes to channel natural light through the skylight mirrors. He should be down for lunch in a few minutes.” For a moment he seemed supremely lost, and then he recovered himself. “Would you, uhm, like to join us for lunch?”
Josh had his mouth open to say “No, thank you”—Grace could tell—but Grace suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of being alone with this new, quiet, wasted Gabriel without a dining room table between them.