“Well, I can’t let you into the ventilation shaft,” Soderburgh said shortly. “So earn away.”
“Don’t let the security guards shoot me,” Grace told him, because with this guy, you never knew.
“Can’t promise shit,” Soderburgh muttered. “Don’t get sucked into the furnace and die.”
“I can promise you that!” Grace told him pertly, before finally, finally, pulling out his lockpicks and getting to work.
IT WAS funny that Hunter had signed up with the military because he thought it would get him away from having to work factory jobs or food service. While in security, he’d worked as a waiter more times undercover than he could count. He’d learned that something about doing his job with his animal brain while focusing his full attention on the com in his ear and his surroundings in the broader sense made him superlative at his job because it made him invisible. Handing out champagne as part of a catering crew was no goddamned different.
Of course, the jewel display rooms of the Art Institute were pretty impressive, and Danny did things right, with a wet bar on both levels. Serving champagne and canapés in the galleria filled with some of the world’s most spectacular paintings was possibly one of the coolest things Hunter had ever done while trying to be invisible.
“Where we at?” Molly asked, coming alongside him as he waited at the bar to get another tray of full glasses.
“Grace is in the ventilation system, Soderburgh’s moved the security guards, and Chuck’s heading back to the van after making out with Lucius Broadstone in front of the entrance.”
Molly chuckled. “I heard that part. Have we heard from Grace about what’s going on in the room?”
“No,” Grace muttered in Hunter’s ear. “Because I’m in the ventilation shaft above where all our scumbags are gathered. It’s full of paintings of dogs and bad guys. So yay, I was right.”
“Do you see Sergei Kadjic?” Felix asked. Danny had provided them with pictures of the fortyish dark-haired man, complete with Poirot mustache, taken without the subject’s knowledge, and Hunter had tracked down security ID pictures of TJ “Silver Fox” Chancellor and Roy “Dragging Knuckles” Creighton so they could be identified as well.
“No,” Grace murmured. “And I don’t see Hunter’s friends either. Lots of mayors, though. City councilmen. Rich guys wanting to go into politics. It’s like a cesspool—you should see.”
“Apparently it’s full of dead people,” Molly muttered, “because you’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”
“You asked,” Grace muttered.
“Hey,” Hunter said, giving Molly a barely perceptible gesture that she followed smoothly with her eyes. He’d worked with CIA operatives who didn’t have the moves to fool Molly. “Who’s that?”
“Buff with the square jaw and the British cheekbones?” she asked.
“That’s the one.” The man was maybe Hunter’s age, but he had short brown hair, blue eyes, and a sort of measured gaze that he cast around the room. As they watched, his eyes fell on Danny and Felix and lingered—but not in appreciation. More in speculation.
“He’s got a British accent,” she said. “And he carries himself like the po-po. Think that’s Danny’s Interpol connection?”
Danny looked up from where he was talking to a late–middle-aged teddy bear of a man who Hunter understood to be his boss. Danny caught the younger man’s eye and gave him a respectful nod before going back to his conversation with Felix and the teddy-bear man.
“I’d say that’s a yes,” Hunter said. “Liam Craig. He’s the guy who gets the gem.”
“Here’s hoping,” she murmured.
And that was when they heard Chuck over the coms. “Motherfucker!”
Followed by two gunshots and Chuck’s angry swearing.
Molly and Hunter both halted in their tracks, and from where they stood, they watched as Felix and Danny stopped midsentence in their conversation, eyes wide.
Danny took one step back and tapped his earbud, mouthing “Security” at his boss, and said, “Hunter, get your ass out there to see what’s going on. We can handle shit here.”
“Yessir,” Hunter murmured and handed Molly his full tray before doing what he did best in a crowded situation in which he was wearing a penguin suit.
Disappeared.
“HELL,” GRACE muttered. “They’re getting restless.”
Truth was, he couldn’t see shit through the slats of the ventilation shaft. But Josh had patched the camera feed to his phone so he could watch the action from far enough away to be able to get back in the shaft and chase somebody down if he had to. His crowd of mayors and mercenaries was starting to bob, to weave, to stare at each other in irritation.
He’d actually been in place for a good twenty minutes. Something needed to happen soon, even if it was just a goon coming in to say, “We regret to inform you, but Mr. Kadjic needs you to please fuck off.”
Grace switched the feed on his phone to the rooms he’d thought might be the staging areas—he’d flashed through them quickly earlier, but hadn’t seen any scary big men, so he’d stayed focused on the auction space.
Staff briefing room—dark and empty, lit only by the Chicago night sky from a small window.
Painting restoration room? Also dark and empty.
And there we go—long forgotten gemstones that remained intact today. The light was on, finally—it hadn’t been last time he’d checked.
Grace squinted into his screen, saw something that hadn’t been there before, gasped, and then started along the shaft, following the twists and turns to the elevator shaft.
The car was going down, which was great. He hopped lightly onto it and coasted to the second floor, then pulled himself through the first ventilation shaft to the right.
“Grace,” Josh murmured over the sound of heavy breathing and scuffling that was also going on in the coms. “What’s wrong?”
“That Sergei Kadjic guy,” Grace muttered, pulling himself out of the ventilation shaft and going to the two still figures on the floor. “Big guy, big chest, old-fashioned mustache like that detective guy—”
“Poirot?” Josh asked, because he knew Grace. “Where are you?”
“Dead rock room. Do you see me?”
“Oh hell—did that just happen?”
“Yeah. He’s dead. And so’s his bodyguard. Both cold as fish.”
The blood pooling under their bodies even looked sticky.
“Fuck! Stirling, we need more monitors in the goddamned van!”
“Noted,” Stirling said, as though he was making a list.
“Do you see the gem or a package anywhere?” Josh demanded.
“Nope. Just bullet holes and blood.”
“Motherfucker!” Josh swore. “Grace, get the fuck out of there!”
Grace shuddered as he looked at the two bodies, and as he pulled the cover of the ventilation shaft closed, Josh spoke up again.
“Guys, I’m calling the cops. Nick Denning. Uncle Danny, is that all right?”