A good question, but Alaric had spoken to the man right after the heist. His devastation at the loss had certainly seemed genuine. Plus he had his reputation to protect, not to mention a senate seat. And why take all the other paintings? As a smokescreen, surely that was overkill? But thirteen years on… If Red After Dark had come up on the black market, could Alaric see Carnes buying it? Possibly.
“No, I don’t think he was involved originally. But at least I know where I need to head next. He lives in Kentucky, right?”
“Not so fast. You can’t just go steaming in there. We need a plan. Any idea why he quit the senate?”
“The official line is that he resigned to ‘spend time with his family.’ Usually, that means there was a mistress involved somewhere and the wife got pissed, but I understand his wife passed away several years ago.”
“I’ll ask James.”
By James, Emmy meant President James Harrison, another of her exes, although their fling had ended long before he landed the top job. And they’d been damn careful about their liaison. Outside of Emmy and Black’s inner circle, few people knew their dirty little secret.
Emmy and James had stayed friends, at least from her point of view. If you caught Harrison watching her in an unguarded moment and knew what you were looking for, it was clear his feelings still ran deeper than hers. And if anyone was going to know what was going on with Carnes, it was Harrison. It was his job to stay informed. Although Harrison had run as an independent and Carnes was a Republican, they shared the same views in a number of areas, plus Carnes had been chair of the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, so he and the president had worked closely on occasion.
Ling did something with her elbows that left Alaric gasping for breath and earned a chuckle from Emmy. Next time, he’d strongly consider the triathlon.
“So I’ll tread carefully,” he choked out.
“Why now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did the painting find its way to Carnes now? It’s been thirteen years since the theft. I just don’t get it.”
“The heat’s died down, and Carnes has taken a step back from the public eye,” Alaric said. “But how he might have found out it was for sale, I have no idea.”
“This whole case gets stranger and stranger every time we dig into it.”
“I keep telling you—Emerald’s cursed, and it seems it’s contagious.”
“Have you been spending time with Bradley’s spiritual advisor? She told me my Viper was cursed when the engine wouldn’t start, but it turned out Nate had just removed the fuse from the fuel pump as a joke.”
Nate was one of her business partners, and that sounded like exactly the kind of stunt he’d pull.
“But—”
“Emerald’s a painting. It’s not fucking cursed. Do you need a ride to the US? We have to take Lenny to rehab this afternoon, but once he’s settled, I’ll be flying to Virginia with Sky. Probably Tuesday.”
“How is Sky?”
“Stubborn. Nosy. Always hungry. Yeah, we’re getting on okay. I’m going parkour training with her tomorrow. Apparently, one of her friends thinks I’m a con artist and he’s worried about her coming with me, so I figured I’d go and set his mind at rest.”
“A ride would be good if there’s room for Bethany too. I hired her to replace Barbara.”
“Judd…slept with Barbara? I thought she was, like, sixty?”
“He accidentally exposed himself.”
“Casanova should come with a warning. I don’t know whether to be pleased or insulted that he’s always kept his dick in his pants around me.”
Emmy had only met Ravi once and never crossed paths with Naz, but she’d experienced Judd’s dubious charms before Alaric did. They’d worked together during Judd’s days at MI6, and he described her as “not just a ball-breaker; she’ll squeeze your nuts in a vice, then run the soggy remains through a mincer.” Fairly accurate if she happened to dislike a man.
“You make him nervous.”
“Good. And going back to your question, yes, there’s space for Bethany on the plane. Are you sure she’s up to the task?”
“I hope so, and I felt bad after we essentially got her fired.”
He’d given Emmy an update on Friday evening, leaving out the rescue from Chaucer’s stable. She didn’t need to know that part.
“Same. She seems okay, and it’s not her fault Pemberton turned out to be morally corrupt. Speaking of Pemberton, are we going to have a word?”
“Let’s follow up on the Carnes angle first. If Pemberton’s handling stolen goods on a regular basis as Beth seems to think, I’d rather save him for the authorities. The Metropolitan Police work with the FBI on occasion. Who knows how many leads he’d be able to give them if they applied enough pressure?”
“You’d hand him over to the people who screwed you?”
“The FBI fired me. The jury’s out on whether they screwed me. They don’t know where the money went either, and I’m still the logical suspect.”
Alaric had watched at the office as the team packed the briefcase containing a million bucks in hundred-dollar bills and nine million in diamonds. Each serial number had been recorded, and the rocks came straight from a safe in the evidence room. Everything had been genuine. After Alaric’s boss had selected a combination and locked the briefcase, he’d officially transferred it into Alaric’s custody with a warning: “Lose this, lose your damn job.”
How prescient.
The briefcase had only been out of Alaric’s sight four times between the handover at FBI headquarters and the moment it was opened by Dyson. The first time had been in the office. He’d left it next to his desk while he went to the john, and nobody had gone in or out of the room during that time. Not only had the half-dozen colleagues seated at nearby desks attested to that fact, but a security camera had backed them up.
The second time was when he’d stopped for gas en route to the Riverley estate. Rather than draw attention to his cargo by carrying it to the kiosk, he’d left it locked in the trunk. The car had stayed in his sight until a panel truck parked next to it in the middle of the transaction, blocking the view of the security camera as well. A minute or two, that’s all it had been, and Alaric had kept the car key in his hand for the duration.
The third time? That had been at Little Riverley, Emmy’s home. With the house secured by a system that rivalled Fort Knox, he’d left the case downstairs in the living room when things got heated on the couch and they moved to the bedroom. They’d been the only people in the house that night, and every door and window was alarmed. The logs showed nobody had snuck in, and the system had been armed for his entire stay. Plus, as if that wasn’t secure enough, the whole of the Riverley estate was wired with cameras and motion detectors, and as well as having regular guard patrols, two men monitored the place twenty-four seven from the gatehouse. They’d seen no one, and the only nocturnal visitors to trip the sensors that night had been deer and a low-flying owl. The guards themselves had checked in regularly with the control room at Blackwood’s headquarters, none of them knew about the briefcase, and Emmy had vouched for her team. And her husband. When Alaric mooted the possibility that Black had been involved, she’d dismissed the idea completely. Apparently, he had an alibi. And no matter how much Alaric would have liked to get the asshole out of the picture, he trusted Emmy’s judgement. At that point, she was the only person he’d trusted.