I don’t care to pin the theft on Mercier. He’s got enough on his plate, and I’m sure he’s going down since the police found him in possession of the diamonds. I merely want the Renoir returned to Dennison so I can make my amends.
Pulling out the burner phone I still have on me, I make the call I’ve been putting off all day. My dad answers before the second ring.
“Sindaria?” he asks hesitantly.
“Yeah… it’s me.”
“Oh, thank God. I’ve been going bloody out of my mind with worry,” he yells. “Saint called me hours ago looking for you, and we’re both beside ourselves.”
I grit my teeth because it hurts and pisses me off that Saint got my dad all worked up. He had no right.
“I’m fine,” I reassure. “In fact, I’m going to catch a flight to London today. I’ll be home before you go to sleep tonight.”
“Are you flying under an alias?” he asks.
“Of course.” I have several, and I never travel internationally under my real name. As far as anyone knows, Sindaria Westin has been happily spending her time in London for the last few months rather than held figurative hostage by a French businessman turned criminal mastermind.
“Listen,” my dad murmurs, and I can hear the hesitation in his voice over what he’s about to say. “You need to cut Saint a break.”
I cringe. I had expected my dad to not necessarily take Saint’s side, but to be more understanding than I am over what he did. As my dad, he would have wanted me to be safe. I’m sure he thinks Saint was even being valiant by double-crossing me.
“Dad,” I say tiredly, because I’m suddenly exhausted. I’ve gone almost forty-eight hours running on pure adrenaline and with little food in my system. “Just don’t, okay? What he did was unforgivable—”
“No, that’s not true,” he admonishes, his “father knows best” tone ringing loudly. “He forgave you, so, at some point, you will forgive him. I get you’re mad and you probably need to cool down, but this is not something that should break up what you two have managed to rebuild.”
There’s a small part of me—way down deep and unwilling to voice it yet—that knows he’s right. I’m operating on emotional overload right now.
But I can’t seem to go there and feel the need to defend my feelings. “He’s broken my trust, Dad. I’m not sure we belong together anymore.”
“Well, hurry up and get home, then we’ll go down to the corner pub and discuss it,” he replies. For the first time in a long time, I smile. Hanging out with my dad while having a pint with the locals sounds like heaven to me.
And even though at this point I’m not willing to admit that having something with Saint is even a remote possibility, my curiosity does get the better of me. “Did Saint leave Brussels?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “He had to. But he wanted me to pass on to you that if and when you’re ready to see him again, say the word and he’ll send a ticket over with your name on it.”
Pittsburgh.
He wants me to come to Pittsburgh to be with him.
“And,” my dad says after a dramatic pause. “He said he loves you and hates he has to pass that information on through me, but that you needed to know it. He said it was important you believe it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the emotional words hitting me hard, even though they’d been delivered through a third party. A little bit of the anger inside of me shifts, and something warm takes its place.
Damn you, Saint.
CHAPTER 28
Saint
Trotting down the staircase to the second floor of Jameson headquarters, I glance down to the large conference room to see Kynan’s meeting is still in progress.
I call this area The Situation Room—Sitch Room for short—because this seems to be where the brainstorming about missions takes place. Sure, our offices and desks are down here, but not much happens there. That’s more of a place to rest while writing up reports or surfing the web.
Rather, the big conference room is where we all sit around to powwow critical issues. There’s a state-of-the-art media setup with big screens and high-def smartboards with satellite hookup feeds. Individual ports for our laptops and iPads, and custom-built chairs that swivel, recline, and rotate to the comfiest of positions.
Outside the conference room and past all the desks, there’s a more casual set up at the opposite end of the second floor with plush leather sofas and chairs that have flip-top tables on them for writing notes or typing. Within three paces is a huge built-in wall unit equipped with an espresso/latte machine, a soda fountain, and a mini-fridge filled with beers for after-hours plotting. We have a similar social set up on the fourth floor, which is where the personal living areas are, but there’s an unspoken rule when on the fourth floor, you don’t talk business.
I glance away from the conference room in the exact opposite way. It’s a sitting area. Bebe’s on the couch, her feet propped on the coffee table and her computer on her lap, fingers flying over the keyboard.
I head that way, stopping to grab a bottled water from the fridge. I’d like a beer—or a few shots of whiskey—as I have a meeting in about an hour with representatives from the insurance consortium that hired us to go after Mercier. They want a detailed rundown of everything that occurred. From what I understand, they are going to have risk assessment folks present to make sure there’s no criminal liability on their part for funding this mission.
Not that it matters, as Julian Mercier is now officially in the wind. Kynan’s sources have been reporting diligently to us, and we were informed Mercier is on the run. He’d been put into pre-trial detention. Unfortunately for him, there is no concept of bail in France. However, as they’d transferred him from one jail to another—to serve out his detention until his trial—a ballsy “rescue” had been initiated.
Apparently, the transport van he’d been held in was disabled after being rear-ended. Well-armed masked men had then stormed the van. There were seven in total. In broad daylight, they’d managed to break Julian Mercier out and no one has seen him since.
The most surprising bit of information? William is the suspect the police believe to be behind the plot to free Mercier, and he’s now a fugitive, too.
This part still stuns me as I figured William to be a liability to Mercier the way Sin and I had been. I’d misjudged that, though.
Despite how much I dislike Mercier—he had tried to kill me—there’s a part of me, thief to thief, that admires his audacity and foresight in carrying out such a brazen escape. But it ensures his life in France is over. He’ll never be able to return. In fact, he’ll have to start his life all over again. Probably not a hard thing for a man who has no real family and gobs of wealth at his disposal to do, so I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.
News of his disappearance was a welcome relief to all of us at Jameson. It means Sin and I are safe. There’s no reason for Mercier to spill the beans on us now. Even if he had for pure spite, there’s no proof even placing us in France. The police could never come after us without Mercier’s testimony, and I can guarantee he’s not coming back to France to do that.