“Looks like it’s time to bring the kids inside,” Don said. “Are you staying for movie night? It’s Maleficent.”
Don had a home theater in the house’s basement, and routinely had directors and actors over to do voices for the kids. Ryan thought of his mother, who had everything invested in MacCarren because her smart boy who made good on the American dream said it was safe. A smart decision. She was planning a movie night for his sister’s kids. Popcorn and sleeping bags on the floor in front of her television. “I didn’t want to intrude on too much of your weekend,” Ryan said. “I’m taking Lily out for dinner.”
“Of course,” Don said, magnanimous now that Ryan was in the fold. “Enjoy your evening. See you at the office.”
***
Lily wanted to primp before dinner. He left her showering and slathering herself with gels and lotions in the monster master bathroom of the house he’d borrowed for the weekend. He looked at the dress laid out on the bed, the exquisite gray silk lingerie next to it, then crossed the polished wood floors and rapped on the doorframe leading to the bathroom.
“I need to go out for an hour, meet someone,” he said vaguely.
“That’s fine,” she said. She pulled down the towel wrapped turban-style around her head, and her damp blond hair tumbled around her shoulders.
“I’ll text when I’m on my way back.”
In response, she picked up an industrial-size blow dryer and turned it on high.
Ryan went down the stairs and through the enormous open floor plan to the back door that led to the parking area beside the house. Waiting for him was the Mercedes sports coupe he had bought with a small part of his last bonus. He’d had the previous year’s model, and put maybe six thousand miles on it the whole year, but he had to do something with the money. He started the car, plugged the address Daniel Logan had texted him into his cell phone, and navigated through the Hamptons to an out-of-the-way crab shack. Logan and the Jock were sitting on a weather-beaten picnic table in a dining area separated from the parking lot only by a row of rough-cut stones. The Jock had a plate of French fries in front of him, one arm curled protectively around the food to ward off the greedy seagulls. Logan was sitting on the table, his feet on the bench, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.
Ryan stopped in front of Logan, pulled the recording device from his pocket, and held it out. “I got it.”
The Jock coughed around a mouthful of masticated French fries. Logan took the tiny recorder and turned it over in his hand. “You got it?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Just like I said. They thought about it for a while, and they made the offer on their own territory.”
Logan plugged in a set of earbuds and offered one to the Jock, then tucked the other one into his ear. They listened to the conversation while Ryan watched the storm massing in the west bear down on the Hamptons like the fist of God coming out of the sky.
“Well done,” Logan said. He nodded at the Jock, who got up, dumped his paper tray of French fries into the trash, and headed for the unassuming SUV backed in to the end of the parking lot.
Ryan shrugged. “What happens now?”
“Now,” Logan said precisely as he slipped the recording device into his jacket pocket, “we serve the subpoenas we’ve had on standby ever since you started talking to us, and arrest them.”
Ryan’s heart stopped in his chest. “Now? You’re going to arrest them right now? Where? Here? Or back in the city?”
Logan looked at him and Ryan could tell from his face that he had been Ryan’s handler in every sense of the word. His friendly neighborhood FBI agent had been using him, keeping the details of what happens next from him in order to keep the information flowing. Logan didn’t look soft, but he absolutely looked unassuming, geeky, the kind of man that you would look right past without fully understanding what he was capable of, what he would do to get the result that he wanted.
“You are a ruthless bastard.”
Logan didn’t deny it. “I do what I have to do to get the outcome I want.”
The message was clear. The FBI would use a rat, but they didn’t trust a rat. They knew he had one foot in both camps. “You’re not going to storm that house with the SWAT team and armed FBI agents. There are kids in that house. Women and children. They know nothing about what’s going on.”
“Keep your voice down. Of course not,” Logan said. “We knock on the door. We politely ask the suspects to come out without involving family. We box up everything related to the case. If they choose not to take that option, then they made the decision to involve their children, not us.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan said, then ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Do you have reason to suspect they’ll run, or resist?”
“Don’t involve me in your decision,” he snapped.