“Not really. You know my dad’s a cop, so I knew the life, knew I wanted it. Dad was all for it. But my mom, do you know she’s still known in Omaha as the Gorgeous Rebecca? Yes, Nicholas, unhoist your eyebrow. Mom was a beauty queen, Miss Nebraska, as a matter of fact. My mom the beauty queen had great plans for me, her only daughter. She wanted me to be some sort of model or maybe a movie star, although I could never act my way out of a paper bag, or maybe marry a rich guy and have beautiful kids. But even as a bratty teenager, I never gave her vision of my future serious thought.” She paused. “When I was accepted to Yale, she decided maybe a highfalutin education would be just the ticket. She saw me marrying some eastern politico, I think.
“But she’s come around, likes to talk about her daughter, the FBI special agent who lives in New York City. She and Dad come to town at least once a year and see an endless round of Broadway shows and eat at fancy restaurants where all the waiters gawk at my mom, and my dad just sits there, shaking his head, and grinning.”
“You look like your mom?”
“Ha. In my dreams, but I guess I look like her more than Dad. And she still looks like my older sister.”
“And then there’s your younger brother, Timmy, who also lives here in New York. You said he’s a wannabe actor, right?”
Where were all these coming from? To distract her, Mike realized. He was good, she had to admit it. “Timmy—well, he’s another matter entirely.” And she shut it down, as he had before.
Nicholas saw that she was relaxing, that she was rebooting, getting back her balance. “And then you went to the FBI Academy and blew everyone away. Yes, I read your dossier. You made the New York CID office at twenty-six, one of the youngest agents to fill such a position. From personal experience I can add that you’re pretty hot stuff, Agent Caine.”
Hot stuff? She’d rather be fierce. “How in the world did you get ahold of my personnel file?” She smacked his arm, his bare arm, which was as black as his face. “You and your hacker talent. Don’t whine, you deserved the punch.”
“Well, that, plus your instructors in Quantico loved to talk about you. I think you might have broken a couple of hearts. Believe me, I grilled them, since no way I wanted to be partnered with a slacker. They said you were pretty good, Agent Caine. Actually, Mr. Filbert, the shooting range supervisor, said I’d have to bust my butt to keep up with you.”
“Those instructors, Mr. Filbert especially, they’re jokers, experts at spotting gullible marks, plus you’re the freaking Brit who rescued the Koh-i-Noor diamond. They figured you had to be full of yourself and wanted to cut you down to size. Trust me, they were putting you on. Now, talk about making his bones at the Academy, you walked away with an award or two yourself.”
“Only one.” That got him a smile. At last.
But the laughter died a quick death when Mike looked out the window yet again to see the orange plume of flame still reaching into the sky.
He said quietly, “We’re going to stop them, Mike. They don’t stand a chance against the two of us.”
He reached over and took her hand, gave it a squeeze.
He rocked with surprise when she said, in the most vicious voice he’d ever heard, “If Reeves isn’t dead when we find him, I’m going to slam his ass up against the wall, maybe knee him a couple of times to show him how serious I am, and he’s going to split right open and tell us everything in that pea brain of his.”
That’s my girl. “Remind me not to get on your bad side. See, like I told you—fierce.”
Five minutes later, Nicholas pulled in front of Richard Hodges’s house. It was quiet. No lights were on. No draperies twitched, no shadows moved into defensive positions because of an unscheduled visitor. Even the air had stilled. The silence was eerie.
Both of them went on red alert. Mike already had her Glock in her hand, and fear in her belly.
She whispered, “Do you think maybe they already moved him to a safe house?”
He didn’t answer, he was calling it in, speaking low. He hung up, shook his head. They stepped quietly to the red front door. Nicholas tried the knob. The door opened easily. Not good. He mouthed, One, two, three, and they went in.
11
QUEEN TO B3
On the road to Brooklyn
Matthew drove like a Sunday grandmother, always on the alert for cops.
Vanessa turned in the seat to face him. “Matthew, talk to me. Do you think Darius died in the fire?”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about Darius.”