Thirty-Seven

Peter used plastic cuffs to tie Bryan to the bed frame. He grabbed a sock from Finn’s suitcase, wet it in the bathroom sink, then stuffed it into Bryan’s mouth. He took the belt from the hotel bathrobe and tied it tightly around his mouth, finally tying the ends to the bed frame. When Bryan kept struggling, Peter took his belt off and wrapped it around Bryan’s ankles, then around the bed frame, essentially hog-tying him to the bed.

The rest of the group stood watching in varying degrees of terror.

“Why did you wet the sock?” Hollis asked.

“It’ll weigh down the sock, make it hard for him to move it. And it also keeps his mouth from drying out,” Peter said. “We may need him to talk later.”

The Dutch woman started to hyperventilate.

“I’m Hollis.” She put out her hand to the woman.

“Elsa Van Dijk. This is my husband, Levi.”

“Hallo,” Levi said, reaching out his hand.

When all else fails, be polite. It was something her mother used to say when Hollis and her brother would argue. She never really understood it until now. The social niceties had a calming effect on an otherwise insane situation.

“You’re safe,” Finn said. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

“If you have the man who wanted to kill you, why did we need to leave our room?” Levi asked.

“It’s bugged.”

“Oh.”

The couple sat on the bed as far from Bryan as they could get.

Hollis turned to Teresa. “It’s not going to be long before Carlos wonders where you are and checks to see if we’ve killed Eduardo. We have to figure a way out of this. We need to get in touch with Declan.”

Peter looked up, stunned. “You don’t have a way to call Declan?”

“He just sort of shows up,” Finn said.

“That’s crazy,” Peter said.

“You do the same thing.”

Peter said nothing, just frowned.

“I have a number,” Teresa said. She took a piece of hotel stationery and wrote it out, handing it over to Finn.

“I’ll go downstairs and borrow a phone,” Finn said. “Eduardo, you go upstairs and pack up the Van Dijks’ belongings.”

“We have two more nights here before we go to Patagonia,” Elsa said.

Peter grabbed his phone and texted. “My guy will get you a suite at the Alvear Palace Hotel. It’s one of the top hotels in the city.” He smiled a little, trying to sound comforting. It didn’t suit him. “We’ll send some champagne to your room. You’ll probably need a drink.”

Elsa and Levi seemed skeptical. “I can pack up our things,” Levi said.

“I can help too,” Elsa said.

“No,” Finn said. “Not both. Elsa and Eduardo, you go. Levi and Teresa will be here waiting. That way you’ll be sure to come back.”

Peter smiled. He was obviously impressed with Finn’s take-charge attitude. “Do we have any other weapons?”

“Two Walther PPKs,” Hollis said. “They’re in a suitcase in the closet. I’ll get them.”

“Good. Well then, you all do what you need to do, and the rest of us will babysit our guest.” Peter patted Bryan’s head. Bryan did his best to move, but Peter’s knots were holding. If eyes could kill, though, the entire room would have been dead.

It took ten minutes before Elsa and Eduardo returned, but whatever he had said she was noticeably more relaxed.

“We should go to Amsterdam on our honeymoon,” Eduardo told Teresa.

“I have to get a divorce for us to get married.”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think you’ll need a divorce.”

He didn’t say why, but it was clear that only Elsa and Levi didn’t understand what he meant.

Teresa went pale. Eduardo put his arm around her. “He was my father’s employer. He was always nice to me, very charming. And he could give me a good life,” she said. “I thought it was better than love.” She looked at Eduardo. “I was stupid to think that.”

“Might be a good idea to relocate,” Peter said. “Spain is one of my favorite countries. The food, the people, the scenery. You really can’t go wrong.”

“You’ll help us?” Eduardo asked.

“You help me, I’ll help you. Ask Hollis, um, Janet here.”

“He’s very helpful,” Hollis said, trying to find the right balance between sarcasm and optimism. Eduardo and Teresa did not need to know how much trouble he could be.

Finn opened the door and slid into the room—with Declan following quickly. “He’s been tracking us,” Finn said in explanation.

“Teresa,” Declan said, “your dad is picking up some passports I had made for you. You can be on a plane tonight.”

“Peter suggested Spain.”

Declan looked at Peter. “The man himself.” He reached out his hand.

“Declan Murphy? That’s funny. Hollis and Finn gave me a very vivid description of a Declan Murphy in his fifties, blond hair, green eyes.”

The brown-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-something Declan smiled. “I understand you’ve been wanting to meet me.”

“I’ve been wanting to arrest you.”

“This isn’t a good time. I need the address book.”

“I’m not giving it to you.”

“Then we’re all going to die.”

Elsa gasped. Hollis jumped up. “He doesn’t mean it. Declan is a big talker.”

“Are you all spies or something?” she asked.

Hollis pointed around the room. “Peter’s a spy. Bryan’s a hitman. Eduardo is a bodyguard, but he’s fallen in love with his boss’s wife, Teresa. My husband and I are college professors …”

“And agents for an international organization dedicated to taking down a major criminal group,” Peter added.

That made Hollis smile. They weren’t actually agents, not on the payroll, but it sounded cool.

“And I’m a forger, art thief, and general mischief maker,” Declan said. He shook Elsa’s and Levi’s hands. “Lovely to meet you.”

“Okay, now that introductions are over,” Finn said. “What do we do?”

Peter took a deep breath. “It’s pretty obvious. We torture that guy,” he said pointing to Bryan. “We get the four lovebirds out of harm’s way. We figure out a way to kill Carlos, and we throw the Irishman in a deep, dark prison.”

“Those are all grand ideas,” Declan said. “But if I can, I’d suggest that you get me the address book, which I can copy, with some small but important changes. Then Hollis and Finn get the book to Carlos, making clear they’ve killed me and Eduardo. We trace who Carlos passes the book to, you take down TCT and become a hero to all your law-enforcement pals.”

“And what happens to you?” Peter asked.

“I’ll be dead.” Declan smiled. “So, I suppose I’ll spend eternity on some small island somewhere, far away from any trouble at all.”

Peter stared at him for a long time. Declan stared back. The rest of the room watched to see who would blink. Based on what she knew about both men, they could have watched all night.

But there was a knock on the door.