After leaving Willard’s, I drove around the lake and wound my way toward downtown, the side roads giving me time to puzzle over a different problem, and a different threat. All my careful maneuvers with Aura and Bilal might come to an abrupt end if Sean Burke appeared and caught me by surprise once more.
My subconscious had been picking at the tangled knot of just how Burke had tracked me to the parking garage on the night of the museum gala. I had an inkling—my only idea this side of crazy notions like Burke following my car with a team of flying drones—but its implications were unnerving.
I’d used my personal credit card to purchase an evening pass when entering the garage that night. Burke knew my name and my car. If he’d somehow put a trace on my accounts, he might have known where I was within minutes. Perhaps even before I’d chosen a parking space.
Was that even possible? Burke’s Russian boss, Liashko, had money, and pull. Did his reach extend to flunkies inside major American banks? Guerin had said the arms dealer wielded enough power to control his interests without setting foot on our shores. Wielded through men like Burke.
I was as realistic—Addy would say cynical—as anyone about the corruption of those in power. Hell, I’d bribed an FBI employee less than a week ago. But Liashko having that level of influence at his command gave me one very long pause.
And a theory I could put to the test.
Some car juggling was required. I drove my truck downtown. On the holiday, the streets were halfway to deserted and I had my choice of metered parking spots. I left the truck at the curb, not far from the museum. Caught a rideshare back to Addy’s to retrieve the Barracuda. And drove the muscle car right back to the garage where Burke had aimed his gun at me. With intent, as the law would say.
I used the same credit card to buy a two-hour ticket. Wondering if, somewhere, the charge on the card was even now sending a flag to alert whoever might be watching.
Five minutes later the Barracuda sat nestled in a spot on the second level, copper paint gleaming in the low January sun, and I was back at street level, sitting in the truck. Watching the garage entrance.
I’d set the shiny lure. Now came the waiting.
If I was right, Burke had waited for me to return to the Barracuda after my visit to the museum. The more I thought about that, the less I figured he had stood outside on the roof of the garage, exposed to the cold and to witnesses. He’d have kept watch from a car of his own. Not his personal vehicle. Something untraceable to him, in the chance that he would have to leave me dead, with my rapidly cooling blood flowing down the slope of the garage ramp.
My phone rang, with the number of the answering service I had called early in the morning.
“It’s Jessica,” said a contralto voice. “You remember?” Ondine’s bodyguard from the museum.
“Sensible shoes and a lethal purse,” I said. “Can you speak for your boss, or are you just relaying messages?”
“This line’s secure.”
I took that to mean Jessica had some authority beyond being Ondine’s flyswatter.
“Good. Let’s cut to it. I need to set up a meeting with Bilal Nath. He knows it’s coming. I figure he’ll circle back to you to recruit more soldiers. Maybe he already has.”
“Go on.”
“Your boss told Nath I was unmanageable. Play that up. Make me out like some rabid dog. Encourage him to bring along a full team, racked and ready.”
“Why?”
“That’s my business.”
“I’ll state the obvious,” Jessica said. “We don’t take orders from you.”
“No. But you are taking commands from Nath right now. Right? What’s it worth to get Bilal off your back for good?”
I waited through the silence that followed. Jessica might be conferring with Ondine.
I’d sounded much more confident than I really was. In truth, I was playing a hunch, based on my hard-won experience with Ondine Long.
She had shared Bilal Nath’s biography with me far too easily. My confronting her at the museum had been like an opening bid, and she hadn’t responded with a counteroffer. Instead she’d folded, telling me what she knew, and quickly, before the guards showed up to end our conversation.
So why would the most mercenary woman in Seattle be willing to give me intel on Bilal for free? Her client, who’d paid her for Claybeck’s services?
Unless he wasn’t a client. Bilal was very adept, Ondine had said. A bitter aftertaste in her statement. Maybe Nath had a leash around Ondine’s neck, just as he had on mine. Had she been gambling a little herself, on the off chance my thrashing against Bilal might solve a problem for her?
Jessica came back on the line.
“Bilal has to stay alive,” she said. “If he dies . . .”
“Agreed. This isn’t that kind of op.”
“But you want him protected?”
“I want him ready for a war. And if he demands a kidnap team to make me disappear, give him that, too.”
Another moment passed.
“We can make that happen,” Jessica said, “though we can’t control what the teams do once they’re in motion.”
Meaning I was digging my own grave, from their perspective.
“It’s on you if this goes wrong,” Jessica continued. “In any way at all. Understand?”
“I’ll tell Bilal where and when. Sometime tomorrow.”
She hummed reflectively. “Whatever you have planned, I hope it’s not as stupid as it looks from here.”
I grinned. This was Jessica talking for herself, not as Ondine’s mouthpiece.
“Nice to know you care,” I said, and hung up.
During our call, a few cars had driven into the garage. A minivan with kids in the backseat watching movies on the fold-down screen. Teenagers in a Honda Civic adorned with the cheapest racing mods available from their local O’Reilly Auto, heavy beat pulsing the windows. Nothing that fit the right profile.
Until a black Ford F-250 with a bright silver toolbox across the full width of its bed, like a stripe over a thick beetle’s wings, turned off Seneca and cruised slowly to the garage. Smoked windows obscured the interior.
The Ford stopped for a moment at the entrance, as if smelling the air, before pulling through the gate.
Five minutes passed, then another ten. No one walked out from the garage.
Okay. I hadn’t seen Burke in the flesh. But I was sure he was there. Like the scent of another predator at the watering hole.
I was prepared. I had sandwiches from Addy’s and water, and an open-necked bottle if I had to relieve myself. Mostly I had a lot of practice in waiting and watching. Casing jobs with Dono, back when I was a fidgety teen. Recon of targets in the Rangers, when moving at the wrong moment might bring a hell-storm of opposing fire.
My parking ticket had only been for two hours. I wondered if Burke knew that. He’d paused at the gate, maybe reading the hourly prices and comparing them to the small charge on my credit card. He might be expecting me to return to the Barracuda at any minute.
I hoped so. The more frustrated he became, the better.
While my eyes did the work, my thoughts strayed to Wren. I didn’t know much about the woman yet. But what I did made me want to learn a lot more. She was intuitive as hell. And forthright. There hadn’t been any question she’d been flirting with me, and I could admit I wasn’t always the best at reading women’s signals.
And sexy. Damn, Wren Marchand was an absolute smoke show. I wasn’t positive which of us had asked the other out in the end, but I was glad either way.
I ate a sandwich made from Addy’s leftover roast and some provolone. Sipped at the water. It had stayed plenty cold just from the ambient temperature. This time of year, the shade between downtown buildings was nearly round the clock. Even sheltered from the wind in the Dodge, I kept my watch cap on my head.
The Barracuda’s parking pass had long since expired. Maybe an attendant had already placed a ticket under the wiper, informing me I’d have to pay for the full day. Maybe Burke had seen that and realized that I might not be returning as promptly as he’d imagined.
Another hour ticked by. The edges of the buildings around me began to soften, melding with the twilight sky. Their interior lights defined stripes and squares that grew ever brighter in contrast. Fewer lights than on a normal workday, so that each side of the avenue looked patchwork, incomplete.
The headlights coming down the garage ramp revealed the Ford’s presence seconds before the truck itself hove into view. It stopped at the gate, which rose obediently to allow passage. As the Ford pulled out onto the avenue, beams from a passing delivery truck shone directly through the windshield, overcoming the tinted glass and giving me an instant’s glimpse of the driver.
Sean Burke. Gotcha, asshole.
He turned left onto Spring Street. I U-turned to follow, staying at least one block behind and giving Burke plenty of room as he turned again onto 6th Ave and we made our way uptown.
Not far, as I soon learned. Burke pulled into a lot near the Westin. I drifted past, coming to a stop in a loading zone, watching in the rearview. A sign at the front of the lot had touted monthly parking rates. If the Ford was Burke’s clean machine for work purposes, maybe this was where he kept it.
In another minute, a Lexus GS sedan in granite gray appeared from the lot. It continued on the same route, passing me and shimmering its way up 6th. Burke’s broad frame was visible through the rear window.
I didn’t follow right away. Burke might have marked the Dodge from his own truck. Pulling out behind him now could be a dead giveaway, accent on the dead.
He went left on Bell. In another second, I hurried after him. I passed through the intersection in time to see the Lexus cross under the monorail track at 5th and turn into an alleyway on the next block.
I stopped before the alley. Too easy to spot me in those close quarters. I left the truck at the curb and ran ahead to look down its length. The back of the Lexus was just vanishing from sight into a wide brightly lit rectangle. As I watched, the rectangle compressed until it was gone entirely. An automatic door had shut behind Burke’s car.
After a slow count of twenty, I risked walking down the alley. The wide door was painted with the name empyrea.
I retraced my steps to the front of the block, on 4th Ave. The alley ran behind the Cinerama theater and a luminous high-rise, maybe forty stories or more.
The Empyrea. A newer addition to Seattle’s skyline. Its lower six floors had been clad in backlit glass that shone a verdigris green. The same pale green highlighted each floor of the looming tower above. Discreet signs in the windows advertised units still available. On the other side of the doors, posters of happy families and conspicuously affluent professionals, enjoying the amenities within. The lower floors of the tower operated as a hotel under the same name.
I sent a text to a friend. More of a work acquaintance, really. I included the license plate number of Burke’s Lexus GS. I’d had to lean on my newer colleague Panni to trace Special Agent Rick Martens’s license. But for DMV checks on regular citizens, I had my own sources.
Ten minutes later the name Garrett Costello and an address matching the Empyrea Tower added to our text thread. Unit 3105. High living. I spent two more minutes wiring my acquaintance his fee for the service. Pays to know people.
Garrett Costello. A buddy of Burke’s, lending him his car? Or the name Burke lived his daily life under, to keep people like me off his track?
I wasn’t inclined to wait to find out. The security of the average hotel was no challenge. I made my way in through a utility door off the alley and then cut across at the quiet mezzanine level to find the elevator.
The elevator required a keycard to access the residential floors. I ignored the swipe pad. In my lockpick kit I carried a firefighter’s service key, which allowed me to open the Phase 2 panel inside the elevator and override the keycard controls. The button for the thirty-first floor lit up on the first try.
Apartment 3105 was halfway down the hall, likely boasting unobstructed views of the southern skyline and the water beyond.
I listened at the door. I could hear faint voices from a television, a news channel. I debated whether to pick the deadbolt or to coax Burke into coming out somehow, maybe by leaving a package at the front desk. The television went quiet.
Then I heard muffled footsteps, close and coming closer, and had just enough time to get my hand on my Beretta before the door opened.
Burke. Dressed for going out, and with a look of stunned surprise. A gift horse with a gaping mouth. I shoved him back into the dark interior of the apartment and drew the gun.
“Hands,” I said, kicking the door closed behind me. “Up.”
He froze. I pointed the gun at his knee, just as he had to me, to underline the point. He laced his fingertips on top of his head.
I spun him around and quick-marched him up against the wall of the living room. His leg banged the glass table beside a black leather couch, knocking a full tumbler of water to the carpet.
My left hand patted him down while the right aimed the Beretta at his spine. I stayed off to one side with a few inches of extra space. No point signaling to him exactly where the gun was, inviting an attempt to disarm me. And I wasn’t positive we were alone in the apartment. If anyone else suddenly appeared, I wanted Burke as a shield.
He had a small squarish automatic, maybe a Walther by the feel of it, in a soft concealed carry holster over his right kidney. A gravity knife with a four-inch blade in the pocket of his overcoat. And a backup piece, a subcompact Glock on his right ankle. Armed for a damned standoff. I tossed all the weapons toward the door. Fury radiated from Burke like heat off a reactor core.
“Get it over with,” he said.
“You said it yourself: I’m not a shooter. But I will put a round through you if you step out of line.”
“Then what the fuck is this?”
“My turn for picture time.”
I tapped his shoulder with a half sheet of cardstock and the penlight from my pocket. Slowly, he reached a hand from his head to take them. I drifted back to give myself some space. This high in the sky, the city lights made more of a soft undertone to the darkness in the room than any illumination we could see by. The shadows worked to my advantage.
When he turned on the penlight, the beam bounced off the glossy print and into his face like a suntan reflector catching rays. Slashes of shadow trapped in the crags of his square face just served to emphasize his look of shock.
I said what we both already knew.
“Moira.”
He didn’t take his eyes from her yearbook picture. As his gaze moved slowly over the contours of Moira’s image, motes of flashlight beam glimmered in his eyes.
“How do you have this?” he said. Something like wonder in his voice.
“She’s my mother.”
Burke turned the flashlight my way. I had anticipated the glare. With twelve feet between us, his blinding me and jumping to attack wasn’t a practical option. Not that he seemed inclined. Flat-footed in both stance and attitude.
“You and Moira were friends,” I said. “When you were both teenagers.”
“And?”
I took a breath. “And I want to know if you’re my father.”
He stared at me for a long moment, before his lip curled in a snarling grin. If the laugh that followed had any humor in it, it was the kind that revealed itself when watching a video of someone you didn’t like taking a nasty fall.
“You asking if I laid her? That it?”
“That’s a first step.”
“To what? Child support? Shit, you’re bigger than I am.”
“Did you?”
“Man, you really believe this. Dumb fuck.” Burke shifted, his heel squashing on the wet carpet. “I never got in the bitch’s pants. And without that, there’s nothing. I haven’t given two shits about her since. Happy?”
“Not yet. I want proof.”
“Proof?”
“A hair sample. Including the roots.”
The grin evaporated. “I should have known this was a cop trick.” He dropped Moira’s picture to the floor.
“I’m no cop.”
“Oh, I heard that. You’re just some snitch they told to break into my house to nab some DNA. What do they got over you? Another burglary rap?”
“You’re wrong.”
“Go fuck yourself. The only sample you’re taking from me is blood.” He nodded at the gun. “You got the stones?”
I did. On any other day. Popping one through the outer meat of Burke’s thigh—a volcano of pain but nothing fatal, so long as he got help soon—and yanking out a fistful of his hair while he writhed on the floor might have been easy work. I didn’t even have to go that far. Burke was strong, but I could whip him across the head with the Beretta and continue from there.
Except.
Except I’d seen the way Burke had looked at Moira’s photo. Like you’d look at a childhood treasure you’d long believed lost.
Except he hadn’t asked about Moira, or told me to take my fool questions to her. He already knew she was dead. Which meant he was lying about never giving her another thought.
There was something stopping me from hurting Burke. It didn’t take a flash of genius to figure out what that was.
“Here.” I took a burner phone from my pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it one-handed.
“In case you want to talk to Daddy?” he said, the predatory smile back in place.
“In case you decide to stop bullshitting me. Until then I’ve got other things to do.”
“Other contenders, huh? Mom spread it around a little?”
I wasn’t going to give Burke the pleasure of seeing my anger.
“Stay away from me, Shaw,” he said, “or I’ll finish this.”
I backed toward the front door. Burke didn’t bother shining the penlight in my direction. He stood with the beam illuminating the cuffs of his trousers and his shoes, and the white edge of Moira’s photo on the frost-blue living room carpet. His shadowy outline only shifted once I began to close the door.
I left the Empyrea via the lobby. As I joined a stream of people letting out from a show at the movie theater, I had to step around a long-limbed dude inclined with almost sagging relaxation against a post, a cigarette like a piece of smudged chalk stuck in the black sand of his heavy beard stubble.
A few feet farther on, I caught the smoke. A pungent, deep-tar punch.
No way that was an American brand, not even hand-rolled.
I kept walking to the corner before looking back. The lean dude with the black overcoat and blacker stubble was still hanging there, eyeing the hotel lobby. He glanced vaguely in my direction. Then assiduously avoided doing so again.
Maybe Burke had been leaving to meet him. Or maybe the dude was watching the lobby, intent on following Burke when he left.
Podraski and Martens, the task force cops, had implied someone might have hired me to break into Burke’s house. Burke himself had demanded to know who I worked for. And if the smoking dude wasn’t from Eastern Europe, I was a Martian. Was Burke somehow on the wrong side of his boss, Liashko?
I took my time returning to my truck, to make sure the smoking dude wasn’t on my tail, and to take a moment to think about my last sight of Sean Burke.
As I had closed the door to 3105, he had moved. It had been hard to know for certain in the gloom, but I thought I’d seen Burke reaching down, rescuing the picture of my mother from the sodden floor.