My first stop was city hall for a sit-down with the Honorable Edward “Edso” Deacon to thank him for giving me the cover I needed to borrow Elizabeth from her boss, Evan Pritchard, and the Field Unit within the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“I really pissed Pritch off, keeping him in the dark like that,” said the mayor, before breaking into a laugh. He and Pritchard had had their run-ins in the past. “Trust me, I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“All the same, I want to express my gratitude,” I said.
“You mean, by explaining why you needed the favor from me in the first place?”
“Not exactly, but I promise you’re going to like this.”
“Okay,” he said, making a show of putting his feet up on his desk. “What are you giving me?”
“It’s what you’re giving Mathias von Oehson,” I said. “A key to the city.”
Deacon squinted. “That sounds an awful lot like you’re asking me for another favor, Dylan.”
“Not after I tell you why,” I said.
My next stop, after city hall, was the last place I’d ever expect to find Allen Grimes during a workday. That is, actually at work. But there he was, just as his assistant, Vanessa, had told me, sitting in his office on the editorial floor of the New York Gazette building in Midtown. “I know,” said Vanessa, when I called looking for him. “I’m just as surprised he’s here as you are.”
But maybe not as surprised as Grimes himself when I shut the door to his office behind me and told him why I was paying him a visit. I had not one, but two scoops for him.
“Frank Brunetti is dead,” I said.
“What?”
“He was killed outside his restaurant yesterday afternoon as he was getting into his limo. One shot to his head from a long-range rifle. The triggerman was a contract killer. He’s now dead, too.”
Grimes was staring at me, stunned, until finally it occurred to him that he was a reporter. He frantically began searching the drawers of his desk. “Wait, wait, wait…”
“Forget about the recorder,” I said. “We’re off the record.”
“No way. We can’t be.”
“Fine. We’re not, then. But you’re not going to write that story.”
“The hell I’m not.” So said his mouth. The rest of him, however, was quickly catching on to how confident I sounded. “Okay. Why not?” he asked.
“Because your paper needs two confirmed sources to run it, and you’ll never get the second source.”
Grimes could always read between the lines with me. When I said stuff like that, I wasn’t the professor with a PhD in psychology, I was the former CIA operative. All the more reason why he didn’t need to ask the obvious question. How could this news not have gone public yet?
“Why are you telling me, then?” he asked instead. “And what’s the second scoop while we’re at it?”
I explained why I’d told him about Brunetti. Then I reached into my pocket and handed him an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“That’s a statement that the mayor’s office will be releasing to the press tomorrow afternoon. Somehow you’ve managed to get a copy of it in advance,” I said, getting up to leave. “Merry Christmas.”
After making a quick call to Julian to confirm that all the arrangements had been done, I made my third and final stop of the day. Home sweet home.
“Daddy D! Daddy D!”
Annabelle came running to meet me at the door, jumping into my arms. If she were any older she would’ve asked why there were tears in my eyes. As for Tracy, who turned the corner into our foyer a few seconds behind her, he didn’t need to ask at all.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“What for? Spending the night in a CIA safe house has always been on my bucket list,” he said. Then he smiled and hugged me. We all hugged. It was another Annabelle sandwich, this one maybe the best one ever. “So how much are you legally able to tell me?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I said. “You deserve to hear all of it.”
Which is exactly what I told him over a bottle of red as we cooked dinner. All of it. Everything.
And I saved the best part for last.