A car was waiting for them when they arrived in London.
By car, he meant limousine.
AJ wasn’t a stranger to luxury travel, but the accommodations they were taken to were something else. Even in the pitch-black of night, long past midnight, the silhouette of the estate Sasha had taken them to was impressive.
“Who lives here?” Claire asked.
“A friend.”
AJ grabbed Sasha’s bag and started up the steps. “Some kind of friend.”
The massive front door opened before they reached it.
The man who opened the door filled it with broad shoulders and a thick neck.
“Neil?”
“Reed would have come, but—”
“I didn’t request backup.” Sasha moved past AJ and Claire.
“The fact you requested anything at all gives me a reason to be here.”
Neil gave Sasha a stare that would intimidate the most hardened man.
Not Sex on a Stick. She stared back, her chest rising and falling with short breaths.
Claire brushed past AJ and straight up to the brick shithouse of a man. “I’m Claire.” She put her hand out.
Neil stared at it.
When he hesitated a moment too long, Claire reached out with her left hand, grabbed Neil’s right, and pushed his palm into hers. She shook it twice before letting go. “Nice to meet you, Neil,” she said.
AJ bit his tongue to keep from laughing.
Sasha shook her head and walked around Neil and into the house. “I’ll give you a briefing in twenty minutes.”
“I’m AJ Hofmann.”
“I know who you are,” Neil told him. Unlike with Claire, Neil put his hand out to shake.
His grip proved what AJ had already determined. Neil was a whole lot of muscle behind his girth.
“Thank you for having us.”
Neil closed the door behind them.
Sasha and Claire were following a woman in a maid’s uniform up the stairs.
“Coffee or whiskey?” Neil asked.
“Is that even a question? I’ve been traveling with the two of them all day.”
AJ couldn’t say for sure if Neil smiled. But there was something in his eyes that passed as humor before he turned and led him into a den.
Sasha joined them nineteen minutes later. She was prompt, AJ would give her that.
She’d changed out of the wig and housewife sweater and slipped on a tank top that hugged her chest and abdomen like a good friend on a Saturday night. Upon entering the room, she crossed to the whiskey in the decanter and poured herself a drink.
“Where’s Claire?”
AJ envied her.
“What did Reed tell you?” Sasha asked Neil.
“The basics. Hofmann is searching for his sister’s murderer, thinks it’s linked to your old school. The names you gave Reed have met with unfortunate dates with the grim reaper.”
“You’ve seen the data?” she asked.
“Everything Reed found.”
“Your first impression?” Sasha sipped her drink.
“There’s a link. I’m just not sure what yet.”
Sasha moved to what looked like a small secretary desk and pulled out a drawer. From there she removed a Bluetooth keyboard and made a few keystrokes.
What appeared to be a solid wall with paintings of family members peeled back to reveal a series of monitors from floor to ceiling.
“Holy crap,” AJ muttered.
Sasha slid a zip drive into the computer port after the wall revealed a second desk.
A few more keystrokes and a series of pictures were brought up on the screen.
“I took several pictures of the yearbooks from when Amelia Hofmann attended Richter. The group photos to help establish personal relationships. Senior photos with names.” She pressed another button and two pictures popped up. “Top left. This is the headmistress, Linette. She’s been in charge of Richter for as long as I remember.”
“This is a current picture?” Neil asked.
Sasha nodded. “I took all of these this week.”
“Who is the guy in the suit?” AJ asked.
“Geoff Pohl. Or Creepazoid, as Claire likes to call him.”
“The businessman?” Neil asked.
“Yes, but maybe with this picture, we can find something.”
“I’ll get the team on it.”
AJ sat forward. “Are you going to explain what Claire meant when she said this man offered you a job to kill?”
Neil narrowed his eyes.
Sasha slid a second drive into the computer. “It appears that Linette has some sort of arrangement with Pohl for him to interview students graduating from Richter for classified positions that require high marks in agility, self-defense, marksmanship, foreign languages, and computer skills.”
“Covert operations . . . spies?” Neil asked.
“That’s what I thought.” Sasha pressed play, and a male voice sounded through the speakers. “That’s Pohl.”
They sat and listened to the conversation between Sasha and Pohl.
AJ could hear the tension in Sasha’s voice when the man became condescending. Then when he said that his employer would do just about anything to obtain her services, Neil lifted a hand.
“Back that up.”
Sasha paused the recording, replayed it.
“He’s threatening you,” Neil said.
Sasha stopped the playback. “That’s what I got.”
“Did I miss something?” AJ asked. “Sounded like he would offer her whatever she wanted.”
Neil shook his head. “No, he said he would do anything to get her.” He looked at Sasha. “He alluded to others, but do we know who he works for?”
“No idea.”
Neil made little circular motions with his fingers.
Right before Sasha’s voice left the recording, Neil had her stop the tape again.
“What circumstances would need to change for you to take that job?” Neil asked.
Sasha sat in a chair, pushed her feet out in front of her. “How do you get people to do something they don’t want to do?”
“Sasha doesn’t need the money,” Neil said.
“Blackmail.” Sasha sipped her drink.
Neil sat in silence. AJ could see the wheels in the man’s head turning. “Does he have anything?”
Sasha shook her head.
“Then we’ll have to wait and see what he creates.”
She reached for the computer again. “Point taken. And this is where Claire comes in. Richter does not allow unsupervised computer access without firewalls to the outside. Cell phones are prohibited for the students. But when you teach intelligence to your elite students, they find a way. Claire helped me find the hidden upper-class computers that held the data from alumni . . . including me. Which was how I was able to record this conversation and the next one.”
Once again, she pressed play.
Pohl’s voice sounded once again.
“She didn’t take the job.”
A pause.
“Did you really think she would? We move on to plan B. I already have things in motion.”
Neil brushed the back of his hand to the side of his face.
“That doesn’t sound good,” AJ stated the obvious.
“Is there any more?” Neil asked.
“I don’t know. This is the first time I heard the recording. Claire called me from the computer room to tell me my plan worked. I asked her to put it on a drive. I shouldn’t have involved her.”
“Could you have obtained that without her help?” Neil asked.
“Not without a few toys I didn’t bring with me.”
“Then let it go.”
“You just took Claire and left?” AJ asked. “That doesn’t sound like the school my sister went to.”
Sasha rubbed her forehead. “She jumped the fence and found me. She indicated that she wanted to leave when I first met her. Illegally recording a message from a man employing hired guns gave her the excuse she needed.”
“Smart,” Neil said. “How old is she?”
“Eighteen. Richter has their senior class taking their first year in college, so that when and if they leave after they’re eighteen, they have a head start. The second Claire became of age, she could opt out and leave.”
“So why run away?”
“It wouldn’t be without an exit interview and a conversation with her benefactor,” Sasha explained.
“You mean her parents?” Neil asked.
“She’s an orphan. Like me.”
AJ stop with his drink halfway to his lips. The way Sasha had revealed the personal information was so flippant it made his chest ache.
Processing the information didn’t have a chance before the speakers crackled and voices filled the room.
“How did it go?”
“That’s Linette,” Sasha told them.
“Seems your alum has no need of the income I can offer.”
“I warned you that might be the case.”
“I wasted my time, Linette. You know how much I hate doing that.”
“At least you haven’t wasted your money.”
“And you have not earned a finder’s fee.”
“It appears so.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Sasha tilted her head back and muttered in a language AJ didn’t understand. “A finder’s fee?”
Neil stood and crossed to the computer, turned off the audio. “She didn’t sound upset about the loss of money.”
“Doesn’t change the fact she’s taken it in the past.”
AJ finished his drink, set the glass aside. “Or will in the future.”
Sasha pushed up in her chair and reached for the keyboard. “I’m going to need coffee.”
Neil placed a hand on hers. “This will all be here in the morning. The guys in LA are bored stiff. This will give them something to work on while you recharge.”
“This is my—”
“You’re right. And morning is in less than four hours.”
Sasha looked like she was going to argue. Giving up . . . or maybe giving in to the fatigue that was hovering above them like smog, she removed another zip drive from her pocket and pressed it into Neil’s palm.
“What’s this?”
“Raw data from Linette’s computer. Along with a list of students. Past and present. I haven’t spent any time looking this over.”
“We’ll get on it.” Neil reached for the drive.
Sasha kept it slightly out of his reach. “I’m not used to asking for help.”
Neil took the drive from her fingertips. “You didn’t ask.”
She released a long-suffering sigh and turned toward AJ. “C’mon. I’ll show you to your room.”
AJ turned toward Neil. “Thanks again.”
Neil nodded once and moved to the seat Sasha had just vacated.
AJ fell into step beside Sasha, grabbing his duffel bag on the way out of the room. They moved back to the foyer and main staircase. His feet felt like lead bricks now that he knew sleep was only a few feet away. “I could sleep on a sidewalk.”
“Save that for another night.”
They rounded the corner to a hallway with a half a dozen doors separated by a wide corridor.
She stopped long enough to open a door. “This one is yours.”
The room held a queen-size bed with muted colors of tan and beige. It was a little more formal than you’d see in a guest room in the States, but perfectly acceptable for a manor house in the English countryside.
“Where’s Claire?” he asked.
“Across the hall . . . why?”
He dropped his bag, sat on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize she was an orphan. There’s no one outside of Richter for her to contact or depend on. The girl has a lot of attitude, but under all that has to be some vulnerability, maybe even a little fear of what’s coming.”
Sasha looked over her shoulder to the empty hall. “I’ll put my money on her being just fine.”
“Didn’t say she wouldn’t be fine, just that she might be scared.” Had Sasha been scared . . . when she left Richter for the first time and had to join the world without a family? Where did she go? Who helped her out? How had she met Neil . . . and what did he mean when he said Sasha didn’t need Pohl’s money?
A hundred questions were there to be asked, and growing every hour.
AJ yawned.
She moved out of the room. “Get some sleep.”
“Where’s your room?” he asked, coming to his feet.
Is that a tired smile on her face?
Yeah . . . it is.
“You don’t have to worry about me being afraid,” she told him, and that tired smile grew.
AJ shook off her comment. “Oh, no, no . . . that’s for me.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“It’s a big place, I need to know where to go for protection.”
That had her laugh enough to know his charm wasn’t completely lost on her. She took a few steps down the hall and opened the door next to Claire’s. “Satisfied?”
“No. But I’m getting there.”
She lifted a hand, showed him her palm. “Good night, Junior.”
Only after she was securely inside her room did he move back into his room. He started to close the door and decided to leave it open a crack.