Pretty Wanted (24 page)

“I don’t know about that part,” I admitted. I couldn’t solve the case single-handedly. I was just an amateur, after all. “There’s gotta be something that could match up. Look, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Granger and Chet and Bailey have been hiding these secrets all these years. And now they’ve got Aidan. They want their money so they can hush everything up. But we can’t get him back alone. You have to help us. What do you say?”

Corbin was silent.

I tried to sweeten the deal. “I’ll do a DNA test, too. If we can prove that I’m Granger’s daughter, that will be more evidence for my theory.”

“I don’t know. I’m not exactly in the business of bringing down corrupt pols, Willa.”

“This murder has bugged you all these years. Now’s your chance to solve it. I’m giving you everything. Do it for Leslie. She would want you to finally put these cases to rest.”

A hard exhalation.

“All I need is for you to get the money, and come out here. You can do that, right?”

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll be there. Give me two hours. Lucky for you I happen to be in Kansas City today. I’ll meet you at the Hyatt Regency hotel and send one of my guys to the car. You should leave immediately. I don’t want to risk anyone seeing you there.”

“Thanks, Corbin,” I said, feeling relief pour through me. I knew playing the Leslie card would work.

“And Willa? Don’t let me down again.”

How could I? All I wanted was for Aidan to be safe. For this nightmare to be over.

“I won’t,” I promised. And this time I really meant it.

The last time I saw Corbin, he was in plain clothes. Now he was wearing more official gear—a black suit, crisp white shirt, black tie, and a navy blue windbreaker with
FBI
lettered in yellow over the chest and back. It was as if he wanted to remind us that there was no playing around, no bending or breaking the rules. His face showed a day’s worth of stubble but his dark hair was neatly parted to one side and combed back.

“Come on,” he said, angling for me across the lobby and grasping my elbow. He never was one for big greetings.

“Is this fully necessary?” I asked, meaning the leading-me-by-the-arm business.

“You’re lucky I’m here and don’t forget it.”

Somehow, I had a feeling that he wasn’t about to let me.

“This is Tre,” I said, trying to be polite as we moved awkwardly, the three of us in a triangle, toward the elevators.

“Yes, I know all about him.”

“He’s not involved. He’s just here for support,” I said quickly, hoping Corbin didn’t have the wrong idea about him.

“I know that, too.”

Tre didn’t say anything. He followed us silently. I hoped he wasn’t panicking. Most likely, Corbin had no interest in ratting him out, but Tre didn’t know that. We got on the elevator and went up to the sixth floor, where Corbin had hired out a suite for us. Our war room.

Corbin pulled out two chairs at the round table in the living area. “Have a seat. We may be here for a while.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“The plan is we wait for your friends to call back.”

“I wouldn’t say they’re my friends,” I said.

“Whatever,” Corbin said. “I’m having Tre’s phone tapped in the meantime so my guys can listen in and record it.”

“My phone? Tapped?” Tre looked nervous.

“You want to catch them, right? How else are they going to get in touch with us? When we hear from them, we’ll make a meeting place, fit you with a wire and have you go in with the money.” He patted a computer bag that looked, to my eye, to be filled with stacks of bills.

The old Sly Fox urge pulled at me for a second, seeing all that money in a hefty pile. It was so big, so . . . grabbable. I swallowed and looked away.

Corbin continued. “I’ll be in an unmarked raid van, listening in. We’ll have a SWAT team for backup. Then, we go in and nail the sons of bitches. How does that sound?”

“You’re bringing in the HRT?” Tre asked.

“This kid is good,” Corbin said to me, and I could tell Tre was pleased. “Actually, it’s a typical SWAT unit.”

Tre nodded. “Will you have snipers?”

“Probably not.”

“You might need them.”

Corbin actually smiled. “I’ll take that under advisement. Do you guys want anything? A soda?”

“I’ll have one,” I said.

Corbin grabbed two Cokes for us from the minibar and slid over a pad of the hotel stationery and a pen.

“So they said no FBI, no police, no media,” I said. “No marked bills, no consecutive bills. I want to make sure we’re doing this right.”

Corbin nodded. “We’ve got all that. Willa, we wouldn’t send you into this if we didn’t take all the precautions we could.”

“What do you think they’re doing with him?” I asked.

“They’ve probably got him restrained somewhere,” Corbin said. “I don’t think they’d hurt him, maybe just enough to scare him. They’re not stupid, these guys. They’re just after the cash they think you took from Leslie.”

I wasn’t so sure. “I wish they’d call already.” I got up and started to pace the room. The waiting was driving me crazy.

Corbin put down his drink. “And you’re sure you want to go through with this? If this guy Granger is your dad, you could be sending him to jail for life.”

I didn’t need to search my soul for answers. I had no feelings for Granger. If he was my real dad, he’d never been part of my life, not like Leslie had. Not like my real mom would have been. He was a murderer. Toni was right. He was too good to be true, and he’d fooled everyone all this time. He’d killed my mom, and I would never be able to forgive him for that. It was that simple. He was getting what was coming to him.

What I did feel bad about were the people lined up at those rallies and speeches. The people who believed in him and had no idea how evil he was. They deserved someone better. Someone who wasn’t going to lie to them just to hang on to his power.

No, I couldn’t feel guilty about turning Granger in. Not now. This was his fault, the results of his choices, as Corbin would say. And my mom was guilty, too. Only she wasn’t here to deal with her own consequences.

“I’ve thought about it, and I say go ahead,” I told Corbin.

“Just want to make sure you’re not going to get cold feet at the last minute. Blood is thicker than water, and all that.”

“I’m not,” I said firmly. Was blood really thicker than water? Sure, I had this biological family, but I also had my adopted family, and that included Aidan and Tre and Cherise, the people I’d chosen to surround myself with. And I felt just as loyal to them, if not more so. They’d stood by me, and I’d fight for them—to the death if necessary.

Tre’s phone rang, and he placed it on the table in front of us.

“Okay to answer it?” I asked.

“Go ahead,” Corbin said.

I picked up the phone and I could hear the voice pouring out, deep and burbling as though it was coming from the bottom of the sea. Spooky. “Is this Willa Fox?” Was it Bailey, Chet, or Granger himself? I had no way of knowing.

“Yes, speaking,” I said, feeling my heart accelerate.

“We want you, and only you. Meet us at 1305 Criterion. I believe you know where that is. Seven
P
.
M
. this evening.”

I did. That was where we’d just been the day before, when we traced the car registration. I picked up the pen and the pad of paper and wrote down the address.

“Seven
P
.
M
.,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

“No cops. No FBI. No media, or we’ll kill you and your friend. Understand?”

My stomach lurched. This was potentially the most serious lie I had ever told. Was I making a terrible mistake? But Aidan was out there. He was depending on me. “I understand.”

“Make this easy, do what we say, and no one gets hurt.” The phone went dead and I gripped the piece of plastic in my hand, because at least it was something I could hold on to.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

SEVENTEEN

WE CALLED A
cab from the hotel to take me to Criterion Avenue. Tre and Corbin were going to follow closely in the raid van. Corbin tried to fight Tre on it, saying it was too dangerous for him to come along, but he wouldn’t budge. There was no way he was gonna wait back in the hotel for us, he said, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. Corbin finally relented. I guess Tre was in too deep now.

Corbin went to pick up the van from the parking lot, leaving Tre and me in the lobby to wait for my cab.

“You really want to do this?” Tre asked me.

I nodded, feeling the dime-sized microphone I’d stuck under my bra strap. It connected to a transmitter inside my waistband. The device was small, imperceptible from the outside, but just knowing it was there made it a princess and pea situation.

“Look, if you need me in there with you, just say . . .” He looked around and his eyes fell on a police car across the street. “Just say ‘bulletproof,’ okay? That will be our code.”

I smiled. “It’s going to be okay,” I said with whatever false bravado I had left. “Look, this will all be over before we know it and I bet you’ll be back in Paradise Valley with Cherise by tomorrow night.”

“Cherise?” he asked, puzzlement glancing across his brow. “What about her?”

“I thought you two had something going on. . . .”

“No,” he said. “I guess we flirted a little bit for a while back there, but she told me she wasn’t interested in your leftovers.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Just, she thought I had a thing for you.”

Now I did a double take.

Wait. What?

His face held no signs of a joke. What did she mean by that? Tre? And me? He wasn’t agreeing or denying. He was simply offering it as a statement of truth.

And now I was embarrassed, too. What had they said about me? How could I not know any of this? Most important, how did I feel about it?

But there wasn’t time to process the information because the cab was pulling up in front of the hotel. I hugged Tre.

“Good luck,” he said, pulling away so I could look into his eyes. “Be careful, all right?”

“I will. Over before we know it.”

“I hope so.” He ran his thumb along my jawline. Gently. I felt myself dissolve under his touch, and I realized I’d never been so close to Tre. Or at least not like this. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Before I could think or say anything else, it was over and we’d broken apart.

I got into the backseat of the cab, the vinyl seat squeaking on its springs beneath my weight. I dropped the computer bag of money down next to me.

“Where to?” the driver asked, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror.

“1305 Criterion Avenue,” I said. “But my friends will be following us, so hang on.”

When the van pulled around to the front of the hotel, I watched Tre get it into it and I felt a vague tug inside me that wasn’t just worry. Like I was forgetting something. Or maybe just remembering.

The cab pulled away from the curb, with the van behind it. I bit my lip and turned to face forward as the cab drove on.

There was no time for feelings now. I had a job to do.

We followed the same sequence of streets we’d taken the other day—the highway, then the neighborhood with its orderly rows of homes. As we approached the address, I could feel nervousness prickling in my veins. I turned around to look behind us. The raid van—disguised as a painter’s truck, complete with a ladder on top—was there, pulling into a neighboring driveway. Four cars were arranged in what Corbin said was a stakeout box. They would never leave me alone, I knew that. This was FBI. They had protocols to follow.

I zipped up my FBI-supplied bulletproof jacket—a cheesy black bomber that I’d never otherwise be caught dead in—and paid the driver with cash Tre gave me. Then I got out of the car, carrying the bag of money. It was heavy, the handle biting into the flesh of my upper arm as I started down the paver-stone walk. Good thing I didn’t have to go far.

All I had to do was meet them at the door, hand over the money, like Corbin told me to, and wait for them to bring out Aidan. I was not supposed to make any sudden movements or use my hands below the belt—this last, I assumed, was so they wouldn’t think I was pulling a gun. I had the FBI phone Corbin had given me in my pocket—if I had to, if something went wrong with the wire, I could always pick that up and call for help. I was not, under any circumstances, to go inside the house.

Up close, I could see it was an ordinary suburban split-level, not unlike places where I’d stayed with Leslie before we moved to Paradise Valley, before we’d started living large on the five mil. For a moment, I was overtaken with the strongest urge to go back in time to when we were living in Washington or Colorado again, to that simple era in my life where I was still a kid. When I’d had no idea what had happened before I was born and hadn’t given a thought to consequences at all, let alone the consequences I would inherit. Or all the ones I’d bring on myself.

But I couldn’t.
Aidan’s in there
.
He’s depending on me.

If I needed courage to do this thing, I was going to have to take it from that thought. I felt ridiculous, though, as I approached the door.
Um, hello? I’m here with your five-million-dollar ransom.

No. I had to be businesslike. Confident.

Let’s just make this quick. In and out.

I’d hand over the money and they’d hand over Aidan. When Corbin and his guys heard me say “thank you,” they’d come through the back door and surprise the bad guys. Meanwhile, I was supposed to tackle Aidan and pull him to the ground, roll out of the way. I had to stay on top because I had the bulletproof jacket on, and Aidan would have no such protection if gunfire was exchanged.

Gunfire. I couldn’t even think of that.
It’s the worst-case scenario
, Corbin had said.
We won’t let it come to that, but just in case
.

Hand shaking, I reached up to press the illuminated doorbell button.

I heard footsteps inside and then the door opened. Behind it was Bailey, his dark eyes glinting like bits of mica. Chet appeared next to him. He was as I remembered him: a big dude—maybe two hundred fifty pounds—with curly, auburn hair sprinkled with gray, and heavy-lidded hazel eyes.