Taken by the Con (20 page)

“That’s why your father and I don’t understand why you’d want a job like that. Whenever we’ve spoken to you about your work, something bad has happened or is about to happen. How can you live that way? Wouldn’t you rather be like your sisters?”

Like her sisters? Directionless and totally dependent on another person? No. Not even a little. “Obviously you’d prefer that. You might love me, but you’ve never liked who I am. You’ve made me feel like I don’t fit in and like I’ve done something wrong by being who I am.” Now that the words were flowing, she couldn’t stop them. “To add insult to injury, when Bradley cheated on me with Meg and then married her, you acted like I was the one in the wrong.”

Her mother was quiet and Lucia wondered if she’d hung up. Lucia looked at her phone. Still connected.

“I don’t like to start problems. I thought you were okay with Bradley marrying Meg.”

Lucia said nothing. She was fine with it now. It would have been nice to have her parents’ support when it had happened.

“You didn’t love him. Your father and I both knew it. We knew he wouldn’t make you happy. We didn’t say anything because it would have made you more insistent on being with him.”

“You didn’t say anything to me about it even after,” Lucia said.

“What could I say? Your sister needs someone like Bradley, someone to take care of her and provide for her. You’ve never needed that. You’ve never needed us. You do your own thing.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Lucia asked.

“Nothing, except we don’t know how to fit into your life.”

Lucia took a moment to digest her mother’s words. “The way you fit into my life is to support my choices even when they are not your choices. I don’t need you to do anything for me. I need you to be my family.”

“We are your family, Lucia. We want you to be happy and we don’t see how what you’re doing will lead to that,” her mother said. “I’ve known women like you and they regret being alone when they’re older.”

Her mother was trying to protect her from a life she feared. “Then don’t chase off someone I care about.”

“Are you in love with that crim—” Her mother cleared her throat. “With Cash?”

Lucia wasn’t certain how to answer. “We’re not there yet.” He made her feel safe and they had fun together, but what future did they have?

* * *

Mitchell had assembled a crew to break into the headquarters of Holmes and White, access their safe in the basement and steal the contents.

Illegal. Absolutely. No gray area.

What made matters worse was that Cash’s father was on the crew. Why was his father doing this? He’d implied he couldn’t get away from Anderson. What did Anderson have on him?

If Cash backed out, he’d be blacklisted from Anderson’s organization, useless to the FBI and sent back to prison. If he went through with it, he risked being caught and returning to prison.

Cash weighed his options. If he managed to acquire something of use to the FBI, as long as no one was hurt or killed, wasn’t that the call that Lucia would make? Cash didn’t have a way to contact her to discuss it without someone overhearing. He had not been alone for a moment.

“What is it that we need inside the box?” Cash asked.

“That is not your concern,” Mitchell said. “Just get it and get out. Don’t get caught.”

He handed the crew their masks and rubber gloves. They each had an earpiece with a thin microphone attached that were linked together so they could be in constant communication. Mitchell would be handling the robbery from outside, the safest location, as the self-proclaimed mastermind.

Cash’s expertise was cons. This wasn’t a con. It was a robbery.

Mitchell handed Wyatt a small black bag. “This is the equipment you need to access the vault and the equipment to open the safe.”

His father was adept at safe cracking. He had passed on some of his knowledge to Cash, but it had been a decade since Cash had broken into a safe, much less a safe in a financial services company that was likely new and up-to-date.

“Some advanced notice would have been good,” Wyatt said.

“Are you saying you can’t do it?” Mitchell asked.

“I can do it. But I could do it faster with practice,” Wyatt said.

“You have seven minutes to complete this job. That’s plenty of time,” Mitchell said.

Right. Plenty of time, enough time to run a mile. Heat up a TV dinner. Not for robbing a safe with no advanced planning and little information about what they might encounter inside.

Cash liked Mitchell less and less. Anderson had always been methodical and careful. Mitchell seemed like a loose cannon. Did Anderson know what Mitchell was doing?

Hadn’t Anderson robbed Holmes and White? What else did he need from them? Evidence that he’d left behind? If Holmes and White had evidence, why hadn’t they handed it over to the FBI? The person overseeing the internal investigation could be on the take and keeping evidence pointing to others as insurance.

One of the men on the crew would disable the alarm, the other would spray paint over the cameras in a clear path to the vault and Cash and his father would break into it.

The chances for something to go wrong were high. If Cash intentionally bungled the operation, Mitchell’s crew would be caught. The police would have a reason to look at the contents of the safe and maybe it would provide the evidence the FBI had been looking for to track down Anderson and the money he’d stolen.

But if Cash let this operation fail, he and his father were facing jail time. His father had avoided prison all his life. Prison terrified him.

A month ago, Cash would have let his father take the fall. Now, he couldn’t.

Cash waited for the beep to signal the alarm was disabled, then the man with the can of spray paint broke open the door. He paved the way to the vault. Cash and his father followed, staying around corners until the path was hidden from video surveillance.

Once they reached the basement vault, the trailblazer fled.

Cash was alone with his father. His father opened his bag and removed the tools.

Cash worked beside him, holding tools and assisting like it was old times. Worse times.

It took Cash and his father less than thirty seconds to open the vault’s door. To his surprise, the lock wasn’t elaborate or complex.

Before relief took hold, a wave of fear hit him. There was a secondary alarm inside the vault, a silent alarm that would call the security guards on duty and the police. A red light above the door double flashed. They’d triggered it.

“There’s a second alarm,” Cash said.

“Get to the safe,” Mitchell said over their comm device. “You have time before security responds.”

His father was already working on opening the safe. Cash assisted his father, remaining quiet, knowing his father needed to listen, but also wondering if being caught was worth this.

He thought of the people who had lost their money to Anderson. Bowing out now would mean that money would disappear with Anderson. Lives had been ruined after Anderson’s theft. He couldn’t let the man get away with it.

Cash’s father swore. “No time,” he said under his breath.

Cash laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. “I’m here. We’ll do this together.”

His father gave him a swift nod and started again. Slowly, step by step, they finessed the safe open.

But it was empty.

“The safe is empty,” Wyatt said.

Mitchell swore and Cash feared the anger in Mitchell’s voice. Would he kill them after this botched job? To come so far and then fail was unacceptable.

Cash reached into the safe and felt around until his fingers brushed a small ridge along the floor. He lifted the fake bottom. Another door.

“There’s another lock,” Cash said.

By this point, security would be en route to the basement.

“Dad, go. I can do this alone.” Cash was already working the second lock.

His father shook his head. “I’m not letting you take the fall for us.”

He had taken the fall for a failed Anderson con before. He would do it again. He’d made the choice to come into this basement and he would accept the consequences of that decision.

His father remained with him. It was the first time Cash felt his father had put his son’s needs before his own.

Working together, they popped the second lock. This time, they were rewarded with a bundle of papers. Cash shoved the papers in the backpack full of tools and threw it over his shoulders.

They ran, the sounds of footsteps and sirens approaching. They turned a corner to hear shouts about the open vault. A second slower and they would have been seen.

He and his father raced out of the building to Mitchell’s waiting vehicle.

The moment they pulled away from the building, Mitchell reached for the backpack at the same time Cash took the papers from the bag and tried to hand them to Mitchell. Their fingers collided, which sent the stolen paperwork across the floor of the van.

“Watch what you’re doing!” Mitchell said, scooping up the papers.

As he helped Mitchell gather them, Cash scanned them, looking for a reason that Anderson wanted these documents.

Then he found it. The documents were a handwritten list of employees’ names with number amounts next to their names, people who had likely been paid off to assist in the fraud.

Whose handwriting was it? Who knew about the payoffs? Were they being kept on the premises to blackmail those involved into silence? Why did Anderson want the papers?

Chapter 10

“B
ased on your actions, you must love your cot in prison more than Lucia’s bed,” Benjamin said.

Cash didn’t hide the shock in his eyes. It was an outrageously inappropriate statement. He expected pushback from the choices he’d made at Holmes and White tonight, but he did not expect Benjamin to drag Lucia into this.

“I did what I thought was best for the investigation,” Cash said.

“That wasn’t your call to make,” Benjamin said, his anger evident.

“He removed my tracker. I didn’t have you for backup. I made the best choice I could,” Cash said.

Benjamin rubbed his temples. “Tell me again what you saw in that safe and on the papers.”

He was watching Cash closely, no doubt searching for hints of a lie. Cash wouldn’t tell Benjamin that his father had been involved in the theft. He couldn’t. He had plenty of anger for his father, but selling him out to the FBI wouldn’t make him feel better. Besides, the FBI wanted to find Anderson, not his dad.

Cash repeated his story, keeping the details vague. He’d once heard someone say that the trick to a convincing lie was details. Cash thought the trick to a convincing lie was consistency. He would repeat his story exactly, until he was almost one with the lie and the lie was embedded in his head as truth.

Benjamin rubbed his chin. “What will we do about you robbing Holmes and White? Nothing you saw is admissible in court.”

Cash was aware. “I know. It’s a tough situation.”

Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. “Made tougher by the fact that you committed a crime after we warned you that you had to stay within the law at all times. All times. Not only when it suited you.”

“It was a judgment call. If I had bailed, I wouldn’t be helping the investigation.”

“Or yourself.”

Cash nodded once. He was looking out for himself. No one else was, so why not?

“You could go back to jail for this.”

The threat was held over his head constantly. “I’m aware.” He didn’t like being reminded of it as if it could slip his mind.

“We thought Holmes and White had insiders.”

“Now we’ve confirmed it,” Cash said.

“Most of their staff is gone. Tracking them down one by one to question them is manpower we don’t have,” Benjamin said.

“I could mention a few names I saw with higher numbers next to them to give you a place to start. You’ve already questioned employees, what’s a few more?” Cash said.

Benjamin appeared interested. “A few names? Tell me.”

Cash was surprised that Benjamin was even considering the idea. “Kinsley Adams was on the list. So was Leonard Young.” He named a few others he wasn’t familiar with.

Benjamin rubbed his chin. “Young is involved.”

“He was on the list.”

“Someone at Holmes and White knows about that list,” Benjamin said. He let out a grunt of frustration. “If we had gotten the document in a legal way, then we could have used it to put pressure on those people involved. Someone knows where Anderson is keeping his money. But who?”

“Perhaps Lucia and I can have another look at the list while we’re undercover. If we steal one of the pages, you can run a handwriting analysis,” Cash said.

As if knowing he had spoken her name, Lucia opened the door to Benjamin’s office. “Cash, are you all right?”

She looked beautiful with her hair loose around her shoulders. Her jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a soft, clingy shirt beneath. Cash’s mouth felt dry and he wished that he was alone with Lucia. His adrenaline was pumping just as it had been after the theft of the Copley that had led to fantastic sex.

He didn’t miss the concern in her voice and neither did Benjamin. Cash watched Benjamin’s face and he appeared angry at Lucia. It was a brief flash that lasted only a moment. Was Benjamin jealous of Lucia’s concern for Cash? Angry that Cash had broken the rules and Lucia was more concerned about him than the law?

“We’re wrapping up here. Cash, I’ll email you my report. Please add your notes to the file by nine tomorrow. We’ll have a status meeting in the morning to fill in the rest of the team.”

Benjamin left the room, leaving Cash and Lucia alone.

Lucia watched Benjamin’s retreating back. The tightness of Benjamin’s shoulders and the crispness in his stride told Cash this incident wasn’t over. Benjamin might not be sure what to do, but he wouldn’t let Cash get away with breaking the law.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

Cash weighed how much to tell Lucia. He didn’t want to drag her into the middle of his decisions. “The case isn’t going as planned.”

“When does it ever?” Lucia touched his sleeve and he felt the touch on another level.

Somehow, with the distance between them in every area of their lives, they found common ground when they were alone.

“In my experience, life is as likely to kick me in the teeth as it is to give me something wonderful. You’ll read the details in the report tomorrow.”

Lucia motioned to him to follow her. They were alone in their office building. Without the sun coming in through the window and the office chatter and the lights from computer monitors, it was still and dark. The quiet was nice and Cash was glad to have these moments with Lucia. They wouldn’t have many more.

“We need to go back undercover and look for something.”

Lucia nodded. “Are we taking another trip to the FBI’s closet?” She screwed up her face.

“I know you hate those clothes, but you look good.”

“I understand. Lots of leg. Leave nothing to the imagination.”

Cash shook his head. “You leave many things to my imagination. You make me think about the ways I want to make love with you. You make me think about finding some way to pull you away from this job, to get you alone and do unspeakably pleasurable things to you.”

Confusion marred her expression. “I thought you were mad at me. For what happened with my family.”

He’d been hurt. But his life was filled with hurt. When she was with him it was easier for him to forgive than carry the anger. She could be taken from him at any time: if he was thrown in prison, if the case was solved, if she changed departments, if Cash found some way to get closer to Adrian.

“I am not angry.”

She shot him a sideways look. “Something else?”

“Nothing else. I don’t want anything but to spend the night with you.” He slipped his arm around her waist and anchored her to him. “I would ask you to come home with me, but I don’t want you anywhere near the Hideaway.”

“My place?” she asked.

Her breath was coming faster, her chest rising and falling. Her place. Yes.

He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the elevator. She swatted at his chest. “Someone will see us.”

“Do you care? Your reaction to me in Benjamin’s office was almost as overt as this.”

She wiggled out of his grasp once they were in the elevator. “I promise to let you hold me however you’d like when we’re alone. But here, we’re colleagues. In my place, we can be anything and do anything.”

“Anything?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.

The corners of her mouth lifted playfully. “Sure, I trust you.”

The playful tone of their conversation turned on a dime.
Trust.
That word that was so hard for both of them to give to others. “If that’s the case, I will be careful with your trust.”

When they arrived at her car, Lucia threw him the keys. “You drive.”

She climbed in the passenger seat and the moment they pulled away from the building, she stretched her seat belt to be close to him. She kissed his earlobe and his neck.

“Do you want your car to survive the drive home?” he asked. “If you keep doing that, I’ll hit something.”

She laughed and continued her assault on his senses. Everything in him burned for her. And then she slid her hand to the inside of his thigh and his brain could only focus on one thing: Lucia.

“I can see you’re enjoying this.”

“If we’re pulled over because I’m driving erratically, what will we tell the police?”

“You’re driving fine. You have spectacular control.”

In this space, he felt out of control. He wanted to pull the car to the side of the road and have sex with her, fast and hot and hard. He stopped himself because her words of trust lingered in his mind. Trust was a big deal to him. Growing up with a father who was a liar, a father who still was a liar, and learning that lying was part of life had warped Cash’s perception of a relationship. It was his wife who had taught him honesty, and now with Lucia he wanted to prove he was that honest, better man. Not the man his father had raised to trick and manipulate people and take what he wanted without regard to others.

When they arrived at her condo, they were barely inside the door before they were throwing their clothes to the floor. He heard fabric tearing and didn’t care. What did a few seams and buttons matter?

Lucia was all he had left in his life that was good and honest and pure. He needed her. And he needed to be inside her. Though she had initiated this in the car, he took control. He carried her to her bedroom and both naked, they fell onto the bed.

Cash could have worshipped her body all night. He took a moment to drink in the sight of her. She was beautiful and strong. Having her in his life had been the greatest stroke of luck he’d had in years.

“Change your mind?” she asked, as she lifted her knees and spread her thighs in invitation.

“How could I change my mind?” He covered her body with his and pushed inside her.

When he filled her completely they both groaned. As he moved, she lifted her hips hard into his. He loved that she wasn’t passive as they made love.

She came apart in his arms and he crashed with her. In the languor of the aftermath of their lovemaking, he felt truly relaxed and happy.

She threaded her fingers through his. “I trust you, Cash. I trust you at work, I trust you in the bedroom and I trust you as the man in my life.”

* * *

Benjamin handed Cash the document they’d doctored to give to Mitchell about Anderson. He threw Cash’s GPS tracker on top of it.

The rest of the team watched the exchange. No one spoke.

“You forgot to put this on,” Benjamin said. “Luckily, I knew where you were last night.” He looked directly at Lucia who held his gaze without flinching. She refused to let her face turn red or hide under her desk.

If the team wanted to gossip about her and Cash, fine. She wouldn’t apologize for having a relationship.

Cash’s phone rang. “It’s Mitchell.”

“Answer it,” Benjamin said.

Cash answered the phone. Lucia leaned in to listen to the exchange.

“Hey,” Cash said.

“I need to speak with you immediately.”

“I’m at work,” Cash said.

Something in Mitchell’s voice shook Lucia. He sounded...angry? He should be happy. Cash and the crew Mitchell had assembled had successfully broken into the safe at Holmes and White and had stolen important documents. They’d met their objective.

“Tell your boss you don’t feel well. This is important. And bring Lucy.”

That set Lucia’s heart racing. Why would Mitchell need to speak with her? She was nothing to their operation. Mitchell had insisted that Lucia stay away during the previous night.

“I’ll call her,” Cash said.

“Do it. Move fast,” Mitchell said and disconnected.

Cash set the phone on the table in front of him.

“It could be a trap,” Lucia said. “Maybe he figured out the painting isn’t real. Or your cover’s blown.”

“It’s possible,” Cash said.

“We can’t meet with Mitchell until we know what he wants,” Lucia said. “We don’t have time to plan this and set up proper backup.”

“I’ll tell him you were busy and couldn’t come,” Cash said.

Benjamin looked between the two of them. “Lucia stays with us. Cash, you go.”

Lucia stood, slamming her hands on top of the table. “No. You can’t send Cash in. If he were an FBI agent, would you tell him to go into an uncertain situation without backup and unarmed?”

“We’ll be listening. Cash can take in a service weapon if he chooses.”

Lucia could not believe the words coming from Benjamin’s mouth. How could he consider letting Cash go without her? He wasn’t trained. “I’m going with him. I’ll be armed.”

* * *

“We’ve got a serious problem,” Mitchell said. He stood from behind the desk and cracked his knuckles. “I need to know how you know her and what you were doing with her,” Mitchell said. He threw a picture of Audrey onto Cash’s lap.

Cash was careful to hide any reaction. “Are you having me followed?” Did he know Lucia was an FBI agent?

“I’ve been watching you. You went into her condo building last night and stayed all night. What were you doing?”

Lucia turned to look at him, her eyes wide. “You weren’t working last night? You told me you were working.”

Lucia’s hand inched to the gun at her thigh. She’d have it out and trained on Mitchell in seconds.

Cash wasn’t sure if it was too late to salvage this operation, but he’d try. “Luc, I was working.”

Mitchell folded his arms over his chest and smirked as if enjoying what he was seeing.

“With her?” Lucia asked, gesturing to the picture of Audrey.

If Mitchell was tracking Cash’s movements, he knew Cash was in Audrey and Lucia’s condo building. He had made the wrong assumption about who Cash was visiting. Lucia’s condo could be in her father’s name and perhaps he’d excluded the other residents based on who they were.

“She’s a mark. A wealthy mark,” Cash said. Would Mitchell buy that he was conning Audrey? Did Lucia catch his game?

“I thought you said you were done with all that,” Lucia said. “You’re working for him now.” She gestured at Mitchell.

“It was an easy score,” Cash said.

Lucia narrowed her eyes. “I’ve seen her before. She looks really familiar.” She feigned surprise and looked between Mitchell and Cash. “I saw this woman at the casino. Who is she? Did you invite her when you knew I’d be with you?”

“I did not invite her anywhere. Her name is Audrey,” Cash said slowly. “She’s a wealthy heiress.”

Lucia glared at him and let out an angry growl. “You said you’d changed.”