2 Sisters Detective Agency(5)

“Listen to me,” he said. “These attackers were highly sophisticated. They knew what they were doing. They cut the power, bypassed security. This wasn’t their first time. If we bring in the police now, we might be inviting more trouble.”

“Jake, are you kidding me?”

“Neina, there were five of them. The cops aren’t going to catch them all at once. If we leave even one of them out there, running loose, they’ll come for us.”

“Jake—”

“Just stay here with Beaty. I’ll handle it.”

He tightened his grip on her arms. Not painfully. Just enough to let her feel his certainty, his determination. She could trust him to make them safe. She’d always been able to do that.

Neina nodded, and Jacob held her to him again.



At the house, he stood in his kitchen, looking at the big black streak the fire had left on the wall behind the four-burner stove. They’d tossed an aerosol can of something in there while they trashed the place. The sprinkler system had kicked in, dousing everything. His boots crunched over broken glass and ceramics as he made his way to the stairs and down to the ground floor. He crossed the lavish game room, skirting around the full-size pool table, and took the stairs by the bar down to the basement. The wide space was home to a few boxes, Beaty’s bike, a treadmill Neina never used. There was a large desk, where he had drawn up the plans for the ornate jewelry box he was making for Beaty’s birthday. The box was half assembled at the community-college woodshop, where he spent his days as a volunteer teacher. He’d hoped it would be a much-loved item, something she could hand down to her children. He didn’t know if that was going to be possible now. He went to a large wine rack on the east wall and flipped a hidden switch, and the rack slid sideways to reveal a narrow alcove.

The smell hit him first. Gun oil, and the weird musty scent of used bank notes. In the alcove, stacks of unmarked bills bound in elastic bands reached knee height, consuming the floor space beneath the lowest of several wall shelves. On the shelf above the hoard of cash lay his passports and personal papers, and a battered old laptop that contained information to make the FBI’s counterterrorism squad believe all their Christmases had come at once. Beside the laptop was a torn and dusty backpack. That tattered black backpack had accompanied him to Madrid, Belfast, Sydney, Honolulu.

Jacob reached for the second shelf, where, along with a few other weapons, the Barrett M82 sniper rifle he had used on his last job lay patiently waiting, as though it had known all this time that he wasn’t done with his old life. He hadn’t lined a man up in the crosshairs in twenty years, hadn’t taken a job to kill business or political rivals, ex-lovers or friends, despised public figures or criminal adversaries, in every corner of the globe. In all that time, he hadn’t watched a placid, unassuming face in the sunlight become red mist spraying all over the steps of some church or the front windows of a café. But the time had come to kill again.

Jacob picked up the gun and loaded it.





Chapter 5



Twenty-five years. That was how long it had been since I’d seen or spoken to my father. I walked away from the courtroom in a daze, through the bustling courthouse halls and to the parking lot. I forgot all about Thad Forrester and Constance Jones’s father, and the murder attempt I’d just thwarted. In a space toward the back of the lot, my lovingly restored 1972 Buick Skylark with a realistic hand-painted leopard-print paint job bulged from the tiny space allotted for it, its big square bumper hanging well out over the adjacent sidewalk. I unlocked and climbed into the car, making the suspension sing.

“Are you still there?” the voice asked.

“I’m here. This is…” I fumbled for words, gripped the steering wheel with one hand, phone still pressed to my ear. “Wow. Wow. What happened?”

“Heart attack in his office. His health was not at premium levels.”

An image of my father from two and a half decades earlier flashed. The fixed chandelier of blue-gray cigar smoke hanging from his office ceiling, ash on every surface. The bottle of whiskey and chipped crystal glass on the edge of the table, take-out wrappers crunched down in the trash can under pill containers and bottles of Pepto Bismol. The place had always looked like a tornado had swept through it, depositing betting slips for horse or greyhound races everywhere.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t catch your name. Or who the hell you are.”

“I’m Ira Abelman, your father’s attorney.” I heard papers being shuffled. “Ms. Bird, I’m going to have to ask you to come to Los Angeles to see about Earl’s estate.”

“Oh, believe me, you can wrap it up without me being there,” I said, suddenly and undeniably grounded in the situation. “I’d be absolutely stunned if he’s left me anything. But if he has, just donate it to a charity of your choice.”

I took the phone away from my ear, made a move to hang up, strangely angry with the lawyer for delivering the message. His voice stopped me.

“Ms. Bird, you are absolutely required here in Los Angeles.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s essential that you attend a meeting at my office at your earliest convenience.”

“I know what ‘required’ means, you jackass,” I said. “Why am I required there?”