Francois Durand had escaped with the artifact, and she couldn’t even contact Peyton to get a drone on him.
Shay sighed.
I hope you appreciate it, old lady. I just traded a million dollars for your life.
“This isn’t over, Durand. I’m gonna find you, you prick.”
Chapter Eighteen
Shay paced in front of the Warehouse Two office, her arms crossed. “That French asshole is really getting on my nerves.”
Peyton turned a corner, a small bowl of water in hand, and walked over to set it down near the door to the office. Osiris meowed from underneath a nearby table and padded over to the bowl, his eager tongue flicking to lap up water.
“It’s not a big deal, if you think about it,” Peyton suggested.
Shay stopped and spun toward him, pinning him with a glare. “How the fuck isn’t it a big deal? He got the artifact, and not only do I not get a million dollars, but this is gonna ding my rep.”
Peyton shrugged. “I meant to tell you earlier, but based on the last message he sent, the client doesn’t seem to care. Don’t think he’s going to say anything to hurt your reputation.”
“He doesn’t care?” Shay narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”
If the client had set her up, she was going to go have a loud and painful one-way conversation with him.
“I’ve got a pretty good feel for how this guy thinks by now, so I decided to really play up that guys in dark suits—you know, Men in Black—had shown up, and how you were forced to save the little old lady from the evil international government conspiracy.” Peyton laughed. “He ate that up, and you know, it’s basically true.”
Shay groaned and slumped against a wall. “I didn’t…save her. I just didn’t shoot her when I had a chance.”
I could have gotten the wheel if I had just opened fire immediately. Would it have been worth it for a million dollars?
She’d killed a lot of people in her life, and while she couldn’t claim that every one of them had it coming, gunning down some unarmed old woman would have strayed into territory she hadn’t dared enter.
That didn’t mean they needed to discuss the subject. Shay couldn’t dismiss the moderating effects of James, Alison, and all her new friends on her personality, but she refused to be anyone’s open book. She was sleeping with James and she still kept things from him, let alone her assistant.
Peyton shrugged. “I’ve always been a lover, not a fighter. Not saying I have a problem with you taking down some of the assholes you have, but it’s not so bad that you’re a little less vio—” He blinked under her enraged glare. “Uh, let’s stop talking about that.”
“I agree. We should stop talking about that.”
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Anyway, the client doesn’t blame us. He blames the government conspiracy, and from what he told me, he thinks that the fact that even Aletheia couldn’t recover the artifact because of the government is proof that everything he believes in is real. He almost seemed giddy about it in his messages. He’s not giving up, and has mentioned hiring you for future jobs once he has a line on other alien artifacts.”
“That doesn’t change anything about the last job.” Shay shook her head. “That French fucker stole my artifact and messed with me on a job. It’s one thing to lose to Yulia. She’s at least a witch, but that guy doesn’t have any magic.” She pointed at the computer in the office. “Find Durand. Drop everything else for now. I don’t want any other jobs until I can find him again. The important thing is Francois Durand, and the wheel he stole from me. Asshole got lucky by showing up a few minutes earlier. He’s not better than me.”
“You planning to kill him?”
Shay shrugged. “Maybe, but mostly it’s time he realized he’s not free to do whatever the hell he wants. It might be good not to kill him.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because where he goes there will be alien artifacts, and next time, I want to be the one holding the artifact and mocking him.”
Shay leapt from the roof of the office building and landed with a smooth roll on the next building. She ran close to the edge to keep Durand’s black SUV in sight. The dense DC traffic was slowing him down, which helped.
Peyton’s and Shay’s research had managed to turn up a plane itinerary placing Durand in Washington DC, and a quick trip across the country was far more practical than waiting for the next time the asshole showed up halfway across the world. That didn’t mean shadowing the French retrieval specialist was easy.
Now that Shay was onto the man, she had only her skills to draw on. She had no open line to Peyton and no drones. Electronics could fail or be traced, and a paranoid asshole like Durand would be looking for something like that anyway. She doubted he’d bother to check the roofs of nearby buildings to see if someone was using parkour to trail him, though. Until a few days ago, she would have never thought of the idea herself.
Thanks, Marcus. Because you pissed me off, I’ve been learning a new useful skill. Next time I see you, I’ll thank you after I punch you in the nose.
After a few more blocks of slow-moving traffic, the SUV pulled into a parking lot. Shay ducked and watched from the edge of her current roof.
Durand emerged, along with two other suited men. He gestured toward a tall office building across the street, but Shay was too far to hear away what he was saying.
Should get some sort of portable laser mic if I’m gonna be stalking guys through DC.
The men nodded and headed toward the crosswalk. Durand strode the opposite way, his hands in his pockets.
What are you up to, asshole? Got a meeting you don’t
