“You think Kinkead will be glad to hear from you?” Max asked.
“I don’t give a flying fig one way or the other. I just want him to cooperate.” He turned to Elena. “I’m going to talk to him.”
When she looked like she was going to object, he said, “Let’s see what happens.” He turned to Max. “Give me one of the burner phones you bought.”
Max opened the plastic shopping bag and poured several phones onto the coffee table.
Shane picked up one and put it in his pocket. He was walking toward the door, when he turned and looked at his partners. “Car keys.”
Jack handed over a set.
“Okay, thanks. Call down to the valet service and tell them I want the car.”
Max reached for the phone.
“Be good while I’m gone,” Shane tossed out.
Elena made a strangled sound. The two men simply watched him leave.
Once outside the room, he took the elevator to the lobby, then stepped into the courtyard to wait for the car.
Meanwhile, he called Kinkead’s private office line.
The phone rang four times before the S&D executive picked up.
“Who is this?” he demanded. “I don’t recognize this number.”
“This is Shane Gallagher.”
“You son of a bitch. Where are you?”
“I want to meet with you.”
“I fired your ass while you were gone.”
“And I’ve still been working on the case.”
“And do you have the stolen information?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Then bring it in.”
“Not yet.”
“What—are you blackmailing me or something?”
“The night the shit hit the fan, Elena Reyes came into the office to retrieve what Arnold Blake stole from you.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. We suspected Blake but we didn’t know anything for sure.”
Kinkead made a rough sound.
“Elena found the info and took it because the men who wanted it were holding her brother. They still are. We’re going to exchange the program for him.”
“Listen to me, Gallagher, you can’t do that.”
“I could, but I’m willing to do it another way. I want you to download some of that code onto a phone SIM card.”
“Why?”
“That’s where Blake hid it. He left the phone in his desk drawer. It was there all the time, but only Elena was smart enough to figure it out.”
“Son of a bitch,” Kinkead answered.
“Yeah. You could have found it and saved yourself a lot of trouble. Don’t put everything on it, just enough to look real, because they may check it out before they turn over the brother. And if they think Elena’s scamming them, they’ll shoot her.”
Kinkead winced.
“When you’ve got something plausible, meet me outside that restaurant where you took me after I accepted your job offer.”
“You mean…”
“Don’t say it,” Shane cautioned, cutting him off.
“Then you’re back in the area,” Kinkead said.
“Yeah. How soon can you be there?”
“Forty minutes.”
“It will take me a little longer. Wait in your car at the edge of the parking lot.”
Shane hung up, wondering if the guy would show up—or if he was going to pull some kind of scam. Because as the S&D saga had unfolded, Shane had started thinking that Kinkead wasn’t exactly playing straight with him—or anybody else.
But when Shane showed up at the parking lot outside the Mykonos Grill on Congressional Lane, he recognized Kinkead’s Mercedes in the corner of the lot.
He checked out the area, then parked beside the other car.
“Thanks for coming,” he said as he slipped into the passenger seat.
“I should have you arrested.”
“For what?”
“Taking ten years off my life.”
Shane ignored the comment.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” Kinkead snapped.
“Because I was busy trying to save my life—and Elena’s. We were shot at in my apartment garage. We were shot at in the Rockfort Eastern Shore safe house. And then where we were hiding out after that.”
“You got Bert Iverson killed.”
Shane made a dismissive noise. “What the hell do you think he was doing down there?”
“Coming to bring you in.”
“Did you tell him to do that?”
“No,” Kinkead conceded.
“Well, he wasn’t doing it for you. He was working for your opposition. He shot me.”
Kinkead gaped at him.
Shane pulled up his knit shirt and showed him the healing wound.
“Jesus!” He gave Shane a direct look. “Who was Iverson working for?”
“I don’t know yet. We hope we’ll find out tonight. Give me the SIM card.”
Kinkead got the little drive out of his pocket but held it in his hand. “And the real goods are safe?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t tell me where the card is?”
“Nobody’s going to find it,” Shane said.
Kinkead sighed and handed over the SIM card.
“This will fool them?”
“Hopefully,” Kinkead said.
Lincoln Kinkead watched Shane Gallagher return to his car and drive away.
He’d given him a smidgen of the good stuff that had been stolen by Arnold Blake.
He made an angry sound. He’d come here thinking that he didn’t owe Gallagher or Reyes anything and what happened to them was their fault, not his. Reyes had as good as stolen from the company. Gallagher had gone rogue. But now he was wondering if he was going to get one or both of them killed with what he’d put on the SIM drive. It was a very small part of Falcon’s Flight. Maybe it would fool someone for five minutes. Maybe not.
Chapter 26
When Shane walked into the hotel suite an hour later, Elena rushed to him, and they embraced. She knew the other two men were watching them, but she didn’t care what they thought. She only wanted to wrap her arms around Shane and feel his arms around her.
When Max cleared his throat, Shane eased away.
“You got something we can show Mr. Big?”
“Mr. Big?” Elena asked.
“That’s what we call the boss man, since we don’t know his name.”
Shane pulled out the SIM card. “Kinkead says this will fool them.”
“You believe him?”
“I hope so.”
He looked toward the phones still lying in a pile on the coffee table. “We should make the call.”
“After we eat,” Jack answered. “We figured we wouldn’t have much time for eating later, so we ordered something. It will be here soon.”
The food came ten minutes later. Gourmet hamburgers, potato salad, and coleslaw for everyone, along with ice cream sundaes for dessert.
“If you can’t handle the food, you can eat the ice cream for calories,” Jack explained.
Elena forced herself to nibble some of her burger because she knew the men were watching her, and she didn’t want to look like she was too nervous to swallow. But after a few bites she switched to the ice cream.
A knock at the door made her stiffen. Jack got to his feet quickly and crossed the room. After looking out the peephole, he opened the door, and a pretty woman with dark blond hair walked in.
Elena watched in surprise as the woman and Jack embraced. When they broke apart, he turned to the group.
“Elena, this is my wife, Morgan Rains.”
“Your wife?” she said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were married.”
Jack grinned. “Very much so.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” Morgan said. “I thought you might want to have another female join you in this group of macho guys.”
“Yes, thanks,” Elena managed to say.