Meg Gardiner - The Nightmare Thief

“Red Rattler—he was a pro rodeo rider? You got a name for this guy?”

“Doesn’t matter whether you track him down. It’s not the man; it’s the bogeyman he’s become in her imagination.”

“It’s what the Bad Cowboy represents,” Coates said.

“You got it.”

“Psychodrama.”

Which Reiniger wanted to kill, dead. “Maybe you could have one of your game runners dress like him.”

Autumn came into the living room, chattering to her boyfriend.

Coates nodded to Reiniger. “Leave it to me,” he said, and headed outside.

Dustin Cameron, smooth and overeager, held out his hand. “Sir.”

“Autumn’s told you?” Reiniger said.

She looked giddy and calculating. “A crime spree weekend. And I’m going to play the queen of the underworld.” She grabbed Dustin around the waist. “You be the DEA agent who’s after me.”

“I want a big gun,” Dustin said.

Dustin lifted weights and tucked his expensive sunglasses in the open collar of his polo shirt. His aspirations were ill defined. But Dustin’s father was a Washington lobbyist. The boy came from a family with power and swagger. He would do well.

And he could take Autumn places. Reiniger hoped she wouldn’t tire of him. Dustin needed to emerge from the crime spree weekend a hero. He would ask Coates to ensure it.

Autumn squeezed the young man. “The game’s going to be badass. Absolutely goddamned badass.”

“Autumn,” Reiniger said.

She laughed. “I’m getting into character. One you designed.”

Reiniger’s phone rang. He stepped away to take the call.

“Dad—”

He put up a hand to forestall her. “The Asian markets are opening soon.”

He answered the call. After a moment Autumn pulled Dustin out the French doors onto the terrace. She looked stung. Reiniger walked from the room and closed the door behind him.

In a copse of trees down the hill, Dane Haugen adjusted the focus on his Leica binoculars. The laser rangefinder gave the distance to Reiniger’s terrace as 122 meters. Through the hazy sunlight, Autumn Reiniger looked as bright and unaware as a piece of glass.

“Photos,” Haugen said.

Sabine Jurgens raised her Nikon and snapped a dozen shots of Autumn and the young man who was groping her.

“My, my,” Sabine said. “Mr. Cameron is testosterone personified.”

“What are they saying?”

Beside Haugen, Von Nordlinger aimed a parabolic microphone at the terrace. He put a hand to his earphones. “They’re talking about the game. She just got the invitation.”

“Record the conversation,” Haugen said.

Von pressed a button and listened, his slab of a face thick with concentration. The earphones stretched over his pumpkin-size head.

Haugen watched Autumn. “Does her description of the scenario match the specs Sabine pulled off the Edge database?”

Von nodded. “Prison break . . . speedboat . . . six in the party. Autumn’s talking about who to invite.”

Sabine snapped more photos. Her face was severe, her red hair cut boyishly short. Though she lacked any hint of softness, she moved with cold fluidity. Haugen found her stunning, in the way of an electric eel: smooth and cunning and purposeful.

Her intrusion into the Edge computer system had found OUTLAW SCENARIO—Autumn Reiniger booked for mid-October. But that hack was now twenty-four hours old.

“Get back into the Edge system tonight,” Haugen said. “I want details—the scenario’s starting point, the timing, the equipment Edge is bringing.”

She lowered the Nikon. “Not all Coates’s notes go on the computer system.”

Von said, “I can search their office.”

Haugen turned, removed his sunglasses, and stared at Von without blinking. Von scratched his nose and shrank back.

Haugen continued to glare. “We leave no footprints. We do nothing that could tip Edge to our existence.”

Von looked at the ground. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Hardly,” Haugen said.

But Sabine was correct: Terry Coates sometimes modified scenarios on the fly. That was why Haugen had shadowed the Edge team on today’s kidnap scenario—to see whether they stuck to the script. And, crucially, to see whether the police stuck to the script when challenged.

Thanks to Sabine’s hack, he had known where and when Edge would grab Reiniger’s corporate team. When Terry Coates pulled up, precisely at noon, Haugen was watching from a coffee shop across the street. He had already phoned the police.

SFPD response time to a 9-1-1 call reporting an abduction at gunpoint: three minutes, forty-two seconds.

Time required for Coates to convince the SFPD it was a game: four minutes dead. Once the uniforms confirmed that Edge was running a team-building exercise, and that the department had been informed of this in advance, they drove away.

Excellent.

Haugen swept the binoculars and saw, on the driveway, Reiniger Capital’s crew celebrating their escapade. He saw Terry Coates, buff and slick and unctuous. Peter Reiniger stepped outside and was swarmed by his acolytes. Accepting kudos, undoubtedly.

Haugen lowered the binoculars. “Do you understand who Peter Reiniger is?”

“Richer than God,” Von said.

“He’s a pivot point. He’s the fulcrum that will provide the leverage we need. And, thanks to his daughter, he is going to be”—Haugen savored the word—“pliant.”

“So we’re going to grab her,” Von said.

The air was sharp with salt, and with promise. Haugen raised the binoculars and took another look at Autumn. “Happy birthday, princess. Surprise, surprise.”

Chapter 2 Contents Cover Title Page The Nightmare Thief Meg Gardiner Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Meg Gardiner Copyright About the Publisher

Wednesday, October 10

Stop kidding. It costs how much?”

The guy in the attendant’s booth didn’t look up. “Twenty-four bucks for the first hour, twelve-fifty each hour after that.”

Evan Delaney blinked. For parking? Maybe she should ram the exit barrier and escape the garage, instead of forking out. Then, because street parking in San Francisco meant a fight to the death, she could drive her Mustang straight downhill, launch it into the bay, and swim to her meeting.

The car in line behind her honked.

“Fine,” she said. “You want me to open my wallet, or a vein?”

Talking to Jo Beckett had better be worth it.

The story Evan was investigating was big, strange, and wormy with holes. Trying to get the full picture was maddening—but that was typical of freelance journalism. That wasn’t why she was going to talk to a forensic psychiatrist. No, Jo Beckett had called her. Because Beckett was also investigating the death of Phelps Wylie, attorney-at-law.

Phelps Wylie had collected antiques and bought his suits at Hugo Boss. He was short, bald, and toad-mouthed, with limpid eyes. Whenever Evan saw his photo, she heard “Froggy Went A’ Courtin’.”

He had been found dead in an abandoned gold mine in the Sierras.