Page 27 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

JUST AFTER TEN o’clock Nicky decided she was willing to accept defeat, at least temporarily.

There was nothing more she could do in the office, and she needed some modicum of rest before returning in a few hours.

Plus, she had to lay eyes on Kaitlin, even if it was only to make sure she was fast asleep in her bed.

Long ago Nicky had sworn that no matter where her career took her, she would do her best not to let a single day pass without seeing her daughter.

“Give you a lift?” Mike asked.

“My SUV is right downstairs,” Nicky replied.

“Give me a lift, then?”

Nicky smiled and shook her head. “You’re absolutely shameless, Detective Hardy.”

“I’m just trying to be efficient. Why travel all the way to separate homes when you know the two of us will end up texting about the case all night long?”

“I need sleep,” Nicky said.

“What a coincidence! So do I.”

In the end Nicky relented, and not just because of Mike’s self-serving (and shaky) logic. She simply enjoyed being around him. Usually their meetups were squeezed into the spare moments between their cases, which, until today, had rarely coincided.

Right now, Nicky felt spoiled by having been with him all evening.

And she liked the idea of this particular “date”—no matter how crazy it might be—not ending.

Could they figure out a way to be a family someday?

Kaitlin seemed to genuinely like him, which was supremely important.

Nicky had spent way too much time building her bond with her daughter to have an outsider upend everything.

Maybe Mike was the missing piece they hadn’t known they needed.

Maybe there was a life outside all… this.

Still, there were priorities.

“I mean it,” Nicky said. “Just sleep.”

“I’m too exhausted for anything else.”

“And not too much talking.”

“I’ll barely say a word.”

Something occurred to Nicky. “Wait. You should message Haller. And I’ll message Tighe. Maybe they can help us search for the man in the green cap.”

“You’re thinking this is the part where, if we appear to cooperate, they’ll do us a solid down the line?”

“Not appear to cooperate. Why not actually cooperate? Tell ’em what we found. If they use it to find Boo Schraeder, great. They’re welcome to the glory.”

“Texting him now.”

By the time they reached Nicky’s modest house in Koreatown, her mental gears were working overtime. “Rubin,” she said to herself.

“Is that a name,” Mike asked, “or are you saying you want a midnight snack?”

“No, Rubin Padilla. From the Santa Barbara job.”

“Seeing as my jurisdiction is the City of Angels, you’re going to have to walk me through this one, honey.”

“Rubin Padilla was the one piece that wouldn’t fit.

People identified him as a witness to the abduction of the trophy wife, but when we brought him in, he claimed to have seen nothing.

When I sent a junior agent back to him a few weeks later with some follow-up questions, he was evasive.

You know the drill—we moved on to other cases, and a long-shot witness like Padilla wasn’t exactly a top priority.

But I’m thinking that if this is the same kidnapping team and they’re in the habit of using spotters to confirm a grab, Padilla would be in a position to tell us something. ”

“So you’re going to feed him to Tighe as a goodwill gesture?”

“Like you said, Capital has the bodies to throw at this thing, so why not let them scoop him up?”

“You’re a genius.”

“You’re buttering me up.”

“Both can be true, Agent Gordon.”