Page 46 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

IAN COUGHLIN DIDN’T consider himself a criminal.

He was a watcher . Big difference.

Like right now. What he was doing was not a crime.

Anyone was allowed to stroll around Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks and do a little window-shopping and people-watching.

No laws against that—yet. And so what if he liked to focus on the high-end stores (Bloomingdale’s and Coach and L’Occitane) and the people who frequented them?

The human eye was designed to be drawn to pretty things.

Besides, Ian Coughlin was not simply an observer; he liked to consider himself a storyteller. When he found attractive human beings inside a shop (Swarovski or Apple or Kiehl’s) surrounded by pretty things, he liked to make up little stories about them.

Take this attractive human being—late thirties, ash-blond hair, pumps, lips with filler, no wedding ring.

She had money and liked to treat herself, but that was not why she was shopping alone this afternoon.

She had the look of the lonely, someone tired of swiping right on the dating apps and spending quiet nights at home with her cat. If only she could find a partner…

That was a good story, right?

Sometimes those stories could be turned into profit.

Wasn’t that what Hollywood was all about?

Once Ian Coughlin had a fairly complete idea in his mind, he could enjoy the story himself and follow it through to its natural conclusion—if the risk profile was low.

Or, if the tale was a little more complex, he could sell it to an organized band of people who specialized in follow-home robberies.

So, sure, Ian associated with criminals. But when you think about it, every American business was rooted in a crime at some level.

But this one here looked like a story Ian could handle himself.

This woman didn’t pay too much attention to her surroundings.

Ian suspected she considered people like himself unworthy of notice, which worked to his advantage.

Once she finished making her purchase (nice bracelet, by the way), he’d shadow her to her vehicle in the adjacent multilevel parking lot and then decide which way the story should end.

But wait.

Someone else was watching too.

Ian could feel it at the back of his neck.

Not the useless mall security. He’d stopped fearing them years ago and now saw them as comic relief. It wasn’t the woman either—she had no clue Ian had been trailing her for the past twenty minutes.

There was someone else.

Waiting.

Eyes on him.

Ian ran through his mental Rolodex as he quickly scanned this level of the mall. Was one of those follow-home robbery gangs dissatisfied with a story he’d sold them? Were they here to force him to cough up another one for free?

Well, whoever it was, Ian Coughlin wasn’t going to walk into their trap.

He spun on his heel and made a beeline for the parking structure. Time to head back to his piece-of-shit Honda Accord and drive to his even worse apartment in Van Nuys. He’d try again another day. Maybe at the Sherman Oaks Galleria this time. It had been a minute since—

“Wait!”

Nope, not turning around, not falling for it.

“Ian, please! Wait!”

Now he couldn’t resist, because the voice was young, and female, and pleading, and whoever she was, she knew his name. Ian turned.

The lonely thirty-whatever woman with the ash-blond hair and the pumps was running toward him.