Page 48 of Risky Obsession

The second text was to Lacey:Thanks for the update. Cooper can afford a lot of spies, so watch your back. Hughes is still a ghost.

I grinned. It was good to know they had no idea where I was. And they used the name Hughes. Hopefully that meant my real identity was still unknown.

In the last couple of days, I’d been obsessed with checking for updates connected to my real name, and so far, there was nothing.

The nameGrant Hughes,however, was a different story. They had a physical description of me and my chopper. The composite sketch of my face had been an incredible likeness. Lacey must have a photographic memory to get my image that good. What they didn’t know was that before I’d let that bitch into my home, I’d quickly put on a wig and colored contact lenses that changed my eyes to brown and added a mole on my left cheek which was prominent in the sketch and featured in my physical description.

I’d practiced with my disguise kit many times, and it came in handy when I needed tradesmen at my house. Over the years, I had limited my physical contact as much as possible, and when I did, it was in disguise. It was like I’d been planning to return to the real me ever since the day I left.

I couldn’t change the shape of my eyes, nose, or jawline though, so my disguise wouldn’t pass any real scrutiny. Especially at the airport with my passport photo. Not that I could use any of the three fake passports I’d had made years ago. They’d expired. I couldn’t fucking believe I’d made that mistake.

I was trapped here.

Cooper’s name cropping up in Lacey’s text was an interesting twist, though not surprising.Cooper can afford a lot of spies.

I chuckled.Of course he can. He stole fifty-two bars of gold from Aria and her team.

Unfortunately, converting that gold to cash hadn’t been as easy as we’d thought.

Cooper was meant to bring that gold back to Australia and hand it over to Frank Morgan, but we got a lucky break when Morgan was killed before Cooper even reached the evacuation point. Cooper and the stash of gold had been hiding in Germany ever since.

But although he had been a great soldier, and an even better thief, Cooper was a naïve fugitive. I’d lost track of the number of times I’d had to send him money because he was too chicken shit to find a dodgy dealer who’d be willing to take the gold.

But his dependence on me worked in my favor. With my assets shriveled to nearly nothing, I needed him, and that gold.

But I still needed Lacey Brooks eliminated.

And Cooper was the only one who could do it.

I read the final text message from Lacey.

Can’t talk. Kane in shower ATM. We are going to antique fair tomorrow to look for old maps of this area. Kane also has a 1945 map from his pops that seems to be connected to Goering gold. Will update after that. Don’t reply.

Kane has a map connected to the gold? That’s interesting.

I opened the dark web again and searched for a town near Carinhall hosting an antique fair. There was only one. I searched the town to see if there were any shops specializing in maps.

Again, there was only one.

I chuckled. That was a little too easy.

Maybe finding that long-lost gold could be my legacy.

I could solve the mystery of the missing gold from the train that everyone else had failed to find. I had inside knowledge from Chui and Morgan that nobody else did. I probably had all the clues, and I didn’t even know it.

I need that map from Kane.

At the very least, that bullion could replace my wealth that was stolen when those bastards froze my offshore accounts.

For years, I’d been trying to outrun my past. It was time to get in front of it.

Smiling, I dialed Cooper’s number.

I needed him to get that map and eliminate that bitch cop and her treasure-hunting friend.

CHAPTER 11

Lacey/Tory