Page 112 of The Grave Artist

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Her response had been ambiguous. A smile and a squeeze of his hand. Largely because she didn’t know what the answer might be.

One thing she did know for certain: there had been two responses in her gut to the thought. One, it would undoubtedly be a fun dinner. The second reaction had nothing to do with Tandy. It was the unexpected memory of the near kiss by Jake Heron as they sat on the deck of the honeymoon suite.

Dispose of that, she instructed. Now.

And Carmen was then focusing once more on the case. She spent some moments bringing Tandy up to speed on the investigation.

She’d just finished when Heron’s monitor came to life yet again.

He frowned.

“What?” Carmen had noted the expression.

“My scan of the comm systems after Reynolds screwed up and sent that unencrypted email? The bot found a packet kicker.”

Mouse offered, “Not good.”

Carmen asked, “How not good?”

Heron said, “Very not good. It identified any email or trunk line calls from Europol and the Italian police coming into our office and routed them to an anonymous server. Anybody who called got a response telling them to leave a message. Anybody who emailed got a return that said, ‘Thank you. Somebody will be in touch as soon as possible.’”

“When did this start?”

“Two days after Brock’s murder.”

“How would HK know how to do that?”

“He wouldn’t. There are only a few people in the world who could run a kick like that. It’s brilliant. It lies dormant until it reads an IP ora phone call from selected sources—like any Italian law enforcement agency—and then it grabs the message and reroutes it.”

“Maybe the Italians have been trying to reach us all along.”

Heron’s eyes were on his screen. “Yep. Any communications from here to Italy or Belgium—Europol headquarters—got hijacked too.”

“So if HK isn’t a world-class elite hacker,” Mouse said, “that means he’s got a partner.”

Chapter 55

Selina glanced in her rearview mirror. Was she imagining things, or was that a black SUV behind her?

After Ryan Hall had left her with fluffball Caliber, she had waited exactly five minutes before heading out.

There was no way she was going to sit on her hands.

That waiting thing again. Always a problem.

Upstanding soul that he was, Nando might have been lying about having a way to reach Sweeney. And he could be calling the man right now to tell him a cop was looking for him. Their only lead might pack up and vanish.

That was not going to happen.

Ryan had made it clear he wanted to be in her life. If that was true, it was time he learned that the Sanchez women weren’t the type to stay home and wait for the men to handle things.

Thoughts of how she’d been raised reminded her of her big sister. Carmen was trained in countersurveillance and had given Selina some pointers over the years.

First, identify if you’re being followed.

She’d been driving toward Fillups gas station in the Westside region of LA, in the Santa Monica Mountains. She made four consecutive right turns, effectively taking her in a circle, then glanced up again.