Page 84 of The Picasso Heist

I’M PISSED. FUMING. Livid. Cursing out loud.

I keep it up along the hall, down the stairs, and straight through the lobby of the First Precinct—anyone and everyone I pass bears witness to my fury, and they’re all thinking the same thing: Wow, that girl is absolutely, positively ticked off about something.

It’s enough to make me smile the second I hit the street.

An hour later, when I’m sitting in my Jeep exactly where I need to be, my phone rings. “Hi, I’m looking for Meryl Streep,” says Skip.

I can’t help but laugh. “Very funny.”

“And very believable, sis. Well done.”

I’m sis when my brother’s genuinely impressed. I’m metalhead the other 99 percent of the time.

“So she bought it?” I ask.

“Right now Elise Joyce is thinking you’re in dire need of therapy.”

“She should talk.”

“She joked afterward about your needing an anger-management class,” says Skip. “Apparently you also made quite the impression on a few cops while leaving the building.”

“Go big or go home, right? So she bought my routine. What about yours?” I ask. “Any chance she saw through it?”

“No chance,” he assures me. “The leading cause of blindness will forever be the pursuit of power.”

“Who said that? Mark Twain?”

“No, a bartender in Kabul.”

There’s something beautifully ironic about pulling off a good-cop, bad-cop routine in a police precinct.

The moment I stormed out of that conference room was the moment Elise Joyce realized that she desperately needed Skip’s cooperation.

So he played right into it. He pitched the plan that could deliver Anton Nikolov in addition to Lugieri, giving her a double hit on organized crime.

A mob massacre, the press would call it, the kind of coup that could propel a budding politician into the highest realms of power.

All that was needed was the help of a man so hell-bent on avoiding jail that he’d do almost anything.

“How long did Bergamo mull it over?” I ask.

“Two seconds. Three, tops,” says Skip.

“And that fifteen-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorney of his?”

“I think the guy used the phrase suicide mission but Bergamo didn’t care. So now we’re waiting for the paperwork, just like you thought. The attorney insisted.”

“I told you,” I say. “No one does a deal with Elise Joyce on a handshake. Always get it in writing. Although a lot of good that did us, right?”

“Again, just like you thought, sis.”

“Wow, that’s the second sis in two minutes, brother.”

“Don’t get cocky, metalhead.”

“It was so predictable, though, right? I knew Joyce would use Dad as a hostage if we gave her the chance.”

“And now she thinks she owns me,” he says. “So, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“I don’t like that you’re doing this part alone.”

“It’s the only way, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but I still don’t like it.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

“Where’s he now?”

“Hold on, let me check.” I swipe over to the tracking software. Courtesy of Nikolov’s own cell phone, we’ve known where he is every minute from the first time I met him. The GPS is accurate to a hundred feet. “He’s either in Macy’s, Starbucks, or a Sunglass Hut.”

“Are you serious? He’s in a mall?”

“Yep. The Mall at Short Hills in Millburn.”

“That’s actually good. It’s near his home,” says Skip. “Now you just have to get him back there.”

“That’s the plan,” I say.

But it’s the way I say it, with the kind of tone that only my brother can pick up on.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says.

“No, you don’t,” I say. “You definitely don’t.”

“You want to see the expression on his face.”

Damn. “Okay, maybe you do.”

“Don’t do it,” says Skip. “Do you hear me? Stay in the car.”

“You’re starting to break up on me,” I say, making some static noises.

“I’m serious.”

“And I’m touched. But don’t worry about my end, just take care of yours, okay? How much more time do you need?”

“An hour and a half,” he says. “Ninety minutes.”

“That’s too long.”

“You haven’t even made the call yet.”

“Yeah, but the second I do, the clock starts ticking and there’s no turning back. He’s either with us or he’s not,” I say.

“You mean he’s either with us or he kills you.”

“Tomayto, tomahto.”

“For real,” he says. “Be careful, Halston.”

My brother doesn’t often call me by my actual name, though I have vivid memories of two times he did. One was the day our mother killed herself. The other was the day our father was sentenced to prison.

“I’ll be careful,” I say. “I promise.”

Skip laughs all too knowingly. “Now uncross your fingers and tell me that again.”