Page 95 of The Picasso Heist

SKIP PUMPED THE brakes about fifty yards behind the Escalade as it pulled up in the alley alongside a Lincoln Town Car, the engine idling. Even from that distance, Skip could see the trail of smoke from the exhaust.

“This is all your fault,” she said. “All your goddamn fault.”

“That’s a funny way of wishing me luck,” he said. “Now, listen. When I get out, you get out.”

“Why?” asked Joyce.

“So you can get behind the wheel.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

He ignored her petulant teenage attitude; her nod was all that mattered. Skip nodded back. “Good talk, Rusty,” he said, opening the door.

He didn’t look back but he knew she was doing exactly what she’d been told to do. He heard her door open and then, seconds later, the driver’s door closing. She was behind the wheel, engine running. He’d left the key fob in the cup holder where he’d had his phone. His phone he’d taken with him.

Skip walked slowly down the alley, his Glock tucked at the small of his back. Jeans and a belt were still the best holster out of uniform.

Everyone in that Escalade knew he’d been following them; he wasn’t sneaking up on anyone. Still, his right hand—his shooting hand—barely swung with each stride. It stayed tight to his hip, ready to reach behind him in a heartbeat.

He watched it all unfold before his eyes.

The doors of the Escalade opened, as did the trunk of the Town Car. Halston was moved like a piece of luggage. It was quick, organized, and choreographed. She didn’t have time to struggle, and she couldn’t even yell, thanks to the duct tape.

Skip didn’t yell either. Yelling altered your sight line on the battlefield and shifted your focus. He kept walking, only now the hand by his hip held a loaded weapon. Soon, he wouldn’t care if these guys saw him or his gun.

But not yet.

He took cover behind a dumpster and waited a few seconds for them to look his way. But they didn’t.

Time to announce his arrival.

“Hey!” he called out.

They all turned. They all saw his Glock drawn. And they all didn’t move a muscle.

Skip pierced the silence, yelling, “Open the trunk. Now!”

They still didn’t move. They were statues, staring back at him. Except for one; his eyes, for a split second, shifted across the alley. Not in front of Skip… behind him.

Skip turned but it was too late. The guy had gotten the jump on him, springing out of a side door of the warehouse exactly as one does in an ambush. It happened so fast.

The last thing Skip heard before falling to the ground was his own gun firing. That’s because the second-to-last thing he heard was the sound of the other guy’s gun. Timing is everything, whether you’re courtsiding or trading bullets.

Down the alley, behind the wheel of the Jeep, Elise Joyce gasped and fumbled the phone in her hands. She’d zoomed in as she recorded and got everything—Skip and the vehicles and the men moving Halston—right up until the sound of the shots and Skip going down.

Instinctively, she ducked for cover in her seat. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but she stole a quick peek over the dash and saw that Skip was still on the ground by the dumpster. He wasn’t moving.

Well, she sure as hell was.

She threw the Jeep into reverse, slammed her foot on the gas, and peeled out, tires screeching, her heart racing, her head swiveling. Frantically, she kept looking from the front to the back, trying to navigate the narrow alley while checking to see if they were coming after her.

Everything was a blur, and yet amid all the adrenaline and fearing for her life, the Jeep barreling backward with the engine redlining, Elise Joyce still managed one gleeful thought as she glanced at her phone, knowing the evidence it contained.

I’m gonna be the next damn governor of New York.