Page 46 of Where Secrets Lie

It was still five minutes before the planned time to meet. Would Graham come in or stay out there watching? They’d only met once, so maybe he hadn’t recognized her.

A petite woman dressed in a smart navy suit stopped at the hostess stand. Savannah’s view was blocked by the tall hostess, and she couldn’t see the woman’s face. The hostess turned and started leading the woman in Savannah’s direction.

Savannah bit back a gasp and rose to her feet when she finally saw the woman’s face. “Jess?”

Chapter 26

Jess’s brain refused to function. She stared into her sister’s wide green eyes. Jess was supposed to meet a new buyer, an art dealer named Hannah Rickard. It should have been a routine transaction. Jess would sit down, take the artifact and provenance documents out of her purse, and put them on the table. Rickard would examine the artifact and documents and, once she was satisfied, authorize a wire transfer to a Swiss bank account. As soon as the transfer was confirmed, Jess would leave.

So why was Savannah standing where Rickard should have been?

Savannah gasped and pushed her auburn hair out of her face. “Jess, what are you doing here?”

Her sister’s voice broke Jess out of her trance. “I—I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m having a late lunch before meeting with our bankers. What about you? Why are you in New York?”

“You—you have to get out of here!” Savannah’s gaze darted to the front of the restaurant. “A smuggler is going to walk in any second, and then there will be a police raid.”

Icy talons gripped Jess’s heart. “What are you talking about? Savannah, I—”

Savannah grabbed Jess’s arm with surprising strength and propelled her toward the back of the restaurant. “Go, go, go! He’ll see you! You can get out through the back. I’ll explain when we’re back in Nova Cambridge.”

Jess half ran through the restaurant, ignoring the curious stares of the scattered diners. She pushed through the kitchen doors, where a phalanx of SWAT-equipped police waited. She hesitated for an instant, but one of them stepped out of the way and jerked an impatient thumb over his shoulder. She rushed past and somehow found an exit.

She ended up on a narrow street—hardly more than an alley—flanked by tall brick buildings on either side. She stumbled along the sidewalk, still reeling from shock. The burner phone she’d bought for the trip buzzed with a text:Raids everywhere. Destroy everything.

Raids everywhere? The cold claws in Jess’s chest tightened. Savannah must be part of a coordinated sting aimed at taking down the entire operation. But how was that possible? They had been very careful to separate all the components of the smuggling operation. The diggers in Mexico didn’t know the Mexican truckers, the Mexican truckers didn’t know the American truckers, and the American truckers didn’t know her. At each stage the artifacts were left at prearranged drop spots so none of the people involved ever saw each other. So how had law enforcement managed to put all the pieces together?

The artifact. It was the only thing that connected them all. She pulled it out of her purse. It was a beautiful, fragile silver appliqué in a glass-fronted wood case. It should have netted tens of thousands of dollars. She looked both ways to make sure no one was watching, gritted her teeth, and smashed thecase on the edge of a metal garbage can. The appliqué fell out of the shattered case—and so did a black metal object about the size of a quarter. A bug. Of course.

Sweat beaded Jess’s forehead. She crushed the bug under her heel and dumped the appliqué and broken case into the trash. She pulled the provenance documents out of her purse and shoved them into another can half a block away. Then she walked away as quickly as she could without drawing attention.

As the blocks and minutes slipped past, she gradually relaxed. The familiar crowds pressed in around her in a comforting flow of humanity. Her panic subsided and her thoughts calmed. She’d worn gloves the entire time, so there wouldn’t be any fingerprints on the artifact or case, even if the police found them. Also, the police and Savannah had another suspect in mind—that much was clear from their reactions in the restaurant. If they had any hint that Jess was involved in the smuggling, they wouldn’t have shooed her out the back door without even searching her.

Savannah. Jess recalled the shock on her sister’s face—the wide-eyed, open-mouthed bewilderment. The thought that Jess might somehow be involved had plainly never even crossed Savannah’s mind. Savannah wasn’t dumb, but she loved and trusted Jess. She believed Jess’s lies and looked for traitors everywhere else. How long could that last, especially after today?

A cold, wet gust off the East River caught Jess’s open jacket and chilled her to the bone. She shivered and hugged herself. She suddenly felt very exposed, and not just to the elements. Time to get out of here. She hurried back to her hotel, feeling unseen eyes on her back the whole way.

***

Savannah stood on the busy street with an undercover officer as people hurried past them. Her ears were frozen by the wind, and she wished she had worn gloves. “I was in a panic to get Jess out of here. What about Graham?”

The officer’s nose was red from the cold. “We lost track of him when things went south inside. We’ll find him, though. Thanks for your help, Ms. Webster.”

When he rejoined his team, Savannah turned and walked toward her hotel. She could have called an Uber, but it was a busy time of day, and she didn’t want to wait for a car to arrive when she could be tucked in her warm room in a few minutes. A sea of people parted around her going the other direction as she scrolled through her text messages with cold hands. She had half a dozen from Hez. The tone of his comments became more and more alarmed.

She pulled out her Bluetooth earpiece and called him, then dropped her phone in her purse before stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat. “The smuggler never showed up, so it was a nonevent.” Her stomach rumbled. “I didn’t even get to eat.”

“I’m thankful no shots were fired there.” Hez’s deep voice in her ear held relief. “I had a preliminary report from Hope, and it couldn’t have gone better. The coordinated sting hit simultaneously in three places—Mexico, Texas, and just outside Pelican Harbor. Over a dozen smugglers are in custody, but not without shoot-outs in all of the locations. I was afraid the same happened there.”

She ducked around the corner and started the last two blocks to her hotel with the full force of the wind in her face. “Anyone hurt?”

“Several smugglers were killed and a few others were injured.” He paused. “Two Willards were among the casualties, and several more were arrested.”

Nora’s family. Savannah prayed it wasn’t anyone close to her friend. “Do they have any idea of the group’s hierarchy? Did they catch the kingpin?”

“Hope didn’t say. Hernando and his family are in protective custody in Mexico too, and I’m glad they’re safe. She thinks they got enough evidence to prosecute everyone.”

“Except whoever was supposed to show up today. The smuggler never showed, but that wasn’t the only surprise. On the way in I saw Nora’s boyfriend, Graham Warner. That seemed suspicious, so I let the police know. They were closing in on him, but Jess showed up in the restaurant.”

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