Page 43 of The Best Trick

“Can’t imagine a more worthy reason to cash in,” Odin said.

As usual, I was amazed at how well my guys read between the lines, how much unsaid information they heard. Like wolves, they operated on instinct and emotion, moving as a pack, paying more attention to how things smelled—metaphorically, anyway—than how things appeared.

We got back to our place and ate. I spent a nice afternoon in the hammock with a book while my guys buzzed around town, running errands. It had been a while since we’d been in the Los Angeles area, and they had people to see. I enjoyed having the afternoon to myself. Later I did yoga off a YouTube tutorial on the fluffy rug, tidied up the place with ’80s music cranked up to ten, and then I messaged my jewel-thieving galpals, the Gigis, to come over.

“The sheep farmer’s back!” screamed the Gigis’ leader, Macy, when I flung open the front door.

We all hugged each other.

“Did you bring your suits like I told you?” I asked.

It turned out that they had, and they had real diamond tiaras to wear with their suits, too—spoils from one of their latest jobs.

“We even brought one for you!” exclaimed second-in-command, Angel Gigi.

We spent the afternoon in the pool on giant flotation devices, floating lazily around like slow-motion bumper cars while making a sizable dent in the liquor collection that my guys had built up. My galpals told me about their latest jewel-thieving escapades, and I told them about our gang's bank-thieving escapades, minus the very X-rated parts.

It was great to see them—beyond great!

One of the hardest things about being on the run was that you never got to see people that you had history with. Everybody was a stranger in every new town. But not these girls. They were my friends, and there was a standing invitation to join their gang, not that I would.

I told them about the case we were working on, and they were surprisingly opinionated on it, especially Angel.

“That is fishy,” she declared, tossing her platinum and pink hair.

“How so?” I asked.

“Kind of a big gamble!” she said. “How many people would be willing to destroy their career and possibly go to prison for the life of a pet?”

“I would,” Macy said.

“I would,” I agreed.

“But not a ton of people would when it really comes down to it,” Angel continued. “A kidnapped baby, yes, most anyone would destroy their career for a kid, especially if it was their own kid, but a dog? Even a person who loves their dog might not make that decision. From the point of view of Don Pedro, that's just a long shot, don’t you think?”

“I never thought about it that way,” I said.

“Don Pedro is betting that this Denko would be willing to risk not only his career but jail time to save his dog. I'm not saying there aren't people who would do anything to rescue their dog, but how do you know who those people are? How does Don Pedro know something so personal like that?”

“Yeah, that’s the question you gotta be pondering,” said Jenny Gigi.

“You think it’s some kind of inside job?” I asked, sipping my bubbly pink drink while swishing my toes in the water. “You’re thinking that somebody in Don Pedro's organization knew Agent Denko well enough to know that this would work?”

“Or maybe Don Pedro has his hooks into somebody close to Agent Denko. The guy’s personal trainer or housecleaner or dog walker or whatever,” Macy suggested from the back of a large duck. She was sipping something yellow because she had insisted on her drink going with her flotation device. She raised a gold-painted fingernail in the air. The fingernail had some jewels stuck onto it that probably weren't diamonds, but you never knew with the Gigis. Anything was possible with the Gigis. “Assuming it’s not a trap, only somebody who knows him well could make this call.”

I spun lazily around in the water and thought about the people in the apartment across the way, watching us so angrily. Could it be them? “That is some good insight,” I said. “You are probably right.”

“We’re right a lot of the time,” Macy boasted. “That manwich you got going isn't the only game in town, Ice.” Here she pointed a golden fingernail at me. “If you ever get sick of them and their testosterone overload, you're welcome to be a getaway driver for us. We can always use a decent driver.”

I grinned. I would never leave my guys, but I loved that they wanted me to join.

“Jewels, jewels, and more jewels, baby!” Angel said, splashing water through the air like diamonds.

We were still floating around when night fell, though we'd lit candles and we were playing music. It was awesome and utterly relaxing until my guys came back and did cannonballs, breaking the serenity into little bits. The Gigis were pretty angry, especially Jenny, who had been successfully protecting her blowout the entire time.

They made up for it with an excellent cookout. Odin informed us that his contact in Washington, D.C., didn't know of any kind of tackle bag of evidence, but his D.C. contact thought it sounded “credible.” That's all the guy would say. Credible.

We had to get that tackle bag!

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