Stolen (16 page)

“I was getting stir-crazy. Patience has never been a strong suit.”

Hunter snorted and said while chewing, “You can say that again.”

“Did Colton tell you I talked to him about being followed?”

Hunter nodded, swallowed his food. “Asked me to beef up surveillance. I plugged in the picture of that Fed. If she comes within a hundred feet of the carriage house, or me, I’ll know.” He held up his phone.

“You’ve always been smarter than me.”

“Naw,” Hunter said sheepishly. He took another bite of the sandwich. “So is that why you wanted to talk?”

“A few other things. I’m worried about Colton.”

“Why? I’ve never seen him happier. Seriously, dude, he’s glad you’re back.”

“I only signed on for this one job.”

“He doesn’t believe it.” Hunter glanced at Sean and swallowed. “You’re not lying.”

Sean shook his head. “This is important to Colton, and I want to help him.” Both were true. “But I can’t stay here forever.”

“C. thinks it’s because of your girlfriend.”

“It’s because of a lot of things.” Sean needed to steer the conversation back to Evan and Carol. “How well do you know Carol and Evan?”

Hunter frowned. “Why?”

“I want to know if one of them betrayed Colton.”

“No,” Hunter said quickly.

“You’re sure?”

He looked pained and fidgeted with his food. “I hate digging around on my friends.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Hunter stopped walking and almost got knocked over by a jogger. Sean guided Hunter to a bench at the edge of the park, where he made him sit down.

“That fed is the bitch who arrested me at Stanford.”

“Did you tell C.?”

“I found out late last night. But she knew I was in New York, and she followed Colton to the pub. I don’t care what he says, I know she did—we saw her on the carriage house surveillance tapes.”

“Yeah, but C.’s pretty good at slipping in and out. He’d know if someone was following him.”

“He’s distracted.”

Hunter didn’t say anything, and Sean knew he’d seen the same thing.

“Start with Carol. What’s her story?”

“C. met her over a year ago. She was working at a museum.”

Sean frowned. “She’s not in this business?”

“Not then. But she really looks out for him. And they kind of bonded, because her sister died of leukemia, just like Travis.”

Sounded like a setup to Sean.

“And she has no problem with what Colton does?”

“She’s totally into him.”

“Does she still work at the museum?”

“Part-time. She graduated from RISD in art history or something. She’s a real good artist. Those paintings at C.’s place? In the living room? All Carol.”

Sean remembered the bold contemporary art. Not his style, but it was certainly high quality.

“She has her work in an art studio someplace. I was there once, but there were so many people—you know—I left early.”

Hunter didn’t like crowds or strangers.

“Colton trusts her,” Sean said, mostly to himself.

“Yeah.”

“And Evan?”

“Why don’t you talk to Skye? She brought him in. Two, three years ago. Three years is a long time.”

Meaning a long time to prove himself as loyal. Three years was how long Sean and Colton had worked together at MIT.

“Oh, I get it,” Hunter said. “You don’t want to talk to Skye because you used to sleep with her.”

“That’s not it,” Sean said. “It’s just been awkward, okay?”

“She looks at you when you’re not looking, you know.”

Sean had almost forgotten how observant Hunter could be. He often disappeared in a room because he was so quiet. “She knows I’m not interested.”

“Why don’t you just talk to C. about this?”

“I tried. Sort of. Sean hadn’t wanted to make Colton suspicious.”

“You know, he’s been trying to get you back for a long time, and I think it bothered him that your brother never liked him.”

“Duke was family.”

“I don’t know why you’re back just for this job.”

“Because I quit RCK and I needed the money.” Sean hated lying to Hunter. By the look on his face, Hunter believed Sean completely. “Colton always said I could come back. I never thought I would, but C. was a better brother to me than my own flesh and blood.” Right now, that felt like the truth.

“Family’s complicated,” Hunter said.

“You’re telling me.” Sean redirected the subject again. “Has C. told you anything about Thursday?”

“I know what I’m supposed to do.” Hunter inched away. Almost imperceptibly, but he was getting suspicious of Sean’s questions. Damn, he had to be more careful.

“I’m concerned about the people C. is working for.” Sean needed to put Hunter at ease. “I think they’re manipulating him because he is so desperate for information about Travis’s drug trials.”

Hunter relaxed. “You don’t need to worry. C. has it under control.”

“If you say so.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes; then Hunter said, “You know, Evan could never replace you. I think C. expected that he would, but he didn’t.”

“’Cause I’m irreplaceable,” Sean said with a wide grin.

Hunter laughed. “Yeah. You are.”

“So are you, buddy.”

Hunter wouldn’t do well in prison, but Sean had already worked out a plan to make sure that nothing came back on Hunter. Sean hoped that he could keep them all out of jail—all he wanted was Jonathan Paxton. But Sean couldn’t say anything until after the big job at PBM.

“I dug around on Evan when he first joined. C. asked me to.”

“I figured.”

“You should talk to him; he’d tell you anything you want to know.”

“I will.”

“You think Carol or Evan brought in the fed?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I can find out.”

“I don’t want you getting into trouble. With anyone.”

“Sean, you’re good. I’m great.”

Sean laughed and patted Hunter on the back. “You know, I really missed you.”

Hunter threw his wrapper in the nearby trash can. “I wasn’t the one who left.”

*   *   *

After Hunter left the park, Sean walked the short distance to the main public library to further research PBM and the seven board members. He’d found some leads when he was searching on the Internet, but much of the referenced information wasn’t digitized.

So far, nothing Sean had read connected PBM or the board with Jonathan Paxton. There was little information about Joyce Bonner’s father, Randall, on the PBM Web site other than the fact that he’d started the company with his college roommate, Jeffrey Pham, and had died ten years ago, leaving his company to his sole heir, his daughter, Joyce.

Sean wanted to learn more about Randall Bonner, who was the same age as Paxton. Because he was a lifelong New York resident and had contributed extensively to the history and industry of the state, the library should have information on him.

Sean read several articles about how Randall and Jeffrey founded PBM, their purpose, what they hoped to achieve in cancer research. Nothing jumped out until Sean found a society page article that mentioned Randall:

Randall J. Bonner, pictured here with his daughter, Joyce, and her fiancé, Thomas Lynch.

It was one of those obvious things that Sean hadn’t noticed. He knew that Joyce Bonner had two children, but he hadn’t thought about her spouse. He only knew that Lynch wasn’t in her life.

Sean pulled up his phone and did a quick search on Thomas Lynch. There were too many. He narrowed it down by connecting Lynch to Bonner.

That’s when things got weird.

There wasn’t a lot on Thomas Lynch. He was an attractive man on the surface, but he didn’t seem to be photographed with anyone other than the Bonner family.

Friends.

Sean scoured all the photos of Joyce he could find, both before and after her marriage. Before her marriage she was surrounded by friends; after her marriage there were only a few photos of her. All were with her husband, her father, or her children.

The photo history showed Joyce changing, from young and laughing to serious and sad. Because Randall Bonner had been part of New York society, there had been plenty of photos—Joyce was catalogued in over fifty photos the year before she was engaged to six the year after she married.

Why had Joyce changed? Because of her husband? Or did something else happen to make her a recluse? Why did she return to her maiden name? She’d changed her last name after her wedding, but her husband had died eight years later, shortly after the birth of her second child, in a boating accident.

Sean went back to the original article about the Bonner-Lynch wedding. Maid of honor, bridesmaids, ushers, yada yada. There were hundreds of people at the church, at the reception; honeymoon in France. An entire two-page spread of photos that Sean almost skipped over until he saw someone familiar:

The lovely bride, Joyce Lynch, dancing with her godfather, Attorney General Jonathan Paxton.

The photo of Paxton was his profile only, and he was twenty years younger. This was taken two years after his daughter disappeared. She’d been murdered, but he hadn’t known that at the time.

Joyce was twenty when she married Lynch. Paxton’s daughter would have been twenty that year. Paxton and Randall Bonner had been friends. Joyce and Monique, Paxton’s daughter, had likely been friends. That was the connection.

Except what did it matter? Why would Paxton want Colton to break into PBM? What could Paxton possibly want in the company? Why couldn’t he ask his goddaughter for what he needed? And why would he help Colton take down a business to which he had close personal ties? It made no sense.

Sean rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t had enough sleep, and his head ached. He needed a fresh set of eyes, but he couldn’t discuss this with anyone except Noah, and right now Sean didn’t want to talk to him. Maybe this was what happened to cops on a stakeout—they started as friends and after a couple days ended up wanting to go a couple rounds with fists. Only Noah and Sean hadn’t started as friends.

“Back to the drawing board,” Sean muttered, and pulled up the information he’d found on Thomas Lynch.

It seemed obvious, at second glance, that after Joyce married Lynch, she’d pulled away from her friends and family. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter, two years after the wedding, and to her son six years later, a month before Lynch died in a boating accident.

Sean looked up all articles related to the boating accident. According to witness reports, Lynch had suffered a heart attack. He’d been sailing with his father-in-law and a family friend.

Jonathan Paxton.

Had Paxton and Bonner had something to do with Lynch’s death? Though Bonner was wealthy, his money was tied up in PBM. Joyce Bonner received half of Lynch’s sizable estate, and the other half was divided equally between their two children.

Murder? Sean wasn’t surprised. Paxton had killed before, but he targeted sex offenders and other creeps. He was a vigilante. Was he also a profiteer? Had he helped his old friend kill off Lynch for the money? Or was there another reason?

Sean didn’t know how important it was, if at all, but his gut told him something was fishy. The only connection he could find between PBM and Paxton was this—and Sean was going to run with it.

He’d been in the library for six hours—it was already mid-afternoon. He hadn’t heard from Hunter yet, so he grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor and sat on a bench eating while sending his notes and questions on Bonner, Lynch, and Paxton to Noah. Maybe there had been an investigation into Lynch’s death that Noah could find out about. And if not, maybe he had access to financial records regarding the will or the pharmaceutical company. Legal access—because Sean knew he could get whatever he needed if Noah let him hack into the company again. But after their conversation yesterday, Sean wasn’t going to push it.

Sean had gotten up to toss his garbage in a nearby can when he saw a familiar face. He glanced again, and the man was gone. This was New York City—lots of people—maybe it wasn’t someone Sean knew. And he didn’t get a good look, just a feeling of familiarity, and as he tried to remember the face, he drew a blank. He’d only seen the man’s profile.

Still, Sean couldn’t be too careful. He walked the three blocks from the library to Grand Central Station, then took a train into Brooklyn, went window-shopping, saw a stuffed animal that looked just like Lucy’s cat, Chip. On a whim, Sean went in and bought it.

While paying at the register, Sean kept his eye on the window. A man stood across the street, back to the storefront, texting on his phone. Except that was a trick Sean used often when he was tailing someone.

Sergio Russo.