Page 90 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

As the limo glided into mo­tion, Mikel popped open the brief­case’s latches. In­side, two Glocks nes­tled in black foam cutouts. He handed the smaller one to Quinn. “I don’t ex­pect you to use this ex­cept as an in­tim­i­dat­ing prop.”

As she dropped the mag­a­zine and made sure the cham­ber was empty, it struck her that she hadn’t blinked when Mikel had told her she’d be car­ry­ing a firearm to­day. Maybe she was turn­ing into a badass com­puter nerd for real.

Mikel flipped up the foam lin­ing and pulled out a shoul­der har­ness for her. “Ad­just it so Ricci will be able to see the gun un­der your jacket.”

She shrugged out of her leather jacket with its sil­ver zip­pers and strapped the shoul­der har­ness on, slid­ing the Glock into the hol­ster. Mikel had asked her to wear jeans, a black shirt, and her jacket, while he wore a black suit, white shirt, and red tie. Af­ter he was happy with the way her hol­ster sat, he reached into his pocket and came out with a shiny gold badge on a black leather holder.

“Nice hard­ware,” Quinn said as the pol­ished metal gleamed in the sun­light. “It looks gen­uine.”

Mikel slanted her a wry glance as he clipped the badge to his belt. “What makes you think it isn’t?”

“Wait! You’re a po­lice of­fi­cer?”

“With the rank of jefe su­pe­rior,” he said.

“Why didn’t I know that?”

“Did you need to?” Mikel raised his eye­brows at her.

The co­op­er­a­tion he got from in­ter­na­tional law en­force­ment or­ga­ni­za­tions should have tipped her off. How­ever, Mikel had never demon­strated the slight­est con­cern for le­gal niceties in pur­suit of Gabriel’s kid­nap­pers, so she’d as­sumed he worked pri­vately. She was a pri­vate em­ployee af­ter all. Her boss had lay­ers upon lay­ers of se­crets.

Ricci’s house was in the town of Zug, a fa­vored lo­cale for the wealthy on the shores of Lake Zug. From the air­port, it was a half-hour drive through Zurich be­fore they hit post­card-wor­thy scenery of snow-brushed moun­tains, me­dieval towns of solid gray stone build­ings with red­dish roofs, and fields of green dot­ted with flow­ers. Quinn caught only glimpses of their sur­round­ings as Mikel re­viewed their strat­egy for in­ter­view­ing Ricci.

Emil’s voice in­ter­rupted them. “We’re five min­utes from the house.”

Mikel stowed his tablet while Quinn peered out the win­dow to see Lake Zug sparkling on one side of the car and trees on the other. They slowed and turned onto a drive­way be­fore sweep­ing around to the front of a mod­ern struc­ture of curv­ing con­crete and walls of glass. The limo came to a stop be­side a lip­stick red Fer­rari.

Mikel’s sur­veil­lance team had con­firmed that Ricci was home. The sur­geon worked three days a week in Zurich, but that was only when he wasn’t trav­el­ing to give speeches and demon­stra­tions of his skill in oto­plasty.

Quinn opened her door and climbed out, set­tling the Glock into place so that her jacket didn’t quite cover it. Her mouth twisted in a mock­ing smile as she also had to push her glasses up on her nose.

How­ever, when she came around the car to join her boss, she saw his face was a mask of grim in­ten­sity that made even her a lit­tle ner­vous. It ought to make Ricci quake in what she pre­sumed would be hand­made Ital­ian loafers. At least she as­sumed that’s what a suc­cess­ful sur­geon wore.

Mikel jogged up the shal­low stone steps to the front door and pressed the door­bell, hold­ing his badge up for the video cam­era mounted on the wall.

The door swung open, and an older woman in a gray dress with a white apron tied around her waist said in Ger­man, “You must have the wrong ad­dress. Who do you wish to speak with?”

Mikel held up his badge again and an­swered in Eng­lish, his voice pitched so it would carry in­side. “Dr. Paul Ricci, please. I am Jefe Su­pe­rior Mikel Silva of the Cal­e­van Royal Po­lice.”

The woman closed the door in their faces.

Quinn al­most laughed in dis­be­lief. “She’s wear­ing an ac­tual maid’s uni­form! Re­ally?”

“It makes the ser­vants blend in with the fur­ni­ture,” Mikel said, his sar­casm sur­pris­ing her.

They waited a few more sec­onds be­fore the door opened again. This time, Paul Ricci stood be­fore them. He looked ex­actly like his pic­tures: tall and trim with short blond hair swept back from an in­tel­li­gent brow, bright blue eyes, and a square jaw­line.

He was not smil­ing. “I have never in my life been to Cal­eva. What rea­son could you have to speak with me?”

Quinn dropped her gaze to his hands. Sure enough, he was mov­ing his thumb in the way that showed it was hy­per­mo­bile. The joint be­low the knuckle bent in­ward so far it looked un­nat­u­ral. When Gabriel had been tied down on the op­er­at­ing ta­ble, the sur­geon had flicked his thumb in and out in that same way.

Rage seared through her. She wanted to grab his hands and break his ev­ery fin­ger.

She lifted her gaze to Ricci, hop­ing he would see the threat of vi­o­lence that burned in­side her.

But Ricci was look­ing at Mikel as her boss said, “The mat­ter I wish to speak with you about did not take place on Cal­eva. May we come in?”

He took a step to­ward the door, and Ricci backed up a cou­ple of paces. Mikel con­tin­ued for­ward, as though the sur­geon had in­vited him in. Ricci froze as if he couldn’t de­cide what to do.

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