Page 208 of The Black Trilogy

“Just be careful. Who else would I share the jacuzzi with?”

He laughed then turned serious again. “Diamond, I’ve got a job for you.”

It was the first of many times over the years I’d hear him say that.

CHAPTER 24

MY FIRST JOB for Blackwood was a custody case, a young boy who’d been taken by his father while on visitation.

“The mother’s distraught,” Black told me. He leaned back against a bench press machine while I kept running on the treadmill. “The father called her to tell her she’d never see the kid again.”

“How did we get involved?”

“An old comrade of ours from the teams. His wife’s a friend of hers.”

“Do you think we’ll find him?”

He grinned at me. “Already did. The father’s a convicted drug dealer, and he’s surfaced in New Jersey. He just can’t keep his nose clean. Quite literally, as he has a habit of sampling his products.”

“So where do I come in?”

“I need a hand with retrieving the boy. When I snatch him back, I’ll need to pick the right moment, and I can’t spend too much time hanging around kids on my own without some over-zealous parent calling the cops.”

I saw his point. Being arrested as a suspected paedophile wouldn’t exactly help our case, and although I understood why parents got twitchy, I also knew firsthand that the most dangerous child molesters selected their victims in more devious ways.

But thankfully, nobody in New Jersey batted an eyelid at Black and me strolling hand in hand along the street, or out shopping, or in the park, gazing adoringly past each other to our target as he played on the swings.

I snapped a few photos of Black and got a good one of the child as well. His mother confirmed almost instantly by return email that we had the right boy.

Now all we needed to do was get him back.

Our chance came two days later. The father catered to the upmarket set, those whizz kids who couldn’t get through a Friday night without snorting their bonuses. At nine, he swaggered out the door in a cheap-looking suit and drove his Mercedes to a party ten miles away.

“It’s a work night for him. He’ll be there for hours,” Black said. “If we move fast, we can clear the state line before he realises what’s happened.”

Under cover of darkness, I broke in through a back window. Black skulked in the shadows outside, ready to alert me if any unexpected visitors stopped by.

Just to demonstrate how right the judge had been to grant the mother custody, the child was home alone, huddled on a threadbare sofa under a blanket that was too thin. He looked at me with wide eyes.

“I’m here to take you home,” I whispered. “To your mom.”

He stayed silent, with not a murmur of protest as I picked him up and carried him out of the back door. The first time he spoke was when he saw his mother, six hours later, and the huge smile that erupted as he ran into her arms was enough to make the last five months worth it. When I looked at Black, the king of the blank mask, just for a second, I saw the same joy I felt on his face.

Black gave me more work from that day on. A surveillance shift here, a touch of breaking and entering there, maybe a bit of search work on the computer. He also let me loose with clients, even if it was only to give them updates and act as liaison for the others. I slowly began to master the art of being polite and making inconsequential small talk, much to his relief.

“I don’t worry about you putting your foot in it when I take you out in public any more,” he told me one evening as we were getting ready for a black-tie affair.

When he bought me another dress for the occasion, I’d even managed to stare down the snobby shop girl.

Each time a new person started at the company, I gained another friend. My colleagues became the family I’d never had, and work wasn’t some nine-to-five chore. Blackwood was where I belonged.

Despite feeling like I’d found my calling, I struggled to settle. Black stayed worryingly quiet about my future, and if he told me to leave when my six months was up, devastation wouldn’t have begun to cover it. Just thinking of that possibility made my chest go tight.

Then one week before my deadline was up, Black asked me to do another job with him and Nate.

“We’re after a grade-A freak who’s jumped bail. A cool million. We get ten percent if we bring him back.”

“What did he do?”

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