Page 32 of Captured Pawn
But it was the monitors rotating through interior rooms of houses I didn’t recognize that Nick was paying attention to. When I stood next to him and followed his gaze, I found myself watching a family eating dinner at a long dining room table.
“Anyone I know?” I asked, already suspecting who it was we were watching.
Nick didn’t answer right away. When he did, he pointed at the heavy-set man at the head of the table.
“This is Maximillian Bishop. The head of the Bishop clan. To his left, here,” he said, pointing, “is his oldest son, Micah, and the young girl next to him is Micah’s daughter.”
“Is that his wife across the table?” I asked innocently enough.
“No, Micah is a widower. Supposedly his wife died during childbirth, but the rumors have her dying a few months after her daughter was born—on the night she tried to pack up and leave with the baby.”
“Are you saying they killed her?” I asked incredulously.
Nick had said that they had a lot of connections, but surely even the Bishops couldn’t just get away with murder.
“I’m saying that’s the story that made it back to me, but I haven’t been able to confirm it one way or the other. The woman across the table is Micah’s younger sister. She’s recently finished high school and is due to start college in the fall.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because the safe we need to get into is in the panic room behind this wall of cabinets in the dining room,” he said, motioning with his finger where the hidden opening was.
I pulled my gaze away from the monitor’s feed and looked up at Nick. “How do you know all of this?”
When he refused to look at me, I started to suspect I wasn’t going to like his answer. As the seconds ticked by, my pulse spiked with dread.
His voice was low when he answered. “Matt went undercover last year working for one of your competing security installation companies. It was easy for him to get a job there with his skills and old man Bishop never suspected that I had a man on the installation crew.”
He finally looked me in the eyes as he finished his admission. “Matt not only got us the floor plan of the entire house, but all of the specs for the entire security systems in place there. He was also able to plant the camera feeds we’re looking at now as well as one in the old man’s office.
“Unfortunately, the feeds he planted inside the panic room stopped working a couple of weeks ago when they installed a new electronic blocking system in that room. It’s left me blind to any changes they might have made inside the safe room and therefore, I haven’t been able to monitor what they’ve moved in and out of the safe.”
I thought about all he’d said for a few minutes. My brain was telling me to walk out right now. Sure, I’d been groomed to be in the security business since I was born. Instead of dolls, my dad had built me custom toys with hidden compartments and puzzles. Instead of taking ballet or gymnastics classes like my friends, I’d started going to the shooting range with him and Matty when I was nine. Hell, I’d even minored in forensic technology in college, getting several certificates in cybersecurity with the hope of one day moving our struggling security company into higher tech jobs.
But not once during my years of practice and study had I thought I was preparing to use my skills to break the law. Yet here I stood, watching illegal surveillance footage that the brother I’d loved so much was responsible for installing.
A wave of sadness overwhelmed me as I realized I hadn’t known Matt as well as I’d thought I had.
But unexpectedly, as I stood there watching a family eat dinner, unaware they were being watched, fresh anger started to bubble up inside me.
Were these the people who were responsible for killing my brother?
The two sides of my brain started to war with each other. If Matty had been breaking the law, then he’d put himself into danger. But… even if he had been doing something illegal, he hadn’t deserved to be killed. Jail, perhaps, but not a death sentence.
Nick’s words came back to me. They were drug dealers. High class and rich, but drug dealers still the same.
To his credit, Nick didn’t pressure me. He didn’t even speak. He let me spin all I’d learned tonight around in my head until I got dizzy. Glancing around the room, I took a few steps and fell onto a comfortable loveseat. Leaning back, I closed my eyes as I laid my head on the plush cushion, trying to get the sound of Matty’s last phone call out of my head.
I’d heard his pain… his fear… And now, with the additional context, I’d heard men shouting in the background. In my grief, I’d been only focusing on what Matty had said, but tonight I replayed the soundtrack in my head again—finally hearing that he wasn’t alone.
“There were men at his accident scene. I remember hearing them in the background. I guess I’d dismissed it as being witnesses to the accident, but it was the Bishop men, wasn’t it? They were there?”
When he didn’t answer, I forced myself to open my eyes. I found him looking at me, the saddest look on his face.
“We’d taken two vehicles that night. I was only a few minutes ahead of him when he called to say he was being chased by the Bishops. As soon as he called, I turned around to double back and help. I was less than two minutes away when they ran him off the road.
“They were just pulling away from the scene when I got there. His car was on fire and there was substantial front-end damage. Stevie and I had a hell of a time getting his body out of the fire, but by the time we did, it was too late.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Nick Knight was fighting back tears.
