Page 105 of Oath
Let Legend follow.
Let Bones plan.
Let Sinclairsweat.
Step one was complete.
Now it was time to take him apart.
Chapter
Thirty
GRACE
peeled off my coat in the back of the van and let the team’s low chatter fill the small space like static. The windows were fogged from the heat, the traffic a little stop and go on our way to Sinclair’s place in McLean. My hands moved without thinking, redoing my hair to pull it into a tight knot. I shimmied out of the skirt, swapping it for slacks that Am would have loved, tailored with clean lines and excellent pockets.
Goblin stared at me, tongue lolling out as I switched out the button-down blouse for a slightly looser, but no less professional one. It was more casual professional, than smart and sober professional. I paused to scratch Goblin between the ears and his tail thumped.
Petting him settled me as much as it made him happy. I swapped the lipstick for gloss. In the mirror of my compact I checked the line at the corner of my mouth and the hard set of my jaw. The face staring back didn’t feel like mine. It was sharper. It wasAm. It made me miss her so much.
Bones glanced back from the passenger seat, his expression measuring. “You remember everything for step two or do we need to go over it again?”
We weren’t improvising anymore. We were executing. I stuffed the sensible heels into the bag with my other discarded clothes. For a moment, a waft of the Am’s favorite perfume all citrus and heat came up as I zipped the bag closed. I breathed it in and let it comfort me even as I readied myself for what was next.
“I remember,” I said, proud of how steady I sounded. It was one thing to suspect her boss and her firm, it was completely something else to have it confirmed.
Legend’s quiet voice threaded through the comms then: “Sinclair didn’t head to the firm. He went to a hotel in the city—The Whitcomb. Went straight up to a room he already had a key for. He’s on the phone. Looks like he’s meeting someone. Still talking fast.” There was a crackle of static and then, softer, “He’s pacing near the window. Probably trying to buy time.”
McLean was still the objective. His estate housed safe boxes and three different servers—AB had mapped them all—and whatever he kept close to his chest would be there. If Sinclair was meeting someone in DC, it only made the estate quieter. Easier to work undisturbed. Easier to let Legend watch the hotel and catch whatever crossed the city between Sinclair and his ghosts.
“Keep him on feed,” Bones said. “Legend, you stay with him. If he takes a piss, you should be close enough to give him a hand.”
When I made a face, Voodoo grinned then winked at me. Some of the armor plating around me softened. I was safe here. Safe with them.
“Alphabet,” Bones continued, “you’re on external cams at the estate. Voodoo, you’ve got the locks and we need to be ready for any forgery checks. We get what we need, then we take care of him.”
Forgery checks. “Do you really think he’ll have high end art and other valuables?”
“Yes,” Voodoo answered before Bones could. “Using art, gold, and diamonds—it’s a way to keep money clean and to pay for transactions you don’t want the government looking at.”
“What about his wife? Is she still out of town?” That was another sticking point.
Sinclair had a Mrs. Sinclair. No children of his own. That was good. But I couldn’t remember Am ever mentioning the wife. To be fair, I didn’t really remember my sister talking about most of the lawyers she worked with in particular. She took confidentiality very seriously. Didn’t stop her from telling me stories, but they’d always had the names redacted.
“I think she’s dead,” AB said, surprising me and I wasn’t the only one who snapped a look toward him. “I don’t have any proof and I haven’t been able to track any reports of her demise or what could have been done with her body, but she’s been ‘missing’ for months. First it was a trip, then a cruise, then visiting ‘friends.’”
All of which could be reasonable.
“But there are no calls home, no emails, no photographs from these various destinations. The people she allegedly traveled with do not exist or if they do, they come across more as paid actors than anything else.” AB ticked each item off in a cool, rational voice that said he’d dug down.
The van hummed through the outskirts and the map on Legend’s feed pulsed: Sinclair at The Whitcomb, phone to his ear, a shadow of a hand sweeping across a hotel room window.
Voodoo tapped my foot with his and I reached for the flats to put them on. I needed to look like I worked in the office, it was part of the plan to get in. But I also needed to be able to move.
We took the exit toward McLean. The trees loomed taller here, estates folding into one another like secrets. Bones’ voicewas clipped. “We’re approaching the house,” Bones said for Legend’s benefit. “Once we’re there, Grace takes point to get inside. Lunchbox, you stick with Sinclair, if he moves, alert us.”
“If he heads for the house?” Legend’s question wasn’t an unreasonable one.
