Island of Thieves Page 2

  “Does he have the statue?” Anders said.

  “He may. He was inside the warehouse for twenty-eight minutes. The alarms didn’t go off. The guards look oblivious.”

  Intriguing, Anders thought. And unfortunate.

  “We’ll have to assume he was successful,” he said to Kilbane.

  “Should I reacquire the item? We can intercept him before he reaches his car.”

  Anders could imagine Kilbane sitting in his car trying, like a well-trained watchdog, not to strain against the leash. Kilbane had likely armed himself tonight in the event that action would be required. Perhaps even hoping it would be.

  “No, don’t interfere,” Anders said. “It’s enough that we’re aware Shaw completed the task.”

  “What if he decides to keep the statue for himself?”

  “I don’t believe he will.” Though Shaw proving to be unreliable at this stage might be for the best.

  “Sir,” said Kilbane. “Hiring Shaw is . . . strange.”

  Even for Sebastien is what he meant, Anders knew.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Kilbane finished. “A professional thief.”

  Kilbane must feel strongly about the matter to challenge the will of their mutual employer. Anders supposed having someone like Shaw within his sphere of operations would feel like sandpaper against Kilbane’s desire for order.

  Anders also agreed with his security chief’s assessment. Employing Shaw was a risk he would prefer not to take. Still, better to present a united front.

  “Ours is not to reason why, Warren. Thank you for your attention to this. You and your men.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll send them home if that’s all.”

  Anders said it would be.

  He rose and went to the sideboard to pour himself a modest glass of the Sandeman port that Greta had set out. It was late for alcohol, but he would be awake for some time yet.

  Shaw was a concern. Anders now wished he had made security at the warehouse even tighter. Impossible, even. Though Sebastien would have countered that move by saying any reasonable test for Shaw had to offer a chance at success.

  Sebastien Rohner was bold. He’d often told Anders that his confidence was one-half of their success, Anders’s scrutiny combined with Sebastien’s daring. A kind way of saying that he sometimes found Anders’s meticulous methods tiresome. Ultimately Sebastien was in charge. If he were truly determined, there was no argument Anders might mount that would be capable of diverting him.

  The Rohner wealth had been built on such courage. Enough accumulated capital that even the twin blows of overextending themselves in new markets followed by the crash of the pandemic had been a survivable situation. Nearly.

  Now, if Droma International were to remain solvent, Sebastien viewed his scheme as the only means to victory. He would not be denied. The most Anders could do was prepare for every eventuality.

  Including an unknown factor like Shaw. On the surface Shaw was perfect for what Sebastien had in mind. The criminal expertise, the scars that spoke of a violent past. The man looked like what he was. And Shaw had proved his skill tonight. Sebastien would interpret that as a good omen.

  In mathematics, to solve for a variable, one surrounded it with as many known values as possible. Anders would do the same for Shaw. Isolate him. Have Kilbane and his men keep a close watch.

  Before long, if Sebastien’s gamble paid off, the thief would become a solution instead of a problem.

  TWO

  Shaw released the trigger on the eight-pound grinder in his hands. The spinning wheel’s insectoid whine quickly dimmed and ceased. He removed his earplugs and set the tool aside to brush a sheet of fine dust off the fiberglass speedboat hull in front of his chest.

  To his left, the hull was still matte gray, the color of clouds biding their time before a rain shower, dotted with pits and salt corrosion and the empty carapaces of long-dead barnacles. To his right, where the grinder had done its work, a smooth and dusty mottling of the same gray paint and the white of the raw hull beneath.

  His twenty-foot boat stood on drydock jack stands. Four stands on either side and each stand with four slim legs. Lending the speedboat the impression of a centipede with an especially pointed head, grown too fat for its scrabbling limbs.

  Halfway done, Shaw judged, after two hours on the port side. His arms were feeling it. He knew some of that soreness was residual fatigue from the action at the warehouse the previous night. Even when he was a teenager and indestructible, he had always felt a mild ache in his muscles the day after a job. As if his body experienced a delayed reaction to the tension and the focus of his mind.

  He’d once asked Dono if he felt the same way, after the two of them had relieved a mansion in Medina of a coin collection large enough to fill three albums the size of couch cushions. His grandfather’s only reply had been a surprised grunt. Shaw had guessed that the older man had recognized the truth of it, even if he’d never noticed the ache for himself.

  He flipped a drink coaster off the top of a can of Fremont stout—the coaster keeping the swirling fiberglass dust out of the brew—and removed his painter’s mask to take a long pull. The beer had warmed during the past hour. Shaw still thought it tasted like ambrosia. Around him the boatyard hummed with the kind of frenzy only the fickle promise of early summer could bring. The whirs of half a dozen power tools competed with friendly shouts between families on the docks of the adjoining marina and the revving diesels of boats headed out on the Sound for the afternoon.

  Shaw laced his fingers and stretched his arms skyward to loosen his shoulders. Finish this side of the hull and the transom and knock off for the day. He could grind the starboard side early tomorrow and have the first coat of bottom paint drying in time for the noon sun.

  He indulged in one more drink before replacing the coaster hat on the can and hefting the grinder. His phone buzzed in his back pocket. He set the tool aside once more.

  The screen said wren. Shaw grinned and hit Accept.

  “You’re back,” he said.

  “I’m back. At last. Where are you?” said Wren Marchand. Her voice, which was normally a touch husky, coming at a higher pitch through a speaker on her end. In the background Shaw could hear the steady rumble of a car engine.

  “Shilshole. At the marina.”

  “With Hollis?”

  Shaw’s friend Hollis Brant lived aboard his fifty-foot cruiser, the Francesca, in the same marina where Shaw moored his speedboat. The smaller craft had once belonged to Shaw’s grandfather, and Hollis felt protective toward it. Dono and Hollis had been close friends and even better criminal accomplices at times. Dono Shaw’s expertise in burglary had paired well with Hollis’s smuggling and the contacts he seemed to have in every port and shipping company.

  “I’m refinishing the boat hull,” Shaw explained. “Hollis is off carousing with his girlfriend, I think.”

  “Wise man. Want to follow his example?”

  Shaw most definitely did. Wren had been visiting family in Colorado and then in Arizona for more than two weeks. The memory of their last night together before she left had both sustained him and made him count the days.

  “Let me hose the dust off myself and I’ll pick you up,” he said.

  “Or you could race me to your place. I just passed the sign into King County. Leave showering until we’re both there.”

  Shaw was already unplugging the grinder from its extension cord. “Floor it. I’ll pay for any speeding tickets.”

  Wren’s laughter stayed with him as he packed up his gear.

  Later the two of them lay tangled, their breaths slowing as the air pushed by the ceiling fan in Shaw’s bedroom gradually cooled the damp heat on their limbs.

  “I missed you,” Wren said.

  “Huh. Felt like you were right on target.”

  She swatted his hip. He took her hand and placed her index finger between his teeth for a gentle bite.

  “I missed you, too,” said Shaw. “Easy
trip home?”

  “Yes. I like long drives. Even the dull parts, when my back is sore and all I can do is look forward to getting wherever I’m going.” Wren stretched. “Especially today.”

  “All the way from Ashland. You must have checked out of the motel before sunrise.”

  “I stayed with a friend.”

  She didn’t elaborate, which was clue enough. Wren had made it clear when she and Shaw had started dating that she didn’t want or expect exclusivity. He’d gleaned that Wren had a long-standing thing with a woman in San Francisco and another lover named Terry, gender unknown to Shaw, in the Ashland area.

  Wren had told Shaw he could ask her anything. He thought it easier to leave well enough alone. Best not to get too attached. Wren wasn’t even sure how much longer she’d be living in Seattle, having already been there three years, the longest of any home since she was a kid.

  “How’s the garden?” he said instead.

  “Thriving, I hope. Lettie’s been looking after it while I was away.” Like Shaw, Wren had a few different hustles. Her calling was herbalism. Tending her plot of land with its various tiny crops required nearly as many hours as seeing clients. “Have you been working at the bar?”

  “Not this week,” said Shaw. “I had something else to do.”

  He got out of bed with some reluctance and went to open the bottom drawer of his dresser, the only other piece of furniture in the room. He had been living in the apartment less than five months. Its prepaid lease in the icily elegant Empyrea Tower in Belltown had been an unexpected acquisition. There was far more open floor space in the high-rise than seemed natural. Dating Wren had been Shaw’s impetus to buy a proper bed frame, king-size.

  From the drawer he retrieved the figurine of the baboon, swathed in two bath towels. He brought the ovoid mass back to the bed to unwrap it and show Wren.

  “I’m up to try almost anything,” she said, “but whatever you have in mind with the monkey might be a hard limit.”

  He laughed. “It’s a score. Sort of.”

  She cocked one dark eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t rob places anymore.”

  Wren knew his background, or most of it. Raised by a professional thief and a damned prodigy at the work, until he and Dono had had one fight too many. Eighteen-year-old Shaw had escaped into the Army, where to his surprise he had excelled. After surviving the hellish selection process, he had taken to life in the 75th Ranger Regiment like a pit bull to raw meat. Even getting his face half shredded on his first deployment with his new battalion hadn’t dissuaded him.

  But after he’d spent a decade overseas and on bases, his world had tilted on its axis once again. Shaw had become a civilian. Bearing a multitude of talents, most of them unacceptable to a polite and lawful society. And his moral compass, while still admittedly skewed, wouldn’t permit him to make his fortune through thievery anymore.

  Under most circumstances.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said to Wren, hefting the baboon sculpture in his hand. “I obtained this little guy without risking prison.”

  Wren rescued one of the pillows, thrown to the floor in haste earlier, and propped herself up on the headboard. “But you took it.”

  “Taking isn’t always stealing,” said Shaw. “Not if you’ve got permission.”

  THREE

  Shaw’s arrangement with Droma International Solutions had been strange from the very start.

  The first oddity had been a phone call from Ephraim Ganz. Ganz was once his grandfather’s criminal attorney, as savvy at manipulating the justice system as Dono had been at combination-safe locks. Shaw hadn’t spoken to Ganz in the better part of a year. The two men had parted with some acrimony, as the lawyer might have put it.

  Shaw had been in Addy Proctor’s kitchen, washing dishes, when the call came in. Addy and her foster kid, Cyndra, were choosing a show for the three of them to watch that night. Addy preferred The Great British Baking Show, while Cyn argued for a new series about vampires and the mortals who had a lot of sex with them. With sixty-five years separating the two women, finding common ground seemed unlikely. Shaw had opted for KP duty to stay out of the line of fire.

  When his phone screen lit up with Ganz’s name, Shaw had assumed it meant trouble. He might not be a thief anymore, but since leaving the Army, he’d racked up a list of felonies that would make a DA salivate. Had he made some misstep, left some trail leading to him?

  He left Addy and Cyndra to their debate and went to the back porch. Addy’s dog, Stanley, ever alert for a chance at adventure, followed him outside.

  “Hello, Ephraim,” Shaw said into the phone.

  “Van,” Ganz said. “Glad you picked up. What’s your schedule like these days? Got time for lunch tomorrow?”

  “I’m not at the bar until six.” Shaw worked a variety of jobs at a place called Bully Betty’s on Capitol Hill and had become something of a silent partner to Betty of late. Saturday nights on the Hill required all hands on deck.

  “Good. Excellent, even. I want you to meet somebody. If it works out, this might be a lucrative thing for you.”

  Ganz’s preternatural levels of energy somehow translated through the open line. Shaw could swear his phone’s battery was charging the more they talked.

  He picked up a hard rubber ball—solid enough that even Stanley’s massive jaws wouldn’t break it—and tossed it across the small yard for the dog to chase.

  “Are you branching out, Ephraim? Placing temp workers?” Shaw said.

  “Funny. No, this is a favor.”

  Shaw grunted.

  “Not a favor to you,” Ganz clarified. “In case you were worried you might owe me something for the trouble.”

  “I was wondering who could be this eager to make my acquaintance.”

  “A friend of mine from way back. You like seafood? The crab cakes at Canlis are going to knock you sideways. One o’clock tomorrow.”

  Canlis, thought Shaw. Whoever Ganz was trying to impress, it wasn’t a client who’d brought him more grief than money.

  “All right,” Shaw said. “I’ll wash my best shirt. The one with sleeves.”

  It was Ganz’s turn to grumble. “Most people would think you were joking.”

  “I’ll borrow some pants, too.”

  “Go to hell,” Ganz said without rancor, and hung up.

  Shaw sat down on the steps to lean against the porch rail. He waited until Stanley dropped the soggy ball at his feet for him to throw again. The night was warm and windless. The vanguard of insects that accompanied dusk had stuck around. A cloud of gnats made its slow way between Shaw and one of the solar-powered lights he’d installed over the winter along the edge of Addy’s lawn. The bugs were too tiny to cast anything resembling shadows. Instead it seemed like the air itself was rippling, shifting direction based on the whim of each second.

  The promise of a fine lunch and even Ganz’s display of pique had been bits of distraction. The flourishes a magician makes to keep the audience from seeing the cards move. Or in this case to keep the audience from asking questions that might end the show before it started. It had seemed crucial to Ganz that Shaw make an appearance.

  The wily attorney knew exactly who Shaw was. So the only real questions were, who was this old friend of Ephraim Ganz’s and why did they need a thief?

  The hostess at Canlis had begun nodding appreciatively before Shaw finished telling her which party he was joining. She led him with cheerfully quick strides to a window table, where Ganz and a woman in a royal-blue business suit were deep in conversation.

  Ganz saw Shaw approaching. “And there he is. Linda Edgemont, Donovan Shaw.”

  “I’m delighted you could make it, Mr. Shaw,” Edgemont said, shaking Shaw’s hand.

  “Ephraim set the hook pretty well,” said Shaw, taking the seat next to Ganz.

  Edgemont looked to be in her midfifties, a few years younger than Ganz. They were a study in contrasts. Ganz was short and angular, with eyebrows and hair that d
efied taming. Edgemont’s height was obvious even when seated. An emphatic figure that anyone with half an eye would call curvaceous rather than heavy. And she was immaculately styled, from her champagne-blond hair unsullied by any strand of gray down to, Shaw presumed, the shoes out of sight under the tablecloth.

  The server came and proffered menus and asked about drinks. Ganz followed Edgemont’s lead and ordered an iced tea. Shaw requested water and had to specify uncarbonated, which in turn required him to select a brand. He had the impression the server might have fainted if he’d said tap.

  “The secrecy is my fault,” Edgemont said once they were alone again. “I asked Ephraim if he wouldn’t mind being circumspect until we could meet in person.”

  “Linda and I were associates at the same firm when I first moved to Seattle,” Ganz said. “She was destined for greatness even then.”

  Edgemont smiled warmly. “That’s rose-colored hindsight. But I appreciate it anyway.”

  “What greatness occupies you now?” Shaw said.

  “How familiar are you with Droma International Solutions?” Edgemont asked. “Or with Sebastien Rohner?”

  “There’s a Droma sign on a building on 6th downtown. Beyond that I’m tapped.”

  Edgemont nodded. “Mr. Rohner is the founder of Droma, and my employer. Droma is a privately held company. It doesn’t appear in many headlines outside those of industry journals.”

  “Which industry?”

  “Consulting services make up our primary revenue stream.”

  The server returned with drinks and launched into a litany describing the courses on the prix-fixe menu. This time it was Edgemont who was the odd one out, opting for an entrée of the black cod while Ganz and Shaw chose the steak. Shaw had noted the three-digit prix at the top of the menu. At least now he had a clue why Ganz was showing off. Edgemont must have been an absolute bombshell when the two of them had been legal eaglets. Middle age hadn’t stolen much of the woman’s luster.