Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Excusez-moi,” I told the startled woman.
I glanced behind me. The two Stradivarius abusers rushed out of the courtyard, spotted me right away, and pushed their way toward me. I gently ushered the French lady—and her shopping—safely to the side, and said “Bonjour, madame,” before I took off again.
Six years of Army PT came in handy. I lengthened my stride, barreling past a café with its scarf-and-coat-wearing and espresso-sipping crowd, and past the red awning of a butcher shop, keeping an eye out for cops, who might not take “No, officer, I’m not stealing this priceless musical instrument. I’m stealing it back,” as a justifiable excuse for my behavior.
Ahead was my goal—a busy boulevard full of traffic, where I spotted a green taxi, passenger-less and idling at a red light.
I sprinted to the door, grabbed the handle, and slid inside. The cabbie turned his head and arched a bushy eyebrow. “Oui?”
I gave the address of my hotel in the Seventh arrondissement, adding in French, “Quickly, please.”
“How fast?” the cabbie asked without moving.
“As fast as you can.”
The two thieves stepped out onto the boulevard. The driver shrugged laconically. “It’ll cost you extra.”
“Yes. I know,” I rushed out.
The light changed, and the cab peeled away, leaving two Stradivarius thieves behind me on the outskirts of Montmartre. I caught my breath as I settled into the backseat, slinging the backpack around so it was safely beside me.
“You running away from something?” the cab driver asked as he tore through side streets toward the Seine.
“No. I don’t run away,” I said. “I’m returning something to its rightful owner.”
Some called me a private detective, others called me a bounty hunter, and sure, technically, now and then, my clients needed to find other people. But mostly I hunted down items—usually precious objects—that had disappeared for some reason or other. So I preferred the title retrieval expert.
That was what I did—found things and brought them back.
And once I’d delivered the Strad into the loving arms of my client, I was looking forward to bringing myself back home to Key Largo where I could recharge with a run on the sand, a bike ride on the boardwalk with my nephew, and a spot of fishing with my brother. Paris had a lot of nice things, but it didn’t have a beach, and it was an ocean away from my family.
Nothing ever went according to plan—one of many things I learned in the Army.
My plane had barely touched down back home when my sister called. I stretched and ran my hand through my hair before tapping the screen.
“Where are you?” Kate asked as soon as I answered.
“I just exited the aircraft,” I said as I walked along the jetway. “Your timing is scary.”
“Well, don’t get too comfy. We have another job.”
I groaned. I’d been traveling for a week. Goodbye recharge plans.
Kate quickly assured me. “This is easy. All you have to do is find a guy who’s barely trying to hide.”
But I don’t trust easy. “If he’s barely trying to hide, sounds like they don’t really need me,” I said dryly.
“Come on, Jake. You’ll like this one. It involves art and chocolate and one of your favorite things.”
“A day on the boat? Season tickets to the Miami Aces? A cold beer and a barbecue?”
“Try gorgeous tropical beaches and new places to scuba dive.”
I started paying attention with more than half my jet-lagged brain. “Tell me more about this job.”
The client, Andrew, was looking for a man who turned chocolate into art, but not like they did in The Great British Bake Off—in a stolen-money kind of way.
I took off my shades and looked Andrew in the eye as the sun cast golden rays on the Key Largo boardwalk. He’d come down from Miami, where his business was based, and hadn’t balked when I’d moved the meeting from the office to the boardwalk midday. The gray-haired man wore slacks and a button-down. I was dressed for a dip in the water with my nephew when we were done.
“Let me get this straight. You think your business partner embezzled money from chocolate investments, put the money into art, and took that art to Flamingo Key?”
My client nodded as we stood to the water side of the boardwalk, looking like two friends just catching up for a chat—not a bounty hunter and a customer. “It’s easier to move art than money.”
I had one eye on my nephew, Mason, making sure he didn’t get too far away as he pedaled his bike down the boardwalk, but I was listening. “So you’re saying Eli Thompson—Eli ‘launched a hedge-style fund of sorts for ordinary guy investors with seed money from his wife’s craft-fair jewelry sales’ Thompson—has been skimming pennies off his clients’ accounts for two decades?”
“She’s his ex-wife now.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“Over twenty years? About ten million.”