Blue Smoke and Murder

25

SEPTEMBER 15

4:00 A.M.

Score woke up when the alarm on his computer went off. Every hour on the hour. Slightly more often than the client called.

He’d stopped answering his phone. Even after a hard workout, he was afraid he’d lose his temper. This client was too important to scream at.

Rolling over, he eyed the computer on the bedside table. He hit refresh and waited for the computer to show a new readout. A red line and a blinking red arrow recorded Jill Breck’s progress against a map of Arizona.

Still moving.

Damn. What are they doing-heading for dawn at the Grand Canyon?

Do they have the paintings? Or did they stash them in the same place the old lady did?

He sat up, reached out for a different computer, and hit the digital replay of the sat phone bug, selecting for certain words.

Thank god for computers. Nothing more butt-numbing than listening to a bug, waiting to hear something besides garbage.

With computers, he could cut to the good stuff.

Well, sometimes. Right now there was static…and classic country music playing in the background. Wherever Jill was keeping her sat phone, it wasn’t close enough to do any good.

Or maybe she and the op weren’t on speaking terms anymore.

If Score had been the St. Kilda op, he’d have been furious to have a client in his pocket, watching his every move. But it made Jill easier to get to, so Score wasn’t going to complain.

All he had to do was keep a lid on those paintings until the auction was over.

Four days.

He yawned, wished he could go to back to sleep, knew he couldn’t risk it. If Jill had those paintings with her-and he had to assume she did, because it was the worst-case scenario-he needed to steal or destroy them before the auction.

After another yawn, he called At Your Service’s twenty-four-hour line and began spending thousands of the client’s dollars chartering a plane out of Burbank.

He could always sleep in the air.