“Her brothers…” Mike couldn’t finish the sentence.

  That’s when Massar’s hunched shoulders finally registered. Think, Mike. Maybe they had disappeared Violetta. Just as all of the problems he’d created for them had magically gone away.

  “Who the hell are those guys?”

  Massar shrugged again but spoke before Mike could threaten to shove a tater tot up his nose.

  “All I know is that I’m off the case. I knew that the Giovannis were big—Colorado mafia—but I didn’t know how big.”

  “Now he tells me. I’m from California, how was I supposed to know?”

  “That’s not why I was staying away. It was a good bet that they had an eye on you from the first time you touched Violetta.”

  “The touching was very mutual.”

  “I’m glad for you. Like I said, hot. The problem that neither of us knew was she was also hot like refined Uranium-238. Anyway, at first I didn’t want my being around to tip them off. Thought you were smart enough to not buy into her game.”

  “You could have warned me.”

  “I didn’t know,” a flicker of frustration across his face was buried with another hit from his beer bottle. “I knew she was trouble but I didn’t know you’d be going after the brothers, or even what that implied. Then the day after you started on the brothers, I was ordered off your case without a word of why. No contact allowed. The whole nine yards.”

  “Yet you’re here now.”

  “What did I say before you climbed into my car?”

  Mike had to think. “You said, I’m not actually here.”

  “Smart man. You always were, Mike. I met you in the garage in my own car in hopes that whoever was watching would ignore me.”

  “Why were you pulled off the case?”

  “That’s one even my bosses don’t know.” He checked his watch again.

  “What’s with the—”

  “Look, Mike, I’m just lowly CID, Criminal Investigation Division, the beat cop of the FBI. But I found out a little of what’s happening.”

  “Do tell.”

  Massar’s glare said he should keep his mouth shut and listen. “The NSB, National Security Branch—the kind of FBI heavies you do not want to be messing with—have been working on the brothers for years, and you stepped in the middle of it. My guess is the brothers guessed something was up even before you started hitting them.”

  Mike guessed. “Violetta saw they were distracted, and tried to grab some of their business, having no idea what they were into?”

  Massar tipped his beer to Mike in acknowledgement. “Big brother Tommaso is a top-secret military contractor. Middle brother Marko runs the hotels where his guests, lobbyists, senators, military and the like all stay. Little brother Carlo provides their entertainment, gambling, booze, and women. Baby sister looks to have been clean. Whatever happened, the brothers used their dirty contacts to clean up the little dust storms you created.”

  “Just perfect.”

  “Like I said—”

  “That’s baseball,” Mike spoke Massar’s favorite saying in unison with the man. It didn’t earn him the usual half-laugh.

  “Far worse than you can imagine. Between them, they’ve been running a military secrets sales operation to the highest bidder. CIA twigged to it first and tonight the FBI is running them into the ground.”

  “All in the family, except for Violetta who wanted a slice.”

  Again the bottle tip to show that Mike was smart. Not half as much as Mike had thought he was, if he’d stepped in the middle of that mess.

  He collapsed back into his seat. “If I am so darned smart, why am I here now?”

  Massar kept his thoughts to himself as Sally set their plates on the table and did a bit of chit-chat.

  Mike would miss Violetta. Miss her badly. But she’d lied, she’d played him. Her brothers weren’t trying to hone in on her businesses, she’d been trying to grab a chunk of theirs. Damn it! He was not used to being the one who got played. She had been fun and he hoped that her lockup was comfortable and not at the end of a long fall into darkness.

  But he’d been used. And that pissed him off.

  Running a good con was all about knowing when to cut and run. Two could play at that game. While Massar was talking about the local high school politics with Sally, Mike texted Alejandra, a lawyer from the gym they both used. She’d been after him for a while. The tall Latina was as sexy as her name.

  Evening run tomorrow? Loser buys dinner at Basta. Go dancing after.

  She instantly pinged back a triple thumbs up and a line of dancing emojis as if she’d already won.

  He’d make sure to lose the race so that he’d win the competition later that night.

  And to hell with Violetta.

  Mike dunked and bit into his sandwich. Good pastrami on a toasted Hoagie and an au jus that even Julia Child would find hard to complain about. After a dance on the sheets with Alejandra, he’d cash out and be gon—

  Crap! He hadn’t invoiced Violetta for the month yet. And running all of those dodgy digs at the brothers’ businesses had cost ten to twenty times the normal rates to run. She’d promised that money was no object, so Advanced Ads had run its limit. With her gone, so was his company’s cash flow—and bank accounts.

  Poor planning. At least he still had his stash in the go-bag.

  Sally had moved on to tend another table, Mike had eaten half his sandwich without noticing, and Massar was checking his watch again.

  “What is up with you?”

  “The National Security Branch is sweeping up the brothers and their cohorts right about now. You poked the hornet’s nest hard enough that the brothers opened some cracks and the FBI and CIA is flooding in through them. A whole lot of military, congressional people, and overseas diplomatic corps are going to have a really bad night tonight. Without knowing, you uncorked a takedown bigger than all the five years you and I did together combined.”

  “So…” If they were all gone, then he was in the clear with no need to run. Mike tried one of the tater tots. It was good. Would have been better when it was warm. “That means I’m the good guy again. What’s the finder’s fee on this one?” Big fish paid well, and ones this size might cover Advanced Ads for months before he had to scare up new clients.

  “You don’t get it, Mike.” Massar shook his head. “I’ve got no jurisdiction here. No say. I’m going against direct orders to get you well away from your office and apartment until things are done tonight.”

  “They were going to wrap me up in this?” Mike had to struggle to not barf his tater tot onto the table.

  Massar shrugged. “What I’m thinking anyway.”

  “Well, shit!”

  Massar laughed. “First time I’ve ever heard you swear, Mike.”

  “You never met a woman as fast on the draw with a bar of soap as Sister Mary Pat.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. She was one of your top interviewees for your security clearance before she passed away. Believed in you hard. Nice lady.”

  “But tougher than nails.”

  “Tougher than nails.” Massar raised his beer in a toast to her which made Mike feel a little better. It took a lot for a Catholic boy to like a nun, another thing they shared.

  He’d never been stupid enough to love a woman since Mom had died. Better to have them like Violetta, there then gone, not depend on anyone. But he’d come close to loving Sister Mary Pat, had almost cried at the funeral.

  Then Massar looked at his watch again. “They should be done by now. The whole Giovanni clan arrested. You stay off the radar and they’ll probably just forget about you. You aren’t a big fish, and I doubt if there are any Giovannis left on the street to come after you.”

  “Good news. I always wanted to be of so little consequence that no one would ever look for me.”

  “Ha. Ha. Ha. Look, I always liked you, Mike. But Advanced Ads is done. I’ve got my no-touch orders, and anything you do there will put you back on their scope.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  Arrow Massar shrugged and at long last picked up his massive pastrami sandwich. “Have to think about that.”

  7

  Massar dropped him a block from his office. It was late, and the streets were dark and empty. Early June at two a.m. cut through the thin linen of his sports coat.

  “Thanks, Arrow. I’ll be seeing you.”

  “No, Mike. No, you won’t. And Mike?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I wouldn’t try starting your car.” When Mike only blinked, Massar tapped the phone in his jacket pocket.

  Mike swallowed hard, picturing the burned-out hulk of Violetta’s Porsche.

  Massar nodded and drove away.

  Mike couldn’t even wave.

  Because he had nowhere else to go and no way to get there at two in the morning, Mike went up to his office. He didn’t quite catch on to what was happening until he’d already walked through his open office door.

  Open.

  In the middle of the night.

  The security alarm not blinking, it had been ripped out of the wall. Wires dangled like intestines.

  Habit had him flipping the light switch before he could stop himself.

  He froze with one hand on the switch and looked around carefully.

  Alone.

  Wreckage.

  Safety and disaster mixed together to leave him paralyzed for several more seconds.

  The walnut Mission desk had been flipped over. The computer monitor crushed underneath. No sign of the computer.

  The client chairs had been tossed aside, coffee table shattered, the well-stocked bar for serving clients dumped—the air was thick with the stench of dark rum and juniper. The showcase of fake awards incongruously was all that remained intact.

  His own chair had three neat bullet holes in it: two chest high and one head high.

  There were brown, caked bloodstains on the black leather.

  He managed to turn the overhead lights off again, but the streetlights shone in through the tall windows, which made everything shadowed and creepy like a half-lit Hitchcock movie after the crime.

  Edging around the tall chairs, he made his way into the back apartment. This door was closed and it took more nerves than he knew he possessed to open it, but he did.

  If he’d thought the front office and the neat grouping of bullet holes in his favorite chair had been a horror, he’d been sorely mistaken.

  His kitchen had been dumped. His machines had been tossed aside with a vengeance. They must have had a giant come in solely to kick the shit out of his espresso machine. The glass around the shower had been shattered by a spray of bullets that had chewed up the Italian tile beyond.

  The bed…was bloody.

  Riddled with holes.

  A hand-painted silk scarf that he’d given Violetta when they’d taken a day trip to Boulder’s Arts in the Park festival lay crumpled in a fold of the sheets. She’d often worn it as her only clothing when they made love.

  It told him too much of what had happened.

  Violetta must have known everything had gone bad. She’d entered the hair salon herself, leaving her car to be torched, and disappeared out the back—then come here. Arriving after he’d left to run some pre-dinner errands but been picked up by Massar. Maybe she’d showered. Maybe she’d curled up in the bed to wait for him.

  The brothers, or one of their enforcers, had found her here.

  He looked around and realized that the bathroom glass had been shattered by a spray of bullets that had come from the bed. She’d recognized her attackers and been ready, trying to kill them from his bed—killing his bathroom fixtures instead. They’d killed her then torn up the place.

  One guy had stayed behind, sitting in his office chair and waiting for him to come back so that he could finish the job.

  The three neat bullet holes in the chair had been professional. A military sharpshooter had taken out whoever had been waiting for him.

  Mike had the perfect alibi. He’d been sitting in a bar with an FBI agent and multiple witnesses when it had all been happening.

  Then everything had been taken away.

  Everything?

  He rushed to the bed, but knew the answer even before he knelt to reach up into the darkness under the bed frame.

  No go-bag. No fifty thousand dollars. No two fake identities. He was stuck being Mike Munroe. The first time he’d ever used his real name had been Advanced Ads and now he was stuck with it like a chokehold throttling him until he saw dark spots in front of his eyes.

  He picked up the monogrammed towel that Violetta had tossed against the pillow so that it wouldn’t get wet from her fresh-showered hair.

  Mike was still carrying it, feeling the last of the dampness against his palm, as he switched off the lights and stepped once more into his office.

  Nowhere else to sit, unless he wanted to curl up and go fetal on the floor. He fished out a bottle of Jack Daniels black-label bourbon—he hated Jack Black—draped the towel over the RECARO chair, and sat.

  His bank accounts were close to tapped out, even if he dared touch them.

  His go-bag had gone without him.

  He pulled out his keys and tossed them on the upside-down desk. His office door had been smashed in and his car was likely to explode if he tried to start it.

  With the FBI gone, Advanced Ads no longer existed to any purpose. It had become one hundred percent front—except for poor Violetta.

  He had a plane, but no money to fuel it and nowhere to go if he did.

  Mike sat in the dark, in his eight-thousand-dollar RECARO chair with three bloody bullet holes in it, and waited.

  He wondered how long he’d have to wait before someone arrived to fire a fourth round into it.

  8

  Five hours later Mike started actually hoping someone would come through the door and shoot him—sooner rather than later. He really didn’t want to have to go into his apartment to use the bathroom. The first hints of daylight would reveal the caked blood on his bedsheets.

  Maybe he’d just pee in the corner.

  Or piss himself.

  Not like it mattered anymore.

  When his phone rang, he almost wet himself then and there. He dropped the unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, which bounced on the carpet without breaking. Good. He didn’t need his pit of despair to smell like Kentucky Bourbon.

  “Advanc— This is Mike Munroe.” There was no more Advanced Ads. Just Mike.

  “I’m so glad I caught you, son. Hope I didn’t wake you.” The voice was deep and cheery.

  “Um, no. I’ve been awake a while.”

  “Good. Good. I was told that you were the man to help me.”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Do what anymore?”

  “Ads. Advertising. Shilling for—” He probably shouldn’t mention the FBI. “I’m done with that.”

  “Are you sure this is Mike Munroe?”

  He tapped the video on his phone and was looking at a robust black man with hair gone gray far past the temples.

  “You look like you’ve had a hard night, son.”

  “I’ve had better.” Had he ever had worse? Other than watching his parents bleed out in the car wreck that had left him untouched or watching Sister Mary Pat get lowered into the cold ground, probably not.

  “A friend said you were good with people and that you knew planes.”

  “Good with people?” Mike considered the question. Up until the last twelve hours he wouldn’t have questioned that. By his second year at the orphanage he’d mastered the art of coaxing people to tell him their deepest secrets: Mike Munroe, everybody’s friend.

  Once he’d had those secrets, it had created a kind of safety. A rarity in the orphanage.

  “Yes, I guess I am. And I’ve got a couple thousand hours and an instrument rating to fly a small plane. I have a Beech Bonanza that I’m willing to sell cheap.”

  The man chuckled. “Don’t do much flying myself anymore. I’ll tell you my problem. I’ve got a girl.”

  Mike groaned. “That’s the last thing I need.”

  “I’m not some matchmaker, Mike, so just hush and listen. I’ve got a girl, I’m old enough to still call her that, who just lost her team. One person retired, another is starting maternity leave. She has challenges in dealing with people—real interesting challenges. Needs a go-between so that she can do what she’s so very, very good at. Needs someone with Top Secret clearance too. Friend says you’re the boy I want. Said you had the gift of the gab without being a soulless asshole.”

  “You play it straight, don’t you?” And why Mike was now quoting Arrow Massar was beyond him.

  “Damn straight! Only real way to get ahead.” As if. Unless the guy was actually right? Wouldn’t that just be the world’s biggest irony. Mike was certainly busted now after a decade of cons.

  “And what is this girl so very, very good at?” Mike could feel that stupid, useless security clearance card burning a hole in his pocket. He hadn’t thought to throw it aside during the long night of sitting in a dead man’s chair, clutching a bottle of bourbon like a life preserver.

  “Oh, didn’t introduce myself, did I? Gettin’ old, Mike. Gettin’ old. Must be the gray on top is leaking down into my brain.” He sounded as if he enjoyed his own joke. “I’m Terrence Graham. I’m the head of training for the National Transportation Safety Board.”

  “The NTSB? The one who investigates plane crashes?”

  “That’s the one. You interested?”

  “You want to hire me to be a, ah, human liaison to a prickly crash investigator for the NTSB?”

  “Got it in one, Mike. Can’t let her in on that though. How do you feel about being the Operations and Human-performance Investigator for her team? That’s all about the people and not about the technology; don’t worry, she’s got the technology side wired down hard. Miranda Chase is NTSB’s very best. Now, time’s a-wastin’. We’ve got a plane down this morning and she’s already enroute. What do you say? Your friend said you might want to get out of your current situation.”