"Kids! C'mon and eat." I yelled
"Eric, Brianna…. Ian. Where are you guys? Supper's ready.
I turned around to find a note taped to the door, a burner phone on the doorstep with a picture of the kids. . .
"If you do everything as instructed, they might live…"
The burner rang, I picked up mid ring.
" If you do as I say, I won't harm them, but if you fail to meet my standards, they're all dead."
"The bank on Miramack and Chelsea. You're going to Alleviate them of their millions…."
I took off inside the house "Someone took them." "What?"
"The kids are gone!"
I threw the note and phone on the table The others jumped up.
Any idea who this is?" " No."
The phone rang and I picked it up. "Where are my kids?"
"You'll get them back not a hair touched on any of their heads. But, there is just one more thing I’ll need you to do for me.”
“The owner of the bank is an old foe of mine. He’s been hunting me down since our last run in, he’s never left that particular branch and I don’t need you blowing the whistle when this is all over should you be able to identify me… I want him dead. Those are my two conditions.”
I looked at Chase who was already one foot out the door
- he was going to see a friend of his who had a little further reach than just the sheriff’s office.
She was brought in undercover by the FBI to smoke out some dirty cops.
“Oh, by the way I just saw Chase leave the house. I tailed him and curiously, he wasn’t headed towards the station…. Make sure it stays that way.”
“So, you think we’re bright enough to pull off a heist and a murder, but not intelligent enough to leave the locals out of this?”
“Take care in how you speak to me, Megan, your well known smart mouth won’t do you any favors here.”
“Who are you ?!? What do you want with us? You could've pulled this off without our help.”
“Yes, but… you’ll find at the end of it all maybe, that this is much bigger than you or I and They’ll never be able to tie me to perfect strangers.” “I’m sorry, really I am but, you and your brother are the stuff of legends and It was all purely random. Your fame for kicking ass just caught our attention and now we need your expertise.”
I could feel my face burning from rage when I told the bastard we’d do it… and he bought it, hook line and sinker when I played the concerned Mother/ Aunt routine. I mean yes, I was terrified for those kids but I already had the faceless prick in my sights and he wasn't gonna get to see what his millions looked like.
When Chase got back I told him we may be looking for some of our own because this guy knew our background well. We swept the house for bugs and wires … he wasn’t that smart I guess.
That, or he didn’t have a whole lot of resources. We retraced everyone we worked with and cross-checked the notes and files (which were classified and were not to be in our possession but somehow, dad knew this could be a dangerous game, so when we were training he kept the files and when we got old enough. Don passed them
to us for safekeeping and so on.)
We came up dry and I started to lose it for a minute before regaining my composure and asking Chase about his FBI contact. “Who is he and can he be trusted?”
“She.”
“and yes... Do you remember Amber Aikin?
“Vaguely. Wasn’t she one of your muses back in the day?”
“Haha cute, shut up, yes. We went out."
“You’re joking.
Chase, please tell me you’re joking.”
“We kept in touch, we’re good friends. She’s FBI and got stationed here months ago to clean house at the precinct.”
Wearily, I shook my head, but Chase's instincts - no matter what it was concerning - were usually pretty on point.
Chase and Amber worked together to track down all the associates of people she was investigating at the time. Half the force was thought to be dirty at that point. She’d been investigating for eight months getting close to them gaining their trust. This wasn’t Heist type deals though,
this was cutting deals for inmates in turn for bigger payouts but, not heists. Well. I guess it’s only a step away and it’s worth looking into.
The cops that she was trying to bust were working with the gangs and thieves of the city, playing both sides against the middle to ensure that it would tie up loose ends while leaving them a bigger payout, they’d raid the evidence lockers after a few months had passed and the loot was forgotten... The problem was that no one had forgotten it and they wanted answers.
It took us just inside a week to figure out that one of the dirty cops Amber had befriended was leaning on another cop who had better morals but more than a few inner demons. He’d gotten hooked on painkillers after he got shot on the job and had a gambling addiction.
She had told her pal about Chase and I in passing. He, in turn gave his customer an out by giving him the idea that we could pull the heist and murder the bank owner. All he had to do was take the only weakness we had, and we’d comply.
We cornered Sydney Turner With Amber’s help. She’d pulled one of her partners and created a case that would fall on Turner’s desk. When He was scheduled to meet The victim from his case, we showed up instead. He told
us that his dealer was holding the kids and that we’d be killed if we tried to go after them.