The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) (35 page)

That is, until Grant lets out a very Keanu Reeves-like “Whoa.”

Duplass looks like he wants to shoot me. “You planned this.”

“Well, of course – but I planned it so that in case we all died, the world would still know what a monster Dieter Lassenbach was. It just kind of worked out for this situation, too.”

“This is blackmail.”

“Yeah… I gotta admit, I can’t really argue my way out of that one. But since you want to ‘crucify’ me for trying to save Grant from a serial killer, and crucify Grant for being framed by the same guy – ”

“Cut the crap,” Duplass sneers. “We both know that bullshit about the paintings being planted is a lie. Any judge and jury will see right through it.”

I grit my teeth. “You’re trying to destroy Grant over a victimless crime.”

“Victimless?!” Duplass laughs. “Those paintings are worth hundreds of millions!”

“No one lost any money because of his actions.”

“Of course they did! The insurance companies who reimbursed the museums – ”

“He didn’t steal anything from museums, so the insurance companies’ losses aren’t on him.”

Duplass stabs his finger in the air towards Grant. “He STOLE those paintings.”

“Which you’ve got back in your possession, along with a serial killer who’s responsible for the deaths of dozens and dozens of women.” I raise an eyebrow. “And who would make an excellent scapegoat in the press.”

Duplass laughs. “You are digging your grave deeper and deeper by the second, missy.”

I cross my arms. “Okay, then. If my grave’s already dug, I want to see what happens when the Times runs the headline, ‘NSA Serial Killer Murders Dozens of Women Under FBI’s Nose.’ Maybe you want to call your superiors first? Kick it upstairs and ask if the White House wants me to go ahead with the document dump. You know… let the chips fall where they may.”

Duplass is shaking, he’s so angry. But he’s paralyzed, unsure of what to do.

“Stop,” Grant says. “I’ll make a full confession.”

I look at Grant in shock. “What?!”

He ignores me and focuses on Duplass. “Full confession – on two conditions.”

“What?” the FBI agent asks. I can see the greed in his eyes. He’s practically licking his lips.

“One, you let Eve and my friends walk. No charges, no nothing. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Impossible.”

Grant leans back in his chair. “Okay. Never mind.”

Duplass squints. “Say that I
can
get them off the hook. What’s the second condition?”

“I’m going to give you a list of everybody I stole those paintings from. At least one of the people on the list has to admit that something was stolen, or
I
walk free. After all, if nothing went missing, then I didn’t commit any crimes.”

Duplass grins nastily. He can’t believe his good fortune. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Duplass mulls it over for a second. Then he slaps a pen and a piece of paper in front of Grant. “It’s a deal. Except I have a condition of my own.”

“What?”

Duplass points at me. “If I agree to your terms, then she stops the document dump.”

“Not a chance in hell,” I snap.

“Eve,” Grant says calmly. “If he lets you go, then scrap the document dump.”

I look at Grant in despair. We were
so close
to clawing our way out
,
and then he goes and does a stupid thing like this.

Grant gives me a look like
Quit screwing around
. “Please.”

“…fine,” I mutter.

“Thank you,” Grant says, and begins writing on the piece of paper.

“I want the files erased,” Duplass demands. “I want the location of the server, and we’ll do the erasing – ”

“No way,” I butt in. “As soon as I give you that, you’ll just re-arrest me.”

“You don’t get the files, Duplass,” Grant says as he writes out name after name. “That’s our insurance policy that you abide by the agreement.”

“There’s no way I’m trusting her!” Duplass scowls.

“Well, since we have to trust
you,
you’ll have to trust us a little, too.”

“What’s to stop her from blackmailing us?”

“There won’t be anything to gain,” Grant says. “I’ll already be in jail. She’d just be making herself into a target.”

Grant slides the piece of paper across the desk.

Duplass grabs the list like a hyena scrabbling for a bone. As soon as he looks at the names, though, his eyes go wide. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Grant leans back in his chair again. “I kid you not.”

“There aren’t any museums on here!”

“That’s because I never stole from any museums. Just private ‘collections.’”

“There’s a sitting United States Senator on here!” Duplass says angrily. “One of the most powerful men in the United States!”

“Yup,” Grant agrees. “I designed his house. He had ‘Storm of the Sea of Galilee’ by Rembrandt, if I recall. Stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – same heist as ‘The Concert.’ But it was the second guy on the list who had the Vermeer.”

“What?! No, that can’t be right – ”

“Yup. I doubt he’s the same presidential candidate Epicurus gave ten million dollars to –
my
guy already had hundreds of millions of his own – though you never know.”

Mailin is curious. He leans over to sneak a look, but Duplass angrily snatches the paper away.

Grant puts his feet up on the desk and folds his hands behind his head. “There’s three of the richest men in the United States on that list, plus six other garden-variety almost-billionaires. Anyway, like I said, you’re going to need at least one of them to back me up. You might want to call them now so you don’t get embarrassed when you subpoena them in front of the grand jury and they tell you, ‘No, nothing was stolen from me in the last three years.’”

Duplass is almost as white as the paper the list is written on.

“Oh – one last thing: two of those guys are best buds with the President, so, you know… you might want to mention that when you call the White House about Eve’s demands, too. In case you’re thinking of not honoring our deal.”

Duplass looks like he’s going to blow a gasket, but he doesn’t say another word. He just walks out of the room, apparently to go make some phone calls.

We get released from FBI headquarters fifty-five minutes later.

Duplass doesn’t even see us off; he’s probably too ashamed to show his face.

Mailin gets the honors instead. “Oh man, you should’ve seen him standing in front of the Assistant Director while she was on the phone with the Attorney General and the White House. I’ve never seen Duplass that scared in my
life.
He probably had to change his underwear afterward.”

We’re in a private room off the main lobby of the FBI building. Grant is wearing a grey warm-up suit with ‘FBI’ emblazoned on the back; it was the only thing they could find for him to wear when they took the orange prison jumpsuit back.

Mailan hands each of us a thick sheaf of documents to sign.

“What is this?” Dominique asks.

“Standard NDA’s,” Mailin replies.

“En… Dee… A’s…?”

“Nondisclosure agreements. You promise you won’t tell anybody anything about what happened at the house in Marin County. EVER.”

“Where’s our promises from you?” Grant asks facetiously.

“You get to walk out the door. That’s all the promises they’re willing to give you.” Mailin turns to me. “By the way, exactly when are you planning on stopping the document dump?”

“As soon as we leave.”

“Because all bets are off if even one of those files gets out.”

“Then I guess you better let me get out of here, huh?”         

“You’re cutting it kind of close.”

“I have two hours, Mailin. It’ll be fine.”

“Did you take into account time zones when you programmed it?” he asks quite seriously.

A dawning look of horror spreads across my face. “Oh shit…”

“EVE – ” Mailin starts in a panic, and then realizes from my barely suppressed smile that I’m pulling his leg. “SO not cool.”

Grant laughs.

“She loves to do that,” JP chimes in.

“Don’t fuck around with those documents,” Mailin warns me.

“I won’t, I won’t.”

“Any chance you’d like to borrow one of our computers?” he asks with a sly little grin.

“Ha. No.”

The FBI would just track my movements online, find the server, and then I wouldn’t have any leverage on them at all. No, I’m going to have to get a computer as soon as I get out of here.

Mailin watches as we all start reading and signing. “By the way… as far as your plans after you walk out of here…”

Grant looks up. “Yes?”

“The FBI is requesting you lay low for a while.”

I frown. “Lay low?”

“In other words, no press conferences,” Grant translates.

“Actually, no press conferences, no statements to the press, no
talking
to the press, minimal contact with your company, no contact with anyone but your immediate families, no public appearances including restaurants, theaters, airports, railways…”

Now it’s Grant’s turn to look surprised. “What?!”

“Public relations needs to handle this just right. After all, our guys shot and killed a billionaire, who was also a serial killer, who did consulting work for the NSA. The FBI’s going to be in damage control over this for a while.”

“Why no contact with anyone but our families?” I ask.

“Because the press is going to be calling everybody you know, trying to get to you. And when they can’t get to you, they’ll want a comment from your friends. We’d rather not have to deal with dozens of different ‘off-the-record’ statements, not to mention opportunists spinning conspiracy theories, while we’re handling this in the press.”

“My friends are CEO’s and billionaires. They’re press-savvy enough not to give you any problems,” Grant says.

“What, and mine aren’t?” I ask, annoyed.

“I’m just sayin’ – CEO’s and billionaires – ”

I point at JP and Dominique. “And cat burglars and thieves.”

Both JP and Dominique make indignant comments in French.

Mailin shakes his head. “You see? To keep it fair, I’m going to have to insist: no talking to anybody but your immediate families.”

Grant looks
pissed.
He’s obviously not used to being dictated to. “So what are we supposed to do, then?”

“The President suggested disappearing somewhere in Europe for a couple of weeks.”

Grant’s eyes widen. “The
President
suggested that?”

“Well… not officially.” Mailin grins. “However, I did overhear somebody on the phone say, ‘That’s what he’s good at, right? Disappearing?’”

Grant grunts in exasperation, but he’s clearly impressed that the leader of the free world knows all about our exploits overseas. “How am I supposed to get out of the country if I can’t talk to my people?”

“I said
minimal
contact with your company. We expect you’ll need to arrange a private jet and make accommodations, so…”

Mailin pulls the blue backpack out from a desk.

Grant unzips it. Inside I can see all his credit cards, the cell phone without the battery, and the stack of $10,000 cash.

“Huh,” I say. “I thought for sure you guys were going to impound everything in there as evidence.”

“Well, you’ve never been convicted of a crime, and you’re not being charged with one now, so…” Mailin says, trailing off with a smile.

Grant looks at him askance. “Speaking of which, your bosses are going to clear my name, right?”

“Yes. They’ll do it as part of the press announcement tomorrow morning.”

“And they’re going to say that Epicurus planting the paintings,
right?”

“Yes. That’ll be in the announcement.”

“It better,” Grant says darkly. Then his mood lightens. “I’m curious… how’d my list of names go over?”

“They called everybody on it. Not a single person had anything to say.”

“Yeah,” Grant chuckles. “I figured.”

“Well played.”

“Thank you,” Grant says, and he and Mailin exchange a look that seems to indicate everything is cool between them.

“What’s this?” I ask, holding up a piece of paper from my pile.

Mailin peers closer at it. “An agreement that you won’t leak any of the digital files to the press, any foreign countries, or anyone else.”

I sign it, but add the words ‘UNLESS YOU BASTARDS FORCE ME TO’ at the bottom. Then I hold up another piece of paper with a questioning look.

“That’s an agreement that you’ll destroy the digital files from Epicurus’s house and give us the location of the server.”

I rip the piece of paper in two.

“I’m not supposed to let you out of here unless you sign that,” Mailin says.

“Too damn bad.”

“Eve – ”

“If they have a problem, Mailin, I’m more than happy to wait around here for two hours twiddling my thumbs. We can all watch the news together when CNN breaks it live.”

Mailin sighs. “You know the NSA is just going to hunt you down like a dog until they find it.”

“Fine. I’m not doing anything illegal ever again, so they’re free to shadow me all they like.”

Mailin grins. “Right.”

“Right, what?”

“Like you’re really going to get on the straight and narrow after this.”

“I
am,
” I insist.

“Yeah, okay,” Mailin says, and makes an obnoxious face like,
Suuuuure you will.

It’s even worse when Grant starts grinning, too. I smack him in the arm with my giant sheaf of papers.

Mailin starts to gather everybody’s legal agreements. “Um… there’s one tiny wrinkle concerning Jean-Paul and Dominique.”

Grant holds back his signed papers. “What?”

“We can’t officially admit that they’re in the country, since we never… ‘officially’ brought them over. So, basically, we can’t let them leave on a commercial flight. No visas, no passports – ”

“That’s fine,” Grant says, and hands over his pages. “I’ll fly them back in one of my own jets.”

“We are okay with the French government, yes?” JP asks worriedly.