“Only that the Burbanks’ apartment was just hit. Sloane got a call from her father a little while ago. He’s at New York Presbyterian with his wife. Evidently, she interrupted the burglary. She was roughed up and knocked out.”
“Just knocked out?”
“Yup. That means she didn’t see Xiao Long’s guys, or she’d be dead. That’s all I know—at least until I hear from Sloane. She’s over at the hospital now. I’m assuming C-6 will be getting official details soon. In the meantime, from what Sloane said, it sounds like the Nineteenth Precinct is all over this.”
“I’ll have one of our task force detectives contact them and make sure they’re aware we have bigger fish to fry. But I doubt that’ll come as big news. The NYPD knows we’re closing in on Xiao Long. He’s the Dai Lo. His gang members are superfluous. If the cops want to make a couple of independent arrests, so be it.”
“I doubt they’ll find enough to do even that. I’d bet money that Rosalyn Burbank never saw her assailants, or she wouldn’t be alive to say otherwise. That eliminates a description or an ID. And, based on the previous break-ins, there’ll be no physical evidence. All that adds up to nothing.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “But from what Xiao Long said on the phone—this break-in wasn’t random.”
“No,” Derek repeated darkly. “It wasn’t.”
CHAPTER THREE
Matthew Burbank was pacing the floor of the waiting room when Sloane burst in.
“How’s Mom?” she asked.
“Better.” Matthew reached out and squeezed his daughter’s arm. “She’s talking a bit, and her memory is intact. The doctors want to keep her overnight just as a precaution. Hopefully, they’ll release her tomorrow.”
Sloane blew out a relieved breath. “Can I see her?”
“In a little while. The doctor just finished his examination.” An uneasy pause as Matthew glanced down the hall toward his wife’s room. “Now the cops are with her. After that, she’s got to rest.”
“I’ll wait till the police leave. Then I’ll poke my head in.” Sloane studied her father’s ashen complexion and the tight lines around his mouth. There was sweat beading on his forehead, and he couldn’t seem to stand still.
She hadn’t been imagining things. Something was wrong, something more than what she already knew.
“Dad?” She sought his attention, drawing his gaze to hers. “What is it?”
Another swift glance down the hall. “Let’s go for a walk outside,” he suggested. “I need the fresh air. And we need the privacy.”
“All right.” Sloane didn’t question him. She just rode down in the elevator beside him, left the building, and waited until they were seated on a bench in a more secluded section of the hospital grounds before she spoke. “Talk to me.”
Matthew was trembling. “I never wanted to drag you or your mother into this. I really thought it was over. Then the FBI got involved. And now the whole thing’s unraveling.”
Sloane turned to face him. Taken aback as she was, she called upon her training, making her questions direct and keeping her approach calm and sans accusation. “What is ‘it’? And why is the Bureau involved?”
Staring at the ground, Matthew spoke. “First, I need to know you’ll keep everything I tell you between us.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill, which he tucked into Sloane’s hand. “You’re still licensed to practice law in New York. So that should buy your silence.”
Sloane’s gaze lifted from the dollar bill to her father’s face. “I was a prosecutor, Dad, not a defense attorney. And that was before I joined the Bureau. But, yes, my license is current. So privilege does apply. I’m also your daughter. So I won’t repeat anything you tell me. You have my word.”
“Not even to Derek?”
A hard swallow. “Not even to Derek.”
Matthew nodded. “You know how far back the art-partnership guys and I go.”
“Of course. You’ve been tight since college.” Sloane had grown up among the group of men her father was describing. Leo Fox, Phil Leary, Ben Martino, and Wallace Johnson. The five of them, including her father, had met at NYU, formed a lifetime friendship and an equally long-standing poker game, and eventually combined their individual talents to form an art partnership that ended up making each of them comfortably successful. Wallace—formally C. Wallace Johnson III—had put up the initial capital, being that he could afford it. He came from money and had increased his wealth through his career as a successful investment banker.
“Right.” Matthew was talking again. “Well, a little over fourteen years ago we were lucky enough to buy an Aaron Rothberg—a pretty renowned one, called Dead or Alive. Then, we got a handsome offer for it from a dealer in Hong Kong. So we flew over there to finalize the transaction—all of us except Ben and Wallace. Ben’s father had just suffered his stroke, and Wallace was tied up with a major acquisition. That didn’t present a problem. The three of us could handle it.”
“Go on.”
“We made the exchange. The dealer, Cai Wen, was impressed with us. He asked us to meet him the following evening at his Hong Kong office in the Kowloon district to discuss future deals. We were delighted. We showed up at the arranged time. As we arrived, we saw a young man leaving the building. He was carrying the Rothberg under his arm.”
“A pretty quick turnover,” Sloane observed.