The Lost Key (A Brit in the FBI 2)

“Don’t you move an inch. Who are you?”

The kid merely shook his head. When Mike moved to get behind him, he exploded from the chair, leapt over the counter, and headed toward the door.

A bad move, that. Nicholas was ready for him. He slammed into him, then landed a solid punch to the kid’s stomach, stopping him in his tracks. The kid’s eyes went wide and terrified because he couldn’t breathe. Mike pulled him to the ground, her knees against the middle of his back, her hand in his back pocket for his wallet, but it wasn’t there.

The kid took a deep breath. He was clearly panicked, terrified, his legs churning to get away. Mike cuffed him and hauled him to his feet.

She shook him. “Who are you? Tell me or I’ll sic Superman on you, and believe me, you don’t want that to happen.”

Sophie pushed her way past Mike. “What are you doing here?”

Nicholas was looking at the young man. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t nail it. “Tell us who this is, Sophie.”

Sophie said, “Yes, of course. This is—um—Kevin Brown. He’s a family friend. He used to work here at the store. But he left a few months ago.”

Mike eased back a bit. “Well, your family friend was trying to rob you.”

Kevin Brown shook his head. “No, no, I wasn’t. I was leaving Mr. Pearce a note. He called me last week, told me I could come back to work part-time, weekends only.”

Sophie stared at him. “Really? I thought you were in sch

ool.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Well, it didn’t work out. I contacted your dad and he told me to come back. Look, can I go now? Like I said, I stopped to leave Mr. Pearce that note. I gotta go have lunch with a friend. Really, I need to be getting on.”

“I don’t think so,” Mike said, and pushed him into the chair behind the register. “First things first, Mr. Brown. Where is your wallet?”

“I left it in my backpack, in a locker at Grand Central.”

“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How did you get in? The door was locked.”

“I still have a key.”

“Then why did you have the register open?” Mike asked him. “And why did you try to run?”

His chin came up. He gave her a cocky grin, despite the uncomfortable cuffs around his wrists. “Hey, I was making change for a twenty. I knew Mr. Pearce wouldn’t mind. Suddenly you two Feds are sticking your guns in my face. What was I supposed to do?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Maybe, Kevin, you could have simply done what they asked you to do.”

Kevin shrugged. “I don’t bow to the man, Sophie.”

“You’re an idiot. Get out of my store.”

“Hey, I only wanted to let Mr. Pearce know I could come back to work. I, well, things aren’t going the way I thought in school, so I came back, and I could use the coin.”

Nicholas watched Sophie draw a deep breath. “Listen, Kevin, my father is dead. He was murdered this morning.”

Kevin Brown’s face seemed to leach of color. He leaned toward Sophie, almost as if he was going to hug her, but she stepped back a foot and Nicholas could have sworn she shook her head slightly. Brown stopped and eyed her, as if she were a bomb that might explode at any moment.

“You’re not kidding, are you? What happened?”

“I would never kid about something so horrible. They don’t know what happened yet. Why do you think they’re here?” Sophie pointed to Nicholas and Mike, then said to Mike, “Can you uncuff him, please? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s right, my father wouldn’t mind.”

Mike’s cell phone beeped. She ignored the request to uncuff Brown, and instead answered her phone. Nicholas listened with one ear to the conversation until he saw Mike tense. She said, “Channel two? Okay,” and hung up, pulled out the walkie-talkie she carried in her pocket. She adjusted the walkie to the right channel, handed it to Nicholas. “The man they saw casing the store earlier is coming. He’s a block away.”

Sophie said, “Who’s coming?”

Mike quickly uncuffed Brown and gave him a little shove toward Sophie. “You two go to the back office. Now. And lock the door.”