Perfect Strangers

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked quietly.

‘I think we should leave,’ he said in a low voice, pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and putting it calmly on the table. ‘There’s a fire exit to our left,’ he whispered. ‘When I say go, run for it.’

Sophie grabbed her bag in one hand and the glass sugar shaker in the other, ready to throw it. It was a pathetic, pointless defence, but if Uri’s men were coming for her, she was going to go down fighting.

‘Don’t get up on our account,’ said a voice. Sophie whirled around and found her exit blocked by a stern-looking man in his thirties. He had a regulation haircut and was wearing a dark sports jacket over a polo shirt. He didn’t look Russian.

Over his shoulder, she could see men in similar clothes standing by the door and the fire exit Josh had pointed out.

‘Miss Ellis, do you think you could put the sugar down?’ said the first man. ‘I would like to speak to both of you.’

She looked over at Josh, who let out a long breath and shrugged, sitting back down in the booth. Sophie followed his lead, placing her makeshift weapon back on the Formica tabletop.

‘Who are you?’ she said as the man squeezed in next to her.

‘My name is Hal Stanton. I’m a regional officer for the Securities and Exchange Commission.’

‘The SEC?’ Relief flooded her body; he wasn’t Russian, he wasn’t going to cut her throat, that was all she cared about in that moment.

‘You’ve heard of us then?’ said Stanton, holding up a finger to get a coffee from the waitress.

‘Can we see some identification?’ said Josh. The man pulled an ID card from his inside pocket and slid it across. Sophie looked down.

‘That’s not a good photo,’ she said.

Stanton gave a half-smile. ‘I guess some of us just aren’t photogenic.’

The waitress brought

Stanton his coffee and he sipped it. He didn’t seem in much of a hurry.

‘So I take it you’re in charge of tracking down the Michael Asner money?’ said Sophie.

‘Not exactly,’ said Stanton. ‘I’m just one cog in the machine. A man named Thomas Fallon is the court-appointed trustee; he’s in charge of hunting down and allocating funds to the victims. Your family has probably heard from him. But we’re involved, yes.’

‘What do you know about my family?’ said Sophie.

‘Enough,’ said Stanton, looking at her over his coffee.

‘How did you find us here?’

Hal Stanton gave a soft snort. ‘Do you think it’s coincidence that Ty Connor was released from prison four weeks after Asner got killed?’

‘You’ve been tracking him,’ said Josh, shaking his head, as if he should have worked it out sooner. ‘You wanted to see if Asner told him anything, see if he tried to dig up the buried treasure. And then you saw us walk into his apartment.’

‘Something like that,’ said Stanton. ‘But as it happens, I was also tipped off by Andrea Sayer. She reckoned we should meet.’

Sophie had guessed the lawyer would have called the authorities. If Andrea had told Stanton about their visit, she’d presumably told them everything else.

‘Have you found Benedict Grear yet?’ she asked.

Stanton shook his head. ‘I was hoping you had.’

‘No,’ said Josh. ‘Ty Connor was our only lead – and he says he’s never heard of Grear.’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘But then you already know that, don’t you?’

‘We know everything, Mr McCormack,’ smirked Stanton. ‘That’s our job.’

‘Oh yeah? So where’s the money, then?’