The pieces clicked right into place. Jocelyn saw the total picture. Kent being blackmailed. His wife in danger. “You have his wife hidden somewhere. You’re threatening her to get Kent to help you.”
Gary’s grin bordered on feral. “Aren’t you the smart one?”
“Is she even still alive?” It hurt Jocelyn to ask the question.
The idea of this woman, and Pamela, being dead at this man’s hands made Jocelyn’s stomach heave. An overwhelming wave of sadness crashed over her as the very real possibility that the men she’d come to believe in so much might be too late this time.
The horrible thought floated through her mind and she used all of her concentration to push it away. The worry and the guilt. Later, in the quiet with no one around, she’d analyze everything and let her emotions bubble over. Right now she needed Gary’s attention on her while Connor and Joel, and possibly Ben, followed through with whatever plan had them shrinking the room by barely moving their feet.
“Sharon is dead?” Ed asked.
Kent lost all restraint. He came around the side of the desk with his arms waving and eyes wide with fear. “No!”
Jocelyn shifted along the front of the desk or else Kent would have run right into her. He seemed blind to anything but getting to the man holding his wife.
“So, all this really comes down to a burglary.” Ben almost shouted the comment. The force of his voice stopped Kent’s drive to Gary. “Just greed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I have plenty of money.”
It had been so long since Jocelyn hated someone. When she’d changed her life and her name, she’d promised not to wallow in negative emotions. She had too many other issues to handle.
But with Gary it didn’t fester. It imploded, fueling the white-hot heat rolling over her. “Then what? You like kidnapping women and faking bank robberies?”
“Some men might find your feistiness refreshing, Ms. Raine. I am not one of them.” Gary’s dark eyes squinted at her. “You may wish to keep that in mind.”
“What’s the plan here?” Connor asked, dragging the attention back to him.
“You’re going to spend some time in the bank vault while Kent unlocks the door to his other office upstairs. The one filled with computers and servers and, not too long from now, the information I seek.” Gary nodded to his sidekick. “Colin here will watch over all of you while Kent and I take care of our pressing business.”
“What does that mean?” But she knew. There was no way this Gary guy would leave witnesses. He ran a legitimate business. Had clients. He couldn’t afford to have anyone out there knowing the kind of man he really was.
“Kent looks like a loser, doesn’t he?” Gary laughed while he said it, as if he was telling some sort of private joke. “You’d never know the government trusts him and this small know-nothing bank to transfer huge sums of money to undercover field operatives. The money comes in and Kent’s other division, the one he can’t discuss without risking the government’s wrath, holds the money, then transfers it into the appropriate accounts.”
Connor’s gaze narrowed even further. “So, this is about money.”
So much death because one stupid man had to collect more and own more. She hated men like him. Had spent the last year outrunning the memory of one. “You’re a petty thief. No better than the guys who rob gas stations.”
“Jocelyn.” Ben gave the warning. One word, her name, and a look of boiling fury.
Gary gave the clock behind Kent a quick glance. “You may want to listen to your boyfriend and stop talking.”
“But she has a point,” Connor said.
The sound coming from Gary sounded like a growl. “Money is the least of my concerns. This is about information.”
Joel switched his gun to aim at Colin. “Enlighten us.”
“Why not? You won’t be able to use what you learn to your benefit anyway.” Gary smirked, clearly pleased to share his brilliance. “For that moment when the money goes in, identifying account information for those top secret accounts is not as well protected as it normally is. Parts are decoded and, with the right equipment, which I have, can be caught in that fraction of a second before shutting off again.”
Any way she added it up, the answer was money. The man who professed to have enough wanted more. “And you take all the cash.”
“No, I’m grabbing the account information. The whereabouts of the people in the program. There are people who would pay for it. Or I can make the necessary arrangements to have an undercover operative found. My choice. Their lives will be in my hands.”