“What do you have?” Arthur asked.
“Garrett got us a photo of the plate.” He lowered the phone. “Lance and Tristan are coordinating from home, and they’re bringing Morganna in.”
“Good.” Arthur still hadn’t moved.
I paced around him. To the window. To the table. Back to the doors. My hands kept flexing, ordering me to throw something else.
This was supposed to be a goddamn favor to Tristan. A few days of babysitting a woman with a shiny egg, then back to the States in time for my meetings with White Spring Security. That was the deal. That was the plan.
And now look where you are.
Henri appeared in the doorway from the interior hall, with Dmitry close behind him. “What’s happening? We heard—” His gaze swept the room. The shattered case. The scattered papers. Me pacing like a caged animal. “Where are Grace and Brandon?”
“He grabbed Grace and the egg,” I growled. “Richter had a car waiting.”
“No. That’s impossible.” Henri sank into a chair at the far end of the table. “He’s done work for me before. Everyone recommends him for Russian Imperial pieces. His references?—”
“His references don’t fucking matter.” I kicked at a piece of broken equipment near my foot. It skittered across the floor and hit the wall. “He’s been feeding intel to Kessler all along.”
I should have trusted my instincts from London, instead of assuming the front-running bullshit was a sign we could let him anywhere near Grace.
Dmitry crouched and picked up Caulfield’s notebook from where it had landed. He flipped through the pages, stopping on one to study it.
You should have seen through him. You should have listened to your gut in fucking London!
“This drawing.” Dmitry held up the notebook, open to a page with a detailed sketch of a decorative enamel box with annotations in the margins. “I’ve seen this piece.”
“So what?”
“It was in Kessler’s collection.”
All that confirmed was what we already knew—Caulfield was tipping Kessler off about artifacts he might want. It didn’t tell me where they’d taken Grace. Unless?—
I stopped pacing and faced Dmitry directly. “You saw itinhis collection? Where?”
“His estate. It’s less than an hour’s drive outside Prague.” Dmitry flipped through some more pages. “I’ve been there twice for items I’ve recovered.”
“Can you draw the layout?”
“The main house, yes. The collection wing. The grounds, roughly.” He looked down at the notebook. “The security arrangements may have changed since my last visit, but I can give you some ideas.”
“Garrett,” said Arthur, “we’re not assaulting the man’s house.”
Merlin’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen and put it on speaker. “You’re on speaker, Marj.”
“The plate belongs to Werner Kessler,” Morganna said through the phone. “I did a little digging and discovered he owns an estate outside the city, purchased twelve years ago through a shell company registered in Liechtenstein.”
“Address?” Merlin asked.
“Sending now.”
A notification appeared on Merlin’s phone, with a link that brought up satellite imagery. He showed it to Dmitry, who nodded.
“One more thing,” Morganna added. “You’d better get some OSINT sources lined up if you actually expect me to join your little Round Table gig. Right now I’m running everything through White Spring’s systems, and I can’t keep doing that if I leave them.”
White Spring Security. The job I was supposed to have time to decide about. The meetings I’d been promised I’d make. I was past my deadline with them.
Did any of that matter now?
