Page 60 of Just My Luck

“Well, sure, why not?”

Lou’s eyes lit up. “About, say, investment opportunities?”

Good lord. Was this man already scheming about ways to defraud his daughter’s nanny’s hypothetical other clients? He had some brass balls. Or maybe he was just too stoned to know better.

“I’d have to be pretty sure it was something solid,” he told the man.

“Oh, it’s solid.” He let out another long exhale. “They think I’m just a small time operator. But I got ears and I heard what I needed.”

They? “Who’s they? Were you eavesdropping on someone?”

“Just minding my business in the back seat after they got me out of prison.”

Okay, now Lincoln was very interested. But he didn’t want Lucky Lou to know that. He went back to his task of plucking random pieces of clothing off the floor and folding them. “Sounds sketchy. You should probably mind your own business.”

“My business is taking advance…advant…advantage,” he finally managed, “of opportunities. They want me to do their dirty work, but I don’t do any work unless I know there’s a pot of gold at the end.”

“A pot of gold? What are you, a leprechaun?” Come to think of it, the man did resemble one, with his ruddy round cheeks and bright eyes. “Maybe you should help me with this mess instead of spouting crap about pots of gold.”

“This is better than gold.” He dug in his backpack for another big doobie and set a lighter to its tip.

Oh lord. There was no way of avoiding the contact high; Lincoln was already feeling woozy.

“This is better than all the pots of gold in every story you ever heard about Ireland. This is about…” Lou paused for dramatic effect. “Power.”

A chill slid down Lincoln’s spine. “Are you talking politics? Not interested. I never discuth…discuth…talk about politics with my clients.”

“No, I mean power, power. Military power. A weapon like you can’t even imagine. I heard them talking in Japanese after they picked me up. They didn’t think I could understand but I used to live in Japan before I got married the first time. Can’t speak much, but I understand it. They said some billionaires had put in a bid for this thing, but their boss was holding out for more. The Saudis also want it. We’re talking full-on bidding war. That’s where the real money happens.”

That sealed it—Tanaka had gotten Lou released from prison. Had he sent Lou here to look for the missing chip? He needed to keep Lou talking.

“You’re sounding nuts right now. What is this weapon you’re talking about?”

“I can’t just spill the details, can I? You got to ante up first!”

“Me? I’m just a manny. I can cough up a few hundred dollars but that’s about it.”

“Done. You can turn that into a few thousand, no problem.” Lou stuck out his hand, ready to accept the cash right then and there.

“Hang on. Just because you overheard something, you think you can make money off it? You don’t know anything about this weapon, do you? This is a waste of time. I have real work to do.” He carried a pile of folded clothes into Mia’s room and set them on her bed. Strategic withdrawal. Play hard to get. Just like any negotiation.

When he got back, he saw that his ploy had worked. Lou was perched on the edge of the couch, ready to talk.

“Okay, I’m about to tell you something but you can’t tell Zara. She wouldn’t like it. You gotta promise.”

Lincoln didn’t like to break promises, but in this fuzzy state, he figured there had to be an exemption for promises made to a con artist. “Okay, I won’t tell her.”

Lou nodded, his eyes bloodshot and squinting. The man was thoroughly stoned. “They let me out of prison so I would come here and look for something. It’s a piece of tech, the stuff they make the trigger out of for this weapon. I don’t know why they think it’s gonna be here, but that’s why they got me out.”

So that’s what the chip was. A trigger. Lincoln hid his triumph that he’d learned something from this very stoned con man. “That’s what you were looking for, not the go bag?”

“Both. I didn’t want to get Zara in trouble, so I figured I’d grab my bag and skedaddle. But then you both showed up while I was searching the backyard. And here you are, a nanny for the wealthy, so maybe it’s meant to be. I started thinking about how we can make this work. We can all get rich.”

Lincoln forced his fogged-up brain to focus on Lou instead of drifting off the way it wanted to. Think. Get more information. “How. I don’t get it.”

“I’ll tell the Japanese guys their trigger ain’t here. But Zara will help me find it. They think she knows something about it, so maybe she does. Then I’ll tell these billionaires they don’t need to keep bidding. They can just pay me for this trigger. I’ll get some money that way. But if I can negotiate for an investment stake, I’ll get even more. And if I can recruit more investors, I can get a cut of what they invest too. That’s like a win-win-win-win, I don’t even know how many wins. Then we’ll all head to Bermuda. Might be safer.”

The plan was outright insane. Lincoln had to give the man credit for sheer balls and chutzpah and crazy blue-sky thinking. But this was Zara’s father, and he didn’t want him to get hurt.