Page 122 of King’s Ransom

‘Xiao wasn’t giving me CPR,’ Audrey said. ‘He wasn’t trying to save my life. Even though I’d been fucking shot by the drone, he was going through my purse and pockets, trying to find the QuantumSpeed-7 chip. That whole drop at the bridge was a set up.’

There were those words again: set up.

It was starting to look as if everything that had happened on December 21st had been smoke and mirrors.

‘So, what happened to the chip?’ I asked. ‘Xiao clearly didn’t find it.’

‘No-one found it. Not even my fellow agents at the FBI.’ Audrey gave me a weak but satisfied grin. ‘Because of you.’

‘Me?’

Audrey lifted up the plastic bag she’d retrieved from the ambulance earlier, the one containing her clothes and personal effects.

She reached in and extracted her belt from it.

It was the black leather belt I’d given her last Christmas, the one with the rectangular silver buckle. Since Audrey had been wearing an FBI windbreaker on December 21st, I hadn’t noticed she’d been wearing the belt that day.

‘I don’t get it,’ Heidi said.

But I did.

Audrey clicked open the folding front panel of the buckle, revealing the secret compartment inside it.

And there, in the shallow compartment, was the QuantumSpeed-7 chip.

‘Sam, what in God’s name is going on?’ Audrey asked.

‘Let’s just say a lot’s happened while you’ve been unconscious.’

I quickly told her about everything that had occurred since she’d been shot.

About Merritt Garrett killing the Grandmaster.

About Trey Hooper stealing my idea about Yasmina Ivanova’s little girl being in the garbage chute and how he’d then found her, garnering his own hero moment which he’d embellished in all the media coverage that’d ensued.

About Yasmina being linked to the Grandmaster.

Then Yasmina protesting her innocence and hiring me to prove it.

About the Russian mob at Coney Island and how they said the Grandmaster had also been set up.

About the superintendent at 59West, Lenny Grossman, who I suspected had been impersonated on December 21st.

‘It doesn’t add up yet,’ I concluded. ‘None of it. Yasmina, the Grandmaster, the Russians, Sleepy Hollow, the QuantumSpeed-7 chip. We had a crazy day at that tower, but now it’s like we have five different cases.’

‘So what do we do?’ Audrey said.

‘The question always comes back to incentive and motive: who stood to gain the most from what happened at 59West on December 21st?’ I said.

‘Someone who wanted to ruin Yasmina?’ Audrey said.

‘Only that doesn’t explain the QuantumSpeed-7 chip,’ I said.

‘Or all the riddles and deathtraps,’ Heidi said. ‘I mean, who gained anything from them? Why not just do a straightforward ransom demand? Why go to all that trouble and preparation?’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Speaking of folks who were motivated to ruin Yasmina, what did you find out about Shelby Cox?’

Heidi flipped open her notebook. ‘Yeah, so I managed to meet with Shelby and her daughter, Cassandra, this morning. Also spoke on the phone to the hot young nanny Aristo knocked up, Madison Barnes.’