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Melanie’s fingers drummed madly on the keys. “Working on it.”
McCloud’s voice came back into focus.“…when do you need an invitation to trash someone’s life, property and livelihood? …is that so? We’ll see how it shakes down in the end. Wait, wait. Hold on. Zia Rosa wants to talk to you.”
“Stop it there,” Zoe said. “Have you arranged for Miles Davenport’s vehicle to be tagged?”
“Manfred went up to cover it right away,” Melanie said.
“And Seth and Raine’s island? Who are Seth and Raine?”
“Seth Mackey and Raine Lazar,” Hobart supplied promptly. “Mackey is a colleague of the McClouds. They have a private island in the San Juans. Stone Island. Here’ s the map. And a satellite picture.”
Zoe glanced at the printouts Hobart was holding out, and waved them away with a finger flutter. “Later. What do you have on Aaro?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” Hobart said. “He did a stint in the Army Rangers with Davy McCloud. It was very difficult to find any info on him before that, because he had changed his name. His original surname was Arbatov. From Coney Island, New York. Ukrainian in origin. His family was famous for arms trafficking, but they wound down after the patriarch Oleg Arbatov was diagnosed with cancer. The current boss is Alex’s cousin, Dimitri Arbatov.”
“Alex hasn’t been involved in the family business since before the Army, and not much then, either,” Nadia said, eager to be seen as useful, though from the look Hobart gave her, he’d done all the work. “They consider him a black sheep, it seems. He appears to have gone legit.”
“How admirable of him,” Zoe said. “And now?”
“He runs a one man security consultancy.” Hobart broke in, as Nadia began to reply. “Private referrals. Cyber security stuff, for private corporations. It’s extremely difficult to find personal data on him.”
“But you managed,” Zoe purred. “Of course?”
Hobart’s smile was smug. “Of course.”
“Is someone on it?” Though it was hardly necessary to ask.
“I’m on it,” Nadia broke in eagerly. “I’ll head to Portland now.”
“And Detective Sam Petrie? Is anyone assigned to him?”
Melanie’s mouth hung open, clearly taken by surprise. “Ah…”
“I need the same software loaded onto his phone that you put on the Ranieri woman’s,” Zoe said. “I would have assumed that was self evident. Bruno Ranieri spoke to Petrie today, and I would have loved to have heard that conversation. They have the cadavers of four of our operatives. Is it just me? Is this not painfully obvious? To anyone?”
Melanie’s mouth worked. “Ah…I’ll just go down tonight, and—”
“No” Zoe said to her sharply. “Not you.”
“But I can—”
“No.” Zoe raked the woman with her eyes. “You don’t have the look. You’re the one we use when we need the freshfaced suburban mom. But you don’t do a convincing slut.” Her eyes cut to Nadia. Nadia’s chin tilted up, proud to be the slut of choice. Zoe had never liked the bitch. Special series twats. Thought they were such hot shit.
Melanie sputtered, reddening. “I could, too!“
“Probably it will just be a matter of breaking into his house and loading the software onto his phone while he sleeps. But if a personal approach is necessary…” Zoe’s voice trailed off. “I’ll do it myself. You take care of getting trackers on all the McCloud vehicles. Bugsweep proof.” Zoe tapped her long fingernails on the desktop.
“Manfred did that weeks ago,” Melanie said sullenly. “We’ve been logging every last move those people make. Would you like to see the—”
“No. I’m sure you’re being extremely efficient.” Zoe dismissed her with a wave. Melanie looked hurt. Zoe was being harsh, but she had to establish her authority as team leader. Which meant being ruthless.“We’re lucky that the Ranieri woman put her purse down right in the common room,” Melanie said, trying to draw attention back to her successes, not her shortcomings. “And just in time to hear of Sean McCloud’s travel plans tonight. If it wasn’t for their kids making all that noise, we would barely have needed to filter the recording at all.”
“Speaking of kids.” Zoe glanced at the door to the adjoining room, where Melanie had left the tandem stroller. The toddlers had been asleep, but the boy had just woken up, and was exercising his lungs. The sound was irritating. She required a calm environment, for optimal concentration. Then the girl woke up, too. The sound redoubled. The operatives stared at the stroller and its shrieking occupants, at a loss.
“What’s wrong with them?” Zoe asked. “Are they hungry? Make them shut up. Do you have food? Bottles?”
“That’s the pod leader’s job.” Melanie sounded defensive. “Not ours. And they’ve got bottles in their strollers, if they want them.”
Hobart glanced at his watch. “She was supposed to have been here by now, to pick them up. She’s forty minutes late.”
