Page 59 of Delusional

“Why didn’t you sleep here?”

Pry cut his eyes to Kimmy and then Owens. “I wasn’t sure how welcome I was here. Besides, after partying in the city, it’s easier just to go to my apartment.” He’d made finger quotes when he’d said “apartment.”

Ellis paced from one side of the room to the other in front of the couch, making sure he had everyone’s attention. Then he looked at Owens and said, “I apologize if I got heated last night. I’ve been in this fight a long time. I get very passionate.”

Owens didn’t say anything. He had started to notice little details about their presumptive leader he’d overlooked before. Had he fallen for an illusion? The fact that Ellis’s hands looked like they’d never held a tool made Owens realize how little this guy had actually done in life. His hair may have been perfect, but Owens wondered about the time it took to make it look so good. Was Ellis smart enough to have tricked Owens into joining their group?

As he was mulling this over, Owens heard Ellis say, “Tom has an excellent target for us to focus on: the Con Edison plant that supplies power to Manhattan as well as other parts of the city.”

Owens was shocked. Ellis had come over to his side of their argument? Maybe communication wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d have to try it more often.

But Ellis wasn’t finished. “Before we can tackle a target that big, we need some cash. We’ve got this house for a little while longer, thanks to Tom’s magic on the computer. But we might need to actually rent a place soon.”

Pry said, “I can get behind the idea of some cash. You can’t party in Manhattan unless you’ve got spending money. A lot of it. Do you have something in mind?”

Ellis’s smile said he’d been planning this for a while. “I do. It’s a little community bank up in Westchester, in a nice plaza next to a dry cleaner’s. Learning from what Tom did with the backup security videos at Virtual Spaces, I was thinking we could blow through the wall of the dry cleaner’s and possibly end up in the bank’s vault.” Ellis looked very satisfied with himself. He turned to Owens and said, “What do you think of that plan, Tom?”

Owens did some quick calculations. “It could work, depending on the vault. In all likelihood, the vault is self-contained and against one of the interior walls. The right device could easily break down the wall but may not penetrate the vault itself. I’d need to—”

Ellis held up his hand. “We’ll take this one step at a time. Can you make a device that we can detonate remotely? If we could use it for this job, we could move toward your Con Edison job that much faster.”

Owens said, “I still don’t understand how hitting a bank draws attention or makes a statement.”

“I just said that the reason we’d be doing it would be in order to fund future projects.”

Pry added, “And gives us a few party nights out.” Then he fell into a coughing fit that sounded like it could be fatal. At least Owens hoped so. Kimmy slapped Pry on the back as he leaned down and coughed into his hands.

Owens said, “I don’t know.”

Pry recovered quickly. He turned to glare at Owens. “All you need to know is how to build a goddamn bomb. You don’t need everyone’s motivation. You feel me, little man?”

Owens was used to insults from this big blowhard. What he didn’t like was the way Ellis smiled at Pry’s threat. Now he really started to worry that he’d made a mistake by joining these guys. When Kimmy rubbed his arm reassuringly, he realized why he stayed. But the frustration he felt was getting worse every day.

Almost every time Ellis and Pry opened their mouths.

CHAPTER 72

THERE WAS NO reason for me to stay longer in Montana. The problem was not at all resolved, but Arnold Marks, or Arjan Marku, had disappeared and was effectively a fugitive in the eyes of the county sheriff, at least, even if not in the eyes of the FBI. Whether or not Marks popped up somewhere else, I hoped at least Palm Island would not encounter more trouble from him or his cronies for a long while. Rob planned to remain in Montana and spend a few more days with his family, but I was able to grab a flight out of Bozeman that would put me in New York sometime around 8 p.m. I looked forward to spending the night in my own bed.

I dozed on and off on the flight home. So much had happened over the last few days in Montana that my internal clock couldn’t care less what time it really was. When I finally woke up, not too far outside of New York airspace, my brain was still thinking about Trilling and his family. It seemed like no matter where I went, I worried about the place I’d just left.

I hoped the FBI had enough common sense to call me or Trilling if they learned anything of importance. Especially if they could figure out where Arjan Marku had fled. There was no telling what an enraged Albanian gangster might do.

I was pretty sure that Leland Ackerley, the local FBI agent in Bozeman, would warn us if he resurfaced. The other FBI agent, Brian Hadley, was a different story. Every agency had guys like Hadley. Agents who looked at the job as a sort of competition or game. To win it you had to make bigger and bigger cases. Those sorts of people didn’t care that much about consequences. They wanted stats. Arrests. I was not judging them, but it was not the way I operated. There was a place for hard chargers who wanted to make big cases. But in this instance, I wanted that place to be far away from me.

There was something about this guy Arjan Marku that scared me. The assault on the Trilling houses had been a ballsy move. I had to accept some responsibility. I’d intentionally antagonized the guy. I mean, I did slap him in the face. That was a major insult on the street. I guessed maybe I went too far. I was also glad to put a few thousand miles between us. I wasn’t nearly as worried about Trilling or his badass family. They had proven they could take care of themselves.

As I was stepping off the jet, I got a text from my oldest son, Brian. He said he was in our family’s van and waiting for me at the curb. I raced through the terminal with my carry-on bag and out into the passenger pickup area in a matter of minutes. That’s when I got one of my biggest surprises of the day. Everyone was waiting for me in the van.

The side door opened and it looked like paratroopers jumping before D-Day. My horde of children flooded out of the van and surrounded me. Mary Catherine followed in the rear. There was a mass of voices and giggling as I made sure to give everyone an individual hug and kiss.

Mary Catherine said, “Your grandfather really wanted to come, but he’s saying mass at Holy Name this evening.”

I could barely talk through my wide smile. “I guess I can cut him some slack this one time.”

Juliana slid in next to me and asked about Rob Trilling.

“I wouldn’t worry about Rob. He can definitely take care of himself.”