Page 86 of Smoke Screen
Phin’s phone rang again. Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
By now, she knew it to be Zeke’s assigned ringtone. Something she found amusing in a way only a sibling could.
“Zeke,” she said. “You should answer that.”
He dug the phone from his pocket and swiped. “No. I shouldn’t.”
Oh boy. Obviously, something had happened between Phin and his brother. Or brothers? Who knew?
A few seconds later, Bon Jovi filled the room again. A different version of the same song.
“Now he’s texting.”
Phin grunted and tapped the screen. He read the text, his eyebrows hiking up.
“Everything okay?”
Phone still in his hand, he lifted his head. “Can we finish this later? Thompson just got a ransom call.”
16
Phin foundhis brothers still standing around the conference table, as they’d been when he stormed out just minutes earlier.
What the hell could he even say after that?Sorry, I’m a baby?
“Call just came in,” Zeke said. “Thompson said he tried to reach you.”
The call that he’d ignored on his way to his suite. Should he have done it? No. But, he was smart enough to know at that moment he wasn’t in the headspace to talk to a former President of the United States.
All he needed was one damned minute to get his head together. One damned minute to figure out who and what he was pissed at. He wasn’t even sure he knew anymore.
“Yeah, sorry. I was in the john.”
Somehow, the excuse seemed better than admitting to his brothers that he was totally freaking losing his mind.
Phin pushed his shoulders back, focused on the job. “What do we know? Where did this call come from?”
“Apparently, Louis Pierre—Junior—put out a reward. An eleven-million-dollar one.”
Phin nearly wet himself over the eleven-mil bomb. “Hello, daddy. The feds agreed to that?”
“No. Never got to the feds. Thompson shot the idea down. Louis did it anyway. Quietly put the word out. Now, Thompson got a call about the reward. He’s calling it a ransom demand. Either way, someone wants to get paid. Whoever called knew there was money in play and wants it.”
“Tell you what,” Cruz said, “the guy is good at working on the down low. I haven’t found any chatter about a reward.”
“It’s gotta be out there somewhere if Thompson got a call. The feds must be livid,” Rohan said.
“They don’t know yet. Thompson notified us first.”
Oh, hell. Ash would love that. “Is he not telling the feds?” Phin asked.
Zeke lifted one shoulder. “Don’t know. Not our problem. We need to call him back ASAP. I didn’t want to get too deep into it until you got here. Is it a coincidence you just met with Rory and now we have a ransom call?”
Excellent point. One that Phin had pondered on the walk back to the Annex. They all took their usual seats at the table and Phin filled them in on his meeting.
When he finished, Zeke sat back, clasping his hands behind his head.
“Do you think Rory’s involved in this ransom/reward request?”
