Hot Rocks

increase his take. He’d have picked his other partners off and slithered away with the full twenty-eight million.
    Had they sensed it? Wouldn’t someone who’d lived a life on the grift catch the smell of a scam? That was his bet, in any case. Either Jack or Willy had sensed a double cross, or been spooked by Myers’s disappearance.
    So they’d gone into the wind.
    And had both ended up here, assuming Laine would be the perfect place to hide the stones until they could liquidate them and vanish for good.
    He’d kick Jack O’Hara’s sorry ass for that later.
    They’d led Crew right to Laine’s doorstep. The stones were secure, but not in the way they’d planned. And Willy was dead, Laine a target.
    And once more, he thought in disgust, Big Jack was under the radar and on the move.
    He wouldn’t go far, Max mused. Not with Willy’s quarter share at stake.
    He’d be holed up somewhere, working on the angles. That was good. It would give Max the time and the opportunity to run him to ground and collect another quarter share.
    He’d keep his word to Laine. He wasn’t interested in turning Big Jack over to the cops. But he was interested, in fact he was deeply invested, in tearing a strip off the man for putting Laine in jeopardy.
    Which brought him back to Crew.
    He wouldn’t go far either. Now that he knew the investigation was centered right here in Angel’s Gap—and Max could only lay that on his own head—he’d be more careful. But he wouldn’t want too much distance between himself and the prize.
    He’d killed for another quarter of the take. He sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to kill for another half.
    In Crew’s place, Max would set his sights on O’Hara. There was only one thing standing between O’Hara and twenty-eight million. That was Laine.
    He’d hand the diamonds in his possession over to his client, dust his hands and say that’s the best I can do and scoop Laine up, tuck her away in Savannah. Of course, he’d have to sedate her, hog-tie her and keep her in a locked room, but he’d do it if he believed it would take her out of the mix and keep her safe.
    But since he didn’t think either of them would be very happy with her drugged, tied up and locked away for the next several years, it didn’t seem like the way to go.
    Crew would just wait, bide his time and come after her when he chose.
    Best if Crew made the move while he was on their ground, with them both on full alert.
    Because she had to know. Two things Laine wasn’t, were slow and stupid. So she knew a man didn’t steal millions, kill for it, then count his losses cheerfully and walk away from half that pie.
    It wasn’t just a case with the fun and challenge of the investigation, and a fat fee at the end of it, any longer. It was their lives now. To secure their future, he’d do whatever it took.
    He scanned his notes again, stopped and nearly kicked back in the delicate chair before he remembered it wasn’t suited to the move. He hunched forward instead, tapping his fingers along his own printout.
    Alex Crew married Judith P. Fines on May 20, 1994. Marriage license registered New York City. One child, male, Westley Fines Crew, born Mount Sinai Hospital, September 13, 1996.
    Subject filed for divorce; divorce granted by New York courts, January 28, 1999.
    Judith Fines Crew relocated, with son, to Connecticut in November 1998. Subsequently left that location. Current whereabouts unknown.
    “Well, we can fix that,” Max muttered.
    He hadn’t pursued that avenue very far. His initial canvass of Judith’s neighbors, associates, family had netted him little, and nothing to indicate she’d continued contact with Crew.
    He flipped through more notes, found his write-up on Judith Crew née Fines. She was twenty-seven when they married. Employed as manager of a Soho art gallery. No criminal record. Upper-middle-class upbringing, solid education and very attractive, Max noted as he looked over the newspaper photo he’d copied during his run of her.
    She had a sister, two years younger, and neither she nor the parents had been very forthcoming, nor very interested in passing on information. Judith had cut herself off from her family, her friends. And vanished sometime in the summer of 2000 with her young son.
    Wouldn’t Crew keep tabs on them? Max wondered. Wouldn’t a man who took such pride, had such an ego, want to see some reflection of self, some hint of his own immortality in a son? Maybe he wasn’t