The Lost Key Read Free

me.”
    Mike gave him a manic grin, her adrenaline on a level with his, and he was reminded of that night in Paris several months earlier, Mike barely upright, leaning against the overturned couch, bleeding from a gunshot to the arm, her face beat up, and smiling. He thanked the good Lord she was here and whole and ready to kick butt.
    Nicholas smiled back and gestured for her to go first.
    â€œSuch lovely manners from the first Brit in the FBI. I could get used to this.”
    â€œStill cheeky, are we? It’s good to see that some things haven’t changed.”
    â€œCome on, you two.” Zachery walked them past his office, down the blue-carpeted senior management hallway, straight out the door and to the elevators. As he punched the down button, he said, “You’re headed to Twenty-six Wall Street. Stabbing. The NYPD called us since it’s on federal land, so it’s our case. I thought it would be a good idea to get Drummond here liaising with the locals as soon as possible. And aren’t you two lucky, someone managed to get themselves dead on your first morning. Go on down there and figure out what happened.”
    The elevator doors opened and Zachery waved them in. “Drummond, I know you’re going to be our big cyber-crime computer-terrorism guy, but we also need to teach you to drive on the right side of the road, get your boots dirty on the ground first.” He smiled and clapped Nicholas on the shoulder. “Glad you’re with us, Drummond. Welcome to the FBI. Good hunting.” He turned, and said over his shoulder, “Oh, yes. Mike, keep him in line.”

2
    M ike’s black Crown Vic waited for them in the garage. She jangled the car keys at Nicholas, then drew them back. “Maybe I should drive, even though you need the practice. Wall Street’s pretty crazy.”
    â€œContrary to popular belief, I do know how to manage the streets of New York. I have American blood, too, you know.”
    She laughed and got behind the wheel. Once they were out of the garage, she said, “Next time out, you’ll drive. It’s a requirement that you know all the streets. But not today. So tell me, did you really live up to Savich’s lofty standards at the Academy? And Sherlock’s?”
    â€œI tried my pitiful best, Agent Caine.” He watched her come within an inch of a lane-cutting taxi without blinking an eye.
    â€œWhat have you been doing here in New York for the last two weeks?”
    He never looked away from the pedestrian zigzagging in front of the Crown Vic. “Oh, a bit of this and that, getting set up, that’s about it.”
Not
to mention I shopped for furniture until I nearly cut
my own wrists, fought with Nigel on where all the
bloody furniture shouldgo, and was forced to have dinner
with my ex at a French in-place big on presentation
and light on food. In short, I haven’t used my
brain for two bloody weeks
—but he didn’t tell her any of that.
    She sped through a yellow light. “I’ve missed having you around. Come on, now, tell me about your new place.”
    Not in this lifetime. “
Nothing much to tell, really. It’s a place to live, that’s all.” Nicholas’s grandfather, in a magnanimous show of support for his grandson’s decision to move to America, had purchased Nicholas a brownstone. No matter how hard Nicholas had protested, the baron, and his parents, he suspected, refused to allow Nicholas his wish, an anonymous apartment somewhere in Chelsea.
    He was now saddled with a behemoth town house on East 69th Street, much to his butler Nigel’s delight. Five bedrooms, five floors. Oh, yes, this sort of opulence was just the ticket for fitting in with the rest of the agents in the New York Field Office.
    Mike slowly turned onto a street packed with pedestrians. “I can’t wait to see it. Invite me over for a beer later, all right?”
    And again he