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He wore casual slacks and a collared button-down under his baby blue sport coat. Deck shoes covered his feet. No socks. He looked the part. The waitress approached and offered to refill his coffee. He accepted, but asked for decaf. He was wired enough. He checked his watch. Boarding would start in ten minutes. He looked around the café as his forehead beaded with perspiration. The chair across from him rattled across the pavement as it was pulled away from the table. A woman sat down casually.
“Meghan?” the man asked.
Meghan Cobb’s face stayed expressionless. She nodded.
The man sat back in his chair and dropped his head in relief. “Thank God. I thought we missed each other.”
“No, I was just doing what I was told to make sure no one was following me.”
“And?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m a goddamn interior decorator. This whole thing was sprung on me two days ago.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” the man said. “I’ve been here for an hour. I think we’re fine.” He looked at the dock. “They’re starting to board. We better get going.”
He dropped cash onto the table to pay his breakfast bill, then they both stood and walked toward the giant cruise ship. Meghan took his hand as they joined the line of passengers waiting to board.
CHAPTER 65
Manhattan, NY Sunday, July 11, 2021
THE CABIN, JIM OLIVER HAD LEARNED DURING HIS MEETING WITH Claire Montgomery, was owned by Annabelle Gray, a cousin-in-law once removed from Garth Montgomery. The lineage was not difficult to follow once it stared him in the face. Garth Montgomery’s brother was married to a woman whose uncle had owned the Lake Placid cabin located at 777 Stonybrook Circle. The uncle died years ago and willed the property to his daughter—Annabelle Gray, the cousin of Garth Montgomery’s sister-in-law. The hours-long interview Claire Montgomery had given on Friday night revealed that Annabelle Gray was called “Ma Bell” by the Montgomery children. Her cabin had been an end-of-summer destination for the Montgomery clan.
Confirmation that Garth Montgomery was, indeed, the cabin’s current occupant came from the recorded phone conversation Claire had provided to the FBI. It was priceless. If a warrant were going to be granted, the recording—in addition to Claire Montgomery’s cooperation—would be what made it happen.
The call came through at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
“Oliver,” he said into the phone.
“We got it,” Agent Sullivan said.
“No shit?”
“Judge Harris signed it while wearing his pajamas and slippers as he sipped coffee at his kitchen table. We’re on our way now.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes.”
Jim Oliver had his team on standby. They waited only on the warrant. He placed the call to set them in motion. It would take four hours to get out to the Lake Placid cabin. In the meantime, since Thursday morning, agents had been dispatched to the hiking trails around the cabin. Their job had changed from surveillance to security. Their objective now was to make sure Garth Montgomery did not leave the cabin.
Thirty minutes later, Jim Oliver and his team were en route. A caravan of SUVs tore out of Manhattan and headed to the mountains of Lake Placid. His phone rang again.
“Oliver.”
“Sir,” the agent said. “We have a visual on the cabin and confirmation of a single occupant inside.”
“Hold tight,” Oliver said. “We’re on the way. No one leaves that cabin, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 66
New Orleans, LA Sunday, July 11, 2021
THEY WAITED NERVOUSLY IN THE LINE OF PASSENGERS PREPARING TO board The Emerald Lady. He had bent and unbent the top of the boarding pass protruding from his passport so many times that the corner was a withered mess. Meghan reached over and gently pulled his hand away to stop his fidgeting. There were only a few things his level of anxiety could relay: He was nervous about climbing onto a cruise ship for fear of it sinking. Or he was apprehensive about tropical storm Bartholomew, which was swirling in the eastern Caribbean, and which meteorologists were predicting would twist its way into the Gulf of Mexico. It was too early in the season for hurricane concerns, but the storm promised a deluge of rain and rough waters. Either supposition was better than the truth—that he was uneasy because he was fleeing the country under an alias, and if caught was facing years in prison.
He stemmed the fidgeting just in time to come face to face with the pretty, young deckhand dressed in a crisp white uniform that sported gold stripes on the shoulders as if she carried some level of military rank. She smiled warmly at them, expecting the same in return. After all, every passenger she encountered this morning was about to embark on an epic vacation cruising the open waters of the Caribbean and visiting its fabulous islands, which included Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Cozumel, Belize, and Roatán in Central America. What was there not to be happy and excited about? He and Meghan smiled back at her.
