The Nightmare Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

check.
    The other kids—Peyton Mackie, Lark Sobieski, Noah Holloway, and Cody Grier—were question marks. They’d never been in trouble with the law. There were a couple of medical issues going on with—
    “Terry?”
    Coates turned. His brother stood at the controls of the speedboat.
    “We’re ready to rock.”
    “Outstanding,” he said.
    Coates prepared to cast off from the dock. As he untied the boat’s mooring lines, his phone beeped with an incoming text.
    6 POB.
    The message was from Kyle Ritter, driving the limo. Six passengers on board. They were headed to the assembly point.
    Coates glanced again across the bay. At the southern tip of San Francisco, barely visible, was Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Beyond it was the barren scrubland of Candlestick Point, where the speedboat would rendezvous with Autumn’s party.
    The boat fired up. The engine sounded like a throaty lion.
    Coates hoped the twist he’d designed into Autumn’s scenario wasn’t too far out of bounds. Nothing was dangerous, simply—unpredictable.
    Happy Birthday from Red Rattler. That little gift was going to light her up like a roman candle. Set her whole weekend on fire.
    He tossed the mooring lines aboard the boat, and his phone rang. He glanced at the display and answered with deliberate, jaunty assurance.
    “Mr. Reiniger. Autumn’s group is on the way. I just received confirmation.”
    “Good. Keep the rest of the weekend to schedule this tightly and I’ll be pleased,” Reiniger said.
    Schedule? Reiniger kept changing it. Edge had scrambled to meet this morning’s last-minute request to pick up the kids, and with a limo, no less. It was lucky they could spare a team member to drive.
    “I’m boarding a flight,” Reiniger said. “I’ll be five hours en route, then I’m headed directly to a meeting. But phone me this evening. I want a status update.”
    “Will do.”
    Coates put a hand over his ear. It was windy, and people were approaching on the dock, laughing, swinging a picnic basket between them.
    “Remember,” Reiniger said, “Autumn may act assertive, but inside she’s scared. If she tries to hide from her fears, make her hold her ground. Don’t let her retreat.”
    “So she defeats the Bad Cowboy and crosses the Rubicon.”
    “And be sure her boyfriend comes off in a good light.”
    Reiniger ended the call. Coates stared at the phone, feeling vaguely uneasy. His brother said, “Terry?”
    He looked up. The man and woman carrying the picnic basket had stopped beside the speedboat. They were wearing floppy hats and sunglasses. They had semiautomatic pistols in their hands.
    Coates reached automatically to his hip for the Oakland PD service weapon he no longer carried.
    “Don’t.” The man raised his pistol and centered it on Coates’s chest. “Hands behind your head.”

4
    T he limo pulled off the freeway into a sketchy industrial area of warehouses and machine shops. Autumn saw cracked asphalt, rusting cars, trash, men in dirty clothes. They passed a vast parking depot for empty big rigs: truck after truck after truck.
    “ So not five-star,” she said.
    Kyle glanced in the rearview mirror. “This ain’t the destination.”
    His voice twanged around the limo. It had an unpleasant echo. I’m driving, and that’s that. Peyton took another swig of champagne. Grier turned up the stereo. Sinatra, “Come Fly with Me”—he was taking the Rat Pack theme to extremes.
    Autumn knew the contours of the game. Terry Coates had outlined it and sent her forms to fill out, on everything from medical conditions to nut allergies. She’d had to sign on every dotted line. She hadn’t been told that adulthood would involve so much paperwork. She didn’t like it.
    But she did like the crime spree scenario: She was the head of an international criminal enterprise that trafficked in pleasure. She was on the run after breaking out of prison. Running with her were Lark, her enforcer; Grier, her consigliere ; and Dustin,